Global warming

[I don't know]

It's hard to answer you if you can't be specific, but it might be that the ton/tonne thing is confusing. A tonne (usually spelled "ton" in countries with the metric system, just to add to the confusement) is 1000kg, slightly more than a ton.

No most definitely not. This is where is all hinges upon. You need a strong positive feedback and there is one single case for that, the cooling after the Pinatubo eruption in 1992 but there are many physical reasons why the feedback is rather negative than positive

- The feedback of water vapour? Really.

The ten more don't show but I know the spaghetti graph. The point is not the warming after 1850 the blade of the stick, the point is the lack of variability before that, as well as the spinning to produce that result

- You can click the link to see it, damn board said I put too many images in :l

And indeed they are not. The Palle-et-al 2006 study about albedo came as a complete surprise for the hockey team, and sure enough it was denied away (somewhere in realclimate), implying that it's not in their models.

- You talking about this post? http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/cloudy-outlook-for-albedo/

 

[Andre]

- The feedback of water vapour? Really.

Tell me why it should be positive and I'll show you that it's non existent.

 

[I don't know]

okay, so we'll start at the bottom. Do you agree:

The vaporization curves of most liquids have similar shape. The vapour pressure steadily increase as the temperature increases.
http://www.science.uwaterloo.ca/~cchieh/cact/c123/clausius.html (I am not going to pretend I understand the math behind that link - it's just here so you know what I'm talking about)

Or, where do you disagree:

More CO2 in atmosphere = warmer atmosphere = more water in atmosphere

 

[Andre]

More water in atmosphere is more clouds. More clouds is higher reflectivity, higher reflectivity is lowering warming.

 

[I don't know]

Aww, now you're forcing me to read up I'm sorry, but I'll have to continue this tomorrow, I should be writing anthropology now, not climatology.

 

[Andre]

Can I help? I just finished studying the interaction between mankind and megafauna at the late Pleistocene extinction event (the mammoths et al).

 

[2inquisitive]

More water in atmosphere is more clouds. More clouds is higher reflectivity, higher reflectivity is lowering warming.

This is where I fail to understand. More water in the atmosphere equals a higher humidity to my way of thinking. Are you stating the humidity MUST accumilate in the form of clouds over time?

 

[Buffalo Roam]

No, IDK, I've found hard records of the Kilauea volcanoe, and that says 22 million tons a year are produced, so when I extrapolate the number out in your post they run far short of the numbers I have found, the only thing I can think of is my numbers are total output of all gases and yours are of a single gas?

 

[Andre]

This is where I fail to understand. More water in the atmosphere equals a higher humidity to my way of thinking. Are you stating the humidity MUST accumilate in the form of clouds over time?

Exactly, Actually the water cycle thingy is a bit more complex. First of all, visible light can enter and heat up water down to about 100 meters before it gets absorped. Infrared light gets absorpted at a depth of 15 micron. That is 0.000015 meters, meaning that basically acts as a mirror but it cannot cause heating of the ocean. Visible light can, so the recent higher Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) is basically caused by more light, which tends to confirm the observation of Palle et al that I have posted about before.

But higher SST cause more evaporation. So more water vapor, so more greenhouse effect, apparantly a positive feedback, right?

Now as I showed before in another thread, the albedo variation of 10% in the last two decade equals a black body emission temperature variation of about 2,8 degr C. Yet the actual temperature variation was about 0,5 degr C, which suggets that there are strong negative feedbacks at work, not positive feedbacks.

One is obvious, the penetration of visible light, heating the water, not the atmosphere, the second is latent heat. The evaporation of water takes energy (heat) that goes over in another form. As the water vapor rises, it's potential energy increases while the temp decreases. At some height it starts to condense, releasing the heat but also losing energy by radiation, as it is a greenhouse gas. About half of this radiation is directed towards space and is not contributing to the warming of the earth. It actually operates a bit like a fridge. And the warmer it gets the harder it works. This way the water cycle seems to provides a strong negative feedback, which is not all incorporated in models.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

Hay I understood most of what you said, CKed out Hocky Stick therory, great information, it go's a long way to helping what I am thinking about global warming, will be looking into the other things you have told me in your posts, thanks for the info.

