Icemelt

Yeah but has global warming always existed ? Is this just the final fling of an interglacial period in the current ice age, before we return to more glacial conditions shortly ? Towards the end of previous interglacial periods ice caps have retreated, CO2 levels have risen, and so have sea levels, so why should we expect it to be any different now ? OK, so it seems that during the past 30 years, but not earlier, warming has coincided with CO2 increases, however even the latest corrected temperature measurements so far do not show the troposphere to be warming significantly faster than the surface, which is absolutely crucial to the greenhouse gas cause argument.

Perhaps a bit more to consider here Changes in sea levels are in the most part not due to ice melting at all. They are primarily caused by two main effects, local changes resulting in land masses rising or falling, and global changes which are due to the thermal expansion of the water in the oceans. The sea level has little to do with the melting of ice, since this process takes hundreds of thousands of years, during which time there are several glacial and interglacial periods reversing the process. If all the ice in the World were to melt, the sea level would rise to the order of 80m above current levels. But this process, even if it were uninterrupted, would take the best part of a further 32,000 years at the current rate of melting. However during the next couple of thousand years or so, we will most probably have been plunged into our next glacial period, reversing the entire process and eventually reducing the sea level by as much as 50m or more. The melting of all our ice is not a scenario we need to consider. The last major icemelt was 130,000 years ago, when temperatures were higher than at present. Most of the Northern hemisphere ice melted, contributing to a rise in sea level of 3.5m above current levels. However coral records indicate the sea level actually rose by 6m or more at this time, the balance of 2.5m being due to thermal expansion of water in the oceans, since the Antarctic ice sheet remained intact at this time. But coral records would most likely be generated in tropical zones where the water is warmer and the marginal effect of the centrifugal force produced by the Earth’s rotation would be greatest, resulting in slightly more of any icemelt migrating towards the equator. The effective acceleration of gravity at the poles is 980.665 cm/sec/sec while at the equator it is 3.39 cm/sec/sec less. The increased water depth in equatorial regions would create greater pressure on the ocean floor, and the reduction in weight of land based ice in the polar regions would also result in the elevation polar land masses. We also know that local gravitational effects of submerged mountains and canyons currently cause the formation of massive dents in the surface of the oceans, some measuring as much as 20m deep x 150km wide. It cannot therefore be assumed that any change in sea level would be uniform at all latitudes. Although much is made of falling ice cliffs due to global warming, this is an annual event known as the Spring Breakup, and the ice reforms again during each Winter. We should also consider that although the edges of icecaps may temporarily melt, the overall amount of ice on the planet may actually increase, or more likely remain fairly stable. A warmer climate would allow the atmosphere to sustain more water vapour, itself the most potent of all greenhouse gases, and some of this will inevitably condense and fall as additional snow in the polar and mountainous regions, thus increasing the thickness of ice sheets. Both the thickening of the ice sheets and the increased water vapour in the atmosphere will contribute to a reduction in the sea level. The amount of water currently held in the atmosphere is equivalent to about 2.5cms of ocean depth, which represents the total rise in sea level over the past decade. By 2100 some predict that temperatures may be similar to those 130,000 years ago, so perhaps we should base our predictions on past events. The increase in temperature shouldn’t be accompanied by storms and tidal increases causing devastation to coastal areas, since wild weather is primarily caused by the difference in temperature between the poles and the equator, and this temperature gap will be narrowing. We should therefore experience more stable weather patterns. Also back in 130,000 YBP most of Antarctica remained ice-covered, despite the sea level rising 6m or more. The icecap didn’t slide into the sea and the warming climate resulted in vast areas of frozen wilderness in the Northern hemisphere, particularly in Greenland, Canada and Russia, becoming inhabitable agricultural territory, far outweighing any relatively small erosions of current coastlines.

