The Most Extra New Super Global Warming Thread

[bkelly]

I think LordKelvin has tired of my "what else could it be" series of questions. I'm not surprised. Like many before him I expected him not to answer my first question about CO2 levels, but he did and many after that. I don't agree with his point of view but I respect him for being willing to discuss it and consider ways he might change his mind.

LordKelvin, I thank you for going along with this as far as you did. Let me offer the information I said I would.


Hypothesis: CO2 concentrations today are the same as they were in the late 1800s.
Data: CO2 are estimated to have increased 37% since preindustrial levels, from 280ppm to 384ppm today.

The Mauna Loa Observatory was constructed in 1958 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to measuring CO2 levels as well as other atmospheric parameters. It sits atop Kilauea volcano on this island of Hawaii and is considered an ideal place to measure CO2 concentrations as it is surrounded by the pollution free Pacific Ocean and above an inversion layer that traps pollution from the island.

Here's a graph of their data for the past 50 years.



You may wonder why the graph is jagged like a saw blade. This is due to the seasons and the fact that there is more land and therefore more plant life growing in the northern hemisphere. When it's summertime up north, more plants are growing, converting CO2 to O2 and so the levels drop. When winter returns, these plants slow down or stop this conversion and there are not enough southern hemisphere plants to pick up the difference, so the levels rise.

Such detailed records of CO2 measurements do not make it back to the 1800s, so if we want to go further back the data must be recreated. Ice cores give us that means since they trap the atmosphere of the time.

In 1998, NOAA teamed up with the Russians and French in Antarctica to pull up what was the deepest ice cores at the time. These went back 4000,000 years and are known as the Vostok Ice Cores. CO2 data was pulled from these cores for which I found this graph of them on the Internet:



Since then more ice cores have been dug up. A newer site known as Dome C has made analysis of CO2 data as far back as 800,000 years. Here's a graph of a composite recreation using both Vostok and Dome C data.



The recreation tops out at 298.6 ppmv, which means that that there is 28.6% more CO2 in our atmosphere today than there has ever been in the last 800,000 years!


Hypothesis: Solar energy has increased causing the planet to warm.
Data: Solar irradiance is right in line with where we would expect it.

Allow me to present the World Radiation Center, a Swiss group tasked by the World Meterological Organization to bring homogeneity of meteorological radiation measurements throughout the world. In short, they collect data from radiation specialists around the globe and offer tools and training to make them better.

Here are several compilations of solar irradiance for the past 30 years using this conglomeration of sources.



First, notice that the energy output looks a little like a sine wave. This is due to the sun's 11 year cycle, going from the minimum with no sunspots, a condition we're in today, to the maximum accompanied with tens to hundreds of sunspots.

Second, note the change in energy from minimum to maximum. From it's weakest to it's strongest the sun increases its output by 0.1%, which isn't enough energy to cause the warming we've already seen. For the sun to be responsible for global warming it would need to break out of it's cycle, and there's no evidence here that it has.

If you're concerned that we might already be in an unusual cycle, then lets look at sunspots. Here's a graph of sunspots going back to 1700 or 1750 from the Solar Influences Data Analysis Center:



Finally, the trend of sunspots is down since since 1950 and solar activity since we've been monitoring it is down slightly. Now compare this to NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies graph of global temperatures:



If the sun were responsible, why has the rate of warming increased since 1950 while solar activity has decreased?


Hypothesis: The Earth's axial tilt is increasing, giving more energy to the poles
Data: The Earth's obliquity is currently decreasing

Changes in the Earth's orbital eccentricity (how elliptical the orbit is), obliquity (tilt of the axis) and precession (direction the axial tilt points) are know as Milankovitch cycles. In 1976, strong evidence was dug up that showed these cycles do affect climate and the ice ages had occurred when the Earth was going through different stages of orbital variation.

Here's a graph of the three cycles from the site above.



Obliquity cycles every 41,000 years. From the graph above, you can see that the Earth's 23.44 degree tilt is slightly below average and is moving toward a minimum.


I hope you find this data interesting, LordKelvin. My thanks for the discussion.

bkelly

[LordKelvin]

I thank you for providing this data.

