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conklin

Experts have cut the sea-level rise forecast IF the West Antarctic ice sheet were to collapse due to Global Warming. The forecast has been revised to 10 feet in 500 years, or 0.24 inches per year.*

I recall that a sea-level rise of 20 to 50 feet had been predicted by Al Gore and other Global Warming "experts" (fanatics) within decades. I also recall that the Antarctic ice sheet has been getting thicker, i.e.: not melting.

My advice to people who have been traumatized by Al Gore's dire Global Warming and Sea-Level Rising warnings is to start worrying about their gums.

* Research by U.K. Natural Environment Research Council and the Colorado University Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science and published in the journal Science 5/15/09.

James T. Conklin
conklin
On Global Warming

Antarctica is a Continent.
Antarctica contains 90% of Earth's ice.
Antarctica average ice thickness is 8,200 feet.

The Arctic is mostly the Arctic Ocean.
The Arctic contains 10% of the Earth's ice.
The Arctic average ice thickness is 8 feet.

Last winter the average thickness of sea ice
over the whole Arctic fell by 0.85 feet (10%).
Arctic ice melting could be caused by undersea volcanoes.

My Conclusion:

Last year, 10% of 10% of Earth's ice melted in the Arctic (1%).
Last year, 100% of 90% of Earth's ice got thicker in Antarctica.

James T. Conklin
conklin
"Farmer's Almanac predicted below-average temperatures for most of the U.S. this winter." (1) It was correct. What? Isn't Global Warming going on?

Al Gore states that Global Warming is going on, and that "There is no debate about that." Al Gore says that Global Warming is an impending man-made disaster. Gore has concluded that Global Warming is caused by man-made carbon dioxide emissions (which include breathing) by means of an esoteric process in the Earth's atmosphere.

CO2 is a tiny component of the Earth's atmosphere... 0.0384%. There is one pound of CO2 in 260 pounds of air. If mankind were to double the CO2 content of the Earth's atmosphere, the CO2 concentration would remain tiny.

Al Gore laments that the Arctic Ocean (North Pole) sea ice has been melting. Gore claims that the Arctic sea ice is melting because of Global Warming. However, Antarctic (South Pole) sea ice has been forming at a record rate: "2007 showed the largest positive anomaly of sea ice in the southern hemisphere since records have been kept starting in 1979. And, 2008 is currently on pace to surpass last year's record." (2)

North Pole, sea ice is melting. South Pole, sea ice is forming at a record rate. Do the math: Global Warming plus Global Cooling equals Global Nothing.

So... Why is Arctic Ocean sea ice melting?

1. Think like a Mechanical Engineer: Heat energy (not temperature) is required to melt sea ice. 144 Btu is required to melt one pound of ice at 32°F and form one pound of water at 32°F. 144 Btu is the latent heat of fusion of water. The latent heat of fusion melts the ice without a change in temperature.

2. Think like Sea Ice: I am a large inaccessible area of sea ice near the North Pole. My average thickness is 11 inches. I have only two sides... air is above me and the Arctic Ocean is below me. I receive a little radiant heat transfer from the Sun above me during half of the year. I receive a little convective heat transfer from the air above me on occasions when the air temperature is over 32°F. I receive convective heat transfer from the ocean below me 24-7-52 when the water temperature exceeds 32°F.

3. Think like the Arctic Ocean: The sea ice above me tries to keep me at about 32°F. The ocean floor below me contains vents and volcanoes issuing lava at 2000°F which heats me at a rate which is unknown to Al Gore because I am inaccessible and covered with ice. (3) (4)

4. Think like a Frozen Shrimp: I am a frozen shrimp. I am almost like a piece of ice. It takes 4 minutes to cook me with 212°F water. It takes over an hour to cook me with 212°F air. Cooking me with hot air is so slow that it makes me stink. Nobody with any sense cooks frozen shrimp with hot air.

5. Think like a Mechanical Engineer: The convective heat transfer coefficient of water is between 50 and 100 times greater than the convective heat transfer coefficient of air. Therefore, about 75 times more heat can be transferred to sea ice from the ocean below than from the air above under the same temperature differential. (5) I cook frozen shrimp with boiling water because water has 75 times the convective heat transfer rate of air.

Arctic Ocean sea ice melting is a paradigm for Occam's razor. (6)

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779

(1) http://www.startribune.com/nation/27331449...L7PQLanchO7DiUX

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_ice_sheet

(3) http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1997/of97-724/lavacool.html

(4) http://www.iceagenow.com/Ocean_Warming.htm

(5) http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/convecti...sfer-d_430.html

(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_Razor
conklin

Now comes the plaintiff, Dr. James Hansen, who has claimed for 20 years that there is a "Global Warming Time Bomb." In 2003, Hansen wrote a paper called Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb. Read the refrence. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen

How credible is Dr. Hansen now?
How credible has Dr. Hansen been?
Evaluate Hansen's dire predictions:

In 1988 (20 years ago) Hansen predicted the effect on Global Warming due to man-made CO2 in a presentation to Congress. http://icecap.us/images/uploads/HANSEN.JPG
Go look at the refrence data. I can't get the chart to print here.

Hansen 'A' (red triangles) is Temperature if man did not control CO2.
Hansen 'C' (yellow dots ) is Temperature if CO2 stayed at 1988 level.

It is 20 years later: HANSEN'S CURVE 'A' WAS WRONG!
HANSEN'S CURVE 'B' WAS WRONG!
HANSEN'S CURVE 'C' WAS WRONG!

Dr. Hansen's "Time Bomb" predictions were ALL wrong. Hansen's predictions were too high. The 12-month average (red curve) has been constant for 5 years and is now heading down (cooling). Where is the Global Warming?

Think like Earth's Atmosphere:

I am the Earth's Atmosphere. I am huge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_a...ensity_and_mass I weigh over 11,025 quadrillion pounds (11,025,000,000,000,000,000 pounds). 78% of me is Nitrogen (N2), and 21% of me is Oxygen (02). I have existed in various forms and compositions for 4,500,000,000 years. The humans learned to fly in me only 105 years ago. I have been temporarily affected by volcanoes and meteor impacts over millions of years; but in the end, I behave exactly as I damn well please. I look down on the puny humans, and I rain on their audacity in believing they can control me.

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779
conklin
"Undeniable evidence" of global climate change has been presented by the climate change "experts at the National Academy of Sciences" To wit:

"There are ominous signs... Weather patterns have begun to change dramatically... Most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded... Signs of fundamental changes in the world's weather... Evidence in support of these predictions has begun to accumulate massively..."

"The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality."

These are the warnings from: National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Mitchell of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Dr. Kukla of Columbia University, Reid Bryson of University of Wisconsin, and Dr. McQuigg of NOAA Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment.

Proposed solutions include: "Melting the arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot" in an absurd attempt to warm the Earth.

Source: The Cooling World, Newsweek, April 28, 1975
Read the reference. I Can't print the file here.

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779
conklin
Global Warming Causing Record Cold Temperatures.
Do not tell me I did not provide data and references.

Canada has been setting MANY record cold temps in 2009.
In some cases by a substantial amount. See details below.

Canada is adjacent to the Arctic Ocean. If Arctic Ocean ice is melting, it is not due to warm Arctic air temperatures. It MAY be due to warm Arctic Ocean water most likely caused by undersea volcanoes.

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779


March 12, 2009

Alberta
Station New Record Old Record Year
Kindersley Airport -25.5C -19.7C 1989
Cranbrook -16.0C -15.6C 1976


March 11, 2009

Alberta
Station New Record Old Record Year
Coronation -35.5C -34.4C 1956
Edmonton Airport -38.3C -30.6C 1970
Lloydminster -32.0C -30.6C 1956C
Cold Lake -36.4C -32.8C 1956
Pincher Creek -31.5C -29.4C 1950
Sundre Airport -33.4C -27.3C 2003
Claresholm -33.2C -26.1C 1962
Waterton Park -33.6C -18.9C 1967


March 10, 2009

British Columbia
Station New Record Old Record Year
Pitt Meadows -5.4C -5.0C 1985
Squamish -7.4C -3.9C 1962
Campbell River -8.4C -5.6C 1969
Kelowna -20.9C -18.9C 1951
Osoyoos -11.4C -5.9C 2006
Princeton -26.6C -22.2C 1951
Sparwood -23.6C -15.1C 2006
Clinton -28.2C* -16.1C 1975
Williams Lake -27.1C -22.8C 1925
Burns Lake -34.4C -30.0C 1956
Chetwynd -36.5C -30.7C 1987

*Monthly record: the lowest March temperature on record for that station.

Alberta
Station New Record Old Record Year
Edmonton Airport -42.7C -29.4C 1975
Lloydminster -35.2C -29.2C 1998
Fort McMurray -39.9C -38.3C 1950
Cold Lake -39.6C -31.7C 1956
Slave lake -39.5C -33.9C 1956
Whitecourt Airport -36.4C -35.0C 1950
Peace River Airport -36.6C -33.3C 1951
Edson Airport -38.7C -37.2C 1951
High Level Airport -37.3C -36.0C 1987
Jasper -32.9C -31.7C 1951
Banff -31.3C -28.9C 1951
Waterton Park -25.8C -19.6C 1998
Sundre -32.3C -24.7C 2003
Rocky Mountain House -38.9C -35.6C 1951


Saskatchewan
Station New Record Old Record Year
Key Lake -46.0C -41.0C 1998
Meadow Lake Airport -42.4C -37.3C 1998
Stoney Rapids Airport -42.7C -41.1C 1968
la Ronge -38.5C -33.9C 1998
Assiniboia Airport -33.1C -29.7C 2002
Collins Bay -36.7C -34.0C 2004
Weyburn -32.1C -31.5C 2002
Nipawin Airport -34.0C -33.3C 1933
Elbow -31.8C -30.0C 1998
Watrous East -30.5C -29.7C 1998


Additional Information
Temperature records were broken across Western Canada.
In some cases by a substantial amount. See below for details.

March 12, 2009

Alberta
Station New Record Old Record Year
Kindersley Airport -25.5C -19.7C 1989
Cranbrook -16.0C -15.6C 1976


March 11, 2009

Alberta
Station New Record Old Record Year
Coronation -35.5C -34.4C 1956
Edmonton Airport -38.3C -30.6C 1970
Lloydminster -32.0C -30.6C 1956C
Cold Lake -36.4C -32.8C 1956
Pincher Creek -31.5C -29.4C 1950
Sundre Airport -33.4C -27.3C 2003
Claresholm -33.2C -26.1C 1962
Waterton Park -33.6C -18.9C 1967


March 10, 2009

British Columbia
Station New Record Old Record Year
Pitt Meadows -5.4C -5.0C 1985
Squamish -7.4C -3.9C 1962
Campbell River -8.4C -5.6C 1969
Kelowna -20.9C -18.9C 1951
Osoyoos -11.4C -5.9C 2006
Princeton -26.6C -22.2C 1951
Sparwood -23.6C -15.1C 2006
Clinton -28.2C* -16.1C 1975
Williams Lake -27.1C -22.8C 1925
Burns Lake -34.4C -30.0C 1956
Chetwynd -36.5C -30.7C 1987

*Monthly record: the lowest March temperature on record for that station.

Alberta
Station New Record Old Record Year
Edmonton Airport -42.7C -29.4C 1975
Lloydminster -35.2C -29.2C 1998
Fort McMurray -39.9C -38.3C 1950
Cold Lake -39.6C -31.7C 1956
Slave lake -39.5C -33.9C 1956
Whitecourt Airport -36.4C -35.0C 1950
Peace River Airport -36.6C -33.3C 1951
Edson Airport -38.7C -37.2C 1951
High Level Airport -37.3C -36.0C 1987
Jasper -32.9C -31.7C 1951
Banff -31.3C -28.9C 1951
Waterton Park -25.8C -19.6C 1998
Sundre -32.3C -24.7C 2003
Rocky Mountain House -38.9C -35.6C 1951


Saskatchewan
Station New Record Old Record Year
Key Lake -46.0C -41.0C 1998
Meadow Lake Airport -42.4C -37.3C 1998
Stoney Rapids Airport -42.7C -41.1C 1968
la Ronge -38.5C -33.9C 1998
Assiniboia Airport -33.1C -29.7C 2002
Collins Bay -36.7C -34.0C 2004
Weyburn -32.1C -31.5C 2002
Nipawin Airport -34.0C -33.3C 1933
Elbow -31.8C -30.0C 1998
Watrous East -30.5C -29.7C 1998


http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/stor...cold_11_03_2009
conklin

Steve Malloy gave a talk about his new book, Green Hell, carried on C-SPAN's Book TV. He operates a web site, www.JunkScience.com, and noted that Al Gore stands to rake in huge sums of money for his green activism, but that when he was testifying before a Senate committee no one asked him about his financial involvement.

When Gore testified before a House committee, Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) did ask him about his involvement with Kleiner Perkins, a top-tier venture capital firm that is emphasizing green energy. http://venturebeat.com/2009/01/14/kleiner-...ors-unheard-of/ Gore admitted he is a partner there, and was incensed and blew off the question as challenging his integrity (?).

Kleiner Perkins has opened itself to new investors, to raise enough new money to tide over its existing investments through the recession.

Al Gore joined KPC&B in 2007. Read about it... http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/11/news/newsm...rtune/index.htm is the first citation you find when Googling "al gore". Part of his enrichment will come from tax credits, so that is money transferred from your pockets to Gore's. The solar firm, AUSRA, backed by KP, is the firm that is contracted to build the FPL solar power plants in Florida.

How many other Global Warming advocates are making money from the Global Warming / Climate Change fiasco? Answer this direct question:

Are YOU in any way making money from Global Warming studies, grants, papers, speeches, committees, investments, or companies involved in so called green technology?

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779

rpenner
(In response to first post on this now merged thread.)
You may be conflating two different figures.
1) Sea level rise due to a specific event
vs.
2) Sea level rise due to all effects.

So until you find a source for both figures, this claim cannot be verified and relied upon. (Ghosts of Mockton!)
conklin
Dozens of emails have asked: What are your references? Where is the data?
All I have is a lot of reports. Maybe they are not "scientific" enough for some.
One thing is apparant: Lots of people simply WANT to believe in Global Warming.

Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Global...how/4418558.cms

Why Antarctic ice is growing despite global warming.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1698...al-warming.html

Antarctic Ice Growing, Not Shrinking.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517035,00.html

The Antarctic Ice Sheet is Growing Thicker.
http://www.iceagenow.com/Growing_Antarctic_Ice_Sheet.htm

Antarctic Ice Is Growing, Not Melting Away, At Davis Station.
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09...059204&from=rss

Antarctic Ice... Climate Change Hoax.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/04/10/antarctic-ice/

Antarctic Ice Increasing.
http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2009/04/30/an...ice-increasing/

As arctic ice melts, South Pole ice grows.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0110/p14s01-sten.html

Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/17/reve...-not-shrinking/

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779
rpenner
Projection.
conklin

It was 1943. My dad had been fighting in the Pacific for two years. We were on food rationing. Gas was rationed, but mom could not drive. The 1939 Buick sat in the garage with a dead battery and a frozen clutch. When we went anywhere, we walked there. We took a wagon when we went to the grocery store. There were no school busses. Kids always walked to school regardless of the distance or the weather. We just had an air raid drill. I was 8 years old and in 3rd grade.

