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I know it is so depressing to be reminded of reality Uncle Al but here is another dose:

The Arctic is warming much more rapidly than previously known, at nearly twice the rate as the rest of the globe, and increasing greenhouse gases from human activities are projected to make it warmer still, according to an unprecedented four-year scientific study of the region conducted by an international team of 300 scientists.

1000 Years of Changes in Carbon Emissions, CO2 Concentrations and Temperature. (Graphic courtesy of Arctic Climate Impact Assessment)

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At least half the summer sea ice in the Arctic is projected to melt by the end of this century, along with a significant portion of the Greenland Ice Sheet, as the region is projected to warm an additional 4-7 C (7 to 13 F) by 2100. These changes will have major global impacts, such as contributing to global sea-level rise and intensifying global warming, according to the final report of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA).

The assessment was commissioned by the Arctic Council (a ministerial intergovernmental forum comprised of the eight Arctic countries and six Indigenous Peoples organizations) and the International Arctic Science Committee (an international scientific organization appointed by 18 national academies of science).

Source: http://www.acia.uaf.edu/

Of course because this work was performed by an international team of highly respected researchers means you can deride their work while providing not a shred of contrary evidence of merit. So have at it.

The rest of us will just be reminded of the chant "ignorance is bliss."

Wouldnt the icy waters, melted from the arctic, create other major problems. Not so much as the rise in sea water, but the cooler temperatures overall of the waters as they melt.

Perhaps it might be a reverse of global warming, and puts us into a new ice age instead. Perhaps also this is normal occurance as well, expecially since the polars are supposedly getting ready to flip again.

Mind you the above paragraph is just my thoughts on this. nothing concrete

The reverse of global warming you may be referring to is the threat of the shutdown of the Gulf stream and the deep salt water conveyer (from Iceland to mid Pacific).

It is proposed that this occured when fresh water flooded the Greenland/Icelandic area, reducing the salinity (a major climatic trigger - bigger than el nino/la nina).

I am not sure that the climate theorist have taken into account the large dose of pollution (added salinity?) in comparing their models to the prehistoric record.

There is another state of oceanic equalibrium found in the paleontological record and that is one of the ocean settling into two or more layered zones. If I recall properly, this record correspondes to periods of high temps and high seas.

Another potential missing part of the climatic model is the impact of human activity to thwart the coming of an ice age. All our traffic, night lights, air conditioners, heaters, power plants, autos, and so on create a large heat footprint that was not in effect the last time the Gulf Stream flipped "off".

The most likely result of the Gulf Stream stopping would be an Ice Age, but another steady state has dominated the planet and its lifeforms in the past.

Those who think human activity has no influence on the planet and its atmosphere must think we as a species are insignificant in comparison to cyno-bacteria and lichens - the first settlers and builders of the world we have inherited.

"polars flipping again", a reference to the Magnetic Poles - the shifting of which is long overdue. This would have some impact on the climate because the ionosphere and the earth's magnetic fields would flux, possibly a decrease in ozone. Which is a whole different set of problems.

Perhaps there are 25,000 scientists as well as a boatload of satelite imagery that suggests global warming is not occuring as the 700 who are owned by the KYOTO treaty proponents would have us believe?

Methinks so...

As if the arctic melting was not enough to perhaps catch attention ... how about this?

Environmentalists are warning that the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas could spell disaster for millions of people living in the region.

They claim the situation is not being adequately monitored; the last studies having been done in the 1990s.

Swelling glacial lakes would increase the risk of catastrophic flooding.

In the long term, the glaciers could disappear altogether, causing several rivers to shrink and threatening the survival of those who depend on them.

"It is high time we did field studies to assess the situation or else a big natural catastrophe could hit us anytime," said Arun Bhakta Shrestha from Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology.

There are 3,300 glaciers in the Nepalese Himalayas and 2,300 of them contain glacial lakes. These lakes are quietly growing due to global warming, but no one is keeping a close eye on them.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3998967.stm

I don?t understand how our government and all others can?t see the light in the end of the tunnel, when most information is pointing towards a global catastrophe. At least the information that has not been tampered with or put away for a rainy day.

I suppose it is against their way of thinking, or is it lining their pockets.

Let me help you understand ... you see those "other" people aren't as important as "our" people are. We are in favour of a right-to-life but only when it suits our political purposes like winning elections or getting rich. If those "other" people have wars, starve to death, don't have medicines and health care, or live in disease and misery it is their own fault and the fact that they haven't embraced "our saviour."

You see good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people so they must be bad people.

Does that clear it up?

Here is an interesting link about changing sea water compositions over time and its impact on corals

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041116232307.htm

I wonder if anyone is looking at the impact the changing chemical composition from human waste and building material run off is having - could this be another factor in the coral die-off?

If anyone has other links about this, I would be interested in reading them.
thanks

Does anyone have any numbers about how quickly CO2 is converted to Oxygen via photosynthesis in plants? Like how much is converted per hour given a constant supply?

Also, does anyone know how quickly methanotrophic bacteria (aerobic bacteria that oxidize methane as an energy source) metabolize methane?

Last one I promise, does anyone know how quickly methane-consuming plant life does the same?

Thanks. Can't seem to find any real numbers on anything.

Factors affecting Photosynthesis;
http://www.marietta.edu/~spilatrs/biol103/photolab/globexpl.html

http://library.thinkquest.org/22016/photo/rate.html
(watch for typos) Will tell you in general what affects photosynthesis, and how the effects of increasing or decreasing components are exerted.


Methanotrophic bacteria are by necessity anaerobic. Thus the answer to your second question as you stated and amended it is zero.

For methanotrophs, try:

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v356/n6368/abs/356421a0.html

http://www1.dupont.com/NASApp/dupontglobal/corp/index.jsp?page=/content/US/en_US/science/sharpe.html

http://www.newscientist.com/conferences/confarticle.jsp?conf=amgun200006&id=22421100

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=91497

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-04zzzu.html
(again a typo alert in this one)

Beam me up, Scotty.

I'm sorry to disappoint you but there is no methane-consuming plant life on this planet anymore. It all died out when the oxygen level in the air got too high.

I think those of us who have read about the issues involved in global warming appreciate that something is happening.

I think it is up to people like ourselves who have some understanding of the issue (I will confess right now to not being an expert, but an interested layman in this field) to raise awareness in the populus.

Whilst solutions will be a matter of great debate, I think it is clear that we stand at a crossroads, where we need to make some decisions. I say we, because we can't leave it to politicians to act. It is people that drive carbon dioxide emmisions, by our atitudes and actions. I have been doing some basic calculations based on the simple act of ditching your screensaver in favour of standby mode on your computer. Of course the savings are tiny, but use the fact that most computers are networked, and our social small world networks give us the opportunity to spread the word, and before you know it you have reduced CO2 emmision by a few hundred tonnes, (no big deal I know) but more importantly you have got people talking about the issue. You can find a calculator for working out the savings here: Carbon Saver

I like the way that Andy is think. Everyone talks about global warming as if the only thing we can do is to try and reduce our CO2 emmissions, its time to realise that might not be enough. There are a lot of very clever people on this planet, surely there must be other solutions to remove some of the CO2 that we have pumped into the sky.

How about a man made plant that takes sunlight and CO2 and makes electricity, that would solve the heating problem and would give us another renewable source of energy.

the only think man is doing, is accelerating global warming, and not by that much. the earth is attempting to return to its natural state, which happens to be 15 degrees or so warmer than it is now. as the ice melts, there is less reflection of solar energy, causeing the earth to warm up. this cause more melt of the ice, and another increase in the tempature.

good news for those concerned that the earth will get too warm for humans. the worlds largest super valcano is about to pump hundreds of cubic miles of sulfer dioxide into the upper atmosphere, where it will reflect tons of solar energy, dropping the tempature back and bring back lots of cool ice.

bad news: that super valcano will pump hundreds of cubic miles of sulfer dioxide into the upper atmosphere, dropping the tempature about 40 degrees. the danger is the thermal runaway point is right in that area. if its breached, the pacific ocean will freeze at the equator.

dehammer wrote:
"the earth is attempting to return to its natural state, which happens to be 15 degrees or so warmer than it is now"

Oh poppycock. The planet does not think. It does not try. It does not attempt.

This planet is no more in a normal state of affairs 15 degrees warmer than it is 15 degrees cooler.

Your political views do not trump the scientific reality that there is far more CO2 in the air than before and that its rise, and the temperature rise correspond with human use of fossil fuels.

Things may be speeding up in any case and if we've only got 40 years before it's irreversible then it looks like a lost cause.

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060223213957data_trunc_sys.shtml

I wouldn't go so far as to say it is lost. But it is being lost.

What truly amazes me is that the younger generations, the ones we are gifting this too, are too self-centered and/or lazy to get off their bottoms and take my generation to task.

We're leaving this mess to you kiddies. Do you really want it?

No but we, the younger generation didn't create this mess and how do you propose that we clean it up when the older generation who is in control of the government is failing and has failed for decades to admit there is a problem.

When your generation was the younger generation, (hippies and such) who spoke about all these issues did the older generation listen? No. When we had the one and only president, CArter, who seemed to be willing to pay attention to the environment and govern with morality, the older generation replaced him with Reagan.

Stop the age bashing DA, it does not become you.

What we have now is a kleptocarcy ... not a democracy. We have duplicted the Phillipines of Ferdinand Marcos.

I propose that you start by electing people pledged to dismantle the corrupt system that re-elects politicians that are wholly owned subsidiaries of corporate interests.

Lets see some real conservatives. Lets see some people paying attention to what the founding fathers actually said:

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
~ Thomas Jefferson

"I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
~ Thomas Jefferson

"Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor."
~ Thomas Jefferson

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny."
~ Thomas Jefferson

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."
~ Thomas Jefferson

Age bashing? Not at all? I consider my generation to be among the worst on record.

G'day,

I've never posted here so if my post is out of line, please let me know.

15 Degrees warmer is the earth's natural state? Actually, the earth for the last 50 million years or so has generally been much colder than now and only and a couple of very rare occasions hotter. An "ice age" (glaciation) is inevitable given the cycles the earth has been in for 120,000 years or so and how the natural state in this ice age is to be a great deal colder in the Northern Hemisphere than the last 11,000 odd years.

I do wonder about the latest study that was reported as the artic area is warming at a much faster rate than first thought. I predicted when gobal warming was first argued that the cycle would be:

Almost no one would believe it in the scientific community.

Grants would start to accrue to those that supported global warming and the "evidence" would swing towards global warming rather than cooling which had been the accepted trend until about 1979 (from 1922 or 1923 depending on how it was measured).

No major report would suggest catastrophic events, only worrying ones. No would would come out and say the sea level will rise 80 metres.

Once the global warming argument became the accepted philosophy, the warnings would gradually become more strident.

There would be somewhat of a backlash, with several scientists suggesting flawed studies, etc.

Very quickly thereafter, "the world is doomed", would start to be included in warnings with major cold events being written off as the weather becoming increasingly more "violent" because of global warming.

I wrote a paper suggesting this series of events in the 80s and had a few intellectual bets with those very few people who at the time were concerned with climate change. But I guess anyone could say that on a forum like this. I personally have felt rather smug that I managed to predict pretty much the whole cycle quite well.

Earth sciences was the poor cousin to most other sciences in the 60s and 70s. In the late 70s a small group of us were attempting to determine an indicator of the relative temperatures across the land in the northern hemispheres because a major cooling trend seemed to be showing up in anecdotal evidence. We couldn't even get the US Met service to provide data to assist. They just weren't interested. Global warming changed all this entirely. Now whole faculties are powered by global warming grants.

I'm not saying that the scientists are deliberitely being misleading in their studies, just that in it human nature to actually wish to receive grants so that one can work and pay rent etc and so studies end up being of the type that supports the theory that supplies the most money.

Computer modelling of climate change is a good example of just how bad good science can be turned to bad results. Since I have degrees in Science, Computing (and History and Law but they aren't greatly relevant to global warming), and have a great interest in computing and programing starting with programming punch cards when I was a kid, I understand more than most about what type of problems a global warming computer model faces. Indeed, I would suggest the best super computers or even massive arrays of computers, still do not have anywhere near the power needed to accurately create a climate predicting model. Actually, I would also suggest that the science of climate has not progressed enough yet to make the fundamental assumptions needed to create the model.

Taking melting ice caps for instance, it is not as simple as saying the melting ice cap will cause temperature rises. The equation has to include the greater amount of sea water at the equator and in the mid latitudes where most of the solar radiation actually strikes the surface of the earth, the change such an effect would have on jet streams, on cloud formation, on storm patterns and even on volcanic activity. Seven times out of ten, climate change on our earth has been accompanied by a major peak in volcanic activities. But it isn't even possible to work out if the climate causes the volcanic activity or the volcanic activity causes the climate change.

Even the very "simple" argument that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere (and there is no doubt that CO2 levels have been rising because of humans but as to whether this is greater than even a single major volcanic event is questionable) cause warming relies on assumptions that may be quite false. More CO2 and it is possible you get more refraction at the equator (warming), but also more cloud (warming in the short term - seriously cooling in the longer term), a change in the albedo readings at all latitudes (warming or cooling depending on your theory). An this does not even take into account changes in so many other factors. The trouble is the study of climate with respect to these factors is all very new.

The best weather programs can get the weather right about 80% of the time in temperate climates now four days out. That is a major advance over the last 50 years but try for seven days and the same programs are about as good as throwing darts at a board listing "hot", "cold", "rain", "clear". Now these programs are not theoretical. Weather forcasting is huge business and thus, unlike global warming programs which are very very hyperthetic, it is in a great many people's interests to get it right and extend the model to five days or work out the path of a hurricane more accurately or where a tornado might touch down more than 30 minutes before it actually happens.

Personally, I think the earth is currently warming, which is a good thing (although not for everybody of course). Had the earth not changed to an interglacial period when it did, civilisation would not have happened. That it lasted 11,000 years meant that man could actually develop civilisation to a point that even a glaciation is probably not going to put us back in the stone age. If cooling had occurred when the mini ice age occurred about three hundred years ago, man would have gone right back to the stone age. That is pretty amazing.

Another few degrees and the earth will be able to support far more agriculture than it presently does. Rainfall patterns change dramatically so that the arid parts of Australia become breadbaskets, as does more of Canada, parts of Africa, China and Russia. The downide is unlike the nice predictions of a few centrimeters of sea level rise, a real global warming will cause a very sudden shrinking or elimination of ice caps and major sea level rises, killing a great many of the world's population.

