Arguments
Recent Comments
Prev 1433 1434 1435 1436 1437 1438 1439 1440 1441 1442 1443 1444 1445 1446 1447 1448 Next
Comments 72001 to 72050:
-
bugai at 03:25 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Dirkan: to shorten the discussion, just put all your steps in a row. Then I will point, at which step I start to disagree with you. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:21 AM on 22 October 2011The BEST Kind of Skepticism
I liked Tamino's words to Muller (here): "Welcome to my world." -
guinganbresil at 03:20 AM on 22 October 2011How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
Rob, Sphaerica - I think I understand now... Lets start with a picture:
There are several gradients:
1 - Air to Surface = very small
2 - Surface to bottom of 'skin layer' = ~0.5 mm
3 - Bottom of 'skin layer' to the peak of the diurnal warm layer (when warmed by sunlight)
4 - The thermocline
5 - Deep ocean gradient below the thermocline
I imagine that there is a depth where the diurnal swing in temperature is not observable due to a combination of mixing and the fact that you are too deep to get any direct sunlight warming. I think this depth is still in the well mixed layer in the top...
The heat transfer between the air and the ocean is related to the air-surface gradient. A warming of the skin layer just increases this gradient, increasing the heat transfer - it is essentially a wash.
The heat transfer to the deep oceans (by deep I mean 100's of meters not 100's of microns...) is determined by the gradient of the thermocline.
Now, you can clearly see the gradients shown in the top figure would show a constant buildup of energy in the ocean... As I understand it, the deep, cold water (in the tropics) turns out to be the warm upwelling water in polar regions - rejecting the energy it picked up in the form of latent heat, so you don't see much of a temperature change...
Remember the currents:
-
bugai at 03:14 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Dirkan: I agreed long with your Step 3. Are you going any further? -
bugai at 03:13 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Hyperactive Hydrologist: terrestrial productivity is not really relevant, because it is CO2 neutral. CO2 binding in oceans is significant, because the phytoplankton is beeing eaten by zooplankton and carbon is bound in the shells. The shells sink to the ocean deep for good. -
WheelsOC at 03:10 AM on 22 October 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
What's interesting to me is the finding of a slight cool bias in the not-very-rural station data. A similar kind of cool bias was found in the not-well-situated station data in Menne et al. 2010. As if everything else weren't enough, this should definitively rule out the idea that either microsite influences or UHI could have generated a significant part of the warming trend in the data, giving a false signal of warming. But as we're already seeing, it won't do that for the people committed to the fantasy that the temperature record is fraudulent or agenda-driven. -
Hyperactive Hydrologist at 03:05 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai @148, For this to be true globally you would require a similar reduction in terrestrial primary productivity. However this doesn't appear to be the case. According to this paper Net Primary Productivity (NPP) has been increasing by 0.52%/yr between 1980 and 2000. -
Bob Lacatena at 03:03 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
156, bugai, [I won't interfere, but you accused me of being argumentative. You are demonstrating the same behavior with Dikran. With small, axiomatic steps this discussion with him will proceed very smoothly and quickly if you are less argumentative. All you need to do at each point is to respond "Yes, I agree" -- unless you truly don't at some point, but as you've pointed out, these steps are fairly trivial and should not involve any side discussion. If you let the steps flow, the answer will arise incontrovertibly.] -
Dikran Marsupial at 03:00 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai wrote "1st class school math. Could you increase your steps?" I would happily do so if you were more cooperative, while you are obfuscating at each step it make sense to go in as small steps as possible to give you as little room to obfuscate as possible. So, do you agree, if so, say so explicitly. -
bugai at 02:57 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Dikran: 1st class school math. Could you increase your steps? -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:54 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai O.K., step #3 we can rearrange the equation to get ΔC - E_a = E_n - U_n Do you agree? Note I have change dC to ΔC to make it clear we are talking about the change in C, which is completely conventional notation used in physics. -
Bob Lacatena at 02:52 AM on 22 October 2011Climate sensitivity is low