An elderly male substitute teacher came in that day. He took out a test-tube containing a liquid, and he studied it carefully. He announced that the liquid seemed to have a red tint. He asked the class to look at it and see if they saw the red tint. The kids that saw the red tint were praised for their ability to observe. The teacher started talking to the observant kids about how to see the red tint. After a while, half the kids in the class saw the red tint.

Then the teacher told us that he had filled the test-tube with water from the school drinking fountain. The teacher asked: Why should water from the drinking fountain be red? Why should water from the drinking fountain NOT be red?

Finally, the teacher told us never to allow anyone to convince us of something that does not seem to be true… like Global Warming.

The only other lesson that I remember from the 3rd grade was when Dee Moore brought in her tonsils in a jar. I did not see the red tint in the test tube, but I can still see those putrid brown tonsils in the jar.

James T. Conklin
Longwood, FL 32779
buttershug
QUOTE (conklin+May 17 2009, 07:31 PM)
"Farmer's Almanac predicted below-average temperatures for most of the U.S. this winter." (1) It was correct. What? Isn't Global Warming going on?

Climate change AKA Global warming says hotter summers but colder winters.

The positive increase in temperatures in summer are expected to be greater than the decrease in temperatures during the winter leaving a net increase.

This model has been explained since the 70's but it's too complicated for the mass public to understand apparently.
conklin

I am the Guy On The Internet who QUESTIONS Global Warming. rpenner is correct: I am a nut... a 73-year old has-been with nothing to do.

I have lived long enough, however, to have observed the scientific community deviate over some popular notion-of-the-day on several occasions in the past.

Here is a prime example: Remember the "Y2K Problem". The public was suckered. Many scientists were suckered. Many computer scientists suckered the public, and they made millions and millions of dollars as a result. To wit:

It has been 10 years since the initial concern and the eventual over-reaction to the Y2K Problem began. Y2K was going to be a national and global disaster. There were reports that even some kitchen appliances would stop operating. Soldier of Fortune magazine ran an article suggesting the food supplies, fuel, arms and ammunition which should be stockpiled by the survivors to prepare for the anticipated disorder and anarchy which was certain to occur.

I don't recall any of the thousands of computer science experts coming forward to assert the limited magnitude of the Y2K Problem and the unjustified concern, overreaction, and unnecessary expenditure that was taking place... The experts were too busy making money from the Y2K Problem. The total cost of the work done preparing for Y2K is estimated at 300 billion dollars ($300,000,000,000).

Italy did very little to prepare for Y2K and Italy had very little Y2K Problem.
USA spent billions preparing for Y2K and USA had very little Y2K Problem.

In 1975, there was a great concern about the Global Cooling crises.
In 2009, there was a great concern about the Global Warming crises.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Use caution, lads.

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779


rpenner
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2009...mate_skepti.php
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/05/..._literature.php

The original poster is questioning nothing. Instead, the original poster is working a a (possibly unwitting) cog in a propaganda machine which is not fact-based. Same tired distortions, distractions and lies. Denialists of all stripes resort to such tactics because they wish to impose their views upon the universe instead of looking at evidence.

"Knowledge is power; Nature, in order to be commanded must be obeyed." Bacon, 1620.

Let's look at some of these old-fashioned examples of denialism in the rough order in which the original posted re-used them.
magpies
nobody knows or reads what they say...
conklin

I am the Some Guy On the Internet Denies Global Warming... who is a nut.

My thanks to rpenner. You are a good moderator. I did read all of the scienceblogs.com/illconsidered rebuttals to my common Global Warming skeptic arguments.

I will now state something that has never been seen on that website or written by anyone who is making money from the Global Warming Crisis:

I learned many things. I was wrong about several things. Many things that I had claimed were in error or subject to debate. I had been misled about several of my claims. I apologize for diluting the time of rpenner and everyone who is more knowledgeable than myself. BUT, I have not cost the nation any unwarranted concern, perturbation, inconvenience, or money.

"This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man." -- William Shakespeare

I am an engineer not a scientist. As such, I have a practical approach to solving problems. I can discern the futility of separating fly feces from pepper.

I am frustrated by people who do not know the difference between degrees Centigrade and Centigrade degrees, or the difference between temperature and heat, or are oblivious to the laws of thermodynamics, or believe that hydrogen is an obvious and plentiful clean fuel for cars.

rpenner: I did offer a questioning (not denying) evaluation of the ARCTIC ICE MELTING phenomenon. Arctic ice melting, and the poor polar bears, is the most ubiquitous evidence of Global Warming refered to by the media. I observed Arctic ice melting from the standpoint of (1) A Mechanical Engineer, (2) The Sea Ice, (3) The Arctic Ocean, (4) A Frozen Shrimp, and (5) again as a Mechanical Engineer. I then proposed an alternative cause for Arctic Ice Melting.

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779
conklin
"Global Warming" At A Glance

http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.html

The world's temperature is a difficult metric to capture. This webpage provides
6 data charts and 57 data graphs from: UAH MSU | RSS MSU | NCDC | GISTEMP |
Hadley CET | Armagh | Hadley CRUG | Radiosonde balloon | SIDC SSN | and more.

The webpage confirms that the percent of fly feces in the pepper is directly proportional
to the number of data, charts, and graphs required to define it.

"Global Warming" In One Sentence

The single graph which defines Global Warming is
the measured Global Temperature Anomaly vs. Time.

This is the One Sentence which defines Global Warming:

"Global Warming" consists of a positive Temperature Anomaly of
0.5 Centigrade Degrees between 1978 and 2008 (30 years),
or +0.017 Centigrade Degrees per year.

That, people, is equivalent to some fly feces in the pepper.
Plot Global Temp data in degrees rather than tenths of degrees
and Al Gore's hockey stick becomes a broom stick.

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779


The Hockey Stick Graph: http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipc...wg1/fig2-20.htm
Note that the data ends in 1999.
buttershug
Personally I think it's safe to say that the global warming on Mars is not manmade.

Is it still warming up?
conklin
The Mars atmosphere is 95.3% CO2.
The temperature at 1.5 Meters from the surface was measured at -17C to -107C.

Mars would not have Global Warming if its atmosphere was 100% CO2.

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779
rpenner
Thank you for admitting to 'Nut.' Previously this thread was subtitled 'Not yet proven not a Nut' with the default assumption that you were not a nut. But as you prefer the label 'nut' to 'not a nut,' I need no longer tax myself trying to prove the original assumption.

You claim to "not cost the nation any unwarranted concern, perturbation, inconvenience, or money" and yet you adopt the classic tactics of the denialist, the concern troll, and the agitprop. You claim, ludicrously to only ask questions, and yet you spread decade-old lies without even the basic honesty to indicate the source they were copied from. This is a foul in honest debate which is as glaring as an engineer at trial concluding that a load-bearing bridge was properly designed because of (2/5)MR².

"I can discern the futility of separating fly feces from pepper." Moronic use of an American colloquialism by an alleged engineer. Every chemist could do this with chromatography. Every competent engineer could envision an automated spectrographic or other electronic means of discriminating them and subsequently sorting the co-mingled specks. And as a practical matter, the whole purpose of a board of health inspection is to ensure that even in the most rundown restaurant this is not an actual problem. But science quibbles like the ones you bring us with specious facts and silly misconceptions are actual fly specks and not anything like human knowledge of climate change. Scientific theories have to explain all observations within their domain of applicability, and you seem to have trouble with even defining the basics of this domain.

Please demonstrate these alleged arctic undersea volcanoes dumped enough BTUs (or Joules) into the ocean to melt the millions of square kilometers of ice. You propose an invisible cause for a visible effect, when we have a visible, modeled, and consistent cause. Yes, there are some volcanoes, but on the BTU scale they are negligible and not proximate to the melting ice.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/...arctic-sea-ice/
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/faq.html#volcanoes

Your "Global Warming at a Glance" post once again confuses temperature with climate.

And as for the Hockey Stick graph, published in January 2001, it has data up through 1999 -- how is that important? See Figures 1b and 2.20 of http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipc...tar/wg1/005.htm

But if you want better data, don't rely on 10-year old graphs.

And your Mars post once again confuses temperature with climate with climate change.
conklin

Please do not get unpleasant and offensive, Dr. Robin.
You called me an "alleged engineer". That was not kind.
You went on to explain in detail how you could separate
fly feces from pepper. You are much better than I am.

BUT... You did not and cannot deny the truth of my statement:

"Global Warming" consists of a positive Temperature Anomaly of
0.5 Centigrade Degrees between 1978 and 2008 (30 years),
or +0.017 Centigrade Degrees per year.

This is the definition of the "Global Warming" crisis,
and a paradigm for Occam's razor.

I thought that a moderator was supposed to foster constructive input
and sincere dialogue... not trash a contributor and belittle his input.

Jim Conklin


rpenner
It's my job to water the flowers and pull on the weeds.

You really haven't responded to anything with a fact-based argument.

If you are a HVAC engineer, here's some simple figures for you to chew on:

Now that you have abandoned your dispute of whether global warming exists, you are trying to ridicule the size of the effect. But given the weight of just the atmosphere, the heat capacity of dry air, and the figure you quoted, you are talking of an imbalance of Earth's energy balance of at least 2.6 Terawatts.

But what with water and land heating up as well, the actual number is much higher. (Perhaps some kind soul will look up the number from one of the climate models to tell us.) It's something like the order the entire energy budget of humanity which Wikipedia cites at about 15 TW.

It's still a small fraction of the 174,000 TW of sunlight the Earth intercepts constantly (about half of which is reflected by clouds reducing the amount which hits ground to about 89,000 TW), but as you now admit that the Earth's energy budget is out-of-whack, what possible purpose does it serve to pooh-pooh the magnitude of the figure.

But instead of thinking about what your read about and coming up with reasonable counters, you just copied the most batshit-crazy stuff off the Internet, some of which is a decade old. You don't come across as reasonable. You look like you haven't considered this issue from any angle other than "I don't want to believe it."
conklin
QUOTE
  you just copied the most batshit-crazy stuff off the Internet,
some of which is a decade old. 


Note that all the words in all my posts have been my own words except
when citing, quoting, or naming references.

I scored 90% on the Global Warming Test. Everyone should take it: http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html

I was not aware that Global Warming may increase nighttime temperatures,
but daytime temperatures will not increase as a result of Global Warming.

Question: Is the following quote just more batshit-crazy stuff off the Internet?

"Generally understood, but rarely publicized is the fact that 95% of the
greenhouse effect is due solely to natural water vapor. Of the remaining 5%,
only 0.2% to 0.3% of the greenhouse effect (depending on whose numbers you use)
is due to emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases from human sources."

The quote above is from: [URL=http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/global_warming.html]

Please, everyone who knows the facts, weigh in on that question.

P.S. "Water vapor" as quoted above is technically incorrect language.
The author is referring to "super-heated steam"... unsaturated H2O gas.

James T. Conklin (not embarrassed to use my name)
rpenner
174,000 TW of sunlight falls onto Earth. While some might be reflected by clouds, all that hits the surface must be re-emitted by blackbody radiation to space for the Earth to be at constant average temperature. But this is currently out of balance by a measurable amount.

Every climate scientist and any chemist or physicist who spends even 15 minutes thinking about it will realize that without a greenhouse effect, the Earth's distance from the sun would render the Earth's average surface temperature at 255 Kelvin, -18 Celsius, 0 Fahrenheit.

Lots of people know that water vapor is a greenhouse gas. But water vapor is also responsible for cloud formation, which cuts the sunlight hitting the Earth's surface by about half. Every chemist or physicist knows that water vapor is chemically water and has an equilibrium amount in the air which is controlled by temperature. You refer to water vapor as 'superheated steam' in the jargon of steam engine engineers but because local conditions of temperature and pressure are changing (weather) the local definition of 'saturated' is subject to change. Since both weather and climate researchers use the water vapor, your attempt to criticize their entire fields is specious and silly.

Carbon dioxide and methane on the other hand do not condense out of Earth's atmosphere at anything like Earth's average surface temperature. Their hydro-, geo- and bio-chemistry proceed at various rates and are proper subjects for scientific study. Those studies indicate that Man has increased the amount of carbon dioxide by about 35%. This drives up global equilibrium temperature, which causes the equilibrium amount of water vapor to rise. So talking about water vapor being a more powerful greenhouse gas is a red herring, since there is no water vapor knob for mankind to twiddle and the discussion is about the CO2 knob.

Daytime temperatures have, do, and will rise due to global warming. Just because the sun is in the sky doesn't mean that the ground isn't still trying radiate heat into space. So on that point your test maker is wrong.

Isolating and pooh-poohing mankind's contribution to CO2 as a percentage of a total global warming effect is specious and unscientific when the 35% increase of CO2 results in more water vapor in the air, and does not address where the final equilibrium climate of Earth will be at. You have conceded that the average temperature is rising, which means this equilibrium is not yet achieved.
conklin
IS "WATER VAPOR" A GREENHOUSE GAS?

QUOTE
You refer to water vapor as 'superheated steam' in the jargon of steam engine engineers but because local conditions of temperature and pressure are changing (weather) the local definition of 'saturated' is subject to change. Since both weather and climate researchers use the water vapor, your attempt to criticize their entire fields is specious and silly.


Webster's Dictionary

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vapor

Vapor: "1: diffused matter (as smoke or fog) suspended floating in the air and impairing its transparency"
____________________

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Engineering
http://mhprofessional.com/getpage.php?c=en...CFQZeswodsFrK3A

Vapor: "A gas at a temperature below the critical temperature, so that it can be liquefied by compression, without lowering the temperature."
____________________

Water Phase Changes:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/phase.html

The Temperature vs. Enthalpy graph for Water shows how water is transformed from a liquid into a gas by the addition of heat. The process of transforming water from a liquid to a gas is called vaporization. As a Mechanical Engineer, in school and in practice, I was taught to refer to water during the process of vaporization as transforming from liquid water to water vapor (wet steam) to saturated steam to super-heated steam (dry steam).

"Water Vapor", by its engineering definition, is a mixture of liquid and gas. Example: Clouds.

James T. Conklin, P.E.
Longwood, FL 32779
rpenner
That's pathetic. Dictionaries don't define words, they give examples of how words have been used.

In both weather and climate jargons, water vapor is a term of art -- jargon specific to those fields. Looking up water and vapor separately is not always helpful in deciphering a term of art.

QUOTE
water vapor
Water in its gaseous state, especially in the atmosphere and at a temperature below the boiling point. Water vapor in the atmosphere serves as the raw material for cloud and rain formation. It also helps regulate the Earth's temperature by reflecting and scattering radiation from the Sun and by absorbing the Earth's infrared radiation. See also vapor.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


And you know you are being unhelpful because definition 2a of your Webster source above is "a substance in the gaseous state as distinguished from the liquid or solid state"

So you've gone from denial of the existence of man-made global warming to pooh-poohing it's importance to witless pettifoggery and dictionary abuse. You present us with sub-standard evidence as if that was going to contradict the consensus opinion which is based on all the evidence. In short, the universe does not conform to your position.

