"One of those authors stated that he was initially a strong skeptic, but after 15 years of researching climate change he is no longer a skeptic"

After 15 years, he decided if he was going to make any money, better jump on it.
Odd man out.

Reply: I highly doubt that. He actually has been involved with the climate change research for 15 years, he did not just start it. He is actually one of the deans at the University and listening to him, whether or not his research ends up being correct, you could tell he was very passionate about his work and truly believed in it. Brett

Nature

Climate models predict that the ocean's circulation will weaken in response to global warming, but the warming at the end of the last ice age suggests a different outcome.

Current climate-system models say that the ocean's overturning circulation will weaken over the next century19, but these predictions might not rest on a solid foundation.

It seems that the information from the past is telling us to expect a stronger oceanic circulation in the warmer climate to come

These are possiblities if the climate continues warming. And it isn't alarmist, just what the negatives and positives would be, and we'd also be able to adapt. We are good at that.

The debate over AGW is going to continue, and it should. There are good studies out there that refute it, but probably won't be considered until we see a cool period( which has been forcasted to happen soon by some). Then ,I think, these studies will be taken more seriously. Only time itself will produce the correct answer.

We need to have a standard that is agreed to by all concerning surface data. Unfortunately, that really is a shambles and anyone can take stats and manipulate them to suit their purposes. There has been to many changes over the past century as to the equipment and way we get data. Also the enviroment has changed which would favor warmth in the surface observations. I know adjustments are made, but again, that can be manipulated either way and not really reflect the truth as to what is really going on.

Kipp,

On a previous thread, I and a few other asked you to elaborate on CO and CO2 and their carcinogenic properties. Never heard from you. What's up with that?

You brought up that subject, not I. I would still like to hear your thoughts on these alleged carcinogenic compounds.

Buehler....Buehler.

My concern here is "education". It used to be that universities taught critical thought - with this teach-in they are being told to believe there is a problem and somehow they have to come up with a "solution". I would have more faith in the system if a few dissidents were invited to every one of the 1400+ sessions to give a different perspective. Without that, these are little more than propaganda gatherings. I am just reading the biography of Mercator and the conventional wisdom of his time (the Little Ice Age) was that the world would end in 1588. Forecasts were premature then and I strongly suspect that they are premature now.

Paul,

I did not read the post you refer to, but as a physician, I can unequivocally tell you the CO2 and CO have no carcinogenic properties. So I don't know where that idea came from.

As far as the prediction for the mid-Anlantic area, I am very concerned about the mosquito vector issue. As you know, mosquitoes are vectors for the world's most serious and enigmatic diseases, e.g.. malaria, West Nile Virus, Ebola virus, etc. Also, other vectors such as fleas and ticks could increase as well. Anyway, the more tropical the climate, particularly with large pools of stagnate water, means more mosquito-transmitted disease. That could lead to a disaster similar to the Plague, but much worse, do to the large population, the lack of immunity and lack of treatment regimes. And it is likely that this disaster will occur early in the course of GW.

So, before you dismiss AGW or just GW as a money-making enterprise for "experts", Mr. Anonymous (I would stay anonymous if I were you), know that this discussion of the disease probabilities related to GW is very pertinent and worrisome. What's as worrisome, however, is your dismissing attitude.

If we make an assumption, and then assuming something else happens, and possibly something else happens as a result, and if we ignore the rest of the evidence - then we can precisely define what the effects will be.

Thanks you very much.

I went to the Denver Planetarium today and saw a great show where they discussed the solar wind. I had no idea how powerful it is and how important the earth's magnetic filed is to protecting our atmosphere. Astonishing that AGW types are so intent on ignoring the very important effects of solar variability. "It must be CO2, because we are too lazy to think about anything else."

Reply: From what i heard on Thursday at the teach-in was that the IPCC members that were in attendance was that solar variability is indeed taken into account when they make their calculations.

A first look at temps for January 2008
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/map/images/rnl/sfctmpmer_30b.rnl.html
Lets see how NASA explains this one away. Cold land + sea + atmosphere

Didn't see anything there about assessing infrastructure (roads, bridges, wastewater treatment, etc.), potential structural adjustments and possible changes in seasonal maintenance.

Also - anyone yet mentioning potential impacts of adaptations on government budgets?

On Real Climate a blogger posted that he could see how some people could be skeptical of computer models, even if the data is based on physical observation. He had a hard time how people could be skeptical of the very dramatic changes, such as you mention.

I find it very difficult to look at the unprecedented, in geological terms, changes in Alaska -- glaciers melting, methane bubbling, huge temperature increases, invasive species, etc. -- and not have extreme concerns.

This isn't just an intellectual debate. There are dramatic changes that are apparent to anyone who observes nature. Changes that are taking place as the population heads towards 9 billion.

Speaking of a more variable climate, 7 cm of snow in Tokyo today where it rarely snows.

I put this in here for bt, because I know he loves to see daily weather reports that go against the CW of AGW. (Reply: I don't think those reports go against or support the CW of AGW, they are pretty meaningless when you look at the big picture. Brett)

Besides, I love to cherry-pick weather because it irritates him so much.

Reply: Oh, so your just posting those observations just to irritate BT and others? I'll keep that in mind next time.

Oh, yeah, the snow drought continues in the Rockies and Sierras:

Breckenridge - 61"
Keystone - 51"
Steamboat - 73"
Vail - 59"
Wolf Creek - 146" (26" yesterday)
Jackson Hole - 107"
Alta - 152"
Park City - 109"
Heavenly - 100"
Kirkwood - 155"
Whistler - 91"
Taos - 90"

And in Japan:

Niseko, Hokkaido - 102"
Hakuba, Nagano - 110"
Hiuchi, Niigata - 134"
Joetsu, Niigata - 83"

The snow drought continues.

Uh oh!! Looks like Sunspot Cycle 24 may not have started after all.

Mark, time for some spinning. See if you can spin up a new start to Cycle 24 so we can get on with the global warming.

Reply: Actually, the author of the link you posted to said that solar cycle 24 remains difficult to call definitively at this time, in his view.

Regional anomolies come in varying forms and forums.

I'm sure ......well almost ......that the next assessments should interpret this type of article in the Telegraph and place it in the proper context.

Excerpt:

"Sea ice cover had shrunk to the lowest level ever recorded. But for some reason the warmists are less keen on the latest satellite findings, reported by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the website Cryosphere Today by the University of Illinois.

This body is committed to warmist orthodoxy and contributes to the work of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Yet its graph of northern hemisphere sea ice area, which shows the ice shrinking from 13,000 million sq km to just 4 million from the start of 2007 to October, also shows it now almost back to 13 million sq km.".

As I tried to project in my previous comment specifically about media's role in this issue, it appears, as many are suggesting, that the "spin" is beginning to change direction for some reason.

Could it be that the science in not settled?

Could it be that weather IS indicative of climate?

Or, last but not least, this is all agenda driven lies, with elegant media spin and the movie will be coming out shortly! (oooops ...... again?)

I have yet to see why the consequences of this warming period will be different from previous one.

Does it matter whether the current warm period is primarily or entirely man-made? Isn't it most likely that if we experience continued warming, the climate will resemble what was experienced during the MWP and the Roman Warming Period.

Thanks for sharing the presentation Brett. Do you know if anyone at Penn St has ever considered the opposite of rapid GW? That is, rapid GC? Just a thought. I know everyone is focused on GW, and expect it to continue indefinitely, but there is a chance for the opposite to occur.

JP: I honestly do not know. That is a good question.

GettingWarm,

Where a lot of people differ on those observations is in what caused them. I just do not understand how we can theorize so profoundly based on 150 years of data, knowing that this planet is well over like a few hundred bajillion years old. That would be like analyzing Brett Favre's stats by looking at only his last attempt, and theorizing he was the worst QB ever because it was an interception.

What was Alaska like 1 million years ago, what was it like 5000 years ago, what was Alaska 386,000 years ago? Maybe 1 of these time frames was very similar to what it is like present day. Maybe glaciers were retreating, maybe they were advancing.

Now I just threw random numbers our there for this, so pardon me if someone has proven that 386,000 years ago was a tropical paradise or frozen wasteland.

Vincent,

I'm not sure if NASA will attempt to "explain it away." But let's just assume for argument's sake that for the month of January, the earth's averaged temperature anomaly was negative. What does that mean? Do you believe that one cool month disproves AGW theory? That is an honest question.
Look, I'm not trying to be too mean. I hate the idea of AGW, so seeing a cool month makes me happy. I just think you're making too much of a big deal about one cool month. And before you say that AGW promoters make a big deal about one warm month or season all the time; I agree with you. It's wrong of them to do it too.

Hi Guys,

Roger Pielke Sr. has done some excellent papers on this issue. I suggest you visit his site here on climate. Most concerning regional changes.

http://climatesci.org/

All this speculation on the deleterious effects of GW and AGW is very interesting but those, like myself, who are antipathetic to Climate Science as extant, differ regarding the facts, forget about possible consequences.
During the Little Ice Age, malaria was a serious problem in central Britain and northern Russia, circa Murmansk. This is just one example of AGW proponents' predeliction for reasonable assumption as opposed to deep investigation. The attitude that we are denier's so we can be condescended to will not engender submission.

Hi Brett,

I have learned from watching the climate change industry that the fact that they say they are factoring something into their models doesn't necessarily have much to do with reality.

For example, this press release from the Met, where they claim to be including the effects of solar variability, volcanic eruptions and SST in their 2014 prediction. Minor little problem is that neither volcanic activity nor SSTs can be predicted that far out, and there is no consensus on solar activity either.

The forecast for 2014...

The new model incorporates the effects of sea surface temperatures as well as other factors such as man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, projected changes in the sun's output and the effects of previous volcanic eruptions � the first time internal and external variability have both been predicted.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20070810.html

David,

I did not read the post you refer to, but as a physician, I can unequivocally tell you the CO2 and CO have no carcinogenic properties. So I don't know where that idea came from.

