Tech | January 22, 2011 | 69 comments

Scripps researchers see evidence that melting polar ice could alter climate by slowing ocean circulation...or speeding it up

source: http://explorations.ucsd.edu/Features/2011/Circulation/#four

Image
JanforGore
Imagine the ocean as a giant swimming pool - devoid of topographical features like seamounts and trenches and with smooth walls instead of jutting continental shelves or jagged coastlines.

If you're in the community of oceanographers who model the large-scale circulation of the oceans, that's pretty much how you have to imagine them.Their size and complexity have presented a stiff challenge to those who would dare to try to mimic on computers how water moves and understand ocean dynamics. The challenge is to write computer code sophisticated enough to capture the myriad variables that move a unit of water from one place to another. What ocean modelers have traditionally ended up with is something that looks like a rudimentary computer game like Pong when what they desire is the resolution of an Xbox.

But in a new age of supercomputing, ocean circulation modelers are making first steps in seeing their subject as it really is. Christopher Wolfe and Paola Cessi, physical oceanographers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, have come up with an explanation for the way water moves in layers between the poles. The researchers are taking advantage of a new ability to simulate ocean dynamics at a scale of a few kilometers.

Though that may still sound like a pixilated picture, its improved realism in portraying intermediate-sized phenomena such as large swirls known as eddies is allowing the researchers to revise long-standing theories of large-scale circulation, which in turn could help the world understand what keeps warm places warm and cold places cold. Some would say the epiphany is happening not a moment too soon. There is increasing evidence of rapid melt-off of ice sheets in the world’s two biggest repositories, Antarctica in the south and Greenland to the north, spurring climate modelers to devise a number of what-if scenarios. The evidence has triggered a variety of doomsday theories that a freshwater dump would disrupt the climate patterns we’ve grown accustomed to, plunging temperate areas of the world, especially Europe, into frigidity.

Now Wolfe and Cessi have made enough progress to be able to advance theories of what two big puddles of fresh water at either end of the ocean would do to ocean circulation. In most of the scenarios they come up with, the effects on global climate would be significant.

“At this point, based on global climate predictions, circulation could either speed up or slow down or do nothing,” said Wolfe, a postdoctoral researcher. “That’s something we’d really like to know and that’s the question we’re trying to answer.”

snip

If winds and differences in the buoyancy of water are what set oceans in motion to begin with, eddies are like the flywheels that keep the motion going. Without a realistic understanding of eddies, oceanographers can’t really simulate the oceans at the speeds at which water really moves. So Wolfe and Cessi elected to try to produce a computer simulation, using supercomputers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif, Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. They obtained 20,000,000 CPU-hours and used a model that is highly faithful to the movement of eddies in real life. They also decided, however, to leave their computerized ocean in more or less the shape of a rectangular swimming pool and shrink its scale to about half its real size, creating what Cessi dubs a “hobbit ocean.” The computational power needed to simulate eddy activity and include a geographically-correct basin would require a devotion of resources still not available among the world’s supercomputers.

But Cessi and Wolfe say the high-resolution view of eddies produces a significantly more realistic view of how oceans move than anyone has been able to replicate so far. Already the two believe that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that large-scale circulation patterns adjust over decades or centuries rather than over thousands of years, which implies that changes in circulation are something that we could conceivably witness within a few generations rather than at some point in the distant future. Cessi notes with pride that the pair’s modeling approach has sped up the oceans from a molasses pace to something a little runnier, not real water yet but maybe more like maple syrup.

"Our contribution was to resolve scales as small as five kilometers," said Cessi. "I don't think anyone has done a calculation with such high resolution and for an extended period of time."

The Scripps scientists chose this course after noticing that many oceanographers have in recent decades explored what would happen if Northern Hemisphere ice sheets were to suddenly melt and dump loads of freshwater into surrounding oceans. Doing so, they have concluded that an infusion of fresh water slows circulation in the Atlantic.