But far worse for mankind would be a glaciation. The last model that I saw indicated the loss of around 90% of the world's population in 3 years and getting up to only a 2% survival 5 years out (this assumes a three year changeover or flip between interglacial periods and glaciations - a theory that does have significant evidence in support of it even if the prevailing teachings state that the change takes in the order of thousands of years).

Which would you rather have? Problems because of warming that mean dislocation and movement of large amounts of the population but little loss of life due to starvation, etc, or a change something akin to the movie "The Day After Tommorrow" (I don't agree with the theories in that movie but I do agree with just how catastrophic a cooling event would be).

Because I am wheelchair bound from a serious injury I can only follow some of the studies and have not seen any detail of the latest study that suggests rapid loss of arctic ice coverage. I must say that even the broad brush stuff that I have read, does not give me much faith in the validity of the predictions. If the ice coverage were really to melt as predicted, then it would ALL melt. Once a major retreat of ice coverage occurs in the northern hemisphere, without some factor to reverse it, such as a meteor strike to throw up huge clouds of debris or volcanic activity to do much the same, the retreat actually causes a retreat. The difference in the albedo readings of Greenland's ice coverage and Greenland without ice in the same places, is staggering. It goes from about 95% to about 35%. Thus the area warms rapidly as the ground warms up and the air close to the ground follows suit, and this warming then causes the ice fringes to melt, resulting in an accelerating process. My best estimate of the last thaw across North America was that at its peak the retreating snow/ice coverage managed to reach around 50 kms per day.

Yet the assumption of this study seems to be that the artic warming will do no more than melt a percentage of the ice coverage. That just does not accord with historic evidence of both northern hemisphere retreat and return of ice in the last several cycles.

Climate is so complicated that even working out what should be happening to a single glacier has proved to be nigh on impossible. Much of the glaciers in the world are historic remnants. Except that glaciers create their own mini climates, most should have melted thousands of years ago. Most have been retreating, sometimes rapidly and sometimes slowly, ever since the warming 11,000 years ago. Maybe - because this interglacial period is somewhat longer than has been the norm - we have finally reached the point where glaciers no longer are able to exist.

Actually, I remember a theory of some time back that glacial retreat could actually be the cause of climate warming, when it reached a certain, unknown, critical point.

I'm probably rambling terribly and my guess is no one will read this, but if anyone does, and wants to know my point to all this, it is that I do not believe that any scientific evidence has been established yet that the world is warming other than because it has been in an interglacial period for a long time, or even if the longer trend is for continuing warming.

I remember a couple of years ago a major study was published concerning ocean temperatures. It was very detailed and the figures did seem to show the air temperatures just above the world's oceans had risen over the last 50 years. But immediately I read the study I found a major flaw. The statistics were taken from ships records. The temperatures recorded had no controlled environment or a fixed methodology. Indeed, as ships became much larger, the distance between the ocean surface and where the temperatures were measured increased dramatically. Now the study authors had suggested a formula to take this into account (although this was not in the major findings of the report) but the formula seemed to be no more than a guess. Since the variables are immense, no simple formula can account for enough of them, in my view, to return an accurate comparison.

The same thing seems to happen with land temperatures but in a much more biased way. Most people with an interest in climate change or even recent historic weather for an area, are aware that, the trend has been for the last 80 years for land temperatures in the northern hemisphere to increase in cities and decrease in smaller communities. It would seem that temperatures for major cities are used in most studies with a formula attempting to negate the heat sink effect of massive injections of concrete into the hearts of those cities, and the major increase in application of heat absorbing and retaining materials in the surrounding areas of the city. I have yet to see any scientific study that shows a way to actually determine just how much a change this hase caused. In order to do that, you need the temperatures to remain stable somewhere, so that the change in the city structure can be seen as the reason for any average temperature change. The trouble is there is no such thing as a stable temperature. Even in the most stable of periods in the earth's cycle of warming and cooling, there a fluctuations, year to year, and for several years at a time.

My suggestion has always been to only use land temperatures where the temperatures have accurately been recorded at exactly the same location for the study period, in a town with a population of no greater than 5,000, at least 80 kms from any city, where the recording area has not had any major change to its environs such as even a three storey building being built within several hundred metres of it, or a carpark being paved over, or even major trees being changed. One very big problem is that temperature recording equipment is periodically changed and in small towns, no one goes to the trouble of making sure that the new piece of equipment matches the old or a deferential is calculated and clearly inserted into the records.

Even with all these problems, there are enough small towns that fit the criteria for studies to be done. They just do not seem to be done for any climate warming studies.

You do not have to go back very long in time to find most earth sciences did not agree with plate techtonics as the major shaping force of our earth and its climate. Yet even though the scientists were in the vast majority, they were wrong. So I do not believe that because anyone can suggest that there are 25,000 scientists who accept global warming and a small number who do not, that this suggests anything other than once a theory gains favour it stays in favour even in the face of damming counter evidence.

A study of glacial retreat proves nothing but glaciers melt in interglacial periods - eventually. It might be that they are melting because the earth is warming but a study on the retreat does not prove that or even suggest it.

The fact that northern hemisphere winters have actually been worse in the past few years also does not suggest that global warming is not occuring. The climate has not become more violent or unpredictable. While records have been broken with the number of Atlantic hurricanes recently, records are always broken,and overall, the frequency or severity of hurricanes or any other major climate event does not seemed to have taken a dive for the worse. The cause more damage because more people live in the areas and because of rank stupidity such as building bridges and levies not capable of withstanding the force that a hurricane will one day exert.

I wrote a paper in 1979 matching the years 1974-1979 to the years that preceded the last switch to a glaciation, from the evidence then available. This was a time when there was real concern about cooling. The then Soviet had managed to have five major wheat harvest fiascos because of temperature drops, areas in Canada had much greater ice flows than a decade before, snow fell and stayed on the ground much further south in Europe, parts of the Soviet Union and North America than for the previous decade. Many animal species seemed to be responding to triggers that had not been recorded by civilised man, some winter coats were not changing in certain species back to summer coats, some herd and pack behaviours had been observed to have changed to what some specialists suggested was the behaviour required during a glaciation. But 1980 proved to turn it all around. There were several factors for this but all were events that were "special", thus seeming to alter the balance enough to stop what might have been a slide towards cooling.

Personally, I was very glad it happened. I didn't want half of the Soviet Union to starve. That might have started WWIII.

Global warming? It's possible, even probable. Has the scientific community proved it yet? Not in my view. Is it going to wreck the world? I don't know but it does seem to me that it is the lesser of two evils. As to the world's climate, the only real assumption that one can make with total accuracy is that the world's climate is not a static thing and the earth will get warmer and cooler several times in the next 100,000 years. A cooling event is likely to kill off much of the world's population (which might be a good thing if you are a member of PETA or believe that the world cannot keep on supporting us humans without it eventually being destroyed by polution, the using up of fossil fuels, loss of habitat and the earth's lungs in the form of forests, etc).

Regards

Richard

Richard wrote:

I think that this is the most important point where I would disagree with you. The effects of increasing CO_2 levels is huge and that makes global warming a predictable effect. Without any greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, temperatures would be 33 ?C lower than they are today. It is likely that we are going to double the CO_2 concentration in the atmosphere, from 0.027% to more than 0.05% or more.

Strong feedback effects limit the temperature increase to just a few degrees ?C. But it is just not possible to have zero or negative temperature increase, because those feedback mechanisms only work because the average temperature has increased in the first place. You get more clouds because at higher temperatures you get more evaporation.

Global warming is ultimately just a consequence of conservation of energy. The exact temperature increase is model dependent, but the fact that it exists is not. By increasing Co_2 levels you effectively pump more energy in the atmosphere per unit time. Different climate models will make different predictions; the fact that these models can be criticised for not being 100% realistic does not invalidate the predicted global warming.

Similarly, if I turn on the heating now, then the temperature in my room will increase. I could write down a model for the thermal convection in my room, the thermal conduction through the walls and the convective heat transfer from the walls to the outside air, but the result of all those calculations will be that the temperature in my room will increase. Criticism about the simplified way of modeling the heat transfer would not invalidate the prediction of a temperature increase.

Richard wrote:
"Global warming? It's possible, even probable. Has the scientific community proved it yet? Not in my view."

Global warming is proven fact. Within the scientific community there is no debate.

What is being debated is the percentage of that warming resulting from different causes.

Your position seems to be somewhat analogous to the man falling over a 1,000 cliff saying "I didn't jump intentionally:" It no longer matters.

DA Morgan wrote "Oh poppycock. The planet does not think. It does not try. It does not attempt...

oh really. i did not say it thinks, but i did say that it is returning to normal. i use the word try, as when the next super volcano erupts, it will send us back into the deep of the ice age. the earth/sun relationship tries to maintain a ballance which puts in much warmer than it is.

...This planet is no more in a normal state of affairs 15 degrees warmer than it is 15 degrees cooler...

your lack of scientific understanding is showing quite baddly. if you check the geological records, you would see that the majority of the time the earth is 15 degrees warmer than it is now. when the amount of heat coming in is ballanced by the amount that is released then the earth could be said to be in its natural state. that will occur when the earth is 15 degrees hotter than it is now.


...Your political views do not trump the scientific reality that there is far more CO2 in the air than before and that its rise, and the temperature rise correspond with human use of fossil fuels...

your political views have no bearing on the truth. i have no political views as i can understand politics. i do understand science. yes the CO2 is higher and it will continue to go higher wiether or not humans pump co2 into the air. we are not the main sourse of co2. its the animal kindom, and volcanos. its the decay of plants, and its the very nature of the planet itself. Yes, humans are accelerating the increase, but we are not the sole cause of it. we are not even the primary sourse of it. mother nature herself is.

RicS
Junior Member
Member # 700

Rate Member posted March 26, 2006 03:41 AM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
G'day,

I've never posted here so if my post is out of line, please let me know.

15 Degrees warmer is the earth's natural state? Actually, the earth for the last 50 million years or so has generally been much colder than now and only and a couple of very rare occasions hotter. An "ice age" (glaciation) is inevitable given the cycles the earth has been in for 120,000 years or so and how the natural state in this ice age is to be a great deal colder in the Northern Hemisphere than the last 11,000 odd years.

considering that the current ice age as lasted for 2.1 of that 50 million and that there have been 12 eruptions of the major super valcanos during that time, each of which has led to a 600 thousand year (give or take) ice age, its not surprising that this short period should have an colder average tempature. what matters is that after each eruption the earth warms back up over the same time period.

if you want to calculate short term (in earth time) tempatures, try figuring out what happen the last time two major super valcanos erupted within a relative short time period. it cause the thermal runaway to be exceeded, leading to the freezing of the pacific ocean at the equator. it took 100 million year for the valcanos to pump out enough green house gases to over come the albeto (reflection of heat and other light energy) of the ice.

just so everyone knows, valcanos pump out two gasses, co2 and sulpher dioxide. co2 reacts with water to form a type of ferterlizing rain. sulpher dioxide reacts with water at that altitude to creat a ice particial that take decades for the majority of it to fall out. the clouds of sulpher dioxide ice can reflect the majority of the suns energy cause the world to fall into a deep ice age. if the tempature of the earth does not warm up enough before the next eruption, the second one can cause sufficent ice formation to develope to reflect enough energy that the world's tempature would continue to decrease, causing more ice. basically the reverse of what is happening now.

dehammer wrote:
"oh really. i did not say it thinks, but i did say that it is returning to normal."

There is no such thing as normal.

Hello DA Morgan,

I have a degree where my specialty was the study of the causes of flips between glaciations and interglacial periods. Since I also have a Masters and a Doctorate I suspect I could be included in the "scientific community". Do a search through Google on global warming and "myth" or any number of words suggesting skepticism and you will find a great many scientific papers written by scientists who appear to have some expertise in the subject who do not agree with global warming.

Just because newspapers start quoting global warming as a fact does not make it so. Even conclusions made in scientific studies do not necessarily mean much. It is the accuracy of the research that the paper presents that is important.

So I must respecfully disagree. While I am not capable of reading even more than a tiny fraction of studies being conducted, the ones that I have read often have conclusions that the study or the research does not satisfactorily support. Conclusions are opinions, not fact.

The views described here are actually interesting to read even if I do not agree with them, as most will not agree with my conclusions, since they are not based on fact either.

I can demonstrate an overall cooling of the northern hemisphere (or much more specifically for the northern hemisphare land masses away from oceans and cities where humans have continuiously been in habitation during that period) over the last 80 years from those records that are not affected by variables that cannot be corrected by solid science rather than guesswork. That research was done in the late 70s.

But even that research does not mean the northern hemisphere is not actually heating up. It could be that the heating is occuring above the arctic circle or over water but that would still require an explanation as to why the other land areas have been getting cooler, for which no one has seemed to come up with a rational explanation.

I would like to know where the scientific proof is that an increase in CO2 levels are a "predictable event" with respect to global warming. Without an atmosphere, the earth would be a pretty different place but just what CO2 level changes does to the earth's climate is not a simple arithmetic progression. At some point CO2 will definitely cause cooling. When volcanos erupt in very major events CO2 increases dramatically but the earth cools. That might have nothing to do with the CO2 but rather other particulate matter. That was my point - thus far there is no scientific proof that CO2 especially with our current atmosphere will cause warming. Should you know of some research that suggests otherwise I would really like to be directed to it but thus far I haven't seen it. All assumptions relating to CO2 have been based on models.

And as to models, the room example made was a pretty good one. The earth however is so many times more complex than the room that simple equations such as suggested for the room have to be based on a guess or an estimate somewhere. I actually tested a model a while back and changed only a few assumed inputs by as little as a single percent and came away with answers that suggested major cooling or runaway heating.

I do have one major point that seems to escape politicians and conservationists. Let's say that global warming is a fact and is actually caused by humans. Would Kyoto fix it? Huh! It only bound the developed world. There is a limit to what could be done actually. You cannot simply create replacement hydrogen cars for every car that is on the earth. Actually hybrid cars and so called greenhouse friendly power creation have problems of their own.

Everybody assumes recycling paper is a great idea. Except it unlocks CO2 and takes six times the net energy to do than plantation timber creating new paper does. When all the sums are taken into account, the solution can end up contributing more to the original problem than the previous usage. Solar panels are another example. They need substantial usage of limited resources and quite high energy usage to create and the net effect seems to be negative.

