Climate Change
- Thread starter dbphoenix
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I read Richter's remark a little differently. I just let his phrase "the truth of it" be interpreted in my mind as "the issue". I read his statement as: "It is politicized because the [issue] will influence public policy re taxes and spending. That makes excellent sense to me, and it is a nice way of summarizing why some of these issues get highly politicized. It is similar with the Keystone Pipeline business. There are powerful corporate interests that stand to win or lose depending on outcome.
I just let his remark about government slide, viz., "For everyone who believes "gubmint is too damn big", AGW is not happening, or at least there is nothing we can or should do about it". I really wasn't concerned with that as that's just, I suppose, an inevitable result of politicizing an issue-- people take sides depending on their political proclivities which can put them on the wrong side of science. And I suppose Richter's comment on that is true in general, but it certainly is not universally true. There are many exceptions.
Here is the problem that you obviously recognize, as do I. If you happen to be conservative in political leaning, because their is obviously a bias against the Hansen hypothesis among conservatives, then it is going to be assumed, rightly or wrongly, that you are biased in interpreting the science in a way to slant toward the position of most conservatives. I haven't noticed that bias in your posts because I happen to strongly agree with you regarding this issue, yet I am a little left of center politically! Politically, I should be on the other side of this issue from you. So I see your position through my own bias, which in my case, I suppose, is shaped somewhat more by my scientific training and experience than it is by my politics.
I know that he has bought into the anthropomorphic global warming hypothesis, so I'm willing to let his remark about "the truth of it" pass in order to get to the real meat of his remark which is to point out that we politicize issues more or less in proportion to the amount of money at stake. Overall my impression is that Richter is a level-headed guy a little left of center on most issues. I'm a little left of center too on many issues, but I'm a Libertarian at heart and look forward to a perfect Libertarian Heaven, the only big place where pure libertarian philosophy could work in practice..
I read your posts. You're intelligent!
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I know that he has bought into the anthropomorphic global warming hypothesis,
And why shouldn't he? It is obvious, common sense and empirically observed science that we watching happen right before our eyes.
There are reasons other than political bias that someone may not be able to look at an issue without extreme bias. Emotional involvement would be one of those; another is ego. It's interesting to me, you probably wouldn't notice this, but there are those caught up in this issue with almost a religious fervor, and they seem concentrated on one side, whereas this intensity of conviction and fervor is largely absent from the other side, with some exceptions naturally. ..
Given the jem has at least a dozen climate threads this year alone, would it be possible to have just one that doesn't get derailed into the same old argument about whether or not it exists along with simplistic characterizations of those involved? I'm sure jem would be thrilled to have you.
Thank you.
You misunderstand what I am saying. I am saying that man made global warming is obvious, common sense and empirically observed science that we are watching happen right before our eyes. It's a fact. Why should he not believe it? Unless he was say, for instance, a Libertarian extremist ideologue that is more interested in some ideological purpose than the facts. Or was being disingenuous and was actually working for a libtardarian think tank for salary.
What's interesting to me is how some folks would rather ignore facts than admit to something that requires govt involvement.
As soon as they hear that the evil government gains importance with admission of some fact, they deny that fact lest the government gain power. It's a needs based way of seeing reality. Similar to the rejection of evolution because it takes control of their faith/delusions.
As soon as they hear that the evil government gains importance with admission of some fact, they deny that fact lest the government gain power. It's a needs based way of seeing reality. Similar to the rejection of evolution because it takes control of their faith/delusions.
Oceans Getting Hotter Than Anybody Realized
John Upton
The RV Kaharoa motored out of Wellington, New Zealand on Saturday, loaded with more than 100 scientific instruments, each eventually destined for a watery grave. Crewmembers will spend the next two months dropping the 50-pound devices, called Argo floats, into the seas between New Zealand and Mauritius, off the coast of Madagascar. There, the instruments will sink and drift, then measure temperature, salinity and pressure as they resurface to beam the data to a satellite. The battery-powered floats will repeat that process every 10 days — until they conk out, after four years or more, and become ocean junk.
Under an international program begun in 2000, and that started producing useful global data in 2005, the world’swarming and acidifying seas have been invisibly filled with thousands of these bobbing instruments. They are gathering and transmitting data that’s providing scientists with the clearest-ever pictures of the hitherto-unfathomed extent of ocean warming. About 90 percent of global warming is ending up not on land, but in the oceans.
