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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Someone please tell National that global warming IS HAPPENING


Sea rise 'to exceed projections'
The global sea level looks set to rise far higher than forecast because of changes in the polar ice-sheets, a team of researchers has suggested. Scientists at a climate change summit in Copenhagen said earlier UN estimates were too low and that sea levels could rise by a metre or more by 2100. The projections did not include the potential impact of polar melting and ice breaking off, they added. The implications for millions of people would be "severe", they warned. Ten per cent of the world's population - about 600 million people - live in low-lying areas. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, had said that the maximum rise in sea level would be in the region of 59cm.
Professor Konrad Steffen from the University of Colorado, speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, highlighted new studies into ice loss in Greenland, showing it has accelerated over the last decade. Professor Steffen, who has studied the Arctic ice for the past 35 years, told me: "I would predict sea level rise by 2100 in the order of one metre; it could be 1.2m or 0.9m. "But it is one metre or more seeing the current change, which is up to three times more than the average predicted by the IPCC." "It is a major change and it actually calls for action." Dr John Church of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research added: "The most recent research showed that sea level is rising by 3mm a year since 1993, a rate well above the 20th century average."


As this Government axes environmental programs, as this Government scraps the ETS, as this Government guts the RMA pretending it's cutting red tape when it's really burning green tape to allow developers to quash community concerns, as this Government holds an inquisition into climate change denial - as this Government does all these things, the Planet continues to melt pushing sea levels higher then those predicted by the IPCC, because as has been pointed out by many commentators, they hadn't included any of the melt from Antarctica or Greenland. The reality of global warming is that it is out pacing the predictions.

As the planet burns, National fiddles.

43 Comments:

At 11/3/09 2:53 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A recent New Scientist article has made some predictions about Global warmings impact on various place in the world and New Zealand comes out pretty well


Here is what there interactive map states about the country:

"New Zealand
New Zealand is largely rural in 2009, and well-known for the beautiful vistas captured on film in The Lord of the Rings.

However, by 2100 it will be a densely-populated island state, with high-rise cities and intensive farming. Rapid warming will mean that crops grow readily."

Doesn't sound terrible now does it?

 
At 11/3/09 2:54 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

BTW you can read the full article here

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126971.700-how-to-survive-the-coming-century.html

 
At 11/3/09 2:55 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

So as long as we are okay huh Gosman? You right wingers and your selfish ways, sad, so very sad.

 
At 11/3/09 2:57 pm, Blogger Bomber said...

It depends what how much that rapid warming goes up, if it passes tipping points which trigger feedback mechanisms within the environment, then no where will be 'safe'.

 
At 11/3/09 3:08 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

and what happens if you live near the NZ coast gosman?

 
At 11/3/09 3:19 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You move inland. It is called migration and it has been going on in human history for as long as humans ahve existed.

Your question is like asking what would happen to the people in Auckland if the Volcanic area became active again. They would have to move.

 
At 11/3/09 3:24 pm, Blogger Bomber said...

But Gosman you were just telling us all how great life in NZ will be as the planet warms, you seem to have missed the bit about us all having to move inland, and a volcano and climate change are a little different aren't they? How do human beings make volcanos erupt?

 
At 11/3/09 3:32 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I stated that migration is part and parcel of huiman existence and always has been. It is only in the past 100 years that we have become soft and demanded that our environments remain static and unchanging. Land will have to be abandoned and Cities rebuilt on higher ground. This has happened in human history before. Just look at all the ancient cities that were built and rebuilt.

The Auckland volcano exampe was used to illustrate the point that if something like that happened we would have to cope, just as we are likely have to cope with the impact of global warming.

You might think global warming is reversable I am less confident. I am just more positive regarding the outcome.

 
At 11/3/09 3:40 pm, Blogger Bomber said...

I stated that migration is part and parcel of huiman existence and always has been. It is only in the past 100 years that we have become soft and demanded that our environments remain static and unchanging. Land will have to be abandoned and Cities rebuilt on higher ground. This has happened in human history before. Just look at all the ancient cities that were built and rebuilt.

No - your original post was...

...A recent New Scientist article has made some predictions about Global warmings impact on various place in the world and New Zealand comes out pretty well


Here is what there interactive map states about the country:

"New Zealand
New Zealand is largely rural in 2009, and well-known for the beautiful vistas captured on film in The Lord of the Rings.

However, by 2100 it will be a densely-populated island state, with high-rise cities and intensive farming. Rapid warming will mean that crops grow readily."

Doesn't sound terrible now does it?


...you didn't mention sea rise or migration at all here, you simply painted out global warming as a positive outcome, Doesn't sound terrible now does it?, so downplaying global warming and then admitting people will have to move in land to stop drowning doesn't seem to gel so well.

The Auckland volcano exampe was used to illustrate the point that if something like that happened we would have to cope, just as we are likely have to cope with the impact of global warming.

But climate change is man made, volcanoes erupting are not, your first post was attempting to down play the impacts of global warming and trying to use an example of a volcano erupting puts climate change into the 'it's something we can't do anything about' basket. Let's not cut back on pollution that exacerbates climate change because like volcanoes there's nothing we can do seems to be your message.

You might think global warming is reversable I am less confident. I am just more positive regarding the outcome.

No I think it will get worse with a mindset that seems more focused on Doesn't sound terrible now does it?

 
At 11/3/09 3:59 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"..., so downplaying global warming and then admitting people will have to move in land to stop drowning doesn't seem to gel so well."

