ANCIENT ICE: Ice cores from Greenland reveal that climate change may happen fast.
Image: NASA Operation Ice Bridge
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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BOULDER, Colo. – Climate science research often involves a little derring-do mixed in with a lot of tedium. Some scientists scramble up equatorial peaks to measure melting glaciers; others scour dry African lakebeds for sediment that reads like a talking science book.
For paleoclimatologist James White, adventures begin when a C-130 transport plane drops him and his team in the middle of Greenland's ice cap. In conditions that redefine the word "cold" for this native Tennessean, White drills through ancient ice to unlock clues to the Earth's past climate – and predict its future.
In between Greenlandic swings, the 57-year-old White spends a lot of time in front of a mass spectrometer. It's not pure tedium, but it pales in comparison to doing fieldwork in minus-30 degree summer weather, with 60-mile-an-hour winds howling and expensive scientific instrumentation freezing at inopportune moments. His fieldwork and lab work have led to sobering revelations about how fast the planet can heat up. "We've seen changes of five degrees to six degrees Celsius happen in just a few years," he says. "These are time scales that human beings can get excited about."
White's academic career didn't exactly get off to an auspicious start; even his dad bet against him finishing college. He graduated from the University of Florida, majoring in chemistry but dreaming about oceanography. White went to Columbia for grad work, under the tutelage of climate science pioneer Wally Broecker. By a random draw, Broecker handed out research assignments; one of White's colleagues was sent to the Pacific to study coral reefs and battle sunburn, while White was tasked to study isotopes in tree rings in the northeastern U.S. and fight black flies and mosquitoes.
White soon decided the oceans weren't big enough, anyway. He wanted to "study the Earth." He worked with groundbreaking scientists like Broecker, James Hansen and the late Steve Schneider, just as the "greenhouse gas effect" was gaining scientific weight. White immersed himself in the carbon cycle, stable isotope ratios, and solar radiation fluctuations, trying to fathom their interactions. Scientists already understood that heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere made Earth inhabitable, but they had begun to realize that too much of this good thing was going to cause problems for humanity.
White began working on ice cores, the most reliable and accurate way for paleoclimatologists to recreate past climates – and past climate changes. The annual accumulation of snow in the Arctic, Greenland and Antarctica contains isotopic markers of the temperature at the moment it fell, as well as telltale traces of atmospheric components – from carbon dioxide to barium. Year after decade after century after millennium, these compressed snow layers trap air bubbles in them and become buried ice vaults, locking data into retrievable troves of climate and atmospheric information. Think of it as a mile-deep frozen filing cabinet.
Today White directs the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research here in Boulder and teaches at the University of Colorado, where he helped create the interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Department.
White's ice–core studies helped reveal two striking facts. The first is that the Earth's great ice ages are bookmarked by a clear fluctuation in carbon dioxide levels: 180 parts per million (ppm) in the glacial periods, 280 ppm in the warmer periods (the level at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution about 150 years ago). A shift of 100 ppm in CO2 concentrations meant the difference between flowers blooming in the Arctic and ice a mile deep over Chicago.
The second fact is more worrisome, and led to White's seminal 1989 paper in the prestigious science journal Nature: These global transformations happened fast. Warming trends that forced widespread ice melting and monumental sea-level rise weren't a millennium-long process. It was decadal.
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65 Comments
Add CommentSomeone clearly forgot to take their medication this morning. Great article BTW. Very clear and concise on what the Earth was like when the atmosphere had 180ppm and 280ppm of CO2. Now that it's 392ppm it's not good.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShorter Mememine: Where is the Inquisition when you need it?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps White ought to look a little closer at the data. We are clearly in an inter-glacial period. For the four preevious inter-galacial we see a steep rise in temperatures followed immediately by a precipitous drop. During this inter-glacial there has been a lengthening of the warm period. If this is anthropogenic (which is not clear) then our influence has been beneficial unless you believe that the ice ages would be preferable to our current conditions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisClimate change happens whether we exist or not. Our response should be to adapt to any changes and thank our good fortune for living during a agreeable period of climate.