Then how do you explain Pevensey castle, the site of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 ? Just about as far South as you can get in England and originally built by the Romans AD 290 on a peninsula, where the sea once washed against its walls, it is now over a mile inland, and nearby Hailsham at that time also on the coast, is now over 6 miles inland. This would seem to be both inconsistent with the South sinking and sea levels rising over the past 2,000 years ! Perhaps it’s also worth mentioning the icecap did in fact extend to the South coast of England where the glaciers carved out the smooth chalk sedimentary rocks now known as the South Downs

Hey Ecodiver I think I can understand your situation, although until now I wasn't aware of the problem in the Canaries. I've spent the past 15 years diving in the Red Sea, amongst other places, where we experience similar problems with the crown of thorns species. Every five years or so a plague of these thorny creatures come marching up from the deep at night, gobbling up all the coral as they overwhelm the reefs. During these periods, the more experienced divers club together to try to preserve the best dive sites. Armed rather primitively with a 1m long metal prong with a hook on the end and a torch strapped to the other, plus a large canvas sack, we patrol the reefs during the early evenings and hook these nasty predators from the centre, placing them in the bag. When catching them, it’s important not to allow them to break up since they can fragment very easily, with each fragment eventually turning into another complete crown of thorns ! There are literally thousands and thousands of them during these periods and it takes an experienced diver 15 mins or so to fill the bag with 0.5m dia crown of thorns at the rate of about 1 or 2 per minute. Once caught, since they are primarily made of water, as you might imagine, getting the sacks out of the water poses quite a challenge. The following day the marine biologists turn up to count and size them, presumably creating some sort of record and statistic. I really can’t imagine them being of any use to humans unless they harbour some fancy chemicals that could be used in the pharmaceutical industry. I certainly wouldn’t want to eat one. They smell positively horrible within a few hours of being landed ! More of my pics at http://www.scubastuff.net

To Bascule Thanks for that concession Bascule It seems perhaps we might be getting a bit closer to a "consensus" after all ! Nevertheless the report on the revised measurements does conclude: "The majority of these data sets show warming at the surface that is greater than in the troposphere. Some of these data sets, however, show the opposite - tropospheric warming that is greater than that at the surface. Thus, due to the considerable disagreements between tropospheric data sets, it is not clear whether the troposphere has warmed more than or less than the surface” and therefore my personal interpretation is that this quite clearly says: 1) There are as many, if not more, measured instances of greater surface warming as there are of greater troposheric warming. 2) For GHGs to be the cause of global warming the instances of greater tropospheric warming must be significantly more, yet they are not. 3) Rather strangely virtually all models have been created on the basis that there is greater tropospheric warming, yet the evidence provided by the new data does not justify this. We are told that "other factors" have been included to influence the result. This does appear to be very biased and rather puzzling, since it smacks of tweaking the evdience to fit the desired result. When I started out some years ago as a research chemist with Kodak, this was drummed into us being very unscientific and absolutely taboo ! On a different note I very much admire your graphs above How did you create these ? They are very impressive

Bascule I'm quite content to accept that there were errors in the original measurements, but they don't seem to have altered anything significantly. I'm not spreading any data, discredited or otherwise, my comments are based on the new data, which you have kindly provided to the forum. BTW I'm almost guilty of being selective myself, since I notice that in error I omitted one other relevant part of the abstract myself as follows: "Tropical Temperature Results (20°S to 20°N) Although the majority of observational data sets show more warming at the surface than in the troposphere, some observational data sets show the opposite behavior. Almost all model simulations show more warming in the troposphere than at the surface" "Whether or not these results are in accord with expectations based on climate models is a complex issue, one that we have been able to address more comprehensively now using new model results. Over the period since 1979, for global-average temperatures, the range of recent model simulations is almost evenly divided among those that show a greater global-average warming trend at the surface and others that show a greater warming trend aloft" There is certainly nothing here to suggest that anything has been discredited, other than the original measurements. The new results still appear to indicate that the troposphere is not warming significantly faster than the surface, particularly since 1979, which is absolutely crucial to the GHG argument.