This is what is so layghable about Global warming obsessives. It isn't as if the water levels go up two or three meters overnight.

On a Global scale the rise is rapid but on a human scale it will be almost imperceptable.

There is plenty of time to and move inland gradually. Remember most of the Worlds cities have only been around in their current state for a little over a hundred years.

 
At 11/3/09 4:00 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"No I think it will get worse with a mindset that seems more focused on Doesn't sound terrible now does it?"

I'm just quoting from the same scientists you use to make the point the Global warming is so terrible

 
At 11/3/09 4:19 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

some one please tell Bomber that global warming ISN'T Happening

 
At 11/3/09 4:22 pm, Blogger Bomber said...

This is what is so layghable about Global warming obsessives. It isn't as if the water levels go up two or three meters overnight.

Runaway climate change
The scientific consensus in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report is that "Anthropogenic warming could lead to some effects that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change."
The phenomenon of Arctic shrinkage is leading some scientists to fear that a runaway climate change event may be imminent or may even have started, although other scientists have challenged this. There is an albedo effect, as white ice is replaced by dark ocean. Rapid Arctic shrinkage is occurring, with 2007 being the lowest ever recorded area and 2008 being possibly the lowest ever recorded volume. This will induce or accelerate other positive feedback mechanisms, such as Arctic methane release from melting permafrost and clathrates. Lawrence et al(2008) suggests that a rapid melting of the sea ice may up a feedback loop that rapidly melts arctic permafrost. However, ocean clathrates are expected to destabilise much more slowly.
Estimates of the size of the total carbon reservoir in Arctic permafrost and clathrates vary widely. It is suggested that at least 900 gigatonnes of carbon in permafrost exists worldwide. Further, there are believed to be around and another 400 gigatonnes of carbon in methane clathrates in permafrost regions alone. Should this estimate of volume be correct or at least too low, and if clathrates are omitted from the analysis completely, then 900 gigatonnes of carbon may potentially be released as methane as a result of human activity.


If we do nothing to stop warming the planet the changes can be much more dramatic and sudden than you are suggesting gosman.

I'm just quoting from the same scientists you use to make the point the Global warming is so terrible

Where did THEY say Doesn't sound terrible now does it?

 
At 11/3/09 5:02 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Where did THEY say Doesn't sound terrible now does it?

That was my interpretation of the prediction for New Zealand in 2100. I base this on the fact that it says NZ "...will be a densely-populated island state, with high-rise cities and intensive farming. Rapid warming will mean that crops grow readily"

Now I don't see too many things wrong with that statement do you?

 
At 12/3/09 8:17 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You know the easiest way to reduce Greenhouse gas emissions - Deindustrialise.

Take the Pol Pot approach to societal development and empty the cities and force everybody to go back to living on the land.

The country could be held up as an example to the rest of the world how to deal with the crisis and it would have an added benefit of emptying the universities of all the Permanent Revolutionaries, who would have to work for a living for a change.

 
At 12/3/09 8:50 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I expect Global Cooling in about 10-15 years, as per the usual cycles.

Actually the last global warming cycle ended in 1998, and cooling has been under way since 2001.

The warming cycle ran from 1975 (the very year the same alarmists were predicting a new ice age) after a cooling cycle that ran from 1940.

As well as these 25 to 35 year regular cycles there are cycles that run for several centuries, hence the Medieval Warm Period 1000years ago and the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

We may still be in the warming from the LII, but eventually we will cool again, and even more certainly there will be another major Ice Age -- these are some tens of thousands of years apart, with the last one at its peak 20,000 years ago.

 
At 12/3/09 9:24 am, Blogger Bomber said...

Right so when you said you were quoting them, you were actually putting words on their mouth?

I think envoking Pol Pot as a solution says more about you than me Gosman.

Poneke everyone understands the normal cooling and heating cycle, and we all know how deniers use it to deny climate change from man made pollution.

 
At 12/3/09 9:36 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Poneke everyone understands the normal cooling and heating cycle

Except you apparently.

 
At 12/3/09 10:03 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually the last global warming cycle ended in 1998, and cooling has been under way since 2001.

If so, why was 2005 warmer than 1998? The global temperature record doesn't show "cycles".

The warming cycle ran from 1975 (the very year the same alarmists were predicting a new ice age) after a cooling cycle that ran from 1940. As well as these 25 to 35 year regular cycles there are cycles that run for several centuries, hence the Medieval Warm Period 1000years ago and the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.

This is just making stuff up. You can't infer the presence of long period cycles from short periods of data.

We may still be in the warming from the LII, but eventually we will cool again, and even more certainly there will be another major Ice Age -- these are some tens of thousands of years apart, with the last one at its peak 20,000 years ago.

The planet will only begin to cool when we remove large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. It's been estimated that our carbon emissions have delayed the next ice age by at least 100,000 years.

You cant escape the physics of carbon dioxide - more of the stuff in the atmosphere means more warming.

 
At 12/3/09 10:05 am, Blogger Sally said...

Well said Gosman - especially this
"....and it would have an added benefit of emptying the universities of all the Permanent Revolutionaries, who would have to work for a living for a change."

As well would be the "Keynesian economists" who in all their nefarious schemes, they insist on claiming for themselves the mantle of "empirical science."

 
At 12/3/09 4:59 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You don't seriously believe that rubbish do you Bomber?

Find me a scientific study of actual data that reveals sea levels are rising 10mm a year...because that's what you need for a one metre sea level increase this century.

