Climate Change and the Ocean

[grunder20]

does it affect the ocean? i thought it only affects the farms, propagation.

[thegreeensky]

nice speech.. well said...

[werecow2003]

(cont) Under greenhouse forcing, we should also see nights warm faster than days, whereas under solar forcing, we should see the opposite. Again, our findings are consistent with CO2 forcing, not solar.

Finally, we can determine that the CO2 in the atmosphere is ours in a number of ways. The most used is isotopic analysis; fossil fuels have a distinctive C12-C13 ratio, so if we are the ones emitting the CO2, we should see the ratio shift in accordance with predictions. This has been observed.

[Plattentechniker]

@MrMZaccone About all those emails: First of all, all those emails were stolen by Russian hackers. I tend to be sceptical about so-called "evidence" that is presented by criminals. No judge in the world would ever consider them as evidence.

[Plattentechniker]

@northmeister - How stupid are you? Do you believe everything Exxon is telling you? Or are you on their payroll? In science, there is no doubt that we have a climate change and that it will have severe impacts. So stop posting such nonsense and get real.

[MrMZaccone]

@Plattentechniker What about all those emails between "scientists" about how they were having to fake and destroy data to show a warming earth?

[werecow2003]

@MrMZaccone Even Roy Spencer has come out in favor of Phil Jones when it comes to the reliability of the temperature records. He's not exactly an environmentalist.

The emails are not an argument against the science unless they're supported by hard evidence that fraud was committed, and so far, every investigation has come up empty. Bear in mind that whatever you were allowed to read was a small subset of what was actually communicated, selected by people with dubious motives.

[MrMZaccone]

@werecow2003 "not an argument against the science" It's certainly enough to warrant some skepticism skepticism of the raw data and if there is no raw data there is no "science". As for motives, I agree there is too much of that on both sides of this argument to easily get the facts.

[werecow2003]

@MrMZaccone Most of the raw data is readily available. Some of it, however, is owned by various meteorological institutes around the world, and usually sold for comercial purposes, and thus it is not up to the CRU to make it freely available.

As for motives, frankly I see many more convincing ones on the climate skeptics' side than on the side of climatologists, though some environmentalists do overstate things). This debate really only exists outside the scientific arena.

[MrMZaccone]

@werecow2003 And according to the emials in question some of it was destroyed and more falsified so what do we do about that?

[werecow2003]

@MrMZaccone Are you referring to "hide the decline"? If so, you should look up the divergence problem.

No evidence has been found in any of the numerous investigations that any data was destroyed or falsified, and if it was, then apparently it didn't do much good, as it agrees with every other data set we have, including Spencer's (he's a prominent climate skeptic, one of the few left who actually work in climate science).

[MrMZaccone]

@werecow2003 I've looked at it and fail to see the relevance, but that's what we have you for I'm sure. (I'm not being sarcastic, I'd really like to hear it as I'm legitimately on the fence about this issue.)

[rudidas89]

@MrMZaccone i think you would be interested in my video that i made on the ocean and climate change - let me know what you think! it has relevance to this presentation tooo

[werecow2003]

@rudidas89 Nice vids! Are you planning on doing more in the future?

[rudidas89]

@werecow2003 actually, don't know - it was a project for uni, to make a video out of a hypothetical series, but we only had to make one... do you think it has potential?

[werecow2003]

@rudidas89 Yes, I certainly do. I'm quite interested in climate change myself, but there aren't a lot of reliable channels out there that are addressing the issue systematically. If I had the time and know-how, I might try it myself, but unfortunately right now I have neither. }|:o/

[rudidas89]

@werecow2003 i see.. do you mean know-how of video making? well, i have a bit of feel for that area... and i've been studying climate change, but i'm assuming you may have more knowledge than me at this point, which leads me to an idea - would you want to collaborate?

[werecow2003]

@rudidas89 My comment seems to have been deleted for some reason, so either I hit a wrong button, or youtube didn't like it somehow. I'll send you a PM.

[rudidas89]

@werecow2003 ye it says "Comment removed".. weird, but i have it in my email!! i understand ur busy :) i am too - starting my MSc next year :P

[werecow2003]

@rudidas89 Maybe NorthwesternU doesn't like us discussing other videos on their channel. }|:op

What are you studying btw?

