Climate-gate

[kmguru]

I think the Climate Change has passed the tipping point and you can see the water in much of the places with 30 meters. 60 meters is more like it.

Then you have global temperature going up both sides....and everything else will be there....all these within 200 years. Most of the damage will be done in 100 years....

http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/

 

[billvon]

I think the Climate Change has passed the tipping point and you can see the water in much of the places with 30 meters. 60 meters is more like it.

I've heard this for 10 years now. Yet the climate still refuses to "tip." The climate is really pretty stable; it takes a lot to perturb it. And we're doing a lot - but so far the planet is reacting as the IPCC has predicted it will. That will likely continue.

 

[kmguru]

I've heard this for 10 years now. Yet the climate still refuses to "tip." The climate is really pretty stable; it takes a lot to perturb it. And we're doing a lot - but so far the planet is reacting as the IPCC has predicted it will. That will likely continue.

Proof of the pudding is eating...Let us see what happens in 10 years...to the future...

The idea is, it can not be changed...SO...just wait and watch....

"Partial deglaciation of the Greenland ice sheet, and possibly the West Antarctic ice sheet, could contribute 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) or more to sea level rise" People need to find out what is going on and what is the rate of change in the last two years and the exponential nature...that is somewhat hard now...but in the next 10 years, we may have some numbers....

 

[Write4U]

I've heard this for 10 years now. Yet the climate still refuses to "tip." The climate is really pretty stable; it takes a lot to perturb it. And we're doing a lot - but so far the planet is reacting as the IPCC has predicted it will. That will likely continue.

This is not a playground seesaw. It is the drip, drip that is shifting the natural balancing forces. And we are the cause.

Does a smoker know that every year he is closer to dying from lungcancer, until he starts spitting blood? Then it is too late.

Evidence of Global upheaval is all around wherever we look. You just refuse to see, because we don't see any dead bodies yet. Mark my words, we will soon enough, god forbid (and I am an atheist).

 

[billvon]

This is not a playground seesaw. It is the drip, drip that is shifting the natural balancing forces. And we are the cause.

Does a smoker know that every year he is closer to dying from lungcancer, until he starts spitting blood? Then it is too late.

Agreed. But it is the slow damage that smoking does over years that causes the acceleration of his death. If you tell someone "if you smoke a cigarette you will EXPLODE!" then that damages the cause of getting people to quit smoking - because they try it and realize it's not true. So they ignore you.

Similarly, if every year someone else announces "this is it, we are at the tipping point!" and it never tips - in fact, cools down for a few years after that - then that damages the cause of climate change awareness.

We should be honest and use the best available predictions (the IPCC) to warn people about the risks of climate change.

Evidence of Global upheaval is all around wherever we look. You just refuse to see, because we don't see any dead bodies yet.

?? There have been plenty of "dead bodies." We are already seeing dieoffs due to climate change at a greater rate than we'd see naturally. Even people have almost certainly died - the tiny (so far) rise in sea level has certainly contributed to deaths in floods, tsunamis and storms.

 

[sculptor]

3 blind men encounter an elephant. What is it?
The one at the front, feels the trunk and declares "It's a snake".
The on in the middle, feels the flanks, and declares "It's a wall".
The one at the back, feels the tail, and declares "It's a rope".

Each seems convinced that they have the answer and are correct in their declarations, and all three are wrong.

CO2 ain't the climate.
Orbital cycles ain't the climate.
The sun's energy output ain't the climate.

If you ain't already done so, may I recommend that you look into the studies at/from Lake El'gygytgyn, for information about paleoclimate patterns.
And into the Free Air Carbon Enrichment(FACE) studies, for information into the carbon cycle.
And Ilia Usoskin's work for insights into long timescale solar activity. Then follow on with Penn and Livingston's Long-Term Evolution Of Sunspot Magnetic Fields for one potential future.

Our 3 blind scientists need to take a giant step backward, declare "I could be wrong", and learn to see. If I might stretch the metaphor, some of them, having lost objectivity, seem to be furiously chasing their own tails/tales

I'll echo the words of the Lake Elgygytgyn team:
No known combination of orbital forcing and greenhouse gasses is sufficient to explain the climate variations we have seen!

