For nine years, 1989 to 1998, I lived in sight of the Altamont Pass wind farms in California near Livermore. Often none of the turbines were turning, but when they did, they killed about 5,000 large predator birds per year, and large but not counted numbers of bats. This slaughter appeared to be done with impunity, and for what seemed to be little benefit in terms of power generated. I saw some information that the wind farm generated at less than 30% of its rated capacity, and that the power it produced fluctuated constantly, requiring back-up supplement by natural gas and hydroelectric power generation.
In contrast to the lax regulation of bird and bat kill, I recently read about very high fines assessed against Texas oil companies for the deaths of a few common water birds in storage tanks.
Why the one would be treated harshly, and the other leniently, makes no sense. The wind farms are causing horrendous environmental damage for no value – in fact they are an expensive waste of taxpayer and ratepayer money.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Scientists Predict: Another Ice Age Is On The Way - in 1958!
The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington, March 29, 1958
Scientists Predict: Another Ice Age is on the way (Article by Leslie Lieber)
(Those who were hardest hit by last month’s snowstorms may think the next ice-age is already upon us. Others may think it will never come. Whatever you think, it would be comforting to pay no attention to the weather forecast presented on these pages.
Unfortunately Maurice Ewing and William L. Donn are not men to be taken lightly. Dr. Ewing ranks as one of America’s leading oceanographers and geophysicists, its top authority on the world beneath the sea. President of the American Geophysical Union and director of Columbia University’s Lamont Geological Observatory, he has personally designed much of the equipment now used in underseas exploration.
His colleague, Dr. Donn, is Associate Professor of Geology, Brooklyn College, and Chief Scientist, U.S. Atlantic Island Observatories Program for the Inter- national Geophysical Year.
The two scientists point out that the full scientific presentation of their new theory, with graphs and weather charts, has already been made in scientific journals, but say “we have been pleased to co-operate with Mr. Lieber in presenting to the general public some of the highlights of our ideas.”)
Two leaders in their field say the enormous glacier that buried half the world 11,000 years ago is due back and present a startling theory to prove it.
Eleven thousand years ago — give or take a thousand years — the last of the great ice-age glaciers which blanketed the American continent from Northern Canada to the banks of the Missouri River began its retreat from the face of the earth. Known as the Wisconsin stage, it rang down the curtain on four separate Ice Ages which had come and gone during the preceding million years.
Since that time, mankind has been too busy with the problems of everyday living to worry about the staggering possibility that another continental glacier might be in the making. Undoubtedly our Neanderthal ancestors lived in the same ignorant bliss during the warm interludes between Ice Ages. The last thing they suspected was that their temperate weather would ever end. It did, though — in glacial onslaughts which drove them either into local caves or on long treks southward.
Modern man’s hunch that the Ice Age has gone for good is based on what he firmly believes to be common sense. How, we ask, can a new Ice Age possibly be shaping up when everybody knows that existing glaciers — like those in the Swiss passes and Alaska — are melting? How could new ice hulks creep in upon us while weather experts are announcing that even the North Polar ice caps are thinning? And what about the fact that weather records show the weather has been growing warmer over the years - so warm in fact that certain glaciers are melting fast enough to raise the level of the world’s oceans? Can such signs really foreshadow the coming of a new Ice Age?
The answer is very definitely yes — if you listen to two leading oceanographers, Drs. Maurice Ewing and William L. Donn. As a result of extensive research, these eminent scientists believe, in short, that the earth is passing through an interglacial period and that the cyclic phenomena which produced continental glaciers in ages past are at work producing another Ice Age. Its advent may be a matter of thousands of years. It could also conceivably be upon us in a few centuries.
Now how can slightly warmer climate and rising sea levels foster a cataclysm as drastic as another Ice Age? First you must understand just how a glacier is formed.
The glaciers that once blanketed a great part of the earth did not, as is popularly believed, gradually spread out from the poles, nor were they caused by a sudden plunge in the earth’s temperature during the Pleistocene Age.
Continuous Snowfall
Glaciers, Dr. Ewing explains, are created purely and simply when more snow falls than melts. Sub-zero temperatures are only one factor. Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Islands, for instance, share the same frigid latitude. But snow-covered Greenland lies under a perpetual blanket of ice whereas the Arctic Islands, with only light snow precipitation, are not glaciated.
Drs. Ewing and Donn reason that the great Ice Ages were produced by practically continuous snowfall coming from some rich source of moisture which has now been shut off.
It is becoming known that the thickest ice concentration during the glacial periods was in the Hudson Bay region. The Ewing-Donn conclusion is that the snow clouds must have gathered their moisture from the Arctic Ocean.
In other words, the Arctic Ocean in the Ice Age was itself free of ice, and offered thousands and thousands of square miles of water surface to winds blowing towards Northern Canada, Europe and Siberia.
The Ewing-Donn theory holds that the barrier standing between us and another Ice Age is a steadily thinning layer of about six feet of ice covering the Arctic Ocean, Should it melt completely, the birthplace of glaciers would be reopened. The weight of evidence from both American and Russian scientists is that the Arctic is warming appreciably. This could mean that all the conditions which led to the four ice-cycles of the last million years are still in operation.
There is an agent which, during past epochs, has repeatedly been able to melt the ice floes of the Arctic. According to Ewing and Donn, that great defroster is not the sun, but the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Whenever the tepid Atlantic has found a passageway into the Arctic, it has melted ice faster than the frigid air could form it.
As of this moment Ewing and Donn feel that this ‘hot-water faucet” has been turned on.
Why is it that the warm waters of the Atlantic can reach the Arctic Ocean now — for the first time since before the last glacial stage? It is possible because of the considerable rise in sea-level during the past few thousand years. Normally the Atlantic can’t flow freely into the Arctic because it must pass through several narrow bottlenecks between Greenland and Norway. (Denmark Strait and Faeroe Channel) So shallow is the ocean floor between the Arctic and Atlantic — much of it less than 50 fathoms - that little interchange occurs. But with a rise in sea-level the influx of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic increases many fold.
This traffic is not just one-way. There is a mutual interaction between the two bodies of water: the Arctic seas, swollen by their own melting ice, flow southward into the Atlantic, cooling it.
Some years ago Professor Harold Urey of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography discovered a revolutionary method of determining the temperature at which deep-sea shells were formed. Scientists now know, for instance, that a temperature decline in the surface waters of the Atlantic Ocean, due to the influx of cold Arctic water, was a prologue to the last Ice Age. From 90,000 B.C down to 11,000 years ago it plunged eight degrees Centigrade, a very significant decrease.