To Bascule I’m not at all happy about your glib dismissal of my message, especially since you seem to have deliberately distorted the facts by quoting only the part of the abstract that suits your argument. This is not constructive and having read the abstract, I am unlikely to take anymore of your quotes very seriously. I do not consider the troposphere warming argument to have been discredited, if anything it has been enhanced by the more refined measurement techniques, and this is why. As I’m sure you are aware, you have omitted the rather important additional information at the link to which you refer. The relevant parts are shown below: “For recent decades, all current atmospheric data sets now show global-average warming that is similar to the surface warming. While these data are consistent with the results from climate models at the global scale, discrepancies in the tropics remain to be resolved” “New Results & Findings” “For observations since the late 1950s, the start of the study period for this Report, the most recent versions of all available data sets show that both the surface and troposphere have warmed, while the stratosphere has cooled” “Since the late 1950s, all radiosonde data sets show that the low and mid troposphere have warmed at a rate slightly faster than the rate of warming at the surface” “For observations during the satellite era (1979 onwards), the most recent versions of all available data sets show that both the low and mid troposphere have warmed. The majority of these data sets show warming at the surface that is greater than in the troposphere. Some of these data sets, however, show the opposite - tropospheric warming that is greater than that at the surface. Thus, due to the considerable disagreements between tropospheric data sets, it is not clear whether the troposphere has warmed more than or less than the surface” I think most of us would agree this doesn’t change things very much, since all the experts still agree that warming in the troposphere has to be significantly greater than the warming at the surface for GHGs to be the cause, yet the revised measurements show warming to be similar. These new measurements are inconsistent with GHGs causing global warming from 1979 onwards. These revised measurements have also still not resolved the significant discrepancies observed in the tropics. Unsurprisingly you have also chosen to ignore all the research into solar activity and its closer correlation with global warming, plus the apparent warming of other bodies in the solar system. Are we to ignore solar activity evidence just because of errors in measurements of troposphere temperature, which do not appear to have altered to any significant extent the conclusion that GHGs are not the cause of global warming ?

SkepticLance your reciprocation is much appreciated I find it so hard to understand why other participants seem to have a mental block when assessing an opposing argument, and why they are so reluctant to accept the evidence provided by such an eminent group of real scientists ? Surely the one way to establish whether recent warming is due to GHGs is to look at the troposphere, since all current climate models agree that the rate of warming should be at its maximum in the troposphere if it’s GHGs that are causing it The principle of the greenhouse effect is that the sun radiates energy into space and some of it is directed towards the Earth. If it weren’t for greenhouse gases, most of the solar radiation would be reflected back into space leaving Earth so cold that it would be uninhabitable. GHGs trap the escaping heat in the Earth’s troposphere and it is here, according to ALL the climate models, that the rate of warming should be at its maximum Professor Richard Lindzen Dept of Meteorology MIT “If it’s greenhouse warming, you get more warming in the middle of the troposphere, the first 10–12 Km of the atmosphere, than you do at the surface. There are good theoretical reasons for that, having to do with how the greenhouse works” - “That data gives you a handle on the fact that what you’re seeing is warming that is probably not due to greenhouse gases” Professor Frederick Singer Former Director US National Weather Service “All the models, every one of them, calculate that the warming should be faster as you go up from the surface into the atmosphere. In fact the maximum warming over the equator should take place at an altitude of about 10 Km” – “Observations do not show an increase with altitude, in fact most observations show a slight decrease in the rate of warming with altitude. So in a sense you can say that the hypothesis of manmade global warming is falsified by the evidence” Professor John Christie Dept of Atmospheric Science University of Alabama & Lead Author IPCC “What we found consistently is that in a great part of the planet that the bulk of the atmosphere is not warming as much as we see at the surface in this region. And that’s a real head scratcher for us, because the theory is pretty straight forward, and the theory says that if the surface warms the upper atmosphere should warm rapidly. The rise in temperature of that part of the atmosphere is not very dramatic at all and really does not match the theory that climate models are expressing at this point” Professor Patrick Michaels Dept of Environmental Sciences University of Virginia “One of the problems that is plaguing the models is that they predict that as you go up through the atmosphere, except in the polar regions, that the rate of warming increases. And it’s quite clear from two data sets, not just satellite data which everyone talks about, but from weather balloon data, that you don’t see that effect. In fact it looks like the surface temperatures are warming slightly more the upper air temperatures” During the 1990s Professor Eigil Friis-Chrisyensen Director Danish National Space Centre and colleagues found an incredibly close correlation between solar activity and temperature changes on Earth. When they analysed records of sunspots in the 20th century, they found that solar activity rose sharply to 1940, fell back for 35 years, then rose again, providing a much closer correlation to temperature change than CO2. Professor Eigil Friis-Chrisyensen said “When we saw this correlation between the temperature and solar activity or sunspot cyclings then people said to us that, OK it can be just a coincidence, so how can we prove that it’s not just a coincidence. Well one obvious thing is to have a longer timescale or different timescale, then we went back in time 400 years” The results re-enforced the earlier analysis providing a very strong indication that it was the sun that has driven climate change over the past four hundred years and not CO2