As/re orbital forcing, we should be in a cooling phase now, and indeed we were cooling for the last 6-8,000 years.
More recently we were running up to and had a grand solar maximum during the last century while we were adding more CO2 to the atmosphere during the warming of the last century
In studying the past, it seems to always get much warmer during grand solar maxima, and much colder during grand solar minima.
Reflecting on the lake el'gygytgyn lament, it begins to seem likely that the sun may have played a more pivotal role in those climate shifts.
What then do we really know about the suns output over long term(millions of years) periods, and/or all of the likely causal factors involved.

CO2 warms the atmosphere by retaining and re-radiating the energy it absorbs. The atmosphere is a wonderful sharing mechanism which moves molecules from you to the poles, or anywhere and everywhere else on the planet, which is why we see more warming at high latitudes and altitudes.

If we are beginning to understand the effects of GHGs, orbital forcings, and solar output are we likely to have a high percentile understanding of earths climate?
With that knowledge do we have enough power to control our grand biom?

 

[Billy T]

I did not realize before that not only are weather extremes more sever due to weaker jet stream, but over any area, they last longer* too. Graph did not post with this link to the enlarged version:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/stor...grl29005-fig-0002.png?v=1&t=hw51j5k4&0da65971
Fix that if you can or go to link of quote and enlarge Fig 2. so it is useful.

In summary, the observational analysis presented in this study provides evidence supporting two hypothesized mechanisms by which Arctic amplification – enhanced Arctic warming relative to that in mid-latitudes – may cause more persistent weather patterns in mid-latitudes that can lead to extreme weather. One effect is a reduced poleward gradient in 1000-500 hPa thicknesses, which weakens the zonal upper-level flow. According to Rossby wave theory, a weaker flow slows the eastward wave progression and tends to follow a higher amplitude trajectory, resulting in slower moving circulation systems. More prolonged weather conditions enhance the probability for extreme weather due to drought, flooding, cold spells, and heat waves.

The second effect is a northward elongation of ridge peaks in 500 hPa waves, which amplifies the flow trajectory and further exacerbates the increased probability of slow-moving weather patterns. ... This effect has been implicated as contributing to record heat waves in Europe during recent summers* [Jaeger and Seneviratne, 2011].

Can the persistent weather conditions associated with recent severe events such as the snowy winters of 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 in the eastern U.S. and Europe, the historic drought and heat-wave in Texas during summer 2011, or record-breaking rains in the northeast U.S. of summer 2011 be attributed to enhanced high-latitude warming? Particular causes are difficult to implicate, but these sorts of occurrences are consistent with the analysis and mechanism presented in this study. As the Arctic sea-ice cover continues to disappear and the snow cover melts ever earlier over vast regions of Eurasia and North America [Brown et al., 2010], it is expected that large-scale circulation patterns throughout the northern hemisphere will become increasingly influenced by Arctic Amplification. Gradual warming of the globe may not be noticed by most, but everyone – either directly or indirectly – will be affected to some degree by changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere.

BTW, "Arctic amplification" refers to many mechanisms. The two most obvious are that exposed sea, where ice was, increases solar heating by 900% (albedo going from 0.1 to 0.9) And more open sea makes the "fetch" (distance wave amplitude can grow) increase so it breaks up more ice, especially the now thinner (typically half as thick as a decade ago) ice. Thinner broken off ice migrates into warmer water, may even leave the Arctic so melts faster. Every year now the early fall ice free area is increasing. The stronger waves also promote vertical mixing, warmer water lower, and this accelerates the release of CH4, which for first 20 years is 87 times more effective GHG than C02 (or 105 times more if the interaction on reflective aerosols is included.** - It is complex, but their concentration is reduced and that lets more sunlight reach earth's surface.)

* And it was the essentially stalled circulation system that made the flooding in the Balkans worse than any in prior weather records or the less precise memory / legends of the population there (Noah's flood excepted).

** For several sources of this 105 greater see: https://sites.google.com/site/gasisnotcleanenergy/ where the main point is that due to CH4 released with getting natural gas from shale deposits, the net is effect with natural gas is not "cleaner" than even burning coal. - US forcing its use at power plants will not help, but make global warming accelerate, even if only half the IPCC's escape fraction of CH4 could be achieved!