Unless you are willing to kill and lock up the CO2 in the carcases all ruminant livestock in the world, a very significant greenhouse gas producer will not change at all.

I've yet to hear any suggestion that has a snowball's chance in hell of actually being adopted that might have some chance of reducing greenhouse gases. Cutting C02 emmissions for industry even by very large percentages would not do it (although it would have other positive effects such as less air polution - depending on what replaced it of course).

Here's a suggestion for a post. You are the world's dictator. Greenhouse gases are absolutely 100% the reason for global warming and there is no doubt at all that global warming is occuring. Fix it and stay in power. Assume you have the strength and stranglehold on the world on par with Hitler or Stalin. Might be an idea for a computer game actually!

dehammer:

I don't think so given these statements:

dehammer:

RicS:

Where did you read that? The effects of CO_2 can be predicted more or less from first principles. You know the properties of this molecule, its absorption spectrum. So it is relatively straightforward to calculate the effects this gas has. The cooling caused by volcanoes is due to the airosols that are blown into the stratosphere. Because there is no clouds and rain there, they stay there for a few years. CO_2 stays in the atmosphere for many hundreds of years.


Venus is actually a good example of the effects of CO_2 has as a greenhouse gas: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4335628.stm

Pay special attention to this:

See here for another extreme example of the greenhouse effect.

RicS wrote:
"I have a degree where my specialty was the study of the causes of flips between glaciations and interglacial periods. Since I also have a Masters and a Doctorate I suspect I could be included in the "scientific community". Do a search through Google on global warming and "myth" or any number of words suggesting skepticism and you will find a great many scientific papers written by scientists who appear to have some expertise in the subject who do not agree with global warming."

Response:
Point me to a peer reviewed journal or something in the citation index, published in the last 5 years, that indicates that planet's average temperature is not increasing.

I'll not debate what percentage of that warming has been created by human activity but I'll gladly debate that any serious science demonstrates a global temperature that is either static or decreasing.

I don't read the popular press for my information. But given that the majority here at SAGG can't visit my library here is as close as I can get to pointing you to the information I would like to see you refute.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

Thanks for the reference DA Morgan. Now are the graphs accurate? Very unlikely so and on top of that the graphs actually do not establish grobal warming at all but only that there was a cooling trend for half a century or so and that has since been reversed by a warming trend (and in some places overtaken by the warming trend but not by much).

I can present you with detailed analysis of data from 1922 to 1979 that actually does show the opposite to these graphs. Unfortunately, it is not in a form I can easily send. But I will find a site that has similar data if you like.

Have a look at the US data specifically. There are only a few places on earth where weather data has been recorded for prolonged periods in such a way as it can be assessed as strongly reliable or very reliable even if external factors may have acted over time to distort the temperatures. The US is one such area. But even in the US, there has been several changes in how the data has been collected, including the times. Thus, without correction, the data is not comparing "apples with apples". But even in the US, there has been several changes in how the data has been collected, including the times. Thus, without correction, the data is not not comparing "apples with apples".

If you look at the US graph, over the period shown, the net effect is actually that the average temperatures have been below average more than above average. The other problem is this graph - it would appear - uses 1880 as the base temperature. The late nineteenth century was colder than normal in the US. If you start from a low figure then you tend to end up with a graph going up. But that is not my opinion. It is the stated view of the authors of the very graphs you referred to.

To a lay person, the graphs seem to be showing very conclusively that global warming has been a steady progression. But what they actually show is that there was a cooling trend and then a heating trend. That is not made clear anywhere in the explanations and so they are subject to misinterpretion by pretty much anyone that views them and sees graphs that trend upward.

The US graph is particularly interesting because it does not accord with the rest of the graphs. It is anomolous. Certainly it does seem to be trending up from about 1980 but it still stands in considerable contrast to the other graphs.

From 1980 onwards the method of recording data changed. It rapidly became computerised. It has been suggested that this has had an effect on just what is recorded. The lighting in small towns changed during the same period. Even, so the graph shows just what you would expect in a stable interglacial period of the earth. Fluctuations but no trend at all.

The problem is that the graph should show a very clear trend from about the 1940s in the US. It should show a rapid rise in averages. Since the heat sink effect has an observable and significant effect and even remote rural locations are effected by changes in local wind patterns etc caused by this in their region the change should be significant (the statistic for New York I last saw indicated a rise of 4 degrees for its average daily temperature when hourly temperature rates were used - the rise is 7 degrees when max and mins only are used).

The graphs represent the very argument I was making before. Sea temperatures have not been recorded consistently over the period most quoted. Land temperatures have been affected by other factors, mostly to do with expansion of cities and how they are now constructed and changes to the area around the weather stations even in very small towns, or even simple things like the change in times of the day that recordings were made.

Perhaps you could be so kind as to cite either raw data or research that shows global warming where the data used has been established with significant certainty to be consistent. Thus far, as I said, pretty much every small town on earth with good record keeping but significantly isolated from cities shows an average REDUCTION in temperature over the 20th Century, more in the first half of the century and less in the second but a reduction just the same.

Once again, I'm not saying that this means there is no warming. But it is interesting to look at the "proofs" used in this argument and immediately see a gaping anomoly and significant problems with just what data was used. Perhaps you, DA Morgan, are able to point out where my logic is faulty. I'd welcome that actually.

As to the graphs you specifically refer, the actual site from which you quote states that the US trend has been a cooling trend which is now being reversed. To realise just how far the graph is from raw data, and just how subject to interpretation it all is, I quote from the site the graphs were on:

"incorporation of corrections for time-of-observation bias and station history adjustments in the United States based on Easterling et al. [1996a], (2) reclassification of rural, small-town, and urban stations in the United States, southern Canada, and northern Mexico based on satellite measurements of night light intensity [Imhoff et al., 1997], and (3) a more flexible urban adjustment than that employed by Hansen et al. [1999], including reliance on only unlit stations in the United States and rural stations in the rest of the world for determining long-term trends. We find evidence of local human effects ("urban warming") even in suburban and small-town surface air temperature records, but the effect is modest in magnitude and conceivably could be an artifact of inhomogeneities in the station records. We suggest further studies, including more complete satellite night light analyses, which may clarify the potential urban effect. Nevertheless, it is clear that the post-1930s cooling was much larger in the United States than in the global mean. The U.S. mean temperature has now reached a level comparable to that of the 1930s, while the global temperature is now far above the levels earlier in the century."

I digress here and it has nothing to do with global warming so feel free to ignore it, assuming you actually are willing to read my stuff anyway.

I spent 25 years of my life in studying major incidents such as structural failures, engineering disasters and the like and being called upon to establish the real cause of such incidents. I was paid very well to be independant, unbiased. These events sometimes cost in the billions. Whether they involved predicted weather patterns, safety margin calculations, wind flows, civil engineering, metallurgy, hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, or whatever, what struck me over and over was how the experts (many being highly renowned scientists or engineers), as soon as they were participants in the incidents, showed enormous bias. All scientists are biased. That is why such a big issue is made of just how research is conducted. Double blind studies have been shown over and over to have been poluted by the researchers - mostly unintentionally - and thus it is particularly important with any research to very vigourously shake out any way that bias can creep in. Peer review, by the way, very rarely achieves this but it is certainly better than nothing. The best way to find errors or bias is to have someone with the opposite starting view review the research. I used to do this all the time when I had competing experts. They might not have been any more likely to be correct as the opposing side but there is nothing like an opposing view to show up faults.

When I first went to Uni I did a course that included the study of research methods and inherent flaws. To this day I remember a study presented that was deeply flawed but the results stood for several years. It was a study of socks! It was not done by a sock manufacturer but a University that had an obscure interest in running and foot damage. At the start of a marathon, the researchers approached participants in the marathon at random and asked if they could look at their feet at the end of the race and if the could determine the type of sock being warn. The study was looking at cotton vs synthetics and all the study was looking at was blisters and other observable foot damage at the end of the race. The assumption was that cotton would result in less damage. The results showed the opposite by a large percentage. The test was deeply flawed but as I said, the researchers didn't work it out and almost nobody that this research is explained to, works out the flaw until it is pointed out.

The funny thing is, my experience has been, even when a flaw in research is pointed out, the investment in the researh is usually so high by this point that very rarely means the conclusions are altered or the flaw is properly considered. Now think of the investment those that believe in global warming have in their beliefs. It truly is huge. The bias likewise is likely to be huge. Since I have no great investment in global cooling or warming, I think I am currently fairly unbiased, which has allowed me to fairly easily find flaws in major studies. Just as with the graphs used by DA Morgan. They don't do what they appear to do. They do not establish a global warming trend at all. The authors actually state this elswhere on the site, while still indicating their firm belief in global warming. But the graphs have the appearance of showing a distilation of data with a very clear trend. Feel free to quote any other site with global warming studies and I'd be happy to point out flaws. I wish I could agree with DA Morgan but thus far not one study, whether peer reviewed or not, cannot easily be demonstrated to have utilised invalid data, had a flawed methodology, or some other serious error. I would like to see a single study where the authors actually attempted to eliminate the errors well known in other studies but I haven't seen one yet.

RicS wrote:
"Now are the graphs accurate? Very unlikely...."

RickS ... I am not one who is impressed by volume.
And most certainly not impressed by someone who claims to have a PhD and thinks "Very unlikely" refutes peer reviewed work performed by many PhDs including many of my colleagues here at the University of Washington.

RicS further wrote:
"I spent 25 years of my life in studying major incidents such as structural failures...."

Let me remind you that at the top of this page your wrote: "I have a degree where my specialty was the study of the causes of flips between glaciations and interglacial periods."

Now if you can reconcile 25 years of engineering into structural failures with a degree in the study of interglacial periods, without the use of an attorney, I'd like to hear all about it.

I'm not buying what you're selling. From where I sit you have discredited yourself.

Rics,

check the wiki article .

DA Morgan, I am one that is not particularly impressed by attacking the veracity of someone who disagrees with your point of view(to paraphrase your last post somewhat).

The point I made related to underlying data. The Goddard institute's words were used and they specifically indicate problems with their data. It was your reference. I was just looking at how those graphs were created. If you would like, discuss that.

As to my qualifications or not, this is a general forum for discussion. If you don't like my point of view, say so and perhaps refute it. Show me that the data is accurate. And the data was almust certainly not peer reviewed by the way, only the paper that was presented which summarised the data. The underlying raw data was not made available.

You are right, I do not have a degree in engineering or aeornautics or pretty much any of the fields I consulted in. I DO NOT have a PHd. I have four degrees in quite dissimilar fields and a JSD. What I do have that allowed me to consult on so many disimilar fields is an enquiring mind, access to the best in their fields to consult with and a skill at being able to look at often complex issues and collect and collate the evidence until a cause or causes could be established. None of this is particularly relevant to global warming but since my world has shrunk to little more than a room and a computer, I tend to ramble on a bit (actually a lot). My background is only relevant in that I have been used to looking at issues where experts' views were often contradictory or false. It tends to lead to a large dose of skepticism at any expert pronouncement taken at face value. That was the simple point I was making, however poorly I did it.

The fact that one of my degrees was a Science degree with a particular interest in climate change in recent geological history only means this type of forum would attract my attention, not that I used it for work. I didn't. Big deal! How does that discredit me?

The fact is that the Wiki global warming site and the Goddard Institute site use graphs that summarise data that has been deliberately changed (in an attempt to correct known defects in the data, not for sinister reasons) or is subject to significant problems because no one has recorded even local temperatures consistently and without the influence of man made variables being introduced over time. The use of this data is fundamental to the argument that there even is global warming.

There are a number of experts greatly concerned about just how the temperature figures are used. They just are far fewer than those that simply accept the general principal of global warming or man made global warming. Number imbalance has never, in the history of science, been a good indicator of just who's view is more likely to be correct.

I'll go back to the point that the Goddard Institute made although their graphs I believe give a somewhat misleading impression. The overall temperature change in the US over the last century has been a negative. That is the US has been cooler in the last century than the thus far known average. It certainly shows that there have been two cooling trends in the early part of the century and in the 50s and 60s and similar warming trends most notablably in the last part of the century but it also shows the hottest US temperature year was not recently but 1934, according to their own graph.

The graphs show up an anomoly between the US and the rest of the world. That anomoly is generally what those that study data would have the greatest interest in. Either there is a natural reason why the US differed from the rest of the world or the algorithms used to adjust the rest of the world figures were less accurate.

I'll finish now. I did believe this was a forum to discuss global warming, not to attack those that did not agree with you. I really would like to see any counter to my argument but I guess this is not the right forum.

Thank you for your time to those that replied to me.

RicS wrote:
"I am one that is not particularly impressed by attacking the veracity"

I didn't intend to indicate a lack of veracity ...rather a lack of credibility.

RicS wrote:
"I'll go back to the point that the Goddard Institute made although their graphs I believe give a somewhat misleading impression. The overall temperature change in the US over the last century has been a negative."

Global warming is about the global temperature. What is the point of bringing up the temperature in the US?

As I said above ... you lack credibility. Pointing out your PhD, as though it had some bearing on the question was an attempt to leverage expertise in one domain as expertise in another. Sort of like Paris Hilton giving her opinion on depletion of fisheries stocks.

You are entitled to your opinion but express it as an opinion. When you start trying to refute the work of experts in the field you should come prepared to meet the challenge I put to you, one that you ignored, which is to provide references to peer reviewed work that refutes what you claim is not correct.

The most important work to date has been the proven rise in ocean temperatures not the temperature of your home town. The ice in Greenland is not melting due to a temporary regional anomaly.

DA Morgan. Thank you for your reply. It was appreciated. I'm happy to continue this discussion as long as you are or it doesn't annoy other forum members. It is interesting as long as it does not get particulary personal. I greatly respect someone willing to stand up for their collegues and for their views.

I disagree with you concerning credibility. If I got personal I could do exactly the same thing and attack your credibility. For a forum such as this that would be totally out of place. I too have varied interests and believe all that is needed for a rational, vigourous discussion is an enquiring mind and sufficient intelligence to understand the principals of what is being discussed, not necessarily high education qualifications in the particular field. Some of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time have been achieved by those that had no qualifications in the field they made the breakthrough in.

