When talking about Arctic sea ice it's important to distinguish whether you are talking about ice extent (the area it covers) or ice volume. As far as 2010, it's not clear if ice extent will be lower than 2007 but ice volume is already below 2007 because multi-year ice has been disappearing year after year. We already have a record low for ice volume.
Actually higher atmospheric humidity produces a less dense atmosphere since an H20 molecule is lighter than the N2 and O2 molecules that make up the bulk of the atmosphere.
The thermal expansion of water is simple physics, measurable in a laboratory. The increase in temperatures of the oceans has been measured. It doesn't matter if it's deep or shallow water, it still expands when it's warmed.
Your calculation presumes the rate of glacial ice melt is not increasing but it is. Also, thermal expansion is as big a factor in SLR as added water from glacial melt. As the oceans warm up the volume increases.
9 is wrong because it misunderstands how the GCM's (General Circulation Models or Global Climate Models, take your pick) work. The don't predict what the temperature will be in 100 years, they just predict what the 30 year average trend line will look like at that time. Natural variability means some years will be below the line and some years will be above but they will average out to something near the prediction.
10 is wrong because petroleum is only one source of fossil fuel CO2. Coal and natural gas plus land use changes are other major factors in human CO2 emissions. The CO2 inputs to climate models are based on various plausible hypothetical scenarios because scientists can't know what will actually happen ahead of time.
If the ice sheet on Greenland were to completely melt sea level would rise over 23 feet. But that would take at least several centuries to happen. Current estimates for 2100 are around 3 feet of SLR. Of course that's subject to revision as we learn more.
Maybe the polar ice sheets are melting at half the rate originally thought but they're still melting and the melting has been accelerating. That is documented.
Of course you ignore the study that was done comparing well sited to poorly sited stations (as defined on surfacestations.org) that showed if anything the poorly sited stations introduce a slight cooling bias.
A greenhouse works primarily by restricting air movement allowing the space it encloses to capture the heat from solar radiation instead of it just blowing away.
The greenhouse effect works by greenhouse gases and clouds capturing the infrared energy radiated from the surface of the Earth.
Members of Congress have the same health care options as all other Federal Employees. I assume they are subject to the penalty the same as anyone else if they refuse the coverage and don't buy other coverage.
and as we all know, Mr. Mann refused to provide any actual climate data and advised some to destroy data.
You're talking about Phil Jones in the UK, not Michael Mann. Dr. Mann's "hockey stick" data and methods can be found here. Please tell me what part of that is falsified. But Mann's work is a small, not terribly important in itself piece of a large body of data and theory. Even if you threw it out completely it wouldn't change a thing.
You're right, Obama has increased the national debt by $3 trillion or so. But the TARP program was enacted before he took office (but I think he voted for it as a Senator). In his defense though I will say that most economists will say that during economic downturns (and this is the worst since the Great Depression) it's a good thing for the national government to take on more debt to pump some money into the economy and keep it from continuing to spiral downward. If Obama hadn't spent some of that money we well could have 15% unemployment nationwide by now.
If you look at the US national debt as a percentage of GDP, it was around 35% when Carter left office. By the end of the Reagan and Bush I presidencies it was around 65%. Clinton got it down to around 55% at the end of his 2 terms. Bush II brought it back over 60% 6 years in and in the last 2 years it ballooned to over 80%. Under Obama it's risen to around 95% and is expected to go over 100% of the GDP but the bulk of that spending increase has been a response to the current recession and it would have become a depression in my estimation without it.
So, in the past 30 years R's have added far more to it than D's.
Yes he was, until the D's took over. And he will be again if the R's take over. Personally I think they will gain some seats this year making the US Senate even more dysfunctional but probably not enough to regain the majority. We'll see. If Inhofe does regain the Chairmanship we'll probably see numerous trumped up investigations of climate scientists.
In the US the (human) citizens are just consumers to be delivered up to the business interests for their profit. At least that appears to be the corporatist view point.
And when Fox News is reporting on a Republicans malfeasance they often mess up and put a D next to the name and picture. So I guess if an R messes up they must have been a RINO.
What I find interesting about socialists is that they believe they have the right to enforce their preferences on others and even impose debts on their children who may not have the same preferences who had no say in the matter.
I guess that makes the Bush administration and the Republicans more socialistic than the Democrats. After all "borrow and spend" imposes higher debt on the children than "tax and spend".
To further your point, in many places around the country electric power is delivered by Public/Municipal Utility Districts and from what I've heard most of the time they are less expensive and provide better service than for profit utilities.
To be accurate, at the moment Inhofe is only the Ranking Member of the minority. Barbara Boxer is the Chairwoman of the committee at the moment. That could change though in January 2011 if the R's regain control.
Slashdot Mirror
When talking about Arctic sea ice it's important to distinguish whether you are talking about ice extent (the area it covers) or ice volume. As far as 2010, it's not clear if ice extent will be lower than 2007 but ice volume is already below 2007 because multi-year ice has been disappearing year after year. We already have a record low for ice volume.
Ever since we started measuring sea level with satellites (in the 1980s I believe) we have measured SLR extremely accurately.