So why do you even have a position?
conklin

IS "WATER VAPOR" A GREENHOUSE GAS?

QUOTE
Water vapor in the atmosphere serves as the raw material for cloud and rain formation. It also helps regulate the Earth's temperature by reflecting and scattering radiation from the Sun and by absorbing the Earth's infrared radiation.


Thank you, rpenner, you pulled too hard on this "weed".
In your haste to belittle me, you have proved my point with your own words.

You said it: WATER VAPOR IS NOT A GREENHOUSE GAS. IT IS CLOUDS.

James T. Conklin (Proud to use my name.)
AlexG
QUOTE
You said it: WATER VAPOR IS NOT A GREENHOUSE GAS. IT IS CLOUDS.


Where did rpenner say that water vapor is not a greenhouse gas?

Where does it say the two are mutually exclusive?

If it reflects and scatters sunlight in the atmosphere and absorbes infrared, it's a greenhouse gas.
rpenner
Pettifoggery: U R DOIN IT RONG!
conklin
Summing Up On What Is "Water Vapor"

My engineering practices are Pettifoggery. [Moderator: Since engineering and non-climate-science dictionary definitions of 'water vapor' need not apply to the use of the term within climate science, yes. Since your first source also defined vapor as gas (def 2a), then this was considered a FAIL in the vernacular of PWND/FAIL l33t speak.]
Global Warming science is Art. [Moderator: 'Term of art' has a definition in law, A word or phrase that has special meaning in a particular context. (West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2.) FAIL]

In Oceania, the dictionary was continually revised by the Party. Until...
War became Peace.
Freedom became Slavery.
Ignorance became Strength. [Moderator: Exactly what you are doing.]

After 10 years in the aerospace industry in rocket propulsion,
I worked 30 years in the sewer rehabilitation industry.
Yes, I got my hands dirty... very and often.
You can have the last word. Mock me. [Moderator: Our average reader is already astute enough to obviate the need for me to do so. But I have not mocked you. I have taken your outrageous stance as an agitprop quite seriously. It's what you say that I mock, because what you say is irrational and not fact-based.]

James T. Conklin [Moderator: Who can't even be bothered to explain the basis for his actions. Who lies when he suggests he is here just to ask questions. Who has not yet once given a demonstration of why his engineering background gives him any insight whatsoever into the global climate.]
MisterBelfry
This is thread titled, "Some Guy On the Internet Denies Global Warming" on forum= 22.



Statistics Needed

The Deniers -- Part I

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post – Canada

Published: Tuesday, November 28, 2006
In the global warming debate, there are essentially two broad camps. One believes that the science is settled, that global warming is serious and man-made, and that urgent action must be taken to mitigate or prevent a future calamity. The other believes that the science is far from settled, that precious little is known about global warming or its likely effects, and that prudence dictates more research and caution before intervening massively in the economy.

The "science is settled" camp, much the larger of the two, includes many eminent scientists with impressive credentials. But just who are the global warming skeptics who question the studies from the great majority of climate scientists and what are their motives?



Many in the "science is settled" camp claim that the skeptics are untrustworthy -- that they are either cranks or otherwise at the periphery of their profession, or that they are in the pockets of Exxon or other corporate interests. The skeptics are increasingly being called Deniers, a term used by analogy to the Holocaust, to convey the catastrophe that could befall mankind if action is not taken. Increasingly, too, the press is taking up the Denier theme, convincing the public that the global-warming debate is over.



In this, the first of a series, I examine The Deniers, starting with Edward Wegman. Dr. Wegman is a professor at the Center for Computational Statistics at George Mason University, chair of the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics, and board member of the American Statistical Association. Few statisticians in the world have CVs to rival his (excerpts appear nearby).



Wegman became involved in the global-warming debate after the energy and commerce committee of the U.S. House of Representatives asked him to assess one of the hottest debates in the global-warming controversy: the statistical validity of work by Michael Mann. You may not have heard of Mann or read Mann's study but you have often heard its famous conclusion: that the temperature increases that we have been experiencing are "likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years" and that the "1990s was the warmest decade and 1998 the warmest year" of the millennium. You may have also heard of Mann's hockey-stick shaped graph, which showed relatively stable temperatures over most of the last millennium (the hockey stick's long handle), followed by a sharp increase (the hockey stick's blade) this century.



Mann's findings were arguably the single most influential study in swaying the public debate, and in 2001 they became the official view of the International Panel for Climate Change, the UN body that is organizing the worldwide effort to combat global warming. But Mann's work also had its critics, particularly two Canadians, Steve McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, who published peer-reviewed critiques of their own.



Wegman accepted the energy and commerce committee's assignment, and agreed to assess the Mann controversy pro bono. He conducted his third-party review by assembling an expert panel of statisticians, who also agreed to work pro bono. Wegman also consulted outside statisticians, including the Board of the American Statistical Association. At its conclusion, the Wegman review entirely vindicated the Canadian critics and repudiated Mann's work.



"Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported," Wegman stated, adding that "The paucity of data in the more remote past makes the hottest-in-a-millennium claims essentially unverifiable." When Wegman corrected Mann's statistical mistakes, the hockey stick disappeared.



Wegman found that Mann made a basic error that "may be easily overlooked by someone not trained in statistical methodology. We note that there is no evidence that Dr. Mann or any of the other authors in paleoclimate studies have had significant interactions with mainstream statisticians." Instead, this small group of climate scientists were working on their own, largely in isolation, and without the academic scrutiny needed to ferret out false assumptions.



Worse, the problem also applied more generally, to the broader climate-change and meteorological community, which also relied on statistical techniques in their studies. "[I]f statistical methods are being used, then statisticians ought to be funded partners engaged in the research to insure as best we possibly can that the best quality science is being done," Wegman recommended, noting that "there are a host of fundamental statistical questions that beg answers in understanding climate dynamics."



In other words, Wegman believes that much of the climate science that has been done should be taken with a grain of salt -- although the studies may have been peer reviewed, the reviewers were often unqualified in statistics. Past studies, he believes, should be reassessed by competent statisticians and in future, the climate science world should do better at incorporating statistical know-how.



One place to start is with the American Meteorological Society, which has a committee on probability and statistics. "I believe it is amazing for a committee whose focus is on statistics and probability that of the nine members only two are also members of the American Statistical Association, the premier statistical association in the United States, and one of those is a recent PhD with an assistant-professor appointment in a medical school." As an example of the statistical barrenness of the climate-change world, Wegman cited the American Meteorological Association's 2006 Conference on Probability and Statistics in the Atmospheric Sciences, where only eight presenters out of 62 were members of the American Statistical Association.



While Wegman's advice -- to use trained statisticians in studies reliant on statistics -- may seem too obvious to need stating, the "science is settled" camp resists it. Mann's hockey-stick graph may be wrong, many experts now acknowledge, but they assert that he nevertheless came to the right conclusion.



To which Wegman, and doubtless others who want more rigourous science, shake their heads in disbelief. As Wegman summed it up to the energy and commerce committee in later testimony: "I am baffled by the claim that the incorrect method doesn't matter because the answer is correct anyway. Method Wrong + Answer Correct = Bad Science." With bad science, only true believers can assert that they nevertheless obtained the right answer.



Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of Energy Probe Research Foundation.

Email: Lawrence Solomon@nextcity.com.



THE CV OF A DENIER

Edward Wegman received his Ph.D. degree in mathematical statistics from the University of Iowa. In 1978, he went to the Office of Naval Research, where he headed the Mathematical Sciences Division with responsibility Navy-wide for basic research programs. He coined the phrase computational statistics, and developed a high-profile research area around this concept, which focused on techniques and methodologies that could not be achieved without the capabilities of modern computing resources and led to a revolution in contemporary statistical graphics. Dr. Wegman was the original program director of the basic research program in Ultra High Speed Computing at the Strategic Defense Initiative's Innovative Science and Technology Office. He has served as editor or associate editor of numerous prestigious journals and has published more than 160 papers and eight books.

[The original storyline[s] is given as www.canada.com/]

The above 'Denier' profile has been{at least stored} on my computer since Sunday, July 08, 2007. Yesterday, I did a little follow-up...

www.aviso.oceanobs.com/en/missions/future-missions/cryosat/index.html
first satellite Cryosat was lost on launch, on October 8, 2005, due to an anomaly in the launch sequence. A replacement will be launched in November 2009.

More information on the mission (Esa website)
MisterBelfry
QUOTE
[The original storyline[s] is given as www.canada.com/]

The above 'Denier' profile...  Yesterday, I did a little follow-up...
Whoops...wrong part number. This is the one I followed up to find if the satellite mentioned had already launched. Evidently no,

Launch on 2009/11/16
End Date "three-and-a half-year mission"
Altitude 717 km
Inclination 92°
Repetitivity 369 days with 30 day sub-cycle



Polar Scientists On Thin Ice

The Deniers -- Part IV

Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post – Canada

Published: Friday, December 15, 2006


A great melt is on in Antarctica. Its northern peninsula -- a jut of land extending to about 1,200 kilometres from Chile -- has seen a drastic increase in temperature, a thinning of ice sheets and, most alarmingly, a collapse of ice shelves. The Larsen A ice shelf, 1,600 square kilometres in size, fell off in 1995. The Wilkins ice shelf, 1,100 square kilometres, fell off in 1998 and the Larsen B, 13,500 square kilometres, dropped off in 2002. Meanwhile, the northern Antarctic Peninsula's temperatures have soared by six degrees celsius in the last 50 years.


Antarctica represents the greatest threat to the globe from global warming, bar none. If Antarctica's ice melts, the world's oceans will rise, flooding low-lying lands where much of the world's population lives. Not only would their mass migration spawn hardships for the individual families retreating from the rising waters, the world would also be losing fertile deltas that feed tens of millions of people. This chilling scenario understandably sends shudders through concerned citizens around the world, and steels the resolve of those determined to stop the cataclysm of global warming.


But much confounding evidence exists. As one example, at the South Pole, where the U.S. decades ago established a station, temperatures have actually fallen since 1957. Neither is Antarctica's advance or retreat a new question raised by the spectre of global warming: This is the oldest scientific question of all about the Antarctic ice sheet.


Enter Duncan Wingham, Professor of Climate Physics at University College London and Director of the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling. Dr. Wingham has been pursuing this polar puzzle for much of his professional life and, but for an accident in space, he might have had the answer at hand by now.


Dr. Wingham is Principal Scientist of the European Space Agency's CryoSat Satellite Mission, a $130-million project designed to map changes in the depth of ice using ultra-precise instrumentation. Sadly for Dr. Wingham and for science as a whole, CryoSat fell into the Arctic Ocean after its launch in October, 2005, when a rocket launcher malfunctioned. Dr Wingham will now need to wait until 2009 before CryoSat-2, CryoSat's even more precise successor, can launch and begin relaying the data that should conclusively determine whether Antarctica's ice sheets are thinning or not. Apart from satellite technology, no known way exists to reliably determine changes in mass over a vast and essentially unexplorable continent covered in ice several kilometres thick.


But CryoSat was not the only satellite available to polar scientists. Dr. Wingham has been collecting satellite data for years, and arriving at startling conclusions. Early last year at a European Union Space Conference in Brussels, for example, Dr. Wingham revealed that data from a European Space Agency satellite showed Antarctic thinning was no more common than thickening, and concluded that the spectacular collapse of the ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula was much more likely to have followed natural current fluctuations than global warming.


"The Antarctic Peninsula is exceptional because it juts out so far north," Dr. Wingham told the press at the time. As well, scientists have been drawn to the peninsula because it is relatively accessible and its climate is moderate, allowing it to be more easily studied than the harsh interior of the continent. Because many scientists have been preoccupied with what was, in effect, the tip of the iceberg, they missed the mass of evidence that lay beneath the surface.


"One cannot be certain, because packets of heat in the atmosphere do not come conveniently labelled 'the contribution of anthropogenic warming,' " Dr. Wingham elaborated, but the evidence is not "favourable to the notion we are seeing the results of global warming".


Last summer, Dr. Wingham and three colleagues published an article in the journal of the Royal Society that casts further doubt on the notion that global warming is adversely affecting Antarctica. By studying satellite data from 1992 to 2003 that surveyed 85% of the East Antarctic ice sheet and 51% of the West Antarctic ice sheet (72% of the ice sheet covering the entire land mass), they discovered that the Antarctic ice sheet is growing at the rate of 5 millimetres per year (plus or minus 1 mm per year). That makes Antarctica a sink, not a source, of ocean water. According to their best estimates, Antarctica will "lower [authors' italics] global sea levels by 0.08 mm" per year.


If these findings are validated in future by CryoSat-2 and other developments that are able to assess the 28% of Antarctica not yet surveyed, the low-lying areas of the world will have weathered the worst of the global warming predictions: The populations of these areas -- in Bangladesh, in the Maldives, and elsewhere -- will have found that, if anything, they can look forward to a future with more nutrient-rich seacoast, not less.

Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Urban Renaissance Institute and Consumer Policy Institute, divisions of Energy Probe Research Foundation.
Email: Lawrence Solomon@nextcity.com.

CV OF A DENIER:

Duncan Wingham was educated at Leeds and Bath Universities where he gained a B.Sc. and PhD. in Physics. He was appointed to a chair in the Department of Space and Climate Physics in 1996, and to head of the Department of Earth Sciences in October, 2005. Prof. Wingham is a member of the National Environmental Research Council's Science and Technology Board and Earth Observation Experts Group. He is a director of the NERC Centre for Polar Observation & Modelling and principal scientist of the European Space Agency CryoSat Satellite Mission, the first ESA Earth Sciences satellite selected through open, scientific competition.
lzurha
well the planet is 4.5 billion years old we have had ice ages an shifts in weather before.

global warming is possible i guess but tis could just be the planets natural course
conklin
THE VALIDITY OF "COMMON SENSE"

I have been severely maligned by rpenner for being a Global Warming Denier.
It is true that I have not presented acceptable approved data and facts to justify my beliefs. [Moderator: Emphasis added, and clarification: you pick and choose whose facts to belief on the basis of them supporting or contradicting ideas you already have and time has shown that you have fallen in with well-paid media campaigns who are engaged in distortion, lying and promoting lousy data over orders of magnitude more good data. You don't just pick the bad data because it's the only data your side has -- you also advance meaningless arguments just because someone on your side talked about them ten years ago, and so they require no work to counter -- this says you are no form of scientist and do not deal with any appropriate data to the global 50-year trend. That is why your ideas fail to rise even to the level of an argument.]
According to rpenner, "common sense" cannot provide ANY valid input in a scientific debate;
common sense is both ridiculous and reprehensible... or is it?

A scientist can become certain in his beliefs if they are supported by facts and data which he believes to be indisputable. BUT, that same certainty can blind a scientist to reality... and it often has.

