Arctic sea ice melting toward record

[RollingThunder]

So here we are six years down the road from this forecast, and things are still getting warmer. In spite of a strong and persistant La Nina, and a near record low in solar activity and TSI, 2008 turned out to be either the 8th or 10th warmest year on record. 2009 tied for the second warmest year on record. And 2010 may well go down as the warmest year on record, for at least one year.

Were the scientists wrong about the NAO? No. But they definately underestimated the strength of the warming.

World's climate could cool first, warm later - environment - 04 September 2009 - New Scientist

Cold Atlantic
Latif predicted that in the next few years a natural cooling trend would dominate over warming caused by humans. The cooling would be down to cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the North Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).

Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, he said NAO cycles were probably responsible for some of the strong global warming seen in the past three decades. "But how much? The jury is still out," he told the conference. The NAO is now moving into a colder phase.

Latif said NAO cycles also explained the recent recovery of the Sahel region of Africa from the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. James Murphy, head of climate prediction at the Met Office, agreed and linked the NAO to Indian monsoons, Atlantic hurricanes and sea ice in the Arctic. "The oceans are key to decadal natural variability," he said.

How about some perspective with this little bit of propoganda. Greenland has 3,000,000 cubic kilometers of ice. The warmers are telling us that it is losing 200 cubic kilometers per year. So it is losing .007% of its mass every year...That means it will take about 15, 000 to 16,000 years for it to go away. And that is assuming that the warming comes back anytime soon. So far there has been no warming since 1998 (admitted to by Dr. Jones himself) and the best estimates are it will continue to cool for another 20-30 years. So how do you answer those little problems boys?

The only problem here is your moronic inability, or perhaps deliberate unwillingness, to comprehend what is happening.

Your first stupidity is ignoring the obvious fact that, since Greenland is "losing 200 cubic kilometers per year" now that it wasn't losing before, then the climate must have warmed up quite a bit.

Your second stupidity is assuming that the current rate of ice loss is going to stay constant even though the rate has been increasing sharply over the last 40 years and is still accelerating. See article at end.

Your third stupidity is the straw-man argument that the 'problem' would be for the Greenland ice sheet "to go away" or completely disappear and since this would take, according to your naive and distorted math, tens of thousands of years, then there is no problem. That is just idiotic. The ice mass loss from Greenland is already contributing to sea level rise and that contribution is just going to be increasing every year.

The collapse and breakup of ice sheets is not a linear process and the possibility of sudden catastrophic collapses of portions of the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets is very real. Such collapses would result in rapid sea level changes measured in feet.

Your forth stupidity was trying to once again sell that moldy old debunked denier cult myth of "no warming since 1998 (admitted to by Dr. Jones himself)" In fact, Dr Jones said that there was a warming trend of +0.12°C per decade for the narrow band of years, 1995 to 2009, that the interviewer picked, but that the trend, while coming close, did not quite reach the 95% confidence level that statisticians refer to as 'statistically significant' (a scientific term that I'm sure you and the other denier dingbats are totally unfamiliar with and so will grievously misinterpret). Using longer time periods, like 30 or 40 years or more, the warming trend is very statistically significant.

Q&A: Professor Phil Jones

BBC - Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming

Dr Jones - Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.

You anti-science denier cultists and your wacky dogmas are both hilarious and pathetic. How stupid does someone have to be to believe in "no warming since 1998" when the scientific record says this:

2009: Second Warmest Year on Record; End of Warmest Decade

NASA
01.21.10

2009 was tied for the second warmest year in the modern record, a new NASA analysis of global surface temperature shows. The analysis, conducted by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City, also shows that in the Southern Hemisphere, 2009 was the warmest year since modern records began in 1880.

Although 2008 was the coolest year of the decade -- due to strong cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean -- 2009 saw a return to near-record global temperatures. The past year was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the warmest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years -- 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 -- as the second warmest year since recordkeeping began.

“There’s always an interest in the annual temperature numbers and on a given year’s ranking, but usually that misses the point,” said James Hansen, the director of GISS. “There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Niño-La Niña cycle. But when we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find that global warming is continuing unabated."

The near-record temperatures of 2009 occurred despite an unseasonably cool December in much of North America. High air pressures in the Arctic decreased the east-west flow of the jet stream, while also increasing its tendency to blow from north to south and draw cold air southward from the Arctic. This resulted in an unusual effect that caused frigid air from the Arctic to rush into North America and warmer mid-latitude air to shift toward the north.

