Global Warming Concensus Broken

[djolds1]

McCulloch believes the collapse of the WAIS can be averted if the world community becomes "open minded" in its search for alternatives to fossil fuels.

This triggers the bullshit detector big-time. Even assuming everything AGW proponents say is true, if the WAIS is going to collapse in the next 20 years nothing we do between now and then regarding fossil fuels will make the slightest difference.

Once again, this appears to be ideology leading with science following behind offering rationales.

This isn't ideology. This is magic, sympathetic magic.

[MSimon]

McCulloch believes the collapse of the WAIS can be averted if the world community becomes "open minded" in its search for alternatives to fossil fuels.

This triggers the bullshit detector big-time. Even assuming everything AGW proponents say is true, if the WAIS is going to collapse in the next 20 years nothing we do between now and then regarding fossil fuels will make the slightest difference.

Once again, this appears to be ideology leading with science following behind offering rationales.

This isn't ideology. This is magic, sympathetic magic.

It doesn't make me sympathetic.

[alexjrgreen]

You might want to make a distinction between the East Antarctic ice sheet, which is stable, and West Antarctic ice sheet, which has collapsed several times in the last 75,000 years.

Expeditions to the katabatic canyons to core the ancient glacier ice buried under spallated rock have proven that this disasturbationist theory of frequent and sudden WAIS collapse is simply false. That glacial ice simply would not be there, of that age, if WAIS collapse happened repeatedly.

You're assuming a complete collapse. Partial collapse is much more probable.

A good illustration of why the East Antarctic ice sheet is more stable is here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7908824.stm

The Sahara had rivers when the mountains in Africa were covered in glacial ice. As that melted, the flow rerouted around 10,500 BC to create the River Nile instead. Since then the Sahara has got gradually drier and almost all of the glaciers have now gone...

What kept the glaciers in africa there? Precipitation. There was a lot more precipitation than just icemelt, a glacier wont keep a river fed for thousands of years without precipitation.

The glaciers interact with maritime airflow from the Atlantic to encourage precipitation, which in turn replenishes the glaciers. As global temperatures have risen since the last ice age, the glaciers have shrunk and the interaction produces less and less precipitation.

[seedload]

Well, anybody telling you the ice caps will collapse is simply lying to you. They've been stable through warmer and higher CO2 periods than today. Antarctica has been stable for 22 million years. The period from 8000 bc to 5000 BC was significantly warmer than today, and the ice caps were fine. Additionally, the Sahara was much higher in rainfall as a result of the warmer weather, with savannahs and forests and rivers across it.

You might want to make a distinction between the East Antarctic ice sheet, which is stable, and West Antarctic ice sheet, which has collapsed several times in the last 75,000 years.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009- ... ming_N.htm

Isn't it like really cold and stuff in Antartica? As far as I know, water stays frozen at -49C just as well as it does at -50C. So what if there is some warming on a third of the continent? It is still way too cold for the ice to "melt"... or am I just stupid.

My understanding of the AGW theory as to why Antarctic ice will raise sea levels is that warming water at the coastal areas will cause calving of the ice sheets. That this floating ice is acting like a dam for the ice rivers. That the ice rivers will then flow at greater rates to the sea and there will be lost mass of ice to the oceans. Of course, sea currents seem to have more to do with calving then ocean temps do - at least in inhospitable Antartica that is.

The temperatures on the actual continent (not coastal) doesn't mean much of anything. Again, we are talking temps of -5C to -50C in the SUMMER and -40C to -90C in the winter. Ice doesn't melt at these temps - at least I don't think it does.

[MSimon]

Ice doesn't melt at these temps - at least I don't think it does.

Evaporation. Think of ice as a black hole and solar particles..... aw never mind.

[OrionCA]

Follow the process:

1. AGW advocates state unequivocally that increases in the Earth's average temperature to (x) degrees will irrevocably alter climate and doom civilization.

2. You point out that during the Medieval Warming Period and the Roman Warming period the average temperature was a good degree higher than they claim is the "tipping point" and civilization flourished.

3. They airbrush the Medieval Warming period and the Roman Warming Period out of their charts and resume crying, "DOOM!!!"

Now, what would make me want to believe the AGW doomsayers after this?

[IntLibber]

Well, anybody telling you the ice caps will collapse is simply lying to you. They've been stable through warmer and higher CO2 periods than today. Antarctica has been stable for 22 million years. The period from 8000 bc to 5000 BC was significantly warmer than today, and the ice caps were fine. Additionally, the Sahara was much higher in rainfall as a result of the warmer weather, with savannahs and forests and rivers across it.

