global warming, not what the media says

[eppie]

http://www.jamespowell.org/index.html

This guy has been in the national science board for 12 years. Appointed by Reagan, and later Bush Sr. (so no left winger).

He did a simple web of science search on articles about global warming and this pie diagram nicely shows what he found.

Good to read for people who believe in conspiracies.

[Jester]

Good to read for people who believe in conspiracies.

If I believed in conspiracies, isn't this exactly what I'd expect to find?

-Jester

[eppie]

Good to read for people who believe in conspiracies.

If I believed in conspiracies, isn't this exactly what I'd expect to find?

-Jester

Yes maybe.

But seriously, it gave a good explanation about that it is not true that sceptics are not allowed to publish anything. (something you hear a lot in the populistic media) . Also it nicely shows the enormous difference in amount of literature from the two sides. I always mentioned 95% or 99% in discussions for the percentage of scientists that agree, but it looks like I wasn't even high enough with those values.

[kandrathe]

This will be good news for Greenland. Nicer climate, and accessible oil reserves too.

[LavCat]

For what it's worth I got an alumni email from Princeton yesterday saying that the Greenland ice melt might be accelerating more slowly than predicted.

[eppie]

For what it's worth I got an alumni email from Princeton yesterday saying that the Greenland ice melt might be accelerating more slowly than predicted.

Predicted when? Because lately everything seems to melt faster than expected.

By the way; in the latest newsweek there was a ncie article about wheat and how sensitive it is to temperature change. Now that everybody is finally really fine with eating pasta all the time, we need to go back to potatoes again.

[LavCat]

Predicted when? Because lately everything seems to melt faster than expected.

Sorry I was too lazy to give the link before.

[eppie]

Predicted when? Because lately everything seems to melt faster than expected.

Sorry I was too lazy to give the link before.

Thanks.
This article is about an observation..... a better method to measure how fast ice melts.
It agrees with the fact that ice melts at increasing rates...it just says acceleratioin isn't as fast as was predicted/calculated before.

Further no statements about the cause of the increased melting are mentioned in this article so I am sure it is not taken into account in the eb of science survey I linked to.

[kandrathe]

Further no statements about the cause of the increased melting are mentioned in this article so I am sure it is not taken into account in the eb of science survey I linked to.

I think we all can agree some affects are due to radiative forcing from human activities.

What is uncertain to me are the negative feedback controls built into the natural model. For example; a warmer atmosphere will hold more water vapor, and thus will have more cloud cover reflecting radiation resulting in a cooling affect that condenses the water vapor. And, higher CO2, rainfall (in some areas), and tropical temperatures (in some areas) will foster rapid plant growth and re-sequester the carbon eventually. But, will that be expansive oceans of algae blooms with gazillions of happy jelly fish, and nary a bony fish to be found?

[eppie]

Further no statements about the cause of the increased melting are mentioned in this article so I am sure it is not taken into account in the eb of science survey I linked to.

I think we all can agree some affects are due to radiative forcing from human activities.

What is uncertain to me are the negative feedback controls built into the natural model. For example; a warmer atmosphere will hold more water vapor, and thus will have more cloud cover reflecting radiation resulting in a cooling affect that condenses the water vapor. And, higher CO2, rainfall (in some areas), and tropical temperatures (in some areas) will foster rapid plant growth and re-sequester the carbon eventually. But, will that be expansive oceans of algae blooms with gazillions of happy jelly fish, and nary a bony fish to be found?

The water cycle is of course different than the CO2 cycle. Water is present as liquid in almost infinite amounts and warmer air can contain more water (which also absorbs heat by the way).
The CO2 cycle involves chemical reactions. So CO2 in air being converted in non warming matter (oil or coal) takes a tremendous amount of time....most CO2 is converted to biomass which rots and expels CO2 and CH4, only a small part actually is converted into oil and coal.

I actually think that researchers take feedback loop into account. We might not know exactly how they work, but we try to estimate them as good as we can.

[kandrathe]

The water cycle is of course different than the CO2 cycle.

Two important parts that are interrelated, but also not the only systems involved. The climate has and will always be changing. We have for the past 150 years been contributing to that forcing. I'm an optimist when it comes to "nature" dealing with this change, however, it balances things over eons, not decades or even centuries. Will we kill ourselves off? I don't think it is likely. We may experience a century(ies) of a more energetic atmosphere which may be grievous for places vulnerable to thunderstorms or cyclonic storms. But, there are some wins too in having more warmth on the planet, and less frozen wastelands. We can expect warmer springs, more humid summers and longer growing seasons with two or three plantings instead of one or two. In the US Midwest, over the past 30 years we've seen a 13 percent increase in overall relative humidity. Many places that use fuel to heat homes and work places will consume less, which may be somewhat offset by more places needing summer cooling.

The real (fear) question I have is what our climate will look like when we get to that inevitable state where we are at a radiative maximum (maximal solar activity, closer to the sun, and high amounts of vapor, CO2, and aerosols). I tend to be an optimist in that I believe the natural systems will be corrective and hopefully subtle.

The trouble is that our global CO2 emissions continue to grow at 3.1% per year. A modern equivalent to the legend of Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

[Tris]

Granted, my background was in the biosciences, but there is one thing to consider. As ice on the poles, and elsewhere melts, that water enters the oceans, and messes with the various currents which move warmer water to various parts of the globe. Screw with that enough, and screw with the climate in those areas.

Too much change in temperature/rainfall/etc., and you have a problem. You can have the temperature/moisture bands move into places where the soils cannot support intensive agricultural production of key crops.

Out here in ND, you can see the progression of soils from rich material in the Red River Valley to the stuff in Divide County on the Canadian border, which makes you ask how they possibly grow things up there. The Red River Valley is limited in what can be grown there pretty much only by growing season length. Out here in the West, not so much.

My personal opinion is that the climate is changing.