Climate change: is the science really settled?

[Jim Richards]

So, maybe we can do something about the moon.

[lendaddy]

Originally posted by thrown_hammer
So if the oceans rise but the moon is farther away, then the tide won’t come in as far? Pretty much even steven right?

[hytem]

To those of you who say, why should I be concerned about something that might happen in 50-100 years? Be serious.

When you look at all the money they are throwing at Iraq, and the scant attention they are paying to climate change, it makes you wonder about the sanity of those folks in D.C.

Fortunately, it looks like it isn't too late to do something to slow the changes down. I wonder if it isn't possible to eat or modify some of that CO2 up there in the atmosphere? I know plants eat CO2 and give off O2 and CH4.

One concern I have near-term is how the media handles this. Fear seems to be one of their tools to get attention, and that could get out of control. They did that this year with hurricanes in Florida, and now insurance companies are getting unreasonable there. Right now, I think we are still mainly seeing cyclical weather swings which aren't connected to greenhouse gases.

But the politicians have to act--now. That will mean higher energy prices. There will be a price to pay. The corporations are already factoring it in.

[thrown_hammer]

Thousands of Weather Ballons covered with moss. Think about it. Seriously.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by hytem
To those of you who say, why should I be concerned about something that might happen in 50-100 years? Be serious.

When you look at all the money they are throwing at Iraq, and the scant attention they are paying to climate change, it makes you wonder about the sanity of those folks in D.C.

I ceased wonder about the sanity of those in D.C. long ago, they're either stupid, insane, or insane and stupid. Be that as it may, I don't want a single "thing" done about the natural phenomenon of climate change. I don't want anything done about the tides, the wind, the sun, nor the rain either.

Fortunately, it looks like it isn't too late to do something to slow the changes down. I wonder if it isn't possible to eat or modify some of that CO2 up there in the atmosphere? I know plants eat CO2 and give off O2 and CH4.

The daily activities of humans have nothing whatsoever to do with climate change in the long range global sense.

One concern I have near-term is how the media handles this. Fear seems to be one of their tools to get attention, and that could get out of control. They did that this year with hurricanes in Florida, and now insurance companies are getting unreasonable there. Right now, I think we are still mainly seeing cyclical weather swings which aren't connected to greenhouse gases.

Yeah, the large hurricanes that occured during the 1950's didn't make the news, seems the MSM isn't interested in history that would indicate that hurricanes are cyclical in nature as far as numbers and strenght is concerned. Long Range weather students knew about it though, and that's important. As someone else reminded us earlier in this thread, weather isn't climate.

But the politicians have to act--now. That will mean higher energy prices. There will be a price to pay. The corporations are already factoring it in.

If more government is the answer, it was a really stupid question. Your ideas about climate would be right at home in the dark ages in europe.

[lendaddy]

Aurel, This calculation says 10cm per degree.:

Water has a small but nonzero expansion as it warms. The expansion is
approximately 2E-4 per degree of warming, at the temperatures of the
upper ocean. To convert that into a sea level change, we need to
multiply by the amount of warming and the thickness of the ocean that
gets warmed. The amount of warming is the subject of the climate
modelling. Let's consider a warming of 1 K for simplicity. The central
question for the oceanographers is then how deep a layer of the ocean
gets warmed.

This is a difficult question. The challenge lies in the fact that
the atmosphere heats the ocean at the top. Obvious. Not obvious is
that this impedes warming much of the ocean. Warm water is less dense,
so tends to stay at the surface of the ocean. If this were all that
happened, only the layer of ocean directly warmed by the sun would be
affected, about the top 100 meters. There is mixing within the ocean,
which tends to force some of this heat further down. Balancing that
effect is the fact that water from the deep ocean (which is cold)
generally rises through most of the ocean basin. So mixing brings down
warm water, and upwelling brings up colder water. Let's assume that the
thickness that gets warmed is approximately the same as that which is
already warm. That is approximately 500 meters. For the 1 degree
warming, we then have 500*2E-4*1 meters of rise, or 0.10 meters. The
time scale over which this occurs is the length of time it takes to mix
the upper ocean, and is on the order of decades.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by thrown_hammer
Thousands of Weather Ballons covered with moss. Think about it. Seriously.

