Warming oceans
July 31st, 2009 by Brian | Published in Climate change, Environment | 72 Comments
On Wednesday on The World Today there was an item about the ocean surface warming. There were a few talking points covered in the segment.
First was the warming of the Arctic where we are told that:
the predictions are that between 2013 and 2015 there will be no summer ice in the Arctic.
You can check the progress for 2009 via the Greenleap Arctic Watch. If you scroll down to the third image you’ll see that 2009 is now tracking as second only to 2007 in terms of ice loss and could even exceed 2007 by summer’s end, but probably not by much.
Remember that ice cover is defined as >15% and the ice is getting quite thin, so it’s quite plausible that the end will come quickly.
Secondly (Senator Fielding please note) Deke Arndt of NOAA said:
The ocean and surface, the land surface and the atmosphere are all connected as part of the climate system and so when you warm that system, there are exchanges of heat between each of those reservoirs.
By far the largest heat reservoir is the ocean. Barry Brook at BraveNewClimate has an excellent post on the old chestnut that “the world hasn’t warmed since 1998″ which explains that 90% of the additional warming from global warming goes into the ocean, 7% melts ice and the remaining 3% heats the atmosphere. He links to an article by Fred Pearce in the New Scientist who says:
In the long term, some of the heat being soaked up by the oceans will inevitably spill back into the atmosphere, raising surface temperatures.
Both article cite Figure 5.4 in IPCC WG1 (pdf) (the link takes forever on my computer, which is partly why I’ve extracted the image):
Brook also posts this image from Domingues et al 2008 which is explained at RealClimate:
There have been some issues of measurement. The black line represents the most recent correction which makes more sense than the earlier results. Dr Sylvia Earle in an interesting interview with Phillip Adams asserts that the oceans are the main driver of our climate. This gives additional point to Brook’s closing remark:
So, next time a climate sceptic turns to you and says ‘Global warming is nonsense ’cause the Earth hasn’t warmed in the last 10 years’, you can simply reply ‘Errr – why are you ignoring 97% of the problem?’.
Please explain, Senator Fielding.
Unfortunately there is still a lot that we don’t know about the oceans. Hansen points out in his Bjerknes Lecture (downloadable from Communications, December 20, 2008, pp13-19) that there is much we don’t know about ocean response time and at present ocean temperature below 700m and atmospheric aerosols are not well-measured through lack of funds under the Bush administration.
Finally, the new study by James Cook scientists referred to turns out to be by Brierley (St Andrews) and Kingsford (James Cook) looks extremely interesting but unfortunately behind the paywall. There is a summary here.
There is much to be disturbed about. Get a load of this:
“At current emission rates it is possible we will pass the critical level of 450 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere by 2040. That’s the level when, it is generally agreed, global climate change may become catastrophic and irreversible,” they said. “At that point we can expect to see the loss of most of our coral reefs and the arctic seas.”
So the 450ppm aspirational target will actually carry us to the brink of disaster. Penny Wong and Kevin Rudd, not to mention pollies everywhere, please note.
Scientists expect ocean oxygen levels to decline by about six per cent for every one degree increase in temperature and areas in the sea which are low in oxygen to grow by at least 50 per cent. This has major implications for the world’s most productive fishing waters in the cool temperate regions. The seas provide around one sixth of humanity’s protein food…
Then there’s this:
Besides the changes induced by carbon emissions, the oceans are also under assault from over-fishing, increased UV exposure, toxic pollution, alien species and disease. The combined effect is to weaken the ability of many species to withstand these multiple stresses.
And this:
“It may already be too late to avoid major irreversible changes to many marine ecosystems. As history has shown us, these marine-based changes could have major earth-system consequences,” the scientists conclude.
You can hear more about it if you are in Brisbane on Friday August 7th:
The ARC Centre for Coral Reef Studies will host a major public discussion forum exploring the future of coral reefs and fish stocks at the Brisbane Convention and Entertainment Centre on Friday, August 7, at 6PM. The forum will feature some of Australia’s leading coral and fisheries scientists. Media and the public are welcome.
Thanks again Brian, and let me take this opportunity to draw readers’ attention to this and this.
I wonder if Stephen Fielding would get it if we explained to him that the combined wealth of the Fielding household can’t be accurately measured by looking only at Mrs. Fielding’s bank balance.
Hey Paul, I think those two links go to the same place!
I didn’t want to labour one month’s observations because of the charge of cherry picking. The trends seem to be clear though.
Link fixed now Brian.
More bad news.
This little thing caught my eye Mixing it up, Jellyfish style at Climate Shifts.
Intriguing, as to whether, if it becomes significant, it will provide a bit more buffering against sea temp. rise, or worsen the situation ?
Pterosaur@6
Assuming the mechanism wortks as outlined, it could trade short term problems for long term resistance to lowering temperatures — effectively lengthening the lead times and thermal inertia.
More troubling still is the potential impact on the various thermoclines. The consequences of disruptions to these would be hard to model, but it’s easy to see how it could be devastating to some types of marine life, perhaps make for more serious El Nino events, and possibly disturb those clathrates at the sea bed that we’d rather leave undisturbed.
Would anyone from the Prime Ministers office care to register a comment?
Brian,
Can you explain what is happening to the Antarctic Ice volume and area in relation to the change in the Artic? Is it not true that maybe a decline in ice area and or volume in one part of the world can be more than offset by an opposite change elsewhere.
This could be significant if say 90% of the ice in the world was in the southern hemisphere.
John, no thanks. This has been explained before on other threads. The Arctic and the Antarctic are effectively separate systems, but the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets are both losing volume.
I read a bit of Brooks,and,honestly it isn’t his willingness to what he thinks he is doing correcting people that is the problem for me.It is that he refuses to accept others could also try the emotional game,the disrupter,and then proceed with the intellectual content.I found it almost humorous how he presents IPCC stuff and then down further from the first postings of IPCC stuff, he is actually questioning,by implication, their skills,or the quality of those skills.Seeing the various names given to the Climate Change Warmer non-accepters like denialist,delusionists etc., implies an unwilling to accept the IPCC stuff,he cannot really claim his opinion about their lack of skills or expertise is somehow less worthy than his.And in other parts he is suggesting… continue the model functioning stuff,almost to the point of that in itself is the exercise of requirement.Whereas the 1PCC has changed its models and modelling matters. Somewhere I heard this claim.So not quite clearly cognisant with ,how anyone can actually make a comment about the quality of the skills that you align with and like some ancient Sephardic Jew, I suppose, dress it in Christian clothing because you think this century’s weather is the return of the Storm Troopers dressed up as IPCC Skeptics.His first of four heres down to the 95th comment,and just read his attitude,keeping in mind he is both promoting the science of the IPCC and thus their qualifications,which to my mind at least,means their skills.The rest is Baloney.Seeing some associated with the IPCC dropped out and included Australians and New Zealanders,it may have been just him,as much as the science.I will not wait around here to be corrected.
If you need to read that Brian, just drop me a line.
Very encouraging post, Brian, because if 90% of warming goes into the ocean, and we can make these sorts of simple extrapolations from ocean temperature data, then the globe is not warming.
The only reliable and comprehensive ocean temperature data set comes from the Argo buoys – and I am surprised, not, that none of your references seem to mention it – which were not fully deployed till 2003. They show that the world’s oceans – the top 700 metres of ocean, not the top millimetre or so that NOAA gets from satellite measurement – have cooled since 2003.
And yes, it is short data set by climatic standards, but it is sight longer than that which the ABC is basing its scaremongering on – one month, June 2009.
Wozza the Argo program was dealt with in the RealClimate link. I’ll leave that to them.
Depends what you mean by the “globe”. If it means the planet earth then the oceans are part of the planet and the planet is warming. and as said by Fred Pearce, given the interchange between the major systems the heat in the ocean will spill out sooner or later.