That's what I'd like to know. Where on earth did Kipp come up with this revelation that CO2 and CO were carcinogens? He doesn't seem to want to respond.

Brett,

Two short-lived, high latitude sunspots in two years is evidence of the onset of Cycle 24? Seems like shaky evidence to me, when the preponderance of sunspots in the last two years are the old Cycle 23 spots.
Paul, All I was showing was the conclusion of the author you linked to.

As far as bt and cherry-picking goes, that's a bit of sarcasm. The real reason for posting weather related events is to counter the constant barrage of global warming alarmist rhetoric coming from the main stream media on a daily basis every time the thermometer gets slightly warmer than "normal". Once the MSM ceases the daily alarm, maybe we can stop pointing out the multitude of events that are contrary to their daily blathering.

There is a giant reporting bias in the MARA findings and I wonder if I am the only one able to spot it (or otherwise, if I am just very wrong on this point).

For example on "Human Health" there is no mention of the obvious reduction in cold-related deaths. (Reply: Are there really that many cold related deaths on an annual basis across the middle Atlantic region?)

At least, I hope there has been some reduction. Actually, if there has been none, THEN that would be a major finding on its own

The trouble is that one cannot simply say "let's look at the changes" and then report _any_ change that is seen, and especially the bad ones. There is lots that keeps changing every day every where, but each particular item may or may not be of any significance.

Observations should follow some underlying hypothesis. Otherwise, everything that changes is going to be a "finding": worse, there will be all the chance for a "pick and choose" of findinds in one direction or another.

Gettingwarm,

What huge temperature increases are you talking about?

Anyway, dont you love how the word EXTREME is so popular these days? It started out with extreme sports on ESPN 10 years ago. Extreme is now used for selling everything from weather to soft drinks to deodorant. Extreme rain AND droughts? I still dont get the drought thing with more moisture in the atmosphere? Columbia, Equador, Venezuela, Brazil and parts of the Amazon that run along the equator are lush, rich and green. No serious drought concerns down there despite being on the equator.

--A much more variable climate? (Is AGW entirely to blame for this? What about the Milankovitch Theory or other theories. Why dont we hear about these from the media? All we hear about is how evil carbon emmissions are. Fair and balanced my derrier.)

--Uncertain amount of water (This goes hand in hand with the AGW theory...UNCERTAINTY.)

--but uncertainties about weeds, pests and disease could alter that assessment (Again, UNCERTAINTIES that COULD happen are key words here)

--Ecosystems/Functions impaired (Ecosystems/functions IMPROVED, depending on where you live)

--Human health/heat mortality increase (Or human COLD mortality DECREASE.)

--Socioeconomic System/Regional economy resilient to climate change (Good to read)

--Some populations hurt, others are helped (The population is always increasing. Obviously the more people exposed to weather, the more people will be effected...duh)

Positive impacts on soybeans, corn, mixed forest growth, treefruit. (Thats all they came up with as being positive impacts of global warming? Where are all the offsets? All we read about are the doom and gloom, negative effects of AGW. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Dont the positives help to offset the negatives?)

For example; global waming COULD cost the world billions to trillions of dollars. Meanwhile... The COLD - IS - costing the world billions to trillions of dollars.

Please moveon.org with AGW scare tactics. Thank you.

Veets, FYI all of that is quite well-known.

As it happens the times you refer to were all within the geologic epoch called the Pleistocene, which covers about the last 2 million years and is characterized by frequent glacial cycles (less intense ones with about a 40,000 year period up until about 850,000 years ago, then more intense ones with about a 100,000 year period). The mechanism for these cycles is not perfectly understood, but it is uncontroversial that they are paced (triggered) by changes in the Earth's orbit (Milankovitch cycles) that periodically result in much more (deglaciations) or much less (glaciations) sunlight at high latitudes.

It is also uncontroversial that intense glacial periods like the Pleistocene are fairly rare in the Earth's history, and that one of the factors that must be in place for them to occur is a relatively low level of CO2.

The level of CO2 we have now is enough to break the glacial cycle if it is maintained for very long. There's nothing wrong with the resulting climate as such, although it's not the one we evolved in and the transition to it (including among other things the loss of all of our coastal cities due to sea level rise) could be very unpleasant.

It is this "paleoclimate" evidence, BTW, that constitutes the strongest case for concern about AGW (and is what convinced most of those formerly skeptical scientists). What it can't tell us much about is the timing of the changes that will result from increasing CO2, which is where the models come in.

This Wikipedia article is a nice summary of paleoclimatology; follow the embedded links for more detail.

Like Brett says, daily weather is not climate change, and increasing numbers of unusual events whichthe denialists on board are pointing to, are one of the predictions of global warming theory.
We were in LA Christmas onwards 2004 for three weeks of solid rain, huge dumps of snow on Big Bear, flooding all round, trees down, homes washed away etc. Everything in the garden would be rosy water wise. The wildfires last year followed long drought and very little by way of water reserves. I think the water boys are right to be playing cautious and I see water supply as one of the genuine problems looming. All that's being said about the present snowfall was said back then, and could reverse just as quickly.
When you look at arctic ice, surprising as it may seem, we did expect it to freze over again during winter. It won't be very thick, though, and will melt fairly easily, so we'll be looking to see how far back it melts this coming summer, and summers in future, until a clear trend can be discerned.
When I am told that sea levels have risen by 8.5cm (can't remember the time period, but that rise did not take long) and the rise is "mainly due to thermal expansion of surface waters" then I find explanations which do not include global warming to be pretty tenuous.

Brian: "The debate over AGW is going to continue, and it should. There are good studies out there that refute it (...)"

No, there aren't. There are a very few scientists (Roy Spencer e.g.) who still try to find a basis for overturning the "consensus" and they can still get published, but simply being published doesn't make them "good studies" if other scientists are not convinced.

Other papers (the recent one by Schwartz e.g.) are essentially just questions ("Have the modelers considered X?") but have been improperly characterized as challenges to the consensus.

There a fair number of valid papers out there deaing with more fundamental issues (by Tsonis e.g.) that have been misread to be challenges to the consensus but aren't at all.

For all of the above, bear in mind that there is a cottage industry of fossil fuel-industry funded sites (co2science, junkscience and worldclimatereport are the main ones) that specialize in producing such distortions. In most of those cases, you can settle the issue for yourself by asking whether the paper itself or the author(s) clearly state that some fundamental aspect of the accepted science is being challenged.

JP, there's no mechanism for rapid global cooling other a sudden onset of major vulcanism (which would put a lot of dust in the air). In the past there has been discussion of a possible AGW-induced slowdown in ocean circulation that could *temporarily* cool the North Atlantic, but that is now thought to be no more than a minor possible effect.

It was also formerly thought that the sun had enough variability to be the main cause of temporary coolings like the "Little Ice Age," but both it and the preceding "Medieval Warm Period" are now believed to have resulted mainly from changes in vulcanism (LIA with relatively more eruptions putting dust into the stratophere, MWP with relatively less).

While we're on the subject, the last century or so has also been low in volcanic activity, but instead we have been putting large amounts of dust into the atmosphere. This is thought to have been a main reason for the hiccup in global warming from 1945-75, although a natural cycle related to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) also appears to have been involved. I say "thought to" because these changes largely pre-date the period when the question could have been resolved directly by collected data (e.g. we don't know exactly how much dust was in the air and in particular the stratosphere in 1945).

BT

Patrick Michaels, a climatologist at the University of Virginia - read the Newsweek piece "The truth about Denial" and see if he wasn't unfairly trashed.

PaulB, it was always thought likely that the winter sea ice would recover to approximately what it was last year. If you look at the seasonal trend chart on the CT site, you will see that there has been only a slight downward trend in the winter ice even while the summer minimum has dropped sharply. Even after we have reached a relatively ice-free summer state, for a while at least the winter ice will continue to largely recover. The big question is what it will do over the next five or so summers. While the majority view among ice experts is that the summer ice will take on the order of another 20 years to go, a credible modeling result (by the U.S. Navy's sea ice modeler) announced in December predicts that this could happen as soon as 2013. All else being equal, some recovery next summer is more likely than not. If instead there's another significant drop, the 2013 forecast begins to look much more likely.

CT is not a NOAA-sponsored site, BTW.

Paul,

There are several significant reasons for reporting on western snowfall.

1. It demonstrates that the cpc, met, etc. models were wrong again this year.

2. It demonstrates that the many AGW writers in the press are not interested in reporting the truth, and will actually print blatant falsehoods to push their agenda.

so yes January 2008 was negative
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_monthly_binary_data
trouble is what February-Dec are as well? Fact is it is now becoming a trend since 2001 and according to AGW this aint suppose to happen LOL

Steve Bloom,

What is the justification of yourstatement:

"The level of CO2 we have now is enough to break the glacial cycle if it is maintained for very long."

This is not an attack or a debate. I am intentsely interested in glacial cycles,so Iwant to know where you get that information.

As an aside, I like the idea of glaciations. I know that it wouldn't be very pleasant to try to live through one without the proper technology, but I would be verysad if knew that there would be no more glaciations fr the foreseable geological future.

Steve Bloom;

FYI, to avoid confusion, the article states that the findings were "reported by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on the website Cryosphere Today by the University of Illinois"

I don't think they insinuated that it was a NOAA sponsored site. Only that the findings were reported by the NOAA.

I understand the remainder of you analysis but unfortunately phrases such as: "All else being equal, some recovery next summer is more likely than not. If instead there's another significant drop, the 2013 forecast begins to look much more likely. " perfectly exemplifies my disdain for most of this debate.

To frame a situation with so many conditions (All else being equal; more likely than not; much more likely) as to make it true in any circumstance leaves me indifferent with its content and really raises questions as to its pertinence.

Steve Bloom said:

"The level of CO2 we have now is enough to break the glacial cycle if it is maintained for very long. There's nothing wrong with the resulting climate as such, although it's not the one we evolved in and the transition to it (including among other things the loss of all of our coastal cities due to sea level rise) could be very unpleasant."

