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Ocean Circulation Doesn't Work As Expected
techno-vampire writes with word that a long-accepted model of deep ocean currents is inaccurate. Deep Sea News has a summary of the research, to be published in Nature. The Woods Hole press release has more details. "A 50-year-old model of global thermohaline circulation that predicts a deep Atlantic counter current below the Gulf Stream is now formally called into question by an armada of subsurface RAFOS floats drifting 700 - 1500m deep. Nearly 80% of the RAFOS floats escaped the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC), drifting into the open ocean. This confirms suspicions that have been around since the 1990s, and likely plays havoc with global models of climate change."
aren't accurate? For Gore's sake, what a surprise!
Clearly this is a product of Western materialism. However, Al Gore will stop at nothing to demonstrate our danger:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/al_gore_caught_warming_globe_to
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Despite the fact that we didn't have accurate data about the pattern of ocean currents earlier, we can now welcome panicked decrees that we are changing the pattern of ocean currents!
Something that everyone should keep in mind with nearly any theory regarding earth science -- "long accepted" doesn't go back very far. Most "modern" geologic (and oceanographic) theories only go back 40 or 50 years. When compared to the other major scientific fields, that's not very long at all. Hell, we've understood nuclear fusion and fission longer than we've understood the basic mechanics of the Earth.
I do enjoy the irony.
This confirms suspicions that have been around since the 1990's, and likely plays havoc with global models of climate change.
So, in the AC's world, the entire underpinnings of ocean circulation can be incorrect, yet the conclusions are NOT to be questioned.
Hence the label, 'denier'.
That is not what I understand to be science.
There is no global warming. It's just the surface. The core temperature is unaffected.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
who would have ever guessed that we would have trouble forming an accurate model of a vast, complex, chaotic system
And I already replaced all my light bulbs with those dim, mercury-filled corkscrew kind!
I can't be the only one that hates those damn things. They are useful in areas where the lights are left on for extended periods but I find them to be highly annoying in areas that I walk into and out of quickly. They don't even manage to reach full brightness before I've accomplished what I came into the room to do.
They also seem to fail miserably if you have the misfortune of living somewhere that lacks stable voltage. My old apartment had voltage issues because the next door neighbor ran electric kiln's for a glass business. I'd watch the voltage dip from 118V down to 105V and back up to 118V for hours on end when she ran those damn things. The CFL's just couldn't take it. Most of them crapped out within six months. Regular incandescents worked just fine (albeit with annoying changes in brightness when the voltage dipped), as did regular fluorescents.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Mod parent up. Global warming isn't science, it's politics.
"some species will die".
yes, that's kind of the problem, isn't it? Since the oil predates human existence, who's to say the world that results from the release of all of that sequestered carbon leaves us a world in which WE will survive? We have never survived a world in which all that carbon was in the atmosphere before.
I'm not really a big worrier about climate change... other environmental issues bother me a lot more... but your argument is a bit weak.
The perennial war cry of the crank is "If this one thing is wrong, then nothing they say can be trusted!"
Of course, in the real world, all data has flaws, and all interpretations are subject to revision. So a demand for absolute perfection gives the crank license to engage in cherry-picking, rationalizing away the data he doesn't like, while accepting that which feeds his obsession.
Real science doesn't work that way. When new data comes in, or errors are found in old data, the scientist carefully reassesses conclusions in the light of the new evidence.
The ultimate goal of these models is to make solid predictions on the effects of climate change. As of yet, few if any are much more than toys. They're useful toys in so far as they help move us towards a good model, but toys just the same.
However, the fact that climate change is occuring and directly related to human activity is based on empirical data. The models being wrong do not change that conclusion.
Not a typewriter
Yeah, but today is two days before the day after tomorrow!
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Ocean Circulation doesn't affect the *global* temperature directly. It simply redistributes the heat around the planet. Hence the name CONVEYOR.
The down side is that if the 'conveyor' belt doesn't work as we expect, global warming may actually end up being WORSE. The (now questined) premise of the conveyor belt is that if the northern Atlantic ocean becomes less salty (due to melting Greenland ice), the water stops falling to the ocean depths, and since no conveyor means no warm gulf steam to warm the northeastern US and European continents, they will get colder.
This in turn produces more snowfall in the northern latitudes, thicker ice, etc. Which in turn reflects more sunlight lessening the effects of global warming.
So the conveyor belt may act as somewhat of a coarse 'brake' on global warming over longer time frames.