Brain,
Can you supply the links or references that indicate Antartic Ice volumes and areas are declining?
I agree, John, that Brian is a considerable Brain :-)
Sorry Brian,
A couple of typos!!
Go nuts Michelmore
Brian, I agree that there have been issues in interpreting the Argo data, but your realclimate link is more than a year old, and there have been a number of more recent reviews of the data that have concluded that indeed they show ocean cooling, or at the very least no statistically significant warming. Roger Pielke Sr specifically refuted realclimate’s view on ocean temperature trends only a few weeks ago, and Craig Loehle had a paper out earlier in the year. Sorry I am at work and don’t have time to search out references.
And please let’s not start a war of ad homs – given realclimate’s position and record of simply censoring any comment at variance with those views, at the very least it is no more objectiv a source than either of those two
Anyway, my point is that had any climate “denier” led with his/her chin by constructing aan article as the ABC did around one month of data,and data at that not from the agreed most accurate and comprehensive measurements of the metric in question, he/she would rightly have been crucified for cherry-picking. I find it odd that no-one here except me is doing anything of the kind; indeed they are proceeding to extrapolate wildly from it. There are some double standards on LP on this subject.
I can’t wait for the first denialist to claim that the globe is cooling because the core will eventually drop in termperature from 4,500C to 4,449…4,448…4,447…
See? If you count the whole globe we’re heading inexorably for temperature equalisation with the rest of the cosmos…about 3 degrees above absolute zero!
So, chin up lads!
Can I please speak for every rational person in the world when I say to denialists like Wozza et al: Please fuck off back to your bunkers and blogs, where you can crunch all the numbers you feel like from your Confederate Republic beanbags and correct all the REAL scientists with actual, relevant qualifications for their political, misguided data countered by a host of idiot rocket scientists, loons, and shills linked to the organisations that stand most to benefit from inaction, until the levees break and you all drown whilst we mourn what we’re losing and frantically try to save what’s left.
Your flat-Earth bullshit has no place in a 21st century grounded by facts and reality, and I’m sick of listening to these querulous objections that we’re somehow supposed to take seriously despite having no more connection to reality than faith healers and that perpetual motion company. Go and whine on your increasingly smaller right-wing circle jerk blogs and sites and stop polluting my eyes with your faff.
*Ad hom, and proud of it.
ad nauseam
Wozza
To the best of my knowledge, RealClimate does not censor hostile views. Pielke and Carter post there on a regular basis. Please show me something that can justify your claim that they have a record of censorship of claims germane to science or policy on this matter.
RealClimate is far and away the best source for interrogating the science on this matter as it is moderated in real time by those close to the IPCC process.
Way to go PatrickG. Logical and persuasive
Can I ask all those who think that his is a constructive contribution to anything – as opposed to a complete inability to deal with the data another poster has put forward on its merits – to say so now please.
I’m not trying to persuade wozza2. It’s like talking to a cultist. I’m just requesting you drink the Kool-Aid in your own back yard.
Well it is getting a bit tiresome Wozza. Yer mate there wants Brian to spend time discussing what he’d say if Antarctic ice was increasing, for eg, when anybody who can read knows it’s trending the opposite, despite some seasonal increases in Antarctic precipitation due to … global warming.
You yourself are “cherrypicking” the Argo dats after instrument faults have detected.
BTW, the ice is melting. The resulting cold water will have a tendency to sink to depth. The ice-cubes-in-your-drink effect is of course slowing down global warming, compared to rate at which it will occur once most of that ice is gone.
The heat energy we are disussing is solar energy. You would expect the deeper ocean to warm far less rapidly than the surface, even without the cold melt water.
We live on the surface.
Well, I agree with patrickg, wozzas all, except I don’t think he was abusive enough. It was a very constructive suggestion though, and I add my “FUCK OFF” to his “fuck off”. I doubt if I’m alone.
Some great exchanges here folks, and links! I’m swamped myself in my (red)neck of the woods with those who base their carping denial on sweet FA! Nothing much else to contribute I’m afraid; unlike so many, I tend to keep my mouth shut when I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Well said patrickg – you can’t persuade these people, and persuasion or logic is the last thing they’re looking for.
With regard to problems with the Argo buoys, they at first showed a strong cooling trend. You can read the story of how Josh Willis discovered problems with the Argo data in February 2007 and subsequently corrected the data. He is quoted in this March 2008 article thusly: “There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant”. You can see for yourself the graphs of ocean heat content with corrected Argo data. Basically, no significant trend is seen. So, to me, the data does not seem to support the AGW theory that increasing CO2 levels are resulting in increasing amounts of heat trapped in the oceans.
Thanks Lachlan @ 30,
I must admit I’m having trouble coming to grips with all the data before and after Argo.
Ocean temperature measurement can’t be as reliable as Argo (before 2003 ish). As a result how accurate is the ocean heat content graph for the calculations carried before Argo?
Recent short term trends indicate ocean heat and global average temperatures are level or down, as well as increasing ice in the Antarctic.
The northern hemisphere seems to be heating up.
Is all the hot air and hot water heading up (north) because of the density difference?
Don’t try and answer the questions, I’m jut trying to balance out what could be described as “unbalanced” views here.
On Antartic temperatures
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/2487/full
Can someone direct me to a link explaining why the ocean started soaking up 90% of the heat from after ’98 but not before.
Having gone through the links it seems to me the ocean soaking up the heat argument swings both ways, I wouldn’t be rushing to say that supports AGW hypothesis at all. Likewise it doesn’t necessarly disprove it either as the obvious question is how much of the pre 98 heat was due to the ocean releasing it and why?
Another question comes to mind with the ice melts. Do we know if ice melts can be naturally as severe as say a drought? Similarly can they be as long lasting say a couple of years? Given the reliable data I gather only goes back to ’79 are we able to prove the variablity we are seeing now is not natural and “normal”?
And so it goes on … endless demands for more and better particulars from people with no relevant scientific knowledge. Anything to forestall conceding that the appalling greenies might have been correct about something.
They’ll still be asking for more data about the rainforests in Sulu and the anomalies in the temperature stats from Denmark when Barrenjoey is an island and we’re importing wheat from India.
Bilb @ 32,
Cosmos (the magazine) you referenced above also notes that there could still be volcanic activity beneath Antarctica(link on the same page.)
Are temperature changes of <+0.15 degrees per decade significant if there is variable volcanic activity in the area?
I think the time really is coming when denialists will have to be charged with creating or perpetuating a public nuisance, or even worse, scientific sabotage. We must call these criminals to account for creating doubt against the well established scientific facts.
I’m guessing here. Vulcanism would play a minor role in the available heat being delivered into the antarctic ice. The 2 main suppliers of heat are sea currents which deliver heat and take away melt water, and air currents.
http://www.auf.asn.au/meteorology/section4.html
If you look at section 4.2 you will see that over each of the poles is a dominant high pressure air flow. A high pressure system is falling air. This is dry air because the moisture has been rung out as it rose in to the upper atmosphere. As air masses fall they compress and in that process heat up adiabatically going from upper atmosphere lower air pressure to surface higher air pressure. For the antarctic ice this is like having a giant blow torch delivering heat to the surface. The Cosmos article also points out that the ozone hole is allowing more energy to escape to space than other wise would, and this influence is likely to end about the middle of the century. So what is going on is largely determined by the energy in the antarctic air circulation cell and the temperature and flow rate of Antartic waters.
Now, I’ve never been to the antarctic with a thermometer, so I have to take the information provided by the very extensive team of scientists studying that body on good faith. And from what I am reading the news is not good.
I see the denailistsphere’s gone nutters over that black muslim with the fake birth certificate administration’s release of declassified spy satellites piccies
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/07/27/declassified-ice-loss-images/
patrickg – once upon a time I would’ve said you’re being harsh there, but there comes a time after seeing the same FUD recycled over and over and over and begging with those clowns to put up some evidence when I too would like to go bold text, for crying out aloud, publish, put the F up or shut up
http://openparachute.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/scientific-controversies/
I was worried with Prof Brooks ‘debate’ with Plimer – I suspect it’s so much easier to crap on rather than put out science in a time limited spray – I hope he did good
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/07/27/the-great-climate-debate-2009-brook-vs-plimer/
Dave comment 6 at Barry Brook’s blog is important in that it says why you shouldn’t debate idiot’s like Plimer and why Brook says he is doing it. I gather Brook is quick on his feet as it were so he’ll do OK and I’m sure he knows his opponent well, having done it before.
There’s a report on the session up now.
But generally speaking I reckon it’s giving denialists more credibility than they deserve.
Apparently Roger Pielke Snr was once a credible climate scientist, but sadly no more. This is what Jo Romm at Climate Progress concludes:
So take your pick, Pielke Snr (and Jnr) as a reliable source or Jo Romm. You can’t have both.
For mine Pielke is suss and anyone who cites him likewise.
More generally this is not a climate science blog. If you want to debate climate science do it on a science blog like BraveNewClimate. On this blog Climate Science as a subject category is a sub-category of Policy.
I see my role as a citizen journalist, if that doesn’t sound too pompous, not a climate scientist or indeed a science writer. Many of the commenters have a science background. If they want to engage it’s up to them but they have to be aware that it’s a case of, as I’ve said before, the dog hannah and her ball.
My dilemma is that readers tend to get pissed off. I could put the ‘offenders’ all in moderation and only let the comments through that say something sensible, but that’s a lot of work. Also you can’t put anyone in moderation for a particular thread, so it makes work for for the other LP bloggers.
Best I think to ignore them unless you particularly want to make a point about something that has been raised.
Brian,
The trouble with the situation is the exaggerated information spruked by some. An example might be the ratio of impact from methane compared to carbon dioxide.
Is it 20 or is it 70 like Brook’s says in some information he’s put his name too?
Exaggerated claims have the potential to do a lot of damage to the any cause.
C’mon JM,
If one person makes a claim that is out of line with the general body of thought, as is done with any statistical process, the claim is noted as an exception and you proceed with the average while the exception is investigated. That investigation is your job, as you are the one who has noticed the anomaly. Ring Brook and ask HIM. Then report back with the answer. It is entirely possible that Brook was talking about the effect of methane under a special circumstance, or perhaps, in Bush terms rather than Obama terms. I know that I am keen to hear what he has to say.
John, you see here we go again. Barry Brook has a piece here and a link among others from there to here where he graphs the problem. In simple terms he contests the appropriateness of coverting the effect of methane to CO2 equivalence over 100 years which makes it about 20 times more powerful as compared with 72 times if we consider the effect over 20 years.
We had quite a lot of discussion about it on the More methane thread (not for the first time) where I think my final comment on the subject was here @ 78.
So I’ve had to spend 15 minutes scurrying around basically because you are too lazy or haven’t been paying attention.
Then the same old, same old will probably be served up by you or someone else on another thread a few weeks later.
It gives people who do consistently follow our discussions the squirts.
‘It gives people who do consistently follow our discussions the squirts.’
It would be wrong to say that’s the whole point – the point is to sustain the meme that the science is far from settled for the benefit of the Fieldings of this world – but for many of the culprits it would certainly be a welcome bonus.
Brian, if you read again your link about RealClimate’s put down of Roger Pielke sr, you will see that they concede (in July 2009) his point that there has been no statistically significant warming of the ocean since 2003, but say that it is irrelevant because the period is “too short to obtain statistically robust trends”.
This is more or less exactly what I said in my initial post on this thread. I raised the Argo data purely to point out that the ABC scare-mongering from cherry-picked data for one month, from a less comprehensive data set, was exactly that and that extrapolating wildly from that story was hardly based on sound foundations, and explicitly noted myself the implication of the shortness of the Argo data set.
