Four degrees of warming 'likely'

[SteveShaw]

Chlorine carries plenty germs and dangerous chemicals, they even put it in the drinking water

Chlorine is an element. It does not carry dangerous chemicals with it, though I wouldn't want to sink my head into a bucket of it. Nor does it carry germs. In fact, it's a notably good germ-killer, which is why it is added (at the very low level of 1ppm) to drinking water and to swimming pools, etc. At this level it is not toxic to humans. This has resulted in one of the biggest public health benefits in history, drastically reducing water-borne disease. In the wrong place it isn't very nice, I would agree, but don't be too quick to knock it.

[hippiechick]

Of course there is lots of other kind of pollution. I think nobody would deny this here. But if CO2 pollution would be curbed, I think humanity would have tackled many other kinds of pollution by the way. Perhaps not all, as we could go for nuclear energy in a big way, and end up with a massive disposal problem of spent nuclear fuel.

As to pollutants: perhaps humanity is the biggest pollutant on the planet.

As to carbon taxes: this is not a political thread, nor is this a political forum. So no comments on that. Let's just stick with looking and discussing evidence for global warming.

Spoken like a true politician!

[hippiechick]

Well if you don't trust your tea anymore, just add some chorine and you're fixed says Steve

http://curezone.com/art/read.asp?ID=21&db=3&C0=7

[s1m0n]

A seven degree rise, even instantaneous rather than on average, in the air and water over an area the size of 'north america and europe' represents a VAST amount of energy.

[hans]

listen to an interview with Mojib Latif, where he says that his work has been misused, and warming of the global climate is happening, even if warming is temporarily on hold, due to natural fluctuations.

"If my name was not Mojib Latif, my name would be global warming. So I really believe in Global Warming. Okay. However, you know, we have to accept that there are these natural fluctuations, and therefore, the temperature may not show additional warming temporarily."

Of Moles and Whacking: “Mojib Latif predicted two decades of cooling”:

Latif begins the section of his presentation misrepresented by Pearce by confirming that the media incorrectly believes that global warming is monotonic- something that we know the warming is decidedly not; something not claimed by “climate science” or “climate scientists”. Significant natural variability is superimposed on the long term man-made warming trend. Although the press might expect for us to set a new temperature record every year, the existence of natural variability means that we could in theory wait a long time (~17 years) before setting a new temperature record. Latif imagines ‘what if’:

It may well happen that you enter a decade, or maybe even two- you know- when the temperature cools- alright- relative to the present level- alright?

And then- you know- I know what’s going to happen -you know? I will get- you know- millions of phone calls- you know:

“Eh, what’s going on? So, is global warming disappearing?” You know? “Have you lied on [sic] us?”

So- you kn0w- and therefore this is the reason why we need to address this decadal prediction issue.

[ed. note: "entering... two [decades]” depending on the usage can take as little as 11 years, “enter[ing]” a decade” as little as one]

This was not an explicit prediction by Latif- it was a hypothetical scenario that is a real, if not necessarily likely, possibility. Latif is saying that because people don’t understand that global warming isn’t supposed to be monotonic, and that there could be periods where temperatures pause or even dip below the present, the media and/or public will incorrectly believe that global warming has stopped/was wrong/etc. even though such “pauses” in warming are decidedly not contrary to our understanding of the climate system and how we anticipate it will respond to emissions driven warming.

[Lorenzo]

A seven degree rise, even instantaneous rather than on average, in the air and water over an area the size of 'north america and europe' represents a VAST amount of energy.

And, what would this vast amount of energy indicate? I think one could safely assume that a sudden rise of about 14 deg. F (14=7.7 deg. C which, according to the report, was actually 10 deg. C overall +/-4 deg.) in the southern region of Greenland, in less than 50 years--according to the report--would mean a much higher level even further south. Southern Greenland would only be the tip of the iceberg so to speak, no pun intended.