 

[Billy T]

Thanks to repenner I am reading a very informative, post-IPCC 5 link, at: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf and will be posting here some quotes from it as I work my way thru it. This link, in addition to the results of the Apollo-Gaia group finds errors (Apollo-Gaia group's are given in post 700.) in the latest IPCC analysis, by using their more accurately confirmed "Earth Sensitivity" methodology. They also question the objectivity of the IPCC with:

"The Summary for Policymakers of the IPCC AR5 WG1 should be rejected as not fit for the purpose of policy-making. It is a compromise between what is scientifically necessary and what is deemed to be politically and economically feasible. It is a document of appeasement, in active collusion with the global addiction to fossil sources of energy."

From page 662:
"The RF attributed to methane emissions is very likely to be much larger (~1.0 W m–2) than that attributed to methane concentration increases
(~0.5 W m–2) as concentration changes result from the partially offsetting impact of emissions of multiple species and subsequent chemical reactions."

Also 662 and start of 663:
"The scenarios show a substantial weakening of the negative total aerosol ERF." (ERF is effective radiative forcing and more important than the RF used mainly by the IPCC.)

Billy T's summary of this: Aerosols by themselves are not a big deal, but they do provide surfaces for faster chemical reactions and most importantly cause clouds to form. - That is why their net effect on ERF is negative - clouds reflect sunlight back into space. US now switching to "fracked" natural gas from coal is actually the wrong thing to do. (Coal is less GW damaging than the small percent of CH4 escaping when fracking for NG is. Read: https://sites.google.com/site/gasisnotcleanenergy/)
Instead of switching to NG one thing, very simple with slightly negative cost, may be to turn off the electro-static precipitators at coal fired power plants.

Unfortunately, the EPA's ideas as to what is needed are often exactly wrong and often reflect the influence of the greater lobby than science. In this case Big Oil and Gas companies spent more lobbying than the coal companies could. Same reason, you are driving on more expensive per mile driven gasoline, and paying taxes to support the corn lobby, instead of using cheaper per mile driven, sugar cane based alcohol fuel, which is slightly CO2 negative.

From page 666:
"Water vapour is the primary greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere. The contribution of water vapour to the natural greenhouse effect relative to that of carbon dioxide (CO2) depends on the accounting method, but can be considered to be approximately two to three times greater. ... The typical residence time of water vapour in the atmosphere is ten days. The flux of water vapour into the atmosphere from anthropogenic sources is considerably less than from ‘natural’ evaporation. Therefore, it has a negligible impact on overall concentrations, and does not contribute significantly to the long-term greenhouse effect.

Anthropogenic emissions do have a significant impact on water vapour in the stratosphere, which is the part of the atmosphere above about 10 km. Increased concentrations of methane (CH4) due to human activities lead to an additional source of water, through oxidation, which partly explains the observed changes in that atmospheric layer. That stratospheric water change has a radiative impact, is considered a forcing ...

With every extra degree of air temperature, the atmosphere can retain around 7% more water vapour This increase in concentration amplifies the greenhouse effect, and therefore leads to more warming. This process, referred to as the water vapour feedback, is well understood ..."

Billy T's summary of this: Man's release of water vapor (power plant cooling towers, irrigation of farms, etc.) can be neglected (as soon falls out as rain or snow). But man's release of other agents, both directly of indirectly via global warming (for example CH4 released more rapidly from thawing tundra), do have global warming effects made several times greater due the greater water vapor the air can hold. I think this is one reason that the effect of CH4 on GW, noted in my first quote (from page 662) is stronger than if only considering the CH4 concentration.
In my opinion, the IPCC reports are designed to avoid the needed alarming of people - much like keeping a frog calm in water slowly coming to a boil.
Big oil stands to lose billions, if people get the facts and demand a switch to CO2 negative & cheaper per mile driven sugar cane alcohol. Big Oil has no grand children.

CH4 on a decade time scale is more than 100 times as effective as same mass of CO2 and water vapor is many times stronger than same mass of CH4 in producing GW. It increases 7% per degree C of warming. - This is a very strong positive feed back, which seems to me could become a thermal run-a-way leading to a mainly hot steam ground level atmosphere.
I want to see a simple, solid, proof that thermal run-a-way to steam hot surface* is impossible.
I will continue reading this fantastic, very creditable link, but make no more quotes from it here - in this already long post.

* As you** get even close to that, rain is no longer removing H2O vapor from the ground level H2O vapor "air." H2O's vapor residency time becomes years, not 10 days.

