News The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

[edward]

Increased sea level implies increased mass transport through the Bering Strait implies increased heat transport. If you're talking about melting in the Arctic Circle region you are familiar with the geography?

I do know the approximate location of the Arctic Circle.

But since the oceans have not yet warmed enough to produce any dramatic increase in temperature or transport of heat, and the increase in sea level is still minimal, what is your point with all of the data and homework demands??

You didn't mention the melting of the ice in antarctica. Is that due to conveyor activity? What about the melting of the ice in Glacier national park in Wyoming?

you are asserting that you can, from a single observation, with no history of the system, determine the dynamic state of the system and predict its future behavior?[/B] Don't wanta go putting words into your fingers.

Absolutely not! We have plenty of history of the system and how it works, your own posts indicate that. What I am saying for the 42 time is that until the Scripps study last year we never really had any data that we could hang our hats on.
At this point we need to quit fiddling around with data and concepts from 100 years ago and get some real scientific measurments.

Getting large numbers of temperature transponders in the water under that arctic ice to see what is happening right now and for the duration of the problem would be a good start. We have had the technology to do this for many many years.(this is actually being done currently , but with limited funding and with one unit which must stay at a constant depth. It is a recording device that can only be accessed when the ice thaws in the summer.)

I have read numerous articles n scientific publications that indicate that when significant melting has taken place the process will accelerate very rapidly. No one knows that point, but with the right equipment in the right places it most likely could be determined.

Standing around watching the ice melt or placing thermometers in remote locations of the oceans , and then waiting twenty years to process the data is ridiculous. Yet this is the method that has been prescribed and funded by political and special interests.

 

[Bystander]

(snip)But since the oceans have not yet warmed enough to produce any dramatic increase in temperature or transport of heat,

Warming of the oceans is not necessary for heat transport --- all that is required is a temperature difference between the source of the heat (tropical and temperate zones of N. Atl. or N. Pac.) and the regions to which the heat is delivered (Arctic). Exchange of heat with air masses then raises (or lowers) the air temperature and lowers (or raises) the temperature of the water. The amount of heat transported is equal to the mass of water transported times the heat capacity of the water times the temperature difference between the water (10-15 C for N. Atl. and N. Pac. --- give or take), and 4 C, the temperature for maximum density of water (at which it definitely sinks out of contact with air --- actually at some higher temperature --- whatever yields enough density difference to result in sinking).

and the increase in sea level is still minimal,

The Bering Strait is shallow (averages 50m depth), and currents through it are not fully developed in the sense that there is a boundary layer effect from the shallow bottom; water velocity at the bottom is zero, and increases as the surface is approached. Increasing the depth of water by the 10-20 cm cited for increased sea level increases the flow rate through the strait, and as a result, the heat transport, without any increase in the temperature of the N. Pac.. The same argument does not apply to the Atlantic conveyor; the water depth, 2-3 km, is such that there is no boundary layer effect, drag, and, increased sea level has no effect on the flow rate. Increased heat transport to the West Arctic areas around the Chukchi is then a natural consequence of increased sea level.

what is your point with all of the data and homework demands??

I'm trying to get you to look at the identified physical properties of the system, and what effects those properties have on the system and its interactions with other systems which together comprise the climate of this planet.

You didn't mention the melting of the ice in antarctica. Is that due to conveyor activity?

South Atlantic, and South Pacific conveyors? Get mixed at the surface with the South Circumpolar Current (Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, Seasick Sixties); and, the surface winds off Antarctica (south polar atmospheric convection cell) are blowing the wrong direction to transport heat to the Antarctic ice sheet.

What about the melting of the ice in Glacier national park in Wyoming?

Wouldn't know a thing about GNP in Wyo.. Montana glaciers grow when it snows, and shrink when it doesn't --- you can call it drought, or you can call it global warming --- might as well ask me about the drought that erased the Anasazi --- was that global warming?

Absolutely not! We have plenty of history of the system and how it works, your own posts indicate that. What I am saying for the 42 time is that until the Scripps study last year we never really had any data that we could hang our hats on.

"Smoking gun?" What's necessary to establish temperature-depth profiles as a function of time as a meaningful measurement of anything?

1) a zero flow, or stagnant ocean, situation in which one monitors a change in profile with no questions about the thermal history of the sample location --- obviously not the case;
2) tagged sample volumes, water masses, that maintain their identity as they move, and that can be located after forty years for further measurement --- not on this planet --- water bodies can move cohesively in open deep water, but don't retain discernible identities for longer than months to a year, and technology might be near the threshold of tracking cohesive water movements, but ain't there yet;
3) a fixed circulation pattern in which every water parcel moves in a prescribed pattern (N. Atl., 2 turns in the Beaufort, down the west side of the mid-ocean ridge, deflect upward at the equator, warm, move back up the N. Atl., sink without riding Beaufort's merry-go-round, down the east side of the mid-ocean ridge, cross the equator, hop on the Antarctic circumpolar, do 5 1/2 circuits, move north on S. Pac. floor --- is this getting ridiculous enough to discard;
4) exact knowledge of ocean circulation patterns (some pattern, lots of chaos) that enables measurement of properties of water parcels with thermal histories identical to those measured previously --- ain't no such thing --- oceanographers dream about the day;
5) can someone come up with a plausible set of conditions for expecting T as a function of depth, lat, lon to remain constant?​

Smoking dope? Smoke blowing from some other orifice? 'Nother journalist's confabulation of what may, or may not, be decent science. Forty years at 2W/m² gives a maximum "signal" of 1 K for a perfectly mixed 600 m water column; natural variation is a minimum of 3 K. Picking 1 K from 4.5 K noise (the two measurement uncertainties added in quadrature) is humbuggery, picking a few hundredths to maybe a tenth (water stratifies by its density as a function of T) is crackpottery. The LLNL-Scripps study results as described in the link are garbage --- like I say, what got written in the link probably doesn't have anything to do with the subject or results of the study.

At this point we need to quit fiddling around with data and concepts from 100 years ago

Newton did his thing 300 years ago --- leave him out, and it ain't going to be science.

and get some real scientific measurments.

By all means.

Getting large numbers of temperature transponders in the water under that arctic ice to see what is happening right now and for the duration of the problem would be a good start. We have had the technology to do this for many many years.(this is actually being done currently , but with limited funding and with one unit which must stay at a constant depth. It is a recording device that can only be accessed when the ice thaws in the summer.)

The Navy's got truckloads of data --- getting them to "sanitize" it for declassification and public use would be a start --- write your congressman.

I have read numerous articles n scientific publications that indicate that when significant melting has taken place the process will accelerate very rapidly.