Let me save you the trouble, because in writing the new book AIR CON I've gone through hundreds of studies: there isn't one.

And memo to Bomber, the planet is currently cooling overall, not warming. Latest data, FWIW, shows Antarctica in particular has cooled by up to 0.21C since 1980. (UAH suggests up to 0.25C)

You're going to love Air Con, I can tell.

 
At 13/3/09 10:03 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

1
You don't seriously believe that rubbish do you Bomber? Find me a scientific study of actual data that reveals sea levels are rising 10mm a year...because that's what you need for a one metre sea level increase this century.


Nobody claims that SLR is currently 10mm per year, but ice sheet mass loss is increasing significantly and that means the rate of SLR will increase. And we know that rates of 1m per century are possible because they occurred in the recent past (meltwater pulse 1a, during the warming out of the last ice age). You don't need a full 1m of sea level rise to cause problems. People living in low-lying areas (Asian megadeltas) will be in trouble long before then.

Let me save you the trouble, because in writing the new book AIR CON I've gone through hundreds of studies: there isn't one.
And memo to Bomber, the planet is currently cooling overall, not warming. Latest data, FWIW, shows Antarctica in particular has cooled by up to 0.21C since 1980. (UAH suggests up to 0.25C)


Anyone who claims the planet is cooling either doesn't understand the data, or is deliberately attempting to confuse. Simple fact: if you take the average of the l;as 10 years, and that of the preceding 10 years, you'll find the current decade is warmer.

You're going to love Air Con, I can tell

If your claims above are representative of those in the book, it looks as though you are about to make a very public fool of yourself.

2
You can't infer the presence of long period cycles from short periods of data.

Ha ha, that's got to be one of the cleanest foot shots I've seen in a long time.

So 'response to Poneke', why are the global warming freaks using short periods of data to infer long cycles?


Global warming "freaks", as you so nicely put it, don't.

 
At 13/3/09 10:24 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"ice sheet mass loss is increasing significantly and that means the rate of SLR will increase."

Actually, the ice sheet mass loss has to be going somewhere. It is not being found in any major sea level increase. The satellites that measure ice mass sometimes have difficulty seeing freshly dumped snow, which is not as compact as ice.

According to one study, Antarctica gained more than 500 billion tons of ice mass during the so-called warmest decade.

"People living in low-lying areas (Asian megadeltas) will be in trouble long before then."

They might be, but your position assumes that any current warming is related to human-caused ghg emissions. If, on the other hand, current melt relates to regional influences such as El Nino, the PDO or the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave (or indeed volcanos under the ice), then it has buckleys to do with humans and no amount of cutting back on carbon emissions will make a blind bit of difference.

In which case, we are better to spend money mitigating the impact than trying to stick fingers in a non-existent CO2 dyke.

"Anyone who claims the planet is cooling either doesn't understand the data, or is deliberately attempting to confuse. Simple fact: if you take the average of the l;as 10 years, and that of the preceding 10 years, you'll find the current decade is warmer."

Relativity is the issue here. Warmer/cooler relative to what? The planet is currently trending down from its 1998 El Nino peak. And as I pointed out, the Antarctic data, once corrected, actually shows cooling overall of up to 0.25C since 1980, not warming.

Hard data, not computer model fantasy.

Alaska's glaciers have begun to grow again, as have Norway's, and the Journal of Climate reported last year that the UN IPCC's favourite 22 models may all have dramatically overestimated the extent of global warming this coming century because of a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of clouds in regulating temperature.

You'd be aware also of the paper presented at Copenhagen this week confirming Greenland melt has been overestimated, because current models assumed a tipping point of 3C when in fact it is 6C or higher.

Global warming belief, when stripped of the urgent rhetoric, is looking sicker this year than it ever has.

As you will find out when Air Con is released.

 
At 13/3/09 11:20 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Actually, the ice sheet mass loss has to be going somewhere. It is not being found in any major sea level increase. The satellites that measure ice mass sometimes have difficulty seeing freshly dumped snow, which is not as compact as ice.

According to one study, Antarctica gained more than 500 billion tons of ice mass during the so-called warmest decade.


What study might that be? GRACE satellite data shows significant and increasing mass loss from both Greenland and Antarctica. Any increased snowfall is being more than offset by increased melting.

"People living in low-lying areas (Asian megadeltas) will be in trouble long before then."

They might be, but your position assumes that any current warming is related to human-caused ghg emissions. If, on the other hand, current melt relates to regional influences such as El Nino, the PDO or the Antarctic Circumpolar Wave (or indeed volcanos under the ice), then it has buckleys to do with humans and no amount of cutting back on carbon emissions will make a blind bit of difference.


The current melt is *affected* by the things you mention, because they're all components of a complex system (except the volcanoes, and they have nothing to do with anything in this context), but the driver is increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere. You can't just dismiss the radiative effects of GHGs with a wave of a hand. They're real, measured, and supported by physics right down to the quantum level. You wanna re-write quantum physics? Brave man.

In which case, we are better to spend money mitigating the impact than trying to stick fingers in a non-existent CO2 dyke.

We're going to have spend that money anyway, because nothing we do to reduce emissions is going to have any impact for at least 20 years because of the thermal inertia (big oceans) of the system. Adaptation is becoming ever more important because it's clear that climate change is happening faster than expected.

"Anyone who claims the planet is cooling either doesn't understand the data, or is deliberately attempting to confuse. Simple fact: if you take the average of the l;as 10 years, and that of the preceding 10 years, you'll find the current decade is warmer."