Questioning methodology is far from a task lacking in credibility. Scientific principals and the history of science (another field I enjoy but am no expert in) demonstrates that without dissent and a willingness to vigourously scrutinise accepted scientific principals almost nothing would have been achieved. Even as late as the 80s a simple doctor and a scientist suffered severals years of scorn and outright derision from the scientific community because they were willing to challenge a very accepted view in medicine because the evidence, when looked at closely, did not support that accepted view. They won the Nobel price last year. In my opnion, rather belately. Many people live much better lives today or are alive because of these two men. I'm not saying I'm in that league at all. Far from it. But any accepted view really does need close scutiny and someone willing to stick their hand up and say "Where is your proof?" and not accept "Everyone agrees that it is so, including numerous peer reviewed papers" If they are really willing to be condemned and be referred to as lacking credibility or suffer personal attacks they can take the next rather crutial step and ask, if relevant: "But is your underlying data accurate because if it isn't you have built a huge structure on a rather flimsy base".

It may be that the data is perfectly accurate but it certainly deserves to be scrutinised. There are those that have written papers that really do disagree with the underlying data and have some research to back it up cannot even get published right now? This is not opinion. One is a friend. Try and get the raw data to carry out research with a known position questioning the current conventional wisdom and see how far you get. That is not good science. That is bad politics. And yes, I know: "Where is my proof?" I will do some research on the net to locate people that I can quote. I can't quote my friend because he/she is currently worried about the funding they currently have.

Actually whether the US is overall a negative in warming is relevant. Continental US is a big place (and if you believe the arguments relating to humans and global warming the US is far out of proportion one of the major contributors). Surely this would tend to mean that the effect would show up locally in the US. The figures also hold true for those areas of Canada that have had the same sort of studies done. That means a big part of the northern hemisphere landmass has cooled over the last century, overall (actually that is a bit misleading in itself, the actual rate of cooling is not much) - according to the Goddard institute and peer backed research, as well as others.

Please tell me how else you determine whether the earth temperature has been rising? It is my opinion you have to look at accurate historic temperature measurements. If you disagree with that logic, please inform me where my logic is flawed.

The US is one place where the data is good for a long time. Canada is another place. Australia, too, has very good records, as does New Zealand, some Pacific Islands, some parts of India (thanks to the British keeping very good records over the dominions when they had it and India retaining the same principal). Ireland and England have records but not complete. Europe's records are not good due to the impact of world wars and other factors. The same for Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. For instance, the cooling in the 70s was subject to "political" recording and reporting. Asia's records, including China also have problems. Africa has some good records but not enough or in large areas. All of this is opnion, based on research I did in the 70s trying to get the data that is very similar to that that could be used to prove or disprove global warming. We were aiming for only 100 points over the Northern Hemisphere with small towns unaffected by human created affects on weather or recording and went to the trouble of actually researching each location down to who took the readings, where the recording equipment was located and what had changed around the equipment. We wanted a lot more but in those days just getting 80 odd years of daily temperatures for one place was a major task. The records were mostly on paper. Even 100 meant a lot of data entry. We could not find 100 points in the northern hemisphere that were not in the US. Aside from Australia (which is also a large land mass and is also closely accords with the US statistics and is an overall negative although there is a bit of a difference between the hottest and coldest periods due to El Nino, El Nina, Southern Ocean turnover and the like) we could not find even a single "uncontaminated" site for large sections of the world. Even in the US, most sites we considered good canditates turned out to have had some even that contaminated the records.

It might take me a few days because of my condition but I will locate other peer backed research for other parts of the world that also show negatives, if it will assist DA Morgan or anyone else on this forum that has any interest.

DA Morgan, all you have thus far presented, is opinion. You have not backed it with any peer reviewed research or any other research. The only reference you have made is to the Goddard institute's graphs. Critisising a graph is an opinion but it is based on fact, facts that were provided by the institute that provided the graph. That is very different to saying "I think there is no global warming". Indeed, I do not think that at all. My opinion is there has been global warming. My full opinion is that that warming reversed a serious trend towards a significant cooling period. Whether that was simply fluctuations within our interglacial period, I have no idea, nor do I have any research except some quite out of date stuff to back it up.

Now it is my turn to ask. What proven rise in ocean temperatures? That is an opinion unless you back it up with reference to research. The same standard you require of me. Unless you do you are simply quoting a news report or a summary of a paper that is very new and scrutiny by other experts will not have occurred yet. Oh, and there is a very big distinction between peer review and scrutiny. Whilst you know very well how a paper is published, I will comment for any other interested reader my view on the process. To have a paper published, the publisher sometimes but not always refers the paper to others in the field to read and review. Just as in the cold fusion "breakthrough", peer review does not mean the reviewers agree with what is writen, only they believe it worthy of publication or cannot find a significant flaw in the logic flow or the general principals of science.

The last paper I was involved in that was published was reviewed and was published. It was an unproven theory (proven about 8 years later) but deemed worthy of publication. I would suggest that, for instance, a paper on the toxicity of environmental chemicals would also be published if the research seemed correct. The interviews with those that suffered or their families, the blood tests conducted, or whatever else that was done, would not be made available and there could be significant faults in that data but peer review would not detect it. It is my opinion but I have considerably little less faith in peer review as the basis for whether something is right. Many many papers are published that turn out to have involved fraud. You can do your own research on that one because it is so easy. You probably can quote me known examples. Most involved in academic fields know of examples of frauds.

As I will endeavour to provide you with appropriate references (and anyone else on this forum interested in the discussion), it would be nice if you didn't provide opinion without reference to specific research. The latest research, as best as I understand (my opinion completely) is based on modelling from very little real data. It may be completely valid but that is not the same as showing research over a period of more than say 50 years showing a rise in ocean temperatures over a substantial area in all regions of the arctic or antarctic (then of course, with the antarctic you have the fluctuations due to ice sheet calving which occurs periodically but that is another issue).

Finally DA Morgan, you wrote: "The ice in Greenland is not melting due to a temporary regional anomaly" How do you know this? Where is your reference?

By the way, I'd rather refer to you by your name than "DA Morgan" or Dr Morgan or whatever. My name is Richard, if you would like to use the same courtesy.

RicS wrote:
"If I got personal I could do exactly the same thing and attack your credibility."

And you'd be absolutely correct if I was expressing a personal opinion and no so labelling it. But as I recall I posted something expressing the opinions of experts in the field.

RicS wrote:
"It may be that the data is perfectly accurate but it certainly deserves to be scrutinised."

No disgreement from me here.

RicS wrote:
"Please tell me how else you determine whether the earth temperature has been rising? It is my opinion you have to look at accurate historic temperature measurements. If you disagree with that logic, please inform me where my logic is flawed."

I agree. The determination has been made through numerous methods. Some that involve historical temperature records. Some that involve historical records of ice coverage. Some that involve satellite data. But the most critical, IMO, is the change in the temperature and salinity of the oceans.

If you are looking for the research work it has been published in peer reviewed journals, including Science, and there are a huge number of web references easily found with Google.
Use the following criterion:
"Water temperature" and "Global Warming"

Finally:
http://www.washington.edu/home/peopledir/
Enter "Daniel Morgan"
Press [Search]
I am rather easy to find.

G'day Daniel and any other interested forum member,

Actually using your search criteria will get you a vast amount of opinion from such super reliable sources as Greenpeace and little else. It will not get you access to data, which has always been my point. You asked me to provide peer reviewed research to back my points. I am actually compiling this and will provide it. I ask you to do the same.

I'd be interested to know why your opinion is that water temperature and salinity is the key issues to determining global warming. What makes you think this is a reliable indicator that the EARTH is undergoing global warming.

Satellite data is next to useless because it has such a small window (only in the context of arguing global warming mind you - it is extremely important for a great deal of other studies). It can tell you with great accuracy what is happening this year or for the last short number of years but all that tells you is that right now what the temperatures are and where the ice and snow coverage is. Unless you have something to compare it with, you have no way of knowing what is "normal" or "average". And I'm not using normal here in the sense that the earth has some intrinsic normal state. It does seem that within glaciations and interglacial periods the earth fluctuates around a mean that over time it tends to return to but the fluctuations have patterns that can be in the thousands of years but since interglacial periods and even ice ages are transitory things themselves, there does not appear to be a "normal" state for the earth.

Historic ice coverage is a misnomer, if the desire is to study the extent of ice sheets over time rather than where ice has remained for relatively long periods. A great deal of ice covers the earth and leaves no record. 30cm of ice over Florida for only a few months will destroy all civilisation but even if it remained for say ten years, if you looked a thousand years later, you'd find no evidence of it unless you looked at the human records and most of the time when studying ice cores there is no such luxury. What ice that is studied is only in areas where the ice has remained for substantial times. Ice coverage in the mini ice age, whilst substantial, left almost no record at all. Before that there was a very warm period for a while and once again the massive retreat left no record and there were not even humans who recorded such things to observe them. Such things can be infered from ice cores and the polutants they trap but such inference provides clues only, no hard data.

IMHO, change in water temperature and salinity is a very good warning mechanism to study for potentially catastrophic events of short onset or you are studying short term events such as changes in fish populations in particular regions, but to prove or disprove global warming, it is next to useless, again IMHO. The Atlantic ocean "turns over" at the rate of around 10,000 cycles. That means that, depending on the depth and proximity to fresh water runnof, the measurements that are made have an echo in them of what happened 10,000 years ago.

The Pacific is particularly notorious for fluctuations in temperature and salinity, not due to what's going on above the water surface but what is going on within the ocean itself. The Pacific actually creates climate to some extent. Temperature and salinity shift around its vast basin in cycles that include ones with an average length of three to eight years, fifty or so years, and several thousand years.

Regards

Richard

Accuracy of Water Temperature Measurements cont.

This is a quote from research by Uni of Alabama and and UK met (Differential trends in tropical sea surface and atmospheric temperatures since 1979 published Geophysical Research Letters 2001 http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2001.../1999GL011167.shtml) regarding accurate water temperature readings as they relate to sea temperatures. You can go to either sites to read the full studies, which is pretty detailed.

"The authors looked at the tropicswide difference between the sea water temperatures and upper air temperatures not only from the satellite data but from balloons and global weather maps. All three records indicated the tropical air between the surface and five miles actually cooled at a rate of about 0.05 degrees C per decade, while the sea water was warming by about 0.13 degrees C per decade."

The disparity is clearly a problem for those that rely on such data to "prove" global warming.

The study is interesting because it also looks at just how water temperature figures have been gathered and such things as whether this is a good indicator of air temperatures.

I rather like the summary of this study because it is precisely on point to Daniel's suggestion that water temperatures are the key to determining global warming. To quote some more:

"The supposed link between sea surface temperatures and air temperatures is an integral part of both the historic surface temperature record and the computerized models used to predict what Earth's climate might do in the future.

Because reliable low-level air temperature data from over the oceans are more scarce and more difficult to assess than water temperatures, scientists monitoring Earth's climate have used sea surface temperatures as a proxy for air temperatures, assuming that the two rise and fall proportionally.

"We found that in the short term, they go up and down essentially simultaneously," said Christy. "Over the long term, however, we start to see differences.""

And just how bad are the long term records. Again I quote from the study:

"By comparison, much of the historic sea water temperature record was generated by military and commercial ships, which recorded the temperature of sea water as it was taken aboard as an engine coolant. While calculated into the temperature record as sea "surface" temperatures, most modern ships draw in cooling water from as much as ten meters below the surface."

Now this is not a study that was designed by those that do not agree with global warming. Far from it, the authors still conclude that they was a warming trend of about 0.06 degrees per decade in the tropics but the study was one that was specifically aimed at looking at just how accurate modelling was for global warming studies using very accurate measurments both above and below the water. Since 0.06 degrees is not a great deal and the measurements only go back 20 years (pretty much the same as for satellites which show an overall warming trend of 0.045 degrees per decade for that period) all anyone can conclude from this is for twenty years the earth has warmed a tiny bit. Since we know it cooled substantially twice in the last century (although by how much there is nothing accurate enough to really say), such warming really is an indication of nothing other than proof of a warming fluctuation, IMHO.


Regards

Richard

Richard,

I understand your point that global warming may be a warming fluctuation of the earth and not entirely influenced by humanity's industrialization. Whether or not we are the first cause of the situation, do you agree that humanity does influence and contribute to accelerated warming? I think you did state somewhere that you do agree.

I like your point that the Earth has no normal state because it is in constant flux between glacial periods and interglacial periods. It makes a clear picture of the fact that a natural condition of the earth as a place conducive to the habitation of humanity is only transitory.
But, I think you'd have to admitt that we should do everything in our power to extend this transitory period for as many human generations to come as possible.
I also like the picture you paint of the complexity involved to measure and predict anything on Earth because of the great degree of variables. It fills me with appreciation towards the complexity of this planet and reminds me of how our doctors fight the same battle in measuring and understanding the complexity of the human body in order to encourgage health and bring balance back to a fascinating system. Our scientists today who study global warming are like doctors to our Earth, don't you think?

G'day Justine,

Your post was much appreciated. Thank you.

My opinion, and it is opinion, not based on extensive research (something I have not done for almost 30 years in this field and my studies were to do with the interglacial period boundary and its approach), is that the earth is going through a warming period but in climate terms that period has been just too short to draw any conclusions at all. But as to human effects, I'm afraid I think we have negligible if any effect.

I recall a professor of mine, pointing out to someone who had a tendency to blame humans for pretty much any major weather event, that the last major volcanic eruption produced something like 700,000 times as much air polution as humans have ever produced. CO2 was specifically mentioned and again the volcano was blamed for CO2 emmissions greater than all human endeavours. And, no to those that wish to argue with those figures, I actually do not know where they they came from. I have seen research into volcanic activity that does show massive outputs and so have no reason to doubt my professor's pronouncements either.

The biggies in climate change on the earth seem to be changes in cycles in the sun and volcanic activity. In geologic time, the biggies also include the location of earth masses and the development of a gaseous layer above the earth. Both processes have been changing pretty much ever since there has been free water on the earth's surface and continue to change.

If there was about to be a glaciation and it was going to happen fast (that was what really interested me, the evidence that suggested that transitions between glaciations and interglacial periods could be as little as three years - this was and remains a particularly controversial view) I would say that all nations should do everything they could to stop it or about 98% of human life would cease in about 5 years. Aside from painting large expanses of the artic regions with black dye, I actually cannot think of much that humans could do, however, just as I'm at a loss to suggest anything that could be done, assuming humans wish to remain living in a modern society to prevent global warming if it is our fault.