Enthalpy of fusion of water hasn't changed in the nearly two hundred years since it was first measured --- 't'aint likely to now.

No one knows that point, but with the right equipment in the right places it most likely could be determined.

Standing around watching the ice melt or placing thermometers in remote locations of the oceans , and then waiting twenty years to process the data is ridiculous. Yet this is the method that has been prescribed and funded by political and special interests.

It is necessary to know what is and what ain't going on before running off half-cocked --- you know that. Finding out what's going on takes time. Ill considered actions have huge consequences --- take a look back at the "Dustbowl" for an example.

 

[Astronuc]

--- and, GE, Westinghouse, Bechtel, Brown & Root (the nuclear power club), the insurance industry (anticipatory rate hikes to cover increased casualty losses), and, the biggie, the Chicago Board of Trade --- got to be hundreds of billions a year in CO2 futures. There's plenty of money on both sides, and BIIGGG stakes.

Yeah, but that's not scientific - most of that is based on emotion about what 'might' happen.

GW does correlate with rising CO₂ levels, but does not necessarily prove cause and effect.

It has been pointed out the water vapor H₂ also absorbs EM radiation (infrared and microwave) at much the same frequencies as CO₂. Could GW be simply a matter of natural positive feedback. On the other hand, humanity has cut down huge amounts of forest which stored water and maintained lower temperatures than bare land (or concrete and asphalt). Possibly cooling towers from fossil plants and evaporation from irrigation of agricultural land has contribued to additional moisture.

Also, humanity generates a lot of thermal energy through consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Much of the energy generation is based on the steam Rankine cycle which has about a 33-38% efficiency, meaning that nearly two-thirds of the thermal energy gets dumped right into the environment.

A solution could be reduce energy generation, reduce use of fossil fuels, develop more carbon sinks (fast growing vegetation, more trees, . . . ).

 

[Bystander]

Yeah, but that's not scientific - most of that is based on emotion about what 'might' happen.

You understand that these are the pro-greenhouse lobbying groups? Yes, the insurance industry and CBOT are very emotional about their wallets.

GW does correlate with rising CO₂ levels, but does not necessarily prove cause and effect.

It has been pointed out the water vapor H₂ also absorbs EM radiation (infrared and microwave) at much the same frequencies as CO₂. Could GW be simply a matter of natural positive feedback. On the other hand, humanity has cut down huge amounts of forest which stored water and maintained lower temperatures than bare land (or concrete and asphalt). Possibly cooling towers from fossil plants and evaporation from irrigation of agricultural land has contribued to additional moisture.

Atmospheric water content is reasonably constant at 10¹² tons (residence time about a week), enough to saturate the lower km of the atmosphere at 20-25 C. Frequency of events driving precipitation (movement up slopes or orogenic, overriding air masses, convection column cooling or thunderstorms, und so weiter) seems to limit water load to the teraton neighborhood.

Also, humanity generates a lot of thermal energy through consumption of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Much of the energy generation is based on the steam Rankine cycle which has about a 33-38% efficiency, meaning that nearly two-thirds of the thermal energy gets dumped right into the environment.

Crackpot got locked in "Earth" couple days ago for this --- U. S. runs at 3 kW per capita, give or take, all uses --- TW; "5% of the world's population using 95% of the world's resources," but we'll assume we ain't that big a swarm of swine, and let the rest of the world have 2 TW, one for the EU, and one for everyone else; added to 1.25x10¹⁶ W solar input (still haven't convinced myself whether the 200 W "average" at the equator is or is not an overall average, so we'll stay on the short side) to radiate to the CMB is 0.02-0.03%, 0.005-0.006% in T, or 15-20 mK --- probably more like 3-5 mK, below threshold on absolute scale.

A solution could be reduce energy generation, reduce use of fossil fuels, develop more carbon sinks (fast growing vegetation, more trees, . . . ).

--- or, take a can of Drano to identifiably clogged carbon sinks --- commercial fisheries are suspect, but without carbon content from 1000 year cores from the Grand Banks, no one's going to prove anything.

 

[edward]

I'm trying to get you to look at the identified physical properties of the system, and what effects those properties have on the system and its interactions with other systems which together comprise the climate of this planet.

But you have only been concentrating on the N Atlantic and the Bering strait. They are definelty the areas most involved in the heat conveyor, but there is a lot more involved than those two places. Plus the warm ocean currents flowing northward would only increase the melting which would leave bare land and open oceans which will absorb even more heat.

South Atlantic, and South Pacific conveyors? Get mixed at the surface with the South Circumpolar Current (Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, Seasick Sixties); and, the surface winds off Antarctica (south polar atmospheric convection cell) are blowing the wrong direction to transport heat to the Antarctic ice sheet.

Yet the antarctic ice has its own problems.
http://uwamrc.ssec.wisc.edu/iceberg.html

"Smoking gun?" What's necessary to establish temperature-depth profiles as a function of time as a meaningful measurement of anything?

1) a zero flow, or stagnant ocean, situation in which one monitors a change in profile with no questions about the thermal history of the sample location --- obviously not the case;
2) tagged sample volumes, water masses, that maintain their identity as they move, and that can be located after forty years for further measurement --- not on this planet --- water bodies can move cohesively in open deep water, but don't retain discernible identities for longer than months to a year, and technology might be near the threshold of tracking cohesive water movements, but ain't there yet;
3) a fixed circulation pattern in which every water parcel moves in a prescribed pattern (N. Atl., 2 turns in the Beaufort, down the west side of the mid-ocean ridge, deflect upward at the equator, warm, move back up the N. Atl., sink without riding Beaufort's merry-go-round, down the east side of the mid-ocean ridge, cross the equator, hop on the Antarctic circumpolar, do 5 1/2 circuits, move north on S. Pac. floor --- is this getting ridiculous enough to discard;
4) exact knowledge of ocean circulation patterns (some pattern, lots of chaos) that enables measurement of properties of water parcels with thermal histories identical to those measured previously --- ain't no such thing --- oceanographers dream about the day;
5) can someone come up with a plausible set of conditions for expecting T as a function of depth, lat, lon to remain constant?​

Smoking dope? Smoke blowing from some other orifice? 'Nother journalist's confabulation of what may, or may not, be decent science. Forty years at 2W/m² gives a maximum "signal" of 1 K for a perfectly mixed 600 m water column; natural variation is a minimum of 3 K. Picking 1 K from 4.5 K noise (the two measurement uncertainties added in quadrature) is humbuggery, picking a few hundredths to maybe a tenth (water stratifies by its density as a function of T) is crackpottery. The LLNL-Scripps study results as described in the link are garbage --- like I say, what got written in the link probably doesn't have anything to do with the subject or results of the study.