240, Tristan, 1) No one knows for sure, because it's never been doubled this quickly before. The models give some insights, but this is hard to pin down. We're also pretty early in the process, so it's hard to even estimate it at the current rate of warming. We haven't hit any step-changes yet, and the system is sluggish. What we do know is that no matter how slowly it seems to happen, it is happening, and it is going to continue well beyond the point where we stop raising CO2 levels. 2) To my knowledge, this is the "Charney sensitivity" or "equilibrium sensitivity", meaning the final, end result sensitivity after everything has stabilized. Also note that while 3C is an easy working number, the assumed range is 2C to 4.5C, and it may even be lower (unlikely) or higher (also unlikely, but more possible than lower than 2). This is in contrast to the "transient sensitivity" we would see within 20 years of doubling CO2 levels, which would see all fast feedbacks come into play, but not some slower ones. An excellent paper to consider in studying this is Hansen and Sato (2011). They talk exactly about these issues in a fairly clear fashion, and compare current positions to what can be inferred from previous similar changes in climate. There are, really, I think (in my mind, not officially) three levels of feedbacks... very fast, slow, and very slow. Very fast includes humidity and cloud changes that happen quickly. Slow feedbacks involve things like albedo and CO2 feedbacks that require major ice melt and fast ecosystem changes. Then very slow feedbacks require even longer term things (the point where oceans warm enough to release rather than absorb atmospheric CO2, and major, large-scale ecosystem changes occur that in turn change albedo and release or absorb more CO2). But I think the hoped for answer is that 3C is all of these effects combined. [I will confess that someone else may be able to give you a more direct and perhaps different answer than this one... this is what I understand, but I could be wrong here. Hansen and Sato 2011 in particular talk about fast and slow feedbacks on other time scales.] The sad reality, though, is that we won't know if 3C is the accurate estimate of the final feedback result until 1,000 years pass. 3) That's why it's expressed in terms of a doubling of current concentrations, and not based on the incremental amount added. 4) Yes and no. There are logically slight differences in feedbacks depending on the source of a temperature increase, but overall feedbacks are driven by temperature change, regardless of the cause in temperature change. Refer to this chapter on efficacy (i.e. how one forcing differs from another) in the IPCC AR4 report. There would be more "room" for CO2 feedbacks, because the same amount of CO2 released would be proportionally larger to a lower starting level. But at the same time we'd have pumped less CO2 into the oceans to release there. More importantly, the CO2 feedback is only one of many. Other feedbacks (water vapor, albedo changes, etc.) are in aggregate probably more important. So that difference wouldn't amount to that much. -
bugai at 02:49 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Dikran:you guy have a problem.I write you: I agreed with your Step 2 long ago.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Please avoid any form of ad hominem. Refer to the Comments Policy; such statements as these are usually cause for comment deletion. -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:45 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai agree to step #2 (or demonstrate that it is incorrect) and you will find out. The ball is in your court. -
John Hartz at 02:44 AM on 22 October 2011The BEST Kind of Skepticism
Jim Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said he had not read the research papers but was glad Muller was looking at the issue, describing him as "a top-notch physicist". "It should help inform those who have honest scepticism about global warming. "Of course, presuming that he basically confirms what we have been reporting, the deniers will then decide that he is a crook or has some ulterior motive. "As I have discussed in the past, the deniers, or contrarians, if you will, do not act as scientists, but rather as lawyers." “As soon as they see evidence against their client (the fossil fuel industry and those people making money off business-as-usual), they trash that evidence and bring forth whatever tidbits they can find to confuse the judge and jury." Source: “Global warming study finds no grounds for climate sceptics' concerns,” The Guardian (UK), Oct 20, 2011 To access the article, click here. -
John Hartz at 02:43 AM on 22 October 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
Jim Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said he had not read the research papers but was glad Muller was looking at the issue, describing him as "a top-notch physicist". "It should help inform those who have honest scepticism about global warming. "Of course, presuming that he basically confirms what we have been reporting, the deniers will then decide that he is a crook or has some ulterior motive. "As I have discussed in the past, the deniers, or contrarians, if you will, do not act as scientists, but rather as lawyers." “As soon as they see evidence against their client (the fossil fuel industry and those people making money off business-as-usual), they trash that evidence and bring forth whatever tidbits they can find to confuse the judge and jury." Source: “Global warming study finds no grounds for climate sceptics' concerns,” The Guardian (UK), Oct 20, 2011 To access the article, click here. -
bugai at 02:41 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Dikran: So what? It was your idea with steps. Will you do the step #3 finally? I agreed long with your Step 2, just written it in an accurate form (your is too sloppy). -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:36 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai wrote : "To Dikran: will go any step further? I get tired with you." I have noticed over the years that the difference between those who are genuinely interested in the science and those who are deniers or trolls is that those who are interested in the science will follow a step by step explanation, and those that are not either obfuscate or abandon the discussion when it becomes apparent that they have backed themselves into a corner where they will soon be forced to admit that they were wrong. They normally get further than step #1 though. The ball is in your court, if you want to show that you are interested in the science, then either agree with step #2 or show why it is incorrect. -