Dramatic Discovery
The fact that the temperature of the ocean is definitely tied up with ice ages came to light when sediments were cored out during various oceanographic cruises on the Lamont Observatory s research vessel Vema, In ancient ooze Ewing and Donn found marine evidence that an abrupt change in marine life took place in Atlantic and Caribbean waters approximately 11,000 years ago, at the precise time the Wisconsin ice stage was ending. What was this new development? The organisms dramatically changed from cold-water types to warm-water types.
In other words, something had happened (simultaneously with the disappearance of glaciers) to warm up the Atlantic Ocean. The only explanation is that its supply of “icewater” was blocked. What had happened? The Arctic Ocean had once again become covered by ice. The Canada-bound winds no longer found moisture there to stock up on.
And on the American continent, the snow-starved ice sheets gradually wasted away.
Examination of sediment from 11,000 years ago in the Arctic Ocean seems to show the reverse side of the corn. With the Atlantic no longer able to penetrate, the marine fauna switched from warm back to cold-water types. In other words, the pendulum had finally swung the other way, ending an ice cycle.
Just as high sea levels cause glacial periods, so do low sea levels result in a return to the kind of bottleneck that shuts the Arctic off from its warm-water source and ends the glacial period. Lower sea levels are caused when amounts of ocean water become locked in glacial ice.
How The Glaciers Started
Thus sea level has controlled the glacial- interglacial cycles of the past million years, and in turn, the glacial conditions have controlled sea level.
But, how did it all begin? What started these cycles? Much scientific evidence now exists for the startling theory that the crust of the earth can slip, and change its position relative to the interior. Such slipping would cause different places on the surface to be at the poles in different geological periods. There is also evidence to suggest that before the glacial period of the Pleistocene Era the mid-Pacific Ocean was at the North Pole and the South Atlantic was over the South Pole. To have the poles thus situated in open sea would prevent the formation of polar ice caps, since free interchange with warmer equatorial waters would keep them relatively warm.
The North Pole is now situated over the isolated Arctic Ocean, the South Pole over the Antarctic continent. With the poles no longer in freely circulating water and the cooler temperature of the higher latitudes isolated and concentrated, they became sources of cold polar air. Ewing’s and Donn’s startling theory is that this is what started the glacial period, and that as long as the poles remain thus isolated, glacial periods will wax and wane as the sea level rises and falls.
In case of another Ice Age, millions of those living in the most urbanized areas of Europe and the United States would have to flee southward.
But as bad as things would be, another Ice Age would offer tremendous compensations: the major desert areas .of the earth — 12,000,000 square miles —would again become arable, fertile, well-watered lands.
Should another Ice Age strike, the man who controls the Sahara could rule the earth! — The End
Scientists Predict: Another Ice Age is on the way (Article by Leslie Lieber)
(Those who were hardest hit by last month’s snowstorms may think the next ice-age is already upon us. Others may think it will never come. Whatever you think, it would be comforting to pay no attention to the weather forecast presented on these pages.
Unfortunately Maurice Ewing and William L. Donn are not men to be taken lightly. Dr. Ewing ranks as one of America’s leading oceanographers and geophysicists, its top authority on the world beneath the sea. President of the American Geophysical Union and director of Columbia University’s Lamont Geological Observatory, he has personally designed much of the equipment now used in underseas exploration.
His colleague, Dr. Donn, is Associate Professor of Geology, Brooklyn College, and Chief Scientist, U.S. Atlantic Island Observatories Program for the Inter- national Geophysical Year.
The two scientists point out that the full scientific presentation of their new theory, with graphs and weather charts, has already been made in scientific journals, but say “we have been pleased to co-operate with Mr. Lieber in presenting to the general public some of the highlights of our ideas.”)
Two leaders in their field say the enormous glacier that buried half the world 11,000 years ago is due back and present a startling theory to prove it.
Eleven thousand years ago — give or take a thousand years — the last of the great ice-age glaciers which blanketed the American continent from Northern Canada to the banks of the Missouri River began its retreat from the face of the earth. Known as the Wisconsin stage, it rang down the curtain on four separate Ice Ages which had come and gone during the preceding million years.
Since that time, mankind has been too busy with the problems of everyday living to worry about the staggering possibility that another continental glacier might be in the making. Undoubtedly our Neanderthal ancestors lived in the same ignorant bliss during the warm interludes between Ice Ages. The last thing they suspected was that their temperate weather would ever end. It did, though — in glacial onslaughts which drove them either into local caves or on long treks southward.
Modern man’s hunch that the Ice Age has gone for good is based on what he firmly believes to be common sense. How, we ask, can a new Ice Age possibly be shaping up when everybody knows that existing glaciers — like those in the Swiss passes and Alaska — are melting? How could new ice hulks creep in upon us while weather experts are announcing that even the North Polar ice caps are thinning? And what about the fact that weather records show the weather has been growing warmer over the years - so warm in fact that certain glaciers are melting fast enough to raise the level of the world’s oceans? Can such signs really foreshadow the coming of a new Ice Age?
The answer is very definitely yes — if you listen to two leading oceanographers, Drs. Maurice Ewing and William L. Donn. As a result of extensive research, these eminent scientists believe, in short, that the earth is passing through an interglacial period and that the cyclic phenomena which produced continental glaciers in ages past are at work producing another Ice Age. Its advent may be a matter of thousands of years. It could also conceivably be upon us in a few centuries.
Now how can slightly warmer climate and rising sea levels foster a cataclysm as drastic as another Ice Age? First you must understand just how a glacier is formed.
The glaciers that once blanketed a great part of the earth did not, as is popularly believed, gradually spread out from the poles, nor were they caused by a sudden plunge in the earth’s temperature during the Pleistocene Age.
Continuous Snowfall
Glaciers, Dr. Ewing explains, are created purely and simply when more snow falls than melts. Sub-zero temperatures are only one factor. Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Islands, for instance, share the same frigid latitude. But snow-covered Greenland lies under a perpetual blanket of ice whereas the Arctic Islands, with only light snow precipitation, are not glaciated.
Drs. Ewing and Donn reason that the great Ice Ages were produced by practically continuous snowfall coming from some rich source of moisture which has now been shut off.
It is becoming known that the thickest ice concentration during the glacial periods was in the Hudson Bay region. The Ewing-Donn conclusion is that the snow clouds must have gathered their moisture from the Arctic Ocean.
