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Comments 130101 to 130150:

130101. Quietman at 02:20 AM on 30 August 2008
        Can animals and plants adapt to global warming?
        HealthySkeptic In addition to the "Ordovician & Silurian" Ice age (Ice Age 2), the Late Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) was also an ice age (the beginning of the "Pennsylvanian & Permian" ice age or Ice Age 3).
130102. Quietman at 02:01 AM on 30 August 2008
        It's the sun
        Mizimi You are talking about glacations within an ice age and yes the interglacials are longer than the glacations but there are only 4 known ice ages and they comprise only about 10% of the earths known history. I am not looking at just the 4th ice age but all of earth history when I say that hotter is normal. sandy I do not disagree with what you say except that the GHG hypothesis can not be viewed as theory due to lack of testing. It has not made accurate predictions because of the overestimated sensitivity. In other words the earth is not very sensitive to CO2 as a GHG. If it was we would have looked like Venus during the Mesozoic. So the simple answer is that the IPCC has seriously overestimated the sensitivity to CO2 while doing the opposite for TSI.
130103. Quietman at 01:50 AM on 30 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        Andy Bryski Because of the predominant air currents the increased snow falls in asia (last winter was a good example). This was mentioned in a paper by Mackey last summer.
130104. sandy winder at 01:09 AM on 30 August 2008
        We're heading into an ice age
        Nor is a seven metre rise in sea levels. Where are all the people who live within ten miles of the coast going to live? I doubt the dinosaurs worried too much about how much land they had available or how many times they were flooded out or how many died in forest fires or died of thirst.
130105. sandy winder at 01:03 AM on 30 August 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
        Mizimi:Concerns about the effect of a slight rise in temperature over the next century and the consequences thereof are irrelevent in this context: our civilisation will survive the predicted global warming scenario,... This 'slight' rise in temperature could be enough to raise sea levels by seven metres just from Greenland alone in the next hundred years. Even in 2008, 634 million people live within 10km of coasts. Do you see that as irrelevant?
130106. sandy winder at 00:55 AM on 30 August 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
        Where is the evidence that the next ice age is due?
130107. Andy Bryski at 23:57 PM on 29 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        A year or so ago I watched an interview with a climatologist. (can't recall the name) He stated that the long term effect of Artic ice melt will actually result in a reversal or a balancing. His reasoning was that the melt would increase moisture in the Arctic and result in large cloudy regions with increased snowfall. This would build snow/ice fields, these in turn would act as reflectors resulting in a counter-balance and mitigate the ice melt.. This appears to make some logical sense to me because the Artic at present is considered a desert region due to the very low precipitation levels. Increased precipitation levels would therefore alter that standard and possibly have positive results that might not be foreseen at present.----Your thoughts please!
130108. Mizimi at 23:26 PM on 29 August 2008
        Models are unreliable
        Just read an interesting abstract on the effect of the moon on the monthly GMT. "Over the past fifty years, the Diurnal Temp Range has decreased by about half a degree.Conventional wisdom blames this on the greenhouse effect. But this decrease is just a trend observed in data that vary over shorter timescales. Cerveny and Balling show that for the period between 1950 and 1995, the DTR fluctuates with the phases of the Moon. It tends to increase towards Full Moon, and tends to be lowest at New Moon. Simple monthly differences in DTR between New Moon and Full Moon may be as much as 0.309 ºC -- in other words, 60% of the entire 50-year decrease. The message should be clear: all possible sources of variation should be investigated before blaming human activity alone for observed changes in climatic parameters." There is a correlation between full moon and monthly DTR variations most of which is ascribed to the changing earth/moon barycentre. This has prompted a look at the effects of a shifting sun/earth/moon barycentre on earth climate. Another piece in the puzzle?