dana1981 at 02:34 AM on 22 October 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
For commentary on the various reactions to the BEST results, see the follow-up post to this one, The BEST Kind of Skepticism -
bugai at 02:31 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Dikran: will go any step further? I get tired with you. -
bugai at 02:29 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Hyperactive Hydrologist: Well, to account for the observed CO2 raise from 280 ppm around 1750 to 380 ppm now, we need 100*(1 - 280/(380-280)) = 26% in productivity change. The observed 6.5% over 20 years can be easily extrapolated to 26% over the laser 250 years. -
Bob Lacatena at 02:27 AM on 22 October 2011How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
32, Rob, Maybe jg can help, if you could just give him a napkin version of what you envision? -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:24 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai Sorry, you are just obfuscating. How about this, I will carry on with the dC and you can read it as dC/dt with t=one year if you really want to (although that would be an abuse of notation it would be your error not mine). Do you agree with step #2? -
Hyperactive Hydrologist at 02:20 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai @ 141, I had a quick search of the literature and found this paper. They do in fact show a -6.3% change in ocean primary productivity between the 79-86 and 97-02 periods. I'm not sure this is sufficient to account for the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations over that period. -
bugai at 02:17 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Dirkan: I'd like to stick to the ODE. You may think of dt=1 year, if you wish. 1 year is "instantaneous". -
John Hartz at 02:11 AM on 22 October 2011Sea levels will continue to rise for 500 years
@Agnostic #53: "The journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step." -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:10 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai You may prefer a differential equation, however as I will shortly be introducing annual observations into the discussion it makes far more sense to look at annual changes rather than instantaneous rates. So, do you agree with step 2 or not? I have solved the differential equations as well, so I am happy to discuss those later once we have agreed on the basics. -
bugai at 01:56 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Dirkan: I prefer the full differential equation: dC/dt = E_a + E_n - U_n Do you agree with that? It is better to have a true differential equation, because we have then something to solve. -
Dikran Marsupial at 01:52 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai good, so step #2, do you agree that we can write this more formally as dC = E_a + E_n - U_n where: dC is the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 in GtC/year E_a is annual emissions from anthropogenic sources in GtC/year E_n is annual emissions from natural sources in GtC/year U_n is annual uptake by natural sinks in GtC/year Technically there ought to be U_a, which is annual uptake by anthropogenic sinks, but this is effectively zero as we are not yet achieving any significant carbon sequestration. Again, this should be fairly obviously true as it is just a restatement of step 1 with total emissions divided into anthropogenic and natural. Do you agree with this? -
bugai at 01:51 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Hyperactive Hydrologist: I am not an expert, but here is what Wiki writes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology) "Use of chemical fertilizers is considered the major human-related cause of dead zones around the world." -
Hyperactive Hydrologist at 01:45 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Bugai, "It is known that due to pollution with fertilizers and pesticides large regions of ocean lose phytoplankton. According to some "studies", we have already lost up to 40% of phytoplankton since mid-1900. If true, this has certainly a big influence on the relaxation time "tau" and can easily explain the CO2 rise." I would be interested to see these studies. Could you provide a reference please? -
bugai at 01:33 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To Dikran: Step #1: Do you agree that conservation of mass applies to the carbon cycle, in other words the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 is equal to total emissions minus total uptake? Answer: trivially true. -
bugai at 01:32 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
To muon calculon: 1. "the rate of increase in global atmospheric CO2 has dropped noticeably in years immediately following global recessions": please, provide a reference for this statement. 2. "CO2 concentrations mirror diurnal cycles (increase during higher traffic hours) as well as weekly cycles (drop on weekends)." Is off-topic, as diurnal changes are (i) local and (ii) too fast to equilibrate with anything. -
