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Comments 109601 to 109650:

  1. beam me up scotty at 00:50 AM on 18 September 2010
    Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    How seriously should we argue with people who would pick a single event (cold winter, IPCC error etc.) to refute the undeniable(!) and observable warming and ocean acidification?
  2. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    ClimateWatcher, trends from 2000 to present for all temperature data sets show warming. Same goes if you select any year prior. There's a mix of results up to 2005. Then, from 2006 onwards, all data sets show warming again. Here are the trends from 2006. HadCRUt - 1.8K/century GISTEMP - 2K/century UAH - 4.6K/century RSS - 4.1K/century As you can see, warming has recommenced at an alarming rate. Or....? The top post is about climate trends (20 - 30 years). As your time periods are not climatic, what is it that you are talking about? Even in a clearly warming world, we will always get reruns of 'no warming since 1998'. The meme will stay the same, only the date will change. 2002 was the favourite for a while because a year or so ago, all the data sets showed a negative trend. In a few more months the 'skeptics' will be obliged to cherry-pick a more recent year.
  3. Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
    68, TTTM: It's true that the immediate effect of convection is to move heat upwards. However, the problem remains that the altitude at which the water vapor condenses is still far below the photosphere for the relevant IR photons, so those photons have to try for their chance at escape just like all the other IR photons. That rate of escape is set by the temperature of the surface of the IR photosphere. This in turn is set by: a) the temperature at ground level; and b) the adiabatic lapse rate. Now, actually, it occurs to me that you might have a point: The adiabatic lapse rate is reduced by increased humidity; so if the humidity increases, the temperature at the photosphere will be increased, so it will radiate more. Of course, increased humidity also means more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere - but if it's below the photosphere, it shouldn't matter. I'll think it over...
  4. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    mspelto is right to note that WGMS provides a good source for global data on glaciers over the past few decades. I agree with Grim_Reaper's point that the data plotted in figure 1 of this post are probably not representative of the global trend in glacier mass balance. I give Berényi Péter a hard time about this constantly, in other contexts -- you can't draw reliable conclusions about a global mean from a sample with an ad-hoc spatial distribution like this. That's not to say that glaciers aren't retreating in most places; they obviously are. But quantifying the global mean trend for that is a difficult undertaking.
  5. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    The bottom line is that glacier variations are largely dependent on localized conditions but that these variations are superimposed on a clear and evident long term reduction in glacier volume which has accelerated rapidly since the 1970s Yet glaciers are still larger today than in 12 other several hundred years long periods during the Holocene, initiated and ended by abrupt changes each time. Ten thousand years could reasonably be called "long term", if not on a true geological time scale, at least compared to the 160 or 40 year flashes you are talking about. We should always pursue the big picture, don't we? The Holocene, July 2006 vol. 16 no. 5 pp. 697-704 doi: 10.1191/0959683606hl964rp Multicentury glacier fluctuations in the Swiss Alps during the Holocene Ulrich E. Joerin, Thomas F. Stocker and Christian Schlüchter "The radiocarbon ages of tree fragments and peat discs found on proglacial forefields indicate 12 phases of glacier recessions during the Holocene. Locations and type of occurrence of the dated samples show that trees and mires grew where glaciers exist at present and, therefore, glaciers were smaller at that time."
  6. Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
    #67 : "No Increasing convection wouldn't actually do anything to cool off the planet." Convection takes water vapour from the surface high into the atmosphere where it condenses back into water losing a significant amount of latent heat which is then radiated away. Its one of the most important heat transfer mechanisms in our atmosphere.
  7. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    There is a long term cooling from the holocene maximum due to orbital forcing. Over a millenium it mounts up. I have only looked this up on Wikipedia however. I believe at present the effect is smaller than in the past. A small fall in temperature over the last 1000-2000 years as indicated by proxy reconstructions and models is consistent with this. If someone has literature references giving reasons for the trend of the last 1000-2000 years, (eg. consistentcy with post holocene cooling) then it may be worth adding to this article. The literature may posit other reasons/observations worth posting too for a millenial scale trend.