WOW, So to sum it up you are saying that everything that has been done in the past is useless, Scripps is garbage, and oceanographers don't have the science to measure what needs to be measured.

I am saying that 20% of the arctic ice has melted and we better be dam sure of exactly what is going on. And now, not 20 years from now. If we can measure the wind velocities and temperatures on the surface of other planets we can do what is necessary here on Earth to find out what we need to know. Lack of proper funding and political catering to special interests have been the biggest problem.

Enthalpy of fusion of water hasn't changed in the nearly two hundred years since it was first measured --- 't'aint likely to now.

But when there is little ice left to melt, the latent heat of fusion really won't matter. Heat enthalpy is not a factor on bare ground, or air. And with water it is only involved in change of state.

It is necessary to know what is and what ain't going on before running off half-cocked --- you know that. Finding out what's going on takes time. Ill considered actions have huge consequences --- take a look back at the "Dustbowl" for an example.

I don't think we are going to do much damage to the Earth by taking its temperature. There are few actions we can take, that would harm anything except the bottom line of the big energy companies.

 

[Bystander]

This kinda got lost in the shuffle ---

According to the study cited in this article the rate of rise in sea level is accelerating.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4651876.stm

During my reading about sea levels I read that approximately 6% of total water influx to the oceans and seas comes from direct groundwater discharge.

"6%" plus or minus what limits of uncertainty? Doing the global mass balance on water requires measuring discharge rates of all rivers, streams, trickles, rivulets, springs, glaciers, and I've missed a few, into the ocean, measuring evaporation from the sea surface, measuring pptn rate to the sea, measuring storage volumes of lakes, reservoirs, ice sheets, glaciers, aquifers, vadose water, water content of atmosphere, water content of lifeforms... Some of these items are reasonably constant, "bio-water," atmospheric load, vadose water (?), are about it from the list I've given --- the rest wander around seasonally, and with weather patterns (Pacific High moves, and pptn to sea increases or decreases at expense of decreased or increased pptn on N. Amer.). "Direct" groundwater discharge is what? What's pumped? Or, includes natural groundwater discharge? 6% of the twenty-five to thirty thousand cubic kilometers per year estimated for total discharge from all rivers, streams, ... , is fifteen to eighteen hundred cubic kilometers --- I've told you the global extraction rate is estimated to be three thousand --- that minus the "6% estimate" is the fraction lost to transpiration, groundwater "recharge" (since that's where it came from), and evaporation --- gives us an upper recharge rate of 40-50%, more like 20-25% including evaporation. (I'm sick of spelling out numbers --- back to sci. notation.)

Okay, I know that's not what you or the sources meant --- "6%" of the total contribution to sea level rise, 10-20 cm; multiplied by the area is 3.5-7.0x10⁴ km³, and all but "6%" comes from melting glaciers and ice sheets. Antarctica has an area of 1.4x10⁷ km², Greenland 2x10⁶, and we'll throw in another 4 for Canada, GNP, Siberia, Scandinavia, Kilamanjaro --- 2x10⁷ km² furnishing 3.5-7.0x10⁴ km³ of water. 3.5-7.0 divided by 2 is 1.75-3.5, 10⁴ divided by 10⁷ is 10^-3 --- 1.75-3.5 x 10^-3 km missing --- [sarcasm]that's not much, hardly noticeable.[/sarcasm]

1.5-3.0 meters of ice have vanished over the past century (1.5-3.0 cm/a), if melting is uniform over the entire area? And Ray Charles didn't spot it? 3.0 m isn't going to be that noticeable on barometric pressure readings, granted, and relating such measurements to those from early in the century isn't worth the effort at that level of resolution. Photos, topographic surveys, surface "dust" accumulations should exhibit some changes for melts of such magnitude.

If the rate of rise is increasing, is it due only to the pumping of groundwater?

Aquifers are "high impedance" water sources; you can pump at rate A from a single well, and half rate A from each of two wells (oversimplification). Pumping on the scale of the past century competes with my hypothesized natural groundwater relaxation by transmission to the oceans by reducing, or reversing flows through aquifers. Is the sum of pumping plus natural more or less than natural alone? Who knows? "Insufficient data." Is the global pumping rate increasing? "Insufficient data."

The temperature-depth profile crowd goes for thermal expansion --- going through the LLNL-Scripps study, maximum temperature signal for 40 years at 600 m depth from 2 W/m² decrease in heat loss from the sea surface (GH), came up with raising 600 m 1 K --- or 1500 m in a century; expansivity of water is around 30 ppm/K (once we get above the 4 C minimum --- and below 4 inversion), time 1500 m is 45,000 micrometers, or 4.5 cm per century.

Rate increasing? Tide gauges are reasonably reliable data sources --- comparing average rates over three different period lengths to derive a change in rate is questionable from a statistical standpoint --- pick a period length, plot it, and see what it looks like. Mixing periods boils down to something called "data torture," a trap statisticians are cautioned to avoid.

 

[Futobingoro]

10,000 years ago there was sudden and swift global warming. I find it a pity. If today's scientists had been there to implement emissions cuts, mankind could have averted climate change!

 

[Bystander]

But you have only been concentrating on the N Atlantic and the Bering strait. They are definelty the areas most involved in the heat conveyor, but there is a lot more involved than those two places. Plus the warm ocean currents flowing northward would only increase the melting which would leave bare land and open oceans which will absorb even more heat.

You ask about Siberia --- I talk about Siberia.

Yet the antarctic ice has its own problems.
http://uwamrc.ssec.wisc.edu/iceberg.html

Just looked at the S. Polar Stn. --- -89 F, 204 K, 100 W/m² maximum radiation to space; 6 mos. ago (Boreal winter), the north pole was at 240 K, radiating a maximum of 190 W/m². South polar atmospheric convection cell is transporting 100 W/m² from the "Seasick Sixties" to the continent, leaving a lot of heat behind to chew at the continental margins. 'Mong other things, comparing the Boreal and Austral winters, Austral winter leaves the rest of the planet with an extra 2-3 W/m² to get rid of by other means than polar heat loss. Compare this to the accepted paleoclimatic position that movement of the Antarctic continent to its polar location and opening of the Drake passage resulted in a cooling of the planet and its climate.

WOW, So to sum it up you are saying that everything that has been done in the past is useless, Scripps is garbage,

No, I'm saying that press releases, journalistic confabulations of managerial confabulations, and PR games are "garbage." You have to read the actual papers, skipping the "paeans to Chairman Mao" in the introductions and conclusions (ignore all the "weasel worded" "if" and other conditional statements that are inserted to allow funding bodies to put their own "spins" on the work).

and oceanographers don't have the science to measure what needs to be measured.

