Man Based Global Warming....

Any body give the Climate Wars podcast a listen?

Here's a review of the associated book
POPJOURNALISM.CA | Gwynne Dyer, Climate Wars

 

The following is admittedly somewhat oversimplified, but generally serves to convey how large-scale differential heating drives weather systems...

As is commonly known, air expands when heated and contracts when cooled. This actually happens on a very large scale in the atmosphere at the equator (tropics) where heating causes relative expansion in the vertical while the cold polar regions experience relative contraction in the vertical.

This relative expansion/contraction can be measured and is known in meteorology as “height fields” – typically 500 mb heights – which are determined by the altitude (“height”) at which the 500 mb pressure is encountered (surface pressure at sea level is typically slightly more than 1000 mb, so 500 mb would be about half the surface pressure). This can be as much as 6000 meters in the tropics to as low as 4000 meters in the polar regions.

These south-north “height falls” are roughly analogous to surface pressure gradients which in turn are analogous to topographic map contours. Differences in heights result in the equivalent of a pressure gradient which causes air in the upper levels to rush from high pressure to low pressure. Forces resulting from the earth rotating on its axis (Coriolis Effect) cause the wind field to be deflected to nearly parallel to the height contours (ageostrophic wind). This is why you usually see the “jet stream” flowing from west to east and not south to north (other than extreme amplifications).

The strength of the ageostrophic wind field is determined by the gradient of the height falls. As I mentioned previously, strong ageostropic wind fields induce dynamics favorable for organized severe weather events (usually also associated with amplification in the flow). This is why it would be my expectation that warming the polar regions relatively more than the tropics would generally result in gentler height falls which in turn would result in weaker ageostrophic wind fields and thus fewer/weaker severe weather events in the mid-latitudes.

I do agree that the potential exists for stronger tropical cyclones in a theoretically warmed atmosphere since they favor weak ageostrophic wind fields (relatively strong upper levels winds (ageostrophic winds) typically disrupt the vertical structure of hurricanes/tropical storms).

 

I hate it when really good and informative posts seem to end the thread rather than sustain it. Thx wxman

 

Funny thing is, I agree that climate change affected by the activities of man is real and we need to act, I agreed with this before I got my Prius, I didn't join PC until I got my Prius, I never heard of Al Gore before I joined PC.
Should I pray to Al Gore? I don't think so.

 

We humans are destroying our world for our future generation

 

But we could have saved it... Thanks for nothing George. Your eight years would have made a difference.

 

You've come in contact with Al Gore derangement syndrome. Part of the political discourse in America is that a group of conservative pundits work relentlessly to vilify the positions of the left and prevent rational discourse. Formally known as the Republican War on Science.

They have worked tirelessly to call people with an education "elitists" and created most of the idiotic aphorisms of the past eight years": "if you don't support the war you don't support troops!" or "small government not big government!" or "life begins at conception!".

One of their most important tools is the "balanced view" approach where any idea should be counterbalanced by the opposite view during exposition, no matter how ridiculous it is. We have a whole news network (owned by an Australian ironicaly enough!) devoted to this concept. Fair and balanced they say...

In this view things like cosmology, evolution and global warming were all suspect as coming from a left political agenda and not the result of science and research.

 

Well, science is a religion didn't you know? That's what the conservatives have been telling us for at least the past decade. The same nonsense is repeated frequently in this thread by most of the denialists.

 

What's really cute is when a person like me, who was raised as a Conservative in the very real and literal sense, with tons of post secondary education and military service, is also vilified by the current crop of neo conservative fascists

I guess the closest match I have right now is the Libertarian movement, but only in a few select topics

What I believe in: a fiscally responsible government that isn't bloated, personal responsibility, an absolute NO to these "bailouts" that have committed us to Indentured Servitude, and the simple desire to lead my life the way I chose to do so.

 

Jayman, there are a LOT of people like that. If the GOP doesn't pull its head oot its arse soon, we may be blessed with a proper conservative party to compete with it and the democrats. Inshallah, it will be so. (sorry, couldn't resist).