But global warming overall I applaud and rejoice in. Global warming is why I'm typing here and you can read and write. Had this current ice age not occurred humanoids would not have developed. Had this ice age not settled into a pattern of glaciations and interglacial period of quite small frequency then civilisation would never have occurred. Thus it is global warming we have to thank for our very existence.

The historic evidence does suggest that we are at the end of an interglacial period. It will soon end (in earth time, not human time) and the earth will return to its more usual state within an ice age - most of the northern hemisphere land masses covered with at least snow. Ironically global warming could trigger the end and cause just such a catastrophe for humans and if we were foolish enough to take drastic steps to end the perceived global warming then the same thing could occur (and at present I cannot think of anything that humans could do which would do this short of nuclear explosions designed to duplicate the effect of volcanic eruptions).

This is what makes the whole thing so problematic. Whatever humans do has some effect on some scale. We kill animals and plants and thus are responsible for bio diversity loss. We cut down rainforests but then to really complicate things there are studies that show rainforests are not really terribly important to the overall health of the planet and what replaces them is probably more beneficial depending on what you define is beneficial.

As to current human knowledge in relation to the complex, we haven't even scratched the surface. Climate is incredibly complex and taking the melting of glaciers or ice cap calving or sea temperature variations and attempting from these or even hundreds of other things that we have studied and attempting to make a whole earth model just ignores the limited knowledge we actually do have.

Justine, I like your medical analogy because so much of medicine has had accepted wisdom shown to be completely false. Medicine has come a long way, and I'm alive today because of it but even something as fundamental as pain cannot be explained. The best theory has little basis in the known body structure, it just seems to be the best fit for observations. We don't know how memories are stored, only to some extent where. We don't know why a number of medicines used actually work.

I would say that those that are studying global warming are very much like doctors to our earth but doctors in the nineteenth century. They at least understand what the equivalent of germs are and that hygeine is important but haven't built up enough knowledge to really do big things.

Richard

RicS wrote:
"Actually using your search criteria will get you a vast amount of opinion from such super reliable sources as Greenpeace and little else."

Come on Richard that's nonsense. I found the links to NASA and NOAA using google.

Surely you've learned to filter search results.

If you wish to engage in hyperbole then by all means do so ... alone. If you want to discuss the results of numerous studies performed by researchers worldwide then do so and I'll join in.
Right now what I see is that you've got your mind made up and have no intention of considering that you arrived at an incorrect conclusion.

Statements such as:
"Historic ice coverage is a misnomer"
Are personal opinion grounded in what? Certainly not a degree in engineering. Those who teach at my university, and whose expertise is in the field, have a very different view of the situation.

As I said before ... if you want to dispute the results of research studies do so by pointing to areas where the theories conflict with observations or show how the observations are invalid. Pontification is not a substitute for a URL.

PS: A 1979 study is of close to zero value. Try references to work done during the current millenium. ;-)

G'day Daniel,

I have provided a URL to a study whose conclusions were based on data that pretty much is indisputable.

The 1979 study actually had a value because it did show how hard it was to get accurate data. It also used data that went back as far as 80 years. Since when is a study of no value because it happened to have been done 30 years ago? It simply does not tell you anything about what has happened in the last 30 years. If someone were willing to provide me access to raw data I would happily update it and submit it for publication.

As I said, I will provide references as and when I find them. I have already provided one, which I thought was precisely on point to your opinion.

You haven't provided a single URL by the way so it is somewhat unfair to point out my flaws when you do not do so yourself.

I'll happily discuss any particular study with you providing I can gain access to that study and look at either the data or how it was collected.

I have no firm opinion as to global warming. The opinions I expressed in response to Justine where not firmly held views but my current thoughts based on my current knowledge. But I do believe that all studies should include some thought that starts with the opposite premise. For instance to a global model of warming it should include: "There is no conclusive proof to global warming. Prove me wrong." Not, ?we all agree that global warming is a big deal now let's do research that shows this?.

I do make a number of sweeping generalisations. But at least I do so in a field which I have particular academic expertise in, and an interest that has continued from well before global warming was even a concept.

Historic ice age coverage is of particular interest to me because we were developing a theory (along with a number of others in the same field) relating to what really happens with the advance of a glaciation. What we found was you had to go into a great many scientific disciplines to find evidence of ice coverage. You needed knowledge in biology, vulcanology, geology, and many other fields. There was evidence of snow and ice coverage in parts of the US and Europe for instance 12,000 years ago of which there is no trace left on the landscape but it was darn hard to find. But how do I show this to you as evidence? It is knowledge I picked up over some years a long time ago. As I said it is still contentious, although the area of my studies has pretty much disappeared. After all who wants to fund a study on the transition between glaciations and interglacial periods that really is only of academic interest when you can fund studies on warming that is happening right now? So it is going to be hard for me to find current studies that back many of my sweeping statements. I do think, however, that I do differentiate those statements with those that I make relating to specific studies. This is a discussion forum after all and opinions are important to any discussion.

I still find our discussion interesting and think I've said it before but I'd be happy for you to prove me wrong by showing a study that actually has underlying data that is without dispute. I found one for you. Your turn.

Oh, and what filter would you suggest for the search you suggested that will eliminate all but scientific studies? I know you have significant computer skills but so do I and I'd really would appreciate your instruction in something I have not been able to figure out.

I think you misinterpreted my working background with a degree - actually the most important expertise for much of my working life was the in the legal field. I already said I do not have a degree in engineering. I have included more information at the end of this as, unlike you, they are not available online anywhere but since there is no way for a reader to verify them, I will say they are of no value in any discussion here but since they have now been mentioned more than once, I will clarify.

As to the length of these posts, for those that find them too long, my apologies. I suffer from a medical condition that allows me only limited times to do things such as this and can only do so at the peak of medication cycles. This keeps my brain active and its fun but it is also very difficult so I have little time to actually put much thought into what I write in the sense of keeping it concise. I?m afraid my typing abilities ? I type much faster than I talk ? mean that I can write a great deal but then find my mental acuity waning when it comes to editing. So I either don?t say anything or say perhaps way too much. I?m not looking for sympathy by the way. I have an OK life and a wonderful family and am grateful for the abilities but thought some explanation for the long posts was in order.

Daniel, I am greatly enjoying our discussions and hope we can continue for a while as long as I can present research and my thoughts on it that is of interest to you both in favour and against your arguments and if you wish to do the same but if it gets onerous, I do understand


Regards


Richard
Fields of study:
BA: Political Science, Earth Science, History of Religion
BSc: Earth Science, Climatology
MSc: Computing
JSD: Tort law ? including insurance law reform and legislative reform/restrictions

Richard, why don't you post on the wiki global warming talk page? There you have a number of professional climate scientist who are editing and they can address your points in much greater detail.

RicS wrote:
"I have provided a URL to a study whose conclusions were based on data that pretty much is indisputable."

There is no such thing as a study whose ocnclusions are indisputable. And a study done in 1979 is essentially irrelevant when it has been contradicted numerous times by work done within the last decade.

Daniel,

I really don't think you wish to actually debate your views, only rubbish others. The study to which you quoted saying it was indisputable, was the study done by UK Met and Uni of Alabama. Its data was taken from one source, bouys in place for a little more than 20 years. Now if data can be said to be reliable, my guess is that data can be. That is not to say there might not be an argument with the location of the bouys etc, but for accuracy the data is difficult to contest.

It would actually be nice to see you back up just one of your statements with a reference to an actual study. Since you won't do it, I see no point in continuing, which is a pity.


Regards


Richard

Rics, although I disagree with you about Global Warming, I have to agree with you about Daniel's character. Daniel is right though about Global Warming, but if you want to debate things about Global Warming, you should go to the Wiki talk page. There you have some professors in climate science who are editing. They won't insult you.

RisS wrote:
"I really don't think you wish to actually debate your views, only rubbish others." and "The study to which you quoted saying it was indisputable,...."

No study, ever published, has ever been indisputable. Not one. And most certainly not a 1979 study on the temperature of the planet earth. What makes this study indisputable? Your ego or the author's?

This isn't about rubbishing you. It is about your statement, or the authors, rubbishing the scientific method.

DA Morgan wrote

There is no such thing as normal.

what i refer to as normal is that point where the tempature where the amount of energy the earth recieves is equal to the amount of energy it radiates at night + the amount of energy that it reflects, etc during the day. currently the amount of energy we recieve is greater than the amount we radiate and reflect, causing the ice to melt. as long as the ice is there the earth cant reach that point.

there are several ballace points to considere. one is the amount of co2 that is put into the air vs the amount that rain fall cause to fall out. the second is the amount of sulfer dioxide ice crystals that are in the upper atmosphere. all valcanos put out a percentage of sulpher dioxide. it reacts with water to form sulpheric acid ice, which reflects the light much more than anything but ice, but because of the temperture of the upper atmospher remains constant it does not melt. it can only fallout but that takes as long as thirty years. during this time it cuts the tempature the lower altitude recieves. the more there is, the more the tempature drops.

the third is how much heat reaches the serface, how much is reflected and absorbed and how much is radiated. the amount that reaches the upper altitude is relatively the same, with some minor variation, year to year. the first two have some effect on the third, but it mostly stands on its own.

green house gasses do radiate and reflect the heat back towards the serface, but there is only so much co2 on the earth and that has never changed.

scaremongers tell how much damage to the earth, the co2 released by the industrial revolution has done, but the thing is, that co2 came from the atmosphere in the first place. how is returning it to where it came from harming the earth. the reason that that co2 is out of the atmosphere is that the plants that were made of it, got buried at the begining of the ice age. the major way the earth gets rid of co2 is though the oceans. eventually it will reach the bottom of the ocean where it will be returned to the lava center and then returned to the atmosphere by valcanos once again.

the only things damaged is the easy life humans have had for the last 20000 years, as the tempature climbs above what we are confortable. If that happens, we will have to evolve or be replaced. we cant control what happens with the atmosphere yet.

and yes i do understand science. I am one of the few appearantly that does not focus on one area of it to the exclusion of all others. that allows me to see the fallacy of saying how things are going to be ruined and to see patterns that others refuse to see.

an example is the fact that ppl that study ice ages cant seem to figure what cause them, they if they would ask volcanoist (what ever they are called), about what happen at the begining of thise ice ages, and what happen at the time of each of the extensions of them the mystery would be solved.

Count Iblis II wrote

I don't think so given these statements:

then explain something to me. 600000 years ago the glacers reached as far south as new york state. they have been receding every since. if man is the only cause of global warming, what cause it before man appeared.

The tilt of the earth's axis isn't constant. It wobbles and that causes the high lattitudes to cool down and heat up periodically, giving rise to the ice ages.

dehammer asks:
"then explain something to me. 600000 years ago the glacers reached as far south as new york state. they have been receding every since. if man is the only cause of global warming, what cause it before man appeared."

You are confusing two entirely separate things. One is the natural and periodic climate changes that have occurred since the planet was formed. They have many causes and not one has ever been correlated to the industrial revolution and the increased discharge of greenhouse gases caused by humans.

Then there is the current extreme warming that does correlate.

Do you think that normal periodic changes render it impossible for our industrial activities to have an affect on climate?

Both are occurring. One is our responsibility ... or more precisely ... evidence of our irresponsibility.

DA Morgan I would love to know the origins of the claims you have just made..

1.You claim he is confusing 2 different things, first to even make that claim you must first KNOW the reasons for ALL prior climate changes that have taken place, without that there is no point of origin for the change. What were those causes? for without those we have NO BASIS to know, or to make claim as to why to so called Global warming is now taking place.

2. You also go on to say that this global warming period is extreme, today's warmth is NOT unprecedented.

If fact it was WARMER during the last Interglacial and the warmth was NATURAL(IPCC).

What is ALSO interesting and troubleing to those who make these wild claims is very few species on the planet would have evolved over such a short time (116,000 years) and thus it brings into question EVERY SINGLE DIRE PROJECTION ABOUT THE IMPACT OF WARMING ON THE GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM. Or to put it another way, if a specie is older than 116,000 years then what does this say about that the specie making it through greater warmth before so there is no particular reason to believe it won't make it under the highest projected warming levels published by the IPCC.

The warming for the last century was ~1 degree F, this is extreme? by what standard?

Archer wrote:
"first to even make that claim you must first KNOW the reasons for ALL prior climate changes that have taken place"

Lets follow your analogy to its illogical conclusion. If I don't know precisely every reason why an airplane crashed ... it didn't crash. I don't need to know ALL reasons ... just some of them.

Archer wrote:
"You also go on to say that this global warming period is extreme, today's warmth is NOT unprecedented."

The warming is not ... perhaps even the speed of warming is not. But the correlation with human activity is unprecedented.

But perhaps the problem here is that you are taking the attitude that because it has happened before it is of no consequence. Or even to assume your position is correct ... to assume it is totally a natural phenomena it is of no consequence.

Thus I expect that you believe we should do nothing to minimize the impact of other natural phenomena on us such as hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, volcanos. Stop all research. What the heck.

When the world economies lie in ruin and wars of survival are taking place ... I do hope you won't be hypocritical and say "I wish someone had done something about all this back in 2006."

Terrific article on Vladimir Shaidurov's hypothesis that the Tunguska meteorite may have caused global warming, the best I've seen so far.

It's a pity that the theory isn't getting any discussion, both right and left seem to hate the idea instinctively. Right or wrong it's interesting, and either way, might provide a practical way of counteracting global warming.

I've posted my own discussion of the theory at http://logictutorial.com/occam.html along with a discussion of how a too-simple view of Occam's Razor helped blind us to global warming for so long.

Tunguska and tectoic plate movement, and pole reversal are theories that are worth looking into..

DA Morgan.. you have lots of opinions, and no basis of facts, for if you do, your not posting them, where we can see them, I see you posting threads, and running around telling people your THOUGHTS but your just parroting party lines, and little else.. who is the provider of your "factual statements".. tell me the studies, who did them? where I can find this proof you offer up?, were can I read how the studies where done? that is called backing it up.. or should everyone just take your word for it you know what you are talking about and we dont?

Simple FACT, Weather, in and of itself, is a chaotic non-linear dynamical system, why do you think it is anything but?

Over the last 600 million years, carbon doxide concentrations have varied from 5000 ppm to less than 200 ppm, due primarily to the impact of geologicalprocesses and biological innovations. It has been argued (Veizer 1999) that variations in greenhouse gas concentrations over tens of millions of years have not been well correlated to climate change,with perhaps plate tectonics playing a more dominant role.

