Final-Fan said:
TheRealMafoo said:
Final-Fan said:
elprincipe said:
Final-Fan said:
^ That's interesting stuff. The Arctic ice is shrinking while the Antarctic ice is increasing (and seems to be much more volatile).
As for hurricanes, I thought the problem was that they were fewer in number, but they ones that we got were more damaging. It's better to have lots of weak ones than several monsters, right? |
The ice is fascinating to watch. It should tell you that you're not getting the full picture if you consider that, as all the media was hyping the "lowest-ever" ice extent for the Arctic in 2007 (remember, this has only been measured accurately since 1979), you saw no articles even mention that the Antarctic ice extent was the highest ever recorded that very same year. The Arctic ice last year increased 9% and the Antarctic ice decreased slightly from its record high. But again, we have been measuring these things for such a short period of time it's extemely difficult to draw meaningful conclusions. Thirty years is nothing at all on a geologic time scale, not even a blink.
I'm not as familiar with hurricanes other than the raw numbers. There has been more damage in recent years from them, but remember that more people are living on the coasts now so there is more and more to destroy. Hurricanes are highly variable in terms of numbers and intensity, so it's also something where it's very difficult to derive a pattern. I've heard that ocean current patterns cause a 20- or 30-year cycle for hurricanes. Also heard that global warming would increase their intensity. However, 3,000 buoys launched in 2003 have shown a decrease in ocean heat content, so I'm having a hard time seeing how this fits into that theory:
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It would depend on where the buoys were, I should think. 3,000 sounds like a lot, but for the whole damn world ocean? Not so much, as Jon would say. Also it would depend on where the heat is (hurricanes aren't globally random).
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So let me see if I got this right. 3000 buoys were released into the ocean and show a cooling, but you disagree with those finding why?
If I had to guess, it's because you don't like that answer.
If those 3000 buoys showed the oceans were warming, you would call it indispensable evidence. Funny how that works.
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I'm disappointed, Mafoo. He practically asked me for a reason to question those findings, which I produced. Then you ask me why I would question it right after I said why. You're not even trying. Have a bad day?
If they said it was warming, I would still wonder how representative the buoy spread was. Like I said, 3000 sounds like a lot until you remember how incredibly huge the oceans are.
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Just talking out my ass here, so feel free to disregard this, but...
Your point about the buoys vs. the size of the ocean is well-taken. Doesn't the complaint against many of these global warming doomsday projections often come down to much the same thing? Meaning that, we collect data, but the data we collect is generally coming from some handful of reporting stations... or has only been collected over some limited number of years... and then we extrapolate that data out and try to decide what the world entire is going to look like fifty, a hundred years from now? (Seems somewhat antithetical to the big points Ian Malcolm tried to make in Jurassic Park...)
That said, I don't think we should discount the data collected from any buoy, let alone 3,000... nor should we give it undue weight and decide that it overturns the seeming consensus on global warming. But if our current theory holds that the ocean is warming, but our data comes back indicating that the ocean is actually cooling... well, if I were a scientist, I'd not feel comfortable till I'd cleared that up somehow.