But for unknown reasons, few have considered the equally plausible scenario that a warming world would create a similar melt-off in Antarctica as well. The two discovered that if Antarctic melt produced a larger amount of freshwater, the circulation would speed up.


Recent observations suggest that these are not hypothetical scenarios. The opposing ice masses are melting at an accelerating rate. A 2009 analysis showed that in Greenland, the rate of annual mass loss increased from 137 gigatons per year in 2002-03 to 286 gigatons per year between 2007 and 2009. In Antarctica, the mass loss increased from 104 gigatons per year between 2002 and 2006 to 246 gigatons per year between 2006 and 2009.

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69 comments // Scripps researchers see evidence that melting polar ice could alter climate by slowing ocean circulation...or speeding it up

  • grandavi
  • JanforGore
  • grandavi
  • JanforGore
  • grandavi
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • grandavi:

      How about you post something of substance instead of insulting me to cover up your own ignorance? And I tell you what, when I publish the book I am currently writing I'll tell you where you can buy it since you want to read my words so badly. Some of you here are real pieces of work.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • Image
    • JanforGore:

      Do you understand it? So far you have shown a remarkable lack of knowledge in the things you post; You cannot answer questions pertinent to content posted in your comments, your only comment on a scientific paper that discredited one of your posts was, "the graphs were all over the place", and you use doctored images in an attempt to fool people.
      You have zero credibility - zero!!!

      Image shows a Photo-shopped image of London flooded presented by JanforGore in a recent (now deleted) story. Her comment:
      "Oh, and on edit: before I too get attacked for using a "scaremongering" picture, that is a picture of Brisbane after the recent flooding."

      No it isn't Jan, it's London. Do not use information you do not understand.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  
    • IceKat:

      I suggest you try to get help for your emotional problem regarding me. It seems in your mind thinking you somehow bested me (and we all know why) is an attempt to satisfy some delusion you have. I do really think at this point you need help to deal with it as it looks like you have gone a bit over the edge.

    • 1 year ago
  • royulery
    • +2
      royulery  

    • sure learned a lot from cherry pickers today. i tend to trust scripps because i got a credit for monitoring sand flow on the beach for them and that they are interested in the science not the sides.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
  • grandavi
  • JanforGore
  • coolplanet
    • +3
      coolplanet  
    • Image

    • Published online 22 September 2010 | Nature 467, 381 (2010) | doi:10.1038/467381a
      News

      When the North Atlantic caught a chill
      Surface cooling could have pushed down temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere 40 years ago.

      Quirin Schiermeir
      Three-tenths of a degree may seem a small dip — but, for climate researchers, the discovery that a large patch of the ocean cooled by 0.3 °C within a few years around 1970 is a small sensation.
      "When averaged over an entire hemisphere, 0.3 °C is fairly large," says David Thompson, an atmospheric scientist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Centred in the North Atlantic Ocean, the sudden cooling event that Thompson and his colleagues report1 on page 444 of this issue could help to solve a mystery: a prominent drop in the global mean surface temperature record around the same time. The ocean cooling, which may have resulted from a shift in currents, also offers a reminder of the North Atlantic's outsize role in climate.
      The scientists had spotted the anomaly when reanalysing records of sea surface temperature. Ship-based temperature measurements can be misleading; in 2008, the same team showed that a supposed 0.3 °C drop in global mean temperatures in 1945 actually reflected a change in shipboard measurement techniques after the war2. So before concluding that the new anomaly was real, says co-author Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, "we spent a lot of time in trying to rule out possible data issues".
      What caused the sea surface cooling around 1970 is unclear. But Rowan Sutton of the National Centre for Atmospheric Sciences in Reading, UK, suspects that currents are responsible. "The spatial pattern of the event strongly suggests it has to do with a sudden change in the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation" — the northward flow of warm surface water as colder water moves southwards at greater depths — he says.
      "We need to understand the circumstances in which this happens," adds Sutton, who has studied ways of predicting abrupt circulation changes3. A temporary pool of low-salinity water in the North Atlantic called the Great Salinity Anomaly coincided with the cooling, suggesting that an influx of fresh water was the trigger. "If further research helps show that the two events are related, this could provide a way to further test modelled ocean responses to freshwater additions from the Arctic," says Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeller at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City. Scientists believe that global warming will increase freshwater flow into the North Atlantic.
      The ocean cooling also coincides with a 0.2 °C drop in global mean temperature from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s (see graphic). Researchers have blamed this short-lived cooling, more pronounced in the Northern Hemisphere, on a build-up of sunlight-blocking sulphate aerosols from fossil fuels, which began to clear in the 1970s as pollution controls took hold.
      Thompson and his colleagues think a circulation change in the North Atlantic is a more likely culprit. But Michael Mann, a climate researcher at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, isn't so sure. He thinks that aerosols probably contributed to the global chill, and that the ocean cooling was probably the steep end of a natural climate oscillation spanning several decades. "I'm unconvinced they've shown that the model of an isolated brief event is a better fit to the data."
      For Jones, the scientific debate comes as a welcome change. For the past year he has been at the centre of a controversy after allegedly compromising climate e-mails were stolen from his computer. Jones and his co-workers have been cleared of any scientific misconduct, and he says, "It's definitely good to finally talk about real science again".