And thanx, but I am pretty sure most of us have already heard the chicken littles running around telling us we are all doomed unless we stop.. but thanx anyways.

Daniel,

One last try.

1. The study in 1979 is NOT relevant to any of these arguments except in difficulties in obtaining accurate data.

2. The study that I made the comment that the data was indisputable (an exageration but it was one study that actually used data that had an extremely good chance of being accurate) was completed in 2001. I already said this in my last post. This seems to indicate you do not actually read replies, which makes the whole process of discussion completely mute (except to others that might have an interest). While nothing in science is completely indisputable, there are many things that can be assumed to be valid. A study that uses the same measuring devices over a period of time, where the measuring devices themselves are shown to be accurate, is much closer to being indisputable than one that relies on recorded data where variables have been introduced over time that cannot be accounted for. THAT was the point being made. Looking at meteorological data over a period of many years from anywhere on this earth and the data is subject to dispute. Data from or above water has changed because the depth of collection and height of readings have changed. Data in small towns have changed because of the urban warming effect of nearby towns, or because the station has been moved, or because the measuring instruments have been replaced, or the time of measurements have been changed, or a tree nearby has grown or has been chopped down, or a building built or demolished. These variables all introduce uncertainties that you really cannot adjust for. However, the one study that I did quote, used measuring devices all made the same way, always in the same places, and with calibrated instruments. That makes the measurements reliable (although I concede the point that it does not make them or the study indisputable).

3. You keep making statements such as "the current extreme warming". This is not a field you seem to have taught, been published in, or seem to have particular expertise in. Yet you make statements such as the above as if you KNOW with absolute certainty of the truth of that opinion. I have suggested several times now that you refer to actual studies in support of any of your statements and you have not done so. That is the very definition of an unscientific argument.

Regards

Richard

Russell: The reason the "theory" isn't getting any recognition is that it does not even rise to the level of theory ... it is just a crackpot looking for attention.

Archer asks:
"Simple FACT, Weather, in and of itself, is a chaotic non-linear dynamical system, why do you think it is anything but?"

Where did I once say anything about weather being anything at all? I didn't even use the words weather or chaos or linear or dynamic. Gong!

RicS wrote:
"1. The study in 1979 is NOT relevant to any of these arguments except in difficulties in obtaining accurate data."

What was difficult in 1979 with 1979 technology is not difficult with current technology. 1979. Two years before the personal computer existed? Two years before DOS? In technological terms you are talking about the stone age.

Current extreme warming:
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
Learn something!

where are the STUDIES? WHO DID THEM? WHAT WERE THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE STUDIES TO BE DONE?

You talk about RicS reference to 1979 report as what? not valid due to the ideal no one had personal computers when it was done? your kidding right? we flew to the moon 10 years prior WITHOUT THE PERSONAL PC.. IF that is the logic you base your "foundations of truth and science" on, then do we also discount ALL data, science and studies prior to 1979 due to the fact it is stone age as you describe it..

DA Morgan would do better in a School Debating Team the way he abuses an argument and resorts to insult and put downs. Better still a politician. Reading through this forum it seems he thinks he's an expert on everything and when he gets battered down he jumps sideways and comes in from another angle, never having to admit he was wrong. You gotta admire that.

Easy.

Archer asks:
"where are the STUDIES?"

Well Archer studies do not walk up to your door, knock politely, and ask to be invited in.

Some very interesting points raised.

No one knows what the climate was of the earth pre recorded history. There is evidence to suggest that there were periods even during this last series of glacial/inter-glacial fluctuations that might have been warmer than today and certainly there is a strong presumption that there were periods prior to that that were warmer but actual temperatures are not known and the evidence is not planet wide for any period so supposition has to be used.

But I still find it amazing that we go through two prolonged periods of cooling in the twentieth century, a warming period of quite short duration and then from about 1980 another warming period (and using NASA's figures, that warming trend equates to 0.04 to 0.06 degrees per decade) and this somehow correlates with man's activities. Huh? That's a bit like saying that Hurricane Andrew was caused by man because of the rapidly increasing usage of land and sea in the area where Andrew struck.

Coincidences can a do occur in the natural world. To not be a coincidence you actually need some science that is not "herd mentality" to suggest otherwise.

Why was it cooling during much of the century when the greenhouse gases were already substantial from man's activities?

These are all philisophic questions that cannot easily be answered but they certainly deserve some considered thought.

Daniel,

How to keep this civil when faced with your attacks is getting difficult for me to manage.

How would you like me to attack one of your papers without even bothering to read it. You've attacked the credibility of my research in 1979 without having any knowledge of what it really was, the methodology or pretty much anything else. That really is rather low.

And 1979 was not the beginning of science as we know it. Your dates as to personal computers are not even accurate. Actually I had a personal computer in either late 1979 or early 1980. Cannot quite remember the date. Personal computers were available from 1976 and such computers as TRS-80s were quite popular. It was the IBM PC that first appeared in 1981 but that is not the same thing at all.

Yes, it was difficult or time consuming to obtain data. I already mentioned that. But what difference does that make to whether a study had or has validity? The study was obviously defective because you couldn't simply go online and download huge quantities of data that you are now able to do? What rubbish! There might have been the odd transcription error but probably no more so than the data that is currently being used. It too was transcribed at some point from paper records.

The data went back 80 years. The same data is used in current studies except that the data includes records after 1979. The same statement still holds true. The problem was in locating accurate data. Data known not to have been corrupted by changes in record keeping methodology, equipment, the environment surrounding the equipment etc. That is true for the data whether it is easily downloaded in a comma deliminated file or is available only on paper.

You very specifically asked me to back up any comment I made by explicit references to URLs. Have a look at your previous comments relating to this and see just what you said, yet in response to the very same request made to you, you state:

"Well Archer studies do not walk up to your door, knock politely, and ask to be invited in.

Try a library.

Easy Life ... if you can't stand the heat ... either get out the kitchen or use Google."

Back up your arguments, Daniel, or you have demonstrated you are the worst type of scientist, one willing to criticise any theory that goes against you pet beliefs or the mainstream, but unwilling to even back up such criticisms with reference to any specific research.

Your comment on the theory relating to meteorite effects being "it is just a crackpot looking for attention." is simply appalling. Do you know this scientist? Have you read his research? The interesting thing is he only postulates the meteorite theory as one alternative that bears further investigation. A pretty reasonable thing to suggest. From his research that I have so far been able to read, he makes a number of interesting points and some quite valid arguments concerning just how big an effect intermediate clouds with significant reflectivity have on the earth's climate.

I can only suggest you attempt reasoned arguments with references to studies that support your views other than ?use Google? and actually do more than rubbish others? views if you really want people to do more than what is now happening and really consider what you believe to be right.


Regards

Richard

RicS wrote:
"How would you like me to attack one of your papers without even bothering to read it. You've attacked the credibility of my research in 1979 without having any knowledge of what it really was, the methodology or pretty much anything else. That really is rather low."

I did read the paper. What makes you think I didn't?
And I am not attacking your credibility ... but rather the statement that there is research that is indisputable.

I understand you are very proud of your work. I have been proud of mine too. But indisputable work that is approaching 30 years old in a field where the capabilities and technology have changed dramatically? Are you serious?

No one's work is indisputable. Einstein defined his Cosmological Constant as the biggest mistake of his life. Sure doesn't look that way today. If Einstein could make a mistake ... surely mere mortals such as us can too.

---------------------------------------------------------

Well took your advice Ricky boy. Googled around abit and didn't find much evidence that Mr Morgan has written any papers or done any serious science. In fact he teaches Oracle (badly...not my words) at Washington University but get this...

http://www.tdan.com/srs_04102005.htm

breaker, breaker - moderator here. This is a discussion about global warming, not whether someone can or can't teach SQL...

G'day Easy Life,

Actually, the quote you ascribed to me was actually Daniels. It was a quote from one of Daniel's posts which I actually objected to.

And I cannot understand your latest post at all. I must have missed something somewhere. While database theory is a terrific subject and one I'm coincidently interested in, having taught it myself, I don't see how it relates to global warming. Well actually I can.

Mainly however I have problems with the data itself and with such fundamentals of data sets as in GIGO. Pretty much all global warming models rely on datasets which I tend to think are about as accurate as asking those in church in front of the assembly if they have ever had an affair and publishing the data indicating that church goers have an extremely low rate of adultery. Might not be a great analogy but the best my soggy brain could come up with at short notice.

But you also pointed out a mistake I made. I did a search on Mr Morgan and wrongly pegged him as a professor. But I still do not believe that one's qualifications should preclude them from a discussion such as this. But it would be useful to do more than rubbish other's opinions.

I think I understand you in that you are suggesting that if someone is shown to make fundamentals in one area of discussion they are likely to do so in another area. I'm not sure I completely agree.


Regards


Richard

Well I appreciate that RicS,

My point is that Mr Morgan seems to make a habit of knocking people down here and at the same time contributes little in terms of ideas, or in fact anything positive. He arrogantly acts as if he's the judge of what's right and wrong, and uses any means (foul or fair) with which to do it. Example...his latest ridiculous bout of chronological snobbery. Is research now to be split into BC and AD (Before Computer and After Desktop)? He just seems to have it whatever way he wants it. And yes, that was my point. If someone can?t do what they do for a living properly, then why would we place any credence in what passes for one of their interests? An expert on Global Warming he?s not, but he knows without doubt that the consensus is correct. In his world, if something racks up enough peer reviews then its gospel and hard reality?whereas we all know that what was fact yesterday may be lunacy tomorrow and vice versa. Just a little humility from him and all would be forgiven.

Easy.

Not knocking people down. Insisting that there be precision of language and references of support.

Most of what purports to be original thinking at SAGG is canned dogma purchased from the local talk radio station.

G'day Easy,

I did like your last line. "Just a little humility from him and all would be forgiven".

Having been subjected to severely critical and quite personal attacks on a forum several times, I know what it is like when discussions get personal. The attacks were because I was a moderator on a pain site a while back and actually changed some of the groupings for the forum. Seems that this was such a serious affront that I actually received a death threat.

So back to global warming, hopefully.

I have a few references relating to data and, imho, how biased some major studies have turned out to be but I'm attempting to get a better look at some of the underlying data before posting here. That is if there is still any interest at all.


Regards

Richard

DA Morgan, Why dont you post some of your works for us to see.. help break us out of our "canned dogma purchased from the local talk radio station" mentality.. while I am not able to speak for everyone here, I am sure a few of us would be interested in reading it.

With every rebuttal I have made in regards to some of your postings that I perceive as being questionable in accuracy, I have asked for who, what, where and whys of studies you have used to provide you with your POV.. while you have not made any logical replys on any of my inquiries, you did give me nice LINKS TO NASA AND PBS.. thank you.

Well Put RicS.. there are so many places to look and some really good theories, everything from pole reversal to Tectonic plate movements.. yet we do not have enough geological data to point at any one avenue and be certain of that causes..but, we do know factually, there has been many very quick and sxtreme changes to the weather globally.

I do think there are far more than just a few reasons for global changes in weather patterns, and thinking that mankind is the cause, is nothing more than junk science at it's most refined level.

We know very little about this planet, or any other planet for that matter, pointing fingers at "this is the cause" or "that is the cause" with no foundation of facts is politics and/or junk science.. or the ultimate beast, a melding of the two.

Archer wrote.

there are so many places to look and some really good theories, everything from pole reversal to Tectonic plate movements.. yet we do not have enough geological data to point at any one avenue and be certain of that causes..but, we do know factually, there has been many very quick and sxtreme changes to the weather globally.

yes but interesting enough, if you check most of the times of the extream weather changes, youll find a super valcano had eruipted just before that happen.

the scince for it has been proven multiple time.

valcanos spew out tons of sulpher dioxide. sulfer dioxide reacts with water in the upper atmosphere to for ice crystals that are lighter than water. they stay in the upper atmosphere for decades, with a gradual (i believe logrythmic{?} curve) decrese in amount. all lava has about the same percentage of sulfer to magna. super valcanos put out about 1000 time to 10000 times as much as a normal valcano. that means when the largest erupts it will cover the earth with a cloud cover for as much as 30 years, with winter below. the amount of sunlight reflected will gradually drop allowing more of the sunlight to reach the earth. the longer the cloud cover last, the more of the earth is covered with snow. once the cloud cover disappages its the snow that reflects the sun's energy.

the point the earth is in there is no equalibriam between the sunlight and snow cover. if the snow is extensive enough, it will cause a graduall freezeing until the ocean freezes over. if the snow cover is not extensive enough, it will gradually melt. there are only two points of equilbram. full ice coverage, or none.

Well. I'm doing a research on the extinction in polar bears. I've read many articles about this and apparently global warming takes an extremely big part in all this. I would just like to know HOW global warming affects the extinction of polar bears.

Warmer temperatures, less ice, less places the polar bears can travel in search of food, bears starve, extinction.

Please tell me that in your research you saw something of this??

Bears hunt on the ice pack to get to seals, less ice pack less seals. (wow)

Well yes. I saw something like this in my research. Just like how the global warming starts in the Arctic region. Pollution? Chemical waste? Waste Management? Ozone Layer Depletion?

Global warming does mean well, global. The temperature worldwide is warnming so therefore the Antatctic made never need to make it;s own pollution but is affected nonetheless.

the thing is that the polar bears evolved during a ice age, just like us. they will evolve to a warmer capable species or they will dies. that is the way of life, the way its been for billions of years.

dehammer wrote:
"the thing is that the polar bears evolved during a ice age, just like us. they will evolve to a warmer capable species or they will dies. that is the way of life, the way its been for billions of years."

Absolutely true. And when they become extinct as the proximate result of mankind's artificially changing the planet ... we will be responsible ... well irresponsible actually but what the heck difference does it make? After all ... we are god's chosen people. This is god's plan. Let the bodies sort themselves out. We are in no way, shape, or form dependent upon or inter-related with anything else on this planet.

I hope they write this on our tombstone.

Hi all.

Volcanos.
Hate to say this but "super" volcanos have not been responsible for ice ages. Multiple major volcanic eruptions have been present seven out of ten times at the end of interglacial period but that is a world of a different to ice ages. I believe that there is only one interglacial period in this current ice age that corresponded to a single volcanic eruption.

There is even the problem of whether the end of an interglacial period is the reason for the volcanic eruptions or the eruptions aid or cause the end of the interglacial period. It would well be that the glacial and snow and ice retreat and the heating of surfaces that were perma-frost etc actually induce volcanic activity. It sounds far fetched but the evidence is certainly not conclusive that it is the other way around.

