Global cooling!

[Pidgey]

I think the ARGO system provides the data for scientists and it's up to them to publish. Given that the funding for the system was probably originally to prove AGW, it's very telling that you don't hear more about it. One graph (Willis 2008) that I saw showed a slight cooling from 2003 through 2007. It's not quite a year later yet and I don't know if anyone's publishing in realtime. One thing's for sure, we just can't keep suffering OLR losses like this (90 day OLR anomaly chart):

...without cooling. It's been pretty much like this for quite awhile now.

 

[PLC1]

When I argued that global warming was real in another thread here, implying that there were people out there that said it wasn't, I was accused of making a strawman argument. According to our resident conservative guru, Andy, global warming is real, but conservatives don't believe that it is anthropogenic, and no one, but no one was saying that it wasn't happening. Now, I'm reading a thread about how we need to worry about global cooling, this despite the scientific evidence we're all familiar with.

So, which is it:

Anthropogenic warming is a hoax, or
Global warming is a joke, or
The Earth is really cooling off, or
there is a huge conspiracy of scientists who want a socialist government (that really sounds like a strawman, but it isn't!)

 

[Pidgey]

We have experienced both periods of warming and of cooling. Currently, we're cooling. Analyzing supporting data for the SNR (Signal-to-Noise Ratio), our latest high peak isn't the highest we've experienced within the Holocene. The big question is what drives these excursions because you can't blame CO2. Currently, there are several solar factors that are lower than we've measured since we've been able to do so.

There's no doubt that "sensationalism sells". Like this article:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/23oct_superstorm.htm

You're hearing more about that possibility in the news here lately. If it were really to happen, it'd be pretty bad.

 

[Pidgey]

Actually, we just had an interesting event called an "SSW" (Sudden Stratospheric Warming). They've previously been unpredictable. Here's a plot:

And hot on its heels came this release:

http://www.innovations-report.de/ht...d_deep_underground_reveal_secrets_125785.html

Conclusion: It ain't local.

 

[samsara15]

For another take on this issue, here's a discussion of this issue on another forum:

http://turnleftinteractive.yuku.com/topic/3950

 

[Pidgey]

Mostly just bickering.

 

[Lagboltz]

There are other indicators of global warming, such as rising sea levels and melting ice shelves.

The following site is the Jason satellite program to measure sea levels.
http://www.nasa.gov/missions/earth/jason_1.html
"The mystery of why the oceans are rising is yet to be solved. The debate continues as to the cause. Is it due to global warming melting the polar ice caps or water expansion because of higher temperatures? Perhaps it's both."

That statement seems to deny the ARGO data of cooling. Still, they report a rise since 1992.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Rising_Sea_Level.jpg
The Jason satellite would measure the absolute sea level. There are other sites posting rises at shore lines, but because of reduced water tables it is easily argued that the land is sinking rather than the seas rising. That would make sense because 70% of the population lives within 60 km of shorelines and use fresh water at faster rates.

It seems that the land based ice sheets are not diminishing so much, but the ice shelves are. This would seem to indicate that the temperature of the ocean is the cause. The major question is if the rate of melting has accelerated in the last hundred years. If not, then it can be attributed to natural causes.

A Scientific American article mentions that particulate matter causes solar absorption and re-radiation, and therefor a cooling effect. Particulate matter has grown especially around China where dirty coal is burned.

So, what gives? How do you sort all this out?

 

[Pidgey]

The interpretation of the data is probably trickier than we'd like to admit--take a look:

Notice how some areas actually have a negative anomaly for the period while others have a positive? You've got an awful lot of factors at play like erosion of the land surfaces and transport of the sediments to the ocean; removal of groundwater for irrigation; removal of oil, gas and coal; precipitation of the hydrogen-to-water process of burning hydrocarbons; the proton stream (hydrogen) from the sun that hits the upper atmosphere and ultimately rains down as water when it combines with oxygen; thermal expansion of topwater in some areas of the ocean (the red-shifted areas in the map above); some melting of ice that has occurred because we really were warming there for awhile; isostatic changes... maybe they all add up.

 

[Lagboltz]

If the satellite measures an absolute sea level, without reference to land, I don't see how a long term average would be dependent on what the land is doing unless it dampens water flow and allows thermal hot spots.

