Posted on 07/02/2011 11:49:47 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
By WUWT regular “Just The Facts”
I am often amused by claims that we understand Earth’s climate system, are able to accurately measure its behavior, eliminate all potential variables except CO2 as the primary driver of Earth’s temperature and make predictions of Earth’s temperature decades into the future, all with a high degree of confidence. I have been studying Earth’s climate system for several years and have found it to be a ridiculously complex, continually evolving and sometimes chaotic beast. Furthermore, our understanding of Earth’s climate system is currently rudimentary at best, our measurement capabilities are limited and our historical record is laughably brief. To help demonstrate the complexity of Earth’s climate system I have been compiling a list of all of the variables potentially involved in Earth’s climate system. This is a work in progress so additions, recommendations, corrections, questions etc. are most welcome. Once I develop this further and polish it up a bit I plan to convert it into a new WUWT Reference Page.
UPDATED: This list has undergone significant revisions and improvements based upon crowdsourcing the input of an array of very intelligent and knowledgeable contributors below. Additionally, this list was posted in comments in WUWT a few times previously, receiving input from a number of other very intelligent and knowledgeable contributors. This thread, along with links to the precursor threads below, will thus serve as the bibliography for the WUWT Potential Climatic Variables reference page (unless someone can up with a better name for it…)
1. Earth’s Rotational Energy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_rotation
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/6h.html
results in day and night;
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_rotation_cause_day_and_night
causes the Coriolis Effect;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect
imparts Planetary Vorticity on the oceans;
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/ocng_textbook/chapter12/chapter12_01.htm
and manifests as Ocean Gyres;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_gyre
the Antarctic Circumpolar Current;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Circumpolar_Current
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conveyor_belt.svg
and Arctic Ocean circulation:
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=441&cid=47170&ct=61&article=20727
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/flows.jpg
(Excerpt) Read more at wattsupwiththat.com ...
This entry at the bottom of all the links might be a good thing to look at first:
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General summaries of the potential variables involved in Earth’s climate system;
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7y.html
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/pd/climate/factsheets/whatfactors.pdf
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Text from the PDF preceding Figure above:
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| CHAPTER 7: Introduction to the Atmosphere |
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fyi
Though not as thorough as you, I have followed this with some interest for several years, also. What amazes me the most is the sheer volume of people who buy into the “man made” hype only to be led by scam artists, charlatans and people who have no genuine concern for earth’s environment or inhabitants.
like man, what brought the previous ice ages and why did they end?
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I Like it!
I am in the process of wading through a tome on Paleoclimatology. Climatology is very complex and should not be confused or equated with Meteorology which is already complex enough.
Nice...bookmark!
You will never see / read it in the main stream media - but - I seriously doubt there is a single real scientists who believes AGW. The few who do believe all seem to have taken the Kool-Aid (Hansen, et al).
The most fervent believers / pundits, such as the non-profits, all have a huge profit motive to keep the slush funding flow intact. I’ve researched a few of the more prominent public players (WWF, Sierra Club, Environment-this&that, etc.) and not one have anyone on staff or fund actual research projects where there is any relevant scientific literacy involved. Where they do have a smidgen of scientific literacy it is almost always in “environmental studies” (meaning: “I worry about the environment”)
On the other hand, displaying temperature versus CO2 levels (warming during the 1920s and 1930s which was followed by cooling until the mid-1970s) would show that increasing CO2 levels and temperature don't really track well anyway.
Someone sent me that link just the other day. It is very well done. I am trying top think of how to play it at one of the meetings held by our local government funded climate action committee.
I don’t want anyone to take this the wrong way but, I love this guy! Watts is a bulldog who has gone toe to toe with the best algore and his fellow travelers can muster and consistently beats ‘em like rented mules. God bless him!!!
Freeman Dyson on Global Warming 1of2 Bogus Climate Models
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Never heard some of this thoughts....Vegation controls atmosphere CO2 Balance.
A factor that is some thirty to a hundred times as important as carbon dioxide to immediate climate change, is water vapor. Water vapor has that curious capability of existing as a solid, a liquid and a gas all at the same time, as it has a “triple point” right at the point where it turns from a solid (ice) to a liquid, and as a gas water vapor can also exist at that point, or even lower. Below the freezing point, ice sublimates directly to water vapor, which prevents the relative humidity from falling to zero during winter months.
For one thing, water vapor is much lighter than carbon dioxide, whice is about one and a half times as heavy as the common mixture of nitrogen and oxygen that makes up most of the atmosphere, and tends not to rise except by force of air currents, and even at that, there is so little CO2 at high levels, only the most stunted of plant life survives. Water vapor, on the other hand, rises readily in the atmosphere, being scarcely more than half the weight of the oxygen-nitrogen mixture, and forms clouds at extreme heights, only condensing and falling again as ice crystals, which melt and either re-evaporate, or fall to earth as rain.
The phase changes of water vapor to a liquid and then a solid, means it has to GIVE UP a great deal of heat, which at high altitudes radiates off to space. Upon falling through the atmosphere, these same molecules of water ABSORB a huge amount of heat, as the ice crystals become liquid, then vapor again. Carbon dioxide has none of the abilities to absorb and discharge heat energy, as it does not have a “triple point” under the normal atmospheric conditions of earth. Under much greater pressure, and at a much lower temperature, there is such an equilibrium point, but these would be conditions under which no human being could live.
Instead, carbon dioxide readily combines with water, and uses that physical (and somewhat chemical) combination to transfer whatever heat it may have absorbed to water. In fact, much of the CO2 in the atmosphere is absorbed and held in the cooler waters of the planet, where as the carbonate ion, it combines with various alkali and alkaline ions, to form either a solution of carbonate, or a solid precipitate that removes the carbonate altogether as a solid (limestone).
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a sort of indicator of warming conditions, as warmer oceans tend to give up CO2 to the air, but because of the voracious demand of living plant growth for carbon dioxide, this “excess” is quickly taken up. As a result, most plant life is in a precarious balance between having enough CO2 to grow well, and a near starvation for that vital compound.
And without the continuous conversion of CO2 to carbohydrates and free oxygen, almost all forms of life, and assuredly higher animal life, would quickly disappear from this planet.
We NEED the CO2.
Can't get here much these days... but had to jump in on this one. Methinks GOD handles our weather, gently attending the planet most of the time.
Yeah, that idea doesn't count with most 'scientists.' But, despite the 'bad stuff' that takes place with weather, we mostly enjoy the 'seasons,' year after year.
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