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#251 2018-01-25 05:03:30

Terraformer
Member
From: Ceres
Registered: 2007-08-27
Posts: 3,800
Website

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

GW,

...and what if it turns out to be non-anthropogenic melting? We cut our CO2 emissions, but the seas keep rising - and flooding the new nuclear plants that we've built. The climate, after all, has been surprisingly clement this last millennia. If we go back to the sort of storms that the Anglo-Saxon settlers in England had to deal with, then we have problems, here in the UK. It's hard to see how that can be blamed on CO2 emissions. There's something to be said for Robert Dyck's suggestion that global dimming has moderated the climate - and that may have started before the industrial revolution, with massive forest clearing in the early middle ages.


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

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#252 2018-01-25 08:32:30

EdwardHeisler
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Registered: 2017-09-20
Posts: 357

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Void wrote:

EdwardHeisler.  Do not underestimate our kind.  The clock of time ticks in our favor in the long run.

If you stand as "Mans Accuser" then you are in a very bad place indeed.

But beyond this I will let you all take whatever unprofitable path you want, except G.W. Kind of like those Texans.  Ya.

What are you writing about?   I don't understand your comment   What is your kind?   .

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#253 2018-01-25 11:07:40

elderflower
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Registered: 2016-06-19
Posts: 1,262

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

I did see a report about a huge void being discovered under the Great Pyramid. What do you do for electrical power down there? smile

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#254 2018-01-25 12:16:31

kbd512
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Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,362

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

SpaceNut,

The precision and accuracy (which varies, which is why accuracy is also a problem, just not quite as severe as the precision problem) of the collected data is insufficient to draw any conclusions and the error is so great that what we do collect is garbage data.

This is what real scientists, like computer scientists, believe: Garbage In, Garbage Out

This is what climate scientists believe: Garbage In, Gospel Out

If the temperature observations were correct, then the climate changers could very well make me look like a fool.  I have a strong suspicion, based on the inherent errors present in the input data, that that's unlikely.  Until then, I unequivocally know that they are fools for believing that climate scientists can predict much of anything when their input data is garbage and their temperature reconstructions are pure guesswork.

If you give me ten years of truly accurate data, I won't need to even see a climate model to see the trend.  If the global average temperature shows an increase for ten straight years using accurate temperature observations that have the precision required to show an increase, I'll admit I was wrong.  If that's not what the data shows, then the climate changers need to admit that they were wrong.  Deal?

GW,

I don't have to trust or not trust any data model, even though the models have plenty of their own issues.  This isn't a matter of "trust" for me.  It's a matter of basic math.  You know as well as I do that the data collected isn't good for predicting much of anything because the precision is insufficient and the accuracy varies, thus the error is substantial.  If we quit being such cheapskates with our temperature sensor calibration and spend the money to properly calibrate the electronics correctly as well, then we may very well definitively answer climate change questions.  Until we do that, climate scientists are using bad data to begin with.

This is the problem:

Air Temperature Comparison between the MMTS and the USCRN Temperature Systems

Sensor and Electronic Biases/Errors in Air Temperature Measurements in Common Weather Station Networks

If anyone here can't figure out what those two peer-reviewed research papers state, then they should probably start asking questions.

To my knowledge, the issues indicated in those papers have never been corrected.  That would require more money and tossing the data we've collected thus far.  I'm willing to fork over more of my tax dollars for that purpose.  Is everyone else who believes in climate change equally willing?

Australia's temperature sensor networks appear to have the same problem:

On the quality of Australia’s temperature data

Who here wants to bet that other temperature sensor networks have the same problem since many are based on the same technology and have the same basic design issues?

It doesn't matter if we deploy a million temperature sensors if all of them have electronics that significantly skew the temperature observations upwards or downwards on the ends of the observed temperature spectrum.

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#255 2018-01-25 12:31:48

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Hi Elderflower:

Uncertainty is inherent.  There are only likelihoods with this subject. "You pays your money and you takes your chances".  As I said,  it is probably better to act with whatever information we do have,  rather than wait and be sorry we didn't act,  given the grave consequences thought to be likely. 