In other words, the Arctic Ocean in the Ice Age was itself free of ice, and offered thousands and thousands of square miles of water surface to winds blowing towards Northern Canada, Europe and Siberia.
The Ewing-Donn theory holds that the barrier standing between us and another Ice Age is a steadily thinning layer of about six feet of ice covering the Arctic Ocean, Should it melt completely, the birthplace of glaciers would be reopened. The weight of evidence from both American and Russian scientists is that the Arctic is warming appreciably. This could mean that all the conditions which led to the four ice-cycles of the last million years are still in operation.
There is an agent which, during past epochs, has repeatedly been able to melt the ice floes of the Arctic. According to Ewing and Donn, that great defroster is not the sun, but the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
Whenever the tepid Atlantic has found a passageway into the Arctic, it has melted ice faster than the frigid air could form it.
As of this moment Ewing and Donn feel that this ‘hot-water faucet” has been turned on.
Why is it that the warm waters of the Atlantic can reach the Arctic Ocean now — for the first time since before the last glacial stage? It is possible because of the considerable rise in sea-level during the past few thousand years. Normally the Atlantic can’t flow freely into the Arctic because it must pass through several narrow bottlenecks between Greenland and Norway. (Denmark Strait and Faeroe Channel) So shallow is the ocean floor between the Arctic and Atlantic — much of it less than 50 fathoms - that little interchange occurs. But with a rise in sea-level the influx of warm Atlantic water into the Arctic increases many fold.
This traffic is not just one-way. There is a mutual interaction between the two bodies of water: the Arctic seas, swollen by their own melting ice, flow southward into the Atlantic, cooling it.
Some years ago Professor Harold Urey of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography discovered a revolutionary method of determining the temperature at which deep-sea shells were formed. Scientists now know, for instance, that a temperature decline in the surface waters of the Atlantic Ocean, due to the influx of cold Arctic water, was a prologue to the last Ice Age. From 90,000 B.C down to 11,000 years ago it plunged eight degrees Centigrade, a very significant decrease.
Dramatic Discovery
The fact that the temperature of the ocean is definitely tied up with ice ages came to light when sediments were cored out during various oceanographic cruises on the Lamont Observatory s research vessel Vema, In ancient ooze Ewing and Donn found marine evidence that an abrupt change in marine life took place in Atlantic and Caribbean waters approximately 11,000 years ago, at the precise time the Wisconsin ice stage was ending. What was this new development? The organisms dramatically changed from cold-water types to warm-water types.
In other words, something had happened (simultaneously with the disappearance of glaciers) to warm up the Atlantic Ocean. The only explanation is that its supply of “icewater” was blocked. What had happened? The Arctic Ocean had once again become covered by ice. The Canada-bound winds no longer found moisture there to stock up on.
And on the American continent, the snow-starved ice sheets gradually wasted away.
Examination of sediment from 11,000 years ago in the Arctic Ocean seems to show the reverse side of the corn. With the Atlantic no longer able to penetrate, the marine fauna switched from warm back to cold-water types. In other words, the pendulum had finally swung the other way, ending an ice cycle.
Just as high sea levels cause glacial periods, so do low sea levels result in a return to the kind of bottleneck that shuts the Arctic off from its warm-water source and ends the glacial period. Lower sea levels are caused when amounts of ocean water become locked in glacial ice.
How The Glaciers Started
Thus sea level has controlled the glacial- interglacial cycles of the past million years, and in turn, the glacial conditions have controlled sea level.
But, how did it all begin? What started these cycles? Much scientific evidence now exists for the startling theory that the crust of the earth can slip, and change its position relative to the interior. Such slipping would cause different places on the surface to be at the poles in different geological periods. There is also evidence to suggest that before the glacial period of the Pleistocene Era the mid-Pacific Ocean was at the North Pole and the South Atlantic was over the South Pole. To have the poles thus situated in open sea would prevent the formation of polar ice caps, since free interchange with warmer equatorial waters would keep them relatively warm.
The North Pole is now situated over the isolated Arctic Ocean, the South Pole over the Antarctic continent. With the poles no longer in freely circulating water and the cooler temperature of the higher latitudes isolated and concentrated, they became sources of cold polar air. Ewing’s and Donn’s startling theory is that this is what started the glacial period, and that as long as the poles remain thus isolated, glacial periods will wax and wane as the sea level rises and falls.
In case of another Ice Age, millions of those living in the most urbanized areas of Europe and the United States would have to flee southward.
But as bad as things would be, another Ice Age would offer tremendous compensations: the major desert areas .of the earth — 12,000,000 square miles —would again become arable, fertile, well-watered lands.
Should another Ice Age strike, the man who controls the Sahara could rule the earth! — The End
Thursday, July 21, 2011
I Agree with Dr Fred Singer - Global Warming is Bunk!
When was the last time you read that "controvesial speaker Al Gore" would be appearing? That's right, never, because the media has decreed the science of global warming is settled, and speaking on the side of a settled topic by definition cannot be controversial. So with great interest I went to the Coloradoan.com to read: Skepticism: Controversial speaker Fred Singer says that global warming and climate science 'bunk'
After reading the article, I was inspired to post the following comment, and this led to a rambling, polite discussion over a couple of days with Dr Scott Denning, Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, and occasionally less polite discussions with a couple of other commenters.
My opening comment:
Scott Denning's statement about all the heat generated by burning fossil fuels is quite foolish. What does he think caused five periods of greater warming than the current one in the past 11,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age? More recently, 39 of the 50 states records of hottest days were set over 50 years ago. Coral mounts rising ten feet above current sea levels show that temperature and sea level were much higher 4,000 years ago at the end of the Holocene Climate Optimum. Just 1,000 years ago the global Medieval Warm Peiod was warmer, sea levels were higher, and humanity prospered. We are now coming off the Little Ice Age (1350 to 1850 AD) and the warming we are now experiencing is a natural rebound from the coldest period of the past 11,000 years. If you won't listen to skeptics, lend an ear to the Earth - it tells the story of natural climate change eloquently.
Zippy-1 (the first commenter)
Your logic is flawed. None of your examples negate the 'greenhouse effect' warming caused by rising CO2 levels from humans burning fossil fuels. And 39 states temperature records? Come on. Even if you're correct cherry-picked local examples are meaningless in the context of global average annual temperatures, which puts the most recent decade as the hottest on record. 2010 was tied for the hottest full year on record and the first half of 2011 is a record.