OK 1veedo, you say in your post to SkepticLance "So keep telling yourself that you're not a denier" Sometimes 1veedo you are just soooooooooo full of **it. This is exactly what I meant about in my earlier post about GW becoming a religion. There’s nothing sacred about your opinions, or anyone’s. SkepticLance is quite entitled, as are the rest of us, to reach our own conclusions based on the available data, and this is best achieved in open discussion where we can learn from others rather than being indoctrinated by them. Just because you disagree, you don’t have to attempt to destroy the credibility of your opponent. Stifling discussion by imposing your own views will win you no supporters of your argument. An open minded approach is so much more amenable. And just what is this "denier" stuff all about anyway ? If ever anything sounds like religious mania that certainly does ! Science is all about questioning and not the blind acceptance of the “opinions” of some self styled expert. When you trashed my earlier post, claiming that your views represented the only acceptable interpretation, I notice you failed to respond to my question about how many hours you had personally spent researching, rather than pontificating about the research of others ! Let me quote you again as follows “But you're still wrong no matter what way you look at it” Perhaps what you mean is that you think SkepticLance, and it seems many of us, are wrong, which is a very different matter. I personally believe that you, 1veedo, have become so wrapped up in the complexities of the problem that you have now lost touch with reality. You say “It seems a little strange to vehemently argue against the scientific consensus of climate change” To which scientific consensus do you refer ? Let’s just take a little look shall we ! Professor Paul Reiter IPCC & Pasteur Institute Paris “The global warming alarm is dressed up as science, but it’s not science, it’s propaganda” Professor Nir Shaviv Institute of Physics University of Jerusalem “There is no direct evidence which links 20th century global warming to anthropogenic greenhouse gases” Professor Ian Clark Dept of Earth Sciences University of Ottawa “You can’t say that CO2 will drive climate, it certainly never did in the past” Professor Tim Ball Dept of Climatology University of Winnipeg “If the CO2 increases in the atmosphere, as a greenhouse gas, then the temperature will go up, but the ice core record shows exactly the opposite, so the fundamental assumption of the whole theory of climate change due to humans is shown to be wrong” Professor John Christy Dept of Atmospheric Science University of Alabama & Lead Author IPCC “I’ve often heard it said that there is a consensus of thousands of scientists on the global warming issue and that humans are causing a catastrophic change to the climate system. Well I am one scientist, and there are many, that simply think that is not true” Professor Philip Stott Dept of Biogeography University of London “The IPCC like any UN body is political, the final conclusions are politically driven” Professor Richard Lindzen IPCC & M.I.T. “People have decided you have to convince other people that, since no scientist disagrees, you shouldn’t disagree either. But whenever you hear that in science that’s pure propaganda” Professor Patrick Michaels Dept of Environmental Sciences University of Virginia “Anyone who goes around and says that carbon dioxide is responsible for most of the warming in the twentieth century hasn’t looked at the basic numbers” And there are many more dissenters I could mention So not quite a consensus then, eh !

