Ocean Concerns

[john61ct]

The financial and social costs from

the higher rate and lower predictability of major destructive weather events

suddenly rising sea levels, huge proportions of the population needing relocating

impact of changing temps, droughts/floods and precipitation patterns on food production

will be enormous.

For the US, spending as much on these issues as we currently do on war-mongering may make it manageable, but likely the level of supporting macro economic activity will be greatly disrupted, and the "need" for military even higher.

I doubt it will be a gentle easily managed transition.

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by StuM

I said "Still getting your arguments from SkepticalScience I see"

Most of the participants here have been around long enough to have seen my repeated debunking of your SS quotes on previous GW threads. I really can't be bothered with doing it all again.

Ding Ding ding...
You won't talk a MMGWC out of their belief system by presenting facts, when facts are irrelevant to their belief system. Understanding that is the key in learning how to deal with the MMGWCers. You deal with them like you would a religious jihadist, since in all honesty that's their mindset and thought and action approach. You can see it in their anger, hate, and rage at those who have not been baptized in the faith and accept the sacraments of the movement.

[fahtcha]

Thanks you Pagu Club, Conachair, and a few others for posting thoughtful and informed replies. Many of the other replies doubting the science behind climate change and criticizing the scientists are purely political science. Climate change is an oddly political subject and reminds me of evolution. I use to hear the "my relative are not apes" argument all the time regarding evolution, when I lived in Texas.

As an aside, I once spoke at a Society of Petroleum Engineers conference and was asked what I thought about climate change. Being the only person in attendance from a certain U.S. environmental agency, I gave a non-political answer discussing what various climate scientist I have talked to had said. The industry people stopped me and said "no, we all understand that humans have greatly influenced rising global temperatures. What we were wondering about is what the EPA is going to do about it." And this was from oil and gas industry engineers. Imagine that.

Note, I am a water scientist not a climate scientist.

[SailOar]

The Most Powerful Evidence Climate Scientists Have of Global Warming | Inside Climate News

The rate at which the oceans are heating up has nearly doubled since 1992, and that heat is reaching ever deeper waters, according to a recent study. At the same time, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have been rising.



Ocean temperatures have been rising about 0.12 degrees Celsius per decade on average over the past 50 years. The higher temperatures are driving marine life toward the poles in search of livable habitats, bleaching coral reefs, and causing severe impacts on fisheries and aquacultures. They also contribute to more frequent and intense extreme weather events.

[john61ct]

So funny how the right wing crackpots say exactly those things about evidence-based rational people, that are most true about their own conspiracy theories.

Like trying to change the meaning of "fake news" so it can't be used for their truly false propoganda any more. . .

Well, maybe funny isn't the right word.

[SV THIRD DAY]

Originally Posted by SailOar

The Most Powerful Evidence Climate Scientists Have of Global Warming | Inside Climate News
]

Of course assuming that the measured warming is caused by Man's CO2 emissions is the debate. So showing warming and then making the jump that it's due to man's CO2 is part of the "evidence" problem, because it's not evidence at all. But the MMGWCists can't see the difference and falsely equate cause and effect.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by fahtcha

Thanks you Pagu Club, Conachair, and a few others for posting thoughtful and informed replies. Many of the other replies doubting the science behind climate change and criticizing the scientists are purely political science. Climate change is an oddly political subject and reminds me of evolution. I use to hear the "my relative are not apes" argument all the time regarding evolution, when I lived in Texas.

Here it is again, but even more explicit. Only replies which agree with someone's opinion are deemed "thoughtful and informed," and presumably science-based. But opinions of doubters (a/k/a skeptics, "deniers," or perhaps even some who merely question) are not grounded in science but obviously political. Or maybe worse, they're ignorant and the product of religious extremism, you know the kind that everyone from Texas is afflicted with. Well, I think you managed to cover many of the more popular stereotypes & bogeymen, even though many of these same citizens you deride paid your govt salary.

As an aside, I once spoke at a Society of Petroleum Engineers conference and was asked what I thought about climate change. Being the only person in attendance from a certain U.S. environmental agency, I gave a non-political answer discussing what various climate scientist I have talked to had said. The industry people stopped me and said "no, we all understand that humans have greatly influenced rising global temperatures. What we were wondering about is what the EPA is going to do about it." And this was from oil and gas industry engineers. Imagine that.

What makes you think petroleum engineers aren't inundated with the same sorts of mainstream media reporting as anyone else? Do you believe none of them watch the nightly news? Or do you think petroleum engineers have some special insight into climate science?

Note, I am a water scientist not a climate scientist.

And given your bias & contempt for your fellow citizens, hopefully you no longer work for the federal govt. Most employees I know have quite a bit more respect for their employers.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by john61ct

So funny how the right wing crackpots say exactly those things about evidence-based rational people, that are most true about their own conspiracy theories.

Like trying to change the meaning of "fake news" so it can't be used for their truly false propoganda any more. . .

Well, maybe funny isn't the right word.

And again . . . those with more conservative views are "crackpots," but those who agree with the CC mantra are "evidence-based rational people." Maybe Third Day is right and the modeling really is falling apart. Why else would there be this inclination towards deriding people who don't hold the same opinions? Third Day, after all, lives on a boat and probably has a smaller "carbon footprint" than most of his critics.

[Snowpetrel]

Anybody have any good info on the rate of change (ROC) of CO2, Methane, and temperatures over the last 100 years, compared to say the last 800000 years. To me this is an important part, but maybe the historic climate data is not accurate enough to give reliable info. It certainly seems from the graphs like the ROC of CO2 is higher than at any time in this period, but the graphs I have seen do not have the detail to tell for sure. NOAA says it is rising far faster (x100), but more info would be interesting.

Before the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, global average CO2 was about 280 ppm. During the last 800,000 years, CO2 fluctuated between about 180 ppm during ice ages and 280 ppm during interglacial warm periods. Today’s rate of increase is more than 100 times faster than the increase that occurred when the last ice age ended.

https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/news/2013/CO2400.html

I'd also like to hear more about the lag times with ocean warming. This article suggests 25-50 years or so behind co2, in which case we are only starting to see the effects from the big increases around the 1950-1990's in ocean warming now.

Ocean surface warming lags behind global atmospheric CO2 levels by around 25 to 50 years, over which time about 60% of global warming will take place (Hansen et al. 2004).

https://news.grida.no/climate-change...-grandchildren

[Exile]

Originally Posted by SailOar

The Most Powerful Evidence Climate Scientists Have of Global Warming | Inside Climate News

Click on "Inside Climate News" and you immediately see a scary looking chart of the Atlantic Ocean with a lot of red, orange & yellow denoting ocean temps above 78º. The caption says such temps "are sufficiently warm to fuel hurricanes." OK, most already know that much.

Then we read that "more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions has been absorbed into the oceans that cover two-thirds of the planet's surface. Their temperature is rising, too, and it tells a story of how humans are changing the planet."

Except isn't 90% of most excess heat -- whether derived from greenhouse gas emissions or non-human natural forces -- absorbed into the oceans? And wouldn't all of that "trapped heat" eventually increase ocean temperatures?

So why aren't we reading anything about what amount of that heat is estimated to be derived from the increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere? Could it be that the study Inside Climate Change relies on is less of a new scientific study than a reformulation of existing data? Here's a link to the study's abstract, and I've quoted the first 3 sentences which are telling:

Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) drives the ongoing global warming and can best be assessed across the historical record (that is, since 1960) from ocean heat content (OHC) changes. An accurate assessment of OHC is a challenge, mainly because of insufficient and irregular data coverage. We provide updated OHC estimates with the goal of minimizing associated sampling error.

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/3/e1601545

I can't help wondering how much of these "objective" sources one has to question to become labeled a crackpot, ignorant, religious extremist, or worse.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Anybody have any good info on the rate of change (ROC) of CO2, Methane, and temperatures over the last 100 years, compared to say the last 800000 years.

Short answer - no.

No one has good info on the rate of change of those parameters over the last 800,000 years of sufficient resolution to make meaningful comparisons to the last 100 years.

As an example, look at the error bands in the proxy based temperature reconstruction for just the last 1500 years from NOAA:




And the further back you go, the poorer the time resolution of proxies and the greater the uncertainty. Go back more than 20,000 years and you will be lucky to get more than centennial level resolution, so you won't get a ROC over a 100 year period - all you will get is a single data point per century. (Just imagine averaging the last Century's temperatures and using that as a single point for the 20th Century).

As an example - Which lines below are the ROC for the 6th,7th and 8th Centuries? All we know is that they lie somewhere between and Red and Green lines.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Exile

...So why aren't we reading anything about what amount of that heat is estimated to be derived from the increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere?...

You might find an answer to your question in the recently-released National Climate Assessment, which I referenced in this post.