Dr Scott Denning's reply to my comment:
Hi Michael,
Simple question ... simple answer. Earlier climate changes were caused by heat coming into the Earth and heat going out from the Earth. Modern climate change responds to precisely the same physics that past climate changes responded to.
Is there some reason that you think the Earth warmed and cooled in the past when heat was added or subtracted, but that somehow the extra Watts of heat from CO2 "don't count?"
Interesting theory. I guess as a scientist I have to be a bit skeptical of the logic though.
Most of us understand that adding heat to things warm them up. Always has. Always will.
Best regards,
Scott Denning
Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science
My reply to Dr Denning:
Dr Denning
The portion of additional CO2 created by the burning of fossil fuel is only a tiny part of the CO2 created naturally by oxidation by plants, animals, and decay of plant matter. And in all that, CO2 is only 0.04% of the atmosphere by volume, of which only 3% is produced by human activity. In previous periods of warming, when CO2 was 10 to 20 rimes current levels, the Earth has plunged into ice ages while CO2 was still at high levels. The Holocene Optimum of 8,000 to 4,000 years ago was much warmer than now and followed the Ice Age which ended 11,000 years ago, yet CO2 was much lower. The additional warmth of the Holocene Optimum did not come from burning fossil fuels, just as hundreds of other periods of warming were not caused by increased CO2.
There is now good scientific reason to doubt the existence of a "greenhouse warming effect."
My reply to Zippy-1:
"39 of the 50 states records of hottest days were set over 50 years ago."
Zippy-1
These are not cherry-picked. I simply googled heat records by state and found a table from USA Today. The initial reason I did this was because Al Gore and His Acolytes have now adopted a new appoach to alarmism by claiming all severe weather events are evidence of man-caused climate change. Kevin Trenberth also has made this claim. As far as this being the hottest period on record, I noted in a previous post that Greenland ice cores for the past 10,000 years show that not one of the past 100 years were warmer than 9,100 of the past 10,000. So much for exceptional warmth.
Current warming is "unprecedented" only if you think climate began after Al Gore earned his D's at Harvard.
The next reply from Dr Scott Denning
Good morning Michael,
I asked you why past climate changes can be explained by changes in heating, and you replied that there isn't much CO2 in the atmosphere. (Note: that's what I said and it's true; CO2 is only 0.0387% by volume) Then you said most CO2 doesn't come from combustion. (Note: that's also true, since 96% of CO2 is produced by natural, not human sources)Then you claimed the greenhouse effect doesn't exist (Note: this is not exactly true, since I only provided quotes from the scientists that say the greenhouse effect doesn't exist.
I'll ask you again: if changes in heating produced ice ages and warm periods in the past as you mention, why on Earth do you expect extra watts of heat from CO2 to have no effect now? Have the laws of thermodynamics changed? (Note: thousands of times in the past cooling began when CO2 was high; enormous quantities of CO2 were being added to the atmosphere from the warming seas and from decay - that's oxidation - of vegetable matter, and heat is heat)
We don't expect global warming because 39 states are hot today. We expect global warming because adding heat to things changes their temperature. Don't believe me? Put a pot of water on the stove and see what happens! (Note: conversely, we expect global cooling when the orbital dynamics that caused global warming are reversed)
Have a great day,
Scott Denning
My reply to Dr Denning:
Where did all the extra heat come from when the temperatures were much higher five times in the past 10,000 years since the end of the Ice Age than they are now? CO2 was much lower then. In fact, even now it is close to its lowest level in parts per million going back about a billion years. Several things are undeniable: CO2 levels have been over ten times current atmospheric levels previously without causing run-away warming; in all instances, warming began before CO2 increased, and cooling began when CO2 was high and before it started dropping; CO2 and the rest of the atmosphere is warmed by convection, just as trapped air in a greenhouse is - unlike a greenhouse, the warm air rises and mixes with the cooler air above; CO2 has neither the volume nor properties to cause a difference in temperature to the point that it could be distinguished from natural environmental noise.
A thought I am now developing is that the current production of heat by the Earth is very small compared to periods when plants grew, died, decomposed to form huge deposits of coal and oil, and along the way emitted enormous quantities of CO2 - which further fed plant growth. Of course, the same is happening today, only the naturally produced CO2 is much less because the plant mass is so much smaller, although it is over thirty times what is produced by human activity.
A comment from Elmer Jones:
I haven't heard anyone explain why the earth's glaciers are melting at a pronounced rate according to those that have studied them . I give little weight to those people whom have not studied them. Where did the North polar ice cap go?
Why is the Greenland ice cap melting at an advanced rate? If heat is being generated internally by the planet then what is the cause? There is too much body of evidence to prove that "yes indeed the ice deposits are melting."
My reply to Elmer Jones:
A map of Glacier Bay, Alaska, shows glacier retreat of 60 miles from 1760 to 1912, and only about six miles since. Glacier retreat and advance during the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age has been extensively studied and documented by such climate experts as H H Lamb, "Climatic History and the Future", and the founder of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, now famous for its role in Climategate. A study of glacier history shows glaciers are not now retreating at an advanced rate, and neither is the Greenland ice cap. In fact, Greenland ice cores show that Greenland was warmer for 9,100 years of the past 10,000 than for any year of the past 100. Glaciers in the Alps retreated further 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period than during the recent warming. The Alpine glaciers advanced during the Little Ice Age (1350 to 1850 AD) then began retreating over 100 years before significant increases in atmospheric CO2. Current retreat is uncovering man-made artifacts that were created during the Medieval Warm Period, then covered during the Little Ice Age, and are now being exposed again. Russian Arctic studies have determined there were several periods in the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age when there was less Arctic ice than now, particularly during the much warmer Holocene Climate Optimum when it was so much warmer than present that sea levels were over ten feet higher than now at the peak of Holocene warming about 4,000 years ago. There are coral mounts ten feet higher than the current sea level that prove it was much warmer and sea levels were higher then - corals don't grow out of the water, you know, and they grow particularly well in warm water. I hope I answered your questions, Elmer. This information, and a lot more, is written clearly in the Earth for all to see that seek it with open minds and scientific curiosity.
Then I passed this reply on to Dr Denning:
Some more musings about current natural climate change. Where did the heat come from over 200 years ago when CO2 was low?
