Total nonsense in climate debate

[markslawson + 1,042]

22 hours ago, Red said:

It was least likely to be as you say. Swiss Re in 2018 derived net premiums earned and fee income of USD$35 billion and engage the world's best talent to prepare their reports.  They use data for their conclusions, and a key metric is their ROI.  It shows Property & Casualty ROI is trending at less than half that of Life & Health.

Bbbbbwwwwwhahahahahah! Red, where on earth have you been? I was a business/finance writer for more than 30 years. The job of the Swiss Re consultants or whoever compiled the report is not to present a fair picture of risks but to scare customers into taking out insurance or, more likely in this case, signal Swiss Re's virtue on climate to others by demonstrating that the company believes in all that nonsense. You can tell that its not a serious assessment in just a quick read. Its references (footnotes etc) are inadequate to say the least, it presents no overall projections or statistics and leaves out a lot of inconvenient details. Clearly it was compiled by activists. Leave it with you.    

[Red + 252]

32 minutes ago, markslawson said:

Bbbbbwwwwwhahahahahah! Red, where on earth have you been? I was a business/finance writer for more than 30 years. The job of the Swiss Re consultants or whoever compiled the report is not to present a fair picture of risks but to scare customers into taking out insurance or, more likely in this case, signal Swiss Re's virtue on climate to others by demonstrating that the company believes in all that nonsense. You can tell that its not a serious assessment in just a quick read. Its references (footnotes etc) are inadequate to say the least, it presents no overall projections or statistics and leaves out a lot of inconvenient details. Clearly it was compiled by activists. Leave it with you.    

Your claims are nonsense, but you are welcome to your delusions.

Why not read for yourself who prepares the reports and what they are used for.

As I  said at the outset, this thread's basis is nonsense.

 

Edited May 30, 2019 by Red
add link

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

I threw out the Arctic Ice Cap melting and sea level rising just to see how many commenters 'bit'.

Most 'scientists' would have recognized Archimedes Principle.

This discussion has devolved to the point where I am bowing out. You guys/gals continue to have fun with it!

[Red + 252]

21 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I threw out the Arctic Ice Cap melting and sea level rising just to see how many commenters 'bit'.

No such thing exists, so why did you ever raise it for discussion?

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

If you get on the Internet and go to the 'teachingkidsnews.com' site:

"The ice cap is a huge area of sea ice that covers most of the Arctic Ocean all year round."

This has historically been referred to as the 'Arctic Ice Cap'.

So apparently such a thing exists.

But you go ahead and believe whatever you want to.....

[Red + 252]

50 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

If you get on the Internet and go to the 'teachingkidsnews.com' site:

"The ice cap is a huge area of sea ice that covers most of the Arctic Ocean all year round."

This has historically been referred to as the 'Arctic Ice Cap'.

So apparently such a thing exists.

But you go ahead and believe whatever you want to.....

Nobody in science refers to an Arctic ice cap, because its a mass of moving sea ice.  The fact was you made reference to what happens to sea levels if it melts, and the answer is "nothing."

If you are going to make points about climate science, make sure they are sensible.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 hours ago, Douglas Buckland said:

I threw out the Arctic Ice Cap melting and sea level rising just to see how many commenters 'bit'.

OK, I'll bite.

9 minutes ago, Red said:

what happens to sea levels if it melts, and the answer is "nothing."

Not quite.

I would posit to you fellows that the sea level would slightly drop.  

I invite you fellows and the readership lurking here to describe how that might take place.

Everybody play nice, now.  Cheers.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

I see that Tom Kirkman has figured out the logic of a drop in sea levels.   Tip of the hat to you, Tom!

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

37 minutes ago, Red said:

Nobody in science refers to an Arctic ice cap, because its a mass of moving sea ice.  The fact was you made reference to what happens to sea levels if it melts, and the answer is "nothing."

If you are going to make points about climate science, make sure they are sensible.

Technically there wasn't a 'hole' in the ozone, yet people understood what you were referring to when you mentioned it.