No, they have the science --- they do NOT have the data --- they are four or five orders of magnitude short in the size of data body necessary to reach conclusions of a global scale.

I am saying that 20% of the arctic ice has melted and we better be dam sure of exactly what is going on.(snip)

What's going on? The entropy of the universe is increasing. Little more detail? The Earth is intercepting 4.5x10^-10 of the sun's radiated energy, reflecting some, absorbing the rest and reradiating it to space. More? The absorbed energy is distributed about the surface of the planet by a combination of convective, conductive, and radiative heat transfer processes. Something quantitative? Be a while --- bundle of heat reservoirs and convective processes to identify, and a whole lotta measurements to be made.

Arctic pack ice thaws, open Arctic radiates heat at 200 + W/m², Atlantic conveyor speeds up, N. Atl. (equator to Arctic Circle) cools, conveyor slows, Arctic pack ice reforms, N. Canada dumps 1000 km³/a fresh water under ice pack forming insulating layer (no convective heat transfer from deeper Atl. water), heat builds up under pack, pack melts, and around and around we go.

But when there is little ice left to melt, the latent heat of fusion really won't matter. Heat (snip typo) is not a factor on bare ground, or air. And with water it is only involved in change of state.

This doesn't make sense after I fix the typo --- these are "tipping point, runaway" arguments?

I don't think we are going to do much damage to the Earth by taking its temperature.

I'm talking about the damage resulting from committing the global economy to actions based on conclusions drawn from inconclusive data.

 

[Skyhunter]

10,000 years ago there was sudden and swift global warming. I find it a pity. If today's scientists had been there to implement emissions cuts, mankind could have averted climate change!

Do you have some evidence of this that you could provide?

Or are you just being sarcastic?

 

[Skyhunter]

I'm talking about the damage resulting from committing the global economy to actions based on conclusions drawn from inconclusive data.

Now that is the crux of the biscuit.

What damage by converting to clean energy? The only people harmed are those that want to squeeze the last few trillion dollars from fossil fuels.

The reality is that the Earth is warming. The greenhouse effect is real and growing stronger as we continue to dump GHG into the environment. Lindzens theory that increased cloud cover would mitigate the effect is not playing out. It is hotter now than it has been in the last 400 years, perhaps the last 2000.

And the main argument is discount the science supporting AGW while decrying the economic damage of converting to clean energy.

What about the cost of not doing something?

Ask an asthmatic what the cost of air pollution is to them. Even without AGW converting to clean energy should be a priority.

 

[edward]

The Bush administration estimated that it would cost $400 billion to the U.S. economy and that 5 million jobs would be lost.

http://www.globalization101.org/index.php?file=news1&id=66

This is a bargain compared to the cost of the war in Iraq. With the $400 billion in changes to the way we use energy, we wouldn't have needed the Iraqi oil. And we would have saved putting billions tons of CO2
into the atmosphere.

As for the 5 million jobs being lost, I seriously doubt that figure. A lot of new jobs would have been created. And it surely would have helped if we hadn't imported 12 million illegals and given them jobs.

 

[edward]

You ask about Siberia --- I talk about Siberia.

Thanks and BTW I do appreciate the knowledge that you have shared.

No, they have the science --- they do NOT have the data --- they are four or five orders of magnitude short in the size of data body necessary to reach conclusions of a global scale.

What kind of time frame are we looking at to gather that data? It seems like we are moving at a snails pace.

What's going on? The entropy of the universe is increasing. Little more detail? The Earth is intercepting 4.5x10^-10 of the sun's radiated energy, reflecting some, absorbing the rest and reradiating it to space. More? The absorbed energy is distributed about the surface of the planet by a combination of convective, conductive, and radiative heat transfer processes. Something quantitative? Be a while --- bundle of heat reservoirs and convective processes to identify, and a whole lotta measurements to be made.

Arctic pack ice thaws, open Arctic radiates heat at 200 + W/m², Atlantic conveyor speeds up, N. Atl. (equator to Arctic Circle) cools, conveyor slows, Arctic pack ice reforms, N. Canada dumps 1000 km³/a fresh water under ice pack forming insulating layer (no convective heat transfer from deeper Atl. water), heat builds up under pack, pack melts, and around and around we go.

WOW thanks you should have made me look that up.

This doesn't make sense after I fix the typo --- these are "tipping point, runaway" arguments?

This is what I keep reading in numerous scientific journals. They keep mentioning things like GW is an "18 wheeler rolling down hill" and "run away train scenarios." It is difficult to believe that all of them can be wrong.

I'm talking about the damage resulting from committing the global economy to actions based on conclusions drawn from inconclusive data.

I see your point on that, but since fossil fuels are limited anyway, I see no harm in getting a head start on making energy use changes. Or at least we should put more money into alternative energy technology so that we could make a more sudden change if necessary. We could even use the high tech jobs right now. Bush did allow $2 or $3 billion for research, but that is a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to what is needed.

And we seem to be locked into a situation where the large fossil fuel suppliers have waaay too much influence on the federal government.

 

[Skyhunter]

I heard today that we burn one million years worth of fossil fuels in a singe year!

This is such a selfish society.

1,000,000 = 1

And with all that wealth and technological power at our disposal, at this unique time in the history of civilization, are we truly prepared to just consume as much as we can in our pitifully short lives and possibly wreck the world for future life and civilizations?

People in the first world, because we are the ones with the power, need to take the initiative and change our lifestyles and consumption habits. People in a first world democracy have many times the political power of third world people. Even greater than their rights of suffrage however is their $$$$. If enough common people started making better consumption choices, voting with their $$$$ as it were, the markets will respond.

If consumers demand it, some smart capitalist will deliver it.

We the privileged owe it to those with no power. That is our noblis oblige.

 

[Bystander]

Thanks and BTW I do appreciate the knowledge that you have shared.

Welcome. I ain't guaranteeing I've covered all factors, interactions, and possibilities.

What kind of time frame are we looking at to gather that data? It seems like we are moving at a snails pace.

Scripps, Woods Hole, Lamont-Doherty, TAMU, U. of Del., and maybe a dozen other institutes of oceanography in the U. S. plus maybe a couple dozen others word-wide, averaging maybe two weeks to a month of cruising time a year? Gonna be a while --- your guess is as good as mine, and NSF can "turn on a dime" as far as where the money goes from one year to the next. I wasn't kidding about the Navy --- forty years of CW games with the submariners playing "blind man's bluff" with each other and the opposition, probably 20-40 boats at sea at all times, got to be a lot of depth-T-position data. Jaques and Calypso? Ballard? Kinda doubt the amateurs have accumulated much useful --- might be some decent qualitative observations for other people to follow up.

