Observations and climate model results confirm that human-induced warming of the planet is having a pronounced effect on the atmosphere’s total moisture content…”When you heat the planet, you increase the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture,” said Benjamin Santer, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
“The atmosphere’s water vapor content has increased by about 0.41 kilograms per cubic meter (kg/m²) per decade since 1988, and natural variability in climate just can’t explain this moisture change. The most plausible explanation is that it’s due to the human-caused increase in greenhouse gases.”
Using 22 different computer models of the climate system and measurements from the satellite-based Special Sensor Microwave Imager, atmospheric scientists from LLNL and eight other international research centers have shown that the recent increase in moisture content over the bulk of the world’s oceans is not due to solar forcing or gradual recovery from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. The primary driver of this ‘atmospheric moistening’ is the increase in carbon dioxide caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
“This is the first identification of a human fingerprint on the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere,” Santer said.
I’ll leave to you to guess which finger it is.
Aside from my smartass remark, work your way through the questions discussed at the end of the article. Of particular note is “atmospheric moisture content is one of the large-scale environmental conditions that influences the genesis and development of hurricanes” – a dialectical change witnessed just the other week with Hurricane Humberto.
Excellent thread going here, from all the usual suspects. Bravo to all–except you non-science worshipping dipshits.
I am put in mind of why grape juice ferments to 12% alcohol.
The little cultures metabolize the sugar as an energy source and produce alcohol as a waste product until they die from living in too much of their own excrement–ie, 12% alcohol kills the yeast.
Move from yeast to homo sapiens, a barrel to mother earth, and alcohol to CO2, and you have a rough analogy. Rough, because we aren’t going to die off from CO2, but there remains a carrying capacity given energy needs, waste, etc.
#96 – bobbo,
Excellent analogy!!! Mind if I verbally plagiarize it once in a while? I’ll always give credit where credit is due. (Cash is another story.)
I think you might have some good points to make on a related thread for just such a topic on my blog. I’d love to get your opinions on my personal general rant there. Maybe you could cheer my up by pointing out the fallacies of my argument. (I hope someone can or there are going to be some really bad times ahead.)
#96 Bobbo – Yes that is a good analogy!
Cheers
#97 MS Nice Blog you have there – congrats!
Where do you find the time to rant here and there? I was thinking of copy paste my rants to my worthless blog of one outdated post.
Anyway Good on you!
Regarding LEDs for primary lighting – its still years away. Heat dissipation is the problem. LEDs however are moving into the domain of Neon Beer Signs. You might have noticed the classic OPEN sign sold at Sam’s club is no longer neon. 😉 I might just have a little inside knowledge there.
Cheers
>>You’re right. Perhaps John should correct that in his cover.
I don’t think so. John is not the editor for Terra Daily. The error was in the article itself. If they don’t know the difference between cubic meters and square meters, I don’t think it’s the role of bloggers to clean up their blunders.
#94 – M Scott
“It is also a vertical column that presumably expands to greater than a square meter wide as it approaches the stratosphere.”
Careful w/ dem assumptions, ace. I suggest you will find the actual measured volume to be a pyramid, with the apex originating at the business end of the IR sensor on the satellite. From the volume of that pyramid, the volume of the (tapering) square column is computed…
#99 – TIHZ_HO,
Thanks. Feel free to stop by anytime. I’ll keep an eye out for those beer and open signs.
#100 – MM,
I’d correct it and note the error in my text if it were my blog. It’s not as if the post is a complete reprint of the article anyway. But, that’s just me being the type of person who cares whether anal-retentive has a hyphen.
#101 – Lauren,
You may be right. I hadn’t thought of that. That would mean that the square meter on the ocean surface would correspond to many such pyramids. I wonder how they’d account for that. Perhaps they deliberately are not looking for totals but for samples. I may have to read the article again and see if it specifies which way the imaginary “vertical” lines go. Perhaps it’s in the supporting data.
Don’t bother – it’s really a trivial calculation. Whether the sensor resolves a single square meter, or a square klick, all those apices are at the same point in threespace, so the extrapolation is still straightforward.
The health problems and other problems of nuclear power should be trivial when measured against the problems of GLOBAL WARMING.
‘We may cross a tipping point’
There go your weasel words again. You say you are on board with the scientific concensus, and then you ignore this concensus when it suits your agenda. The fact is the tipping point isn’t crossed according to the models the scientists are using. Perhaps you should contact some and see if one of them will give you access. You plug in data on greenhouse gas emissions, and the amount of warming pops out. So plug in the data with a ten year, twenty year, thirty year delay and see the results for yourself.
#104 – MikeN,
I’ll check The Weathermakers for the tipping point reference when I get home. I don’t have that book with me today. It’s all well foot noted. Great book, BTW.
