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NASA
This view of the Himalayas was taken from the International Space Station.
Are global warming skeptics being armed with a new weapon? Estimates from satellite monitoring suggest the melt rate from the Himalayas and other high-altitude Asian mountains in recent years was much less than what scientists on the ground had estimated, but those monitoring the satellite data warn not to jump to the skeptical conclusion.
The region's ice melt from 2003-2010 was estimated at 4 billion tons a year, far less than earlier estimates of around 50 billion tons, according to the study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
But study co-author John Wahr, a physics professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, emphasized that it's important to note that the region is a small contributor to overall ice melt and that the satellite estimates for the largest contributors, Antarctica and Greenland, are in line with ground-based estimates: about 385 billion tons a year.
"It's Greenland and Antarctica that pose by far the greatest threat to rising sea levels in the future," he told msnbc.com. "That's, basically, where all the ice is."
In the study itself, the authors also noted that the Asian mountain region has seen a lot of variability in ice melt and that the time period might be too short to be of much use. "These results suggest that care should be taken in extending the 2003–2010 results presented in this paper to longer time periods," they wrote in the study published online.
One potential reason for the huge difference, Wahr noted, is that scientists on the ground are limited to where they can sample the ice.
The NASA satellite used for monitoring, on the other hand, can cover the entire globe and its 200,000 glaciers.
Dubbed GRACE, the satellite "does this by mapping out the Earth's gravity field, all over the globe, every month," Wahr said.
Satellite tracks where ice is melting
"One way to think of this is that as GRACE passes over Alaska, say, it feels the gravitational pull of all the Alaskan glaciers," he added. When it passes over Alaska later on, it also feels the pull of all those glaciers, but now that pull is smaller because there is less mass in those glaciers to do the pulling. So you end up learning about the change in the cumulative mass of all those glaciers. You don't miss any of the glaciers; you see the combined effects of all of them."
"The price you pay with GRACE," he said, "is that because you're 500 kilometers above the Earth, you can't distinguish the effects of an individual glacier from the effects of its neighbor. Individual glaciers are usually just too close to one another for you to separate them in the GRACE data. If you want to know what individual glaciers are doing, you need to rely heavily on those traditional, ground-based methods."
More content from msnbc.com and NBC News
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I know nature works in cycles and normall self adjusts. For example, let's say Obama gets re-elected and names Algore his Sec of the Interior. The resulting hot air from Washington causes the ice to melt, sea levels rise, drowning out the source of the hot air (and methane), causing cooler temeratures, refreezing the ice caps. It's the circle of life, akuna matata. (I'm pretty sure I misspelled that).
Even the most alarmist predictions by the "craziest" scientists do not conflict with the idea of self adjustment. Now let's all put our thinking caps on and imagine what that self adjustment is going to look like, or might look like. For a Bangladeshi farmer for example. Or how about subsistence farmers right here in the US, who can't afford for the rain to inconveniently stop for a few years.
It's all fine and good if you have a good job not tied to the sea level annoyingly going up a foot or two.
I can't think of another issue that exposes scientific ignorance coupled with mean spirited selfishness more than global warming. let's just take the charge that global warming is a hoax. A hoax means a deliberate attempt to trick someone into believing something that is not true. Thus, for global warming to be a hoax, all the thousands of climate scientists and the foundations and organizations that fund their research, along with liberals and environmentalists generally, must be involved in a grand conspiracy to pull the wool over the eyes of the poor general public who are just trying to get by from day to day. This is just nonsense. Yet look at all the entries on this thread that make that charge. Of course, for those who don't have the foggiest idea how science works, and who have their own personal/political agenda, it is a lot easier to hurl charges around and make snarky comments about Al Gore than to really explore the issue.
It is a hoax when in a very short period of time, a few people with a global political agenda, allied with the UN, socialists, communists and other NGOs try to undermine the free people of the USA. We will fight back. Do you really think we will obey any UN mandates. We will not even obey obama. We know it is a tactic to take away our liberties and property rights. You bastards are playing a very dangerous game. If you think this is just an ordinary 'let's make a law they have to obey" think again.
Paul: You are both delusional and ignorant. There is nothing I can say that will help you understand.