There would seem to be a longer-period oscillation in the solar "constant" than the 11-year sunspot cycle most are familiar with.  Much uncertainty,  but there appears to be a cycle around 400-500 years long that alternates between normal sunspot cycles and no sunspots at all:  the "Maunder minimum",  which more-or-less coincides with the "little ice age" when winters were harsher than today around 300-400 years ago.  The medieval warm period around a 1000 years ago seems to have been roughly as warm as today's climate. 

Beyond that,  there is no solid information on this.  However the contrast between the apparent warmer cycles and the Maunder minimum/little ice age pales into insignificance compared to the glaciations vs interglacials,  as recorded in the geological record and the ice core data. 

The "best" model we have for those glaciated-or-not effects is the Milankovitch orbital cycles / northern hemisphere insolation model.  It does a very good job correlating when was glacial and when was not,  for roughly the last 3-4 million years.  Although,  it is imperfect:  it does not tell us which of the 3 cycles dominates the effect:  100 kyr,  41 kyr,  or 26 kyr.  That dominant frequency switched between the last and next-to-last glaciations of the Pleistocene,  and nobody really knows why or how.  It also does not model shorter-period stuff,  like the short warm/cold flip during the last deglaciation.

It is inappropriate to apply this model any earlier than 3-4 million years ago,  because the continents have drifted significantly over that interval,  and the ocean and atmosphere circulation patterns are different.  Northern hemisphere insolation variations are only "important" if that is where most of the land is located,  and most of that has vegetation.

When you start looking at longer timescales still,  more effects have to fold into your analysis.  These include the longer term upward trend of average solar output predicted by the astrophysics guys,  the decrease in heat shed from the Earth's core over time,  the changes in atmospheric composition,  cycles or shifts in the tectonic/volcanic environment,  and (often neglected) the changes in sea level surface atmospheric pressure (simple density is likely as important as composition to "greenhouse" effects).  Few of these can be associated with dependable numbers or models,  yet we know they all occurred,  and they all affect the thermal balance between sun,  Earth,  and space. 

In the Mesozoic,  there was often no polar ice so it was warmer than today,  and yet the sun was significantly dimmer,  too.  Some estimates from geology suggest that atmospheric CO2 was crudely 2000 ppm,  versus 400 today,  280 pre-industrial,  and a cyclic 180-280 during the Pleistocene glaciations.  The timing of those Pleistocene CO2 fluctuations shows no lead or lag discernible in the records relative to advance and retreat of the ice.  That suggests (!!!) that CO2 variation was not causal for the Pleistocene glaciations,  but in point of fact may have been caused by them.

On the other hand,  with 300-ish ppm CO2,  a slightly-brighter sun,  and some polar ice,  we are cooler today than the Mesozoic warm periods,  with a dimmer sun,  2000-ish ppm CO2,  and no ice at all.  There's a lot of things ignored here,  including Mesozoic cold periods and no certain knowledge of sea level atmospheric pressure,  and not quite the same oxygen content as today (I saw one report claiming 30% oxygen,  but that is not generally accepted).  Yet this does suggest that over the long term,  CO2 concentration effects do make a difference to climate,  and big effects make big differences.

Short term,  my recommendation is still "follow the ice".  If you think it really is melting faster,  then put the brakes on any activities we think act in a direction that makes the meltback worse.  Why?  Because meltwater from land ice adds to ocean volme,  and that raises sea levels.  Most of humanity's people and assets are within 3 meters or so of sea level,  and a lot of them are not easily moved for any of a variety of reasons.  How simple is that?

----

I,  too,  saw a report about some previously-undetected void space inside the Great Pyramid.  I haven't seen or heard much about it since,  though.  Nobody at the time of the report had any sense as to the size or shape of that void space.  I have heard of no firm plans to go and investigate it,  either. 

----

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-01-25 12:42:57)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#256 2018-01-25 12:41:36

kbd512
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

GW,

Since it is normal for arctic sea ice to be lost at the North Pole over an area the size of West Virginia every day when it melts during the normal yearly cycle, please describe what you characterize as abnormal.

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#257 2018-01-25 12:58:18

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Kbd512:

1. Summer ice cap area coverage half or less of what it used to be 50 years ago.  That fluctuates from year to year,  but even so,  the "northwest passage" is wide open on the Siberian side when it wasn't 50 years ago.  And it's almost open on the Canadian side,  too. These same descriptions today are also at wide variance with what polar explorers found in the 18th and 19th centuries,  too.

