Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says 2

seaiceextent.jpg

Graph of Arctic sea ice extent that follows a cyclical pattern of up and down sea ice extent (expansion and contraction) from 2002 to 2009. Mid September of 2009 had 1.6 km^2 more sea ice extent than on 2007. It seems to be on track to meet 2002 or 2003 sea ice extent by regaining back more than 2 km^2 of sea erasing the "loss" of sea ice we saw in 2007.

Graph came from - http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
 
The problem is that you have only 30 years worth of continuous satellite imagery and not 50, 100, 200 or 500 years worth of sea ice data to see the highest and lowest sea ice extent over a longer period of time. We're only seeing a window of time spanning a mere 30 years. It was only 13,000 to 15,000 years ago we had ice sheets that extended all the way to the northern parts of the United States (geographically speaking) before it began retreating as Earth gradually warmed up. That's the indisputable fact.

Of course we had in the more recent periods when it was warmer than today. Examples like the Garibaldi Glacier near B.C. Canada where retreating glaciers revealed 7,000 year old perfectly preserved tree stumps with their roots still in the soil. Trees that were once part of an ancient forest. An indication of a time when it was much warmer you had mature forest growing in abundance. This glacier began retreating from it's maximum extent only some 200 years ago. It took awhile to retreat to this point exposing ancient tree stumps.

There's difference from 30 years ago, it is impossible to ship in Arctic Ocean during summer month but today, we are able to ship in Arctic Ocean during summer month, my friend said it already had been proven about ice is melting so faster than before.

There's some pictures about 50 years so google up, in 1950's, Arctic Ocean was full of ice, even in mountainous area in Alaska and Canada, especially glaciers.

You are one of conservative that is trying to proof that high CO2 don't cause ice to melting but many research said it did, I'm arguing on my opinion so you have respect my opinion so I could able to respect your opinion, if don't so you are one of person that try to defend yourself and make yourself looks correct.

For me, it is still in question, even many countries has emission law that control on emission, go figure out and if you don't believe that carbon cause that so they shouldn't have emission law at first place.
 
There's difference from 30 years ago, it is impossible to ship in Arctic Ocean during summer month but today, we are able to ship in Arctic Ocean during summer month, my friend said it already had been proven about ice is melting so faster than before.

No. It was only open for barely more than a month in 2007.

In 1969 a commercial ship called the "S. S. Manhattan" became the first commercial ship to negotiate the Northwest Passage to Alaska. This was covered in a 1969 Time magazine!
Business: A $40 MILLION GAMBLE ON THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE - TIME

The S.S. Manhattan succeeded her navigation of the Northwest Passage. Ship makes history.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Google News Archive Search

The ice opened up many times before in the Northwest Passage (North America's side).
FOR nearly five centuries, merchants and mariners have dreamed of opening a commercial sea lane across the top of Canada and Alaska. Venetian Explorer John Cabot, in search of a short trade route to the Orient, made the first unsuccessful attempt to sail through the frozen Arctic Ocean in 1498. Dozens of others—French, English and Portuguese—followed in his wake, but it was not until Norwegian Roald Amundsen piloted the small yacht Gjoa through the ice-choked waterway in 1906 that the Northwest Passage was finally discovered. Since then, only six vessels have completed the treacherous voyage, and the passage remains unused by the world's commerce.
That is, before 1969 six ships completed the Northwest Passage.
Business: A $40 MILLION GAMBLE ON THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE - TIME

Roald Amundsen back in 1903 made his ice-free trip in the late summer month using his 70 foot long wooden fishing boat during his three year trip to find the "holy grail" Northwest Passage. That passage was ice free then when he discovered the route.
The American Experience | Alone on the Ice | People & Events | Roald Amundsen

It was also ice free in the 1940s.

St. Roch had serviced RCMP posts and Inuit settlements in the western Arctic since 1928, but it is for her epic voyages through the Northwest Passage from west to east between 1940 and 1942, and the return
voyage in 1944..
http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol03/tnm_3_4_63-107.pdf

This what I'm trying to tell you. That 30 years worth of satellite pictures only tells you what happened in those 30 years. That's it. Nothing more to conclude anything else. But there are other records such as shipping records that showed ships have sailed the ice free Northwest Passage several times since Roald Amundsen. The 2007 "ice free" Northwest Passage was NOT the first time it happened.

The rate of melting is only good for the 30 years worth of actual observation and says nothing about the last 100, 200, 500 or 1000 years or longer. My graph above says that the melting rate has gotten less with each year since 2007. It'll be interesting to see the sea ice extent this year mid-September.

It opens up less than two months out of the year and that's from about mid-August to end of September when conditions are right.