It sounds like you have hard evidence of what CO2 levels have been throughout all ages of the life of this planet. That would seem to be what you would need to come up with for what you said, actual numbers.

If you do have these numbers, please share them...
It would be nice to see a graph of CO2 concentrations frmo the beginning of the Earth overlayed on to a global temperature graph.

Also, my point was we can only theorize as to what CO2 levels were, the Vostok Cores are localized info, if I udnerstand that study correct. So my question is, would CO2 concentrations be more homogenous in concentration globally (I honestly don't know, trying to learn)

I understand the Ice Cores are highly regarded by skeptics.

Do we understand how temperatures went up, at what rate back in the various interglacial periods, models are just a more educated form of speculation. Since the data from before we have measurements for is estimated on a best effort basis, the models using that info are based, in part, on estimates.

For me, I think if we are talking about precision in the tenths of a decree celcius, we should not be so swayed on estimates, or models involving estimates.

If you put in your models, temps increasing .02 every year for 10 years, it would only be able to accurately assume +.02 for every year there after. If you tell the model that CO2 is increasing at x amount every year, and tell it that the temp will go up .02 + .01 for every 10x it will come out with numbers increasing every decade.

What info are we telling these models to use for temperatures, CO2 levels, etc. prior to modern data.

Hi Steve Bloom,

I would have thought that all the cold weather and snow out in California would have helped calm your nerves.

If you spend a few minutes looking at the CT data, you will realize that all of the perennial ice basins are completely recovered and that the remaining small deficit (500,000 km2) is in basins which don't play a part in the summer minimum. Even that small deficit will probably disappear in the next couple of weeks.

I suggest you go up to Tahoe, enjoy the snow, and wait till August to hyperventilate about Arctic Ice.

Steve Bloom,

I always thought most scientist agreed that solar activity played the major role in the "Little Ice Age". Also, I know Tambora caused cooling when it erupted in 1815, but what volcanic activity are we talking about from the 1500s-1700's? For such a prolonged period of cooling wouldn't another factor have had to play a dominent role?
For example Tambora was a massive eruption, but even with that, how long did it actually affect global temperatures? I know 1816 was unusually cool, but I'm not sure about subsequent years.

Paul..

Your Snowpack number's don't jive as far as the CA (Sierra) Region goes as far as yesterdays latest depth readings.

"The Sierra Nevada snowpack, which, to hydrologists, is a better holding tank than the biggest man-made reservoir, is 13 percentage points above normal for this time of year. "

Source:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/01/MNE3UPTSC.DTL

Many of the Central Eastern Sierra is at a min 20% above normal for this time of the year and that doesn't include the 20" we received yesterday through this morning.

And from the latest news reports from the Seattle area, their regions snowpack is at least 30-50% above normal to date and still climbing.

Patrick,

You still don't get it: Weather is not climate, short term fluctuations of climate don't influence long term trends, and finally, Colorado is not the center of the universe.

It is also uncontroversial that intense glacial periods like the Pleistocene are fairly rare in the Earth's history, and that one of the factors that must be in place for them to occur is a relatively low level of CO2.

Wrong again, Steve Bloom. There have been at least five (5) major glacial periods in earth's history starting with the Pongola glaciation around 2.9 billion years ago and followed by the Huronian glaciations at around 2.2 billion years. This glaciation lasted about 400 million years. That would be equivalent to the time between the start of the Devonian and today.

Contrary to your claim, CO2 concentrations were quite high when this and the earlier Archean glaciation began. So, you need to get to work and Google your way through the internet to find some way of countering this contradiction to your obviously unsupported statement.

Oh, BTW, there were two more short-lived glaciations just prior to the Cambrian and CO2 concentrations were quite high then also.

Steve Bloom,

Also,

Regarding the sea ice chart you linked; when we start going back pre-1979, how was the sea ice measured in relation to how it's measured today?

PH, I've been reading this blog for some time, especially the comments section, because I like the challenging back and forth. I have to say that your comments are the worst: least buttressed, least specific, least subtle... Stop posting and let the other "deniers" (what's a softer word?) do the arguing.

I note that both sides of this issue are accused of "cherrypicking" data. To be honest, this winter has been too cold for cherries to be picked, planted or whatever! The MacKenzie River froze up a month early and the barges that normally do the resupply were turned back in September; many communities ran out of toilet paper by the end of that month - there's a Global Crisis for you... Nevertheless, this brings up the question: When does 'weather' become 'climate'? Ten years? 100 years? Some perspectives would be interesting.

Aviator (survived 48 years thus far of meteorologists inadvertently attempting to kill me)

Patrick Michaels, a climatologist at the University of Virginia - read the Newsweek piece "The truth about Denial" and see if he wasn't unfairly trashed.

I see only one paragraph in the Newsweek Piece referring to Michaels:

Industry found a friend in Patrick Michaels, a climatologist at the University of Virginia who keeps a small farm where he raises prize-winning pumpkins and whose favorite weather, he once told a reporter, is "anything severe." Michaels had written several popular articles on climate change, including an op-ed in The Washington Post in 1989 warning of "apocalyptic environmentalism," which he called "the most popular new religion to come along since Marxism." The coal industry's Western Fuels Association paid Michaels to produce a newsletter called World Climate Report, which has regularly trashed mainstream climate science. (At a 1995 hearing in Minnesota on coal-fired power plants, Michaels admitted that he received more than $165,000 from industry; he now declines to comment on his industry funding, asking, "What is this, a hatchet job?")

Is there something unfair in this description? He did write the op-ed pieces for the Post, right? He was paid by the Western Fuels Association, right? His "World Climate Report" has regularly trashed mainstream climate science, right?

What about this paragraph is "unfair"?

Brett,

--Human health concerns because of warming. You: Are there really that many cold related deaths on an annual basis across the middle Atlantic region?

The frequency of car accidents is increased during cold related winter conditions. Cold and influenza are significant winter time killers. Some people do still die from hypothermia. Heart attacks from shoveling heavy-wet snow, suicide from winter related depression, fires from using make shift heating units, slips and falls from the cold, etc.

Warming WILL remove some Cold related injuries, sickness and death.

There are tradeoffs to a theoretical warming. Naturally designed off-sets are part of the balance of life - positives and negatives. People should-not-just-look through doom and gloom prism of anthropogenic global warming. Life happens. Look at the big picture.

2/3 of this planet still endures winter conditions. A nonconcensual warming of a few degrees and a small increase in CO2, I feel, is all but insignificant in the grand scheme of the planet. Besides there is more than one global warming theory out there.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01692.htm

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/student/howard2/theory.htm

Hi PH,
I've been reading this blog for some time now and very much like and appreciate your posts. Thanks.

I just checked the two referenced climate change scenarios used in the MARA report. Refer to page 17. They assume a rise in temperature of 6 to 10 deg F, or 3.3 to 5.5 deg C. To quote Chris Crawford's beloved IPCC, "The multimodel mean SAT warming and associated uncertainty ranges for 2090 to 2099 relative to 1980 to 1999 are B1: +1.8 C (1.1 C to 2.9 C), B2: +2.4 C (1.4 C to 3.8 C), A1B: +2.8 C (1.7 C to 4.4 C), A1T: 2.4 C (1.4 C to 3.8 C), A2: +3.4 C (2.0 C to 5.4 C) and A1FI: +4.0 C (2.4 C to 6.4 C)." It appears that the temperature rises used in the MARA report are at the upper end of even the IPCC's worst-case scenarios, the figures with the greater ranges of uncertainty. If the temperature rises of the study are questionable, what does that do to the rest?

Rick,

Your Snowpack number's don't jive as far as the CA (Sierra) Region goes as far as yesterdays latest depth readings.

I'm pulling the numbers straight from Kirkwood's and Heavely's webpages. Maybe their inflating their numbers. However, having skied both resorts, I know Kirkwood can have some pretty large numbers, as can Heavenly.

PH : I have to say that your comments are the amongst the best supported and extremely specific with data used by the IPCC as well... LOL

While we sit around and chew the fat about Steve Bloom's statements on glaciation, I'd like to initiate some conversation about previous glacial periods. On preious threads I noted my curiosity as to how glaciation could have occured in Gondwana during the Ordovician, because I had assumed that CO2 levels had been high then. However, this may not be the case. I'm going to do some research into the matter.

The RSS data is out for January. In the northern hemisphere, it was the coldest month since 1997. Worldwide, it was the second coldest month this century. It was the sixth straight month where anomalies declined. Temperatures were below the thirty year mean.

http://www.remss.com/pub/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_1.txt

Hansen is going to have an even tougher time than normal padding the numbers or BS'ing his way out of the corner he has painted himself into.

Some hockey stick, eh?

Here is the RSS map for January. Almost all of the earth's land area is below normal. This is nothing short of a catastrophe for AGW theorists.

Reply: How do you come up with that last sentence PH? It is just one month.

http://www.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/global/ch_tlt_2008_01_anom_v03_1.png

Steve, BT;
Is this guy allowed to have an opinion on GW?

Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, was the founding director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks from its establishment in 1998 until January of 2007. He has been professor of geophysics since 1964 and has published more than 550 professional journal articles. In 2002, he was named one of the "1000 Most Cited Scientists."

http://thenewamerican.com/node/6973#SlideFrame_1

Excerpt:
I am concerned about the inevitable backlash against science and scientists, when the public eventually learns the correct information about climate change. Even if the IPCC is not directly responsible for the present confusion, they should take the necessary responsible action to help rectify the confusion. I request that the IPCC make an appropriate statement in this regard before the next G8 meeting in May 2008.

Vincent said,
"so yes January 2008 was negative
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_monthly_binary_data
trouble is what February-Dec are as well? Fact is it is now becoming a trend since 2001 and according to AGW this aint suppose to happen LOL"

Yes, sure Vincent. Particularly, this trend can be seen clearly in Europe... LOL what trend?

The mean UK winter temperature to 20 January is 0.6 °C above the 1971-2000 average, says the metoffice. You can click on "see how this winter is shaping up". See those red colours over Scandinavia... brrr... those guys must be freezing.