The sea ice at the top of the planet is trapped in the Arctic Ocean and has so far failed to escape. Although it may move around a bit, it is still a cap. When you mention the Arctic Ice Cap, most people will understand what you are referring to.

For years 'scientists' referred to 'global warming', until somebody pointed out that the globe, in it's entirety, was not warming up. Some places were getting warmer, some cooler. In an effort to be more accurate and appear more scientific, they then adopted the term 'climate change'. How could anyone argue with that? The climate has been changing for millennia! 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

27 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

I see that Tom Kirkman has figured out the logic of a drop in sea levels.   Tip of the hat to you, Tom!

Just off the top of my head I am guessing that you are referring to relative salinities and temperature regimes....I couldn't find Tom's comment and cheat!😆

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Just off the top of my head I am guessing that you are referring to relative salinities and temperature regimes....I couldn't find Tom's comment and cheat!😆

Well, that is an interesting tangent.  No, my deduction relates to air mass movement.  As you get warming of the air mass, the air can hold moisture and will sublimate water from the solid phase directly to the vapor phase.  The moisture-saturated air masses will move across the surface and eventually strike land, where the mass will be driven upward to higher elevations and the moisture will be extracted in the form of rain.  Some portion of that rain will go down and be recharged groundwater, trapped in the earth surface;  other portions will be diverted by irrigation and freshwater schemes and flow over drought areas to bring moisture to those soils.  Other water will be pumped for human use including drinking and washing and will also end up in groundwater.  The diversion of atmospheric water to rain to river water to irrigation is dramatic; for example, the entire Colorado River literally disappears where it hits Mexico.  See also the Russian water diversions from rivers flowing into the (former) Aral Sea. All that water ends up back in the earth, extracted from the oceans, causing the levels to drop slightly. 

Now the disadvantage is that the warmer and more moist air masses, when extended far enough to the Equator, will likely generate more violent storm systems such as hurricanes and cyclones.  That extent remains unknown. It can be attenuated by new diversion projects, such as sending (warm) freshwaters from the Nile and the Congo Rivers into the sub-Sahara areas to combat desertification.  But that requires political foresight, a commodity in short supply.  Oh, well. 

P.S.  Tom did not write up a comment, he clicked a "like" button. That was his oblique way of telling me he had figured it out but was not going to spoil the fun.  Tom is like that, rather gentlemanly of him, to be sure. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

To understand how powerful the forces of cold winds and sublimation of ice can be, I invite readers to ponder the photograph below of a rock sitting out on the frozen surface of Lake Baikal, in Siberia.  The wind has eroded the lake ice underneath the rock, leaving it suspended magically in air, on a pedestal:

The ice was sublimated away into water vapor, by the moving air.  Amazing stuff.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, Jan van Eck said:

P.S.  Tom did not write up a comment, he clicked a "like" button. That was his oblique way of telling me he had figured it out but was not going to spoil the fun.  Tom is like that, rather gentlemanly of him, to be sure. 

Heh heh, thanks Jan.  My view was a bit different, more along the lines of what Douglas said - nothing would happen. 

But then you got me wondering about your premise of overall sea levels lowering.  My general impression was that if global temperatures increased and water temperatures increased, sea water evaporation would increase and more water would be stored in gas form in the atmosphere rather than as liquid form in the seas.

Then I went hunting around online, and ran across this:

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-that-melting-of-polar-ice-caps-could-depress-sea-levels-in-some-places

Summary: the melting of the Arctic ice cap will not cause a long-term change in sea level, because the ice is floating (and so is already displacing its own mass).

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

5 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Summary: the melting of the Arctic ice cap will not cause a long-term change in sea level, because the ice is floating (and so is already displacing its own mass).

Note however that if the water temperature itself increases, then it will expand, and the expansion of the warming water would, all other factors being absent, result is a sea level rise.  I think that is what is behind the approximately six inches of rise I have noted over the last 60 years. 