You have nothing to say! I know your type very well. You are ignorant and do not think past your selfish feel good wants. Do what you want if you think the world is in danger. I and many people do not agree. Stop trying to use my country and government to undermine my life just because you think you are smarter. You are not. Leave us alone to live our own lives. If not go to Bangladesh or some other 3rd world cesspool. we do not want you here.
Paul the "Ignorant" one here is yourself. I would call you an idiot, but that would be an insult to the intelligence of idiots. You are the CLASSIC example of right wing stupidity and ignorance. And by the way, I am 100% positive from your comments and "Jamie R's" comments that he is indeed MUCH smarter than you.
There is plenty of room to debate the appropriate solutions (for example, to what extent the U.N. should be involved), but the climate change problem is real, it isn't going away, and some sort of international treaty will likely be required.
LOL Paul... poor sod.
I think, Paul, is using a lead hat instead of a tin-foil hat and its finally gotten to his brain...what little there was to begin with. Might wanna switch that hat out and loosen it just a tad bit also there, Paul.
George Carlin did a great bit about humans being a threat to the Earth.
"The planet isn't going anywhere. WE ARE!"
Well I would agree, except I'm not even close to a "left wing nut". However there are some out there, on both sides of the political spectrum. As for "gee...massive voter fraud...like when ACORN submitted 1800 voter registrations and 8 were valid in seattle?". Who do you think pointed out the registrations were not valid? TRY ACORN. And why do you thing the registrations were declared to be invalid? BECAUSE THE SYSTEM WORKED. With the assistance of ACORN. Do some friggin research that does not consist of Fox Lying News and Rush Tokyo Conservative Rose Limbaugh and you might actually learn something.
Stop your bull@!$%#. The truth is out about progressive marxism. obama will be gone and we will make sure if Acorn resurfaces or "occupy @!$%#heads" try any more crap, they will be sorry. By the way. ANY voter fraud is bad. Acorn was arrested in multiple states. Hopefully the inner cities will riot when we take their welfare away and they go hungry. Then we can put you all in prison.
Yep, no doubt about it. Your incredible ignorance is showing more and more with every comment. But please, keep on posting. I haven't had this much to laugh about in quite some time.
LOL Paul. Dude your the No Value clicked on king!
From 2003 to 2010, Antarctica and Greenland lost an average of 385 billion tons a year. But also keep in mind that this rate of combined ice loss in Antarctica and Greenland is accelerating at a rate of 56 gigatonnes/yr^2. You crunch the numbers and see where it is going to go. Better yet, plot a graph. See link below.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/accelerating-ice-loss-from-antarctica-and-greenland.html
Yep! Plot those graphs; crunch those numbers. By the time all those 'oh so smart fellas' figure it out, the Iceage will be here.
Antartica's ice sheet has grown 30% the past 30 years. Google it
There is no evidence of any impending ice age. The 385 billion ton per year ice melt figure includes Antarctica. There has been a small increase in Antarctic sea ice (not land ice), but that's probably due to changing weather patterns that block heat from the equatorial region from reaching Antarctica.
And while us "smart fellas" are "crunching the numbers" some nice men dressed in white uniforms will come to your house and put you up in an oh so sweet padded room. All at no cost too you, Paul. Just wanted you to know that you weren't paying for it so you wouldn't have anything else to rant and rave about.
All of this is of course if they can get passed all your security cameras, motion detectors, trip wires, land mines, mutant ninja guards, you know...just the usual stuff. ;)
There is an obvious effect from global warming. However, are the facts being applied the same as were used to refute Prudoe Bay oilfied. In the seventies they said we would only get 1 billion bbls. They have recovered over 15 billion bbls and still pumping. Environmentalist tend to multiply the effects by 10X I have noticed.
Pick a number! ANY number.
Geology sub-strata 3-D modeling and the petrology field has come a loooong way over the past 40 years, Red.
Progressives lie for their agenda. They cannot be successful in the world so they must change the rules and scare the stupid. They are just socialist/marxists who want to tell every one how to live their lives. They think they are smarter but it is all about control. They are totalitarians; statists;communists;fascists; dictators; All the same. They hate us for our success and the 'climate change lie' is just another of their ploys. Fight them; defeat them; They are dangerous and antiAmerican. Ask your Congressman to throw the UN out of the USA.
Totally absurd. Global warming was first accurately predicted by scientists using military data in the 1950s. It shouldn't have anything to do with being liberal or conservative. What's dangerous is allowing the warming to continue. There are energy solutions that will protect American industry and jobs.