Re the glaciations: I forgot to specify the Phanerozoic (the last 550,000,000 years), of which only about 20% had permanent ice. Paul notes correctly that there were extensive prior "snowball Earth episodes," so perhaps he would like to explain to us why those can't recur under Phanerozoic conditions (and why CO2 levels then aren't the same kind of guide to climate that they are now). He's seen the explanation before, but can he bring himself to state it?

So, PaulB, you don't like scientific uncertainty? Take my advice and stay away from quantum physics. Well, strictly speaking you can't stay away from it since it describes how your atoms function, but you know what I mean.

BTW, what are you doing hanging around on a weather site? Do you avoid the forecast pages?

Elsewhere, the Arctic sea ice appears to be behaving badly this winter. Interestingly the scientist quoted mentions 2010 as a possible early date for summer loss. Yet more uncertainty, I'm afraid. Don't miss the nice animation.

iceman, what's most important about volcanoes is how much of their dust gets into the stratosphere. IIRC whether that's the case can be determined from ice cores. In many cases it's known from the cores that there was an eruption, but there's no means of telling where.

The science on the solar stuff has moved rather quickly, and I was actually a bit surprised to find out that the modelers, the paleo folks and the solar physicists are very close to a consensus that the sun is nearly completely stable aside from the 11-year cycle (which is too short to effect climate).

As I understand it things went off on a wild goose chase about 15 years when a couple of astrophysicists published a paper purporting to show that the Sun is a variable star (even though direct measurements since the 1950s showed no variablity). This was followed by an irradiance reconstruction that turned out to have problems. In addition, it wasn't until a bit later that the ice core data on eruptions became available. It took a while to get all of that straightened out.

The gory details on the solar aspect of this can be seen in the three Svalgaard (one of the leading solar physicists) threads over at ClimateAudit.

Regarding the pre-satellite sea ice, it's ship/shore observations in the earlier period with aircraft observations added in the later part of the period.

Iceman,
Tambora had an effect on NH climate for about 2 years. Krakatoa (1883) was a bit longer (some say 5 years).

To quote Roger Pielke at ClimateScience yesterday, "One major conclusion that should be reached from the unpredicted wide ranging severe cold and snow this winter, is that multi-decadal global climate models have demonstrated no skill in predicting such regional events which clearly have a major impact on society and the environment."

I think PH does fine in his posts.....he must because he always seem to get AGW supporters panties in a bunch.

Paul;
What kind of Physician were you. I said there is a list of known carcinogens,And CO is one of them. I never said that. When ,as you should know co is trapped in the lungs,not able to become co2, it is then, a part of cigarette smoke and is than considered to be called a carcinogen. It is listed in every state of this union as such. As a Physician perhaps you can tell me why. Or do you just pick up what you don,t agree with, than attack. By the way,since you haven't talked about Brett's article aren't you just avoiding the topic. If the arctic is,or may melt,and the antarctic, as well, won't the sea's become warmer.
Kipp

Steve Bloom

You stated "So, PaulB, you don't like scientific uncertainty?"

Now,now Steve, we all know "the science is settled!" There is no room left for uncertainty! LOL

Again I say "To frame a situation with so many conditions (All else being equal; more likely than not; much more likely) as to make it true in any circumstance leaves me indifferent with its content and really raises questions as to its pertinence."

Brett,

In a temperature regime dominated by a steadily increasing CO2 greenhouse effect, it would be impossible to have an end point where land temperatures were below the mean across most of the planet.

CO2 theory requires that on average most of the land and ocean area warms continuously - in the absence of a large volcanic eruption, nuclear war, meteor impact, etc. None of those things have happened, and it is becoming increasingly clear that low solar activity is dominating the temperature regime.

Kipp, not tryign to make fun of your grammar, but at times, your typo's/bad grammar, make it very difficult to follow your posts.

You should be one to talk, you admonished people about not talkign about AGW, but I have seen you riddle threads with nonsense and off topic stuff. I mean 90% of your post at 12:15 was off topic, and then you put in a generic sentence that made no sense as written.

And you are arguing medical science with a physician, and you are a commercial photographer...

But basic science would say that the melting ice would cool the ocean water, as to melt ice, the water must give off heat to the ice. You have it backwards, it is not the ice melting would be warming the oceans, it would be the ice melting because of the warming oceans. Now, how the oceans are warming is up for discussion, and whether or not man is playing much a part in it is for more discussion.

Gary asks:
Steve, BT; Is this guy allowed to have an opinion on GW?

First, I've never suggested that anybody isn't allowed to have an opinion on GW.

Next, we dedicated an entire thread to a recent publication of Dr. Akasofu nearly a year ago. In that thread, I wrote:

At first read, this seems like a well-written and reasoned paper. I'll be interested to see how the AGW community responds.

I note that Dr. Akasofu seems to argue, in essence, that the warming we've observed is natural, not anthropogenic. He does not seem to dispute the reality of the warming.

Please reread the quote offered by The Skeptic:
Global warming could cause more hunger in Africa and melt most Himalayan glaciers by the 2030s, according to a draft UN report due on Friday

Nothing in Dr. Akasofu's paper challenges this statement. While "Paul" and "The Skeptic" may enjoy debating whether the Titanic hit the iceberg on the port or starboard bow, that debate is irrelevant to the reality that the ship is, in fact, sinking.

Global warming is taking place. It is a serious problem. If the warming is natural, it is still warming and still accelerating. Dr. Akasofu does not claim that CO2 cannot accelerate whatever warming is taking place. His piece insteads seems to argue that we have not yet convincingly measured the anthropogenic component of that warming.

Later in the same thread, I added:
JP, we seem to land in about the same place.

In particular, I like the way that you've noted that saying that the rapid recent warming is natural does not, therefore, mean that we have nothing to worry about. I also agree with you that if it turns out NOT to be anthropogenic, that could be even more problemmatic because it means there is less reason to believe we can do anything to slow or avoid it.

All in all, as wrote earlier, I think Dr. Akatofosu has written a thoughtful and provocative piece. I look forward to seeing how the climatological scientific community reacts to it.

Gary, is there something in my already-public comments about Dr. Akatofosu that prompts you to think I would disallow his opinion?

Further, can you offer a cite from the mainstream press of piece that characterizes him as "a corrupt industry lacky, (Holocaust) denier, senile or insane"?

You know, if I was a cherry-picker I could note the record highs we'll be experiencing today and tomorrow, or the fact that we're headed for our fifth consecutive winter of below average snowfall.

But I'm not. After all, I now realize that Colorado is the center of the Universe and the Sun revolves around Denver.

BT;
Thank you for responding.
BTW, It was just a question, not an accusation.
Your comments on the paper are interesting.
You seem to allow for the possability that GW could be natural (although I would guess your opinion is that its Unlikely) but then stop there.
For me, the important implication Begins there and continues as follows:
If GW is natural (as I believe) then our CO2 contribution is inconsequential and cutting it back will have no effect good or bad.
Therefore, we would be committing a very large portion of our combined resources to a futile venture when we could in stead address real and immediate problems that we can effect.
We could for example, provide clean water to millions, erradicate malaria, provide cheap power to the developing world.......

However, with the current hysteria, we will likely spend all the money trying to cut the emmision of a benigne plant food.

Mark, if a record is broken for temperature tomorrow, what year was the previous record set, and where about are you cherry picking this info from?

"In a temperature regime dominated by a steadily increasing CO2 greenhouse effect, it would be impossible to have an end point where land temperatures were below the mean across most of the planet."

Patrick, can you please cite some papers which state your claim here? Namely, that an anthropogenically-warming world will cease to have weather variations?

A warming world doesn't mean uniform warming. It doesn't mean linear warming. I'd like you to show me papers which said otherwise.

Thanks.

BT

Is there something unfair in this description? He did write the op-ed pieces for the Post, right? He was paid by the Western Fuels Association, right? His "World Climate Report" has regularly trashed mainstream climate science, right?

The article is called "the truth about denial". The "truth" is that only scientists who are in the pocket of industry disagree about AGW. Ergo, this guy is lying so he can cash a check.

My grammar is excellent. I wrote a piece for Redbook, with a picture included.It was published and I made money. First you said I was not articulate, that you couldn't understand me, and then turn around and address every single point I made exactly. You can't have it both ways. Writers poke fun at Robert Frost for his attention to every detail. Educate yourself. Also if you read what I said exactly you will see that you have missed the overall message. Since the Arctic and the antarctic are melting, than the sea would be warming as well. That is what I meant. But more than that, if the globe is warming,and it is; and if Americans waste about twenty five percent of the oil which is left, than what should we do. Become a change agent or procrastinator. Why don't we try in our limited part, to save energy. At least GREEN PEACE stopped the Japanese from overfishing in the pacific, and perhaps instead of over- blogging you should act. Dr. Strangelove should learn more about the effects of co and co2, when they commingle with other poisons, and how an overabundance of co2 in the atmosphere is bad. Since you want to learn how to write, don't contradict yourself, sentence by sentence.
Kipp

Bloom,

So you forgot to specify the Phanerozoic, eh? Somehow, I doubt that.

The first two Snowball Earth glaciations were most likely the result of increasing oxygen displacing methane. The increasing oxygen was a result of increasing numbers of cyanobacteria. Carbon dioxide concentrations at the time were off the charts, possibly up into the % range.

Now, the later two Neoproterozoic glaciations had nothing to do with an increase in oxygen or for that matter a decrease in GHGs. Not sure what caused them.

Bloom,

Do you have a reference for this statement: ...and that one of the factors that must be in place for them to occur is a relatively low level of CO2?

And for this one: The level of CO2 we have now is enough to break the glacial cycle if it is maintained for very long?

Gary: Great post. It may be too late for science, however, as the crash in temperatures is on us. Indeed, AGW might be a first herald of the Dark Age to come. Bring out your dead!

