Comments on: Last March of the Global Warming Denialists

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:17:33 +0000

Jamiann, Ice shelves like Wilkins are already floating in the ocean so there is no sea level rise when they break off. It is a sign of warming — mainly of the southern Ocean currents in this case.

Buses, trains are great in Europe. Why are they so crappy in America? We have to demand better.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 04:12:34 +0000

Hughvic, happy to help. Nothing really disappears. CO2 and other global warming gases are eventually absorbed by oceans and plants but it takes a long time — thousands of years in some cases. The problem is the volume of fossil fuel emissions rapid and huge — enough to increase CO2 concentrations 120 ppm — 45 per cent higher than in the past million years.

By: Jamiann

Jamiann — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:10:55 +0000

Correction: That was 7 times the size of Manhattan!

By: Jamiann

Jamiann — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:10:06 +0000

The collapse of a portion of the wilkins ice shelf earlier in March……..can this collapse in size affect the depth of sea, climate changes, etc or does the whole entire wilkins shelf have to collapse to do so? Scientists say what happened this month has no immediate effect on the elements. Is that true? One would think a chunk of ice three times the size of Manhattan might have immediate effects on something? I know nothing about all of this, other than the fact I gave up my Ford Expedition to take the bus to see clients and let me tell you, I sure hope my great-great grandchildren appreciate my contribution to save their quality of life. BECAUSE the BUS is no fun!

By: hughvic

hughvic — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 01:24:05 +0000

I very much appreciate your responsiveness in teaching me about the science, Stephen, as my bailiwick is social science and consequently I come at this from the far side of the Quad. Why do the gases not dissipate enough not to cause radical disruption or volatility? It seems as though they would have to be concentrated to have such effects. How in Sam Hill could that happen?

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:11:46 +0000

Carbon traps additional heat energy from the sun – all that extra energy in a complex system results in volatility.

The proper term is climate change not global warming for that reason. Warming is just one of the results of CC

By: hughvic

hughvic — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:18:28 +0000

How do the carbon emissions cause such extreme climatic volatility, and why does the volatility come to be called “warming”, when it seems so chaotic across the board?

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:22:06 +0000

nothing magical about carbon emissions trapping extra heat from the sun… just plain physics at work.

AGW is serious and dangerous as virtually all scientists will agree. If you are sick you and ask enough doctors you will find one or two that will say nothing is wrong but does that make it so?

By: hughvic

hughvic — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:38:04 +0000

depends on how much smoke, and in what context. If you’re in a roadhouse here in Georgia and you yell “FIRE” upon seeing smoke trailing from Joe Bill’s cigarette, prepare to get stomped. If we meet up with my friend Lars in Reykjavik—I for the fishing and you for the core samples—and Lars tells us that the sea there has risen, and I attribute the rise to the curse of a witch in Nova Scotia notorious for her hatred of Iceland, and you attribute the rise to the oil-guzzling Chinese and Indians, we’d each better make our respective stories stick, ’cause Lars is a Show-Me kinda fellow.

AGW could be as serious as a heart attack and as demonstrable as the stripes on a zebra, but that wouldn’t change the phenomenological fact that there has been one helluva lot of tall talk, brow-beating (“Ostrich Brigades”, indeed), fear-mongering, career opportunism, profiteering, wildcat forecasting and just downright ANTI-scholarly misbehavior that has invited in the general public a Pagan festival of magical thinking.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:05:12 +0000

hughvic – predicting local weather is difficult. However predicting it will be cold in Jan in most of Canada is easy. Climate projections (not predictions) are global or regional scales where each tiny variable – like my opening my front door – has less influence.

Don’t forget that CC is already here with measurable rise in global temps, sea level etc

If you see smoke, should you not yell “FIRE”?