** YOU won't see that - you'll be dead long before, when the wet bulb temp is 35C.

Later by edit: Of no great importance, but there is a typo at start of section 8.3.2.2 as Table 8.2 confirms. CH4's historic RF was given as 772, not 1772 W/mm^2

 

[billvon]

I want to see a simple, solid, proof that thermal run-a-way to steam hot surface* is impossible.

Simple. That would make the upper atmosphere much hotter, which would radiate more heat. More heat radiated = reduction in temperature.

A steam hot surface, of course, mobilizes huge amounts of water - and water is our strongest IR emitter. Right now that is limited by the fact that most of the water condenses out (into what we call weather - rain and clouds) before it reaches the upper atmosphere. With a "steam hot" lower atmosphere - an atmosphere where water percentages are measured in tens of percents and not PPM's - that would simply not be possible globally.

Now your turn - let's see a simple, solid proof that the current leveling-out of temperatures is impossible to sustain. Since we have actually seen it happen - and it has been sustained for ten years - that is a powerful argument on its own.

 

[Billy T]

Simple. That would make the upper atmosphere much hotter, which would radiate more heat. ...

Probably true that at any given altitude it would be hotter, but there would still be the essentially unavoidable, adiabatic cooling in a much more opaque to low level IR source radiation trying to escape earth. The surface pressure would be much higher and the thickness of the atmosphere much thicker (if say "thickness" is defined as 99% of the atmosphere is below that level.)

If what you assert were true, then Venus surface could not be above the temperature of molten lead, but it is. I.e. you claim that the hot atmosphere of Venus would radiate so much more that the surface could not be that hot. An earth with "hot steam surface" would have a decreasing temperature gradient and continue, as today to radiate IR energy equal to its net solar absorption, but that leaving radiation would originate higher up.

There probably, as on Venus, would be 100 % cloud cover, with the water droplet clouds much higher than today, and of course that layer would be no hotter than 373K. As that full cloud cover layer would reflect a greater fraction of the incident sunlight back into space, the IR escaping the Earth actually would be LESS than today (Not greater as you suggest) to keep shorter wave (sunlight, including its IR & UV) energy absorbed in balance (equal to) the IR energy radiation escaping from Earth, as it must be (except the Earth also must radiate the heat released by isotopic decay, so the IR is very slightly greater than the solar energy absorbed). Thus most of the IR escaping would come from layers above the clouds that are colder than the tops of the clouds. If less is escaping, it must come from a colder than today layer.

There would also probably be continuous rain falling from these clouds, but it would turn back into water vapor when it gets lower in the layer of the atmosphere with temperature near 100C, not make it all the way down to the surface, except for unusually large drops.* They have a higher terminal velocity and need more heat transfer in less time when falling as their surface to volume ratio is less than for smaller drop.

* Big drops, falling faster thru the slower terminal velocity smaller drops may actually grow, incorporate smaller drops, instead of shirk by evaporation during the first part of their fall into hotter air.

SUMMARY: Your "proof" falls completely apart and is demonstrated false by the existence of Venus. The problem is quite complex. I am not saying or predicting steam temperature Earth surface, just worried by the fact the water vapor, worst of all GHGs, concentration increases 7% per degree C (for limited ranged and that would be the saturation limit) and wanting some simple proof that this strong positive feed back, coupled with 15 or 20 others does not make that thermal run-a-way possible. Some years ago, Hanson predicted it would happen, then as models improved recanted. If you spend a few hours carefully reading the link given at start of post 728, you will gain an appreciation of the still existing complexity and uncertainty. The main "take away" already given by the Apollo-Gaia group's work is that one should have little confidence in the latest IPCC summary results - We may be at great risk and lack the ability to change that, mainly due to costs, politics and vested interest, like "Big Oil." If mankind is to go down for the count, I for one want to go down fighting.

 

[iceaura]

CH4 on a decade time scale is more than 100 times as effective as same mass of CO2 and water vapor is many times stronger than same mass of CH4 in producing GW. It increases 7% per degree C of warming. - This is a very strong positive feed back,

It's a bit misleading to describe that as positive feedback - it's a multiplier of the CO2 direct effect, is all. It is not self-accelerating, and the multiplier itself tails off long before saturation.

If suddenly boosting water vapor and CO2 and methane were enough by themselves to set off a Venusian runaway, we should have seen a couple of them in the aftermaths of comet impacts into the ocean eons ago. We're a bit too far from the sun, is the general take on this by the numbercrunchers.