Hi Mark,

With 36 feet of snow so far, you won't be able to pick choke cherries at Wolf Creek for a very long time. They normally get another 25 feet through the remainder of the season, so please plan your cherry picking trip to Colorado very late in the summer. In fact, it is likely that there will still be widespread snow pack through the entire summer - and you may have to skip Colorado cherry picking completely this year.

If it snowed this much every year there would be new glaciers popping up all over the San Juan Mountains. I hope the Washington Post prints a few more stories about the ailing ski industry. They remind me just how utterly ridiculous this whole scam is.
http://www.wolfcreekski.com/snow.asp

BTW - Sunrise Ski Area in southern Arizona is closed today due to too much snow. They aren't equipped to handle a nine foot base.
http://www.onthesnow.com/AZ/446/skireport.html

Brookline Tom:
I agree with one thing that you often remind us about. That, if in fact global warming is or will happen, it doesn't matter how it was caused. I also think the implications of living on a warmer planet are terrible. Another problem for people is our reliance on fossil fuels and or oil. I am glad that scientists are working on alternate forms of energy.
We don't have much time left.
Kipp

Nothing from Paul on paleo CO2 and temps? Imagine that.

cb, for CO2 levels see the graphs here and here.

The first one discusses the role of CO2 through the entire Phanerozoic. The key thing to bear in mind is that over very long timeframes other factors have operated in addition to the CO2 levels and orbital cycles that are the dominant factors in the present climate regime: Continental position (the present cold climate would not be possible without an isolated polar continent and land masses concentrated toward the other pole), solar irradiance increase (about 3% over the last 500 million years), plate tectonic effects (vulcanism and mountain-building) and biospheric development. From the paper's conclusions:

"The message of this study is not that atmospheric CO2 is always the dominant forcing (see Section 3.7 for an early Paleogene example). Instead, given the variety of factors that can influence global temperatures, it is striking that such a consistent pattern between CO2 and temperature emerges for many intervals of the Phanerozoic. This correspondence suggests that CO2 can explain in part the patterns of globally averaged temperatures during the Phanerozoic."

The second one discusses just-published research nailing down the period leading up to the climate regime of the last 10 million years (ending with CO2 levels down to about 300 ppm). This is when we begin to see extensive glaciations, although it took another 8 million years for them to become severe.

But probably the key point is that even with thermal lag, the two smaller ice sheets are losing mass now, as would make sense since the highest previous interglacial CO2 levels (about 310 ppm) are associated with substantially less ice than we see now. See this interview describing a recent paper constraining the rate of sea level rise at the end of the last deglaciation (about 1.6 meters/century).

According to the first paper, CO2 levels on the order of 500 ppm would probably be needed to melt all of the ice sheets completely, but given enough time 400 ppm will be enough to melt the West Antarctic ice sheet and all but a remnant of the Greenland ice sheet, leading to a sea level rise of at least 10 meters. The only question is how fast that process will proceed. As we can see from the ice core record, the ice sheets have an unfortunate habit of collapsing with great speed once melting begins.

Bob Tisdale, bear in mind that nobody ever claimed the GCMs could do any such thing. The GCMs do not predict next year's weather, and regional climate models (RCMs) are used to obtain regional results (and don't predict the weather either).

PH fantasized:

"In a temperature regime dominated by a steadily increasing CO2 greenhouse effect, it would be impossible to have an end point where land temperatures were below the mean across most of the planet.

"CO2 theory requires that on average most of the land and ocean area warms continuously - in the absence of a large volcanic eruption, nuclear war, meteor impact, etc. None of those things have happened, and it is becoming increasingly clear that low solar activity is dominating the temperature regime."

Of course this is entirely wrong in all three regards.

Brett, why do you let this sort of thing through? At least most of the weather comments are based on measurements.

Steve: A lot of things people say in the comment section are probably wrong. Usually if I spot something I know for a fact is wrong I will point it out if time allows, but he is just expressing his opinion and you have just as much right to question it. BTW: I was not aware of that theory by PH. In terms of low solar activity, it is possible that it could be having an impact on the temp regime, but there is certainly not enough evidence to support that at this point in my opinion.

But I'm not. After all, I now realize that Colorado is the center of the Universe and the Sun revolves around Denver.

Posted by Mark

AGW = geocentrism. I knew it!

Ok, that joke aside, the issue is PH's sarcasm (that AGWers take seriously, reacting with snit fits, which makes it even more funny) with the spoofing of AGWers seizing of local record highs being set in the summer as "proof" of warming. So what? Get over it.

"See those red colours over Scandinavia... brrr... those guys must be freezing."

U bet, we've had a warmer than usual winter here in Finland but it's still COLD. When the average high is still below freezing you cant really say the weather is warm. It's also been very humid all the way which makes the 0-2C temperatures feel like hell. +2C with wind and rain/snow is much worse than the typical -5C-10C with no wind and clear sky we usually have in January-February...

Steve Bloom,

It does appear, from my superficial glance at a graph of reconstructed paleozoic CO2 levels that the late ordovician glaciations occured at a time of elevated CO2 concentrations when compared to today.
From previous web-surfing, I'd come to the conclusion that this glaciation came from the prescence of thesupercontinent Gondwana over the south pole, and also perhaps to the decreased solar intensity when compared to today.
Anyway, i'm still curious about the idea that current CO2 levels might permanently end the current glacial cycle. i have long fearedthis. Can you point me to some links?

Hi Steve Bloom,

Of course this is entirely wrong in all three regards.

How about instead of pathetic whining to the moderator, you try making a cohesive argument about what you believe is incorrect about my statement.

Where did all of your 30 years of accumulated global warming heat run away to? It isn't in the oceans. It isn't in the land. It isn't in the atmosphere. It isn't at your home in cold California. Where is it?

Steve Bloom,

You said CT is not a NOAA-sponsored site.

The following link IS a NOAA site. What do you think?

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/milankovitch.html

How about this link sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy?

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01692.htm

Hi Mark,

I didn't say that AGW precludes weather variations.

What I said was that in the absence of other cooling factors, it would be impossible to have a month with such widespread cold distributed across the earth's land masses, as was the case in January. Particularly damaging to the theory is Africa and South America - where there is no snow.

http://www.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/global/ch_tlt_2008_01_anom_v03_1.png

The claimed excess heat has to go somewhere. Where is it? The only rational explanation is the that low solar activity is the "other cooling factor."

Bloom,

Since you are having trouble finding my posts, I'll repost it for you. Before you post your kneejerk reactions, maybe you peruse this and future threads a little more closely.

Thank you for your support. And thank you for your 5:30 post on CO2 controlling the world. Appreciate your scholarly and professorial way of presenting this work to the masses.

Bloom,

So you forgot to specify the Phanerozoic, eh? Somehow, I doubt that.

The first two Snowball Earth glaciations were most likely the result of increasing oxygen displacing methane. The increasing oxygen was a result of increasing numbers of cyanobacteria. Carbon dioxide concentrations at the time were off the charts, possibly up into the % range.

Now, the later two Neoproterozoic glaciations had nothing to do with an increase in oxygen or for that matter a decrease in GHGs. Not sure what caused them.

Posted by Paul | February 5, 2008 3:41 PM

Paul,

"Now, the later two Neoproterozoic glaciations had nothing to do with an increase in oxygen or for that matter a decrease in GHGs. Not sure what caused them."

If you're refering to the permian-carboniferous glaciation, Ithink that those were indeed associated with lower CO2 levels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoo_Ice_Age

I have no problem finding your posts, Paul. It's just that you didn't answer my question. I'll repeat:

"(P)erhaps he would like to explain to us why [snowball Earth episodes] can't recur under Phanerozoic conditions (and why CO2 levels then aren't the same kind of guide to climate that they are now). He's seen the explanation before, but can he bring himself to state it?"

I'll wait patiently.

PH, the point is that you made up all three of those points. Let's see some links to credible references.

PH: 'The claimed excess heat has to go somewhere. Where is it? The only rational explanation is the that low solar activity is the "other cooling factor."'

No, there's a much better explanation, especially since direct solar measurements are flat in the last fifty years aside from the slight eleven-year cycle. I'm not asking you to agree with it, but do you have any idea what that other explanation is?

Rich, NOAA has lots of sites. We've discussed Milankovitch (orbital) cycles on this blog a number of times before. In fact, I referred to them in my 2/5 5:30 PM comment on this thread. It's settled science that they are the triggering factor in the Pleistocene glacial cycles.

cb, anthropogenic CO2 can't permanently end the current glacial cycle since chemical weathering (carbonate production on exposed rock surfaces) and biological processes will re-sequester it on a scale of thousands of years if the ice sheets remain in place. However, if we succeed in melting them, the planet will enter into a new climate state that would delay any return to a glaciated state for a considerable time, possibly in excess of a million years. Eventually it would have to return to a glaciated state given the present arrangement of continents and mountains. I'll understand if you don't see the utility of distinguishing between a million years and permanent.

We could delay the return to glaciations even more (out to several million years if what happened last time is any guide) if we manage to warm the oceans enough to trigger a repeat of Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which we've recently discussed at length here.

As for sources, the paper I linked that mentions a 500 ppm threshold for glaciations is one of them. Another would be this article by Jim Hansen. Check the references to both.

cbmclean,

No, they were Precambrian in age around 680 and 700 million years ago (rough estimate), respectively.

Bloom,

I'm not playing your silly little game. Grow up. If you want to make a point, make it or else dispense with your condescending arrogance and get back to dazzling the masses with your immense wealth of knowledge.

Kipp said:

"My grammar is excellent. I wrote a piece for Redbook, with a picture included.It was published and I made money. First you said I was not articulate, that you couldn't understand me, and then turn around and address every single point I made exactly. You can't have it both ways. Writers poke fun at Robert Frost for his attention to every detail. Educate yourself. Also if you read what I said exactly you will see that you have missed the overall message. Since the Arctic and the antarctic are melting, than the sea would be warming as well. That is what I meant. But more than that, if the globe is warming,and it is; and if Americans waste about twenty five percent of the oil which is left, than what should we do. Become a change agent or procrastinator. Why don't we try in our limited part, to save energy. At least GREEN PEACE stopped the Japanese from overfishing in the pacific, and perhaps instead of over- blogging you should act. Dr. Strangelove should learn more about the effects of co and co2, when they commingle with other poisons, and how an overabundance of co2 in the atmosphere is bad. Since you want to learn how to write, don't contradict yourself, sentence by sentence.
Kipp"

From what I have bolded, it looks as if I am not the one contradicting myself...

