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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Studies looking at the oceans and melting Arctic ice leave no room for doubt that it is getting warmer, people are to blame, and the weather is going to suffer, climate experts have said.
New computer models that look at ocean temperatures instead of the atmosphere show the clearest signal yet that global warming is well under way, Tim Barnett of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said.
Speaking at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Barnett said climate models based on air temperatures are weak because most of the evidence for global warming is not even there.
"The real place to look is in the ocean," Barnett told a news conference.
His team used millions of temperature readings made by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to calculate steady ocean warming.
"The debate over whether or not there is a global warming signal is now over, at least for rational people," he said.
The report was published one day after the United Nations Kyoto Protocol took effect, a 141-nation environmental pact the United States government has spurned for several reasons, including stated doubts about whether global warming is occurring and is caused by people.
Barnett urged U.S. officials to reconsider.
"Could a climate system simply do this on its own? The answer is clearly no," Barnett said.
His team used U.S. government models of solar warming and volcanic warming, just to see if they could account for the measurements they made. "Not a chance," he said.
And the effects will be felt far and wide. "Anywhere that the major water source is fed by snow ... or glacial melt," he said.
"The debate is what are we going to do about it."
Other researchers found clear effects on climate and animals.
Ruth Curry of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found that melting ice was changing the water cycle, which in turn affects ocean currents and, ultimately, climate.
"As the Earth warms, its water cycle is changing, being pushed out of kilter," she said.
"Ice is in decline everywhere on the planet."
A circulation system called the Ocean Conveyer Belt is in danger of shutting down, she said.
The last time that happened, northern Europe suffered extremely cold winters.
She said the changes were already causing droughts in the U.S. west.
Greenland's ice cap, which contains enough ice to raise sea levels globally by 23 feet (7 meters), is starting to melt and could collapse suddenly, Curry said.
Already freshwater is percolating down, lubricating the base and making it more unstable.
Sharon Smith of the University of Miami found melting Arctic ice was taking with it algae that formed an important base of the food supply for a range of animals.
And the disappearing ice shelves meant big animals such as walruses, polar bears and seals were losing their homes.
"In 1997 there was a mass die-off of a bird called the short-tailed shearwater in the Bering Sea," Smith told the news conference.
The birds, which migrate from Australia, starved to death for several years running when warmer waters caused a plankton called a coccolithophore to bloom in huge numbers, turning the water an opaque turquoise color.
"The short-tailed shearwater couldn't see its prey," Smith said.
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Variations in CO2, temperature and dust from the Vostok ice core over the last 400 000 yearsFor the animated movie, see Ice Age (movie).
For the band, see Ice Age (band).
An ice age is a period of long-term downturn in the temperature of Earth's climate, resulting in an expansion of the continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers ("glaciation"). Glaciologically, ice age is often used to mean a period of ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres; by this definition we are still in an ice age (because the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets still exist). More colloquially, when speaking of the last few million years, ice age is used to refer to colder periods with extensive ice sheets over the North American and European continents: in this sense, the last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. This article will use the term ice age in the former, glaciological, sense; and use the term 'glacial periods' for colder periods during ice ages and 'interglacial' for the warmer periods.
During the last few million years there have been many glacial periods, occurring at 40-100,000 year frequencies. These are the best studied. There have been four major ice ages in the further past.
Ok, what I want to know is how many science experts agree that people have a large affect on global warming and how many do not? My professors at ASU felt we did not....
Ok, what I want to know is how many science experts agree that people have a large affect on global warming and how many do not? My professors at ASU felt we did not....
Well, if we continue down the path that we are on we'll never know for sure if we could have done anything about it until the global economy is in the toilet.
Well, if we continue down the path that we are on we'll never know for sure if we could have done anything about it until the global economy is in the toilet.
Ok, what I want to know is how many science experts agree that people have a large affect on global warming and how many do not? My professors at ASU felt we did not....
Professors can be wrong too.
NASA (which is hardly a liberal, tree-hugging organization) put out this report a couple of days ago:
NASA: 2005 could be warmest year recorded
Friday, February 11, 2005 Posted: 11:26 AM EST (1626 GMT)
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A weak El Nino and human-made greenhouse gases could make 2005 the warmest year since records started being kept in the late 1800s, NASA scientists said this week.
While climate events like El Nino -- when warm water spreads over much of the tropical Pacific Ocean --affect global temperatures, the increasing role of human-made pollutants plays a big part.
"There has been a strong warming trend over the past 30 years, a trend that has been shown to be due primarily to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," said James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, based in New York.
The warmest year on record was 1998, with 2002 and 2003 coming in second and third, respectively.
Short-term factors like large volcanic eruptions that launched tiny particles of sulfuric acid into the upper atmosphere in 1963, 1982 and 1991 can change climates for periods ranging from months to a few years.