130109. Mizimi at 23:00 PM on 29 August 2008
        It's the sun
        ///The as yet unanswered question is: what causes these ice ages to start and stop? Until we can answer this question with high accuracy we know nothing about what climate is or how it works./// Wrong question because the perspective is wrong. History shows us that ice ages are the climatic dominant feature and that warm periods are the anomalies. The question is "What causes the warm periods"?
130110. sandy winder at 18:36 PM on 29 August 2008
        It's the sun
        You appear to be confusing prediction with science and weather with climate. The GHG 'hypothesis' is hardly that. It is like saying that the sun heats the earth is also only a hypothesis. It is true that the predictors can not be 100% sure of what the climate will be like in a 100 hundred years any more than they can tell what the weather will be like in 100 days. But they are just as likely to be guilty of underestimating the climate changes as overestimating them.
130111. Philippe Chantreau at 11:45 AM on 29 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        Almost play on words. Thanks for the reminder but stay healthy. Pointers?
130112. Mizimi at 05:10 AM on 29 August 2008
        It's methane
        Note: Methane intially reacts with ozone in a 'chain' reaction that ultimately produces CO2 and water vapour. You could summarise the reactions into: (3)CH4 + (4)O3 = (3)CO2 + (6)H2O Oxidation of methane is the main source of water vapor in the upper stratosphere
130113. Mizimi at 05:03 AM on 29 August 2008
        Solar cycles cause global warming
        ourphyl: Have a look at 'It's volcanoes'. Quietman has posted some relevent and interesting information and useful links.
130114. Mizimi at 04:57 AM on 29 August 2008
        It's ozone
        A decline in ozone levels has a direct effect on the removal mechanism of methane from the atmosphere. Ozone is split by UV and the O atom combines with H to form hydroxyl radical OH. Methane reacts with the hydroxyl radical producing a methyl radical which bonds with another hydroxyl radical to produce formaldehyde. Formaldehyde reacts with hydroxyl radicals forming carbon dioxide and water vapor. You could summarise the reactions into: (3)CH4 + (4)O3 = (3)CO2 + (6)H2O Oxidation of methane is the main source of water vapor in the upper stratosphere
130115. Quietman at 02:22 AM on 29 August 2008
        Was Greenland really green in the past?
        wp Possible but not probable. Vineland was named by the greenlanders of that time, we can't identify it to this day because the climate changed.
130116. Quietman at 02:04 AM on 29 August 2008
        It's the sun
        sandy winder I said nothing about what climate IS. We are all pretty much aware of what it DOES. The best climatologist is a meteorologist with a PHD (presumed). They do quite well on both short term and long term predictions (it's mid-term where they run into trouble). But there is little understanding of what really drives climate and that is what I refer to. The GHG hypothesis came and went and came back again, the level of uncertainty is quite high. They only recently discovered how vulcanism drives ENSO. There are a lot of assumptions made by predictors and most are highly questionable which is why there is not a single climate model that works.
130117. Samboc at 00:32 AM on 29 August 2008
        We're heading into an ice age
        I am a novice here but I have noticed a lot of technical jargon that I don't understand. "Al Gore" etc thinks it is going to get warm. The "skeptics" say it is going to get cold. I think that if I lived in the NH I would make sure I have got some warm clothes. The bottom line is that all our heat comes from the Sun. If it cools down so does Earth. Any variances due to different Ocean Currents, Magnetic Fields etc are only releasing stored energy from the Sun. At the end of the day this planet will be a Dead Rock circling a spent Sun. Lets hope it warms up, CO2 increases, Plants grow and life becomes comfortable for a while. The alternative is not nice.
130118. Samboc at 23:48 PM on 28 August 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
        Running out of fossil fuel is a certainty. Reserves of fuel on current usage will run out in a few hundred years if "Green" movements continue to restrict drilling in "sensitive" areas. I am probably wrong but I often wonder where all this fossil fuel came from. Back in my school days (35 years ago) I was taught that is was from the Dinosaur days. The Earth was much hotter, Plants grew much lusher ( More CO2) . There was abundant Plant life that grew and died and rotted in swamps eventually forming Oil. This will not happen today. This planet is cold. It has been 11,500 years since the last Ice Age. The next Ice Age is due. We need millions of years of heat and increased CO2 to give the Earth a fighting chance.