WOW thanks you should have made me look that up.

The WHOI link you posted put that together --- I was sort of aware of the freshwater lens, but never really thought about its consequences in the heat transfer and circulation problem before. The fine details ain't going to be quite as cut and dried, and this is one totally "off the cuff" alternative to think about --- there have to be more.

This is what I keep reading in numerous scientific journals. They keep mentioning things like GW is an "18 wheeler rolling down hill" and "run away train scenarios." It is difficult to believe that all of them can be wrong.

The system's been around four billion years, been subjected to numerous upset conditions, and not turned "runaway" --- stable? No new factors have been introduced, same mass, same chemistry, same illumination, same geometry (excluding tectonic rearrangements of land and ocean areas), same environment to radiate to --- temperature's going to wiggle around as I tectonically rearrange the furniture at the poles, and adjust the "feng shui" of the oceanic circulation, but without introducing some new factor it's tough to see it running away now.

I see your point on that, but since fossil fuels are limited anyway, I see no harm in getting a head start on making energy use changes. Or at least we should put more money into alternative energy technology so that we could make a more sudden change if necessary. We could even use the high tech jobs right now.

The energy problem and the GW question are two different things, and not "joined at the hip." The "OPECcers" price themselves out of business and the nuke and solar options move in --- the oil companies pick up their own nukes and start synthesizing their own "syncrude" from sewage, landfills, garbage, ag waste, whatever can be pipelined or barged to them and continue with the same liquid fuels market as ever --- no one's going to waste a whole lot of time peddling hydrogen. Who pays whom for delivering the garbage, or for hauling it off? Laissez faire capitalism is going to work as well for that as anything --- .

Bush did allow $2 or $3 billion for research, but that is a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to what is needed.

Energy research has always been the last thing funded, and first cut --- 'tain't just George. Turning bio-materials into chemical feedstocks is going to take a little "cut and try," but isn't going to require Manhattan Project scale funding.

And we seem to be locked into a situation where the large fossil fuel suppliers have waaay too much influence on the federal government.

Wish I had bought the book --- can't even remember the title now --- came out couple years back --- "Where the Money Is (or Goes)," something along those lines --- one of those NYT bestseller non-fiction items on the bookstore shelves --- that vanish without a sale or a trace --- all I saw was one review, and didn't even have sense to hang on to that --- 10-15% of the nation's GNP/GDP, or salaried income, is from/in primary production (mining, timber, agriculture, refining, manufacturing) and transportation (trucking, railways, air freight --- NO passenger service), another 15% from/in government (federal, state, and local), 30% in financial (banks, stock market, insurance, real estate(?)), and the rest in "service" industries (health care, restaurants, legal). Bottom line is that the lobbying power of these various sectors is proportionate to their finances --- who's got the bigger chokehold on congress ain't the traditional "large caps" of the pre-WW II era --- just about all of those have been buried by the likes of Microsoft (service sector?), and the banking and financial stocks --- railroads, steel, chemical companies are all in the small and mid-cap range as far as "market capitalization." Getting way off topic.

 

[Skyhunter]

The Bering Strait is shallow (averages 50m depth), and currents through it are not fully developed in the sense that there is a boundary layer effect from the shallow bottom; water velocity at the bottom is zero, and increases as the surface is approached. Increasing the depth of water by the 10-20 cm cited for increased sea level increases the flow rate through the strait, and as a result, the heat transport, without any increase in the temperature of the N. Pac.. The same argument does not apply to the Atlantic conveyor; the water depth, 2-3 km, is such that there is no boundary layer effect, drag, and, increased sea level has no effect on the flow rate. Increased heat transport to the West Arctic areas around the Chukchi is then a natural consequence of increased sea level.

This graph shows a warming trend in the Bering Sea.

http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/bering_status_overview.html

Ocean temperatures for the previous decade (Fig 3) from an oceanographic mooring (M2, Fig.4) show a shift toward warmer temperature of 2 deg C around 2000. Of particular importance is that recent winter temperatures are above the freezing point, indicating no or little sea ice in the southeastern Bering Sea for the previous four years (Fig 2 (b)).

The Bering Sea is warming, so increased sea level as well as warmer waters in the Bering Sea is contributing to the Arctic thaw. Open sea absorbs heat while ice reflects it.

I posted this http://www.fou.uib.no/fd/1997/f/406001/ earlier in the thread. Perhaps you missed it but I would like to hear your comments Bystander.

The temperature of deep water temperatures show a pronounced warming in recent years. The major exchange of water with the Arctic is from the Atlantic. Since the deep waters in the Norwegian and Greenland seas are warming is that not indicative of Arctic warming in general?

 

[Futobingoro]

This graph shows a warming trend in the Bering Sea.

It is absurd to use ten years of data to predict climate trends. Let me show you what I mean:

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9419/timelinewithline3il.png

The timeline is 722 pixels tall and it represents 2 billion years of history. One pixel is therefore about 2.8 million years of time. That red line is one pixel wide. Does that put things in perspective?

A graph may look like this:

http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/Temp_0-400k_yrs.gif

...but when it is put on our two billion year timeline, it looks like this:

http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/1581/bluepixel4od.png

Can you see it? It is the same blue line as the graph above, but put on the same scale as the two billion year timeline (and I am even being generous with one pixel, it should be about 1/7th of a pixel). The Earth's recent timeline may show abrupt changes in climate, but in the grand scheme of things - millions and billions of years - abrupt changes in climate are only microscopic deviations from a very well-defined curve.

Now, I am not ruling out the possibility that human emissions are to blame for observed warming trends, I have no way to make an absolute judgment. This is why I am so disturbed when a person makes a statement of fact one way or the other.

And on a less serious note:

Looking at http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image160.gif one can see that, 10,000 years ago, uncivilized man's SUVs, coal power plants, aggressive deforestation and campfires were enough to cause drastic climate change over a short time.

 

[edward]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyhunter
This graph shows a warming trend in the Bering Sea.

It is absurd to use ten years of data to predict climate trends. Let me show you what I mean:

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/941...ithline3il.png

The timeline is 722 pixels tall and it represents 2 billion years of history. One pixel is therefore about 2.8 million years of time. That red line is one pixel wide. Does that put things in perspective?

Your logic is flawed, Skyhunter was talking about more recent events in the bering sea. Two billion years ago the bering sea didn't even exist and neither did humans. And most likely it didn't exist in anything near it's present form 2.8 million years ago and neither did humans.

You are comparing new oranges and really old apples.

