BS: Where's the Global Warming

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Mar 10 - 02:37 AM

While people quibble, Arctic seabeds are belching massive quantities of methane

James Hansen of NASA is the most eminent contemporary climate scientist. He says that 20,000 years ago the Earth was 5°C colder and the sea level 110 metres lower than today. As temperatures began to elevate 14,000 years ago, sea levels rose at a very rapid rate, about 1 metre every 20 to 25 years.

Seven thousand years ago global temperature and sea levels stabilised. This is the period when what we sometimes speak of as human civilisation developed. According to Hansen, this stability is now clearly under threat. He argues it is certain that unless dramatic action is now taken – essentially the end of all coal-burning – various "tipping points" will soon be passed that will eventually make inevitable the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets and the carbon-intensive Siberian and Arctic permafrost, and the radical extension of what the relevant scientists are already calling the sixth mass extinction of species in the history of the Earth.

Hansen argues that .."If humanity burns most of the fossil fuels, doubling or tripling the pre-industrial carbon dioxide level, Earth will surely head toward the ice-free condition, with sea-level 75 meters higher than today. It is difficult to say how long it will take for the melting to be complete, but once ice sheet disintegration gets well under way, it will be impossible to stop."

Given what is at stake – the future of the Earth – for non-scientists to dismiss Hansen's warning seems folly or arrogance of an astonishing kind.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 03:19 PM

OSLO (Reuters) - Large amounts of a powerful greenhouse gas are bubbling up from a long-frozen seabed north of Siberia, raising fears of far bigger leaks that could stoke global warming, scientists said.

It was unclear, however, if the Arctic emissions of methane gas were new or had been going on unnoticed for centuries -- since before the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century led to wide use of fossil fuels that are blamed for climate change.

The study said about 8 million tonnes of methane a year, equivalent to the annual total previously estimated from all of the world's oceans, were seeping from vast stores long trapped under permafrost below the seabed north of Russia.

"Subsea permafrost is losing its ability to be an impermeable cap," Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, said in a statement. She co-led the study published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The experts measured levels of methane, a gas that can be released by rotting vegetation, in water and air at 5,000 sites on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf from 2003-08. In some places, methane was bubbling up from the seabed.

Previously, the sea floor had been considered an impermeable barrier sealing methane, Shakhova said. Current methane concentrations in the Arctic are the highest in 400,000 years.

GLOBAL WARMING

"No one can answer this question," she said of whether the venting was caused by global warming or by natural factors. But a projected rise in temperatures could quicken the thaw.

"It's good that these emissions are documented. But you cannot say they're increasing," Martin Heimann, an expert at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Germany who wrote a separate article on methane in Science, told Reuters.

"These leaks could have been occurring all the time" since the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, he said. He wrote that the release of 8 million tonnes of methane a year was "negligible" compared to global emissions of about 440 million tonnes.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 01:12 PM

Darned right they don't last as long as they are advertised to. I found that out soon enough. What a crock. Looks to me like another clever way of swindling the public out of their hard-earned money.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: pdq
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 11:45 AM

"If you mean those little spiral-type bulbs that are actually small flourescents, I have to say I don't much like the light they give. I am not fond of them." ~ LH

Good statement.

The CFLs contain very poisonous Mercury and should be disposed of in a toxic waiste dump. They don't last a fraction as long as claimed and cost too much. They also destroy AM radio reception for many people.

Get LED bulbs.

Repeat: get bulbs made with light-emitting diodes.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 11:22 AM

You can wave your arms all you want, but it'll never get you off the ground. ;-)

I agree that these ancient cliched attacks on Al Gore over supposedly having said that he "invented the Internet", and other fluff like that, are just silly cheap shots which add nothing useful to any dialogue about Global Warming.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 11:15 AM

GtS' characterization of Gore is an example of histrionics. Gore never made the claim to having invented the Internet, just for example. The Republican canard was amplified with guffaws nation-wide by Republidroids but anyone with two brain cells to rub together has discovered it was a false story--which GtS has now resurrected in a fit of arm-waving.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 10:55 AM

That may well be so, Ringer. I'd been wondering about it myself. It would not be surprising if global warming had tapered off recently, because the Sun has been in a very quiet period for the last few years.

What I place the most confidence in is actual field readings and observations of what is occurring, using direct observation of environmental temperature changes by people in the science community...NOT a bunch of hypothetical computer models. A computer model can tell you anything that its programmers set it up to tell you, but real field observations tell you the truth.

If the warming phase has indeed halted in the last decade, there must be a sense of panic building at the IPCC...if you know what I mean.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ringer
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 10:34 AM

"...a computer model is only as good as the data which was put into it..."

Correct, Little Hawk. But even if the input data is correct, if the computer-model's underlying model is incorrect then its predictions will be incorrect. For example, if the underlying model is "each 1ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration lowers the global temperature by 3degF", then input data of "atmospheric CO2 concentration will increase with time" results in the computer-model predicting falling temperatures.

I, btw (pace Little Hawk), deny that temperatures are increasing at present. There has been no "global warming" for a decade or more, now.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 05:57 AM

LH,

Again, an accurate assesment.


