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Destruction Of Greenhouse Gases Over Tropical Atlantic May Ease Global Warming
Science Daily ^ | 26 June 08 | staff

Posted on 06/26/2008 11:46:02 AM PDT by saganite

Large amounts of ozone -- around 50% more than predicted by the world's state-of-the-art climate models -- are being destroyed in the lower atmosphere over the tropical Atlantic Ocean. This startling discovery was made by a team of scientists from the UK's National Centre for Atmospheric Science and Universities of York and Leeds. It has particular significance because ozone in the lower atmosphere acts as a greenhouse gas and its destruction also leads to the removal of the third most abundant greenhouse gas; methane.

The findings come after analysing the first year of measurements from the new Cape Verde Atmospheric Observatory, recently set up by British, German and Cape Verdean scientists on the island of São Vicente in the tropical Atlantic. Alerted by these Observatory data, the scientists flew a research aircraft up into the atmosphere to make ozone measurements at different heights and more widely across the tropical Atlantic. The results mirrored those made at the Observatory, indicating major ozone loss in this remote area.

So, what's causing this loss? Instruments developed at the University of Leeds, and stationed at the Observatory, detected the presence of the chemicals bromine and iodine oxide over the ocean for this region. These chemicals, produced by sea spray and emissions from phytoplankton (microscopic plants in the ocean), attack the ozone, breaking it down.

(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: agw; climatechange; environment; globalwarming; gorebullsquirming; ozone
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To: saganite

Climate models wrong?

I’m shocked. Shocked I say!


21 posted on 06/26/2008 12:03:39 PM PDT by Names Ash Housewares
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To: saganite

Scientists are starting to find things that undermine AGW to cover their axes.

We were right, we were just wrong.


22 posted on 06/26/2008 12:05:24 PM PDT by Soliton (Investigate, study, learn, then express an opinion)
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To: saganite
Large amounts of ozone -- around 50% more than predicted by the world's state-of-the-art climate models ...

So much for climate models...........

23 posted on 06/26/2008 12:05:52 PM PDT by Red Badger (If we drill deep enough, we can reach the Saudi oil fields from THIS side..........)
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To: saganite
From NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory's "Not So Frequently Asked Questions" section: Q-Does the number of sunspots have any effect on the climate here on Earth?

A-Sunspots are slightly cooler areas on the surface of the Sun, due to the intense magnetic fields, so they radiate a little less energy than the surroundings. However, there are usually nearby areas associated with the sunspots that are a little hotter (called falculae), and they more than compensate. The result is that there is a little bit more radiation coming from the Sun when it has more sunspots, but the effect is so small that it has very little impact on the weather and climate on Earth.

However, there are more important indirect effects: sunspots are associated with what we call "active regions", with large magnetic structures containing very hot material (being held in place by the magnetism). This causes more ultraviolet (or UV) radiation (the rays that give you a suntan or sunburn), and extreme ultraviolet radiation (EUV). These types of radiation have an impact on the chemistry of the upper atmosphere (e.g. producing ozone). Since some of these products act as greenhouse gases, the number of sunspots (through association with active regions) may influence the climate in this way.

Many active regions produce giant outflows of material that are called Coronal Mass Ejections. These ejections drag with them some of the more intense magnetic fields that are found in the active regions. The magnetic fields act as a shield for high-energy particles coming from various sources in our galaxy (outside the solar system). These "cosmic rays" (CRs) cause ionization of molecules in the atmosphere, and thereby can cause clouds to form (because the ionized molecules or dust particle can act as "seeds" for drop formation).

If clouds are formed very high in the atmosphere, the net result is a heating of the Earth - it acts as a "blanket" that keeps warmth in.

If clouds are formed lower down in the atmosphere, they reflect sunlight better than they keep heat inside, so the net result is cooling. Which processes are dominant is still a matter of research.

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/explore/other.html#SUNSPOT_CLIMATE

____________________________________________________

More about sunspots and global warming...

If you look at the chart below, you will see that sunspot activity (during solar maxes--the individual peaks) has been relatively high since about 1900 and almost non-existent for the period between about 1625 and 1725. This period is known as the Maunder (sunspot) Minimum or "Little Ice Age".

From BBC News [yr: 2004]:
"A new [2004] analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past. They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer."..."In particular, it has been noted that between about 1645 and 1715, few sunspots were seen on the Sun's surface. This period is called the Maunder Minimum after the English astronomer who studied it. It coincided with a spell of prolonged cold weather often referred to as the "Little Ice Age". Solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the two events - but the exact mechanism remains elusive."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3869753.stm

It's really hard to imagine how this little ball of fire could have any impact on our climate at all.

But the main arguments being made for a solar-climate connection is not so much to do with the heat of the Sun but rather with its magnetic cycles. When the Sun is more magnetically active (typically around the peak of the 11 year sunspot cycle --we are a few yrs away at the moment), the Sun's magnetic field is better able to deflect away incoming galactic cosmic rays (highly energetic charged particles coming from outside the solar system). The GCRs are thought to help in the formation of low-level cumulus clouds -the type of clouds that BLOCK sunlight and help cool the Earth. So when the Sun's MF is acting up (not like now), less GCRs reach the Earth's atmosphere, less low level sunlight-blocking clouds form, and more sunlight gets through to warm the Earth's surface...naturally. Clouds are basically made up of tiny water droplets. When minute particles in the atmosphere become ionized by incoming GCRs they become very 'attractive' to water molecules, in a purely chemical sense of the word. The process by which the Sun's increased magnetic field would deflect incoming cosmic rays is very similar to the way magnetic fields steer electrons in a cathode ray tube or electrons and other charged particles around the ring of a subatomic particle accelerator.-ETL

____________________________________________________

There's a relatively new book out on the subject titled The Chilling Stars. It's written by one of the top scientists advancing the theory (Henrik Svensmark).

http://www.sciencedaily.com/books/t/1840468157-the_chilling_stars_the_new_theory_of_climate_change.htm

And here is the website for the place where he does his research:
2008: "The Center for Sun-Climate Research at the DNSC investigates the connection between variations in the intensity of cosmic rays and climatic changes on Earth. This field of research has been given the name 'cosmoclimatology'"..."Cosmic ray intensities – and therefore cloudiness – keep changing because the Sun's magnetic field varies in its ability to repel cosmic rays coming from the Galaxy, before they can reach the Earth." :
http://www.spacecenter.dk/research/sun-climate

100,000-Year Climate Pattern Linked To Sun's Magnetic Cycles:
ScienceDaily (Jun. 7, 2002) HANOVER, N.H.
Thanks to new calculations by a Dartmouth geochemist, scientists are now looking at the earth's climate history in a new light. Mukul Sharma, Assistant Professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth, examined existing sets of geophysical data and noticed something remarkable: the sun's magnetic activity is varying in 100,000-year cycles, a much longer time span than previously thought, and this solar activity, in turn, may likely cause the 100,000-year climate cycles on earth. This research helps scientists understand past climate trends and prepare for future ones.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/020607073439.htm

24 posted on 06/26/2008 12:06:42 PM PDT by ETL
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To: saganite
THE ACQUITTAL OF CARBON DIOXIDE
by Jeffrey A. Glassman, PhD

ABSTRACT:

"Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the product of oceanic respiration due to the well-known but under-appreciated solubility pump. Carbon dioxide rises out of warm ocean waters where it is added to the atmosphere. There it is mixed with residual and accidental CO2, and circulated, to be absorbed into the sink of the cold ocean waters. Next the thermohaline circulation carries the CO2-rich sea water deep into the ocean. A millennium later it appears at the surface in warm waters, saturated by lower pressure and higher temperature, to be exhausted back into the atmosphere. Throughout the past 420 millennia, comprising four interglacial periods, the Vostok record of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is imprinted with, and fully characterized by, the physics of the solubility of CO2 in water, along with the lag in the deep ocean circulation.

Notwithstanding that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, atmospheric carbon dioxide has neither caused nor amplified global temperature increases. Increased carbon dioxide has been an effect of global warming, not a cause. Technically, carbon dioxide is a lagging proxy for ocean temperatures. When global temperature, and along with it, ocean temperature rises, the physics of solubility causes atmospheric CO2 to increase.

