"West Antarctic Ice Sheet's Collapse Triggers Sea Level Warning"

[PredFan]

So when is this going to happen? How long do I have to wait for my beachfront property here in Orlando?

 

[ScienceRocks]

So when is this going to happen? How long do I have to wait for my beachfront property here in Orlando?

Probably 400 years

 

[jc456]

So when is this going to happen? How long do I have to wait for my beachfront property here in Orlando?

I can't get over the staunch support for a prediction. I think they all ought to go see a psychic that can tell them the winning lottery numbers. Then they can become part of the 1%ers. That works every time right?

 

[IlarMeilyr]

You repeatedly tried to tell us that this issue was about the melting of the ice cap. I told you it wasn't and you called me stupid.

How's that feel now?

No Pricky. I did not tell you repeatedly that "the issue" was about the melting of the ice caps. You are pretty stupid.

I feel fine. Thanks for asking.

YOUR observation that glaciers recede is unrelated to the topic of melting icecaps or even the balance of the topic under discussion. You offer an uninteresting and not especially relevant factoid, you dimwit.

The POINT -- which a dolt like you STILL cannot grasp -- is that "ice" has grown and receded long before humans even lit their first furnaces or drove their first cars. If it happened WITHOUT human causation THEN, that might serve as a clue to some open minded rational people (thereby excluding you, sadly) that it could happen again, and again without human causation.

You would seem to be the poster child for that Dunning-Kreuger effect. Enjoy your notoriety while it lasts.

That's an adorable way of ducking the question that you clearly do not wish to confront.

Don't fret.

It's already clear that you are a know-little but talk much hack.

That you are a bit of a pussy wasn't all that difficult to figure out.

But just to highlight your pussy nature, I'll give you ANOTHER chance to DUCK the question as well as the implications that flow from it.

I'll even state it more simply for you.

We KNOW that there were entire ice ages before human industry. We also know that those ice ages led to periods where the ice receded also BEFORE human industry.

We may clearly conclude from that evidence that massive climate changes have occurred without human causation.

What NON-model dependent scientific EVIDENCE can you provide for the proposition that human beings have influenced climate?

What NON-model dependent scientific EVIDENCE can you provide for the proposition that human beings even CAN influence global climate?

Putting aside your fanciful belief in your own intellectual capacity, what makes you imagine that human beings have the ability to prevent naturally caused climate change?

How the fuck do you think we could pull that kind of thing off?

Have you ever heard of the scientific concept of "unintended consequences?"

Hurry back with more of your fatuous pomposity.

 

[mamooth]

What NON-model dependent scientific EVIDENCE can you provide for the proposition that human beings have influenced climate?

Outgoing longwave infrared radiation squeezing down in the greenhouse gas absorption bands.

The smoking gun, that is. Which has zilch to do with any models. And which can't be explained by any "natural cycles" handwaving.

Putting aside your fanciful belief in your own intellectual capacity, what makes you imagine that human beings have the ability to prevent naturally caused climate change?

The evidence. Which you'll ignore, being your politics orders you to ignore it.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

What NON-model dependent scientific EVIDENCE can you provide for the proposition that human beings have influenced climate?

Outgoing longwave infrared radiation squeezing down in the greenhouse gas absorption bands.

The smoking gun, that is. Which has zilch to do with any models. And which can't be explained by any "natural cycles" handwaving.

Putting aside your fanciful belief in your own intellectual capacity, what makes you imagine that human beings have the ability to prevent naturally caused climate change?

The evidence. Which you'll ignore, being your politics orders you to ignore it.

Outgoing longwave infrared radiation "squeezing down" in the greenhouse absorption bands does not constitute evidence that human beings have caused global climate change -- ever.

One might even wonder if such phenomena occurred prior to human industry or was there some OTHER set of "reasons" for prior global climate change before human industry?

It is fascinating to see you guys pretend that you have scientific answers when you don't have enough data to answer even the more obvious questions. But you choose to believe what you choose to believe simply because it fits in with your preconceived notions.

Perhaps it's time to start heeding a tiny little portion of your own "advice," manboob.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

To the extent that "Outgoing longwave infrared radiation squeezing down in the greenhouse gas absorption bands" might stem from increased CO2 in the atmosphere, your "thesis" would necessarily depend on the proposition that humans are the leading cause of any increase in atmospheric CO2.

