Global Warming for Dummies

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by Miss Shelby

Hey thanks for that list Chuck F, you could have posted that right from the get go if you would have wanted to be half way cool about it.

I think you meant me, not Chuck. Chuck is more than half cool (.57 cool) whether he wants to be or not.

What I did to get that list was, I read your first few posts, then I went to Google and typed in scientists clock global warming. The first several hits were all on the Doomsday Clock story, and all mentioned the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. I went to their website and clicked on the link for their scientific advisory board. Voila! The list. When the subject came up later in the thread, I copied the list into a post.

In this way, and related ways, one can learn many things through search engines and a very little bit of effort. And then share them with others. Even if in a not-halfway-cool manner.

[Miss Shelby]

woops sorry bout the mix up clutch. well yeah i guess it was a bone head move to not google it that way. I didn't think it would turn that much up, i just read that one article, a while ago. But I do learn some stuff occasionally by interacting with people on the web, and a lot of times if someone who I trust as knowledgeable recommends something, then I might tend to give it some more credibility than if I just searched for it myself on google. I don't always trust my own judgement about such things, especially things I am completeley ignorant about. thanks again and sorry about the uncool comment.

[Leesifer]

So, on reflection and reading back through the thread, I apologise for my previous posts.

[Pan Narrans]

Originally Posted by Leesifer

So, on reflection and reading back through the thread, I apologise for my previous posts.

Just kidding. Please don't hurt me.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by Leesifer

So, on reflection and reading back through the thread, I apologise for my previous posts.

Bitch.

[fragment]

I apologise for someone else's previous posts.

[Farren]

Originally Posted by fragment

I apologise for someone else's previous posts.

I apologise for fragment's useless contribution.

[Naru]

[Farren]

Hedonism bot! Priceless!

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by Smilin

So, I'm taking it....one should never call another a "wingnut"? That's the premise I've gotten out of this whole thread...

Well....yeah...A wingnut like you would.

I apologise for helping to prolong Madonna's career.

[Thinker]

Al Gore does not understand science.

The increase in CO2 on his chart over thousands of years, followed global warming, and were not the Cause of global warming.

CO2 was produced by warming oceans, that created more active fish and anmimal life, that created more CO2 in the air.

The warming of the oceans is caused primarily by Geotermic activitiy, like volcanos under the ocean. Under-sea volcanos are not being acuratley recorded for the heat given to the Oceans.

Ocean: Hydrothermal

Ocean life controls carbon dioxide

http://personals.galaxyinternet.net/...balWarming.pdf

The INconvenien Truth movie points to man. But Al Gore doctored the data, to cover up the Marine ecosystem as a past major contributor.
..

[The Lone Ranger]

I have some problems with Gore's analyses, but I don't think he's the one with serious misunderstandings here. And his is hardly the last word on the subject of global warming.


There is a complex interplay between CO2 levels and mean global temperature. Since increased temperature sometimes precedes increased CO2 levels, according to paleoclimate data, some people have illogically concluded that increased atmospheric CO2 levels are merely a result of global warming, and not a contributing factor. This is untrue.

Rising global temperatures do lead to increased atmospheric CO2 levels, since increased temperatures lead to higher rates of respiration and decomposition, as well as release of CO2 trapped in Arctic soils. Also, the temperature of seawater affects solubility of CO2, and so warming temperatures lead to more outgassing of CO2 from the oceans.

In these long-term climate changes, the initial change was probably due to Milankovic cycles. Once the mean temperature starts to increase, this triggers release of more CO2 into the atmosphere, which can cause the temperature to increase even more as a feedback system comes into play. The evidence strongly suggests that the bulk of the warming is indeed due to rising CO2 levels.

Originally Posted by Thinker

CO2 was produced by warming oceans, that created more active fish and anmimal life, that created more CO2 in the air.

Actually, fish and other animals are such a minute volume of the world's oceans that they contribute almost nothing to atmospheric CO2 levels in the short term (over a few thousand years). Changes in solubility of CO2 with temperature are far more important in contributing to atmospheric CO2 levels, as the oceans are a vast reservoir of dissolved CO2. As water warms, it can hold less CO2, so the oceans release more of it into the atmosphere.

