Can’t they just make up their mind….
Scientist predicts ‘mini Ice Age’
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia, Feb. 7 (UPI) — A Russian astronomer has predicted that Earth will experience a “mini Ice Age” in the middle of this century, caused by low solar activity.
Khabibullo Abdusamatov of the Pulkovo Astronomic Observatory in St. Petersburg said Monday that temperatures will begin falling six or seven years from now, when global warming caused by increased solar activity in the 20th century reaches its peak, RIA Novosti reported.
The coldest period will occur 15 to 20 years after a major solar output decline between 2035 and 2045, Abdusamatov said.
Dramatic changes in the earth’s surface temperatures are an ordinary phenomenon, not an anomaly, he said, and result from variations in the sun’s energy output and ultraviolet radiation.
The Northern Hemisphere’s most recent cool-down period occurred between 1645 and 1705. The resulting period, known as the Little Ice Age, left canals in the Netherlands frozen solid and forced people in Greenland to abandon their houses to glaciers, the scientist said.Yeah whatever.
At least this one has more science behind it than the global warming hoax. That the output from the sun is cyclical has been known for hundreds of years. Any HAM radio operator can tell you that, but the global warming hustlers never want to talk about it.
I just hope I can burn enough fossil fuels before I die to counteract this ice age stuff.
OK, what I keep asking for is one link to a study that includes rather than ignores this.
There’s a reason the studies ignore this — because it’s a tiny, probably negligible effect. First off, amount of evaporation is not proportional to water surface area. But let’s say it is. It’s estimated that a 50cm (~2 foot) sea level rise would reduce the land area of North America by 19,000 km^2 [IPCC 1998]. That’s a lot, of course. Scaling it up for all earth’s land area (of which North America accounts for 16.3%), we get a land reduction of 116,600 km^2 (this scaling isn’t exact, since all continents are different, but it’s reasonable).
Right now the oceans cover 335,258,000 km^2. So a 50 cm rise in sea level would increase the surface area of the oceans by 0.035%. Under four parts in ten thousand — not a very big change. Certainly not enough to make a measurable difference in water evaporation.
Basically, the big news with sea level rise is the decrease in land, not the increase in ocean.
D@mn! I’ll be too old to enjoy the skiing!
That’s about the lamest thing and the worst math I ever heard in my life. How were you able to determine that a 50 cm rise would only increase surface by that amount? Did you use a mathematical formula or a map that actually shows the areas that are currently dry land that would be underwater with that rise? It’s amazing that you were able to figure that out when our own government can only estimate it with all the resources and funding available to them!
I gotta call bullshit on your science, your math skills and your thought processes in general. You are not qualified to make the claims you are making, your opinion, and that is clearly all it is, it agenda driven drivel. Now in case you didn’t understand it clearly the first time I want to see a link to a REAL SCIENTIFIC STUDY that includes the cooling effects of the added surface area of water from a the corresponding rise in sea level estimated for the amount of global warming people like you are claiming we are going to have. Not your bullshit opinions. Can you do that? BTW genius, in case you don’t know, the area flooded in North America alone would be much larger than the surface of the Great Lakes, are you willing to stake your reputation as a junior scientist that the Great Lakes don’t effect the weather? There’s no need to argue your position or your claims, I shot them down, just post the link. I’m still daring you…
I almost forgot, evaporation IS PROPORTIONAL to surface area. You ain’t exactly Bill Nye the science guy, are you?
But I thought there was consensus about anthropogenic global warming? This Russian scientist must not have gotten the memo. He must obviously be paid off by the Russian oil companies. This all reminds me of a post of mine from a while back. Ah, memories.
Hmmmm.
1. Most of the artic ice is on land?
Got proof of this? Look at the map. The largest amount of surface area is over water. Keep in mind that we’re also discussing *volume* and ice floating in seawater has the vast majority of it’s volume hidden under the water while the ice volume of glaciers is entirely visible.
2. 20 million tons of sulfur from one volcano vs. 79 million tons from 5.5 billion humans in one year.
