Global ocean temperatures rose dramatically last year, providing another strong sign that the oft-cited global warming "pause" or "hiatus" since 2000 has happened only at the surface – while the rest of the planet has been heating up at an increasingly rapid pace.
This chart from NOAA's National Oceanographic Data Center shows the rise in global ocean heat content in the upper 2,000 meters (the top 6,500 feet) of the oceans since the mid 1950s, with the sharpest rise occurring since about 1990:
As you'll see at the left side of the chart, the ocean's heat is measured in joules, a unit of energy. Over the past 55 years, the global ocean has warmed at a rate of about 136 trillion joules per second, a pace that's been compared to the amount of energy released by two Hiroshima atomic bombs – every second.
In more recent years, that pace has quickened to about 250 trillion joules per second, or roughly four atomic bombs per second. And in 2013, that pace accelerated even more, roughly tripling to about 12 atomic bombs per second.
This is significant because, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change notes in its 2013 report, the world's oceans are absorbing more than 90 percent of the rise in heat stored by the climate system over the past few decades – far more than land, ice, or the atmosphere, which stores only about 2 percent of the excess heat. (...)
More than two thousand firefighters continue to battle blazes across New South Wales in Australia, with more than 20 fires still uncontained despite easing weather conditions, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports.
The animation above shows true- and false-color satellite images of one of those fires, in the Blue Mountains just west of Sydney on the coast. The false color frame, based on data from NASA’s Terra satellite, emphasizes the scar from the fire, which has so far torched a little more than 100 square miles — an area slightly larger than the city of Sacramento, California.
The fires have erupted following some of the hottest climate conditions on record in Australia.
The darker orange color in the map above shows the portion of Australia that experienced record high mean temperatures for the 12 month period between Oct. 1, 2012 and Sept. 30, 2013. That’s 39 percent of the country. (...)
Some people seem to think it isn't scientifically valid if we don't have a control earth to see what would have happened in the absence of human GHG emissions. There is more to science than the experimental method.
Indeed, and as such there isn't a single scientific method either, though often imagined/claimed. There are various ways of arriving at might be called a tentative 'truth'.
People never seem to question science when it underlies something easily valued — like iPhones and other handheld devices. We either take it for granted or celebrate science-based products like G.P.S., Global Positioning Systems, which guide drivers and pilots and allow heavy machinery or a farmer’s tractor to be operated with a precision that approaches ballet. And people are always eager to take advantage of the latest advances in medicine.
Science seems to be only questioned when people dislike the implications of scientific results. This is especially true when it comes to environmental science, and particularly climate change, where the obfuscating of scientific findings and the bowing to short-term special interests has grown rampant in recent years.
There will certainly be a lot of obfuscation around the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the body charged by the United Nations to monitor information on climate change — and especially involving the results demonstrating a leveling-off of global temperature in the last 15 years.
But the complete candor and transparency of the panel’s findings should be recognized and applauded. This is science sticking with the facts. It does not mean that global warming is not a problem; indeed it is a really big problem.
Does the leveling-off of temperatures mean that the climate models used to track them are seriously flawed? Not really. It is important to remember that models are used so that we can understand where the Earth system is headed.
Even though they use the most powerful computers extant, models will always be simpler than the climate system itself. We use them because we don’t want to run the experiment of elevating greenhouse gas concentrations and discovering decades hence that humanity has a first-class disaster on its hands. Models are not perfect but whenever they depart from reality scientists then refine them.
In this particular case, it would appear that the oceans have been taking up more heat than previously thought.Since the oceans make up 71 percent of the planet, this is probably the consequence of a slightly different temporary behavior of a major current.There is considerable likelihood that at some point the ocean will release some of this recently absorbed heat. (...)
Some people seem to think it isn't scientifically valid if we don't have a control earth to see what would have happened in the absence of human GHG emissions. There is more to science than the experimental method.
People never seem to question science when it underlies something easily valued — like iPhones and other handheld devices. We either take it for granted or celebrate science-based products like G.P.S., Global Positioning Systems, which guide drivers and pilots and allow heavy machinery or a farmer’s tractor to be operated with a precision that approaches ballet. And people are always eager to take advantage of the latest advances in medicine.
Science seems to be only questioned when people dislike the implications of scientific results. This is especially true when it comes to environmental science, and particularly climate change, where the obfuscating of scientific findings and the bowing to short-term special interests has grown rampant in recent years.
There will certainly be a lot of obfuscation around the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the body charged by the United Nations to monitor information on climate change — and especially involving the results demonstrating a leveling-off of global temperature in the last 15 years.
But the complete candor and transparency of the panel’s findings should be recognized and applauded. This is science sticking with the facts. It does not mean that global warming is not a problem; indeed it is a really big problem.
Does the leveling-off of temperatures mean that the climate models used to track them are seriously flawed? Not really. It is important to remember that models are used so that we can understand where the Earth system is headed.