My understanding is that we have not seen the increase of CO2 at 392ppm before. And that it is pretty clear that we (humans) have contributed to this increase. And yes it is all about the world we are leaving to our kids having lived during this agreeable period of climate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNotice that meme cites not one iota of proof to back up their assertions. Meme merely offers ad hominem attacks and tries to conflate two completely different groups of scientists and/or engineers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisblueheron, the changes we are forcing on the climate are about 100 to 1000 times faster than the changes between ice ages and interglacials. If you need some clarification on how we know human activity is to blame, please look here for a good distillation of the evidence:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/docs/Guide_to_Skepticism.pdf
Blue Horn Says: f this is anthropogenic (which is not clear)..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only people to whom it is not clear is the people who do not want to hear the evidence. Are you familiar with any of the evidence? I am not talking about just rising temperatures here. Are you aware that such pieces of evidence for CO2 induced warming like the fact that nights are warming faster than days, Winters are warming faster than summers and the Arctic warmer faster than the more southern latitudes were first predicted back in the late 19th century?
Blue Heron Says: ...then our influence has been beneficial unless you believe that the ice ages would be preferable to our current conditions."
Trent Says: False dichotomy: This is not about a choice between an Ice Age and a far warmer planet. This is about a choice between the stable environment that humanity has enjoyed for the past 10,000 years and the agricultural regions and cities that have been established in that period and a new climate regime that civilization has never experienced before.
Blue Heron Says: Climate change happens whether we exist or not. Our response should be to adapt to any changes and thank our good fortune for living during a agreeable period of climate.
Trent Says: Let take a look at that logic. Forest fires have have happen whether we exist or not so we better get use to arson.
I just enjoy the pseudo science involved here. Note the article completely leaves out temperature changes creating the illusion CO2 causes the earth to warm, when looking at raw data the temperature increases before the CO2 increase this is from a variety of ice core samples you can find published in science or nature and other sources. So what causes the earth to warm between ice ages, which is what is happening now or freeze into the ice age may be unknown. CO2 rising or falling is a result of the warming or cooling influence of the temperature.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo back to the reality climate does change and it is very unlikely to be caused by or prevented by humans. A single active volcano releases more pollutants into the air than Humans can, the arrogance displayed by these global warmers is unreal. We do not know enough about the biosphere to even make educated guesses.
So really people, do you really want pseudo scientists led by parasites called politicians to start messing with CO2? Considering CO2, Water and O2 are the most important elements to keep life going on the planet, I don't think politicians messing with those 3 things is at all safe or practical.
The real truth is politicians and liberals with misguided scientists have all decided to take the natural effect of climate change call it a human caused problem. Base their conclusions on completely pointless measures like a so called average temperature, which is somehow determined by measuing less than a 10000th% of a percent of the atmosphere and bogus computer models and then claim it is all human caused. Then make the culprit CO2, something they can make any claim about. So they will tax us on it, then in a few years claim all is well and then anytime they need to tax more, scientists want a new grant or a business needs to be shut down, these people will then claim CO2 is going up again and keep this open check book on money and power going forever. Why? Because there is nothing better for politicians than a non existent problem, caused by a natural element, that they can make any claim about and since it is not the cause and there is no problem to solve, they can always claim it is a problem.
So are there pollutants and problems human's cause we should solve, sure, nothing wrong with developing an alternative fuel. But instead money is being spent on bogus prevention of something natural only making the global warmers rich off the fear factor they have created.
Trent, correlation is not causation. When temperatures rise it is only reasonable to expect stored carbon in soils and permafrost to oxidize and increase the level of carbon dioxide. Needlessly fighting forest fires (not arson) results in excessive accummulation of fuel so that when the fires do come they sterilize the soil as they are doing in Texas now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is not our choice whether we experience an interglacial or a ice age. You are the one saying we can choose.
It's interesting that you call for the Inquisition. Perhaps you wish to sit on that panel?
Sault: I suggest that you actually look at the charts. In particular,the rise and fall between 230,000 and 240,000 years ago was far steeper that we see today.
Londubh: Meme may need his medication but that does not mean that we are not being played by those who see an opportunity to fleece us. If you scare people they will give you money.