"Of course, the contiguous 48 states cover only 1.5 percent of the world area, so the U.S. temperature does not affect the global temperature much,' said Hansen.

In total, average global temperatures have increased by about 0.8°C (1.4°F) since 1880.
***

Study: Greenland ice loss accelerating

USA Today
Mar 24, 2010

The Greenland ice sheet, the world's second-largest, is continuing to experience ice loss due to global warming, according to a new study.

What's new about this study is that the ice loss, which has been well-documented over southern Greenland, is now spreading up along the northwest coast, with this acceleration likely starting in late 2005.

"The changes on the Greenland ice sheet are happening fast, and we are definitely losing more ice mass than we had anticipated," says study co-author Isabella Velicogna of the University of California-Irvine. "We also are seeing this trend in Antarctica, a sign that warming temperatures really are having an effect on ice in Earth's cold regions."

Air temperatures over the Greenland ice sheet have increased by about 4 degrees since 1991, which most scientists attribute to a buildup of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere.

"This is a phenomenon that was undocumented before this study," study co-author John Wahr of the University of Colorado says. "Our speculation is that some of the big glaciers in this region are sliding downhill faster and dumping more ice in the ocean."

Scientists used a combination of satellite and GPS measurements to document the ice loss.

The mass loss is equivalent to about 0.02 inch of global sea-level rise per year. If the entire Greenland ice sheet melted, which is not predicted, scientists estimate that global sea levels would rise about 20 feet, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The Greenland ice sheet covers most of the island, and is about 656,000 square miles in size, roughly three times the size of Texas.

The paper was published this month in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.

Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

 

[westwall]

Poor Blunder,

First off you seem to think that actions we do today result in effects tomorrow. That is simply not the case. The glacial melt we see in Greenland began hundreds of years ago and is continuing (or not, depends on who's figures you look at) through the present and will continue, or not, regardless of what we humans do.

Your viewpoint is so myopic that you just can't wrap your pea sized brain around the fact that what is occuring began CENTURIES AGO and will continue on for a few more centuries.

You guys allways say we call you names and ignore the science when that is your purview, you have no science, other than that which is made up out of whole cloth so to defend your bs you attack the messengers and try to vilify them...much like the defence lawyer attacking the rape victim and trying to prove "she had it coming"...you people are despicable.

You denigrate science and have damaged the credibility of science for at least a generation. You have no respect for ethics or science or the very real world of cause and effect.

You continue to try and imply that the world is going to die if nothing is done when there is
overwhelming and incontrovertible historical proof that when the earth is warm all critters prosper, whether it be the plants, or the four legged critters or people.

You blissfully bury your head in the sand of religious dogma (yes you are the ones guilty of that particularly vile form of intellectual dishonesty now...the church actually employs scientists to keep abreast of developments while you keep referring to the predictions of 25 years ago, and how exactly did those pan out anyway? Not too blooody good from what I can see) and completely ignore all that is presented and instead trot out the same ridiculous arguments that have been shattered and disproven and cast upon the scrap heap of pseudo science, like alchemy and eugenics and a whole host of other even more undesireable fields of study.

Congrats, your particular brand of religion is now the laughing stock of the world. 25% of first world population believes in your drivel and that number is falling fast. As more evidence is exposed of the AGW agenda and how horribly they have twisted science in the pursuit of money ther will be a further drop. So far all of the major western powers have abandoned your agenda because it is crap. Only the US (and this is because Obama has quite a few people in his administration poised to make a busload of cash off of the programs) is still pursuing the bs agenda...and now it is faltering here as well.

You can post your data from fraudulent organizations with their fraudulent methodology all you want...but the truth is still the same, they lied, they are lying, they are going to continue to lie and they have been caught. A lot of them are going to go to prison for fraud for stealing BILLIONS of dollars from the US taxpayer.

So feel free to keep on yapping. The effect is going to be the same. AGW theory is wrong. The agenda behind the theory is dying fast. The perpetrators are going to be prosecuted and a bunch of them will end up in prison....where they should be!

 

[Old Rocks]

Hey Walleyes, when you get back from your latest survival hike in Lower Slobovia, how about posting some real peer reviewed articles supporting your point of view? You surely can have your buddy Si give you a list.