Amos,

"Objecting histrionically by senfding out clouds of confused opinions with huge emotional vectors is counter-productive, unanalytical, and kinda dumb."

I have noted this. Do you intend to stop doing so anytime in the near future??


Looking at who stands to profit , it seems that far more are invested in the "Global Warming" side: With the redistribution of wealth and the political power that is being proposed, I think that I have reason to be suspicious of the Goreistas's motives.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 04:07 AM

If you mean those little spiral-type bulbs that are actually small flourescents, I have to say I don't much like the light they give. I am not fond of them.

Okay, KP...for a start, I suggest you do a search on "Greenhouse Gases" for a start, and get some info on that. Water vapor is the most significant greenhouse gas by far, CO2 is the next most significant, and there are a number of others after that.

Water vapour acts as a greenhouse gas, but it also results in clouds, and clouds cool the surface of the Earth, so it's a complicated situation.

I think the most damaging thing people have done to the ecosphere is this: we have cut down most of the world's forests! This has been a huge factor in creating ecological problems. Forests consume much CO2, so if you want to reduce atmospheric CO2, you need to stop cutting down trees and let forests recover. Forests also hold water in the soil and provide shelter to millions of different lifeforms.

If we have just one worldwide environmental cause we should push (other than reducing the human birth rate), it is to save and recover our forestlands.

Further to that, KP, I suggest you view a number of the videos that are on Youtube and elsewhere...both those that support the conventional global warming theory AND those that oppose it. Give them both fair consideration and think about what the various scientists have to say. They do not all agree on what's happening.

Then decide for yourself.

One thing that seems quite significant to me is that the Earth has been through many warm periods in the past several hundred thousand years...periods warmer than this one we're in...and with far higher CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere... and the planet was teeming with animal and plant life. Warmer periods don't seem to threaten life as far as I can see....they are a boon to life on this planet. It's cold periods that cause species to die off en masse as glaciers advance from the poles.

But there's one difference now from that remote past. We have cut down most of our old growth forests worldwide. Forests are said to be the lungs of the planet. They are absolutely vital to the health of a vast array of living things, and we have cut them down to build things and to make money. This was shortsighted behaviour, and people are beginning to pay a very heavy price for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 04 Mar 10 - 12:12 AM

Let's hear Amos's definition of histrionics.

Ain't often LH takes up arms about anything but has sure got his hackles up about Global Warming.

By the way I have switched over to CFL bulbs everywhere possible to help save the environment and save money at the same time.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 11:43 PM

Little Hawk: "...In any case, I liked Al Gore and I thought he was probably telling the truth...."

GfS: Al Gore telling the truth???...about what???..inventing the internet?...That clown has never told the truth about anything!..Shit!..He's a politician!

By the way, ..Yo-Ho!
GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 01:49 PM

Guys...I have to go out now, but I'll get back to this in a bit. Okay? Kinda busy at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 01:44 PM

I submit for consideration, LH, that you are not addressing the actual changes in climate, but what one Atlantic Monthly writer called the "psychological climate of our perceptions". That is, of course, a climate much harder to change than the physical one. The psychological climate has its own toxins, such as BS, political brouhahaha and hyper-emotive histrionics, all of which cause it to freeze more solidly over time and increase its net resistance to acceleration in any direction.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,KP
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 12:22 PM

Hawk
Interested to hear your take on 'CO2 is not a major factor in causing planetary warming, and that human-produced CO2 in particular is a very minor factor'.

Is that because you don't believe humans have caused the rise in CO2? I ask because there have been some rather confusing assertions made about sources of CO2, and I've been trying to follow people's reasoning.

Meanwhile I find myself agreeing with Sawzaw's comment about unintended consequences!

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 11:54 AM

Yes, well, a little less heat on both sides might help, right? ;-) (No pun intended.)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 11:40 AM

Objecting on the basis of fact, sir, or even on reasoning from facts in a clear methodical way, is one thing. Objecting histrionically by senfding out clouds of confused opinions with huge emotional vectors is counter-productive, unanalytical, and kinda dumb.

Bruce's snide comments notwithstanding, I always try to add reasonable explanations when I get huffy and start mouthing off, after I cool off some. Anyone who cares to do the homework can identify what kinds of things get me riled up. On the present topic I have pointed to dozens of graphs and explanatory articles in support of the anthropic climate change conclusion which is presented by the IPCC, and even allowing for the data errors and misdemeanors relating to a few minor aspects of that model, I still think the data adds up.

"How stupid that you do not see the real reason is sunspots." is not an example of a reasoned counterpoint.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 11:18 AM

It's a very complex situation, Amos, and I'm certainly interested in the various different viewpoints that are being offered.

You can listen to one set of scientists and they tell you one thing. You listen to another set and they tell you a different thing. You have a lot of stuff being promulgated on computer models...but a computer model is only as good as the data which was put into it...and the data must be 100% complete in all relevant factors to render an accurate result! I am skeptical of the computer models which have been used, because I doubt that they correctly worked in all the natural factors. All I can say is that the reading I've done so far has gradually moved me in the direction of feeling that CO2 is not a major factor in causing planetary warming, and that human-produced CO2 in particular is a very minor factor in that regard.

