I love how as soon as anyone addresses the substantive issue, such as in this case looks at the evidence behind thermal expansion as a factor in sea level rise that means it doesn't all have to come from melting glaciers and ice-sheets...

someone (guess who?) posts about Obama. And inaccurately so, in this case. The quote is about fixing the problems, not them magically going away.

Ray Jay wrote:

For thermal expansion alone, IPCC has estimated a rise by between 60 and 200 cm over the next thousand years if global warming is stabilised between 2 and 4 ºC above present temperatures. However, the bulk of long-term sea level rise may be expected to come from ice melt.

So, he's saying between 2 feet and 7 feet from thermal expansion and even more than that from land ice melt (sea ice melt has a negligible effect). That sounds scary to me ...

it is over 1000 years, rather than 100 years. This is because it takes a very long time to warm up the lower reaches of the oceans. Which is why I ignored them and only looked at the upper 10%.

danivon wrote::banghead:

I love how as soon as anyone addresses the substantive issue, such as in this case looks at the evidence behind thermal expansion as a factor in sea level rise that means it doesn't all have to come from melting glaciers and ice-sheets...

someone (guess who?) posts about Obama. And inaccurately so, in this case. The quote is about fixing the problems, not them magically going away.

No, pretty sure he solved the problem. I heard and believed--O mighty Obama!

It's only a substantive issue if you think it is genuine and can be stopped. I'm not convinced on the former, but on the latter I am. In other words, you all can argue "evidence" all you want. All I know is that every single model for "climate change" has failed. We're not seeing the changes they have said we would. Further, if it is happening, by the time we act on it, it will be too late. The BRICs are not going to join in.

Besides, Ezra Klein recently wrote it's too late. Isn't he like an apostle or something?

That's such a great emoticon, I didn't even know it was in our list of possible choices. But keep at it Dan! If you stare at it long enough, you'll start to see cracks in that wall!

geojanes wrote::banghead:

That's such a great emoticon, I didn't even know it was in our list of possible choices. But keep at it Dan! If you stare at it long enough, you'll start to see cracks in that wall!

yeah, the 'View more smilies' link is brown on red under the standard emoticons, when you get past all the flags to page 4 there are some cool ones.

Doctor Fate wrote:It's only a substantive issue if you think it is genuine and can be stopped. I'm not convinced on the former, but on the latter I am.

I was referring to the issue YOU posted about, which was the maths, and is relevant to the former, and the question of whether is it genuine (and whether you are capable of being convinced).

Since I posted my response then RJ and others have discussed it. I asked you a direct question. I did some more maths. You ignored it in favour of a shot at something Obama said 6 years ago.

In other words, you all can argue "evidence" all you want. All I know is that every single model for "climate change" has failed.

I'd like to see evidence for that assertion. Every single model has failed? You do realise that is disproved by finding a single solitary model that has not, right?

We're not seeing the changes they have said we would. Further, if it is happening, by the time we act on it, it will be too late. The BRICs are not going to join in.

They already are. China is if anything leading the way - Russia cut their CO2 emissions by more than pretty much everyone in the past 25 years.

Besides, Ezra Klein recently wrote it's too late. Isn't he like an apostle or something?

Maybe for those who view all life in a religious prism. To me what matters is the science and the practice. For you what matters is the politics and smearing your opponents. Meh.

danivon wrote:Since I posted my response then RJ and others have discussed it. I asked you a direct question. I did some more maths. You ignored it in favour of a shot at something Obama said 6 years ago.

Let's not be so glib. He didn't just "say" it. He said it in a speech. And, it was not just any old speech.

In other words, you all can argue "evidence" all you want. All I know is that every single model for "climate change" has failed.

I'd like to see evidence for that assertion. Every single model has failed? You do realise that is disproved by finding a single solitary model that has not, right?

Go ahead.

I'll simply note that doesn't apply to you. In other words, any number of climatologists could believe the Apocalypse is not coming, that won't change your mind.

China is if anything leading the way - Russia cut their CO2 emissions by more than pretty much everyone in the past 25 years.

http://www.rtcc.org/2014/06/09/chinese- ... emissions/

And another:

Chinese emissions have surged in recent years, increasing far faster than those of any other country in history. Only eight years ago, in 2005, Chinese emissions were lower than those of the United States; some time between 2013 and 2015 they are expected to be twice as large as U.S. emissions. Think about it: Another United States-worth of emissions added in a decade’s time, a troubling trend and little evidence of its slowing down. . . Russia stands out as something of an outlier, having reduced its emissions nearly 30 percent from 1990 levels. This decrease is largely a result of de-industrialization caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the ensuing economic collapse.

Maybe for those who view all life in a religious prism. To me what matters is the science and the practice. For you what matters is the politics and smearing your opponents. Meh.