Or at least that was the theory. If the conveyor belt doesn't work as we thought, it might just mean we will feel the full effects of global warming.
Some of the deniers will jump on this as a natural cycle. Understand it that is a natural environment *response* to an unnatural influx of carbon dioxide from humans.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
It's kind of poetic how stupid you come off trying to dis on the global warming people.
1. Pretty much everyone agrees that the term global warming is bad, since what is happening is global climate change, which is very real and a very big problem.
2. The amount of CO2 is not fixed as you claim, CO2 is a by product of chemical reactions. There are also reactions going the other way, but unfortunately we are producing way more CO2 than is being consumed, this is a problem.
3. While you are correct that the world will probably survive just fine as a whole, some of us are rather concerned about the amount of climate refuges we are going to see and in time the wars that will most likely follow.
and since no conveyor means no warm gulf steam to warm the northeastern US and European continents, they will get colder.
Does the Gulf Stream actually have much of an impact on North America? Wouldn't the typical weather patterns (i.e: west to east) suggest that the heat moved by the Gulf Stream would wind up making most of it's impact on the Atlantic Ocean and Europe?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Mod parent up. Global warming isn't science, it's politics.
No, it's actually science.
What do you think is going to happen now? Either scientists will ignore this data or they will incorporate it into their models... wanna bet they incorporate it?
Wanna bet CO2 still warms the atmosphere after they incorporate the new ocean current data? We won't know for sure until they incorporate the new data, but I'll take that bet.
Unless, of course, your contention is correct and they are not scientists - then they will simply ignore the new data, right?
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The only question is in what group our species will be found.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Damnit, I love science!
This is how it's supposed to work.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
These results don't say that global warming is occurring. In fact, they neither support nor oppose the idea at all. The Woods Hole press release is fairly neutral:
"May impact the work of global warming forecasters" is true; it might also influence the thinking of UFO chasers but that won't help determine whether they're piloted by little green men. This research will complicate models designed to model the specific effects of global warming. Given how much is unknown yet, and how much has yet to be determined by human activities (to the extent that we choose to mitigate or fail to mitigate our impact on the biosphere) those models are already only potentially correct by marvelous coincidence anyway.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Worked for a company that was right next to a private school with their own electrically heated swimming pool. Every morning around 11.00am, the fluorescent strips in our room would start blinking one by one then going out. After 12.30pm when the pool had been heated, all the lights would come back on.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
IAAPO (physical oceanographer).
The quoted blog is being a little over-excited about this. There's nothing in WHOI's press release that suggests that this brings the thermohaline circulation tumbling down, and certainly nothing to play "havoc" with climate models. Quoth the press release:
And since this cold southward-flowing water is thought to influence and perhaps moderate human-caused climate change, this finding may impact the work of global warming forecasters.
"This finding means it is going to be more difficult to measure climate signals in the deep ocean," Lozier said. "We thought we could just measure them in the Deep Western Boundary Current, but we really can't."
In other words, the circulation is there, but it's more diffuse that expected, and so you can measure it by looking at a well-defined path along the continental shelf as expected. That requires some revamping of theory, and will make circulation model validation and data assimilation more difficult, but that's all.
The DWBC has an interesting scientific history -- it's one of the few ocean phenomena predicted by theory before it was observed, in part because its depth and slowness prevented observation.
But, hey, never mind, Al Gore, manbearpig, lalala I can't hear you.
What I see is the scientific establishment diligently working to identify flaws in the existing theory of climate change and freely publishing any flaws found. The FACT is that the scientific community is vigorously collecting data to challenge and correct where necessary climate change theory, and has been for over two decades now. Note this is the same scientific community that has endorsed the current climate change theories and it's predictions - which include pretty fat error bars you know.
I understand that to be science and is why I respect the consensus of National Academies of Science (or equivalent bodies) across the first world in this matter (and not Mr Gore or Exxon or the headline of the week).
Is it me, or does the title sound like a bug report indicating that the oceans to not behave properly?
Can not reproduce. Will not fix.
So, in the AC's world, the entire underpinnings of ocean circulation can be incorrect, yet the conclusions are NOT to be questioned.
Perhaps that's because the fact that the planet is getting warmer is, um, a *fact*. We measure that. This doesn't call that "conclusion" into question; at best it implies we have even less understanding of why the planet is getting hotter, which suggests we need *less* calm, not more. Our temperature measurements aren't wrong, and still remain valid.