Which side of the balloon does the moss grow on?

[Aurel]

Originally posted by lendaddy
Aurel, This calculation says 10cm per degree

That is close enough to 4-8 cm for 0.6-1C. Yes, the whole difficulty of this approximation is what layer water thickness to consider warming up. If you don`t believe in global warming, take a small thickness, If you beleive, take a larger thickness .

Aurel

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Aurel
That is close enough to 4-8 cm for 0.6-1C. Yes, the whole difficulty of this approximation is what layer water thickness to consider warming up. If you don`t believe in global warming, take a small thickness, If you beleive, take a larger thickness .

Aurel

See the aspects of religion used in the above statement? Environmentalism is a religion, most of it must be taken on faith.

[Jim Richards]

Hey, I'm in DC and I'm not insane! I think.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Jim Richards
Hey, I'm in DC and I'm not insane! I think.

I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.

[Jim Richards]

[island911]

Wait wait wait . .. I thought this was Global Warming. What the hell is all this about only Ocean warming?


. . . and if it's the Globe that is warming, then shouldnt this big sphere expand thermally? . .. and then what would that do to ocean levels?

[island911]

Oh, and when the glass of ice water expands, the water level falls . . even if it was clear glacial ice in the glass.

[island911]

Originally posted by hytem
..
One concern I have near-term is how the media handles this. Fear seems to be one of their tools to get attention, and that could get out of control. They did that this year with hurricanes in Florida, and now insurance companies are getting unreasonable there. Right now, I think we are still mainly seeing cyclical weather swings which aren't connected to greenhouse gases. ....

Yep, in fearful times, Insurance companies can charge more/ make more money . . . big oil can charge more/ make more money. . .News media can charge more/ make more money from their ads.

[fastpat]

You have to pay extra for glacial ice, it has special properties they say. While it's not so special as Ice 9, it's probably something like Ice 8.5.

[Aurel]

Originally posted by island911
Yep, in fearful times, Insurance companies can charge more/ make more money . . . big oil can charge more/ make more money. . .News media can charge more/ make more money from their ads.

It has worked wonderfully with the fear of terrorism. But if you look closely, how can you compare 3,000 death from terrorism with 250,000 death from a tsunami? If anything, we should be a lot more scared by natural disasters, and a lot less scared by muslim terrorists.

Aurel

[JSDSKI]

Originally posted by fastpat
Overpopulation is localized to places where they can't seem to produce enough food for themselves. Overpopulation as you appear to be using the term doesn't exist on planet earth.

Originally posted by fastpat
[B]The daily activities of humans have nothing whatsoever to do with climate change in the long range global sense.

I finally figured out why these kinds of statements seemed so illogical in context with the modern world and science. Then I realized they are classic British Imperial 19th century natural science and philosophy extrapolated to 21st century issues. You really believe that man has no real effect on the natural world, that natural resources are infinite, and that they merely need useful management through capital and free trade without regulation. Interesting viewpoints and useful in their time. But that time has come and gone.

Pay attention to Rondinone's posts and comments - peer reviewed science wil point a way to change the world, for the better.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by JSDSKI
I finally figured out why these kinds of statements seemed so illogical in context with the modern world and science. Then I realized they are classic British Imperial 19th century natural science and philosophy extrapolated to 21st century issues. You really believe that man has no real effect on the natural world, that natural resources are infinite, and that they merely need useful management through capital and free trade without regulation. Interesting viewpoints and useful in their time. But that time has come and gone.

Pay attention to Rondinone's posts and comments - peer reviewed science wil point a way to change the world, for the better.

I've posted more peer reviewed science than the two of you put together.

19th century Britain? Excuse me a second.

You post what amounts to phrenology and try to make my position anachronistic? How droll.

[Aurel]

Originally posted by fastpat
I've posted more peer reviewed science than the two of you put together.

19th century Britain? Excuse me a second.

You post what amounts to phrenology and try to make my position anachronistic? How droll.

He nailed it, didn`t he?

Peer reviewed science...

Aurel