Global Warning IV

by Ira Mark Egdall

For those who want to learn more about global warming (pro and con), I suggest “Global Warming is not a Crisis” under Sciences, Earth Sciences, Climate Science on Scienceforums.net. The link is:

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/60467-global-warming-is-not-a-crisis/

Of course I have my own biases, but, after reading all the arguments, I am more and more convinced human-induced climate change is real and urgent. Here’s some of what convinced me:

Measurement Data Supports Warming – per Swansont #163 and 165:

“2005 and 2010 are tied for the warmest years on record. All eleven years in the 21st century so far (2001–2011) rank among the 13 warmest in the 132-year period of record. Only one year during the 20th century — 1998 — was warmer than 2011. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/

“In the last 25 years the temperature has gone up about 0.35º C while the CO2 concentration has gone from 350 to 390 ppm. The dependence is logarithmic, so this gives us a sensitivity of ~2º C for a doubling of CO2, ignoring any latency in the system. If you go back ~35 years, it’s about 0.5º C and we start at 330 ppm. Again, you get 2º C.

The predictions are that this sensitivity is between 1.5 and 4.5. (In other words, the predicted warming has occurred.)”

Warming is Not Due to Natural Factors – per Captain Panic #46:

“Nobody said it’s just 1 factor. But recently there was only 1 factor which changed a lot: humans. There is no increased meteor activity. Water is already in the models. Properly. Continents move really slow. The earth’s tilt hasn’t changed much either. The oceans are in the models already. All that extra CO2 comes from us. The only thing debated is whether it will really make the world heat up or not.”

Increase in Atmospheric Carbon Traced to Human Activities – per Swansont #47 and 60:

“Fossil-fuel carbon is devoid of C-14, and there are difference is the C-12/C-13 ratio for terrestrial vs. oceanic sources. You can do isotopic analysis to find the dominant source of the increase in atmospheric carbon. Can you guess the answer?

“It’s not just that C-12 increased. C-13 and C-14 did not increase in the proportion you would get if the sources were natural. The changes in the ratios is what you get from fossil fuel burning (by human activity).”

Past Climate Change Different – per Swansont #97

“The past spikes correlate with eccentricity variation in the earth’s orbit — the trigger there is the solar radiation hitting the planet, and in those cases, CO2 was also from a feedback effect. (CO2 did not cause the initial rise in temperature)
http://en.wikipedia….eccentricity.29

That kind of change doesn’t happen in a matter of decades, though, and the ice-age-cycle CO2 levels topped out at under 300 ppm.”
http://en.wikipedia….xide_400kyr.png

Current Global Climate is Changing Alarmingly Fast – per Essay #100 and #123 (from the National Academies Press):

“A change worth 30 million years, occurring within about a century, has not happened for over 50 million years (or longer) of Earth’s history. We were just lemurs in the trees, that long ago, and the modern C4 grasses had not even evolved yet. This is also before the polar ice caps existed.

“We are pushing our atmosphere back to conditions prevailing 30 million years ago, within just several more generations! Hello?! Does anyone see a problem with surviving those conditions, for the next several millennia?”

I think we need to take action now to reduce human-induced climate change. The evidence is too compelling to ignore. And the potential impact on human life (as well as on other life forms) is devastating.

What do you think? I welcome all comments — pro and con.

My website: marksmodernphysics.com
You can also follow me on Twitter@IMEgdall