Yeah, but not in such quantities!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

This fresh water pumped to where it is needed could make a difference any where in the world.

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Thank God for magnetism.

Besides - everywhere is uphill from the south pole. If it was from the north pole it would make a lot more sense.

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

It is as negative and untrue to fear for the future of our children as it is to say we were all happier when we were cold and hungry. Flood famine pestilence natural disasters......err anything new?

Alex

Welcome to BAUT, Lexi. If you haven't seen them already, here's the rules. Hope you enjoy the conversations here, there's a lot to learn.

I don't think wanting the future to have less of the kinds of disasters that may be preventable, or at least able to be mitigated, is in any way "negative". Wanting to make the world a better place, for our kids or someone else's, is a positive, in my opinion. Nor do I think trying to anticipate the possibility of harmful situations is "untrue", since the more information you have, the better you can make plans.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Thank you my friend. I think the forum is very interesting and varied.

Yes I see your point and of course it is valid as you put it. I see the fear as negative....especially the fear of change. The untruth is that

(1): You can predict the short term future of the planet

(2): We have had a better deal than our forefathers.. but our children will not have. That sounds like pessimism rather than logic.

Alex

I don't think either one has been postulated on this thread.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

"There is no doubt the climate is shifting."

There is no evidence for this.

attached is a temp graph for a Greenland station. Other than a modest increase in the 1930's and a subsequent fall, there is no temperature trend.

The climate is not shifting.

Any suggestion that it is, other than over long periods, is a scientific fraud.

Attached Images

Godthab Nuuk station_sm.jpg (88.4 KB, 13 views)

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

I think the world is safe from any immediate flood danger:

from
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22430


"The IPCC now says the combined contribution of the two great ice-sheets to sea-level rise will be less than seven centimeters after 100 years, not seven meters imminently, and that the Greenland ice sheet (which thickened by 50 cm between 1995 and 2005) might only melt after several millennia, probably by natural causes, just as it last did 850,000 years ago. Gore, mendaciously assisted by the IPCC bureaucracy, had exaggerated a hundredfold."

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

That's not what the November Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report in this link, page 13 states:
I'd like to see a link fron Heartland where IPCC states otherwise.
Also from the heartland link: I don't understand this. Could someone please explain? I find it hard to believe "the IPCC has repealed the fundamental physicalthe Stefan-Boltzmann equation". (sic).
I did a search on "Monckton" of the Appendices I-V: Glossary, Contributors, Reviewers, Acronyms, Permissions link and his name does not show up. Am I missing something?

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"To excel in physics is to embrace doubt while walking the winding road to clarity." - Brian Greene

in which Monckton makes the claim:

"The result of this dishonest political tampering with the science was that the sum of the four items in the offending table was more than twice the IPCC’s published total. Until I wrote to point out the error, no one had noticed. The IPCC, on receiving my letter, quietly corrected, moved and relabeled the erroneous table, posting the new version on the internet and earning me my Nobel prize."

Oh, so his contribution was by way of a letter in which he points out that there was an error in the values contained in a table. Nevertheless, by Monckton's own statement, the IPCC was claiming a lesser value than the sum of the erroneous values. That doesn't appear conspiratorial to me. The errata for the Working Group I contribution to the report admits to errors in the labelling of graphs to the tune of 10x. But hey, Monckton claims his letter changed the IPCC report! Therefore he shares in the Nobel prize. Yet he's not listed as a contributor or reviewer for any of the components of the report.

"The IPCC now says the combined contribution of the two great ice-sheets to sea-level rise will be less than seven centimeters after 100 years, not seven meters imminently, and that the Greenland ice sheet (which thickened by 50 cm between 1995 and 2005) might only melt after several millennia, probably by natural causes, just as it last did 850,000 years ago. Gore, mendaciously assisted by the IPCC bureaucracy, had exaggerated a hundredfold."

That comment about the 50 cm increase in thickness is interesting: just kinda sits there, a seed of doubt.