Dikran Marsupial at 01:28 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai Sorry, refusing to answer a question and asking another one in its place is transparent evasion and not something I am going to encourage by indulging such behaviour. If you really want to get to the truth, I suggest we go through the arguemnt step by step and you can point out where the error lies when we get to it. Step #1: Do you agree that conservation of mass applies to the carbon cycle, in other words the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 is equal to total emissions minus total uptake? -
bugai at 01:21 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Answer to Sphaerica: sorry, I am not a "believer". I want to understand. Your "argumentation" does not do it in any way." Answer to Dikran. Or, better, a question. You say: "natural emissions and natural uptake .. are quite closely balanced compared to the magnitude of the fluxes involved. " Who balanced that? Why you think they are still balanced? How to describe the balancing process? My equations (see first posting) do that. The small extra antropogenic source cannot possibly change the balance. We do change the system by different means: pollution. -
muoncounter at 01:17 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
bugai#131: "the antropogenic source is negligibly small" If that is true, you will need to explain why the rate of increase in global atmospheric CO2 has dropped noticeably in years immediately following global recessions - when emissions decrease. In addition, explain how locally measured atmospheric CO2 concentrations mirror diurnal cycles (increase during higher traffic hours) as well as weekly cycles (drop on weekends). -
Bob Lacatena at 01:03 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
131, bugai, Your position is untenable because the accounting has been done and is very straight forward. We know how much carbon we burn. This is carbon that has been sequestered under the ground for hundreds of millions of years. It can't get back there on it's own. We take it out, we burn it, it must go somewhere. There are three places that it can go; into the air, into the oceans, or into vegetation. We have been measuring the level in the atmosphere. We know it is increasing. We have been measuring the level in the ocean. We know that it is increasing. We know that the balance (amount burned - added to the atmosphere and ocean) is going into vegetation. This has all been studied, measured, worked out, and is incontrovertible. Hence your conclusion:antropogenic emissions cannot possibly account for observed CO2 rise. No way.
is untenable. Beyond this, you have two problems to solve: First, if anthropogenic CO2 is not going into the oceans and atmosphere, then where is it going? Second, what is the source of the CO2 that is causing the increase in the atmosphere? It's not the oceans, because CO2 is increasing there. Where is this added CO2 coming from? -
Dikran Marsupial at 01:01 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Bugai wrote: "Your claim is that the mankind influences the natural CO2-sinks via CO2 emission. This is very shaky as the antropogenic source is negligibly small." The error in this line of reasoning has already been pointed out, anthropogenic emissions are not negligibly small. Whether CO2 rises or falls depends on the difference between total emissions and total uptake, the volume of the flux is irrelevant. Anthropogenic emissions are large compared to the difference between natural emissions and natural uptake, which are quite closely balanced compared to the magnitude of the fluxes involved. Around 1850 the difference between natural emissions and natural uptake was also much smaller than it is now. If you look at the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 you will find it has been roughly 45% of anthropogenic emissions, going back as far as 1850. So as anthropogenic emissions have increased, the difference between natural emissions and natural uptake has increased with it and the natural carbon sink has been strengthening. "For this, there is no more balance between NATURAL CO2-sources and CO2-sinks." I have already pointed out that there is no balance between natural sources and sinks. You would make more progress if you paid better attention to the replies to your posts. Regarding residence time and adjustment time, I suggest you read the glossary of the IPCC report, which explains the distinction very clearly. Carbon cycle models do not neglect photosynthesis by phytoplankton, however they also do not neglect respiration by oceanic biota. Here is a challenge for you, if you think that anthropogenic emissions are not the cause of the observed rise then explain (i) how the annual rise in atmospheric CO2 can be less than anthropogenic emissions unless the natural environment is a net sink or (ii) how the natural environment can be the cause of the observed rise if it is a net sink. Nobody has risen to the challenge so far. -
Tristan at 00:58 AM on 22 October 2011Climate sensitivity is low
I'm trying to understand the relationship between climate sensitivity and C02:temp feedback. Assuming that CS is 3C for the radiative forcing resulting from doubling atmospheric C02: 1)Over what time period is this realized? 2)Is this the limit of the temp:C02 feedback or is this just the first order effect? 3)Wouldn't the C02:temp feedback limit be dependent on the amount of C02 already in the atmosphere? 4)If the radiative forcing came from a non-C02 source, wouldn't the temperature rise be larger, as there'd be more 'room' for the feedback to occur? -
Bob Lacatena at 00:53 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
111, Briago1, No one seems to have replied to you (because you packed too many off topic arguments into a single post), but your misconceptions are pretty easy to address, so I took the time to help point you in the right directions. Response to your first point is on the runaway warming thread. In response to your second and third points (which are relevant on this thread):2) On the whole 29GT does not sound like much