That's all well and good, and as it should be. The ONLY problem here, is that some folks want to make trillion-dollar adjustments to industry all over the world based on these models which are still in such a preliminary state.
(The trillion-dollar adjustments involve increasing everyone's cost of living in order to internalize costs that may not actually be negative externalities, and include the imposition of a very expensive administrative layer atop everything carbon-related.)
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
That may be true now, but it used to be science, a long time ago, back in the 1990s, back when only journals and magazines such as Science or Nature would talk about it and that no one else cared or listened. I grew up in the 1990s in France reading Science & Vie, global warming was there all along, back then we called it 'climate warming', but then suddenly the American public started caring, and that's when the shit went down and it all became controversial and hysterical.
You damn kids and your newfangled climatological hysteria, get off my lawn!
You just got troll'd!
And I already replaced all my light bulbs with those dim, mercury-filled corkscrew kind!
Dim? The lower energy usage and heat output means I can put "100 Watt equivalent" bulbs in fixtures that are only supposed to have 60 Watt bulbs in them, that's quite a bit brighter. Plus they don't have that horrid long-wavelength tinge to them.
I can't be the only one that hates those damn things. They are useful in areas where the lights are left on for extended periods but I find them to be highly annoying in areas that I walk into and out of quickly. They don't even manage to reach full brightness before I've accomplished what I came into the room to do.
Most of he ones I have hit full brightness pretty much immediately. The ones that do take a while are "floodlight" shape and can go in enclosed spaces without getting fried, don't know whether they're just crappy or starting quickly isn't compatible with surviving that.
There are two separate issues here. On the one hand there are certainly serious scientists working on climatology and climate change. I have no doubt they will incorporate the new information and work to improve their models. However, they are also much more careful about their certainty of the future, than...
The other side of the debate, which is political; it deals with what policies (if any) should be put in place to combat climate change. And in this realm, we are being bombarded by "it's settled science", "it's going to happen", "we have to act in ten years or it'll be too late", etc. ad inf. And the unseriousness of these positions is made clear by radical flaws in models such as the one referenced in this article.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
OMG. Best. Game. Title. Evar.
In other words, now we don't know what might happen and we're *still* mucking with our climate.
Its been a while since I worked a problem queue for a living, but this sev 1 defect which has been raised "Ocean Circulation Doesn't Work As Expected" is just going to be closed as "Working as designed".
No, there are TWO problems — the one you mention, and another one, where the people who make their coin on the status quo (and the politicians that they own) will ignore all evidence that the current way of doing business might make the planet unlivable. Or, at a minimum, cost a trillion dollars to adjust to as it changes.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"
-- Isaac Asimov
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
That global warming is occurring is based on empirical data I'll grant; but how is the human cause based on empirical data? In order to make an empirical assertion about a cause you would need a control group, which is pretty much impossible with a sample size of one.
We think that the cause his human activity because its the simplest explanation for such a rapid rise in temperatures, that's not the same as saying we have direct experimental evidence that says the same thing.
Or, it could also make global warming somehow better than it was predicted. It could be either worse or better, and those studies that predicted the end of the world if Kyoto wasn't ratified will need to be redone.
This will take time.
Shoring up conclusions today without considering that these original assumptions were false is NOT science.
And, on a side note, I like these sorts of statements:
Understand it that is a natural environment *response* to an unnatural influx of carbon dioxide from humans.
As if humans have the capability of creating matter from thin air now...
Every molecule of carbon on Earth was here before we were aware of it, and it will all still be here long after the race has ran itself out.
You can reasonably blame human behavior if you like, but placing the blame squarely on 'carbon' is a fashionista tactic, and little else.
Personally, I wonder why we're not considering the impact of all the little heat pockets we need to survive on this planet. Think about it - we warm our cars, our homes, our beverages, we use electrical devices that ALL radiate heat, and we're actually producing a fair amount of thermal energy just by walking around and breathing...
For that matter, what about all the concrete/asphalt in the world? That stuff gets HOT in the sun light, and there's a lot of it. Could that not warm things up a bit? There used to be trees there, you know...
All that heat, and yet we blame poor little 'carbon'. :D
But seriously, I do fear that an all-electric world will produce more net heat than an oil-powered one, if for no other reason than oil has a far greater energy density than we can currently achieve with electricity.
