Scientists agree ... Consensus on Global Warming
POSTED BY: Ghoulman
UPDATED: Friday, February 10, 2006 11:42
VIEWED: 22755
PAGE 18 of 21
Quote:
Some scientists believe the snow cap of Mount Kilimanjaro will be gone in two decades. Researchers say the ice fields on Africa's highest mountain shrank by 80 percent in the past century.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20031222/
Two years later:
Quote:
Kilimanjaro's trademark snowy cap, at 5,895 metres (19,340ft), is now all but gone - 15 years before scientists predicted it would melt through global warming.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1437549,00.html
And
Quote:
WASHINGTON, March 30, 2005 — A landmark study released today reveals that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth – such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests – are being degraded or used unsustainably. Scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years.
Conducted by 1,300 experts from 95 countries, the report specifically states that the ongoing degradation of ecosystem services is a road block to the Millennium Development Goals agreed to by the world leaders at the United Nations in 2000.
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES /EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/0,,contentMDK:20419328~menuPK:208943~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:226301,00.html
From which do you prefer to get your reality - a book of fiction or bona fide science?
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Oh good. Another unsubstantiated unquantifiable claim of “proof” of the end of the world. Maybe the Larsen B Ice shelf speculation got old?
Bona fide science? More like sensationalism.
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More than bonafide sensationalism, it's just plain falsehood perpetuated by a media-feeding frenzy - this from folks who claim to not follow the media-sensationalism and follow good research practices...
Those pictures of the snow field melting and receding are taken at various times at different seasons following the natural recession of the snow field due to a naturally occuring trend in the local environment and not specifically linked to any global warming trends. In fact, the local atmosphere around Killamanjaro has been following a noticeable cooling trend and the rate of recession have slowed. In March 2004, Dr. Georg Kaser and an international team of experts in tropical weather, mountain glaciers and paleoclimatologists published a report in the International Journal of Climatology.
Their finding is that the local climate changes since 1850's resulted in a reduction of available atmospheric moisture in the vicinity. Without local moisture, the glacier does not get replenished from seasonal changes from the equatorial sun.
Nasa satallite measurements of the temperature history shows decline since records began in 1979
So, they also concluded that the glacier is here to stay if the local trend holds up.
“One of the endlessly fascinating aspects of modern journalism is the absolute lack of critical insight tendered towards environmental scares,” said Pat Michaels, research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists. “A cursory inspection of (Kilimanjaro) data shows that Kilimanjaro’s glaciers would be dying even if Homo sapiens were still just hanging around the trees of the Rift Valley, a few hundred miles to the West.
“From 1953 through 1976, 21 percent of the original (ice cap) area was uncovered. This was during a period of global cooling--yes, cooling--of 0.13º F,” said Michaels. “Around Kilimanjaro, satellite data show a cooling of 0.40º F since 1979 Still, Kilimanjaro’s glaciers continued to shrink.”
Added Michaels, “Kilimanjaro turns out to be just another snow job, precipitated by a journalistic community that has lost its desire for critical factual investigation when it comes to our globe’s environment.”
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Jasonzzz gets a star.
The accepted theory of Kilimanjaro’s increased snow cap recession is more local deforestation then global warming. That of course won’t stop the Kyoto advocates from pushing images of Kilimanjaro as “proof” of eminent death by CO2 created by western nations.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Quick question. Has anyone heard about global dimming? The first time I heard the phrase was when I stumbled across this transcript from a BBC programme ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml ). I was surprised because I thought I had a decent layman's knowledge of the terms involved in the global climate change discussion but this was a new one for me. From a cursory read, global dimming means we are getting less sunlight than in decades past. I'm not quite sure where to put this but some of the anecdotes and research cited in the transcript were interesting (although the first story they lead off with - rise in temperature throughout US following grounding of airplanes after September 11, 2001 - isn't brought back up until much later in the program. It worked for me, that was the hook that got me reading the thing.).