However, manboob, you persist in ignoring the scientific evidence that might otherwise inform you that CO2 increases lag behind increasing atmospheric warmth. Increased atmospheric CO2 might be caused naturally due to causes far removed from the trace amounts humans have added to the atmosphere.

If you keep your eyes tightly shut, like you show a tendency to do, you won't have to confront any of that nasty evidence that you might very well be entirely wrong.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Hmmm.

Jennifer Marohasy » AGW Falsified: NOAA Long Wave Radiation Data Incompatible with the Theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming

 

[Crick]

So you know for a fact that 95% of the ice is ABOVE the waterline eh?

That's your crazy claim, not mine. Therefore, I have no interest in discussing it. But feel free to defend it yourself, since you seem so keen on it.

No sir.. It was YOUR claim.. 2" inches of water in a kiddie pool and a meter cubed block of ice.. Regardless of the careless and whacky mixed units -- the kinda stuff that crashes Mars missions -- that would be 95% above the waterline. Even in the 7th grade..

How sad..

The large block of ice in the wee puddle of water was intended to be analogous to the mile's thick West Antarctic ice sheet resting on sub-sealevel floor. It was a response to your claim that the ice was held to the bottom by a mechanical bond and that once released would float upwards and that it would not raise sea level. It was another of your attempts to make vague arguments based on the belief that three separate groups of PhD researchers have all made mistakes about basic physics that you'd flunk a sixth grader for making.

 

[IanC]

Does anyone else wonder why Abraham3 disappeared a while ago, only to have Crick appear fully up to speed on what's happening on the board? And didn't the faux Finnish journalist vanish only to be relaxed by....

Perhaps he'll get it right this time and not need another 'do-over'.

 

[Crick]

Does anyone else wonder why Abraham3 disappeared a while ago, only to have Crick appear fully up to speed on what's happening on the board? And didn't the faux Finnish journalist vanish only to be relaxed by....

Perhaps he'll get it right this time and not need another 'do-over'.

Finally. I would have thought my style was pretty easily recognized. Crick is Abraham3.

My wife and I were going through a rough patch and she never appreciated me spending time here. I tried to get Abraham3 canceled or closed or shut down, but the administration here won't do it - too much trouble for them. But I did change both the email and password to nonsense which I did not record and so that account became unrecoverable. Things cleared up a bit between my wife and I and I have just had a bunionectomy which has lain me up for the next week or so. I'm being discrete, but she can hardly blame me killing time this way while I'm stuck on my back. I was going to admit it earlier, but was concerned it could be considered a violation of the rules. I figured someone would spot it eventually. I guess Ian gets the kewpie doll. Congratulations.

 

[mamooth]

To the extent that "Outgoing longwave infrared radiation squeezing down in the greenhouse gas absorption bands" might stem from increased CO2 in the atmosphere, your "thesis" would necessarily depend on the proposition that humans are the leading cause of any increase in atmospheric CO2.

Isotope ratios prove that.

However, manboob, you persist in ignoring the scientific evidence that might otherwise inform you that CO2 increases lag behind increasing atmospheric warmth. Increased atmospheric CO2 might be caused naturally due to causes far removed from the trace amounts humans have added to the atmosphere.

Stupid, stupid logic on your part, your assumption that the present must act exactly like the past, even though conditions are wildly different in the present.

Rest assured that scientists don't suck ass at basic logic in the way you do. You failing so hard at the basics isn't any problem for the science. Your suckitude there is just a confirmation of how your Dunning-Kruger syndrome is the driving force behind your belligerent ignorance.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

To the extent that "Outgoing longwave infrared radiation squeezing down in the greenhouse gas absorption bands" might stem from increased CO2 in the atmosphere, your "thesis" would necessarily depend on the proposition that humans are the leading cause of any increase in atmospheric CO2.

Isotope ratios prove that.

Ha ha ha. Isotope ratio proves WHAT exactly in your feeble imagination? Are you actually hoping to be understood to maintain that it is the human-released CO2 that accounts for the majority of any increase in atmospheric CO2? Pray tell, you silly posturing nitwit, HOW do isotope ratios establish ANY such thing? Be precise.