130119. Samboc at 23:42 PM on 28 August 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
        Running out of fossil fuel is a certainty. Reserves of fuel on current usage will run out in a few hundred years if "Green" movements continue to restrict drilling in "sensitive" areas. I am probably wrong but I often wonder where all this fossil fuel came from. Back in my school days (35 years ago) I was taught that is was from the Dinosaur days. The Earth was much hotter, Plants grew much lusher ( More CO2) . There was abundant Plant life that grew and died and rotted in swamps eventually forming Oil. This will not happen today. This planet is cold. It has been 11,500 years since the last Ice Age. The next Ice Age is due. We need millions of years of heat and increased CO2 to give the Earth a fighting chance.
130120. HealthySkeptic at 15:19 PM on 28 August 2008
        Can animals and plants adapt to global warming?
        #20 chris, It's interesting that you bring up the relationship between atmospheric CO2 and global temperatures with respect to palaeoclimate. The Carboniferous and the Ordovician are the only periods in the earth's history when global temperatures were as low as they are today. The late Ordovician was also an Ice Age, while at the same time CO2 concentrations were nearly 12 times higher than they are today (~4400 ppm). According to greenhouse theory, the earth should have been exceedingly hot. Obviously, other factors besides atmospheric CO2 have larger impacts on the earth's temperature and global warming.
130121. HealthySkeptic at 14:43 PM on 28 August 2008
        Can animals and plants adapt to global warming?
        Well said, Mizimi! In addition to the emotional aspect, being the very egotistical creatures that we are, we humans are also very good at over-estimating our impact on nature.
130122. HealthySkeptic at 14:23 PM on 28 August 2008
        Global cooling: the new kid on the block
        John, I liked your comment, "The flaw in this interpretation is in drawing conclusions about long term climate change over a relatively short period". In the history of the Earth, 100 years is a "relatively short period", so the same could be said about drawing conclusions about observations over that time frame. There's only one absolutely certainty about climate... and that is that it WILL change.
130123. HealthySkeptic at 14:10 PM on 28 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        Philippe, In #38 you said "Black carbon is nonetheless anthropogenic." Not completely... there are significant natural sources.
130124. HealthySkeptic at 13:31 PM on 28 August 2008
        Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
        What about water vapour as a negative feedback, due to the reflecton of solar radiation away from the Earth by clouds? Surely if water vapour levels in the atmosphere increase then there is a greater tendency for clouds to form, reflecting more radiation away from the earth.
130125. Mizimi at 22:45 PM on 27 August 2008
        It hasn't warmed since 1998
        I apologise in advance ........... " they strain out gnats and swallow camels..." THE current estimated GMT (actual) is 14C. The anomaly 1970 -2008 is around +0.55C which as a linear trend is +0.18/decade. If that trend continues in a linear fashion, then by 2108 the GMT will be 15.8C assuming all other things remain equal. Not impressed.
130126. Mizimi at 21:42 PM on 27 August 2008
        Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
        The schematic is misleading. Firstly, it is not representative of the actual processes going but only shows a snapshot in time. Secondly, there is no CO2 balance in biomass input/output: CO2 is constantly being locked up/ released at varying rates so there is no dynamic equilibrium. In (geologically)ancient times CO2 concentrations were as high as 6000ppm...for a long time high enough to preclude oxygen breathers evolving...until sufficent CO2 was locked up by plant life ( the oceans would have been more or less saturated) and O2 levels raised by algae and cyanobacteria. There is no balance! Check out the Oxygen Cycle.
130127. sandy winder at 20:45 PM on 27 August 2008
        It's the sun
        ///The as yet unanswered question is: what causes these ice ages to start and stop? Until we can answer this question with high accuracy we know nothing about what climate is or how it works./// I think it is bit unfair to say that scientists know nothign about climate. They know quite a lot about it. The fact they do not everything does not mean they know nothing. Scientists don't know everything about the human body yet but doctors still perform operations.