So, to kind of wrap it up here, the point is that we don't fully understand what causes warming and cooling periods. Extreme climate changes have happened quite suddenly at times in certain regions. We know that the majority of Earth's heating/cooling is controlled by the variable amounts of energy released from the sun...and our slightly variable proximity to it, but also by the earth's ability to cool itself through different means, mainly the oceans.

Re Mojib Latif, I realize he believes warming will resume after this current cooling trend he says we're in.

[hans]

A seven degree rise, even instantaneous rather than on average, in the air and water over an area the size of 'north america and europe' represents a VAST amount of energy.

And, what would this vast amount of energy indicate? I think one could safely assume that a sudden rise of about 14 deg. F (14=7.7 deg. C which, according to the report, was actually 10 deg. C overall +/-4 deg.) in the southern region of Greenland, in less than 50 years--according to the report--would mean a much higher level even further south. Southern Greenland would only be the tip of the iceberg so to speak, no pun intended.

How can you "safely" assume that?
Like now we see a sharp increase of temps in the arctic region, much sharper than further south.

[Lorenzo]

How can you "safely" assume that?
Like now we see a sharp increase of temps in the arctic region, much sharper than further south.

Depending on what caused the sudden heat wave, like sun bursts, etc., areas just further to the south of Greenland would likely recieve much greater exposure. It is interesting though that in the western part of Antarctica...ice is melting, while in the eastern part...ice is increasing. Western antarctica comprises only 1/4 of that continent. Antarctica comprises 90% of the world's ice.

[s1m0n]

You're really trying to infer a hemisphere-sized transformation from a single datum?

[Lorenzo]

"In western Europe and Greenland, the Younger Dryas is a well-defined synchronous cool period. But cooling in the tropical North Atlantic may have preceded this by a few hundred years; South America shows a less well defined initiation but a sharp termination. The Antarctic Cold Reversal appears to have started a thousand years before the Younger Dryas, and has no clearly defined start or end; Huybers has argued that there is fair confidence in the absence of the Younger Dryas in Antarctica, New Zealand and parts of Oceania. Timing of the tropical counterpart to the Younger Dryas – the Deglaciation Climate Reversal (DCR) – is difficult to establish as low latitude ice core records generally lack independent dating over this interval. An example of this is the Sajama ice core (Bolivia), for which the timing of the DCR has been pinned to that of the GISP2 ice core record (central Greenland). Climatic change in the central Andes during the DCR, however, was significant and characterized by a shift to much wetter, and likely colder, conditions. The magnitude and abruptness of these changes would suggest that low latitude climate did not respond passively during the YD/DCR.

In western North America it is likely that the effects of the Younger Dryas were less intense than in Europe; however, evidence of glacial re-advance indicates Younger Dryas cooling occurred in the Pacific Northwest." (quoted from prev. pg.)

[SteveShaw]

And, what would this vast amount of energy indicate? I think one could safely assume that a sudden rise of about 14 deg. F (14=7.7 deg. C which, according to the report, was actually 10 deg. C overall +/-4 deg.)....

Wow, a moving target now!

.... in the southern region of Greenland, in less than 50 years--according to the report--would mean a much higher level even further south.

That is completely at odds with the global temperature changes relating to the last glaciation, in which polar regions underwent far greater temperature swings than the tropics and sub-tropical regions.

Extreme climate changes have happened quite suddenly at times in certain regions.

That's the point isn't it. What you're talking about is not global warming.

We know that the majority of Earth's heating/cooling is controlled by the variable amounts of energy released from the sun...

Solar forcing has been comprehensively dismissed as a significant cause of the rapid warming in the last century.

[mutepointe]

We are ready if anyone needs help.