[werecow2003]

@MrMZaccone It's a well known problem in dendropaleoclimatology that tree ring proxies can be influenced by other factors besides temperature. That's what the divergence problem is; after the 60s, we see a disparity between tree ring proxies (which show a decline in "temperature") and the instrumental record. Since we know the instrumental record is more reliable, the tree rings must be wrong. It is this decline that was "hidden", but not in any nefarious sense of the word. It's well documented.

[MrMZaccone]

@werecow2003 I'm curious. How do we know that the instrumental record is more reliable. I understand that the instrumental record was in question because of the increased incidence of urban vs. rural measurement over the last century. (urban measurements are obvously going to be warmer.)

[werecow2003]

@MrMZaccone The urban heat island effect is real and well known, but it is taken into account when calculating trends. Plus, when only stations are used that are removed from urban areas, we find the same warming trend as we do for all stations combined. But more importantly, we also measure temperatures of ocean water, we use satellite measurements, and we use a number of other proxies for the reconstruction of past temps. All give a largely consistent picture of a warming world.

[werecow2003]

(cont) It's relevant because hiding data is one of the key accusations leveled at the climatology community on the basis of the phrase "hide the decline", when in fact it's never hidden from discussion.

Of course, the issue raises questions about the reliability of tree ring proxies, which is still being studied. But they're not the only type of proxies that are being used, and all give similar results; global mean temps now are higher than in at least the past 1000 years, probably longer. 

[MrMZaccone]

@werecow2003 Actually, I'm unconcerned about an accusation of hiding data. What concerns me is the admission of hiding and destroying data contained in the emails. Wouldn't that be "evidence" and contrary to your claim that there isn't any? As for temperatures being higher, that's obvous. We are after all, still coming out of an "ice age". The question isn't whether it's warmer but, "why?".

[werecow2003]

@MrMZaccone Maybe you're referring to something else in the emails than I am? Keep in mind that three different investigations found no evidence of tampering, and I'll repeat that noted climate skeptic Roy Spencer's data set agrees with that of Jones et al. Jones says some stupid things in the emails, probably written in a fit of frustration, but what matters is whether or not he actually did any of them.

[werecow2003]

(cont) on the issue of attribution: we can look at how the earth is warming, not just whether it is. If the warming is due to CO2 forcing, we would expect less infrared radiation in CO2 associated bandwidths to come out of the top of the atmosphere, while we should observe more radiation in those bandwidths reflected back towards us at surface level. This is exactly what we observe (continued)

[werecow2003]

(cont) So that's basically a direct observation of greenhouse gas effects.

Similarly, we should see the troposhere warming while the stratosphere cools, because the radiation that normally reaches the troposphere from the ground decreases, while the solar input should stay roughly the same. If the sun is responsible for warming, however, we should see both warming up. Again, what we see is consistent with greenhouse forcing. (continued)

[werecow2003]

BTW, if you'd like to read some of the original research on the attribution stuff, send me a PM, I can give you some links to papers. They're a bit technical though.

[werecow2003]

I'll add that, while some of Jones' statements are dubious, they were likely written in a fit of anger, as he was being baggered with FOIA demands at the time - ones for information that either wasn't his to release, or was already available elsewhere (suggesting that the people issuing the demands were either unfamiliar with the ins and outs of climate science, or deliberately pestering him). Unfortunately, dirty tactic are all too common in this debate.

[MrMZaccone]

@werecow2003 You're quite right. Dirty tactics are all too common in this debate. That's why I'm still a skeptic.

[werecow2003]

@chrisgojai420 Yes, but you can check for yourself. I looked up a fair portion of the organizations mentioned, and they all support the consensus as wiki says. By contrast, the large number of libertarian and conservative think tanks notwithstanding, I've yet to find a single significant scientific body that is still officially skeptical about anthropogenic climate change. It's significant for any respectable science body to make a statement like this, as they're generally very conservative.

[goog2k]

BTW, the new NASA GISS website is quite impressive.

If you wish to see it, google "Climate Change: Key Indicators"

And guess what? 11 of the last 12 years were the hottest in history since 1860.

[northmeister]

@goog2k - Guess what - that is not true, and the data has been manipulated. The last decade has been COOLING. Idiocy and nonsense - tell the big lie, tell it some more.

[JonThm]

The globe started cooling in 2005. GW was ficition from nuclear power - to whom you are a stooge!

[xryder305x]

shutup ur fat

[satel444]

If someone is to doubt for something that should be the cause not the fact. Global warming is diagnosed from temperature records. It's not assumed.