So here's the abstract from a recent review article on the topic (Recent Sea-Level Contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, Andrew Shepherd and Duncan Wingham, Science 16 March 2007: Vol. 315. no. 5818, pp. 1529 - 1532):

"After a century of polar exploration, the past decade of satellite measurements has painted an altogether new picture of how Earth's ice sheets are changing. As global temperatures have risen, so have rates of snowfall, ice melting, and glacier flow. Although the balance between these opposing processes has varied considerably on a regional scale, data show that Antarctica and Greenland are each losing mass overall. Our best estimate of their combined imbalance is about 125 gigatons per year of ice, enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters per year. This is only a modest contribution to the present rate of sea-level rise of 3.0 millimeters per year. However, much of the loss from Antarctica and Greenland is the result of the flow of ice to the ocean from ice streams and glaciers, which has accelerated over the past decade. In both continents, there are suspected triggers for the accelerated ice discharge—surface and ocean warming, respectively—and, over the course of the 21st century, these processes could rapidly counteract the snowfall gains predicted by present coupled climate models."

And regarding Greenland, from the body of that paper:

"Since the most recent IPCC report, there have been seven estimates of Greenland mass imbalance based on satellite altimetry (18), interferometry (12), and gravimetry (11, 15, 16, 19, 20). There is consensus that during the 1990s the interior underwent modest snowfall-driven growth, which appears to be associated with a precipitation trend present in the meteorological record (32), offset by losses from lower altitude regions (Fig. 3, A and B). The decadal imbalance is not accurately determined. The more positive satellite altimeter estimate (18) is affected by signal loss in the steeper coastal margins; the aircraft laser measurements (8) are relatively sparse, although more sensitive to losses from marginal glaciers; and the mass-budget estimate (12) is undermined by the uncertainty of some 50 Gt year–1 in the accumulation. Nonetheless, the consensus of these measurements suggests a net loss in the 1990s of some 50 Gt year–1." (my bold)

So, there is more to the story than what Monckton states. The authors of this review actually discuss the weaknesses of the data and the problem with the variablity of the ice discharge rate. But it's odd that Monckton would not reference a very recent review article on the topic.

But that shouldn't come as a surprise, given that Monckton's superb scholarship led him to write last year "There was little ice at the North Pole: a Chinese naval squadron sailed right round the Arctic in 1421 and found none." 1421 debunked.

No, relying on any one report or source is suspect. There's plenty of bias and misinformation out there, the overall weight of evidence needs to be examined rather than any one chart or paper. Calling it "fraud" just becuase you disagree with someone's interpretation of the data available is nothing but an Ad Hom. Attributing motivations to a viewpoint is not science.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

I think what you mean to say is that Science is about falsification, not confirmation bias. One observation can disprove a theory. Or at least it should. The fact that Mann's hockey stick temperature graph is trash, and that the 1930's were the hottest period of the last C, and that temperatures are declining in the face of increasing CO2, or that there is little evidence that antartica is anywhere but at maximum sea ice this winter would indicate that AGW is pox.

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

The sea ice in antartica shows no abnormalities. see attached.

Any anomalies at the north pole can be explained by either normal variations or changes in ocean circulation. It does not necessarily indicate "catastrophic climate change".

So how falsifiable is AGW, or is it an example of confirmatory bias?

I suspect it will be the biggest hoax since Piltdown Man.

Attached Images

currentareasouths.gif (35.7 KB, 7 views)

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

An excellent example of confirmatory bias is this article:

http://www.physorg.com/news116505069.html

This indicates that the data displays that: "the effects of the current warming and melting of Greenland 's glaciers that has alarmed the world's climate scientists occurred in the decades following an abrupt warming in the 1920s. "

due no doubt to high temperatures in the 1930's (see graph)

but then they go way beyond the data to say:

"The fact that recent changes to Greenland's ice sheet mirror its behavior nearly 70 years ago is increasing researchers' confidence and alarm as to what the future holds. Recent warming around the frozen island actually lags behind the global average warming pattern by about 1-2 degrees C but if it fell into synch with global temperatures in a few years, the massive ice sheet might pass its “threshold of viability” – a tipping point where the loss of ice couldn't be stopped.