2. Winter ice cap thickness fallen to around 5 m or less,  when it was 20+ m only 50 years ago.  That discounts the giant pressure ridges,  what I refer to here are the more-or-less "flat plates" between them.  Submarines surface through the ice pretty much anywhere anytime they want now,  when they had to look for a lead 50 years ago.  Tests depths and pressure hull strengths are roughly the same now as 50 years ago for atomic submarines.

3. Related,  but not polar:  they're worried about impending crop failure from lack of seasonal meltwater from the Himalayan glaciers now.  The seasonal ice melting was the delay that spread the meltwater out,  over the growing season.  If there's no long melt interval,  that water is gone in a flash.  No crop.

4. Related,  but not polar:  Glacier National Park is expected by its staff to be essentially glacierless within a decade or so.  Over the last 50 years,  of some 4000+/- ice formations,  only 3 or 4 have grown,  the rest shrank.  Many have already disappeared.  The park staff have been keeping such records,  so that assessment is rather reliable. 

Sounds like ice loss to me.  And didn't you notice that I said not one word about temperature measurements or climate modeling?

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-01-25 12:59:24)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#258 2018-01-25 15:44:50

elderflower
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Registered: 2016-06-19
Posts: 1,262

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Also Sea levels have been rising on a steady upward trend. For North Shields this is 188mm per century. I am quoting the figure for this station as it is not subject to significant isostatic adjustment following removal of the North British ice cap a few thousand years ago. Other British stations are rising or sinking due to isostatic adjustment of the crust and their data has to be corrected, which gives the conspiracy theorists an opportunity.  The "instrument" is basically a measuring stick and not subject to calibration issues, and the mean sea level has been recorded at North Shields for well over a century.

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#259 2018-01-25 19:18:42

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Sorry Void I was going to reply about the great plains of the last ice age as they were plowed under by the deep glacier of the era. It erased all traces of a forest if there was one prior to that ice build up. AS for as how fast it disappeared, the spring melts were if the glacier was covered with dust and soot quicker to melt than if they were not. As for the evergreen trees covering that newly melted area which would continue northward as it retreated should follow the retreat of the ice. I think that if these were to evolve at that time to stay green when cold that it would speed the retreat as well of the ice as it would tend to make things a bit warmer and would lesson the snow in that small area from building up as they grow on the south side of them.

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#260 2018-01-25 20:02:16

Void
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Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 6,976

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Its fine Spacenut, I am not off pouting.  I just had to do some gym stuff this morning, and had to travel a few hundred miles after that.

I note what you say.  I think I saw a study done that said that other trees cool the Earth, but Evergreens do warm the Earth.  It is logical also that if more Carbon is available for Evergreens, then they probably don't have to give up as much water to the atmosphere.

Proven?  No but to me logical.


Done.

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#261 2018-01-26 12:40:07

kbd512
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Registered: 2015-01-02
Posts: 7,362

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

GW,

I see that you're also aware of the Milankovitch cycle (100K yr periodicity).  I presume you're also aware of the variance in Earth's axial tilt between 21.5 and 24.5 degrees (41K yr periodicity) and the effects of precession (23K yr periodicity).  I further presume you're aware of the fact that Earth's winter solstice presently occurs at perihelion.  Presumably, that combination of minimum orbital eccentricity, the winter solstice occurring very close to perihelion whereupon we receive 6% more solar radiation than during the summer, and the more even distribution of solar radiation from our present axial tilt must have some effect on climate, along with solar and cosmic ray activity.  Although somewhat less well known, gravity also varies slightly at different points on Earth.  I believe you're also aware that even small variances would affect the circulation of 1.45 quintillion tons of sea water.  I've not seen any other plausible explanation for how we could have dramatic glaciation when CO2 levels were substantially higher than they are today.

You'll see a direct correlation, no line drawing required, if you overlay Earth's orbital activity, solar activity (the primary driver behind temperature variations) and cosmic ray activity (which affects cloud formation, which affects reflection of solar radiation into space, which affects temperature, which affects ice formation).  I do not think CO2 itself is warming the Earth.  If it was, then there is no plausible explanation for glaciation when CO2 was many times higher than it is today.  I think that gigantic nuclear fusion reactor is warming the Earth in cycles that correspond to the stated activities and their secondary effects, which could also include CO2 variation as a function of evaporation from those gigantic CO2 sinks we call oceans.