There are at least 100+ active volcanoes erupting at any given time all over the world, including underwater volcanoes.
3. The coming ice age in the 1970’s is a myth cooked up by the media eh? Someone should tell Congress since there was a hearing on this issue and a number of scientists testified to this effect.
4.
Agreed bullwinkle. I think you nailed it right then and there.
There is a consensus on global warming, not on anthropogenic global warming. Paul is absolutely correct that the dominant effect is from solar output. If we were simply to maintain our current global CO2 output levels, there would little to worry about.
There are two problems: 1) too rapid of an increase can push the Earth’s global CO2 cycle out of balance (“equilibrium”) an effect that is especially of concern for the North Atlantic Oscillation (think gulf stream shutting off) and 2) treaties like Kyoto don’t address the dominant abusers (NOT the US and Europe). Normalized to economic production, the US is not an abuser, rather it is actually increasing it’s CO2 efficiency over time.
I’ve made this point before over at Say Anything, using the best “state of the art” data and analysis I could dig up. My references, ironically, are the same scientists some people use to bolster their case for anthropogenic global warming.
By the way, if you look at the rate of evaporation, it is a strong function of surface water temperature. Global warming accelerates evaporation and increases the precipitation rate. This is already seen in Greenland, where on the one hand you have an increased melting of the ice cap at lower climates and an increase At the moment, we don’t even know for a fact whether global warming and human generated environmental effects (e.g., CO2 production) will result in a melt-off or an increase in ice-cap accumulation! Here’s a reference.
The problem with the human-generated global warming is not primarily the scientists, but rather the quacks who are misusing this science to bolster (often) anti-industrial agendas and such, or the reporters who run sensationalized stories to help sell copy.
My funny about this is that the same people who are accepting carte blanche environmentalist mischaracterizations of the global warming research are the same group that are accusing Bush of ignoring the science. Life is full of irony.
Bullwinkle:
How were you able to determine that a 50 cm rise would only increase surface by that amount?
Uh, I cited my source. The funny thing is, you provided another one. That EPA study you provided gives similar numbers, though it’s for land between 0 and 150 cm. I imagine it’s pretty easy geography to estimate.
are you willing to stake your reputation as a junior scientist that the Great Lakes don’t effect the weather
Uh, no. “Global climate” and “weather” are different things.
I gotta call bullshit on your science, your math skills and your thought processes in general.
Where exactly is my math wrong? Just so you know, when scientists disagree, they don’t just say “I call bullshit”. They explain why the other person is wrong. You’ll need to explain to me how my simple mutliplication is incorrect. My guess is, you can’t.
Anyway, as Carrick points out, what will make the most difference in evaporation is not sea surface area (which barely changes) but sea surface temperatures (which could change by a measurable amount). And yes, sea surface temperature changes are included in all models.
Hmmm.
@ Earl
You do? Where?
Ed — you’re not very good at reading, are you? I wrote “[IPCC 1998]” in my post. [Now, I know, the predictable answer is “IPCC is biased!” Fine. (1) How is the number wrong, and (2) if they were so alarmist, shouldn’t they be overestimating, not underestimating, the land area lost to the sea?]
By the way,Ed, Pinatubo was one of the largest, and most sulfur-rich, volcanos to erupt in several decades. It’d be wrong to compare it to the other 100+ volcanos erupting at any given time.
Great posts Carrick and Ed!
But I would repeat: There is no evidence that if we were to cut our Co2 emissions to zero, we could head off a pending climate shift.
And I would point out that, the very computer model that generated the infamous “hockey stick” graph (showing a rapid increase in global temperatures for the 20th century as an abberation) has been under scrutiny for a couple of years now. IN fact, there’s a huge ‘brouhaha’ over at Nature Magazine, which published the original work, about the data sets and methodology of the model. IN short..it looks like Mann et al. cooked the books to get the result they wanted.