 

[Old Rocks]

Here is a report for the coldest year of the decade, 2008. Why don't you read it and find out how much ice was added to the Greenland Ice Cap in 2008.

Arctic Report Card - Greenland - Box, et al.

Greenland

J. E. Box1, L.-S. Bai1, R. Benson1, I. Bhattacharya1, D. H. Bromwich1, J. Cappelen2, D. Decker1, N. DiGirolamo3, X. Fettweis4, D. Hall5, E. Hanna6, T. Mote7, M. Tedesco8, R. van de Wal9, and M. van den Broeke9

1Byrd Polar Research Center, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
2Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark
3Science Systems Applications Inc. and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
4Department of Geography, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium
5NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
6Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, England
7Department of Geography, University of Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia
8Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, City College of New York, New York, New York
9Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

October 19, 2009

Summary

An abnormally cold winter across the southern half of Greenland led to substantially higher west coast sea ice thickness and concentration. Even so, record-setting summer temperatures around Greenland, combined with an intense melt season (particularly across the northern ice sheet), led the 2008 Greenland climate to be marked by continued ice sheet mass deficit and marine-terminating ice disintegration.

 

[westwall]

Hey Walleyes, when you get back from your latest survival hike in Lower Slobovia, how about posting some real peer reviewed articles supporting your point of view? You surely can have your buddy Si give you a list.

Why don't you? Oh that's right they corrupted the process by denying sceptical articles. Ergo the process is broken, which means that whatever they published is now worthless.
Congrats on a great way to butcher the scientific method. It takes a real pro to set the whole of science back a generation

And you're just jealous that I am far better travelled than you. So get off your lazy butt and hit the trail! I am headed for the Heaphy Track on the south island of New Zealand next September. It's north from Karamea and is one of the best walks I've ever done so I decided to do it again 25 years after so I could see what has changed. You should give it a try some time.

 

[Old Rocks]

Hey Walleyes, when you get back from your latest survival hike in Lower Slobovia, how about posting some real peer reviewed articles supporting your point of view? You surely can have your buddy Si give you a list.

Why don't you? Oh that's right they corrupted the process by denying sceptical articles. Ergo the process is broken, which means that whatever they published is now worthless.
Congrats on a great way to butcher the scientific method. It takes a real pro to set the whole of science back a generation

And you're just jealous that I am far better travelled than you. So get off your lazy butt and hit the trail! I am headed for the Heaphy Track on the south island of New Zealand next September. It's north from Karamea and is one of the best walks I've ever done so I decided to do it again 25 years after so I could see what has changed. You should give it a try some time.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Old Rocks longs for the good ole days when everything north of the Ohio River was under 600 feet of ice.

We've been losing ice for the past 12,000 years.

 

[westwall]

Old Rocks longs for the good ole days when everything north of the Ohio River was under 600 feet of ice.

We've been losing ice for the past 12,000 years.

Absolutely correct. I almost feel sorry for old fraud. He clearly has never lived beyond the confines of his computer so has no real experience of the outside world. It is sad that these folks never get off of their lazy butts and feel the wind blowing through their hair at 15,000 feet or so. It is truly a wonderful experience!

 

[RollingThunder]

Poor Blunder,

First off you seem to think that actions we do today result in effects tomorrow. That is simply not the case. The glacial melt we see in Greenland began hundreds of years ago and is continuing (or not, depends on who's figures you look at) through the present and will continue, or not, regardless of what we humans do.

Your viewpoint is so myopic that you just can't wrap your pea sized brain around the fact that what is occuring(sic) began CENTURIES AGO and will continue on for a few more centuries.

It is really funny to watch when you just make up your own 'science' off the top of your head. Unfortunately for your fantasies, nothing happened "hundreds of years ago" to cause Greenland to melt. What has happened is that mankind's CO2 emissions have been building up in the atmosphere and warming the planet and melting the ice.

If I challenge you to tell us just exactly what it is that "began CENTURIES AGO" that is supposedly melting the Greenland ice sheets, you will change the subject.