OMG, go smoke some more rope Eric! You're actually suggesting we can stop warming to continue??? Even the so called experts that are on the global warming band wagon say there is nothing that can be done to stop it!
That's not correct ... most experts say that the warming can be stopped (and even eventually reversed) if we begin to take a variety of actions including deploying clean energy sources, conserving energy and reducing deforestation. "We" does mean all countries, however, beginning with the U.S. and China.
Sooo, you're pretty scared then huh, Paul?
Since 1985 these criminals have lied about Global Warming. Look at 80's predictions-- NYC under water, etc.
But time shows global warming lies
A few exaggerated or wrong predictions about effects like sea level rise does not overturn the main body of theory. 2010 and 2011 both set global temperature records (2010 tied the warmest ever, 2011 the warmest La Nina year). Do you really think NOAA could get away with lying about the temperature record given the current high level of scrutiny??
Why do the GW (Global Warming) freaks always call us on the Right Global Warming Skeptics. I don't think anyone denies Global Warming occurss if it didn't we woul dstil be up to our butt-holes in Ice in PA, NY ETC. ever since the end of the last Ice Age about 22,000 years ago we have been under GW. It is a natural cycle and there isn't a darn thing mankind can do about it. The amount of contribution from man towards it is miniscule. If man were to be wiped off the fce of the eatrh today GW would still be taking place at about the same rate. We are actually on the brink of a major turn around based on Prior GW periods of the Earth. this GW happens about every 15 to 22 thousand years and we have just passed the end of the last 22,000 yr cycle. Better get those sweaters out for the July 4th picnic.
The rate of warming since the 1970s is far higher than the natural cycle when ice ages end.
Tonight I did something I almost never do: Review the source article and the counter claims that the 'retraction' purports to substantiate.
Well, really I began by reviewing poster David Noah's link to the Fox article: " UN chief, aides plot 'green economy' agenda at upcoming summit". In fact, since that article linked to the original minutes Fox was able to surreptitiously obtain, I felt obligated to read the minutes so that I could find the conspiracy myself.
Tough Read! After many pages of monologue-ing (because that's what conspirators do) I did find a reference to a green economy 'agenda'. If agenda=conspiracy I suppose you could argue that something was going on. In fact, they seem to be plotting the agenda of the United Nations 'RIO+20' conference in Brazil- with several suspicious references to 'sustainability',"COMBAT(ing) poverty", 'food security', 'energy access', and 'ocean management'. Noah, you and I know those are just euphemisms for Black Helicopters. Plus the report is titled CONFIDENTIAL. And I forgot to mention that the meeting was chaired by General Ban Ki-moon - oops! Fox left off the 'Secretary'- it's actually "Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon".
Given that RIO+20 is a follow up to 'RIO 1992' in which some of the original Global Warming objectives were outlined, I'm beginning see the conspiracy better now. I'm also beginning to understand why it will never succeed: These guys have had 20 years to plot, and they're not getting anywhere because they're being led by a "Secretary" not a 'General'!
By the way, other linked articles under the above article on the Fox news site:
Bodacious Brit's sexy photo session (FOXNews.com - Video)
Cops declare hunt for 'wolfman' living wild in UK woods for years (FOXNews.com - World)
Florida woman blames her 'big breasts' for failing sobriety test (FOXNews.com - U.S.)
Tribe suing beer companies for alcohol problems
Shyness, grieving soon to be classified as mental illness
Now that was just unfair of me! MSNBC posts articles like that all the time. And as for the last three bylines- well, there's a conspiracy all right: It's called inverse liberalism. Let me summarize the argument: According to Fox, the libs love to argue (cue Wendy Whiner): "I'm not morally responsible because it wasn't my fault!" (Now give me some government handouts!)
Well, I'm plotting to get some ice cream from the fridge because the quesadilla's I had for dinner aren't cutting it. Be right back...
Next Topic: Investigate the claims that the Himalayas are melting. Well, it gets confusing, because I'm actually investigating MSNBC's (and Fox's) coverage on the retraction of the claim that the Himalaya's are melting. This took some time, so I had to do some article indexing.
First, let's compare the coverage:
MSNBC led with: "Are global warming skeptics being armed with a new weapon? Estimates from satellite monitoring suggest the melt rate from the Himalayas and other high-altitude Asian mountains in recent years was much less than what scientists on the ground had estimated, but those monitoring the satellite data warn not to jump to the skeptical conclusion..."
