Haha, Sam Clovis. He really does look like the security guard in every science fiction movie who sees a spaceship and drops his flashlight.
Jem, you repeat that a lot. We do know. You just don't know. And you repeat that 'we' don't. Not buying it. Also my Corvette buddy had rash on his legs from not wearing underwear as it was humid. He did not work out that his own piss drops were burning his skin. As I said, the climate is changing. We are for sure affecting this, for global security reasons we need to be in control of the changes we make. Acidification is a deadly enough reason all by itself to cut down carbon.
whether you "buy" it or not is irrelevant. you either have science supporting your theory of man made global warming or you have faith. I am not saying your corvette buddy did not give himself a rash.. but having lived for a few years in florida... I wore underwear to protect my work clothes but... I went commando quite often in my casual clothes. Nothing worse than walking around in sweaty underwear... Lose breathable clothes were the way to go in my book. when you go to Hawaii you know why you see so many people walking around in board shorts... that is part of the reason. you know why volleyball shorts were only in a few years here in California back in the 90s... liners. (pockets too if you surfed a lot... but mostly liners.)
Corvette man was from the norther states. I'm sure when he was younger he had been in the heat but he did not have a leaking faucet back then (or had a more vigorous shake). https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2436/co2-is-making-earth-greenerfor-now/ "The beneficial impacts of carbon dioxide on plants may be limited, said co-author Dr. Philippe Ciais, associate director of the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences, Gif-suv-Yvette, France. “Studies have shown that plants acclimatize, or adjust, to rising carbon dioxide concentration and the fertilization effect diminishes over time.” " Complex systems are complex, often so much so they are beyond our ken to model sometimes, no brainer there. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it (measure it) does it make a noise? YES IT DOES in my world.I'm not one for having 'But I was technically correct!' on my tombstone. There is every chance we could exceed the envelope on the Earth's natural systems of counterbalances unwittingly. Climate change science is about all the natural interactions and artificial changes. New ones being discovered also. Oceanic acidification. Good enough reason to cut down on the CO2?
There are many factors that must be taken into account. The truth is that CO2 is a relatively weak absorber of IR and it is present in only trace amounts. it operates in one phase only, the gas phase. Water vapor in all three phases is vastly more important than CO2 in moderating the Earth surface temperature. CO2 concentration is strongly correlated with atmospheric temperature suggesting that increasing CO2 may be responsible for increasing surface temperatures. However because the concentration of all gases dissolved in all liquids decreases with increasing temperature (Henry's Law), CO2 will be correlated with temperature regardless of whether CO2 is the dependent or the independent variable in the temperature - CO2 function. So to determine what the independent variable is one has to look at something beyond correlation. By now many scientists have done that. They look at timing, i.e., phase relationships between changes in CO2 concentration and temperature change and other factors. This requires better resolved data than was initially available. The latest studies all show regular, short term Temperature variation to be the independent variable driving regular, short term, variations in CO2 riding on much longer term temperature and CO2 cycles which are more difficult to resolve. But current opinion seems to be moving in the direction of temperature being the independent variable overall. The single most troubling aspect with regard to accepting CO2 as the independent variable is that all models to date require incorporation of a positive feedback mechanism to show any significant effect of rising CO2 concentration. However systems with positive feed back are inherently unstable, and unless the feedback mechanism has changed from negative to positive fairly recently in geologic time, none of us should be here. We should have already faced runaway temperature excursion, as predicted by the early Hansen models. When we hear the term 'global warming' we must separate it in our minds from what is called the Hansen Hypothesis. The later is the hypothesis that Humans are putting so much CO2 into the atmosphere that they are affecting temperature in a catastrophic way, i.e., there is positive feedback. At this point no mechanism has been identified