You guys allways(sic) say we call you names and ignore the science when that is your purview, you have no science, other than that which is made up out of whole cloth so to defend your bs you attack the messengers and try to vilify them...much like the defence(sic) lawyer attacking the rape victim and trying to prove "she had it coming"...you people are despicable.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL.....you are such a delusional loon, walleyed. LOL. The world scientific community is solidly behind the reality of anthropogenic global warming and all of the papers getting published in peer-reviewed science journals support the scientific reality of AGW but you say: "you have no science". LOLOLOLOLOLOL. You trot out your denier cult pseudo-science that can only get 'published' on Exxon sponsored blogs and imagine that it is real. You are lost in some serious hallucinations there, walleyed.

You denigrate science and have damaged the credibility of science for at least a generation. You have no respect for ethics or science or the very real world of cause and effect.

This is called 'projection' and is common among the quasi-insane like you denier cultists. It is your anti-science propaganda, slander and lies that have denigrated science, you cretin. You have no knowledge of or understanding of or respect for science. You have repeatedly shown yourself to be an ignorant, uneducated, low IQ nitwit who confuses your own political dogmas with scientific arguments.

You continue to try and imply that the world is going to die if nothing is done when there is
overwhelming and incontrovertible historical proof that when the earth is warm all critters prosper, whether it be the plants, or the four legged critters or people.

More of your unadulterated bullshit, walleyed. Abrupt climate changes cause extinction events - that's what the paleontological history shows.

You blissfully bury your head in the sand of religious dogma (yes you are the ones guilty of that particularly vile form of intellectual dishonesty now...the church actually employs scientists to keep abreast of developments while you keep referring to the predictions of 25 years ago, and how exactly did those pan out anyway? Not too blooody(sic) good from what I can see) and completely ignore all that is presented and instead trot out the same ridiculous arguments that have been shattered and disproven and cast upon the scrap heap of pseudo science, like alchemy and eugenics and a whole host of other even more undesireable(sic) fields of study.

You're just full of those old denier cult myths and superstitions today, aren't you walleyed? LOL. You're far too intellectually deficient to ever have "disproven" anything but I'm sure those delusions are a comfort to you. Actually the predictions from 25 years ago proved to be pretty accurate. Here's a discussion of one prediction and the lies you deniers tell about it.

Objection: In 1988, Hansen predicted dire warming over the next decade -- and he was off by 300%. Why in the world should we listen to the same doom and gloom from him today?

Answer: While in some instances it is ignorant repetition of misinformation, at its source this story is a plain lie.

In 1988, James Hansen testified before the U.S. Senate on the danger of anthropogenic global warming. During that testimony he presented a graph -- part of a paper published soon after. This graph had three lines on it, representing three scenarios based on three projections of future emissions and volcanism.

Line A was a temperature trend prediction based on rapid emissions growth and no large volcanic event; it was a steep climb through the year 2000 and beyond.

Line B was based on modest emissions growth and one large volcanic eruption in the mid 1990s.

Line C began along the same trajectory as Line B, and included the same volcanic eruption, but showed reductions in the growth of CO2 emission by the turn of the century -- the result of hypothetical government controls.

As it happens, since Hansen's testimony, emissions have grown at a modest rate and Mt. Pinatubo did in fact erupt, though in the early 1990s, not the middle. In other words, the Line B forcings scenario came remarkably close to predicting what actually came to pass.

Not coincidentally, the observed temperature trend has tracked closely with the Line B prediction as well.

Hansen was right on the money, and the models he used proved successful.

Unfortunately, when Patrick Michaels made his testimony before Congress in 1998, ten years later, he saw fit to erase the two lower lines, B and C, and show the Senators only Line A. He did so to make his testimony that Hansen's predictions had been off by 300% believable. He lied by omission. This lie was picked up by Michael Crichton in his novel State of Fear (one of many omissions, confusions, and falsehood in that book -- see here).

To my knowledge, Patrick Michaels has never owned up to his deception, either with an apology and retraction or with an explanation, and consequently the urban myth lives on to this day.

©2010. Grist Magazine, Inc. All rights reserved. Gloom and doom with a sense of humor®.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Congrats, your particular brand of religion is now the laughing stock of the world. 25% of first world population believes in your drivel and that number is falling fast. As more evidence is exposed of the AGW agenda and how horribly they have twisted science in the pursuit of money ther will be a further drop. So far all of the major western powers have abandoned your agenda because it is crap. Only the US (and this is because Obama has quite a few people in his administration poised to make a busload of cash off of the programs) is still pursuing the bs agenda...and now it is faltering here as well.