  8. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    muoncounter #7 Just the fact that we are all niggling about whether the Earth is slightly heating or cooling over the last 8-15 years, or whether it is statistically significant is pretty good proof that the theory of CO2GHG forcing as the main driver of global warming is in serious trouble. My understanding of events such as ENSO, La Nina, PDO, AMO are internal to the Earth system - they are re-distributors of heat energy already there; and not a cause of external forcing imbalances globally gaining or losing heat. The 11 year cycle in the TSI curve is well documented and effectively a +/-0.5W/sq.m ripple on complex long term Solar-Earth cycles. In the absence of other AG forcings (including aerosol albedo effects) we need to know the value of TSI which produces no heating or cooling of the Earth system. Then we can easily calculate whether a reduced TSI (excluding the 11 year ripple) is above or below the 'zero' forcing value. Just showing a downtrend in TSI (as in the chart above)means that heat gain from solar radiation is less than it was; but not necessarily less than the 'zero' forcing value - which would still mean net heat gain but at a lower rate from TSI alone rather than cooling (or heat loss). You then need to assess the values of the other AR4 AG forcings - the most uncertain being cloud and aerosol albedo cooling (currently 2005 at -1.2W/sq.m with wide error bars). I would be having a small wager on reduced TSI warming, greater albedo cooling and a smaller CO2GHG warming effect than theorised by the IPCC all producing flat temperatures over the last 8-10 years; further evidenced by little gain in OHC as measured by an imperfect Argo.
  9. Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
    TTTM: - Increasing albedo would indeed reduce the radiation absorbed by the Earth, and would help curb the radiative imbalance. Lindzen suggests that this may be happening; as far as I can tell, right now the bulk of the evidence seems to be against him. It's not a crazy idea; it just doesn't seem to be what's happening. - Increasing convection wouldn't actually do anything to cool off the planet. Convection can only carry warmth as far as the atmosphere goes, whereas to cool the planet the warmth must depart into space. Analogy: You can depopulate the planet with space ships but not with airplanes: They don't go far enough.
  10. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Re: ClimateWatcher (12)
    "Great. Don't say that it's not cooling though, because using this criteria, you'll have to wait thirty years."
     To reiterate, using data from 1979 to 2010: RSS_LT 0.163 K/decade or 1.63 K/Century RSS_MT 0.099 K/decade or 0.99 K/Century RSS_TS 0.005 K/decade or 0.05 K/Century RSS_SL -0.313 K/decade or -3.13 K/Century (stratospheric cooling, as predicted by the physics of greenhouse gases) Using data from 1900 to 2000: CRU: CRU 0.80 K/century (eyeball Mk. 4) CRU SST 0.70 K/century (eyeball Mk. 4) GISS: GISS 0.80 K/century (eyeball Mk. 4) To paraphrase Shakespeare: the Trend is the thing. The trends, using 30 or more years of data, all show the hallmark of the effects of GHG accumulations (significant warming in the oceans and troposphere, cooling in the stratosphere, northward expansion of the Hadley cells, 10 mile-per-year northward relocation of the northern polar jet, mass-loss in the GIS, the WAIS AND the EAIS, acidifying seas, 40% loss of oceanic phytoplankton in the last 40 years, etc). And doing it over the last 30 years, during which TSI has been flat or down, GCR's have been flat, UHI invalidated and aerosols have been retarding the forcings from GHG's to some degree (meaning: temperature increases and resultant negative effects should've been worse than observed). Therefore, looking at 30 or more years of data which also covers the period to date, IT'S NOT COOLING! This focus on short-term noise/variability does you a great disservice. The Yooper
  11. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    The paper by Immerzeel (2010) was already discussed here in the article "Return to the Himalayas" on 29 June 2010 by Doug Bostrom. I wrote some comments about IPCC AR4 and Barnett (2005) there. Some earlier discussions about the paper by Barnett (2005) was made as comments to the blog article "The IPCC's 2035 prediction about Himalayan glaciers" posted on 21 January 2010.
  12. Why positive feedback doesn't necessarily lead to runaway warming
    "So if you don't change the incoming part of the radiation from the sun you need to warm up by a certain amount to get back in that radiative equilibrium." Or increase cloud cover (albedo) or increase convection, surely.
  13. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    >Unless you're looking at all of the data available, or at least >snippets of 30 years or more (or you can demonstrate high >correlation values that are statistically significant), you're >wasting our time. Great. Don't say that it's not cooling though, because using this criteria, you'll have to wait thirty years.
