The ' I NEED TO SCREAM' thread.

[pottyprof]

That was back in the 80s and 90s though. Water's different now...has been since privatisation.

You're right once again OON. I bet you're using a computer aren't you??

[Stratos Ferric]

But this is a big question mark for me. Sea levels are not rising as fast as predicted and surely with the rate of melt in the Arctic we should have seen more of an increase than we have. Where's the water going?

Arctic ice largely floats on water and displaces its own volume. Like ice cubes in a glass, melt them and the water level scarcely changes (in fact, it would reduce slightly in this latter case).

The Antarctic is a different matter entirely.

...

Anyway,Antarctica is growing,not shrinking. You'll need to advise me on this Stratos,but in the extremely unlikely event of Antarctica exhibiting rapid melting,why would it be so bad? At around 4C water expands,( hence why pipes burst in cold weather ),so when ice melts the volume actually shrinks from it's frozen state,does it not? Seeing as the vast bulk of the ice is submerged anyway wouldn't it actually result in a lowering of sea levels? Yes I understand how a rise of worldwide sea temps would cause expansion too but how do you see it all balancing out in the event of such a scenario?

...

Regards,LG.

LG, the vast majority of Antarctica's ice mass IS NOT SUBMERGED (the Arctic's is, but there's far less of it) but lies on the continental shelf. For this former reason and arguments re relative density are an irrelevance, any melt increases sea level. In any case, the difference in density from ice to water is so slight that its impact globally would be negligible: in addition, the warmth required to melt ice to water, applied globally, would warm the oceans and increase their volume far more than any ice-water reduction in Antarctica would lower it.

Like I said, warming isn't cataclysmic, unless you live in Hastings it would seem, but that depends on just what level warming stops at. Like I said, we can't just switch it off.

[pottyprof]

This is an interesting read.....

From the Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118...3557627104.html

[Stratos Ferric]

Nick F – As far as the CO2 argument for kick starting stratospheric cooling, I won't dispute the science of that and I accept the truth in it, but the levels of CO2 were higher than now earlier this century and yet it didn't stop the 1940s seeing a big turnaround in return to cold winters (and years) after some record mild years/seasons during the 1930s? ...

However, I would not say that 3 or 4 winters out of 13 or 14 since the late eighties is conclusive in proving the terminal failure of -AO/NAO synoptics to deliver significant cold to the UK. Especially so when one considers that winter 05/06 managed a below average outcome without the AO/NAO being favourably negative anyway. What this does suggest is that there are indeed other factors that influence the ability of this signal to deliver to its potential. ...

We have always of course been an island, we have always had maritime influences to moderate our position relative to places like New York etc on a similar latitude. Therefore the position in terms of Greek winters and being downstream of the large Asiatic landmass has never changed. I have also already agreed haven't I that higher SST's have been a factor in further moderating polar maritime flows in recent years especially. If any factor does have any bearing in offsetting the potency of cold(er) synoptics then this is one I would agree with, but land mass anomalies have little significance because a change of airmass can obliterate them in days.

A polar or arctic continental airmass, being from a landlocked source and crossing a relatively short stretch of water (especially further south) has always been responsible for our coldest weather and not polar maritime airmasses. I think the warming trend has eroded marginal set-ups further but I don't accept that polar continental airmasses have lost any potential for cold. ... Should the classic synoptic set-up prevalent when the A0/NAO turned negative in February 05 (as recently as the end of the previous winter to this) allied itself at the same time as that Jan 06 cold pooling, then the potential would have been delivered with change. In the event the required -AO/NAO synoptics to advect the cold air south and west to us arrived at the end of February 06 when the most intense cold pooling had largely dissipated.

I would accept your argument (the same one that Stratos Ferric and others repeatedly presents me with) if one or both of these ingredients have not been in evidence, but from these two fairly recent incidents, it is clear that they are still evidenced. Surely timing of synoptics and cold pooling is a different issue to absence of both (and thus making a timing factor of both coming together immaterial). And by dint of that it would indeed be your proof that warming has moved the baseline upwards to the point where such cold is not achievable in development and thus available to provide well below average winter synoptics. This is clearly still not the case and the time for change is still perfectly wide open. ...on the one hand if it is accepted that significant cold can still penetrate Greece due its position near to land (which I accept although it has always been the case) then why is the fact that UK has not seen this cold (yet) indicative of something greater to do with an overall warming trend?

...There was no polar airmasses evident throughout the summer and it still managed to record just below average.Yes, under the same prevailing global summer pattern heat transferred into south eastern europe as I repeated a few times in my own post but why is significant heat occuring here or elsewhere round the world more significant than any significant cold that occurs round the world?

....

Tamara

Tamara, I'd be interested in seeing the source for your point re CO2. All the plots I've ever seen show a steadily rising line from way back when. Cooling from 1940 on is often attributed to an increase in sulphates and heavy aerosols, 'global dimming', and the turn-around in the 70s aligns well with the imposition of clean-air acts in then industrialised areas, and also the big move from coal to gas. The 2 day impact on global temps post 9/11 when all flights were grounded should be corroboration enough of the validity of the dimming case.

Minor point: we are not at the same latitude as NY: Rome amd Madrid, however, are. NY can be cold in winter for the same reason that Tokyo can be (equally maritime) - the prevalent W-E flow around the globe comes off a large (and in winter, as you know, cold) continent. For the UK to get cold weather we need to buck the prevailing winds; this simple factor explains why NY fares far better than the UK (notwithstanding NAD as well) when it comes to cold winter weather.

