Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Only for Europeans.

Geez, ican,I know you came to this topic recently, but please get with the plan. We've already gone over this several times in the last 700 pages. Every time a newbie comes in, it gets rehashed. I suggested you read the wikipedia article because it summarizes a lot of research and a hundred years of physics. The ice ages and the ice cores are precisely what that paragraph is talking about, and the highs and lows are the CO2 in interglacials and during ice ages respectively. We are in an interglacial now, and have been since the glaciers melted about 10000 years ago. NO
ONE suggests ice ages occur at 20000 year intervals. If you read the EB that way, I suggest you go back and reread the article. Interglacials last about 10-20000 years but they recur at about 100000 year intervals. That is, ice ages are the norm.

And the gasses trapped in the cores are little bits of trapped atmosphere, year by year, so 270ppm in ice translates to 270ppm in the atmosphere.

And the point is, the cycle has been repeating itself with little variation for the past six ice age-interglacial cycles, UNTIL VERY LATE IN THIS INTERGLACIAL. CO2 has NEVER been anywhere near this high in the last 600,000 years, until we started burning fossil fuel and dumping CO2 into the atmosphere.

More CO2, more heat trapped. Svante Arrhenius proved that more than a century ago. Basic physics. I have not seen anyone of the denialists yet produce any sort of evidence that the increase in CO2 is coming from any source other than human interference. It's unprecedented in the historical record (that's the ice cores, ican).

ican711nm wrote:

CO2 is non-toxic.

That's correct: quite a few people use it as therapy and e.g. inhale it in closed garages.

Well, no, that's not all CO2 does. It changes the pH of sea water and makes it more acidic. Which among other things screws up coral and make it expel its symbiotes--you've heard of coral bleaching? That's one cause, and apparently the predominant one today. Considering that a large portion of human food needs is met by ocean fishing, and a large proportion of that is from fishing in and around coral reefs, which are incredibly productive--or have been in the past, and considering most of the earth's coral reefs have been in deep trouble in the last couple decades, and considering the overfishing and consequent collapse of fish stocks worldwide (not related to global warming but due to our own greed and lack of concern for sustainability limits), pumping more CO2 into the oceans looks a lot like pounding more nails into the coffin.

ican, take my word for it, that's what the article is talking about, or follow the reference the article gives you (that's the number in the parentheses) and see for yourself. And yes, H20 contributes more to the greenhouse effect, but H20 is (relatively) invariant and by all evidence hasn't changed much. And remember too that it is the greenhouse effect that has for the last couple billion years kept this planet from turning into a total iceball. It is the greenhouse effect that has kept the global mean temp. around 14 or 15 degrees C instead of below freezing. That's what the water vapor in the atmosphere, plus Co2 and methane and ozone (at the top of the troposphere) does. But we're adding a new factor to that, the sharp increase in anthropogenic CO2. Which looks like it's going to kick the global mean up maybe 4degrees C in the next half century or so (there are some disturbing signs that the higher limit on projected temp. increase may be more accurate than the lower or median ones). Keep in mind too that the difference between ice age global mean temp and twentieth century global mean was only around 5 or 6 degrees C, so that while a few degrees may not seem like much, it's the difference between an ice age and the weather you grew up with (which is already cooler than the last decade). So add about the same increase again to the weather as the change from the last ice age, and we're talking a vast difference in the world we know.

And for that matter, CO2 in sufficient concentration is deadly (I'm not sure if it's exactly "toxic", but nonetheless it can kill you). Get above about 5%(if I remember correctly, it's been awhile) and it suppresses your breathing reflex and you die. It can build up in mines--it's called "choke damp" and can kill you with no warning. And there have been several cases in the last couple decades of mass deaths by CO2--African lakes in mountainous bowls have disgorged sequestered CO2 and killed all the surrounding villagers--wierd but fact.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/smother.asp

We're not talking anywhere near those concentrations in the atmosphere as a whole. At least not yet. But it's not exactly benign.

Here's a good newspaper summary of the recent research on effects of increasing CO2 concentration in the ocean, and it's not a pretty picture:

http://www.paramuspost.com/article.php/20060923085348230

ocean chemistry
By Bruce Lieberman Sunday, September 24 2006, 01:53 AM EDT Views: 1,924

ACID TEST Fifty-five million years ago, Earth endured a period of rapid global warming, a shift so dramatic it altered ocean and atmospheric circulation, driving plankton in the seas and mammals on land to extinction.

The event, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, may have been caused by volcanic eruptions that flooded the atmosphere with billions of tons of carbon dioxide. Or, methane gas frozen beneath the sea on continental shelves could have destabilized, diffusing into the atmosphere where it was oxidized into carbon dioxide.

As the oceans absorbed much of the carbon dioxide, their pH fell and they grew increasingly acidified.

...

Every day, about 22 million tons of carbon dioxide generated from human activities - primarily from the burning of fossil fuels - are entering the world's oceans. That's 10 times the rate at which carbon dioxide would be absorbed by the oceans if humans did not burn fossil fuels.

username wrote:

Here's a good newspaper summary of the recent research on effects of increasing CO2 concentration in the ocean, and it's not a pretty picture:

http://www.paramuspost.com/article.php/20060923085348230

Quote:

ocean chemistry
By Bruce Lieberman Sunday, September 24 2006, 01:53 AM EDT Views: 1,924

ACID TEST Fifty-five million years ago, Earth endured a period of rapid global warming, a shift so dramatic it altered ocean and atmospheric circulation, driving plankton in the seas and mammals on land to extinction.