  14. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    JMurphy, that'll teach me for skim reading. My point still stands though: Is this geographically limited sample sufficient to work out the global picture? I'd feel far more comfortable if those 400+ glaciers were spread around the world (as with the more recent data). For me, this undermines the authority of an otherwise excellent graph, and make it a target for sceptics.
  15. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    As mspelto said, most of glaciers to the south of the Himalayas accumulate snow in the summer monsoon season. But perhaps the word "summer" is ambiguous. In the tropical monsoon Asia, the maximum in the annual cycle of air temperature often occurs in the pre-monsoon season (April to May in India, still dry until the onset of monsoon rain in June). I think that glacier melt water takes the largest fraction of streamflow in the pre-monsoon season (though I do not have appropriate data ready to assert this). This is a story about the seasonal cycle and not about climate change.
  16. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    are retreating All you have to do is read the abstract of this and wonder about all this. It states ice loss was rapid in the 60s. It also states that precip rates are down. then it says summer temps are warmer. Question class. if you decrease ice mass in an area what would you expect the temperature to do? Yes it would go up. that is exactly why the most extreme temperature changes are seen on the margins of ice areas. It doesn't take a scientist to figure that out.
  17. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    #10: "ocean heat content (or if you prefer, ocean cold content-just to be language-neutral)" Nope, it would be heat content. Cold is the relative lack of heat energy and therefore not something that can be contained. Just to be language-correct. Why would non-consensus over OHC matter in this context? We're not talking about a global energy balance; we're talking about the observable temperature increase which already includes whatever the oceans are doing.
  18. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    The issue of "500 million people" should perhaps be put off. It is confusing to conflate the Himalayas in the proper sense in the issue of the mistaken outlook of the glaciers on one hand, and the catchments of various rivers originating in the central Asian highlands including, but not limited to, the Himalayas, in the issue of vulnerable population, on the other hand. Also, if the broken link "Kehrwald 2008" refers to the paper of Kehrwald et al. 2008 in Geophysical Research Letters 35, L22503, the reference to the paper in this context is inappropriate. Kehrwald et al.'s expertise is in scientific estimates of mass balance of glaciers. Remarks about human population in its "implication" section were just drawn from the (questioned) Asian chapter of the IPCC AR4 WG2 (together with the mistaken outlook of the Himalayan glaciers), and also from the paper by Barnett et al. 2005 (Nature 438, 303-309) which was the main source of the information used by AR4 about the issue of population. The numbers in Barnett 2005 are often communicated as the numbers of people who depend on glacier melt water, but it is not. In one context, it is the number of people who depend on snowmelt water and glacier melt water together, and it is likely that snowmelt is more important in the majority. In another context (northwestern China), a large number is the total population of a region which has parts where glacier melt water is important. A much better estimate of the vulnerable population has been made by Immerzeel et al. 2010 Science 328, 1382-1385. I think that this paper should be cited instead of Kehlwald 2008 and Barnett 2005. But note that the target of this paper was 5 large river basins. It did not contain analyses of small inland river basins where glacier meltwater is likely to be crucial, though population is not as large there as in large river basins.
  19. Himalayan Glaciers: Wrong Date, Right Message
    Himalayan glaciers draining south into India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan are increasingly being utilized for hydropower. One key point is that for the southern facing main Himalayan Range of India-Nepal-Bhutan the wet season is also the melt season. The summer monsoon leads to most of the melting low on a glacier and the accumulation high on a glacier. thus, unlike other areas low flow is not during the summer melt season and meltwater is not as critical to streamflow. The retreat is ongoing and substantial for almost all of the glaciers outside the Karokoram Range.Zemu Glacier, Gangotri Glacier and Satonpanth Glacier for example both of which feed hydropower.
  20. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    Since 1965 we have a strong series of mass balance from around the globe that Switzerland provides less than 10% of the data for. The WGMS collects this data each year, for 2008 there were about 100 glaciers that have been reported so far, three from Switzerland. I report 12 each year from the United States for example. Robert makes a good point about the type of precipitation. On temperate glaciers even if you get some rain events in the winter the water is stored in the deep snowpack, and almost everything falls as snow. However, we have observed one issue, and that is as the snowpack warms earlier in the winter season, fewer ice lenses are formed on the Juneau Icefield. The result is less meltwater in April and May is retained as refrozen ice lenses.