Hey Foodchain You just have to be correct in as much as there are many contributing factors to global warming, some very much more significant than others. However we need to get this in perspective and establish which are the most significant factors and how we should react to them. Many now consider that CO2 is currently playing a significant role in our current period of global warming, but the fact is there is no evidence to suggest that CO2 has played a significant role in global warming in the past. Indeed sunspots seem to correlate very nicely with global warming patterns, synchronizing much closer to temperature variations than any CO2 statistics in the past. There is evidence to suggest that the whole solar system is warming and that polar icecaps on other planets and moons are also shrinking. Sure CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but in fact it’s a relatively minor one. There are much more significant greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than CO2 and surprisingly plain old water vapour is by far the most potent of them all. Although not newsworthy and politically explosive water vapour actually represents 95% of our greenhouse effects. The amount of global water vapour currently present in our atmosphere is equivalent to the total increase in sea levels during the past decade, and this is very much more significant than the relatively tiny changes in CO2 concentration produced by man. But since we are discussing CO2 let's take a “cool” calm and collective look at the CO2 concentrations: Throughout Earth’s history carbon dioxide levels have for the most part remained between 200 to 1500 ppmv. Contrary to media reports, despite a recent increase in the past 200 years, the concentration of CO² in our atmosphere remains close to the average for the past 25 million years at approximately 0.054%, which is about half the level 50 million years ago. And of course the tiny percentage of anthropogenic CO2 is very much smaller. The current global warming period we are experiencing began long before cars and planes were invented, and most of the rise in temperature occurred before 1940 during a period of relatively insignificant industrial production. After the war, when we entered an industrial boom period, we might have expected that temperatures would rise in line with the measured exponential increase in CO2 emissions in the 1940s, but they didn’t ! Temperatures actually fell for four consecutive decades and interestingly it wasn’t until the world economic recession in the mid 1970s, when CO2 emissions began to decrease, that temperatures stopped falling and began to rise again. This just doesn’t hang together with atmospheric CO2 causing warming. Carbon dioxide is a natural gas produced by all living things and humans are a very minor source, contributing less than 10% of the total CO2 production. Volcanoes produce more CO2 than all humans and industrial sources combined, but even more comes from animals and bacteria, which produce about 150 gigatons pa compared to 6.5 gigatons pa produced by humans. However an even larger source of CO2 results from dying vegetation, but this is again dwarfed by the major source which is the oceans. Regrettably all too often evidence carefully selected by parties with a vested interest, spanning conveniently limited periods of time, is used to give credence and publicity to an unscientific theory. Recent analysis of our environment has fallen victim to such misrepresentation, verifying that restricted views over periods as short as a few decades or even as long as 100,000 years, which we should remember is only 0.002% of the Earth’s life, are on their own much too limited to provide meaningful trends, predictions or conclusions. Taking the analogy of a 100 yrs old deciduous tree, 0.01% of its life would be exactly one year, and the same 0.01% would represent 500,000 years of the Earth’s life. Basing our analysis on tree related data accumulated only over the past year or 0.01%, we might reasonably conclude that the tree was in serious trouble when all the leaves fell off in Autumn. Of course common sense tells us that we need to look at a longer period of time, which would reveal that the tree was quite healthy when its leaves grew back in the following Spring. This is precisely how we need to analyse changes in our environment on Earth. We must look at the longest possible periods to improve our chances of making accurate predictions, and ignore the hysterical antics of the media and politicians.