(shrug)

So, I not saying I know for certain. All I can go on is what I read about it, same as anyone else here, and I read many differing opinions about it.

I hope that we can see a more open and tolerant debate of the different theories about global warming in years to come, rather than just one theory being pushed in the media like a religious crusade, which is mostly what we have had in the last decade.

I don't care for any situation where anyone who objects publicly to a mainstream popular theory which has become virtually sacrosanct (such as the current global warming theory...or the official report on 911) is ridiculed, dismissed as a crank, vilified or equated with someone like a holocaust-denier, and then just shut out by the mainstream media and the powers that be.

It gets my back up, and it suggests to me that someone in high places might very well have something they want to hide...or a self-serving agenda they want to push.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 03 Mar 10 - 06:37 AM

"They are shrill, they are unfriendly, and they are bullying"

Sounds like a certain poster from the Left Coast...







"Jeeze, what a string of concatenated blither."

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 02:47 PM

Or plain cyber-bullying by the inadequately informed.

"Cyber Bullying Intensifies as Climate Data Questioned
Researchers must purge e-mail in-boxes daily of threatening correspondence, simply part of the job of being a climate scientist

By Douglas Fischer and The Daily Climate   


The e-mails come thick and fast every time NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt appears in the press.

Rude and crass e-mails. E-mails calling him a fraud, a cheat, a scumbag and much worse.

To Schmidt and other researchers purging their inboxes daily of such correspondence, the barrage is simply part of the job of being a climate scientist. But others see the messages as threats and intimidation—cyber-bullying meant to shut down debate and cow scientists into limiting their participation in the public discourse.

"I get a lot of hate mail," said Schmidt, a climate modeler at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies who also runs RealClimate.org, a website devoted to debunking myths and errors about climate change. "I get a lot of praise mail, but pretty much every time I have a quote in a mainstream publication I'll get a string of emails from various people accusing me of various misdemeanors and fantasizing about my life in prison."

Kevin Trenberth, head of the Climate Analysis Section of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has a 19-page document of "extremely foul, nasty, abusive" e-mails he's received just since November.

Australian author and academic Clive Hamilton noted that many of the country's most distinguished climate scientists are increasingly the target of e-mail attacks aimed at driving them from the public debate.

"The purpose of this new form of cyber-bullying seems clear; it is to upset and intimidate the targets, making them reluctant to participate further in the climate change debate," Hamilton wrote in a column published last week by Sydney's ABC News. "While the internet is often held up as the instrument of free speech, it is often used for the opposite purpose, to drive people out of the public debate."

The bullying has long been part of life for many climate scientists. Retired NCAR climate scientist Tom Wigley said he's been fighting it for the last 20 years or more. Most of the e-mails appear to be the work of frustrated individuals, ranting into the ether, scientists say. But some appear to be the work of coordinated campaigns, and many, scientists say, appear to be taking their cue from influential anti-climate change advocates like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and ClimateDepot.com.

Scientists say the bullying, if anything, emboldens them. But it does have a cost.

Organized, "McCarthyite" tactics aimed at specific scientists by various groups can be stressful, Schmidt said. "Frivolous" Freedom of Information Act requests can tie up considerable quantities of researchers' time.

But worst of all, he said, are "intimidating letters" from congressional members threatening dire consequences to scientists working on climate change.

"That is chilling the work of science in the agencies," Schmidt said. "It's certainly very off-putting for scientists who want to talk about their stuff in public but fear the political consequences."

"Nobody wants to create an enemy on the Hill."

For the most part, the rants have remained just that - rants. Threats of physical harm remain rare and are usually discounted, scientists say. "These people don't really know you," Schmidt added. "They're not really talking about you. You're just a symbol that has an e-mail address."

The pace picked up late last year, when several years' worth of stolen correspondence among climate scientists were published on the Web. The onslaught intensified as errors in the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change's most recent report surfaced in January and policy makers and reporters began to question what has become the gold standard of climate science.

What's clear is the e-mails show anger and hostility. There's no effort to ask questions or seek what Trenberth called "the truth." Scientists aren't the only target; journalists covering the issue also routinely find their inbox stuffed with epithets.

"They do not tend to be reasonable," said Rudy Baum, editor-in-chief of Chemical and Engineering News, who has been covering science for the magazine for 30 years. "They do not seem to be interested in dialogue. They are shrill, they are unfriendly, and they are bullying."
..." SciAm.

The full article discusses some of the rationalizations used, and the initiators of the cyberbully campaigns.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 01:30 PM

"Global Warming or not, there is no excuse for not using less packaging, being careful with natural resources, recycling wherever practicable and investing in renewable energy that reduces our dependence on the Middle East. "

AMEN

Problem is all this hype by the alarmists is turning more people into skeptics who claim there is NO global warming.

Blowback.

Unintended results.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,KP
Date: 02 Mar 10 - 08:33 AM

PDQ,
You had some interesting questions about my comments to Little Hawk, where I tried to show the potential impact of atmospheric CO2. So I said:
"...its quite easy to calculate how much energy all that CO2 could absorb - its about 6E+20J (followed by 20 zeros) joules for every absorption cycle."

and your comments are:
'The trouble I see with that is: you are telling us how much energy the CO2 can absorb/hold/release in the atmosphere, not the amount of heat it does absorb/hold/release. Not the same thing.'

