Yes, the #1 greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor. But it is also the only greenhouse gas that precipitates out of the atmosphere at the conditions found on the Earth. There is a hard limit on how much water vapor can be in the atmosphere controlled by temperature. The warmer the air is the more water vapor it can hold. So, if CO2 causes any temperature rise it's going to increase the amount of water vapor that can be in the atmosphere which in turn causes more temperature rise.
Simple answer. Because they are modeling climate not weather. Climate in the quantitative sense is the statistical accumulation of weather data and the output of a particular sensor is just one small datum in the overall picture. Climate model output is projected climate given an input scenario so to compare it to what really happened you compare it to the climate (not weather) data and you compare your scenario to the set of data it represents.
Secondary answer. Even if it were theoretically possible to do what you want we don't have the computing horsepower to do it. Climate model runs usually take about 4 weeks (per scenario) and when the scientists get a faster computer to run it on they reduce the grid sizes they're using and sometimes the time quantum. So they still take about 4 weeks to run, just at a finer scale. Right now grid sizes are on the order of 100x100 km horizontally near the equator.
... to fix myriad climate disasters predicted in the last 30 years that have not happened (including an impending ice age, global warming, massive hurricanes, rising sea levels, polar bears extinction, polar ice melting, etc. )
What makes you think any of those things were predicted to reach disastrous proportions in 30 short years? You need to pay better attention to the time scales involved.
What we need is a nice, easy summary page, summarizing all the relevant studies so far, and what they imply or mean when it comes to climate page.
I'm sorry that climate science is not so simple as to make your wish possible, but it's not. You just have to accept that.
The closest thing to a summary of all we know on the subject would be the IPCC reports. The IPCC AR4 Working Group I report in particular shows the basis of climate change science. It includes references to peer reviewed studies. If you want a one page summary of what we know about the climate then the FAQ 1.1 What factors determine Earth's climate? from the WG1 report does a pretty good job. The IPCC AR5 report is due out in 2 or 3 years so we'll get an update then.
The right's resistance to climate change is largely motivated by the fact that a lot of the proposed solutions entail things that some elements on the left wanted to do anyway.
Then why don't they just accept the science and propose their own solutions? Cap and trade was a market based right wing idea originally but now that the left says "Ok, we'll do cap and trade" they say, "Oh no, it's a left wing plot to take over the world". It's hard to hit a moving target.
... and as recently as 1300 AD, the planet was warm enough that Greenland was actually a green paradise. (But then later cooled and killed-off all human habitation during the renaissance period.)
ROTFLMAO! A green paradise, huh? How is it then that some of the ice cores drilled from the Greenland ice sheet go back over 100,000 years? Some of the glaciers on the southern end of Greenland may have been back a few miles from where they are now during the MWP but Greenland has never been "a green paradise" in the last 100,000 years.
And the costs of actually making a significant difference, assuming that the AGW models are correct, are huge.
And the costs of not transitioning from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy are even bigger. They're just a bit further in the future and easier to ignore.
CO2 is also, after the Sun, the single most important factor controlling the surface temperature of the Earth on a scale of decades to a few centuries. If it ever reached a level in the atmosphere to be directly toxic to humans we would have long since died off from the increased temperatures that caused. No one is proposing that we eliminate all CO2 from the atmosphere, just take it back under 350 ppm to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Temperature is at least as important as CO2 in growing the fruits and veggies you eat.
Here are a couple of FAQ's on the big General Circulation Models (aka Global Climate Models) from the guys who actually write them. They should give you a good idea about what they are all about.
They still have some bugs to work out. With frog legs they tend to jump rather than walk. To keep them from splitting open when they land they're now working on adding rubber to the rind.
Lake Mead was essentially full in 2000. Since then a series of drought years has dropped the water level by around 100 feet. 2011 was an exceptional water year in the Colorado drainage so the lake came up some but for 2012 the inflow is expected to be less than 30% of the average from 1981 to 2010. The Lake Mead Water Data web site has historical information about the water conditions in Lake Mead. In particular you might want to look at the Averages by Year data. Also, you can get a summary of the current conditions for the Upper Colorado basin that is updated monthly here.