 

[Skyhunter]

Now, I am not ruling out the possibility that human emissions are to blame for observed warming trends, I have no way to make an absolute judgment. This is why I am so disturbed when a person makes a statement of fact one way or the other.

And on a less serious note:

Looking at http://www.clearlight.com/~mhieb/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image160.gif one can see that, 10,000 years ago, uncivilized man's SUVs, coal power plants, aggressive deforestation and campfires were enough to cause drastic climate change over a short time.

GHGs trap heat. Without the greenhouse effect we would live on a snowball earth.

We don't need to understand all the variables to know that GHGs are effecting the climate. We need more data, theories, and models to better understand what is happening, but to keep dismissing the evidence as part of a natural climate cycle is naive wishful thinking.

 

[Bystander]

This graph shows a warming trend in the Bering Sea.

96 to 99 1/2, cooling trend; discontinuity; 2000 to 2002 increase, 2002-4, decrease --- I would suspect the discontinuity has to do with buoy loss and/or relocation, but there's no note in the link. Could be looking at decadal variation in winds affecting surface water circulation --- few years cooling, stable, few years blowing in a warm patch, stable, few cooling, on an approximately ten year cycle --- little tough to say a whole lot more.

http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/bering_status_overview.html

The Bering Sea is warming, so increased sea level as well as warmer waters in the Bering Sea is contributing to the Arctic thaw.

Warmer water from where? Home grown, or increased flow from the N. Pac. to cover the increased flow through the Bering Strait?

Open sea absorbs heat while ice reflects it.

Summation of relative reflectances, transmittances, and absorbances (emissivities) of materials as functions of temperature, wavelength, and angle of incidence of radiation in simple statements is fine for political discussions (facts just get in the way); if understanding of processes is the goal of the discussion, a little education in transport processes is necessary, and I am NOT the person to be doing that. Get along okay on my own, but it's not something I can teach in 25 words or less on a forum.

I posted this http://www.fou.uib.no/fd/1997/f/406001/ earlier in the thread. Perhaps you missed it but I would like to hear your comments Bystander.

That's purty --- I'll take a couple more truckloads of that kind of temperature data.

The temperature of deep water temperatures show a pronounced warming in recent years. The major exchange of water with the Arctic is from the Atlantic. Since the deep waters in the Norwegian and Greenland seas are warming is that not indicative of Arctic warming in general?

It indicates that the water moving under "M" is warmer --- without knowing where that water's been, or what conditions it's been exposed to, can't say anything more. The map indicates some gaps in knowledge of locations and paths of bottom currents, and some pretty rough topography between the Greenland Sea and Norwegian Sea bottoms --- the gap where there are no "black arrows" and where the deep temperatures are being measured.

Edward's WHOI link indicates an accumulation of "warm" Atlantic water in the Arctic, this map shows a counterclockwise circulation of bottom water in the Greenland Sea with branches south (something of a "roundabout"), and whether it's picking bits and pieces of the "warm" Atl. bubble out from the Arctic basin and sending them south from the "roundabout" would be anybody's guess.

Edit: just looking over the "purty" data some more --- surface water at the site is cooling over same period the deep water is warming --- they've got local downwelling --- drop dye markers over the side and pull up deep water samples --- they find dye, they found their heat source.

 

[Skyhunter]

Thanks bystander, you have given me some more food for thought.

 

[Bystander]

Some questions just nag, nag, nag atcha ---

(snip)This is what I keep reading in numerous scientific journals. They keep mentioning things like GW is an "18 wheeler rolling down hill" and "run away train scenarios." It is difficult to believe that all of them can be wrong.(snip)

To which I replied,

The system's been around four billion years, been subjected to numerous upset conditions, and not turned "runaway" --- stable? No new factors have been introduced, same mass, same chemistry, same illumination, same geometry (excluding tectonic rearrangements of land and ocean areas), same environment to radiate to --- temperature's going to wiggle around as I tectonically rearrange the furniture at the poles, and adjust the "feng shui" of the oceanic circulation, but without introducing some new factor it's tough to see it running away now.

Little lame --- let's see if we can get something a little more quantitative to think about: http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/venus/greenhouse.html ; and, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect .

It would become a runaway greenhouse effect if the rising temperature approached the boiling point of water, because then the oceans would begin to convert to water vapor, the water vapor would increase the effectiveness of heat trappingand accelerate the greenhouse effect, this would cause the temperature to rise further, thus causing the oceans to evaporate faster, etc., etc. (This type of runaway is also called a "positive feedback loop".)

"Scary!" Or, maybe not --- this is from the first link, and qualitatively almost complete and correct; few things got overstated, "trapping," and a few things got omitted, we have to insert, "with decreasing effects up to a limiting point," at the end of the "trapping" sentence. We'll use a few of the numbers from the Wiki link, plus a picture of the "5 micron" CO_2] band, "[URL ,[/URL] and look at one "pane" of the Greenhouse glazing.

Wiki, average Earth surface T is 288 K (15 C); PE site, "5 micron" band (2400-2270 cm^-1); Planck's black body (288 K, 2335 cm^-1), 3.38 W/cm³, times bandwidth, times 10⁴ is 0.8 W/m² being emitted by the Earth's surface at 288 K in the IR frequency (wavelength) range that can be absorbed by CO₂ to excite the "5 micron" band. From Rohsenow & Hartnett, 30-40% of everything emitted is absorbed by CO₂, and 3-4% of that is in the "5 micron band;" Earth at 288 K emits 390 W/m² if its a perfect black body; 3.5-6 W from R&H times black body --- oops --- can't guarantee the quality of my reading of R&H, nor of the data that went into it. If it's correct, the "5 micron" band has been thoroughly absorbed, and no additional amount of CO² in the atmosphere is going to have any effect. There's also water, other gases, and other CO₂ bands to be handled the same way --- with different results. Kinda surprising to find that band "saturated" --- all the 5 micron radiation done been et, and there ain't no more for the Greenhouse monster to eat.

Had there been just a 50% absorbance, it then follows that doubling the atmospheric concentration absorbs half of what was originally transmitted, addition of the next equivalent amount, half of that, and so on (Beer's Law). There is a natural limit rather than "runaway." To block other parts of the spectrum that haven't been absorbed, it's necessary to add new components to the atmosphere that absorb in those regions.

Other thing to keep in mind, looking at the solar black body profile in Wiki, the profile for Earth peaks at around 10 microns, is essentially zero at 1 (on the left following the same plot conventions), and trails off on the right to 100 microns, or so, before reaching insignificant power levels; everything, in terms of atmospheric greenhouse absorbtion, to the right of the peak can be regarded as transparent --- all vibrational and rotational transitions in that region are excited thermally simply as a consequence of being at the temperature at which the black body plot peaks --- the molecules are emitting all the time (with what quantum efficiency, is not too well known). Active "Greenhousing" takes place to the left of the peak, and whatever absorbtion bands happen to be relevant, have finite rather than "runaway" effects on whatever system one happens to examine.