However, manboob, you persist in ignoring the scientific evidence that might otherwise inform you that CO2 increases lag behind increasing atmospheric warmth. Increased atmospheric CO2 might be caused naturally due to causes far removed from the trace amounts humans have added to the atmosphere.

Stupid, stupid logic on your part, your assumption that the present must act exactly like the past, even though conditions are wildly different in the present.

Rest assured that scientists don't suck ass at basic logic in the way you do. You failing so hard at the basics isn't any problem for the science. Your suckitude there is just a confirmation of how your Dunning-Kruger syndrome is the driving force behind your belligerent ignorance.

First of all, I didn't even so much as suggest that the past is necessarily prolog. However, despite your apparent belief that you have deftly deflected the question, it remains clear to all the rest of us that all you did was attempt to duck the question.

I understand why. You actually lack the ability to address it in logic or science or facts. Don't delude yourself into believing that you have concealed that from anybody.

When the seas and oceans get warmer, whether an asshole like you cares to admit reality or not, there is a significant release of CO2. MUCH MUCH brighter minds than your pathetically misinformed and generally uninformed one have come to the conclusion that there may very well have been some mistakes made. Cause and effect have been inverted. So when YOU happen to note a relatively trace increase in atmospheric CO2, you immediately presume that it is the cause of some warming. It never dawns on your weak and easily mislead mind that you are instead bearing witness to an increase in atmospheric CO2 BECAUSE there was some warming that preceded it.

 

[Crick]

Whether CO2 came from the combustion of fossil fuels or from the transpiration of plants or other short-term organic sources is discernible from the ratio of carbon isotopes present in a sample. Isotopic analysis shows that virtually every scintilla of the excess CO2 - that amount which would have raised it from the 280 ppm pre-industrial level to the present-day 400 ppm level, originated from the combustion of fossil fuels. This has been a fairly well-known point for some time now, sorry you missed the memo.

 

[Crick]

There is also the point that it is possible through an examination of records and other historical documentation to make a fairly good estimate of the amount of fossil fuels we have burned in the last 150 years. Those results match very closely the result of the isotopic analysis and, again, provide enough to have raised the atmospheric levels from 280 to 400 ppm.

 

[IlarMeilyr]

Whether CO2 came from the combustion of fossil fuels or from the transpiration of plants or other short-term organic sources is discernible from the ratio of carbon isotopes present in . Isotopic analysis shows that virtually every scintilla of the excess CO2 - that amount which would have raised it from the 280 ppm pre-industrial level to the present-day 400 ppm level, originated from the combustion of fossil fuels. This has been a fairly well-known point for some time now, sorry you missed the memo.

I didn't. You are guilty of making shit up again or misinterpreting what the folks with actual knowledge are saying.

That aside, there is STILL not a scintilla of evidence that the relatively minor trace increase of atmospheric CO2 is a cause of global warming.

And you PERSIST in ducking the actual logic since you are totally unequipped to address it:

Ice ages came and went prior to any human industry. It is therefore beyond ANY doubt that it is a perfectly natural process.

Since your MAIN contention is that the relatively minor increase of trace atmospheric CO2 is a prime mover of AGW, but that contention has never been scientifically established as being "good science," it follows that what you are asking everyone to do is dispense with actual scientific proof and to (instead) just take your ASSumption on faith.

Application denied -- especially since you idiots USE this faux science as a basis to engage in social engineering and socialism.

 

[Crick]

The debate concerning CO2 lagging or leading temperatures is an old one and a stupid one.

Raising the temperature of the Earth will cause CO2 to come out of solution from the oceans and methane to be released from melting tundra. No one has ever denied that. The geological record, in ice and sediment cores clearly show that rising temperatures will cause CO2 levels to increase. Here's the rub: that does NOT prevent CO2, added from an independent source (the combustion of gigatonnes of fossil fuels for instance) from raising the Earth's temperature via the greenhouse effect. One does not preclude the other. Do you understand that? This point has been repeated over and over again and yet people still try to claim that CO2 cannot lead temperature. In fact, the work of Jeremy Shakun, Shaun Marcotte and others have shown that in every instance during the previous 22,000 years (prior to the current warming), warming (typically from orbital causes) led to the release of sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere, but that after a few hundred years, greenhouse warming from that CO2 overtook the original warming causation and became the primary drive behind continuing increased temperatures.

