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Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

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Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#41

Post by Lawtonfogle »

sgt101 wrote: post #22
padobson wrote: post #19

I've never been fully convinced of anthropomorphic climate change. There's just too much politics involved for me to be convinced of such relatively recent studies. That said, I'll convert all of my energy sources to PV cells tomorrow if someone gives me a way to do it without mortgaging the next ten years of my life.

Rather than looking at the politics perhaps you could look at the science? What would it take to convince you? Seriously - if nothing can then we have departed from rational debate, but if there is evidence that would sway you then it would be great to identify it.

>What would it take to convince you?

Not speaking specifically to this issue, but I've lost a lot of my trust in science after reading a great deal of literature in psychology and paying attention to how funding impacts results. To reference XKCD, if I really wanted to and had enough funds, I could produce findings that a given candy causes acne. And if the opposition side is too politically unpopular to have comparable funding (to say nothing of the funds to distribute the results to society in general) then they could do little to counter me.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#42

Post by saalweachter »

padobson wrote: post #32
sgt101 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than looking at the politics perhaps you could look at the science? What would it take to convince you? Seriously - if nothing can then we have departed from rational debate, but if there is evidence that would sway you then it would be great to identify it.

I have a number of questions that I've never been able to find satisfactory answers to, and if I got them I could be convinced. But first, let me say, that this may well be moot. I think solar energy is the way to go. I think the sooner human beings stop burning things they find in the ground for energy, the better. I'll happily give my vote or my money to an elegant solution to make this happen. Next, my nutshell un…

I am sorry for not addressing all of your points, but I was staring at the graph in #2 and wanted to complain about how useless it is.

First, there is the small annoyance that the one number is in parts-per-million and the other in million metric tons; why not convert the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to the corresponding number of metric tons in the atmosphere?

But worse, it is comparing the annual CO2 emissions with the atmospheric concentrations! Assuming any relationship between them at all, we expect the emissions to be the derivative of the atmospheric concentration! Any correlation between the total amount of carbon and its rate of change is purely coincidence. The derivative of a quadratic function is a linear function, and while they correlate quite poorly, they are very strongly related.

The important question isn't whether emissions are correlated with the atmospheric concentration but to what extent the emissions explain the change in atmospheric concentration. We know how much carbon dioxide we've put out over the last N years, call it X. We know how much more carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere now than N years ago, call it Y. Is X > Y? If so, bingo, bango, bongo, we're responsible for the change. If X < Y, then we can't be completely responsible.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#43

Post by yequalsx »

padobson wrote: post #32
sgt101 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than looking at the politics perhaps you could look at the science? What would it take to convince you? Seriously - if nothing can then we have departed from rational debate, but if there is evidence that would sway you then it would be great to identify it.

I have a number of questions that I've never been able to find satisfactory answers to, and if I got them I could be convinced. But first, let me say, that this may well be moot. I think solar energy is the way to go. I think the sooner human beings stop burning things they find in the ground for energy, the better. I'll happily give my vote or my money to an elegant solution to make this happen. Next, my nutshell un…

I don't know the answers to your questions. I do know they are natural questions and that it appears you are not an expert in these matters. Thus it is almost surely the case the experts have thought about these questions and have answers. What makes you think the experts in this area have their beliefs and knowledge skewed by politics? Do you believe this for other areas of science?

I'm old enough to remember the denial phase of global warming. It was largely conservatives in the U.S. who considered this a liberal plot. Progress has been made because now the debate is shifting toward whether or not humans are responsible.

It is too fantastic to believe that climate science is a liberal plot or a plot of any other ideology.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#44

Post by dragop »

srameshc wrote: post #40
stinos wrote: post #28

According to the National Climatic Data Center, the world just saw its warmest winter ever…except for in one spot in the north Atlantic ocean (the deepest blue color above), which set a record for cold. Which is not good. (NCDC) These new NOAA data got me quite worried because they indicate that this partial recovery that we describe in the paper was only temporary, and the circulation is on the way down again Honest…

If am assuming Mr. Rahmstorf is qualified enough to understand the data. And with this part "So far, the study finds, we’re looking at a circulation that’s about 15 to 20 percent weaker. That may not sound like much, but the paper suggests a weakening this strong has not happened at any time since the year 900. Moreover, this is already more weakening than scientifically expected — and could be the beginning of a fur…