that would allow Hansen's Hypothesis to hold unless the feedback is positive. Global warming however is a separate issue. The consensus seems to be building that there is some warming occurring globally. But even that is undecided. Some portions of the Earth are clearly warming while others may be cooling. The Earth is large and reliable direct surface temperature measurement over the entire surface is is far more difficult than it might at first seem considering that reliable data bases covering many years are needed. We are looking for tenths of a degree change per year against a background two orders greater in daily fluctuation and large local variations having nothing to do with natural cause. Since the late 1980s we began to get satellite data that in principle should be more reliable. In practice it has its own set of problems. Recently there has been an effort to resolve the difference between satellite data and surface based data. The two data sets do not agree unless one or the other, or both, are adjusted. The adjustments have been criticized on a number of grounds. So the two questions to be answered are 1) is the average temperature of the entire Earth warming, cooling or staying the same and over what time period, and 2) if the mean temperature is changing over the entire globe, or indeed even in one part and not another, what is the cause. Is it natural, or is it man caused. These are separate questions, and science does not yet have a definitive answer to either. Politicians have become involved, and so have entrepreneurs and companies hoping to cash in in the new market for carbon credits. This is certainly not making the science easier. The media in advanced countries seems content to report that temperatures are going up, and we should be reducing CO2 emissions (They call it 'carbon'). The implication is that the questions of Global Warming and Hansen's Hypothesis are both settled science. Neither is. It appears that nearly everyone except the real scientists are convinced that the Earth is warming and Man is causing it. If only one could settle scientific questions by vote we'd have no trouble settling this one.
Piezoe, what is your take on CO2 contributing directly to ocean acidification? The chemistry is simple enough here and the sudden sharp rise not giving life the generations to adapt is also pretty straightforward. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rising-acidity-in-the-ocean/ "Although the change may seem small, similar natural shifts have taken 5,000 to 10,000 years. We have done it in 50 to 80 years. Ocean life survived the long, gradual change, but the current speed of acidification is very worrisome. Emissions could reduce surface pH by another 0.4 unit in this century alone and by as much as 0.7 unit beyond 2100. We are hurtling toward an ocean different than the earth has known for more than 25 million years." An ocean that we depend on for a huge amount of our food. From just yesterday: https://weather.com/science/environ...an-acidification-climate-change-red-king-crab or the earlier report:
I know a lot about pH measurement, but I don't know enough about the Ocean pH problem to give you a valuable opinion. What I do know is when people say the ocean is acidifying they mean it is getting less basic. The ocean is buffered against pH change of course and it is alkaline somewhere in the neighborhood of pH 8. That does not mean it doesn't change its pH, it does. It changes over 24 hours, from one place to another and with depth and temperature of course. It's a problem in four dimensions -- x,y,z and temperature! Compared to measuring the change in mean ocean pH, measuring the change in atmospheric CO2 is child's play. And atmospheric CO2 also varies all over the place, and it too is a 4-dimensional problem dimensional problem. but at least you can measure it accurately at any one time, in any one place and at any one air pressure. Far more difficult to do that with pH. (I have a lot of experience in that regard.) Folks are claiming a 0.1 change in pH over a century I think (maybe you know better than I) so it is the same problem again: Tremendous variability, and to little and unreliable data compared to the change one is looking for. I guess remote sensing by satellite is now used in addition to direct measurement, but I don't know how the Satellite system works. I found this comment on the What'supwiththat.com, it's a clearly biased site, so I am cautious about anything I read there. However this guy's comment fit exactly with my own personal experience of many long years making these kinds of measurement. Here is what a guy named Steve Short said: see (https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/01/02/a-neutral-view-of-oceanic-ph/) Steve Short January 2, 2015 at 2:39 pm Just a ‘few’, ‘small’, issues, as usual, as follows: How many of these values have been correctly normalized to 25 C (as pHs should properly be to allow valid comparison)? I have personally interviewed young grad students freshly off an oceanographic vessel who were found to have been accumulating such data without using a recently calibrated in situ temperature probe on the same platform. When questioned they revealed profound ignorance of the fact that pHs need to be temperature-normalized to allow a valid comparison. How many of these values have been accumulated with a pH probe which had been specially manufactured for a (variable) high, ionic strength – in particular for sodium? It is well known in chemical engineering, hydrometallurgy etc., but strangely not environmentally or oceanographically that in a high Na+ (and NaSO4- ion pair) species environment a ‘regular’ pH probe is also responding to a small but significant (in terms of the above analysis) extent to the high free Na+ . How many of these values have been accumulated with a pH probe which had not been two-point calibrated with say buffers at 7.000 (or 6.88) and 9.00 etc., the very same day? The mV slope through the 7.0 to 8.5 needs to be checked at least daily and most probes – especially the more modern gel-filled varieties typically degrade noticeably slope-wise over less than a year. As a 66 year old geochemist who has truly ‘seen it all’ in respect of the quality and deep thought content of field parameter pH, EC, DO etc., monitoring over a 40+ year career (particularly in the Gen X & Y period ;-), I’d hazard a guess that the above analysis and its inferred trend could well be as deeply flawed historically and methodologically as e.g. the many AGW proponents claim Beck’s analysis of the whole suite of pre-IR atmospheric pCO2 values is. And please….don’t get me started on ice core CO2 methodology….. This guy, Steve, is recounting what my personal experience is exactly. It is routine to make measurements to 2 significant figure in the lab. Not easy to make them repeatable to 3, and although equipment exists that will read to 4, we joked that the 4th figure was completely meaningless because the mV signal equivalent of the 4th digit is on the same magnitude as the noise. Ive seen papers published where values were reported to 4 significant figures, but any expert on pH measurement will tell you the fourth significant figure is nonsense, for a variety of reasons. So in summary, probably the bulk of historic Ocean pH data is no better than 2 significant figures, and now we are trying to make sense out of the second digit after the decimal, i.e., 3 significant figures. The third figure is probably nonsense because there is probably error in the first digit after the decimal. So while I don't know anything about the Ocean pH study, I do know how difficult it is going to be if you are looking for mean changes as small as one digit after the decimal. The ocean is huge and the measures available over time are too few and probably many are of low quality. In a hundred years we might know something. I haven't a clue how we know what the ocean pH was 25 million years ago, but if there was life in it that it wasn't too much different from what it is today. 0.7 pH units in a hundred years would be a lot! I doubt that would be good. Finally, suppose we were able to determine that the ocean today is on average a little less alkaline than it was 100 years OK. Then we'd be faced with finding out why. In my mind, there are plenty of good reasons why we should be cutting back on fossil fuel use and developing alternative energy sources. And I think we may very well be in a warming period. But I have very serious doubts about the Hansen Hypothesis. I think the evidence is piling up against it.
According to scientists who study ocean acidification in detail - ocean acidification is not caused by AGW - https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...matologists-agree.278244/page-13#post-3885898 In regards to coral reefs - the top causes of coral reef bleaching are Solar Irradiance, Subaerial Exposure, Sedimentation, Fresh Water Dilution, Inorganic Nutrients and Xenbiotics. AGW and CO2 have nothing to do with it. This has been reported by marine biologists who have studying reefs for years but has been ignored by those pushing "climate change".
I find the acidification argument thoroughly unconvincing for a simple reason. The ratio of water mass to CO2 mass is so high that no amount of CO2 available could change the ph of the oceans. It's 1.4e18 (ocean mass) / 1.9e11 (50 years of emissions) = .73e7 or approximately 1 part in 10 million if ALL the CO2 we produce winds up in the oceans (of course that doesn't happen). Acidification seems a misnomer, anyway, since the oceans are basic at 8.1, so lessening of basicness seems more appropriate, but it doesn't sound so scary , does it?
