by leavingwt 58 Replies latest social current
Read the article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
Note that one of global warmings staunch defenders admits that we might see continued cooling for ten or twenty years!
World temperatures haven't been inching up in about a decade and that's why the BBC ran the article they did - which is rather painful for them to admit.
Faith that warming will return in ten or twenty years? I think that's called 'faith'. Hence, the global warming religion.
metatron
Farkel metatron I'm out for dinner but will be back.
villabolo
The interesting point about the latest data over the last decade towards global cooling kinda demolishes the notion that global warming is some sort of creeping "incremental" phenomenon that just has to go UP as CO2 levels go up. Hand-in-hand as it were. Of course, I wouldn't doubt it if the true believers will next state that global cooling "proves" global warming. It's all so Orwellian: "Slavery is Freedom."
I think I'll turn up my furnace now. In the interests of global cooling, of course. I don't want to be one of those people who will sacrifice everything to march us back into the stone age.
Farkel
Exctraction costs for this nonconventional fuel are much higher than for regular gas. It's only profitable over a certain price point. Also, it requires massive amounts of water as well as the use of toxic chemicals to extract. Yes, it is done below the water table, but there can be accidents.
This is, I think, an important point. I do not think we've reach Peak Oil. But I do think we're are rapidly nearing the end of Cheap Oil. A subtle but important difference. There is oil and natural gas in vast quantities to be had, but it will not be easy or cheap to extract either.
In my poor opinion a century of pumping fossil fuels into the atmosphere sooner or later will have an effect. Having said that, planetary weather changes needs to be looked at in centuries not years or decades for a real understanding of change.
I also think we would be well advised to find another energy source besides one based on fossil fuels. Not just for national and economic security but perhaps for the benefit of the planet.
Farkell, by the speed to which you responded I am sure you didn't look to closely at the sites. The 1859 glacier in question was in Valie, Switzerland and there are other pairs of glacier photographs shown side by side from around the world, documenting the shrinkage. The shrinkage is relevant not at any precise point in time, but over a range of time, let's say thirty days of shrinking It would be either unnoticeable or trivial if only a few years of shrinking in the beginning were documented.
Another standard rationalization is accusing the person of cherry picking when he talks about the North Polar ice cap which, farkel, does not contain 10% of the worlds ice. It is Greenland that does contain 10% of the worlds ice. I did not even mention Greenland. Implicit in your statement is the assumption that I am preoccupied by sea levels rising which I am not and would be a moot issue anyway since it is floating on water. The importance of the North Polar ice cap shrinking is that once it exposes the arctic regions water it will change the albedo of that region from white to blue. White will reflect the sunlight and tend to keep things cool and blue will absorb the sunlight warming up the circumpolar region, increasing the rate of evaporation and weather systems in general and thus create a chain reaction of weather changes. Bottom line the corn in Kansas does not care about sea level rise or a couple of degrees higher temperatures. It only cares about receiving its water in due time and in the proper way. The changes in the North Pole once it becomes ice free have been computer modeled and they indicate bad news for the crops we rely on. Too little water as in drought condition, too much water as in monsoon style rains (which we are already getting) which simply washes out into rivers and predispose maturing crops into getting smut and other diseases.
As far as what's happening in Antarctica and Greenland is concerned it is this. Warmer waters around those two continents are doing two different things one of which we never hear deniers mention. The waters are warming around those two continents. That and higher air temperatures are increasing evaporation-the warmer water is the faster it evaporates. This warmer water turns to clouds which then increases snowfall in the interior of the continents. The edges of the continent on the other hand are being thinned out and quite a few ice shelves, one the size of Rhode Island, are breaking off. No, the difference does not equal out. Antarctica's ice is a net loss, Greenland's is a small net gain.
Metatron, I read what your link and you just don't seem to get it. There are lots of fluctuations within the short term but patterns in the long term. I am not one bit surprised that there could be a decades long cooling off because of solar activity in fact there was a cool period from 1930-1960. So long as we keep throwing up CO2 into the atmosphere we will be setting ourselves up for a double whammy. That atypical solar activity will not last forever and when it's gone we will feel the effects very quickly. It could even last a hundred years for all I care because I know that imbecilic humanity will more than make up for it with its business as usual routine. That could even reverse whatever temporary respite we're getting from the sun and begin warming us up regardless.
villabolo
villa,
:Antarctica's ice is a net loss,
I challenge you to present arguments from all possible sides to prove that claim. I mean all sides, not just those you agree with. Ice melting in a continent with 90% of the worlds ice and going nowhere else would mean measurable rises in ocean levels. Do you have the data to prove that?