At age 20, I learned a costly lesson when I tried to beat a carnival game called Spot-The-Spot.
I had the science of the game figured out, but I was so confident in my solution that I did not stop
and apply some common sense as to how the game could be rigged. That false confidence cost me money.

Until the late 1800s, Bloodletting was the most common medical practice performed by doctors.
For 2000 years "Medical Science" was not challenged by common sense.
Bloodletting was the preferred treatment for someone who had been stabbed in the chest.

In 1975, The National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Mitchell of NOAA, Dr. Kukla of Columbia University, Reid Bryson of University of Wisconsin, and Dr. McQuigg of NOAA Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment warned as follows:
"The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality." They were all in a panic about the Global Cooling Crisis.

In 1999, Y2K was going to be a national and global disaster.
There were reports that even some kitchen appliances would stop operating.
None of the thousands of Computer Science EXPERTS came forward to assert the limited magnitude of the Y2K Problem; and the unjustified concern, overreaction, and unnecessary expenditure that was taking place...
The total cost of the work done preparing for Y2K is estimated at 300 billion dollars ($300,000,000,000).

In 2002, The President, Vice President, CIA, and Military Intelligence were all convinced that Iraq
was developing chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons with which to attack the United States.
It became unpatriotic to deny the WMD capabilities of Iraq and the intentions of Saddam Hussein.
We are still paying for that erroneous group-think.

It is time to start thinking about how the science behind the Global Warming Crisis could be flawed, if not rigged.

James T. Conklin

[Moderator: Truly worthless post -- suspended 10 days.]
occidental
Really.


Its common sense that big business has much more to loose by recognizing global warming than all the research money scientists might gain from "rigged" data.

But "common sense" isnt much better than "gut feeling" or "i just know", the same old arguments that are universally used to persecute in the absense of any real evidence, like a belief in god or the existance of witches.

Common Sense says Conklin is an idiot, but thats not a scientific conclusion, just my opinion.
Guest_skeptic

"Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous (global warming) is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are..."

Al Gore, Chairman and co-founder of Generation Investment Management,
a London-based business that sells carbon credits.

May 9, 2006 interview with Grist Magazine concerning his book.
rpenner
http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologis...alism_and_b.php

http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist...-witnesses.html
http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist...itnesses-2.html

QUOTE
This is why the [completely unfounded lie] doesn't really need to be plausible or believable. It isn't intended to deceive others. It's intended to invite others to participate with you in deception.

Are you afraid you might be a coward? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend to feel brave. Are you afraid that your life is meaningless? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend your life has purpose. Are you afraid you're mired in mediocrity? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend to feel exceptional. Are you worried that you won't be able to forget that you're just pretending and that all those good feelings will thus seem hollow and empty? Join us and we will pretend it's true for you if you will pretend it's true for us. We need each other.


And as to out worthless guest, he has never read Grist Magazine. -- HE IS FLAT-OUT LYING and IS IN A CONSPIRACY of M O R O N S! Al Gore was talk about the balance of scare/hope, and that because America is basically delusionally self-satisfied, you have to scare people first before they will listen about hope.

QUOTE (->
QUOTE
This is why the [completely unfounded lie] doesn't really need to be plausible or believable. It isn't intended to deceive others. It's intended to invite others to participate with you in deception.

Are you afraid you might be a coward? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend to feel brave. Are you afraid that your life is meaningless? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend your life has purpose. Are you afraid you're mired in mediocrity? Join us in pretending to believe this lie and you can pretend to feel exceptional. Are you worried that you won't be able to forget that you're just pretending and that all those good feelings will thus seem hollow and empty? Join us and we will pretend it's true for you if you will pretend it's true for us. We need each other.


And as to out worthless guest, he has never read Grist Magazine. -- HE IS FLAT-OUT LYING and IS IN A CONSPIRACY of M O R O N S! Al Gore was talk about the balance of scare/hope, and that because America is basically delusionally self-satisfied, you have to scare people first before they will listen about hope.

No, Gore did not say it was appropriate to over-represent the danger. [This lying mo-ron] has taken the quote out of context. Gore was answering a question about what the right mix is between talking about the dangers of global warming vs the solutions to it, and saying that you have to get people to recognize that there is a problem before you can talk about solutions.

Read the question and answer:

   
QUOTE
Q.: There's a lot of debate right now over the best way to communicate about global warming and get people motivated. Do you scare people or give them hope? What's the right mix?

    A. [Gore]: I think the answer to that depends on where your audience's head is. In the United States of America, unfortunately we still live in a bubble of unreality. And the Category 5 denial is an enormous obstacle to any discussion of solutions. Nobody is interested in solutions if they don't think there's a problem. Given that starting point, I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis.

    Over time that mix will change. As the country comes to more accept the reality of the crisis, there's going to be much more receptivity to a full-blown discussion of the solutions.


[This lying mo-ron] is smart enough to have read the interview and understood what Gore was saying. [But I suspect he never did but went to another dishonest quote-mine.] [This mo-ron's] conduct was plainly dishonest. David Roberts, whose interview [has been extensively] quote mined comments here.


Further proof that this mo-ron is just a lying weasel who never read Grist Magazine -- this was an internet rumor discredited back in 2006
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/05/pa...uote_mining.php
light in the tunnel
QUOTE (occidental+Dec 8 2009, 03:35 PM)
Really.


Its common sense that big business has much more to loose by recognizing global warming than all the research money scientists might gain from "rigged" data. 

But "common sense" isnt much better than "gut feeling" or "i just know", the same old arguments that are universally used to persecute in the absense of any real evidence, like a belief in god or the existance of witches.

Common Sense says Conklin is an idiot, but thats not a scientific conclusion, just my opinion.

To avoid getting myself banned here, let me just say that I'm discussing this topic from an attempted neutral political position between the two sides.

1) It wouldn't be how much money scientists have to gain. For scientists, everything is about credibility and community respect. A scientist who is deemed by "peer review" to be quacky could easily stop getting published and/or promoted. So, although, a very good researcher could present research that undermines the majoritarian view that global-warming is supported, they would be more harshly scrutinized (I think) than other researchers whose work addresses one aspect of a larger model, for example.

2) The real interest in global-warming theory lies in the possibility of global regulatory power. Carbon-credit trade has direct economic implications for global trade being regulated by centralized national governments. That in itself is a big interest in an "age of globalization." Even without the carbon-credit trading, there are going to be people who pursue political interests that shape global governance, even if it is purely at the level ideology construction and culture.

A social-policy experiment I would like to see would be to create an alternative to carbon-credit trading that does not put more power in the pockets of national governments and see how that gets supported. Specifically, I would like to see a carbon-trading proposal that would allow businesses of any size and individuals to trade carbon-credits at the smallest level.

Give every individual so much carbon emissions and then allow them to buy and sell their rights on ebay or something similar. That way someone who walks to work in LA gets the same amount of credit for reducing emissions as someone who walks to work in Copenhagen. In the national-credit system, someone who drives to work in Copenhagen would get penalized less because of all the pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

Eliminate team-nationalism, and see if the interest in global regulation is still there.
occidental
QUOTE (light in the tunnel+Dec 9 2009, 06:22 PM)


1) It wouldn't be how much money scientists have to gain. 

Then explain this stupidity:
QUOTE (conklin+Dec 6 2009, 04:58 PM)

 
It is time to start thinking about how the science behind the Global Warming Crisis could be flawed, if not rigged.
 
James T. Conklin

light in the tunnel
QUOTE (occidental+Dec 10 2009, 12:14 AM)
Then explain this stupidity:

I think the only way you can get to the root problem of "flawed or rigged" science would be for individual scientists to recognize the different between value-neutrality and value-denial. Value denial has the potential to cause sublimation of value-interests into research design. Value-neutrality is achieved when individual scientists are just as interested in rejecting as supporting a theory or hypothesis. The fact that global warming is a hotly politicized issue leads me to assume that many individual scientist have a stronger interest in it than the would in studying, say, what the ratio of methane to ammonia on Jupiter is. Whether and how individuals control for their interests and values in order to neutralize them when designing research is the operative question.

It's a complex question at the individual level for each scientist so how would you expect to generalize about it for all scientists?
conklin
Al Gore's Testimony to Congress, April 24, 2009:

"New research ... collected by U.S. nuclear submarines traveling under the Arctic ice cap for the last 50 years, has given us, for the first time, a three-dimensional view of the ice cap, and researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School have told us that the entire Arctic ice cap may totally disappear in summer in as little as five years..."

In 4.3 more years, we will know if Al Gore was credible on 4/24/09.

[Moderator: That's not the test if Al Gore is credible. -- for one, you cut off the second qualifier that completes the sentence. (The first being, this is not his estimate, but that of researchers.) http://blog.algore.com/2009/04/testimony.html Is there at least one such researcher? There is. Dr. Maslowski of NPS's NAME project has been the source of these predictions based on modelling. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009...-pole-explorers So again we see that your anti-scientific PR campaign is based only on your hatred of Gore and not even parsing English.]

What can cause the Arctic ice cap to melt?

1. Radiant heat transfer from the Sun to the ice. (seasonal, minor, and constant)

2. Air temperature above the ice > 0.0 C. (seasonal with a low convective heat transfer coefficient)

3. Water temperature below the ice > 0.0 C. (continuous with high, X50, convective heat transfer coefficient)

Gore states that the Arctic ice cap will melt as a result of the Global Warming caused by man-made CO2.

Gore will not be credible if the measured Arctic air temperatures do not increase during the next 4.3 years.

Gore will not be credible if the measured global temperatures do not increase during the next 4.3 years.

Gore will not be credible if THE ARCTIC ICE CAP DOES MELT IN SUMMER in 4.3 years
due to water temperature > 0.0 C caused by the active Arctic undersea volcanoes.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...ic-volcano.html

[Moderator: Still not doing science. Suspended 20 days.]
[Moderator: With just 4 days to go until suspension would have been lifted, user is now banned for libelous content and avoiding moderator action.]
skeptic also

There are many measures of Gore's credibility and/or un-credibility) in his statement to Congress.

Why should scientists NOT consider the contribution of Arctic volcanoes (the number, magnitude, and effect of which are unknown)? Must rpenner (moderator and activist) ignore the message of the previous post in defense of his obvious CO2 global warming bias? A closed mind is not a scientific mind.

Undersea Arctic volcanoes and vents could be providing massive quantities of heat and CO2 to the Arctic Ocean.

Would the recognition and investigation of an alternate cause of Arctic ice cap melting be bad for mankind... or just bad for Al Gore's Man-Made CO2 Global Warming "THERE-CAN-BE-NO-DEBATE-ABOUT-THAT" conclusion?

I discern an effort to defend the theory of a Man-Made CO2 Global Warming Crisis causing Arctic ice cap melting without regard-for or acceptance-of any alternate or additional forcing functions.

rpenner should either moderate or participate... but not both with his line-item veto power.

occidental
QUOTE (skeptic also+Dec 19 2009, 05:21 PM)


Why should scientists NOT consider the contribution of Arctic volcanoes (the number, magnitude, and effect of which are unknown)? Must rpenner (moderator and activist) ignore the message of the previous post in defense of his obvious CO2 global warming bias? A closed mind is not a scientific mind.

Undersea Arctic volcanoes and vents could be providing massive quantities of heat and CO2 to the Arctic Ocean.


Youre the only one saying nobody is considering the contribution of Arctic volcanoes. Its just that somehow you think its more probable that one area of arctic volcanoes is capable of causing all of the documented global co2 increase, instead of our global network of fossil fuel-burning co2-producing machines.

Im sure the arctic volcanoes do contribute something. I just dont think its logical to believe thats the main cause, given our widespread use of fossil fuels.
adoucette
QUOTE (skeptic also+Dec 19 2009, 12:21 PM)
Why should scientists NOT consider the contribution of Arctic volcanoes (the number, magnitude, and effect of which are unknown)? Must rpenner (moderator and activist) ignore the message of the previous post in defense of his obvious CO2 global warming bias? A closed mind is not a scientific mind.

Undersea Arctic volcanoes and vents could be providing massive quantities of heat and CO2 to the Arctic Ocean.


A rough guesstimate indicates to me that the incredible mass of water in the arctic makes it highly unlikely that its temperature could be affected by even a fraction of a degree by anything short of a great many continuous massive undersea volcanic eruptions, and I can find no scientific evidence for this kind of massive volcanic undersea activity in the arctic.

Science can't be held hostage to having to proving negatives.

If you make bold claims, then it falls on you to provide evidence to support them, not for scientists to prove you wrong.

For instance, maybe you should do a rough estimate on how many cubic km's of magma would have to be released per minute to raise the temperature of the Arctic ocean by 1/10th of a degree C and see if the result is even plausible.

If I thought that it was at all plausible I'd take the time do it.

But I don't.

Do you?

Numbers that you may find useful in this calculation:

Density of basaltic magma: 3.0 x 10^3 kg m^-3
Specific heat of basaltic magma: 1.0 x 10^3 J kg^-1 oC^-1
Specific heat of (solid) basalt: 1.4 x 10^3 J kg^-1 oC^-1
Latent heat of crystallization of basaltic magma: 4.0 x 10^5 J kg^-1
Temperature of the magma: 1350oC
Crystallization temperature of basalt: 1100oC
Density of water: 1.0 x 10^3 kg m-3

Mathematical Relationships you may find useful in this calculation:

Mass (kg) = density (g m^-3) x volume (m^3)
Energy transferred by changing state (J) = latent heat (J kg^-1) x mass (kg)
Energy transferred to change the temperature (J)
= specific heat (J kg-1K^-1) x temperature change (K) x mass (kg)
1 gallon of water = 3.8 liters = 3.8 kg

Arthur
conkIin
IN CONSIDERATION OF THE PLAUSIBILITY OF UNDERSEA VOLCANOES MELTING THE ARCTIC ICE CAP

It is not necessary for undersea volcanoes to heat the Arctic Ocean in order to create a temperature >0.0C
under a portion of the ice cap.

Undersea volcanoes produce hot seawater. The hot water has reduced density and will rise vertically...
Just as the hot gas & smoke from a fire or a nuclear explosion rises vertically
until the gases cool to ambient temperature and roll over in the shape of a mushroom cloud.

A continuous quantity of warm seawater will rise in a column to the underside of
the ice cap and disperse horizontally under the ice.

The important factor is the huge difference in the forcing function between melting
the ice cap with air from above vs. melting the ice cap with water from below, to wit:

1. Air temperature above the Arctic ice cap is between 0.0C and ~2.0C for ~60 days per year.

2. Water temperature below the Arctic ice cap is between 0.0C and >0.0C for 365 days per year.

3. The convective heat transfer coefficient between water and ice is ~50 times
greater than the convective heat transfer coefficient between air and ice.

Conclusion: It is easier to melt the Arctic ice cap with the water below it than with the air above it.

[Moderator: Banned for libelous content and avoiding moderator action.]
flyingbuttressman
Why is it that suspended users can still post as "Unregistered?"
conkIin

IN CONSIDERATION OF THE PLAUSIBILITY OF UNDERSEA VOLCANOES MELTING THE ARCTIC ICE CAP

It is not necessary for undersea volcanoes to heat the Arctic Ocean in order to create a temperature >0.0C
under a portion of the ice cap.