Science: "We've observed that the Earth's climate is getting warmer by nearly a full degree Celsius over a period of observation of around 200 years. We've noticed a correlating increase in CO2 emissions in that timespan."
Politics: "GLOBAL WARMING IS GOING TO CHANGE EVERYTHING ABOUT OUR LIVES!"
Science: "But the Earth is 4.54 billion years old, so our dataset is incomplete."
Politics: "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS GLOBAL WARMING, WE DON'T KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT THE EARTH!"
Science: "Of course, we've seen in tests that increasing the level of CO2 in an environment can significantly increase the temperature of an environment."
Politics: "CO2 CAUSES WORLD OT GET HOTTER!"
Science: "One of the leading theories we have as to the increase in global temperatures is this so-called 'blanket-effect'"
Politics: "GLOBAL WARMING IS BLANKET EFFECT! WE ALL MUST USE HYBRIDS NOW OR DIE!"
Science: "On the other hand, it's still a possibility that we're in a natural cycle of global warming. We saw a similar pattern in history, which occurred right before we experienced a miniature ice age."
Politics: "GLOBAL WARMING NATURAL CYCLE. ICE AGE IMMINENT!"
Repeat until you either change the channel or become so psychotic from the endless political bashing that you go out and kill 50 or 60 people, just to relieve the stress.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
If we have to choose between spending a trillion dollars now and spending a trillion fifty years from now, which should we do? Personally, I'd rather wait the fifty.
But more importantly, there's a philosophical point to be made. When faced with a possible problem, should you always make a radical change to the status quo? Well, what do you do in your personal life? Most people don't do this, unless the potential problem is both very serious and has a high probability. The ones who want to effect massive changes know this and want to convince us on both counts.
Ultimately, though, broken models like this one do damage to the radical policymakers. Those policy choices are dependent on not just climate models, but economic models based on those climate models. If we can't even trust the climate models, where do you think we are with the economic models? And how can we possibly justify spending such massive sums with that much uncertainty as to the outcome?
We might end up impoverishing ourselves to such a degree that we don't have the technology to handle whatever the climate does throw us. And that would be just as disastrous. So there are risks either way. I say stick to the status quo until we know we can't.
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
Being skeptical of scientists giving dogmatic claims of incredibly complex weather systems with billions of variables, known and unknown, sounds like Denier talk to me. Either that or you are obviously under the employ of oil companies, Dick Cheney or you are the guy who controls Karl Rove's weather machine. The one Bush used to destroy New Orleans.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
No, it really isn't. The very historical charts that Mr. Gore laid out in his "An Inconvenient Truth", when superimposed on one another, show that the atmospheric CO2 concentration trailed the temperature increase. When people point to current trends, they fail to account for the fact that there are natural cycles in climate that go on over tens of thousands of years.
Global Warming is a science the way String Theory is a science, which is to say that it makes no testable predictions. Well, that's a bit harsh, it says that if CO2 goes up, then temperature goes up, but it is untestable because the effect is below the signal to noise ratio when you factor in long term climactic cycles. Basically, it's JUST A MODEL. When a major factor of your model is destroyed, it puts to lie ALL of the assumptions based on that model. Since you obviously aren't going to do that, nor will the politicians, I guess that makes it a matter of who makes the choices.
That is to say, it's politics. Another flamebait moderation in 3..2..1..
A fairly reliable indicator of a crank is the conviction that the dominant view is a house of cards, and the most recent finding, whatever it is, is about to bring the whole thing down. Press releases tend if anything to overstate the significance and novelty of a result, but what does the press release say? The lead sentence is "Oceanographers have long known that the 20-year-old paradigm for describing the global ocean circulationâ" called the Great Ocean Conveyor â" was an oversimplification. " And as far as the impact on climate theory, "this finding may [my emphasis] impact the work of global warming forecasters." Doesn't exactly sound like a startling, paradigm-shifting result, does it?
So while we'll have to wait for the modelers to incorporate the new data to see what the real impact is, I think that it is safe to say that anybody who is seizing upon this finding at this early stage as casting doubt on global warming certainly qualifies as a crank.
Please. Researchers ignore data that break their theories all the time.
It may be worst in the medical world. For example, why do you think that cholesterol is targeted as enemy number one for heart health? There is no study that has ever demonstrated causality; 50% of people with heart disease have "normal" cholesterol; nearly all studies on the subject show that all-cause mortality is higher with low cholesterol; much better working theories exist.