You are saying the interior of Antarctica is gaining in ice due to migration from coastal water evaporation, but the coasts are evaporating faster than the ice that is transplanted to the interior from those same evaporated waters, and then claim the result is a net loss.
Well then, where did the OTHER melting ice go, except to contribute to rising ocean levels? In some magical "canopy" above the earth, perhaps? Are we headed for another global deluge?
You'd better have the data for sea level increases to justify your claims for net losses in Antarctic ice.
Farkel
Metatron: "Note that one of global warmings staunch defenders admits that we might see continued cooling for ten or twenty years!"
Metatron, I have seen too much JW style quote of context to fall for this. Indeed he stated that but you did not represent the full force of the quote. I thus present the quote in its full context.
To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.
The UK Met Office says that warming is set to resume
Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers.
But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.
villabolo
:But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.
Of course, you haven't the least bit addressed the issue of incrementalism, which is the only logical explanation for any type of global warming and you did exactly as I predicted.
As I said, "Freedom is Slavery." Welcome to the world of Orwell. That, and "faith" in your pre-determined opinion of an outcome you have only in your dreams. Good luck. Because without necessary facts, luck is all you have.
Farkel
Why is it all or nothing? Is there really an argument about the detrimental effects of fossils fuels on our environment?? What's wrong with erring on the side of caution if erring is to be? One simple reason. There are huge industries that have a vested interest in preventing alternatives.
Farkel, you haven't addressed all of the multiple issues that the Nasa and world view of global warming websites presented except for a sarcastic and nonsensical statement about censors in Siberia and China. They were photographs taken at different places throughout the world. You haven't even admitted your mistake.
Nor have you responded to the evidence worldwide of ecozones getting higher on mountains as they warm up.
Why should I answer your questions and take the defensive with you ignoring those websites? Are you afraid of catching any demons by looking aat Nasa's time lapse images of a shrinking pole? Seriously now, I read Metatron's BBC news website and it's old news to me. It is the Editor who is confused because he apparently doesn't have a broad enough knowledge to understand that once those sunspots disappear things are going to get chilly in spite of global warming.
Oh, and as far as Antarctica's and Greenland's issues are concerned www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/ice_sheets.html look down below.
Impact of Climate Warming on Polar Ice Sheets Confirmed 03.08.06
In the most comprehensive survey ever undertaken of the massive ice sheets covering both Greenland and Antarctica, NASA scientists confirm climate warming is changing how much water remains locked in Earth's largest storehouse of ice and snow.
Other recent studies have shown increasing losses of ice in parts of these sheets. This new survey is the first to inventory the losses of ice and the addition of new snow on both in a consistent and comprehensive way throughout an entire decade. The survey shows that there was a net loss of ice from the combined polar ice sheets between 1992 and 2002 and a corresponding rise in sea level. The survey documents for the first time extensive thinning of the West Antarctic ice shelves and an increase in snowfall in the interior of Greenland, as well as thinning at the edges. All are signs of a warming climate predicted by computer models.
The survey, published in the Journal of Glaciology, combines new satellite mapping of the height of the ice sheets from two European Space Agency satellites. It also used previous NASA airborne mapping of the edges of the Greenland ice sheets to determine how fast the thickness is changing.
In Greenland, the survey saw large ice losses along the southeastern coast and a large increase in ice thickness at higher elevations in the interior due to relatively high rates of snowfall. This study suggests there was a slightgainin the total mass of frozen water in the ice sheet over the decade studied, contrary to previous assessments.
This situation may have changed in just the past few years, according to lead author Jay Zwally of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Last month NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., reported a speed up of ice flow into the sea from several Greenland glaciers. That study included observations through 2005; Zwally's survey concluded with 2002 data.
When the scientists added up the overall gains and losses of ice from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, there was a net loss of ice to the sea. The amount of water added to the oceans (20 billion tons) is equivalent to the total amount of freshwater used in homes, businesses and farming in New York, New Jersey and Virginia each year.
"The study indicates that the contribution of the ice sheets to recent sea-level rise during the decade studied was much smaller than expected, just two percent of the recent increase of nearly three millimeters a year," says Zwally. "Continuing research using NASA satellites and other data will narrow the uncertainties in this important issue."
NASA is continuing to monitor the polar ice sheets with the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat), launched in January 2003. ICESat uses a laser beam to measure the elevation of ice sheets with unprecedented accuracy three times a year. The first comprehensive ice sheet survey conducted by ICESat is expected early next year, said Zwally, who is the mission's project scientist.
Related Link:+ Complete paper published in Journal of Glaciology
Will be back with the issue of incrementalism. But before I give you the response to that please anwer the above since you challenged me to provide evidence.
VILLABOLO