And then from your first post:

" I said there is a list of known carcinogens,And CO is one of them. I never said that. "

In only 19 words you admitted saying something, and denying saying that same thing. That would even make politician proud. Since you have excellent grammar, I can only assume you meant what you said right.

"If the arctic is,or may melt,and the antarctic, as well, won't the sea's become warmer."

This was an incredibly confusing way of wording what you were trying to say.

Now I am not an English major, but I could go through your posts with a red pen and probably run out of ink, but that is not why we are here.

I just had to discredit your post to discredit you as a source of viable info. It is the Criminal Justice degree in me.

Royer has trouble with pinning down a low threshold CO2 value for the Ordovician Gondwanan glaciation, but then again, with only 1 data point what would you expect?

I just love his conclusions that glaciations and low CO2 concentrations correlate. However, I didn't notice any explanation for the low CO2 concentrations, how about you, Bloom? What caused the low CO2 concentrations?

Bloom said

"As for sources, the paper I linked that mentions a 500 ppm threshold for glaciations is one of them. Another would be this article by Jim Hansen. Check the references to both."

Steve, has the PPM concentration of CO2 ever been over 500ppm prior to the Industrial Revolution?

Veets,

Atmospheric CO2 was higher than 500ppm for most of the last 600 million years. There was an ice age during the Ordovician with CO2 levels above 4,000 ppm.

http://ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide_files/image002.gif

Veets, CO2 hasn't gone above 500 ppm for more than 10 million years. Our present level (or just above it) is enough to take a good-sized bite out of the ice (the WAIS and most of the GIS).

Steve Bloom,

You said there's a much better explanation, especially since direct solar measurements are FLAT in the last fifty years aside from the SLIGHT eleven-year cycle.

Steve, this recently released information from NASA (1/14/08) disputes your statement. Solar measurements have not been FLAT and the changes have not been SLIGHT.

From NASA: One big puzzle revealed by previous Ulysses flybys is the temperature of the sun's poles. In the previous solar cycle, the magnetic north pole was about 80,000 degrees or 8 percent cooler than the south. (This means the suns north pole is NOW 80,000 degrees or 8 percent hotter).

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/14jan_northpole.htm?list1040802

As far as cycles and Global warming, consider these factors:

1.) The precession of the earths rotation axis(wobble) and its magnetic field.
2.) The suns wobble.
3.) The suns North pole is now 80,000 degrees hotter than previously.
4.) The earths Northern hemisphere has 45 percent more sun absorbing terrain than the south. This increased exposure to the sun is warming the earth. We are seeing these 3 effects now.

A.) Melting at the North pole.
B.) Above normal ice coverage at the South pole.
C.) A slight global temperature increase of about .6 degrees celcius.

Does this not add up?

Beets;
Thanks for quoting me. Co is a carcinogen when it is trapped with cigarette smoke in the lungs. You are wrong about, our water warming the Arctic. It is the infrared spectrum that is trapped in our atmosphere,the greenhouse. Think of it that way. Infrared re-radiates back to the Earth. Instead of quoting me ,go out and catch a polluter, or arrest a litter bug. Remember,less ice,means more absorption. Some buildings in New York are now gardens, or owners are covering them with white plastic sheets to reflect back, the heat from the sun. Although the water vapor has remained the same, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has become more abundant, and has trapped the heat in it. Call it Global warming. Thanks for dedicating your special time to me. You can,t police free speech. And when Obama is our next President, the world might come together to save itself, from our own greed, and our inability
to change.
Kipp

Patrick Henry,

I'm sorry, you must have missed Bloom's memo. Only Royer's interpretation of CO2 concentrations is acceptable. Any other interpretation is outdated. What were you thinking?

PH, that graph on the "Frontiers of Freedom" site (they do science?) is a bit out of date. The paper I linked is current. It says in part:

"Although the strength of CO2-temperature coupling cannot be presently tested for this event, it is worthwhile to examine what the CO2 threshold for initiating a glaciation at this time may be. Global climate models calibrated to mid-Cenozoic conditions suggest a threshold of 560�1120 ppm (DeConto and Pollard, 2003; Pollard and DeConto, 2005), however during the Late Ordovician surface conditions were different, most notably in having an ~4% lower solar constant. A consequence of this decreased luminosity is that if all other thermal forcings were held constant, the CO2 threshold for initiating a glaciation would be higher. A simple analysis of radiative forcing (see Fig. 2) suggests that if the CO2-ice threshold for the present-day Earth is 500 ppm, the equivalent threshold during the Late Ordovician would be 3000 ppm. Importantly, global climate models and energy balance models calibrated to Late Ordovician conditions also predict a CO2-ice threshold of between 2240 and 3920 ppm (Crowley and Baum, 1991, 1995; Gibbs et al., 1997, 2000; Kump et al., 1999; Poussart et al., 1999; Herrmann et al., 2003, 2004). This prediction awaits confirmation from the proxy record."

The key point is that the fainter sun makes a big difference when you go that far back.

Paul, I mentioned those factors above. Didn't you notice? I'm disappointed that you don't hang on every detail of what I write.

PH;
The chart you link to MUST have been fabricated by Exxon.
It indicates that Normal Global Temperatures should be about 6 degrees warmer than today and that Normal Global CO2 levels should be above 1500 ppm.
We have a long way to go to reach Normal.

Perhaps we should all do our part for the environment and get out there in our cars and turn on all the lights.

We need more CO2 people! Stop being so stingy!

Good chart BTW.

Kamatu,

Ask yourself a simple question: how often do you see BT, Steve Bloom, myself, etc post about our backyard weather conditions? Now compare that with how often you see Patrick Henry, Rich, and Oiznop post about their backyard weather. Sorry, guy, it's pretty clear which side is unable to differentiate weather from climate.

If I wanted to cherry-pick warm weather, today would be the perfect day. Was 70 degrees at 6 this morning. Felt like July.

Patrick,

That other "cooling factor" is something called La Nina, which does tend to cool the planet somewhat. It's really funny how deniers want to attribute the solar cycle to everything. When the solar cycle correlates poorly with temperatures, as it has since 1940, deniers claim there is a "lag." When the solar cycle does conveniently coincide with cooler temperatures, suddenly there is no lag, and the Sun has real-time effects on our climate. Deniers want it both ways. LOL.

ps. Congrats to John McCain last night. I'm not sure who I'm voting for yet, but it's reassuring to know that our next President, whether it be Democrat or Republican, will be somewhat pro-environment.

Rich, there's all sorts of solar activity, but the one that matters in terms of climate is total solar irradiance (TSI), i.e. the direct heat ouput of the Sun. Other than the eleven-year cycle (so small as to be hard to detect, although since we're at the bottom of it just now it *could* be helping to make this year slightly cooler), TSI has been flat as a pancake for fifty years.

A slightly warmer northern solar hemisphere would not warm our northern hemisphere differentially. Consider the distances involved and in particular the negligible angle formed by the path of photons emitted from opposite solar poles when they reach us. Even if there was a difference, it would be evened out by the vastly greater geographic insolation differences through the year (due to the Earth's inclination). Note also that we don't see any short-term effects from the fact that the Earth's orbit is elliptical; this too is a much larger effect. (Eccentricity does have a long-term role in the glacial cycles, but only in combination with the other Milankovitch cycles.)

I know you'll raise a possible cosmic ray influence next, so to answer that I'll just note that there's no evidence it's non-negligible.

Hi Steve Bloom,

Here is a good composite of CO2 vs. time, showing essentially the same thing as my earlier link.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/7/76/Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide.png

I will also remind you of the GISS data showing that Greenland temperatures were warmer 70 years ago, when CO2 was 70PPM less.

July temperatures average 12F on the Greenland ice sheet. January temperatures average -20F on the East Antarctic ice sheet.

Theory is great for keeping pointy-headed scientists off the street and out of the halls of Congress - where they can do real damage. But empirical observation indicates that the ice sheets are not going anywhere any time soon.

Paul, FYI Royer is the leading researcher in the deep-time paleoclimate field. The IPCC AR4 uses his results, although I linked to more recent papers. If you have other competing results, link to them and we'll have a discussion.

PH's linked graph (GEOCARB III from the look of it) isn't wrong, just out of date. It broadly agrees with the graph in Royer's paper, although there are small differences (mainly due to the difference in detail). Royer worked on GEOCARB III as a grad student, BTW, under Bob Berner (who more or less founded the field).

Hi Mark,

A single temperature from your back yard would give more coverage than hundreds of miles of the Arctic, which get interpolated across absolutely no data in Hansen's "bright red" 1200 mile maps.

BTW - my (cold) back yard is really big! Check it out.
http://www.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/tlt/medium/global/ch_tlt_2008_01_anom_v03_1.png

Actually I live in the SF East Bay, ao my backyard weather is predictably nice most of the time. Even in the middle of a cold period like we're having just now, it's quite pleasant during the middle of the day (when it's not actually raining). Sorry. :)

Brett:
It was fifty four today in Connectict,but it's just too early to generalize isn't it.Steve Bloom sure pasted a great page on his subject about the arctic ice melt. That was beautiful, and very depressing. I hope if John McCain or Barach wins that they will do something about our rapidly changing world. It's not just the Climate, but also Overpopulation, the Enviroment, and the Global threat of war when we run out of oil. We must change now and think about the future ,for our children, then theirs. In our home we have incentives, for saving energy, and for lent, I'll do the dishes. Tomorrow,I need to pick up a Scientific Dictionary,so I can figure out that report you referred to (strategic plan for the climate science program,final report). Heavy suff dude.
Kipp

Bloom,

You dance nicely. However, you still haven't answered my question. Do I need to repeat the question or can you find it on your own?