It's Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor of Ocean Physics at the Potsdam Institute.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#45

Post by primroot »

padobson wrote: post #37
DanBC wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's just too much politics involved When tobacco was under attack the companies paid for scientists and doctors to spread misleading information; they paid for FUD. Those same scientists are now employed by oil and energy companies and they are using the same tactics. The only reason there's "politics" involved is because one side is deliberately spreading lies about the entirety of the science, even the bits t…

Climate change is a really big deal. When we've had scientific movements of this magnitude, the face of the movement has always been a scientist (think Copernicus, Darwin, or Einstein). The face of climate change is jointly Al Gore and the IPCC, which was formed from the environmental portions of the UN. If the face of climate change was a scientist, I'd be more apt to believe it, and so would millions of other peopl…

Richard Muller and John Baez? Or is more that one face too many?

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#46

Post by primroot »

ams6110 wrote: post #38
strictnein wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has the highest (I believe) state subsidies for this sort of thing. My aunt and uncle just did the same thing, and they live north of LA. It makes me wonder two things: 1. What is the ROI without the subsidies? 2. How much lower would the price be if the subsidies didn't exist?

Subsidies don't recover the investment, they just make other people pay for it.

... or potentially pay for their own negative externalities.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#47

Post by f055 »

happyscrappy wrote: post #30
pyre wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The planet isn't an organism with an immune system reacting to infections. It's a ball of rock that "couldn't care less" if there are beings living on it. The systems that exist on the surface of the planet are just physical processes reacting to other physical processes. Nothing more. Ocean currents aren't changing as part of a process of "healing" they are changing because they are governed by the laws of physics.

That is not completely true, virtually all the oxygen on Earth came from bacteria. Life interacts with physics.

Life IS physics.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#48

Post by acqq »

padobson wrote: post #32
sgt101 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than looking at the politics perhaps you could look at the science? What would it take to convince you? Seriously - if nothing can then we have departed from rational debate, but if there is evidence that would sway you then it would be great to identify it.

I have a number of questions that I've never been able to find satisfactory answers to, and if I got them I could be convinced. But first, let me say, that this may well be moot. I think solar energy is the way to go. I think the sooner human beings stop burning things they find in the ground for energy, the better. I'll happily give my vote or my money to an elegant solution to make this happen. Next, my nutshell un…

Can you please give me the link to your "Every carbon-temperature hockey stick chart I've seen" which "starts in 1750"? We actually know the concentration in the last 400 thousand years and it was never so high during that time as it is now:

http://climate.nasa.gov/system/content_pages/main_images/203...

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#49

Post by swamp40 »

yxhuvud wrote: post #39
padobson wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a number of questions that I've never been able to find satisfactory answers to, and if I got them I could be convinced. But first, let me say, that this may well be moot. I think solar energy is the way to go. I think the sooner human beings stop burning things they find in the ground for energy, the better. I'll happily give my vote or my money to an elegant solution to make this happen. Next, my nutshell un…

3: When it comes to greenhouse gases, increased amounts are effective to a certain concentration, at which point they absorb or reflect everything in the wavelengths that correspond to that gas. The wavelengths for water is saturated.

That doesn't jibe very well with the IPCC's claim that increased CO2 levels will then increase the water vapor - thereby amplifying the global warming effect.

Re: Global warming is now slowing down the circulation of the oceans

#50

Post by [deleted] »

padobson wrote: post #37
DanBC wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's just too much politics involved When tobacco was under attack the companies paid for scientists and doctors to spread misleading information; they paid for FUD. Those same scientists are now employed by oil and energy companies and they are using the same tactics. The only reason there's "politics" involved is because one side is deliberately spreading lies about the entirety of the science, even the bits t…

Climate change is a really big deal. When we've had scientific movements of this magnitude, the face of the movement has always been a scientist (think Copernicus, Darwin, or Einstein). The face of climate change is jointly Al Gore and the IPCC, which was formed from the environmental portions of the UN. If the face of climate change was a scientist, I'd be more apt to believe it, and so would millions of other peopl…

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