You can post your data from fraudulent organizations with their fraudulent methodology all you want...but the truth is still the same, they lied, they are lying, they are going to continue to lie and they have been caught. A lot of them are going to go to prison for fraud for stealing BILLIONS of dollars from the US taxpayer. So feel free to keep on yapping. The effect is going to be the same. AGW theory is wrong. The agenda behind the theory is dying fast. The perpetrators are going to be prosecuted and a bunch of them will end up in prison....where they should be!

Just more of your delusional denier cult drivel, idiotic conspiracy theories and bullshit propaganda. You have lost all connection to reality. AGW theory is still supported by the world scientific community because all of the evidence still supports that theory. Your denial of it is still just your anti-scientific denial of reality for political reasons.

 

[westwall]

Trolling Blunder,

You said,

"Abrupt climate changes cause extinction events - that's what the paleontological history shows."

I suggest you take that particular statement down to any university with a earth sciences department and present that to them. You see if it could be proven then voila you have an instant PhD in geology.

The reason why I say this is because NO ONE KNOWS what caused ANY of the mass extinctions. There are many theories and depending on which extinction you are talking about, some or nearly no evidence to support any one particular theory of that particular extinction.

So your statement is incorrect on all levels. Go back and try again. And next time put some more effort into it, currently you're failing the class.

 

[Big Fitz]

Hey Walleyes, when you get back from your latest survival hike in Lower Slobovia, how about posting some real peer reviewed articles supporting your point of view? You surely can have your buddy Si give you a list.

Why don't you? Oh that's right they corrupted the process by denying sceptical articles. Ergo the process is broken, which means that whatever they published is now worthless.
Congrats on a great way to butcher the scientific method. It takes a real pro to set the whole of science back a generation

And you're just jealous that I am far better travelled than you. So get off your lazy butt and hit the trail! I am headed for the Heaphy Track on the south island of New Zealand next September. It's north from Karamea and is one of the best walks I've ever done so I decided to do it again 25 years after so I could see what has changed. You should give it a try some time.

Very cool. Make sure to take pictures of some of the same natural features you did back then... assuming you did. We then can compare any changes. LOL

Of course the changes meaning will vary from person to person.

 

[RollingThunder]

Trolling Blunder,

You said,

"Abrupt climate changes cause extinction events - that's what the paleontological history shows."

I suggest you take that particular statement down to any university with a earth sciences department and present that to them. You see if it could be proven then voila you have an instant PhD in geology.

The reason why I say this is because NO ONE KNOWS what caused ANY of the mass extinctions. There are many theories and depending on which extinction you are talking about, some or nearly no evidence to support any one particular theory of that particular extinction.

So your statement is incorrect on all levels. Go back and try again. And next time put some more effort into it, currently you're failing the class.

It is always amusing to watch you try to get all 'sciencey' when it is so obvious that you're completely ignorant about science in all its aspects.

Climate Change Played Major Role in Mass Extinction of Mammals 50,000 Years Ago, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (May 18, 2010) — An international team of scientists has discovered that climate change played a major role in causing mass extinction of mammals in the late quaternary era, 50,000 years ago. Their study, published in Evolution, takes a new approach to this hotly debated topic by using global data modelling to build continental 'climate footprints.'

"Between 50,000 and 3,000 years before present (BP) 65% of mammal species weighing over 44kg went extinct, together with a lower proportion of small mammals," said lead author Dr David Nogues-Bravo from the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate in University of Copenhagen. "Why these species became extinct in such large numbers has been hotly debated for over a century."

During the last 50,000 years the global climate became colder and drier, reaching full glacial conditions 21,000 years before present time. Since then the climate has become warmer, and this changing climate created new opportunities for colonization of new regions by humans. While both of these global change actors played significant roles in species extinction this study reveals that changing climate was a significant force driving this mass extinction.

"Until now global evidence to support the climate change argument has been lacking, a large part of existing evidence was based on local or regional estimates between numbers of extinctions, dates of human arrivals and dates of climate change," said Dr Nogues-Bravo. "Our approach is completely different. By dealing with the issue at a global scale we add a new dimension to the debate by showing that the impact of climate change was not equal across all regions, and we quantify this to reveal each continent's "footprint of climate change."