There are much more accurate models using more reliable data over a longer period of time that demonstrate the 20th century increase (in much the same way that the ‘hockey stick’ graph does), but reveals this warming period as a relatively small ‘blip’ in a larger climatic trend. IN other words..no significant corelative association between observed 20th century warming and the advent of the industrial age (which is the assumption in the ‘hockey stick’ model). Here’s the link, again:
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V7/N4/EDIT.jsp
Mars is also experiencing global warming.
Everyone knows Martians like SUVs.
Oh, I’d like to repeat another previously mentioned influence to consider.
Rotational precession. As I’m sure most know, the earth ‘wobbles’ on its axis from about 22.5 to 24.5 degrees relative to its orbital plane. This cycle occurs over about a 15000 year period. It doesn’t sound like much but…it shifts the point where the sun’s warmth has the most profound effect on the earth by about a thousand miles. This changes ocean temperatures over the affected region and alters current, evaporation rates, cloud cover, precipitation rates, etc. that literally alter the entire global climate.
Add to this- Orbital Eccentricity. Earth’s orbit around the sun is an elipse but, that elipse isn’t constant. It changes over about a 50,000 year cycle and changes the earth’s average distance from the sun by millions of miles.
Combine these two with solar forcing (the cyclical increase or decrease in solar activity), throw in a tempory increase (or decrease) in volcanic activity and what you have is a cyclical climate pattern that we are largely POWERLESS to alter.
The so called “delicate ecosystem” (spoken with a high pitched whine) is anything but delicate. Its profoundly robust. And…if Al Gore (and his mindless minions) think that we’re gonna make a difference by reducing the average global mean temperature by 7 one-hundreds of one degree over 50 years while emptying the national treasuries of western industrial nations (under the direction of those corrupt, blue-hatted baby rapers at the U.N.), then they’ve all got rocks in their heads.
Our scientific and economic resources are better spent figuring out how to cope with any pending climate shift because, if there is one coming-there is nothing we can do to stop it.
Solo:
Absolutely true. And as I said, if we simply stopped increasing them, there would be a minimal effect on the global climate. If we simply slowed the rate of increase, but continued to increase the amount of CO2 pumping into the atmosphere, it might be a very long time before we saw any significant negative climatic impact from that.
The short-term problem if we increase the CO2 production rate too rapidly, then we can knock the otherwise fairly robust “global CO2 cycle” out of whack. One of the biggest worries is the effect of a too precipitous of an increase of CO2 on the North Atlantic Oscillation. This is the main concern of real climatologists, and not the total volume of anthropogenic CO2 emissions (which amount to about 3% of the total CO2 released into the atmosphere) that environmentalists whine about.
Hmmm.
1.
Considering that this is a blog, i.e. internet, most people provide a link when citing. Only a jackass would consider thinking a “[IPCC 1998]” is a valid cite.
You’re not very good at citing now are you?
2.
IPCC: Was established by the United Nations Environment Program & World Meterological Organization.
World Meterological Organization: Is a United Nations speciality agency that supports the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Framework Convention on Climate Change: Over a decade ago, most countries joined an international treaty — the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — to begin to consider what can be done to reduce global warming and to cope with whatever temperature increases are inevitable. Recently, a number of nations have approved an addition to the treaty: the Kyoto Protocol, which has more powerful (and legally binding) measures. The UNFCCC secretariat supports all institutions involved in the climate change process, particularly the COP, the subsidiary bodies and their Bureau.
I.e. the IPCC is an extension of the WMO which is dedicated to the establishment of the “Framework Convention on Climate Change” of which the *Kyoto Protocol* is a PART OF.
**You must be some kind of jackass to think I’m going to take this “source” as definitive.**
3.
Who gives a rat’s ass? There are 100+ volcanoes erupting all over the world at any one time. If one volcano erupting can output 20% or so, in only 48 hours, of the human race’s entire yearly output of sulphur, then I’d say you’ve got a frigging problem in comprehension and debate.
Now go away or I’ll have to taunt you a second time.
Only a jackass would consider thinking a “[IPCC 1998]” is a valid cite.
You obviously know nothing about science. Or Googling. Goodbye.
Goodbye, Jackass. Heh.