So why is that hypothesis still treated as correct? Because reputations and huge amounts of money would be lost. Prominent people and institutions may even be found liable. Good science goes out the window in the face of that.
Regarding the subject at hand, you might want to look at what an ad hoc hypothesis is.
^X^S ^X^C
What? Every case of causation I've ever heard of also showed correlation. Correlation does not PROVE causation, but it is a big flashing sign with a buxom topless girl waving pom poms jumping around it pointing in the right direction.
Note that at this point, the link between smoking and lung cancer still doesn't have a definitively proven causation.
Let's see if I understand this correctly:
Atlantic ocean becomes less salty (due to melting Greenland ice), the water stops falling to the ocean depths, and since no conveyor means no warm gulf steam to warm the northeastern US and European continents, they will get colder.
OK, so ice melts, the conveyor stops... got it!
This in turn produces more snowfall in the northern latitudes, thicker ice , etc.
More ice? WTF?!!? You just said there would be LESS ICE due to ice melting, then you say that will cause THICKER ICE?
Wouldn't this restart the conveyor and return everything to normal?
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I say stick to the status quo until we know we can't.
The problem with that is, what if the "oh we can't stick to the status quo" moment is actually a massive human extinction event?
The risk is that the "bullet has already been fired" so to speak. It won't hit for another 50 to 100 years, but it's on the way, and it'll cause damage when it finally does hit.
We don't know for sure if that's the case, but there certainly is a risk.
Reading the news release makes it sound as if the problem was that the expected deep ocean return current was just in the wrong location. They put the floats in the areas where the current was supposed to be and only 8 percent of them actually even went in the 'right' direction. So...their 'conclusion' is that the current is just in the 'wrong' location but that it still exists, although they have never actually observed it. Without being any sort of climate 'expert' it seems obvious that evaporation of water in the northern latitudes is a far more important contributor to the gulf stream flow than the hypothesized deep ocean return current. It even seems probable that most of the evaporation of water on this planet occurs in the northern and southern latitudes. In that model, warm water flows north and south around the planet from the equatorial regions towards the poles and evaporates, thereby cooling the ocean waters and transferring heat and moisture into the atmosphere where it eventually falls as precipitation as it moves back towards the equator. Of course, this evaporation model cannot be correct because it allows the atmosphere to be a major conveyor of heat (as vapor phase water) which does not fit well with the 'greenhouse gas' idea in which the earth is surrounded by atmospheric gases which are blocking the radiation of long-wave infrared radiation into space, thereby warming the earth. I don't think there are any Eisteins in the atmospheric sciences field at the moment.
The ONLY problem here, is that some folks want to make trillion-dollar adjustments to industry all over the world based on these models which are still in such a preliminary state.
Really? What makes them preliminary state? The simple fact is, that the majority of data that feeds these models ARE known. In fact, it was because of these models that this experiment was done. Will it change the models? I would think so. Would it change them DRASTICALLY? I seriously doubt it. The simple fact is, that these models have been being developed for over a couple of decades. The real problem is that they do not appear to match what is going on. They all seem to indicate that we have MUCH longer time. Every time they make a prediction of things to occur in 20-30 years, it keeps happening NOW.
As to the trillion dollar adjustments, had America followed Nixon/Ford/Carters lead back in the 70's, and pushed for being off oil/coal, we would not be in Iraq, likely not be in afghanistan, and not have the exchange deficit that we have. The vast majority of the wests security and economic issues can be tied DIRECTLY to our being dependent on the same price fuel that other countries are on.
Actually, we pay more than most because we clean it up more. While China surpassed us in CO2 emissions several years ago, they surpassed us nearly a decade ago in major pollutants. The west MUST get off of importing fossil fuel and skip this garbage about Cap/Trade. Instead, we need to put in place a cap at TODAY's amount (i.e. no more), and then put in a time progressive co2 tax on all goods, esp. imported goods.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I am a nature subscriber and I just read the letter which this crap is 'based on'. In what I find to be depressing regularity the content in Nature Magazine is misrepresented. Presumably because some of the content at Nature.com is only available to subscribers.
So the title of Slashdot submission is wrong. The summary and free article at deepseanews it is based on mischaracterize the content of the letter. And naturally most of the comments here on Slashdot don't take into account the article, the letter, or anything that smells to much like reality.
If anyone is particularly interested the study found additional new details about ocean currents which the suggest should be included in future model of global ocean currents. This isn't especially exciting but I suppose it's interesting from a point of view of making our understanding and models more complete.
