Climate change accelerating fast.

[TheBigDog]

Thanks for the reassurance. Which way do you hope for the Earth to go--Venus or Mars?

 

I did think that we could stop GW whatever its cause.

I did think that people would be motivated to do something about it.

I did think that the extreme predictions would be proved false or ameliorated by our collective action.

 

Now I'm not sure, maybe natural selection needs to have another go at producing intelligence. She may get it right next time.

C'mon Mike! You cannot be that pessimistic! Do I hope for Venus or Mars? How about Venus nor Mars. Such extremism. Is it from living in the backwater of Australia where it is already like Mars? We cannot cause warming whatever the cause. When the sun decides to be hotter it will be warmer and there is not much we can do about it. People are motivated to do things about it. Billions of people. But not EVERY person. Is that what you expected? Most people cannot perceive the warming yet except anecdotally or through faith in reported science, and when the scientists are not in full agreement, and some are doing things that cloud their credibility it does not help. As for extreme predictions, what is the extreme thing that has happened so far? The glacial melt? Dollars to donuts it is proven to be far more frequent a phenomena than we initially suspected. That is the trouble with the climate change, it is a natural phenomena and there is no certainty that the climate would be any different today in the absence of human actions. That is not to say it is not a good idea to engage in conservation, in fact it is a great idea. Anything we can do with less energy is great. More trees to absorb carbon and produce O2 is great. Reducing emissions for cleaner air is great. Reducing toxic chemicals in the air and water is great. All of that is great regardless of climate change. But doing all of those things will have no impact on climate change other than to reduce man's contribution to it. And then what do we do when the climate changes radically anyway? (as it has so many times in the past)

 

Bill

[freeztar]

That is the trouble with the climate change, it is a natural phenomena and there is no certainty that the climate would be any different today in the absence of human actions. That is not to say it is not a good idea to engage in conservation, in fact it is a great idea. Anything we can do with less energy is great. More trees to absorb carbon and produce O2 is great. Reducing emissions for cleaner air is great. Reducing toxic chemicals in the air and water is great. All of that is great regardless of climate change.

 

That's a good point. Why are the other effects of irresponsible human actions ignored? Perhaps we should stop labeling climate change as the scapegoat? It matters little to me. I just hope people can pull their heads from the shady areas, whatever the reasoning.

 

But doing all of those things will have no impact on climate change other than to reduce man's contribution to it. And then what do we do when the climate changes radically anyway? (as it has so many times in the past)

 

"Many times in the past"? Did you read Craig's recent post?

 

I suppose we shouldn't look for impending meteor disasters either? After all, they've happened many times in the past.

Weak...

[BrianG]

I wouldn't want to use an untried, untested technique to try and stop a meteor impact, we should use rockets or ballistic projectiles, there are centuries of tests for those technologies. CO2 emission reductions for climate change mitigation is a brand new thing, without any experimental tests. It makes some sense, like people telling Columbus, "Stop, go back!" before he reached the edge of the world and fell off.

[TheBigDog]

"Many times in the past"? Did you read Craig's recent post?

 

I suppose we shouldn't look for impending meteor disasters either? After all, they've happened many times in the past.

Weak...

You'll have to point me to that post, it is not in this thread. I am going from the Vostok (sp?) ice core data that shows numerous temperature swings (at least locally to Antarctica) over the past couple hundred thousand years.

 

Bill

[BrianG]

I think there may be a bias in ice core atmosphere samples, if high [ce]CO2[/ce] levels cause warming, and since we know that ice won't form above [math]32\degree F[/math], then it's impossible to use ice cores for CO2 measurements when the climate was very warm. This is known as the "Ice Thermometer Bias."

[Essay]

I think there may be a bias in ice core atmosphere samples, if high [ce]CO2[/ce] levels cause warming, and since we know that ice won't form above [math]32\degree F[/math], then it's impossible to use ice cores for CO2 measurements when the climate was very warm. This is known as the "Ice Thermometer Bias."

 

Holy Guacamole, Batman! It's the "Ice Thermometer Bias!" Do I see a citation looming?

That sounds more like pseudoscience to me, but maybe it's the source.... :confused:

 

:lol: ...lots'a lol.

 

p.s.

This is known as the "Ice Thermometer Bias" to whom? To pseudoscience?

By what term does science know this phenomenon?

[BrianG]

...

This is known as the "Ice Thermometer Bias" to whom? To pseudoscience?

By what term does science know this phenomenon?

No one ever discussed the ice thermometer bias before?

