Some Perspectives On The Science Of Climate Change

“Climate” is distinguished from “weather”, in that weather is the day-to-day state of the atmosphere and environment, whereas climate is the statistical average of weather patterns over a limited region and a long period (usually, minimum 30 years). A number factors have some influence on variations in the climate in the various regions or zones of the Earth – but it must be noted that none of these changes work (or actually initiate themselves) in isolation.

The natural climatic systems of the Earth are primarily determined by a dynamic complex of linkages, synergies and interactions among the processes, components and sub-systems of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. The hydrosphere in this context includes all of the Earth’s water – oceans, rivers, lakes and the cryosphere (ice caps and snow). The main variables which characterize climate are temperature and precipitation (rainfall), humidity and cloudiness (special disturbances such as droughts and hurricanes are sometimes included). These elements are in turn dependent on the meteorological variables (of weather) – such as insolation (solar radiation), wind speed and direction, ocean surface temperature, etc. To this must be added the variability of the Sun’s radiation and the Earth’s orbit, which result in an extremely complex and dynamic system.

Thus the climate system is a global complex of linkages and interactions. Spatial variations of all scales exist from the very large scale (e.g., 10,000 km) to the very small scale (e.g., 1 mm). This complex system is acted upon by a range of stimuli associated with the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth’s orbit around the sun. The main factors affecting climate change (natural variability) include: (1) Diurnal oscillations, due to the Earth’s rotation; (2) Tidal oscillations, due to gravitational effects of the Sun and Moon, with main periods of 12.4 hr and 24.8 hr; (3) Seasonal oscillations, due to the inclination of the equator to the ecliptic, and to changes in Sun-Earth distance; (4) Synoptic oscillations, caused by Rossby waves, with scales of 1000 km and periods of days; (5) Global oscillations with periods from weeks to months; (6) Inter-annual oscillations with periods ranging from 2 to 5 years, including El Niño/La Niña phenomena in the Pacific; and (7) Secular or long period oscillations with periods ranging from years to tens of thousands of years (the ice ages), likely due to orbital variations.

Having established the above – one of the main issues in the current debate is the possible effects of human industrial and other activities on the global climate. Despite the assertions in some quarters, anthropogenic effects are for the Moment much smaller than these natural effects, the main concern being time-scales – their effects are felt within lifetimes rather than thousands of years. The critical point, is that many of the factors (“forcers” and “reactors”) in our current environment never existed in the past – many of the culprits (such as CFC) do not occur freely in nature, further to which, the rate of change of the release of naturally occurring greenhouse gases (such as carbon dioxide) over the past 200 yr or so (since the “industrial revolution”) is unprecedented and likely a result of human activities (such as deforestation). While, it is very true that global warming and climate change are a natural process on the Earth; the main issue is that the new or additional parameters added by human activities make it very difficult to use past cycles of “Ice Ages” and “Tropical Ages” to predict what is to be expected. Even if our activities are much less significant than natural variations (in the global context), they definitely are not helping the situation. Environmental changes by human activities also affect the micro-climate in which we live, on an obviously much shorter time-scale.

Related: http://www.geo-earth.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7453

Thanks for that
However it has no relevance to what is occurring now

Rapid changes in time scales of decades demonstrates that appealing to natural "forcers and reactors" is totally incorrect.

It seems all the established researchers continue to follow your lead... always looking to the past to explain the future... LOL

well keep it up, all the proposed predictions are just totally laughable as time pases.

THEY obviously have no idea at all. CO2 ? LOL

What is happening today is man made... and terminal, but acknowledgment would destroy our financial systems... Now some would rather be dead than do that... so be it.

Zarkov, your madness has explanations I'm viewing under a telescope being partially correct at best.

This whole "CO2 and burning fossil fuels is destroying the world" thing is a joke.

First of all, if Oil and Coal really are "fossil fuels", then by definition the entirety of all oil and coal used to be on the surface of the earth or in the atmosphere at one time anyway.

If it is true that these resources are "fossil fuels", a matter which is debatable, then To suggest that reintroducing these carbon atoms back into the atmosphere is somehow going to catastrophicly destroy the ecosystem is simply BUNK.

On the one hand, you believe it all used to be in the atmosphere to begin with WHIILE creatures were alive on the surface, but on the other hand, you would like us all to believe that putting it back will somehow spell doom for the planet; a clear contradiction.

lack of atmospheric water will spell doom for the planet.