Wait! Come back, Jackass…where’s my link to that study that includes the increased water surface area and evaporation, you illiterate turd?
In the words of that infamous philosopher Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along”.
Part of the problem with this whole discussion is that fact that global warming / climate change / ozone depletion is all tied up into one big nasty knot, and unfortunately people have staked out political positions on one side or the other that they feel they must defend. Science suffers when this happens.
Does the earth’s climate change? The evidence seems overwhelming that it does, although it does so on such a long timescale that hundreds of generations of men will live and die without noticing it.
Does man’s activity contribute to climate change? The evidence is, I think, not sufficient to make a determination. Consider that man has only been capable of making accurate temperature measurements for about three hundred years (the modern mercury thermometer was invented in 1714). This isn’t even a tick of the clock compared to the theoretical age of the earth. Further, the records are fragmentary and older ones especially are of questionable accuracy. It seems to me that making predictions of global warming based on such scant evidence is rather like a first-year medical student trying to diagnose a patient’s heart condition based on listening to the heart for a few seconds and seeing a quarter inch of the chart from his EKG.
Assuming that man’s activities do contribute to climate change, what is the timescale for this? If we accept the argument that various air pollutants cause a greenhouse effect and climate change, then do we not have to accept the possibility that that soot and other chemicals put into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution or even since the dawn of civilization have already altered some balance that will cause artificial climate change?
It seems to me that the proponents of global warming imply – or at least are content to let people believe – that the effects of global warming will start to manifest themselves in the near future and that they will be catastrophic. If they are correct, then it only makes sense to take whatever action is required to prevent this.
However, those who don’t believe in the theory of anthropogenic global warming argue that the recommended actions will do great harm to the world economy NOW.
Who’s right?
A final note: I have not been convinced at all that anthropogenic global warming is a threat to humanity, or that it even exists at all. There are, however, threats to humanity that we KNOW exist and that we can do something about. Before we rush off to sign Kyoto and make everybody drive electric cars, why not give some thought to preparing against:
— Another hurricane on the Gulf Coast
— A major earthquake in California
— An outbreak of a lethal epidemic, such as the Spanish Flu of 1918
— Terrorists getting a nuke
— If we want to get really sci-fi, how about a large meteor striking the earth?
It is reasonable to expect these things to happen eventually, because they have happened before (with the exception of the terrorist scenario). Therefore, it seems much more reasonable to worry about them than to concern ourselves much with something as nebulous as global warming.
Hmmm.
Frankly Global Warming doesn’t really bother me for a number of reasons:
1. Any possible negative impact is very far in the future, in which case there’s no use worrying about it.
2. If any possible negative impact is NOT very far in the future, then we’re screwed and it’s no use worrying about it.
3. One of the biggest impacts from possible Global Warming is the increase of fresh water into the oceans which could raise the sea level and decrease the salinity.
4. The timeline for most scenarios involve at least 50-100 years.
5. The most desired and useful material in space colonization is *water*.
6. The most logical means of transporting materials from earth to orbital and sub-orbital space is via a mass accelerator.
7. 50-100 years is plenty of time to build a couple dozen mass accelerators to support space colonies.
8. If we’ve got too much fresh water on our hands then we can easily ship it off the planet since our space colonies will be very much in need of that water.
9. Ergo, no Global Warming.
…
Thank you, thank you. You are too kind. Please sign all checks to ….
Hmmm.
In case anyone misunderestimates the previous comment, yes it was tongue-in-cheek.
But rather logical for all that.
By the way, most of the Arctic ice is on land. Take it from this former Alaskan…
There’s that mad cow disease talking again.
Ed and McGeehee:
I might have the mad cow, but I know a little something about ice.
The average thickness of the land-based arctic ice cap is 7,000 feet and reaches two miles in some places. Meanwhile, the ice floes of the Arctic Ocean are typcally 6-25 feet thick. Now go back to your map and compare arctic land mass to the frozen surface area of the Arctic Ocean.
The ice floes are a drop in the proverbial bucket.