The warming of the oceans is caused primarily by Geotermic activitiy, like volcanos under the ocean. Under-sea volcanos are not being acuratley recorded for the heat given to the Oceans.

The word you're searching for, I believe, is Geothermal. Regardless, there is no evidence that the amount of heat delivered to the oceans by hydrothermal vents varies significantly. If you know of such evidence, please present it and collect your Nobel Prize.

Let's consider the implications of what you're claiming here. For hydrothermal vents (located on the bottoms of the oceans) to release enough heat to cause the mean temperatures of the oceans' surfaces to increase by several degrees and the atmosphere too, would require a tremendous increase in geothermal/volcanic activity.

Question: Where is all of this magical excess heat coming from? And where did it go? That much activity just a few tens of thousands of years ago would have left plenty of evidence.

When I say "plenty of evidence," I'm talking more or less along the lines of "killed pretty-much every living thing on the planet," by the way. You can't dump that much heat into the biosphere without some serious consequences. For one thing, all of that volcanic activity would have caused acidification of both precipitation and of the oceans on an unprecedented scale. Why didn't it kill off virtually all life on the planet? Also, why didn't the addition of so much heat to the oceans that it caused a rise of several degrees in the surface temperature kill off virtually all benthic ecosystems? (The temperature change in the deeper oceans from that tremendous heat influx would have been much more drastic.)

***

The paper you linked to by James A. Marusek contains a grand total of zero references, numerous misleading claims, and some outright falsehoods. There's a reason why it hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal. If any of my students turned in such a shoddy piece of "scholarship," I'd flunk them immediately.

***

The oceans do play an important role in mean global temperatures -- a crucial role, in fact. But not in the way you seem to think.

Cheers,

Michael

[Farren]

Originally Posted by Uthgar the Brazen

I apologise for helping to prolong Madonna's career.

I hate you so much

[Farren]

re: Michael

Its interesting how Gore is the go-to guy for many critics of the claim of human influence on global warming. Why not go to the scientific community rather than a (reasonably informed) activist if you're going to argue about the science?

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Farren

Its interesting how Gore is the go-to guy for many critics of the claim of human influence on global warming. Why not go to the scientific community rather than a (reasonably informed) activist if you're going to argue about the science?

Indeed. If I were a cynical person, I'd suspect that a lot of GW "skeptics" are motivated more by politics than by science. But, surely, that can't be the case. Apparently, they're privy to scientific data that the rest of us (including, oddly enough, those of us who are actually part of the scientific community) don't have access to.

I do wish they'd share it, though.

Cheers,

Michael

[fragment]

Hmm, changes in submarine volcanism rates as a cause of global warming? Just when I think I've seen them all...

[Thinker]

Here is some more info on Geothermal Ocean Info.

Underwater Volcanos release liquid CO2

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm0...fm05_V44A.html


Inconvenient Truth Misrepresentations:

Rebuttal to Inconvenient Truth

"Claims that CO2 concentrations in the Holocene never rose above 300 parts per million (ppm) in pre-industrial times, and that the current level - 380 ppm - is "way above" the range of natural variability. Proxy data (leaf stoma frequency) indicate that, in the early Holocene, CO2 levels exceeded 330 ppm for centuries and reached 348 ppm."

I have so far been unable to find the references which I have previously read, that stated that the increased CO2 in the past were due to increase activities of animal life in the Oceans when warming occurred, in past thousands of years.



..

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Thinker

Here is some more info on Geothermal Ocean Info.

Underwater Volcanos release liquid CO2

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm05/fm0...fm05_V44A.html

None of those abstracts claims or even suggests that "warming of the oceans is caused primarily by Geotermic activitiy".

Certainly, none of them explain how massively-increased volcanic activity -- sufficient to directly raise mean oceanic temperatures by several degrees -- could have occurred without leaving massive amounts of evidence in the geological record and killing off virtually all life in the oceans by destroying most benthic ecosystems and acidifying the oceans to the point that it's likely nothing but extremophile bacteria could survive in them.