 

Doesn't AGW theory state most greenhouse warming occurs at the poles? The poles get constant sunlight 179 days each year. Ice must accumulate to trap atmospheric gas for core analysis, if the ice melts, the historic CO2 record is lost.

[HydrogenBond]

A team of MIT scientists recorded a nearly simultaneous world-wide increase in methane levels -the first increase in ten years. What baffles the team is that this data contradicts theories stating humans are the primary source of increase in greenhouse gas. It takes about one full year for gases generated in the highly industrial northern hemisphere to cycle through and reach the southern hemisphere. Since all worldwide levels rose simultaneously throughout the same year, however, it is probable that this may be part of a natural cycle - and not the direct result of man's contributions.

 

MIT Scientists Ask: Is Global Warming Part of a Natural Cycle?

[Essay]

Who wrote this crap?

This article comes to a completely different conclusion than the source that it links to. The source does not question anything about whether humans are causing global warming or not.

 

To the contrary, the source states that methane levels have been DOWN for a while and then resumed their steady rise. This article gives the impression that they have suddenly jumped. This article is so biased that it's obvious that it is written by a global warming denier. I bet you don't believe in the moon landing either.

 

I highly encourage readers to check out the original article that this piece references:

 

Levels of the greenhouse gas methane begin to increase again

I agree with the poster of this comment above, on the dailygalaxy site. HB, why not just post the link to the original article:

Levels of the greenhouse gas methane begin to increase again

eh?

 

I don't think this sentence from the MIT press release made it into your dailyGax article:

"A rise in Northern Hemispheric emissions may be due to the very warm conditions that were observed over Siberia throughout 2007, potentially leading to increased bacterial emissions from wetland areas."

[freeztar]

You'll have to point me to that post, it is not in this thread.

 

Indeed. I get all these climate change threads confused. :hihi:

 

I was referring to this post: http://hypography.com/forums/285731-post98.html

 

I am going from the Vostok (sp?) ice core data that shows numerous temperature swings (at least locally to Antarctica) over the past couple hundred thousand years.

 

Rate of change is important. I can't recall if the Vostok data will give us that much detail and if it's been analysed in such a way to measure temperature spikes like we are seeing these days, but I'll go on a hunt when I have some more time.

[CraigD]

Our technology will certainly allow us to survive and even thrive in a changed environment. If we are trying to avoid adverse consequences then why not focus on adapting to the changes rather than preventing them? Especially when you consider the darkest predictions that the effects are already irreversible for several hundred years.

 

We must also consider that nature can throw at us climate changes far beyond our capacity to reverse, so the ability to use technology to adapt becomes even more important.

I agree.

 

What concerns me most should long-term climate predictions for the next 50-100 years toward the worst-case end of the spectrum occur is not our ability to find technological solutions, but the possibility of unrestrained war between and civil war within powerful nations due to loss of high-price, low-elevation real estate, and dislocation of their populations due to permanent flooding. My faith in applied science to solve engineering problems is not matched by my faith in the political and diplomatic arts to avoid terrible war, nor the hope that belligerents in such wars would not use the most destructive weapons at their disposal. In short, while I’m optimistic that he was as wrong in it as in his cosmological constant-based steady state model of the universe, I fear Einstein might prove prophetic in his famous quote about future world wars:

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

 

This focus-of-worry leads me to conclude that treaties such as Kyoto Protocol and the draft 2009 Copenhagen conference treaty are less important in the particular policies and scientific consensuses they document and enact than in their furthering of world diplomacy. If, as Bill (TheBigDog) suggest, and I expect, most of humankinds response to climate change must needs be adaptive rather than preventive, preventive measures taken now will be of far less importance than the precedent and practical procedures of cooperation between and within national governments that the agreeing to these measures promotes. In short, I believe its better for the people and governments of the world to agree and cooperate, even if technically wrong, than disagree and fight, even if some of the parties are technically right.

[CraigD]

I think there may be a bias in ice core atmosphere samples, if high [ce]CO2[/ce] levels cause warming, and since we know that ice won't form above [math]32\degree F[/math], then it's impossible to use ice cores for CO2 measurements when the climate was very warm. This is known as the "Ice Thermometer Bias."

This is known as the "Ice Thermometer Bias" to whom? To pseudoscience?

By what term does science know this phenomenon?

No one ever discussed the ice thermometer bias before?