From Earth Observatory as it describes the Northwest Passage in late August 2009 where they noticed that it wasn't clear whether it was clearly open as it did in 2007 but certainly more ice in 2009 in that area than 2007. Look at that particular satellite photo in the link below for late August and you'll see that some of the Northwest Passage (the preferred shipping route) isn't completely open and that to the west is all ice blocking the route to Alaska.

In late August 2009, ice clogged some but not all of the Northwest Passage, and snow had retreated from most of the islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite caught this rare cloud-free view of the archipelago on August 27, 2009. Although Parry Channel appears partially ice free, especially in the east, sea ice spans most of McClure Strait, blocking the northern, or preferred, route through the Northwest Passage.

Earth Observatory makes this historical note on past shipping attempts through the preferred Northwest Passage shipping route:

The northern, or preferred, route through the Northwest Passage has been navigable a few times, and it appeared wide open in satellite imagery in 2007. The route that Amundsen followed has opened periodically since the turn of the twenty-first century.
Northwest Passage, Late August 2009 : Image of the Day

It wasn't open in 2008 and it certainly wasn't open in 2009 with confidence to even risk a ship. And I'm willing to bet that in 2010 August/Sept it won't be open for ships to use. If the Mayon volcano erupts with enough ash, sulfur, particulates into the air this year then expect a cooler year and colder winter in 2010 and maybe even into 2011 exactly like when Mt Pinatubo erupted causing global cooling for 2 years whose ash helped blocked incoming solar rays.

Foxrac, the Northwest Passage is NOT a reliable shipping route because the availability of an open route is only fleeting every so often and has been like that several times for more than 100 years since 1906. This explains the fact that there were warm periods that opened up the Northwest Passage and nothing to do with CO2 concentration when it was much lower in concentration in our recent historical past!
 
No. It was only open for barely more than a month in 2007.

In 1969 a commercial ship called the "S. S. Manhattan" became the first commercial ship to negotiate the Northwest Passage to Alaska. This was covered in a 1969 Time magazine!
Business: A $40 MILLION GAMBLE ON THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE - TIME

The S.S. Manhattan succeeded her navigation of the Northwest Passage. Ship makes history.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Google News Archive Search

The ice opened up many times before in the Northwest Passage (North America's side).

That is, before 1969 six ships completed the Northwest Passage.
Business: A $40 MILLION GAMBLE ON THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE - TIME

Roald Amundsen back in 1903 made his ice-free trip in the late summer month using his 70 foot long wooden fishing boat during his three year trip to find the "holy grail" Northwest Passage. That passage was ice free then when he discovered the route.
The American Experience | Alone on the Ice | People & Events | Roald Amundsen

It was also ice free in the 1940s.


http://www.cnrs-scrn.org/northern_mariner/vol03/tnm_3_4_63-107.pdf

This what I'm trying to tell you. That 30 years worth of satellite pictures only tells you what happened in those 30 years. That's it. Nothing more to conclude anything else. But there are other records such as shipping records that showed ships have sailed the ice free Northwest Passage several times since Roald Amundsen. The 2007 "ice free" Northwest Passage was NOT the first time it happened.

The rate of melting is only good for the 30 years worth of actual observation and says nothing about the last 100, 200, 500 or 1000 years or longer. My graph above says that the melting rate has gotten less with each year since 2007. It'll be interesting to see the sea ice extent this year mid-September.

It opens up less than two months out of the year and that's from about mid-August to end of September when conditions are right.

From Earth Observatory as it describes the Northwest Passage in late August 2009 where they noticed that it wasn't clear whether it was clearly open as it did in 2007 but certainly more ice in 2009 in that area than 2007. Look at that particular satellite photo in the link below for late August and you'll see that some of the Northwest Passage (the preferred shipping route) isn't completely open and that to the west is all ice blocking the route to Alaska.



Earth Observatory makes this historical note on past shipping attempts through the preferred Northwest Passage shipping route:


Northwest Passage, Late August 2009 : Image of the Day

It wasn't open in 2008 and it certainly wasn't open in 2009 with confidence to even risk a ship. And I'm willing to bet that in 2010 August/Sept it won't be open for ships to use. If the Mayon volcano erupts with enough ash, sulfur, particulates into the air this year then expect a cooler year and colder winter in 2010 and maybe even into 2011 exactly like when Mt Pinatubo erupted causing global cooling for 2 years whose ash helped blocked incoming solar rays.

Foxrac, the Northwest Passage is NOT a reliable shipping route because the availability of an open route is only fleeting every so often and has been like that several times for more than 100 years since 1906. This explains the fact that there were warm periods that opened up the Northwest Passage and nothing to do with CO2 concentration when it was much lower in concentration in our recent historical past!

Ok, interesting thing to read. :aw:

I'm blame on my friend that said impossible to ship in last 30 years ago and put me to believe about global warming that liberal people has stated.

Other way, I feel so more hotter in 2000's than in 1990's, I had thought about CO2 has transform into thicker blanket to make more hotter than ever, back in 1998, I can stand in Florida in all day but today so not anymore due summer weather is very brutal, just my experience with weather.
 