The study shows that climate change had a global influence over extinctions throughout the late quaternary, but the level of extinction seems to be related to each continent's footprint of climate change. When comparing continents it can then be seen that in Africa, where the climate changed to a relatively lesser extent there were fewer extinctions. However, in North America, more species suffered extinction, as reflected by a greater degree of climate change.

A key piece of evidence in the humans versus climate debate is the size of the extinct mammals. It has always been assumed that humans mainly impacted on populations of large mammals, while if climate change played the key role there should be evidence of large impacts on small mammals as well as the larger animals.

The team's results show that continents which suffered larger climate change impacts suffered larger extinctions of small mammals and viceversa, further strengthening the idea that climate change was a key factor in controlling past extinctions on a global scale.

This research has important implications for the current study of climate change, not only in revealing the role of the climate in causing extinction in mammals, but also by demonstrating how the effect will be different across regions and continents.

"Our results show that continents with the highest 'climate footprints' witnessed more extinctions then continents with lower 'climate footprints'. These results are consistent across species with different body masses, reinforcing the view that past climate changes contributed to global extinctions."

"While climate change is not the only factor behind extinction, past, present or future, we cannot neglect in any way that climate change, directly or indirectly, is a crucial actor to understand past and future species extinctions.," said Miguel Araújo, a co-author of the paper from the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Spain.

Copyright © 1995-2010 ScienceDaily LLC — All rights reserved

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

 

[Old Rocks]

One thing common to all the extinction events was a rapid buildup of GHGs.

Earth's five mass extinction events

What Veron 2008 found was each mass extinction event corresponded to periods of quickly changing atmospheric CO2. When CO2 changes slowly, the gradual increase allows mixing and buffering of surface layers by deep ocean sinks. Marine organisms also have time to adapt to the new environmental conditions. However, when CO2 increases abruptly, the acidification effects are intensified in shallow waters owing to a lack of mixing. It also gives marine life little time to adapt.

So rate of change is a key variable in nature's ability to adapt. The current rate of change in CO2 levels has no known precedent. Oceans don't respond instantly to a CO2 build-up, so the full effects of acidification take decades to centuries to develop. This means we will have irretrievably committed the Earth to the acidification process long before its effects become anywhere near as obvious as those of mass bleaching today. If we continue business-as-usual CO2 emissions, ocean pH will eventually drop to a point at which a host of other chemical changes such as anoxia (an absence of oxygen) are expected. If this happens, the state of the oceans at the end Cretaceous 65 million years ago will become a reality and the Earth will enter the sixth mass extinction.

 

[westwall]

Trolling Blunder,

You said,

"Abrupt climate changes cause extinction events - that's what the paleontological history shows."

I suggest you take that particular statement down to any university with a earth sciences department and present that to them. You see if it could be proven then voila you have an instant PhD in geology.

The reason why I say this is because NO ONE KNOWS what caused ANY of the mass extinctions. There are many theories and depending on which extinction you are talking about, some or nearly no evidence to support any one particular theory of that particular extinction.

So your statement is incorrect on all levels. Go back and try again. And next time put some more effort into it, currently you're failing the class.

It is always amusing to watch you try to get all 'sciencey' when it is so obvious that you're completely ignorant about science in all its aspects.

Climate Change Played Major Role in Mass Extinction of Mammals 50,000 Years Ago, Study Finds

ScienceDaily (May 18, 2010) — An international team of scientists has discovered that climate change played a major role in causing mass extinction of mammals in the late quaternary era, 50,000 years ago. Their study, published in Evolution, takes a new approach to this hotly debated topic by using global data modelling to build continental 'climate footprints.'

"Between 50,000 and 3,000 years before present (BP) 65% of mammal species weighing over 44kg went extinct, together with a lower proportion of small mammals," said lead author Dr David Nogues-Bravo from the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate in University of Copenhagen. "Why these species became extinct in such large numbers has been hotly debated for over a century."

During the last 50,000 years the global climate became colder and drier, reaching full glacial conditions 21,000 years before present time. Since then the climate has become warmer, and this changing climate created new opportunities for colonization of new regions by humans. While both of these global change actors played significant roles in species extinction this study reveals that changing climate was a significant force driving this mass extinction.