So for the sin of in effect agreeing with RealClimate – “far and away the best source for interrogating the science on this matter”, to quote another commenter – I have been told by at least three commenters that I should “fuck off”. Admittedly this is only by proven intellectual pygmies like Patrick G and David Irving (no relation) – are you sure David? You certainly act like a relation – who have consistent records of surfeits of opinion and no ability or intent to engage with any facts at odds, or even in line with, with those opinions, and I can’t claim to be devastated to my very soul by it. Nonetheless, it is hardly an advertisement for the intellectual standards of LP.
Brian, if “giving other commenters the squirts” is in itself a reason to moderate me out of existence, then I will take my lumps. I would have thought, as above, that fact-free abuse is a far greater reason to moderate than the simple act of drawing attention to a different data set clearly relevant to the discussion in question which no-one else seemed to have noticed. But I understand the peer pressure you will be under from the hive-mind to give regular hive members with hive-approved views a free pass, and pounce on the outsider.
Oh, and Ken Lovell, I’m afraid I get very tired of the constant refrain that anyone who disagrees with a even a small fraction your prevailing orthodoxy must have “no relevant scientific knowledge”. I have a PhD in a hard physical science. What are your scientific qualifications? If they are not at least the same, then why don’t you – to use what seems now to be approved nomenclature – take your insinuations and….
Well, don’t what to get to Patrick’s level, so I’ll leave the end of the sentence to your imagination.
Patrickg @ 21, there’s really no need for you to be so polite.
Wozza do you not understand what Brian meant by ‘More generally this is not a climate science blog. If you want to debate climate science do it on a science blog like BraveNewClimate. On this blog Climate Science as a subject category is a sub-category of Policy’? Or are you simply determined to argue past people who are concerned not with science but with policy?
OK, people have had a bit of a go at using language which strictly speaking does not meet the civility requirements of our comments policy. If people don’t behave I’m going to close the comments facility down – I haven’t got time at present to stuff around moderating.
Wozza people can go to Romm’s post at Climate progress and make up their own minds in reading the text around the first graph as to whether he makes a concession “that there has been no statistically significant warming of the ocean since 2003″. I didn’t read it that way and the trend in the Dominigues graph given in the post from 1950 seems clear enough.
Personally I look at the fit of this overall with the other important trends in GW and CC. I can’t be bothered arguing about the record over a year or two.
Wozza, although our host has been at pains to point out why you (and the other flat-earthers) have given everyone the shits, you seem to be incapable of understanding it.
Unlike my namesake, I have no problem at all with free speech, in fact I would welcome him into the country mainly so we could all mock him mercilessly. I also concede you have the right to say anything you want, as long as you grant me the freedom to tell you to fuck off when you’ve become annoying.
What hard science is your PhD in? no, don’t tell me, I bet it’s geology.
David, there’s been enough of telling people to f*** off for one thread thanks :)
Brian,
I think one of the other problems we have in the media is the fear that is being created about climate change and its impacts. Many believe that the same tactics apply to climate change as to the fear generated about terrorism.
Whether there are a thousand links on Google about Antarctic getting warmer doesn’t mean that it is conclusive the Antartica is getting warmer. The same applies to ice volumes in Antartica
There is plethora of information on the web and in the media that relates localised events to climate change. There is no evidence to support many of these links.
Another example includes the Wilkins ice shelf, and then this is extrapolated to the whole of Antartica. If you look behind the hype, most scientific papers indicate there is no change or an increase in the volume and area of Antarctic Ice in recent history, which is what you expect if the Artic is declining in area and volume.
The ocean heat graph I believe does nothing for either side of the argument. Why because the data before Argo and after Argo cannot be put on the same graph. The method of data collection, the amount of data, the locations and the accuracy are not comparable. The relevance of the data from the second half of the 20th century is mankinds initial ocean temperature data and limited in data sets as well.
Finally any article or statement that uses the following words: may, possible, could, do not make a scientific statement at all; they are just conjecture. Have a look at your quoted paragraphs(at the end of your article) and see how many there are.