The event, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, may have been caused by volcanic eruptions that flooded the atmosphere with billions of tons of carbon dioxide. Or, methane gas frozen beneath the sea on continental shelves could have destabilized, diffusing into the atmosphere where it was oxidized into carbon dioxide.

As the oceans absorbed much of the carbon dioxide, their pH fell and they grew increasingly acidified.

...

Every day, about 22 million tons of carbon dioxide generated from human activities - primarily from the burning of fossil fuels - are entering the world's oceans. That's 10 times the rate at which carbon dioxide would be absorbed by the oceans if humans did not burn fossil fuels.

Let see now:
(1) "Fifty-five million years ago, Earth endured a period of rapid global warming that may have been caused by volcanic eruptions";
(2) "may have been caused by volcanic eruptions that flooded the atmosphere with billions of tons of carbon dioxide";
(3) "Every day, about 22 million tons of carbon dioxide [are] generated from human activities."

365 days per year x 22 million tons per day = 8.030 billion tons per year

I guess that's not been enough over the last 10 years (80.03 billion) to have yet caused rapid global warming and make the sea acidic.

okie wrote:

parados wrote:

Good ole okie.. jumping in to the deep end when he still can't swim..

By the way.. your own calculation would show that the warming can't all be coming from solar radiation. Do you not trust your own calculation? The earth has warmed .78 celsius. Your calculation is for .3 C. Where does the other .48 +-.18 come from?

Where do you get 0.78? The latest numbers I see are much less than that, more like 0.3 to 0.5., depending upon whether you look at the ocean, lower atmosphere, troposphere, etc.

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.htm

That's interesting considering you are only using the satellite numbers from 1978 on and shows an increase of .3 to .5 in that 28 year time period and your link that you said supported your numbers uses a 120 year time period.

Quote:

Abstract The effect of changes in the total solar irradiance and intensity of galactic cosmic rays on the increase in the global temperature of the Earth over the last 120 years was investigated using a one-dimensional energy-balance climate model. It is shown that the joint effect of solar and cosmic factors during this periodcan lead to an increase in the average temperature of the northern hemisphere by 0.25-0.35°C

Lookie there - okie is in over his head. Can you post your numbers okie? Let's see which time frame you used.

The links I just posted are from 1880 to 2004. It shows about a 0.3 increase in ocean temperature since 1880. Maybe 0.4. Lets say 0.3 to 0.4.

And the land temperature is stated as 0.6 plus or minus 0.2, which is not the 0.78 you pretend to believe.

Global warming is now 0.6°C in the past three decades and 0.8°C in the past century

I am asking again, where do you get 0.78? You never answer the questions I ask.

P.S. 0.78 is a strange number anyway, as claiming hundreths of a degree in a value that is an approximation to begin with is totally superfluous in my opinion. We hardly know whether tenths of a degree are even possible. After all, the NOAA gives a margin of error of 0.2 plus or minus.

okie wrote:

The links I just posted are from 1880 to 2004. It shows about a 0.3 increase in ocean temperature since 1880. Maybe 0.4. Lets say 0.3 to 0.4.

Considering the graph goes from -.01 in 1880 to +.04 in 2001 I'm not sure how you come up with your .3 number. I didn't see a specific number listed but I just scanned the first page. Your charts only go to 2001 not 2004.

By the way, how come the Antarctic is growing ice?

Most of the continent's icy mass has so far proven largely impervious to climate change, being situated on solid rock; its deep interior is actually growing in volume. [41] However, Antarctica's periphery has been noticeably affected by global warming, particularly on the Antarctic Peninsula and in Pine Island Bay which together are contributing to a rise in sea levels. [42] In 2003 the Larsen-B ice shelf collapse owing to global warming. [43] According to NASA, the most significant Antarctic melting in the past 30 years occurred in 2005, when a mass of ice comparable in size to California briefly melted and refroze; this may have resulted from temperatures rising to as high as 41 °F (5 °C). [44]

41^ The Economist, 3 November 2007, p. 78
42^ The Economist, 3 November 2007, p. 78
43^ British antarctic survey. First direct evidence that human activity is linked to Antarctic Ice Shelf Collapse.
44^ Reuters (2007-05-16). Big area of Antarctica melted in 2005. CNN. Retrieved on 2007-06-11.

parados wrote:

okie wrote:

The links I just posted are from 1880 to 2004. It shows about a 0.3 increase in ocean temperature since 1880. Maybe 0.4. Lets say 0.3 to 0.4.

Considering the graph goes from -.01 in 1880 to +.04 in 2001 I'm not sure how you come up with your .3 number. I didn't see a specific number listed but I just scanned the first page. Your charts only go to 2001 not 2004.

Just to address this one point, I did not look at the last years spike, but instead the average of the last 2 or 3 years in the graph, which gives around .3, which added to -.1 gives a .4 rise,

but anyhow even if you want to give it .5 based on one year, big deal, the same could be done with sunspots in the 11 year cycle instead of using longterm trends. Note here that I think the suns effect is more of a longterm thing and does not respond to little spikes on a yearly basis.

To be reasonable in evaluating longterm temperature trends, you can't look at one year spikes.

I take it you may concede solar has some effect, and if it is around .25 to .35, even if you use your higher numbers, that would take care of half of global warming?

I will await your further documentation of the .78, as I don't think Wiki is such a great one. By the way, how come the Antarctic is growing ice?