Relativity is the issue here. Warmer/cooler relative to what? The planet is currently trending down from its 1998 El Nino peak. And as I pointed out, the Antarctic data, once corrected, actually shows cooling overall of up to 0.25C since 1980, not warming.


See what I mean about not understanding the data? There is no downward trend in global temperature since 1998. 2005 was warmer by one measure, a little lower by another. Antarctica is not the globe - and the latest studies show warming over the last 50 years. There is some recent cooling in East Antarctica, but that's related to ozone losses...

Alaska's glaciers have begun to grow again, as have Norway's, and the Journal of Climate reported last year that the UN IPCC's favourite 22 models may all have dramatically overestimated the extent of global warming this coming century because of a fundamental misunderstanding about the role of clouds in regulating temperature.

A few glaciers may be growing (because of increased precipitation in their nevees), but the World Glacier Monitoring Service is clear that overall mass loss is continuing and accelerating.

You'd be aware also of the paper presented at Copenhagen this week confirming Greenland melt has been overestimated, because current models assumed a tipping point of 3C when in fact it is 6C or higher.

You don't understand that paper either. It says nothing about melt being overestimated, merely that the tipping point for total melt - the point at which total loss becomes inevitable - may happen at a higher temperature than previously thought. During the last (Eemian) interglacial, the GIS may have been reduced to half its current size, but sea levels were 3-5m higher than today. That's not good news, by the way, because CO2 levels during the Eemian didn't get much over 300 ppm, and we're currently at 387ppm.

Global warming belief, when stripped of the urgent rhetoric, is looking sicker this year than it ever has.

Global warming denial, with its increasingly strident rhetoric, is clearly on its last legs.

As you will find out when Air Con is released.

Prepare to say goodbye to any credibility you may once have had.

 
At 13/3/09 12:30 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

According to one study, Antarctica gained more than 500 billion tons of ice mass during the so-called warmest decade.

“What study might that be? GRACE satellite data shows significant and increasing mass loss from both Greenland and Antarctica. Any increased snowfall is being more than offset by increased melting.”

It might be this study: “Snowfall driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea Level Rise”, Davis et al, Science, 24 June 2005, Vol 308, no 5730, pp. 1898-1901

“The current melt is *affected* by the things you mention, because they're all components of a complex system (except the volcanoes, and they have nothing to do with anything in this context), but the driver is increasing greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.”

Er, I think you’ll find the studies record Antarctic ice sheets have been receding ever since the last ice age as a result of orbital and solar forcings, not CO2. The cores, and even RealClimate concedes this blindingly obvious point, show CO2 release trails warming by around 800 years. There is actually good reason to suspect current CO2 increases are the result of the Medieval Warm Period 1000 or so years ago.

Another study notes that Antarctica’s spectacular melt (Larsen collapse, Wilkins etc) appears to have been ongoing for “decades…even centuries”. (see “A structural glaciological analysis of the 2002 Larsen B ice shelf collapse”, N Glasser and T Scambos, Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 54, No. 184, 2008).

As for your ignorance on volcanoes, may I recommend this passage from Vaughan in regard to Antarctica’s fastest-moving glacier: “The flow of this glacier towards the coast has speeded up in recent decades and it may be possible that heat from the volcano has caused some of that acceleration.”

It may indeed be possible, because Pine Island Glacier sits virtually on top of a large recently-discovered, sub-glacial active volcano. Likewise in the Arctic, scientists have recently discovered a chain of active volcanoes under the sea ice that began blowing their stacks in 1999 just a couple of kilometres below the surface and continue to be active. Not that superheated seawater and massive volcanic CO2 emissions could possibly have an impact on sea ice.

“You can't just dismiss the radiative effects of GHGs with a wave of a hand. They're real, measured, and supported by physics right down to the quantum level. You wanna re-write quantum physics? Brave man.”

I’m not dismissing the physics of GHG. I’m disputing chicken and egg, cause and effect.

“Antarctica is not the globe - and the latest studies show warming over the last 50 years. There is some recent cooling in East Antarctica, but that's related to ozone losses...”

Forget the 50 years…last 25 show cooling despite rising CO2 worldwide. Those figures I gave you were for entire continental average, including WAIS and peninsula. Whilst WAIS and Pen have warmed, this is directly related to El Nino sending warmer currents south. If you look at the Antarctic studies, the prime mover behind WAIS melt is warmer seas, and those warmer seas are oscillation related, not CO2 related.

“A few glaciers may be growing (because of increased precipitation in their nevees), but the World Glacier Monitoring Service is clear that overall mass loss is continuing and accelerating.”

Yeah, and if you understood glaciers you’d know that most have built-in lag of hundreds or even thousands of years. Some big glaciers are still reacting to the MWP. The increased precipitation – according to the latest data – appears to be another negative climate feedback that UN IPCC did not properly understand. Observed precipitation in either rain or snow form has been much higher than computer models predict, and it is likewise a law of physics that evaporation and condensation both remove heat energy from the system, thus providing a cooling effect.

You'd be aware also of the paper presented at Copenhagen this week confirming Greenland melt has been overestimated, because current models assumed a tipping point of 3C when in fact it is 6C or higher.

“You don't understand that paper either. It says nothing about melt being overestimated, merely that the tipping point for total melt - the point at which total loss becomes inevitable - may happen at a higher temperature than previously thought. During the last (Eemian) interglacial, the GIS may have been reduced to half its current size, but sea levels were 3-5m higher than today. That's not good news, by the way, because CO2 levels during the Eemian didn't get much over 300 ppm, and we're currently at 387ppm.”

