Something has gone wrong with the global weather pattern...

[Scott A. Kampas]

I thought Big Bang IS a theory?

You're missing the point. They were trying to forcefully make scientists and publications say theory at every single mention of Big Bang, which gets cumbersome. It’s unnecessary and for political rather than scientific reasons. Then there was muzzling the climatologists as well as other things. This is just at NASA but the same has occurred across the board to scientists throughout the government.

And for what is theory, almost everything we talk and conceive as truth or fact is theory (sometimes even hypothetical), the next step is a physical law or proof and even those aren't completely infallible. Yet we know or understand quite a lot that isn't proven, it's just probabilities of potentialities as workable knowledge.

* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemo...gy-naturalized/
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/
** http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledg...supplement.html
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-epistemic/
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rational...ism-empiricism/

* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-realism/

* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasonin...ing-defeasible/
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-inductive/
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein...in-philscience/
* http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-provability

* http://www.missouri.edu/%7ekvanvigj/certain_doubts/

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

Methane burps disproved? Gassy emissions no longer in suspect dock for melting the last ice age.

Methane escaping from the sea floor to the atmosphere has been a popular suspect for causing rapid climate changes during and at the end of the last ice age. But new data derived from a Greenland ice core have delivered a killer blow to the idea.

Heat Wave of the Millennium

As the planet gets warmer, various places are setting temperature records. A new analysis of climate history suggests that's not all. Higher temperatures are more widespread now than they have been in 1200 years.

(not from above study)

 

[Marc Austin]

It's great to see so many ideas out there about Global Warming and extreme weather trends. My personal opinion is that the Global Warming cycle is pretty much a regular fluctuation of the Earth's atmosphere. Scientific studies have shown this, though they are not fullproof, they show some evidence of a fairly regular pattern of Global Warming/Cooling. The true query to me with this controversial issue is, how much are we affecting this regular cycle? Are our emissions, pollutants, etc. having a drastic effect on this? If so, I do believe that we should try to seek more efficient ways to go about producing and fueling. I know I don't have any major sources of information to provide you that may back up my opinion, but to me it's reasonable.

 

[Robert Dewey]

Well, I guess we can always count on higher CAPE values to help bring us more wild weather and storms to chase :lol:

 

[Robert Edmonds]

Well, I guess we can always count on higher CAPE values to help bring us more wild weather and storms to chase Very Happy Laughing

Not necessarily true. As earth warms there can be cooling in certain regions and warming in others. When I went to this talk this model showed that while the mean temperature of the earth rose some local areas mean temperature went up like 5 degrees while another dropped 3 or four. So with CAPE perhaps we might see less or more depending on how the region is affected.

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

Glacial pace picks up

Greenland's glaciers, which have since the last ice age slipped into the ocean at a sedate, glacial speed, are beginning to pick up the pace.

Research shows that the ice is melting at an accelerating rate, lubricating the whole works and causing some glaciers to shoot out to sea at up to 14 kilometres a year.

The ice sheet is now losing 220 cubic kilometres per year from this calving and melting, say Eric Rignot, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and Pannir Kanagaratnam of the University of Kansas in Lawrence, who report their findings in this week's Science1. That's twice as much as just a decade ago.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summ...ry/311/5763/963
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abst...ct/311/5763/986


http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/conte...full/2006/215/4

A rising level of carbon dioxide has made people sweat more by warming the globe, but it's also draining the world's supply of fresh water by making plants sweat less. That's the conclusion of a new study that uses computer simulations to figure out why so much fresh water is running into the salty sea.

Over the past century, more and more fresh river water has been spilling off the continents into the oceans. But mysteriously, no change in overall precipitation can account for this increased flow. The net loss of water is worrying because it increases the risk of drought. Scientists have suspected that human-induced climate change is to blame, but it has proved difficult to finger just where the water budget has sprung a leak.
[...]
Rising carbon dioxide levels alone appear to have caused the leak. A statistical analysis of the simulations revealed that increasing levels of the greenhouse gas are the main driver of river run-off, but not through global warming. Instead, CO2 is acting as a plant antiperspirant. Plants respond to increased levels of the gas by letting less water evaporate through their pores--known as stomata--and consequently taking up less water from the soil. This leaves extra water in the ground, which is eventually lost to river runoff rather than keeping the air moist--which would keep it circulating as fresh water.

