[Coral-List] La Nina, and global warming

Bruno, John F jbruno at unc.edu
Wed Nov 17 11:39:44 EST 2010


Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2010 14:36:48 -0500
From: Eugene Shinn <eshinn at marine.usf.edu<mailto:eshinn at marine.usf.edu>>
Subject: [Coral-List] La Nina and global warming
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov<mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
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Dear Listers, Good to see the neurons are firing on all cylinders.
The Geological Society of London statement
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/views/policy_statements/climatechange
is well done. It pretty much says what I have been trying to say.

Maybe you haven't thoroughly read it, but the GSL position statement, like that of every other major scientific organization in the world, clearly supports the hypothesis that humans have played a key role in causing global warming over the last century.

I was a little concerned that they did not put more emphasis on water
vapor as the greatest green house gas or methane and others. But then
the IPCC said little as well. Why are we all so stuck on Co2?

Because unlike methane, which does indeed have a greater warming effect molecule-per-mcolecule, CO2 has an incredibly long residence time in the atmosphere, i.e., it will take many thousands of years for anthropogenic CO2 to be reabsorbed into earth systems and for CO2 levels to fall back to the high 300s.  Thus, the real game is all about CO2, read the nice piece on RealClimate explaining this:  http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/03/arctic-methane-on-the-move/

But note growing methane release in the Arctic could turn into an important positive feedback.


    Also, there was no mention that ice cores show warming occurred
before Co2 peaked by at least 400 years. Shouldn't it be the other
way around?

"CO2 lags temperature" is the 11th most common argument used by climate change deniers;  http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php

You can learn why it, and Gene's reasoning, are faulty, here:  http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature.htm

 I would like to suggest a new book by Robert Carter a
well-respected Australian geologist/paleontologist. The title is,
"Climate: The Counter Consensus.

Bob is a well-known skeptic (http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/global_warming/bobcarter/) and was a key player in a recent scandal  "Cartergate"; http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/03/cartergate.php

in which he and his colleagues were found to have fudged data in a paper published in JGR in support of his pet idea that ENSO is the cause of global warming, see here;  http://www.climateshifts.org/?p=4911
here; http://www.skepticalscience.com/peer-reviewed-response-to-McLean-El-Nino-paper.html
and here to download the PDF of the paper that debunked their bogus analysis; http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frsgc/research/d5/jdannan/comment_on_mclean.pdf

And see our archive on Bob's science here: http://www.climateshifts.org/?s=bob+carter&x=0&y=0

-JB








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