“Once you pass that threshold,” Box said, “the current science suggests that it would become an irreversible process. And we simply don't know how fast that might happen, how fast the ice might disappear.” .."

This is not science, it is speculation. In fact it is hysterical speculation. "The current science suggests that it would become an irreversible process"?

This is not science, it is a green cult, and it is likely, should current temperature trends continue to fall, to damage science very badly.

Attached Images

uhcn8.gif (21.7 KB, 5 views)

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

ArgoNavis, just because someone disagrees with your conclusions does not make them "hysterical" or part of "a cult". Once again you are making statements about people rather than facts. Please stop.

Per the rules:

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Double post.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

One observation can disprove a theory. Or at least it should.

Often, an observation that does not fit the contemporary understanding or formulation of a theory suggests it's more complicated than than was first thought. A strong theory will be able to accomodate it. A weak one is more likely to succumb.

The fact that Mann's hockey stick temperature graph is trash

Odd, this obsession with Mann's graph. There are others, and we've been over this ground.

and that the 1930's were the hottest period of the last C(entury)

Perhaps as averaged for the USA, per Hansen's paper, but not globally, also per Hansen's paper. This too has been pointed out. Why do you choose to focus on 2% of the Earth's surface, when Hansen gives reasons why the average for the USA behaved as it did, and ignore the graph for the rest of the globe? And, Hansen also drew attention to the within-USA variation. (see graph)

and that temperatures are declining in the face of increasing CO2

not globally (see graph)


or that there is little evidence that antartica is anywhere but at maximum sea ice this winter

And no one is disputing this. The last IPCC report (Chapter 15, working group 2) states

"There has been no overall change in Antarctic sea-ice extent over the period 1973-1996. . .
. . but thickening of the Antarctic ice sheet due to increased precipitation, were projected.

elsewhere, same chapter:

Recent changes in volume of the Antarctic ice sheet are much better mapped and understood than they were in the TAR, but competing theories over the causes still limits confidence in prediction of the future changes. . .
. . . Studies based on satellite observations do not provide unequivocal evidence concerning the mass balance of the East Antarctic ice sheet; some appear to indicate marginal thickening (Davis et al., 2005), while others indicate little change (Zwally et al., 2005; Velicogna and Wahr, 2006;Wingham et al., 2006).

And chapter 4 of working group 1 reported: There is a significant decreasing trend in arctic sea ice extent of –33 ± 7.4 × 10³ km2 yr–1 (equivalent to –2.7 ± 0.6% per decade), whereas the antarctic results show a small positive trend of 5.6 ± 9.2 × 10³ km2 yr–1 (0.47 ± 0.8% per decade), which is not statistically significant. . . .In summary, the antarctic data provide evidence of a decline in sea ice extent in some regions, but there are insufficient data to draw firm conclusions about hemispheric changes prior to the satellite era.

("Some regions" is a reference some antarctic subregions having more ice and others less)

And, interestingly, after discussing the Velicogna and Wahr paper that prompted this thread, the IPCC report stresses that the error terms in some of the mass balance papers are estimated, rather than the result of formal statistical derivations. So they seem very cautious in making statements about ice loss in Antartica (except for the peninsula). BTW, I've read that paper, and it seems to me there is a lot of estimating in it, but at least it's an effort to quantify what's going on there.


Any anomalies at the north pole can be explained by either normal variations or changes in ocean circulation. It does not necessarily indicate "catastrophic climate change".

Care to explain what is changing the ocean circulation?


due no doubt to high temperatures in the 1930's (see graph)

but then they go way beyond the data to say:

"The fact that recent changes to Greenland's ice sheet mirror its behavior nearly 70 years ago is increasing researchers' confidence and alarm as to what the future holds. Recent warming around the frozen island actually lags behind the global average warming pattern by about 1-2 degrees C but if it fell into synch with global temperatures in a few years, the massive ice sheet might pass its “threshold of viability” – a tipping point where the loss of ice couldn't be stopped.