CO2 amount does NOT make a thick blanket.

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere right now is 380 ppm (parts per million). That means 380 parts of CO2 out 1,000,000 parts. That is the equivalent of 0.038 percent or in decimal 0.00038 (or 380 divided by 1,000,000).

Understand that 1 percent = 0.01. And that 0.038 percent = 0.00038 which is 26 times smaller than 1 percent.

In other words, 99.97 percent of the atmosphere contains gases that do not include CO2 since CO2 make up only 0.0038 percent of the total atmospheric gases. It is very, very small. Water vapor make up between 1 to 3 percent of the total atmosphere and that makes the humidity you feel, not CO2.
 
CO2 amount does NOT make a thick blanket.

The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere right now is 380 ppm (parts per million). That means 380 parts of CO2 out 1,000,000 parts. That is the equivalent of 0.038 percent or in decimal 0.00038 (or 380 divided by 1,000,000).

Understand that 1 percent = 0.01. And that 0.038 percent = 0.00038 which is 26 times smaller than 1 percent.

In other words, 99.97 percent of the atmosphere contains gases that do not include CO2 since CO2 make up only 0.0038 percent of the total atmospheric gases. It is very, very small. Water vapor make up between 1 to 3 percent of the total atmosphere and that makes the humidity you feel, not CO2.

Oh interesting, I can't understand why does you and other liberal members make totally different views on CO2? It does cause to hard for me to trust.

I'm really hate to live in area that has little or no tree due sun, live in house with many trees will reduce of sun shine and make feel so relaxed, that's what in southeast states has alot of trees and I noticed that some new house communities has very little tree due cut down alot during construction.
 
the tail trying to wag the dog

I gotta take off but here is a typical example of what the Republican politicals are doing with paid for scientists and belligerence, for their owners.


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Politics
What Happens in Utah ... Doesn't Stay in Utah
BYU Earth Scientists Express Concerns
Over State Legislature’s Climate Efforts
By Bud Ward | November 23, 2009
The Utah capitol: Hearing ‘both sides’ of climate science.

Eighteen Brigham Young University earth scientists are telling the state’s political leaders that they need to “give considerable weight to an overwhelming scientific consensus, and treat fringe positions with respectful skepticism.”

The BYU faculty members said they think that giving “too much weight” to a vocal but small minority of scientific viewpoints “puts all of us at risk by promoting poorly informed decisions.” Their prescription for better policy for Utah? “Base decisions regarding the effects of climate change in Utah upon the best scientific evidence available.”

The November open letter from the BYU scientists comes after state legislative hearings featured one scientist generally supporting the IPCC “consensus” view - warming is happening and humans are significantly responsible - and another recognized as being among a small number of climate “skeptics” or “contrarians.” The letter also follows ongoing coverage of the Utah situation in the Salt Lake Tribune and minimal coverage in the competing Deseret News. It also follows a report in the Tribune that some read as suggesting an implicit threat by a legislative skeptic against a Utah State University physics professor, raising issues of academic freedom.
Salt Lake City’s
Two Daily Newspapers
Science Issues the 18 BYU
Scientists Specifically Challenged

In their open letter to Utah’s U.S. senators and members of the U.S. House of Representatives and to the state’s governor and Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee, the 18 BYU faculty members said they “agree with the consensus view - that climate is changing and is significantly influenced by human activity.” But they emphasized that they represent different political and ideological perspectives and “have no specific political agenda to support.”

They wrote that they “disagree with one another about how society ought to respond to the threats posed by a warming climate …. whatever action is taken, it should be informed by the best available scientific evidence.

“We encourage our legislators not to manipulate the scientific evidence to suit any political agenda,” they wrote, adding that the opinions are their own and not those of Brigham Young University. “We submit this letter as concerned scientists and citizens.”
Leading up to the Scientists’ Letter

The Utah “interim committee” hearings came amidst reports of the new Utah governor’s questioning of climate science and some conservative legislators’ desires to assess “both sides” of the science.

President Obama had nominated the state’s previous Republican Governor, Jon M. Huntsman, Jr., to be U.S. Ambassador to China. Huntsman earlier had engaged the state actively in the Western Climate Initiative and he appeared to many to understand the seriousness of the climate issue.

His successor, Gov. Gary Herbert, has said he wanted to “debate the science.” Some sympathetic Utah legislators have moved to have the state withdrawn from the Western Climate Initiative.

The Tribune’s environment reporter, Judy Fahys (pronounced “phase”) has been following the story from the start. She reported in October that “the legislature’s most outspoken skeptic on man-caused climate change” had complained to Utah State University President Stan L. Albrecht about one of the school’s physics professor’s published remarks critical of testimony provided earlier by Roy Spencer, a University of Alabama-Huntsville scientist and prominent climate skeptic.