"Until now global evidence to support the climate change argument has been lacking, a large part of existing evidence was based on local or regional estimates between numbers of extinctions, dates of human arrivals and dates of climate change," said Dr Nogues-Bravo. "Our approach is completely different. By dealing with the issue at a global scale we add a new dimension to the debate by showing that the impact of climate change was not equal across all regions, and we quantify this to reveal each continent's "footprint of climate change."

The study shows that climate change had a global influence over extinctions throughout the late quaternary, but the level of extinction seems to be related to each continent's footprint of climate change. When comparing continents it can then be seen that in Africa, where the climate changed to a relatively lesser extent there were fewer extinctions. However, in North America, more species suffered extinction, as reflected by a greater degree of climate change.

A key piece of evidence in the humans versus climate debate is the size of the extinct mammals. It has always been assumed that humans mainly impacted on populations of large mammals, while if climate change played the key role there should be evidence of large impacts on small mammals as well as the larger animals.

The team's results show that continents which suffered larger climate change impacts suffered larger extinctions of small mammals and viceversa, further strengthening the idea that climate change was a key factor in controlling past extinctions on a global scale.

This research has important implications for the current study of climate change, not only in revealing the role of the climate in causing extinction in mammals, but also by demonstrating how the effect will be different across regions and continents.

"Our results show that continents with the highest 'climate footprints' witnessed more extinctions then continents with lower 'climate footprints'. These results are consistent across species with different body masses, reinforcing the view that past climate changes contributed to global extinctions."

"While climate change is not the only factor behind extinction, past, present or future, we cannot neglect in any way that climate change, directly or indirectly, is a crucial actor to understand past and future species extinctions.," said Miguel Araújo, a co-author of the paper from the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Spain.

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What was that about biased sources? Oh that's right you guys get to use biased sources and we do not. You give no rerasonable reason you just "feel" it should be that way I guess. Well your source is a well known warmist organization so I will counter with a group that for the most part is neutral.

Of Mammals and Mass Extinctions - Scitizen

Shock of shocks, the paleontological record is pretty inconclusive on the causes of the purported extinction not to mention the upcomming extincion event (whenever that occurs).
Yet more frighten the native bs that is no longer working...try again blunder.

 

[westwall]

One thing common to all the extinction events was a rapid buildup of GHGs.

Earth's five mass extinction events

What Veron 2008 found was each mass extinction event corresponded to periods of quickly changing atmospheric CO2. When CO2 changes slowly, the gradual increase allows mixing and buffering of surface layers by deep ocean sinks. Marine organisms also have time to adapt to the new environmental conditions. However, when CO2 increases abruptly, the acidification effects are intensified in shallow waters owing to a lack of mixing. It also gives marine life little time to adapt.

So rate of change is a key variable in nature's ability to adapt. The current rate of change in CO2 levels has no known precedent. Oceans don't respond instantly to a CO2 build-up, so the full effects of acidification take decades to centuries to develop. This means we will have irretrievably committed the Earth to the acidification process long before its effects become anywhere near as obvious as those of mass bleaching today. If we continue business-as-usual CO2 emissions, ocean pH will eventually drop to a point at which a host of other chemical changes such as anoxia (an absence of oxygen) are expected. If this happens, the state of the oceans at the end Cretaceous 65 million years ago will become a reality and the Earth will enter the sixth mass extinction.

Yet again you venture into my realm for the customary upbraid. So here goes, first off the first extinction event is not the Ordovician/Silurian extinction in point of fact the first is the Pre Cambrian Cambrian energy crisis that caused the development of hard parts in creatures around the globe at approximately 600 -570 million years ago. Before that all creatures were jellylike. No one has a clue what percentage of life went extinct at that time.

Now here is a more comprehensive (and more to the point a NON-BIASED viewpoint. Unlike the extraordinarily bised Skeptic article, BTW did you know the editor of that particular magazine is pissed off that people are no longer renewing their subscriptions because they are tired of his incredibly biased reporting? No I didn't think you would know that, or report it more to the point) review of the 5 agreed upon (though they do report that there may be up to 20 mass extinction events depending on whos definition you use....and more to the point LACK of CO2 seems to be more of a problem, The rest of his opinion is just plain stupid and untrue.

Mass extinction - New World Encyclopedia

Here is a selection with the pertinant section in bold...

Ordovician-Silurian extinction
The Ordovician-Silurian extinction (about 444 mya), which may have comprised several closely spaced events, was the second largest of the five major extinction events in Earth history in terms of percentage of genera that went extinct. (The only larger one was the Permian-Triassic extinction (about 251 mya).)