      http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100922/full/467381a.html

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
  • JanforGore
    • +3
      JanforGore  

    • http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/index.html

      "Arctic sea ice extent averaged over December 2010 was 12.00 million square kilometers (4.63 million square miles). This is the lowest December ice extent recorded in satellite observations from 1979 to 2010, 270,000 square kilometers (104,000 square miles) below the previous record low of 12.27 million square kilometers (4.74 million square miles) set in 2006 and 1.35 million square kilometers (521,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average.

      As in November, ice extent in December 2010 was unusually low in both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the Arctic, but particularly in Hudson Bay, Hudson Strait (between southern Baffin Island and Labrador), and in Davis Strait (between Baffin Island and Greenland). Normally, these areas are completely frozen over by late November. In the middle of December, ice extent stopped increasing for about a week, an unusual but not unique event.

      Figure 2. The graph above shows daily Arctic sea ice extent as of January 2, 2011, along with daily ice extents for previous low-ice-extent years in the month of November. Light blue indicates 2010-2011, pink shows 2006-2007 (the record low for the month was in 2006), green shows 2007-2008, and dark gray shows the 1979 to 2000 average. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data. Sea Ice Index data.
      —Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

      The low ice conditions in December occurred in conjunction with above-average air temperatures in regions where ice would normally expand at this time of year.

      Air temperatures over eastern Siberia were 6 to 10 degrees Celsius (11 to 18 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal in December. Over the eastern Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Baffin Bay/Davis Strait and Hudson Bay, temperatures were at least 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than average. Southern Baffin Island had the largest anomalies, with temperatures over 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than normal.

      By sharp contrast, temperatures were lower than average (4 to 7 degrees Celsius, 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit) over the Alaska-Yukon border, north-central Eurasia, and Scandinavia. The warm temperatures in December came from two sources: unfrozen areas of the ocean continued to release heat to the atmosphere, and an unusual circulation pattern brought warm air into the Arctic from the south. Although the air temperatures were still below freezing on average, the additional ocean and atmospheric heat slowed ice growth.

      Figure 3. Monthly December ice extent for 1979 to 2010 shows a decline of 3.5% per decade.
      —Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

      High-resolution image December 2010 compared to past years
      December 2010 had the lowest ice extent for the month since the beginning of satellite records. The linear rate of decline for the month is –3.5% per decade."
      ___

      .

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
  • JanforGore
    • +3
      JanforGore  
    • Image
    • coolplanet:

      This is a current thumbnail of the Atlantic, which is the subject of the study at Scripps. So based on this I have a question for you coolplanet since you have read much on this topic and studied it: Do you think it is possible that the millions of gallons of oil that spilled into the Gulf in any way has affected albedo thus increasing Atlantic ocean temperature /effecting the current? That was not covered in this study. I'm not really sure, but I know from reading other articles that a corrolation to effecting the thermohaline circulation was a possibility.