Volcanos do cause cooling. Mt St Helens had a slight effect on the mid latitudes of the northern hemisphere for around three years. But I haven't seen any evidence that single volcanic eruptions cause ice ages. Ice ages are most commonly caused by plate tectonics. The balance of land to sea in the hemispheres tips to the point that an ice age is appropriate.

Polar Bears.
Yeah, sure, polar bears are going extinct because of global warming that is either 30 years old or maybe 80 if you really fudge the figures. Sorry, it just doesn't happen that way. Polar bears evolved to their modern form many hundreds of thousands of years ago and - without particular expertise in polar bears - I'm guessing they were not a great deal different for between 2 million and 10 million years.

As to seals, these are just part of a polar bears diet but a really important part. Less ice actually means more seals but I won't go into the reasons why warmer conditions mean more seals. Less ice means the seals will travel further north, not that there will be less of them. And actually from what I understand, polar bears need breaking pack ice to easily catch seals. They do not hunt in packs at all. Males are solitary. Females may have cubs but large groups only get together in areas of abundant food supply but not to hunt in any pack. I would suggest global warming is not at all relevant to how many seals individual polar bears are able to catch and eat.

Mammoths were pretty much the same for more than a million years. They went extinct during the last glacial period. It was actually the coldest period of the cycles between glaciations and interglacial periods. You certainly could not blame any type of warming for their extinction. Actually a great many large beasts went extinct in that 10,000 to 20,000 time frame, including a wombat like creature in Australia about 15 feet tall. (And that one really goes against climate change issues because Australia is very much immune to climate change of the extent that would threaten larger animals no matter whether it is a glaciation or interglacial period. It does not get covered with snow or ice nor does the climate dramatically change with world warming). None of these beasts went extinct because of warming.

Polar bears have managed to survive many periods of warm periods. Even in the middle of the warmest interglacial period, you still have ice over the Antarctic and over the North Pole and pack ice in the high northern latitudes. If it retreats so do the polar bears, and the seals. Indeed, if there is a late summer polar bears have real problems, food wise.

Polar bears, however, have the same problems that buffalos had. Man. More humans have entered their domain and for a while the only way that confrontation ended was with a gun shot. Now they are protected in most places and, at least from the Discovery program I saw about a month or so ago, their numbers have increased. Because of man's slaughter of their species, if there was further warming, they may actually go extinct but that would not be the fault of global warming. The effect of warming has happened to them many times before. It will be the fault of man killing too many of them previously for sufficient to survive the climate change.

With each climate change and movement of the plates, there are winners and losers. It is actually staggering just how many species of higher vertebrates have gone extinct over the last 40 to 50 million years. But it is also amazing just how many new species have evolved to fill the niche left behind by the extinctions.

Some species will get a reprieve from going towards extinction if there is a further period of warming before the next glaciation. So for many animals further warming will be a good thing.

Global warming - Not global!
I study the cycles of glaciations and interglacial periods. I have a pretty good understanding of the climate for major regions during both and during the transitions. Global warming is very much not a global thing just as global cooling with the current continental positions is a northern hemisphere phenomenon.

The tropics have a complex mechanism that limits the temperature ranges. Even at the most extreme of the interglacial periods, the tropics do not increase in temperature. Indeed, there is some evidence that they may cool a bit because of the warming actually creates a greater cloud cover for the tropics.

Global warming affects the mid latitudes but even then not uniformly. The oceans turn over. The currents running north or south from the equatorial areas have a massive effect on the climate of pretty much all countries in the world. Western Europe and Britain would be pretty bleak places but for such currents.

Major warming events will cause some areas to be much hotter, some areas to be a little hotter and most of the southern hemisphere to be not a great deal changed.

The biggest effect for humans is sea levels. This crap about a few millimetres average difference because of ocean expansion is just that, crap. The difference between ocean heights between a glacial period and an interglacial period as between 80 and 120 metres (about 240 to 380 feet). The average world temperature difference is only a few degrees. A three or four degree average increase in world temperatures would mean a major rise in sea levels.

Interesting range of topics currently. These are my two cents (which probably are not even worth that).

Regards
Richard

Actually RicS ... well said.

This stuff about millimeters is pure rubbish. The melting of Greenland's glaciers alone will cause more damage than the value of the entire world economy.

RicS, sorry but that was way to vague and rambling to quote exactly, but from what i understand of what you wrote, the plates move a lot ever few thousand years back and forth. i dont understand how that is possible. from everything ive ever seen the plates move at a (geologically time frame) steady rate. (that is not to say that they can stay relatively motionless for a decade and move 50 feet in a few hours, that means over a 100 thousand years they will move relatively the same amount.)

how then does the movement cause the ice age.

another point is that you claim that during the ice age the sea lvl goes up and down depending on how much ice there is. please fit this together with the idea that when there is less sea and more land, it will cause a ice age. i mean if the ice age cause the drop in sea lvl, how does the drop in percentage of sea to land creat the ice age.

as far as the ice ages causing a major drop in sea lvl, i do agree, as i also agree with the fact that that the polar bears forefathers were around 10 million years ago, as they are the same as the grizzles and black bears forefathers. i disagree that they would be in the ice cap outside of a ice age, as there would not be a ice cap for them to be on 10 million years ago. for the permian basin to be under sea, almost all the ice in the world would have to be melted, and i dont believe the rockes are high enough for there to be enough ice to matter. in fact i dont know if there is any moutain in the western hemesphere that would have ice on it year round. there would not be enough ice in the world for polar bears and seals of the variety we know of to exist. there would likely be other variants that would take their place (as you pointed out too) and something resembling the ones we know of would likely evolve from them in the next ice age.

Hi Dehammer,

Tectonic plates move quite slowly. ?Faster? continents move around 6cm per year (a bit over two inches).

The problem is in terminology, not in what I wrote. Ice ages are just that, ages. They are generally in the millions of years. The one we are in is well over a million years old. There is some argument about when it started but a million plus will get you no arguments at all.

Ice ages are greatly affected by plate tectonics. Over even a million years or so, the continents move sufficiently to change ocean current patterns. Over longer periods, the position of the continents greatly affect geological climate. In the last several million years, our planet has become northern hemisphere land mass predominant. That was the balance I was referring to - not any change in the overall earth ratio of land mass to sea coverage. The current positioning of the plates also led to a huge single ocean - the Pacific. These movements do indeed cause ice ages.

Plate tectonics do not change the ratio of land to sea by a great deal. I looked at what I wrote and this was not what I said at all. Subducting plates do reduce land mass somewhat but there are also considerable forces uplifting other plates or portions of them. I am not an expert on plate tectonics but it was part of my studies for climatology. As best as I understand it, the ratio of land mass to ocean areas has not changed a huge amount in the last 50 or so million years.

Within that ice age we have two quite distinct periods. One is warm and one is cold (relatively speaking for the northern hemisphere). The warm periods are called interglacial periods and the cold periods are called glaciations. The current ice age "settled down" to oscillations of about 20,000 years for glaciations and 5 to 10,000 years for interglacial periods about 120,000 years ago.

There is a small change in the exposed land masses depending on whether the world is in a glacial or interglacial period. Additionally land masses are generally measured not by what is actually above sea level at the time but by the mass extending to the edge of the continental shelf but that is a technicality to this discussion. There are cold periods even outside of ice ages, although their effects are not as pronounced.

Plate tectonics has absolutely nothing to do with glaciations or interglacial periods or the causes of transitions between each.

There is some theories relating to volcanic activities and the coverage of snow, perma-frost etc, but these theories are subject to considerable debate as to whether they are valid and relate to glaciations and interglacial periods - not ice ages.

Aside for the reasons for ice ages, pretty much everything I was talking about related to glaciations and interglacial periods. The rise and fall of sea levels is quite large between these two periods and happens in very short time frames (geological time wise).

In this current ice age there has not been a time when the poles melted completely. That has happened in the more distant geological past but interglacial periods in this ice age do not denude the planet of ice, either on mountains or at the poles. Actually it is pretty rare within the geological times when the earth has had vertebrates that the ice caps disappeared.

Most glaciers that are around today are remnants of the last glaciation. This has been a long interglacial period (about 11,000 years) yet the glaciers still remain. So the point about there not being any ice isn't really valid, either for mountain ranges or for ice caps.

At the highest levels of warming, there is still considerable ice at both the north and the south poles. There are still vast regions of perma-frost. The difference is just how far south (because the effect is pretty much completely in the northern hemisphere) these extend. In the worst part of a glaciation, full blown glaciers reach well into continental US and snow and ice covers most of the US. In the warmest periods you still have snow and ice well into the US. We are not that far below the warmest period within this ice age and Canada still remains a pretty much ice covered area. Even three degrees warmer (the maximum predicted increase in world temperatures under the more extreme global models) and this remains the case. It is just further north and in summer the retreat of ice is more pronounced.

The reason I suggested models that predict an average temperature increase of three degrees as being extreme is just how dramatic this really is. The average temperature during this interglacial period for the world is around 13 degrees Celsius. This sounds low to those living in temperate climates but you have to take into account winter temperatures, and the very large areas of the planet that most humans would call cold for most of the year. If you live in a temperate area where the average summer daytime temperature (over the entire summer) is 24 degrees Celsius the average winter temperature would generally be below 0 degrees Celsius (the night temperatures being for longer proportions of the 24 hour day and often a great deal colder than 0). There are many temperate areas where day temperatures during winter are below freezing quite often.

The hottest temperatures for the tropics are around 36 degrees Celsius and about 28 degrees Celsius in the cooler season. Even then night time temperatures are going to be 30 in the hottest period and between 16 and 20 in the milder period. Average all that out and you end up with about 26 to 30 for the tropics.

But percentage wise the tropics are not a lot of the earth's surface. And the colder areas have much more extreme ranges. There are large areas of the planet that experience average temperatures below -20 and actually reach -50 or so.

Anyway, the average is much lower than most people would guess and surprisingly, the best estimate of the average temperature during a glaciation (say 17,000 years ago) is around 9 or 10 degrees Celsius. The models that suggest world temperature changes of 3 degrees really are extreme. That would put the world on par with the warmest period of earth's history (at least for any time after the oceans formed) and the position of the land masses just will not support that unless you change the protective layer of the earth dramatically. Such a huge increase in average temperatures would have profound effects on heat circulation of the planet, almost certainly setting off major cooling events. While "The Day after Tomorrow" might have been science fiction, increasing world temperatures through changes in gases, really does change patterns of ocean currents, not to mention cloud formation, density etc. Warmer temperate areas mean greater evaporation, which means that you actually end up with more clouds, most of which would be of the highly reflective type. Even without salinity changes affecting near continent currents (the trigger for the glaciation event in the movie), a really significant warming trend is likely to trigger changes that could well reverse the warming.

The total heat equation for the earth in its current configuration seems to support a cooler climate than we currently have. It does not seem to need very much at all to kick off the end of an interglacial period. These periods are not oscillations around a point which would be a steady state but rather relatively stable periods that achieve reasonable equilibrium relating to heat transfer from the equatorial regions to the poles. The triggers for the switch are not understood at all. Volcanos accompany some of them. Solar radiation could well be a factor but 11,000 years ago we were not in a position to measure solar activities. We do know that the sun's output is not constant at all and has cycles that include short ones of a few years and long ones of hundreds of years. There certainly could be cycles in the thousands of years and it could well be that the trigger could be when you get a combination of several cycles. If that is the reason for the change between glaciations and interglacial periods then a cycle within the sun - that we have yet to measure because it is longer than our study of the sun - could occur and plunge us back into a full blown glaciation and the whole debate about human effect on global warming would be pretty mute. Actually, we haven't had any sustained volcanic activities for a while. Even a short period of some really major volcanic eruptions and back we go to a glacial period.

If either of these were the case then I for one really do hope that man has managed to shift the balance towards global warming by a little bit. Maybe that will allow more of us to survive the inevitable return to a glaciation.

And even if humans were deliberately trying to destroy our earth we just do not have the ability to change the mix of gasses above the earth by large percentages. Even the very worst case scenarios of carbon dioxide build up relate to quite small percentage changes to the total mix of gasses above the earth. The percentage increase of carbon dioxide might be large but carbon dioxide does not make up a significant percentage of the gasses that surround the earth. Funnily enough, about all humans are currently able to do if they really wanted to change the world climate would be to induce a glaciation. A nuclear war is quite likely to do that because it mimics the effect of sustained major volcanic activities (but quite aside from the cold killing off most of humanity it also would not be a pleasant place to live, what with the radiation clouds and the like, acid rains).

ok one of the things i see from this is that we are in agreement on many points, but are disagreement on several.

1) all models i have ever seen say that once all land masses were part of a super continent, and have seperated.

2) the pacific ocean is the reminatate of the single ocean that existed then. the atlantic has the atlantic rif where new plate is being created meaning that the atlantic is growing a few inches every year, and the pacific is getting smaller by most of that. so the size of the pacific has really not been any factor at all.

3) my comment about the polar bears having non polar forefathers and the ice not existing was concerning a period beyound that which your refering to, ie, the million years plus of the current ice age. i was refering to the time 2.2 million years ago when there was no ice cap, and the tempature was 8 to 15 degrees warmer than current. there is indication that we will return to that at some point.

4) in the previous thread of yours you mention and then refered to about 7 out of 10 of the expansions (glaciation period) being linked to volcano's, but not the others. considering that we have no idea where many of the super valcanos are, how can you claim that they did not have effect on the others.

5) i dont believe the current of the oceans really play that much in extending or creating a peroid of glaciation

you claim that the volcano activity has not been that great lately, but have you check out the warning signs of impending eruptions and compaired them to the activities of several of the supervolcano (the proper term really is caldera volcano not super, the term was coin, i learned recently, but tv producers for the effect the word has). we could very easily be looking at two eruptions within the next century, one of them being in the top three size wise.

as i said there are many points that we do agree.

1) mankind really cant influence the mixture of gasses in the air that much. super volcanos on the other hands, can, drastically, over a short time, effect the tempature down wards.

2) we really dont have enough info on the suns activity to really argue the point of weither or not it can cause long term ice ages.

3) like you i hope we have had some effect on warming the earth, because from where i sit, it appears that we are in for some cold days, when the two supers erupt. fortuantely, one of them erupted only 74000 years ago, so if it does erupt soon, it will not have that much of an effect. the other unfortunately has been waiting some 722000 years to release its gass pressure.