 

[beaudodson]

Wow great read!

 

[j_scheerer]

It's great to see so many ideas out there about Global Warming and extreme weather trends. My personal opinion is that the Global Warming cycle is pretty much a regular fluctuation of the Earth's atmosphere. Scientific studies have shown this, though they are not fullproof, they show some evidence of a fairly regular pattern of Global Warming/Cooling. The true query to me with this controversial issue is, how much are we affecting this regular cycle? Are our emissions, pollutants, etc. having a drastic effect on this? If so, I do believe that we should try to seek more efficient ways to go about producing and fueling. I know I don't have any major sources of information to provide you that may back up my opinion, but to me it's reasonable.

I don't think what we're affecting things as much as we were say 20-30 years ago.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Ran across an interesting stat concerning the recent alarm around ice melt in Greenland ... in 1996, 8.3 cubic miles of ice melt was estimated in Greenland. One cubic mile of ice contains enough fresh water to quench the total needs of Los Angeles for a full year. In 2005, it is estimated that triple the amount of water was dumped into the oceans by Greenland's ice melt than in 1996. That's an amazing amount of water ... enough to take care of all of L.A.'s water needs for the next 40 years!

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

Hot Times for the Cretaceous Oceans
Science 24 February 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5764, p. 1095 DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5764.1095a

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI--Ancient evidence from the sea floor suggests that the ocean surface some 90 million years ago was hotter than the water in a hot tub--and that climate modelers are underestimating the link between carbon dioxide and warming--researchers reported at the AAAS annual meeting, held here from 16 to 20 February.

Anthropogenic and Natural Influences in the Evolution of Lower Stratospheric Cooling
Science 24 February 2006: Vol. 311. no. 5764, pp. 1138 - 1141 DOI: 10.1126/science.1122587
V. Ramaswamy M. D., Schwarzkopf, W. J. Randel, B. D. Santer, B. J. Soden, G. L. Stenchikov

ABSTRACT

Observations reveal that the substantial cooling of the global lower stratosphere over 1979–2003 occurred in two pronounced steplike transitions. These arose in the aftermath of two major volcanic eruptions, with each cooling transition being followed by a period of relatively steady temperatures. Climate model simulations indicate that the space-time structure of the observed cooling is largely attributable to the combined effect of changes in both anthropogenic factors (ozone depletion and increases in well-mixed greenhouse gases) and natural factors (solar irradiance variation and volcanic aerosols). The anthropogenic factors drove the overall cooling during the period, and the natural ones modulated the evolution of the cooling.

Introduction to climate change: Lecture notes for meteorologists (WMO No. 926)

Methane emissions from terrestrial plants under aerobic conditions
Frank Keppler1, John T. G. Hamilton, Marc Bra, and Thomas Röckmann
Nature 439, 187-191 (12 January 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature04420

ABSTRACT

Methane is an important greenhouse gas and its atmospheric concentration has almost tripled since pre-industrial times1, 2. It plays a central role in atmospheric oxidation chemistry and affects stratospheric ozone and water vapour levels. Most of the methane from natural sources in Earth's atmosphere is thought to originate from biological processes in anoxic environments2. Here we demonstrate using stable carbon isotopes that methane is readily formed in situ in terrestrial plants under oxic conditions by a hitherto unrecognized process. Significant methane emissions from both intact plants and detached leaves were observed during incubation experiments in the laboratory and in the field. If our measurements are typical for short-lived biomass and scaled on a global basis, we estimate a methane source strength of 62–236 Tg yr-1 for living plants and 1–7 Tg yr-1 for plant litter (1 Tg = 1012 g). We suggest that this newly identified source may have important implications for the global methane budget and may call for a reconsideration of the role of natural methane sources in past climate change.