It has made me accept your rebuttals of my different proposals, and while not entirely convincing me that humans are responsible for it, at least I can see the credence behind the theory.

[leejo]

Thanks for posting the data bkelly!

[bkelly]

Originally Posted by LordKelvin

You also mentioned that the weakening of the magnetic field would also have to be greater for particles to penetrate. We are also close to a magnetic pole shift, which is also weakening the magnetic field of the Earth.

With our recent discussion of solar wind and a weakening magnetic field, I thought some of you might be interested in this article in National Geographic.

Unfortunately it doesn't have any numbers but it does say that a weak area east of Brazil is allowing high energy particles to penetrate deep into the upper atmosphere.

bkelly

[GlobalWarmin]

Cheney wanted cuts in climate testimony
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080708/...cheney_climate

Cheney’s Office Sought to Change Climate Testimony
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/wash...rssnyt&emc=rss

[USN_Squid]

Originally Posted by GlobalWarmin

Cheney wanted cuts in climate testimony
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080708/...cheney_climate

Cheney’s Office Sought to Change Climate Testimony
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/wash...rssnyt&emc=rss

I wonder what would be the response if someone posted links to a Wall Street Journal article quoting hearsay from a friend of an ultra conservative senator. I'm just saying, it seems our standards of "science journals only" may have slipped a bit.

[Delta*RandyShugart*]

I am all for the below picture (though i do agree its not a good thing that the ice caps are melting but i am for drilling in alaska), because honestly, it makes sense.....and i really don't want to spend 10 dollars a gallon on gas, because i filled my car up this weekend and 4.39 is way too much...and i also think Global Warming is a sham, and al gore hasn't done anything since he's won an oscar, though his kid did prove the prius can go over 100mph when he was stopped for speeding.

I wonder if gore turned off the AC in his summer home that he rarely goes to yet.

[GlobalWarmin]

...and Al Gore has what to do with global warming?

I personally don't believe in the moon because of Neil Armstrong.

Remember when invading Iraq made sense to you people, because it would lower the gas prices? Brilliant!

[Delta*RandyShugart*]

you people? can you clarify that for me please!

Guess you haven't heard of al's movie.

[GlobalWarmin]

"You people" are you and your fellow right wing ideologues: You connected in one politically motivated argument that melting ice is good for drilling for more oil, and that global warming is a hoax, but not because of some misguided opinion on science--like you people usually do--but because of Al Gore and his son being stopped for speeding. If that was a joke on the Colbert Report, I would laugh.

...and what does Al Gore's film have to do with global warming? I know it was about global warming, but, are you under the impression that Al Gore 'discovered' global warming?

[ionpig-A]

there are too many humans on this tiny little rock...

[GlobalWarmin]

Water: The Forgotten Crisis
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0710103907.htm

According to the recent report "Water for Food, Water for Life" of the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, which drew on the work of 700 scientists, unless we change the way we use water and increase "water productivity" (i.e. more crop per drop) we will not have enough water to feed the world's growing population (This population is estimated to increase from 6 billion now to about 8.5 billion in 25 years.) Compared with the lengthy agenda to combat climate change, this is a very short time indeed and yet the impacts of water scarcity will be profound. However, very little is being done about it in most countries.

[USN_Squid]

American Physical Society opens debate on "consensus".

"With this issue of Physics & Society, we kick off a debate concerning one of the main conclusions of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body which, together with Al Gore, recently won the Nobel Prize for its work concerning climate change research. There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for the global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution."

The APS is opening its debate with the publication of a paper by Lord Monckton of Brenchley, which concludes that climate sensitivity -- the rate of temperature change a given amount of greenhouse gas will cause -- has been grossly overstated by IPCC modeling. A low sensitivity implies additional atmospheric CO2 will have little effect on global climate.

[GlobalWarmin]

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions.

What a great start

[USN_Squid]

Originally Posted by GlobalWarmin

What a great start

Did you also see they posted a rubuttal article and plan to run a series of these to open the discussion. Why are you so afraid of a debate?