Apply the laws of logic to what you just wrote. Greenland’s tipping point is double what UN IPCC estimated. The entire melt curve shifts with that change in tipping point, because the rate of melt will be nowhere near as fast as has been predicted.

And as for CO2 levels, remember the data shows CO2 trails warming, not the other way around. Here’s something else to chew on. Ordovician/Silurian transition, CO2 jumps from 4000 ppm/v to 4500ppm/v, and temperature drops 10C to the same average temperature we enjoy today (albeit CO2 levels 11 times higher than now).

Read the book, you'll enjoy taking all the peer-reviewed studies I quote to bits, I'm sure.

 
At 13/3/09 1:45 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It might be this study: “Snowfall driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea Level Rise”, Davis et al, Science, 24 June 2005, Vol 308, no 5730, pp. 1898-1901

Doesn't show what you think it does: here's the abstract -

Satellite radar altimetry measurements indicate that the East Antarctic ice-sheet interior north of 81.6 degrees S increased in mass by 45 +/- 7 billion metric tons per year from 1992 to 2003. Comparisons with contemporaneous meteorological model snowfall estimates suggest that the gain in mass was associated with increased precipitation. A gain of this magnitude is enough to slow sea-level rise by 0.12 +/- 0.02 millimeters per year.

Presumably you are a bit geographically-challenged, because "north of 81.6 degrees" excludes the whole centre of the continent, as well as West Antarctica... Contrast your cherry-picked article with a recent review of all the work done in the field: Recent Sea-Level Contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets, Shepherd & Wingham, Science Jan 2007 :http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;315/5818/1529

"...data show that Antarctica and Greenland are each losing mass overall. Our best estimateof their combined imbalance is about
125 gigatons per year of ice"

Papers published since show that the current rate of mass loss is likely to be higher. Try looking at the GRACE satellite data.

Er, I think you’ll find the studies record Antarctic ice sheets have been receding ever since the last ice age as a result of orbital and solar forcings, not CO2. The cores, and even RealClimate concedes this blindingly obvious point, show CO2 release trails warming by around 800 years. There is actually good reason to suspect current CO2 increases are the result of the Medieval Warm Period 1000 or so years ago.

No there isn't. The "extra" CO2 is entirely down to us - that's shown by studying carbon isotopes. You really are in lunatic territory if you want to argue that current CO2 increases come from ocean warming.

Likewise in the Arctic, scientists have recently discovered a chain of active volcanoes under the sea ice that began blowing their stacks in 1999 just a couple of kilometres below the surface and continue to be active. Not that superheated seawater and massive volcanic CO2 emissions could possibly have an impact on sea ice.

If you are implying that they are influencing Arctic sea ice you are absolutely out in la-la land. The amount of heat released is miniscule compared to the heat capacity of the cold Arctic ocean.

I’m not dismissing the physics of GHG. I’m disputing chicken and egg, cause and effect.

More CO2, more warming. Before we started adding carbon to the atmosphere, CO2 could be both a forcing and a feedback. Emerging from an ice age, orbital variations drive some initial warming through albedo changes (melting ice in northern high latitudes), which warms ocean and boosts CO2 (the "lag" exists, but may be less than 800 years). It was a feedback. Now we're adding CO2 by burning fossil fuels, so it's driving the changes we see. It's now a forcing.

If you look at the Antarctic studies, the prime mover behind WAIS melt is warmer seas, and those warmer seas are oscillation related, not CO2 related.

Brave man, again. Going well beyond what the science actually says.

“A few glaciers may be growing (because of increased precipitation in their nevees), but the World Glacier Monitoring Service is clear that overall mass loss is continuing and accelerating.”

Yeah, and if you understood glaciers you’d know that most have built-in lag of hundreds or even thousands of years.


And if you had the faintest inkling of what you were talking about, you'd know that glacial response times vary from a few years (5-7 for Franz Josef, for instance) to hundreds of years.

Observed precipitation in either rain or snow form has been much higher than computer models predict, and it is likewise a law of physics that evaporation and condensation both remove heat energy from the system, thus providing a cooling effect.

You really haven't got a clue, have you? Evaporation and condensation move heat around the climate system, but do not remove energy from the system. Only radiation to space can do that.

Apply the laws of logic to what you just wrote. Greenland’s tipping point is double what UN IPCC estimated. The entire melt curve shifts with that change in tipping point, because the rate of melt will be nowhere near as fast as has been predicted.

Laughable. Once again, you show you haven't got the first idea what you're talking about.

Read the book, you'll enjoy taking all the peer-reviewed studies I quote to bits, I'm sure.

I'll enjoy looking at the ones you choose, your sources for that choice, and ripping your arguments to shreds.

Good luck with your credibility.

 
At 13/3/09 3:44 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sigh...to touch just one of the counterpoints...evaporation and condensation do move heat around the system yes - out of the atmosphere.

As for radiation to space, my point earlier about fundamentally misunderstanding how clouds work, covered in several journals last year, is precisely my point: observations are showing much more heat escaping to space than the IPCC allowed for.

Anyway...you'll see in context when the book comes out. One scientist who's read a proof said this:

"I started reading this book with an intensely critical eye, expecting that a mere journalist could not possibly cope with the complexities of climate science … [But] He gives chapter and verse for almost everything he says and he has been far more far-ranging in searching the web than anyone else I know. The book is brilliant. The best I have seen which deals with the news item side of it as well as the science. He has done a very thorough job and I have no hesitation in unreserved commendation...”