That's the other thing --- almost forgot --- "trapping." Ain't no such effect; a more energetic photon, wave packet, whatever light model you adhere to, from the left hand side of the black body curve is absorbed by whatever greenhouse agent, and then either re-emitted in a random direction, half continuing away from the greenhoused body, and half toward, or "thermalized." Thermalization being the frittering away of the proceeds from a big lottery ticket on little nickle and dime exchanges of translational and rotational energy through collisions with other molecules. This is the actual "greenhouse" mechanism; what was a large, or high power, divestiture of energy has been broken up into a whole bunch of piddling little low power emissions in the very long wave region through little translational and rotational transitions of molecules, which by their very number guarantee that at least half the original energy is returned to the terrrestrial surface either through direct radiative transport, or on the "atmospheric convection bus."

 

[Zlex]

It's the same old dance around the volcano political leg lifting crap. "The Gods are angry, better do what we say."

1] We're absolutely sure that Global Warming is occurring, absolutely. All the scientists agree.

2] Late breaking news. This just in. We're absolutely sure that GLobal Warming would be occurring, if it were not for Global coo...I mean, Dimming. Absolutely. But we're sure this time. Absolutely. All the scientists agree.

3] But whatever, rest assured, we absolutely know what is happening, not to mention, why it is happening, and what precise % of it is governmend by manmade vs natural perturbations. And above all, what To Do About It.

Absolutely.

Sure thing. Just ask all the social scientists. They're the ones in the labcoats with the slide rules and the spread sheets. Absolutely.

We know what Positive things we can do about it. What enlightened things we can do about it. Just ask us.

Why just look at the loss of ice trend in the Arctic ... and ignore the gain of ice trend in the Antarctic...we can explain that. Maxwell's Gaien Demon at the equator, let's water vapor exchange freely between hemispheres, but keeps CO2 segregated, North and South. Err...mysterious deep sea currents. Not when we are estimating thermocline boundaries, mind you, for precise estimates of 'the' Earth temperature over time, no, these things are only a mystery when we are trying to explain the ice piling up in the ANtarctic. Not to mention the uncertainties in the Antarctic data. Did I mention the uncertainites in the Antarctic data?

 

[Skyhunter]

Why just look at the loss of ice trend in the Arctic ... and ignore the gain of ice trend in the Antarctic...we can explain that.

There is no net gain in ice in the Antarctic.

There is more snow in the center of the continent, due to warmer temperatures. But there is a net loss in ice mass, unless you know of some study later than March 2006 that says otherwise.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/02/AR2006030201712.html

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 3, 2006; Page A01
"The ice sheet is losing mass at a significant rate," said Isabella Velicogna, the study's lead author and a research scientist at Colorado University at Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. "It's a good indicator of how the climate is changing. It tells us we have to pay attention."

I think you need to get some flat Earth science updates.

 

[Bystander]

"[URL gives a better picture of the data and the "fit" that yields the "ice loss rate." Anyone wanta do the least squares on it and reproduce the slope shown in the plot?

 

[Zlex]

http://www.nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

We know that our little top is precessing.

We know that we are spinning through our galaxy.

We know the Sun cycles.

We know the Earth's orbital parameters jiggle.

We know when we track satellites around our won earth, we are forever jacking with the Keplerian elements to accurately describe the orbits. They are forever perturbed. Once launched, our own satellite orbits are not simply 'calculated.' They are inferred from orbital constants that are measured based on observations.

Well...ditto our Earth in its orbit around the sun.

23.5 degrees my ass, and not just that: all of the orbital parameters 'jiggle.'

So...back to Occams razor. The opposite trends we see in polar ice are due to:

1] incredible hemispherical specific effects of CO2 loading which result in opposite direction anomaly trends.

2] a local trend jiggle in Earth orbital and precession parameters that impact the northern pole and southern pole differently: slightly less icy arctic, slightly more icy antarctic.The sign of the trends is different, unless we shrink the timescale to some moot value(we are talking about CO2 loading well before 2000) not just the magnitude. I know that the toilets are supposed to flush in the opposite direction, but do Buicks in the Southern hemisphere actually suck in CO2?

How dull a shave with Occams razor must we be treated to? Because we'd need to say that water vapor is miraculously exchanged between hemispheres, but CO2 is not.

A cousin of Maxwell's Demon? Maybe we could call it "AlGore's Demon."

OTOH...

"Milankovitch cycles" is an old climate theory. Not an old disproved theory, just an old theory. But, that old theory only addresses a few major orbital parameters and observed first order cycles. The complete orientation of the Earth relative to the sun is described by several orbital parameters, and they all 'jiggle.' The composition of all such 'jiggles' is not guaranteed to never result in periods of very rapid change.

If we did nothing...cycles and jiggles would still occur. "Climate change" is redundant. Is man's contribution to the thousands of things that cause climate change the controlling input? We don't know. Not even close. Not even Al Gore and his many demons know.

 

[Skyhunter]

http://www.nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

Nice links. Thanks.

They are only monitoring sea ice, which does not effect sea level. And the bottom line is this:

Passive microwave satellite data reveal that Arctic ice extent decreased about 3 percent per decade while Antarctic ice extent increased by 0.8 percent per decade (Cavalieri et al. 2003).

So we have a net loss of 2.2%, not exactly a one for one exchange.

Then there are the last 3 years:

In recent years, satellite data have indicated an even more dramatic reduction in regional ice cover. In September 2002, sea ice in the Arctic reached a record minimum (Serreze et al. 2003), 4 percent lower than any previous September since 1978, and 14 percent lower than the 1978-2000 mean. In the past, a low ice year would be followed by a rebound to near-normal conditions, but 2002 has been followed by two more low-ice years, both of which almost matched the 2002 record. Taking these three years into account, the September ice extent trend for 1979-2004 is declining by 7.7 percent per decade (Stroeve et al. 2005).

Combine that with the report from the University of Colorado Boulder detailing the loss of glacial mass in the Antarctic and what we have a net melting of ice, sea and land ice.

The possible explanation for an imbalance between northern and southern hemisphere is the AO or Arctic oscillation.