 

Well as my concern for the environment goes way back to when I was in high school, that is pre 1978, how did I come in contact with Al Gore derangement syndrome?
The real trouble seems to be the American-centric opinions of some people who still seem to be stuck in the greed is good and capitalism will solve the problems of the world, era.

Strangely, contrary to your text above it is the most educated who seem to populate the "Al Gore" camp while the truck drivin' tobacco chewin' Marlboro smokin' red-necks seem to almost unanimously support the view that there must be a dollar in this environment crap cos it can't be true. Of course the multi billion dollar petrochemical industry and other dirty energy industries have no vested interest in supporting contrary science and no scientist would sell out to a cashed up petrochemical company, ever. It is no wonder the governments of the world are skinned, they have been paying for crooked science now for years and using the research of these crooked researchers to manipulate the population but, and here is the big but, the government denied the existence of climate change until the pressure became unbearable, nice poker play there western governments of the world, well done!!

 

Pat! I think you read me backwards mate.

You came in contact (but did not contract) Al Gore derangement syndrome in this very forum..

Cheers!

 

Alric is making fun of those of us that believe that though Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" exposed a lot of people to the topic of climate change it will in the end backfire due to the wildly exaggerated claims made in the movie.

It is also an insult thrown at those that get their information of the topic of climate change from major media sources such as magazines, newspapers, TV, and documentaries. Alric maintains that Al Gore is irrelevant because he is not a climate scientist and we should only concern ourselves with what is published in scientific journals. Alric is thumbing his nose at the uneducated masses that are intellectually inferior to him.

What Alric is missing is that the vast majority of the population has never read a scientific journal and instead relies on the major media for news. The debate over climate change will be won or lost based on public opinion. That makes Al Gore and spokespeople like him more relevant to the debate than all the journal articles in the world.

 

Unfortunately, I feel you are overly optimistic. I briefly felt that way here about the Conservatives, now look at how they formed a de facto coalition with Ignatieff's Liberals, and sent us off the Fiscal cliff

It was almost worth it though, to watch Jack Layton carry on like a little boy in the schoolyard. It was Layton's only serious shot at getting reins on government, and Ignatieff back-stabbed him.

Really, *really* back-stabbed him

 

Well, that is the problem right there. Our education system has become so dumbed down - which is directly reflected in our mass media - that the majority of folks cannot even understand basic scientific principles.

I tend to rant about things like our "edumacashun" system, but it really is broken. We're cranking out high school graduates who can barely read at all. We should be ashamed of ourselves

 

I won't disagree with that. The US population in general has a very limited understanding of math and science and very little interest in either. I assume you have a similar apathy in Canada.

However, what should be and our current reality are two very different things.

 

Did Al Gore really get it so wrong by being too alarmist?? - if anything it's the contrary.

He hardly even spoke about the massive geo-political upheaval that is bound to happen when the 2 billion people in the sub-tropics try to survive on a small fraction of the water (and therefore food) they have now.

We are on course for catastrophic human suffering and denialists are fixated on a bogus sea level rise criticism????

 

• In 'An Inconvenient Truth", Al Gore predicts a sea level rise of 20 feet (610 cm) unless we act now. He shows deeply emotional simulations of major population centers flooded due to global warming.
• In its 4th assessment, the IPCC predicts a sea level rise of between 18cm to 59 cm over the next century.

That is an order of magnitude difference and yes it is alarmist.

Al Gore's wild exaggerations will hurt the credibility of the global warming community, especially when he refuses to admit he exaggerated. Instead he has said: "Of course, there will always be questions around the edges of the science, and we have to rely upon the scientific community to continue to ask and to challenge and to answer those questions..... "but we do agree on the fundamentals.â€

 

The IPCC report's predictions are extremely conservative - major indicators of global warming are way ahead of their predicted schedule. And as we already pointed out, there are scientific papers saying that 7 meters is not impossible.