Undersea volcanoes produce hot seawater. The hot water has reduced density and will rise vertically...
Just as the hot gas & smoke from a fire or a nuclear explosion rises vertically
until the gases cool to ambient temperature and roll over in the shape of a mushroom cloud.

A continuous quantity of warm seawater will rise in a column to the underside of
the ice cap and disperse horizontally under the ice.

The important factor is the huge difference in the forcing function between melting
the ice cap with air from above vs. melting the ice cap with water from below, to wit:

1. Air temperature above the Arctic ice cap is between 0.0C and ~2.0C for ~60 days per year.

2. Water temperature below the Arctic ice cap is between 0.0C and >0.0C for 365 days per year.

3. The convective heat transfer coefficient between water and ice is ~50 times
greater than the convective heat transfer coefficient between air and ice.

Conclusion: It is easier to melt the Arctic ice cap with the water below it than with the air above it.

Please CONTRIBUTE to this topic.
adoucette
QUOTE (conkIin+Dec 20 2009, 01:36 PM)
IN CONSIDERATION OF THE PLAUSIBILITY OF UNDERSEA VOLCANOES MELTING THE ARCTIC ICE CAP

It is not necessary for undersea volcanoes to heat the Arctic Ocean in order to create a temperature >0.0C
under a portion of the ice cap.

Undersea volcanoes produce hot seawater. The hot water has reduced density and will rise vertically...
Just as the hot gas & smoke from a fire or a nuclear explosion rises vertically
until the gases cool to ambient temperature and roll over in the shape of a mushroom cloud.

A continuous quantity of warm seawater will rise in a column to the underside of
the ice cap and disperse horizontally under the ice.

The important factor is the huge difference in the forcing function between melting
the ice cap with air from above vs. melting the ice cap with water from below, to wit:

1. Air temperature above the Arctic ice cap is between 0.0C and ~2.0C for ~60 days per year.

2. Water temperature below the Arctic ice cap is between 0.0C and >0.0C for 365 days per year.

3. The convective heat transfer coefficient between water and ice is ~50 times
greater than the convective heat transfer coefficient between air and ice.

Conclusion: It is easier to melt the Arctic ice cap with the water below it than with the air above it.

Please CONTRIBUTE to this topic.

Everything you say is true.

None of it however proves that volcanoes are responsible for any significant melting of the Arctic Ice cap.

The Arctic Ocean covers 5,440,200 sq miles and averages 4,000 ft deep.

Let's say we have 2 cubic miles of molten lava erupting every year, which would be a small mountain. <== no evidence of this has been provided however.

The molten lava is at 2,000 degrees F and basalt has a specific heat of 0.2 and a latent heat of fusion of 100 btu/lb

Multiply 2000 x 0.2 = 400 btu/lb sensible heat + 100 btu lb latent heat which is equal to 500 btu/lb for lava heating the Ocean.

Lava is ~2.5 times the density of water thus 500 btu x 2.5 = 1,250 units of water heated 1 degree F. for each unit of lava cooled and solidified.

Now let's heat just 1/2 the arctic ocean and only the top 52 feet of it (using your absurd rising plume simplification that brings all the heat to the top layer, ignoring undersea currents and mixing via turbulence on the way up)

Or in other words we would be heating JUST 27,200 cubic miles of water out of the over 5 million cubic miles that make up the Arctic Ocean.

Still that's a ratio of 13,600 to 1 of water to heat up vs lava to heat it with.

Divide 13,600 into 1,250 and we have a Ocean temperature increase of
0.009 degrees F temp increase SPREAD OUT OVER A YEAR.

Or 0.0000247 deg F increase per day to melt the ice.

So the above example would suggest that underwater volcanic activity has
little effect on Ocean warming unless there is drastically more volcanic activity than anyone is aware of.

But the BIG absurdity in this calculation is the idea that you would get a rising plume that would transport all the heat 4,000 ft to the upper layer. The fact is basalt is a horrible conductor of heat, and so what really happens is you rapidly get a crust over the erupting lava and then the transfer of heat drops drastically, so its not even plausible that you would have a rising plume of hot water that would make it to the surface.

The more likely scenario is that ocean mixing would cause the heat to be distributed to a substantially larger percent of the oceans, thus dropping the increase in temperature to absurdly low values.

Arthur


MisterBelfry
QUOTE (redpennerRpenner+)
Is there at least one such researcher? There is. Dr. Maslowski of NPS's NAME project has been the source ... So again we see that your anti-scientific PR campaign is based only on your hatred of Gore and not even parsing English.


Good grief! I think one should trust talkradio more than try to find an accurate view through your blinders. For the record, I despised the former Vice President long before he won any prize on the world stage for Global Warming. It did not have to do with anything 'scientific' at that time. It was purely his political character on display after the close call in Florida. The crossing out in the following post is my practice do never publically mention his name again.

MrB.
www.theripleyreport.com/ AS currently cached on Google
maslowski+shoots+down+yeah, I had to type in his name cool.gif laugh.gif mad.gif
MisterBelfry

Tuesday, December 15, 2009
THE GORACLE MISSPEAKS
Al Gore, the High Priest of the Church of Gaia himself, was speechifying yesterday at the altar of Copenhagen. His devoted global disciples listened in rapt adoration as he spewed forth his concrete scientific facts. He spoke of one of the climate cult's favorite alarms - an ice-free North Pole. (via The Times Online[/url] The Times Online )

“These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

Unfortunately for his Holiness, his 'fresh' figures are not quite as fresh as he would like.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Ooops! So what was the mix up?

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore.
Dr Maslowki, who works at the US Naval Postgraduate School in California, said that his latest results give a six-year projection for the melting of 80 per cent of the ice, but he said he expects some ice to remain beyond 2020.
Hmmm...so Mr. Gore took a 'ball park' estimate that 80% of the arctic would be ice-free in 6 years and turned it into a 75% certainty that there will be NO arctic ice in 5-7 years. The acknowledged ambassador for global warming science is actively distorting the scientific facts on a world stage, and yet we are expected to believe all of the global warming alarmist hype.

What does the scientific community think of this latest faux pas?

["]This is an exaggeration that opens the science up to criticism from sceptics,” Professor Jim Overland, a leading oceanographer at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

“You really don’t need to exaggerate the changes in the Arctic.”

Others said that, even if quoted correctly, Dr Maslowski’s six-year projection for near-ice-free conditions is at the extreme end of the scale. Most climate scientists agree that a 20 to 30-year timescale is more likely for the near-disappearance of sea ice.

“Maslowski’s work is very well respected, but he’s a bit out on a limb,” said Professor Peter Wadhams, a specialist in ocean physics at the University of Cambridge.

Of course the greedy little piggies in Copenhagen ignored the issue. I guess they are more focused on the trillion dollar collection plate they are trying to pass around this week - don't distract them with facts, please.

The thing that is the most surprising is that Gore's office acknowledged the error in the first place. After all, this is the man who sees the British High Court rule that there are nine substantial errors in his movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' and that, in order to show it in schools, the children must be told that it is a political propaganda film, they must be told what the errors are and opposing views must also be presented, and all he gets from it is that the film is allowed to be shown in the classroom. The man is just not big on admitting mistakes. They really didn't have much choice on this one, though, since the scientist responsible for the data came out to correct the record.

It's refreshing to see someone more interested in their reputation and the science, instead of the political payoff of alarmism. Kudos to Dr. Maslowski for standing his ground.

At best, ClimateGate is an argument for reviewing the science behind global warming alarmism, at worst it shows that the whole thing is a complete fraud promoted at the highest levels. Gore's blatant misrepresentation of scientific data furthers the argument for the latter.

BTW, is it just me, or does it seem like Mr. Gore is trapped in some weird time/space continuum? According to him, the ClimateGate emails are all over ten years old (even though some of the most damning ones are mere months old), and the 'facts' he recited yesterday were 'fresh' science (even though it turns out his 'facts' were ball park figures from a few years ago).

Careful, Mr. Gore, your desperation is showing again!

keith*
QUOTE (MisterBelfry+Dec 21 2009, 04:46 PM)
"...Dr Maslowki...said...the melting of 80 per cent of the ice, but he said he expects some ice to remain beyond 2020..."

Regardless of Belfry's ranting gist, he leaves us on the positive note that there will be a little ice left beyond 2020, perhaps for a small snow cone stand at the Arctic.

(no doubt MisterBats will be chewing angerly at a photo of Al Gore, long after the deluge falls upon us).
occidental
Clearly misterbelfry didnt do a good job of listing his source, as he didnt write it. But he put it out there to look like he wrote it...
MisterBelfry
Well, if the reports are accurate(and again I first heard it on talkradio (so I thank Rpenner for spelling the name for me ohmy.gif ) and as of yet, no where else as far as the mainstream media), I think this sums it up for the sake of science, "Kudos to Dr. Maslowski for standing his ground."




uaafanblog
So are the climate change deniers going to have a big party to celebrate that Santa's home at the North Pole won't melt? Or are they all rushing to invest in the multitude of large shipping companies that are currently gearing up to take advantage of that open water?

You're missing the point by focusing on weird-Al's weirdness.
adoucette
QUOTE (keith*+Dec 21 2009, 06:37 PM)
Regardless of Belfry's ranting gist, he leaves us on the positive note that there will be a little ice left beyond 2020, perhaps for a small snow cone stand at the Arctic.

The Arctic ocean is bounded by land, and thus the ice Maximum remains the same pretty much regardless of conditions.

In other words, the slight arctic warming that we have had has little impact on the amount of Ice at the peak of the year which is typically mid March.

Typical ice extent at this time is ~15 million sq kms. (this # has a little to do with how you define ice extent, typically an area with >15% ice cover is considered to be ice)

Now EVERY year since we have ever gone to the Arctic it always melts SIGNIFICANTLY in the summer.

As the ice melts it breaks up and once no longer anchored to the shore, since it's free floating, it tends to get broken up and blown about by the wind and waves.

Prevailing winds and currents tend to blow the ice out of the Arctic into the North Atlantic where the ice melts.

The winds and currents can have a significant impact on the amount of ice remaining in the arctic (remember, most ice is below water, so ice that moves into an area where the water is just a few degrees warmer melts fairly quickly)

Of course the sun has a big impact as well for when the Earth's axis is tilted 23.5° toward the Sun as during the summer solstice the North Pole is effectively at 66.5° N which is about the same latitude as Stockholm, Sweden at the equinoxes, BUT, at the summer solstice the North Pole gets 24 hours of sun per day, TWICE the solar insolation as Stockholm gets at the equinoxes.

Wouldn't you be surprised to find ice covered water in Stockholm in middle September?

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/14a2e0/

As far as melting goes, this large amount of solar insolation causes the TYPICAL melting to be from ~15 million sq km down to ~6 million sq kilometers, or in other words, one expects about 60% of the ice to melt in the Arctic each year.

Thus statements like the ballpark figure of 75 per cent melting by 2030 by Dr Maslowksi do not indicate a significant shift in the amount of summer ice remaining in the Arctic.

More to the point, in 2007, the melt was approx 71%, or already in the ballpark that Dr Maslowski estimated.

Of course the minimum ice increased in the Arctic by 11% in 2008 and by a full 23% in 2009, resulting in a melt of of a fairly normal ~64%.

Arthur
occidental
QUOTE (adoucette+Dec 22 2009, 04:07 PM)
The Arctic ocean is bounded by land, and thus the ice Maximum remains the same pretty much regardless of conditions.

In other words, the slight arctic warming that we have had has little impact on the amount of Ice at the peak of the year which is typically mid March.

Typical ice extent at this time is ~15 million sq kms. (this # has a little to do with how you define ice extent, typically an area with >15% ice cover is considered to be ice)

Now EVERY year since we have ever gone to the Arctic it always melts SIGNIFICANTLY in the summer.

As the ice melts it breaks up and once no longer anchored to the shore, since it's free floating, it tends to get broken up and blown about by the wind and waves.

Prevailing winds and currents tend to blow the ice out of the Arctic into the North Atlantic where the ice melts.

The winds and currents can have a significant impact on the amount of ice remaining in the arctic (remember, most ice is below water, so ice that moves into an area where the water is just a few degrees warmer melts fairly quickly)

Of course the sun has a big impact as well for when the Earth's axis is tilted 23.5° toward the Sun as during the summer solstice the North Pole is effectively at 66.5° N which is about the same latitude as Stockholm, Sweden at the equinoxes, BUT, at the summer solstice the North Pole gets 24 hours of sun per day, TWICE the solar insolation as Stockholm gets at the equinoxes.

Wouldn't you be surprised to find ice covered water in Stockholm in middle September?

http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/14a2e0/

As far as melting goes, this large amount of solar insolation causes the TYPICAL melting to be from ~15 million sq km down to ~6 million sq kilometers, or in other words, one expects about 60% of the ice to melt in the Arctic each year.

Thus statements like the ballpark figure of 75 per cent melting by 2030 by Dr Maslowksi do not indicate a significant shift in the amount of summer ice remaining in the Arctic.

More to the point, in 2007, the melt was approx 71%, or already in the ballpark that Dr Maslowski estimated.

Of course the minimum ice increased in the Arctic by 11% in 2008 and by a full 23% in 2009, resulting in a melt of of a fairly normal ~64%.

Arthur

But youre ignoring the overall thickness of the ice.
adoucette
QUOTE (occidental+Dec 22 2009, 11:28 AM)
But youre ignoring the overall thickness of the ice.

Not really.

We don't have long term data on ice thickness over the arctic ocean, so any historical comparisons are not possible.

What we do know is that since ~60% of the ice melts each year, then that's the typical amount of first year ice each season starts with.

I've generally seen the amount of 2 year ice is estimated to be about 20% and the rest is 2+ years, but again, both numbers are pretty much SWAGs.

Also keep in mind, that when you go to sites like Cryosphere Today, that the satellite record starts in 1979 so you have to consider the ice extent in relation to the Arctic Temp history over time.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-image...ctic_temps2.JPG

As you can see, 1979 is also the about the same time as the start of the latest warming period in the Arctic (which ties in well with the PDO cycles), but if we could compare today's ice extent to the decade of the 40's do you think it would be that different?

Arthur
occidental
QUOTE (adoucette+Dec 22 2009, 05:05 PM)
Not really.

We don't have long term data on ice thickness over the arctic ocean, so any historical comparisons are not possible.


http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/...-20090707r.html

So youre saying the ice could have always been this thin so its not really changing?
adoucette
QUOTE (occidental+Dec 22 2009, 12:21 PM)
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/...-20090707r.html

So youre saying the ice could have always been this thin so its not really changing?

Could have been.

Too bad we don't have this data for back in the 40s.

In any case, I think you can't say much with just a 5 year long record, taken near what appears to be a low point in this cycle of ice.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/365869m...090707-full.jpg

It will be interesting to see if the ice continues its two year recovery in the 2010 season.