"Needlessly fighting forest fires (not arson) results in excessive accummulation of fuel so that when the fires do come they sterilize the soil as they are doing in Texas now."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think that this statement is what they were getting at blueheron. Humans do have an effect on the natural order of the world. I dont believe that global warming or cooling is solely caused by humans, but we can have a big impact on it. The same way that we think putting out fires is helpful, when in reality it is good for nature for the fires to happen. Global warming and cooling is going to happen as we can see from history, but the rate at which it happens could have unforseen consequences. We are the factor in the change of this rate in recent history, so yes we have a choice to make. We can choose to have less of an impact and let nature progess along its natural course
Due to the complexities of climate science and the myriad of variables involved, I suppose it's impossible to know for a fact if anthropogenic global warming is real. However, we should act as though it is. Christopher Hitchens makes a good point here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDj6WechLhw
I too would like to point out the foolishness in conflating the mentality and beliefs of scientists with that of engineers. To go a step further, there is a vastness in the beliefs within various scientific disciplines. Who cares if a materials scientist of some sort does not agree with the consensus of climate scientists? How on earth is that relevant? If the climate scientist was to challenge the validity of light bending metamaterials should we all then agree that there is disagreement within the scientific community with regards to materials science? Of course not! They are two separate fields.
One of the problems we have is that we allow bone heads to vote.....and guess what, most people are ignorant. If the right to vote was based on some criteria for knowledge and intelligence (I'm not suggesting Einstein intelligence) then we would have far less debate on already settled matters, and thus, politicians would have to act. As it stands now, the generally right of centre US is far too uneducated on matters of science, economics, history or anything else to make an informed decision. One cannot even mention a government intervention on climate change without invoking outcry from half the country that the US is becoming communist.
As long as you keep a two party system, no proportional representation and allow even the dumbest of people to have a say, nothing sizable will change unless the laws of supply and demand force that change. Only if oil surges and stays high will people really start to change.
Blue Heron Says: Trent, correlation is not causation.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Of course. So why do you deny that CO2 is a green house gas that captures and re-radiates solar irradiance? I pointed out to you several predictions made as far back in the 19th century of what a CO2 induced warming would look like. Predictions made in the 19th century and observed in the 20th and 21st century. Why do you think you can ignore this evidence?
Blue Heron Says: When temperatures rise it is only reasonable to expect stored carbon in soils and permafrost to oxidize and increase the level of carbon dioxide.
Trent Says: I am fascinated that you seem in utter denial that human beings have been pumping tens of billions of fossil CO2 into the atmosphere and yet expect that to have no effect on the CO2 composition of the atmosphere. Are you at all aware that we can track human induced CO2 emissions by looking at the decline of 14C and 13C isotopes in the atmosphere as compared to 12C? We have increased the co2 levels of the atmosphere by 40%; that is a scientific fact. Perhaps it is time you looked up this predicted affect. It is called the Suess Effect:
Suess Effect:
http://www.canadianarchaeology.ca/radiocarbon
/card/suess.htm
Now take a look at what is the most famous graph in all of science. It is called the Keeling Curve and is another scientific fact:
Keeling Curve:
http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/program_history/keeling_curve_lessons.html
The Keeling Curve and and the Suess Effect are two facts that you can not ignore. That is, can not ignore if you wish to be held a rational being when discussing climate change.
Blue Heron: Needlessly fighting forest fires (not arson) results in excessive accummulation of fuel so that when the fires do come they sterilize the soil as they are doing in Texas now.
Trent Says: I think that the point just flew way over your head. Let me put this another way. Most adults recognize that the same phenomena can have different causes. So when you say that "The climate has changed before" you are not making any point but making an error in thinking. Just because climate has changed before humans even existed does not rule out that humans are changing it now. Just like forest fires have occurred before humans does not mean arson is impossible.
Has anyone else noticed that the science ignorati in this thread ignore the evidence that has been presented to them? It is like they are children who think that if they ignore the evidence that it will cease to exist.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen I point out we have a multiple lines of evidence that show the human foot print of anthropogenic climate change I am meet with unanimous silence.