You attached Hansen's USA graph, but fail to show his global temperature graph. Why is that? The USA and global temperatures both rose through the 1920s, and the 1930's were warmer than the 1920s. Since you choose to show US temperatures, perhaps as a proxy for Greenland (?), then you'll note the increase in US temperatures has not been as great since the 1970s as for the rest of the globe. All they are suggesting is that if Greenland temperatures begin to behave in synch with global temperatures as they did back then, the already increased rate of melting will accelerate. Current science would probably take into account things such as the change in albedo as more land is exposed.

This is not science, it is a green cult, and it is likely, should current temperature trends continue to fall, to damage science very badly

You should examine a larger area of the globe than just USA for your temperature data. (see graph)

I haven't found a convenient copy of Hansen's global chart to link to, but the one I've attached shows the same basic thing. Credit: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki...ure_Record_png

Attached Images

Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png (120.0 KB, 7 views)

Looks like the Arctic Ocean could be ice free by 2013.
BBC

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"To excel in physics is to embrace doubt while walking the winding road to clarity." - Brian Greene

I am not part of any green cult, I am just concerned about protecting the only home humanity has for the time being.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

I really don't think Hansen has much credibility.

try:

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/scale1.html

as a record of recent world temperatures.

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

That a problem, KaiYeves, as high motives can be used to justify some aweful actions.

If you ever watched "The Ascent of Man", the last scenes were of the late Dr Jacob Bronowski digging into the dirt of Auchitz, saying that this is where some of his realtives are, and that human arrogance and certitude put them there. It is not an academic argument.

No regret measures are fine, damaging economic growth is not, because this is how we pay for many environmental measure and also how we fund innovation to solve the problems of tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUJ_H0KSWhM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAXhKhBQdm0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoPLnD7oxf0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B3h0AACC2M

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

But what about the irreversible damage to environment caused by economic growth? And when the damage starts to cause economic losses? Can anyone know how much nature can be safely damaged? Ecological disasters are rarely intentional.

I don't think the model you're proposing is reasonable. Take for example China: it is fair that the Chinese get the same economical level we already have, and it is certainly understandable they really want that. However, if they destroy their environment because of short-sighted economical decisions, they may never be able to get prosperous and it may be too late to find ways to tackle the problems then. Don't underestimate the cost of environmental damage. Economical losses alone are already huge.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

Incredible. If they're right, this is really bad news. Just recently the "alarmist" IPCC predicted that this could happen in 2050-2100. The Arctic Ocean with its reflective ice has acted as cooler; if the ice is gone, the ocean becomes a heater because dark ocean absorbs solar energy effectively. Warmer Arctic may in turn change the jet streams in the northern hemisphere, which leads to major changes in rain patterns. Droughts, floods, and such.

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Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman

Oh, so now you present a graph that does show a rise in temperature. But the scale is set so that the increase doesn't appear that striking. By that logic, why don't we just set the low end of the scale to 0 K in order to show the range in temperatures over year for a place such as Vancouver Airport, Canada. (see graph) That's last year's data showing a range of 33 degrees.

Also, the comment in your linked graph about the CO₂ being a trace gas completely ignores the known physical properties of that gas in the atmosphere. The IR absorbing property of CO₂ is how its concentration is measured. The CFCs we were spewing are also a trace gas, with very stiking effects on other constituents of the atmosphere.

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Vancouver Airport Mean Daily Temperatures in 2006.gif (15.6 KB, 62 views)

Its called the Artic Oscillation.

http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/patterns/...cillation.html

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

Yes, there is an arctic oscillation (AO). The link you provide describes it in general terms. But notice this observation:

"Over most of the past century, the Arctic Oscillation alternated between its positive and negative phases. Starting in the 1970s, however, the oscillation has tended to stay in the positive phase, causing lower than normal arctic air pressure and higher than normal temperatures in much of the United States and northern Eurasia."

Do I read that correctly? The oscillation isn't oscillating???? (Elsewhere, it is described as being in a more neutral state since the mid 1990s.)

Maybe that explains the text, images, and graphs on this page from the same site.

From that page:

Serreze said, 'The sea ice cover is in a downward spiral and may have passed the point of no return. As the years go by, we are losing more and more ice in summer, and growing back less and less ice in winter. We may well see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer within our lifetimes.' The scientists agree that this could occur by 2030."