No, water vapor is unable to drive air temperature changes since the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is regulated by the air temperature. You may be able to effect some temporary local changes from adding water vapor but globally it has no effect.
... yet it's well known that most of the worlds major rivers are a shadow of their natural self by time they reach the ocean (if they get there at all).
While that's true for the Colorado River I don't think it's true for "most" of the worlds rivers. Practically none of the water withdrawn from rivers and lakes gets destroyed or even removed from the water cycle for any length of time so one way or another it makes its way back to the oceans eventually. What is being added and thus is causing the SLR talked about in the article is mostly the water withdrawn from underground aquifers without being replaced. Like petroleum we will run out of that "fossil" water sooner or later.
An acre-foot of water is one acre of area covered by a foot of water. It is a common unit in the United States for measuring large volumes of water. One acre-foot is equal to 1233.48184 cubic meters or 325851.4 US gallons. Hogsheads vary is size but if you take it to be 63 gallons then an acre-foot is about 5,172 hogsheads. Troy ounces is a measure of mass, not volume.
After the drought conditions that have existed in the Colorado River drainage for the past decade Lake Mead is currently only 57% of its normal water storage and that's up a bit from a couple of years ago. Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam is only 72% of full. Together they are around 18 million acre-feet below their full capacity.
Dude, the Sun is 330000 times the mass of the Earth. It's 1000 times the mass of Jupiter which is 2.5 times more massive than all of the other planets (including Pluto) put together. The Sun wouldn't even notice your gently nudged asteroids.
The Sun might give a small polite belch. Honestly the whole Earth could drop into the Sun and it wouldn't cause a huge (for the Sun) reaction. The Sun's mass is 330,000 times the mass of the Earth. That's like dropping an ounce of water into 10 tons of it.
I first heard about it at least 6 months ago*. I've seen 2 or 3 stories about it in the past 2 weeks. Ya just got to pay a little attention to hear about these things.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the #1 greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is water vapor. But it is also the only greenhouse gas that precipitates out of the atmosphere at the conditions found on the Earth. There is a hard limit on how much water vapor can be in the atmosphere controlled by temperature. The warmer the air is the more water vapor it can hold. So, if CO2 causes any temperature rise it's going to increase the amount of water vapor that can be in the atmosphere which in turn causes more temperature rise.
Simple answer. Because they are modeling climate not weather. Climate in the quantitative sense is the statistical accumulation of weather data and the output of a particular sensor is just one small datum in the overall picture. Climate model output is projected climate given an input scenario so to compare it to what really happened you compare it to the climate (not weather) data and you compare your scenario to the set of data it represents.
Secondary answer. Even if it were theoretically possible to do what you want we don't have the computing horsepower to do it. Climate model runs usually take about 4 weeks (per scenario) and when the scientists get a faster computer to run it on they reduce the grid sizes they're using and sometimes the time quantum. So they still take about 4 weeks to run, just at a finer scale. Right now grid sizes are on the order of 100x100 km horizontally near the equator.
What makes you think any of those things were predicted to reach disastrous proportions in 30 short years? You need to pay better attention to the time scales involved.
Attack site? How so? Seems to me like they're mostly playing defense.
What we need is a nice, easy summary page, summarizing all the relevant studies so far, and what they imply or mean when it comes to climate page.
I'm sorry that climate science is not so simple as to make your wish possible, but it's not. You just have to accept that.
The closest thing to a summary of all we know on the subject would be the IPCC reports. The IPCC AR4 Working Group I report in particular shows the basis of climate change science. It includes references to peer reviewed studies. If you want a one page summary of what we know about the climate then the FAQ 1.1 What factors determine Earth's climate? from the WG1 report does a pretty good job. The IPCC AR5 report is due out in 2 or 3 years so we'll get an update then.
The right's resistance to climate change is largely motivated by the fact that a lot of the proposed solutions entail things that some elements on the left wanted to do anyway.
Then why don't they just accept the science and propose their own solutions? Cap and trade was a market based right wing idea originally but now that the left says "Ok, we'll do cap and trade" they say, "Oh no, it's a left wing plot to take over the world". It's hard to hit a moving target.
