<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><head><meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14 (filtered medium)"><style><!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Calibri;
panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}
@font-face
{font-family:Tahoma;
panose-1:2 11 6 4 3 5 4 4 2 4;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{mso-style-priority:99;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p.MsoAcetate, li.MsoAcetate, div.MsoAcetate
{mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Balloon Text Char";
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:8.0pt;
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";}
p.yiv36123961msonormal, li.yiv36123961msonormal, div.yiv36123961msonormal
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961msonormal;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
p.yiv36123961msochpdefault, li.yiv36123961msochpdefault, div.yiv36123961msochpdefault
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961msochpdefault;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
span.yiv36123961msohyperlink
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961msohyperlink;}
span.yiv36123961msohyperlinkfollowed
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961msohyperlinkfollowed;}
span.yiv36123961emailstyle17
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961emailstyle17;}
p.yiv36123961msonormal1, li.yiv36123961msonormal1, div.yiv36123961msonormal1
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961msonormal1;
margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman","serif";}
span.yiv36123961msohyperlink1
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961msohyperlink1;
color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.yiv36123961msohyperlinkfollowed1
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961msohyperlinkfollowed1;
color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
span.yiv36123961emailstyle171
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961emailstyle171;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D;}
p.yiv36123961msochpdefault1, li.yiv36123961msochpdefault1, div.yiv36123961msochpdefault1
{mso-style-name:yiv36123961msochpdefault1;
mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";}
span.BalloonTextChar
{mso-style-name:"Balloon Text Char";
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-link:"Balloon Text";
font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif";}
span.EmailStyle30
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";
color:#1F497D;}
.MsoChpDefault
{mso-style-type:export-only;
font-size:10.0pt;}
@page WordSection1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in;}
div.WordSection1
{page:WordSection1;}
--></style><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='color:#1F497D'>>>…I find encouraging the way climate science seems to be heading. This comment is from the APS site:</span><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'> </span><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span lang=EN style='font-size:9.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>“…The second sentence is a definition that should explicitly include water vapor…”</span><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces@lists.extropy.org] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Dennis May<br><br><b><span style='color:#1F497D'>…</span></b></span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#1F497D'>>…</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>His data was still better than much of what was collected in heat island<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>cities or when the actual collection spots representing thousands of square<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>miles have been moved. Never mind those located next to roof AC units,<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>black tar roofs, exhaust vents, and any number of problem spots</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:#1F497D'>…</span><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'>Dennis<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='background:white'><span style='font-size:14.0pt;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Ja thanks Dennis. Focusing on the central point is this: we hear so much about data collection spots this and heat island that and carbon dioxide production the other, but really, it is easy to do single digit precision BOTECs and see that increased atmospheric CO2 under-accounts for the observed temperature increase.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>On the other hand, consider this: temperature data collection sites will always be reasonably close to a road. They don’t take helicopters into some remote site to read, and until recently they didn’t transmit readings via radio signal from remote sites. Now consider that every major agricultural establishment, including illegal marijuana farms, will also be near a road: they need to haul machines in and the crops out of there somehow. Many if not most farms are irrigated. We know that makes a measurable humidity difference downwind of the farms.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>This can be sometimes observed firsthand for those of you who fly across landmasses during the day. Find out wind directions, see if you see increased cloudiness downwind of major irrigation systems such as the Midwest wheat and corn fields which use center pivots.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>We know that clouds trap heat down, much more effectively than CO2 per unit mass. If major irrigation projects are near roads and temperature data collection sites are near roads, and the term “near roads” represents a surprisingly small fraction of the land surface even in a populated nation, I can easily imagine how the one can impact the other. Get on Google Maps under satellite view and see for yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>One further point and I will let it go: I am not a farmer, but I am playing one in real life (long story.) When I am out operating the tractor, I am burning about two to four gallons of Diesel fuel per hour. My irrigation system is licensed to pump and hurl into the air 510 gallons per minute. Of that, I would conservatively estimate that 2 to 5 percent stays in the air, since irrigation is done in the hot, dry summer months, so that’s 10 to 25 gallons per minute or about 600 to perhaps a couple thousand gallons of water going into and staying in the air, so 2 to 8 tons per hour of water going into the air, while my tractor spews typically 20 to 50 kg of Diesel combustion products (about a third of which is water by mass btw), so a factor of about 100 in favor of water vapor during the relatively short time I am actually operating the tractor. But the irrigation system drones on and on, sometimes around the clock for weeks at a time. Even if we ignore the fact that agriculture at least temporarily pulls CO2 out of the air, a typical ag operation would put more water into the atmosphere than it does CO2, by a factor of many thousands.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Even that ignores the amount of water the crops themselves return to the air through respiration. That 2 to 5 percent notion likely vaaaastly underestimates how much water my irrigation system puts into the atmosphere. Counter-suggestions welcome. Irrigation amounts are measured typically in acre-feet. 20 gallons of Diesel per acre comes out to on the order of a ten acre-microns. (Check my math, did it all in my head, so as not to waste a perfectly good back of an envelope and expensive ink. Hey, thrift is a farmer thing.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>For those of you who stay always in the city, we tend to think of our own activities, driving around to work and back for instance. But compare the amount of fuel you burn in your Detroit with the amount of water you hurl onto your lawn, and do the BOTECs yourself, get your water bill from last month, estimate, do the math, doooo it, you can do it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>There is good news in all this. If global warming is dominated by water vapor, that merely shifts the temperature and humidity equilibrium, rather than introducing risk of runaway greenhouse effect. If we predict that irrigation will result in a warmer wetter planet, most human inhabitants of this cold dry planet will say: HEY COOL! Where do I sign up for that?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>After all, we are all Africans, much of which is relatively warm and wet compared to where we settled.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>I am guessing what comes out of the next decade of climate science is the realization that the *<b>human contribution</b>* to global warming is waaay dominated by irrigation rather than CO2.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt;background:white'><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></div></div></div></body></html>