Yes, I "smeared" Obama. How dare I quote him!!!

It's not science if it cannot be questioned and examined. In the history of science, there has never been anything as "sacrosanct" as this. You'd challenge the laws of gravity before the "settled science" of AGW.

Doctor Fate wrote:

In other words, you all can argue "evidence" all you want. All I know is that every single model for "climate change" has failed.

I'd like to see evidence for that assertion. Every single model has failed? You do realise that is disproved by finding a single solitary model that has not, right?

Go ahead.

Ok. But before I start, please define a failure of a model. I don't want us to get down in semantics when I find examples.

For example, if I found a model that predicted sea levels from 1990 onwards, that when compared with observation put the results right at the edge of the range of certainty, but still within it, would that be a failure?

It's not science if it cannot be questioned and examined.

I just this evening posted a long bit of science. You can question it, examine it, and attempt to prove it wrong.

Or you can bring up something completely different.

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:

In other words, you all can argue "evidence" all you want. All I know is that every single model for "climate change" has failed.

I'd like to see evidence for that assertion. Every single model has failed? You do realise that is disproved by finding a single solitary model that has not, right?

Go ahead.

Ok. But before I start, please define a failure of a model. I don't want us to get down in semantics when I find examples.

For example, if I found a model that predicted sea levels from 1990 onwards, that when compared with observation put the results right at the edge of the range of certainty, but still within it, would that be a failure?

It's not science if it cannot be questioned and examined.

I just this evening posted a long bit of science. You can question it, examine it, and attempt to prove it wrong.

Or you can bring up something completely different.

Do what you will. You might as well engage me on the existence of God--that's how fundamental your belief system is to you.

Doctor Fate wrote:Do what you will. You might as well engage me on the existence of God--that's how fundamental your belief system is to you.

I think perhaps you are projecting somewhat. I don't "believe" in climate change, I accept at a rational level the argument and the theory, I am fine to discuss the evidence and the data if you are prepared to (clearly not, given your dismissive response to my invitation to engage on the physics and maths of thermal expansion, or what constitutes a failing model, or any other actual challenges you can raise on the theory, the data or the interpretation).

I am interested that you bring up your belief in God, though. Should anyone else bring religion (and your religion at that) into an unrelated topic, you would - going by previous observation - take umbrage.

But I am not offended, because I don't have a 'belief' for you to offend. I am merely amused at your evasive tactics when someone actually tries to pick up the evidence.

Anyway, you made a claim. An assertion. You may not care, but I will now prove it to be false.

Doctor Fate wrote:All I know is that every single model for "climate change" has failed.

Here is the first example.

Follow the link - http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate ... ediate.htm - and scroll down to figure 4. You will see a graph. It is of sea level variation (on y axis) over time (x axis). The grey area is the range prediction that the model produced (because, just like polls, there is an acknowledged range of certainty). The red line is the level measured using tide gauges. the blue line is the level measured by satellite. The model was produced in 1990 for the IPCC.

So the model did predict increased sea level. And the observed reality was that they increased at about the upper limit of that prediction. You may call that a 'failure' but if it is, it is a marginal one of underestimating the impact.

And here is a second example.

Another link - http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... s-accurate . The first graph shows a prediction of temperatures plotted against the decadal average temperatures as recorded.

The dashed black line is the model's average prediction (the grey area is the range of certainty). The black line is a smoothed 'worse case' prediction. The red line is the actual observed value. It pretty much tracks the average line, going slightly above it. The model looks pretty well vinidcated to me.

And a third is here www.theguardian.com/environment/climate ... s-accurate

Again the first graph. There's a lot there, but basically there are a lot of models shown, those with predictions at various times. And the actual temperatures are shown, as measured in two different independent datasets.

While some models are out, others are very close. And the actual results fall within the range of certainty for those. So while you can say that there are models that did 'fail', there are clearly some that did match with what happened.

Three ways we can see a model that 'succeeded'. Your assertion is false. Do you want to caveat it at all?

danivon wrote:

Doctor Fate wrote:Btw, here's a fun one:

Let’s start with the often repeated claim that we can project a sea level rise of at least 3 feet by the end of the century — 86 years from now. It is easy to calculate the volume of ice that would have to melt to produce that increased level and then compare it to the allegedly observed melt to determine how plausible the alarmism is.

To say that sea level will rise by 3 feet is to say that the nominal radius of the Earth would increase. But because of the “piling up” of water against the 30% of the Earth’s surface that is land, the average increase in radius (if there were no land against which the sea water would “pile up”) would be less than 3 feet, to a first approximation 3 * .7 = 2.1 feet. How much volume would the sphere of the Earth increase if its radius increased by 2.1 feet from ice melt? The volume of a sphere is 4/3*pi*radius(3). If we take the pre-melt radius as 4000 miles and the post melt radius as 4000 miles plus 2.1 feet, the volume increase is approximately 80,000 cubic miles. All of this, by assumption, is in the 70% of the Earth’s surface which is water to effect a three foot rise in the sea level.

