Posted on 05/19/2007 6:53:31 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
ENVIRONMENT: Southern Ocean Nears CO2 Saturation Point Stephen Leahy
BROOKLIN, Canada, May 17 (IPS) - Climate change has arrested the Southern Ocean's ability to absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, researchers announced Thursday.
That will make it more difficult to stabilise carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere and to reduce the risks of extreme forms of global warming....
(Excerpt) Read more at ipsnews.net ...
Oh my...
Where to start? Earlier this month we had announcement of a previously unknown vortex in the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, dramatically increasing mixing between surface and deep water -- as yet it is unknown whether this might increase or decrease absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide but it certainly shows models do not represent the real world. If the case is one of carbon being returned to atmosphere faster than previously estimated then the Southern Ocean never was absorbing the amount thought (the "missing" carbon is going somewhere as yet undetermined) or, equally likely, this mechanism enhances the ability of the Southern Ocean to transport carbon to deep ocean layers -- so the Southern Ocean is either less important for atmospheric absorption or it's capable of greater absorption than previously estimated. Both these possibilities indicate less of a "problem" than had been thought.
Let's assume, for a moment, that the above hand-wringer is accurate and the Great Southern Ocean is saturating, coming to the end of its atmospheric carbon absorbing ways. Implied then is that fears of accelerating oceanic acidification are unfounded if the oceans absorb progressively less carbon from the atmosphere as they "saturate" and, contrary to recent fears, corals and shellfish are quite safe, well able to build their homes as they have for hundreds of millions of years, through vastly higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and the current desperately low ones. Again, a claimed "problem" appears less than previously proposed.
One thing guaranteed to be endlessly reiterated will be the concept of 'positive feedback', the 'magnifier' required to make the negligible empirically measured warming from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide into a potential problem. Usually this takes the form of atmospheric water vapor increase as both evaporation increases and the atmosphere warms (and can thus hold more water vapor), resulting in an increase in the most prolific and important of greenhouse gases and net greenhouse effect but it can be and is also presented as 'loss of sinks' (absorption capacity) leading to more rapid increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide leading to increase in greenhouse effect. No one actually knows the net sign of Earth's total greenhouse feedback mechanisms but the global warming industry always uses positive factors with a median estimate of 2.5 (this is how they make a maximum estimate of +1.2 K for a doubling of pre-IR CO2 into a 'median estimate' of +3.0 K). Models also use absurdly high 'climate sensitivity factors' in the range of 0.75 ± 0.25 K (0.5-1.0 K) per Watt per meter squared change in forcing although empirical measure tells us these factors are 5-10 times too large. In fact there's no real need to get excited about models and hypothetical 'positive feedback' when we can simply observe what the planet does in response to an unmasked warming event and the heating and cooling cycle it undergoes each and every year. The bottom line is that the warming effect of increased carbon dioxide is small and declining.
We never cease to be amazed at the media's dutiful regurgitation of contradictory, even mutually exclusive fear-mongering, all allegedly caused by anthropogenic global warming. Are they so myopic they do not realize they publish mutually exclusive positions drawn from the same trivial changes observed? Or do they just not care and will publish anything demonstrating the unworthiness of humans in their desperate feelings of guilt as parasitic entities living to the detriment of the Great Earth Mother/Gaia/Tree Spirit thingy?
The only things we are moderately well-convinced of are that the planet is not currently as cool as it was in the Little Ice Age, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are rising as they do after every cool period and humans are probably helping this to occur. Upon this an entire disaster industry is built. Go figure!
http://www.junkscience.com/
ping
Relax,Al Gore will sell carbon credits to all of us and the situation will be resolved.
They should bottle the water and sell it to Volvo drivers the world over.
carbon points, another tax....a feeeeeeel good tax.
The earth is doomed again?
Carbon control; “To each/from each.”
it doesn’t do anything.
Proof that driving Volvo’s, drinking designer bottled water, and eating tofu, will rot your brain.
Because oceans absorb less CO2 when they get warmer and absorb more when they get cooler, a CO2 driven climate would simply drive to one extreme or the other, with no way to come back. A cold planet would have ever less CO2 and a warm planet would produce ever more.
The Goracle’s followers can’t explain this.
Good Lord we live on a dynamically changing planet that has had numerous radical swings in global climate without any human intervention. One volcano can put more CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the stratosphere than could ever be eliminated by the Kyoto treaty and some how the planet survives.
Global warming is junk science, alarmist and has the hidden agenda to socialize the planet.
Just whereabouts is this “Great Southern Ocean”. I know about the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic—but I’ve never heard of a “Great Southern Ocean”.
Obviously a result of the reduction in whaling. Reduce the animal population in the Southern Ocean, and you should see an improvement in the CO2 numbers.
The ocean would be at saturation all the time wouldn’t it?
You know, I am rethinking my initial opposition to carbon credits since I found out that a lot of the money paid in by eco-nuts is going to oil companies who pump CO2 into fields to enhance extraction. Taking money donated by idiots and putting it into oil production, hmmmm....maybe we should make this a MANDATORY tax on dims to be handed over to oil companies. I dunno....
Let’s hope the polar bear wins.
The “alBear.gif” I made up by combining 2 separate .gifs that “Seadog Bytes” posted on a thread last night
Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown
New!!: Dr. John Ray's
GREENIE WATCH
Ping me if you find one I've missed.
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