Ed,
Also consider this. My home town of Juneau, which sits next to British Columbia in Southeast Alaska, has 232 CUBIC MILES of ice sitting within it’s city limits–and none of it touches the ocean. Yes, this one tiny town of 25,000 people, thousands of miles south of the Arctic Circle, has that much ice in the city!
And that little town has experienced a very distinct warming trend since the early 60’s. The ice cap used to expand and recede but remained fairly stable overall. Now it’s receding like a bat outta hell.
That’s one tiny example from a moderate climate, and it’s infinitesimal compared to the vast Arctic.
I might have the mad cow, but I know a little something about ice.
It’s absolutely essential for a martini, for example.
Denny, compared to the Antarctic ice cap, the amount of land-based ice in the Northern Hemisphere, Greenland excluded, is a drop in the bucket.
My “mad cow” comment was in reference to your trying to make the fact you once lived in Alaska serve as a basis for expertiose on your part.
And that little town [Juneau] has experienced a very distinct warming trend since the early 60’s.
It’s called the heat island effect. Consider posting the Juneau population figures from the 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, and 2000 census.
Hardly “global.”
McGeehee:
You’re right about the non-Greenland Arctic ice caps in comparison to Antarctica. But how does that bolster Ed’s claim that most Arctic ice is sea ice rather than land-bound? It doesn’t. Nor does it diminish my correction of him.
I never claimed Juneau was “global,” I merely offered it as one example of what is also occuring globally.
And, I was not claiming any special climate expertise. However, as one who has spent time all over the Arctic and seen it first hand, I probably have a little better perspective of the geography and ice content than someone like Ed who has not. It’s as simple as that.
So McGeehee, what’s your point? I made a simple, but true, one line correction of Ed’s misperseption of arctic ice. You have not even claimed I was wrong about that. So what are you doing? –and why are you mis-reading the one simple point I made?
Denny is heading to the store for martini ice–McGeehee did have one excellent point!
Oh, McGeehee,
About the “heat island” effect….
Juneau’s city limits enclose 3248 square miles, or roughly twice the size of the state of Rhode Island.
In that massive expanse, roughly 25,000 people have lived for many decades. From 1960 to the present, the population has varied by a couple thousand people each year, but it is essentially constant.
Are you suggesting that changes in this tiny but constant population affected the climate over 3248 square miles? –particularly the 928 square miles of ice that is separated from the population center by a mountain range? That’s pretty silly.
I meant to say, “by a couple thousand people each decade.” But the population has hovered pretty constantly around the 25,000 mark.
By the way, that’s fewer than 8 people per square mile. Since there are few roads (you can only drive 40 miles in one direction on one road), almost non-existent off-road vehicle use, and it’s populated by environmental freaks who absolutely refuse most reasonable development, it’s a real stretch to suggest the population there is affecting it’s climate.
Hi Bullwinkle-
You have an interesting idea- I’d never considered what effect evaporative cooling would have on temperatures. From a physics perspective, wouldn’t the heat transfer occur from the oceans to the atmosphere (as the warmed vapor goes into the atmosphere)? Would this cause the atmospheric temperature to rise? Or cool? And wouldn’t the increase in water vapor in the atmosphere increase warming overall, since water vapor in the atmosphere would enhance heat retention, since it’s a good insulator (greenhouse gas)?
I’m no scientist and don’t claim to be one but it seems to me that increased humidity would result in more cloud cover and more rain, both of which would contribute to cooling. The oceans also act like heat sinks and are capable of absorbing enormous amounts of heat. I do know that humid air is easier to heat but also easier to cool. I also know that reflectivity of the water’s surface radiates a lot of heat back into space so more surface equals more reflectivity. There’s a lot of agenda driven stuff out there and without taking increased water surface area into consideration of the modeling the modeling is bogus and slanted to suit that agenda, which leads me to believe it’s being ignored for that particular reason. Throw in a goofy statement made by the treehuggers like “evaporation isn’t proportional to surface area” that is either an intentional lie or inability to use Google coming from someone who complained that we could use Google to find the link he couldn’t provide he must have been lying intentionally and you have the basic dishonest anti-capitalist agenda being presented the only way they are able to justify it, by lying. Honest points of view don’t rely on lies to support them and neither does science. That’s what facts are for. The global warming side is damn short on facts and long on opinion, and that’s a fact.