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • Image
    • JanforGore:

      This is a current thumbnail of the Atlantic showing sea surface temperature anomalies.

      Doesn't look like 'all that oil' has warmed up the Atlantic too much, unless all the oil swam against the currents towards Africa and congregated there?.
      Source: Danish Meteorological Institute.

    • 1 year ago
  • Mark701
    • -2
      Mark701  
    • JanforGore:

      The quick answer is no. First I've never heard that oil absorbed or reflected the suns light in any significant way. Second, even if it did, on a planetary scale, the spill was far too small to have any impact. Third, certain bacteria LOVE to eat hydrocarbons causing oil to degrade rapidly in the environment so it wouldn't be around long enough to do any damage.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
  • Wetdog
    • +1
      Wetdog  
    • Mark701:

      ------" Third, certain bacteria LOVE to eat hydrocarbons causing oil to degrade rapidly in the environment so it wouldn't be around long enough to do any damage."-----

      Psuedomonas Vulgaris. Opportunistic bacteria and highly pathogenic once established.. Third leading cause of death by pnuemonia. Just the thing to be spreading all over our marine fishery grounds.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • +1
      Wetdog  
    • Wetdog:

      Now---for comparison, we can drive our cars using ethanol. Put some crude oil in a metal drum and light it on fire-------you get massive amounts of black, acrid smoke. More people die of smoke inhalation than heat or flames in a petroleum fire.

      Put ethanol in a drum and light it on fire---you will get a pale blue flame, and no smoke at all.

      They both burn the same way when used to power internal combustion engines---that is why E10(10% ethanol blend) has been required to be sold by law to reduce pollution in the most polluted markets for the last 20 years.

      If the Mecondo well rupture had been pouring ethanol into the Gulf of Mexico, the leak would most likely not even have been detectable at the surface. Ethanol is water soluble. It would simply mix with the seawater and be carried away with the current. No toxic dispersants needed.

      Ethanol is safe enough to drink. Everyday. Millions of people do. Ethanol is safe enough to eat----it is a basic ingredient of many gourmet dishes. You can't do that with gasoline or crude oil.

      Ethanol is safe enough to wash your hands with. Healthcare workers and many other occupations do so many times an hour all day every day to sanitize their hands.
      You can't do that with crude oil or gasoline.

    • 1 year ago
  • lamborghini
    • +2
      lamborghini  

    • Boy this person sure has it in for you Jan. Way over the top too. Sick of the same people taking over threads just to get somebody. This isn't discussion, it's bullying.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • lamborghini:

      "This isn't discussion, it's bullying."

      Bullying? Jan gets away with that all the time and yet that is seen as perfectly acceptable, for some reason.
      You're right, it isn't a discussion, not when you have people like tommic writing things like this, "Everyone should stop commenting back to any post written by Ice Kat and Congoboy to anyhting regarding climate change, we should make like they don't even exist." and you have JanforGore censoring content.

      Is this a forum where only one point of view is acceptable? Why is it scorned at when someone presents verifiable scientific information that counters what the alarmists say?

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • +1
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      -------" Is this a forum where only one point of view is acceptable? Why is it scorned at when someone presents verifiable scientific information that counters what the alarmists say?"---------

      You won't give us your name, your background or qualifications or even a statement of your objective. What is it that you want to accomplish? What action do you want people to take?

      That is all part of being scientifically verifiable.

      It seems highly doubtful in the extreme to me that your sole purpose in all this academic freedom. If that were the case---just present your findings----then if the AGW supporters are wrong, it will prove out shortly and you can say "Ha ha, I told you so!"

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  
    • Image

    • Meanwhile in the 'rapidly melting' Arctic, ships are still having to be freed by icebrakers.
      This has been an ongoing situation for weeks now, and yet we hear nothing about this from those who instead concentrate on the portions of the Arctic that are ice-free.