 

[Mike Peregrine]

Quite an article on the front page of BBC news today! - definitely a must-read

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4761804.stm

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formerly said greenhouse gases were "probably" to blame.

Its next draft report will be sent to world governments next month.

The BBC has learnt the report will state that greenhouse gas emissions are the only explanation for changing patterns of weather across the globe.

It will say rising concentrations of gases such as carbon dioxide in the atmosphere must be the cause of simultaneous freak patterns in sea ice, glaciers, droughts, floods, ecosystems, ocean acidification and wildlife migrations.

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

Measurements of Time-Variable Gravity Show Mass Loss in Anta

Antarctica is shrinking
Gravity survey shows overall loss in ice.

First Greenland, and now Antarctica. Research shows that both of these massive ice sheets are getting smaller.

"In my mind, there is no doubt that Antarctica is losing mass," said Isabella Velicogna of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and lead author of a paper published in Science 1, the latest study in an avalanche of research on the topic.

Just two weeks ago, Science also published an article stating that Greenland is melting more quickly than it is growing (see 'Glacial pace picks up').

Previous work on both of these areas has shown that the edges of the ice sheets are melting while their centres are growing thanks to increased snowfall. It has been unclear until recently whether the sum of these two effects is a growing or shrinking mass of ice.

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

Temperature sensitivity of soil carbon decomposition and feedbacks to climate change
Eric A. Davidson and Ivan A. Janssens

ABSTRACT

Significantly more carbon is stored in the world's soils—including peatlands, wetlands and permafrost—than is present in the atmosphere. Disagreement exists, however, regarding the effects of climate change on global soil carbon stocks. If carbon stored belowground is transferred to the atmosphere by a warming-induced acceleration of its decomposition, a positive feedback to climate change would occur. Conversely, if increases of plant-derived carbon inputs to soils exceed increases in decomposition, the feedback would be negative. Despite much research, a consensus has not yet emerged on the temperature sensitivity of soil carbon decomposition. Unravelling the feedback effect is particularly difficult, because the diverse soil organic compounds exhibit a wide range of kinetic properties, which determine the intrinsic temperature sensitivity of their decomposition. Moreover, several environmental constraints obscure the intrinsic temperature sensitivity of substrate decomposition, causing lower observed 'apparent' temperature sensitivity, and these constraints may, themselves, be sensitive to climate.

Nature 440, 165-173 (9 March 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature04514

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

Warming seas cause stronger hurricanes

Warmer ocean waters are indeed a key factor in creating more devastating hurricanes, atmospheric scientists have found. The finding confirms what many have suspected: that rising temperatures are directly linked to the upswing in hurricane intensity seen in the past few decades.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta examined data for a range of climate variables thought to contribute to the formation of hurricanes in categories 4 and 5, the upper end of the strength scale. Only sea surface temperature showed a strong correlation with the observed increase in the occurrence of these storms since 1970.

And with sea temperatures set to rise still further, that means the next few decades could bring even more hurricanes like Katrina, which hammered New Orleans in August 2005. "The inference is that if you keep warming things up, you're going to get more intense storms," says Judith Curry, a member of the research team.[/b]

Paper:
Deconvolution of the Factors Contributing to the Increase in Global Hurricane Intensity
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1123560

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

Inuit See Signs In Arctic Thaw

PANGNIRTUNG, Canada -- Thirty miles from the Arctic Circle, hunter Noah Metuq feels the Arctic changing. Its frozen grip is loosening; the people and animals who depend on its icy reign are experiencing a historic reshaping of their world.

Fish and wildlife are following the retreating ice caps northward. Polar bears are losing the floes they need for hunting. Seals, unable to find stable ice, are hauling up on islands to give birth. Robins and barn owls and hornets, previously unknown so far north, are arriving in Arctic villages.

The global warming felt by wildlife and increasingly documented by scientists is hitting first and hardest here, in the Arctic where the Inuit people make their home. The hardy Inuit -- described by one of their leaders as "sentries for the rest of the world" -- say this winter was the worst in a series of warm winters, replete with alarms of the quickening transformation that many scientists expect will spread from the north to the rest of the globe.[/b]