Fox led with: "The U.N. got it wrong on Himalaya’s glaciers -- and the proof is finally here.The authors of the U.N.’s climate policy guide were red-faced two years ago when it was revealed that they had inaccurately forecast that the Himalayan glaciers would melt completely in 25 years, vanishing by the year 2035..." and goes on to say " Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Dehli, India, ultimately issued a statement offering regret for what turned out to be a poorly vetted statement".
Now, the Fox article has the chronology all mixed up, because the 'red-faced' shame at being exposed and subsequent retraction of the claim both took place in 2010, so why lead with that when the Science article you're covering was published on Tuesday? It's just confusing. Is he still 'red-faced' or just more 'red-faced' than before?
That's spin all right, but what's the history? The gist? The controversy?
Well, the source of the claim was a 2007 IPCC (that's the UN folks!) article on the impact of Global Warming. One paragraph of that lengthy document cited an unsubstantiated estimate that the rate of Himalayan glacial melting would result in the disappearance of glaciers from the Himalayas by 2035. The authors of the original IPCC article have since acknowledged and retracted the claim as of 2010. They did not retract the entire article. Subsequent investigations by a variety of journals(not by Fox!) revealed that the non-peer reviewed source of that claim may actually have been a transposition error of an early estimate that glaciers would disappear from the Himalayas by 2350. In hindsight, neither estimate looks very reliable, but that's just me.
Where does the Nature article fit in?
The Nature article (the original article) actually costs $32 (talk about a conspiracy!), so I had to settle for reading the summary. I hope that Fox purchased the article! It clearly says that researchers have revised the estimate of Himalayan glacial melting downwards on the order of 80% to 90%, or 4 ± 20 Gt yr−1 from 47–55 Gt yr. I don't know what a 'Gt' is- a 'gigaton'(?)-that's better than calling it a 'Sh*tload. But wait! The article closes by stating "The total contribution to sea level rise from all ice-covered regions is thus 1.48 ± 0.26 mm −1, which agrees well with independent estimates of sea level rise originating from land ice loss and other terrestrial sources". Now, don't cite the research as support for your claim that warming isn't taking place without also citing the conclusion that sea levels are rising! Where's the integrity in that?
So to conclude: sea levels continue to rise, due mostly to the melting of polar and Greenlandic ice sheets. In an excess of zeal to substantiate the case for Global Warming, the IPCC got more than one fact wrong in their reports on Global Warming- reports which run to thousands of pages. The 'denier' community selectively reported on the distortion of facts as evidence that the 'controversy' remains unsettled, and asks you- the reader- to conclude that the entire body of peer reviewed literature on global warming is bunk.
Yes Noah, there is a conspiracy, and to quote you: "Anyone who doesn't question everything they read, watch, or hear with some skepticism is the ones that should be questioning if they are the fools". Thank you Noah, I'll be fact checking a bit more thoroughly going forward, and I won't be using Fox news as my source. Bodacious Brit's indeed! With Rupert Murdoch at the helm, I think I'd have used the caption 'Audacious Aussies' and my article would have had an entirely different slant.
Yaaaawwwwwn!
Greenland. Interesting name. I wonder who made it up and when? It must have been someone's last name or maybe someone didn't know their colors.
Wake up and smell the roses budding in Greenland.
Roses budding in Greenland?? If you want to know the origin of how Greenland got its name well, you're on a computer sooo...
OK global warming believers, maybe you could fly to China in a pedal-powered aircraft, march up to those Chinese and tell them they can't build a new coal fired power plant every week, like they have been doing for the past few years, and furthermore, they will have to turn off the ones they already built. That should solve the problem. Sure.
Actually, I'm in China right now. It is pretty darn polluted but not as bad as 10 years ago.
It appears the tree huggers are upset that they have been deceived yet again.when will you people learn, this whole global warming deal is only about making money, Al Gore can tell you that.
Does anybody understand the method used in demonstrating that the Himalayans are losing 4 billion tons instead of 50 billion tons per year is the same exact method demonstrating that Antarctica and Greenland are losing 385 billion tons per year? Maybe a denier can fill me in on how a prediction, proven to be an overshot by the GRACE satellite, can put a smile on your face will at the same time be ignored all together when it also proves that the ice sheets are deteriorating at an unprecedented rate?
I do. Do you understand that method measures mass and not ice or water volume? Because I understand that too... one more thing I understand: The Himalayan mountains are still growing (getting taller) due to plate tectonics at an average rate of about 2.4 inches per year while Greenland and Antarctica have not... gee, color me surprised that the satellite showed there was less change in mass in the himalayas as the mountains grow taller than there should have been if the mountains were not growing taller and the change in mass was completely due to ice and not plate tectonics...
Good luck with that.
I understand that that any amount of volume does have a mass value Z1P2, you can't have volume if there is no mass that is taking space, and I would think it very possible for them to convert an amount of mass to an amount of volume given that the subject (ice/water) has remained here on Earth and even in the same area on Earth. Now I'm not clear if that is what they do with the GRACE data all I'm saying is that I'm not going to call anyone crazy if they show me a full glass of water, pours half of it out, and makes the statement that this glass now holds less volume of water as well as less mass of water. That is if they have not teleported to another planet that makes the statement not true in the process.
Correction weight not volume. More coffee.
Right, but now let's say someone pours out half the water, but at the same time pours sand into the cup until the weight of the cup is nearly what it was to begin with, would you believe the person when they tried to tell you that very little water has been lost because there's nearly the same weight to the cup that now contains a good deal of sand? That's what the GRACE satellite is doing when measuring mountain ranges that are still growing by 2.4 inches per year. There's an average of 2.4 extra inches of rock down there now, and that rock has a lock of weight to it. Failing to take that additional rock weight into account in comparing the measurements is a monumental error, and I can find nothing to suggest that these scientists compensated for the additional rock mass.
I strongly suspect that the estimate of how fast the glaciers are melting will likely be doubled or even trippled once that has been taken into account.
Something that has mass has a volume, it takes up space. If you understand the conditions your subject is in (temp, pressure, etc.) you can determine that a certain volume = a certain mass. That's what I'm getting at.
Do you understand what I'm getting at though?
I do get what you're saying about the mtns growth. Just because mass is added does not mean it's ice. I would have to say that I'm certain they have that in mind, but I'll have to do some digging and see. It's a valid point Z1P2.
Z1P1, I agree. I would hope they would be factoring in known changes in the formation of the mountains anyway, but it seems that given the density of everything from the surface of the planet to the center of the planet is also dynamic, I have no idea how they could possibly account for that and claim they have isolated the gravitional changes that were due to only changes in ice.
Sounds like a group of scientists trying to find any data they can find to discredit the global warming problems, rather than any sound science. I don't think the satellite gravity mapping project was originally intended to evaluate ice melting anyway. High resolution cameras would be better for that.
I don't know johnbarker. I think they are just scientist making their measurements public. I'm sure there is more to it than this simple number. Just look at the audience after all. Most of them don't make it past the headline before thinking they are informed enough about the article to make a posting on it.
If I could vote up that comment twice I would... oh how right that is.
Just because a "scientific study" releases information to the public doesn't make it credible. And they do it all the time. There is a huge financial motivation to discredit the global warming issue, so I would be very skeptical of a study like this that claimed such drastic differences in data for now anyway.
The authors themselves are mentioning multiple cautions about reading anything into the data just yet. Sometimes the press distorts the opinions of the scientists to make news, so I am not sure what this all about yet, if anything.
I agree most scientists don't want to release conclusions about a study unless they think they are right, but it does happen and can ruin a scientist's reputation if it's wrong.
BTW, I think I know where you're going with this mass to volume conversion, but you have to know the density of the mass you're measuring to come up with a volume. If the density of the earth is changing under the ice it would also affect the gravitational readings on the satellite, so I am not convinced they can distinguish that from the changes in the volume of the ice.
It seems it would be so much simpler just to use high resolution cameras and track the movement of the ice fronts as they recede and expand. Which I am sure they are probably already doing and mostly likely backs up the ground based observatioins.
I think you're thinking too much into this johnbarker. The scientist are not debunking global warming with this data nor does the data debunk it on its own merits. Take into consideration that John Wahr is not brushing this data aside as if it's denial gibberish, but instead makes a point that this is not the crown jewel of global warming. The fact that 385 billion tons of ice sheet in Antartica and Greenland and the fact that GRACE also confirms there is a great amount of lose in these areas is enough to cause any person with atleast half a working brain cell to worry. What I'm getting at from this article is that there is more that needs to be understood about higher altitude temps and vairables. Maybe Z1P2's mtn growth for example?