What the heck! What caused the CO2 concentrations to drop, Bloom? Will you answer or should we dance some more?

Steve Bloom,

You said the one that matters in terms of climate is TSI, i.e. the direct heat ouput of the Sun.

So a whopping 8 percent (80,000 degree) increase in heat output from the suns north is slight? You lost me there.

You said a slightly warmer northern solar hemisphere would not warm our northern hemisphere differentially.

Simultaneous changes in the rotation axis of the sun and earth (wobbles) will have impacts on our climate. Especially considering if the northern poles of both the sun and earth were closer to each other. Compile that with the fact that the suns northern heat output has increased by a whopping 8 percent in the past 15 years (not 11 years) and you get clear clues.

You said even if there was a difference, it would be evened out by the vastly greater geographic insolation differences through the year.

Steve, thats what I am talking about. Of course warming at the north would warm the globe. But the immediate, noticeable differences would be towards north. WE ARE SEEING THIS! Melting at the north, BUT increasing ice coverage at the south, despite an overall global temperature increase of .6 degrees C.

(From Brett). The current southern hemispheric sea-ice area is at 2.9 million sq/km, which is about 400,000 sq/km greater than the normal level expected for this time of year, or slightly above-normal.

How does your CO2 theory (which encompases the entire planet) explain increasing Antarctic ice coverage? It appears angles of the earth and sun with a fluctuatuing TSI (northern) is a true possibility.

Steve Bloom said

"Veets, CO2 hasn't gone above 500 ppm for more than 10 million years. Our present level (or just above it) is enough to take a good-sized bite out of the ice (the WAIS and most of the GIS)."

Just out of curisotiy, 11 million years ago when the PPM was over 500 for CO2, how much CO2 were people creating? Now my timeline may be off, but I think the Industrial Revolution and internal combustion engine came slightly less than 11 million years ago...

You know what, it was probably because of some ignorant society that forced themselves into extinction when then President Hillarious Kling-on came to power and forced CO2 cuts up to 90%.

Rich, these things are amenable to actual calculations. I don't know how to do them, but since there are a number of solar physicists out there who are trying very hard to find a solar trend of any kind that might be influencing the Earth's climate and none of them have been heard from, I'm confident there's nothing to it. I'm so dismissive of your idea in part because I'm pretty sure that because of the very slight incidence angle involved that the hemispheric insolation difference on Earth would be negligible even ignoring orbital wobbles.

All of that said, why not cut to the chase and just ask a solar physicist? One has made himself available to answer questions like yours, right now on the Svalgaard #3 thread over at CA. Please let us know how he answers.

Kipp,

I agree with you, in part. You said the Global threat of war...when we run out of oil.

I believe war will break out before we run out of oil. The cost and control of oil before it runs out will is a big factor. Mix in religion, threatening nations, politics, geography and you get a volatile concoction. Let there be no doubt, oil is the worlds greatest commodity. There is nothing in the long term future that will replace it. Every country in the world has a vital interest in the cost and control of oil.

Is it ironic that 2000 years after Revelations was written(before oil), the middle east now has control of that which fuels the world?

Strategically, Russia and America are trying grasp some control of these resources.

Do you think China is just going to stand by while 2 world super-powers jockey for some control of oil? Chinas defense spending has increased by 1000 percent in the past 5 years. Why?

Paul, I pointed out to you above that I had listed the main controlling factors in a prior response. To repeat with a little more detail, over very long periods of time the critical factors are a) increasing solar irradiance (about 3% over the last half billion years), b) plate tectionic effects (continental position, mountain-building and vulcanism) and c) the biosphere itself.

Notice that you never did answer the question I asked first, which I went to the trouble of repeating. Here it is again:

"(P)erhaps he would like to explain to us why [snowball Earth episodes] can't recur under Phanerozoic conditions (and why CO2 levels then aren't the same kind of guide to climate that they are now). He's seen the explanation before, but can he bring himself to state it?"

PH: "I will also remind you of the GISS data showing that Greenland temperatures were warmer 70 years ago, when CO2 was 70PPM less." I keep reminding you that those records are limited to southeast Greenland, which interestingly has warmed quite a bit less than the rest of Greenland (meaning that looking just at that difference is a bit misleading). But as I asked you above, why would there have been some warming in that part of Greenland then? Any idea at all?

The GW art graph is based on the GEOCARB III graph you linked first, so both are now out of date.

PH: "But empirical observation indicates that the ice sheets are not going anywhere any time soon."

I linked above to an interview and paper which are the only empirical evidence of what happened the last time the ice sheets were subjected to a warming influence anything like the present. Didn't you read them? I'll save you the trouble: The answer is about 1.6 meters/century. Now, if you have some other empirical evidence (other than "they haven't actually melted yet"), let's see it.

As you saw in the next thread, there is also empirical evidence that the Greenland ice sheet is melting at an accelerating (although still relatively small) pace. If you consider how fast the glaciations have ended in the past, this is not very comforting.

BTW, if by "soon" you mean during your lifetime, you could well be right (although the jury's still out on that). I don't think your descendants will thank you for looking at it that way, though.

Veets, in the past CO2 was part of the natural climate system. Now we're adding it artificially. As has been discussed before on this blog, there are a few times in the past when natural processes have injected a large amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over a short period of time, and the consequences have not been anything we would want to experience (excerpt from this recent article):

Beyond the Fridge

Climate change has happened before in the geological past. Much work has focused on the Quaternary but, Jonathan Cowie asks, should we now be looking more at the Eocene and Toarcian?

Geoscientist 17.8 August 2007

We have long known that the Earth has previously been warmed, and cooled, by changes in atmospheric carbon-based and other greenhouses gases. Considerable attention has in recent decades focused on both the geology and biology of Quaternary rather than older strata. Indeed, one area of geological work - ice core analysis - has only provided a highly detailed look at atmospheric composition and regional temperature going back some 400,000 years: this record is currently held by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA, 2004).

However while regional temperature changes of around 6C have been inferred from Quaternary ice cores, these actually relate to glacial-interglacial climate oscillations - from around present-day temperatures to cooler climate regimes in the past, and not to future warmer ones. Furthermore, because previous interglacials were only just one degree or so warmer than today at most (ref. pt. 1990), it is almost certain - if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2007) is right - that the 21st Century will see this limit exceeded and an average global temperature not seen on Earth since the Pliocene or earlier. If we are to find palaeo-analogues to the late 21st Century greenhouse world, then it will have to be a warmer analogue prior to the Quaternary. Such analogues exist. Indeed, examples caused by bursts of carbon into the atmosphere are known. The only difference is that these releases of greenhouse gas were, of course, natural.

Early Eocene

The most recent and best understood o f these episodes took place some 55 million years ago (Ma) at the beginning of the Eocene, marked by the 'Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum' or 'Initial Eocene Thermal Maximum' (PETM or IETM). The 18O isotope record firmly suggests that the early Eocene had warm oceans. There is also ample evidence it was also warm on land. Plant fossils consistently show that species (or relatives of species) currently found at tropical latitudes were then found at higher latitudes, even after allowing for plate motions.

For example in the early Eocene, at palaeolatitudes of 47 degrees that today sport temperate biomes, we find the highly diverse sub-tropical ones. Early Eocene tropical rain forests extended in places as far north as 45 degrees. The modern equivalent latitude is as far north as Bordeaux in France or Bangor (Maine) in the USA: though of course there is more to climate than latitude alone. Britain at the time was covered in tropical forest and palm trees grew as far north as Alaska.

That the greenhouse world into which we are heading being is not unique does not mean that we need not worry about global warming. Such periods occurred millions of years before humans, or our modern assemblage of species, evolved. Ecologically our likely greenhouse future will pose a threat to these systems. Also, although the planet has been much warmer in the past, what is new to our understanding in the past couple of decades is just how anomalous the early Eocene was compared to the time immediately beforehand (56Ma) and immediately after (54Ma).

Eocene polar regions

Today, as we look to our likely greenhouse future, there is considerable ecological concern over circum-polar habitats and species. We are already seeing evidence of permafrosts thawing and mega-fauna populations, such as polar bears, are (we are told) under stress. So what was the Arctic like in the early Eocene?

We have ample evidence from all continents (other than Antarctica) and ocean sediments about early Eocene conditions, but until very recently there was nothing to tell us what it was like near the North Pole. Until as recently as 2004 the palaeoceanographic sediment record for the central Arctic only went as far back as 500,000 years. A similar length of time was covered by the Antarctic ice-core record. However sediment cores extracted in August 2004 as part of the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Arctic Coring Expedition (IOCDP ACEX) were first laid down as long ago as 65Ma. These records marked a major scientific breakthrough - and results were first published in three papers in Nature on 1 June last year. The results not only corroborated evidence from lower latitudes about just how warm the Earth must have been in the early Eocene, but suggested that the 55Ma episode marked possibly the warmest time at the North Pole for over 100My: certainly it has not been as warm since. Today's circum-polar ecosystems could not exist in such a climate regimen.

Perhaps the most staggering result was evidence that at times during the early Eocene warm episode the Arctic sea surface temperature soared to 24C. Then the typically warm water dinoflagellate genus Apectodinium dominated the fossil record. Also at certain times during this warm phase the freshwater fern Azolla flourished. Of course, the Eocene Arctic ocean was a lot smaller than it is today, and had only three narrow connections to the world ocean. Consequently freshwater run-off allowed brackish and even freshwater flora to flourish. Azolla tolerates salinities of up to 5.5% but nothing higher than 1- 1.6% (average marine salinity today is 34.72%). Those working in the oil industry have long reported (though not in available peer-reviewed literature) Azolla from early-Eocene cores taken by oil rigs in the Nordic seas; what is new is that this species also flourished much further north.

Causes

So, what caused the planet to heat up and how long did the warm period last? The 12C:13C carbon isotope excursion (CIE) found in early Eocene strata, as well as 18O analysis, gives us a good idea.