We have what scientists claim are accurate temperature observations made over a period just over 30 years, even though the accuracy of those observations is highly dubious, which is one climate data point.  In what other area of science would we accept such extraordinary conclusions based upon a single data point?

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#262 2018-01-26 18:07:59

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Kbd512:

Yeah,  I knew about Milankovitch very long ago (about 50 years now).  When I was a kid,  the prediction based on Milankovitch was that we should be moving into another glaciation.  The glaciers should already be forming in eastern Canada.  They are not,  which is another observation to consider here.

That model is useful for only the Pleistocene.  As I indicated on post 255 above,  many more things are going on if you look further back.  Don't discount the effect of large changes in CO2 concentration,  as they seem to be part of the picture as to why the Mesozoic was not a totally-glaciated Earth.  Hundreds vs thousands of ppm seem to have made a large difference,  although many other things were also different.  Nothing is certain here.  Only the IR transmissibility is known numerically "for sure".

Like you,  I do not trust proxy temperatures and computer climate models,  although such things are somewhat useful for some semblance of predictive power.  I don't bet the farm on that kind of stuff,  but the observed ice losses and their recent acceleration are something that I do bet the farm on.  Something is definitely going on,  and it is a warming when Milankovitch says it ought to be a cooling.  Land ice volume is threatened,  so there is a threat of sea level rise out-of-line with historical trends.  Not out of line with geology,  but way out of line with our experiences over the last 10 millennia.

The weird part of how I look at this is that it doesn't make any difference as to whether human activities caused this.  The only thing that matters is to reduce those activities we have been doing that we really can determine act in the wrong direction (toward further warming).  Because of lowered IR transmissibility with increasing CO2,  then reducing CO2 emissions really is something we should do.  Reducing methane emissions is another thing we really should do. 

But,  and this is crucial,  whatever we undertake should be reversible.  The uncertainties are such that we may find something we undertook doesn't work,  or has an effect we don't want.  Unless it truly is reversible,  we cannot undo what went wrong.  Emissions reductions are reversible.  Seeding sulfur into the stratosphere is not. 

The other thing that is crucial is the rate at which we do whatever it is we do about this.  There are a lot of folks screaming for renewables out there "now".  The truth is,  that cannot be done that quickly,  with the intermittency problem unsolved with solar and wind.  Yes,  we should deploy stuff like that,  but no,  not too fast.  Too fast leads to power shortages,  and in turn to people dying.  It is a "best practical speed" thing,  not a fast-tracked crash-program thing. 

The true crash program should be two things:  (1) some sort of grid scale solution to energy storage to address the intermittency thing with wind and solar,  and (2) doing something about bottom-line-only thinking (that endangers safety) and a lack of waste disposal for nuclear power.  These should be giant critical project things like the Manhattan Project was,  but neither is.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-01-26 18:21:37)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#263 2018-01-26 18:35:34

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Read some of the searched pages on Milankovitch cycle the tilt and lt is in the wrong direction for cooling and the rapid warming can not be caused by the gradual tilt in the other....

The base line that the graphs did give show that we are above the curve for where we are at in the timeline to which the added temperature is due to another cause in the short time span of less than 2,000 years.

Co2 is a lead lag indicator of change to which magnetic tilt is just that same function of an inductor and capacitor in electronics.

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#264 2018-01-27 06:00:22

elderflower
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Registered: 2016-06-19
Posts: 1,262

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Regarding model validity, as far as I know, none of them have been able to back predict the Younger Dryas cooling episode. We need to be able to do this to remove a big obstacle to model credibility.
In the meantime, current models remain our best guess and they show warming, ice loss and sea level rise. As I live within a very few metres of High Water at Spring Tides, the latter slightly bothers me, although I shall probably be fertiliser before we get flooded.
Sure there are gravy train riders in the science community, a degree in meteorology doesn't change human nature. However there are a lot of reputable and non self serving scientific people who also support climate action. We should listen carefully and not dismiss all their findings because of a few bad apples- even if that is inconvenient on a personal level.

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#265 2018-01-27 07:58:46

Terraformer
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From: Ceres
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

How do models deal with the warmer temperatures during the Atlantic period?