Interesting are Serreze's (and colleagues) thoughts going back just a few years. For example on March 16, 2007, the abstract of a review article written for Science, in which they describe a very complicated picture and the challenges of modeling it, states:

"Linear trends in arctic sea-ice extent over the period 1979 to 2006 are negative in every month. This ice loss is best viewed as a combination of strong natural variability in the coupled ice-ocean-atmosphere system and a growing radiative forcing associated with rising concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, the latter supported by evidence of qualitative consistency between observed trends and those simulated by climate models over the same period. Although the large scatter between individual model simulations leads to much uncertainty as to when a seasonally ice-free Arctic Ocean might be realized, this transition to a new arctic state may be rapid once the ice thins to a more vulnerable state. Loss of the ice cover is expected to affect the Arctic's freshwater system and surface energy budget and could be manifested in middle latitudes as altered patterns of atmospheric circulation and precipitation."

Here's what the evil IPCC 2007 report states:

"Serreze and Francis (2006) have discussed the attribution of recent changes in terms of natural variability and anthropogenic forcing, concluding that a substantial proportion of the recent variability is circulation driven, and that the Arctic is in the early stages of a manifestation of a human-induced greenhouse signature. This conclusion is based largely on the relatively slow rate of emergence of the greenhouse signal in model simulations of the late 20th and early 21st centuries."

And at the December 2004 American Geophysical Union meeting, Science attributed this to Serreze:

"The AO index fell back toward more normal levels in the late '90s, he notes, but the ice hasn't recovered yet. Because Arctic warming has been lengthening the period in the summer during which ice can melt, he says, Arctic ice may well continue to shrink, although probably not as rapidly as it did recently.

Wow, was he ever wrong about that!

From the same site you referenced, is this article indicating just how conservative the climate models have been in predicting ice loss. Take a close look at the chart that shows the descrepancy between the models and the observations. Notice it was written before this September's record low ice was reported and after the IPCC 2007 report.

Hmmm, this is interesting: Last Interglacial arctic warmth confirms polar amplification of climate change. The paper concludes:

Thus, the pattern of warming may differ in the coming decades from those observed in the LIG. However, the strong thermal response of the Arctic to primary summer insolation forcing during the LIG suggests that future Arctic changes related to the continuing build up of greenhouse gases are likely to be much larger than at lower latitudes."

There's a fairly good summary of the issues at this Weather Underground discussion of arctic sea ice

Anyway, the changes in the arctic are big. I think those guys might be onto something with their attribution of part of it to GHG forced climate change: a little more than the AO alone.

Kullat typed: Don't underestimate the cost of environmental damage. Economical losses alone are already huge.
Maybe in Brazil and China, I haven't been there and I don't trust any sources of information. In my neighborhood, here in Jacksonville, Florida, the cost would be enormous to put it back exactly the way it was 300 years ago. Why would we want to do that? For a few hundred dollars per acre, we could make the neigborhood better for present ecology which is mostly humans and their pets and giant hardwood shade trees. Environmental losses are mostly projected = have not happed yet = may not happen. Some are of the opinion that we should not barrow trouble from the future. My guess is a reasonable compromise is best. Let's fix the most obvious problems and hope for the best.
I have yet to read a workable plan for carbon nuetral. Can anyone give details of a solution that costs less than one dollar per kilogram of carbon dioxide, kept out of the atmosphere for 100 years? I like SSP = space solar power. A billion dollars spent on SSP, doubling each year for the next ten years, might give us SSP that would avoid 100 billion kilograms = 100 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2099. Call your Congressmen if you agree. www.spacesolarpower.wordpress.com Neil

Well, I've just been watching the power of the planet, and it's been talking about that if the cycle or belt or whatever it's called of warm and cold water stops it could have devistating consequences. As it's supposed to supply 50% of the earths oxygen. Hopefully if the ice caps melt completely, the water will still always be cold enough to continue the cycle.

It's not just the temperature. Salt water is denser than fresh water at the same temperature.

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson