Oh dear - more things that can affect the climate

Kent sinking is presumably currently balanced by the rise of northern Britain but the way I see it if any area land above sea level sinks into the sea without a balancing rise of dry land elsewhere it will drive up sea level instead. Be that as it may I am not actually sure whether it is feasable to get a situation where land loses altitude on a massive scale without there being a corresponding rise somewhere else.

I am 535 feet above mean sea level and on the rising side of the tilt line but my sister lives a mere 60 feet above sea level and on the sinking side. Her house is not directly threatened but the locality would be effectively destroyed if the sea defences were overwhelmed on a permanent basis. The great flood of 1953 was bad enough and that was only up to 5.6m above mean sea level or perhaps 1.5m above normal spring tides.

That would be *erroneous* assumption number one. The atmosphere being somewhat more complex in structure than a sphere of gas doesn't actually behave in that way. Small little things interfere with it, like atmospheric boundaries, clouds, ice crystals, etc and they are just a few of the ones we know about.

Did you not read the papers published a while ago about greening of the deserts? There is plenty of evidence that there is an increase in vegetative mass as temperatures rise and a decrease as they fall. Pretty mush as you would expect.

There is about a thousand year delay in warming of the oceans, any warming caused by man wont have got there yet.

A runaway feed back loop? We are doomed, I wonder why it hasn't happened before?

Methane is broken down by UV to become CO2 and water, it doesn't last long on a climate scale.

That is the first time you have come up with a real risk. We had better mine it and burn it in case there is some natural warming to release it.

Well if they did we would already have run away and be passed talking about the problem.

But all the data still shows temp leading CO2 surly if its as quick as you claim the CO2 would be leading by now. How do you account for the lull in warming we are experiencing now that the rise in temps caused by the clean air acts has filtered through the system. You do know that all the coal ash, and SO2 were affecting the temperature before it was cleaned up starting about 40 years ago.

But why would it drop if the CO2 is still rising? Climate scientists have ruled out anything other than CO2 making the temperature rise so there is no reason for it to fall, ever!

Climate scientists say they are insignificant, to the extent they don't put them into the models.

It has nothing to do with what you say. You will never be able to accurately predict earthquakes because you can't know the starting conditions well enough to model it. At best you can guess that if there are lots of minor tremors there might be a bigger one, but then again there might not.

Climate is not quite as bad but you don't appear to understand that the whole of GW is based on models that also don't have good data.

The weather is another well known case.. you can't know all the starting conditions so you can't model it well. You get around this by guessing at the starting conditions and run the model lots of times with different starting data and see if the predictions converge or diverge. If they converge you can be fairly certain the prediction is OK.

Climate scientist wont say if they have done this or if the results converge of diverge and you have to wonder why.

So you want to shout down other people that disagree with you even though you think your science is unreliable. As I said before you are irrational.

Have you looked at the famous hockey stick graph used to "prove" GW?

Any you choose to provide an answer.

Did they say how much of the rise was due to the new volcanic islands that have formed? How about the fault slip that caused the Japan tsunami or the previous big one. They all should cause a sea level rise, its not just melt water that does these things.

There seems to be this thing about quoting figures without saying why it happened since climate change became the big thing. Prior to that people would state a figure and why, now they just appear to like people to think its all due to climate change.

Its like freak weather events, its all since records began with no reference to the records only being for ~30 years and letting people think its never happened before.

So what 'science' is this based upon? I note that yet again you question accepted science without offering any proof to the contrary.

Score: -1

The features you describe are all localised, whereas the mechanisms I described are the result of global averages. Just as you choose to obfuscate issues of long-term trend by obsessing on short-term variability, you choose to obfuscate global averages by obsessing on localised variability. Both these ploys are well-known tactics of denialism.

Score: -3

I note that yet again there is no link to support this claim.

Score: -4

Although the title of this is "Temperature and CO2 feedback 'weaker than thought'", it still makes clear that both the terrestrial and the oceanic feedback reduction in CO2 with warming exist.

I never claimed that it had. I was merely explaining the feedback mechanism, and even specifically mentioned that the oceans were the slowest thing in the feedback loop to respond.

Score: -5

Read what I said aga>

See also the link above.

If you need a runaway feedback loop to convince you of the mechanism's existence, you should be asking questions about Venus, where a runaway greenhouse effect has resulted a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead, no water existing on the surface, and a planet permanently shrouded in clouds formed from the evaporated water.

The operaton of the feedback loop is always limited by various physical constraints, in particular the amount of solar radiation reaching the planet. A runaway feedback loop has happened on Venus but not on Earth because Venus, being closer to the sun, receives sufficiently more solar radiation than does Earth.

All of methane, CO2, and water vapour are greenhouse gases, so my point still stands, whereas yours is, well, where exactly? Score: -6

I believe such possibilities are actually being investigated, but it's unlikely we would be able to do find and capture all of it, perhaps not even a sufficiently significant part of it.

As explained above, the process is not going to run away like it already has on Venus.

What data? Yet again you give no link.

Score: -7

As above, I never made any numerical claims about the speed of action of the cycle, merely about the relative speeds of parts of it. If you want numbers beyond those I've published for the Vostok data, you'd probably do better to take your questions to a climate scientist, preferably showing a rather more polite preparedness to hear, understand, and accept any ensuing explanation, than sometimes you have shown here.

Or you could analyse the Vostok data for yourself. There is enough information there to give you at least some ball-park figures to think about.

CO2 in the atmosphere raises temperature fairly quickly, which is why there is a nice correlation between the two in BEST's results. However the rest of the feedback mechanism is slower, the terrestrial part of it at least is prone to high short-term and localised variability, and we haven't been studying it very long, so our understanding of it is not yet complete. All these, taken together, probably go some way to explaining why modelling of the future is still relatively unreliable. We can deduce that this slowness gives us some time, but we do not know how much time, nor how much future change we've already caused (or perhaps just brought significantly forward in time) through our actions up 'til now.

Perfectly natural short-term variability. Again you are using the well-known denialist ploy of conflating short and long term.

Score: -8

Of course I do. Currently it's often referred to as Global Dimming.

You should not assume that these things are as news to everyone else as they seem to be to you now that you are being made to do some actual research on this issue.

Because Earth's orbit left the period of highest solar radiation in the Milankovitch cycle.

Score: -9

Nonsense! Where is your link to support this absurd claim?

Score: -10

Again, where is your link in support of this claim?

Score: -11

My own findings are that Milankovitch cycles are probably contributing about 1/8th of the current warming. Personally, I would want to put that in a model, but if it is omitted, the model is still going to

Please ignore ...

On Sat, 31 Aug 2013 17:04:12 +0100, Java Jive wrote: [incomplete post sent in error by some obscure keystroke combination]

So what 'science' is this based upon? I note that yet again you question accepted science without offering any proof to the contrary.

Score: -1

The features you describe are all localised, whereas the mechanisms I described are the result of global averages. Just as you choose to obfuscate issues of long-term trend by obsessing on short-term variability, you choose to obfuscate global averages by obsessing on localised variability. Both these ploys are well-known tactics of denialism.

Score: -3

I note that yet again there is no link to support this claim.

Score: -4

Although the title of this is "Temperature and CO2 feedback 'weaker than thought'", it still makes clear that both the terrestrial and the oceanic feedback reduction in CO2 with warming exist.

I never claimed that it had. I was merely explaining the feedback mechanism, and even specifically mentioned that the oceans were the slowest thing in the feedback loop to respond.

Score: -5

Read what I said aga>

See also the link above.

If you need a runaway feedback loop to convince you of the mechanism's existence, you should be asking questions about Venus, where a runaway greenhouse effect has resulted a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead, no water existing on the surface, and a planet permanently shrouded in clouds formed from the evaporated water.

The operaton of the feedback loop is always limited by various physical constraints, in particular the amount of solar radiation reaching the planet. A runaway feedback loop has happened on Venus but not on Earth because Venus, being closer to the sun, receives sufficiently more solar radiation than does Earth.

All of methane, CO2, and water vapour are greenhouse gases, so my point still stands, whereas yours is, well, where exactly? Score: -6

I believe such possibilities are actually being investigated, but it's unlikely we would be able to do find and capture all of it, perhaps not even a sufficiently significant part of it.

As explained above, the process is not going to run away like it already has on Venus.

What data? Yet again you give no link.

Score: -7

As above, I never made any numerical claims about the speed of action of the cycle, merely about the relative speeds of parts of it. If you want numbers beyond those I've published for the Vostok data, you'd probably do better to take your questions to a climate scientist, preferably showing a rather more polite preparedness to hear, understand, and accept any ensuing explanation, than sometimes you have shown here.

Or you could analyse the Vostok data for yourself. There is enough information there to give you at least some ball-park figures to think about.

CO2 in the atmosphere raises temperature fairly quickly, which is why there is a nice correlation between the two in BEST's results. However the rest of the feedback mechanism is slower, the terrestrial part of it at least is prone to high short-term and localised variability, and we haven't been studying it very long, so our understanding of it is not yet complete. All these, taken together, probably go some way to explaining why modelling of the future is still relatively unreliable. We can deduce that this slowness gives us some time, but we do not know how much time, nor how much future change we've already caused (or perhaps just brought significantly forward in time) through our actions up 'til now.

Perfectly natural short-term variability. Again you are using the well-known denialist ploy of conflating short and long term.

Score: -8

Of course I do. Currently it's often referred to as Global Dimming.

You should not assume that these things are as news to everyone else as they seem to be to you now that you are being made to do some actual research on this issue.

Because Earth's orbit left the period of highest solar radiation in the Milankovitch cycle.

Score: -9

Nonsense! Where is your link to support this absurd claim?

Score: -10

Again, where is your link in support of this claim?

Score: -11

My own findings are that Milankovitch cycles are probably contributing about 1/8th of the current warming. Personally, I would want to put that in a model, but if it is omitted, the model is still going to

And then you go on to repeat what I say in different words!

Score: -12

Climate science has some very good data, but the predictions are poor mainly because it is very hard to predict natural systems, but also because the small long-term trends being modelled are masked by large short-term variability.

Yes.

Again you make this claim without giving any links, and the rest of us have to wonder why.

Score: -13

Non sequitur

Score: -14

Just how long does it have to be not to be short term? Do the impending doom predictions that sea levels will rise in 20 years time count as short term variability or is only things you don't like?

Childish score not being kept.

And as you like to keep score |I will ignore the rest to deny your childish efforts.

Have tried, but the posts keep coming :/

I think it is safe to assume that any rearrangement of the topography that stays under water will not have a significant effect on average sea level. To the extent that new islands rise above sea level or colliding plates elevate mountain ranges that would reduce sea level not raise it. OTOH that is probably balanced by the constant flow of river silt into the oceans and even if it isn't ISTM that such activities would have a negligible effect on average sea level given the immensity of the oceans.

Both the increase in volume due to warming and the addition of melt water from land based ice sheets is quantifiable so I presume someone somewhere has taken the trouble to work out how closely the rising sea level tallies with those 2 parameters.

Well that is obviously untrue. If a subduction zone rises you have no idea where or if some other part of the crust will fall.

The rise is pretty insignificant anyway so such events would contribute and may well be measurable.

That would be difficult since they wont have a very good profile of temperatures throughout the oceans so expansion due to temp rises will be difficult to calculate. In general they only quote sea surface temps as they are somewhat easier to measure.

Well there you are wrong again, there is frequently things like "some town experienced the worst heat wave since records began" when that town has only kept records for a few decades. Occasional they will say since records began in 1963 or similar.

So the climate change predictions are at the long term end then. Where the models are least accurate and humans are even less accurate.

My apologies if this response looks a bit odd. I accidentally wrote it as an e-mail reply rather than as a follow-up so cut and pasted the whole into the replacement message to save the effort of rewriting everything.

On 01/09/2013 11:02, dennis@home wrote: >>>>> Does anyone think they can measure sea level to any kind of accuracy >>>>> less than >>>>> say 100mm? >>>>> >>>> NASA does. >>>> >>> Did they say how much of the rise was due to the new volcanic islands >>> that have formed? >>> How about the fault slip that caused the Japan tsunami or the previous >>> big one. >>> They all should cause a sea level rise, its not just melt water that >>> does these things. >> >> I think it is safe to assume that any rearrangement of the topography >> that stays under water will not have a significant effect on average sea >> level. > > Well that is obviously untrue. > If a subduction zone rises you have no idea where or if some other part > of the crust will fall.

If a subduction zone rises you can rest assured than some other part of the crust has a corresponding fall. If that were not the case than enormous voids would be created and The Other Mike's sinking land mass would actually have somewhere to go.

We know what the rise is so would you like to hazard a guess of the volume of silt raising sea level and the volume of above sea level volcanic output lowering sea level and how the net amount compares to the volume of water needed to raise sea level even by one mm?

You are clutching at straws. There may be more weather stations now than there were in the distant past but England in particular has had numerous stations for the best part of 100 years and the Central England temperature record goes back to the mid 17th century. Very few official stations were established as late as 1963.

Well UK rain records began in 1910. Would you care to say when the temperature records for Brighton, reading, Wolverhampton started? When did they start recording freak weather events and rain fall in south Wales?

Did they?

No idea. The Met Office claim "around 200 UK synoptic stations" but I can only find a list of 37 two of which are now closed. Of those listed only 3 opened on or after 1963.

One of the late comers was Cardiff Bute Park but there is no reason to suppose that other stations in the area do not pre date that by a considerable margin. That well known station the Air Ministry Roof doesn't rate a mention in the list.