In the map, it looks like the sinking area off the eastern coast of the US is where the gulf stream passes. Possibly the gulf steam is sinking (cooling) earlier. Could that cause a local depression?

Possibly the ocean current along the coast of Alaska and California is also doing the same.

On the whole it looks like the ocean is rising, especially around the equatorial area near Malasia.

I remember reading that the ocean currents slow down and maybe stop when global warming gets to a certain point. Then global cooling starts.

 

[Pidgey]

Okay, so the graphic supposedly covers about 16 years and the darkest red areas are sporting a centimeter per year rise so they should have risen about six (6) full inches in that time. Kinda' seems like you'd hear news stories about islands flooding, doesn't it?

Warm water is less dense and will literally push up further than colder water due to gravity. Gravity doesn't cause the surface of all oceanic waters to assume an absolute level with respect to earth's radius, you know. There are even spots on the planet where there are dips in the level of the ocean due to underwater mountains:

http://topex.ucsd.edu/marine_grav/explore_grav.html

It might be very interesting to learn exactly how the satellites measure the sea level to that degree of accuracy especially if, like the Hubble, they'd failed to take into consideration how the consequence of a standing column of warmer air might skew the results.

 

[Lagboltz]

Okay, so the graphic supposedly covers about 16 years and the darkest red areas are sporting a centimeter per year rise so they should have risen about six (6) full inches in that time. Kinda' seems like you'd hear news stories about islands flooding, doesn't it?

There are all kinds of stories about how vulnerable those areas are, and what sort of relocation of islanders needs to take place, but I can't find any stories about any current or past problem.

Warm water is less dense and will literally push up further than colder water due to gravity. Gravity doesn't cause the surface of all oceanic waters to assume an absolute level with respect to earth's radius, you know. There are even spots on the planet where there are dips in the level of the ocean due to underwater mountains:

I knew that the earth sea level wouldn't be a perfect sphere (oblate spheroid) but I would think that whatever lumpy shape it is, it would at least be stable from year to year. However maybe the changes are due to crust changes. After all a few mm is not very much.

It might be very interesting to learn exactly how the satellites measure the sea level to that degree of accuracy especially if, like the Hubble, they'd failed to take into consideration how the consequence of a standing column of warmer air might skew the results.

http://earth.esa.int/brat/html/missions/jason2/instruments/poseidon3_en.html
The altimeter emits a radar beam that is reflected back to the antenna from the Earth's surface. Poseidon-3 operates at two frequencies (13.6 GHz in the Ku band and 5.3 GHz in the C band) to determine atmospheric electron content, which affects the radar signal path delay. These two frequencies also serve to measure the amount of rain in the atmosphere.

It seems that the two bands have different path delays due to the atmosphere, so not only can they compare the two delays to correct the signal time-of-flight, but the amount of correction also measures the water content.

 

[PLC1]

Kinda' seems like you'd hear news stories about islands flooding, doesn't it?

Why, yes, yes it does.

Kiribati, an archipelago of 33 coral atolls barely 6ft above sea level, is vanishing as global warming sees the oceans rise. Yesterday, its president, Anote Tong, warned Australia and New Zealand - the two developed countries in the region - to prepare for a mass exodus within the next decade.

 

[invest07]

Kirtibati and Nawlins

Living in Kiribati, a 6' above sea level, makes almost as much sense as living in New Orleans, at 3' below sea level.

Here in Fl, we have waves over 6' every storm. California and Hawaii regularly have waves in the 30+ foot range. It would seem to me, if you chose to live on a small coral atoll barely above sea level, you must be willing to assume some risk.

Even my state was under water 20K years ago. Then worldwide temps cooled and a bunch of new ice formed and VOILA!!! The Sunshine State appeared, attached to the Peach State. Sooner or later, FL will disappear under the ocean as the earth goes through it's regular cooling and heating cycles. And when that happens, I figure my coffin will float right out of the ground and wind up who knows where.

Australia and New Zealand are BIIIIIIGGGG countries. I'm sure they have room. I guess the next question for the Aussies is "Do you enforce your borders or do you pretend there are no borders, like we do in the US?"