130128. sandy winder at 20:39 PM on 27 August 2008
        It's the sun
        http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2002-12/1039267568.As.r.html In fact, the Sun is actually getting hotter. As 4 hydrogen atoms turns into 1 helium atom, the total number of particles in the Sun's core decreases. In order for the pressure within the Sun to stay constant, and continue to support itself against gravity, the temperature of the Sun must increase. This increase in temperature results in the Sun becoming brighter as well. In turn, this makes the Earth warmer because the intensity of sunlight is increasing. It is expected that within 1 billion years or so (well before the Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel) the temperature on Earth will increase to the point that a runaway greenhouse will take place. The result is that the Earth will end up looking much like Venus today.
130129. Mizimi at 20:39 PM on 27 August 2008
        There's no empirical evidence
        "Rising CO2 levels are based not on one station but over 300 stations in 66 countries (World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases). " My count from the WDC site is 298 stations of which only 159 actually measure CO2. The others measure different gasses. Being imprecise simply gives the sceptics another rabbit trail to run down. Current models have a VERY GREAT problem with clouds; even with modern satellite imagery it is beyond our current capability to assess with any reasonable degree of accuracy cloud distribution and density and thus the effect on insolation.
130130. Mizimi at 20:20 PM on 27 August 2008
        It's methane
        It would be better if the graph went back somewhat more than 20yrs. Preindustrial concentrations are estimated around 700ppb, just 40% of modern concentrations. Much of the rise has to do with population increase and dietary habits. Population increases in the east have demanded increased rice production and the consequent increase in methane emission. Western diets are highly biased to meat consumption resulting in huge growth in ruminant numbers since 1960, another large methane source. Also, I am not too sure if the overall effect of methane is included in models? Methane breaks down into water and CO2 and I would expect the total GG effect of methane to include the secondary effect of these. I recently read that global methane emissions is on the rise...will have to find that paper again........
130131. Mizimi at 19:39 PM on 27 August 2008
        Global warming stopped in 1998, 1995, 2002, 2007, 2010, ????
        Running out of fossil (and Nuclear) fuel is a certainty. BUT before we ever reach that point - however far away that may be - an energy 'war' will start,( arguably has already started)and it will escalate as the energy required to extract these fuels approaches the energy derived from them. Concerns about the effect of a slight rise in temperature over the next century and the consequences thereof are irrelevent in this context: our civilisation will survive the predicted global warming scenario, it will not survive if we do not develop alternative energy sources that are independant of fossil fuels. "Doing nothing" refers to direct action to reduce CO2 emissions; I would argue it is better to do nothing in that context and spend the money 'saved' on exploring and developing alternate energy sources. (Which has the long term effect of reducing CO2 from FF's )
130132. PeterPan at 05:39 AM on 27 August 2008
        We're heading into an ice age
        "The difference in solar radiative forcing between Maunder Minimum levels and current solar activity is estimated between 0.17 W/m2 (Wang 2005) to 0.23 W/m2 (Krivova 2007)" Wang 2005: "The increase in cycle-averaged TSI since the Maunder minimum is estimated to be ~1 W/m2" (instead of 0.17 W/m2?) Krivova 2007: "[The model predicts] an increase in the solar total irradiance since the Maunder minimum of 1.3^+0.2_-0.4 W/m2" (instead of 0.23 W/m2?)