An Argo float. Credit: Alicia Navidad/CSIRO.
Research published Sunday concluded that the upper 2,300 feet of the Southern Hemisphere’s oceans may have warmed twice as quickly after 1970 than had previously been thought. Gathering reliable ocean data in the Southern Hemisphere has historically been a challenge, given its remoteness and its relative paucity of commercial shipping, which helps gather ocean data. Argo floats and satellites are now helping to plug Austral ocean data gaps, and improving the accuracy of Northern Hemisphere measurements and estimates.
“The Argo data is really critical,” said Paul Durack, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher who led the new study, which was published in Climate Nature Change. “The estimates that we had up until now have been pretty systematically underestimating the likely changes.”
Durack and Lawrence Livermore colleagues worked with a Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist to compare ocean observations with ocean models. They concluded that the upper levels of the planet’s oceans — those of the northern and southern hemispheres combined — had been warming during several decades prior to 2005 at rates that were 24 to 58 percent faster than had previously been realized.
That rapid ocean warming has consequences for the Earth’s climate and its shorelines.
“We continue to be stunned at how rapidly the ocean is warming,” said Sarah Gille, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography professor. Gille was not involved with this paper, nor was she involved with a similar one published Sunday that examined the role of ocean warming in rising sea levels. She described both of them as “tremendously interesting” studies.
“Even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today, we'd still have an ocean that is warmer than the ocean of 1950, and that heat commits us to a warmer climate,” Gille said. “Extra heat means extra sea level rise, since warmer water is less dense, so a warmer ocean expands.”
Ocean warming is exacerbating flooding caused by the melting of glaciers and other ice. Seas have risen 8 inches since the industrial revolution, and they continue to rise at a hastening pace, worsening floods and boosting storm surges near shorelines around the world. Another 2 to 7 feet of sea level rise is forecast this century, jeoparizing the homes and neighborhoods of the 5 million Americans who live less than 4 feet above high tide, as well as those of thehundreds of millions living along coastlines in other countries.
The other ocean temperature study, also published Sunday in Climate Nature Change, used Argo and other data to tentatively conclude that all of the ocean warming from 2005 to 2013 had occurred above depths of 6,500 feet. During the same period, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists who wrote the paper concluded, the expansion of those warming waters caused a third of the planet’s 2.8 millimeters of annual sea-level rise.
Sunday’s papers joined more than 1,000 others published so far that have used Argo float data to improve science’s understanding of waterways that are climatically influential but difficult to measure manually. “This research covers a very broad range of topics including ocean circulation, water mass formation and spreading, mesoscale eddies, interannual variability such as El Niño, decadal variability, and multi-decadal climate change,” said Scripps Institution of Oceanography professor Dean Roemmich, who was in New Zealand last week preparing Argo floats for deployment by the RV Kaharoa’s crew. “The program has revolutionized large-scale physical oceanography.”
Steve Rintoul, a researcher at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO, said findings of ocean warming above 6,500 feet in the Jet Propulsion Lab’s study explain the recent slowdown in warming at the Earth’s surface, which is sometimes called global warming hiatus, or warming pause.
“An important result of this paper is the demonstration that the oceans have continued to warm over the past decade, at a rate consistent with estimates of Earth’s net energy imbalance,” Rintoul said. “While the rate of increase in surface air temperatures slowed in the last 10 to 15 years, the heat stored by the planet, which is heavily dominated by the oceans, has steadily increased as greenhouse gases have continued to rise.”
That extra heat isn’t expected to swim with the fishes forever. Some of it will eventually rise from the deep, raising temperatures in places that more directly affect us landlubbers.
Just how rapidly the oceanic heat will resurface to warm the land is “something that we struggle with,” said Scripps’s Gille. But she said heat is constantly shifting between oceans and the atmosphere. “A warmer ocean will mean a warmer atmosphere.”
John Upton
The RV Kaharoa motored out of Wellington, New Zealand on Saturday, loaded with more than 100 scientific instruments, each eventually destined for a watery grave. Crewmembers will spend the next two months dropping the 50-pound devices, called Argo floats, into the seas between New Zealand and Mauritius, off the coast of Madagascar. There, the instruments will sink and drift, then measure temperature, salinity and pressure as they resurface to beam the data to a satellite. The battery-powered floats will repeat that process every 10 days — until they conk out, after four years or more, and become ocean junk.