A map of Glacier Bay, Alaska, shows glacier retreat of 60 miles from 1760 to 1912, and only about six miles since. Glacier retreat and advance during the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age has been extensively studied and documented by such climate experts as H H Lamb, "Climatic History and the Future", and the founder of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, now famous for its role in Climategate. A study of glacier history shows glaciers are not now retreating at an advanced rate, and neither is the Greenland ice cap. In fact, Greenland ice cores show that Greenland was warmer for 9,100 years of the past 10,000 than for any year of the past 100. Glaciers in the Alps retreated further 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period than during the recent warming. The Alpine glaciers advanced during the Little Ice Age (1350 to 1850 AD) then began retreating over 100 years before significant increases in atmospheric CO2. Current retreat is uncovering man-made artifacts that were created during the Medieval Warm Period, then covered during the Little Ice Age, and are now being exposed again. Russian Arctic studies have determined there were several periods in the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age when there was less Arctic ice than now, particularly during the much warmer Holocene Climate Optimum when it was so much warmer than present that sea levels were over ten feet higher than now at the peak of Holocene warming about 4,000 years ago. There are coral mounts ten feet higher than the current sea level that prove it was much warmer and sea levels were higher then - corals don't grow out of the water, you know, and they grow particularly well in warm water. This information, and a lot more, is written clearly in the Earth for all to see that seek it with open minds and scientific curiosity.
Then I replid to Zippy-1:
"Your logic is flawed. None of your examples negate the 'greenhouse effect' warming caused by rising CO2 levels from humans burning fossil fuels."
Your logic is flawed. Current warming began over 100 years before human activity caused any significant increase in CO2 levels. The Little Ice Age ended by 1850 or earlier, and there were two periods of much more rapid warming than now from 1850 to 1945. Ironically, as CO2 increased steadily after 1950, there was a cooling period that lasted until 1975, then warming, then cooling the past decade.
And I further reply to Zippy-1:
Concerning "hottest on record" temps, if you go to: http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl (which is a government website) you will see a chart of contiguous US temperatures for the past 115 years which show an increase of about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit during that period, roughly half before 1950 and half after. This NOAA chart also shows no warming for 12 years, and that 2009 and 2010 were the lowest annual temperatures since 1994. As far as a decade being the hottest on record, you are lucky science can't break out any but the most recent warm periods by decade. Suffice it to say, since Greenland ice cores show 9,100 of the past 10,000 years were warmer than any of the past 100, there were centuries 4,000 to 8,000 years ago that were hotter than the past decade.
Then Dr Denning replied to me:
Michael,
The Earth's surface receives virtually all of its heat from only two sources: incoming radiant energy from the Sun and from the warm air above us. Believe it or not, almost two-thirds of the total comes from the air. This is easily measured by comparing the total energy in at night to that during the day. It's not in dispute. Energy leaving the surface is mostly through radiant energy as well, with about 20% going up as convective heat transfer and evaporative cooling.
Whenever more heat comes in than goes out, the Earth's surface warms up. Whenever more heat goes out than comes in, the Earth's surface cools off. This is what explains the difference between day and night, summer and winter, Miami and Minneapolis. Pretty simple.
In fact, this simple physics also explains EVERY CLIMATE CHANGE THE EARTH HAS EVER EXPERIENCED. So all of your examples of warmer and colder periods in the past, the Little Ice Age, the Big Ice Age, the Age of the Dinosaurs, everything.
Precisely the same physical laws also govern the changes that will certainly occur if the amount of radiant energy delivered to the Earth's surface increases by 8 Watts per square meter when China and India build modern industrial economies using coal.
Look, I'm not selling something smelly here: adding heat warms things up. Removing heat cools things off. That's how climate has worked for billions of years. That's how it will continue to work for the rest of our children's lives.
I do appreciate your interest in the science. Contrary to your original comment, there's nothing foolish about this!
Sincerely,
Scott Denning
Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science
Colorado State University
I persist in disagreeing with Dr Denning:
Where did the heat come from over 200 years ago when CO2 was low?
A map of Glacier Bay, Alaska, shows glacier retreat of 60 miles from 1760 to 1912, and only about six miles since. Glacier retreat and advance during the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age has been extensively studied and documented by such climate experts as H H Lamb, "Climatic History and the Future", and the founder of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, now famous for its role in Climategate. A study of glacier history shows glaciers are not now retreating at an advanced rate, and neither is the Greenland ice cap. In fact, Greenland ice cores show that Greenland was warmer for 9,100 years of the past 10,000 than for any year of the past 100. Glaciers in the Alps retreated further 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period than during the recent warming. The Alpine glaciers advanced during the Little Ice Age (1350 to 1850 AD) then began retreating over 100 years before significant increases in atmospheric CO2. Current retreat is uncovering man-made artifacts that were created during the Medieval Warm Period, then covered during the Little Ice Age, and are now being exposed again. Russian Arctic studies have determined there were several periods in the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age when there was less Arctic ice than now, particularly during the much warmer Holocene Climate Optimum when it was so much warmer than present that sea levels were over ten feet higher than now at the peak of Holocene warming about 4,000 years ago. There are coral mounts ten feet higher than the current sea level that prove it was much warmer and sea levels were higher then - corals don't grow out of the water, you know, and they grow particularly well in warm water. This information, and a lot more, is written clearly in the Earth for all to see that seek it with open minds and scientific curiosity.
And Dr Denning replies:
You've asked where the heat came from 200 years ago when we began warming from the Little Ice Age. You've also told me to look at the Earth for answers. Fine. Notice that there's no need to yell at me or insult me. I'm being pretty reasonable and answering you politely.
Regarding the warming that began at the end of the Little Ice Age the answer is the Sun. The warming actually began more like 300 years ago following a period when the sun dimmed by about 1 Watt per square meter (compared to 1367 Watts per square meter today) during the Maunder Minimum. As the sun gradually brightened, even that tiny change (1 W out of 1367) steadily warmed the Earth's climate and produced all those changes you wrote about.
Regarding listening to the Earth, I've been doing it professionally for almost 30 years now. My undergraduate degree was in geology and I used to work in the oil industry. I'm not the crackpot socialist you might imagine! Paleoclimate has always been fascinating to me and I've read thousands of pages of that material over half my lifetime.
Natural climate change shows us a very clear picture of the response of the Earth to changes in the amount of energy coming in and going out. During the last Ice Age 18,000 years ago ice sheets covered much of North America, Europe, and Asia which made the albedo much higher so that sunlight was reflected to space. Cold oceans and fertilization by iron in dust at that time allowed the oceans to dissolve nearly 1/3 of all the CO2 in the air. Together the brighter surface and lower CO2 levels reduced the energy input by about 7.5 Watts per square meter (7.5 times as much as the Little Ice Age). And the changes persisted much longer, allowing climate to cool drastically.
By the time my children are old, Earth's surface will receive 8 Watts per square meter more energy than it did in 1800 (if India and China go big for coal). Do you see why I'm concerned?
Sincerely,
Scott Denning
Again I respond to Dr Denning
Thank you for your replies. I won't SHOUT AT YOU or write insulting things (some pointed comments in this thread are addressed to a Zippy-1), although physics I've learned has convinced me that a colder object (air) does not warm a warmer one (earth), or a smaller one (air) a massive one (ocean), The air does not have the mass to contain heat sufficient to provide two-thirds of warming. On a contrary note, the Sun warms the earth, and after sundown the earth warms the air. My sense of touch confirms this daily.
Of course, increasing levels of CO2 only correlate with temperature 22% of the time, and as Kevin Trenberth said, it's a travesty that the current lack of warming can't be explained. That is why China aerosols have been plugged in to explain the lack of warming, even as the aerosols are due to the enormous quantities of coal the Chinese are burning. Aerosols seem to be a wild card, played when the climate models don't add up.
I have no concern for my grandchildren in a warming world. As Bjorn Lomborg suggests, "Cool it" and adapt. Adaptation has been the genius of humanity for thousands of years, through much warmer and much colder periods. My reading of H H Lamb's "Climatic History and the Future" makes me welcome the idea of a warmer, higher CO2 environment because of high food production. The lessons of the Little Ice Age, of crop failures and starvation and population displacements, incredibly violent and ruinous storms, horrendous flooding and loss of millions of lives in the Yellow River region of China, flooding and enormous erosion on the coasts of England and the Netherlands, and many more disasters than you would get in a warm climate.
Civilization thrived in recent warm periods. The Holocene Climate Optimum of 8,000 to 4,000 years ago, the Roman Warm Period of 200 BC to 500 AD, the Medieval Warm Period (850 to 1300 AD), and the current warm period following the Little Ice Age. Fear cold, not warm.
After reading the article, I was inspired to post the following comment, and this led to a rambling, polite discussion over a couple of days with Dr Scott Denning, Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, and occasionally less polite discussions with a couple of other commenters.
My opening comment:
Scott Denning's statement about all the heat generated by burning fossil fuels is quite foolish. What does he think caused five periods of greater warming than the current one in the past 11,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age? More recently, 39 of the 50 states records of hottest days were set over 50 years ago. Coral mounts rising ten feet above current sea levels show that temperature and sea level were much higher 4,000 years ago at the end of the Holocene Climate Optimum. Just 1,000 years ago the global Medieval Warm Peiod was warmer, sea levels were higher, and humanity prospered. We are now coming off the Little Ice Age (1350 to 1850 AD) and the warming we are now experiencing is a natural rebound from the coldest period of the past 11,000 years. If you won't listen to skeptics, lend an ear to the Earth - it tells the story of natural climate change eloquently.
Zippy-1 (the first commenter)
Your logic is flawed. None of your examples negate the 'greenhouse effect' warming caused by rising CO2 levels from humans burning fossil fuels. And 39 states temperature records? Come on. Even if you're correct cherry-picked local examples are meaningless in the context of global average annual temperatures, which puts the most recent decade as the hottest on record. 2010 was tied for the hottest full year on record and the first half of 2011 is a record.
Dr Scott Denning's reply to my comment:
Hi Michael,
Simple question ... simple answer. Earlier climate changes were caused by heat coming into the Earth and heat going out from the Earth. Modern climate change responds to precisely the same physics that past climate changes responded to.
Is there some reason that you think the Earth warmed and cooled in the past when heat was added or subtracted, but that somehow the extra Watts of heat from CO2 "don't count?"
Interesting theory. I guess as a scientist I have to be a bit skeptical of the logic though.
Most of us understand that adding heat to things warm them up. Always has. Always will.
Best regards,
Scott Denning
Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science
My reply to Dr Denning:
Dr Denning
The portion of additional CO2 created by the burning of fossil fuel is only a tiny part of the CO2 created naturally by oxidation by plants, animals, and decay of plant matter. And in all that, CO2 is only 0.04% of the atmosphere by volume, of which only 3% is produced by human activity. In previous periods of warming, when CO2 was 10 to 20 rimes current levels, the Earth has plunged into ice ages while CO2 was still at high levels. The Holocene Optimum of 8,000 to 4,000 years ago was much warmer than now and followed the Ice Age which ended 11,000 years ago, yet CO2 was much lower. The additional warmth of the Holocene Optimum did not come from burning fossil fuels, just as hundreds of other periods of warming were not caused by increased CO2.
There is now good scientific reason to doubt the existence of a "greenhouse warming effect."
The Monterrey science research institute also recreated Wood’s test into the effect of longwave infrared radiation trapped inside a greenhouse. Unlike Pratt it found that Wood’s findings were correct, absolutely valid and systematically repeatable. The Bio Cab man affirms, “ the greenhouse effect does not exist as it is described in many didactic books and articles.”A closing point - current warming started 300 years ago
Put simply, one of the aforementioned professors has their reputation perilously on the line and Nahle is gunning for an explanation from his U.S. Rival. A clue to the outcome: Pratt isn't even qualified in science - he's a (warmist) mathematician specializing in computers.
Professor Nahle’s findings will come as no surprise to anyone who is up to speed with the other big climate story that has raised huge doubts over any so-called greenhouse effect. NASA now admits global warming just isn’t happening despite ever-rising levels of CO2.
Laughably, the once illustrious U.S. space agency is blaming no warming this century on China."
My reply to Zippy-1:
"39 of the 50 states records of hottest days were set over 50 years ago."
Zippy-1
These are not cherry-picked. I simply googled heat records by state and found a table from USA Today. The initial reason I did this was because Al Gore and His Acolytes have now adopted a new appoach to alarmism by claiming all severe weather events are evidence of man-caused climate change. Kevin Trenberth also has made this claim. As far as this being the hottest period on record, I noted in a previous post that Greenland ice cores for the past 10,000 years show that not one of the past 100 years were warmer than 9,100 of the past 10,000. So much for exceptional warmth.
Current warming is "unprecedented" only if you think climate began after Al Gore earned his D's at Harvard.