#104 – MikeN,
Oh, and admitting that science doesn’t know exactly when each of the many tipping points that could send us into a positive feedback situation may be reached is not weasel wording. But, thanks for the compliment. I like weasels a lot more than I like most humans.
AFAIK, there is not yet a consensus on when each tipping point will be reached.
96. Bobbo: Ahh, your analogy proves what I’ve long suspected. The whole point of our exists is simply because God wants to get drunk.
#89 Whatever.
Please explain why the polar caps on Mars began melting at the same time as Earth’s.
The sun has a far bigger effect on our global warming than any other factor.
# 103, Lauren,
Good point. Also, it would matter little about the exact shape of the sample as long as it was consistently applied to every measurement.
#108 “Please explain why the polar caps on Mars began melting at the same time as Earth’s.The sun has a far bigger effect on our global warming than any other factor.”
Solar output is not as constant as everyone believes it is. Our Sun has been called a variable star as its output waxes and wanes.
http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q217.html
There are many solar activities which increase or reduce solar output. Even a very small change has a great effect on Earth’s climate.
“In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun’s radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.”
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/sun_output_030320.html
There is no doubt that CO2 plays a role in global warming / cooling I am concerned that Global Warming(tm) is now policy and therefore its sole cause is human activity – CO2 emissions so there can be no other discussion fielded.
If our knowledge of our climate is so precise why then can’t I know for sure if it is going to rain tomorrow? It seems sometimes the weather report is just someone looking out the window! LOL!
Cheers
#108 – B Cook
“Please explain why the polar caps on Mars began melting at the same time as Earth’s.”
As Sir John Gielgud so aptly said, “No, thank you…”
If you are hypothesizing that there is a correlation between those events, then you are the party obliged to offer evidence in support of your hypothesis. Please, as Augustus Caesar once remarked to Marcus Antonius, “Knock yourself out.”
“The sun has a far bigger effect on our global warming than any other factor.”
I don’t know how to break this to you, but you see, the Sun, in fact, has that “far bigger effect” that you so astutely noticed for a very simple reason. It is the SOURCE of ALL of the heat energy involved in the entire controversy. That is a given. It GOES WITHOUT SAYING.
The scientific phrase for your “insight” there is “Well, DUH!”
All anyone is arguing about is of the various phenomena that regulate solar heating of our planet, by trapping that heat, which ones are natural, and which are due to human contributions to the atmosphere – and are the perturbations and fluctuations that those phenomena exhibit the product of natural forces and cyclical in nature – or of unprecedented manmade contributions of gasses to the atmosphere?
IOW, where the heat comes from is not at issue, nor is how the heat is trapped. What it’s about is, is more of it actually being trapped? And if so, is it because of the stuff we’ve put in the air?
Since it appears that you have completely misunderstood the very nature of what the whole controversy is about, maybe you should exercise a little intellectual humility and be quiet until you learn quite a bit more about what is actually being discussed. Hmmm?
#110 – T_H
“If our knowledge of our climate is so precise why then can’t I know for sure if it is going to rain tomorrow? It seems sometimes the weather report is just someone looking out the window! LOL!”
Stick with light bulbs, brother. 🙂
What happens over the next 3 days is weather.
What happens over the next 3 years is climate.
And if you were to just dip the very tip of your pinky-toe into the shallow end of chaos theory, you would know that with measurements taken every minute on every acre of the Earth’s surface, and modelled with millions of times more computing capacity than currently exists worldwide – we still could not possibly predict the weather with any significant confidence for more than 3 days or so. Chaos, in a system as complex as the Earth’s atmosphere, sets in that quickly.
That doesn’t mean we can’t work wonders at predicting climate, though.
Your “argument” there reduces to “How can we think we can predict long-term atmospheric phenomena – when we can’t predict it over the short term?”
And that, phrased that way, is obviously a very silly question indeed, Might as well say, “Since we don’t know the results of any ten given coin tosses, how can we possibly say that 10,000,000 tosses will come up heads 50% of the time?”
Pretty silly question, isn’t it?
Try again, T_H – only this time, consider a valid argument, eh? 😉
#112 JEEEESUS!
You did not seem to notice the ‘LOL’ at the end of that comment.
I hope you don’t own a gun with your trigger finger and all…. 😉
Cheers
#111 Dear head in sand
You still haven’t dealt with the central question. The polar caps on Mars began melting at the same time as they did on earth, Global warming is a fact, the cause is not man made.
Unless you figure the mars rover is spewing out hydrocarbons.
Now quit stamping your feet and answer the simple question! In fact be the first to answer it. So far not one of your precious 2500 “scientists” have done anything but stomp out of the room when that question was put to them.
