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Puzzle me this? Oceans COOLING?

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by TimBikes, Sep 7, 2006.

  1. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    in the aftermath of the tornado that destroyed a bit of London recently, it was mentioned that they were in the midst of the warmest autumn in 349 years. probably just a natural change of things, but without fossil fuel burning, would it have only been a bad storm in a modest autumn instead??
     
  2. MegansPrius

    MegansPrius GoogleMeister, AKA bongokitty

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    Perhaps yet another source for the ocean temperature speed bump:

    Arctic Ice Melting Faster Than Expected
    By ANDREW C. REVKIN
    Published: December 11, 2006
    New studies project that the Arctic Ocean could be mostly open water in summer by 2040 — several decades earlier than previously expected — partly as a result of global warming caused by emissions of greenhouse gases.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/science/...artner=homepage
     
  3. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Dec 11 2006, 01:23 PM) [snapback]360574[/snapback]</div>
    Boy I can just see the profiteirs eyes lighting up with the possibilities.. :(
     
  4. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Dec 11 2006, 02:23 PM) [snapback]360574[/snapback]</div>
    Just think about it though. This was Europe's dream scenario.... an ice free NW passage. No more sailing around Cape Horn... finally after 500 years we'll have a better way of sailing into the Pacific. :lol:
     
  5. MegansPrius

    MegansPrius GoogleMeister, AKA bongokitty

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    An update regarding the scientific paper that started this thread. The original researchers have discoverd an error in the data:

    A lot has been made of a paper (Lyman et al, 2006) that appeared last year that claimed that the oceans had, contrary to expectation, cooled over the period 2003-2005. At the time, we (correctly) pointed out that this result was going to be hard to reconcile with continued increases in sea level rise (driven in large part by thermal expansion effects), and that there may still be issues with way that the new ARGO floats were being incorporated into the ocean measurement network. Now it seems as if there is a problem in the data and in the latest analysis, the cooling has disappeared.
    http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...an-cooling-not/
     
  6. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Apr 19 2007, 05:56 AM) [snapback]425936[/snapback]</div>
    It appears that the warming trend has disappeared as well. So we shall have to wait until the data improves and the time span is more adequate to get a true sense of what is going on.

    One other point - this highlights the complexity of this sort of data collection and the land based instrumentation is probably even worse due to urban heat islands, incompatibility of measurement techniques and procedures, a paucity of terrestrial data collection stations in the early record, a decline in terrestrial data stations upon the break-up of the USSR, etc. So when I hear that the "average" surface temperature has increased by 0.6 C for the century I don't necessarily doubt the direction, but I have to wonder about the precision.
     
  7. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Apr 19 2007, 11:19 PM) [snapback]426571[/snapback]</div>
    Tim, that makes the situation worse, not better. Large error bars increase our risk because our ability to make sound decisions is impaired. This may take the wind out of the sails of the denialist and doomsday crowds but it doesn't help us much. I suppose we know we need more/better data, but that's not much of a consolation.
     
  8. TimBikes

    TimBikes New Member

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Apr 20 2007, 09:07 AM) [snapback]426770[/snapback]</div>
    I don't disagree - the "warming" crowd wants to do everything possible right now regardless of cost while the "denialists" want to do nothing. The prudent course - IMHO - is somewhere in between.
     
  9. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TimBikes @ Apr 21 2007, 10:52 PM) [snapback]427655[/snapback]</div>
    It always is... balance is generally the key to everything in life.
     
  10. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Apr 22 2007, 10:38 AM) [snapback]427837[/snapback]</div>
    Albeit there are and have been huge swings in either direction before that "balance" is reached, then the swings start again. Balance is temporary and change is constant. :)
     
  11. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(F8L @ Apr 22 2007, 11:40 AM) [snapback]427838[/snapback]</div>
    Only for the clumsy/ignorant. ;)
     
  12. Devil's Advocate

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MegansPrius @ Apr 19 2007, 05:56 AM) [snapback]425936[/snapback]</div>
    Amazing!
    Usually GW supporters state that we have all the evidence we need to conclusively prove and predict that man is the overwhelming cause of GW. But when a report comes out that casts doubt on that position the GW supporters say that the sampling is too small or not yet sufficient or needs to stand the test of further scrutiny. Scrutiny which they are unwilling to be subjected to, eventhough the GW supporters are most likely using the SAME set of readings to substantiate their position!



    So what if GW is real?????

    Facts:
    The Earth has been warmer in the past, about 11 degrees C in fact;
    Animals went extinct before man arrived, uhh Dinosaurs;
    The topography of the Earth has changed drastically over time, Pangea anyone;

    Usually Liberals/Progreesives are the ones screaming for change and yet
    in regards to the environement they seem to want to enforce some type of
    ___ control over it so that it is not allowed to change.

    Has anyone thought what mught happen if humans actually succeed in stopping GW?
    GW is a natural cycle, we could in fact cause a much worse catastrophy!
     
  13. MegansPrius

    MegansPrius GoogleMeister, AKA bongokitty

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Apr 24 2007, 02:19 PM) [snapback]429171[/snapback]</div>
    If you bothered to read, rather than ranting your own faith-based position, you woud have seen that neither the original nor the revised Lyman paper states that man is not the cause the of global warming.

    You are commiting the usual hyperbole of global warming deniers, wherein any increase in the accuracy of tools to measure the global climate is ponderously conflated into evidence that man is not the chief cause of global warming. Your unlearned misunderstanding in no way alters the scientific consensus that man is altering the climate.
     
  14. tripp

    tripp Which it's a 'ybrid, ain't it?

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Devil's Advocate @ Apr 24 2007, 01:19 PM) [snapback]429171[/snapback]</div>
    No one's disputing that. However, there weren't 6-9 billion humans on the planet then either. Furthermore, the rate of change is considerably faster than anything that we've seen over the last 600K yrs. This is about risk management. We rely heavily on many aspects of the current climate regime. Screwing with it increases the risks to the global and regional economies.
     
  15. F8L

    F8L Protecting Habitat & AG Lands

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    <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(tripp @ Apr 24 2007, 12:51 PM) [snapback]429212[/snapback]</div>

    Nor do they mention the speed at which climate change is occuring. Fragile infrastructures such as ours were not in place back then.