Under an international program begun in 2000, and that started producing useful global data in 2005, the world’swarming and acidifying seas have been invisibly filled with thousands of these bobbing instruments. They are gathering and transmitting data that’s providing scientists with the clearest-ever pictures of the hitherto-unfathomed extent of ocean warming. About 90 percent of global warming is ending up not on land, but in the oceans.
Research published Sunday concluded that the upper 2,300 feet of the Southern Hemisphere’s oceans may have warmed twice as quickly after 1970 than had previously been thought. Gathering reliable ocean data in the Southern Hemisphere has historically been a challenge, given its remoteness and its relative paucity of commercial shipping, which helps gather ocean data. Argo floats and satellites are now helping to plug Austral ocean data gaps, and improving the accuracy of Northern Hemisphere measurements and estimates.
“The Argo data is really critical,” said Paul Durack, a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researcher who led the new study, which was published in Climate Nature Change. “The estimates that we had up until now have been pretty systematically underestimating the likely changes.”
Durack and Lawrence Livermore colleagues worked with a Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist to compare ocean observations with ocean models. They concluded that the upper levels of the planet’s oceans — those of the northern and southern hemispheres combined — had been warming during several decades prior to 2005 at rates that were 24 to 58 percent faster than had previously been realized.
That rapid ocean warming has consequences for the Earth’s climate and its shorelines.
“We continue to be stunned at how rapidly the ocean is warming,” said Sarah Gille, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography professor. Gille was not involved with this paper, nor was she involved with a similar one published Sunday that examined the role of ocean warming in rising sea levels. She described both of them as “tremendously interesting” studies.
“Even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today, we'd still have an ocean that is warmer than the ocean of 1950, and that heat commits us to a warmer climate,” Gille said. “Extra heat means extra sea level rise, since warmer water is less dense, so a warmer ocean expands.”
Ocean warming is exacerbating flooding caused by the melting of glaciers and other ice. Seas have risen 8 inches since the industrial revolution, and they continue to rise at a hastening pace, worsening floods and boosting storm surges near shorelines around the world. Another 2 to 7 feet of sea level rise is forecast this century, jeoparizing the homes and neighborhoods of the 5 million Americans who live less than 4 feet above high tide, as well as those of thehundreds of millions living along coastlines in other countries.
The other ocean temperature study, also published Sunday in Climate Nature Change, used Argo and other data to tentatively conclude that all of the ocean warming from 2005 to 2013 had occurred above depths of 6,500 feet. During the same period, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists who wrote the paper concluded, the expansion of those warming waters caused a third of the planet’s 2.8 millimeters of annual sea-level rise.
Sunday’s papers joined more than 1,000 others published so far that have used Argo float data to improve science’s understanding of waterways that are climatically influential but difficult to measure manually. “This research covers a very broad range of topics including ocean circulation, water mass formation and spreading, mesoscale eddies, interannual variability such as El Niño, decadal variability, and multi-decadal climate change,” said Scripps Institution of Oceanography professor Dean Roemmich, who was in New Zealand last week preparing Argo floats for deployment by the RV Kaharoa’s crew. “The program has revolutionized large-scale physical oceanography.”
Steve Rintoul, a researcher at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO, said findings of ocean warming above 6,500 feet in the Jet Propulsion Lab’s study explain the recent slowdown in warming at the Earth’s surface, which is sometimes called global warming hiatus, or warming pause.
“An important result of this paper is the demonstration that the oceans have continued to warm over the past decade, at a rate consistent with estimates of Earth’s net energy imbalance,” Rintoul said. “While the rate of increase in surface air temperatures slowed in the last 10 to 15 years, the heat stored by the planet, which is heavily dominated by the oceans, has steadily increased as greenhouse gases have continued to rise.”
That extra heat isn’t expected to swim with the fishes forever. Some of it will eventually rise from the deep, raising temperatures in places that more directly affect us landlubbers.
Just how rapidly the oceanic heat will resurface to warm the land is “something that we struggle with,” said Scripps’s Gille. But she said heat is constantly shifting between oceans and the atmosphere. “A warmer ocean will mean a warmer atmosphere.”