But I don't want to go too far. The critical point to get here is that CO2 being released into the atmosphere by warming's decrease of gas solubility DOES NOT PREVENT CO2, via the greenhouse effect, from causing the atmosphere to warm. CO2 can AND DOES both lag and lead warming.

 

[Crick]

Whether CO2 came from the combustion of fossil fuels or from the transpiration of plants or other short-term organic sources is discernible from the ratio of carbon isotopes present in . Isotopic analysis shows that virtually every scintilla of the excess CO2 - that amount which would have raised it from the 280 ppm pre-industrial level to the present-day 400 ppm level, originated from the combustion of fossil fuels. This has been a fairly well-known point for some time now, sorry you missed the memo.

I didn't. You are guilty of making shit up again or misinterpreting what the folks with actual knowledge are saying.

That aside, there is STILL not a scintilla of evidence that the relatively minor trace increase of atmospheric CO2 is a cause of global warming.

And you PERSIST in ducking the actual logic since you are totally unequipped to address it:

Ice ages came and went prior to any human industry. It is therefore beyond ANY doubt that it is a perfectly natural process.

Since your MAIN contention is that the relatively minor increase of trace atmospheric CO2 is a prime mover of AGW, but that contention has never been scientifically established as being "good science," it follows that what you are asking everyone to do is dispense with actual scientific proof and to (instead) just take your ASSumption on faith.

Application denied -- especially since you idiots USE this faux science as a basis to engage in social engineering and socialism.

Sorry, but you are incorrect:

RealClimate: How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?

How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?

Filed under: Climate Science FAQ Greenhouse gases Paleoclimate — eric @ 22 December 2004 - (Svenska) (Español) (Français)

Over the last 150 years, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have risen from 280 to nearly 380 parts per million (ppm). The fact that this is due virtually entirely to human activities is so well established that one rarely sees it questioned. Yet it is quite reasonable to ask how we know this.

One way that we know that human activities are responsible for the increased CO2 is simply by looking at historical records of human activities. Since the industrial revolution, we have been burning fossil fuels and clearing and burning forested land at an unprecedented rate, and these processes convert organic carbon into CO2. Careful accounting of the amount of fossil fuel that has been extracted and combusted, and how much land clearing has occurred, shows that we have produced far more CO2 than now remains in the atmosphere. The roughly 500 billion metric tons of carbon we have produced is enough to have raised the atmospheric concentration of CO2 to nearly 500 ppm. The concentrations have not reached that level because the ocean and the terrestrial biosphere have the capacity to absorb some of the CO2 we produce.* However, it is the fact that we produce CO2 faster than the ocean and biosphere can absorb it that explains the observed increase.

Another, quite independent way that we know that fossil fuel burning and land clearing specifically are responsible for the increase in CO2 in the last 150 years is through the measurement of carbon isotopes. Isotopes are simply different atoms with the same chemical behavior (isotope means “same type”) but with different masses. Carbon is composed of three different isotopes, 14C, 13C and 12C. 12C is the most common. 13C is about 1% of the total. 14C accounts for only about 1 in 1 trillion carbon atoms.

CO2 produced from burning fossil fuels or burning forests has quite a different isotopic composition from CO2 in the atmosphere. This is because plants have a preference for the lighter isotopes (12C vs. 13C); thus they have lower 13C/12C ratios. Since fossil fuels are ultimately derived from ancient plants, plants and fossil fuels all have roughly the same 13C/12C ratio – about 2% lower than that of the atmosphere. As CO2 from these materials is released into, and mixes with, the atmosphere, the average 13C/12C ratio of the atmosphere decreases.

Isotope geochemists have developed time series of variations in the 14C and 13C concentrations of atmospheric CO2. One of the methods used is to measure the 13C/12C in tree rings, and use this to infer those same ratios in atmospheric CO2. This works because during photosynthesis, trees take up carbon from the atmosphere and lay this carbon down as plant organic material in the form of rings, providing a snapshot of the atmospheric composition of that time. If the ratio of 13C/12C in atmospheric CO2 goes up or down, so does the 13C/12C of the tree rings. This isn’t to say that the tree rings have the same isotopic composition as the atmosphere – as noted above, plants have a preference for the lighter isotopes, but as long as that preference doesn’t change much, the tree-ring changes wiil track the atmospheric changes.

