Quote:
Originally Posted by Tango three
The solar driven ebb and flow of energy (heat and stored potential energy) and moisture around the planet is important; these things will impact agriculture, trade, and living conditions that can add pressure to already unstable regions of the world.
I'm unconvinced either way, maybe cynicism; maybe all the noise. Anyway still trying to make up my mind.
Your statement raises a question that has lurked in my mind. If, as you say this is an issue of solar energy ebb and flow and if oil and petroleum are stored solar energy and as you say agriculture, trade and living conditions can add pressure
Then isn't it reasonable to believe that the burning of stored solar energy and human input to agriculture, trade and living conditions must have some effect on the climate fluctuations we are experiencing?
If not, then why doesn't this human activity factor into the equation?
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The issue warmists have with petroleum is not heat storage, it's the theory that CO2 released into the atmosphere causes global warming as a "global warming gas." As far as energy storage and release goes, burning petroleum or wood is many orders of magnitude less significant than the heat stored, transported, released elsewhere by the oceans and the movement of energy stored by water vapor in the atmosphere.
Consider how much energy it takes to boil off a cup of water on the stove and turn it into steam. The equatorial oceans do the same thing on an immense scale, and that water vapor moves north; when it condenses (phase change from gas back to liquid) it releases stored energy in the form of heat, in a place distant from where the heat was put in; this causes more atmospheric motion, more wind, and more water vapor to move poleward, and so on. Consider how much energy is released by lightning; this energy originates from the sun, enters our system mostly in the tropics, and is released elsewhere by the movement of water vapor condensing into water droplets causing violent storms, and frictional lightning releases are just a tiny fraction of the energy being moved poleward.
Think of weather like a person's mood, and climate like a person's personality. Alter how much energy enters the system over a long period of time and the planet's climate/personality will change. Precipitation patterns will change, and this can affect farming.
Human activity can change precipitation patterns, but more from a land use aspect than from burning of fossil fuels. Look at Haiti, the African Sahel, or the retreating ice of Kilimanjaro for the effects of deforestation and human land use on local climate patterns. These effects are often incorrectly attributed to global warming or climate change, but are local problems caused by how people change vegetation cover, which in turn changes local and sometimes regional weather patterns by changing how water is stored and cycled back into the atmosphere.