Arthur
adoucette
And this just in.......

http://insciences.org/article.php?article_id=8012

Study shows CFCs, cosmic rays major culprits for global warming

Cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), both already implicated in depleting the Earth's ozone layer, are also responsible for changes in the global climate, a University of Waterloo scientist reports in a new peer-reviewed paper.

In his paper, Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, shows how CFCs - compounds once widely used as refrigerants - and cosmic rays - energy particles originating in outer space - are mostly to blame for climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. His paper, derived from observations of satellite, ground-based and balloon measurements as well as an innovative use of an established mechanism, was published online in the prestigious journal Physics Reports.

"My findings do not agree with the climate models that conventionally thought that greenhouse gases, mainly CO2, are the major culprits for the global warming seen in the late 20th century," Lu said. "Instead, the observed data show that CFCs conspiring with cosmic rays most likely caused both the Antarctic ozone hole and global warming.


I can't wait to read the paper.
At least the study of climate change is never boring.
Below is a chart of the Chlorine and Bromine compounds in the atmosphere since 1992
The last number is in ppt, or if you divide by 1,000 then its ppb.
Note though that many of these compounds have up to 1000 times the GWP as CO2 (mainly due to very long atmospheric residency times)


CODE

Year CFC-12 CFC-11 CH3Cl CH3Br CCl4 CH3CCl3 halons CFC-113 HCFCs Minor SUM (ppt)
1992 1007 813 550 542 424 405 302 241 106 87 4476
1993 1022 816 550 542 421 387 323 246 111 91 4508
1994 1035 816 550 542 419 355 348 251 121 95 4532
1995 1045 814 549 537 416 318 357 252 130 98 4515
1996 1051 811 543 548 413 277 370 252 140 99 4504
1997 1057 807 546 544 409 236 380 250 150 100 4480
1998 1061 801 561 561 408 198 391 248 159 100 4488
1999 1064 793 562 544 405 165 403 247 169 99 4451
2000 1068 788 550 524 401 137 411 246 178 98 4401
2001 1070 782 541 498 397 114 414 244 188 96 4345
2002 1071 777 541 489 392 95 419 243 197 94 4318
2003 1071 770 542 487 389 80 423 240 205 93 4299
2004 1071 764 540 475 385 66 430 238 211 91 4270
2005 1069 757 541 468 380 55 432 236 219 89 4246
2006 1065 748 542 456 374 46 433 235 227 87 4215
2007 1061 741 545 457 369 38 433 232 238 85 4201


Arthur
rpenner
http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v87/i7/e078501 A related paper
http://focus.aps.org/story/v8/st8 A related story
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~qblu/Lu-2009PRL.pdf A related paper.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2009.12.002 Abstract of current paper

I don't think it is seemly to prepare a list of publications with high Impact factors of Journals called out, and I don't think his papers are getting much positive attention yet. But thye major obstacle would to explain how modeling works at all if this effect is important.

adoucette
QUOTE (rpenner+Dec 22 2009, 01:47 PM)
http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v87/i7/e078501 A related paper
http://focus.aps.org/story/v8/st8 A related story
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~qblu/Lu-2009PRL.pdf A related paper.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physrep.2009.12.002 Abstract of current paper

I don't think it is seemly to prepare a list of publications with high Impact factors of Journals called out, and I don't think his papers are getting much positive attention yet. But thye major obstacle would to explain how modeling works at all if this effect is important.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Particularly the part about "how modeling works at all if this effect is important."

The models used in the last IPCC report don't produce the same results as the previous IPCC report and even the latest models using the same Scenarios don't produce the same ouputs, so which one (and which scenario) are you claiming is the one that works?

Here's the models on just one scenario.

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/ear..._gif_image.html

Here's the models using different scenarios

http://images.chron.com/blogs/sciguy/archi...07ar4models.jpg

Here's the models vs actual, and they are all running hot.

http://www.drroyspencer.com/library/pics/P...rming-Fig01.jpg

Arthur
adoucette
QUOTE (uaafanblog+Dec 22 2009, 11:04 AM)
So are the climate change deniers going to have a big party to celebrate that Santa's home at the North Pole won't melt?  Or are they all rushing to invest in the multitude of large shipping companies that are currently gearing up to take advantage of that open water?

.

What does the term "Climate Change Deniers" mean?

I know of no one that denies that the Climate doesn't change.

As to the shipping companies in the Arctic.

There have been ships operating in the Arctic for a LONG time.

There are a dozen or more ports in the Arctic ocean above the Arctic Circle.

Here's a graphic showing the 50F line for average daily temp in July as well as a representation of the typical ice line in July.

http://pic.srv202.wapedia.mobi/thumb/3b9f1...mat=jpg,png,gif

Note that most of the shoreline is quite free of ice and the ports are open.

Note that the period of lowest ice will come about two months later, in mid September.

Given Ice breakers the passage near the Russian coast is always open in the summer, and in fact the only place you need ice breaker escort tends to be near that penninsula which has a choke point that ice tends to get stuck in and there are relatively shallow straits, limiting this routes commercial appeal. Recently though the Russians have decided to offer ice breaker escort to non-Russian commercial vessels.

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/09/turd-eaters.html

Similarly the passage, through the many islands near Canada, also opens up for short periods late in the summer, though its hard to count on it as a means of making a complete passage except for a few weeks of the year, thus limiting its commercial appeal.

1905: In mid August, Amundsen sailed from Gjøahaven (today: Gjoa Haven, Nunavut) in the vessel Gjøa. On August 26 they encountered a ship bearing down on them from the west, and with that they were through the passage. From Amundsen's diary:
The North West Passage was done. My boyhood dream - at that moment it was accomplished.

http://www.athropolis.com/map9.htm

Arthur
occidental
QUOTE (adoucette+Dec 23 2009, 01:21 AM)


As to the shipping companies in the Arctic.

There have been ships operating in the Arctic for a LONG time.

There are a dozen or more ports in the Arctic ocean above the Arctic Circle.

Here's a graphic showing the 50F line for average daily temp in July as well as a representation of the typical ice line in July.


Given the fact that the original poster was referring to the "multitude of large shipping companies", it really look like youre trying to say shipping companies have been using the arctic for a long time. This would be news to the Panamanians.

Here's a chart showing the change in sea ice extent since the turn of the last century. Things have changed since Amundsen's time.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IM...t.1900-2007.jpg
adoucette
QUOTE (occidental+Dec 23 2009, 12:04 AM)
Given the fact that the original poster was referring to the "multitude of large shipping companies", it really look like youre trying to say shipping companies have been using the arctic for a long time.  This would be news to the Panamanians.

Here's a chart showing the change in sea ice extent since the turn of the last century.  Things have changed since Amundsen's time.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IM...t.1900-2007.jpg

Only if they used the NorthWest Passage.

Which so far no one has done regularly on a commercial basis.

Also there is a big difference between Large Shipping Companies and Large Ships.

Most that ply the much more open NorthEast route to the various Russian ports are fairly small ships and don't go for a complete passage, but serve the ports on their side of entry to the Arctic.

It's POSSIBLE that this route will be used commercially, but only with the assistance of Russian Nuclear powered Ice breakers. The reason being that late in the season, when most of the passage opens, the ice is mobile and can quickly block a route which was open when the ship left port.

As to your graphic.

Sorry, we don't have that good data on ice extent as that chart implies.
Notice no error bars.

We do have reliable reports though that indicate that chart is most likely wrong.

http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-11-0589a.pdf

http://denali.frontier.iarc.uaf.edu:8080/~...df/50yr_web.pdf

http://images.intellicast.com/App_Images/Article/128_1.gif

http://images.intellicast.com/App_Images/Article/128_2.jpg

On Dec 5, 1932, The New York Times reports the “feat, accomplished for the first time” of circumnavigation of Franz Josef Land (actually, an Arctic archipelago). The same expedition (lead by a Professor N.N. Subkov) was also described in March 1933 in the pages of Nature. Notably, in the words of the NYT, that circumnavigation had been “heretofore regarded as impossible“. It actually took just 34 days, from Aug 17. It was warm enough for the “Eva” and “Liv” islands to be recognized as one, joined by “a low stretch of land” and thereby renamed “Evaliv”.

http://www.kitikmeotheritage.ca/Angulalk/hudsons/hudsons.htm

The ice level in the 1930's and early 40's was at a similar low level. The St. Roch went easily through the Northern route of the NW passage which is closed this year and that was in 1944. The Hudson Bay Company had many other boats freely navigating the southern route of the NW Passage. Gjoa Haven(1930) and Cambridge Bay(1929) pictures showing low ice level. The Aklavik also made it through the NW Passage in 1937. Nascopie and Aklavik meet from East and West in 1937. The Nascopie commonly travelled through the passage in the 30's. Then in the late 40's the Arctic froze up and the HBC shut some of their posts due to the increased ice.

And

Dr. Howat in a follow-up interview with the New York Times went on to add:

"Greenland was about as warm or warmer in the 1930's and 40's, and many of the glaciers were smaller than they are now. This was a period of rapid glacier shrinkage world-wide, followed by at least partial re-expansion during a colder period from the 1950's to the 1980's. Of course, we don't know very much about how the glacier dynamics changed then because we didn't have satellites to observe it. However, it does suggest that large variations in ice sheet dynamics can occur from natural climate variability.”

And

Part of the problem lay in the fact that useful data on ice extent and thickness only dates from the 1950s, yet our temperature record from Jan Mayen Island at the edge of the Arctic shows that the Arctic was warmer during the 1930s than it was during the 1990s. Unfortunately there is no comprehensive ice data from the 1930s. Instead such data begins in the late 1950s, at a time when the Arctic was entering into the grip of a known cold spell. As that cold period ended, it is hardly surprising to find thinner ice during the latter warmer period.

There is also the strong correlation between the NAO and the state of Arctic ice, a strongly positive NAO in the last decade increasing the flow rate of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic, while it was predominantly negative during the cold period of the 1960s, resulting in a reduced flow rate of Atlantic water and thus a reduced propensity for ice melt.

The strong positive NAO of the last decade is not unprecedented. While some might wish to associate this with human-induced `climate change', it is clear from the NAO record that it was also strongly positive during the early decades of the 20th century and even earlier. In other words, the NAO is a real natural cycle, not a manifestation of `global warming'.

Arthur
keith*
QUOTE (MisterBelfry+Dec 22 2009, 06:20 AM)
Well, IF the reports are accurate...
.... I thin...k this ...sums it up... "Kudos..."

Your reading source has no mention whatsoever of the dynamic ocean current belt and salt water density changes occurring in the LARGEST "land-bound body of water" on the planet--the Pacific Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean is NOT the elephants trunk, it is it's tail.

You Al-hating boneheads are cherry-picking your nose, to spite your faces.
Stalling?...you haven't a clue to what your stalling about... Or what is beginning to stall in the ocean current belt system.
conkIin
Contrary to the previous post, the only Arctic current is the North Atlantic Current.
Go to: oceanseanet.ning.com/photo/arctic-ocean-currents?context=latest

The article at www.newscientist.com/article/dn14203 indicates that undersea Arctic volcanoes
could directly affect the water temperature under the ice cap, to wit:

"The researchers calculate that for the rock fragments to have scattered over 10 square kilometers, the CO2 chamber must have been several kilometers beneath the seafloor. An explosion of this type would have created explosive fountains rising up to 2 km (>6000 feet) in the water column."

It takes a lot of latent HEAT (not temperature) to melt the Arctic ice cap. We seem to agree that the required heat must come from the Arctic Ocean water temperature, not the Arctic air temperature.

Do we know the approximate extent and magnitude of all the Arctic Ocean volcano
activity? If we do, It could be rulled out as a heat source for Arctic ice cap melting.
Remember Al Gore testified that it may ALL be gone in only 4.4 more years.

[Moderator: Banned for libelous content and avoiding moderator action.]
adoucette
QUOTE (conkIin+Dec 24 2009, 11:41 AM)
The article at www.newscientist.com/article/dn14203 indicates that undersea Arctic volcanoes could directly affect the water temperature under the ice cap, to wit:

"The researchers calculate that for the rock fragments to have scattered over 10 square kilometers, the CO2 chamber must have been several kilometers beneath the seafloor. An explosion of this type would have created explosive fountains rising up to 2 km (>6000 feet) in the water column."

It takes a lot of latent HEAT (not temperature) to melt the Arctic ice cap. We seem to agree that the required heat must come from the Arctic Ocean water temperature, not the Arctic air temperature.

Do we know the approximate extent and magnitude of all the Arctic Ocean volcano
activity? If we do, It could be rulled out as a heat source for Arctic ice cap melting.
Remember Al Gore testified that it may ALL be gone in only 4.4 more years.

The article gives no indication that the volcanoes could be responsible for any significant warming of the waters in the Arctic ocean.

See math from previous post on this problem.

Couple of points.

The article is about volcanic activity that happened 8 to 10 years ago.

The article says it "would have created explosive fountains rising up to 2 km",

BUT

The Gakkel Ridge lies from 3.1 to 4.6 km below the surface, so these "fountains" would have petered out a kilometer or more below the ice.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v409/...09808a0_F2.html

Arthur
Latta
Is The Globe Really Getting Warmer?

Yes. But there is anti-science sentiment and sloppy math on the other side.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/08/climate_fraudit.php
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/wi...aught_lying.php
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/01/ro...he_increase.php
Quantum_Conundrum
I'm not gonna bother with the math much, but look at it this way.


1) At the rate of our present advancement in materials technologies, construction, and other technologies, we may well work ourselves out of the coal/oil age before it even becomes a problem anyway.

2) By the time any ice melting becomes a serious problem, technologies and manufacturing capabilities will exist to deal with it. Fifty years is a long time to prepare for a one foot ocean level rise, and 500 years is a very, very long time to prepare for a 10 ft rise. To put that in perspective, a one way trip to proxima centauri at 0.01c would require less than 400years...

In 500 years, well over half of the earth's human population may be living in floating cities on the ocean anyway, with or without ocean level rise...This will actually become economical for many reasons as we eventually transition to solar power, because a floating city in the middle of the ocean is directly in the middle of the shipping lanes, and can serve as a giant collection farm for solar energy to (help) power ships. (ah, but I digress, that's another thread.)

3) a slight increase in ocean levels due to ice melting actually DECREASES ocean surface temperature, reducing the number and severity of destructive tropical cyclones.
rpenner
Water has more heat than ice at the same temperature. Therefore as part of multi-decadal globally-averaged heat flows, persistent melting of ice is a major problem -- almost as much as the same mass of water going up 80 degrees Celsius.
jimlatta
On its website the US Geological Survey (USGS) has an audio titled, “Want Clues to Future Climate? Let's Look Back 3 Million Years...” It can be found here along with a transcript http://gallery.usgs.gov/audios/328

The audio consists of an interview of USGS researchers by a USGS employee, Jessica, which is summarized below.

Jessica: Can you tell us what the benefit is of looking at climate conditions in the past and how that’s related to our current and future climate and why did you choose to examine the mid-Pliocene period 3 million years ago.