#114 Mr. Cook, I’m struck by the relatively tiny amount of data it has taken to thoroughly convince you that Mars is suffering from its own case of global warming. You seem to have tossed aside all healthy skepticism in your zealous belief in the phenomenon of Martian global warming.
Wait until more data has been gathered, and until it has, I would urge you be more circumspect, lest you be labeled one of those “global warming nuts.”
By now, of course, it is clear that I am attempting to discuss scientific matters with an illiterate.
I am not interested in what is or is not occurring on another planet.
The Great Red Spot on Jupiter is getting rounder! So fucking what? It has exactly as much to do with what is occurring in Earth’s atmosphere as the Martiian icecaps. That is, ZERO.
Apparently no one explained to you that Mars is a different planet. It has a different composition, mass, size, atmosphere, distance from the Sun and orbital plane – just for starters. What happens on Mars stays on Mars. My cat knows that much.
Please illuminate us all regarding how what you claim are the current conditions on Mars are connected to conditions on Earth. You’re the one with the theory – either tell us what you base this bizarre conjecture on or STFU. That’s how it works. YOU say there’s a connection, then YOU make your claim as to what that connection is. Otherwise you’re just spewing ignorant bullshit, and without even sense enough to realize what a fool it makes you.
Please, PLEASE tell us how little old you are so much smarter than a group of researchers with ~ 25,000 years or so of in-depth professional experience in these matters, who have already forgotten more about climatology than you could learn in 3 or 4 lifetimes. This should be hilarious. 😉
T_H – I dunno, it wouldn’t be the first time you’ve made an ernest suggestion accompanied by an lol… Seems like many times I assume you’re joking, I’m wrong.
A lot of people don’t grok the weather / climate distinction – if you do, then I tip my hat in your general direction… 😉
This might be simple enough for you to understand the connection.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
And..
NASA’s findings in space come as no surprise to Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov at Saint Petersburg’s Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory. Pulkovo — at the pinnacle of Russia’s space-oriented scientific establishment — is one of the world’s best equipped observatories and has been since its founding in 1839. Heading Pulkovo’s space research laboratory is Dr. Abdussamatov, one of the world’s chief critics of the theory that man-made carbon dioxide emissions create a greenhouse effect, leading to global warming.
“Mars has global warming, but without a greenhouse and without the participation of Martians,” he told me. “These parallel global warmings — observed simultaneously on Mars and on Earth — can only be a straightline consequence of the effect of the one same factor: a long-time change in solar irradiance.”
The sun’s increased irradiance over the last century, not C02 emissions, is responsible for the global warming we’re seeing, says the celebrated scientist, and this solar irradiance also explains the great volume of C02 emissions.
“It is no secret that increased solar irradiance warms Earth’s oceans, which then triggers the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So the common view that man’s industrial activity is a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect relations.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Habibullo Abdussamatov, born in Samarkand in Uzbekistan in 1940, graduated from Samarkand University in 1962 as a physicist and a mathematician. He earned his doctorate at Pulkovo Observatory and the University of Leningrad.
He is the head of the space research laboratory of the Russian Academies of Sciences’ Pulkovo Observatory and of the International Space Station’s Astrometry project, a long-term joint scientific research project of the Russian and Ukranian space agencies.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Even Gore’s data shows CO2 increases 300 to 800 years AFTER temperature increases. Warmer water will not hold as much CO2 which is released into the atmosphere as ocean temperature increases in response to the cyclical increase in the sun’s output.
#114, 115
I cannot speak for B Cook but I do know that the Earth has gone through cyclic periods of glaciation and warming quite independent of human involvement.
This is not to say we are not causing some effect currently I am simply echoing what is already accepted. Currently we are in a interglacial period of warming in between ice ages. From memory the cycle is about 40,000 ~ 50,000 years.
There are many factors which contribute to global warming and cooling such as orbit, solar activity, Progression of the Equinoxes (Earth’s axis wobble in a 25920 year cycle), volcanic and so on.
Point: The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa effect on global climate was opposite to what was would be expected today. The vast amounts of ‘greenhouse’ gases inserted directly into the stratosphere caused global cooling due to the reflection of solar radiation from the formation of clouds and suspended aerosols.
As I recall the nuclear winter scenarios were based on global conflagrations – massive fires. CO2 and smoke – causing global cooling by preventing solar radiation penetrating the thick haze and being reflected back into space. The universal cloud cover and CO2 greenhouse effects were not enough to compensate for the lack of solar radiation.
Different model different results. Cloud models are important in all global climate models as we can see. Less clouds – warm, more clouds – cool. As Bobbo said wine ferments to 12% alcohol as this is a equilibrium point.
Unless we hold doctorates in the associated scientific disciplines everything we discuss is as Mister Mustard puts it fffffft! (Fart)
The point that I and others are making is global warming has become policy and unless you support this policy you are a “asshole”. I also worry about SIFs – Single Issue Fanatics. Frothing at the mouth ramming hard their point of view which if you don’t follow it you are an “ignorant asshole”.