According to Fahys’ report, the legislator, Republican Rep. Mike Noel, “strongly denied making any threats or calling for the scientist’s job.” Fahys earlier had quoted that Utah State faculty member, Robert Davies, as saying the legislature had invited Spencer to testify to provide “‘cover’ for their resistance to adopting policies addressing the threat” of warming. “Completely fringe,” Davies said in characterizing Spencer’s views on climate change.

That got Noel’s goat. He labeled Davies’s comments “personal attacks” and took his beef to Albrecht. “I didn’t threaten anybody,” Fahys quoted Noel as saying. “To threaten somebody is to say to them, ‘I’m going to get your job. I’m going to get rid of you.’”

According to Noel, as reported by Fahys, the message to the Utah State president was, in effect, that “I’m very disappointed in the fact that you have a professor make a statement like that from a state-supported institution about an individual [Spencer] that has been very honest.”

Others see an implicit threat in Noel’s approach to Albrecht.

Fahys reported scientist Davies’ view that the law maker’s going directly to the university president was “completely inappropriate,” saying Noel should have complained to him directly and not to his employer, which Fahys reported receives about $150 million annually in state and federal funds.
Why Flag BYU as ‘Conservative’?

In her reporting on the BYU letter, Fahys’ lede paragraph noted that the 18 scientists signing the letter are faculty at “conservative Brigham Young University.” She reported later in the same article that “Because BYU is a private institution owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its faculty and staff are insulated from legislative pressures that public universities could be subject to.”

Hence come suspicions in some Utah quarters that other science faculty at Utah public universities might best keep their powder dry rather than run the risk of incurring legislators’ (and appropriators’) wrath. That’s seen as one reason the thrust of the BYU letter, since its release, has not been publicly embraced by science faculties at other Utah colleges or universities. (The letter writers say they did not seek support from beyond BYU in preparing the letter initially.)

In an e-mail exchange, Fahys explained to The Yale Forum her handling of the lede sentence reporting the 18 scientists’ letter:

On the issue of the word “conservative,” I thought it was important for two reasons. Within Utah, while readers generally would be aware that BYU is conservative, it was a way of reminding them that “these folks at BYU, the Mormon-church owned university,” are very likely to share our readers’ values. Though readers might have written off the views of professors at other universities - even in Utah - for being more politically and socially liberal, BYU is not known for leftist views on its science or anything else.

A second reason for using the word is that people outside of Utah who are reading the article might not know much about BYU, but this is a shorthand way of providing some context about the place and its faculty that is expanded later in the story. Our climate stories have a wide readership that extends outside Utah.

Tribune Editorial … and Roy Spencer Defense

In editorializing on the issue, The Salt Lake Tribune has said that despite “overwhelming agreement among experts that human-caused CO2 emissions are largely to blame for a rapid increase in global temperature, too many politicians are looking for an opposing view. Political conservatives are disdainful, even hostile, toward global warming because accepting it would demand policy changes costly to fossil-fuel industries that emit millions of tons of CO2.”

The paper’s editorial page said that controlling CO2 “could hurt the pocketbooks of politicians who collect hefty contributions from those industries. Progressives seem better able to see the benefits of changing to less-polluting renewable energy sources.”

The paper also faulted the Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee for providing a “pulpit” to Spencer, who it characterized as “one of only a handful of scientists who dispute the evidence of human-caused global warming.” It said Utah legislators “who should be acting in Utah’s best interest would do well to learn from scientists, not argue with them.”

The Tribune on its editorial pages and through most of its own columnists has consistently taken firm positions supporting the “consensus” climate change science, at one point editorializing against “pig-headed denial masquerading as fact-finding” by skeptics. The paper’s editorial cartoonist, Pat Bagley, has posted biting cartoons on the issue, powerfully lambasting what he sees as climate science contrarians.

Commenting on the Fahys’ and the Tribune’s laser-beam coverage of climate change and of this set of activities, long-time environmental reporter John Daley, with KSL-TV in Salt Lake City, said “Fahys and the Trib have done a great job on this issue. Without them there’s no doubt that it would have gone entirely unreported.” He said he has found that reporters pitching climate-related stories too often “end up getting assigned to something else.”

On his behalf, Spencer, in a November 13 op-ed column in the Tribune, defended himself as “one of only a handful of scientists in the world who is addressing the big picture of how clouds in the climate system not only limit the effect of humanity on climate, but can themselves cause global warming or cooling.”

He accused what he called “the BYU Gang of 18″ of being guilty of politicizing the issue while objecting to politicization: “It is the scientists themselves who have fallen into the trap of appealing to ‘official’ U.N. views on this subject, views which are outdated and highly politicized … indeed recognized by world governments as authoritative, but they are not rigorously peer-reviewed in the usual sense.”