?? Coal ?? What, now you guys are denying the Carboniferous era too? All the clearly continuous example transitions from peat bogs to lignite to sub-b etc. etc.

Zarkov, atmospheric conditions will NEVER ALLOW FOR A DRY SKY!!!! No water. Yikes!!! Sick.

Natural lab shows sea's acid path


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7437862.stm




g.

Any factual scientific proof of that rather wierd opinion?

ditto, see above.

?? Likely?? ??deforestation??

Let's see.

CO2 resulting from humans burning fossil fuels approx. 24 GT / year.

CO2 added to atmosphere each year resulting in current unprecedented-in-past-480,000-yrs-at-least high measurements 6 GT / year.

So where's the increase likely coming from? References on refutations?

Overall, a sad piece of predetermined opinion trying to masquerade as educated commentary, which it definitely is not.

This post has been edited by lengould on Jun 9 2008, 07:02 PM

"If it is true that these resources are "fossil fuels", a matter which is debatable, then To suggest that reintroducing these carbon atoms back into the atmosphere is somehow going to catastrophically destroy the ecosystem is simply BUNK."

Actually Venus shows global warming at the extreme its co2 atmosphere traps 90% of the suns heat (compared with earths 10%).

Venus surface temperature 500C if it didn't have an atmosphere the temperature would -20C.

Amazing that 190 countries banned CFCs because of a hole in the ozone layer and yet when Co2 levels are discussed their is so much controversy over models etc

Oil company profits perhaps.

This argument is fast becoming moot we have hit peak oil and $200 a barrel oil is very likely within 2 years-this will force the world to look at alternatives and make the GW argument irrelevant anyway.

The next problem we hit is when rare earth metals run out in approx 10 years.

Sorry if my post made you sad

Strangely enough, however, these people seemed happy enough to agree with the salient points of the statements:

Myth of Consensus Explodes: APS Opens Global Warming Debate

We're Closer to the Edge Than We Think
... warmed naturally following the last ice age. It ... outlined in this scenario," says the Pentagon ... sustenance world wide, some would say that as a globe, we're ...

www.kelpiewilson.com/archive/closeredge.htm · Cached page
End Of The World As We Know It - Pentagon Style
About 12,700 years ago, as the last Ice Age ended, there ... The Observer says the Pentagon study postulates that as early ... Many measures and forecasts suggest we're early on ...

www.rense.com/general49/end.htm · Cached page
Pentagon Report Says Global Warming and Climate Change Are Major ...
Pentagon Says Global Warming Is a Critical National Security ... period, a 1,300-year reversion to ice-age ... may not conveniently wait until we're ...

reclaimdemocracy.org/articles_2004/pentagon_report_global_warming.html · Cached page

Thanks, while this may be intended as a genuine reply, it is not very coherent, so perhaps you can provide some clarification...

My reply is there is no climate change to speak of other than natural occurance.

Interesting to note the extent of anguish experienced by this obvious forum troll who goes by the user name of "lengould". Once again I apologise for the intense distress you reported on reading the original post in this thread; it was not my intention to give you emotional trauma, but I must say that your reaction is, to put it mildly, quite unusual. So dry your tears, lengould, you will need to be quite a bit more mature and responsible if you intend to continue participating on this website. PhysOrg is intended as a scientific website, so instead of getting all emotional in replies, you need to be more objective.

Bear in mind at all times, lengould, that if you wish to make a meaningful contribution to forum discussions - you are required to do the following before attempting to reply to a thread: (1) Carefully Read; (2) Thoughtfully Contemplate; (3) Thoroughly Understand.

Another bit of advice is to use the search engine of your choice for clarification of any material which is unfamiliar to you; that would have saved you much of the sadness, sorrow and anguish, which you have been crying about in your replies and "feedback".

OK, to return to the topic, since you seem desperate to see some "data" and clarification on how it is "related", I shall provide some links in a short while. So please calm down, Lenny. But you will need to be MUCH more careful in your interpretations of that material, so as to avoid posting absurd replies due to the strange sensations you experienced, which may have caused you to misunderstand (and therefore misrepresent) the original material presented.

Simply put - Feedback is appreciated; Distortion is not...

Thank you.