No matter what laws are passed, treaties signed or how many CFLs sold yadda, yadda, yadda CO2 emissions from human activity will continue to rise – we might only slightly slow down the rate of climb but that’s about all.
That is unless… Top consumer countries like the US simply stop consuming. However it is far easier for the US to demand that China and India cannot develop and improve their standard of living – they must remain third world so the US can keep their SUVs.
Instead the US should be taking steps to reduce its consumption and move to smaller cars, public transportation and the like. Yeah right.
If you don’t have your own car in the US and don’t live in the big cities you are helpless. I found this out in MN. Buses are limited and only go so far – bicycle paths? forget it!
In China there are more and more solar water heaters being installed then what I ever saw in Minnesota in 2005/6. I recall when I lived in Sydney, Australia solar hot water heaters were very popular.
It seems to me in the US it is easier to screw in a few CFLs to feel “I did my part” then to rip out the old water heater for a solar one. Would my take on this be on track?
So much talk about energy savings but so little action is possible and even if it was it’s all for nought anyway.
Cheers
In brief – few reject the heating / cooling cycles you mention.
Remarkable, to say the least, how with cycles running into the thousands of years, that a heating cycle just happens to coïncidentally kick in a precisely the same time that the human species commences to dumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, in quantities never seen in nature.
Here’s a hint: you don’t have to be a professional statistician to notice that this is extremely unlikely to be a coïncidence, to put it mildly…
A warming planet will create more carbon dioxide. YOu can see this with a homemade experiment as well. The gases hold more co2 at higher temperatures.
I like how the articles say this is ‘the first identification.’ I guess we can ignore all those other articles about global warming, they must have been mistaken. Another common term is definitive proof.
111, Lauren,
I don’t know how to break this to you, but you see, the Sun, in fact, has that “far bigger effect” that you so astutely noticed for a very simple reason. It is the SOURCE of ALL of the heat energy involved in the entire controversy. That is a given. It GOES WITHOUT SAYING.
Not exactly true. Our planet has set itself an equilibrium based upon your point. That is very true. Unfortunately, whenever something happens in addition to this standard model is when we have our climate fluctuations.
These additional causes included massive asteroids hitting the earth, continental drift, volcanic actions, and / or any combination which contributes enough additional variables to upset the equilibrium. We will continue with climate cycles until either the sun explodes or the earth’s core solidifies. Lately, we have added mankind’s contribution. Because we have seen the effects of previous equilibrium upsets, we have a better insight of the outcome of these effects.
Variations in the sun’s output are transitory and short lived. The earth’s dynamics allow it to tolerate and absorb these effects with little disturbance. Sun spots, solar flares, etc., while measurable, have little even short term effect.
*
My own take on climate v. weather.
A national opinion poll shows 30% of people approve of Bush. That is the climate. Each individual has an opinion. That is the weather. If Bush does something good (or evil) then each individual who approves (or disapproves) will have an effect on the overall national opinion.
So if Bush keeps his mouth closed, global warming will decrease and there will be peace on earth.
#118, B. Cook,
That is a very good link. So good in fact, if you had read it, you would realize that half the article is spent refuting Abdussamatov’s theories. That comes from credible scientists using credible knowledge. So by copy and pasting only the contrary view, you missed. National Geographic is far better than that.
So the answer to your question of why Mar’s polar caps are melting is found in the article.
Your point about water in a cube found in #71 was good. This point, not so good.
#118, B Cook,
Even Gore’s data shows CO2 increases 300 to 800 years AFTER temperature increases. Warmer water will not hold as much CO2 which is released into the atmosphere as ocean temperature increases in response to the cyclical increase in the sun’s output.
Say what ???
First, maybe you could cite where Gore said that. Unless you expect others to again do your work for you.
The oceans are actually a heat and CO2 sink. While true, warmer water will not hold as much CO2, that is actually mostly only applicable to water closest to the surface. Very little lives in that small distance, which varies depending upon the water temperature. Areas that are too warm to hold CO2 become barren. Tropical waters are usually so clear because they are devoid of life near the surface. Clear water means nothing is living there, plant or animal. Plankton, which require CO2 to survive, live just below the barren zone. They absorb much of the CO2 that is dissolved by the surface. If they must live at a depth too deep to have CO2, they don’t get enough sunlight and don’t survive.
Cooler waters have far more plankton than do tropical waters. Thus they also have far more higher life forms as well. Life abounds far from land. Northern waters reclaim more CO2 than they return to the atmosphere.
There are no commercial fisheries in tropical waters and any fish depend upon land run off for nutrients that would otherwise have come from plankton. Marine life is usually only found near land in tropical waters.