'At 361 ppm, CO2 is involved with a tiny portion of the total radiated heat, the rest passes through the atmosphere and makes contact with nothing.'

I agree with your first comment. I was trying to show that 361 ppmv or 380 ppm(w/w) was indeed enough to trap a significant amount of heat from first principles. Those simple numbers illustrate that potentially that small amount of CO2 could easily absorb enough energy to shift the climate. As you say, what actually happens in real life is highly complex, and that is what the practicing scientists are trying to do. One approach is the oft-criticized global climate models, which are literally and metaphorically 'over my head' (doesn't mean they're right or wrong, just that I don't understand them).

The other approach, which bears on your second comment, is more based on radiation physics and involves looking at the total radiation budgets. From classical physics (Stefan- Boltzmann) you can calculate the infra-red emission given off by the earth bearing in mind its average temperature. And you can use satellites to measure the radiation actually going out into space from the earth's atmosphere. And you can also measure the wavelength of any infra-red radiation coming back down to earth from the atmosphere. What is found is:

1. The earth radiates about 390 Joules per second (or Watts if you prefer) for each square meter of its surface. The energy is emitted in a smooth bell curve with almost nothing at 5 micron radiation and not much beyond 50 microns. The peak is between 15 and 20 microns.

2. That peak at 15-20 microns is quite close to the CO2 absorption band at 14-15 microns and in principle you'd expect to see strong absorption there. And looking at the radiation going into space from the atmosphere, you do indeed see a strong band. Instead of a nice smooth bell curve with a peak at 15-20 microns there is a curve that looks like someone has put an axe into the top (and around the sides as well). The dent in the curve is pretty well at the strongest point of the CO2 absorption.

3. There is significant (>30W/m2) energy being radiated back to the earth's surface at 14 microns.

There is a summary paper by Kiehl and Trenberth (of the US meterological society) where they look at these heat flows. They would probably disagree with your second statement, as they comment 'that very little radiation is actually transmitted directly to space as though the atmosphere were transparent'.

My view is that there is is little doubt that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that it contributes to our current climate.

For sceptics of man-made climate change, there are two areas of genuine scientific uncertainty as far as I can tell. One is the complexity of the earth's climate with all of the inputs from solar variation, Milankovitch cycles, aerosols, vegetation impacts on albedo, which makes the predictive climate models necessarily complex. Some sceptical scientists are meteorologists rather than climatologists, and the gist of their criticism is usually around the fact that the earth's system is too complex to be quantitatively modeled.

The other point is made by physical scientists - the atmospheric absorption by CO2 is already so strong that adding more will not make that much more difference, because most of the 14 micron radiation is already absorbed. And again, calculating the answer to that point is very complex - is the 14 micron band saturated at all parts of the atmosphere, or just in the lower troposphere? Unfortunately, one of the new satellites meant to look at that issue blew up on launch last year.

So what will happen if we add a large 'slug' of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere rather quickly in geological terms? The paleoclimate stuff is interesting but not conclusive because there haven't been many occasions where the CO2 levels have changed as fast as they are right now. Well, we're now doing the full scale experiment and it remains to be seen what kind of results we get back...

Sorry if that's all too long! These are not questions where its easy to give a quick answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 01:37 PM

So, Amos?

You have NOT shown anything other than that Obama is \responsible for the increase in mortgage defaults.

If the CO2 absorbtion of seawater has decreased substantially as of 2000, how does that reflect on the recent decrease in temperature? The ENTIRE model seems flawwed- Both water vapor and methane are more effective greenhouse gasses, and you do NOT take into account the variations there- if the sea level IS rising, then there is LESS surface area ( as compared to glacial ice) and the H2O vapor will drop. So we are entering a period of global cooling, staved off ONLY by the excess pollution that Al Gore is putting out in his trips to meetings demanding that the rest of us stop traveling.

Try reading what LH posted- it is something you have not yet even acknowledged.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 01:25 PM

Oceans losing ability to absorb greenhouse gas
January 11, 2010 by Jennifer Fitzenberger


UCI Earth scientist Francois Primeau and colleagues report that oceans are growing less efficient at absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide.


(PhysOrg.com) -- Like a dirty filter, the Earth's oceans are growing less efficient at absorbing vast amounts of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas produced by fossil-fuel burning, reports a study co-authored by Francois Primeau, UC Irvine Earth system science associate professor.


The oceans largely kept up when carbon dioxide emissions began soaring in the 1950s, but the absorption rate has slowed since the 1980s and dropped off even more noticeably since 2000, according to the recent study in the journal Nature.

Here, Primeau answers questions about the research, which suggests the oceans may not be as reliable as previously thought at guarding against global warming.

Q: Why are the oceans absorbing less carbon dioxide?