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by SailOar

You might find an answer to your question in the recently-released National Climate Assessment, which I referenced in this post.

A couple more articles that might be useful.

How Long Can Oceans Continue To Absorb Earth’s Excess Heat? | YaleEnvironment360

....The ocean has been heating at a rate of around 0.5 to 1 watt of energy per square meter over the past decade, amassing more than 2 X 1023 joules of energy — the equivalent of roughly five Hiroshima bombs exploding every second — since 1990. Vast and slow to change temperature, the oceans have a huge capacity to sequester heat, especially the deep ocean, which is playing an increasingly large uptake and storage role.

That is a major reason the planet’s surface temperatures have risen less than expected in the past dozen or so years, given the large greenhouse gas hike during the same period, said Kevin Trenberth, senior scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The phenomenon, which some call the “hiatus,” has challenged scientists to explain its cause. But new studies indicate that the forces behind the supposed hiatus are natural — and temporary — ocean processes that may already be changing course.

Pacific trade winds, for instance, which have been unusually strong for the past two decades thanks to a 20- to 30-year cycle called the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, have been pumping atmospheric heat down into the western Pacific. The winds are powered up by the cycle’s current negative, or cool, phase. But scientists say that when the cycle eventually swings back to its positive, warm phase, which history suggests could occur within a decade, the winds will wind down, the pumping will let up, and buried heat will rise back into the atmosphere.

“There’s a hint this might already be starting to happen,” said Matthew England, an ocean sciences professor at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Without the winds’ cooling action, atmospheric temperatures could surge as they did in the 1980s and 1990s, the last time the oscillation was positive. During the next positive phase, “it’s very much likely that [warming] will be as fast or even faster,” he said, “because those greenhouse gases are now more elevated.”

Scientists are also learning that the ocean has gained more heat, and at greater depth, than they had realized. That means the entire climate is even more out-of-whack than is evident today.

“If you want to measure the energy imbalance of the earth, the ocean temperature gives you nearly the whole story,” said Dean Roemmich, oceanography professor at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The long-term heat gain in the top 700 meters (.43 miles) of the world’s oceans has likely been underestimated by as much as half, according to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory research scientist Paul Durack. Earlier measurements had lowballed heat accumulation due to historically sparse observations for large parts of the ocean. The figures were especially low for the Southern Hemisphere, which contains about 60 percent of the planet’s oceans but was very poorly sampled — until Argo, an array of around 3,500 floating sensors, was deployed worldwide in 2005. ...

How do we know more CO2 is causing warming? | Skeptical Science

Figure 4: Global average radiative forcing in 2005 (best estimates and 5 to 95% uncertainty ranges) with respect to 1750 (IPCC AR4).

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Snowpetrel

Anybody have any good info on the rate of change (ROC) of CO2, Methane, and temperatures over the last 100 years, compared to say the last 800000 years. To me this is an important part, but maybe the historic climate data is not accurate enough to give reliable info. It certainly seems from the graphs like the ROC of CO2 is higher than at any time in this period, but the graphs I have seen do not have the detail to tell for sure. NOAA says it is rising far faster (x100), but more info would be interesting. ...

This may be a partial answer to your question.

Atmospheric methane | Wikipedia


.
.

Methane concentrations up to October 2017: A monthly peak of 1879.87 ppb was reached in November 2016

[SailOar]

Originally Posted by Exile

...But since you & like-minded others seem to feel you have a monopoly on "objective truth," how do "your" sources explain, for example, the discrepancy over the satellite temp data?...

Satellite measurements of warming in the troposphere [for people much smarter than me] | Skeptical Science

Satellite measurements of warming in the troposphere [For Dummies -- that would be me ] | Skeptical Science

John Christy and Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama published a series of papers starting about 1990 that implied the troposphere was warming at a much slower rate than the surface temperature record and climate models indicated Spencer and Christy (1992). One early version of their data even showed a cooling trend (Christy et al. 1995).

Several groups of scientists began looking closely at this discrepancy. With so many other pieces of evidence indicating warming, it seemed unlikely that the troposphere would not be warming. Errors were discovered in the methods the UAH group used to adjust the data.

To understand what was wrong: The satellites must pass over the same spot on Earth at the same time each day to get a temperature average. In reality the time the satellite passes drifts slightly as the orbit slowly decays. To compensate for this and other orbital changes a series of adjustments must be applied to the data.

[click on above link to read rest of article]