Richard Alley Dances to Explain Ice Ages, CO2 and Global Warming

Penn State climate expert and glaciologist Richard Alley does a quirky dance to explain ice-age cycles, then shows how the natural warm and cool phases of climate help prove that more CO2 will warm the world in the long haul.

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[ColonelClegMcLeg]

Yeah, I wouldn't bother trying to use the argument from authority when I have 97% of active climatologists on my side.

Don't believe me? Google: 10.1029/2009EO030002

[ColonelClegMcLeg]

CO2 CAN lag temperature. Temperature CAN lag CO2. An increase in temperature WILL lead to an increase in atmos. CO2. An increase in atmos CO2 WILL lead to an increase in temperature. The relationship isn't one way. The glacial-interglacial cycles are initiated by orbital forcing, so it is not surprising to see CO2 lagging temperature - it's a feedback, not the cause. Currently, CO2 is not lagging temperature - it's increasing in lock-step with it.

[ColonelClegMcLeg]

3. We're burning the equivalent of 30 billion tonnes of CO2 a year. If the extra CO2 in the atmosphere is coming from the oceans, where is all this anthropogenic CO2 (equivalent to 4 ppmv a year) going?

4. What is causing the oceans to release C to the atmosphere at this time, when atmospheric concentrations should be increasing past equilibrium (given point 3)?

[ColonelClegMcLeg]

2. A simultaneous decrease in atmos. Oxygen as CO2 increases shows that the carbon being added is being oxidised. That doesn't make any sense if the extra C is being added from the oceans because the most common compound there: HCO3-, or bicarbonate, is more highly oxidised than CO2. The C being added must be more reduced than CO2, which makes perfect sense if the C in question is coming from the burning of organic matter.

Continued in next comment.

[ColonelClegMcLeg]

If you are suggesting with your allusion to the oceans that this current warming is due to a release of stored Carbon into the atmosphere, you've got four problems to overcome:

1. Isotopic fractionation of Carbon shows that the extra Carbon in the atmos. comes from fossil fuels - there is no C-14 in the extra C being added to the atmosphere. Not what you'd expect had it been added by gaseous exchange with the oceans.

Continued in next comment

[ColonelClegMcLeg]

Major changes in climate do not require geological timescales to come about. If you have studied the subject, I would expect you to know this: there are well-studied instances of past climate change that were very abrupt - the onset of the Younger Dryas comes to mind (took a couple of decades at most). The systems we're talking about - the Hydrosphere, Atmosphere and Cryosphere - don't take millions of years to respond to a change in forcing.

[F.M. Batchelor]

Really? How exactly does the Earth have any GMT? How exactly is it warmed? Is there a fission internally of which I'm unaware? And as far as simple terms. Gamma rays contribute in the production of clouds. Solar activity "blow away" Gamma rays. Therefore more solar activity less clouds, more warming, more clouds - more cooling - see the little ice age.

[F.M. Batchelor]

That's not a scientific answer. Belittling me doesn't make my criticism wrong or their theories right. Bottom line is when either side presents a chart with unlike terms on the Y it is subjective, then YOU must ask yourself Y they abandon objectivity. Plus this "field" never existed until Margaret Thatcher funded it in order to break the miners union in the UK. It was never considered serious study before millions (billions now) of dollars started showing up.

the troposphere is not warmer

[F.M. Batchelor]

Ian Clark Dept Earth Sciences U of Ottawa Dr. Roy Spencer NASA Prof John Christy Dept Atmospheric Science U of Alabama Patrick Moore Co-founder Greenpeace Then I would be honored and humbled to be considered part of the many, many people who recogniize pseudo-science when they see it.

[F.M. Batchelor]

Sort of like CO2 increasing exponentially after WWII and temp dropping for 40 years.

Thirdly the REAL inconvenient truth is that CO2 increases over the millenia lag behind warming by hundreds of years. Warming drives CO2 not vice versa. That is the actual analysis of ice core samples. Warmer oceans absorb less CO2.

Finally if by "you guys" you mean:

Richard Lindzen

Dept head Climatology MIT

Philip Scott

Dept of Biogeography

U of London

Prof Paul Reiter

Pasteur Inst.