"I'm gonna die surrounded by the biggest idiots in the galaxy." - If this forum was a Mars Colony

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#266 2018-01-27 09:01:20

elderflower
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Posts: 1,262

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

I picked the Younger Dryas as a well characterised and dated episode. Other major fluctuations have also occurred. the models need more development to ensure that they represent these at least to a good approximation. That doesn't mean that the models are entirely wrong.

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#267 2018-01-27 11:38:27

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

All I know about the Younger Dryas is that it was a brief transient compared to even the highest Milankovitch frequency.  That sort-of-suggests something else was going on. 

Stuff I read in the refereed journals about it suggests various possibilities,  but the most credible seems to be a North Atlantic cooling event caused by a sudden flood of meltwater to the sea,  as in an ice dam break. 

Nobody can yet point reliably to any smoking guns for that,  although I think they may be on the right track with notions like that.  I've seen papers on that for about 4 decades now. 

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#268 2018-01-28 06:19:00

elderflower
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Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

If it was an ice water flood into the North Atlantic that brought  about the Younger Dryas, something like it may recur as the Greenland Ice retreats. Or a similar thing may happen in the Southern hemisphere.
Older Dryas and Oldest Dryas periods have been identified, but not with the solidity of the Younger. It has been suggested that they show periodic effects, which might reduce or eliminate the importance of melt water as a cause.

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#269 2018-01-28 13:52:42

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,423
Website

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

Hi Elderflower:

You're absolutely right about the vagaries of meltwater releases.  It takes an awfully big one happening fairly fast to affect regional ocean salinity and current patterns.  The sort of thing that might have happened scouring the badlands of the Columbia River plateau,  or perhaps when the inland sea drained to leave the Great Lakes.  I'm not sure how fast that second one happened.

We are seeing all sorts of meltwater lakes on top of the Greenland ice sheet in summer that we never saw in previous decades (from WW2 on).  That's a lot smaller volume than a large inland sea,  so maybe (only my opinion) that's not an indicator of a Younger Dryas-type-of-event.  I think west Antarctica might be a better candidate,  although we're not yet seeing any signs of an inland meltwater sea forming there.  Just glacier speed-up that may be due to floating ice shelf loss.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2018-01-28 13:58:54)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#270 2018-01-28 14:52:33

elderflower
Member
Registered: 2016-06-19
Posts: 1,262

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

My concern on the meltwater question is down to the inclination of ice to float on the melt water lakes, in particular where the ice forms a complete cap over the lake surface. The water in such a lake is under the pressure corresponding to the depth of ice and the ice is free to be pushed ashore if it is fed by a glacier at a rate exceeding the melt rate. Then the thickness will build and the ice will push against any obstruction. I suspect that this is what happened when the periglacial lake occupying the Southern North Sea along with the Netherlands, part of Belgium, central England, north Germany, and large areas around the Baltic overflowed through what is now the Strait of Dover. I notice that much of central Greenland is depressed below current sea level and could easily develop a sub ice lake containing a large amount of melt water, retained by a rock barrier which may fail at any time under the pressure of that water.

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#271 2018-01-28 18:14:15

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

floorofocean.jpg

ge7h8kurxklmg5hcoazo.jpg

world_topo_ocean_floor_720x420_flat.jpg

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#272 2018-01-28 22:05:58

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

World's Oceans Were Hottest On Record In 2017, Study Finds

The findings were based on an updated analysis of the top 6,000 feet of the world’s seas by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics and the Chinese Academy of Science. Owing to its “large heat capacity, the ocean accumulates the warming derived from human activities; indeed, more than 90 percent of Earth’s residual heat related to global warming is absorbed by the ocean,” according to the researchers. “As such, the global ocean heat content record robustly represents the signature of global warming.”  The research highlighted the “buffer” role the ocean can play in global warming as it absorbs both heat and carbon dioxide from the air, while also underscoring how climate change threatens to overwhelm that buffer. A study late last year revealed that the low-oxygen “dead zones” in the world’s oceans had quadrupled in size. Suffocating dead zones are created as the oceans absorb increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from polluted air.