Last year was the the fourth-warmest recorded, with a global mean temperature of 57 degrees Fahrenheit (14 Celsius), which was about 1.5 degrees warmer than the middle of the century, NASA scientist Drew Shindell said in an interview.
Average temperatures taken from land and surfaces of the oceans showed 2004 was 0.86 degrees Fahrenheit (0.48 Celsius) above the average temperature from 1951 to 1980, according to Hansen.
The spike in global temperatures in 1998 was associated with one of the strongest El Ninos of recent centuries and a weak El Nino contributed to the unusually high global temperatures in 2002 and 2003, NASA said.
Carbon dioxide, emitted by autos, industry and utilities, is the most common greenhouse gas. Hansen also said that the Earth's surface now absorbs more of the sun's energy than gets reflected back to space.
That extra energy, together with a weak El Nino, is expected to make 2005 warmer than 2003 and 2004 and perhaps even warmer than 1998, which had stood out as far hotter than any year in the preceding century, NASA said in a statement.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday the current weak El Nino will diminish and end during the next three months.
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We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.
Economy. Droughts, floods, loss of coastal communities. If the oceans warm, that feeds storm systems that form there (hurricanes). Take another look at the article, where it talks about about the Ocean Conveyer Belt (thermohaline circulation). Yes, it's possible that global warming could actually cause a mini ice-age similar to the one that occured from the 1300's to the early 1800's. That would cause crop failures and, increased fuel costs and usage. Look at the paintings by the Dutch Masters of people skating on the canals of Holland. The painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. Charles Dickens' description of London in the winter.
.....Look at the paintings by the Dutch Masters of people skating on the canals of Holland. The painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. Charles Dickens' description of London in the winter.
lol...careful yer referencing to paintings and writings will cause someone to think that global warming is a cyclical event...not manmade.
Looking at Scientific American and they gave a pretty good analysis of the potential problems with the Gulf Stream (Atlanic Conveyor aka another long name I forget).
Essentialy there seem to be to possiblities both caused by the decreasing salinity of the polar water. It will eventually shut down the gulf stream with all the associated castastropic climate effects predicted. Which for Europe and the Eastern US and Canada will be nothing short of a disaster, this then will have cascade effects on other parts of the world heat transfer systems.
The interesting part is the time frame, which folks like GW care most about. If it doiesn't affect his presidency that he seems not to care.
The long term decay. In this case the current rate we have several decades,possibly even a few venturies before this happens. THis is likely to be the prevailing view of the white house. It is sufficiently long term for them not to care.
The catestrophic failure. Unfortunalty the weak link in this system is right next to Greenland, the second largest store of fresh water on the planet. If warming causes a chunck of the Greenland ice to break of and melt, it will dump an unimaginable amount of fresh water right at the worst place. This could happen at anytime and is certinaly possible over the next couple of decades.
There are few aound who are not GW supports who do not believe this warming is in large part a factor of human development.
lol...careful yer referencing to paintings and writings will cause someone to think that global warming is a cyclical event...not manmade.
Sure it's cyclical. No doubt about it. Does that mean it's a good idea to speed it up?
The Kyoto agreement is not very good. But, I think we're going to be judged very poorly by future generations because we are ignoring red flags all over the place. A lot of the world is too desperate for economic security to care, and we're too comfortable to change. That comfort won't last. But, we'll probably be lucky enough to die before it gets too bad.
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We live in a world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he entered it.
Global warming feels really f*cking wet so far. J/K now onto the serious part.
I know we need to do something to counteract what's happening. We can't keep going at this rate but we can't all just park our cars and expect to survive either.
The facts are closing in, now lets get a viable solution that will work. I don't think Kyoto is even a start. It has no incentive to change and no real consequences if you don't.
The only thing I see that will make a difference is if a new fuel technology can replace oil and be no more than a 10% cost of use increase. Until then.......
Global warming feels really f*cking wet so far. J/K now onto the serious part.
I know we need to do something to counteract what's happening. We can't keep going at this rate but we can't all just park our cars and expect to survive either.
The facts are closing in, now lets get a viable solution that will work. I don't think Kyoto is even a start. It has no incentive to change and no real consequences if you don't.
The only thing I see that will make a difference is if a new fuel technology can replace oil and be no more than a 10% cost of use increase. Until then.......
BINGO!!!! You have hit the jackpot. All the carping and baying is not going to do anything until we stop using fossil fuels, period.
BTW, I posted that article about the ice ages to show how cyclical the weather has been here on earth. For scientists to take only the past 150 years into their formulas for trying to fortell what is happening is ludicrous.
I also get a kick out of the Bush Bashers screaming at Bush because he won't get excited about global warming which could take centuries till we see any ill results, but in the next breath, asking why he is so excited about Social Security when it shouldn't be a problem for another 30 to 50 years.
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“So I became a newspaperman. I hated to do it but I couldn’t find honest employment.” —Mark Twain
J/K now onto the serious part. 
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