Brian – I encourage you to turn comments off on these posts but please _don’t_ stop the posts. The putrescent drool your interesting updates consistently provoke does more harm than good to the cause I feel, and adds absolutely zero value to discussions.
If these insensate fools want to gibber, let them soil someone else’s blog. Despite the virtuous protestation, LP – and you – are better than them.
(and seriously, it’s giving me the screaming shits, and I typically don’t get that het up about blog stuff)
John Michelmore
The IPCC has said that there is a 90% certainty that global warming is underway and that it is as a result of human activity.
If you have superior information then you should take it up with them, the combined government scientific advisors to the world.
The simple fact is that we all hope that you are right, but no-one here is going to wait until the fire is at the door to find out that you are completely wrong.
John, do try to keep up.
We did Wilkins here. If anyone is concerned about volcanoes heating the ice sheet scroll down to Figure 14. The idea seems to me manifestly ridiculous and Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate has said that the maths just don’t add up.
Then look here for the Andrill project and here for a reassessment of water rise in the W Antarctic.
Then go back to this September 2008 post where I looked at how much sea level rise we are likely to get by 2100. That was the last of a series of seven posts on the topic I did last year. Scroll down to the end and find the links to the other six.
In short if you take a multi-century view you should be very afraid. The risks to civilisation are way worse than terrorism. Earlier than that, the second half of this century will be a time I’ll be very pleased to be missing if we don’t get our act into gear.
That’s 10 posts for you to read, and don’t forget the commentary, because from memory much of it was quite worthwhile.
patrickg, I think the problem has worsened in recent posts.
Sorry, Brian.
I’m afraid that the 26 years I spent in the Army was a coarsening experience.
I am a very infrequent commenter but read most of the posts at LP. Can I just say that deniers flooding climate change posts in the hope of derailing them is not unique to this blog. It doesn’t matter what the topic or how many times the denier is steered towards background reading material, s/he will always return with something else or an irrelevant point. Trying to engage meaningfully with them gives them what they want: taking comments away from the issue being discussed. Turning off comments gives them what they want: an end to discussion.
Tim Lambert at Deltoid curtails deniers’ derailing attempts by establishing a post solely for that person to comment under, and for other commenters who wish to engage them. The denier is asked not to comment under any other post except their very own. You could try starting a John Michelmore thread simply for him to make his points; others will either engage if they can be bothered, or will ignore him. But either way it ensures that the endless drivel trotted out simply to derail genuine discussion is kept away from those who are done debating those with less than honest intent.
/My two cents. :)
One could also moderate on an “asked and answered” basis. If someone asked a question that had been discussed at some length elsewhere, the questioner is invited to search the site, perhaps with a link to some sources.
If they simply reword the same question, they get modded out …
No problems David I.
Rachel, thanks for breaking your silence and Fran too for the suggestions. I’ve decided to start using the moderation bin. It’s a considerable inhibition in part because if the comment is approved it’s likely to appear some time well after it’s written and hence often upthread.
There is a negative in that the comment numbers thereafter the move on one, so references can misfire a bit.
I have a basic commitment to free speech, but the blogosphere shows where this can lead. It’s ironic that a value so much prized by libertarians ends up effectively restricting the rights of others.
Some of us of course are going to play by the accepted rules — whereas others (or newbies) could be redflagged immediately until they establish their willingness to play nicely with others.
Yes you need to do something about the graffiti artists whose aim is to make this site unreadable. If ignoring them does not work, please use some other techno moderating red flag thing. Brian and others here have valuable information to pass on, which is hard work to find. Also some discussion on it by others trying to keep up is useful, rather than just solitary blogs. As others have said its not worth engaging those denialists anymore.
News Flash. September 17th 2009. Artic Sea Ice area currently 1 million square kilometers larger than the September 2007 minimum.
Yes, John check it out here. Scroll down to the third image. 2009 is better than 2007 and 2008, but worse than 2005, which was a record at the time. So don’t break out the champagne just yet unless you want to take a short-cut with your ships.