The End Ordovician extinctions occurred approximately 447 to 444 million years ago and mark the boundary between the Ordovician period and the following Silurian period. During this extinction event, there were several marked changes in the isotopic ratios of the biologically responsive elements carbon and oxygen. These changes in the isotopic ratios may indicate distinct events or particular phases within one event. At that time, all complex multicellular organisms lived in the sea, and of them, about 100 marine families covering about 49 percent of genera (a more reliable estimate than species) of fauna became extinct (Rohde 2005). The bi-valve brachiopods and the tiny, colonial bryozoans were decimated, along with many of the families of trilobites, conodonts, and graptolites (small, marine colonial animals).

The most commonly accepted theory is that they were triggered by the onset of a long ice age, perhaps the most severe glacial age of the Phanerozoic eon, which ended the long, stable greenhouse conditions typical of the Ordovician period. The event was preceded by a fall in atmospheric CO2, which selectively affected the shallow seas where most organisms lived. As the southern supercontinent Gondwana drifted over the South Pole, ice caps formed on it. Evidence of these has been detected in late Ordovician rock strata of North Africa and then-adjacent northeastern South America, which were south-polar locations at the time. Glaciation locks up water from the oceans, and the interglacials free it, causing sea levels repeatedly to drop and rise. During the glaciation, the vast shallow intra-continental Ordovician seas withdrew, which eliminated many ecological niches, then returned carrying diminished founder populations lacking many whole families of organisms, then withdrew again with the next pulse of glaciation, eliminating biological diversity at each change (Emiliani 1992).

The shifting in and out of glaciation stages incurred a shift in the location of bottom water formation—from low latitudes, characteristic of greenhouse conditions, to high latitudes, characteristic of icehouse conditions, which was accompanied by increased deep-ocean currents and oxygenation of the bottom water. An opportunistic fauna briefly thrived there, before anoxic conditions returned. The breakdown in the oceanic circulation patterns brought up nutrients from the abyssal waters. Surviving species were those that coped with the changed conditions and filled the ecological niches left by the extinctions.

The end of the second event occurred when melting glaciers caused the sea level to rise and stabilize once more.

Scientists from the University of Kansas and NASA have suggested that the initial extinctions could have been caused by a gamma ray burst originating from an exploding star within 6,000 light years of Earth (within a nearby arm of the Milky Way Galaxy). A ten-second burst would have stripped the Earth's atmosphere of half of its ozone almost immediately, causing surface-dwelling organisms, including those responsible for planetary photosynthesis, to be exposed to high levels of ultraviolet radiation. This would have killed many species and caused a drop in temperatures. While plausible, there is no unambiguous evidence that such a nearby gamma ray burst has ever actually occurred.

The rebound of life's diversity with the permanent re-flooding of continental shelves at the onset of the Silurian saw increased biodiversity within the surviving orders.

 

[westwall]

And this is an example of a balanced viewpoint on global warming. They report the data and make no attempt at a political statement, instead choosing to present both sides of an argument with corresponding avenues for further research. How refreshing. Like science is supposed to be.


Greenhouse effect - New World Encyclopedia

 

[westwall]

old fraud wrote

"So rate of change is a key variable in nature's ability to adapt. The current rate of change in CO2 levels has no known precedent. Oceans don't respond instantly to a CO2 build-up, so the full effects of acidification take decades to centuries to develop"

This pure unadulterated horse crap. The oceans have zero problem adapting to anything in the atmosphere, and furthermore the "acidification" nonsense has been proven false many times so quit trotting that old mule out...he's too tired.

My gosh your lack of understanding is prodigious. You have to really work at this to be this ignorant.

 

[SpidermanTuba]

The oceans have zero problem adapting to anything in the atmosphere

What does that statement even mean?

 

[RollingThunder]

The oceans have zero problem adapting to anything in the atmosphere

What does that statement even mean?

Ol' walleyed is a troll so it really doesn't mean anything. He just makes up his drivel on the fly off the top of his head and hopes everyone else is as ignorant as he is and won't notice what asinine nonsense he posts. He is a pathetic tool of the fossil fuel industry and lower than a wart on a toad's asshole.

 

[Old Rocks]

No need to insult toads, or even warts.