Data pins polar warming blame on humans
Offline so did anybody see this? I think this is pretty interesting...
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/30/polar.warming/index.html
LONDON, England (CNN) -- Scientists think they have uncovered conclusive proof that human activity is responsible for rising temperatures in both polar regions.
Changes in polar temperatures are not consistent with natural climate changes say scientists.
Research carried out at the Climatic Research Unit at the UK's University of East Anglia (UEA) demonstrates for the first time that anthropogenic climate change is responsible for warming at the Arctic and Antarctic.
Previous studies have observed rises in temperature at both poles, but none, until now, have formally attributed the cause to human activity.
Using up-to-date gridded data sets, scientists led by the UEA observed mean land surface temperatures in the Arctic over a 100 year period. For the Antarctic the observation period was shorter -- 50 years -- as there is no station data available before 1945.
They then applied an average simulated response using two models. The first examined natural forcings -- events like solar cycles and volcanic activity which can affect temperatures.
The second model simulated natural combined with anthropogenic forcings -- which included greenhouse gases, stratospheric ozone depletion and sulphate aerosol.
Scientists discovered that the observed changes in Arctic and Antarctic temperatures are not consistent with internal climate variability or natural climate drivers alone.
One of the report authors, Dr Alexey Karpechko told CNN: "In both cases the accelerations are not consistent with natural forcing, which means that natural forcing alone cannot produce such a warming. So in a sense, we can say conclusively that this [warming trend at the poles] is due to human influence."
The paper "Attribution of polar warming to human influence" is published in the science journal Nature Geoscience.
The Antarctic data is of particular interest given that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 notes that anthropogenic climate change had been detected in every continent except Antarctica.
This new data appears to demonstrate that man-made warming is indeed happening on the continent as well.
The report may go some way towards silencing climate skeptics who point to evidence that most of Antarctica has been cooling for some time.
"There is strong warming in the Antarctic peninsula," Karpechko said. "But for several decades there has been a slight cooling of the rest of the continent. This slight cooling is due to circulation changes which are partly caused by ozone depletion.
"This is why there has been a bit of confusion as to what is happening in Antarctica. But we expect a recovery of the ozone layer in the future. We may also expect that the Antarctic warming trends will emerge more clearly."
Commenting on the study conducted by the UEA, Professor David Vaughan, a Glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey told CNN: "This is exactly the sort of study we need. The poles are extremely important in the climate change debate and the rapid warming in the Arctic is one of the icons."
Professor Vaughan, who is studying the patches of warming happening in Antarctica, concedes that the cooling that's occurred in the past 30 to 50 years is "a little perplexing". But he agrees with Dr Karpechko over the effects of the ozone hole.
"The likelihood is that over the next century the ozone hole will be substantially reduced," Professor Vaughan said, "And it may mean that the Antarctic warming becomes much more apparent in that period."
Climate modeling might not convince everyone that warming is taking place, but as Professor Vaughan points out: "Simulations are built around physical principles and an understanding of the physical world".
Climate modeling is a relatively new area of expertise but Professor Vaughan said that the UEA is widely recognized as one of the world leaders in this field.
As previous IPCC reports have pointed out, the effects of warming at the poles are already being felt by indigenous polar species and communities. This new report is confirmation of the culpability of humans in contributing to these rising temperatures.
"I'm afraid that there will always be people that don't believe that we are making all these changes," Dr Karpechko said.
"Some people are waiting for the science to say that a particular heat wave is caused by humans. But attributing specific effects to human activities is much more difficult than attributing global changes. I don't know if we should wait for that because it will be too late.
"I see from the data that there is warming. This is really frightening
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The atmosphere is very thin layer above the earths crust, basically only 7 miles. What's that tell us? !!! Yicks , love it or die ....
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In other news, evolution is true!
~sigh~ Just another example of science being right and bad critical thinking prevailing. Don't hold your breath for any major policy changes.
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I do take issue with the methodology involved, and would want to see similar data from other organizations, having undergone extensive peer review, before taking their word for it. I'm less inclined to jump on any band wagon so closely tied in to politics, at least not without multiple sources. Still, I applaud their efforts to find explanations and solutions, so long as their conclusions can be affirmed through comparative analysis.