“I predict that it is only a matter of time before the U.N.’s agenda on the subject of global warming is finally exposed for its blind obedience to desired policy outcomes,” Spencer wrote. He said the few scientists questioning the status quo and receiving no energy industry funding, such as himself, “should be welcomed, rather than maligned, for trying to keep the rest of the research community honest.”
Ongoing Dialogue in Times Letter, Op-Eds

In separate commentaries published in the Salt Lake Tribune, Spencer could find comfort from expressions of support from conservative Republican state legislators.

Republican Utah House member Chris Herrod said “the science has already been politicized and some have an agenda.” In answering his own question of whether global warming is occurring, he wrote “Since the Earth is coming out of an ice age and has been significantly warming throughout its history, most agree this is true.”

It’s an answer, in its abject simplicity, hardly likely to be received well from within the science community.

Herrod next asked if humans are “the primary causes” and, if so, “is it enough to cause catastrophic harm?” Here too, and perhaps even more so, his answer to his own question is at best problematical: “Catastrophic predictions are possible only if climate models assume positive amplification of minor man-made warming. Many ‘nonconsensus’ scientists doubt this and other assumptions and are concerned about the reliability of complex models.”

In answering the third question he poses to himself, Herrod clearly concludes that any solution would be worse than the purported problem.

“Before we wreak havoc on our economy, strengthen our political enemies, and become more of a debtor nation,” he wrote, “responsible elected leaders must conduct an honest-cost-benefit analysis.” Admitting “my bias,” he concluded, “I fear global economic meltdown and the loss of freedom much more than any global warming theory, but I am still open to discussion.”
What if Reagan, Not Gore, Had Taken Up Climate?

(In a November 20 comment to the Tribune, Davies was having none of it, characterizing Herrod’s “fatally flawed analysis” and “defective calculation - like assessing the cost of home insulation without including utility savings or the cost of a bicycle helmet without acknowledging the value of risk reduction.” He faulted Herrod for “considering only worst-case economic scenarios and best-case climate scenarios,” and said “scientific consensus is not a substitute for scientific evidence, it is the result of scientific evidence.” Policy makers should “stop betting the farm on outliers and wishful thinking,” Davies wrote.)

Among those signing the BYU open letter, Professor David Long said in a phone interview that “there is no alternative to the very best scientific understanding.” He said he wonders how the political posturing on climate change might differ if Ronald Reagan, rather than Al Gore, had taken up the issue.

Pointing to “the consensus view on the climate science,” Long said, “It is not our fault if some cannot stand the truth. We’re a private school, and we take the issue of academic freedom very seriously.”

- - -

Editor’s Note: This piece was lightly edited on 11/29/09.

Salt Lake City’s Two Daily Newspapers

Now owned by Denver-based MediaNews Group, Inc., headed by Dean Singleton, the Salt Lake Tribune was established in 1871 as the Mormon Tribune and a year later was renamed the Salt Lake Daily Tribune and Utah Mining Gazette. It later became The Salt Lake Tribune. The paper now has a paid daily circulation of about 115,000.

With a daily circulation of about 72,000, the competing Deseret News, owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church), has been substantially less involved in covering the issue, although it did report on the 18 BYU scientists’ letter. The paper, whose editor, Joseph Cannon, is a former head of the Utah Republican Party (2002-2006) and who served as a presidential appointee under President Reagan, appears not to have taken an editorial position on climate change. (Cannon was a Geneva Steel Company chairman and head of the Utah GOP before taking his first position as a journalist, as editor of what some locals call the “D-News.”

While at the Environmental Protection Agency under the early Reagan administration and the controversial administration of former Colorado state legislator Anne Gorsuch Burford, Cannon had been considered by many in the Washington press corps to be among the few moderate Republican agency appointees and generally a “straight shooter.” That reputation appeared to have helped him stay on board at EPA after President Reagan brought in William D. Ruckelshaus to take over for a scandal-inflicted Gorsuch Burford EPA administration. Under Ruckelshaus, Cannon was confirmed by the Senate as EPA Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation.

After leaving the agency, he moved back to his Utah home and was instrumental in the purchase of Geneva Steel from U.S. Steel, later becoming Chairman of Geneva Steel, and for several years headed the Geneva Steel Company. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senator in 1992, losing in the primary to the current incumbent Senator Robert F. Bennett. His newspaper has reported that the Geneva Steel site, after two bankruptcy filings, will require up to $42 million in environmental mediation efforts as a result of soil and water contamination.

—–

Editor’s Note: This sidebar edited 11/29/09 to adjust newspapers’ daily paid circulation figures.

Science Issues the 18 BYU Scientists
Specifically Challenged

1. Utah state legislators were said to have “claimed that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ignored the possibility that natural climate cycles are responsible for most of the climate change evident over the past century. This is patently false. The scientific community has extensively investigated natural climate cycles. [emphasis in original] For example, the IPCC reports have several chapters dealing with natural climate variability, including the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, El Niño Oscillation, variation in solar radiation, volcanic eruptions, and so on.”

