Bush BLOCKS global warming report

LTL - I don't think we are that far apart on this topic. Your postitions on Ozone depletion are solid and very defensible. Im not sure I agree with your linkage of O3 depletion to GW but it obviously produces an Oxygen sink which is troublesome.

I'm starting to sound like a broken record on this but...

I don't deny there is climate change.

I don't deny human activities contribute.

I question the degree to which human activities contribute.

In the absence of quantification of human impact on the climate, my position is that the standard of living afforded by the technological advances balmed for most climate change scenarios, far outwiegh any detrimental effects that climate change may produce. (This is in regard to GW and ocean rise only- oxygen depletion is another issue but as I said, I can't make the link you do)

I'm curious as to what your thoughts are on my little excercise to demonstrate the scale of the systems we're talking about? You can apply the same principals to the atmoshpere (i.e. compare moles of atmospheric chemicals vs. moles of man made chemicals and see the amount of human activity required to affect the system).

Anyway, I appreciate the good discussion.

"you have voted LTL for the WATS"

LTL Brilliant as usual and factual. I believe that one of the points that you mention is the real danger. indeed when the trapped methane under certain parts of the sea bed escapes, as well as the carbon locked into the organic compounds covering or plugging these methane reservoirs, raising to the surface of the sea, therefore oxidising and breaking down releasing more carbon the effects of these methane reserves would have and im not scaremongering here just using factual data as DarkBlueSky would be IMHO Catastrophic and have huge and immediate impacts on the climate due to the nature and way that Methane acts as an Global Warming contributing Gas.

Dark Blue Sky, some good points. However you are not quite getting the "big" picture. All the systems within the environment are massively interlinked and an effect on one has affects on others until cascades start happening. This feedback issue is what is the real danger here. Also the destruction of the carbon sinks is happening at an alarming rate.

I fear the Permafrost’s will lead to a feedback on these methane reservoirs and this may happen sooner than most would like to admit. Always remember with the complexity of the living earth of which the climate is one that FEEDBACK truly is the smoking gun, and therefore makes simple linear mathematical calculations really a waste of time. The system is too complex for the old type of engineering or chemical approaches to causal and resultant states of it.

Real Answers you are soo right. Water is infact an amazing thing. Its unusual properties and state between solid and liquid and gas is quite unusual in nature. However water does actually decrease in volume and increase in mass when its transcends the melting point at round about 0degrees C. This however only happens for water until it reaches around about 4 degrees C (from memory think that’s right) above that the extra energy present within the molecules then start to reverse this trend until it reaches a volume larger than ice just prior to the boiling point.

The above point is something to look at closely and especially linked to the feedback I was mentioning. The reason that even though the ice at the poles and glacial run offs is increasing, and we have seen a small amount of a rise in sea temperatures is the reason for this. However as the glaciers melt they add mass of water to the worlds oceans. They stop reflecting back into space the radiation from the sun. The dark rock underneath now absorbs the heat, increasing global mean temperatures. As this global mean increases due to this and millions of other interrelated factors a point will come in the very very near future where the global mean temp of the ocean does reach a point whereby the mass will translate into a volume increase in the water in the oceans. So we are just priming the gun as it were.

One thing is for certain to the permafrosts contain huge amounts of methane and carbon based organic deposits in and under them ready to degrade to C0 2 as well.

Another feedback here is with pressure and the point that LTL made and I supported above about the deep reserves of gases in parts of the ocean. Lets look at how this then feedbacks again. The glaciers melt and the above factors happen. The mass of the water in the oceans is therefore now increasing, the volume is not yet proportional to the added mass as I pointed out above. So as well as the feedback with the absorbed heat to dark land mass there is a second obvious one. The mass of the ocean has increase. therefore the pressure at the depths of the ocean increase. This therefore puts pressure on the natural geology and state of these methane deposits and further making them unstable. This slight adding of energy to that system when linked with another such as an increase in the global ocean mean could COMBINE to allow some of these reserves to release their deposits. Which would then have a host of other feedbacks on other systems, creating more. Its all nearly inversely proportional.

I have also posted a ATSNN on this
ATSNN US Administartion Blocked report Linking Global Warming and Hurricane Activity

There is a good if technical paper on the methane reserves I am talking about here they are known as Clathrates and also gas hydrates. scientists are only just becoming aware of their presence and role in both the oceanic processes and also the climate. The thing to remember about Methane is that it is more efficiant as a global warming gas than C02 however it does not last long in the atmosphere, this seems good not long, but it breaks down into Carbon Dioxide!!! you may notice in the paper that they have a differant view on the sea level and pressure than I do in relation to these systems, though I back my case up with the view in mind of increase system as whole effects such as PH, Water Temp, and changes in the interacting life forms in the ocean we are seeing from results obtained from previous eras in human history.

Clathrates or methane in the sea!


Regards

Elf