I fully agree that the IPCC, or at least the regular media reporting of its releases, has been insufficiently alarmist - but mostly because the significances and the odds of the upper ends of their prediction ranges seem to me too often overlooked. Collusion with Big Oil on the IPCC's part is not required for that.

The atmosphere is a wonderful sharing mechanism which moves molecules from you to the poles, or anywhere and everywhere else on the planet, which is why we see more warming at high latitudes and altitudes.

No. We see disproportionate warming at high latitudes and altitudes because CO2 greenhouse disproportionately affects comparatively cold, dark, and (formerly) dry air temperatures - circumstances disproportionately found at high latitudes and altitudes.

 

[billvon]

Probably true that at any given altitude it would be hotter, but there would still be the essentially unavoidable, adiabatic cooling in a much more opaque to low level IR source radiation trying to escape earth.

Opacity doesn't matter. A 100% opaque material at any nonzero temperature radiates energy. (That's why it's called "blackbody" radiation; doesn't matter if the body is black and otherwise non-emissive.)

The surface pressure would be much higher and the thickness of the atmosphere much thicker (if say "thickness" is defined as 99% of the atmosphere is below that level.)

Again, doesn't matter. The incoming radiation is fixed. Hotter upper atmosphere = more heat radiated away. The system is now out of balance; it cools until it comes back into balance.

If what you assert were true, then Venus surface could not be above the temperature of molten lead, but it is. I.e. you claim that the hot atmosphere of Venus would radiate so much more that the surface could not be that hot.

No, the surface of Venus is that hot because they have a lot of greenhouse gases AND the incoming solar radiation is _twice_ what we get here on Earth. Take away the x2 solar radiation and Venus would not be hot enough to melt lead.

SUMMARY: Your "proof" falls completely apart and is demonstrated false by the existence of Venus.

If Venus were in Earth's orbit your objection would be valid. It is not. It receives twice the insolation that Earth does, AND has a strong greenhouse effect, which is why its surface temperature is considerably hotter.

Now, back to my question.

Let's see a simple, solid proof that the current leveling-out of temperatures is impossible to sustain. Since we have actually seen it happen - and it has been sustained for ten years - that is a powerful argument on its own. You would need a very powerful argument indeed to claim that what is actually happening is unreal, and your imaginary steam-earth hypothesis is real.

 

[Trippy]

We're not back at this again are we Billy T?

Addendum:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?133084-Apocalypse-Soon&p=3072384&viewfull=1#post3072384

Billy T doesn't like this paper, even though its conclusions are supported by more modern papers and even Dr Hansen agrees it uses a more correct approach.

This may be of some interest to everyone except Billy T who will probably argue that 12 years is too old: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2002/02_60AR.html

 

[Write4U]

We're not back at this again are we Billy T?

Addendum:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?133084-Apocalypse-Soon&p=3072384&viewfull=1#post3072384

Billy T doesn't like this paper, even though its conclusions are supported by more modern papers and even Dr Hansen agrees it uses a more correct approach.

This may be of some interest to everyone except Billy T who will probably argue that 12 years is too old: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2002/02_60AR.html

It just occurred to me that the ice calving at the poles may well be responsible for the cooling effect in the oceans which prevents the temperature "run away". I wonder what will happen when all that ice is gone? As I understand it, the polar ice caps are disappearing at an alarming rate (into the ocean). No more ice cubes to keep the water cold.

 

[Grumpy]

"The scientific theories that indicate anthropogenic global warming is happening, are among the most plain-vanilla, settled, non-questionable science you can find. Most of these theories have been around - and have been used extensively by all of us - for ~100 years.

Here's a list of the major components of global warming science.