A: Oceanographers refer to the time since water was last at the surface as its "age." The age of water masses in the ocean ranges from zero to more than 1,000 years, but the bulk of waters that upwell to the surface typically are less than a few decades old. Because older water was in contact with the atmosphere at a time when airborne carbon dioxide levels were lower, it contains less manmade carbon. On the other hand, younger water tends to have higher levels of this carbon. In particular, water that is less than a few decades old has man-made carbon levels that reflect the large ramp-up in emissions that began in the 1950s. This water is now showing its age by already having significant levels of carbon when re-exposed to the atmosphere. The extra carbon is making surface water more acidic. The resulting change in seawater chemistry is diminishing the oceans' ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

Q: How was the absorption slowdown identified?

A: When we measure the carbon concentration of seawater, it's not possible to distinguish carbon that originated from fossil-fuel burning and the large background level of natural carbon. So instead of trying to directly measure the increase in ocean carbon, we created a mathematical model based on tens of thousands of ship-based measurements collected over the last 20 years that allowed us to determine where and how long ago the water in the ocean's interior was last at the surface. The model was then used to track all of the ocean's water masses backward in time to when they last exchanged carbon dioxide with the atmosphere. We reconstructed a year-by-year inventory of the manmade gas in the ocean from 1765 to 2008. This allowed us to identify trends in the uptake of human-generated carbon dioxide.

Q: What effects might this have on global climate change?

A: Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. If the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide emissions more slowly, more of them will stay in the atmosphere for a longer time, leading to higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels - which contribute to global warming. To reverse this cycle, we have to bring down levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We can do this by reducing the amount of energy we waste and by choosing food produced with as little fossil fuel as possible.

Q: How did you contribute to this study?

A: My contribution was to formulate the mathematical model that integrated ship-based data on the ocean's temperature, salinity and chlorofluorocarbon, radiocarbon, oxygen and phosphate content to help us understand the invasion of manmade carbon without having to know the actual circulation of the ocean.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 01:23 PM

(PhysOrg.com) -- Climatologists have long known that human-produced greenhouse gases have been the dominant drivers of Earth's observed warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution. But other factors also affect our planet's temperature. Of these, the ocean plays a dominant role. Its effects helped nudge global temperatures slightly higher in 2009, and, according to NASA scientists, could well contribute to making 2010 the warmest year on record.


Covering 71 percent of our planet's surface, the ocean acts as a global thermostat, storing energy from the sun, keeping Earth's temperature changes moderate and keeping climate change gradual. In fact, the ocean can store as much heat in its top three meters (10 feet) as the entire atmosphere does.

"The vast amount of heat stored in the ocean regulates Earth's temperature, much as a flywheel regulates the speed of an engine," said Bill Patzert, an oceanographer and climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The ocean has a long history of capturing and giving up heat generated by both human activities and natural cycles; it is the thermal memory of the climate system."

Heat and moisture from the ocean are constantly exchanged with Earth's atmosphere in a process that drives our weather and climate. Scientists at NASA and elsewhere use a variety of direct and satellite-based measurements to study the interactions between the ocean and atmosphere.

"These interactions result in large-scale global climate effects, the largest of which is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation," explained Josh Willis, a JPL oceanographer and climate scientist. This climate pattern appears in the tropical Pacific Ocean roughly every four to 12 years and has a powerful impact on the ocean and the atmosphere. It can disrupt global weather and influence hurricanes, droughts and floods. It can also raise or lower global temperatures by up to 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

The oscillation pattern is made up of linked atmospheric and oceanic components. The atmospheric component is called the Southern Oscillation, a pattern of reversing surface air pressure that see-saws between the eastern and western tropical Pacific. The ocean's response to this atmospheric shift is known as either "El Niño" or "La Niña" (Spanish for "the little boy" and "the little girl," respectively). ... (Phys Org)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 01:13 PM

The above post is missing a "/a" right after "these figures". If some kind Elf could fix that it would look much better.

According to these figures...

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 01:01 PM

According to these figures, LH, the present dramatic upsurge in temp change did not start in 1975.

The carbon count upramp dates from around 1800--remember James Watt and the construction of the British rail system, etc.? The PPM count has broken out of its usual variation (270 to 285). By 1900 it had climbed to 295. By 1950, to 300. Between 1950 and 2000, it galloped up to 335.

The delta of temperatures between 1861 and 1911 was slightly cooling, but between 1861 and 1991 the trend was up to +.35 deg. F per year.

The solar-misbehavior hypthesis seems unlikely to me because of the coupling of the temp and CO2 curves. It is improbable that solar cycles cause increases in anthropic CO2 emissions, except in a minor way by making people run air conditioning. And I don't see a coupling between solar activity and the rate of change.

I'd like to see some numbers on this solar vedctor, BB. Do you have some?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 12:14 PM

Well said Little H, nail on the head time. I've printed it out and will keep it near.
I started to quote bits I particularly agree with but realised I was going to quote the whole thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:53 AM

Thanks, BB. It's refreshing to be able to agree with you about something now and then. ;-)

To all the "CO2 crisis" folks out there...let me just tell you how thoroughly I am enjoying talking about this worthy subject with you. I expect we'll be chatting about it for a long time yet. Remember this: every time you exhale, you introduce MORE CO2 into the atmosphere!!! Scary, scary!