Sequences of annual tree rings going back thousands of years have now been analyzed for their 13C/12C ratios. Because the age of each ring is precisely known** we can make a graph of the atmospheric 13C/12C ratio vs. time. What is found is at no time in the last 10,000 years are the 13C/12C ratios in the atmosphere as low as they are today. Furthermore, the 13C/12C ratios begin to decline dramatically just as the CO2 starts to increase — around 1850 AD. This is exactly what we expect if the increased CO2 is in fact due to fossil fuel burning. Furthermore, we can trace the absorption of CO2 into the ocean by measuring the 13C/12C ratio of surface ocean waters. While the data are not as complete as the tree ring data (we have only been making these measurements for a few decades) we observe what is expected: the surface ocean 13C/12C is decreasing. Measurements of 13C/12C on corals and sponges — whose carbonate shells reflect the ocean chemistry just as tree rings record the atmospheric chemistry — show that this decline began about the same time as in the atmosphere; that is, when human CO2 production began to accelerate in earnest.***

In addition to the data from tree rings, there are also of measurements of the 13C/12C ratio in the CO2 trapped in ice cores. The tree ring and ice core data both show that the total change in the 13C/12C ratio of the atmosphere since 1850 is about 0.15%. This sounds very small but is actually very large relative to natural variability. The results show that the full glacial-to-interglacial change in 13C/12C of the atmosphere — which took many thousand years — was about 0.03%, or about 5 times less than that observed in the last 150 years.

For those who are interested in the details, some relevant references are:
Stuiver, M., Burk, R. L. and Quay, P. D. 1984. 13C/12C ratios and the transfer of biospheric carbon to the atmosphere. J. Geophys. Res. 89, 11,731-11,748.
Francey, R.J., Allison, C.E., Etheridge, D.M., Trudinger, C.M., Enting, I.G., Leuenberger, M., Langenfelds, R.L., Michel, E., Steele, L.P., 1999. A 1000-year high precision record of d13Cin atmospheric CO2. Tellus 51B, 170–193.
Quay, P.D., B. Tilbrook, C.S. Wong. Oceanic uptake of fossil fuel CO2: carbon-13 evidence. Science 256 (1992), 74-79
—————————
Notes
*How much they can be expected to absorb in the long run is an interesting and important scientific question, discussed in some detail in Chapter 3 of the IPCC report. Clearly, though, it is our ability to produce CO2 faster than the ocean and biosphere can absorb that it is the fundamental cause of the observed increase since pre-industrial times.
**The development of continuous series of tree rings going back thousands of years by using trees of overlapping age, is known as dendrochronology (see the Arizona Tree Ring lab web pages for more information on this).

- See more at: RealClimate: How do we know that recent CO2 increases are due to human activities?

 

[Crick]

And this from Chapter 2.3 of the IPCC's AR4:

The increases in global atmospheric CO2 since the industrial revolution are mainly due to CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels, gas flaring and cement production. Other sources include emissions due to land use changes such as deforestation (Houghton, 2003) and biomass burning (Andreae and Merlet, 2001; van der Werf, 2004). After entering the atmosphere, CO2 exchanges rapidly with the short-lived components of the terrestrial biosphere and surface ocean, and is then redistributed on time scales of hundreds of years among all active carbon reservoirs including the long-lived terrestrial biosphere and deep ocean. The processes governing the movement of carbon between the active carbon reservoirs, climate carbon cycle feedbacks and their importance in determining the levels of CO2 remaining in the atmosphere, are presented in Section 7.3, where carbon cycle budgets are discussed.

