
Global warming caused by chlorofluorocarbons, not carbon dioxide, new study says - DanielBMarkham
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-global-chlorofluorocarbons-carbon-dioxide.html
======
jerf
This would be really, really good news if it were true. We have demonstrated
the ability to put these things into the atmosphere, with 40-50 year-old tech,
and as an accidental side effect rather than a deliberate attempt to do so. We
have demonstrated the ability to let them decay out of the atmosphere without
adding significantly more. If the CFCs had this level of impact on the
atmospheric temperature, this would give us such an enormous stick in global
temperature management that at the very least the fears of a new ice age [1]
could be put to rest for the duration of our technological civilization, and
of course there's the fact that it would also demonstrate that our CO2
contribution is also not that big a deal so our warming fears could also be
all but put to bed.

It's such good news, in fact, that I daresay it's _too_ good a bit of news.
The Cynic's Razor [2] may not be quite as reliable as Occam's Razor, but it's
still pretty darned reliable. (Unfortunately.) Alas, the Cynic's Razor must
slash this theory away without a _great_ deal more evidence.

[1] I fear global cooling far more than I fear global warming. I say that
without regard to any immediate probability estimates of the two, I'm
considering the whole life span of civilization here. Take the worst global
warming scenario you've ever heard. The compare it to this:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iceage_north-
intergl_glac_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Iceage_north-
intergl_glac_hg.png) And bear in mind that "areas with no growing season to
speak of" continues a significant distance beyond the glaciers themselves.
Canada and Britain completely uninhabitable. The US, Russia, and most if not
all of Europe with zero growing season for any commercially-viable crop.
Similar problems in the southern hemisphere. Global warming may be bad for
civilization, an Ice Age is potentially death to the entire concept of
civilization. YMMV.

[2] Drat! Not _quite_ an original construct:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Cynic%27s+Razor%22> _So_ close.

~~~
DennisP
Eh...the _worst_ global warming scenario I've ever heard? Positive feedbacks
like methane emissions take hold, and even if we stop emissions entirely the
planet tips itself into its hot mode, when sea levels were about a hundred
meters higher and most life on the planet was clustered around the poles.

No wait, the _worst_ is a repeat of the greatest mass extinction ever, killing
off 95% of the species on Earth, caused in part by ocean acidification leading
to mass emissions of hydrogen sulfide.

~~~
jerf
Well, fair enough based on my wording I suppose. But on the one hand you have
events that happened a very long time ago, whereas on the other you have the
fact that we're in an "intraglacial period" in a "current ice age" _right now_
: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene> (first paragraph, I suggest also
clicking on the "current ice age" link).

I'm actually more worried that warming could still somehow lead us back into
the ice age (chaos is nasty stuff) than the catastrophic warming scenarios.
Both are theoretically possible, but we are _so_ much closer to an ice age
than heat disaster right now. However much we may or may not moved the climate
it certainly hasn't been very far away from "ice age" in the grand scheme of
things.

~~~
DennisP
Well if you're really talking about history-of-civilization timeframes,
warming problems could get pretty bad. Most projections you see don't go past
2100. The last time CO2 levels were as high as they are right now, sea levels
were at least ten meters higher. At the same time, the rate at which we're
adding CO2 is much higher than the planet has ever seen.

In geologic history, higher CO2 levels have always been associated with higher
temperatures and sea levels. However, if you're worried about an ice age, it's
easily prevented, because ice ages are actually pretty delicate. A single
factory producing NF3 and venting it to the atmosphere would be enough to keep
us out of one. (Source: Hansen's book again)

------
woodchuck64
Qing-Bin Lu doesn't have a good record in climate science as discussed here:
[http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/lu-
fro...](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/lu-from-
interesting-but-incorrect-to-just-wrong/), so I'm not holding my breath over
this one.

~~~
guelo
It actually seems like the Lu paper being debunked in that RealClimate link is
the same paper that for some reason has been republished in another journal
now.