But the plants of this Earth love you for doing it. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:48 AM

Thank you, LH.

An excellent summary.




When Al Gore explains the "unprecedented" weather changes to Jupiter and melting of the Martian icecap, perhaps I might listen. But he and Amos have ignored the probable increase in solar output, and thus all the computer modeling in the world will not reflect the real-world situation.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:40 AM

Why do you who are supporting the current GW theory keep pretending that those who are not supporting it are saying that there is no global warming occuring?

That's not what we are saying. It would be convenient for your argument if we were saying that, but we're not.

We are saying that human-produced CO2 is not a significant factor in producing this global warming that has been occurring since 1975. If it were, we would not have had a 35-year long global cooling phase between 1940 and 1975, because human-produced CO2 levels were rising steadily throughout that entire period.

The global cooling between 1940 and 1975 led to scare stories in the media in the mid-70s about global cooling and the threat of a new ice age. Those stories were couched in the usual dramatic terms. We were all going to freeze in the cold!!! ;-) Then the climate began warming up in 1975...and that put an end to those scare stories. Awwww....no more "ice age" crisis for the media to rave on about.

I suspect the same thing will happen to the present scare stories about "global meltdown" in awhile.

By the way, there was one scientist in the mid-70s who proposed a way of possibly reversing the global cooling that was occurring and that had the scientists quite worried at the time. He suggested that if the industrial world were to pump a lot more CO2 into the atmosphere that it might help to counteract the global cooling through the greenhouse effect.

And there, folks, you have the origin of the very idea that is being touted now as a cause of global warming. Only they're talking about it from the other way around...fearing the CO2...because now the planet is in a warming phase.

Scientific study of ice core samples from Greenland has indicated, however, the following:

1. Are higher CO2 levels normally found in the atmosphere during warmer periods? Yes. There have been many such periods, some with much higher CO2 levels than at present.

2. However...the increase in CO2 follows the onset of a warmer period by approximately an 800-year lag. The planet gets warmer first, the CO2 level increases later...apparently as a result OF the warmer environment.

3. The reasons for that are uncertain, but what causes the production of CO2 in nature? Well, you get CO2 from animal emissions, decaying vegetation, volcanoes, forest fires, etc...basically it is combustion in one form or another which produces CO2. The oceans also give off large amounts of CO2 through evaporation.

4. Why would more CO2 in the atmosphere follow a warmer climate phase by a lag of several hundred years? Perhaps because a warmer climate phase produces a lot more vegetation, a lot more animal and human life, a lot more forest fires, and a lot more evaporation from the world's oceans...all of which will cause an increase in CO2. And plants love CO2...so they will consume it and thrive.

Yes, we all go to the scientific evidence. ;-) But here's how it works. People simply look up the evidence from the specific scientists or spokesmen they agree with, and that's what they quote. That's what I just did. That's what you who believe the present popular GW theory also did. You went to one set of authorities. I went to another. We both looked for scientific opinions, and we picked the ones that we thought were the best.

One of us is probably right. ;-) And the other is wrong.

And there are plenty of scientists on BOTH sides of this CO2 issue. We all have scientists who support our particular view. They all seem to agree that global warming is indeed occurring. They don't all agree about the CO2 factor and how it works, however, and that is what I am talking about here.

I am NOT saying there is no global warming occurring. Got that? Print it out, and stick it on your monitor so you don't forget that I am NOT saying there is no global warming occurring.

I just don't think WE are causing it, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:22 AM

"And it is doing so exactly in time-coincidence with the ramp up of human additives of CO2 "

No, Amos. The ramp-up of CO2 from whatever source is LAGGING the rise in temperature- just as it would if it was warming due to increased solar output, which was releasing CO2 from natural sources.




" If you look at the graphs, the rate of increase of global temperature breaks out of the range it has been in for a couple of thousand years by an order of magnitude."

1. Said graphs are only valid for the measurement period of just over 100 years. No data exists for earlier on the level that is significant.

2. You have ignored the PROVEN flaws in taking measurements from a site as equal when the local environment has changed. When the weather station is now in a bank parking lot instead of on a bare mountainside, the failure by warmists to compensate for the known effects invalidates that data point- yet it is included in the graph.

3. You presume that evidence of the effect is proof of the cause, which is not valid. Should I say that, since the correlation of house repossions vs Obama's time in office show a strong relationship, that thus Obama is entirely responsible for the mortgage crisis? THAT is just as valid as what you are saying.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Amos
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 11:11 AM

Jeeze, what a string of concatenated blither.

The point to understand is simple. If you look at the graphs, the rate of increase of global temperature breaks out of the range it has been in for a couple of thousand years by an order of magnitude. It is not, as LH suggests, going up an fown as it always has, in the traditional "snake in a tunnel" series of rises and falls. It is breaking out of the range. Significantly.

And it is doing so exactly in time-coincidence with the ramp up of human additives of CO2 to atmosphere, which is also breaking out of its normal oscillation by an order of magnitude. Naturally this makes carbon pollution a prime suspect.