It would make sense that higher concentrations of density would have a higher gravity much like the black hole though that's going way off in the extreme. I would just do some digging.
Considering the source of the data gathering I would say that the raw data is credible, it's the conclusions about the data that I question.
Z1P2, I agree completely and is basically the same thing I was trying to say. The conclusion that the gravity change data translates to changes in ice cover is a real reach.
One other point, gravity is an extremly weak force (especially that far away as from a satellite), so I'm not completely convinced that even the data is good. Especially if they are trying to discern inches of ice relative to the mass of all the earth under it.
Repeatability differences in measurements would have to be virtually zero which almost never happens with any kind of instrumentation that would require that magnitude of resolution.
Well that is totally inconclusive. The satellite method is a new way of gathering data so you can expect to see differences in the extrapolated data.
What is actually correct remains to be seen but this is no huge thing yet. They say they are mapping gravity as a way of evaluating changing glaciers? It seems to me that other variables could be involved than just the glaciers that are nothing more than a thin membrane on the surface of a dynamic planet. i.e. gravity is affected by everything from the surface to the center of the earth, not just the glaciers.
People that live life solely to make profit will often do so at the expense of others, fact. Warming trends occuring in our lifetime, fact. Preparing for the possibility of increasing hazard to you and others due to warming trend, intelligent. Relying on others to do the preparing, stupid. Complaining that some people aren't listening to said possible hazards, pointless. Arguing opinions of whether said data proves/disproves possible hazards, time not well spent. Either prepare, disbelieve, create solution, or ignore the issue. If you hope to be able to say I told you so as the human race is thrust into an apocolyptic scenario then you need enlightenment. If our use of fossil fuel causes exteme change to human existance on earth, it will do so whether some profit from it or not. If it doesn't than someone will still profit. I'm going out on a limb and say that humans were going to find uses for fossil fuels just like we did and no one can change that. No one can ultimately stop our use of it presently. If our use of fossil fuel creates severe weather disruption and causes mass extinction or population numbers to greatly lower, than it was quite frankly inevitable as of right now. If it's possible to stop such a disaster from happening hopefully we do..... if no such disaster caused by climate change caused by man happens....even better. I know that in the grand scheme of mankinds existance my comments on msn.com mean nothing and neither do yours.......but I do enjoy wasting some time here.
ldo,
Latest from the coke bros gang: "How to make a fortune by avoiding regulations on fossil fuel burning".
Makes Al Gore's take look like chump change.
CO3 and CO4 won't dissolve plankton's bodies, we can dump half the Earth's geologic carbon into the atmosphere with no effect and I'm off to see the wizard.
10 times less,worse than first reported,and one wonders why anyone believes in globl warming,had they just told the truth first and not used Democratic fear tactics to try and scare people,it would have been more acceptable.Once caught in a lie,makes the rest to be doubtful of any data collected with out first hand proof.
Stormer,
No one ever called this "United States Warming". It is called Global Warming. I'm sure the russian scientist warning us about the 80 billion tons of methane fixing to go off in their Siberian tundra could give a schitt less about our Democrat vs Republican crap. This is being studied worldwide by many scientists who do not even know Al Gore. You deniers have your heads in sand. Or maybe elsewhere.
There has been an effort to make us focus on this issue in terms of "Al Gore" and "greedy scientists making fortunes selling a scam", carbon tax bs, etc. That is only smoke and mirrors from certain factions in the US.
Perhaps the not wanting to pay carbon tax is getting to the heart of the denial movement, but I think it is more the desire by the energy/industrial guys to not have to spend money cleaning up.
The global warming issue is certainly bigger than the US and all these charges against it certainly do not have any relevance to the rest of the world. I would bet that Plotinus is right and that most of the scientists involved in the research haven't even heard of Al Gore. It is a world issue, not a democrat and republican issue. But nice try guys to cover the issue with inflamatory political smoke. Doesn't work with me.
There is a "global warming" problem occuring now. Who or what is causing it is still up for debate. But there is little doubt that burning fossil fuels and dumping carbon into the atmosphere is contributing to global warming. The real debate is (or should be) what is causing global warming and how can we as humans, not aggravate it?