John Michelmore@61
I’d encourage anyone interested to look at the frull page frm NSIDC.
Additionally they might liek to look at
And
Has the Arctic Ocean always had ice in summer?
As usual, John Michelmore is engaging in misdirection. Apparently this is a conscious denier tactic.
Perhaps JM might also like to read the following article, in his quest for “truth” ?
Arctic Shortcut
Should give a bit of comfort ;-)
Pterosaur @64, perhaps the biggest issue with this open passage relates to the earlier comments on sea life:
“Scientists expect ocean oxygen levels to decline by about six per cent for every one degree increase in temperature and areas in the sea which are low in oxygen to grow by at least 50 per cent. This has major implications for the world’s most productive fishing waters in the cool temperate regions. The seas provide around one sixth of humanity’s protein food…”
We are talking: coldwater fish health and wellbeing, fish reproduction, fish stocks… and ulimately fish as a food source.
It is a fat lot of good being able to sail from A to B by a shorter route, if you are simultaneously running out of long-term food supplies.
I wish that flea-brained Fielding would wrap his warped neurons around that thought for a while.
Thanks Fran and thanks all who replied to JM’s 20seceond brain-fart, a single Gish gallop, and thus you Fran, had to respond in a considered manner taking some time – I did enjoy the read and I’m sure several others did as well – JM is of course long gone in both usages of the phrase.
I didn’t know about the ‘How to defeat the Lie.pdf’ extolling denialists to lie. I have no doubt it exists, but I figured they would have kept it more secret. But then again, the methods employed by denialists are certainly to a nasty playbook we’ve seen before with asbestos, lead in fuel, CFC’s, etc etc.
Ho Hum,
I’m not denying that the climate is changing. It certainly is and always will. However the current data does not follow IPCC predictions irrespective of what continues to be forthcoming on this site.
What I have a problem with is the “faith” that CPRS and ETS will have any impact at all.
JM,
you state
“the current data does not follow IPCC predictions”.
How do you reconcile your statement with this ?
In general the current data for the climate does not follow IPCC predictions.
Yes, there is climate change and the Artic is definetly changing, However controlling the release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere on a stand alone basis will not control the world climate.
We can consider precautionary principles all we like , but the idea that the control of carbon dioxide release on a stand alone basis will control climate is foolish. There are those that will say look what was achieved in relation to chlorofluorocarbons(CFC’s). In the instance of CFC’c we are talking about a simple reaction in the upper atmosphere. To assume that climate change can be controlled by controlling carbon dioxide emmissions is not the same. Why? Because climate change is the result of a multitude of parameters (both manmade and natural), the majority of which are outside of our direct control.
The article on the artic is idicative of why CPRS and ETS will not have any meanigful impact on climate change, its not just about carbon dioxide.
Climate change is not a function of a single component of the atmosphere (like carbon dioxide). There are a multitude of impacts.
The use of temperature as a measure of climate change also has some problems in that other things like landuse change and particulate matter impact temperature at the earth’s surface. Temperature is not a direct measurement of climate change and the IPCC goal of 2C is not a goal that anyone should agree too.
John @69, would you care to review this video, about comparing the do-nothing versus take-action alternatives on climate change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
It would be interesting to see if you can make a convincing case against its final conclusion for the rest of us.
Elise, John is the New Galileo!!!!!111!11!!!, so he isn’t particularly interested in facts. He’s a persistent (but not very effective) troll.
David I is right. You are testing my patience, John.
See this comment for the importance of CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Hansen in the Iowa testimony (slide 39) tells us that the CO2 forcing during the Cenozoic Era was 100 ppm per million years or 0.0001 pa. Current forcing is 20,000 times greater. That change reduced the temperature of the planet from a ice-free state to the current whipsawing in and out of ice ages as illustrated here.
Have a look at the PETM 55 mya when a similar amount of carbon went into the atmosphere and the temp went up about 6C.
But that is the last you get from me. As I said, you are testing my patience.