      "The fishery ships got stuck in the ice December 31, 2010, and the caravan did not manage to move a single mile forwards since Saturday morning. It is still mired at a distance about 30 miles away from the areas of open floating ice, the Far-Eastern Shipping Line said. "

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +5
      JanforGore  
    • IceKat:

      One cherrypicked picture and another unsourced quote. Wow, good evidence that melting is not occurring on the whole. I think the NSIDC knows more than you do... matter of fact I know it. Very weak.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
  • JanforGore
    • +4
      JanforGore  
    • IceKat:

      So what? Again you cherrypick one incident (which was already posted here I believe) as if that disproves the whole. The Arctic as was posted here saw it's second lowest extent last November. That's from NSIDC, where real scientists work. Again, very weak. So weak, I've had enough of placating your desire for my attention.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • Image
    • JanforGore:

      The Arctic has been going through a hectic period lately, however all predictions of an ice-free Arctic have all been laughingly dismissed as scaremongering. Maybe this year we'll see an ice-free Arctic, what do you think?

      Arctic temperatures at this time of year (and November) are usually pretty cold, far too cold for any melt to occur. As you well know, Arctic ice blows around the Arctic basin and is affected by winds and oceanic currents which send sea ice to areas where it will then melt. You see, people have this idea that the Arctic is like an ice-cube sitting on your kitchen table and melting where it sits. That is not the case at all.

      Chart is from the Danish meteorological institute. The temperature is around 250K at the moment. Do you really think ice is melting at that temperature?

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • Image
    • JanforGore:

      NSIDC image shows enormous amounts of open sea due to rapid melt of Arctic sea ice in -23C temperatures. Or not!

      Looks terrible, doesn't it, all that open sea. Oh but don't tell me, it's all rotten, thin ice and will all melt away as soon as the sun pokes its head above the horizon. Sure!

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
  • coolplanet
  • Wetdog
    • +1
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      ------" Looks terrible, doesn't it, all that open sea. Oh but don't tell me, it's all rotten, thin ice and will all melt away as soon as the sun pokes its head above the horizon. Sure!"------

      Duhhhhhhhhhh, well yes Homer---thin ice melts faster than thick ice.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  

    • “At this point, based on global climate predictions, circulation could either speed up or slow down or do nothing,” said Wolfe, a postdoctoral researcher. “That’s something we’d really like to know and that’s the question we’re trying to answer.”

      So many people will take certain snippets of this article and use them as proof of whatever it is they want you to believe. As the article points out many times, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered before anyone reaches a conclusion.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +3
      JanforGore  
    • IceKat:

      Oh yes, cherrypicking is the AGW denier pasttime so of course you know much about that. Bottomline, these people are actually PHDS and scientists, unlike you, who verify the melting of glaciers which you deny in your rosecolored glass world, and who are actually working to assess what the future may hold in the way of temperature and climate changes because it is important in a world where crop failures, water shortages and climate refugees are all a part of the present and will have to be dealt with regardless of how you once again see it in your rosecolored world. Regardless of which way the climate pendulum swings, it is fact that humans have contributed to the changes taking place.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      "Regardless of which way the climate pendulum swings, it is fact that humans have contributed to the changes taking place."

      Agreed, but not in the way you want people to believe. Changes in land use have had severe effects on local climate, but if you're talking about the natural warming that occurred during the latter part of the 20th century, you would be extremely lucky to attribute even 0.1C of that to man's activities.

      "..it is important in a world where crop failures, water shortages and climate refugees are all a part of the present and will have to be dealt with regardless..."

      Again, absolutely correct, old girl. People, politicians and intelligent activists (is there such a thing?) should be concentrating their efforts towards adapting to what this world has in store instead of looking for someone to blame for a natural climate cycle.