I’ve never seen the phrase “ice thermometer bias” before (nor find any google search references to it other than to this thread), or read any discussion of inaccuracies of ice core sampling due to the mechanism you describe, Brian, so I must agree with Essay that what you’re describing isn’t known as “Ice Thermometer Bias” in any mainstream or fringe science literature. The below cited wikipedia article mention that “if the summer temperatures do get above freezing, any ice core record will be severely degraded or completely useless, since meltwater will percolate into the snow”, but rather than sections of ice cores being ruined in this way, ice cores used for ancient ice and air samples are taken only from places where summer temperatures haven’t been above freezing at any time during which the cored ice sheet formed.

Doesn't AGW theory state most greenhouse warming occurs at the poles? The poles get constant sunlight 179 days each year. Ice must accumulate to trap atmospheric gas for core analysis, if the ice melts, the historic CO2 record is lost.

Although the South Pole does get half-year-long days and nights (the North Pole is covered with floating sea ice, most of which is less than 10 years old, so can’t provice ancient ice cores), sunlight strikes its surface very obliquely, so delivers much less heating energy for a given surface area than at a temperate latitude, and because the polar surfaces As a result, conditions from the place from which the major ice cores have been extracted (eg: Greenland and Antartica) accumulate snow year round, without significant melting.

 

It’s important to understand that the ice in these ice cores is not formed from frozen liquid water the way ice cubes from a refrigerator are formed, but rather from snow that has been so compressed from the weight of the layers above it so that the air between its flakes is forced into spherical bubbles, and the opaque firn becomes transparent ice.

 

Sources: wikipedia article “ice core”, particularly section “structure of ice sheets and cores”; NASA article “Amount of Old Ice in Arctic Hits Record Low in February 2009”.

[Essay]

I agree.

 

What concerns me most should long-term climate predictions for the next 50-100 years toward the worst-case end of the spectrum occur is not our ability to find technological solutions, but the possibility of unrestrained war between and civil war within powerful nations due to loss of high-price, low-elevation real estate, and dislocation of their populations due to permanent flooding. My faith in applied science to solve engineering problems is not matched by my faith in the political and diplomatic arts to avoid terrible war, nor the hope that belligerents in such wars would not use the most destructive weapons at their disposal. In short, while I’m optimistic that he was as wrong in it as in his cosmological constant-based steady state model of the universe, I fear Einstein might prove prophetic in his famous quote about future world wars:

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

 

This focus-of-worry leads me to conclude that treaties such as Kyoto Protocol and the draft 2009 Copenhagen conference treaty are less important in the particular policies and scientific consensuses they document and enact than in their furthering of world diplomacy. If, as Bill (TheBigDog) suggest, and I expect, most of humankinds response to climate change must needs be adaptive rather than preventive, preventive measures taken now will be of far less importance than the precedent and practical procedures of cooperation between and within national governments that the agreeing to these measures promotes. In short, I believe its better for the people and governments of the world to agree and cooperate, even if technically wrong, than disagree and fight, even if some of the parties are technically right.

 

Wow! That post est mostest !

 

That's the most profound idea I've seen in years! That perspective addresses the big picture well, and it is applicable to many other intractable problems as well.

There should be a name for this concept or principle that CraigD has illustrated so eloquently, above.

 

I didn't know my Dad was quoting Einstein when he used that line -as we argued about war back in the day- now two score years away.

===

 

When I first started reading CraigD's post, I thought the point was going to be that our technology is fatally dependent on the free flow of "trade" -including all the aspects of political, legal, and financial stability; access to a wide variety of material resources, and the production, acquisition, and transport of those resources; and a global civilization that values, on average, long-term aspirations for progress and development - as opposed to the short-term values associated with covering our aspirations enough to survive one more day, or get through the most immediate crisis.

I know that necessity is the mother of invention, but....

Technology depends on stability, including relatively stable expectations of future stability.

 

But that's just one aspect of the over-arching portrayal posted above by CraigD.

I hope President Obama says something along these lines in Oslo, and/or in Copenhagen.

~

[maikeru]

Agreed, beautiful post by CraigD.

[BrianG]

...[W]hat you’re describing isn’t known as “Ice Thermometer Bias” in any mainstream or fringe science literature. The below cited wikipedia article mention that “if the summer temperatures do get above freezing, any ice core record will be severely degraded or completely useless, since meltwater will percolate into the snow”, but rather than sections of ice cores being ruined in this way, ice cores used for ancient ice and air samples are taken only from places where summer temperatures haven’t been above freezing at any time during which the cored ice sheet formed...

 

How do we know the summer temperatures haven't been above freezing at any time during which the ice formed? What term is used to describe the degradation of ice core records from melting during past warm periods?