2. Second, it was claimed that climate scientists have ignored the hypothesis that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a natural mode of climate variability, could be responsible for climate change over the last century. The inaccuracy of this claim can also be readily demonstrated. A database search on our university library system, prompted by this claim, uncovered more than 600 peer-reviewed, scientific articles addressing the relationship of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation with climate change on many timescales, published within just the last five years alone.”

Summing up their concerns, the BYU scientists said Utah, as part of an arid continental interior, “may sustain serious damage due to a warming climate, and Utah’s climate scientists are a valuable resource to help public officials decide how to respond to the threat.

“It is irresponsible to alienate them by setting aside their testimony in favor of easily debunked fringe science,” they wrote.

Author
Bud Ward is editor of The Yale Forum (E-mail: bud@yaleclimatemediaforum.org).
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I don't give much credence to any of the theories if they continue to ignore the elephant in the room. What about weather warfare? How much did that figure into the worldwide climate change? Heck, back in the 70's I used to experiment with a Cloud Buster and I saw results. I got frightened and quit the experiments, though.
 
Then one need to explain why airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions isn't increasing.

Several recent studies have highlighted the possibility that the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems have started losing part of their ability to sequester a large proportion of the anthropogenic CO2 emissions. This is an important claim, because so far only about 40% of those emissions have stayed in the atmosphere, which has prevented additional climate change.

This study re-examines the available atmospheric CO2 and emissions data including their uncertainties. It is shown that with those uncertainties, the trend in the airborne fraction since 1850 has been 0.7 ± 1.4% per decade, i.e. close to and not significantly different from zero. The analysis further shows that the statistical model of a constant airborne fraction agrees best with the available data if emissions from land use change are scaled down to 82% or less of their original estimates. Despite the predictions of coupled climate-carbon cycle models, no trend in the airborne fraction can be found.
Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO<sub xmlns="">2</sub> emissions increasing?

In other words, from World Climate Report regarding that study:

no indication from data and observations that a larger percentage of human CO2 emissions were ending up in the atmosphere. In fact, the data showed that the fraction of CO2 emitted into the atmospheric by human activities has remained constant for the past 40 years.
World Climate Report Airborne Fraction of Human CO2 Emissions Constant over Time

In short, "it means that as CO2 emission increased by humans, it is being increasingly absorbed by natural sinks against anthropogenic CO2 emissions that have increased over the years. This tells us that Earth is increasing it's response rate to CO2 emissions and that absorption has not stopped nor decreased in storing CO2 emissions elsewhere....naturally.

Point being is that Earth isn't helpless in how it responds to increased CO2 emissions. Nature is taking it's course to do the job, not humans. We're puny stuff.

Look and read the graph and comments above the graph and below it to understand the whole picture even better.
World Climate Report Airborne Fraction of Human CO2 Emissions Constant over Time
 
Then one need to explain why airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions isn't increasing.


Is the airborne fraction of anthropogenic CO<sub xmlns="">2</sub> emissions increasing?

In other words, from World Climate Report regarding that study:


World Climate Report Airborne Fraction of Human CO2 Emissions Constant over Time

In short, "it means that as CO2 emission increased by humans, it is being increasingly absorbed by natural sinks against anthropogenic CO2 emissions that have increased over the years. This tells us that Earth is increasing it's response rate to CO2 emissions and that absorption has not stopped nor decreased in storing CO2 emissions elsewhere....naturally.

Point being is that Earth isn't helpless in how it responds to increased CO2 emissions. Nature is taking it's course to do the job, not humans. We're puny stuff.

Look and read the graph and comments above the graph and below it to understand the whole picture even better.
World Climate Report Airborne Fraction of Human CO2 Emissions Constant over Time

Yup. We will find that out soon enough. :)
 
Unfortunately that natural "sink" is our oceans

And they are acidifying--- researchers are finding the same in Alaska as well
see below
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ocean chemistry is the 'smoking gun' of climate change, says Bermuda institute

Published on Friday, December 11, 2009 Email To Friend Print Version

COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- This headline is the attention-grabber written by The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) in a news release issued on December 4, 2009. The oceans surrounding Bermuda are arguably the most comprehensively studied marine sites in the world. Established more than 100 years ago, BIOS has maintained the longest continuous record of ocean observations – beginning in 1954 – in the world, demonstrating an increase in acidity due to human-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

“The phenomenon known as ocean acidification is real, and we’ve got the data to support it. It is the smoking gun of climate change,” said Dr Anthony Knap, Director of BIOS.

The increased CO2 in the ocean, along with potential warming and sea level rise, demonstrate that human activity is having a major impact on the global environment.