The chemistry of combustion (19th Century established science) - showing that industrial society has been releasing an excess of CO2 into the atmosphere;
Straightforward measurements of atmospheric concentrations (e.g., the "Keeling Curve" plotted above) - showing that natural CO2 sinks (e.g., plants) are unable to absorb all that excess CO2, and therefore concentrations have been rapidly increasing. In fact, the "Keeling Curve" has been increasing every single year since the start of measurements in 1958; (Of course, massive destruction of native forests doesn't help either; but fossil-fuel burning remains the #1 cause.)
Calibrated reconstruction of historical and prehistorical concentrations and temperatures, mostly from ice cores (using established lab methods, relying upon, e.g., stable-isotope ratios - a theory/practice that has been mainstream since mid-20th Century) - showing that our current (and still-rapidly-increasing) CO2 levels are well beyond anything seen on Earth in the last couple of million years, since well before the Ice Ages;
"Black-body" electromagnetic radiation (data known since late 19th Century; usable theory stabilized in early 20th Century, in fact Einstein got his Nobel for his contributions to this theory) - showing that the Earth's surface emits electromagnetic radiation as a function of its temperature, with the most intense emissions being in the infrared range;
Molecular absorption spectra of radiation (1st half of 20th Century, but data known before that) - showing that CO2 molecules (unlike, e.g. nitrogen and oxygen) absorb lots of infrared radiation;
Heat and mass balance equations of gases and liquids (19th Cetury, although the advent of computers has revolutionized the way it is practiced and its ability to make predictions in complex systems) - showing how these phenomena play out in terms of the Earth's overall heat budget.

This is enough to establish that anthropogenic global warming is expected, because the Earth's ocean-atmosphere-land system has been running an ever more positive heat budget, driven mostly by the relentless increase in CO2, year over year. And since CO2 keeps rapidly increasing, we are nowhere near a new equilibrium yet."

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...ends-That-You-don-t-Believe-in-Global-Warming

Grumpy

 

[Grumpy]

To add even worse news to the above we must consider methane. While shorter lived in an atmosphere it is many times as bad as gaseous co2 at retaining heat. There are natural deposits in the ocean floors, trapped in ice as methane clathrates(methane hydrate is also used, but it is not a compound, the methane is trapped within water ice, not chemically joined to it).

"Methane clathrates are restricted to the shallow lithosphere (i.e. < 2,000 m depth). Furthermore, necessary conditions are found only in either continental sedimentary rocks in polar regions where average surface temperatures are less than 0 °C; or in oceanic sediment at water depths greater than 300 m where the bottom water temperature is around 2 °C. In addition, deep fresh water lakes may host gas hydrates as well, e.g. the fresh water Lake Baikal, Siberia. Continental deposits have been located in Siberia and Alaska in sandstone and siltstone beds at less than 800 m depth. Oceanic deposits seem to be widespread in the continental shelf and can occur within the sediments at depth or close to the sediment-water interface. They may cap even larger deposits of gaseous methane."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate

The nightmare? If ocean currents shift, if circulation is interrupted and the average surface ocean temperature rises above 0 C in Arctic and Antarctic areas or temperatures at depth rise in the places where they have been at or below those temperatures for millions of years, the release of massive quantities of stored methane could be extremely rapid with consequences every bit as dire as a comet impact or supervolcano eruption.

The methane is the result of bacterial life. Petroleum is thought to be the results of billions of years of methane trapped this way being injected into the lower crust by plate tectonics and cooked by the heat to form longer chains of carbon, or buried by miles of sediments(with the same results).

We might be better off to go ahead and burn as much of this methane(trapping the carbon, of course)as we can mine, before it kills us. It's actually easier on the climate to release the co2 that results into the atmosphere rather than to release the methane unburned. Recent advances in fuel cells use pure methane to deliver hydrogen to the cells(where it travels through a molecular membrane to react with atmospheric oxygen to produce power). The carbon stays on the other side as soot(nearly pure carbon powder), which would be easily and safely used or buried. Result, electricity, heat, pure water suitable for drinking and pure carbon powder for industry or carbon sequestration(though the energy a__holes would probably want to burn that, too).

Grumpy

 

[Billy T]

We're not back at this again are we Billy T?

Yes we are, and I thank you for this link:http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2002/02_60AR.html
Contrary to your expectations about my reaction to it, I have become even more convinced that thermal run-a-way MAY be possible by information your link provides, and I now quote from it, and explain why after the quote.

" ... A region in the western tropical Pacific Ocean may help scientists understand how Venus lost all of its water and became a 900-degree inferno. The study of this local phenomenon by NASA scientists also should help researchers understand what conditions on Earth might lead to a similar fate here.

The phenomenon, called the ‘runaway greenhouse’ effect, occurs when a planet absorbs more energy from the sun than it can radiate back to space. Under these circumstances, the hotter the surface temperature gets, the faster it warms up. Scientists detect the signature of a runaway greenhouse when planetary heat loss begins to drop as surface temperature rises. Only one area on Earth – the western Pacific ‘warm pool’ just northeast of Australia – exhibits this signature. ...