So over a period of 86 years remaining until the end of the century, 80,000 cubic miles of water from ice melt would be required for a three foot rise in sea level, or about 930 cubic miles per year. Is this a lot? Or a little? Well, compared to the amounts of ice melt actually being observed from Antarctica and Greenland — and now being hyped by alarmists — it is huge.

Today’s report in the New York Times, “The Big Melt Accelerates,” [Ed.: This is the story that Steve commented on earlier today.] is revealing — if you do the math, which, of course, they don’t. The Times report claims that 310 billion tons of water melted into the oceans from Antarctic and Greenland glaciers and another 260 billion tons, amazingly, from the 1% of the Earth’s land-based ice that is in mountain glaciers. Is the total of 570 billion tons of water from ice melt a little or a lot?

Since they are measuring metric tons, that amounts to 1.25 x 10(15) pounds of water, which at 8.35 pounds per gallon is 1.5 x 10(14) gallons which, in turn, at 7.5 gallons per cubic foot is 2 x 10(13) cubic feet. At 5,280(3) cubic feet to a cubic mile we have 136 cubic miles of water or about 148 cubic miles of ice when adjusted for the expansion of water as it freezes. That’s about 12 miles square of glacier assuming on average the glaciation is 1 mile thick.

This compares to the required 930 cubic miles of water per year for 86 years to get to a sea level rise of 3 feet at the end of the century — a factor of almost 7 times what is said to be observed. Stated differently, at the new alarmingly increased level of ice melt it would take about 600 years for the purported 3 foot rise in sea level to obtain; the implied rise is 6 one-hundreds of an inch per year, or about 5.25 inches by the year 2100.

When I first saw this, something nagged at me and I could not figure out what it was. After all, these are clever guys using MATHEMATICS. And figures never lie.

But today I was reading an article about El Nino (and the high chance of this year being an El Nino year) when it struck me what was completely missing from their sums:

Density.

The density of water is not a constant. It varies due to different factors. But two major factors for th desity of seawater are the temperature and the salinity. The warmer that liquid water is, the less dense it gets. This means that the same mass of water takes up a greater volume if it is warmer. For seawater, the densest liquid water is below freezing (whereas for pure or fresh water it is 4 Celcius).

Similarly, the more salty that water is, the denser it gets. So lower salinity again leads to the same mass of water taking up a greater volume.

Liquid densities vary more than those of solids (and less than those of gases).

Temperature has a greater effect than salinity, but if you do have the effect of less salty (because melting ice is very pure) and warmer (due to higher surface temperatures and increasedabsorption of CO2) sea water, then this will tend to increase water volumes by more than the simple assumptions used above.

Also, density varies across the seas, again largely due to temperature and salinity, and so a simple extrapolation will not account for regional effects that could be smaller or greater than the average.

I am sure that this basic PHYSICS was omitted by the learned gentleman that have been quoted purely by accident, as surely they are aware of density and what causes it to vary, and I cannot think of any plausible reason why committed climate skeptics would deliberately omit a factor that undermines their case.

There is another factor that they missed - more water in the sea means more weight. This will push down the sea bed, but as this often rests on the same tectonic plates as the land at coastal areas, that will also (to varying degrees) lead to the land being depressed (and so the sea level rising relative to it. Yes, that also means that the Greenland and Antarctic masses would see the reverse as ice melts and moves off.

So, there's still something that confuses me about this density argument. The article and website that Dr. Fate quoted said that the math is off by 7X. That the land ice including glacier melt does not have sufficient volume to increase the ocean rise to the extent feared. In fact, his math suggests only 5 inches by 2100 based on land ice melt because of the volume of water and that oceans represent 70% of the earth's surface.

Freeman than provided a scholarly report that supports the two factors: ice melt and density change as both important. I quoted from the report that says that ice melt is the more important factor:

For thermal expansion alone, IPCC has estimated a rise by between 60 and 200 cm over the next thousand years if global warming is stabilised between 2 and 4 ºC above present temperatures. However, the bulk of long-term sea level rise may be expected to come from ice melt.

Basically it says if we stabilize temperature ( a big if since it means that we don't increase carbon levels beyond what the planet can handle) there will be an increase of between 18 inches and 7 feet because of density over 1,000 years, but that ice melt will be the more important factor.

However, we still haven't disputed that ice melt only causes 1/7th of the sea level rise at current rates. And we've learned that the density factor is significantly less important so will cover less than 1/7th. Where is the rest of the increase coming from? Or is that just a function of more extreme weather and varying ocean levels across the planet? Next I'll Google how much land ice there really is.