Fossil fuel consumption and the resulting increase in global temperatures could explain sea ice decline, but the actual cause might be more complicated. The Arctic Oscillation (AO) is a seesaw pattern of alternating atmospheric pressure at polar and mid-latitudes. The positive phase produces a strong polar vortex, with the mid-latitude jet stream shifted northward. The negative phase produces the opposite conditions. From the 1950s to the 1980s, the AO flipped between positive and negative phases, but it entered a strong positive pattern between 1989 and 1995. This flushed older, thicker ice out of the Arctic, leaving the region with younger, thinner ice that was more prone to summer melting. So sea ice decline may result from natural variability in the AO. Growing evidence suggests, however, that greenhouse warming favors the AO's positive mode, meaning recent sea ice decline results from a combination of natural variability and global warming.

The evidence is becoming overwhelming, eventually, just like with the tobacco companies, the energy interests will run out of anomolies that they can use as arguments for keeping the status quo. Which BTW is quite lucrative right at the moment.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8646744/

 

[Skyhunter]

"[URL gives a better picture of the data and the "fit" that yields the "ice loss rate." Anyone wanta do the least squares on it and reproduce the slope shown in the plot?

Three years is not usually enough time to site a trend, however there are enough climate anomolies in the last three years to give one pause.

The ice has been melting steadily for 20 years, and now the rate of melt is accelerating, especially in the past three years.

I believe we are in for some nasty weather in the next century.

 

[Zlex]

Nice links. Thanks.

They are only monitoring sea ice, which does not effect sea level. And the bottom line is this:


So we have a net loss of 2.2%, not exactly a one for one exchange.

Then there are the last 3 years:


Combine that with the report from the University of Colorado Boulder detailing the loss of glacial mass in the Antarctic and what we have a net melting of ice, sea and land ice.

The possible explanation for an imbalance between northern and southern hemisphere is the AO or Arctic oscillation.

The evidence is becoming overwhelming, eventually, just like with the tobacco companies, the energy interests will run out of anomolies that they can use as arguments for keeping the status quo. Which BTW is quite lucrative right at the moment.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8646744/

http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/essay_untersteiner.html

Recent computations (e.g. Vinnikov, 1999) closely duplicate the observed reduction of the mean annual ice extent. However, closer inspection reveals a disturbing discrepancy: models show impacts in winter and observations show ice retreat in summer. As we expect from basic physical reasoning, the largest effects of greenhouse warming should be seen in the absence of solar radiation when thermal infrared radiation dominates the surface energy balance, i.e. in winter. The calculations by Vinnikov et al. (1999) and Manabe et al. (1992) indeed show the largest sea ice signal in winter. An explanation of this summer/winter discrepancy has not been offered so far. The absence and presence of sea ice, and its thickness, depend on very small differences between large fluxes of energy. Minor changes of the assumptions about surface albedo, snow cover, cloudiness and cloud radiative properties, ocean heat flux, and other factors, may have large effects on the computed ice cover and require a model precision that remains to be attained.

The uncertainites in the measurements exceed 1%, which is greater than the calculated effect. In otherwords, we are measuring differences in large quantities with a ruler marked off only in units of 'feet' and noting as significant a difference of less than '1 foot.'

In addition, the details of the model predictions don't match the details observed. We can only claim as significant our model predictions if we ignore the uncertainties in the modeling.

I am forever biased by the fact that our Sun is a direct driver. I mean, check out this


We regard as 'constant' and 'should be' plenty of massive drivers that are not constant at all.


Maybe someday the NH: ice extent will be 10.7 million sq KM and trending up, and the SH: ice extent will be 13.6 million sq km and trending down, and perihelion will be in early July moving later in the year...

But that is just one driver...out of many. Not THE driver.

So in agregate from the sum of all such 'jiggles'...what should be?

Here is a real hypothetical to ponder. In the current free for all, is it possible to imagine a result or observation that does not support the conclusion that mankind is the determining driver for any and all climate change?

Because, I was just reading about all the evidence of abrupt, 50 year climate changes tens of thousands of years ago, and was wondering if Henry Ford also built time machines and was holding out on us, as a plausible explanation for that which has often happened in the past seemingly without our energetic participation.

You know, from the record, there is absolutely no evidence that if we just hold our breath and don't move, the Earth won't change. None. Zero. Nada. Zip.

 

[Skyhunter]

Here is a real hypothetical to ponder. In the current free for all, is it possible to imagine a result or observation that does not support the conclusion that mankind is the determining driver for any and all climate change?

Of course there is, if it could be demonstrated that the Earth's orbit and tilt, were in one of those rare congruences in the Milankovitch cycles, that would be worth exploring. I have seen no evidence that we are in one of those rare congruences.

If there are any other possible explanations, I am sure that they will be heavily promoted and disseminated through the media by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. and or their associates.

Global Warming TV Adverts "The Competitive Enterprise Institute has produced two 60-second television spots focusing on the alleged global warming crisis and the calls by some environmental groups and politicians for reduced energy use. The ads are airing in 14 U.S. cities from May 18 to May 28, 2006." The ads say that ice is actually thickening and that CO2 is a good thing.[10] (http://streams.cei.org/ )
"These television ads are a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate," said Curt Davis, director of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence at the University of Missouri-Columbia and author of the research in a May 19 news release. "They are selectively using only parts of my previous research to support their claims. They are not telling the entire story to the public." [11] (http://munews.missouri.edu/NewsBureauSingleNews.cfm?newsid=9842)

- His study only reported growth for the East Antarctic ice sheet, not the entire Antarctic ice sheet.
- Growth of the ice sheet was only noted on the interior of the ice sheet and did not include coastal areas. Coastal areas are known to be losing mass, and these losses could offset or even outweigh the gains in the interior areas.
- The fact that the interior ice sheet is growing is a predicted consequence of global climate warming.

I see a lot of this kind of obfuscation. Not that there isn't still a lot we don't know or understand. I just feel that the GW deniers are grasping when they resort to cherry-picking and misrepresenting the conclusions of a study.

 

[Bystander]

re: http://www.aiaa.org/aerospace/images/articleimages/pdf/AA_June06_EN1.pdf#search='graceantarctic%20ice%20s heet'

Three years is not usually enough time to site a trend, ...

My inference from this remark is that you've recognized the trend line (black dashes) as a bald-faced lie. Fitting a "trend" to the data shown indicates a slight accumulation of ice over the past three years --- less than the uncertainty in the GRACE data, but, if there is any real change, that's the direction the measurements indicate.

(snip)

You understand that there is a message from some of the people who actually do the measurements in the "Aerospace America" link? Message being, "We're working for Dilbert's 'pointy-haired boss. He's the one who put in the 'trend line.' "

You asked earlier in the thread about "conspiracy" --- you're actually looking at evidence of deliberate misrepresentation of data here --- don't know if I'd call it conspiracy yet, but it's got more than a slightly funny smell to it.