The carbon cycle involves a constant flow in and out (refer to this diagram here). What matters is not how much flows in and out, but the net difference. In this context, the system has been pretty much in near perfect balance for thousands of years. We are now shifting it out of balance by 29GT per year, which slowly but surely increases the concentrations both in the atmosphere and the ocean.3) ...a measly 4% increase in plant/algae life would more than make up for the difference
But it doesn't. Scientists have actually measured where the carbon is going, and how much is going into increased vegetation, the ocean and the atmosphere. We don't need to argue about what should or might happen here, because we've pretty much measured it and we actually know exactly how much is going where. Response to your fourth point is on the CO2 lags Temperature thread. Response to your fifth point is on the Has Arctic Sea Ice Recovered thread. -
Bob Lacatena at 00:52 AM on 22 October 2011Arctic sea ice has recovered
Briago1, This is in response to your point 5 here.5) ...the north pole all but completly melts EVERY YEAR
This is not true. In the 70s the north pole melted back only fractionally, while today it is almost completely melting every summer and will probably totally melt some summer in the near future. Here is the ice extent at the end of the melt season in 1980:
And here it is again at the end of the melt season in 2009:
-
Bob Lacatena at 00:48 AM on 22 October 2011CO2 lags temperature
Briago1, This is in response to your point 4 here.4) I keep reading that ice cores show in increase in temperature after an increase in CO2 (this is debatable, but I'll skip that). This tid bit is then being used to say that since CO2 has risen x amount in 30 years, that now we are going to have a temperature rise in the next decade
No, this information is not being used in that way. Our understanding of physics and myriad other observations tell us what increases in CO2 will do. The ice cores (and other proxies, and other periods of time besides the ice ages) simply confirm this understanding by demonstrating that increasing CO2 levels did affect global temperatures (as would be expected) in the past. But the ice core inference is not the source of the conclusion, but rather simply one of many sources of confirmation. -
bugai at 00:45 AM on 22 October 2011Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
Antwort an Bibliovermis. The Suess effect does not show that the CO2 increase is due to emissions. It only shows that we do emit CO2. This we perfectly know without Suess. Antwort an Dikran Marsupial. Your claim is that the mankind influences the natural CO2-sinks via CO2 emission. This is very shaky as the antropogenic source is negligibly small. Why should it so drastically change the natural sink? Especially around 1850 when the antropogenic source was even some 10 times smaller. It is much more reasonable to assume the change in the CO2 sink is due to a different, more powerful influence, like pollution with fertilizers. For this, there is no more balance between NATURAL CO2-sources and CO2-sinks. And - the 5 years IS the relaxation time for extra CO2 (experimentally proven). Concerning the 74 years or 1000 years for thermocline - this is only if you neglect photosynthesis by phytoplankton. -
Bob Lacatena at 00:41 AM on 22 October 2011Positive feedback means runaway warming
Briago1, A response to the first part of your question here.1) ...as the atmosphere warms that will release more carbon dioxide from the oceans making the atmosphere even warmer. This can not be the case otherwise if the atmosphere ever got a little warm, it would be doomed to continue to heat up.
You are confusing a runaway scenario with a simple positive feedback. If the CO2 released by the ocean warms the atmosphere less than the amount that caused the CO2 release, then as things warm, the ocean will release less CO2 in response. In math it is a simple convergent series, like 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 ... → 2. -
Tristan at 00:35 AM on 22 October 2011A Scientific Guide to the 'Skeptics Handbook'
Has there been a rebuttal to JoNova's response? Her claim: "Indeed when I have bothered to debunk Cook, Cook had no reply, and didn’t apologize for all his errors, or his use of a flagrantly deceptive graph either." -
Rob Painting at 00:20 AM on 22 October 2011How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
Sphaerica - fair comment. I'll go over it in the next day or two and tweak a few things to make it clearer. I did produce a graphic but wasn't happy with it - I'll reassess that too, but I'm in the middle of writing a few other posts which rate higher on my agenda. -
Hyperactive Hydrologist at 00:16 AM on 22 October 2011Sea levels will continue to rise for 500 years
I still feel catastrophic collapse of the Greenland ice sheet is unlikely. If you look at a topographic bedrock map of Greenland the central region is lower than the surrounding perimeter especially on the eastern side where there is a mountain range.
I think once the glaciers retreat from the sea we could see a slow down in ice loss. The central region, which contains the majority of the ice, should be relatively stable.
However, Antarctica shows a very different picture,especially for the Western Antarctic Ice sheet. Much of this region is actually below sea level and a large increase in ocean warming could potentially destabilise the ice sheet.