So nothing there about ocean circulation not working the way scientists have described (or a "a major paradigm shift in ocean circulation theory.") Nothing there about failure of models. Nothing there about climate change being either true / not true or stronger / weaker.
This is just what most science is all about... making current understanding more complete or more correct. Below is the excerpt, which I believe to be publication available.
To understand how our global climate will change in response to natural and anthropogenic forcing, it is essential to determine how quickly and by what pathways climate change signals are transported throughout the global ocean, a vast reservoir for heat and carbon dioxide. Labrador Sea Water (LSW), formed by open ocean convection in the subpolar North Atlantic, is a particularly sensitive indicator of climate change on interannual to decadal timescales1, 2, 3. Hydrographic observations made anywhere along the western boundary of the North Atlantic reveal a core of LSW at intermediate depths advected southward within the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC)4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. These observations have led to the widely held view that the DWBC is the dominant pathway for the export of LSW from its formation site in the northern North Atlantic towards the Equator10, 11. Here we show that most of the recently ventilated LSW entering the subtropics follows interior, not DWBC, pathways. The interior pathways are revealed by trajectories of subsurface RAFOS floats released during the period 2003â"2005 that recorded once-daily temperature, pressure and acoustically determined position for two years, and by model-simulated 'e-floats' released in the subpolar DWBC. The evidence points to a few specific locations around the Grand Banks where LSW is most often injected into the interior. These results have implications for deep ocean ventilation and suggest that the interior subtropical gyre should not be ignored when considering the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
As if humans have the capability of creating matter from thin air now...
;-)
Uh, does the guy who opens the flood gates at the dam 'create' the water that flows out of it? not hardly. But that doesn't diminish the effects of LOTS more water downstream does it?
Humans have clearly and measurably increased the carbon dioxide in the ATMOSHPHERE. That comes from burning MILLIONS of years of carbon sequestered in the oil. This is the problem and the 'unnatural' influx of which I spoke. it would not have happened this much this fast without us actively digging it up and burning it.
As for the other sources of heat you mention, the solar aspects are the most reasonable to affect global temperatures since its the basis for just about all life in the first place
However, global warming is not because we are producing more heat than the earth can handle. It is because we are retarding the rate at which it sheds heat into space. How much heat we as a species produce is probably actually pretty measurable as is the amount of heat added by the Sun (Sun heated asphalt would be in our bucket not the Suns). I'd be willing to bet we don't hold a candle to the Sun in that department.
But generally those wonderful thermodynamics laws really do prevent us from 'increasing' the heat on the planet. The rate at which it moves (into space) however is something we can and have readily affected. That's where the vast majority of 'extra' heat is coming from. Without the extra CO2 blanket, transfer rates would simply go up in response to any larger heat concentrations we've caused, still reaching a reasonable equilibrium.
But as you say, by paving over fields and forests, and then reducing the rate at which the extra heat can leave (through processes producing yet more heat) we aren't helping ourselves.
The main problem is still the 'greenhouse' effect.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
The "fact"?
You're citing stock climate change deniers' arguments. They were refuted looooooong time ago. Do you think all climate scientists are idiots?
Specifically:
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/04/historically-co2-never-causes.php
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/03/geological-history-does-not-support.php
From the long list of:
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php
You're suggesting that we have somehow set off a chain of events that will result in the entire planet being inhospitable to humans, and it will occur in as small a timescale as 50 years?
There certainly is a risk. I can't see it being much greater than the risk that a solar storm is about to wipe out all our electronics, or that a large meteor will land in my garden next week and the resulting dust cloud will block out the sun (hey it wasn't my garden but this has actually happened - we should definitely be more worried about meteors than climate change).
Basically, it's JUST A MODEL.
I challenge you to name a set of "natural laws" or really any aspect of current scientific research or long established dogma that isn't just a model at heart.
I'll grant you that it may not be fine-grained enough to allow for testable predictions within natural cycles, but it does show that there's a correlation between CO2 and temperature. Whether that means that CO2 changes cause temperature changes, or that temperature changes cause CO2 changes, or that some other process causes them isn't really all that relevant. The model is sufficiently robust as to state, quite clearly, that increasing CO2 emissions is potentially a bad idea, and that reducing them is potentially a good idea.
The question isn't "is the model fine grained enough that we can make large predictions based on it?".
The questions are "what are the risks associated with the possible courses of action/inaction provided it's right/wrong?