When I pointed out that as far back as the 19th century people predicted what increasing CO2 levels would look like they go just stone silent. E.g it was predicted that increasing CO2 would:
1. Make the nights warm faster than days.
2. The Winters in the respective hemisphere would warm faster than Summers.
3. The Arctic Warming faster than the rest of the planet.
All I have been meet with is silence.
@Priddseren,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe only pseudoscience being spouted here is what is contained in you and your fellow ideologues posts. E.g: When you claim that volcanoes spew out "...more pollutants into the air than Humans can,..." A simple search with Google reveals the following:
From the United Stated Geological Survey:
"Research findings indicate that the answer to this frequently asked question is a clear and unequivocal, “No.” Human activities, responsible for some 36,300 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2008 [Le Quéré et al., 2009], release at least a hundred times more CO2 annually than all the world’s degassing subaerial and submarine volcanoes (Gerlach, 2010)."
USGS
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hazards/gas/climate.php
Something tells me that you and your fellow science ignorati are going to ignore these findings and keep on spewing the talking points. Am I right?
blueheron...If you are able to read SA, you ought to be able to understand that climate change is brought about by external stressors...The fact that humans did not cause the last climate shift will not preclude us from causing the next one. Oh...it snowed this year...global warming must be bogus!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPeace
Another article in Scientific American blaming man for temp. variations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPaleogeologically the earth is coming off one of its overall lowest levels of CO2. Many plants, (we all love and hug them :)), have an optimum CO2 threshold for productivity of 600-1000 ppm of CO2.
Blaming mankind for this stuff is absurd.
Mbschro: Paleogeologically the earth is coming off one of its overall lowest levels of CO2
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Tell me more. Paleo can mean a lot of things.
Mbschro: Many plants, (we all love and hug them :)), have an optimum CO2 threshold for productivity of 600-1000 ppm of CO2.
Trent Says: What plants? Do these studies also take into account changing temps and precipitation patterns? What part of the plant are talking about? Do these studies account for the fact CO2 levels will also encourage the growth of weeds? You are awfully vague. I am sorry but mistaking green house agriculture where the exact amounts of water and temperature are controlled is not the best predictor for real world food production.
Liebig's Law of the Minimum. Go learn it:
http://www.soils.wisc.edu/~barak/soilscience326/lawofmin.htm
Before we hyperventilate about these findings, they need to be compared to data from other ice cores taken from other areas including Antarctica if global implications are to be assumed. Let us not have another cherry picked tree ring episode.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI view the claim that ice sheets kilometres thick melted in decades unbelievable.
Obviously they did not melt where these ice cores were extracted from.
mememine69 forgot to take his medication again.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarlyle: Let us not have another cherry picked tree ring episode.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: Another? You guys have been manufacturing "scandals". You have fallen for your own propaganda:
Here take a look at the dozen studies that replicate the original.
Reconstructions using multiple climate proxy record
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig6-10b.png
I think it is telling that the pseudo-skeptics never ever mention the fact that different researchers using different proxies and techniques come up with the same answer. Funny that.
So US republicans voted that anthropic climate change doesn't exist? Just suppose that politicians voted that PI=3! Is that far-fetched? Check that out....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you SmallTownPete. You made the exact point I was going to. It's not a matter of one thing or another, it's a matter of both. Of course cyclical global climate change has existed for longer than the human race, but to ignore the effect of human influence on climate change is foolish, to say the least.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyone remember how many people were expected to be displaced by rising sea levels by 2010? Didn't think so. Anyone remember the other predicted calamities associated with global warming? Didn't think so. None of them came true. Instead of collecting ice cores or whatever modern science needs to be working on restoring honesty and ethics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFunny also how many peer reviewers peer review each others papers. I was referring in particular to The Hockey Stick or are you still denying it was based on false information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI did try to warn you about hyperventilating. You do realise that breathing causes lung cancer? Therefore more breathing causes more lung cancer. I strongly advise you to desist from this dangerous activity.
By the way, what is your solution to all these human caused ills that you perceive?