You might want to make a distinction between the East Antarctic ice sheet, which is stable, and West Antarctic ice sheet, which has collapsed several times in the last 75,000 years.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009- ... ming_N.htm

Isn't it like really cold and stuff in Antartica? As far as I know, water stays frozen at -49C just as well as it does at -50C. So what if there is some warming on a third of the continent? It is still way too cold for the ice to "melt"... or am I just stupid.

No you are right. This is the essential point the AGW cultists can't get around: like in any mountain range, there is an 'ice line' altitude above which water remains permanently frozen. In Antarctica, the iceline is below sea level. Not just below sea level, but below the level of the bedrock below sea level that the ice cap is welded to.

Furthermore, the continent is surrounded by a circumpolar ocean current (and concurrent winds) that acts like a thermos bottle, isolating the Antarctic climate from the rest of the planet.

There are quite a number of errors with AGW theory:

One is that the CO2 levels and rate of increase today are significantly below that claimed in the IPCC. So even if CO2 is warming, it is not doing so to the extent the IPCC is modelling the future on.

Secondly, the amount of warming that CO2 can accomplish follows a diminishing returns curve at our atmospheric pressure. http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/climate-ch ... -cancelled Thus there will be no 'tipping point' or 'runaway greenhouse effect' like that claimed to hapen on Venus. BTW Venus has 92 times denser atmosphere than Earth does, but even then doesnt have a runaway effect. A runaway effect would mean that more CO2 always means a proportionate or greater increase in warming, ultimately making a planet molten from trapped heat... So even Venus reaches a point of equilibrium.

Thirdly, the claim that CO2 warming would cause significant increases in water vapor that would result in a 'tipping point' isnt even demonstrated in the models the IPCC uses.

"IPCC models cannot predict clouds and rain with any accuracy. Their models assume water vapour goes up to the troposphere and hangs around to cook us all in a greenhouse future.

However, there is a mechanism at work that "washes out" the water vapour and returns it to the oceans along with the extra CO2 and thus turns the added water vapour into a NEGATIVE feedback mechanism.

The newly discovered mechanism is a combination of clouds and rain (Spencer's mechanism adds to the mechanism earlier identified by Professor Richard Lindzen called the Iris effect).

The IPCC models assumed water vapour formed clouds at high altitudes that lead to further warming. The Aqua satellite observations and Spencer's analysis show water vapour actually forms clouds at low altitudes that lead to cooling.

Furthermore, Spencer shows the extra rain that falls from these clouds cools the underlying oceans, providing a second negative feedback to negate the CO2 warming.

Christopher Pearson, of The Australian newspaper (March 22), has written up a remarkable ABC television interview with Dr Jennifer Marohasy, a senior fellow of the Institute of Public Affairs, a Melbourne-based think tank.

Dr Marohasy says the impact of the Aqua satellite and Spencer's interpretation of the data and prompts the reporter to conclude with some pungent observations of his own:

"If Marohasy is anywhere near right about the impending collapse of the global warming paradigm, life will suddenly become a whole lot more interesting.

"A great many founts of authority, from the Royal Society to the UN, most heads of government along with countless captains of industry, learned professors, commentators and journalists will be profoundly embarrassed. Let us hope it is a prolonged and chastening experience.

"With catastrophe off the agenda, for most people the fog of millennial gloom will lift, at least until attention turns to the prospect of the next ice age. Among the better educated, the sceptical cast of mind that is the basis of empiricism will once again be back in fashion. The delusion that by recycling and catching public transport we can help save the planet will quickly come to be seen for the childish nonsense it was all along."

[Billy Catringer]

The bigger a glacier is, the more it MUST move. The pressure at the bottom drives water into the underlying rock and turns several centimeters of it into a very slippery ooze. Given that glaciers live on slopes, they slide down hill as a matter of course. Once they reach warmer air and water, they calve. It is reasonable to expect them to wax and wane. It is highly unreasonable to think of them as permanent features.

[seedload]

Thirdly, the claim that CO2 warming would cause significant increases in water vapor that would result in a 'tipping point' isnt even demonstrated in the models the IPCC uses.

Which brings us to what is really interesting about Antartica. Not only is antartica really really friggin cold, but it also very very dry. It is essentially the largest desert in the world.

Being dry means that there is very little water vapor there. Being as there is almost no water vapor, Antartica is an excellent place to gage the effects of increased CO2 on the greenhouse effect. Antartica has a high albeto and almost no greenhouse water vapor - the pesky greanhouse gas that happens to coincide with CO2 in the wavelengths it absorbs. Therefore, increasing CO2 levels should have the greatest effect on Antartic temperatures.