Hey 1veedo Don’t be so condescending They were indeed correct about Global Warming becoming a religion, and those who speak out being castigated by the indoctrinated ! It’s so easy to trash data and conclusions, since most of us have insufficient time to assimilate and analyse a sufficiently large chunk of it to reach a sensible conclusion. However, 1veedo, you are sooooooooo wrong, and perhaps you'd like to direct your glib and misleading comments towards Nasa : http://science.hq.nasa.gov/oceans/system/carbon.html "Physical oceanography influences the carbon cycle through its modulation of the biology and also through processes that control carbonate chemistry (e.g., temperature, alkalinity/salinity) and carbon dioxide flux rates between the air-sea interface (e.g., surface wind speeds). The ocean "solubility pump" removes atmospheric carbon dioxide as air mixes with and dissolves into the upper ocean. Carbon dioxide is more soluble in cold water, so at high latitudes where surface cooling occurs, carbon dioxide laden water sinks to the deep ocean and becomes part of the deep ocean circulation "conveyor belt", where it stays for hundreds of years. Eventually mixing brings the water back to the surface at the opposite end of the conveyor belt in regions distant from where the carbon dioxide was first absorbed, e.g., the tropics. In the tropical regions, warm waters cannot retain as much carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide is transferred back into the atmosphere” Sure there is some controversy, which unsurprising since the professors concerned are now being threatened with research budget cuts if they continue to speak out. But you shouldn’t just right the whole thing off because of a bit of hysterical chatter, and more importantly because it may indicate you might not be as knowledgeable as you claim. After all, most of us realise litigation is a favourite American pastime, which has very little to do with any real truths, morals or situations. You shouldn’t turn things around into what has not been said. Nobody is denying that global warming exists. What is under discussion is whether an increase in CO2 lags or leads global warming. The fact remains there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that CO2 causes, or has ever caused, global warming. But there is conclusive evidence that global warming in the past has always caused an increase in CO2. For you to come up with a statement like: “People like Icemelt innocently watch it and think it makes sense, without actually knowing anything about climate change in the first place” - - - means that, as you really don’t have a legitimate argument, the only way you can survive is to attempt to belittle any opponents who might put forward a different explanation. Carl Wunsch is just one professor amongst 20 or so. It was inevitable that the programme producer wasn’t going to keep them all 100% happy, and there were bound to be more than a few moans. Just take a look at how many distanced themselves from the IPCC report. If you saw the film you’d see there was no attempt to indicate that global warming didn’t exist. Far from it, the program was all about the cause of it, and the sinister manoeuvres to prevent third world countries from developing. The programme trashing is yet another publicity stunt, probably to avoid a threatened research budget cut. I have no problem with my beliefs since they are based on personal experience. FYI Icemelt has spent several hundred hours submerged in Pacific and Atlantic oceans getting first hand experience to substantiate his conclusions. I just wonder how many measurements 1veedo has made, to qualify him to be so dismissive of a substantiated argument, when organisations such as Nasa provide more than adequate corroboration !

Much of the above is answered in the recently produced TV programme "The Great Global Warming Swindle". Unlike “An Inconvenient Truth” which was produced for political gain, this production contains testimonies from 20 eminent university professors, the cofounder of Greenpeace, several authors of the IPCC report and an army of very well qualified researchers including the Director of the International Arctic Research Centre. All contributors are in agreement that Global Warming is the main cause of an increase in carbon dioxide, and that the increases in carbon dioxide we have experienced over the last century have had an insignificant effect on the climate. The bulk of the carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere comes from the warming of the cold water from the ocean floors, as it is pushed to the surface by ocean pumps such as the Gulf Stream. Cold water allows much more carbon dioxide to dissolve in it than warm water and therefore carbon dioxide is released as the water warms. Now, taking the Gulf Stream as an example, the bulk of the carbon dioxide is dissolved in the water off the coast of Greenland, where the water is at its coldest. Water with more CO2 dissolved in it is heavier than water with less, and so this concentrated solution of CO2 in water sinks to the ocean floor and moves slowly along the ocean floor until it reaches the Gulf of Mexico, where it rises and releases the CO2 dissolved in it. So an increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will cause more to dissolve off Greenland, which subsequently results in more to be emitted in the Gulf of Mexico. Now here’s the crunch ! The water takes approximately 800 years to travel along the bottom from Greenland to Mexico, so we are experiencing increases in CO2 now, which result from climate changes 800 years ago, well before industrialisation, cars, planes etc. Unfortunately we are being led astray by political manipulation. The production even shows one professor explaining how he resigned from the IPCC as a result of his research contributions being censored by third parties ! It’s well worth viewing.

It's very probable that glacial / interglacial cycles are affected by the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. We are currently coming to the end of an interglacial period and, although mankind is deemed to be responsible for the current high levels of carbon dioxide, in the past a build up of carbon dioxide has traditionally followed interglacial periods. The increases are primarily due to higher activity of micro-organisms during the warmer interglacial spells, allowing vegetation to rot and release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We would therefore ordinarily expect an increase in carbon dioxide at this stage of our glacial / interglacial cycle at this time, so it should come as no surprise !