130133. Mizimi at 04:28 AM on 27 August 2008
        It's the sun
        Look here: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/0307_030307_impactcrater.html "The existence of the impact crater, Chicxulub, was first proposed in 1980. In the 1990s, satellite data and ground studies allowed it to gain prominence among most scientists as the long sought-after "smoking gun" responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs and more than 70 percent of Earth's living species 65 million years ago." Whilst the impact would have released a colossal amount of heat energy, this would have only affected a fairly local area, so originally it was thought the dust produced caused sufficient dimming of sunlight to provoke a mass extinction event. Currently however, it is thought that insufficient dust would have been created by this impact to mask the sun long enough and attention has shifted to the possibility of massive SO2 release from local calcium sulphate deposits. SO2 effect would have lasted much longer than so there would have been considerable diminution in plant and animal activity. Bearing in mind the climate was a lot hotter then, the combined effect of dust(immediate) and SO2(longer lasting) would have initiated a rapid cooling which in turn could have been to start a climate 'wobble' which resulted in the cycle of ice ages and intermediate warmer periods. As far as I can tell, no definitive research has been carried out on this possibility.
130134. Philippe Chantreau at 03:15 AM on 27 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        Good question TruthSeeker. However, the "if" GW is occurring, I find rather funny. The melt is in itself indication that is is occurring and fast. To get somewhat back on topic, it's worth looking at the latest NSIDC graph, showing extent getting every day closer to last year's staggering low. The overall slope for August is interesting compared to last year. So is the fact that no inflexion has started yet. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_timeseries.png
130135. TruthSeeker at 22:26 PM on 26 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        CCE, Your reply made sence, thanks. This topic of discussion focuses mostly on Sea Ice. If global warming is occuring, can sea ice really identify if the cause is natural or man made?
130136. Mizimi at 21:03 PM on 26 August 2008
        It's not bad
        Mostly pure speculation; extrapolation without including negative feedbacks is useless and as WA. says, harmful to the argument. ? expanding desert areas? Look at the existing deserts and tell me how they formed and grew BEFORE any AGW effects. Oh, and right now Egypt has drilled over 100 wells into the Sahara bedrock and (so far) found sufficient fresh water for the next 500 years. Thank you satellite radar imaging which showed the underlying ancient river courses and lakes. The same technology shows similar ancient water deposits in Darfur ( the war there is directly attributable to scarcity of water) and the government there has been offered the expertise to explore it...which could end that conflict and turn the country into an oasis. My Point? All the doom and gloom projections NEVER NEVER can account for paradigm shifts caused by technology. ( NY was predicted to end up knee deep in horse **** in the 1800's because of exponential increases in the use of horses....it never happened, instead, the automobile did). My point?
130137. wp at 19:03 PM on 26 August 2008
        Was Greenland really green in the past?
        "If it was a propaganda tool they would not have named iceland as such." Possibly because the places were named by different people, 100 years apart?
130138. Quietman at 04:32 AM on 26 August 2008
        Was Greenland really green in the past?
        WA If it was a propaganda tool they would not have named iceland as such. We still can't locate vineland due to the cooling since the discovery.
130139. Quietman at 04:29 AM on 26 August 2008
        Was Greenland really green in the past?
        It has been proven that Greenland was in fact greener than today. The Glaciers had receded (not disappeared) enough for the lowland areas to be fertile and climate temperate. The argument for the age of the glaciers is a little absurd since we know that it was not a hot house, just somewhat warmer than it is now, enough to be comparable with Iceland or Finland of today, ie. habitable by the vikings.
130140. Quietman at 04:08 AM on 26 August 2008
        It's the sun
        sandy winder Suns output increasing? Where did you hear that? The Sun is the major component in climate. Even if the IPCC figures for CO2 acting as a GHG are correct it could not work without the sun (GHGs are modifiers of solar radiation, not a heat source). In the distant past CO2 levels were in the thousands of ppm rather than low hundreds as they are today. But first it was hot, and then CO2 increased, then we had lush growth, a planetary jungle, and lots of animals to take advantage of it. That was 90% of the earths' history. The other 10% (roughly) consists of 4 ice ages. We are currently in the 4th ice age. It has slowly been warming (positive slope with wide oscillations) for 5 million years. The current period is considered to be an interglacial period. This, however can only be confirmed by another glacation (interglacial means between glacations). We could just as easily be in the post glacial period at the end of an ice age and that would mean it will continue to warm. The as yet unanswered question is: what causes these ice ages to start and stop? Until we can answer this question with high accuracy we know nothing about what climate is or how it works.