What do we see. 2/3 of the continent are getting a tiny bit colder. 1/3 is getting a tiny bit warmer. Overall, it is pretty stable as far as temperature goes. So, the place that should be MOST affected is not affected. Tiny variations in temperature across the continent seem more a matter of local climate variability than of a global trend. And this is where the CO2 induced global warming should be the highest.

Of course, these small local temperature variations sure look a lot more imposing when you draw then as giant RED dots... but that is another story.

I find it humorous that AGW people ignore the fact that Antartica is not really warming when it, above everywhere else, should be warming the most by theory and that they instead concentrate on the speculation that it is going to melt pointing to some natural colapses of unstable ice sheets as evidence.

But, like most leftist theories, this is probably all way too complicated for a simple man like myself to understand.

[alexjrgreen]

Concentrating on CO2 levels isn't particularly helpful for the Antarctic. Most of the current models predict a bigger temperature rise than we see, so they clearly need work.

Much more important is the fact that the West Antarctic ice sheet has been very slowly but quite steadily warming up for half a century.

This is important because the coastal water around West Antarctica is only just below freezing in summer and the pressure at the base of the ice sheet caused by its own weight results in melting below 0 degrees C.

http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/responses/2005NC/124.ppt

Since the ice shelves around West Antarctica are already starting to break up and the ice sheet has at least partially collapsed several times before, a 0.5m rise in global sea levels is quite likely this century.

The Maldives, Kiribati and Alexandria in Egypt would all be badly affected.

[MSimon]

Since the ice shelves around West Antarctica are already starting to break up and the ice sheet has at least partially collapsed several times before, a 0.5m rise in global sea levels is quite likely this century.

It depends on how much the sheets are supported by land and how much is supported by water.

If most of the support is flotation (what I expect) then a break off of the ice sheets is not going to cause a significant ocean rise.

Also note: the current rate of rise is about 1 ft a century. A further 6" increase caused by the break up of ice sheets is not a real big deal. Also note: if a 1 1/2 ft change in sea level is decisive I'd say there was a situation where people have chosen to live in an unsustainable environment.

[alexjrgreen]

Also note: the current rate of rise is about 1 ft a century. A further 6" increase caused by the break up of ice sheets is not a real big deal. Also note: if a 1 1/2 ft change in sea level is decisive I'd say there was a situation where people have chosen to live in an unsustainable environment.

London, Liverpool, Bristol, New Orleans, New York...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/new ... yc_prt.htm

[MSimon]

Also note: the current rate of rise is about 1 ft a century. A further 6" increase caused by the break up of ice sheets is not a real big deal. Also note: if a 1 1/2 ft change in sea level is decisive I'd say there was a situation where people have chosen to live in an unsustainable environment.

London, Liverpool, Bristol, New Orleans, New York...

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/new ... yc_prt.htm

I get it. If sea levels rise 1 1/2" ft in a century New York is doomed. And the Dutch will be unable to cope. Why even Chicago could be under water at any minute. And what about some of the people of New Orleans who are already living below sea level? How will they be able to cope living another 1 1/2 ft below sea level?

If global warming causes more rain there will be vasts swaths of the earth where people will be unable to get out of it.

Support Measures to reduce CO2 - because there are a lot of people who are not smart enough to get out of the rain.

===

Did you note that the article refers to 1938 - the last time global temperatures peaked? Fortunately we are now in a cooling phase. Just as we were in the 40s. For the same reason. The PDO cycle has gone negative.

[alexjrgreen]

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/new ... yc_prt.htm

I get it. If sea levels rise 1 1/2" ft in a century New York is doomed. And the Dutch will be unable to cope. Why even Chicago could be under water at any minute. And what about some of the people of New Orleans who are already living below sea level? How will they be able to cope living another 1 1/2 ft below sea level?

Even if all the ice in all the glaciers in all the world melted, Chicago would still be about 90 metres above sea level...

The Dutch will be fine. They're already 6-8 metres below sea level and they've planned for a wide range of scenarios. New Orleans is more of a worry - unless someone wants to pay for the work to be done.

Did you note that the article refers to 1938 - the last time global temperatures peaked? Fortunately we are now in a cooling phase. Just as we were in the 40s. For the same reason. The PDO cycle has gone negative.

The next time we move into a warming phase the sea level will be that bit higher already, so 1938 could be just a taster.

Getting hung up on the CO2 argument just distracts from contingency planning for the existing trend...

[MSimon]

New Orleans is more of a worry - unless someone wants to pay for the work to be done.

I think the people who want to live near the sea should bear the cost.

BTW mitigation for a warmer planet will be nothing compared to the mitigation required for a colder one.