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#273 2018-01-29 15:26:48

EdwardHeisler
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Registered: 2017-09-20
Posts: 357

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

No, Trump, Ice Isn’t Growing at Poles, and Yes, We Are Boiling the Earth
Since Trump is not good with reading books and the like, it may be helpful to reply to his falsehoods with graphs.
by Juan Cole
January 29, 2018
Common Dreams

The Associated Press did a useful  fact check  of Trump’s bizarre assertions on climate change in the interview with his friend Piers Morgan.
Since Trump is not good with reading books and the like, it may be helpful to reply to his falsehoods with graphs.
   
   TRUMP: “There is a cooling, and there’s a heating. I mean, look, it used to not be climate change, it used to be global warming.
   That wasn’t working too well because it was getting too cold all over the place.” – ITV interview.

Actually, no. The average earth surface temperature has been  going up steadily  and indeed faster than most climate scientists predicted.

1408.png

That is an average surface temperature increase. You have to keep in mind that it includes the oceans, which are cold, and the declining ice-covered parts of the world. So an increase of a degree Centigrade is much more alarming than it sounds. In any particular place, like Phoenix, AZ, the change could translate into a 10 degrees F. increase. Then planes couldn’t take off and people would be stuck in doors in air conditioning all the time.

   TRUMP: “The ice caps were going to melt, they were going to be gone by now, but now they’re setting records. They’re at a record level.” ITV interview.

The  National Snow and Ice Data Center begs to differ.

Trump spoke of “ice caps,” but the Arctic and the Antarctic are  very different systems. The north pole, what with being an ice cap on the ocean surrounded by land, is less complicated than Antarctica, which is a land mass covered by ice and surrounded by ocean.

Most scientists did not predict that the Arctic ice cap would be “gone by now.” They do think it will be gone in a matter of decades.

Figure3-1-750x580.png

As can be seen from the NSIDC map, ice at the Arctic is not “at a record level.” The ice fluctuates month to month and year to year but the long term secular trend is obviously steeply downward. This declining northern ice cover is a direct result of humans farting greenhouse, heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate of 41 billion metric tons a year! They belch out this nasty, toxic gas by burning coal and gas for heating and gasoline and diesel for transportation.

In 2016,  global sea ice declined so much that we lost a chunk of ice as big as the country of Mexico!

As for Antarctica, it is a land mass with an ice cover.  Its land ice sheets have been losing mass in this century at a worrisome rate.

It is true that the small ring of Antarctic sea ice  was growing slightly in extent in recent decades, but even it suffered a reversal last year. So it too is not at a “record level.” Since Antarctica is a land mass, its thin ring of sea ice isn’t what is significant (unlike in the case of the North Pole or Arctic, which is all sea ice). Antarctica’s sea ice can grow even if the gargantuan ice cover of the continent as a whole is melting. In fact, when  Antarctic ice over land melts and flows into the sea, it adds fresh water to salt water, making it easier for the ocean to freeze. Changes in the ozone layer could also be shifting wind patterns that contribute to a freezing of coastal water. There are also complex relationships between Antarctic weather patterns and the South Pacific.

Anyway, the paid-for denialists that Trump has been listening to have deliberately buried the lede. The story isn’t a little bit of extra sea ice around the continent of Antarctica. The story is the melting of the Antarctic ice pack. And that is not in doubt, any more than the melting of the Greenland ice pack.

20121230_Icesheet_mass_balance_2009_fig2-1.gif

It includes  enormous glaciers that are held back by ice shelves that extend over the ocean. If the ice shelves plop in, that won’t matter much–they are already in the water and so won’t increase sea level if they fall in. But if they release the glaciers, and the glaciers fall into the ocean, that will matter quite a lot. One of those glaciers is so enormous that it could raise sea level several yards/ meters all by itself, in which case say bye bye to Mar-a-lago and Miami and New Orleans and Calcutta, etc.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018 … ling-earth

Last edited by EdwardHeisler (2018-01-29 15:31:44)

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#274 2018-01-29 19:34:54

EdwardHeisler
Member
Registered: 2017-09-20
Posts: 357

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

24 Places around the world already affected by climate change

A Slide Show

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/weather/p … hp#image=1

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#275 2018-01-29 20:22:47

SpaceNut
Administrator
From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 28,750

Re: When Science climate change becomes perverted by Politics.

To wet, to dry, to warm, not cold . melting ice fields . sea levels rise ....the wild swings of climate change....

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