Systems don't do that sort of thing unless a significant change in process has occurred. In our case the process that changed is the intense high-volume uncovering of carbon deposits which we then incinerate. Anyone got any numbers on how much carbon we (homo sap) adds to atmosphere by our industrial processes, internal combustion systems, etc.?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: pdq
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 10:32 AM

GUEST, KP...you say:

"...we know that each molecule of CO2 can absorb radiation at a certain frequency (14 micron wavelength) and that water doesn't absorb at that frequency."

and

"...its quite easy to calculate how much energy all that CO2 could absorb - its about 6E+20J (followed by 20 zeros) joules for every absorption cycle."

The trouble I see with that is: you are telling us how much energy the CO₂ can absorb/hold/release in the atmosphere, not the amount of heat it does absorb/hold/release. Not the same thing.

At 361 ppm, CO₂ is involved with a tiny portion of the total radiated heat, the rest passes through the atmosphere and makes contact with nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 08:47 AM

..things are hotting up!

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 08:42 AM

"Global Warming or not, there is no excuse for not using less packaging, being careful with natural resources, recycling wherever practicable and investing in renewable energy that reduces our dependence on the Middle East. "

AGREED.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,KP
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 08:41 AM

Bruce,
I like this comment from underneath the Brooker article you reference:

'I'm not terribly interested in the rights and wrongs of the IPCC and whether or not climate-change can be influenced by man.

As a Conservative I believe in personal responsibility and cleaning up after myself not expecting someone else to do it for me.

It would be a great shame if all this ballyhoo over the IPCC led to people behaving like Socialist litter-bugs and assuming the State was somehow responsible for clearing up their profligacy.

Global Warming or not, there is no excuse for not using less packaging, being careful with natural resources, recycling wherever practicable and investing in renewable energy that reduces our dependence on the Middle East.

Those would seem to be self-evidently conservative philosophies which we adopted in the last war and would be sensible to make permanent in our lifestyles today.

The alternative is the socialist approach of littering, wasting, unlimited profligacy, expecting someone else to clean it up for free and leaving future generations a rubbish pit country to live in.

England's Green & Pleasant Land won't stay that way if everybody keeps moaning when they're told to clean up after themselves and pay the true costs of rubbish disposal for themselves and accept some discipline in waste collection services...... '

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 08:40 AM

KP, I know :-) felt good.

and btw, experts say this global warming is serious, and they are predicting now that by the year 2050, we will be out of party ice.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: beardedbruce
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 08:33 AM

"The chief defence offered by the warmists to all those revelations centred on the IPCC's last 2007 report is that they were only a few marginal mistakes scattered through a vast, 3,000-page document. OK, they say, it might have been wrong to predict that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035; that global warming was about to destroy 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest and cut African crop yields by 50 per cent; that sea levels were rising dangerously; that hurricanes, droughts and other "extreme weather events" were getting worse. These were a handful of isolated errors in a massive report; behind them the mighty edifice of global warming orthodoxy remains unscathed. The "science is settled", the "consensus" is intact.

But this completely misses the point. Put the errors together and it can be seen that one after another they tick off all the central, iconic issues of the entire global warming saga. Apart from those non-vanishing polar bears, no fears of climate change have been played on more insistently than these: the destruction of Himalayan glaciers and Amazonian rainforest; famine in Africa; fast-rising sea levels; the threat of hurricanes, droughts, floods and heatwaves all becoming more frequent.

All these alarms were given special prominence in the IPCC's 2007 report and each of them has now been shown to be based, not on hard evidence, but on scare stories, derived not from proper scientists but from environmental activists. Those glaciers are not vanishing; the damage to the rainforest is not from climate change but logging and agriculture; African crop yields are more likely to increase than diminish; the modest rise in sea levels is slowing not accelerating; hurricane activity is lower than it was 60 years ago; droughts were more frequent in the past; there has been no increase in floods or heatwaves.

Furthermore, it has also emerged in almost every case that the decision to include these scare stories rather than hard scientific evidence was deliberate. As several IPCC scientists have pointed out about the scare over Himalayan glaciers, for instance, those responsible for including it were well aware that proper science said something quite different. But it was inserted nevertheless – because that was the story wanted by those in charge.

In addition, we can now read in shocking detail the truth of the outrageous efforts made to ensure that the same 2007 report was able to keep on board IPCC's most shameless stunt of all – the notorious "hockey stick" graph purporting to show that in the late 20th century, temperatures had been hurtling up to unprecedented levels. This was deemed necessary because, after the graph was made the centrepiece of the IPCC's 2001 report, it had been exposed as no more than a statistical illusion. (For a full account see Andrew Montford's The Hockey Stick Illusion, and also my own book The Real Global Warming Disaster.)

In other words, in crucial respects the IPCC's 2007 report was no more than reckless propaganda, designed to panic the world's politicians into agreeing at Copenhagen in 2009 that we should all pay by far the largest single bill ever presented to the human race, amounting to tens of trillions of dollars. And as we know, faced with the prospect of this financial and economic abyss, December's Copenhagen conference ended in shambles, with virtually nothing agreed. "



from here.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,KP
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 08:06 AM

Freda
That's cheating! 4 itsy little posts just to be certain of getting number 1000!