We have actually had record breaking cold from a maritime airmass, in December 1981. Re your point about the parts being available to deliver cold to the UK, there is an allure in this argument, for sure, but in recent years they have resolutely stacked up together. It cannot be said yet that it will never happen again, but there comes a point when increasing failure leads to that conclusion. Your argument hinges on an assumption that climate change delivers the same synoptics but with warmer temperatures on average; my contention is that the macro-circulation is altered in such a way that the type of synoptics that once brought us sustained cold simply are no longer possible in our corner of the globe.

Re summer, I'm not going to enter into an argument about how cold summer was or wasn't, however, assessment of 'as was' against 'as ought' given the airflows that occurred would be a perfectly valid piece of analysis, as Philip Eden demonstrated with August last year. Indeed, we have seen the same phenomenon ourselves in winter, albeit in reverse, with repeated instances in recent years of mP and mA airflows not quite delivering the expected cold that would once have occurred pretty much without fail.

This is an interesting read.....

From the Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118...3557627104.html

Not a surprise really, however, if one hundred papers are uniquely sourced into a specific area of research it would be remarkable indeed if they all made the same mistake, in the same direction.

[jethro]

Tamara, I'd be interested in seeing the source for your point re CO2. All the plots I've ever seen show a steadily rising line from way back when. Cooling from 1940 on is often attributed to an increase in sulphates and heavy aerosols, 'global dimming', and the turn-around in the 70s aligns well with the imposition of clean-air acts in then industrialised areas, and also the big move from coal to gas. The 2 day impact on global temps post 9/11 when all flights were grounded should be corroboration enough of the validity of the dimming case.

Stratos: Given that this is the accepted theory for this period would it therefore not mean that the cool period attributed to the increase in sulphates and heavy aerosols is in actual fact the anomoly? If the period 40's - 70's was artificially cooled due to pollution, once the atmosphere was cleaned up, we warmed up. Surely that would indicate, as I have often questioned, that the recent warming is merely an extension of the warming which began much earlier. If we remove the artificially cooler period from the temperature graph, then the rise in temps from the 30's to current, is much, much less stark, is it not? This would also, I believe demonstrate more clearly the way Co2 actually behaves in the atmosphere as Captain Bob, explained previously, it's impact has less (relative) effect not more with increased emissions.

[Stratos Ferric]

Tamara, I'd be interested in seeing the source for your point re CO2. All the plots I've ever seen show a steadily rising line from way back when. Cooling from 1940 on is often attributed to an increase in sulphates and heavy aerosols, 'global dimming', and the turn-around in the 70s aligns well with the imposition of clean-air acts in then industrialised areas, and also the big move from coal to gas. The 2 day impact on global temps post 9/11 when all flights were grounded should be corroboration enough of the validity of the dimming case.

Stratos: Given that this is the accepted theory for this period would it therefore not mean that the cool period attributed to the increase in sulphates and heavy aerosols is in actual fact the anomoly? If the period 40's - 70's was artificially cooled due to pollution, once the atmosphere was cleaned up, we warmed up. Surely that would indicate, as I have often questioned, that the recent warming is merely an extension of the warming which began much earlier. If we remove the artificially cooler period from the temperature graph, then the rise in temps from the 30's to current, is much, much less stark, is it not? This would also, I believe demonstrate more clearly the way Co2 actually behaves in the atmosphere as Captain Bob, explained previously, it's impact has less (relative) effect not more with increased emissions.

That's certainly a quite plausible read of the data. It might, however, also be argued that the dimming effect served to offset warming that has not been replaced. I.e. had we not had the cooling from the 50s-80s we would now be standing not at, say, high 10s in the UK (re annual mean CET), but low 11s.

The problem is that there will always be several factors at work: sometimes they reinforce one another (and we warm or cool), sometimes they cancel out. Our climate has always oscillated, and just because AGW has arrived does not mean that other causes of oscillation are nudged out of the queue. It's a bit like an orchestra piping up one instrument at a time; as the noise gets louder it gets harder to hear individual instruments, but they are all still there.

We cannot categorically state how much of the current warming is man-made, and how much natural; what we can be sure of is that the current warming is outside previous entirely natural (as opposed to man impacted) bounds, and is trended upwards - despite what WIB claims.

[VillagePlank]

Not to mention the other GH gases being increased by man such as Nitrous Oxides ....

That's no laughing matter ...

[Gray-Wolf]

That's no laughing matter ...

Groan....

[jethro]

That's certainly a quite plausible read of the data. It might, however, also be argued that the dimming effect served to offset warming that has not been replaced. I.e. had we not had the cooling from the 50s-80s we would now be standing not at, say, high 10s in the UK (re annual mean CET), but low 11s.

The problem is that there will always be several factors at work: sometimes they reinforce one another (and we warm or cool), sometimes they cancel out. Our climate has always oscillated, and just because AGW has arrived does not mean that other causes of oscillation are nudged out of the queue. It's a bit like an orchestra piping up one instrument at a time; as the noise gets louder it gets harder to hear individual instruments, but they are all still there.

We cannot categorically state how much of the current warming is man-made, and how much natural; what we can be sure of is that the current warming is outside previous entirely natural (as opposed to man impacted) bounds, and is trended upwards - despite what WIB claims.

Stratos: I've given a more in-depth answer to your questions on this subject over in the other fact based section, together with links which validate that we did cool "artificially" during that period; as you say it is complex but rather than repeat my entire post here, have a read over in the other thread.

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?...obalwarming.xml

I'm surprised I missed this!!! Well Gee Dubya, what do you say now?

[pottyprof]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?...obalwarming.xml

I'm surprised I missed this!!! Well Gee Dubya, what do you say now?

I wonder what he got paid for his words of wisdom??

[Nick F]

Lol, see they have some high calibre people advising Bush, no wonder the Bush administration is mis-informed and slow on the uptake on solving serious world issues.