-
Bob Lacatena at 00:03 AM on 22 October 2011How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
30, Rob, I have to admit, as a result of guinganbresil's comments, I went back to the post and started to try to work things out, and realized there's some ambiguity that led me to a state of mild confusion. I think my problem lies primarily in that there are two gradients involved (ocean/air and deep-ocean/cool-skin) and it's not always clear which is being discussed. I think at most points that when you talk about the gradient being decreased, you are referring to the latter (ocean/cool-skin), not the former (ocean/air), but it's not always clear in the text. For example, when you talk about GHGs warming the cool-skin layer, this will increase the ocean/atmosphere gradient (the ocean being warmer) which implies the ocean will cool faster, but it decreases the deep-ocean/cool-skin gradient, which I think is the real issue, because it blocks heat loss from the bulk of the ocean through the cool-skin layer. But that's not always clear. In addition to this, there are obviously different states in different time frames (e.g. during the day, temperatures are X, Y, and Z, and the system is dominated by solar radiation, while that changes at other times and under other conditions). Is it possible to clarify all of this? Perhaps a diagram showing the relative temperatures and net flows in different situations? [In my mind the system has 5 possible components, the deep ocean, the cool-skin layer, the atmosphere, and then one of two sources of radiation, either the sun or clouds/atmosphere/GHGs.] I think that guingabresil's problems come from focusing on the ocean/atmosphere interface rather than the more important (in this situation) deep-ocean/cool-skin interface... or so I think. Again, I haven't completely wrapped my head around it enough to say this with authority (it's Friday, and it's been a very long week!). -
Rob Painting at 23:24 PM on 21 October 2011How Increasing Carbon Dioxide Heats The Ocean
guinganbresil -..... but the paper you link to in the text above the figure was published in 2001 The paper linked to is a description of MAERI, the measuring instrument, and it details how measurements are carried out. "Unfortunately Minnett does not source his graph" I believe the data were obtained during a survey with a different purpose in mind. I don't think this has ended up in the peer-reviewed literature, but Professor Minnett informed me he has a postdoc taking up work on it. "Looking more closely at the orders of magnitude..........." I can see you're not really following this, sorry but its a very complex subject and not easy to put into layman terms (at least not for me) but I hope this helps: - The ocean cool skin is a surface layer where molecular processes dominate, i.e conduction is the form of heat transfer. Therefore a temperature gradient needs to exist (confirmed by Khundzhua [1977]) . - Greenhouse gases, such as CO2, warm the cool skin and lower its gradient. The lowered gradient slows the heat flow of heat out of the ocean into the atmosphere. This mechanism allows the oceans to build up heat. - This mechanism is pervasive because the increased greenhouse effect is a global phenomenon. In other words, all parts of the ocean surface are subjected to its influence. - Changes in heat associated with changing winds, humidity, evaporation etc, can indeed be much larger on short timescales, but are local effects, causing the ocean to either store more or less heat over these shorter intervals. However, the greenhouse gas effect on the skin layer gradient is still toiling away in the background, it's ever-present 24 hours a day (except for those rare occasions when it breaks down momentarily), and is global in scale. So any heat headed for the atmosphere has to run the gauntlet of this greenhouse gas-warmed ocean cool skin layer, and in the process a little bit of heat is stolen away and stored in the ocean. - Because of the very long-lived nature of carbon dioxide, it can affect the cool skin layer temperature gradient for hundreds to thousands of years. Of course in Earth's deep past, higher levels of carbon dioxide corresponded with higher ocean temperatures. So the whole conceptual framework shows coherency - elevate carbon dioxide, and the oceans warm - just like they did in the past, and just like they are now. - Now what you, and a couple of earlier commenters, seem to be inferring doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If wind speed, humidity etc (there's a bunch of other factors) were the long-term controls on the cool skin layer, wouldn't the ocean temperature just fluctuate within a set boundary determined only by those factors? (windspeed etc). - In your hypothesis (?) how could you account for the 20,000 year ocean warming that took place in the Paleocene-Eocene termal Maximum (PETM)? Windspeed? How are the oceans warming now? -
Jeffrey Davis at 23:22 PM on 21 October 2011Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”
re: 10 and Muller's past Luke 15:3-7
Prev 1433 1434 1435 1436 1437 1438 1439 1440 1441 1442 1443 1444 1445 1446 1447 1448 Next