Firstly,lets not forget that global warming is not a phenomenon created by man:the earth has had no ice caps for over 90%of its history.We are living in an ice age and we are creatures of that ice age,to think that we have any control of global warming is nothing more than supreme arrogance.
So what is causing global warming? the same thing which has caused the earth to warm up and cool down for millions of years,and that is its orbit in relation to the sun.Check out the Malinkovic Cycle.
Secondly,it should be pointed out that nature produces more co2 in one year than man has produced since the industrial revolution began. That the ice caps are melting is not in dispute,but our pathetic scratchings on this earth have not and cannot influence it to any noticeable degree.
Why then have so many govts subscribed to the greenhouse myth? Quite simple,they want to use it as an excuse to tax us more,even the food we eat,so they can build even bigger bombs and perpetrate even more horrendous war.......these are the real immediate threats to mankinds future.
Hello Peter, welcome to our corner of the intarweb. Let me address your post.
First off, nobody denies that there are natural cycles in the global climate. The Milankovich cycles are part of the puzzle. Although it really must be stated that while they are considered to be clearly involved in the matter, there is still quite a bit of important work to be done before we can say that we really understand the role that they play in climate.
As far as the amount of CO2 produced in nature mapped against the amount that man produces, sure the former is larger than the latter. However, one should not use that to simply discount the latter. Rather, the amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gases should properly be added onto the top of the amount that is produced naturally.
That much being said, I too carry a certain level of distrust in the politics of global climate change. However, it is a fact that global climate does change over time and there is a fair bit of evidence that we have managed to play a role in that process in the past century or so. How large that role may be and what we may have done is a proper direction for scientific inquiry.
Now I have taken the time to hunt down quite a bit of the science on the matter and it does seem to tilt in the direction of us having played a decent part in the changes over the past century or so. There is still important work to be done and it would be irresponsible to state that the facts of the matter are of sufficient clarity that we can simply stop doing science as far as global climate in concerned.
Probably a better point would be to stress the political nature of the matter.
A number of climate scientists have broken ranks with the IPCC over various aspects of the work that is being done. Some of those had previously been key authors of earlier reports and they have formally requested that their names be removed from future publications due to the hyper-politicization of the work.
Some of the scientists (even the ones that remain in a working relationship with the IPCC) have observed that the models that are being used seem to make certain predictions that are not currently observed. This should not be taken that the models are wrong so much as they lack a needed level of refinement. As it stands, the models that are in use today are showing improved ability to predict what ought to be observed over the models that were in use a few years ago.
If you really want to go into the deep end of the politics, you should probably consider what has been done as far as the question of what we need to be doing and on what time frame.
One example that has been floated in the “precautionary principal”. Basically stated, it calls for immediate change on the basis that we don't actually know what will happen in the coming decades. If we do not act now, we will not be able to prevent a catastrophe that may not actually happen.
Those who advocate for that get points for playing Pascal's wager on a global scale. The logic really out to continue that if they are wrong, then nothing bad can happen anyway. Well, if you consider spending trillions of dollars on what could amount to no actual purpose and wrecking the world economy as nothing bad happening.
Another point on the precautionary principal would be that it assumes a one way arrogance. As it goes, the assumption is that we are capable of wrecking the biosphere by doing nothing. However, we are not capable of causing bad thing to happen if we make an effort at least as mighty to force the climate in the other direction. Now I don't mean to suggest that we are going to trigger an ice age with this but, if what we have done in the past 175 years is a problem, why would it not also be a problem to to make the same level of change (albeit in the opposite direction) in the next 30 years?
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"Firstly,lets not forget that global warming is not a phenomenon created by man:the earth has had no ice caps for over 90%of its history."
At least five times since the formation of the earth, because of changes in global climate, the polar ice has expanded north and south toward the equator and has stayed there for at least a million years.
Note it expanded, as in there has ALWAYS been polar ice. We are in an ice age because there are ice sheets as far south as Greenland, but there is always POLAR ice.
Start off with a lie that big and you've destroyed your credibility completely. I'll not even bother reading the rest of your lies.
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