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
  • coolplanet
    • 0
      coolplanet  
    • IceKat:

      Man has been altering the climate with agriculture for the past 8,000 years.
      In "Plows, Plagues & Petroleum" Prof. William Ruddiman presents interesting evidence that the Little Ice Age that ended 150 years ago was triggered by the sudden death of tens of millions of American Indians since 1492. Carbon and methane levels in the atmosphere declined as a result of this sudden drop in greenhouse gas producers and the global temp fell.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • +3
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      @ IceKat.

      ------".....warming that occurred during the latter part of the 20th century, you would be extremely lucky to attribute even 0.1C of that to man's activities."-------

      Since you are so knowledgeable and cock sure of your assertions---perhaps you would care to enlighten us on the total tonnage of coal and petroleum fossil fuels removed from deep underground where they have been sequestered for millions upon millions of years out of the atmosphere and burning them which releases the CO2 into the atmosphere?

      And this has NO impact?

      This is the most idiot statement I've ever heard. I can SEE it in the air when conditions are right.

      So, what should I believe----take the word of someone who won't even tell me their name or qualifications--------or, what I can see with my own two eyes?

      Easy choice.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
  • IceKat
  • IceKat
  • coolplanet
    • +1
      coolplanet  
    • IceKat:

      That's one way to put it if you want to be really simplistic and sensationalistic.
      You miss the entire point as usual.
      Humans are a huge factor in contributing greenhouse gasses.
      I'm not talking past blame. We need to learn about what we can do to keep out climate from getting too hot or too cold before it's too late for us as a species.
      O you poor censored thing!

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • coolplanet:

      Nothing you do will stop the climate from doing what it is going to do. You can paint your roof white, stop production of CO2 and even put an end to all fossil fuel use. None of that will stop the climate from doing what it has always done, and always will do: change in whichever direction it wants to go.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
  • IceKat
  • JanforGore
    • +4
      JanforGore  
    • IceKat:

      No, it's a thread I posted and therefore can snip to what I consider relevant. In this case regarding eddys and how they effect circulation based on melting at the poles. You cry here like a baby about false "censorship" then dare to tell me what to post? Please spare us all your boorish arrogance.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      "In this case regarding eddys and how they effect circulation based on melting at the poles. "

      Yes, it's all very interesting but it's only a computer model. If I was to tell you 'global warming' was dead, man had zero influence on 20th century climate - models say so, what would you say to that? Then you'd be quick to trash the models, wouldn't you?

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
    • 0
      coolplanet  
    • IceKat:

      "There is increasing evidence of rapid melt-off of ice sheets in the world’s two biggest repositories, Antarctica in the south and Greenland to the north, spurring climate modelers to devise a number of what-if scenarios. The evidence has triggered a variety of doomsday theories that a freshwater dump would disrupt the climate patterns we’ve grown accustomed to, plunging temperate areas of the world, especially Europe, into frigidity."

      Science is about testing scenarios. It is subtle and changes with new information. No one really knows what's gonna happen. But we're getting a clearer picture all the time.

      I don't believe in "doomsday theories" as the article alludes. How can nature's response to a life threatening problem be doom?

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • coolplanet:

      "Science is about testing scenarios. It is subtile and changes with new information."

      I agree (except for your spelling) and that's why I hold the views I have now.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  

    • "...could alter climate by slowing ocean circulation...or speeding it up"

      So they haven't made their mind up yet, then?

      "But in a new age of supercomputing, ocean circulation modelers are making first steps in seeing their subject as it really is."
      Isn't it interesting how models are being used instead of observational research. Notice how these modelers are only 'making first steps'. It just shows how limited and useless models actually are. Why, then, do some people rely on them so much? Simple, because the models can be made to support any alarmist situation the modelers decide to enter into the model.

      Let's see how long this comment lasts. Yesterday's comment was censored by JanforGore.

    • 1 year ago
  • JanforGore
    • +3
      JanforGore  
    • IceKat:

      Wow, your boorish rhetoric is still here. Oh poor you. Stop your whining and be a man... that is if you are one. And talk about cherrypicking and taking out of context. There is always room for enhancement of any kind of model and it is going to be of great service in the future. .Anyone truly interested in science and not just here to fill a posting quota would be excited about that.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      "There is always room for enhancement of any kind of model..."