"Soon after the planets were formed 4.5 billion years ago, Earth, Venus and Mars probably all had water. How did Earth manage to hold onto all of its water, while Venus apparently lost all of its water?" asked Maura Rabbette, Earth and planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center ...

Rabbette ... used atmospheric conditions above the Pacific Ocean, including data recorded by NASA’s Earth Observing System of satellites, to create a computer model of the runaway greenhouse effect. They determined that water vapor high in the atmosphere produced the local signature of a runaway greenhouse. Water vapor, ... one of the most efficient greenhouse gases allows solar radiation from the sun to pass through, but it absorbs a large portion of the infrared radiation coming from the Earth. If enough water vapor enters the troposphere, the weather layer of the atmosphere, it will trap thermal energy coming from the Earth, increasing the sea surface temperature even further.

The effect should result in a chain reaction loop where sea surface temperature increases, leading to increased atmospheric water vapor that leads to more trapped thermal energy. This would cause the temperature increase to ‘run away,’ causing more and more water loss through evaporation from the ocean. Luckily for Earth, sea surface temperatures never reach more than about 87 F (30.5 C), and so the runaway phenomenon does not occur. {Billy T inserts here to add: Yet. and asks what prevents ocean temperature from EVER becoming higher as GW proceeds? }

What is limiting this effect over the warm pool of the Pacific?" asked Young, a planetary scientist. He suggests that cloud cover may affect how much energy reaches or escapes Earth, or that the ocean and atmosphere may transport trapped energy away from the local hotspot, or that the ocean and atmosphere may transport trapped energy away from the local hotspot. ... The Ames researchers are not the first to study the phenomenon, but no consensus has been reached regarding the energy turnover or the limitation of sea surface temperature.

Rabbette analyzed clear-sky data above the tropical Pacific from March 2000 to July 2001. She determined that water vapor above 5 kilometers (3 miles) altitude in the atmosphere contributes significantly to the runaway greenhouse signature. She found that at 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) above the Pacific warm pool, the relative humidity in the atmosphere can be greater than 70 percent - more than three times the normal range. In nearby regions of the Pacific where the sea surface temperature is just a few degrees cooler, the atmospheric relative humidity is only 20 percent. These drier regions of the neighboring atmosphere may contribute to stabilizing the local runaway greenhouse effect, Rabbette said. ..."

Now my comments:
First note that for every one degree C increase in air temperature the water vapor in the air can increase 7% and that the ocean temperature near the "pacific hot spot" are increasing with the general global warming. Thus the humidity in the air above this cooling "buffer zone" is very likely to be increasing from the stated current 20%. That should make the "hot spot" expand in area for three reasons:
(1) The diffusion driving gradient, letting water vapor in air above the hot spot escape, currently 70 - 20% humidity, is decreasing.
(2) The counter flux water vapor into the air above the hot spot would double if the humidity of the air over the "buffer zone" were to increase from 20 to 40% as it well might with warming of the oceans surface of the "buffer zone."
(3) The thermal cooling of the air over the hot spot will be less as the adjacent air mass over the "buffer zone" heats up, and it of course will as with increased humidity some of the IR now just "passing thru" to space will be absorbed in the air over the "buffer zone."

SUMMARY OF THESE THREE CHANGES" The Pacific Hot Spot will expand and grow larger. - Impossible to say if this effect is limited to a small change or self amplifying to make a large part of the South Pacific have the same run-a-way "signature" that the current hot spot exhibits.

Secondly note, the end product of the multi-stage oxidation of CH4 molecule (by the dominate tropospheric agent hydroxyl radical) create water vapor and carbon dioxide. Thus, the average humidity is being increased not only by the ocean surfaces warming but also by the growing flux of CH4 into the air. This is a "doubly coupled" positive feed back system. I. e. warmer ocean surface makes more humidity that traps more IR trying to escape so air heats. The hotter air increases the rate of CH4 release and that both increases the trapping of IR and is a source of water vapor in addition to the ocean evaporation. By themselves, this mutually amplifying couple is unlikely to be an unlimited divergent effect on global warming, but there are may others (more than a dozen very significant ones) each of which is mutually amplifying the GW effect of ALL the others. That may cause Earth to do as Venus did - have thermal run-a-way; however it will, like Venus, take millions of years before all the ocean mass boils away. I. e. IF it to happen to earth, Earth's surface temperate will be "locked" for millions of years at only slightly hotter than boiling water.