Biogenic sources of carbon contain less of the minority 13C isotope compared to non-biogenic sources. This is because photosynthesis discriminates in favour of 12C. Consequently, if the ratio of 13C in sediments decreases at any time then there must be even more 12C than before, diluting it further. The implication is that biogenic carbon must be the source of this extra 12C.

If we know the ratios of 13C to 12C before, during and after a carbon isotope excursion event (CIE), and we have an idea of how much carbon there is in the atmosphere and (broadly) in other biosphere pools, then we can calculate how much 12C must have been released into the atmosphere in order to end up as carbonate (CO3- -) and other forms in sediments. Fortunately there are plenty of places where carbon was laid down before, during and after this early Eocene warming event, so it is possible to make a broad-brush estimate as to how much 12C was released globally. These estimates all tend to be in the range of 1200 - 5000 GtC (gigatonnes carbon) with 2000 GtC often cited.

Hi Steve Bloom,

I keep reminding you that those records are limited to southeast Greenland

Not sure why this is difficult for you, but I'll keep reminding you that the link I have given you three times now is not in southeast Greenland, it is in western Greenland - immediately adjacent to the area of maximum melt. But that is irrelevant because all of the contiguous long term GISS records in Greenland and Iceland show the same pattern - it was at least as warm 70 years ago.

Now please look at these links carefully, and stop repeating the same BS
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=431042500000&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=godthab,+greenland&ie=UTF8&ll=64.173941,-51.720371&spn=23.733154,105.46875&z=4&om=0
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/greenland_melt_fig5.JPG

Steve,

It sounds like the Earth is more than capable of handling natural ebb and flow of CO2, is our addition of CO2 so significant that the Earth could not handle it. Do we understand the systems enough to know or safely conclude?

How does the various -spheres above us react to this CO2? (not talking about chemical reaction or anything)

How do we know that it is the CO2 we create that is causing such a problem opposed to the naturally released CO2?

As seen in the paper your referenced, this planet has had much higher CO2 concentrations, do we know if right now we are on an up and up naturally?

It seems like we should be seeing a much more drastic increase in CO2 given how much we give off, how proportional is the increase to our emission?

How much CO2 needs to be released to raise the the PPM by 10 PPM?

How has the density of the atmosphere (or troposphere, or whatever sphere (sorry, I am learning a lot here) been effected by the increase of CO2?

Bloom,

Wouldn't have anything to do with the sun now, would it?

When are you going to answer my question?

I'll put in caps so you can read it.

WHAT CAUSED THE REDUCTION IN CO2 CONCENTRATIONS?

Veets:

"It sounds like the Earth is more than capable of handling natural ebb and flow of CO2, is our addition of CO2 so significant that the Earth could not handle it. Do we understand the systems enough to know or safely conclude?"

The Earth can handle it fine. It's us and the rest of the biosphere that's the issue.

"How does the various -spheres above us react to this CO2? (not talking about chemical reaction or anything)"

The atmosphere gets a lot warmer, which in turns has a mutitude of other impacts. Nayve I'm not clear on what you're asking here, though.

"How do we know that it is the CO2 we create that is causing such a problem opposed to the naturally released CO2?"

CO2 behaves the same regardless of source. Isotope analysis and the ice core record tells us that we're responsible for the added 100 ppm of CO2.

"As seen in the paper your referenced, this planet has had much higher CO2 concentrations, do we know if right now we are on an up and up naturally?"

The ice core records tell us that 280 ppm is natural for this interglacial.

"It seems like we should be seeing a much more drastic increase in CO2 given how much we give off, how proportional is the increase to our emission?"

Most of what we've emitted has actually gone into the oceans (thus the acidification problem). At some point the oceans will start to saturate, though, and there is concern that the early signs of this are being observed.

"How much CO2 needs to be released to raise the the PPM by 10 PPM?"

Good question. There are overall figures for this in the IPCC AR4 WG1 report. Based on those, IIRC it's on the order of a factor of three (although as noted above that may be changing slightly for recent increments).

"How has the density of the atmosphere (or troposphere, or whatever sphere (sorry, I am learning a lot here) been effected by the increase of CO2?"

I'm not sure about density, but as far as I know that's not an important metric. Significantly, the tropopause has gone up (which has probably decreased density very slightly) and the subtropics have moved poleward, this latter much farther than the models predicted for the present amount of warming. It's these changes, BTW, that are expected to result in greater weather variability in the mid-latitudes. Probably they already have, although it's too early to be able to prove it scientifically.

All of that said, while I'm fairly well-informed about this stuff on an amateur level I'm no expert. For more detail, go over to RealClimate (a site run by climate scientists) and click on "Getting Started" at the top. If you want to learn about this subject in detail, I would suggest reading the AR4 Synthesis Report and the History of Global Warming, both of which you'll find linked there. Short of that, there are plenty of other good resources listed.

Steve Bloom,

You said solar physicists out there who are trying very hard to find a solar trend...

I assume by solar physicists you also meant NASA? Yes, NASA has recently been learning more about solar activity. Hell, it was not until April 2007 that we were able to get the first 3-d imagery of the sun. Remember, earlier on, we were not as interested in the sun as we are now. We were focused on the moon, the space shuttle, the space station, gps satelites, communication satelites, probes, building crystals in space labs to power super computers. Those same super computers that now provide your climate models. So NASA was busy with those sort of things. One problem. Those climate models have limited and incomplete data. Hence the dilemma. We have just begun to understand! It was not until 3 weeks ago that NASA was surprised upon realizing that there was an 80,000 degree discrepency between the suns magnetic north and south pole. Ooops!

NASA also just discovered the sun's high-speed polar wind. "At the sun's poles, the magnetic field opens up and allows solar atmosphere to stream out at a million miles per hour,"

So what makes you so sure we have as much information as one can have on the sun? You may want to rethink your quick to dismiss mind set.

You said I'm so dismissive of your idea... and very slight incidence angle involved that the hemispheric insolation difference on Earth would be negligible.

Negligible? How can you say that? And there you go loosely tossing around that word SLIGHT again. Well guess what? A .011 increase in atmospheric CO2 is SLIGHT. Yes,...it is.

Anyway Steve, thank you for your input. I will look into it some more. I am looking forward to Ulysses next fly by. I will let you know what they come up with. In the meantime, you may want to seriously reconsider orbital variations, the suns role and the fact that we are ever-learning.

Blog you later.

Paul, I answered you in full. If you want more detail, look up CO2 weathering on Wikipedia or something. Also look up the effect on climate of having an isolated continent at the south pole and most of the rest of the land dispersed in the northern hemisphere. Probably you already know enough about vulcanism. And yes, it does have something to do with the sun: A very smooth increase of 3% over a half billion years. Other than that, it's the biosphere and CO2.

I give up on your answering my question.

PH, as noted in the other thread it's southwest, not southeast.

If you want to continue this discussion, let's do it in the other thread starting with your similar comment (which I've already answered) so that we don't repeat everything.

So you don't even want to ask, Rich? Leif doesn't work for NASA, BTW.

The question is what the difference in insolation would be based on that angle difference. Actually it's a pretty simple math exercise. All you need is the diameter of the sun, the diameter of the earth, the distance between them and the solar irradiance figure, all of whuch can be had in about 5 minutes from Wikipedia. Those and a little trig and you're there. I'm not interested in doing the calculation because I'm fairly confident that the insolation difference would be trivial. Just to be clear, it's not the smallness of the angle but rather the tiny difference in insolation that the small angle implies. No significant difference in insolation => no effect worth talking about.

Oh, OK, here's the start: The two angles (pole-to-pole, so erring in your favor) are .2698 north and .2649 south, or 1/200th of a degree. You can do the rest, but I don't think this is going anywhere useful.

Good luck to you too.

Anonymous,

Thank for answering the questions as best you can, but one thing you said bothered me:

"The ice core records tell us that 280 ppm is natural for this interglacial."

How did they determine what is natural? That is such an important word, natural. It is easy to toss it around, just like normal. Normal temperature is based on an average, law of averages says if the average is 40 and their is a data point of 20 in it, that the difference must be made up on the other side. Normal is a very very tricky term, an highly undefinable.

I asked about density because if the atmosphere is rising, then there would be more space, thus lowering density as you said. I think that would be very important, as if the CO2 PPM is rising but the CO2 per (unit area) stays relatively the same or perhaps even drops, the CO2 would be just as likely to absorb the energy and release heat. Given that is farther away (troposphere rising) it would take more radiated heat to keep temperatures the same as it is now heating more space below it. Now if the density was rising and the troposphere was lowering, then obvious heating would occur, but that is not the case.

But given that there is more space between the ground and the troposphere, would it not be true that wator vapor could be more abundant, given it has more space to fill, or am I incorrect in that thinking?

I suggest watching Naked Science: "Solar Force" on the National Geograhic channel.

Bloom,

b) plate tectionic effects (continental position, mountain-building and vulcanism)

I don't buy it. I've seen some articles on this and there are too many exceptions. Same with ...having an isolated continent at the south pole and most of the rest of the land dispersed in the northern hemisphere... as there were many continental configurations during ice ages.

BTW, I thought you said Milankovich cycles were the cause of ice ages. Which is it?

Veets:

We have about six glacial cycles, all showing about 180 ppm for the glacials and 280 ppm for the interglacials. The present interglacial stayed at about 280 ppm until a couple hundred years ago.

Any atmospheric density change is so slight that it wouldn't have much of an effect on the CO2 numbers. I suspect the answer is the same regarding water vapor, but I can't say for sure.

Interestingly the rise in the tropopause is the most important aspect of the greenhouse effect since it increases the effective emission height of the atmosphere for the relevant IR frequencies.

Regarding the possible effect of a change in heat capacity of the atmosphere, bear in mind that the nearly all of the heat capacity of the ocean-atmosphere system is in the oceans.

(That anon above was me BTW. That happens to my posts sometimes since for some reason I can't get the personal info cookie to set.)

So Paul dislikes the science. Fair enough.

Re the Milankovitch cycles, if there are no glaciers (as is the case most of the time) they can't do much.