[bradhurley]

I wanted to come back to something from a couple of days ago:

• Temperature measuring stations are placed mostly, 2/3rd, on places where effects of urban heat affects measurements, exhaust of air condition, parking lots, air ports jet engines exhausts, increased traffic, concrete grounds etc. cause incorrect measurements, i.e. too high temperatures

The urban heat island effect is something climatologists have been factoring into their temperature analyses since the late 1980s; I remember lots of discussion about it then. Dave Easterling at NOAA did a study back in the mid 90s in which he removed all urban stations from the global temperature record to see if there was still a warming trend; he didn't expect to see one but in fact the trend was still there. There have been other similar analyses since then.

The "micro-site" effect, in which temperature readings at many weather stations may be influenced by air conditioning, parking lots, and jet engine exhaust could conceivably cause too-high readings in any given year, but I'm not sure how this would explain a warming trend over time. In order for that to happen, you have to be adding more air conditioners around those weather stations, increasing airport traffic (which is conceivable), adding more pavement, etc., which could happen at some stations but it's hard to believe it's happening at enough of them to influence the global average temperature. It takes a lot of change at a lot of stations to move a global average -- the global average temperature is around 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The global average temperature during the last ice age was only about 9 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit below what it is today (see http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Featur ... alWarming/).

Furthermore, I saw a study recently in which a researcher debunked the micro-station effect by looking for trends in temperatures on windy versus calm days: the hypothesis was that on calm days you should get warmer readings by the thermometers because the heat generated by those sources (air conditioners, pavement, etc.), sticks around the source, whereas on windy days the heat is carried away by the wind and shouldn't influence the thermometer in the weather station. The study found no such trend, which suggests that those weather stations are probably not overly influenced by these factors.

There's a pretty fair-handed discussion (and a lot of interesting comments) of all this here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar ... at-island/

Satellites circling the globe measure since 30 years, thus covering land and sea, give more correct data for the air temperatures over land and sea.

It's fair to say that the satellites provide more complete coverage, but more correct? I think the jury's still out on that.

The satellites obviously cannot provide direct measurements of temperature (they're not dropping themometers down on strings), but rather they provide an indirect estimate of the temperature of a vertical slice of the troposphere. Scientists have to apply statistics to the data to obtain their temperature estimates, and the satellite record is plagued with a variety of internal inconsistencies caused by variations among instruments on the different satellites, sensor fade over time, orbital drift, etc. -- there's a pretty good discussion on Wikepedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_ ... asurements.

But as I said before, temperature is but one of many indicators that the climate is changing. You can challenge each indicator individually and find something to quibble with, but when you look at all of these things happening at the same time, it's hard to justify a statement that "the world isn't really warming." You could say "the world isn't warming as much as the IPCC says it is" and you might be able to make a case for that. And you could say "the world is indeed warming but it could be due to natural causes" and you could make a case for that (although there's a lot of "fingerprinting" evidence that you'd have to rebut in order to make a convincing case).

And you could also argue that the world is not going to warm as much as the "warmists" believe. But there you're talking about the future, and everyone's on shaky ground there.

[Lorenzo]

What you're talking about is not global warming.

Why use the term global when we know certain regions of earth are currently cooling? It depends on where you take your readings, right? 1500 locations means global, or everywhere, right? 1500 airports must include eastern Antarctica, right, where there's cooling and ice is increasing? Global--which means everywhere, is not currently happening right now, from what I'm reading, in all the known layers where measurements are taken (deep sea, shallow sea, land surface, sub-surface, atmoshpere, etc.) Perhaps you need a schedule of the places where warming is not currently happening. But, even then, someone convinced against their will will be of the same opinion still, I suppose.

[bradhurley]

Why use the term global when we know certain regions of earth are currently cooling?

This is in fact why most scientists prefer the term "climate change" to global warming. The term "global warming" refers to an increase in the global average temperature, which the models predict will occur unevenly around the world, with some areas cooling or not warming at all, and other areas warming dramatically (like Alaska). Cooling in some regions is totally consistent with "global warming" but intuitively it doesn't make sense so the term is going out of favor. Also "climate change" communicates the fact that we're not just talking about changes in temperature but also precipitation, storm patterns, and sea level.