  21. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    Grim_Reaper, the document you link to also mentions the records of 143 glaciers in Italy from a date of 1820. thingadonta, are you suggesting that glaciers don't move, and that Otzi has been in the same location for the last 5000 years ?
  22. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    thingadonta, glaciers respond, among other things, to temperature. Recently it has been warming and glaciers are responding to it, whatever its cause might be. Little doubt about this, i guess, and it's what this post is showing. By the way, who said that there was no ice where and when Otzi died? Could it be so well preserved if not kept at very low temperatures from right after his death?
  23. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    Yes and glaciers in Europe are only now exposing ancient ruins of Romans (book reference 'the Chilling Stars'), the Ice Man (Ozste) etc, which means glaciers have just now got back to where they were several times in the last several thousand years, with no nasty human c02 emissions.
  24. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    One major wild card I would add to your discussion is ocean heat content (or if you prefer, ocean cold content-just to be language-neutral), and the current disagreements (ie non consensus) surrounding this.
  25. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    I found this document (http://www.ibcperu.org/doc/isis/7076.pdf) which confirms there's data for 300 glaciers starting with 1850, but they're all Swiss. Can you really get a global picture from just 1 small country?
  26. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    Oh, and the graph is determined by using over 300 glaciers (as far as I can make out), if Table 1 in the original paper itself is anything to go by - but I have only skimmed over it.
  27. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    Grim_Reaper, have a look at another graph which includes the above but also data from all glaciers since 1980, and you will see the same downward trend : NOAA Glacier Mass Balance
  28. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    Figure 1 (Global glacier volume) looked great to me at first. Then I started wondering how they managed to calculate the volume all the way back to 1850. From what I can tell, more than half that graph is extrapolated from just 30 glaciers, all of which are based in Switzerland. Can you really do this and come up with a reliable result?
  29. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    John, it comes from BOTH sun and backradiation as has been explained. Why is it so hard to understand this? You can sense the backradiation if you go into your backyard at night - note the lack of instant freezing to death. However, your sensors are more likely to notice the conduction from your warm body to the cooler night air. Have you bothered to compare ground cooling rate between clear and cloudy night yet?
  30. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    You have to be very careful about any "trend" in the TSI data, because of the strong 11-year cyclic nature of it. Any trend should be based on an integer number of cycles, so 22 or 33 or 44 years. Otherwise the partial cycle will influence the trend. That said, the bit of extra cycle you chart would tend to influence the trend upward, and yet the overall trend is down...
  31. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    John, this is getting a bit repetitive but I will try... At the surface, radiation is being received as short wave from sun, and long wave from the atmosphere. The radiation is absorbed by atoms/molecules in that surface (at top for ground, in first few metres for water). This radiation energy converts to added kinetic energy for these atoms. Collectively this is heat, and what the thermometer measures. Conduction comes into play. The energy is transferred, atom to atom, both downward below the surface and to molecules of the atmosphere at the boundary, which collide with others to transfer energy up. In liquids, some of that energy also goes into evaporation. So the surface loses energy and thus is cooled by those processes. The amount of energy the can be moved away by conduction and evaporation is strictly limited by physical laws. As energy is absorbed, more and more radiation energy is converted to kinetic energy in the atoms. However, moving atoms (or more to point, the charged particles of the atoms) lose energy by radiation. The temperature of surface (the amount of kinetic energy in the atoms) stops rising when the losses by radiation match the energy coming in. Surface radiation goes up. For the temperatures at the earth surface, this radiation is long wave as opposed to the short wave coming in. The atmosphere is transparent (it doesnt absorb) to short wave, but GHG do absorb the longwave, convert to kinetic energy and so heat the atmosphere. Moving particles again, so atmosphere emits radiation, some of which goes down to the surface again. Its not an efficient emitters because atmosphere re-absorbs radiation, then emits again and so on. This is the backradiation. What happens to your thermometers? Well in day time, shortwave from sun and backradiation both heat. Surface heats faster than atmosphere because it absorbs the radiation whereas atmosphere is only heated by conduction and the limited absorption of surface radiation by GHG. Conduction is more important closer to the ground. At night, the surface continues to radiate effectively for its temperature but now only warmed by backradiation. As it is efficient radiator is cools faster than atmosphere and again conduction works in reverse, cooling air closer to the ground. As temperature of ground drops, surface radiation reduces and so back radiation also is reduced but not hugely as whole thickness of the atmosphere is involved in radiation, absorption and re-radiation. You can see the relative night time drops if you go to site that actually measures the radiation as well as the temperature. And in case I need to say it... A thermometer does not measure radiation - it may measure the energy converted to atomic motion by an absorber however.