      Damn right there! It was an interesting article - I'm always interested in reading things like that, no matter what the source - but as I stated, some people will grasp this information, twist it and use it as evidence of something that is not proven.

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
    • +1
      coolplanet  
    • IceKat:

      Would you please stop hogging up posts!
      This is a subject that I'd really like to debate with many Current members but now that you've pissed all over it I doubt many will.
      Is this your wish? To end debates?
      Because what you are doing is certainly not debating.

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • coolplanet:

      Debate? You mean join in with the hand-wringing festival of hatred towards man.
      No it is not my wish to end debates. I am presenting evidence that shows a different side to the scaremongering stories posted here. I use up to date graphs and charts, and newly discovered information. If you look carefully, that is all I do, right up until the point where people like you start with the meaningless comments.
      Tommic said in a comment that i should be ignored, frozen out. Is that debate?

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
  • coolplanet
  • IceKat
  • Wetdog
    • +3
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      ------" Tommic said in a comment that i should be ignored, frozen out. Is that debate?"----

      I offered to debate you. I gave you my name and my qualifications. You refused. Quit your whining Mr. BP man.

      ------" Debate? You mean join in with the hand-wringing festival of hatred towards man."====

      YOU are the one with the guilt complex. No one here has ever blamed "man" or mankind------it is the actions of a very small minority that are causing the problems. The vast majority of the people on earth are not contributing to global warming because they are not the ones destroying the earth with fossil fuels to play video games and carry around huge amounts of useless stuff in plastic bags. And there is no need for any of it. We have viable alternatives. We have better ways of thinking and living.

      If you are feeling guilty, well you should. The entire focus of everything you say and do is "continue to rape and destroy the earth in the name of selfish greed and profit". YOU are the problem. The rest of us want to change the ways we get our energy and use our resources. We want to make the world a better place.

      All you stand for is more of the same. Continue to just do the same and ignore the consequences. You are not part of the solutions----you are the problem.

      Scaremongering? Maybe so. There is a lot to be scared of. If that is what it takes to move people to action, then that is what we should do. Not sit around and do nothing as you advocate.

      You know what makes me mad? YOU DO!!!! You whiney little pooh-pooher. Whining that somebody makes you feel bad because they point out that you are destroying everything out of nothing but pure laziness, apathy and greed.
      Let's just waltz on down to namby-pampy land and see if we can't find you some guts and backbone. OHHHHHHHH------did I make you cry? I'm SO sorry----here, have a tissue(throws the box).

      You need to change your screen name to Whiney the Pooh.

      [YEAH, drill sergeants do make bad therapists]

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
  • Wetdog
    • +2
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      One good thing about getting older Whiney the Pooh, it gets easier and easier to recognize the young punks who are so full of bullshit it is coming out their mouth.

    • 1 year ago
  • coolplanet
    • +1
      coolplanet  
    • IceKat:

      It's just the obxoxious way you go about it.
      You trivialize everything with pseudoscience repeated over and over, put us down with stereotypical insults, and come across as a real jerk wad.

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  
    • coolplanet:

      If I'm obnoxious it's only because I'm sick of seeing people being lied to and presented with false information.
      Why do you label my comments as pseudo-science? I present real data from well known and credible agencies, including NASA, NOAA and others you wouldn't have beard of. Why do you dispute data from satellites? In fact, why do you dispute any data that disagrees with your set-in-stone position?
      Lastly, why do you always resort to personal attacks? I know many people who have disagreements, in many different fields, but no-one resorts to personal attacks, it shows a distasteful lack of maturity and intelligence.

    • 1 year ago
  • Wetdog
    • 0
      Wetdog  
    • IceKat:

      "IF" you are obnoxious????????

      ----" It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and dispel all doubt."------Abraham Lincoln

    • 1 year ago
  • IceKat
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