 

[triplelite]

Getting back to GW. This volcano erupted and all these gas or something flooded the sky and the global temperature dropped by 1 degree celcius. Who cares about the bloody enviroment, some places depend on "ruining" the enviroment in order to survive...like in Melbourne, Australia. They had to make the Yaara River deeper or something to fix a dock or some other stuff. But whatever it is, it was worth it.

 

[Buffalo Roam]

Hay Spidergoat the Hockystick says I'm not that miss guided.

 

[Billy T]

...And always expect the unexpected like re-arranged ocean flows, which play an important part in our ice ages. But, there are many more thoughts required about the role of physics to solve those enigma's and we are trying to do so....

I did. - The discussion begining on page 49 of Dark Visitor (Chapter 5, subsection "Ocean Circulation") begins with a explanation of the Corliolis effect (including footnote on Gaspard and Napoleon), and ends on page 53 with:

" The abundant snow that falls in Norway in winter is partially responsible for keeping the air temperature near freezing while thermometers in Boston (1000Km farther south) are falling well below freezing every time a cold, dry Canadian air mass moves in. It is difficult to over emphasize the importance of ocean transport of heat and MOISTURE IT SUPPLIES TO THE AIR on the land. BDV* this was a blessing for Norway, but you can get too much of a good thing as we will see in the next chapter. "

Chapter 6, pages 59,60,61 & 62 discuss the ocean circulation ADV** (gives my expectations)*** and explains why Norway will be quickly under such thick ice load that the fiords will cease their current up-lift recovery from the last ice age and begin to sink (under the weight of the ice) back into the oceans again.

I do not feel comfortable with "selling my book" but am sure you would like it (and may even find things to criticize in it). This is why I give the page numbers so you can read free** what I had to say about the BVD to ADV changes in ocean circulation, climate etc.
------------------------------------
*BDV = Before Dark Visitor
*ADV = After Dark Visitor

** Web page under my name tells how.

***Included are discussions of mechanisms of the thermohaline driven deep cold currents in the Atlantic; the falling "salt fingers" from the salty Med outflow provided an opportunity to teach about the Taylor Instability (It is really a disguised physics book.); a prediction that Med dries up after ocean level drops to produce the "Valley of Gibraltar"; the conversion of the currently wind-driven Pacific deep flows (El Nino etc.) into one more like the N. Atlantic with the Artic water exiting via the Bering strait and the Kursoshio current becoming stronger than the current Gulf Stream, which ADV is the "Super Gulf Stream" with more trans-equatorial flows, and the increased warmer surface water from the Southern Hemisphere causes more and much stronger hurricanes etc.

 

[Carcano]

I have a question about the CO2 statistics:
All the news reports say that CO2 levels are now approx. 27% higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years...

Wow, that sounds like a lot doesn't it?

Except when you consider that CO2 only comprises 0.03% of the atmosphere....a 27% increase would raise that percentage to a mere 0.038%.!!!

Why would such a tiny increase be so significant in determining the temperature of the atmosphere.

 

[Andre]

Chapter 6, pages 59,60,61 & 62 discuss the ocean circulation ADV** (gives my expectations)*** and explains why Norway will be quickly under such thick ice load that the fiords will cease their current up-lift recovery from the last ice age and begin to sink (under the weight of the ice) back into the oceans again.

Understanding the mental exercise, but the reality exceeds the wildest imagination. The opposite mechanism, dramatic post glacial rebounce, reacting on a fast melting of the Fennoscandian ice sheets, caused some unexpected but far fetching reactions: marine hydrate decomposition, causing wild oceanic flow rearangements resulting in extreme climate changes, it sent the megafauna into extinction. PM me your email address and I'll send the submitted paper about it.