bullwinkle-
Thanks for the reply. I guess I’m still not clear on how evaporative cooling will result in overall cooling. Thermodynamics indicates that the heat will go somewhere, so if the oceans are cooled by evaporative cooling, it is at the expense of the atmosphere, which will warm (or some other component of the system- maybe the land warms)?
How does increased humidity result in more cloud cover and more rain? Also, what do you mean by humid air being easier to heat and cool? Compared to what? I believe that humid air is harder to heat and cool than dry air (due to all the water vapor in the air- it has a high heat capacity).
You’re correct about the oceans acting as heat sinks and being able to absorb a lot of heat. How does this relate to evaporative cooling? Wouldn’t that cool the oceans, meaning they’re not acting as heat sinks?
As to reflectivity of the water’s surface, how much (percentage wise) of the total water surface of the earth will increase, and how much increased thermal radiation will result from this? For instance, there will be a much greater impact if the total area increases by 50% than if it increases by 0.05%. I honestly don’t know the numbers.
I also did a quick google search on evaporation rates, and this page seems to indicate that evaporation isn’t proportional to surface area in a real world situation, but is dependent on a number of factors, such as temperature at the surface boundary and on humidity at the surface: http://van.hep.uiuc.edu/van/qa/section/States_of_Matter_and_Energy/Boiling_Evaporating_and_Condensing/20020321122324.htm
Anyway, this is a great discussion- I’m learning a lot!
Just ask yourself two questions about this and you can settle the whole thing:
1. Is it scientific in any way, shape or form to deicde to ignore any factor that can have a measurable effect on the results?
2. Are they ignoring the increase in water surface of area because including it would strengthen their claims or weaken them?
If you answer both honestly you’ll know why they keep ignoring it and you’ll know why nobody has yet been able to show me a link to a study that factors it in.
I don’t recycle. I burn leaves and paper garbage in my backyard. I drive a truck that belches diesel exhaust. I often liberate Freon into the atmosphere. Just doing my part.
Bullwinkle,
I’m no meteorologist or other climate expert. However, I do have some familiarity with science, and a career working with logic and arguments. So, for what it’s worth, I’ve got to say both of your questions, 1 and 2, are begging the question.
Built into both questions is a positive assumption of actual the question at issue: Do changes in water surface area have a measurable impact? Your premise is yes. You might be correct, or you might be very wrong.
What matters is that your questions are meaningless until that premise is verified. Erroneously, you suggest the answers to your questions will establish the truth of your premise. Shame on you. That is very, very wrong.
(Ok, so your first question isn’t so offensive at face value–if given the Clintonian literal reading, but reading between the lines is simple and your intent is clear.)
I’ve also gotta call bullshit on your 3:26 a.m. post which seems to be typical for you. You seem to feel a little too confident attacking others who may have knowledge and expertise that falls outside the realm of your vast ignorance. If you don’t know it, the other person is automatically a liar and an idiot. I know, because you’ve accused me of similar things because I have training and expertise way outside whatever it is you think you know.
Perhaps you should stop for a second and assess the limits of your expertise. Perhaps you have no idea how much you don’t know. Perhaps others know the answers to questions that never even occurred to you. Imagine.
Finally, I don’t understand why some of you treat global warming as a partisan issue. That’s nonsense. Perhaps claims about the cause are partisan and subject to great debate, but it’s existence is not. For whatever reason, there is a global warming trend that can’t be denied.
bullwinkle-
I’ve asked myself the two questions you posed, and they in no way answer the questions I asked you. I’m trying to understand the process by which evaporative cooling and increased water vapor would cause an overall drop in temperature.