But as the water warms it will promote both evaporation and sublimation.  More water will go into the vapor form.  That will condense into rain at some point, and some larger part of that rain is going to be at higher (mountain) elevations.  A chunk of that new fresh water is going to end up soaked into the ground, especially where parched or in drought or semi-desert.  That water is then removed from the oceans, until the next ice age hits  (and we will unfortunately get hit with a mini ice age in another 400 years, if it goes over to a full-blown ice age is anybody's guess).  During an ice age, the sea levels will dramatically drop - easily by 80 feet. 

The argument by the climate-change enthusiasts is that Man is altering the climate (for the worse) by burning fossil fuels.  If you take that as a starting point, then one logical response is that Man can compensate for that burning exercise by diverting rain from re-entering the oceans.  As the rain by definition has a high caloric content - it is removing heat from the oceans as it evaporates - and also by the definition of rain is removing dust particles, you expel (by sequestering underground) the latent heat of evaporation into groundwater - thus lowering surface temperatures.  This is not insignificant; the latent heat of water evaporation is gigantic. If you divert river waters into parched areas where it settles into the ground, you are also sequestering all that latent heat of evaporation.  If those are warm river waters, such as the Congo and the Nile, you end up sequestering quite a bit of heat. There goes your predicted atmospheric temperature rise. 

The greater threat to Man generally is global cooling.  Unfortunately, for complex reasons involving solar cycles and the earth axis tilt, the future of the planet is that it will continue to cool.  That might disrupt with shifts in the underlying magma core, nobody really knows.  But the odds are more that the planet will turn into Ice Planet Hoth than it will go to Planet Mercury. 

[Red + 252]

 

3 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

I would posit to you fellows that the sea level would slightly drop.  

I invite you fellows and the readership lurking here to describe how that might take place.

I read your reasoning, but in relation to Arctic ice melt, it is highly improbable.  You really only tapped into "flux" factors - via the hydrological cycle - which effectively cancel out change.  

Arctic sea ice will melt as the ocean warms, and as the ocean warms, it will expand and thereby raise sea levels.  The melting ice itself cannot change sea levels, but the basis for it melting will.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Red
added link

[Red + 252]

17 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

The greater threat to Man generally is global cooling.  Unfortunately, for complex reasons involving solar cycles and the earth axis tilt, the future of the planet is that it will continue to cool.  

That will not happen for thousands of years, so it's not particularly relevant to the present state of climate.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

2 minutes ago, Red said:

That will not happen for thousands of years, so it's not particularly relevant to the present state of climate.

Unfortunately, the best analysis is that another mini ice age will hit in about 400 years.  The real problem then would be: will that morph over into a full-blown ice age?  Nobody knows.   Either way, not pleasant.  Enjoy the heat while it lasts. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

31 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Note however that if the water temperature itself increases, then it will expand, and the expansion of the warming water would, all other factors being absent, result is a sea level rise.  I think that is what is behind the approximately six inches of rise I have noted over the last 60 years. 

But as the water warms it will promote both evaporation and sublimation.  More water will go into the vapor form.  That will condense into rain at some point, and some larger part of that rain is going to be at higher (mountain) elevations.  A chunk of that new fresh water is going to end up soaked into the ground, especially where parched or in drought or semi-desert.  That water is then removed from the oceans, until the next ice age hits  (and we will unfortunately get hit with a mini ice age in another 400 years, if it goes over to a full-blown ice age is anybody's guess).  During an ice age, the sea levels will dramatically drop - easily by 80 feet. 

The argument by the climate-change enthusiasts is that Man is altering the climate (for the worse) by burning fossil fuels.  If you take that as a starting point, then one logical response is that Man can compensate for that burning exercise by diverting rain from re-entering the oceans.  As the rain by definition has a high caloric content - it is removing heat from the oceans as it evaporates - and also by the definition of rain is removing dust particles, you expel (by sequestering underground) the latent heat of evaporation into groundwater - thus lowering surface temperatures.  This is not insignificant; the latent heat of water evaporation is gigantic. If you divert river waters into parched areas where it settles into the ground, you are also sequestering all that latent heat of evaporation.  If those are warm river waters, such as the Congo and the Nile, you end up sequestering quite a bit of heat. There goes your predicted atmospheric temperature rise. 