 
At 13/3/09 5:39 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sigh...to touch just one of the counterpoints...evaporation and condensation do move heat around the system yes - out of the atmosphere.

Out of the atmosphere... where?

As for radiation to space, my point earlier about fundamentally misunderstanding how clouds work, covered in several journals last year, is precisely my point: observations are showing much more heat escaping to space than the IPCC allowed for.

Roy Spencer's trying to prove the existence of a strong negative feedback in the hydrological cycle, and makes great claims when talking to sceptic groups. His peer-reviewed papers are a great deal more circumspect -- and funnily enough, not finding much traction in the wider community. The satellite that would answer the energy balance question is sitting in a warehouse ready to fly, but by some strange coincidence a few years ago the Bush-appointed NASA administration cut funding for that launch. However, there are very good reasons to expect a strong and positive water vapour feedback: for example, without one the climate would never warm up of an ice age. (see Dessler & Sherwood, A Matter of Humidity, Science, Feb 20 2009 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/323/5917/1020)

Anyway...you'll see in context when the book comes out. One scientist who's read a proof said this:

"I started reading this book with an intensely critical eye, expecting that a mere journalist could not possibly cope with the complexities of climate science … [But] He gives chapter and verse for almost everything he says and he has been far more far-ranging in searching the web than anyone else I know. The book is brilliant. The best I have seen which deals with the news item side of it as well as the science. He has done a very thorough job and I have no hesitation in unreserved commendation...”


Let me guess. No, don't spoil it. Bob Carter? Not Chris de Freitas, he's usually more circumspect. Could be Vincent Grey, of course. Or Gerrit van der Lingen -- never short of a paragraph when a word would do.

Has your draft been read by any real, working, publishing in peer-reviewed journals kind of climate scientists?

No, I didn't think so.

 
At 13/3/09 7:45 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sigh...to touch just one of the counterpoints...evaporation and condensation do move heat around the system yes - out of the atmosphere.

"Out of the atmosphere... where?"

Out of the atmosphere for the most part, as I said. The condensation occurs at the top of cloud banks, where the surplus heat radiates up and out. This is one of the key points on the satellite and weather balloon readings...we're not seeing heat being 'trapped' in the troposphere as claimed (a piece of evidence that fits Spencer's theories about cloud venting, incidentally) yet we are seeing greater preciptation...so where is the heat going?.

"Roy Spencer's trying to prove the existence of a strong negative feedback in the hydrological cycle, and makes great claims when talking to sceptic groups. His peer-reviewed papers are a great deal more circumspect -- and funnily enough, not finding much traction in the wider community."

I haven't found a decent rebuttal yet, and found the attempts at alternative explanations quite desperate, in places.

The hard data simply doesn't support the models, so the modellers and their supporters (like yourself), look anywhere else they can for a just-so story that might fit.

 
At 14/3/09 12:48 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

we're not seeing heat being 'trapped' in the troposphere

So why's the stratosphere cooling?

Around 70 percent of the energy imbalance is going into the oceans. Another big chunk is going into melting ice. But until we have a satellite flying to check the numbers, this has to be inferred, not measured directly. Perhaps the Obama administration will find the funds Bush couldn't.

I haven't found a decent rebuttal yet, and found the attempts at alternative explanations quite desperate, in places.

Sometimes papers aren't worth the time and effort to "rebut". If Spencer's paper had interesting ideas in it, his peers would be all over it, testing it, replicating it, etc. They aren't, because they think he's wrong, and don't want to waste time chasing up a dead end. Spencer, of course, hates that, as did Lindzen when his (very similar) "iris" idea got no traction. Meanwhile, read the Sherwood ref I provided. If the book's not yet at the printers you might have time to make some revisions.

There's plenty of hard data supporting the models. They're not perfect (nothing is), but they do a pretty good job -- and they're useful.

So, who is this un-named "scientist" Ian, the one who likes your draft so much? Did I guess right?

 
At 15/3/09 11:50 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry, been on deadline. I dealt with Dessler/Sherwood in the book about a week ago. It's out of date, and deliberately ignored some major new evidence that a meeting of climatologists felt the public wasn't ready to hear yet. Quite a controversy.

Anyway, you'll get to read about it.

 
At 16/3/09 12:02 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The controversy is only in Spencer's mind.

So, who's your "scientist", Ian, the one who finds your "work" to be so good?

Surely not ashamed to provide his name...

 
At 16/3/09 9:08 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Patience...the book is being released April 27...you will find out then...

Re-reading your original post, though, I'll call you out on the scare story about Greenland ice melt that you wholeheartedly endorse.

You quote:

"Professor Konrad Steffen from the University of Colorado, speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, highlighted new studies into ice loss in Greenland, showing it has accelerated over the last decade. Professor Steffen, who has studied the Arctic ice for the past 35 years, told me: "I would predict sea level rise by 2100 in the order of one metre; it could be 1.2m or 0.9m."

You do know, and I'm sure Steffen did when he made this inflammatory statements this month, that Science magazine recently reported an abrupt end to Greenland glacier melt, and that even Vicky Pope of the Hadley centre has described the acceleration of melt (of the kind referred to in Copenhagen scare stories) as having "stopped" across the Greenland ice cap?

