[ExI] A Nobel laureate and climate change

[spike]

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2011 8:22 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] A Nobel laureate and climate change

 

>.Ah, I stand corrected as to their claim.  Thanks.

>>.2011/9/15 Tim Halterman <timhalterman at gmail.com>

APS provided some additional commentary on this policy in mid 2010.  You can
read the full policy and the additional commentary here:
http://www.aps.org/policy/statements/07_1.cfm

I find encouraging the way climate science seems to be heading.  This
comment is from the APS site:

 

".The second sentence is a definition that should explicitly include water
vapor. The second sentence is a definition that should explicitly include
water vapor."

 

It seemed to me a huge oversight in the past climate science that they
didn't really say much about the greenhouse effect of water vapor.  Perhaps
I was tuned into that because of where I lived in my 20s: in the Mojave
Desert.  Out there, most people didn't have air conditioners: they were too
expensive to operate and they would be overpowered by the ferocious desert
heat.  The common form of house cooling was with evaporative coolers, also
called swamp coolers.  On the hottest days, it was also bone dry, so the
evaporative coolers worked great.

 

Over the decades, more residents moved into the area and had lawns.  I
recall hearing the old timers note that swamp coolers were not working as
well as they once did.  I also knew that if a neighbor turned on a sprinkler
in the middle of the day, one's swamp cooler would lose a degree or two
delta.  I used to keep data on this kind of stuff for a side business:
emergency swamp cooler repair and high performance swamp coolers.

 

It stands to reason to me that increased irrigation could result in slight
increases in water vapor in the air, which would trap additional heat.  Most
of us have been in out on a cool clear evening when a cloud cover rolled in
and felt the temperature rise as the cloud trapped radiated heat.  We know
the effect can be localized.  It is easy to imagine some of the historic
temperature monitors being effected by nearby irrigation.

 

spike

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