Harry: Looking at climate conditions in the past allows an understanding of how the Earth’s climate functions and helps us refine climate models to build more precise long-term projections and help prepare for the future impacts to our world. We chose the environment 3 million years ago, that’s the mid-Pliocene, because global average surface temperatures during that time were about three degrees Celsius greater than today which is within the range projected for the 21st century by the IPCC. The warming 3 million years ago was due to natural variability and the warming we see today is clearly human-induced, studying this time period serves as a plausible scenario for what the future may hold.

Jessica: Can you now tell us what discoveries you found regarding the sensitivity of our climate to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
Harry: The temperatures we found during the mid-Pliocene were higher than what you would expect from the CO2 present at that time, meaning that the climate may be 30-50 percent more sensitive to atmospheric CO2 in the long term than previously thought. Over the long term or during the mid-Pliocene, the Earth had more time to adjust to the slower impacts of climate change. For example, warming leads to a reduction in ice and that allows more sunlight to be absorbed and warming continues into the future. This means that projections of temperatures over the next hundreds of years of climate may need to be adjusted upward.
Jessica: The USGS also made some discoveries regarding conditions in the Arctic. Can you tell us about those?

Marci: We found increased evidence that the Arctic could face seasonally ice-free conditions and much warmer temperatures in the near future. We documented for the first time that the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas were too warm to support summer sea ice during the mid-Pliocene. We found Arctic sea surface temperatures of 10 and 18 degrees Celsius, very warm considering that current temperatures are around zero degrees Celsius. The mid-Pliocene had a very different pattern of heat distribution than today with much warmer waters in the high latitudes. This suggests that the record-setting melting of Arctic sea ice that we've seen over the past few years could be an early warning of more significant changes to come. Our increased understanding of how the Arctic responds to warmth will help refine climate models, which currently underestimate the rate of sea ice loss in the Arctic.

Jessica: What are some of the impacts that could result from the loss of sea ice?
Marci: There are more impacts than you may initially think. First, the loss of sea ice could contribute to continued Arctic warming by reducing the reflective properties of the ice. With no sea ice, the ocean is there to absorb the heat from the sun. Other researchers have found impacts to polar bears and seals that depend on sea ice cover.

Jessica: The USGS also made some conclusions regarding the deep ocean’s temperature variability and circulation systems. Can you tell us about them?

Harry: We created a three-dimensional reconstruction of the ocean during the mid-Pliocene, and found that the deep ocean was affected more by surface warming than we previously thought. The average temperature of the entire ocean during the mid-Pliocene was maybe one degree warmer than current conditions, and that’s a lot of heat. Understanding ocean temperature variability allows for more accurate predictions of factors such as sea level rise and ice volume change. High ocean surface temperatures have also been found to result in a more vigorous deep ocean circulation system. This results in a faster transport of large amounts of warm water, with possible impacts like reduction of sea ice and overall warming of the Arctic. Our findings are significant because it was previously thought that the deep ocean stayed relatively stable and cold, and that the deep ocean circulation system would slow down as surface temperatures increased.

The points made by these USGS spokespeople on the USGS website are clear:
1. “The warming we see today is clearly human induced.”
2. Since the atmospheric CO2 level in the mid Pliocene was similar to the CO2 level today, while “global average surface temperatures during that time were about three degrees Celsius greater than today”, “the climate may be 30-50 percent more sensitive to atmospheric CO2 in the long term than previously thought.”
3. Because CO2 caused warming takes long periods of time to manifest itself, we have not yet seen the full affect of the CO2 already in the atmosphere which, “means that projections of temperatures over the next hundreds of years of climate may need to be adjusted upward.”
4. Modeling of conditions during the mid Pliocene, “which is within the range projected for the 21st century by the IPCC” “serves as a plausible scenario for what the future may hold.”
5. “High ocean surface temperatures have also been found to result in a more vigorous deep ocean circulation system. This results in a faster transport of large amounts of warm water, with possible impacts like reduction of sea ice and overall warming of the Arctic”

Now go to Wikipedia to see what happened during the mid Pliocene, summarized below http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene

The global average temperature in the mid-Pliocene 3.3 to 3 million years before present was 2-3°C higher then today, and global sea level was 25m higher. During the Pliocene the continents moved from positions as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current locations, so that during the Pliocene South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama.

The formation of the Isthmus of Panama caused cooling of the oceans worldwide by cutting off the final remnant of what was once essentially a circum-equatorial current that had existed since the early Cenozoic. The formation of the Isthmus had major consequences on global temperatures, since warm equatorial ocean currents were cut off and an Atlantic cooling cycle began, with Arctic and Antarctic waters becoming colder and temperatures dropping in the now-isolated Atlantic Ocean.

After the American continents came together extensive glaciation over Greenland occurred in the late Pliocene around 3 million years ago, and the Arctic ice cap formed. The earth’s climate became cooler and drier, and seasonal, similar to the modern climate.

Knowing why the climate was warmer during the mid Pliocene than it is now, does it appear that the modeling of the mid Pliocene done by the USGS really, “serves as a plausible scenario for what the future may hold”? Is this government produced audio a fact based objective release of scientific information or could it be driven by an agenda?
Quantum_Conundrum
QUOTE
The global average temperature in the mid-Pliocene 3.3 to 3 million years before present was 2-3°C higher then today, and global sea level was 25m higher. During the Pliocene the continents moved from positions as far as 250 km from their present locations to positions only 70 km from their current locations, so that during the Pliocene South America became linked to North America through the Isthmus of Panama.



Statements like that are completely and utterly ridiculous.

If you go to the wikipedia article to look at how much ice is on the continent of antarctica, and consider all other possible sources of ice from localize mountain ice, etc, there is not enough ice on the entire planet to exceed at most 15-20 FEET, which is nowhere near 25m.

You can get a rough approximation of the volume of ice on antarctica, and then liquid water's volume is about 2/3 that of the same mass of ice. You can use the formula for the suface and volume of a sphere to calculate how this would affect ocean levels,a nd for rough approximation, consider that about 75-80% of earth's surface is water, all told.

There is nowhere near enough water-ice on the entire planet to account for an alleged 25m worth of mean sea level rise. The real maximum is actually closer to 1/3 of that total at most.
keith*
Latest (2010) Ocean Current stats show massive breakdown of depth heating/salinity mixing and diversion of Gulf Stream surface currents into West Greenland/Arctic region:

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/images/p...zz_uv_n0_t0.gif

Gulf Stream temperature at 3000 meter depth:

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/images/p..._t_n3000_t0.gif

Surface temp:

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/images/p..._zz_t_n0_t0.gif

Minimal temps reaching Europe at 1000 meter depth:

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/images/p..._t_n1000_t0.gif

Surface Salinity through the roof (minimal at 300 meters--this is a measure of cold depth density):

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/images/p..._zz_s_n0_t0.gif

This does not look good.



Courtesy: mercator-ocean.fr

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/html/pro..._20091230_21913
adoucette
QUOTE (keith*+Jan 16 2010, 11:20 PM)

This does not look good.



Courtesy: mercator-ocean.fr

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/html/pro..._20091230_21913

What a waste of time.

Nothing in those pictures you posted indicated anything that "didn't look good".

Arthur

keith*
QUOTE (adoucette+Jan 17 2010, 04:31 AM)
What a waste of time.

Nothing in those pictures you posted indicated anything that "didn't look good".

Arthur

Obviously a waste of time to you, as you did not have enough time between my posting and your reply to have even looked at them. wink.gif

But others will be interested, as this info is so fresh it is "just off the press", and is an internet "scoop".

You read it here first at....The Physforum

Stay tuned for more fresh news on Global Warming.

This has been Keith* reporting....back to you Amber....
adoucette
Right, it takes all of two minutes to look at 4 gifs.

Giving me plenty of time to go to the site and see if it had anything at all to back up your claim that the oceanic conveyor is shutting down.

But it doesn't.

http://www.mercator-ocean.fr/html/applicat...science_en.html


Arthur
occidental
QUOTE (adoucette+Jan 17 2010, 04:31 AM)
What a waste of time.

Nothing in those pictures you posted indicated anything that "didn't look good".

Arthur

Are you saying mercators data is crap, that mercators interpretation is crap, or are you just taking issue with the phrase "didnt look good"?
adoucette
QUOTE (occidental+Jan 17 2010, 10:30 AM)
Are you saying mercators data is crap, that mercators interpretation is crap, or are you just taking issue with the phrase "didnt look good"?

There is nothing in those pictures that I could see from which one would conclude that things 'didn't look good'.

Remember you have to put that in context of the ISSUE that Keith* brought up, which was the stopping of the Oceanic Conveyor.

The site and data itself seem quite good.

Arthur
keith*
QUOTE (adoucette+Jan 17 2010, 03:51 PM)


The site and data itself seem quite good

Thank you confirming the validity of the data I offered you.
I worked to bring it to you, without compensation.

I have not the expertise to properly and thoroughly investigate the data,
but I did more than you, and just make a claim without pointing out the
parts of the data I found peculiar (as it didn't appear to me to be a properly functioning and smooth-running conveyor of current as I expected to find it.

You made claims as if I intended my words,"doesn't look good" to be interpreted as "the conveyor is breaking down, and were all going to die now", which is not the case.

That is why data is so much better than opinion.

And why I'm still waiting for you to show specifically what areas of the data you find so...perfectly normal, as is the claim you made.

I gave you 39, not 5 photos to peruse. And a day to peruse them. So cough up some positive proof to your claims of everything being rosy (like your colored glasses) wink.gif
adoucette
Keith, you're lies and inane posts are not worth my time.

Adios

Arthur
keith*
QUOTE (adoucette+Jan 17 2010, 07:29 PM)
Keith, you're lies and inane posts are not worth my time.

Adios

Arthur

Thank you, artful.
I'll take that as a "I can't tell you that everything is okay, because I can't or won't try to interpret the data". I suspected such a "bow-out gracefully" from you, dodger.

Next.

http://bulletin.mercator-ocean.fr/html/pro..._20091230_21913
adoucette
World misled over Himalayan glacier meltdown

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/envi...icle6991177.ece

the IPCC report did give its source as the WWF study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the glaciers melting was "very high". The IPCC defines this as having a probability of greater than 90%.

The report read: "Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate."

However, glaciologists find such figures inherently ludicrous

http://www.physforum.com/index.php?showtop...ndpost&p=441062


Arthur
jimlatta
Quantum_Conundrum responded to my quote from Wikipedia that during the mid Pliocene, “…global sea level was 25m higher” (than it is currently) by writing in his post that, “Statements like that are completely and utterly ridiculous.” And “…there is not enough ice on the entire planet to exceed at most 15-20 FEET, which is nowhere near 25m.”

In my post I pasted in the Wikipedia reference from whence I obtained the 25m figure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene

The Wikipedia article referenced a 2008 peer reviewed paper by Dyer and Chandler from which the 25m figure was drawn. http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2009/2009_Dwyer_Chandler.pdf

Quantum_Conundrum, if you feel that Wikipedia contains statements which are, “completely and utterly ridiculous”, you can contact the author of the Wikipedia article and submit a correction. This is one of the best things about Wikipedia. You could also contact the authors of the referenced paper Dyer and Chandler at Duke and Columbia Universities and let them know of your concerns.

The Dyer and Chandler paper is pretty technical, so I will take a quote from a website which I feel gives accurate and easy to understand summations of world-wide ice volumes. http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/waterworld.html

“Using the ice volume figures from above it is straightforward to estimate the effect on sea level were all this ice melted. Melting the 29,300,000 km3 of grounded ice would produce 26,100,000 km3 of water. Note that melting of floating ice has no effect on sea level. Also, about 2,100,000 km3 of the grounded ice in Antarctica is below sea level [19] and would be replaced by water. Thus, the net addition to the world's oceans would be about 24,000,000 km3 of water spread over the 361,000,000 km2 area of the world's oceans, giving a depth of 67 meters. The new ocean area would be slightly larger, of course, since some areas now land would be covered with water. The final result would be around 66 meters (current estimates range between 63 and 75 meters).”

So, a figure of 25m higher sea level from partial ice melting during the mid Pliocene would not seem to be “utterly ridiculous”.

However, none of this has anything to do with the main point of my post, which was that it is frightening that a US government agency, the US Geological Survey, would put out scientific data which is so misleading. Either the USGS audio on the Pliocene was manipulated to promote a government “global warming” agenda or USGS geologists are not aware of plate tectonics, which is equally frightening.
rpenner
Math and science trump astroturf and pseudo-skepticism again.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/On-the-rel...ure-Record.html
adoucette
QUOTE (rpenner+Jan 26 2010, 02:22 PM)
Math and science trump astroturf and pseudo-skepticism again.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/On-the-rel...ure-Record.html

Talk about a Strawman argument.

Nowhere in Anthony's report does he claim that the trends of the two sets of stations are different.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com...rt_spring09.pdf

Notably SurfaceStations.Org has led to a concerted effort to improve the US HCN

From the Author of the report you cite:

QUOTE
we have now also added a citation acknowledging the work of Anthony Watts whose web site is mentioned by the reviewer. Note that we have met personally with Mr. Watts to discuss our homogenization approach and his considerable efforts in documenting the siting characteristics of the HCN are to be commended. Moreover, it would seem that the impetus for modernizing the HCN has come largely as a reaction to his work. “


Arthur
rpenner
Watts wrote in that document:
QUOTE
In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source.

In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.


Which is a clear statement that Watts did indeed claim that "bad" stations are biased towards warming and "good" stations would show either lesser, no, or negative warming.

Please explain, in detail, how you think Menne got it wrong when he wrote
QUOTE (->
QUOTE
In fact, we found that 89 percent of the stations – nearly 9 of every 10 – fail to meet the National Weather Service’s own siting requirements that stations must be 30 meters (about 100 feet) or more away from an artificial heating or radiating/reflecting heat source.

In other words, 9 of every 10 stations are likely reporting higher or rising temperatures because they are badly sited.


Which is a clear statement that Watts did indeed claim that "bad" stations are biased towards warming and "good" stations would show either lesser, no, or negative warming.

Please explain, in detail, how you think Menne got it wrong when he wrote
Results indicate that there is a mean bias associated with poor exposure sites relative to good exposure sites; however, this bias is consistent with previously documented changes associated with the widespread conversion to electronic sensors in the USHCN during the last 25 years. Moreover, the sign of the bias is counterintuitive to photographic documentation of poor exposure because associated instrument changes have led to an artificial negative (“cool”) bias in maximum temperatures and only a slight positive (“warm”) bias in minimum temperatures.
...
Adjustments applied to USHCN Version 2 data largely account for the impact of instrument and siting changes, although a small overall residual negative (“cool”) bias appears to remain in the adjusted maximum temperature series. Nevertheless, the adjusted USHCN temperatures are extremely well aligned with recent measurements from instruments whose exposure characteristics meet the highest standards for climate monitoring. In summary, we find no evidence that the CONUS temperature trends are inflated due to poor station siting.

And please explain how this direct contradiction of Watts' claim that "The conclusion is inescapable: The U.S. temperature record is unreliable." is a strawman argument when it is built on Watts' very own classification of weather stations.

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ushcn/v...ne-etal2010.pdf

What is plurally anecdotal is still not fact-based.
adoucette
There is no question that Watt's thought that the stations might be reporting more warming, which is why he says in that quote LIKELY.