Just wondering if anyone else had come across this term before.
And if there's any there there, maybe we shouldn't be developing more efficient means of solar power generation 
.
* hat tip to Kevin Drum for the link
** editted to add: On a more global note... I'm just curious about where people stand on the following question: Do you think we, as a species, are affecting global climate?
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Next up: Early "Nutcrusher" Jubal and the Firebuggers
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Since you didn't post a link, I went and looked up your 'data'. It ultimately comes from the greening earth society:
Quote:
The Greening Earth Society (GES) was founded on Earth Day 1998 by the Western Fuels Association to promote the view that increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 are good for humanity. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/page.cfm?pageI
D=499
Quote:
Dr. Lonnie G. Thompson, the Ohio State University glaciologist whose work first focused attention on Kilimanjaro's fading ice, said he saw ample evidence that melting was eating away at what remained.
His specialty is extracting cylinders of layered, ancient ice from tropical glaciers, and when his team drilled into one of the mountain's ice fields in 2000, water flooded out of the hole. In the resulting cores, shallow layers contained elongated bubbles — strong evidence of melting and refreezing — while deeper layers had none.
"This all suggests that what we are seeing at least in the last 20 years or so is different," Dr. Thompson said. He believes the mountain may be close to a threshold at which melting will become the dominant force eroding the ice. "The balance of evidence says something bigger is going on in the system," he said.
You didn't care to address the other study presented to the Royal Society regarding earth's resources.
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Quote:I’ve always thought of it as referring to increased aerosol in the atmosphere. The cooling effect of aerosols has been used as a source of criticism for the GCMs and their overall lack of negative feedback predictions. The presence of aerosols in the atmosphere is one of things that we have a difficult time accounting for in the models. Aerosols are a source of negative forcing in the climate; thereby they act as the complete opposite of greenhouse gases. This isn’t necessarily something new. Aerosols have been a part of the climate equations from the beginning, though the media rarely mentions them.
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
Quick question. Has anyone heard about global dimming?
. . .
** editted to add: On a more global note... I'm just curious about where people stand on the following question: Do you think we, as a species, are affecting global climate?
The global dimming phenomenon is something that has only recently been reported. I’ll admit a certain ignorance of it myself. Unlike most greenhouse gases, aerosols tend to be short lived and I was under the impression that recent policies would have diminished the concentration of sulfates in the atmosphere. So it is puzzling then that aerosols are being blamed for what seems to be a continuous reduction in solar intensity. Perhaps the concentration of sulfates has not been reduced, or sources of natural aerosols have increased. I’m not sure.
One example of how aerosols may have influenced or may be influencing the climate was presented in this thread. One of the theories is that increased concentration of aerosols in the atmosphere caused a decrease in mean solar radiation and therefore represents a negative feedback source for mean global temperature that early on eclipsed the overall positive feedback caused by greenhouse gasses. This is one of the proposed reasons for the decrease in mean global temperature in the 60s and 70s, and why the rates of mean global temperature and the mean carbon dioxide concentration measurements don’t correlate well. (You know, that “anomaly” that all the global warming advocates were trying to dismiss.) Some have suggested that the aerosols are “masking” the effect of greenhouse gasses. That’s true, but it’s always been true. The two have always played diametric rolls in the climate, probably long before the DNA of proto-humans was mixing around in dinosaur-dung eating rodents.
It’s a nice theory, but the effect of aerosols in the atmosphere is still not widely understood. There are other theories that explain the lack of correlation that have nothing to do with aerosols; solar cycles for instance. And if increasing concentrations of aerosols are to blame for a decrease in mean solar intensity then why does their effect on mean temperature seem to have been so brief? So like most of the issues of global warming, it is still quite an open debate.