How do your two questions address asking you explain your statement “I do know that humid air is easier to heat but also easier to cool”? I’m looking for a mechanism by which your hypothesis would cause cooling overall. I’d love to engage in a discussion about this but you’re not really providing any details.
And is evaporative cooling proportional to surface area or not? I provided an explanation on how it isn’t in a real-life system. What do you think? Thanks,
That’s hilarious Denny, you going out on a limb like that and talking about my vast ignorance. I suggest you try a little research before you project your own problems onto others. The comments here would be a good place to start, like possibly reading what I wrote and trying to find the part where I said global warming wasn’t happening. I didn’t say that but I did question the cause and the amount so once again you’re either lying or stupid when you claim I did. As far as evaporation having a measurable effect I know for a fact that it does. I know from actually researching it.
From one source.
Warmer ocean surface temperatures at low latitudes also release water vapor through an excess of evaporation over precipitation to the atmosphere, and this water vapor is transported poleward in the atmosphere along with a portion of the excess heat. At high latitudes where the atmosphere cools, this water vapor falls out as an excess of precipitation over evaporation. This is part of a second important component of our climate system: the hydrologic cycle.
Here’s another one worth reading:
http://www.stockton.edu/~epsteinc/evaporat.htm
So far we’ve had the jackass who defended the bad science by saying that increased evaporation not only wasn’t included in the models because it wouldn’t have any effect (if it’s not included how the hell would they know?) but also that it isn’t proportional to surface area, which it certainly is.
Then Denny, the second jackass said that I denied warming was happening in a pathetic attempt to discount what I’m saying, using dishonesty to support his opinion on the matter. He also didn’t answer either question. So jackass #2, tell us, is it scientific in any way, shape or form to omit something from the model that does, or possibly doesn’t effect the outcome? You think it’s ignored because it won’t matter like jackass #1, but how do they know if they don’t include it?
Still not one friggin’ link to a study that includes it in the model. That’s the part that all of you keep ignoring. Where is that study, the REAL scientific study that doesn’t have an agenda driven outcome?
Think evaporation doesn’t play a part in things?
“But the tropical forests present a win-win because they cool the planet by evaporative cooling and the uptake of carbon.”
It’s amazing how that works? Evaporation is good for cooling the planet, but we aren’t going to include it in our modeling because it doesn’t have any effect that we can tell…
Hmmm.
1.
Your assertion, you prove it. Work out the numbers and post them here along with the links.
2.
*shrug* I don’t know the area so I can’t say. But I think I’d like something that would back up that “232 CUBIC MILES” statement. Not disagreeing, but I’d like confirmation.
Even then let’s do some quick and dirty math, and yes that means it’s not perfectly precise, so that 232 cubic miles = 1,224,960 cubic feet of ice.
The Artic ice pack is around 40,000 sq miles and, I’ll take the 25 foot thickness since I’m too lazy to actually look it up, so that comes out to around 5,280,000,000 cubic feet of ice.
Congrats! You’ve got 5.27 billion more cubic feet to go to equal the artic ice pack.
3. Whether or not Global Warming is going is under contention yes. But whether or not HUMAN activity is the primary or aggravating reason for Global Warming is under even more contention. Even if I accept that global warming is happening I haven’t seen very much evidence that it is human activity that is responsible for it.
Now that doesn’t mean that human activity might not be responsible. But there’s a lot of varied factors involved in such a complex system and over-reliance on computer models makes me suspect most of the gloom-n-doomsayers because such computer models are such crap that they have to be reset quite often else the earth ends up a baked husk or a sweltering jungle.
In addition to the question of whether or not global warming is happening and whether or not human activity has anything to do with it is the issue of whether or not humans can actually do anything to impact it. And it’s this last aspect that frankly bothers me the most.
It’s one thing to enact significant changes, which will lead to massive economic and social chaos, in response to well known and quantifiable science. It’s a completely different thing to do so in response to poorly understood psuedo-science. A lot of people on the Left like to portray conservatives as anti-science. This is not true. I love science and one of my earliest childhood heroes was Charles Proteus Steinmetz.
