[Gorm]

http://aleklett.wordpress.com/2009/12/0 ... %E2%80%9D/

Above the same text in english.

Aleklett argues that UN IPCC has one gigantic flaw in its calculations, they depend on ever increasing amounts of fossiel fuels to be correct. Aleklett wants to put the ligth on that is not the case.

[coyote]

This whole argument rests upon the assumption that the IPCC scenarios are on the pessimistic side. But recent events in the arctic show that is not the case. The IPCC scenarios are optimistic. Alaklett uses the word "future" an awful lot in his article - but climate change is happening not in some distant future, but right now. Methane is being released from the arctic - now. Glaciers, forests and corals are being impacted now. Humans are being impacted now. Arctic summers will be ice-free not in a century, as the IPCC warned, but in 2013 - only four years from now. The CO2 that we've already thrown into the air will remain at work for decades - even if we stop all our emissions tomorrow, we're still in for a bumpy ride. I think the IPCC scenarios can be safely regarded as unrealistically optimistic.

Peak oil trumps climate change? We all hope for the demise of coal (those of us with an interest in self-preservation) - but I think Aleklett may be a bit surprised by how quickly we'll be able to ramp up coal production when oil is depleting seriously, and by how quickly all our resources will be thrown into doing so. Maybe not by 600%, but maybe by enough to push our climate over the edge, when it's combined with the released methane from hydrates and permafrost, the emissions from declining but still prodigious oil production, and the extra CO2 already in the air now - not to mention the effects of global dimming, which will surely become apparent as oil production and global transportation decline. Sure, coal will peak too - we all know that - but when? Soon enough? Or no? Are we sure? Because we'd better be.

All respect to the professor of physics, but his analysis seems a bit on the simplistic side to me. I hope he's right - but I don't think we can be sure of it, and I'm certain we shouldn't base policy on it. Of course, we probably agree that we have to ramp up renewables and nuclear ASAP. But we also have to get used to the notion that we'll have to power down, and coal is our perfect tool for denial.

[hillsidedigger]

Some of the soot, dust and ash from human activities thruout the world settles on the ice-caps and glaciers, making their surfaces darker, so prompting more rapid melting.

[Lore]

Some of the independent observations that tell us global warming is happening now.

•Our planet is suffering an energy imbalance and is steadily accumulating heat (Hansen 2005, Murphy 2009, Schuckmann 2009, Trenberth 2009)

•Animal and plant species are responding to earlier springs. Eg - earlier frog breeding, bird nesting, earlier flowering, earlier migration of birds and butterflies (Parmeson 2003)

•The distribution of tree lines, plants, birds, mammals, insects, fish, reptiles, marine invertebrates are shifting towards the poles (Parmeson 2003)

•Arctic permafrost is degrading (Anisimov 2006) plus warming at greater depths in the permafrost (Stieglitz 2003)

•Global sea level rise is accelerating (Church 2006)

•Antarctic ice loss is accelerating (Velicogna 2009), even from East Antarctica which was previously thought to be too stable to lose ice mass (Chen 2009)

•Greenland ice loss is accelerating (Velicogna 2009, van den Broeke et al 2009)

•Glaciers are shrinking globally at an accelerating rate (WGMS 2008)

•Arctic sea-ice loss is accelerating with the loss rate exceeding model forecasts by around a factor of 3 (Stroeve 2007).

•The height of the tropopause is increasing (Santer 2003, press release)

•Jet streams are moving poleward (Archer 2008, Seidel 2007, Fu 2006)

•The tropical belt is widening (Seidel 2007, Fu 2006)

•There is an increasing trend in record hot days versus record cold temperatures with currently twice as many record hot days than record cold temperatures (Meehle 2009, see press release).

http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-ha ... rming.html

[Gorm]

still 10 years without an increase in global tempratures..

[coyote]

still 10 years without an increase in global tempratures..

Bull. The past ten years is the hottest decade in modern times. There is no cooling trend.

AP IMPACT: Statisticians reject global cooling

[eastbay]

Let's not forget abut the warming of the oceans. The mass of the atmosphere is but a part of the generally warming biosphere.

[dissident]

Exactly, the oceans are the main driver of the inter-annual noise in the global temperature data. They are a massive reservoir for heat (much larger than the atmosphere) and can produce a net flux of heat into the atmosphere during ENSO peaks (of course this heat was accumulated from the atmosphere). This is the "variability" that denialists love to chirp about without bothering to understand the mechanisms involved. The other source of variability is cloud and surface ice albedo but there has been no systematic trend in cloud albedo in the last 30 years (at least) and surface albedo has been declining.

Clearly, the long term ocean response will be to warm since they are absorbing more heat than they release. It is the heat flux that is important and temperature is not the only variable that needs to be considered: you can have cold years because the oceans are absorbing more heat (by bringing more cold water to the surface for example).

[thuja]

Its ridiculous that the IPCC projects a future based on CERA. Oil is peaking...now. They need to revise their projections of business as usual based on realistic models.

[Lore]

It's always been about the earths energy imbalance.

Skeptics proclaim that global warming stopped in 1998. That we're now experiencing global cooling. However, these arguments overlook one simple physical reality - the land and atmosphere are only one small fraction of the Earth's climate (albeit the part we inhabit). Global warming is by definition global. The entire planet is accumulating heat due to an energy imbalance. The atmosphere is warming. Oceans are accumulating energy. Land absorbs energy and ice absorbs heat to melt. To get the full picture on global warming, you need to view the Earth's entire heat content.

This analysis is performed in An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950 (Murphy 2009) which adds up heat content from the ocean, atmosphere, land and ice. To calculate the Earth's total heat content, the authors used data of ocean heat content from the upper 700 metres. They included heat content from deeper waters down to 3000 metres depth. They computed atmospheric heat content using the surface temperature record and the heat capacity of the troposphere. Land and ice heat content (eg - the energy required to melt ice) were also included.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/How-do- ... ening.html

[hillsidedigger]

Its ridiculous that the IPCC projects a future based on CERA. Oil is peaking...now. They need to revise their projections of business as usual based on realistic models.

Since oil is peaking then much, much more coal will be burned.

[thuja]

Its ridiculous that the IPCC projects a future based on CERA. Oil is peaking...now. They need to revise their projections of business as usual based on realistic models.

Since oil is peaking then much, much more coal will be burned.

Bah- even if they were able to ramp up as much coal as will be lost in oil production, total carbon based fuel production will not rise- a glaring difference from the extremely and irrationally optimistic BAU scenarios created shown by the IPCC, cribbed from IEA/CERA.

But even more importantly, coal will never be able to supplant oil declines, not even temporarily....why? Synfuel (coal to oil) is extremely wasteful and cost prohibitive. Nat gas is even more ridiculous. You would have to create an entire infrastructure of new cars and filling stations that would allow for nat gas.

Did any of this happen when oil hit 150 $/barrel and oil production declines were evident? No. Even if it were possible to supplant oil with coal/nat gas, it takes time to do these things. And by the time efforts are made to supplant oil with alternatives, oil declines will be rapid. Therefore emissions...will decline...