Actually higher atmospheric humidity produces a less dense atmosphere since an H20 molecule is lighter than the N2 and O2 molecules that make up the bulk of the atmosphere.
Sea level rise has been measured quite accurately since at least the 1980s from satellite measurements.
The question is "Is it worth the cost to get it?".
The thermal expansion of water is simple physics, measurable in a laboratory. The increase in temperatures of the oceans has been measured. It doesn't matter if it's deep or shallow water, it still expands when it's warmed.
Your calculation presumes the rate of glacial ice melt is not increasing but it is. Also, thermal expansion is as big a factor in SLR as added water from glacial melt. As the oceans warm up the volume increases.
If the famous hockey stick graph is to be accepted as fact then why isn't every year a record heat wave?
Natural variability.
9 is wrong because it misunderstands how the GCM's (General Circulation Models or Global Climate Models, take your pick) work. The don't predict what the temperature will be in 100 years, they just predict what the 30 year average trend line will look like at that time. Natural variability means some years will be below the line and some years will be above but they will average out to something near the prediction.
10 is wrong because petroleum is only one source of fossil fuel CO2. Coal and natural gas plus land use changes are other major factors in human CO2 emissions. The CO2 inputs to climate models are based on various plausible hypothetical scenarios because scientists can't know what will actually happen ahead of time.
You can be sure that the scientists who actually study climate know it. I'm not sure how much it matters for the general public.
If the ice sheet on Greenland were to completely melt sea level would rise over 23 feet. But that would take at least several centuries to happen. Current estimates for 2100 are around 3 feet of SLR. Of course that's subject to revision as we learn more.
Maybe the polar ice sheets are melting at half the rate originally thought but they're still melting and the melting has been accelerating. That is documented.
Read this (PDF)before you take surfacestations.org as gospel.
Of course you ignore the study that was done comparing well sited to poorly sited stations (as defined on surfacestations.org) that showed if anything the poorly sited stations introduce a slight cooling bias.
You can read it here [PDF].
A greenhouse works primarily by restricting air movement allowing the space it encloses to capture the heat from solar radiation instead of it just blowing away.
The greenhouse effect works by greenhouse gases and clouds capturing the infrared energy radiated from the surface of the Earth.
Two quite different things.
Members of Congress have the same health care options as all other Federal Employees. I assume they are subject to the penalty the same as anyone else if they refuse the coverage and don't buy other coverage.
and as we all know, Mr. Mann refused to provide any actual climate data and advised some to destroy data.
You're talking about Phil Jones in the UK, not Michael Mann. Dr. Mann's "hockey stick" data and methods can be found here. Please tell me what part of that is falsified. But Mann's work is a small, not terribly important in itself piece of a large body of data and theory. Even if you threw it out completely it wouldn't change a thing.
You're right, Obama has increased the national debt by $3 trillion or so. But the TARP program was enacted before he took office (but I think he voted for it as a Senator). In his defense though I will say that most economists will say that during economic downturns (and this is the worst since the Great Depression) it's a good thing for the national government to take on more debt to pump some money into the economy and keep it from continuing to spiral downward. If Obama hadn't spent some of that money we well could have 15% unemployment nationwide by now.
If you look at the US national debt as a percentage of GDP, it was around 35% when Carter left office. By the end of the Reagan and Bush I presidencies it was around 65%. Clinton got it down to around 55% at the end of his 2 terms. Bush II brought it back over 60% 6 years in and in the last 2 years it ballooned to over 80%. Under Obama it's risen to around 95% and is expected to go over 100% of the GDP but the bulk of that spending increase has been a response to the current recession and it would have become a depression in my estimation without it.
So, in the past 30 years R's have added far more to it than D's.
Yes he was, until the D's took over. And he will be again if the R's take over. Personally I think they will gain some seats this year making the US Senate even more dysfunctional but probably not enough to regain the majority. We'll see. If Inhofe does regain the Chairmanship we'll probably see numerous trumped up investigations of climate scientists.
In the US the (human) citizens are just consumers to be delivered up to the business interests for their profit. At least that appears to be the corporatist view point.
And when Fox News is reporting on a Republicans malfeasance they often mess up and put a D next to the name and picture. So I guess if an R messes up they must have been a RINO.
What I find interesting about socialists is that they believe they have the right to enforce their preferences on others and even impose debts on their children who may not have the same preferences who had no say in the matter.
I guess that makes the Bush administration and the Republicans more socialistic than the Democrats. After all "borrow and spend" imposes higher debt on the children than "tax and spend".
To further your point, in many places around the country electric power is delivered by Public/Municipal Utility Districts and from what I've heard most of the time they are less expensive and provide better service than for profit utilities.
Your name, DoofusOfDeath, doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in your ability to defend me.
To be accurate, at the moment Inhofe is only the Ranking Member of the minority. Barbara Boxer is the Chairwoman of the committee at the moment. That could change though in January 2011 if the R's regain control.
Even if UPS or FedEx were allowed to deliver 1st class mail they couldn't and wouldn't do it for the $0.44 cost of a stamp to most of the country.