Fifty million climate refugees by 2010 was the figure I recall being predicted in 2005. Numerous island nations were due to be inundated by now. Four more years & the Arctic was to be ice free too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDiesel Pop Says: Anyone remember how many people were expected to be displaced by rising sea levels by 2010? Didn't think so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: No, I do not remember. I think it might have something to do with you just making it up. Disagree? Well, then here is the link to the IPCC. The link enables you to go look at reports for the past twenty years. Go ahead, provide evidence, otherwise I am going to consider you a liar.
IPCC Reports
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml
Carlyle Says: Funny also how many peer reviewers peer review each others papers. I was referring in particular to The Hockey Stick or are you still denying it was based on false information.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTrent Says: I like your style Carlyle. You totally ignored the fact that I was just talking about just that topic and how various researchers have replicated it using different techniques, proxies and methodologies a dozen different times and you repeat the same lie like I never provided a link to those studies. Classy/s
Carlyle: You do realise that breathing causes lung cancer? Therefore more breathing causes more lung cancer. I strongly advise you to desist from this dangerous activity.
Trent Says: The force of stupidity is strong in you. May the ignorance be with you.
I have been reading SA, Discover and New Scientist for a number of year and I do not ever recall such predictions. Perhaps you are misremembering, making it up, or read it from a source that is best left forgoten anyways.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo All:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI want to apologize for the following text. I know it looks like a Owl wrote it but the questions must be asked.
Carlyle Says: Fifty million climate refugees by 2010 was the figure I recall being predicted in 2005.
Trent Says: Who? Who said it? A blog post will not be sufficient. Link me to the primary sources for this assertion. Who told you this? Who wrote it?
Carlyle and others cast harsh aspersions on unnamed people and/or institutions they perceive to contradict their own beliefs. Since we don't know who they are talking about, I thought it might be helpful to name a few organizations that are indeed planning on something Carlyle in particular seems to doubt: sea level rise. Similar lists can be compiled for population displacement, desertification, etc. Google makes it easy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInsurance companies. See:
http://www.allianzre.com/solutions/climate_study.html
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=76115&p=irol-govresponsenviron
http://www.lloyds.com/News-and-Insight/News-and-Features/Environment/Environment-2011/Extreme-weather (there is a lot more on Lloyd's site)
The military:
www.navy.mil/navydata/documents/CCR.pdf http://securityandclimate.cna.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7udNMqRmqV8&feature=player_embedded
I could go on, but dinner calls.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/j436x24814660277/ 50 million refugees by 2010
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/what_climate_refugees_what_map_what_dud_predictions/
You can follow the links yourselves. There are plenty of sources including the clumsily deleted information.
This is mere verification of an implied statement made earlier by myself....that of wilful ignorance and it's social and political consequences.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was making the case that climate science has a great deal to say about climate and that conclusions of a non-scientific nature or by those untrained in climate science are to be looked at with scepticism and generally held with contempt.
By referencing Norman Myers (http://www.springerlink.com/content/j436x24814660277/), then making the assumption that what he says it what science was predicting, is wilful ignorance on your part, and is thus part of the overall problem. In addition, I don't think a serious person would take either of those references seriously. Norman Myers by his own admission admitted that his results were unscientific and yet you cite them as being an example of what the scientific community was irresponsibly predicting.
Here he admits he was basically making it all up for effect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Myers
http://itsrainmakingtime.com/2010/nilsaxelmorner/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(Sea levels not rising as predicted)
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/25/update-on-the-cu-sea-level-page-status/
(Sea levels falling. How can this be if the Earth is heating?)
The site you mention DOES indicate that there is a sea level rise, it's just complaining that no new data has been added since mid 2010.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReally? Have another look. Recently it has been falling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou refer to Norman Myers in a contemptious maner. What then of Dr Rajendra K Pachauri, director general of TERI, and the chief of the inter-governmental panel on Climate Change claiming that mankind is causing tsunamis (Therefore earthquakes)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCarlyle, I'm confused. If anything, those links corroborate sea level rise. Due to cyclical fluctuations, we may have been experiencing a sea level drop in 2010. But as clear as day, the graph is trending up (straight black line). With accelerated loss of our ice caps and glaciers, it only makes sense that melting ice puts more water into the system.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike someone else has succinctly put it: climate change is an extremely complicated global phenomena and like global phenomena goes, the causes are multifaceted. There may never be a straight answer. In the face of scientific uncertainty, it's best to take the precautionary approach (“Precautionary approach” means taking action to protect public health or the environment if a reasonable threat of serious harm exists based upon the best available science, even if absolute and undisputed scientific evidence is not available to assess the exact nature and extent of risk). Let's face it: there's a huge long term risk to public health and it's extremely challenging to accurately predict what the impact will be, but whatever it is, it could be very devastating. There's no hope of reversing the change in our lifetimes, but it doesn't mean that we shouldn't start, and we start by first recognizing the problem exists. First world countries (with the right pull) have the capability to slow climate change, so it's not all doom and gloom.