There are no ice covered mountains in North America year-round? I guess you've never seen Glacier National Park, have you? I can assure you the glaciers are there year-round. I guess I've seen something that isn't there. It was sure impressive.

Hi dehammer and anyone else interested,

This is LONG. Most won?t be interested unless you are interested in what Volcanos can do to climate but it certainly is relevant to global climate discussions so here goes.

Dehammer, I?m responding in turn even if the items are not really relevant to global warming.

1. Super continent. Yes, there were super continents from time to time (Columbia maybe 1.5 billion BC: Rodinia about 750 m BC; Pangea 300 m BC; etc). The major continents were connected but still separate plates. Even in geological terms the last one was a very long time ago. Since then there have been many different patterns of continents.

2. Pacific Ocean. This is not a remnant of the single ocean because there have been several intermediate steps to its formation.

3. Ice Caps and Average Temperatures. There weren?t any thermometers around 2 million years ago however I do not believe that there is evidence to suggest a period in earth's history during the time of land animals that was 15 or even 7 degrees warmer for the global average. The upper end is more than double the current average temperature. The best estimates based on ice cores that go back around 800,000 years in the Antarctic (tending to indicate that the Antarctic has had an ice cap for at least 800,000 years continuously but the Antarctic actually started to form an ice cap around 40 million years ago and has had one pretty much throughout that period) is that the maximum fluctuation is around three degrees. After that world temperatures have to be guessed at through sediment cores and it is much easier to dispute the figures. The difference between the last glaciation and the peak of this interglacial period is said to be only 2 degrees.

4. Volcanos. This is very relevant to global warming. Around 70% of the interglacial periods in this ice age ended in the same period as heightened volcanic activity. With the exception of a couple of specific eruptions, it is quite possible that some of these volcanic activities cannot be easily traced to a specific volcano or group of volcanos or even region. The evidence of volcanic eruptions is in the ash left behind (the Antarctic ice cores are good for this). These thin layers of ash can be found in many places around the world for the 70% of the end of interglacial periods.

I think you are confusing the massive eruptions of volcanos that occur far less frequently than the periods were are discussing. Vulcanologists use a scale to describe these ?super volcanos?. The ones that change world climate are called VEI-8 volcanic events. The last one was 75,000 years ago in Sumatra. Depending on which expert you talk to, this caused from a low of 60% of the world?s humans to die, all the way to all but 2,000 surviving in one small part of Africa (this estimate is from DNA studies). Now that is really frightening. A few hundred breeding humans were all that stood in the way to our not having this global warming argument at all (and they were black if you are a white supremisct and think you are somehow superior).

There have been VEI-6 or 7s more recently but they do not correspond with interglacial transitions. Once again, this is not particularly my field of expertise but I did have to study eruptions around the time of interglacial/glaciation transitions because the cause and effects were and still is what interests me. In this interglacial period there has been a VEI-7. This was 6,300 years ago in Japan. It was fairly sizeable, spewing out a little less than 200 cubic kilometres of gunk. Interglacial periods have ended with volcanic activities around the same time of considerably less than this (and still get counted in the 70%). Once again, there is a problem with the bald statistic. You need to know at what altitude various percentages of the stuff actually made it to. But that is a pretty good argument that a super volcanic eruption does not necessarily result in the end of an interglacial period. Surprisingly, more than once massive eruptions have occurred around the time of a transition to an interglacial period.

Since it is the particulates that volcanos spew out that cause global cooling events, even if only for very short periods, if there is no evidence of ash at the interglacial boundary then you can be pretty sure there was no unusual volcanic activity. And I do believe that the sites of the massive eruptions are known to those that study such things, at least the last few millions years of them are.

A Caldera volcano actually doesn't necessarily change climate all that much. All a caldera is is a volcano which has blown its top, forming a depression, often becoming a lake. The eruption can cause enormous damage without changing the world's climate. Tambora went up in 1815 (a VEI-6 although it is also referred to as a VEI-7) yet it did not have any long term effect on climate, despite 1816 being known as the year without a summer (and that is throughout the world not just in the Asia/Oceanic region). Tambora is in Indonesia. The pyroclastic flows etc killed around 100,000 people and the whole world knew of the event. It was actually four times the size of Krakatoa, although Krakatoa is often remembered because it was the first world event that ?modern? communications was able to transmit around the world.

I think you are confusing major volcanic eruptions with periods of intense volcanic activities, where several volcanos become active for significant periods or the really enormous eruptions which occur much more rarely. There are several volcanos around the world that are worrying to vulcanologists. Vesuvius is one that is showing signs of being a disaster in the short term. That one volcano is capable of killing around half a million Italians without having much effect on climate at all. There is a volcano in the Canary Island that could let go at any minute, killing pretty much everyone on the US Eastern Seaboard, as well as a few French, a great many Africans but if it does happen, the effect on climate will be tiny because it will not involve prolonged high altitude particulate dispersion. There is a big difference between volcanic eruptions that are disasters and an eruption that basically blocks out the sun. And the size of the eruption or even what is chucked out of the volcano is not particularly important. What is important is how the stuff is chucked out. Spread as pyroclastic flows and you get little change. Chuck it straight up and particles will darken the world as they go around the earth for many years. Climate changing eruptions do happen and they certainly could happen tomorrow but they don't seem to be the major cause of transitions to glaciations. I don't know why. It does seem logical but the evidence does not bear it out.

As you indicated, transitions to glaciations are more often than not accompanied by periods of heightened volcanic activity but there is a chicken/egg problem with this that has not really been answered.

5. Ocean Currents. Now I might disagree with the methodology of many global warming studies and am happy to argue about whether there is any global warming, man made or not, other than a 30 year period that is clearly able to be accurately determined because of satellites, permanent buoys etc. However, I think you will find that pretty much any climatologist that has anything to do with global climate change will disagree with your statement concerning currents. Ocean currents are a real biggy in just what climate the world has. Shut down the Atlantic tractor type current today and within six weeks you will be extremely cold if you live in the US, Britain or Western Europe. You will be dead within two or three years.

El Nino turns up and Australia goes into drought. Al Nina turns up and Chile goes into drought. Now you could argue these are not exactly currents but they are heat exchange mechanisms by movement of energy within oceans.

Change a few factors such as salinity especially for the Atlantic currents by a fairly small amount and the world becomes a very different place.

There is actually a theory that the flip to glaciations could actually occur for no better reason than calving of ice sheets in the Antarctic happens to slice off too big a chunk. This theory does not argue that warming triggers the massive calving, only that calving occasionally (every several thousand years) manages to slice off a massive (we are talking something the size approaching that of Texas). It could be that the ice has built up to the extent that the piece that eventually breaks off is huge or it could be that there is a warming fluctuation. The theory suggests it can be pretty much arbitrary reasons unconnected to the actual world average temperature at the time.


My point has always been that the world is an extremely complicated place. So complicated that any attempt to model world climate is not even remotely possible with current knowledge. A vulcanologist cannot tell you the mechanisms for periods of heightened activities. A meteorologist cannot tell you where a hurricane will be two days into the future or where a tornado will touch down. A palaeobiologist cannot tell you with any certainty why pretty much all creatures that have gone extinct actually did so. They are still arguing about why dinosaurs went extinct and this was one of THE major events in this planet's history. The complexities that govern the earth to the extent that it remains inhabitable by vertebrate creatures are staggeringly immense.

Richard

Actually Rose there are a lot of mountains in the US that are snow-covered year round. A quick look out my office window to the South shows Mount Ranier. 14,100 feet of year-round snow cover. To the North ... Mount Baker ... 10,000+ feet and also covered with snow year round.

Unfortunately ... the snow level is retreating rapidly. I'm not sure I will be able to make the same statement 20 years from now.

I've been told even the Columbia Glacier in Banff National Park (Alberta Canada) will be gone in 60 years. And with it a substantial amount of the fresh water in the province.

that is because we are in an ice age. in case you could not tell from my post (appearantly) i was saying that when we are outside of an ice age, there are no glacers or year round ice capped mountains.

is that clear enough for you.

actually i believe that they do in that i dont believe the global warming trend has much of a chance of lasting more than a decade.

ok, it would appear that you missed part of what i was saying but thats ok. perhaps it has nothing to do with this conversation but i was attempting to point out that the continents were moving from a central location (as of the last one) and the atlantic is the point that they are moving away from

k, as far as the 800,000 years, we are in agreement. part of what im refering to is much longer period, for which no ice record exist. the thing is why would their be no ice records longer than that if the ice had been there longer. i can no longer quote the site as its been years since i saw it, but from what i remember reading of it, there was indication that the ice there had melted off and has done so many times during that 40 million year period you refer to. but then since im not a god, i could be wrong. ive slept since then . im glad to know that the tempature has not changed that much since then.

the problem with going by the ice cores is that they only give the history for 800000 years. the smoking gun, as it were, of the theory of volcano/glacial period connection is the eruptions of super volcano's that occur when there is no interglacial period. i do agree that the glacial/interglacial period connection to volcano's of both the super and regular type is 70 percent as you pointed out.

1st off, i find it hilarious the fact that all the survivors were black and ws's have to deal with that.

from my reading of the volcanos i read there were two types, cone and caldera. the cone type are created by lava pouring out of a fisure and cooling, then having more come out above it. cones do have calderas in the top, but the size of their magna pools is not suffecent to cause a collapse of the entire cone. mostly the calderas are the result of the blast cause by the build up of pressure finally over coming the presure of the rock above it. caldera valcanos on the other hand are ones that the lava pool is extreamly large and when it releases enough pressure, then entire pool roof calapse into the remaining magna causing it to (bascially) immeadeately "splash" out though the miles of fisure created by the rock dropping miles (yellowstone has a magna pool as deep as 6 miles or more in places). what ever cones that were created in the short time between the first lava appearing and the final calapse are destroy by the calapse of the rock under neither them. the biggest difference between cone and caldera volcano are the amount of magna that is pumped onto the surface or into the atmosphere. i dont believe that cones can be bigger that vei 6 and few are in the top of that catagory. vei 8 pumps out 100 times as much lava and gas as most cones. the biggest problem with the caldera volcanos is that they keep the gases trapped in them until the eruption takes place. cones release the gas much slower and there for dont kick as much ash and dust into the upper atmosphere.

im not sure if the one in japan is counted as a caldera even though it did spew out the amount of lava that counts as vei 7. when the caldera valcano erupt they shoot the dust and gas out in a matter of hours that large cone do in weeks. as i said though i dont know if it is a cone or caldera. here is an example of what im saying. take a hose with some pressure on it and turn it upwards. imagine the water coming out is lava. as long as the water is not under pressure it will go up about 2 or three inches. now put presure on it such as putting your hand over a garden hose. the water will go up several feet. if the vei 7 in japan sent that lava and gas out over say a month, it would not have sent the majority into the upper atmosphere. yellowstone has been building the presure by not releasing the gas, when it goes off, it will release all that presure in 4 days. a large chunk of the sulpher dioxide will reach the upper atmosphere where it will stay for decades. it will form clouds that will reflect the a large chunk of sunlight for the majority of that time. that includes the part that heats the earth, the result is glaceral period.

actually its only the smaller volcanos that the particulate matter matters. in the smaller ones the sulpher dioxde remains in the lower atmosphere, while the particulate ash and stuff reaches the upper atmosphere. in larger caldera volcanos the sulpher can reach up to 20 miles, reacting with water that comes up with it and that is already there, to form long lasting clouds.


actually these are cone volcanos and no im not confusing them. yes, there are times when several volcanos can do the same thing, but it would be extreamly unusally for them to do so. caldera volcanos dont actually have that much pyroclastic flows since the vast majority of their early release is shot out at extreamly high presure. test have shown that the magna would be carried out with the gas as it shot out huge tunnels, carrying the ash, magna, and gas 20 miles into the upper atmosphere. that is something that few cones can do with much magna and ash. that is why mount st helen did not send ash more than a few miles, while yellowstone sent its ash as far away as lousiana. the ash will fall out over hours, and even that that stays in the atmosphere longest will fall out with in a few year. the sulpher dioxide on the other hand will not fall out as quickly and will remain in the ice form for decades. some cones can kick a small amount of dust and gas and magna up into the atmosphere, even in rare cases some of it going as high as 20 miles. pinatuba, in the phillapeans kicked some sulpher dioxide into the upper atmosphere that is still there, albet most of it fell out with in the year.

yes they can happen tomorrow, there are two super (caldera types) that are giveing off the warnings that a cone volcano gives off with in a year of an eruption, although scientist are not sure if that means they ill go off tomorrow or in 50 year. the things is they will go off in the next few decades and they are the type with enough gas presure to send the sulpher to the upper atmosphere and they have more than one hundred cubic miles of sulpher. that is the estimate of the supher content of them, not the magna, which is well over a thosand cubic miles. (yes, i said thousand cubic miles) and a large percentage of that will reach the upper atmosphere.

i can understand if there is a lava pool with in hundreds of feet of the surface how a change in tempature can cause it to go off, but the climate changing ones are much deeper than that. they are blocked by a simimolten layer that flow into any crack, blocking them off before the presure can make them bigger. that is how they build up such pressure. the cone volcanos have a much easier passage to the surface, with only solid rock blocking them. when this gives way explosively a caldera is created in the top of the cone. Krakatoa was a perfect example of this it was i beleieve a vei 5 but (according to one theory) the magna hit a water pocket (or group of them) causing super heated water to blast the top third of the volcano off. even though it was not big enough and did not have the sulpher dioxide to be a true climate changer, it shot enough dust into the upper atmosphere to cause eruope to have a year with no summer. its estimated that thousands died from stavation in various parts of the world.

perhaps because you misunderstood what i was saying. i did not say that it could not cause it, just that it is interesting that at the same time that they say that the current stopped, another supervolcano erupted. the current is sun driven, so if there is no sun, how is it going to be driven.

i agree that it could be something simple such as no sunlight for months. what i dont agree with is finding a very complicated theory that does not explain it completely and does not include all the facts.

i agree that the earth is way to complicate for something as insufficently advanced scientificly as human are to understand completely. what i do disagree with, is with anyone (appearantly not you) that tries to claim the answer to a global problem is simple or that the answer is simple.

on the other hand, i have seen what i believe is sufficent evidence that global warming is not going to be a problem for much longer.