As for your second question: the answer is yes, I think we are affecting global climate. For me, and I think most scientists, the question has never been are we affecting global climate, but rather to what degree.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Quote:No anomaly:
You know, that “anomaly” that all the global warming advocates were trying to dismiss.
Quote:
The following graph shows modeled natural, anthropogenic and total global warming, and compares them against actual measures. The model, which runs from about 1860 to 2000, is accurate in calculating temperatures:
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/fig12-7.htm
Re global warming and dimming, here's a piece from NASA:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/MediaAlerts/2004/20040520170
17.html
and from NOAA
http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_aero.html
Some aerosols (ammonium sulfate) can reflect light back into space while others (soot) absorb it and re-emit it as heat into the atmosphere.
Another factor is residence time, which can be as short as a few minutes to as long as a few years, depending on particle size, ability to attract water, and which atmospheric level it inhabits (among other factors).
So, to create two pictures:
The fine particulate matter material ejected into the stratosphere by Mt Pinatubo was primarily in the form of sulfur oxides, which over time became sulfates, then combined with ammonium (to form salt), which reflected light back into space. They cooled the earth for roughly two years. Though they are highly attractive to water, it took a while for them to rain out because they were in a dry atmospheric level.
The fine carbon particles (less than PM2.5) created by burning carbon-fuel have a residence in the troposphere of one week to several months. They repel water until they age, and so do not wash out well. They absorb light rather than reflect it (and are therefore black), and re-emit the energy as heat. Consequently they warm the air. They also melt the snow they settle on.
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hmmm... you can get the report published in the
International Journal of Climatology... Wasn't that difficult to locate stuff by Georg Kaser
http://www.geo.umass.edu/faculty/bradley/kaser2004.pdf
So, the report doesn't come from and isn't sponsored by GES, but it's hardly difficult to believe that GES would endorse it at least.
Still, you aren't going to give up washing, sleeping, and eating just b/c you've seen Charles Manson (or anyone else that you dislike based purely on the face of things) doing the same, are you?
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Since you didn't post a link, I went and looked up your 'data'. It ultimately comes from the greening earth society:Quote:
The Greening Earth Society (GES) was founded on Earth Day 1998 by the Western Fuels Association to promote the view that increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 are good for humanity. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/global_warming/page.cfm?pageI
D=499Quote:
Dr. Lonnie G. Thompson, the Ohio State University glaciologist whose work first focused attention on Kilimanjaro's fading ice, said he saw ample evidence that melting was eating away at what remained.
I don't think anyone is disputing that the icefields there are receding, but what is the cause? do we know? what does the data show?
Did you get a chance to read thru the paper by Dr. Thompson that you quoted out of context?
http://www.geo.umass.edu/climate/tanzania/pubs/thompson_etal_2002sci.p
df
He drilled 6 cores, 2 each in 3 different fields, in one of the drills at one particular field FWG, the evident water did gurgle out. But if had read the entire report, you would have known that this field is only a few 100 years old. In fact, the report establishes that there is a history of recession and build up due to droughts and dry climates through its history.
Quote:
Originally posted by rue:Quote:
His specialty is extracting cylinders of layered, ancient ice from tropical glaciers, and when his team drilled into one of the mountain's ice fields in 2000, water flooded out of the hole. In the resulting cores, shallow layers contained elongated bubbles — strong evidence of melting and refreezing — while deeper layers had none.
"This all suggests that what we are seeing at least in the last 20 years or so is different," Dr. Thompson said. He believes the mountain may be close to a threshold at which melting will become the dominant force eroding the ice. "The balance of evidence says something bigger is going on in the system," he said.
You didn't care to address the other study presented to the Royal Society regarding earth's resources.
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Quote:It may be accurate in predicting mean global ground temperatures. Not that this has anything to do with my point or the “anomaly.”
Originally posted by rue:
The following graph shows modeled natural, anthropogenic and total global warming, and compares them against actual measures. The model, which runs from about 1860 to 2000, is accurate in calculating temperatures:
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