But there is nothing in that report that actually makes any such claim that they are, or indeed, any trend analysis at all.

In fact Menne AGREES with Watt's OPINION.

QUOTE
the sign of the bias is counterintuitive to photographic documentation of poor exposure


The main point is the stations are poorly sited.

Which does call into question their Reliability when so many of them are so poorly sited and maintained.

In fact, considering how important the issue is, it's a DISGRACE.

Which I'm GLAD they are going to fix LARGELY because of Watt's efforts.



Did I say Menne got it wrong?

Gosh, no I didn't.

Why?

Because I haven't had time to read the paper yet.

I'll be real interested to find out how the SIGN of the bias can be COUNTER INTUITIVE to the documentation though.

Arthur
jimlatta
I just read the paper “On the reliability of the U.S. Surface Temperature Record” by Menne, Williams and Palecki which showed that whether US Historical Climate Network temperature measuring sites were well sited or not did not result in any significant difference in temperature anomalies or trends. Their work appears to be legitimate, but I have some doubts (called skepticism).

Firstly, I didn’t try to obtain their original data and reproduce their results, so must assume they did their analysis honestly. Hopefully their work is more honest and less self serving than that of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in computing the CPI, the Bureau of Economic Analysis computing the GDP, or the people at Recovery.gov computing the number of jobs created by the stimulus package? However, all three of the authors work for NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center. It’s certainly not hard to imagine the consternation at their agency with Anthony Watts’ volunteers having pictures posted on the internet showing US National Historic Climate Network temperature monitoring sites next to heated buildings, air conditioner exhausts, busy highways, asphalt parking lots, and sewage treatment plants wafting out warm moist air, or having it revealed that the vast majority of US temperature measuring sites do not meet the agency’s own siting requirements. It’s also not hard to imagine the agency “battening down the hatches” to defend itself against criticism, like the Department of Homeland Security after the terrorist nearly exploded his underpants on a plane over Detroit. Therefore, one must be mindful that their agency’s well being and possibly the authors’ careers are on the line, giving them a very deep vested interest in showing that their agency’s temperature measurements are accurate, which is exactly the result they got.

Secondly, the authors came up to the rather surprising conclusion that it really doesn’t make any significant difference in the temperature readings whether temperature monitoring equipment is well or poorly sited. If this is the case, why have siting requirements at all? Perhaps the authors could turn in a cost saving proposal to do away with most siting requirements, thus giving the agency much more leeway in placing temperature sensors wherever it is cheapest to install and maintain them.

Thirdly, their conclusions are certainly counter-intuitive. Why wouldn’t locating a temperature sensor close to a heat source have any significant affect on the temperatures it measures? I live in a large community in central Florida. Last year we had unusually cold winter temperatures that destroyed a lot of tropical landscaping trees and shrubs. It was very obvious that plants close to buildings, especially south-facing walls, and asphalt parking lots suffered less freeze damage, whereas plants out in the open were destroyed. It’s very easy to see the brown leaves versus green ones. This winter has been even colder and I’m seeing the same affects again. Obviously the siting of plants affects the low temperatures to which they are exposed, so why is this not the case with temperature sensors?

Fourthly, the authors showed that the temperature anomaly trend was similar for well sited versus poorly sited temperature sensors for the period from 1980 to 2008. The National Historic Climate Network says they have good temperature data going back to 1895. If one is demonstrating that anthropogenic global warming is occurring regardless of thermometer siting, why use only 28 years out of 113 years of the available data?

Fifthly, the authors compared plots of temperature anomalies at 454 poorly sited locations with those from 71 well sited locations. Both curves showed significant annual variability, yet both curves were virtually identical. This is a strange result. Normally, using more data points when computing an average reduces the variability of the average. If the results from 71 thermometers, gives almost identical results to those from 454 thermometers, maybe the results from only 10 thermometers are needed to get the same result? Or, how about just use one thermometer in St. Louis? To give credit where credit is due, the National Climate Data Center may be onto something and is in the process of significantly reducing the number of temperature monitoring sites used to compute US and global average temperatures. It may be that the number of sites now used is so large that it’s not providing any significant reduction in random variability.
adoucette
From Anthony's site:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/rumo...ly-exaggerated/


the Menne et al 2010 paper was based on an early version of the surfacestations.org data, at 43% of the network surveyed. The dataset that Dr. Menne used was not quality controlled, and contained errors both in station identification and rating, and was never intended for analysis. I had posted it to direct volunteers to so they could keep track of what stations had been surveyed to eliminate repetitive efforts. When I discovered people were doing ad hoc analysis with it, I stopped updating it.

Our current dataset at has been quality controlled.

There’s quite a backstory to all this.

In the summer, Dr. Menne had been inviting me to co-author with him, and our team reciprocated with an offer to join us also, and we had an agreement in principle for participation, but I asked for a formal letter of invitation, and they refused, which seems very odd to me. The only thing they would provide was a receipt for my new data (at 80%) and an offer to “look into” archiving my station photographs with their existing database. They made it pretty clear that I’d have no significant role other than that of data provider. We also invited Dr. Menne to participate in our paper, but he declined.

The appearance of the Menne et al 2010 paper was a bit of a surprise, since I had been offered collaboration by NCDC’s director in the fall. In typed letter on 9/22/09 Tom Karl wrote to me:

“We at NOAA/NCDC seek a way forward to cooperate with you, and are interested in joint scientific inquiry. When more or better information is available, we will reanalyze and compare and contrast the results.”

“If working together cooperatively is of interest to you, please let us know.”

I discussed it with Dr. Pielke Sr. and the rest of the team, which took some time since not all were available due to travel and other obligations. It was decided to reply to NCDC on a collaboration offer.

On November 10th, 2009, I sent a reply letter via Federal Express to Mr. Karl, advising him that we would like to collaborate, and offered to include NCDC in our paper.. In that letter I also reiterated my concerns about use of the preliminary surfacestation data (43% surveyed) that they had, and spelled out very specific reasons why I didn’t think the results would be representative nor useful.

We all waited, but there was no reply from NCDC to our reply to offer of collaboration by Mr. Karl from his last letter. Not even a “thank you, but no”.

Then we discovered that Dr. Menne’s group had submitted a paper to JGR Atmospheres using my preliminary data and it was in press. This was a shock to me since I was told it was normal procedure for the person who gathered the primary data the paper was based on to have some input in the review process by the journal.

NCDC uses data from one of the largest volunteer organization in the world, the NOAA Cooperative Observer Network. Yet NCDC director Karl, by not bothering to reply to our letter about an offer he initiated, and by the journal not giving me any review process opportunity, extends what Dr. Roger Pielke Senior calls “professional discourtesy” to my own volunteers and my team’s work


ConkIin

Official Global Warming data from: h ttp://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

Meteorological station data is a plot of global annual-mean surface air temperature change,
with the base period 1951 to 1980... [This is an update of Figure 6(b) in Hansen et al. (2001).]

Notice the temperature anomaly scale. The graph is in TENTHS of a degree C.

The overall temperature anomaly is only +0.7 C. (+1.26 F) over ONE HUNDRED THIRTY YEARS.

Oh, the humanity and all the passengers!

Draw the graph in degrees C. and all that alleged Global Warming becomes noise:

+1C ______________________________________________________________________
...............................................................::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-1C ______________________________________________________________________

Figures do not lie, but liars, like Algore, know how to figure.
rpenner
Predictably wrong.

The base period (time from which the anomaly is measured) is not 131 years ago, but is clearly labeled as the average taken from the years 1951-1980. So 30-60 years. And if a true average is representative of the middle of the period, then that's 45 years, and so 0.71 degrees over 45 years works out to be more fairly, 0.158 degrees per decade, representing a range of 0.12-0.24 degrees per decade.

The 131 years is there to say that the global average temperature for January 2010 is the 2nd highest global average for a January in 131 years, and specfically it was hotter than 1998 and 2005 which had the two hottest annual averages.

My God, man! If you can't read a graph, please stay out of the argument. Otherwise, everyone will assume you are an incompetent liar.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/
enord
pierce corbyn also disagrees with global warming and he has quite a track record currently, climatologically speaking.
rpenner
Let's look at his track record:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/c...ers-958237.html
QUOTE
Piers Corbyn is the maverick Weather forecaster and owner of Weather Action, which makes forecasts up to a year in advance based on Corbyn's theory of the 'Solar Weather Technique'
...
"Temperatures rose since about 1915, but if you look in more detail, estimates show that they've declined since 2002. As it grew, the global-warming empire set about trying to find data to prove its case, but the data it found actually disproves its case. That's why the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Project doesn't highlight the results that negate the theory.


Since 2002? This guy knows and says nothing about climate, but talks about weather.
Here's Hansen's Land+Sea and Station averages.
CODE (->
QUOTE
Piers Corbyn is the maverick Weather forecaster and owner of Weather Action, which makes forecasts up to a year in advance based on Corbyn's theory of the 'Solar Weather Technique'
...
"Temperatures rose since about 1915, but if you look in more detail, estimates show that they've declined since 2002. As it grew, the global-warming empire set about trying to find data to prove its case, but the data it found actually disproves its case. That's why the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Project doesn't highlight the results that negate the theory.


Since 2002? This guy knows and says nothing about climate, but talks about weather.
Here's Hansen's Land+Sea and Station averages.
Direct measurements of solar output since 1978 show a steady rise and fall over the 11-year sunspot cycle, but no upwards or downward trend .

Similarly, there is no trend in direct measurements of the Sun's ultraviolet output and in cosmic rays. So for the period for which we have direct, reliable records, the Earth has warmed dramatically even though there has been no corresponding rise in any kind of solar activity.
adoucette
QUOTE (rpenner+Feb 22 2010, 04:47 PM)
Also, solar forcing is going the wrong way to explain why global average temperatures continue to rise decade-to-decade.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1165...not-humans.html


Why such a SHORT record when the data goes back much further?

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/irradiance.gif

Data here:

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/c..._irradiance.txt

Puts the warming of the late 20th century in a slightly better perspective, don't you think?

Oh, and given the massive heat sink that is our oceans, no one would expect that air temps would track the short 11 year sun spot cycles.

Arthur
keith*
QUOTE (rpenner @ Feb 22 2010, 04:47 PM)
Also, solar forcing is going the wrong way to explain why global average temperatures continue to rise decade-to-decade.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1165...not-humans.html

QUOTE (adoucette+Feb 23 2010, 01:56 AM)
Why such a SHORT record when the data goes back much further?

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/irradiance.gif

Data here:

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/c..._irradiance.txt

Puts the warming of the late 20th century in a slightly better perspective, don't you think?

Oh, and given the massive heat sink that is our oceans, no one would expect that air temps would track the short 11 year sun spot cycles.

Arthur



Reading further into rpenner's informative Newscientist link (that adouchette quoted):

"...It is true that sunspot records go back to the 17th century, but sunspots actually block the Sun's radiation. It is the smaller bright spots (faculae) that increase the Sun's output and these were not recorded until more recently..."

It would seem too, from your link sources, that even when considering the full time span, that the wattage range indicated is, from an "outside the earth atmosphere" adjusted reading, and therefore insignificant in discussing "inner atmosphere" conditions.

A "slightly better perspective" would be to consider the danger of rising wattages caused by a breakdown in "atmospheric shielding structures" from more significant, closer-to-human industry and activity sources.

And of the last "heat sink" point--water traps heat longer, and is more efficient at transporting it around (in currents), spreading its heat effects broadly, as well as disturbing the flow of colder currents.
adoucette
QUOTE (keith*+Feb 23 2010, 02:43 PM)
Reading further into rpenner's Newscientist link that you quoted:

"...It is true that sunspot records go back to the 17th century, but sunspots actually block the Sun's radiation. It is the smaller bright spots (faculae) that increase the Sun's output and these were not recorded until more recently..."


Sunspots = more Radiance, even though sunspots themselves are less radiant.

QUOTE
Intuitively one may assume the that total solar irradiance would decrease as the number of (optically dark) sunspots increased. However direct satellite measurements of irradiance have shown just the opposite to be the case. This means that more sunspots deliver more energy to the atmosphere, so that global temperatures should rise.


http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/...2/sunspots.html

QUOTE (->
QUOTE
Intuitively one may assume the that total solar irradiance would decrease as the number of (optically dark) sunspots increased. However direct satellite measurements of irradiance have shown just the opposite to be the case. This means that more sunspots deliver more energy to the atmosphere, so that global temperatures should rise.


http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/...2/sunspots.html

It would seem too, from your link sources, that even when considering the full time span, that the wattage range indicated is, from an "outside the earth atmosphere" adjusted reading, and therefore insignificant in discussing "inner atmosphere" conditions.


Not at all.
The energy arriving each day is the primary force that drives our climate.
If the sun's energy took a nose dive (or increased) by just 1 percent it would be all over but the shouting.
Readings are taken outside the earth atmosphere such that changes of energy arriving at the earth over time can be accurately recorded, without atmospheric affects distorting the readings.

QUOTE (keith*+)
A "slightly better perspective" would be to consider the danger of rising wattages caused by a breakdown in "atmospheric shielding structures" from more significant, closer-to-human industry and activity sources.


I have no idea what mean by this.

Arthur
keith*
QUOTE (adoucette+Feb 23 2010, 07:59 PM)
"...Readings are taken outside the earth atmosphere...without atmospheric affects distorting the readings..."

Yeah, always with those pesky atmospheric "effects"...

By the time it's "all over but the shouting", maybe we will have some industry-contrived "auto-shudders", to stand in as an atmosphere. (Got to keep abreast of these space-based industry market opportunities) wink.gif huh.gif dry.gif
ConkIin
I am asking this forum a question:

O'Reilly on FOX interviewed two educated weather/climate experts.
One expert said: "The last decade has been the hottest on record."
One expert said: "The Earth has been cooling for the past ten years."

What is the perfect truth? There are several possibilities...

1. Both experts are CORRECT. To wit: Observe a red-hot poker for 10 minutes.
The poker remains very hot for 10 minutes. The poker has also been cooling for 10 minutes.

2. Both experts made CORRECT conclusions using different data sets which may-or-may-not be valid, exaggerated, manipulated or invalid.

3. One expert is WRONG, exaggerating, or being deliberately untruthful.

4. Both experts are WRONG, exaggerating, or being deliberately untruthful.

5. Both experts are WRONG because the subject is actually unknowable.

6. Other...

flyingbuttressman
QUOTE (ConkIin+Feb 24 2010, 11:46 AM)
O'Reilly on FOX interviewed two educated weather/climate experts.
One expert said: "The last decade has been the hottest on record."
One expert said: "The Earth has been cooling for the past ten years."

Bill Nye vs. a random weatherman?
Not really a contest.
The meteorologist kept bringing up short-term localized variables while Nye was referencing long-term world-wide variables.

If we are undergoing a cooling period, why are the ice caps melting?
People don't seem to get that the effect of global warming isn't heat, it's precipitation. Warmer oceans mean more evaporation. That's the difference between a chilly winter day and a blizzard.
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