130141. Quietman at 03:50 AM on 26 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        Lee PS As far as this thread goes I am in agreement with John that Kay's paper does explain the melt as natural but the thinning of the ice from prior years made it worse. I only disagree that it was CO2 that was the cause. My reasons are explained in part in the above comments and in other threads, such as "It's Volcanos".
130142. Quietman at 03:42 AM on 26 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        Lee Grable Actually I am not willing to concede the point of accuracy, it's just not very important to this discussion. We have already beaten this one to death on another thread. If you look at Johns "view all arguments" you will see this is a large site and John has asked everyone to keep the subject matter relevant to the thread. I am trying to comply to his wishes. As far as the solar graphs, see "Its the sun", we have not quite beaten that one to death yet. The last thread on temp measurements was "A new twist on mid-century cooling" and I think it's still active as well.
130143. Mizimi at 02:03 AM on 26 August 2008
        CO2 lags temperature
        QM: I hear what you say and (as I have said in other places on this site) it simply re-inforces my view that the basic physical model still has some bits missing or not fully understood. We do not even have a reliable physical model for the fluid dynamics of the earth core, so how can you compute tectonic effects into the climate model that would have any real meaning? As an aside: The moon causes tidal waves in all earth's material phases, and that effect is constantly modulated by the sun all the other planetary bodies. I would not care to try and model that either!
130144. Mizimi at 00:57 AM on 26 August 2008
        CO2 measurements are suspect
        Checking out the site: http://gaw.kishou.go.jp/wdcgg/wdcgg.html simply re-inforces in my mind that the data we have collected does not reflect the real situation. Firstly, there are 298 stations listed which collect information on various atmospheric gases. Only 159 collect data on CO2. The rest sample other gases. There is a range of sampling methods from fixed low level to mobile high altitude.... The distribution of sampling stations is unrepresentative of the global state; there is virtually no coverage of: Afica/Australia/ India/ Middle east /Russia /Asia/ China/Nth Canada/ S.America/Greenland. Sampling is concentrated in the highly industrialised countries so who is going to be surprised that CO2 levels there appear to be increasing? The data cannot represent the global condition.
130145. m_b at 23:47 PM on 25 August 2008
        Do cosmic rays cause clouds?
        Terry Sloan is careful to make clear that they have never said that there is no connection between cosmic rays and cloud formation. He just believes it's not the whole story when explaining cloud formation. Even Sloan believes the strong negative correlation with historical temperature reconstruction's vs radionuclides and radiocarbon in ice cores is interesting and requires further investigation. Personally I can't escape the logic that these beryllium-10 and radiocarbon ice deposits (formed from GCR interactions in our atmosphere), indicate that GCR's either directly, or indirectly have some effect, or show an unknown effect on our climate. That GCR's come from outside our planet, dictates logically to me that climate is strongly influenced by external factors. When I look at the massive sudden drops, and sudden increases in temperature from the GISP2 Greenland Ice Core data at the start, and the end of the Younger Dryas (only approx 12,000 years ago), I am left speechless... these huge changes in temperature take place in mere decades, the extreme being a 5 deg change in just three years! I certainly need something better to explain these sudden cooling events, and more importantly, the sudden warming events, than Co2. On a side issue, periods in our past showing these large Be-10 levels, formed from CR's, are increasingly being pointed to as a possible explanation for massive globalised Gene duplication events appearing at the same time, and postulated to be one of (if not the main) driver of evolution.