 

[Andre]

I have a question about the CO2 statistics:
All the news reports say that CO2 levels are now approx. 27% higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years...

Wow, that sounds like a lot doesn't it?

Except when you consider that CO2 only comprises 0.03% of the atmosphere....a 27% increase would raise that percentage to a mere 0.038%.!!!

Why would such a tiny increase be so significant in determining the temperature of the atmosphere.

It's not especially if you consider that the greenhouse effect is proportional to the log of the GHG concentration. Every doubling causes equal effect, the effect of 1 ppm to 2 ppm just about equals 280 ppm (pre industrial) to 560 ppm (projected for 2100AD). Therefore large -but non existing- positive feedback is required to preach doom.

 

[Carcano]

It's not especially if you consider that the greenhouse effect is proportional to the log of the GHG concentration. Every doubling causes equal effect

What do you mean by 'equal effect'? If the GHG levels double from say, 200ppm to 400ppm what does this mean specifically relative to temperature...and more to the point, how can this effect be proven?

 

[Andre]

With this toy here, http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/radiation_form.html you can see for yourself. Just hit "submit the calculation" on the default parameters to get a forcing of "Iout, W / m2 = 227.87" (seperate window - resize them to see both)Then make CO2 half (187ppm) to get "Iout, W / m2 = 230.131" and then double (750 ppm) to get "Iout, W / m2 = 225.546", showing for each doubling about a constant change of 2,7 W/m2

Done that here both for CO2 and CH4 to get:

These were used to show that CO2 is much stronger as a greenhouse gas than CH4 under equal conditions.

Then using a logaritmic scale and relative values against the basic non-greehhouse gas value we get:

But when seen on a real scale it boils down to:

Showing that fuzzing around with greenhouse gasses only means some insignificant changes in the lower left hand corner.

 

[I don't know]

It's kind of thrilling to meet someone who doesn't use the usual arguments

No, IDK, I've found hard records of the Kilauea volcanoe, and that says 22 billion tons a year are produced, so when I extrapolate the number out in your post they run far short of the numbers I have found, the only thing I can think of is my numbers are total output of all gases and yours are of a single gas?

- What's your source?

More water in atmosphere is more clouds. More clouds is higher reflectivity, higher reflectivity is lowering warming.

- So basically you're saying that earth won't continue to get warmer, it will just get darker and more humid. So even if you're right, this is not really a good thing. But I don't know if you're right.

First of all, "Clouds form when water vapor rises, cools and condenses out of the air as micro-droplets ", so a warmer atmo would mean that less of the water vapour gets turned in to clouds, right? I mean, "Ein Kilogramm Luft kann bei 30 °C und 1 bar Druck bis zu 30 Gramm Wasserdampf als Luftfeuchtigkeit aufnehmen" (One kilo of air can, at 30 degrees celsius and 1 bar pressure hold 30g of water vapour as air moisture (so not clouds, right?), http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasserdampf#Beeinflussung_des_Klimas)

Secondly, the albedo doesn't seem to have increased as much as it should have if you're right: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/cloudy-outlook-for-albedo/

Third: "More clouds is higher reflectivity, higher reflectivity is lowering warming" is a gross oversimplification, and not really true at all. Clouds also contribute to warming. I'm expecting you know this, though :l

But higher SST cause more evaporation. So more water vapor, so more greenhouse effect, apparantly a positive feedback, right?

- Some of it would certainly be positive anyway, seeing that a warming ocean releases CO2 as well...

 

[Buffalo Roam]

IDK the information that I found was from a USGS article, and I can't find the site I lost my note on how to get there, I am tring to locate it, but it was def. a USGS site, nice to see some one with some curtecy to.

Excuse my fumbled finger typing, 22million ton per year