The next reply from Dr Scott Denning
Good morning Michael,
I asked you why past climate changes can be explained by changes in heating, and you replied that there isn't much CO2 in the atmosphere. (Note: that's what I said and it's true; CO2 is only 0.0387% by volume) Then you said most CO2 doesn't come from combustion. (Note: that's also true, since 96% of CO2 is produced by natural, not human sources)Then you claimed the greenhouse effect doesn't exist (Note: this is not exactly true, since I only provided quotes from the scientists that say the greenhouse effect doesn't exist.
I'll ask you again: if changes in heating produced ice ages and warm periods in the past as you mention, why on Earth do you expect extra watts of heat from CO2 to have no effect now? Have the laws of thermodynamics changed? (Note: thousands of times in the past cooling began when CO2 was high; enormous quantities of CO2 were being added to the atmosphere from the warming seas and from decay - that's oxidation - of vegetable matter, and heat is heat)
We don't expect global warming because 39 states are hot today. We expect global warming because adding heat to things changes their temperature. Don't believe me? Put a pot of water on the stove and see what happens! (Note: conversely, we expect global cooling when the orbital dynamics that caused global warming are reversed)
Have a great day,
Scott Denning
My reply to Dr Denning:
Where did all the extra heat come from when the temperatures were much higher five times in the past 10,000 years since the end of the Ice Age than they are now? CO2 was much lower then. In fact, even now it is close to its lowest level in parts per million going back about a billion years. Several things are undeniable: CO2 levels have been over ten times current atmospheric levels previously without causing run-away warming; in all instances, warming began before CO2 increased, and cooling began when CO2 was high and before it started dropping; CO2 and the rest of the atmosphere is warmed by convection, just as trapped air in a greenhouse is - unlike a greenhouse, the warm air rises and mixes with the cooler air above; CO2 has neither the volume nor properties to cause a difference in temperature to the point that it could be distinguished from natural environmental noise.
A thought I am now developing is that the current production of heat by the Earth is very small compared to periods when plants grew, died, decomposed to form huge deposits of coal and oil, and along the way emitted enormous quantities of CO2 - which further fed plant growth. Of course, the same is happening today, only the naturally produced CO2 is much less because the plant mass is so much smaller, although it is over thirty times what is produced by human activity.
A comment from Elmer Jones:
I haven't heard anyone explain why the earth's glaciers are melting at a pronounced rate according to those that have studied them . I give little weight to those people whom have not studied them. Where did the North polar ice cap go?
Why is the Greenland ice cap melting at an advanced rate? If heat is being generated internally by the planet then what is the cause? There is too much body of evidence to prove that "yes indeed the ice deposits are melting."
My reply to Elmer Jones:
A map of Glacier Bay, Alaska, shows glacier retreat of 60 miles from 1760 to 1912, and only about six miles since. Glacier retreat and advance during the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age has been extensively studied and documented by such climate experts as H H Lamb, "Climatic History and the Future", and the founder of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, now famous for its role in Climategate. A study of glacier history shows glaciers are not now retreating at an advanced rate, and neither is the Greenland ice cap. In fact, Greenland ice cores show that Greenland was warmer for 9,100 years of the past 10,000 than for any year of the past 100. Glaciers in the Alps retreated further 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period than during the recent warming. The Alpine glaciers advanced during the Little Ice Age (1350 to 1850 AD) then began retreating over 100 years before significant increases in atmospheric CO2. Current retreat is uncovering man-made artifacts that were created during the Medieval Warm Period, then covered during the Little Ice Age, and are now being exposed again. Russian Arctic studies have determined there were several periods in the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age when there was less Arctic ice than now, particularly during the much warmer Holocene Climate Optimum when it was so much warmer than present that sea levels were over ten feet higher than now at the peak of Holocene warming about 4,000 years ago. There are coral mounts ten feet higher than the current sea level that prove it was much warmer and sea levels were higher then - corals don't grow out of the water, you know, and they grow particularly well in warm water. I hope I answered your questions, Elmer. This information, and a lot more, is written clearly in the Earth for all to see that seek it with open minds and scientific curiosity.
Then I passed this reply on to Dr Denning:
Some more musings about current natural climate change. Where did the heat come from over 200 years ago when CO2 was low?
A map of Glacier Bay, Alaska, shows glacier retreat of 60 miles from 1760 to 1912, and only about six miles since. Glacier retreat and advance during the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age has been extensively studied and documented by such climate experts as H H Lamb, "Climatic History and the Future", and the founder of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, now famous for its role in Climategate. A study of glacier history shows glaciers are not now retreating at an advanced rate, and neither is the Greenland ice cap. In fact, Greenland ice cores show that Greenland was warmer for 9,100 years of the past 10,000 than for any year of the past 100. Glaciers in the Alps retreated further 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period than during the recent warming. The Alpine glaciers advanced during the Little Ice Age (1350 to 1850 AD) then began retreating over 100 years before significant increases in atmospheric CO2. Current retreat is uncovering man-made artifacts that were created during the Medieval Warm Period, then covered during the Little Ice Age, and are now being exposed again. Russian Arctic studies have determined there were several periods in the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age when there was less Arctic ice than now, particularly during the much warmer Holocene Climate Optimum when it was so much warmer than present that sea levels were over ten feet higher than now at the peak of Holocene warming about 4,000 years ago. There are coral mounts ten feet higher than the current sea level that prove it was much warmer and sea levels were higher then - corals don't grow out of the water, you know, and they grow particularly well in warm water. This information, and a lot more, is written clearly in the Earth for all to see that seek it with open minds and scientific curiosity.
Then I replid to Zippy-1:
"Your logic is flawed. None of your examples negate the 'greenhouse effect' warming caused by rising CO2 levels from humans burning fossil fuels."
Your logic is flawed. Current warming began over 100 years before human activity caused any significant increase in CO2 levels. The Little Ice Age ended by 1850 or earlier, and there were two periods of much more rapid warming than now from 1850 to 1945. Ironically, as CO2 increased steadily after 1950, there was a cooling period that lasted until 1975, then warming, then cooling the past decade.
And I further reply to Zippy-1:
Concerning "hottest on record" temps, if you go to: http://climvis.ncdc.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/cag3/hr-display3.pl (which is a government website) you will see a chart of contiguous US temperatures for the past 115 years which show an increase of about 1.2 degrees Fahrenheit during that period, roughly half before 1950 and half after. This NOAA chart also shows no warming for 12 years, and that 2009 and 2010 were the lowest annual temperatures since 1994. As far as a decade being the hottest on record, you are lucky science can't break out any but the most recent warm periods by decade. Suffice it to say, since Greenland ice cores show 9,100 of the past 10,000 years were warmer than any of the past 100, there were centuries 4,000 to 8,000 years ago that were hotter than the past decade.