If increases in carbon dioxide, or any other greenhouse gas, could have in turn raised global temperatures, the positive feedback would have been catastrophic. While the conditions for such a catastrophe were present in the Vostok record from natural causes, the runaway event did not occur. Carbon dioxide does not accumulate in the atmosphere."

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html

_______________________________________________________________

The graph above represents temperature and CO2 levels over the past 400,000 years. It is the same exact data Al Gore and the rest of the man-made global warmers refer to. The blue line is temps, the red CO2 levels. The deep valleys represent 4 separate glaciation periods. Now look very carefully at this relationship between temps and CO2 levels and keep in mind that Gore claims this data is the 'proof' that CO2 has warmed the earth in the past. But does the graph indeed show this? Nope. In fact, rising CO2 levels all throughout this 400,000 year period actually lagged behind temperature increases ...by an average of 800 years! So it couldn't have been CO2 that got Earth out of these past glaciations. Yet Gore dishonestly and continually claims otherwise. Furthermore, the subsequent CO2 level increases never did lead to additional warming, the so-called "runaway greenhouse effect" that Al Gore and his friends keep warning us about. -ETL

_______________________________________________________________


"The above chart shows the range of global temperature through the last 500 million years. There is no statistical correlation between the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere through the last 500 million years and the temperature record in this interval. In fact, one of the highest levels of carbon dioxide concentration occurred during a major ice age that occurred about 450 million years ago [Myr]. Carbon dioxide concentrations at that time were about 15 times higher than at present." [also see 180 million years ago, same thing happened]:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M

_______________________________________________________________

So, greenhouse [effect] is all about carbon dioxide, right?

Wrong. The most important players on the greenhouse stage are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide has been increased to about 0.038% of the atmosphere (possibly from about 0.028% pre-Industrial Revolution) while water in its various forms ranges from 0% to 4% of the atmosphere and its properties vary by what form it is in and even at what altitude it is found in the atmosphere.

In simple terms the bulk of Earth's greenhouse effect is due to water vapor by virtue of its abundance. Water accounts for about 90% of the Earth's greenhouse effect -- perhaps 70% is due to water vapor and about 20% due to clouds (mostly water droplets), some estimates put water as high as 95% of Earth's total tropospheric greenhouse effect (e.g., Freidenreich and Ramaswamy, 'Solar Radiation Absorption by Carbon Dioxide, Overlap with Water, and a Parameterization for General Circulation Models,' Journal of Geophysical Research 98 (1993):7255-7264).

The remaining portion comes from carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, ozone and miscellaneous other 'minor greenhouse gases.' As an example of the relative importance of water it should be noted that changes in the relative humidity on the order of 1.3-4% are equivalent to the effect of doubling CO2.

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

_______________________________________________________________

Water Vapor Rules the Greenhouse System

Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many 'facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold.

Water vapor is 99.999% of natural origin. Other atmospheric greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and miscellaneous other gases (CFC's, etc.), are also mostly of natural origin (except for the latter, which is mostly anthropogenic).

Human activities contribute slightly to greenhouse gas concentrations through farming, manufacturing, power generation, and transportation. However, these emissions are so dwarfed in comparison to emissions from natural sources we can do nothing about, that even the most costly efforts to limit human emissions would have a very small-- perhaps undetectable-- effect on global climate.

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

25 posted on 06/26/2008 12:08:02 PM PDT by ETL
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To: saganite

[Quote]Professor Alastair Lewis, Director of Atmospheric Composition at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and a lead scientist in this study, said: “At the moment this is a good news story — more ozone and methane being destroyed than we previously thought - but the tropical Atlantic cannot be taken for granted as a permanent ‘sink’ for ozone.[Unquote from article]

But ozone breaks down to oxygen. It is not deposited somewhere, as the word “sink” implies. It appears that the tropical Atlantic is not a sink, but the site of a process destroying ozone and methane, two “greenhouse” gases. This is highly significant.

Furthermore, if bromine does the trick, we produce lots of that, and could easily get more. It comes from brine wells in southern Arkansas.

Better yet, just let hurricanes do the job for us.

It all shows that we really do not understand all the complexity of the climate and its many feedback loops. Only Gore can really be sure of what is going on.