Underwater Volcanos release liquid CO2

That's the point. In addition to CO2, volcanic activity releases sulfur and nitrogen oxides. When dissolved into water, these form acids. Here's the relevant chemical equation for carbon dioxide dissolved in water:

CO2 + H2O ↔ H2CO3 [carbonic acid] ↔ H+ + HCO3-

Even if we excuse the fact that these hypothetical massive volcanic eruptions failed to leave any evidence behind, there's still the inconvenient fact that eruptions on this scale would have acidified the oceans to the point of killing off most marine life. [Not to mention a good chunk of terrestrial life as well.]




Or perhaps you're suggesting that these eruptions added large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, causing significant global warming? While this is not inconceivable, it contradicts your earlier claim that "Geotermic activity, like volcanos under the ocean" warmed the oceans, rather than increased atmospheric CO2 levels leading to an enhanced Greenhouse Effect.

"Claims that CO2 concentrations in the Holocene never rose above 300 parts per million (ppm) in pre-industrial times, and that the current level - 380 ppm - is "way above" the range of natural variability. Proxy data (leaf stoma frequency) indicate that, in the early Holocene, CO2 levels exceeded 330 ppm for centuries and reached 348 ppm."

That atmospheric CO2 concentrations have risen by more than 35% in the past 200 years and are currently more than 15% higher than they had been at any point in the Holocene [the past 11,500 years, approximately, up until the beginning of the Anthropocene, which started during the 19th century] doesn't strike you as "'way above' the range of natural variability"?

***

Regardless, why all the focus on Al Gore?

Cheers,

Michael

[Thinker]

Dear Lone Ranger,

We agree that there is global warming, and increased CO2.

In the past, Global warming has preceeded increased CO2. For the past 300 years, has CO2 been preceeding, or causing, Global Warming?

Do you think that CO2 is trapped in the ocean as acid? Or do your two headed arrows mean that the equation goes either way?

What factors are contributing to Global Warming?

What figures do you use for the heat from the Sun reaching the Earth. Do you think the sun is a constant heat? How have the variations been meaured? When do more accurate measurments become available?

Do you feel that CO2 is the primary Greenhouse gas causing the trapping of the otherwise refelcted heat from the Sun? What about Methane? What percentage of Greenhouse reflectivity is stopped by CO2?

What is the percentage effect of increased CO2 on the total occurence of Global Warming of the last few hundred years?

Do you feel that the 15% increase in world population per year is the optimal rise? Do you support Abstinence Only education, instead of family planning? Do yo feel that the rise in population from 1.5 Billion to 6.5 Billion in the last 100 years has had any impact on the demand for CO2 producing products?


..

[The Lone Ranger]

Originally Posted by Thinker

In the past, Global warming has preceeded increased CO2. For the past 300 years, has CO2 been preceeding Global Warming?

Over the past few hundred thousand years, for which we have ice core data, rising mean temperatures have generally preceded rising atmospheric CO2 levels. This is almost certainly due to the Milankovitch cycles, variations in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt that affect how much solar radiation reaches the surface.

There are several such cycles. For instance, there is the precession of the Earth's axis. A full cycle of precession takes about 26,000 years. (Think of the Earth as a spinning top. As a top spins, it generally also wobbles in slow circles, so that its axis of spin traces a circle. This is precession.)

The Earth's orbit is an ellipse, not a circle, and the orbit itself rotates with a period of about 21,000 years.

The angle of the Earth's axis to its orbital plane varies from 21.5 degrees to 24.5 degrees on a 41,000-year cycle. (Other factors being equal, the larger the angle, the more extreme temperature variations are during the year. Currently, the angle is 23.44 degrees and decreasing.)


Due to these and other variations in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt, there are occasionally intervals in which it receives (slightly) more solar radiation than at other times. (The largest of these cycles appears to take about 100,000 years.) During a period when the Earth receives high amounts of solar radiation, the mean temperature will (obviously) rise.

This will cause positive feedback because as the temperature of the oceans rises, the solubility of CO2 in water decreases, so more CO2 is released into the atmosphere. Also, increased rates of respiration (mostly by plants, algae, and bacteria, not animals) will cause increased release of CO2 into the atmosphere. Perhaps most importantly, as Arctic regions warm, CO2 and methane trapped in the soil are released into the atmosphere.