Based on current melt rates out of Greenland, it will contribute to 50mm of sea level rise this century, or about two inches.

Terrible news for garden gnomes, but everyone else should be safe.

So what planet, one has to ask, were the Copenhagen panic-merchants actually reporting on?

 
At 16/3/09 10:54 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You do know, and I'm sure Steffen did when he made this inflammatory statements this month, that Science magazine recently reported an abrupt end to Greenland glacier melt, and that even Vicky Pope of the Hadley centre has described the acceleration of melt (of the kind referred to in Copenhagen scare stories) as having "stopped" across the Greenland ice cap?

Again, you show that you either don't understand what the study in question is saying, or are deliberately misrepresenting it. The study Kerr refers to in that Science article covers the glaciers of SE Greenland - not the whole of Greenland. Also from the Fall AGU meeting: Researchers watching the loss of ice flowing out from the giant island of Greenland say that the amount of ice lost this summer is nearly three times what was lost one year ago.[ScienceDaily]. There is no doubt that Greenland is still losing ice mass, and that mass loss has accelerated.

You're selectively quoting Pope. She was talking about the Kerr report about SE Greenland, not the whole ice sheet, and went on to say: What is true is that there will always be natural variability in the amount of ice around Greenland and that as our climate continues to warm, the long-term reduction in the ice sheet is inevitable.

Inevitable. Got it?

 
At 16/3/09 2:45 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The study Kerr refers to in that Science article covers the glaciers of SE Greenland - not the whole of Greenland.

Outlet glaciers of SEG, yes, these being the ones facing the warmest part of the Atlantic (a relative term given the frigidity of the locale), and because they were the fastest movers.

If you go back and read the paper, although the SE outlet glaciers are used to illustrate the story, Kerr repeatedly uses phrases like "Greenland ice's Armageddon has come to an end", knowing, as do I, that the cool-down is not confined to a couple of bays on the continent.

If you read the Science paper to which Pope referred in more detail, you will also see that "long term" is explicitly defined in the paper as "centuries", not decades.

Which is precisely what we would expect to see from gradual warming marking the end of the Little Ice Age, and barring getting plunged back into a new one.

If you also look at the latest papers on Greenland, you'll see overall melt between 2003 and 2008 doubled, and by 2008 it was contributing half a millimetre a year to rising sea levels. Fifty mms (two inches) a century.

Like I said, terrible news for gnomes and short Green voters...probably dandy for the rest of us.

I am sooo looking forward to Air Con hitting your desk.

 
At 17/3/09 1:16 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Which is precisely what we would expect to see from gradual warming marking the end of the Little Ice Age, and barring getting plunged back into a new one.

The "gradual warming" was triggered by increasing levels of CO2. You've said you don't dispute the GHG properties of the gas, so you have to accept that it is having an increasing influence. And as the amount of CO2 increases, so that influence increases.

If you also look at the latest papers on Greenland, you'll see overall melt between 2003 and 2008 doubled, and by 2008 it was contributing half a millimetre a year to rising sea levels. Fifty mms (two inches) a century.

So one the one hand you claim that the melting's stopped, and then admit that it's doubled over the last five years. The cognitive dissonance is deafening...

Given that the CO2 forcing is increasing, and likely to increase further, then we can expect further increases in melting from Greenland, Antarctica and the other land-based ice sheets. That will increase the rate of sea level rise. How much is the big question, but the emerging consensus amongst those who study this stuff for a living is heading for 1m and rising by the end of the century.

Like I said, terrible news for gnomes and short Green voters...probably dandy for the rest of us.

We're going round in circles here. The coastal and delta populations of Bangladesh, the Mekong and the Yellow River, and others will be in trouble long before we get anywhere near 1m.

I am sooo looking forward to Air Con hitting your desk.

You might want to reconsider that. You may be able to fool a few people who don't understand the science, or who want their political views confirmed, but you won't get far in the real world. Especially when you meet someone who can see through your bluster, and who can point out the cherry-picks and basic errors. How about sending Bomber a draft, so that we can get started...?

 
At 27/4/09 3:47 pm, Blogger soundhill said...

Ian Wishart wrote:
"And memo to Bomber, the planet is currently cooling overall, not warming. Latest data, FWIW, shows Antarctica in particular has cooled by up to 0.21C since 1980."

I would expect Antarctica to cool with global warming. Deep ocean currents bring heat to calve icebergs which then travel to latitudes where they reflect away heat which was formerly being absorbed by seawater. Eventually as enough icebergs travel far enough from the poles an ice age could start as much solar incident energy will be reflected away.

The wavelength of reflected solar energy is not stopped by the greenhouse blanket, the way the long wavelengths are.

The greenhouse blanket resists the heat loss of re-irradiating of heat. Especially at night it is noticeable that the earth cools through re-irradiating away heat. That us at long wavelengths. Note that frosts occur less on cloudy nights with the water vapour greenhouse blanket stopping the long wavelengths getting through.

De-industrialising is not a need of having many people living on the land. But we need to improve industry. Current industrial food/biofuel-crop agriculture is based on grass or annual crops which require much irrigation. That irrigation provides water vapour which warm daytime air can take up and so a greenhouse blanket is enabled, reducing night time cooling. It magnifies the CO2 warming blanket.

Also industrial agriculture is monoculture with few if any birds either.

I propose to accommodate people in houses on 0.2 ha sections within walking/biking distance of existing main transport routes. There would be rules for biodiversity stewardship. Crops would include deeper-rooted perennial ones, requiring less irrigation. Trees would provide sun and wind shade, and also the terpene aerosols they produce would help rain droplets to form.