It's a factor in a risk assessment, plain and simple. Not to mention the fact that there are likely hundreds of thousands of business opportunities involved in becoming more green. It's all a matter of how it's done.
Disclaimer - I'm a meat-eating, V6-driving, ex-military hunter who is completely addicted to technology. ie. A far cry from a tree-hugger. That being said, if you can present me with green alternatives to the energy-hungry devices I RELY on, that aren't 150% the cost of the non-green versions, I will happily take them.
Oh god, that woman is John Romero!
In short, we don't know what's really happening, but our political leaders are making very expensive decisions based on the belief (of some) that we do.
That's a great textbook definition of Stupidity!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
the water stops falling to the ocean depths, and since no conveyor means no warm gulf steam to warm the northeastern US and European continents, they will get colder.
Just tossing this out there - this is believed to be at least partly responsible for the last mini-ice age.
Cost isn't always just the money you spend, it's also the consequence of what you don't do. We're already seeing the economic consequences of global warming and there is no reason to believe that this won't continue to be a more serious problem.
What climate change critics often say is that the science isn't good enough yet. What they mean is migrating away from burning billions of barrels of petroleum and billions of tons of coal for cheap energy is hard, expensive work that we can kick down the road until it's someone else's problem.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
Yes but how can you claim to "know" the future environment, if our models are inaccurate? We can't even come-up with explanations for previous warm/cool spells, like the 300-1300 warm spell that allowed grapes to be grown in northern England, or the circa 3000 B.C. warm spell that helped Egypt become a dominant empire of the region.
I'm skeptical because I studied science and know its history - which is essentially a series of mistakes. For example in the 70s Carl Sagan was telling schoolchildren about dust-in-the-air causing an ice age. And we all know the story of how scientists thought disease was caused by bad air, or bad blood, or "germs".
I'm skeptical because that's what the scientific method demands.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
did you miss this part of my post:
So the conveyor belt may act as somewhat of a coarse 'brake' on global warming over longer time frames.
We have the problem of warming temps melting more ice. This means less salty northern waters. As such the 'conveyor' stops running (based on previous theories). This stops the transfer of heat from the tropics to the northern climates which in turn causes a cooling of the northern climates producing more ice. It is indeed a cyclical process so point A leads to point B to point C and back to A in a massive generalization.
My point was that if the conveyor theory is wrong, the 'brake' I described might not exist or only work at a reduced rate, thus allowing more effect from global warming to be experienced.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
You know, this conversation highlights exactly why this will work... In all reality tremendous instantaneous changes are not really required to mitigate some of the risks and damage by global warming.
I *thank* the crazy environmentalist nutjobs for providing a solid shove in the needed direction.
I *thank* the crazy conservative nutjobs for refusing to budge.
The net result of all of this discussion? More general awareness and many more people making small changes to help cut energy use and find cleaner means of producing energy. Slower change, still effective, and much more manageable.
...when confronted with a choice, you choose money over the only known planet that sustains human life in the entire universe.
I'm not sure I can get on board with that. And something tells me that using less energy to do everyday tasks will lead to more technology, not less. Sticking with the status quo is the choice that provides no technology, and possibly spends finite resources on luxuries that could be used later for needs.
But fuck it. Hop in your hummer, crank the AC, and rush to sit in traffic. Buy the house tens of miles away from work so you can have a library and basement bar that get used about twice a decade. Terraform your yard with nice looking weeds, so the neighbors can enjoy it the whole 30 seconds they spend outside their front door.
Enjoy these pinnacles of human achievement, while they last.
You're citing stock climate change deniers' arguments. They were refuted looooooong time ago. Do you think all climate scientists are idiots?
Specifically: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/04/historically-co2-never-causes.php
http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2006/03/geological-history-does-not-support.php
From the long list of: http://scienceblogs.com/illconsidered/2008/07/how_to_talk_to_a_sceptic.php
Ummm, your links agree with me. Temperature rises preceded CO2 increases. It then goes on to claim that somehow the CO2 STILL causes it. Apparently CO2 moved faster than the speed of light and violated causality back in those days. The second link admits that CO2 levels are not well correlated with historical temperature (he blames this on a lack of comprehensive data--meaning that he recognizes that they don't have data, but he's somehow still right).
There is a lot more to the story of climate change than CO2, but governments around the world would shut down civilization rather than hear that.
You and I must have wildly different understanding of the word "refute".