26 posted on 06/26/2008 12:10:14 PM PDT by docbnj
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To: saganite

[Quote]Professor Alastair Lewis, Director of Atmospheric Composition at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and a lead scientist in this study, said: “At the moment this is a good news story — more ozone and methane being destroyed than we previously thought - but the tropical Atlantic cannot be taken for granted as a permanent ‘sink’ for ozone.[Unquote from article]

But ozone breaks down to oxygen. It is not deposited somewhere, as the word “sink” implies. It appears that the tropical Atlantic is not a sink, but the site of a process destroying ozone and methane, two “greenhouse” gases. This is highly significant.

Furthermore, if bromine does the trick, we produce lots of that, and could easily get more. It comes from brine wells in southern Arkansas.

Better yet, just let hurricanes do the job for us.

It all shows that we really do not understand all the complexity of the climate and its many feedback loops. Only Gore can really be sure of what is going on.


27 posted on 06/26/2008 12:10:24 PM PDT by docbnj
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To: saganite

[Quote]Professor Alastair Lewis, Director of Atmospheric Composition at the National Centre for Atmospheric Science and a lead scientist in this study, said: “At the moment this is a good news story — more ozone and methane being destroyed than we previously thought - but the tropical Atlantic cannot be taken for granted as a permanent ‘sink’ for ozone.[Unquote from article]

But ozone breaks down to oxygen. It is not deposited somewhere, as the word “sink” implies. It appears that the tropical Atlantic is not a sink, but the site of a process destroying ozone and methane, two “greenhouse” gases. This is highly significant.

Furthermore, if bromine does the trick, we produce lots of that, and could easily get more. It comes from brine wells in southern Arkansas.

Better yet, just let hurricanes do the job for us.

It all shows that we really do not understand all the complexity of the climate and its many feedback loops. Only Gore can really be sure of what is going on.


28 posted on 06/26/2008 12:10:28 PM PDT by docbnj
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To: saganite; All
Weather forcast Gbl
29 posted on 06/26/2008 12:11:30 PM PDT by musicman
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To: txroadkill; All
"The whole "it's getting hotter so the whole planet is going to freeze in a new ice age" revelation left me with a migraine...."

Time Cover switch

30 posted on 06/26/2008 12:14:44 PM PDT by musicman
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To: norwaypinesavage
A more appropriate title is: Climate Models Wrong!

C'mon they were only off by 50%!

31 posted on 06/26/2008 12:18:34 PM PDT by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
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To: saganite

Nonsense? Non Science?
It’s hard to tell the
difference these days.


32 posted on 06/26/2008 12:19:02 PM PDT by Jo Nuvark (Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. Gen 12:3)
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To: saganite

SO, it wasn’t HFC after all. Cap in Trade failed again!


33 posted on 06/26/2008 12:33:48 PM PDT by dila813
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To: saganite

40 years of climate science down the tubes.

Climate models are still wrong. They predict 100% more ozone than exists.

Ozone isn’t being destroyed by human emissions of chlorofluorocarbons. It turns out it’s a natural process.

CH4 is an important greenhouse gas when it makes up only 0.0002% of the atmosphere???


34 posted on 06/26/2008 12:38:45 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: saganite
The fix is in.

Global Cooling didn't work.

Global Warming didn't work.

Climate Change appears to be D.O.A.

Next step: Climate Stagnation!!

The eeeeeeevil BushCheneyKarlRoveHalliburtonBigOilBohemianClubCFRMilitary-IndustrialistBildebergCapitalist Cabal is making the climate stay the same!!

35 posted on 06/26/2008 1:21:02 PM PDT by uglybiker (I do not suffer from mental illness. I quite enjoy it, actually.)
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To: saganite

So I see the Person who made this planet build in ways to keep it from burning up (before He says so). Imagine.


36 posted on 06/26/2008 1:23:37 PM PDT by wo fat
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To: saganite
This study does highlight how physical science models are subject to ongoing improvement. But apparently it only applies to ESMs and tropospheric ozone, not to CO2 (the primary persistent greenhouse gas), or the GCMs used to estimate climate sensitivity. The 2007 AR4 includes a range of scenarios involving CO2, ozone, methane etc., so the question is whether this will make much difference. Some discussion on it here.
37 posted on 06/27/2008 12:43:20 PM PDT by gnewburg
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