  32. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    scaddenp at 07:20 AM, Phil, on the contrary, I think we are getting somewhere. So, a thermometer lying on the ground, or a barefoot kid does not measure what radiation instruments measures. What they both measure is the result of solar radiation being absorbed by matter or objects on surface, sufficient radiation to heat the surface to the point a bare foot kid would be unable to stand still for fear of burning his feet, or as I mentioned earlier, enough to fry an egg in some cases. That leads us back to the question as to where does the energy come from that drives evaporation, is it that heat absorbed from the solar energy that can burn the soles of the kids foot, or is it the back radiation that he is unable to sense as it can only be measured by radiation instruments?
  33. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    KR at 12:34 PM, regarding how well CO2 is mixed in the atmosphere, you will find this study of CO2 levels measured by surface stations interesting. http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/7239/2008/acp-8-7239-2008.pdf In particular note what variations can occur over a few days, as well as the huge variations that occur over the course of the year due to seasonal conditions, up to or in excess of 50ppm, certainly very much more than a slight decrease, as well as how much the CO2 varies between locations. Given the processes that transport the CO2, the distribution of it has a lot in common with how heat is distributed as well as moisture, so would you say that they too are well and evenly distributed in the atmosphere. We know and accept that water must return to the surface to complete the hydrological cycle and so too does CO2. The amount of CO2 that is in the carbon cycle moving between the sources and sinks, all of them at the earths surface, is about 30 times that which is released by the combustion of fossil fuels.
  34. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Re: ClimateWatcher (5)
    "And in fact, the linear trends for most global measures of temperature since 2002 do indicate cooling: RSS_MT -1.29 K/century UAH_MT -0.25 K/century RSS_LT -0.15 K/century CRU -0.53 K/century CRU SST -0.46 K/century While these indicate warming: UAH_LT 0.37 K/century GISS 0.35 K/century"
     That's odd. This is what the RSS Website shows: RSS_LT 0.163 K/decade or 1.63 K/Century RSS_MT 0.099 K/decade or 0.99 K/Century RSS_TS 0.005 K/decade or 0.05 K/Century RSS_SL -0.313 K/decade or -3.13 K/Century Smelling a cherry pick, opted for the quick, down-and-dirty Eyeball Mk. 4 method from here on. This is from CRU.: CRU 0.80 K/century (eyeball Mk. 4) CRU SST 0.70 K/century (eyeball Mk. 4) This is from GISS.: GISS 0.80 K/century (eyeball Mk. 4) Didn't even bother with UAH. Pointless. Unless you're looking at all of the data available, or at least snippets of 30 years or more (or you can demonstrate high correlation values that are statistically significant), you're wasting our time. The Yooper
  35. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    Agnostic, Like Daniel Bailey said it depends on the form of the precipitation. Where glaciers gain most of their ice is usually higher up (the accumulation zone) and in these areas it is a lot more likely that precipitation falls as snow. You should also note that increases in wintertime precipitation are the important thing to consider as for most glaciers that is all snow... What it essentially means is warming can increase precipitation during winter at some glaciers, making more snow accumulated during the winter than was melted during the summer... BUT once the winter precipitation subsides or summer temperatures pass a threshold, then more melting occurs than gains.