I feel like the magnitude of the problem is what generates confusion and denial. The States seem especially worried that they're economically doomed if they try to tackle climate change. Well, let me telly ya-it's even more expensive to simply sit back and react to it. Think of the investment as an insurance. I'm sure, more than anyone else, Americans have personally felt what they're subjected to without adequate medical insurance-climate change is analogous.
The precautionary principle stands. Don't take an unnecessary risk, because the potential consequence is damning us all.
This "debate", as so many others, remind me of "creationist" against evolutionists, i. e., people who believe man can't change what god (an Agatha Christie-like deity, strewing all kinds of red herrings about to confuse us) made, versus people who believe in man and science, and our ability to form, create and destroy our destiny.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs such, there is no possibility of a mutual understanding, at least not in time, it took the catholic church nearly 400 years to accept Galileis view of the universe!
Trent: I want to thank you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have given me so much amusement watching a true believer rant on about the "science ignorati”, “fellow ideologues”, and “The force of stupidity is strong in you”. It is all too easy to insult those who disagree with you. I have seen your data and compared your short term rise with the 400,000 year ice core data. As a working scientist (twenty years replacing chlorocarbons and chlorofluorocarbons in industrial products) I know all too well the hazards of taking a small piece of a graph and extrapolating it. Things go up, then things go down. Speaking of the “Keeling Curve”, it is hardly “the most famous graph in all of science”. That distinction is reserved for the graph representing E = mc2.
I do not deny that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Why do you ignore the greenhouse contributions of water vapor? Could it be because CO2 is consistent whereas water vapor fluctuates wildly? Water vapor accounts for the largest percentage of the greenhouse effect, between 36% and 66% for clear sky conditions and between 66% and 85% when including clouds. "Water vapour: feedback or forcing?". RealClimate. 6 April 2005. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 as cited in Wikipedia.
14C levels have not declined. If these levels fluctuated significantly we would not be able to use them for radiocarbon dating. 12C and 13C are present in both coal and petroleum and in CO2 from decomposition of subducted limestone subsequently released through volcanoes.
It might be worth your while to learn a little about the effects of temperature and concentration on chemical equilibria.
Blueheron,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting, you refer to the article: "Water vapour: feedback or forcing?". RealClimate. 6 April 2005. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 as cited in Wikipedia. But you fail to note the conclusion of that article - that the water vapor is a feedback rather than a forcing. I think this does not work for your argument.
Are we going to continue to burn fossil fuels at the current rates, and if so, for how long? Do we accept our ability to change the chemistry of the planet's atmosphere, ignore the changes we are causing, or deny them? I wish in these "debates" that every commentator had to state his position as to whether we should decrease the rate of CO2 we put into the atmosphere, continue as we have been, or allow for increases (after the gas is gone, coal). And since those of us who comment here are from the cultures producing the most CO2, what should we be telling the billions who can only "hope" they too can be so rich in the burning of fossil fuels. Wait your turn?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo how come sea levels declined during 2010? If sea level rise is man caused, how can it go down despite global Co2 levels continuing to climb?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWithin the conservative alternate reality bubble you might find sea level falling, but in the real world, sea level is still rising, and continues to rise, and the rise is accelerating.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.springerlink.com/content/h2575k28311g5146/
The word "inhabitable" contains the same inner contradiction that took out of place the word "inflammable". Instead, "flammable" is used today for things that do can burn. Perhaps it would be better using the word "habitable" for places one can live in ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://iceagenow.com/Lieberman-Kerry_bill_predicated_on_a_lie.htm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDr. Don Easterbrook, Professor of Geology at Western Washington University as he presented this chart, along with several of his own, at the Heartland Institute's 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago last week.