[http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S021797921350...](http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217979213500732)

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370157309...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370157309002865)

~~~
waterlesscloud
Those appear to be different, though related, papers.

It looks like the new paper contains attempts to address the previous
criticisms.

The new paper is on arxiv, for the curious

<http://arxiv.org/pdf/1210.6844.pdf>

------
vxNsr
This is probably one of the most controversial and highly politicized topics
of the last and current decade. Lets see if we can discuss this without
bringing politics into the discussion.

------
saurik
I am not qualified to judge either side (nor did I even find this link:
someone on r/science commented with it), but this article may be interesting
to those who are (and I certainly would be interested in hearing the opinions
of others):

[http://www.skepticalscience.com/Could-CFCs-be-causing-
global...](http://www.skepticalscience.com/Could-CFCs-be-causing-global-
warming.html)

~~~
gus_massa
Nice graph! It was very strange that the graph in the original article only
covers the last 50 years. (I understand that a graph is not a proof, but it's
an easy way to look at the information.)

I searched for a similar graph of Temp-CO2. The first entry in Google images
is: <http://zfacts.com/p/226.html> It covers a similar period of time and has
a similar scale.

The first thing I noted is that there is a temperature bump circa 1940 and
neither the CO2 or CFC concentrations have a bump at that time. Is there any
explanation for it?

------
leohutson
Is the "International Journal of Modern Physics" as published by "World
Scientific" considered a reputable journal?

~~~
greenyoda
It's indexed by a number of scientific abstracts services[1], but not being a
physicist, I can't tell you how significant that is.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Journal_of_Moder...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Journal_of_Modern_Physics#B)

------
johnny99
That link claims that global temperatures have declined since 2002, which is
untrue. Will hunt for more authoritative sources, but a quick search turns up
this story from Forbes, refuting that non-fact:
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/02/05/global-
wa...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2012/02/05/global-warming-has-
stopped-how-to-fool-people-using-cherry-picked-climate-data/)

~~~
msandford
Yeah the problem there is that isn't not conclusively proven either way.

The crux of the argument is that the error bands on the last 10-15 years of
temperature data show that the trend isn't cooling, and that in fact it's just
a slow decade and about to be followed by a warm one. And we all know that can
happen.

Problem is, the error bands are significant relative to any cherry picked
"things are warming up" 8-15 years OR any "things are cooling down" 8-15 years
and as such, no rigorous conclusion can be drawn.

We'll know more in a decade. Sadly that's how it works when you're measuring
stochastic processes.

------
paul_f
As we move from coal based to natural gas based electricity generation around
the world, the amount of CO2 emissions as a percentage of energy produced will
naturally decrease. There are fewer carbon atoms attached to natural gas than
coal, and as a result, less are launched into the atmosphere as a by product
of burning it for power. Even if we do nothing other than let the natural gas
revolution take root, the amount of CO2 in the air, and hence the amount of
global warming will be reduced significantly.

tl;dr if CO2 does cause global warming, it will be fixed on its own

~~~
ams6110
But the energy density of natural gas is a lot less than coal, so you are
burning more gas to get the same energy output. I'm not sure it is quite a
wash, gas is cleaner in a lot of other ways (no particulates, no or very
little sulfur, etc.)

~~~
ars
> But the energy density of natural gas is a lot less than coal, so you are
> burning more gas to get the same energy output.

No you aren't, and no it isn't. Not if you measure by weight. By weight
natural gas is 2 or 3 times more dense.

------
pvnick
What's up with "global warming" these days? I was under the impression that,
since there hasn't been any recent evidence of warming, everybody had just
substituted the more general term "climate change" to deal with anthropogenic
environmental stuff.

I'm really crossing my fingers that preventing anthropogenic global warming is
as simple as banning CFCs. A lot of the CO2 emission control schemes being
considered could _seriously_ stress the economy.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
>A lot of the CO2 emission control schemes being considered could _seriously_
stress the economy.

A lot of the CO2 emission control schemes being considered are lame.

The key to reducing CO2 is to commit to a policy that will affect the energy
market in a gradual, predictable way: A slow phase in of a carbon tax. Raise
the carbon tax the equivalent of $0.25/gallon every year, forever. No increase
in the year the tax passes.