  36. Climate change: Water vapor makes for a wet argument
    johnd - The first meter intercepts fairly little energy because it's only the first meter. The IR from the ground is absorbed in the first couple hundred meters (80+% in the first 100, if I recall correctly) due to the optical depth of air to IR. If that's not understandable, I don't know what I can say to explain it to you. (I thought of saying "if that's not clear", but I didn't want to add to the issue...) As to CO2 "...having an increased presence in the first metre" - absolutely not. CO2 is very well and evenly distributed in the atmosphere. If anything, in areas where sequestration was taking place, you would expect CO2 levels to decrease slightly based upon sequestration rates and the (very high) diffusion rates. Please look at some of the information on radiation fog (fog produced by the nocturnal cooling of the surface boundary layer to a temperature at which its content of water vapor condenses) here, here, and here. It's really pretty simple. The ground radiates IR (cooling), which is intercepted over 100+ meters (distributing that energy away from the ground), and by conduction cools the first meter or so.
  37. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    #5: "And in fact, the linear trends for most global measures of temperature since 2002 do indicate cooling:" So you suggest that climate is to be determined by less than 8 years of data? From which you can extract a gradient in degrees per century??? Looking at a recent RSS file, for example, does indeed give a linear trend with negative slope for the cherry-picked period of 1/2002-7/2010. But the R^2 of such a line is 0.0038. That's not worth much. Try a longer time period, say 1979-2010 (the extent of the UAH/RSS data set). Your cooling trends will go up in a puff of CO2.
  38. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    johnd - change reflectivity is albedo. For change in this, try albedo effect. Trend is hard to be sure about but note the SCALE of the change. If there is any change its small.
  39. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    adelady at 10:18 AM, the soil is an excellent example to illustrate how the terminology is used in another field especially one where the subject is of concern to most participants, who do have a working knowledge or greater on the subject, and it is not just an interesting theory. Soils can be naturally acid or alkaline, however agriculture does generally cause soil pH levels to decline and only once a soil has reached a pH that determines it is actually acidic is the term more acidic used to describe a continuing declining pH. So, if the soil is alkaline to begin with and the pH begins to decline, the process is described as declining alkalinity, NOT as the soil becoming more acidic. Only once it has passed the neutral point do terms relating to acidity come into use and any further decline will be described as the soil becoming more acidic. If action is taken to counteract soil acidity, it is described as reducing or neutralising the acidity, NOT making the soil more alkaline. What more would you expect for an industry where the participants literally have their feet on the ground and don't take kindly to anyone who tries to call a shovel a spade.
  40. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Of course the TSI trend is accounted for by just the past few year's decrease. And in fact, the linear trends for most global measures of temperature since 2002 do indicate cooling: RSS_MT -1.29 K/century UAH_MT -0.25 K/century RSS_LT -0.15 K/century CRU -0.53 K/century CRU SST -0.46 K/century While these indicate warming: UAH_LT 0.37 K/century GISS 0.35 K/century
  41. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    Re: Agnostic (11) Were the precipitation to come down in the form of rain that would be a reasonable assumption. However, the vast majority of the precipitation still comes down as snow, just more of it. Glacier ice accumulation is a balance between the accumulation and ablation zones of a glacier. Increases in precip in the accumulation zone typically result in glacier advance. However if, due to warming air, the line of equilibrium advances higher up the mountain, the glacier could still have a net mass loss as the percentage of the glacier in the accumulation zone dwindles (even if it is thickening due to increased precip). If the accumulation zone contains less than 60% of the area of the glacier at the end of the melt season, it is in decline (mass loss). Go to Maury Pelto's site for a very clear explanation. The Yooper
  42. What's happening to glaciers globally?
    The article state that “there are scenarios in which warming can lead to increases in precipitation and thus glacier ice accumulation”. I thought that precipitation in the form of rain assisted glacier ice to recede not increase. Am I wrong?
  43. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    johnd, Even pH7 isn't "neutral" unless conditions are exactly right. More acidic and more alkaline are terms commonly used in relation to soils even when the measurements don't cross 'neutral'. Acidification is a general term describing decreasing pH - it says little to nothing about the starting or ending pH values of the process.
  44. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Regarding ocean acidification... Sorry if this is really basic level stuff but googling around I find that CO2 is an acidic oxide. CO2 reacts with water to produce carbonic acid. So, if you add an acid to an alkaline solution are neutralizing the solution or are you acidifying the solution? Or are both terms acceptable? I know, I know, it's semantics. The net effect in the ocean is the same but I always say, "Words matter."