Gardening has been Nzers' no. 2 recreation after walking and way above sport. I fear for intensified high rise city living with lack of recreational opportunities or fresh food at hand, and its heightened risk for epidemics.

And it was asked:
'So why's the stratosphere cooling?'
Wishart's bok does not mention the stratosphere in its index. If the sun is the reason for global warming then why would not the stratosphere be warming rather than cooling?

Brian Sandle

 
At 29/4/09 8:05 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

global warming is nonexistent!

 
At 30/4/09 1:01 am, Blogger soundhill said...

Anonymous said...
"global warming is nonexistent!"

I say:
Quite a bit of that argument is based on the Antarctic, and I have explained a bit about that.

Further, Wishart asks why Antarctic sea ice is growing.

Heat is carried from the tropics to Antarctic in submarine ocean currents. When the submarine Antarctic ice melts it frees water that is less salty. Less salty water is lighter so rises. Less salty water is also easier to freeze than normal sea water, so freezes at the surface, increasing the sea ice.

It has been hard to measure the leakage of water from submarine ice melting. But I suggest that the increasing sea ice gives an indication.

Brian Sandle

 
At 2/5/09 7:37 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Brian, have you actually read the book, as opposed to glancing at the index? The stratosphere is mentioned on a couple of occasions (can't remember where because evidently the word is missing from the index), but essentially the most recent atmospheric studies he references discuss the stratosphere.

IIRC, the problem is not the cooling stratosphere but the failure of the troposphere to warm substantially. It's unlikely warmth would remain in the stratosphere if in fact its being lost from the troposphere by increased negative feedbacks.

Your comment on Antarctic ice is a non peer-reviewed "just so" attempt to explain the problem away, but it is consistent with overall cooling of Antarctica reported by Dolan in 2006 and satellite data.

You've got to keep in perspective that Wilkins Ice shelf is tiny, and if you look at the photos it cracked, probably due to mechanical pressures, it didn't melt.

Regardless, West Antarctic region is not dominant in Antarctic climate as it is too small, and additionally Naish et al have shown it repeatedly melts and refreezes. This is not unique.

Even if West Antarctic is warming, there is no evidence CO2 is the cause. If it was, the whole of Antarctica should be warming and it isn't.

 
At 6/5/09 2:36 am, Blogger snailmail said...

Climate porn and doomsday everywhere climate hysteria is spread.

But: The greenland ice shield armageddon is withdrawn since last december as Science reported, antarctic ice shield ist growing, arctic sea ice is back on levels of the average of past decades, sea level rise went back to 1,5 mm/year, Tuvalu and the Maledives are still above sea level and have been since about more than 100.000 years although sea level rose for about 120 meter since then (corrals growed parallely) and so on and so on ...

No reason te be afraid, nobody knows what will happen in 1000 years and I don't mind as you should do, too.

Alarmism is typical for drowning cultures who have passed their peak and always live in fear (help god, the huns will kill us all!)

 
At 6/5/09 7:36 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

(help god, the huns will kill us all!)

Didn't the Huns actually end up killing the Romans?

 
At 7/5/09 3:09 am, Blogger soundhill said...

>Brian, have you actually read the book, as opposed to glancing at the index?

Getting into it a bit.

>The stratosphere is
>mentioned on a couple of occasions (can't remember where because evidently the word is >missing .from the index), but essentially the most recent atmospheric studies he references discuss >the stratosphere.

>IIRC, the problem is not the cooling stratosphere but the failure of the troposphere to warm >substantially. It's unlikely warmth would remain in the stratosphere if in fact its being lost from the >troposphere by increased negative feedbacks.

If heat is being lost from the troposphere why does Wishart have his chapter, “What about the Sun”, saying the solar magnetic fields are associated with the heating?

Even if heat is being lost from the troposphere by 'increased negative feedbacks' whatever you mean they are, the magnitude of the loss is not as great as the gain from the increasing greenhouse blanket.

>Your comment on Antarctic ice is a non peer-reviewed "just so" attempt to explain the problem >away, but it is consistent with overall cooling of Antarctica reported by Dolan in 2006 and satellite >data.

I did two articles on two aspects of Antarctic sea ice.
You are refering to my first: that the encroaching of icebergs into lower latitudes reflects back out to space sunlight energy which would have been absorbed by the ocean.
But there is also my theory that increasing Antarctic sea ice is coming from re-frozen water of low salinity which has leaked from melting submarine ice, resulting from warm submarine ocean currents.

>You've got to keep in perspective that Wilkins Ice shelf is tiny, and if you look at the photos it >cracked, probably due to mechanical pressures, it didn't melt.

Cracking is another indication that it could be thinning underneath, so more susceptible to mechanical pressure.

>Regardless, West Antarctic region is not dominant in Antarctic climate as it is too small, and >additionally Naish et al have shown it repeatedly melts and refreezes. This is not unique.

Which a lot of the Antarctic does on a longer time scale also – ice ages.
And sea waves go in and out as well as tides. Just because a sea wave is temporarily going out does not mean the tide is still coming in.

>Even if West Antarctic is warming, there is no evidence CO2 is the cause. If it was, the whole of >Antarctica should be warming and it isn't.


No because the large energy retention effect of global warming is where the bigger solar input is, closer to the tropics. The heat then comes to the Antarctic in submarine ocean currents.

Brian Sandle

 

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