That means no economic effect this year. No change at all -- except that
everyone now expects gas to be $5/gallon in four years, so if you're buying a
car now you better get something with an electric motor on it. If you're
investing in energy you better invest in renewables rather than petroleum. And
then by the time the gas tax is $1 higher than it is now, the installed base
of cars has been replaced with higher efficiency ones, so the burden of the
tax is already mitigated because a) you're now buying less gas, and b) so is
everyone else, so demand goes down, so the pre-tax price of gas goes down and
cancels out a significant portion of the tax.

Meanwhile the government collects a large pile of cash (largely at the expense
of oil company profits -- what a shame) that can be used to subsidize the
installation of renewable energy generating capacity, which creates jobs etc.
etc.

~~~
ams6110
Your electric car simply transfers the carbon emissions from the tailpipe to
the local powerplant smokestacks (unless your utility uses nukes).

~~~
epistasis
Where does this misconception come from? Isn't it obvious that large electric
power plants are far more efficient than the tiny internal combustion engines?

Running an electric car on pure coal is more CO2 efficient than any gasoline
car out there. And it's easy to switch to cleaner electricity sources.

~~~
baddox
> Running an electric car on pure coal is more CO2 efficient than any gasoline
> car out there.

That claim is contentious. <http://elpc.org/plug-ins#4>

~~~
epistasis
Maybe I'm having serious reading difficulties, but I believe your link refutes
your claim:

>Multiple studies have shown that EVs and PHEVs reduce total pollution
compared with conventional gasoline or diesel-fueled vehicles, even when
batteries are charged with electricity from coal plants.

I've run the numbers myself several times (simply Google for 1. coal's CO2
output per KWH, 2. miles/KWH, 3. CO2 output per gallon of gasoline), and coal-
EV has always come out as a super CO2 efficient way to travel, the equivalent
of a 50-60 MPG/car, if I recall correctly.

Do you have any sources of contention for that?

------
DennisP
The physics of CO2 trapping heat is well-established, and pretty well matches
the amount of warming we've seen. So if it's actually CFCs causing warming,
then two things have to be true:

1) There's some kind of unknown physical process that prevents warming by CO2,
and

2) The warming from CFCs happens to match the expected warming from CO2.

Seems shaky.

~~~
hayksaakian
or that CFCs and CO2 are both responsible?

Why does everything need to be black and white?

~~~
msandford
Because these days, everything is political even if it shouldn't be. And
people need to feel good about themselves for picking the "correct" party,
whichever party that is. Think for yourself? Why bother! Jump on our bandwagon
instead.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Because these days, everything is political even if it shouldn't be.

I think the problem isn't that "everything is political", the problem is that
everything that is political is tribal. The problem isn't that it has a
connection to politics, the problem is that it is tied up in group identity
and that people respond to it on that basis rather than rationally.

~~~
msandford
You got that a lot more right than I did.

------
stephengillie
This "new" study was released in 2009.

[http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/qing-bin-lu-is-
trying...](http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/qing-bin-lu-is-trying-to-
destroy-the-planet-t4603.html)

~~~
guelo
That is really suspicious. It seems the paper was published by Elsevier's
Physics Reports in 2009 and now republished by South Korea's International
Journal of Modern Physics B.

------
commanda
This article doesn't address the CFC effect relative to the effect of CO2
emissions fallout landing on the glaciers and polar ice caps, which changes
the albedo of the ice, resulting in melting them. More and more ice melts
every year, and less re-freezes, raising the sea level, altering the salinity,
changing the worldwide currents, resulting in massive change to the ocean
biomes. Does that result in less climate change than CFCs eroding the ozone
layer over the poles?

~~~
ars
> of CO2 emissions fallout

The what? Did you typo? If you didn't, then the article did not address it
because there is no such thing.

~~~
commanda
Ok, sorry, I meant carbon particulate (soot), not CO2.

~~~
ars
There's probably less soot now than there was in the past.

Wood fires (campfires, stoves, hearths, etc) make a TON of soon. Modern
burning techniques are much better.

So if it didn't do anything in the past, it's certainly not doing anything
now.

