This topic is not one I’ve spent a whole lot of time or effort on, except to chortle when climate deniers start sputtering when you compare them to moon landing conspiracy theorists. But now, 2 trusted readers have sent this link to me in one week.
This video has an amusing, informative discussion of the video logistics of alleged moon fakery, and ends with an insightful take on the psychology that applies to science and reality deniers of all stripes.
charleszeller: “The energy imbalance can be less precisely tracked by measuring the accumulating heat in the oceans.” That is very true because of this fact:
“As water travels through the water cycle, some water will become part of The Global Conveyer Belt and can take up to 1,000 years to complete this global circuit. It represents in a simple way how ocean currents carry warm surface waters from the equator toward the poles and moderate global climate.” [The Global Conveyer Belt has suddenly stopped for several speculated reason in the past and caused dramatic and rapid climate changes always to the cold side; therefore, warm is preferable to cold any day]
http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/oceanography/ocean-earth-system/ocean-water-cycle/
If you “I lumped H2O into GHGs” then why didn’t you attribute the proper weight of its impact on the earth’s climate?
One does not need elaborate scientific experiments to assess the influence of atmospheric H2O on the earth’s climate. First off, one can not only see it but one can also feel it in the atmosphere. If someone has ever spent any time in the upper latitudes, or lower, where there are distinct seasons that are caused by the sun’s 22.4⁰ tilt on its axes, the coldest nights of the winter always occur when there is no cloud cover and it is also the reason why the deserts can be 120⁰ F. during the day and freezing at night.
This is the absorption spectrum for liquid water in the atmosphere:
http://i42.tinypic.com/54aes8.jpg
Note the location of the strongest absorption peak of liquid water and it’s unfortunate coincidence with the absorption peak for CO2, where liquid water absorbs 300+ times more intensely than CO2, not to mention water’s much greater abundance in the troposphere:
http://i44.tinypic.com/24zayi1.jpg
On the three different occasions when I have; at different locations, two of which were in Nepal and the other on Kilimanjaro in 2011, it took no experiment to show one that there is only about 1/2 as much atmosphere at these altitudes as at sea level by just trying to get enough O2 to exist, but there were always clouds over head and snow on the ground.
The fact that ALL of the river systems in the world that life depends on are kept flowing because of the continual evaporation and precipitation cycle that takes place and at one time or the other ALL of this H2O is in the atmosphere.
“The Amazon River carries more water than any other river in the world. In fact, the Amazon River is responsible for about one-fifth (twenty percent) of the fresh water that flows into the world’s oceans.”
http://geography.about.com/od/specificplacesofinterest/a/amazonriver8.htm
@jdouglashuahin You are obviously on the verge of a major scientific breakthrough. Format and add a few more references. You’ll be famous, and the Nobel Committee’s award for scientific achievement is over $1M.
It is interesting, Doug, that you should mention the Amazon. In 2010, the area suffered such a severe drought that all the dead or dying trees emitted more CO2e than did the USA in the same period.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6017/554.short
This is just one of 10 positive feedback mechanisms now identified, but, the most alarming is surely thawing permafrost: Already equal to the total global human CO2 emissions, carbon emissions (as CO2e) from thawing permafrost will now quadruple by 2030 (because we cannot stop them or trap and burn all the methane)… and yet the IPCC continue to ignore it…!!!!
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/31/1524981/why-climate-scientists-have-consistently-underestimated-key-global-warming-impacts/
None of this is good news and, therefore, it is only thanks to the objectivity and determination of people like Guy McPherson (Professor Emeritus in Biological Sciences at the University of Arizona) that this stuff is now making headline news:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/21/temperature-rise-permafrost-melt