The greater threat to Man generally is global cooling.  Unfortunately, for complex reasons involving solar cycles and the earth axis tilt, the future of the planet is that it will continue to cool.  That might disrupt with shifts in the underlying magma core, nobody really knows.  But the odds are more that the planet will turn into Ice Planet Hoth than it will go to Planet Mercury. 

Jan,

Apparently you have given this a great deal of thought!😂

I was just fooling around with Archimedes Principle (buoyancy)!

Enjoyed reading your take on the issue.

Somewhere on my external hard drive I have an extensive study that was undertaken to determine what would be the results on sea level if all terrestrial ice melted. The results were interesting.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

19 minutes ago, Red said:

That will not happen for thousands of years, so it's not particularly relevant to the present state of climate.

How do you come up with this? The last period of glaciation was around the mid 1700's. In the '70's the 'scientists' told us we were approaching another period of global cooling. Now you say it will not happen for thousands of years.

Not saying you're wrong, but do you have any evidence to support your statement?

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

5 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Somewhere on my external hard drive I have an extensive study that was undertaken to determine what would be the results on sea level if all terrestrial ice melted. The results were interesting.

Curious if some 'climate scientists' would deny the results of the study you mentioned, if it didn't agree with their agenda.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 minutes ago, Douglas Buckland said:

Jan,

Apparently you have given this a great deal of thought!😂

I was just fooling around with Archimedes Principle (buoyancy)!

Enjoyed reading your take on the issue.

Somewhere on my external hard drive I have an extensive study that was undertaken to determine what would be the results on sea level if all terrestrial ice melted. The results were interesting.

If every last scrap of surface ice melted and none went into rainwater, then I guess the sea water level would go up by somewhere between 80 and 300 feet.  It would be a massive relocation of the planet.  So we all have a vested interest in avoiding that development.  And that is another reason I advocate the rapid development and construction of Thorium nuclear plants.  Doing what we are doing now is just not going to work for us.  The energy demands are far too high to ever be met with solar panels and those windmills, that is folly. 

I also conclude that the rapid desertification that is happening, unfortunately in very poor areas such as the Sahel south of the Sahara, is going to be disastrous.  Building a diversion channel from the Congo River to run downhill into the Sahel would be the best bang for the buck.  I just don't see the UN or anybody else getting behind this, unfortunately. 

You can sequester a lot of fresh water into the desert that would otherwise flow into the sea (and cause sea level rise) just by digging some gravity channels.  Amazing there is no impetus for this. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, Tom Kirkman said:

Curious if some 'climate scientists' would deny the results of the study you mentioned, if it didn't agree with their agenda.

Of course they would.  

That debate has moved from science to religion.  You, Tom, are a true heretic, and will be burned at the stake for it.  Look at it this way:  you are in good company.  Lots of fine fellows got nailed to the cross, over the centuries.  Oh, well. 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

It's a very detailed study and runs about 200 pages, if I remember correctly.

Also, if my memory is not failing me the final result was that the rise in sea level would be around 66". But that this would take hundreds of years to occur....if it could physically happen at all! 

Needless to say there were many assumptions made due to the multitude of variables.

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

At the end of the day, all environmental, energy, hunger, pollution, etc...issues can be attributed to the population explosion since roughly the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

The global population in 1800 was approximately 1 billion. This year, 219 year later, it is estimated to exceed 7.7 billion.

Our natural resources have not kept pace (pun intended).

Each new person on the planet requires a certain amount of food, fresh water and energy to survive. They also contribute a certain amount of trash and pollution.

Keep in mind that it took recorded history up to 1800 to hit 1 billion, we have added an addition 6.7 billion in just over 200 years!

How do you handle this? I don't have a clue, but as with any problem, if you fail to identify or ignore, the root cause you can't begin to address the issue.

[Red + 252]

37 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Unfortunately, the best analysis is that another mini ice age will hit in about 400 years.  The real problem then would be: will that morph over into a full-blown ice age?  Nobody knows. 

Perhaps link to that "analysis."  The last I read on this was that without present increased forcing effects, we are about 14,000 years away.