So, it's historically been the case that rising temperatures have triggered increased atmospheric CO2 and methane levels. Since these are greenhouse gases, they have contributed to and accelerated the warming.


In recent times, this hasn't been the case. Atmospheric CO2 levels began to rise around the 1840s or 1850s and that trend sharply accelerated around the 1950s or 1960s. Mean global temperatures have been more variable, but began to rise around 1900 or therabouts. So, the current trend of rising mean global temperature seems to be at least in part due to rising CO2 levels, and not the other way around.

Do you think that CO2 is trapped in the ocean as acid? Or do your two headed arrows mean that the equation goes either way?

Much of it is. Fortunately (or not, depending on how you look at it), CO2 is not especially soluble in water. Some of it precipitates out. The two-headed arrows refer to the fact that the reaction is reversible. It's strongly temperature-dependent, and as the temperature of the water rises, the reaction tends to shift to the left, so that more CO2 is released into the atmosphere. As the temperature of the water falls, the reaction shifts in the other direction, and more CO2 dissolves into the water.

What factors are contributing to Global Warming?

Lots do. The Earth's mean temperature has varied considerably in the past, for various reasons, and it will vary in the future. But considering that CO2 is a known greenhouse gas, it would be astonishing indeed if atmospheric CO2 levels could increase by 35% (as they have in the past 200 years -- which is "instantaneous" in geological terms) and not lead to a significantly-increased mean global temperature.

What figures do you use for the heat from the Sun reaching the Earth. Do you think the sun is a constant heat? How have the variations been meaured? When do more accurate measurments become available?

The best way to measure the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth is with orbiting satellites. That gets rid of variation in surface measurements that might be induced by cloud cover, taking measurements at different latitudes, etc. Orbiting satellites (including Nimbus7, SMM, ERBS, UARS, SOHO, and ACRIM-Sat) have been measuring the solar radiation that reaches the Earth since 1978. Solar output varies (slightly) on an 11-year cycle, as has been known for decades. [And, in fact, for the past 7 years, we have been in the declining phase of that cycle.] Nonetheless, these satellites found no evidence that solar irradiance has been changing. Despite this, the Earth's mean temperature has been rising during that 30-year period.

Do you feel that CO2 is the primary Greenhouse gas causeing the trapping of the otherwise refelcted heat from the Sun? What about Methane? What percentage of reflectivity is stopped by CO2?

Water vapor is a much more important greenhouse gas than is CO2, but unlike CO2, water vapor is not a forcing agent. The amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is strongly dependent on the temperature; the amount of CO2 is not. So while it's certainly true that the Earth's mean temperature would drop significantly (in fact, to below freezing) if you could somehow remove all the water vapor from the air, it doesn't cause an increase in mean global temperature.

Think of it this way. Because CO2 remains in the atmosphere for a long time (given its low water solubility), adding CO2 to the atmosphere can affect the Earth's heat balance. Adding water vapor to the atmosphere can't. Why not? The Earth's surface is mostly water, and how much water vapor the atmosphere can hold is temperature-dependent. The atmosphere already holds about as much water vapor as it can. If you try to add more, it simply rains (or snows, depending on the temperature) out.

Do yo feel that the rise in populatin from 1.5 Billion to 6.5 Billion in the last 100 years has had any iomnpact on the demand for CO2 producing products?

Has the increased deforestation to provide food, fuel and housing for all those people had an impact? Has the increased burning of fossil fuels to support them had an impact? Has the increased production of methane (itself a strong greenhouse gas) from industrialized agriculture had an impact?

I should think that the answer to that question should be pretty obvious.


Cheers,

Michael

[fragment]

Originally Posted by The Lone Ranger

Due to these and other variations in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt, there are occasionally intervals in which it receives (slightly) more solar radiation than at other times. (The largest of these cycles appears to take about 100,000 years.) During a period when the Earth receives high amounts of solar radiation, the mean temperature will (obviously) rise.

