Global Warming: Long term observations yield unsurprising results

[Godscreated]

I do believe in global warming, it's obvious.

Can you please enlighten your fundamentalist friends, then?

Most believe it's happening, stop concentrating on the few and see what the majority have to say about it. Most Christian scientist see what's happening, you get confused because some do not see the same reasons for global warming and many non-christian scientist disagree with the cause, we'll find out some day whose correct or if all have contributed to global warming.

GC

[Ravenshire]

Thanks to both of you. I do believe in global warming, it's obvious. With CO2 rising into the atmosphere and the energy trap above the earth keeps it's heat from the surface, I understand the trapping effect, but with all the surface area of the atmosphere against a very cold space it seems the heat would travel into space. Energy is not bound to the earth like other things and can travel into space, heat being one form of energy why wouldn't it travel into space, heat does move to cold not visa versa.

GC

(emphasis iis mine)

While space is quite cold (~4 deg. K), vacuum is also a very efficient insulator. It's really hard to transfer heat without a medium.

[FatAndFaithless]

Can you please enlighten your fundamentalist friends, then?

Most believe it's happening

Wow, no. Views of climate change among fundamentalists is utterly dismal, no idea where you're getting the idea that it's only a handful of wackos.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11...ngelicals/

http://publicreligion.org/research/2014/...y-science/

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/09/13/wh...e-deniers/

[IATIA]

While space is quite cold (~4 deg. K), vacuum is also a very efficient insulator. It's really hard to transfer heat without a medium.

Space is not actually cold. As you say, it is a vaccum lacking in sufficient medium to be cold. Anything without heat sources would be cold due to radiation of any residual heat that it might have had.

[Godscreated]

Thanks to both of you. I do believe in global warming, it's obvious. With CO2 rising into the atmosphere and the energy trap above the earth keeps it's heat from the surface, I understand the trapping effect, but with all the surface area of the atmosphere against a very cold space it seems the heat would travel into space. Energy is not bound to the earth like other things and can travel into space, heat being one form of energy why wouldn't it travel into space, heat does move to cold not visa versa.

GC

(emphasis iis mine)

While space is quite cold (~4 deg. K), vacuum is also a very efficient insulator. It's really hard to transfer heat without a medium.

True I should have known that.

GC

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While space is quite cold (~4 deg. K), vacuum is also a very efficient insulator. It's really hard to transfer heat without a medium.

Space is not actually cold. As you say, it is a vaccum lacking in sufficient medium to be cold. Anything without heat sources would be cold due to radiation of any residual heat that it might have had.

The lack of medium is what keeps space from warming, and a vacuum can contain matter. Space being a vacuum void of much matter, compared to it's size, can not absorb much heat as SOW said. The matter would have to be dense and very close to the atmosphere, actually against it, gravity takes care of that, and if the matter was dense enough to absorb the heat there wouldn't be a vacuum.

GC

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Most believe it's happening

Wow, no. Views of climate change among fundamentalists is utterly dismal, no idea where you're getting the idea that it's only a handful of wackos.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11...ngelicals/

http://publicreligion.org/research/2014/...y-science/

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/09/13/wh...e-deniers/

The idea comes from my discussions with them, global warming is certain, why isn't such a certainty. We've had cooler summers and colder winters here the last couple of years, making it seem global warming isn't true, so those who do not want to look at the evidence make ridiculous claims. Polar ice doesn't melt at the rate it has without something happening, I personally think it's probably a little of many purposed ideas. I think this is far to large for man to get a handle on it, our knowledge isn't quite advanced enough yet.

GC

[Aractus]

A 10 foot rise in sea level (predicted by 2200) would inundate more than 28,000 square miles of the US alone. That land is currently valued at $900 billion. It is home to 13 million people. The property rights libertarian crowd should be screaming at the top of their lungs.

Sea level rise is not directly caused or influenced by climate change. Sea level change is the result of deep ocean temperature, not surface temperature. When the deep ocean heats up water expands, when it cools it condenses (until it freezes in which case it then expands again).

Sea levels have been rising for the past 20,000 years:



If that was really correlated to climate change then it would mean the earth has been in a constant state of global warming for the past 20,000 years.

[Surgenator]

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A 10 foot rise in sea level (predicted by 2200) would inundate more than 28,000 square miles of the US alone. That land is currently valued at $900 billion. It is home to 13 million people. The property rights libertarian crowd should be screaming at the top of their lungs.

