Daily Archives: July 18, 2011

Some Common Global Warming Fallacies

The level of debate on global warming is shriekingly poor. Not that I have any hope of convincing the world to reject bad logic, but here are some of the more common fallacies making the rounds. (William M. Briggs)

New NASA paper contradicts Kaufmann et al saying it’s volcanoes, not China coal

It seems that there’s a paper (from JeanPaul Vernier at NASA) out that contradicts the findings of Kaufmann et al 2011, where they blame China’s increasing coal consumption for lack of warming in the past decade saying coal use is adding aerosol particles into the atmosphere that reflect sunlight and therefore cool the planet. [Update, see caveat at end of this post] But in Vernier et al in press at GRL, they say

Recently, the trend, based on ground-based lidar measurements, has been tentatively attributed to an increase of SO(2) entering the stratosphere associated with coal burning in Southeast Asia. However, we demonstrate with these satellite measurements that the observed trend is mainly driven by a series of moderate but increasingly intense volcanic eruptions primarily at tropical latitudes.

(WUWT)

Rising oceans — too late to turn the tide?

Melting ice sheets contributed much more to rising sea levels than thermal expansion of warming ocean waters during the Last Interglacial Period, a UA-led team of researchers has found

Thermal expansion of seawater contributed only slightly to rising sea levels compared to melting ice sheets during the Last Interglacial Period, a University of Arizona-led team of researchers has found.

The study combined paleoclimate records with computer simulations of atmosphere-ocean interactions and the team’s co-authored paper is accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters.

As the world’s climate becomes warmer due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, sea levels are expected to rise by up to three feet by the end of this century.

But the question remains: How much of that will be due to ice sheets melting as opposed to the oceans’ 332 million cubic miles of water increasing in volume as they warm up? (EurekAlert)