It's a delicate balance between economic success and environmental destruction. You can't let either extremists rule things. If policy is left to one side or the other, one side will bankrupt the world and the other side will destroy it. So far the destroying sides have been ruling things and that needs to shift more to the environmentalist side, but not so far as to destroy prosperity.
You know for 35 years I watched the Darwin Glacier in the High Sierras up the Mountain from Bishop rise and fall over the years..One year there was next to nothing and the scientists had the Lemmings running around screaming the world is ending etc. etc. Then next year the snow and ice was back, so then we were having an Ice Age and everyone was running around storing up fuel and warm clothes etc. etc.
I've come to the conclusion that the earth and nature and everything that grows and breaths and exists on the planet goes through periodic changes and nothing anyone can do will stop it....I do not give any Earth Scientist any creditability cause they haven't been 100% right about anything in 150 years and I feel their collectively as a group just trying to find ways to line their pockets at our expense..or naivety.......
Man may come and go but the earth abides Eccl....
There's no God
Eddie, even the polar bears know that the ice is melting more every year. Glaciers are disappearing all over the world.
I agree that some of is probably due to natural events but humans are definitely aggravating it. Humans need to do more to prevent this destruction of our atmosphere.
When will all of you idiots who believe in Global warming relize that you have been had. Luck would have it that there are enough people that require real proof before allowing scammers such as Al Gore to tax them for exhaling.
Nice try.. warmers rock, deniers eat socks
Yes we are experiencing a naturally driven inter-glacial warm period. Yes, someday a fresh ice age will come along once again, but that won't get us "off the hook" since we are amplifying the strength of the warming. Slowly but surely our actions are taking the natural cycle up to an extreme amplitude. The consequences are already being seen, and reasonable people are asking careful questions about how far the process will go.
For all you assorted warblers of "Wish Physics", once again let's go over the action of CO2 and the source of its potency as a green house gas when compared to other more common species like H2O.
The effectiveness of the various green house gases to trap heat even in small concentrations arises from the fact that they selectively intercept disjoint regions of the solar spectrum.
Because the Sun is hotter than the Earth, the incoming (black body) radiation energy is strongly concentrated in visible light. Visible light is visible because if you are a successful organism evolving photo-receptors for this planet, then you will win if you can see where the illumination is strongest. Now because the Earth is far cooler than the Sun, when the Earth cools its (black body} radiation energy is strongly concentrated in infra-red light. "Green house gas" molecules have a great affinity for the capture of infra-red light, so large chunks of the outgoing radiative energy are now stopped in the green house gas. If this heat was only kept in the green house gas, there would not be much of an effect on our heat balance.
However the heat captured by the green house gas molecule, is then shared by collisions with all the other gases in the air. That process is not reversible directly, and the loss of heat back into space depends on the quasi black body radiative transfer from the atmosphere as a whole. Since CO2 is such a strong absorber in spectral regions different from H2O and since the H2O concentration is largely fixed by the general thermal equilibrium of air and water on the planet, the CO2 (and also CH4) species are the sensitive drivers of net heat balance.
So, if you imagine that the heat capacity of only the green house gas stored the captured heat, then for sure that wouldn't amount to squat, but that picture is completely false.
The common Wish Physics arguments, pushed by Oil Shills like the Koch crowd, just fail, nobody in the professional climate science community is lying to you. The situation is very similar to the actions of those unscrupulous folks who took (and likely still take) the tobacco companies money to lie to us about lung cancer.
The common pride of ignorance among climate science deniers (ref post #5) is the real lie here, it only serves to perpetuate the problem and to dilute everyone's courage to examine the proper extent to which we should try and mitigate the AGW problem.
On that question, there is room for a wide spectrum of honest difference of opinion.
Reterry,
I don't think it could be explained much more clearly than your post. It shows a good understanding of the physics involved, but probably won't be understood by those who are fixated on Al Gore.
I assume you are aware of the methane release problem we are seeing with the warming of the tundras and the northern oceans. This could exponentially speed up the already accelerating process if all that methane escapes into the atmosphere.
Something happened 5,200 years ago that might be similar to what we're facing. I'm in Peru, and the scientists studying the huge melting glacier here say that one day it started snowing and didn't stop.....for a long long time. Probably ocean currents changed.