Then Dr Denning replied to me:
Michael,
The Earth's surface receives virtually all of its heat from only two sources: incoming radiant energy from the Sun and from the warm air above us. Believe it or not, almost two-thirds of the total comes from the air. This is easily measured by comparing the total energy in at night to that during the day. It's not in dispute. Energy leaving the surface is mostly through radiant energy as well, with about 20% going up as convective heat transfer and evaporative cooling.
Whenever more heat comes in than goes out, the Earth's surface warms up. Whenever more heat goes out than comes in, the Earth's surface cools off. This is what explains the difference between day and night, summer and winter, Miami and Minneapolis. Pretty simple.
In fact, this simple physics also explains EVERY CLIMATE CHANGE THE EARTH HAS EVER EXPERIENCED. So all of your examples of warmer and colder periods in the past, the Little Ice Age, the Big Ice Age, the Age of the Dinosaurs, everything.
Precisely the same physical laws also govern the changes that will certainly occur if the amount of radiant energy delivered to the Earth's surface increases by 8 Watts per square meter when China and India build modern industrial economies using coal.
Look, I'm not selling something smelly here: adding heat warms things up. Removing heat cools things off. That's how climate has worked for billions of years. That's how it will continue to work for the rest of our children's lives.
I do appreciate your interest in the science. Contrary to your original comment, there's nothing foolish about this!
Sincerely,
Scott Denning
Monfort Professor of Atmospheric Science
Colorado State University
I persist in disagreeing with Dr Denning:
Where did the heat come from over 200 years ago when CO2 was low?
A map of Glacier Bay, Alaska, shows glacier retreat of 60 miles from 1760 to 1912, and only about six miles since. Glacier retreat and advance during the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age has been extensively studied and documented by such climate experts as H H Lamb, "Climatic History and the Future", and the founder of the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, now famous for its role in Climategate. A study of glacier history shows glaciers are not now retreating at an advanced rate, and neither is the Greenland ice cap. In fact, Greenland ice cores show that Greenland was warmer for 9,100 years of the past 10,000 than for any year of the past 100. Glaciers in the Alps retreated further 1,000 years ago during the Medieval Warm Period than during the recent warming. The Alpine glaciers advanced during the Little Ice Age (1350 to 1850 AD) then began retreating over 100 years before significant increases in atmospheric CO2. Current retreat is uncovering man-made artifacts that were created during the Medieval Warm Period, then covered during the Little Ice Age, and are now being exposed again. Russian Arctic studies have determined there were several periods in the past 11,000 years since the last Ice Age when there was less Arctic ice than now, particularly during the much warmer Holocene Climate Optimum when it was so much warmer than present that sea levels were over ten feet higher than now at the peak of Holocene warming about 4,000 years ago. There are coral mounts ten feet higher than the current sea level that prove it was much warmer and sea levels were higher then - corals don't grow out of the water, you know, and they grow particularly well in warm water. This information, and a lot more, is written clearly in the Earth for all to see that seek it with open minds and scientific curiosity.
And Dr Denning replies:
You've asked where the heat came from 200 years ago when we began warming from the Little Ice Age. You've also told me to look at the Earth for answers. Fine. Notice that there's no need to yell at me or insult me. I'm being pretty reasonable and answering you politely.
Regarding the warming that began at the end of the Little Ice Age the answer is the Sun. The warming actually began more like 300 years ago following a period when the sun dimmed by about 1 Watt per square meter (compared to 1367 Watts per square meter today) during the Maunder Minimum. As the sun gradually brightened, even that tiny change (1 W out of 1367) steadily warmed the Earth's climate and produced all those changes you wrote about.
Regarding listening to the Earth, I've been doing it professionally for almost 30 years now. My undergraduate degree was in geology and I used to work in the oil industry. I'm not the crackpot socialist you might imagine! Paleoclimate has always been fascinating to me and I've read thousands of pages of that material over half my lifetime.
Natural climate change shows us a very clear picture of the response of the Earth to changes in the amount of energy coming in and going out. During the last Ice Age 18,000 years ago ice sheets covered much of North America, Europe, and Asia which made the albedo much higher so that sunlight was reflected to space. Cold oceans and fertilization by iron in dust at that time allowed the oceans to dissolve nearly 1/3 of all the CO2 in the air. Together the brighter surface and lower CO2 levels reduced the energy input by about 7.5 Watts per square meter (7.5 times as much as the Little Ice Age). And the changes persisted much longer, allowing climate to cool drastically.
By the time my children are old, Earth's surface will receive 8 Watts per square meter more energy than it did in 1800 (if India and China go big for coal). Do you see why I'm concerned?
Sincerely,
Scott Denning
Again I respond to Dr Denning
Thank you for your replies. I won't SHOUT AT YOU or write insulting things (some pointed comments in this thread are addressed to a Zippy-1), although physics I've learned has convinced me that a colder object (air) does not warm a warmer one (earth), or a smaller one (air) a massive one (ocean), The air does not have the mass to contain heat sufficient to provide two-thirds of warming. On a contrary note, the Sun warms the earth, and after sundown the earth warms the air. My sense of touch confirms this daily.
Of course, increasing levels of CO2 only correlate with temperature 22% of the time, and as Kevin Trenberth said, it's a travesty that the current lack of warming can't be explained. That is why China aerosols have been plugged in to explain the lack of warming, even as the aerosols are due to the enormous quantities of coal the Chinese are burning. Aerosols seem to be a wild card, played when the climate models don't add up.
I have no concern for my grandchildren in a warming world. As Bjorn Lomborg suggests, "Cool it" and adapt. Adaptation has been the genius of humanity for thousands of years, through much warmer and much colder periods. My reading of H H Lamb's "Climatic History and the Future" makes me welcome the idea of a warmer, higher CO2 environment because of high food production. The lessons of the Little Ice Age, of crop failures and starvation and population displacements, incredibly violent and ruinous storms, horrendous flooding and loss of millions of lives in the Yellow River region of China, flooding and enormous erosion on the coasts of England and the Netherlands, and many more disasters than you would get in a warm climate.
Civilization thrived in recent warm periods. The Holocene Climate Optimum of 8,000 to 4,000 years ago, the Roman Warm Period of 200 BC to 500 AD, the Medieval Warm Period (850 to 1300 AD), and the current warm period following the Little Ice Age. Fear cold, not warm.