But one of the most serious issues involving global warming is that political considerations have overtaken the science. We’d all like to think that scientists are above being manipulated by and manipulating political considerations, but the fact is that many scientists are more than willing to fabricate, falisfy, fake and outright lie to support their funding efforts, patrons or political aspirations.
Good intentions is insufficient. I want facts. I want proof.
Hmmmm.
@ bullwinkle
1. Doesn’t air pressure also affect the evaporation rates in addition to temperatures?
2. Doesn’t relative humidity affect evaporation rates since highly humid air cannot easily absorb more moisture?
Frankly what I know about evaporation you can put into a thimble.
Yes, those are true, but given the same conditions evaporation is still proportional to surface area. That doesn’t change.
If the humidity is already high in the tropics evaporation will still increase with more water surface area.
A cubic mile is 5280 x 5280 x 5280 cubic feet, so 232 cubic miles is 34,149,924,864,000 cubic feet.
A square mile is 5280 x 5280 sq feet, so 40,000 sq miles x 25 feet thick is 27,878,400,000,000 cubic feet.
That works out to 1.225 times more ice within the city limits of Juneau than in the Artic ice pack.
Does that seem wrong to anyone else?
As a liquid evaporates it absorbs heat, but when the vapor condenses, it releases that heat. In a closed system there’s no net gain or loss of heat. The evaporation condensation cycle is very effective at transporting heat and this technology is used in heat tubes.
With an outside energy source the evaporation condensation cycle can be used to move heat from a colder place to a hotter place such as in air conditioning, also called a heat pump.
The Sun and Earth form a very complex system that acts both as a heat tube and a heat pump, but there’s even more going on. Evaporation produces clouds that can reflect sunlight back into space, but they also reflect infrared from the surface, and thus, traps heat that would otherwise escape into space.
Scientists have been trying to model all this for a long time using computers, but their efforts have not been very successful.
Climate Models (Inadequacies: Precipitation) – Summary
Hmmm.
Regardless I think I feel pretty damn silly for screwing up my calculation. 🙂
Hmmm.
Ok this is funny. A reference to the IPCC in this NRO article.
Hi bullwinkle-
I like your first link, but the authors concluded that the hydrologic cycle, which transfers heat from the tropics to the northern latitudes, will slow down as ocean temperatures rise, causing even more warming at the tropics and, conversely, cooling at northern latitudes because of the diminished heat transfer.
Also, I’m not sure how your link about evaporative cooling cools the rainforests pertains to oceans, which are obviously a much different system.
It seems to me that as temperatures rise, water will evaporate from the oceans, water vapor will increase, which will lead to further warming, since it’s a greenhouse gas. Cloud cover and humidity will increase, but this is also insulating, trapping even more heat. I read some stuff from Science magazine today about increased cloud cover leading to increased heat retention- when I get back to work tomorrow I’ll try and dig the abstracts out.
Re: Mac Lorry- I know that some of the earliest climate models were rough, but how inaccurate are the current models? Remember, back in 1992 a computer model predicted the global temperature change caused by the Pinatubo eruption:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/1992/HansenLacis.html
Hmmm.
But humidity isn’t global, it’s a local effect with variations based on local conditions. A high humidiy near the equator would result in more rainfall. A high humidity in the more northern and southern lattitudes could result in more snowfall as the moisture is carried to high elevations or into cold weather.
In fact isn’t this what is causing even more snowfall in the central highlands of Antartica?
Frankly I think the global weather, wind and currents are just too complex to really model well.
Mac Lorry:
The ice cap in Juneau is 928 square miles, and it’s a quarter mile thick. Do the math: 232 cubic miles. Pretty simple. Google if you want.
Bullwinkle: You’re an idiot, and you don’t read well. Enough said.
Ed: I think you’ll find the Arctic Ice Cap is more than 40,000 square miles in Greenland alone. I could be wrong, and I’m too tired to research it now. I would encourage you to go for it. Meanwhile, consider it is nearly 2 miles thick while you compute the square miles.
Warming is a fact. Causation is open for debate.