But anyway, thanks for sharing in accurate scientific terms the process that is taking place. It's sad that this issue has been hijacked by an emotional political crowd being led down the path of ignorance by those factions who have a monetary stake in the game, ie. the Koch/energy boys. Ignorance leads to bad decisions which lead to future suffering. We could allow that with no problem as long as their mistakes harmed only them themselves, but since these mistakes effect the future of the whole planet their demagaguery should be exposed and resisted.
Great post, reterry. Most of the deniers don't have that level of understanding of the problem. to appreciate your analysis.
Ironic as it is, the actual ice cores containing the evidence for the atmospheric carbon content of the last 10's of thousands of years are from the exploration financed by the oil companies themselves.
These ice cores clearly show a huge spike in CO2 that starts at around the end of the industrial revolution or the beginning of the 20th century and has been growing ever since. There is little doubt that this spike is due mostly to human activity.
This is a precursor to the next ice age. The earth will eventually re-freeze over, re-deposit the CO2 back into the ice and oceans and then life will thrive again in about another 10 thousand years. How soon that happens will largely depend on how much respect human kind shows for mother earth. But the mother nature will, as always, win in the end.
Well, indeed, ironies abound in this area. Another amusing wrinkle is that recent Berkeley study on temperature history, funded by the Koch money, which showed the same trend as every other study! Mercifully, those researchers couldn't be bought.
So let's build 100 nuclear plants. I will go for that. Wind and solar are dead ends.
It might be a good idea to read a couple articles on the Union of Concerned Scientists website (ucsusa.org) about why it's a good idea to have several different sources of power on the grid. (Not that I'm necessarily opposed to 100 nuclear plants, but U-235 may not last any longer than oil; advanced breeder reactors may be needed.)
Paul, the sad reality is that just to meet the projected energy demand in the US we need to pursue all forms of energy, both clean energy and fossil fuel energy. We also need to pursue energy efficiency to help ease demand. You see Paul, just because someone understands that global warming is happening and that man is the cause of it, doesn't mean you have to be in favor of living like the Native Americans did before this country was invaded by Europeans. The truth is that every drop of oil that can be extracted from the ground and burned will be, along with every bit of coal, and every bit of natural gas, too. The reason it's important to pursue renewable energy is that eventually nonrenewable energy sources will run out or will become exponentially more expensive as crude oil is already doing. The reason that it's important to understand global warming and it's causes and effects is so that we can be better prepared to deal with the inevitable effects. We alwasys have to plan for the future in the present, and the better you know what the future holds, the better you can plan for it and be prepared for it when it comes.
Two myths, 1. Nuclear power is clean and economical. 2. The world will run out of fossil fuels.
I could never understand why people believe 1 and 2.
Natural gas is the way to go as an alternative to most fuel fossils. It's the cheapest form of fossil fuel available, very little pollution compared to burning coal or other petroleum based fuels. The US is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and yet we are not using it nearly as much as we should be. It doesn't make sense.
Nuclear should be avoided like the plague. Nukes have never been safe and every time the nuclear engineers come up with a new design all the "experts" swear it's "safe". So far that has never been true.
Even one nuclear accident in 100 years can render thousands of square miles un-inhabitable for thousands of years. There is no logical way anyone can claim nuclear power plants are "safe" when you have to deal with that possibility.
Another lie from the idiotic liberal left has been exposed. Nothing new.
And you're just chocked full of facts, figures, and truths aren't you, Barny?? You wouldn't know the truth if it came up too you with flashing neon lights and bit you in your backside!
Well, I certainly don't make outlandish claims that turn out to be false, which is what the loony liberal left is so adept at doing. I actually have the ability to think and reason, unlike the foolish minions of liberal know-it-alls.
Uuummm, yeah, suuurre you don't.
Ok, do many of us had to endure these ELITIST Liberals call us planet haters, killers and ignorant fools! You can't just go slink away under a rock. AL GORE!!! What do you have to say for yourself?? You assured us how inconvenient this was. WHEN WILL YOU APOLOGIZE FOR YOUR WORLD VIEW?? When will ALL of you who attacked, belittled and smugly looked down your nose at anyone who dared even questioned such obvious "truths"? Now what do you have to say for yourself? You ran off to fix the world and didn't even know what was wrong. you'll say "at least we tried to help" WRONG! You took resources and attention that COULD have helped and redirected them to your pet theories that lay in the trashbin. You are GUILTY!