Sea level rise is not directly caused or influenced by climate change. Sea level change is the result of deep ocean temperature, not surface temperature. When the deep ocean heats up water expands, when it cools it condenses (until it freezes in which case it then expands again).

Sea levels have been rising for the past 20,000 years:



If that was really correlated to climate change then it would mean the earth has been in a constant state of global warming for the past 20,000 years.

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Sea level rise is influenced from surface temperatures. As the surface temperatures increase -> more glaciers melt -> sea level rises as summarized in the plot below. Deep oceans do play a role, and so do glaciers.

[FatAndFaithless]

Wow, no. Views of climate change among fundamentalists is utterly dismal, no idea where you're getting the idea that it's only a handful of wackos.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11...ngelicals/

http://publicreligion.org/research/2014/...y-science/

http://www.randalolson.com/2014/09/13/wh...e-deniers/

The idea comes from my discussions with them

You don't get to say that most fundamentalists accept climate change just because the few you've talked to do. Did you even look at the statistics?

[popeyespappy]

A 10 foot rise in sea level (predicted by 2200) would inundate more than 28,000 square miles of the US alone. That land is currently valued at $900 billion. It is home to 13 million people. The property rights libertarian crowd should be screaming at the top of their lungs.

Sea level rise is not directly caused or influenced by climate change.

This statement is unadulterated bullshit. Back it up with something besides your opinion if you can. Warming oceans and sea level changes are part of climate change. If you go back to the OP you’ll see that our planet is warming because of an energy imbalance. It is receiving more energy than it is radiating back into space. That is simple physics. The data says the energy imbalance is caused by human activity. Mostly in the form of the release of CO2 into the atmosphere. Most of the excess energy is going into the oceans. Causing them to warm even faster than surface temperature. The oceans are warming because of people. Not as a result of natural cycles.

Sea level change is the result of deep ocean temperature, not surface temperature. When the deep ocean heats up water expands, when it cools it condenses (until it freezes in which case it then expands again).

Yes, sea level change is affected by the temperature of the oceans. Most of the increased rate of sea level rise we have observed in the last 200 years has been the result of warmer water. Once again, water that is warming due to human activity. Temperature is not the only thing that affects sea level. The chart you posted clearly shows that the volume of water also affects sea level. It shows that most of the increase in sea level over the last 20 thousand years was due to melt water.
Greenland and Antarctica currently have about 30 million cubic kilometers of ice covering them. According to experts that is enough water to raise global sea levels more than more than 200 feet just in volume alone. No one is expecting all that ice to melt any time soon. In fact about 25 million cubic kilometers of it is in the East Antarctic and most believe that ice is going to remain relatively stable for the foreseeable future. The other 5 million cubic kilometers in the Greenland and West Antarctica is subject to melt due to global warming, and that is enough ice to raise sea levels more than 40 feet.

Sea levels have been rising for the past 20,000 years:

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If that was really correlated to climate change then it would mean the earth has been in a constant state of global warming for the past 20,000 years.

That is not what the chart you posted shows. According to your chart sea levels have remained relatively stable for the last 8000 years. If you look at the data at a finer scale…



You can see that for most of the last 2000 years sea levels were actually decreasing. It wasn’t until the start of the industrial revolution that sea levels began increasing again. It hasn’t been a linear increase either. Sea level has been increasing at a geometric rate, and that does correlate with observations of recent global warming. So please Aractus, if you have another explanation for the cause of the recent increase in the rate of change in sea levels that doesn’t include human influence on our environment then let’s hear it.

[popeyespappy]

You can see that for most of the last 2000 years sea levels were actually decreasing. It wasn’t until the start of the industrial revolution that sea levels began increasing again. It hasn’t been a linear increase either. Sea level has been increasing at a geometric rate, and that does correlate with observations of recent global warming. So please Aractus, if you have another explanation for the cause of the recent increase in the rate of change in sea levels that doesn’t include human influence on our environment then let’s hear it.

I want to change this because what I said was incorrect. What I should have said was.

"It wasn’t until the start of the industrial revolution that the rate of change really shot up. It hasn’t been a linear increase either. Sea level has been increasing at a geometric rate, and that does correlate with observations of recent global warming. So please Aractus, if you have another explanation for the cause of the recent increase in the rate of change in sea levels that doesn’t include human influence on our environment then let’s hear it."