So much fluff and bullshit in this post that it is difficult to shovel it all. Let's start with the first paragraph. "There are many factors that must be taken into account. The truth is that CO2 is a relatively weak absorber of IR and it is present in only trace amounts. it operates in one phase only, the gas phase. Water vapor in all three phases is vastly more important than CO2 in moderating the Earth surface temperature. CO2 concentration is strongly correlated with atmospheric temperature suggesting that increasing CO2 may be responsible for increasing surface temperatures. However because the concentration of all gases dissolved in all liquids decreases with increasing temperature (Henry's Law), CO2 will be correlated with temperature regardless of whether CO2 is the dependent or the independent variable in the temperature - CO2 function. So to determine what the independent variable is one has to look at something beyond correlation." In bold.. Well this is an interesting opinion but it flies in the face of what actual climate scientists (as opposed to whatever piehole is ) say. It is clear to them that CO2 is the chief regulator of earth's surface temperature. Carbon Dioxide Controls Earth's Temperature 10.14.10 › View larger A new atmosphere-ocean climate modeling study shows that atmospheric carbon dioxide acts as a thermostat in regulating the temperature of Earth. Credit: NASA GISS/ Lilly Del Valle › View larger Various atmospheric components differ in their contributions to the greenhouse effect, some through feedbacks and some through forcings. Without carbon dioxide and other non-condensing greenhouse gases, water vapor and clouds would be unable to provide the feedback mechanisms that amplify the greenhouse effect. Credit: NASA GISSWater vapor and clouds are the major contributors to Earth's greenhouse effect, but a new atmosphere-ocean climate modeling study shows that the planet's temperature ultimately depends on the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide. The study, conducted by Andrew Lacis and colleagues at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, examined the nature of Earth's greenhouse effect and clarified the role that greenhouse gases and clouds play in absorbing outgoing infrared radiation. Notably, the team identified non-condensing greenhouse gases -- such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons -- as providing the core support for the terrestrial greenhouse effect. Without non-condensing greenhouse gases, water vapor and clouds would be unable to provide the feedback mechanisms that amplify the greenhouse effect. The study's results will be published Friday, Oct. 15 in Science. A companion study led by GISS co-author Gavin Schmidt that has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research shows that carbon dioxide accounts for about 20 percent of the greenhouse effect, water vapor and clouds together account for 75 percent, and minor gases and aerosols make up the remaining five percent. However, it is the 25 percent non-condensing greenhouse gas component, which includes carbon dioxide, that is the key factor in sustaining Earth’s greenhouse effect. By this accounting, carbon dioxide is responsible for 80 percent of the radiative forcing that sustains the Earth’s greenhouse effect. The climate forcing experiment described in Science was simple in design and concept -- all of the non-condensing greenhouse gases and aerosols were zeroed out, and the global climate model was run forward in time to see what would happen to the greenhouse effect. Without the sustaining support by the non-condensing greenhouse gases, Earth’s greenhouse effect collapsed as water vapor quickly precipitated from the atmosphere, plunging the model Earth into an icebound state -- a clear demonstration that water vapor, although contributing 50 percent of the total greenhouse warming, acts as a feedback process, and as such, cannot by itself uphold the Earth's greenhouse effect. "Our climate modeling simulation should be viewed as an experiment in atmospheric physics, illustrating a cause and effect problem which allowed us to gain a better understanding of the working mechanics of Earth’s greenhouse effect, and enabled us to demonstrate the direct relationship that exists between rising atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising global temperature," Lacis said. The study ties in to the geologic record in which carbon dioxide levels have oscillated between approximately 180 parts per million during ice ages, and about 280 parts per million during warmer interglacial periods. To provide perspective to the nearly 1 C (1.8 F) increase in global temperature over the past century, it is estimated that the global mean temperature difference between the extremes of the ice age and interglacial periods is only about 5 C (9 F). "When carbon dioxide increases, more water vapor returns to the atmosphere. This is what helped to melt the glaciers that once covered New York City," said co-author David Rind, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. "Today we are in uncharted territory as carbon dioxide approaches 390 parts per million in what has been referred to as the 'superinterglacial.'" "The bottom line is that atmospheric carbon dioxide acts as a thermostat in regulating the temperature of Earth," Lacis said. "The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has fully documented the fact that industrial activity is responsible for the rapidly increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. It is not surprising then that global warming can be linked directly to the observed increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and to human industrial activity in general." https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/co2-temperature.html