"Natural global warming much more intense than modern warming has occurred many times in the geologic past without CO2 change," said Easterbrook.
Your link ends in 2009. I refer you to the results for 2010. Being so smart, I feel sure you will be able to find & interpret the raw data for yourself.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSRGJAN KERIM, President of the General Assembly, opened the discussion by saying that 11 of the last 12 years had ranked among the 12 warmest since the keeping of global temperature records had begun in 1850. Two points were significant: that climate change was inherently a sustainable-development challenge; and that more efforts than ever before must be exerted to enable poor countries to prepare for impacts because it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/ga10725.doc.htm
"criminal charges for knowingly sustaining the criminal exaggerations of the CO2 mistake for the last 25 years."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow, the right wing delusional alternate reality bubble is drifting further and further away from reality.
I hope these people can find their way back.
The changes occurred rapidly, without any help from humans
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Fifteen thousand years ago, temperatures rose 10 to 20 degrees in just one century," said Easterbrook.
About 12,800 years ago we plunged into the Younger Dryas, said Easterbrook. When we came out of the Younger Dryas, temperatures again shot upward, rising 15 degrees in just 40 years. Then, from about 10,000 years ago to 3,000 years ago, temperatures were warmer than today.
http://iceagenow.com/2010—where_does_it_fit_in_the_warmest_year_list-9099th.htm
1934 has long been considered the warmest year of the past century. A decade ago, the closest challenger appeared to be 1998, a super-el nino year, but it trailed 1934 by 0.54°C (0.97°F).
Since then, NASA GISS has “adjusted” the U.S. data for 1934 downward and 1998 upward (see December 25, 2010 post by Ira Glickstein) in an attempt to make 1998 warmer than 1934 and seemingly erased the original rather large lead of 1934 over 1998. The last phases of the strong 2009-2010 el nino in early 2010 made this year another possible contender for the warmest year of the century.
However, December 2010 has been one of the coldest Decembers in a century in many parts of the world, so 2010 probably won’t be warmer than 1998. But does it really matter? Regardless of which year wins the temperature adjustment battle, how significant will that be? To answer that question, we need to look at a much longer time frame‒centuries and millennia.
The past 10,000 years
Most of the past 10,000 have been warmer than the present. Figure 4 shows temperatures from the GISP2 Greenland ice core. With the exception of a brief warm period about 8,200 years ago, the entire period from 1,500 to 10,500 years ago was significantly warmer than present.
http://www.helium.com/items/2125333-prepare-for-new-ice-age-now-says-top-paleoclimatologist
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeorge Kukla, 77, retired professor of paleoclimatology at Columbia University and researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory responds, "The only thing to worry about global warming is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid."
The "Earth has experienced an ongoing cycle of ice ages dating back millions of years. Cold, glacial periods affecting the polar to mid-latitudes persist for about 100,000 years, punctuated by briefer, warmer periods called interglacials," Kukla says.
Co-author of an important section of the book "Natural Climate Variability on Decade to Century Time Scales," Kukla asserts all Ice Ages start with a period of global warming. They are the harbingers of new Ice Ages. Actually, he explains, warming is good. Ice Ages are deadly and may even kill millions.
No need to worry about the 2010 data. One year does not a trend make. There is much noise in the sea level signal, with tides, storms, shifting ocean currents, etc.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe point is that sea level is rising, and it will keep on rising.
Freshwater in the Arctic ocean is up, way up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2010.12.002
Why is everyone so defensive about whether mankind is responsable for the evident changes in climate? To me, trying to assign blame is a waste of time. The reality is that our climate is changing. Whether it is mostly driven by mankind's burning of fossil fuels or natural cycles is irrelevant. What is relevent is that mankind does contribute somewhat to the changes and therefor can chose to moderate those changes by reducing our impact on the climate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real problem is that we do not want to give up our way of living to take action. What a selfcentered, selfish bunch we are.