  45. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    archiesteel at 09:14 AM, to be correct the oceans are becoming more neutral before they can become more acidic, a solution cannot become more acidic from being alkaline without becoming neutral first. So can you explain why "becoming more neutral" is not more correct than "becoming more acidic". Are you indicating that there is no problem with the ocean being a neutral pH?
  46. Should The Earth Be Cooling?
    Can it be clarified that the solar irradiance being referred to is that measured at the outer atmosphere and not that as received at the earth's surface. If it is the sun's output is being considered, that cannot be considered in isolation without taking into account any changes due to the effects of clouds, as clouds are a major factor determining the amount of solar radiation that reaches the earth's surface, which is where it matters. With reference to the PDO, looking at it from the Australian perspective, it also cannot be considered in isolation without considering how it interacts with all other ocean and atmospheric patterns, in particular for Australia those in the Indian Ocean. Prior to the identification of the Indian Ocean Dipole,IOD, it was considered that the systems in the Pacific Ocean were the major drivers of Australian climate. Many people could not understand this as it went against what was readily observed, in that it was from the west that all weather originated from. However once the IOD had been identified it became clear that the systems in the Pacific Ocean were not nearly as influential over Australia as previously thought, and much of what had been attributed to those systems actually were due to systems cycling in the Indian Ocean. At times the systems on either sides of the continent complemented each other driving the nett effects higher, whilst at other times they tended to reduce the nett effects. Since this identification of the IOD the understanding of events that affect the Australian region, past and present, and indeed of all regions that bound the Indian Ocean has increased significantly, and I believe that studies are being done to re-evaluate whether those systems in the Pacific Ocean are as influential as previously thought, at least for this region. With regards to CO2, given natural processes are deemed to be accounting for half of the anthropogenic emissions, it has to be considered whether or not the natural processes have increased in response to the additional CO2 emissions, and if so what has caused this, or if nothing has driven them higher, what would be the effects of 2ppm CO2 being stripped from the atmosphere each year for the last 150 years since industrialisation began.
  47. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    @Baz: "I only brought it up to say I was unhappy with the term 'acidification' as it smacks of alarmism." So, let me get this straight: you're against using a term that is commonly used in scientific research because you don't like how it sounds in a particular context? The oceans are becoming more acidic, and less basic. It is affecting corals and crustaceans. "Acidification" is the right term, whether you like it or not. Seriously, your bias is increasingly showing. I'm beginning to doubt you were ever a "believer"...I think you're only claiming this in order to give yourself more credibility. Please continue not answering me, that makes my jobs of countering your irrational statements even easier.
  48. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    johnd, I have already posted the following for Baz, but perhaps you too would welcome the opportunity to attend this symposium to help you out with your difficulty over acknowledging ocean-acidification : A consortium of institutions and organizations from Monterey, California has successfully bid to host the third symposium on The Ocean in a High-CO2 World in autumn 2012. The symposium aims to attract more than 300 of the world’s leading scientists to discuss the impacts of ocean acidification on marine organisms, ecosystems, and biogeochemical cycles. It will also cover socio-economic consequences of ocean acidification, including policy and management implications. The symposium is the third in a series and will build on the successes of the Paris and Monaco symposia in 2004 and 2008, respectively. The Paris meeting was seminal in identifying the magnitude of ocean acidification for marine ecosystems and the outcomes of the Monaco symposium, focusing on the advances in knowledge of the affects on marine organisms, also made an impact on a broader audience through a Summary for Policymakers and the Monaco Declaration. It is obviously UN-based and, therefore, automatically suspect, political and biased (according to so-called skeptics) but anyone who prefers to listen and learn, rather than claim to be able to tell the experts where they are going wrong, should be up for this.
  49. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Re: Rob Honeycutt (251) You were mostly spot-on. The central, upper part of the EAIS IS gaining mass; it just so happens that the mass-loss from the outlet glaciers in the coastal part of the EAIS more than offsets this gain. Considering the mass-gain at the center, that's a lotta ice lost along the edges to get a net loss. I know! The ice lost along the edge adds to the "Antarctic Sea Ice is increasing" meme... The Yooper
  50. The contradictory nature of global warming skepticism
    Daniel... Good catch. I misstated based on the older satellite data which had the EAIS slightly gaining mass.

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