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environ ... world.html

worth checking out ... he is an extreme skeptic ... he does provide very good info on the volume of sea ice.

Ray Jay wrote:So, there's still something that confuses me about this density argument. The article and website that Dr. Fate quoted said that the math is off by 7X. That the land ice including glacier melt does not have sufficient volume to increase the ocean rise to the extent feared. In fact, his math suggests only 5 inches by 2100 based on land ice melt because of the volume of water and that oceans represent 70% of the earth's surface.

Freeman than provided a scholarly report that supports the two factors: ice melt and density change as both important. I quoted from the report that says that ice melt is the more important factor:

For thermal expansion alone, IPCC has estimated a rise by between 60 and 200 cm over the next thousand years if global warming is stabilised between 2 and 4 ºC above present temperatures. However, the bulk of long-term sea level rise may be expected to come from ice melt.

Basically it says if we stabilize temperature ( a big if since it means that we don't increase carbon levels beyond what the planet can handle) there will be an increase of between 18 inches and 7 feet because of density over 1,000 years, but that ice melt will be the more important factor.

However, we still haven't disputed that ice melt only causes 1/7th of the sea level rise at current rates. And we've learned that the density factor is significantly less important so will cover less than 1/7th. Where is the rest of the increase coming from? Or is that just a function of more extreme weather and varying ocean levels across the planet? Next I'll Google how much land ice there really is.

The difference is largely because of a conflation between what is happening now, and what is predicted for the future. DF's link & quote was based on a mathematican exercise trying to look at the current rate of ice loss and compare that to the total volume of expansion required to get the sea level rise.

My point was that for a start they had not considered factors other than ice loss. That was where the density comes in.

There are again two things going on. Firstly that we can observe the current temperature increase of the ocean, the current rate of ice loss, and any other factors, and observe a current rate of sea level increase, and note that about 30% comes from thermal expansion, 55% from ice that was on land and 15% from other factors.

And both my mathematics and the projections that freeman cites are looking at the long term. I was just looking at a simple proposition, and I did not indicate how long it would take because I don't know. Freeman's citation was looking at the effects of a long term stable increase in temperature, which would not only warm up the ocean, but would also hit ice loss.

I think what you are asking is if we can take the math that DF's link did, and assume that is the 55% and any thermal expansion is 30%. I don't think we can, because...

The other major failing in the math that DF found for us is that the rate of ice loss is not constant, as it was assumed. It has doubled in the last few years, apparently. So while it is true that at the current rate of ice loss, you get about 15% of the volume required for a 3 foot rise over 86 years, that cannot necessarily be extrapolated as a constant rate. If you extrapolate that as a linear rate of change, one of about 34 cubic miles more each year, and do that for 86 year from now starting at 136 cubic miles now, it will come to about 75,000 cubic miles (so about 93% of the target). If the rate is exponential (doubling every x years), then it could be much more.

If temperatures rise, the ocean will see thermal expansion. If temperatures rise, then it means that ice is more likely to melt (unless somehow the increase does not affect the main locations of land-bound ice - and if that does happen, it could be that the sea level is more impacted by thermal expansion than by ice loss). This does not need to include aspects like severe weather - a storm is not going to make much difference really, even lots of them, unless it results in quick erosion or subsidence).

Ray Jay wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/environment/waterworld.html

worth checking out ... he is an extreme skeptic ... he does provide very good info on the volume of sea ice.

Indeed he does. Sea Ice is a very small proportion of the total ice on Earth. And if the sea ice melts it will have no effect on sea levels really because it is already 'in' the oceans (as Archimedes proved). It may effect how currents work, and loca / regional temperatures (and so what density, and so what the sea level is), but the average across the globe averaged out would be negligible.

But given that 97.2% of the ice is on the land, and any of that which melts and runs into the sea would affect the overall sea level, that is the more important bit to look at.

The 80,000 cubic miles that DF's mathematics quote comes up with for a 3 foot increase, or 330,000 cubic kilometers, is about 1.1% of the land-bound ice.

Here is an model of sea level increased based on different levels of greenhouse gases levels. http://ssi.ucsd.edu/scc/images/Jevrejev ... .pdf#page7

I think if we are to take that mathematician's results seriously he should take a look at the models for sea- level rise in peer-reviewed articles and be able to point out what is wrong with them. If he can't address the question in a scientific way--by pointing out where scientists have got it wrong rather than trying to prove that observed ice melt would not be enough at a constant rate for a 3 feet rise--why should we pay attention? Are we going to deal with this issue in a scientific manner or are we going to trust that these mathematical calculations have validity when we don't know what data it might be missing or false assumptions it might be making?