This will cause positive feedback because as the temperature of the oceans rises, the solubility of CO2 in water decreases, so more CO2 is released into the atmosphere. Also, increased rates of respiration (mostly by plants, algae, and bacteria, not animals) will cause increased release of CO2 into the atmosphere. Perhaps most importantly, as Arctic regions warm, CO2 and methane trapped in the soil are released into the atmosphere.

I think it's worth adding that, as well as the slight variation in absolute solar energy received by the Earth due to orbital variations - which IIRC is only associated with the changes in eccentricity, the 100,000 year cycle - orbital variations have significant impacts on the amount of solar energy received at particular places and particular times of the year. So, for example, one cycle may not change the overall energy received by the earth from the sun over the course of a year, but it may make northern hemisphere summers hotter (with some corresponding cooling at another place and/or time of year).

I've read a couple of hypotheses about how these regional and temporal variations might control ice sheet growth and melting, or trigger greenhouse gas emissions, or modulate ocean circulation, leading to the ice age cycle. They do have in common that they these initial effects trigger changes in greenhouse gas concentrations, which are responsible for the bulk of the global warming.

The best way to measure the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth is with orbiting satellites. That gets rid of variation in surface measurements that might be induced by cloud cover, taking measurements at different latitudes, etc. Orbiting satellites (including Nimbus7, SMM, ERBS, UARS, SOHO, and ACRIM-Sat) have been measuring the solar radiation that reaches the Earth since 1978.

Also, before 1978 sunspot counts have been used as a proxy for solar activity - that goes back about 3-400 years. Going back further, changes in Carbon and Beryllium isotope abundances in sediments have been used as proxies.


Image:Solar Activity Proxies.png - Global Warming Art

[The Lone Ranger]

Quite correct on both counts, fragment. Changes in ice cover are especially important since that's part of a feedback system.

Anything that causes a reduction in ice cover will decrease the Earth's albedo (the amount of solar radiation it reflects -- ice and snow are highly reflective). The decreased albedo means that more solar radiation will be absorbed, which causes the mean temperature to go up. Which causes more ice to melt. Which causes the albedo to go down. Which means that more solar radiation will be absorbed. Which means the mean temperature goes up. (And also, more CO2 and methane are released from the oceans and soils.)

So you get a positive feedback loop.

The reverse happens during an Ice Age, of course. The more ice you have, the higher the Earth's albedo. Which means that more sunlight is reflected. Which causes the temperature to drop. Which causes more ice to accumulate. [And more CO2 and methane to be sequestered in the soils and oceans.] And so forth.

Cheers,

Michael

[Qingdai]

Hey, you guys have turned this thread into global warming for smarties
(not the candy).

[Legs]

Eskimo village sues over global warming

A tiny Alaska village eroding into the Arctic Ocean sued two dozen oil, power and coal companies Tuesday, claiming that the large amounts of greenhouse gases they emit contribute to global warming that threatens the community's existence.

The city of Kivalina and a federally recognized tribe, the Alaska Native village of Kivalina, sued Exxon Mobil Corporation, eight other oil companies, 14 power companies and one coal company in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco.

Kivalina is a traditional Inupiat Eskimo village of about 390 people about 625 miles (1005 km) northwest of Anchorage. It's built on an 8-mile (13-km) barrier reef between the Chukchi Sea and Kivalina River.

Sea ice traditionally protected the community, whose economy is based in part on salmon fishing plus subsistence hunting of whale, seal, walrus, and caribou. But sea ice that forms later and melts sooner because of higher temperatures has left the community unprotected from fall and winter storm waves and surges that lash coastal communities.

"We are seeing accelerated erosion because of the loss of sea ice," City Administrator Janet Mitchell said in a statement. "We normally have ice starting in October, but now we have open water even into December so our island is not protected from the storms."

Relocation costs have been estimated at $400 million or more.

A spokesman for Exxon Mobil, Gantt Walton, said the company was reviewing the lawsuit and had no immediate comment on it.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Kivalina by two nonprofit legal organizations -- The Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment and the Native American Rights Fund -- plus six law firms.

Reached by phone in Boston, attorney Matt Pawa said other lawsuits have been filed seeking damages from global warming, but this is the first one that has a "discretely identifiable victim."

More from the article at CNN