 

I'd prefer to see a negotiated Laissez-faire climate mitigation policy, before an ad hoc policy. Disagreements need not lead to war.

[Michaelangelica]

I don't understand the problem with ice cores. Admittedly i am mostly familiar with Antarctic research

PM - Antarctic ice cores being used to measure climate change 08/12/2009

 

A two mile long core is impressive

New Antarctic ice core to provide clearest climate record yet

[CraigD]

How do we know the summer temperatures haven't been above freezing at any time during which the ice formed?

I’ve not enough acquaintance with paleoclimatology to more than hazard a guess based on encyclopedia articles, but will make what clarifications and explanations I can.

 

First, a clarification, restating what I mentioned in post #45: there is no air temperature when and where the ice in an ice sheet from which an ice core is taken forms, because the ice forms not when liquid water is cooled by air until it freezes, but when frozen, compressed snow (term for this include firn and névé) is compressed further (while firn and névé have a specific gravity (density) of about 0.5, ice is nearly twice as dense, about 0.9167), completely losing its snow-flake crystal structure. For Antarctic sheets, this transformation occurs about at a depth of about 100 m, requires about 300 years.

 

If you read the above linked Wikipedia articles, links from them, and other references, you’ll read that this transformation of un-dense snow into dense ice involves melting – at various stages in the process, the crystallizes water becomes liquid – but unlike the typical melting of, say, a pot full of snow on a stove, the melting is confined to a thin sheet, so the trapped gasses and non-water particles in it don’t percolate and mix far upward or downward.

 

Another clarification. When I quote the Wikipedia article “ice core” explanation,

The below cited wikipedia article mention that “if the summer temperatures do get above freezing, any ice core record will be severely degraded or completely useless, since meltwater will percolate into the snow”, but rather than sections of ice cores being ruined in this way, ice cores used for ancient ice and air samples are taken only from places where summer temperatures haven’t been above freezing at any time during which the cored ice sheet formed.

What I believe it’s stating is not that thawing and refreezing on a small scale, which occurs when even very cold snow accumulates and is compressed into sheets, severely degrades or makes completely useless cores taken of these sheets, but that a surface air heat sufficient to melt large amounts of snow, then heat the resulting liquid water pond so that it carries heat to the packed snow and ice beneath it, melting that, then later refreezing, would ruin it for ice core sampling, because air and particles in snow deposited many hundreds of years earlier would be mixed with younger air and particles and vented into the atmosphere, something that’s not believed to have happened in the Antarctica interior and other ancient ice core sites in the past million years.

 

My guessed explanation of why experts believe summer temperatures in the Antarctic interior and similar regions in the past several hundred thousand years haven’t been above freezing is that modern records of temperature show it to be far from freezing (the warmest temperature recorded at Vostok Station was -12.2 °C on 11 January 2002), and many other data show that its geography (eg: elevation and latitude) and climate (eg: lack of warm air from the north) haven’t changed in over a million years.

 

Were a summer in the past 10,000 or so years to have been so warm it melted surface snow into liquid water, the ice cores would reveal it. Down to depths of 2000 m or so (guessing based on information about the several very long ice cores of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project), annual layering is visible. Were very warm conditions to have created a liquid water pond, then frozen and been buried under subsequent snow layers, I believe this would be clearly detectable in the ice cores.

 

Frankly, I think questions such as Brian’s would be better answered by someone experienced with ice coring and analysis. Without spending a lot of time researching (even this post took me hours! :naughty:), a general science enthusiast such as myself must make a lot of guesses to produce an answer.

What term is used to describe the degradation of ice core records from melting during past warm periods?

I’ve not seen a special term for such a thing. As I explained above, as there doesn’t appear to be any such degradation in the longest ice cores, there’s not much need for a special term for it.

 

Brian, I think you may not appreciate the differences in time scales of such things as “past warm periods” and ice cores. The deepest part of the Vostok ice core is about 420,000 years old. Other cores, such as the above mentioned GISP, go back about 100,000 years. The major paleoclimatological event (the closing of the isthmus of Panama) that resulted in these permanent ice sheets forming, however, occurred about 3,000,000 years ago. So the most recent “past warm period” of consequence to these permanent ice sheets occurred about 10 times earlier than the oldest record they contain.

 

Though we tend to think of deep ice core samples as being very old, the oldest such samples are long gone. Though we tend to think of deep interior ice sheets as stationary, they are actually slow moving glaciers. The oldest snow compacted into ice in Antarctica long ago flowed to the coast, fell into the sea, and melted.