“The approaching summit at Copenhagen has been held as perhaps our last chance to practically redress the situation our planet faces,” Dr Knap asserted.


Dr Ewart Brown, Premier
of Bermuda
Dr Ewart Brown, Premier of Bermuda, said, “It is critically important that Bermuda have a voice at the conference. As a small island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a small rise in ocean level will have catastrophic effects on Bermuda. It is obviously crucial for the large nations to get their house in ecological order because of their impact on the world in general, and on small island countries in particular.”

In addition to major flooding that would occur in Bermuda, ocean acidification will have a major impact on the coral reefs that surround Bermuda. Such a disruption to the ecosystem will have significant consequences for all marine life. In addition, like many other island nations, a change in Bermuda’s magnificent reefs will negatively affect tourism, one of two pillars of Bermuda’s economy.

The two major strategies for dealing with climate change are mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation activities – such as reducing our carbon footprint – are necessary, of course. “But in relative terms, Bermuda’s contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is minuscule,” said Dr Fred Ming, an environmental scientist in Bermuda’s Ministry of the Environment. “It is much more important for Bermuda – and other small island countries – to find ways to adapt to the effect of climate change.”

Climate change has other business effects. Bradley Kading is President of the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR). Kading explained, “ABIR’s members are the world’s leading providers of weather-related reinsurance and have expertise in hazard mitigation techniques that can protect people and property. The Association just last week adopted a Policy Statement on Climate Change. Two principles contained in the statement are that ABIR will ‘support thoughtful, coordinated research on climate change, adaptation techniques and the implications for (re)insurance risk; and work with all stakeholders to build consensus on effective, scientifically supported adaptation and loss reduction measures.’”

Bermuda’s reinsurers contributed US $17 billion to rebuild the US Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. Insurance is critical to support the global economy, and insurers can contribute their expertise on global risk diversification to policymakers seeking solutions to climate-related public policy challenges.

“Bermuda is just concluding a celebration of its 400th Anniversary of Settlement,” said Premier Brown. “It would be a shame if human activity prevented future generations from celebrating Bermuda’s 800th Anniversary. We must do whatever we can to reverse the human impact on the oceans and the climate.”

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There are more natural sinks that just our oceans. Trees and soils are also large sinks.

That "acidification" claim is bit of a misnomer to those who do not understand the chemistry use of the word though it is a correct chemical terminology. But the word "acidifcation" is used to try and make this change in pH, which is very small, a serious case when it's already obvious that our world's oceans is undergoing a neutralization process on the pH scale. "Acidification" a chemical word expressly used by global warming screamers for the purpose to cause fear and alarm because people do not understand correctly about the pH value and that our ocean is alkaline, and not acid.

Funny how that article does not explain the pH value and that our ocean is already greater than a 7.0 in the alkaline scale, not acid. Nothing new there.

Basic chemistry on pH to describe between acid and alkaline substance you'd find that the world's ocean average pH value is somewhere around 8.2 which means it's an alkaline solution. Though I still question their use of the word "average" when it comes to location and depths of these samples taken since ocean's circulation, temperature differences at various depths, pressure, mixing, and even biological activity such as clams, corals, plankton, algae, fish, and so on have a direct influence on pH levels as well. Something that the IPCC models have not factored in.

A substance is an acid if it goes below a pH measurement of 7.0.

A pH value of 7.0 is neutral while above a 7.0 is alkaline. Remeber, our ocean pH "average" is around 8.2.

For a chemist going from an alkaline to a neutral is called "neutralization." The ocean is neutralizing! Bet you won't find the MSM print that word that accurately describes the ocean's very slow drop in alkalinity value from 8.2 towards a 7.0 which is a neutral but it's dropping at a rate in the hundredths range.

We still do not understand well completely the processes between ocean-air-land-biological interaction when it comes to exchanging CO2 through storing and releasing.

If you really like to learn a few more things about CO2 and its exchanges go to the link below.

Ocean acidification Part 2
 
Gee, now a study shows that glaciers melted at a quicker rate in the 1940s than today.

The researchers arrived at their findings by calculating the daily melt rates with the aid of climate data and a temperature index model, based on the half-yearly measurements on the glaciers since 1914. These results were then compared with the long-term measurements of solar radiation in Davos.

Huss points out that the strong glacier melt in the 1940s puts into question the assumption that the rate of glacier decline in recent years “has never been seen before”. “Nevertheless”, says the glaciologist, “this should not lead people to conclude that the current period of global warming is not really as big of a problem for the glaciers as previously assumed”. This is because it is not only the pace at which the Alpine glaciers are currently melting that is unusual, but the fact that this sharp decline has been unabated for 25 years now. Another aspect to consider – and this is evidenced by the researchers’ findings – is that temperature-based opposing mechanisms came into play around 30 years ago. These have led to a 12% decrease in the amount of precipitation that falls as snow as a percentage of total precipitation, accompanied by an increase of around one month in the length of the melt period ever since this time. Scientists warn that these effects could soon be matched by the lower level of solar radiation we have today compared with the 1940s.