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:24 AM

wanna read some BAAAAD science?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:20 AM

some of you guys don't seem to like Al Gore. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. And he did it without a single vote from Florida.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 06:01 AM

By the way, January 2000 to December 2009 was the warmest decade on record.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 05:27 AM

An environmentalist, a climate sceptic and George Bush walk into a bar. They each order a beer from the bartender. "I'll have a Heineken" says the environmentalist. "Gimme a Bud" says the sceptic. George Bush says, "I guess I'll have a Panda. Mama's always wanted a nice rug for the den".

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: GUEST,KP
Date: 01 Mar 10 - 05:20 AM

Hawk says:

'If you look at the amount of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere...then at the amount of CO2 produced by human civilization...and compare it to the overall greenhouse effects of water vapour and a few other secondary greenhouse gases...it's just utterly negligible.'

Time to get the physics out again.

1. There are 380 ppm of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere - and that might not sound a high proportion.

2. But 380 ppm of CO2 evenly mixed in the atmosphere means over 3 trillion tonnes (3 followed by 12 zeros) of the stuff.

3. Now we know that each molecule of CO2 can absorb radiation at a certain frequency (14 micron wavelength) and that water doesn't absorb at that frequency.

4. We also know that radiation has an energy quantitatively linked to its frequency.

5. So its quite easy to calculate how much energy all that CO2 could absorb - its about 6E+20J (followed by 20 zeros) joules for every absorption cycle.

6. And that is getting close to the total heat capacity of the entire atmosphere - if you put an extra 6E+20J into the atmosphere you'd expect to move its temperature.

7. Now there are huge uncertainties when you try to quantify further - how long does it take for an excited molecule of CO2 to lose its heat and how does it do it? How much energy absorbed by CO2 has been re-emitted to from other CO2 molecules? How much energy is absorbed by the ground or lost to space?

8. However, the point is that 380 ppm CO2 is easily enough to have a big potential impact on the temperature of the the earth's atmosphere. And it looks like we're going to increase that by about another 50% over the next 50 years.

The other point is that this analysis doesn't need the complex models and data sets that the climate professionals are grappling with -its quite standard 19th century physics (and some long multiplication) taught me (quite a few years ago) at high school. Happy to give more details for those enthusiastic about big numbers!

(oh and btw great hockey game at the Olympics last night!)
KP

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 10:44 PM

Good god, pdq. McCain and Clinton did not go to the north as tourists. They were on a factfinding mission. As you well know.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: pdq
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 09:59 PM

"Remember when John McCain and Hillary Clinton visited ANWR a few years back? They came back as believers." ~ Ebbie

And just exactly what can a tourist in ANWR, in the middle of Summer, tell about anything?

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Sawzaw
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 09:39 PM

Ebbie: To put it bluntly, it says Gore is inflated with excess impacted fecal matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 08:12 PM

Ebbie, I have said over and over again that we ARE in a global warming phase right now. It's been happening since around 1975.

Therefore I am not disagreeing with all those good people you know who have ski slopes, etc, that there IS global warming occurring.

How does that keep getting missed here???? I don't get it. I say again and again that I KNOW perfectly well that there is global warming occurring, but that I don't agree with the present popular theory that human activity is any significant factor in what is causing it.

I think it's a natural cycle that has occurred over and over again in past geological epochs, as confirmed in ice core records from Greenland. I think it is caused by the changing activities of the Sun, not by CO2 levels changing.

It is not Al Gore's statement that global warming is occurring that I am in disagreement with...I am in disagreement with the part of this theory that applies to the proportional effect of that global warming caused by human-produced CO2.

And I am not just disagreeing with Al Gore on some kind of personal vendetta. I don't really care much about Al Gore in that sense, pro or con. He's just one proponent of this theory. I care about the entire effort that is behind the theory. Al Gore is just one spokesman.

If you look at the amount of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere...then at the amount of CO2 produced by human civilization...and compare it to the overall greenhouse effects of water vapour and a few other secondary greenhouse gases...it's just utterly negligible.

Yeah, sure there is global warming going on! Obviously. And so it has done so many times before in just the same fashion, long before we had an industrial civilization. But I don't think it's occurring due to our carbon emmissions. Therefore, I think they're pushing a false agenda.

Subject: RE: BS: Where's the Global Warming
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Feb 10 - 07:30 PM

I do admit that when I have not done my homework regarding who to vote for in a local election, I do check out who is supporting each candidate. When I respect someone's opinion and know that they generally do their homework that's good enough for me.

I don't think I believe something because of who is saying it. However, I do take into account past history, credentials and obvious brain power.

It is not just Al Gore who is promulgating human-caused/ exacerbated climate change. Far from it. He is merely the most visible, the one with his neck out the farthest.   Remember when John McCain and Hillary Clinton visited ANWR a few years back? They came back as believers. Ask pilots. Ask hikers. Ask hunters and fishermen. Ask tourist attraction people. Ask people who run ski slopes. Ask weathermen. Ask local people from the affected areas.

And then go home and tell people comfortably that you have decided that it is just another stunt.