Sorry for the delay, but RL got in the way.
Me too. Sorry for the delay.
If the Earth retains energy in the form of infra-red radiation, then this will act as a warming effect (among other things).
Yes, we should get changes in ocean circulation, wind patterns and other things too, not just heat.
Even if we granted that all warming since 1850 was due to CO2, how can you not call it benign? The Little Ice Age was a more "benign" climate than todays? Really?
the thing is, the warming won't stop at this temperature. If we keep adding CO2
and other greenhouse gasses, then this will keep retaining more and more energy and thus increasing climate change.
Think of riding a runway car down a hill. The first few meters or so you aren't going fast and you could jump off or even apply the breaks easily enough. At this point the ride is
benign. But, if the car isn't slowed down or stopped, then it will get faster and fast and you won't be able to jump off, and putting the breaks on won't stop you quickly (and maybe too late). At that point it is most definitely not
Actually we expected it. We "deniers" have very funny ideas like "If the planet warms, ice will melt".
But the deniers were saying that it won't happen because the planet is not warming. They wern't deniing that IF
the Earth warmed the ice would or wouldn't melt, but that the Earth wouldn't warm enough
to melt it.
And don't go the "lowest prediction" path. It was your side that was predicting an "ice free" north pole next year.
But you are going "highest prediction" path in an attempt to say disprove (human induced) climate change. I will agree that there were predictions that did state that climate change would be greater than it is, but there were more
that stated it would be less than what it is.
But regardless, there was still warming.
It hasn't gone as fast as the predictions said it would.
If you misjudged a car's speed, by say 10% greater, and you thought was travelling at 100 km/h, would it still kill you if it hit you?
Yes, it would. Although the rate of warming might have been misjudged (and less than 10% by the way) does not mean it is not warming.
Actually, as I have said before (and you seem to agree) that not all the energy retained by the climate systems will go into thermal heating of the Earth. What this situation tells us (the lower than expected temperature increase) is that the other effects are getting more energy than first assumed. This is actually worse than pure warming as these other effects have more harmful consequences.
More so, they are tipping point effects. that is there won't be any major changes until a certain amount of energy is in that system, and then it will drastically change its behaviour. As an example: The North Atlantic Conveyor current draws warm water up from the equator towards Europe. This causes England to be warmer than it should be at the latitude it is. The Conveyor current is driven by the extra salty water caused by the Arctic winter freeze (as it is more dense). Water is then pulled in from near the equator as the salty water sinks.
Now, if the Arctic doesn't freeze as much in winter, then the water is not as salty and won't sink as fast (or at all) and this will stop the NAC and England will get much colder.
Yes, this is a case where Global Warming can cause a cooling. But the cooling is a local effect, not a global effect).
The biggest problem with using Arctic ice is the lack of long term data. The best we have are the satellites and they only go back to 1979 or so. Not a really good baseline for extrapolation. We don't know with any accuracy how fast the floating ice has melted in previous warmings.
Actually there are lots of ways of determining the ice coverage in pre-recoded times (as an example: large icebergs can scrape along ocean floors and this leaves tell-tail signs that can be seen). Even the way tectonic plates are influenced by the amount of ice coverage.
Another way is ocean circulation. Certain chemicals precipitate out in salt or fresh water. By looking at the extents of these it can be used to determine the extents of ice coverage (and even melting rates too). Ice is fresh water and when it melts it causes the ocean around it to become more fresh. When it freezes, it causes the ocean to become more salty.
So it is perfectly possible to determine ice coverage before human recodes began. this means that this line of argument doesn't support your claims.
Heck, all you have to do is keep a close eye on ice extent and watch hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of ice appear and disappear overnight.
Seasonal change is not what we are talking about with polar melting. What we are talking about is the average coverage taken over many years and through all seasons.
There has been a noticeable and increasing reduction in average ice cover in the Arctic, even in the last 100 years. When compared to pre-recorded evidence, this is even more obvious.
It's a warming world. Ice melts. Glaciers recede. These things happen in a warming world regardless of the cause. Glaciers have been receding since the 1700s in the Alps. Archaeology shows us that they have done so at least 7 times in the last 2,500 years.
But not as fast, not as much and not globally.
In the past 2,500 years, when glaciers have melted in one area, in other areas they were growing.
Sure, there are a few glaciers growing (or are static), but the vast majority of them are receding. This is unheard of except during the end of the last glacial period when the Earth experienced the last dramatic warming (and there was a lot of extinctions at this time too).
And, at this time (end of the last glacial period), Humans nearly went extinct, the numbers could have been as low as 1,000 individuals (so we are by no means immune to climate change).
The real difference is that we deniers don't start our temperature graph at the coldest point in 8,000 years and go screaming "Oh God! It's warming! We're all going to die!" Are people expected to panic every year when winter turns into spring?
Actually, most "accepters" don't go around screaming "Oh God! It's warming! We're all going to die!".
What "we" go around saying is: The records show that the Earth is warming, and the scientific evidence shows that we are the ones responsible for it. We are not indestructible, and the changes the warming will bring could be disruptive."
True, in the past, climate change nearly did wipe us out, but no reputable scientist is acting like you are claiming they are.
You seem to have a massivly
distorted view of climate change accepters, and of what climate change means, and from that you are basing your denial on that you think people who act in that (distorted) way can not be taken seriously.
If climate scientists were acting that way, I couldn't take them seriously either (but it wouldn't change the fact that the climate is warming and that humans CO2
production is the main driver of it).
As I have shown previously, if you change the rate at which energy leaves the Earth, this must (according to all known laws of physics and all mathematics) increase the amount of energy in the Earth's climate systems.
To deny that means you deny that changing the amount of money you take out of the bank won't effect the amount of money in your bank account.
We know that CO2
blocks the emission of infra-red light (the experiment is actually quite easy to do). So if we increase the amount of CO2
in the atmosphere then we will reduce the amount of infra-red light radiating away form Earth.
Human industry emits a lot of CO2
From these three facts alone we can prove that humans are causing climate change. The effects of this are up for debate, but this is hard proof that we are driving climate change.
This sentance you are now reading is false...