ROTFLMAO! A green paradise, huh? How is it then that some of the ice cores drilled from the Greenland ice sheet go back over 100,000 years? Some of the glaciers on the southern end of Greenland may have been back a few miles from where they are now during the MWP but Greenland has never been "a green paradise" in the last 100,000 years.
Just for you the following link compares actual data up to the end of 2011 to climate model projections:
Model/data comparisons
Did you even bother to read the FAQ's I linked or did you just base you statement on your "superior knowledge"?
And the costs of actually making a significant difference, assuming that the AGW models are correct, are huge.
And the costs of not transitioning from fossil fuel energy to renewable energy are even bigger. They're just a bit further in the future and easier to ignore.
CO2 is also, after the Sun, the single most important factor controlling the surface temperature of the Earth on a scale of decades to a few centuries. If it ever reached a level in the atmosphere to be directly toxic to humans we would have long since died off from the increased temperatures that caused. No one is proposing that we eliminate all CO2 from the atmosphere, just take it back under 350 ppm to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Temperature is at least as important as CO2 in growing the fruits and veggies you eat.
Here are a couple of FAQ's on the big General Circulation Models (aka Global Climate Models) from the guys who actually write them. They should give you a good idea about what they are all about.
FAQ on Climate Models
FAQ on Climate Models, Part II
The Chinese are in the process of learning the true cost of all of that pollution. Most environmental regulations save more money than they cost.
"Clean coal" is an oxymoron.
They still have some bugs to work out. With frog legs they tend to jump rather than walk. To keep them from splitting open when they land they're now working on adding rubber to the rind.
Dihydrogen monoxide is dangerous when you have a wall of it ten meters high approaching you at high speed.
Just about anything including air is dangerous when you have a wall of it ten meters high approaching you at a high speed.
Lake Mead was essentially full in 2000. Since then a series of drought years has dropped the water level by around 100 feet. 2011 was an exceptional water year in the Colorado drainage so the lake came up some but for 2012 the inflow is expected to be less than 30% of the average from 1981 to 2010. The Lake Mead Water Data web site has historical information about the water conditions in Lake Mead. In particular you might want to look at the Averages by Year data. Also, you can get a summary of the current conditions for the Upper Colorado basin that is updated monthly here.
No, water vapor is unable to drive air temperature changes since the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is regulated by the air temperature. You may be able to effect some temporary local changes from adding water vapor but globally it has no effect.
Precisely!
While that's true for the Colorado River I don't think it's true for "most" of the worlds rivers. Practically none of the water withdrawn from rivers and lakes gets destroyed or even removed from the water cycle for any length of time so one way or another it makes its way back to the oceans eventually. What is being added and thus is causing the SLR talked about in the article is mostly the water withdrawn from underground aquifers without being replaced. Like petroleum we will run out of that "fossil" water sooner or later.
An acre-foot of water is one acre of area covered by a foot of water. It is a common unit in the United States for measuring large volumes of water. One acre-foot is equal to 1233.48184 cubic meters or 325851.4 US gallons. Hogsheads vary is size but if you take it to be 63 gallons then an acre-foot is about 5,172 hogsheads. Troy ounces is a measure of mass, not volume.
After the drought conditions that have existed in the Colorado River drainage for the past decade Lake Mead is currently only 57% of its normal water storage and that's up a bit from a couple of years ago. Lake Powell behind Glen Canyon Dam is only 72% of full. Together they are around 18 million acre-feet below their full capacity.
Dude, the Sun is 330000 times the mass of the Earth. It's 1000 times the mass of Jupiter which is 2.5 times more massive than all of the other planets (including Pluto) put together. The Sun wouldn't even notice your gently nudged asteroids.
The Sun might give a small polite belch. Honestly the whole Earth could drop into the Sun and it wouldn't cause a huge (for the Sun) reaction. The Sun's mass is 330,000 times the mass of the Earth. That's like dropping an ounce of water into 10 tons of it.
I first heard about it at least 6 months ago*. I've seen 2 or 3 stories about it in the past 2 weeks. Ya just got to pay a little attention to hear about these things.
Mother Earth doesn't like premature eruptions.