Even though they use the most powerful computers extant, models will always be simpler than the climate system itself. We use them because we don’t want to run the experiment of elevating greenhouse gas concentrations and discovering decades hence that humanity has a first-class disaster on its hands. Models are not perfect but whenever they depart from reality scientists then refine them.
In this particular case, it would appear that the oceans have been taking up more heat than previously thought.Since the oceans make up 71 percent of the planet, this is probably the consequence of a slightly different temporary behavior of a major current.There is considerable likelihood that at some point the ocean will release some of this recently absorbed heat. (...)
i like the fact that monbiot is hip to thorium LFTR/MSR
we need much more energy to lift the third world out of poverty, which will eventually curb population
something like thorium has the potential to do that
and when mining for thorium you get all the other rare earths needed for hi-tech and green tech
regards
Obtaining and refuning Thorium is in itself very energy consuming.. Once obtained, and transformed to energy grade, the advantages over Uranium are numerous, primarily in storage/disposal. But I bet you already new that!
thanks scott and i've read quite a bit on this entire phenomena
a lot of people are mining for rare earth elements now, thorium is considered a waste product of that process, and because of political rules, a liability
obtaining thorium isn't the bottle neck here and the issues we face appear to be political power and control
Location: Half inch above the K/T boundary Gender:
Posted:
Sep 28, 2013 - 3:59pm
miamizsun wrote:
i like the fact that monbiot is hip to thorium LFTR/MSR
we need much more energy to lift the third world out of poverty, which will eventually curb population
something like thorium has the potential to do that
and when mining for thorium you get all the other rare earths needed for hi-tech and green tech
regards
Obtaining and refuning Thorium is in itself very energy consuming.. Once obtained, and transformed to energy grade, the advantages over Uranium are numerous, primarily in storage/disposal. But I bet you already new that!
(...) The debate was proposed by a Conservative MP named David TC Davies, who used his speech to produce a long list of conspiracy theories and zombie myths: claims that have been repeatedly debunked but keep resurfacing. Here are a couple of examples, to give you a sense of the distance some of our elected representatives have established between themselves and the evidence.
Davies insisted that "in the 1970s everyone was predicting a forthcoming ice age". But a study of the peer-reviewed literature on climate change published between 1965 and 1979 found just seven articles suggesting that the world might be cooling, and 44 proposing that it was likely to get warmer. The "emphasis on greenhouse warming", it concludes, "dominated the scientific literature even then". There were several stories in the popular press suggesting an impending ice age but scientists cannot be blamed for that, any more than they can be blamed for Davies's claim that "it is an ice age that we should be worried about".
On he went, churning through familiar fables and wild conspiracies about the role of the Met Office, which "did everything possible to withhold its evidence and calculations" by, er, publishing them on its website. The bastards. But one statement stands out. Davies maintained that according to a parliamentary answer he'd received, "every person in the country will be paying between £4,700 and £5,300 a year towards the government's climate change policies". I looked up the answer. It says nothing of the kind. (...)
i like the fact that monbiot is hip to thorium LFTR/MSR
we need much more energy to lift the third world out of poverty, which will eventually curb population
something like thorium has the potential to do that
and when mining for thorium you get all the other rare earths needed for hi-tech and green tech
(...) The debate was proposed by a Conservative MP named David TC Davies, who used his speech to produce a long list of conspiracy theories and zombie myths: claims that have been repeatedly debunked but keep resurfacing. Here are a couple of examples, to give you a sense of the distance some of our elected representatives have established between themselves and the evidence.
Davies insisted that "in the 1970s everyone was predicting a forthcoming ice age". But a study of the peer-reviewed literature on climate change published between 1965 and 1979 found just seven articles suggesting that the world might be cooling, and 44 proposing that it was likely to get warmer. The "emphasis on greenhouse warming", it concludes, "dominated the scientific literature even then". There were several stories in the popular press suggesting an impending ice age but scientists cannot be blamed for that, any more than they can be blamed for Davies's claim that "it is an ice age that we should be worried about".
On he went, churning through familiar fables and wild conspiracies about the role of the Met Office, which "did everything possible to withhold its evidence and calculations" by, er, publishing them on its website. The bastards. But one statement stands out. Davies maintained that according to a parliamentary answer he'd received, "every person in the country will be paying between £4,700 and £5,300 a year towards the government's climate change policies". I looked up the answer. It says nothing of the kind. (...)
obviously i have some cynicism/distrust regarding our leaders
even if we were able to get good data/science to indicate that co2 was the culprit in global warming
the politicians see tax schemes as an answer (carbon derivatives exchanges)
i'd certainly have more faith in them if they pursued/emphasized things like LFTR and other viable tech developed here (like the chinese are doing)
seems that if we're going to use science on the front side of this (discovery/diagnosis) then we'd be interested in using science in the solution as well