The stupefying pace of glacier melt in the 1940s

Just when they thought that the 2000s yielded the greatest melt rate evah....

Guess not.
 
Yeah well when the big boat comes to rescue all of us I say we leave you know who behind in a little rowboat.....lol. with limbaugh as a rowing partner. smh.
don't need proof or biased articles...I have a brain and common sense
 
There are more natural sinks that just our oceans. Trees and soils are also large sinks.

That "acidification" claim is bit of a misnomer to those who do not understand the chemistry use of the word though it is a correct chemical terminology. But the word "acidifcation" is used to try and make this change in pH, which is very small, a serious case when it's already obvious that our world's oceans is undergoing a neutralization process on the pH scale. "Acidification" a chemical word expressly used by global warming screamers for the purpose to cause fear and alarm because people do not understand correctly about the pH value and that our ocean is alkaline, and not acid.

Funny how that article does not explain the pH value and that our ocean is already greater than a 7.0 in the alkaline scale, not acid. Nothing new there.

Basic chemistry on pH to describe between acid and alkaline substance you'd find that the world's ocean average pH value is somewhere around 8.2 which means it's an alkaline solution. Though I still question their use of the word "average" when it comes to location and depths of these samples taken since ocean's circulation, temperature differences at various depths, pressure, mixing, and even biological activity such as clams, corals, plankton, algae, fish, and so on have a direct influence on pH levels as well. Something that the IPCC models have not factored in.

A substance is an acid if it goes below a pH measurement of 7.0.

A pH value of 7.0 is neutral while above a 7.0 is alkaline. Remeber, our ocean pH "average" is around 8.2.

For a chemist going from an alkaline to a neutral is called "neutralization." The ocean is neutralizing! Bet you won't find the MSM print that word that accurately describes the ocean's very slow drop in alkalinity value from 8.2 towards a 7.0 which is a neutral but it's dropping at a rate in the hundredths range.

We still do not understand well completely the processes between ocean-air-land-biological interaction when it comes to exchanging CO2 through storing and releasing.

If you really like to learn a few more things about CO2 and its exchanges go to the link below.

Ocean acidification Part 2

My gateway to internet is through satelittes nowdays, so just a couple of replies. As for the ice stuff, your perspective is extremely flawed, will perhaps explain when back on wired internet. It's well explained in the "Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says" link in the first post.

Acidification, yeah, it's happening.. I think I learned the stuff you are trying to explain here, in elementary school, but that's perhaps the level we are on here? :)

Again, just check out what "Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says" about this.

The CO2 claims from you are hillarious, and "Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says" link can tell you why.
 
I gotta take off but here is a typical example of what the Republican politicals are doing with paid for scientists and belligerence, for their owners.


NEWS CUTTED, CHECK ORGINAL POST FOR NEWSARTICLE

Wow, long and interessting read, thanks for posting. Looks like some deniers are running out of arguments, and instead start to resort to threats. Nasty.
 
My gateway to internet is through satelittes nowdays, so just a couple of replies. As for the ice stuff, your perspective is extremely flawed, will perhaps explain when back on wired internet. It's well explained in the "Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says" link in the first post.

Acidification, yeah, it's happening.. I think I learned the stuff you are trying to explain here, in elementary school, but that's perhaps the level we are on here? :)

Again, just check out what "Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says" about this.

The CO2 claims from you are hillarious, and "Skeptic Arguments and What the Science Says" link can tell you why.

Please explain what is flawed and why instead of just saying it.

Acidification does happen but it's a misnomer for the express purpose to alarm unnecessarily to those who actually think the ocean is turning into an acid which is laughable. A better and correct use would be alkalinity because the ocean is naturally in the alkaline state. Such as it is seen here:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/oceans/KitackLee_Alk_Climatology/GRL_Surface_alk.pdf
Global Surface Ocean Alkalinity Climatology
http://www.imber.info/Science_highlight/ocean_alkalinity_lee07.pdf

There is limited body of knowledge on the physics of near surface ocean mixing to that of the mid level and deep level mixing along with circulation belts plus the interaction of it's biological system, salinity and such as part of the on going regulation of alkalinity of our ocean which covers 70% of Earth. Our knowledge in this area is still in it's infancy. We are still learning. Nothing is set in stone yet. Nothing has been proven that AGW is causing our ocean to "acidify." Nothing.

What CO2 claim are you talking about?

Be specific next time and do a little legwork, too.
 
One flaw is that the continued use to make things look scary for the public to read. That is their number one M.O. because if that cannot use facts, and scientific transparency and openness they'll use scary sounding wordings to spur the public into action instead in the hope they won't question such data and "facts."
 
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