I can just picture three scientists arguing with each other about what to do after an explosion on their aircraft. One tries to blame the other two. The next tries to come up with scientific reasons for the explosion. The third denies the explosion even took place. All the while, they have three parachutes in a box next to them that they do not even consider even though they are now moments from the abrupt stop at the end of their fall.
Fools....
Lets all agree how important this is. The trouble has been that the climate scientists have never truly understood the implications of that statement. They may know climate science (or not) but they don't have a clue about people.To ask the better off to give up their life style, to ask the developing world to give up their development for a couple of generations requires a standard of proof that is off-scale high. And they haven't provided it. In that sense they are the ones in denial. They will tell you they've done a perfectly adequate job. Kyoto and Copenhagen said the opposite.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot really. The vast majority of the climate scientists have let us know that we are playing Russian roulette. The revolver has 20 chambers, and 19 of them have bullets. Are they to blame that we continue to apply pressure to the trigger?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell that's a wonderful answer but its not me you have to convince. Its the people of Indonesia and India and China and Sri Lanka and a quite a few others. How successful have you been at that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this:Scientists already understood that heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere made Earth inhabitable, but they had begun to realize that too much of this good thing was going to cause problems for humanity."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't you mean "habitable"?
China's yearly CO2 emissions have just recently surpassed the US's emissions, yet they have several times the population. Their per capita output is several times less than that in the US, and their cumulative emissions are a fraction of the US. And yet, they are taking more serious actions to limit their per capita output than the US is. So, why do you say that I have to convince the Chinese?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Correlation is not causation."
Absolutely true, but then, we know that CO2 in the atmosphere causes the planet to retain more energy not because of ice cores, but because of physics that have been understood for about a hundred years. What the ice cores tell us is not whether CO2 causes warming; what they tell is how the earth system behaves when warming, initiated by CO2 or other causes, occurs.
Mankind's appetites will destroy him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll this is putting another bore(ing) hole in my reader interest index. I must sign off before a terminal yawn appears...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Heritage Foundation and whatsupwiththat are two denialist web sites that are connected with big oil and related interests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor information on climate science and deliberate science denial, try these publications from qualified sources:
The American Denial of Global Warming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T4UF_Rmlio
Betrayal of Science and Reason
http://books.google.ca/books?id=1vkYnktbFK4C
Climate Cover-up
http://books.google.ca/books?id=tQYjQzOkYK0C
Doubt Is Their Product
http://books.google.ca/books?id=J0P3IdSYO_MC
Climate Denial Crock of the Week (Weather is not Climate)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0JsdSDa_bM
Quizzle me this; IF we tax the hell out of Co2, what will you do with the money the WILL *change* the climate? And, how can you be sure?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIF you turn out to be WRONG, can we then *punish* you and your ilk? Like, flogging?
See, our government(s) have not had a stellar history for fiscal responsibility. Over the past 50 years, for every dollar raised in taxes, they have spent $1.61.
When you say "tax" we hear "GRANT MONEY FOR ALL!"
No, it doesn't. The word inhabitable comes from the word inhabit. Not habit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo. The word comes from "inhabit", not "habit".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat to see the discussion continues! Anyway, I have a question...if the ice melts down to raise sea levels (fast or slow), then don't a lot of ice layers melt in the warm period, so the layers we see are only built during the cold periods, so the differentiation we see is actually occurring during the cold periods? Just wondering.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHello friends!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlright - one slight problem is the claim by the Greenhouse bunch that we are in the hottest last five decades of all time.
It seems mighty strange that to find the original farms established by the Vikings we have to dig through ice to get at them.
If now are the hottest five decades of all time, we should be able to walk in the grassy ruins, like the Vikings obviously did.
Also - a P-38 Ligtning Fighter bomber was revcovered from Greenland after 50 years. Trick question - Did the recoverers find this aircraft A)sitting in a pool of meltwater - or - B)did they have to dig through 250 feet of snow?
The answer is "B" - if 250 feet of snow has dropped in the past 50 years then it is blindingly obvious that at the time of the Vikings it was several degrees warmer than it is now. Those who claim that there are local areas of hot spots or cold spots while the rest of the planet remains stable had better start rewriting the wondrous Laws of Thermodynamics, as they are obviously wrong as well.