130146. Lee Grable at 10:01 AM on 25 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        Quietman,Kurt in post 114 brought it up. But my point still stands. This is part of the pattern that I've seen from the skeptic side over the last few years,that the small amount of data you use to support your arguements is accurate,and to be relied on, but when more data is added that debunks your arguement, all of a sudden the data isn't accurate. It happens over and over again. And when push comes to shove, you skeptics,( and I'm not talking about you personally) resort to flat out lying and falsifying information to advance your arguement. An example of what I'm talking about is what led me to this website in the first place. I Was over at the petition project website, reading their "peer reviewed" report debunking the MMGW consensus,in the report, they showed a graph comparing solar activity with global temps over the last century. Of course, the graph showed a direct corelation between the two. And I thought, if this is true it would raise serious doubts about whether greenhouse gasses were the cause of the warming we've seen. So I google searched, and found this website. In the "it's the sun" thread, there was an identical graph showing that solar activity has basically flattened out since the 70's, while global temps rose to the levels were seeing now. The other differance between the two graphs is that the PP graph offered no references to the data represented on the graph, while the graph here clearly showed where the data came from. That's another pattern I've noticed.Now if I have to choose who to believe, I'm going to lean toward those who use referenced data over those who don't.
130147. sandy winder at 04:30 AM on 25 August 2008
        It's the sun
        What I can't understand (if the sun is so important) is that for many millions of years when the dinosaurs were alive (and even before them) the planet was warmer than it is now, yet we are also told that the sun's output is gradually increasing over the eons. So how come the earth is not much warmer today, if the sun is the doiminant factor? The only answer seems to be that in the distant past the level of CO2 in our atmosphere was much higher.
130148. Quietman at 03:41 AM on 25 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        Lee Grable Actually I did not bring it up, comment 115 did. This thread is about last summer's polar melt.
130149. Mizimi at 01:26 AM on 25 August 2008
        Evaporating the water vapor argument
        BestTimesNow: It seems to me you have taken data for the USA and then used that as a base for the global condition...? I don't disagree with your viewpoint on water...as a major ( possibly THE major) moderator in the climate system...but it has to be viewed as a complete subsystem which would include solid, liquid, gaseous phases as well as atmospheric condensate (clouds). Human activity may well be adding substantially to part of this cycle but this simply shifts the heat-balance.. ( which is what climate is all about)....higher vapour levels eventually ends up as higher precipitation. In any event, whatever factors we choose to 'blame', there remains this: There is a limit to just how much heat can be retained in the system because there is a limit to how much is coming in. Increased CO2 or water vapour cannot 'add' anything that is not already there, they can only moderate the rate at which heat is lost. Heat in = Heat out, No?
130150. phil123 at 20:01 PM on 24 August 2008
        Arctic sea ice melt - natural or man-made?
        Accelerated polar melt is a precursor to Gulf Stream slowdown as the planets puts into place a simple cause and effect failsafe cooling with time as a constraint mechanism. As it strives too maintain its global ambient temperature An organism that dwells in hostile space environments needs survival contingences, it’s responding to a perceived threat, man made or not. It’s ironic that at a time we begin to understand the limits of the known universe, we fail to appreciate the limits of the very planet we depend on for the continued survival of all dependent species We must not discount the planets ability at radical simpatico adaptation; however we should not second guess a far more superior system which has survived for eons in hostile space environments. The part we play may be minuscule in comparison, but misguided in the extreme. We’ve rushed at the wheel for control, only to find there is no driver; there never was, the planet sets the course and it always will. A global sustainable future for our species is like asking a chain smoker to self prescribe a remedy that doesn't involve kicking the habit. This is why we procrastinate on global climate change This why we renege on global warming mitigation We are hooked on fossil fuel Usage That chronological innovative fossil fuel use has driven us to where we are The majority of Large-scale oil dependent economies have a foot placed firmly on a pedal that over time has become frozen into an accelerated position. And this is why I fear for our future and that of the planet. Because the first step towards recovery, is to seek professional help We have none to help us, but ourselves. It will take a groundswell of global affirmative action and Unparalleled agreement by dynamically opposed governments in the Short-term, for the long-term mitigation of radical global climate change.

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