To give just one of the many mutually amplifying processes, and one that does have a limit, the warming and expanding hot spot, with increase the rate of melting of Antarctic's ice. That changes the albedo of floating ice sheets from 0.1 to 0.9 so increases the local solar heating by 900%, but ends when there is no more ice to melt. Currently the area covered by Antarctic floating ice is increasing as the warmer average air temperature make ice more "plastic." - It flows to the sea from land ice more rapidly. The front edge of some South American glaciers is actually advancing, instead of retreating, for the same reason. Some people, ignorant of the fact that the total ice mass is shrinking, but knowing some glaciers are "expanding," challenge the whole concept of GW with this "half truth" fact.

Again I thank you,
as I was not aware that small part of earth had already entered into thermal run-a-way conditions, locally.

 

[billvon]

Again I thank you as I was not aware that small part of earth had already entered into thermal run-a-way conditions, locally.

You keep using that phrase. I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.

 

[Billy T]

You keep using that phrase. I do not think that phrase means what you think it means.

As I just today learned that there exist a hot spot in the Western Tropical Pacific that is already exhibiting (to use the link's words) thermal runaway signals, I have never made reference to "that phrase" before in all my GW posts; However, I am more curious about the rest of your post.

What do you think I mean, incorrectly, by that phrase?
and what is it that it means correctly for you?

BTW, in the second of my comments on the link's quote in post 737, I did note that the increasing flux of CH4 was destroyed in the troposphere most frequently by the OH radical there but should have mentioned that ozone does some destruction and also has water vapor as the end product when it does, usually; but more importantly I forgot to note that the OH radical is so reactive that its concentration higher up (lower stratosphere) is near zero (unless locally made, and I think that is very rare).

As small, but significant* fraction of the CH4 flux does reach the stratosphere and there it is the UV produced ozone that dominates the destruction of CH4, again adding the most efficient IR blocker**, water vapor, to the stratosphere. In fact, that is the main, and an increasing source of water in the stratosphere. Each of the CH4 molecules that survive transit thru the troposphere become, with rare exceptions, 4 molecules of water vapor. Thus increasing the IR block power of the destroyed CH4 greatly - about 100 (or more?) times as each of the four H2Os produced is more than a dozen times more of effective GHG than the CH4 was and the average residency time of H2O in the stratosphere is also dozens of times longer than that of CH4 as H2O can not be chemically oxidized as CH4 normally is.

To add a brief bit of lightness to a very serious problem, I'll note that is why we fill our fire extinguishers with H2O, instead of CH4.

I'm no atmospheric chemists (or physicist), but think that almost all the H2O in the very cold upper troposphere is in the form of very tiny (microscopic?) ice crystals that are falling down, not going up into th stratosphere - why the still gaseous molecules (not tiny liquid drops, even) of CH4 do move up into the stratosphere to become, via ozone destruction, the dominate source of the water concentration there.

If any one can point out some significant error in my understanding of this stratospheric physical chemistry, I thank them.

** I I have several times explained why water vapor is such a strong GHG, so just here remind you that H2O has a permanent electric dipole moment. (Both positive Hs on same side of the negative O, 105 degree apart.) Just changing its spin is done by absorption or radiation of IR. No need to asymmetrically stretch or bend the molecule to first create a dipole moment that can then be changed.

* I call that 2 or 3 % of CH4 that does reach the Stratosphere "significant" because as explained above, when converted into ~4 stratospheric molecule of H2O the IR blocking power increase at least 100 fold!

Will not posts for me, so click here to see the Earth's methane killers pie chart: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/MethaneSinkPieChart.jpg

 

[billvon]

As I just today learned that there exist a hot spot in the Western Tropical Pacific that is already exhibiting (to use the link's words) thermal runaway signals, I have never made reference to "that phrase" before in all my GW posts; However, I am more curious about the rest of your post.

What do you think I mean, incorrectly, by that phrase?
and what is it that it means correctly for you?

"Thermal runaway" means a sudden, self-sustaining and nonlinear increase in temperature that is not limited by any normal convection/conduction. That is not what's happening, as the paper points out. (That's one reason you may have trouble being taken seriously; enough "imminent apocalypse" predictions that do not come to be and people stop believing you.)