The increase in CO2 mixing ratios continues to yield the largest sustained RF of any forcing agent. The RF of CO2 is a function of the change in CO2 in the atmosphere over the time period under consideration. Hence, a key question is ‘How is the CO2 released from fossil fuel combustion, cement production and land cover change distributed amongst the atmosphere, oceans and terrestrial biosphere?’. This partitioning has been investigated using a variety of techniques. Among the most powerful of these are measurements of the carbon isotopes in CO2 as well as high-precision measurements of atmospheric oxygen (O2) content. The carbon contained in CO2 has two naturally occurring stable isotopes denoted 12C and 13C. The first of these, 12C, is the most abundant isotope at about 99%, followed by 13C at about 1%. Emissions of CO2 from coal, gas and oil combustion and land clearing have 13C/12C isotopic ratios that are less than those in atmospheric CO2, and each carries a signature related to its source. Thus, as shown in Prentice et al. (2001), when CO2 from fossil fuel combustion enters the atmosphere, the 13C/12C isotopic ratio in atmospheric CO2 decreases at a predictable rate consistent with emissions of CO2 from fossil origin. Note that changes in the 13C/12C ratio of atmospheric CO2 are also caused by other sources and sinks, but the changing isotopic signal due to CO2 from fossil fuel combustion can be resolved from the other components (Francey et al., 1995). These changes can easily be measured using modern isotope ratio mass spectrometry, which has the capability of measuring 13C/12C in atmospheric CO2 to better than 1 part in 105 (Ferretti et al., 2000). Data presented in Figure 2.3 for the 13C/12C ratio of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa show a decreasing ratio, consistent with trends in both fossil fuel CO2 emissions and atmospheric CO2 mixing ratios (Andres et al., 2000; Keeling et al., 2005).

Atmospheric O2 measurements provide a powerful and independent method of determining the partitioning of CO2 between the oceans and land (Keeling et al., 1996). Atmospheric O2 and CO2 changes are inversely coupled during plant respiration and photosynthesis. In addition, during the process of combustion O2 is removed from the atmosphere, producing a signal that decreases as atmospheric CO2 increases on a molar basis (Figure 2.3). Measuring changes in atmospheric O2 is technically challenging because of the difficulty of resolving changes at the part-per-million level in a background mixing ratio of roughly 209,000 ppm. These difficulties were first overcome by Keeling and Shertz (1992), who used an interferometric technique to show that it is possible to track both seasonal cycles and the decline of O2 in the atmosphere at the part-per-million level (Figure 2.3). Recent work by Manning and Keeling (2006) indicates that atmospheric O2 is decreasing at a faster rate than CO2 is increasing, which demonstrates the importance of the oceanic carbon sink. Measurements of both the 13C/12C ratio in atmospheric CO2 and atmospheric O2 levels are valuable tools used to determine the distribution of fossil-fuel derived CO2 among the active carbon reservoirs, as discussed in Section 7.3. In Figure 2.3, recent measurements in both hemispheres are shown to emphasize the strong linkages between atmospheric CO2 increases, O2 decreases, fossil fuel consumption and the 13C/12C ratio of atmospheric CO2.

 

[jc456]

The debate concerning CO2 lagging or leading temperatures is an old one and a stupid one.

Raising the temperature of the Earth will cause CO2 to come out of solution from the oceans and methane to be released from melting tundra. No one has ever denied that. The geological record, in ice and sediment cores clearly show that rising temperatures will cause CO2 levels to increase. Here's the rub: that does NOT prevent CO2, added from an independent source (the combustion of gigatonnes of fossil fuels for instance) from raising the Earth's temperature via the greenhouse effect. One does not preclude the other. Do you understand that? This point has been repeated over and over again and yet people still try to claim that CO2 cannot lead temperature. In fact, the work of Jeremy Shakun, Shaun Marcotte and others have shown that in every instance during the previous 22,000 years (prior to the current warming), warming (typically from orbital causes) led to the release of sequestered CO2 into the atmosphere, but that after a few hundred years, greenhouse warming from that CO2 overtook the original warming causation and became the primary drive behind continuing increased temperatures.

But I don't want to go too far. The critical point to get here is that CO2 being released into the atmosphere by warming's decrease of gas solubility DOES NOT PREVENT CO2, via the greenhouse effect, from causing the atmosphere to warm. CO2 can AND DOES both lag and lead warming.

So I learned that the CO2 is a heavie than air and to make it into the atmosphere is not possible. Hmm.. I thought the CO2 went into the water and into the soil and absorbed by the water and the plants. So, how exactly if heavier than air does CO2 make it into the atmosphere?