Many water shortages today aren't cause by a lack of water, but a lack of clean, fresh water.
I think you've got the wrong idea.
The Stern Review came to the conclusion that the benefits of strong, early action on climate change considerably outweigh the costs.
Waiting fifty years might be the worst thing we could do.
If you have to remove that cancerous tumor now or wait a year, what will you do?
Right now, it has already been proven to an extremely high degree of certainty, that global warming is both very serious and has a high probability.
Broken model? What broken model? The model for global warming is fully intact. The fact that one small part of an accessory needs some adjustment in no way breaks the model for global warming.
The only thing this study shows is that water that circulates in depths of 700 to 1500 meters under the surface travels in wider and slower paths than had been previously thought. The total flux of water is, naturally, the same, water isn't accumulating in the Arctic.
You speak as if we weren't already spending hundreds of billions to keep companies that cause global warming alive.
"The 25 watt CFL you are discussing actually uses 50 watts total power. 25 watts at the bulb, and another 25 at the power company as they try to balance the reactive load."
Please read up on your electronics. It doesn't "use" another 25 watts at the power company. At the most, it uses a very little bit of power due to the extra current flowing in the transmission lines. Maybe a watt or two. This has been discussed here before.
And that's ultimate irony of the most hysterical proponents of human caused global warming. They believe that we're already irreversibly doomed and that no matter what economic devastation we wreak on the developing world (read: starvation exacerbation), all we will do is the equivalent of attaching a few life vests to the Titanic. So if we were to believe and heed them, what's the point?
Read my blog: HansMast.com
Heat just one room at a time instead of the whole house. That's how you make a major change to help reduce greenhouse gas.
I tried that, had the heater turned off at all times except a space heater in the bedroom at bedtime. It ended up being more costly and less efficient than heating the whole house and keeping it heated.
My theory is that the insulation makes it pretty cheap to maintain the temperature, but the space heater has to work constantly to counteract the heat lost to neighboring rooms. The other possibility is that natural gas (whole house) is really cheap around here and electricity (single room) isn't.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." - H.L. Mencken
Umm, I did. He agrees with me on the data, then goes on to draw conclusions that don't match his data.
For example: "During the glacial/interglacial cycles, CO2 concentrations and temperatures show a remarkable correlation. Closer examination reveals that CO2 does not lead the temperature changes, but actually lags by many centuries. Even so, the full extent of the warming can not be explained without the effects of CO2. Though this period does not demonstrate greenhouse gas initiated warming, it does lend support to the importance of CO2 and CH4 in setting the planetary thermostat."
The data disproves what he is saying, but he says it supports it. This person must be a mental gymnast.
Next link: "While there are indeed poorly understood ancient climates and rather controversial climate changes in Earth's long geological history, there are no clear contradictions to greenhouse theory to be found. What we do have is an unfortunate lack of comprehensive and well resolved data. There is always the chance that new data will turn up shortcomings in the models and unforeseen new aspects to climate theory, and I guarantee you scientists in the field are working hard to uncover such things - every scientist relishes the thought of uncovering new data that overturns current understanding. But it does not make any sense at all to reject CO2 as a primary driver of climate change today because it looks, through the foggy glasses of time, like CO2 has not always completely controlled climate changes in the past."
Basically he says that there is no historical correlation, but that because the current CO2 is produced by humans, there suddenly is some sort of correlation. Also he questions the strength of the data, which when you question it from the other way you are called a "denier". Why would the Earth get warm when people produce CO2, but not when it rises naturally?
Again, it's all politics.
Deaths have decreased because emergency treatment at the hospital has improved and people are less likely to ignore the warning signs of a heart attack. Heart disease rates have actually increased.
^X^S ^X^C
Sure, climatologists are not experts in the economy.
However, stating that we need major CO2 emissions reduction is well within their competence. So they're stating that.
How we're gonna tackle it is a task for economists, engineers and other scientists.
Number of votes is irrelevant. Do you want to abolish CDC and FEMA because virologists have only one vote too?
What if...just suppose that the climate change that you fear for its cost is natural and not man-caused?
Should we then muck with the environment in an effort to stop it, because of the cost if we don't?
As far as economic disruption goes, that's going to be no big deal in a free country. People will move out, move uphill/inland and their assets(other than real estate) and work will follow. More will be employed building new harbors, new levees, etc. The economy can readily adapt and does so way faster than any ecosystem can change.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO