Originally Posted by The Rani

Mike, you have completely ignored the new information that Semo discovered, which I'll repeat here:

There's nothing new here that is relevant to the issue of whether volcanic phenomenon could play a significant role in melting ice caps.

Geothermal energy production is small compared to climatic forcings. No matter what sort of vents or volcanoes or whatnot you find you cannot change this fact.

The only way to have an effect would be to store up the small continuous geothermal energy production over a very long time, and then release it all at once, which is what a volcano does. And the amount of energy released would have to be enough to melt a lot of ice, otherwise it's not relevant. Such a big release of energy would be easily detectable, it might rip apart the ice cap, releasing a huge bunch or icebergs, certainly it would shake up northern settlements. Could be some casuaties, maybe a lot. It would be newsworthy disaster, like a comet hitting the earth.

Nothing like that has happened. Geothermal phenomena simply are not relevant to the question of what is melting ice not matter how much you want it to be otherwise. It is what it is.

The very reason why this isn't discussed in the climate literature is because everybody knows the relative scales of climate forcings (big) and geothermal energy (small).

You have to realize that when you first brought this up, I didn't know anymore about this than you do. So I looked into the idea that geothermal energy could be playing a role in melting the ice. It just doesn't work. I don't know any way else to say it. It seems perfectly rational, it simply is too small to matter.

Have you found any scientific paper making the case that geothermal energy and not climate forcings is responsible for a significant amount of the missing ice cap? Is anyone who actually knows this stuff making your claim? I don't think you will going find any serious statements about this. I did a quick search and didn't find any, just stuff like this: volcanoes generate heat, heat melts ice, funny how the scientists don't even consider this, they must be biased.

You simply dismiss my results out of hand, with no knowledge of your own with which make such an assessment. You've done nothing with the idea, brough no new relevant information. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and you have provided none.

You can choose to believe what you want. Lots of people think the world is 10,000 years old. Doesn't make it so.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

No it won't.

That's a possibility, which is why I used the word "might". However, I'm not ruling it out.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

You suggested that volcanic issues could play a role in the summer melts of the ice. Outside of a single HUGE volcano, they cannot, so you are wrong.

When a volcano erupts on land, the ash that it expels becomes what I think that you mean by the term "climate driver" by blocking the sun's rays and cooling the earth. Given the right circumstances, the ash from sustained long-term fires can do the same thing.

I'm not even suggesting that submarine volcanos are "climate drivers" (unless by climate you mean the Arctic Ocean itself, the part that's underneath the ice), I'm suggesting that the unprecedented volcanic activity at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean may have had some effect on ice melts which have exceeded even the margin of error of even the most pessismistic global warming models.

Either those models are spectacularly wrong with respect to the melting of the arctic ice, or there are factors which those models don't take into account, or some combination of the two.

Your extremely simplistic model doesn't take into account the fact that the arctic sea ice is part of a complex system. You assert that the ice melt is simply a function of greenhouse forcings applied to the surface area of the ice, but it's far more complicated than that. And complicated systems can be thrown out of whack by cataclysmic events, such as unprecedentedly massive volcanic activity. Your simplistic model also doesn't take into account that volcanic activity is complex as well, and that the effects volcanos have aren't confined to a single big *boom*.

There are a number of factors that go into determining how much ice will melt in a given year -- particularly stormy and wet weather in the arctic; the strength, temperature, and direction of currents within the arctic and key inflows from without; the chemical composition of inflowing water, the amount of vulnerable first-year ice formed the previous winter, and so on. Even the amount of ice that actually melts is a factor in determining how much will ultimately melt.

When you say that I don't know the science, you were absolutely right. In fact, in one of my first posts on the subject, I admitted this right up front. And yeah, I do still have an opinion, because I know just enough about the science to know what the implications of what I don't know might be.

I don't know what impact that over half a year of sustained and unprecedented volcanic eruptions in the enclosed deep-water basin of the Arctic Ocean might have on arctic currents. I don't know what impact the thermal energy released by such an unprecedented and massive event (thermal energy generated by uniquely explosive eruptions, heated gas, sustained voluminous discharge of magma from the earth's mantle, venting from a ridge which is uniquely volcanically active, etc.) might have on warm water inflows. I don't know if event caused subtle, but significant, changes in the chemical composition of the water which could have inhibited the creation of ice during the winter or accelerated the rate of ice melts during the summer. I don't know if chemical changes might have decreased the reflectivity of a significant quantity of newly formed ice at the bottom of the pack, which may have been revealed during subsequent summer melts.

And I'm just scratching the surface.

None of this has been studied. Some of these speculations may very well be complete crap. However, very little about the uniquely volcanic Gakkel Ridge is known at all, and investigations have only just begun. That's why I'm not ruling out the possibility that it might be a factor in the dramatic ice melts we've seen in recent years.

Beyond that, you've accused me of crimes against science for holding an opinion that differs from yours. I know enough about the science there to realize that I've touched a nerve, and it's best to just agree to disagree.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

When a volcano erupts on land, the ash that it expels becomes what I think that you mean by the term "climate driver" by blocking the sun's rays and cooling the earth. Given the right circumstances, the ash from sustained long-term fires can do the same thing.

This happened somewhere in, I believe, the Phillipines in late 1991, and as a result the summer of 1992 was one of the coolest on record, at least here in the midwest, and it was blamed on the volcanic ash blocking out much of the sun's rays.

Chris:

What is your opinion on whether or not human activity is causing, or at least contributing to, the pattern of climate change that has been observed by scientists over the last several decades?

Hey, speaking of Justin '77, he hasn't posted here at all since January. Anyone heard from him?

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Hey, speaking of Justin '77, he hasn't posted here at all since January. Anyone heard from him?

My guess is that his youngest boy is mobile now.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

My guess is that his youngest boy is mobile now.

Yeah, that's a scary thought. I suppose the Russian business must be taking up quite a bit of his time.

If you're lurking, Justin, say hi!!

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Chris:

What is your opinion on whether or not human activity is causing, or at least contributing to, the pattern of climate change that has been observed by scientists over the last several decades?

I think that it's a major factor. Global warming exists. Whether or not human activity is the main driver, it certainly isn't helping to emit massive quantities of CO2.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

I think that it's a major factor. Global warming exists. Whether or not human activity is the main driver, it certainly isn't helping to emit massive quantities of CO2.

Do you believe that there is anything feasible that humans can do to mitigate the effects of global warming, or even, in the long run, to reverse it?

If so, should we rely on voluntary efforts alone, or should the government get involved?

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Do you believe that there is anything feasible that humans can do to mitigate the effects of global warming, or even, in the long run, to reverse it?

If so, should we rely on voluntary efforts alone, or should the government get involved?

We might invoke a policy not unlike the Black Death and thus hinder the actions of some portion of the Children of Men to further heat the heavens and the earth and the seas.

This could be a voluntary large scale self-murder program or a State Sponsored Penultimate Solution as has been demonstrated in the previous century. I think either or both would be folly, but they are an option open to Progress. Where there is a will, there's a way.

Your welcome./If offended, peccavi.


_____

And I think that we might entertain a Manhattan-style Project to victual those undersea volcanoes with virgins as an insurance against problems from that quarter. I think our engineers and scientists who explore the outer planets could work out a delivery system if well funded or an X-like prize could help with some more original thinking on this.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

We might invoke a policy not unlike the Black Death and thus hinder the actions of some portion of the Children of Men to further heat the heavens and the earth and the seas.

This could be a voluntary large scale self-murder program or a State Sponsored Penultimate Solution as has been demonstrated in the previous century. I think either or both would be folly, but they are an option open to Progress. Where there is a will, there's a way.

Your welcome./If offended, peccavi.

Not an option. Not offended. I know your M.O.

"NEXT!!!"

Originally Posted by Semo '75

When a volcano erupts on land, the ash that it expels becomes what I think that you mean by the term "climate driver" by blocking the sun's rays and cooling the earth. Given the right circumstances, the ash from sustained long-term fires can do the same thing.

In this discussion it has been thermal effects thay are being considered. Volcanic impacts on the atmopsheric are known, but poorly understood.

I'm not even suggesting that submarine volcanos are "climate drivers" (unless by climate you mean the Arctic Ocean itself, the part that's underneath the ice), I'm suggesting that the unprecedented volcanic activity at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean may have had some effect on ice melts which have exceeded even the margin of error of even the most pessismistic global warming models.

Either those models are spectacularly wrong with respect to the melting of the arctic ice, or there are factors which those models don't take into account, or some combination of the two.

Yes you are. Melting ice is an indication of a warming polar region. Any thing that affects this melting is affecting the warming of the polar region and so is necessarily a climate driver.

The models for the ice metling are dynamic models and so poorly understood. Just because the ice is melting faster that the models predict doesn't mean vulcanism has anything to do with it. For vulcanism to play a role is has to exert a an effect of signficant size. The thermal impact of volcanism is too small to do this.

Your extremely simplistic model doesn't take into account the fact that the arctic sea ice is part of a complex system. You assert that the ice melt is simply a function of greenhouse forcings applied to the surface area of the ice, but it's far more complicated than that.

The climate forcings are what power the process. It places an upper limit on the rate at which the ice could melt. Fully applied all the ice would already be gone. The dymanic models attempt to describe how it is actually being applied.

All I did was fully apply the thermal energy from volcanos and show that at 100% strength it cannot do much. The effect is too small.

And complicated systems can be thrown out of whack by cataclysmic events, such as unprecedentedly massive volcanic activity. Your simplistic model also doesn't take into account that volcanic activity is complex as well, and that the effects volcanos have aren't confined to a single big *boom*.

Who's saying anything has been thrown out of whack? If the models aren't working it's probably because they don't have good enough data for parameter estimation.

To leap into the fray with an idea that volcanoes are changing something is grabbing at straws.

There are a number of factors that go into determining how much ice will melt in a given year -- particularly stormy and wet weather in the arctic; the strength, temperature, and direction of currents within the arctic and key inflows from without; the chemical composition of inflowing water, the amount of vulnerable first-year ice formed the previous winter, and so on. Even the amount of ice that actually melts is a factor in determining how much will ultimately melt.

The cap is getting smaller. The Earth is getting warming. The polar regions are warming faster than the equatorial regions. Knowing exactly how much ice will melt in any given year is relevant to constructing good models, but it is irrelevant to the larger issue of global warming.

You are tossing in a red herring to distract from the central issue.

When you say that I don't know the science, you were absolutely right. In fact, in one of my first posts on the subject, I admitted this right up front.

Then why even mention volcanoes at all? You could mention air travel, it has increased over the last 30 years and quite possibly exerts a larger effect than undersea volcanos.

And yeah, I do still have an opinion, because I know just enough about the science to know what the implications of what I don't know might be.

I don't understand this.

I don't know what impact that over half a year of sustained and unprecedented volcanic eruptions in the enclosed deep-water basin of the Arctic Ocean might have on arctic currents.

And you don't know the effect of air travel either, or a hundred other things. Why the focus on the volcanic eruption?

I don't know what impact the thermal energy released by such an unprecedented and massive event (thermal energy generated by uniquely explosive eruptions, heated gas, sustained voluminous discharge of magma from the earth's mantle, venting from a ridge which is uniquely volcanically active, etc.) might have on warm water inflows. I don't know if event caused subtle, but significant, changes in the chemical composition of the water which could have inhibited the creation of ice during the winter or accelerated the rate of ice melts during the summer. I don't know if chemical changes might have decreased the reflectivity of a significant quantity of newly formed ice at the bottom of the pack, which may have been revealed during subsequent summer melts.

Exactly. And if these things are important, then you would see non-aerosol effects of volcanic phenomena treated in climate science. You don't because the non aerosol effects are tiny. On the other hand, you do see air traffic taken into consideration as that is actually large enough that it might exert an effect.

And I'm just scratching the surface.

And throwing in red herrings.

None of this has been studied. Some of these speculations may very well be complete crap. However, very little about the uniquely volcanic Gakkel Ridge is known at all, and investigations have only just begun. That's why I'm not ruling out the possibility that it might be a factor in the dramatic ice melts we've seen in recent years.

Millions of physical phenomenon have not been studied. Everything is linked it everything else. Thus we can't say anyhing about anything. This is the extreme skeptic position. It's like the guy in Australia that says we merely assume that summer is warmer than winter, we cannot know that this is actually so.

It's a recipe for inaction.

Beyond that, you've accused me of crimes against science for holding an opinion that differs from yours.

What in the hell are "crimes against science"? Creationists hold opinion that differe from mine. It's there right and yours to do the same.

I know enough about the science there to realize that I've touched a nerve, and it's best to just agree to disagree.

How so? What training have you had. Do you understand what a forcing is? Do you understand how greenhouse warming works, considering that Mars has much more CO2 than Earth yet negligible greenhouse warming? Can you explain why Venus is so hot, why an Earth with Venus's atmospere would be very hot and yet why that cannot happen to the Earth no matter how much CO2 is pumped in the air?

I'm talking about the simplest elements of climate, the big stuff, the stuff that can be described by relatively simple models that only take into account the big stuff. It's the big stuff, not the fine details, that matter for policy.

It's good thing to know that no matter how much greenhouse gas is placed into the the Earth won't become a Venusian hell.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Hey, speaking of Justin '77, he hasn't posted here at all since January. Anyone heard from him?

Check his blog. He's been busy.

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Check his blog. He's been busy.

Found it. You're right. Looks like some interesting reading.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

In this discussion it has been thermal effects thay are being considered. Volcanic impacts on the atmopsheric are known, but poorly understood.

No. I'm sorry. You don't get to determine the terms of the debate, and you don't get to determine what my position actually is. I never said a thing about thermal energy except to point out that the position that you attributed to me (which was that the thermal energy generated by the explosive eruption of a single volcano directly melted a significant quantity of the arctic icepack) wasn't mine. Since then, you've continued to insist that one must either believe in the strawman position you've manufactured or believe that volcanos can have no effect at all on the melting of arctic ice. I've continued to point out that these are not the only two possibilities. You've continued to insist that they are.

That's why I'm quite content to agree to disagree.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

How so? What training have you had. Do you understand what a forcing is? Do you understand how greenhouse warming works, considering that Mars has much more CO2 than Earth yet negligible greenhouse warming? Can you explain why Venus is so hot, why an Earth with Venus's atmospere would be very hot and yet why that cannot happen to the Earth no matter how much CO2 is pumped in the air?

(This was in response to my comment about knowing enough about the science to know that I'd touched a nerve.)

My comment was a joke referring to the tack you'd taken in your argument. Instead of simply insisting that one must believe only one of the two positions you'd offered, you moved on to asserting that disagreement with your position was an arrogant questioning of the dismissal of scientists (also the source of my "crimes against science" comment).

It had nothing to do with forcings or CO2.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Instead of simply insisting that one must believe only one of the two positions you'd offered, you moved on to asserting that disagreement with your position was an arrogant questioning of the dismissal of scientists (also the source of my "crimes against science" comment).

You can believe what you wish. Creationists do. And you beliefs appear to come from the same source.

The goal of the creationist critique is to cast doubt on evolution so that creationism be taught in schools. It's political, nothing scientific about it. And the goal of extreme skeptics is not to understand the truth or to see that better science, but to cast sufficient doubt on the issue so that nothing is done.

You don't have the background to address the science. You apparently are making use of a popular science approach and it gets you in trouble. You have probably heard about the butterfly effect. The idea that the flapping of a butterfly's wings could cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. That's a nice literary example, but it is misleading. The example of chaos I like to use is billiards.

What poor analogies like the butterfly effect do is they create the idea in nonscientist minds that tiny changes in complex processes can lead to huge effects all by themselves. And that is wrong.

A butterfly is not going to generate a hurricane all by itself. It doesn't have the power. Not only that but hurricanes are going to happen even without the butterfly. For example, suppose the butterfly's flutter led to a hurricane, in the same way as for the lack of a horse the kingdom was lost (this is what is meant by the butterfly effect).

But removing the butterfly before it could exert its effect wouldn't stop the hurricane. It would still happen, its just that it would follow from something else, say a dragonfly half a continent away from the butterfly. So the butterfly or the dragonfly or whatever, doesn't really matter.

Who cares if volcanos can exert some sort of "butterfly like" influence? If the volcanoes weren't there it would still happen, something else would have the butterfly influence. You cannot stop hurricanes by catching butterflies. Nor can you invalidate a principle role of greenhouse gases on shrinking polar ice, by pointing to volcanos.

The point of my calculations was not to provide a model of what is going on. What I did was produce order of magnitude estimates of the energies involved to show that the volcanoes are butterflies. That's all.

You wish to focus on the butterflies and that suggests to me that you are simply opposed to the politics and are using something (volcanoes) that appears to be more "realistic" than God to justify the position you prefer.

Now you can claim you are not doing this, but the proof is that you think the volcanos (e.g. butterflies) might be relevant--yet have no rational reason for thinking so.

I brought up the other scientists because they simply dismiss a role for the volcanos you think might be important They must think of them as butterflies. After researching the issue I too see them as butterflies. Now if a a lot of scientists were taking things I thought were butterflies seriously, then I would figure I made a mistake and was wrong. But they don't, which gives me confidence that I have a good sense of the thing.

YOU are proposing that they are not butterflies. So the onus is on you to provide evidence that they are not. It is not science to bring up spurious causes with no justification to throw rhetorical monkey wrenches into theories you don't like.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Nobody is talking about butterflies causing hurricanes, on the other side of the world or anywhere else. This is volcanoes (big old or otherwise) melting ice directly above them. Everyone knows that hot water rises.

No you were talking about hot water (thermal effects). And I showed they were too small to matter.

Semo is talking about a lot more than hot water:

...uniquely explosive eruptions, heated gas, sustained voluminous discharge of magma from the earth's mantle, venting from a ridge which is uniquely volcanically active, etc.) might have on warm water inflows. I don't know if event caused subtle, but significant, changes in the chemical composition of the water which could have inhibited the creation of ice during the winter or accelerated the rate of ice melts during the summer. I don't know if chemical changes might have decreased the reflectivity of a significant quantity of newly formed ice at the bottom of the pack, which may have been revealed during subsequent summer melts.

Lots of butterflies here. I especially like the use of the work uniquely, as if that is relevant to whether or not these phenomenon have anything to do with melting ice.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

You can believe what you wish. Creationists do. And you beliefs appear to come from the same source.

The goal of the creationist critique is to cast doubt on evolution so that creationism be taught in schools. It's political, nothing scientific about it. And the goal of extreme skeptics is not to understand the truth or to see that better science, but to cast sufficient doubt on the issue so that nothing is done.

OK. You're steering this discussion into interesting and new territory. I'll stick with it for a while.

Actually, no. You're steering us into old well-traveled territory, the same place that you take us to every time one of your arguments runs into trouble -- condescension, speculations about sinister political motives, and the like.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

You don't have the background to address the science. You apparently are making use of a popular science approach and it gets you in trouble. You have probably heard about the butterfly effect. The idea that the flapping of a butterfly's wings could cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. That's a nice literary example, but it is misleading. The example of chaos I like to use is billiards.

What poor analogies like the butterfly effect do is they create the idea in nonscientist minds that tiny changes in complex processes can lead to huge effects all by themselves. And that is wrong.

As a great man once said, "Don't condescend me, man!"

OK. I lied, it was actually Brad Pitt. And he was acting.

The point still stands, though. You're being amazingly condescending here.

Actually, the butterfly metaphor is a damned good one, which is why I suspect that Lorenz used it as an explanation for the theory that he advanced, which is that small changes in a dynamical system may produce very large changes in the behavior of a system over time. I get it, and I also understand where Lorenz discovered this principle. I understand its implications. Although I can appreciate your billiards example, I'll stick with the metaphor that Lorenz (the scientist who proposed the theory) chose over the one that you (a nonscientist who, to the best of my knowledge has proposed not a single theory) chose, thank you very much.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

A butterfly is not going to generate a hurricane all by itself. It doesn't have the power. Not only that but hurricanes are going to happen even without the butterfly. For example, suppose the butterfly's flutter led to a hurricane, in the same way as for the lack of a horse the kingdom was lost (this is what is meant by the butterfly effect).

But removing the butterfly before it could exert its effect wouldn't stop the hurricane. It would still happen, its just that it would follow from something else, say a dragonfly half a continent away from the butterfly. So the butterfly or the dragonfly or whatever, doesn't really matter.

Yep. Get it. Hurricanes aren't caused by butterflies. Knew that before you deigned to explain it to me. So you not only made yourself look bad by being incredibly condescending, you completely wasted your time.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Who cares if volcanos can exert some sort of "butterfly like" influence? If the volcanoes weren't there it would still happen, something else would have the butterfly influence. You cannot stop hurricanes by catching butterflies. Nor can you invalidate a principle role of greenhouse gases on shrinking polar ice, by pointing to volcanos.

I never even attempted to invalidate the role of greenhouse gases on the melting of polar ice. Once again, you are foisting a position on me that I do not subscribe to. In fact, if you'll note, a few posts back I pointed out that there was melting that wasn't accounted for in even the most pessimistic of global warming models. The implication there was that I have no beef with global warming models.

Because you presumed to know what my opinions were on the subject, you wasted a significant amount of your time and a significant amount of my time when you could have just asked up front whether I sought to invalidate the role of greenhouse gases on the melting of the polar ice. Or at least if I thought that the arctic icepack would continue to melt had there been no volcanos.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

The point of my calculations was not to provide a model of what is going on. What I did was produce order of magnitude estimates of the energies involved to show that the volcanoes are butterflies. That's all.

You wish to focus on the butterflies and that suggests to me that you are simply opposed to the politics and are using something (volcanoes) that appears to be more "realistic" than God to justify the position you prefer.

Now you can claim you are not doing this, but the proof is that you think the volcanos (e.g. butterflies) might be relevant--yet have no rational reason for thinking so.

I'm not going to "claim" that I am not doing this. I'm going to assert that I was not, plainly and flatly. Politics was never a part of the discussion that I was involved in. It is you who are now injecting politics into the discussion, and getting right down to the nitty gritty -- this entire time you've been arguing against a charicature of me that exists only in your own mind.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

I brought up the other scientists because they simply dismiss a role for the volcanos you think might be important They must think of them as butterflies. After researching the issue I too see them as butterflies. Now if a a lot of scientists were taking things I thought were butterflies seriously, then I would figure I made a mistake and was wrong. But they don't, which gives me confidence that I have a good sense of the thing.

No, you didn't. You brought up unnamed scientists in an attempt to cast my thinking as unscientific, discredit the position you believed me to have in order to score political points.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

YOU are proposing that they are not butterflies. So the onus is on you to provide evidence that they are not. It is not science to bring up spurious causes with no justification to throw rhetorical monkey wrenches into theories you don't like.

Actually, I'm proposing that they are in fact "butterflies", in the Lorenzian (by which I mean scientific) sense, not in the sense that you're using the term. And sure, I'll hop right into my nuclear submarine and start doing research to provide the evidence that you ask for.

On second thought, I'm sure that science will get along quite well without me. I mean really, I don't like the cold.

On a more serious note, the main thing you've done here is to convince me that it's a waste of time to discuss anything with you. I mean, seriously, I wasted a lot of time trying to have a serious discussion with you only to find that the reason you were being bullheaded wasn't that you didn't understand my position, but that you thought it was more important to tilt after the windmills of what you assumed my politics must be.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Actually, I'm proposing that they are in fact "butterflies", in the Lorenzian (by which I mean scientific) sense, not in the sense that you're using the term.

I was using it in the Lorenzian sense. It doesn't do what you think it does.

If butterfly effects are relevant to melting ice caps, as you suggest here, then it is pointless to study the phenomenon. No prediction can be made because it is fundamentally impossible to make them. Thus the rational response should be not to call for more research (a waste of time) but a complete cessation of research because its pointless, akin to working on predicting weather a year in advance.

Chaos doesn't mean that an outcome can be anything. It just means you cannot predict the exact behavior. For example you cannot predict the exact temperature or whether it will rain on a particular July day in Southern Michigan a year in advance because of chaos. You can predict the amount of snow (none). The reason is the values the weather can take (which are unknowable) are bounded. The bounds are the climate. In a phase plot you would say the flow is in a chaotic orbit around a climate attractor.

The chaotic orbit means the weather can be anywhere "nearby" the attractor and so you cannot predict where it will be (it might or might not rain). But you can say it won't be "far away" from the attractor (it won't snow).

You are right that the exactly amount of melting in any given year (the path through phase space) will depend on a host of things, many of which are butterflies. And so it cannot be predicted exactly. We also know that since the cap hasn't melted in a long time, an ice-free cap must be pretty far from the ice cap attractor.

It now looks like the ice cap is melting suggesting that the attractor is moving.

What determines the attractor in weather is the energetics. It doesn't snow in July because the warmth is simply too great. The non chaotic position of the Earth wrt to the Sun's rays precludes it. We also know that the ice caps don't melt in the summer for the same reason, the warmth is too little. Unless something happens to the energetics the attractor doesn't move.

Undersea volcanoes have no known mechanism through which they could change the energetics significantly, with the possible exception of a really really big volcano.

Thus, they cannot move the attractor to any significant extent and so whether the ice caps melt or not, it isn't going to be because of undersea vulcanism.

So if the ice caps are melting faster that expected it could mean that the models simply haven't captured the dynamics properly (we are making a poorer short term prediction of the path than we ought) or we are missing an big forcing that is moving the attractor faster than our greenhouse-based models predict. If the latter, whatever it is, its not volcanoes because they are too small, look for a bigger thing.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

Actually, no. You're steering us into old well-traveled territory, the same place that you take us to every time one of your arguments runs into trouble -- condescension, speculations about sinister political motives, and the like.

Putting the science aside for the moment -- I did ask you the political question earlier in the thread, and you have not answered it yet. That has raised my suspicions about your motivation for posting in this thread.

I suggest putting aside the complaints about people being "condescending" -- I see it more as Mike being unwilling to suffer fools gladly when they won't argue on well-established scientific terms. This tangential stuff about underwater vents just doesn't seem to hold up to serious scrutiny.

Could it be that the "establishment" might be right this time?

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Putting the science aside for the moment -- I did ask you the political question earlier in the thread, and you have not answered it yet. That has raised my suspicions about your motivation for posting in this thread.

I thought that I did. I'll have to go back and see if I missed something.

EDIT: Turns out that I did. Sorry. I didn't intend to raise your "suspicions" about my "motivation".

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

I suggest putting aside the complaints about people being "condescending" -- I see it more as Mike being unwilling to suffer fools gladly when they won't argue on well-established scientific terms. This tangential stuff about underwater vents just doesn't seem to hold up to serious scrutiny.

I wasn't complaining, I was pointing out the fact that he was being condescending. You may agree with the reasons he was being condescending or attempt to rationalize the fact that he was, but he was being condescending nonetheless.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Could it be that the "establishment" might be right this time?

Given that I wasn't arguing against any "establishment", but against Mike, it's really irrelevant.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

Do you believe that there is anything feasible that humans can do to mitigate the effects of global warming, or even, in the long run, to reverse it?

To mitigate it? Sure. We could stop pumping out greenhouse gases, for one (as I implied in my previous response to you).

Reverse it? I'm not too sure.

Originally Posted by Child of Socrates

If so, should we rely on voluntary efforts alone, or should the government get involved?

That's not up to me. The government is already involved, and will certainly increase its involvement in the future.

What would concern me is the nature of that involvement, especially with respect to the level of coercion involved. Generally, we should be using the carrot instead of the stick.

What I support at the moment is using government funding (both direct in the form of actual grants and indirect in the form of things like tax credits) to reduce America's per capita carbon emissions and to reduce our reliance on coal and oil as fuels.

On an individual level, this would include things like tax credits for individuals who demonstrate in some way that they are car pooling, using public transit, bicycling, using smaller vehicles, using "greener" vehicles, "greening" their homes in a meaningful way, or whatever. Regulations could be applied in appropriate situations, such as requiring all new homes to meet certain criteria with respect to using natural phenomenon for heating and cooling.

A similar approach could be used for most businesses.

On a larger level, the federal government could switch from buying gasoline-powered cars to hybrid vehicles for the federal fleet. (And provide tax credits to corporations, both large and small, that do the same.) This would stimulate the production of hybrid vehicles (and, in time, perhaps vehicles using other technologies), which would bring down prices fairly quickly.

Over time, as the fleet aged, these older hybrids would enter the used car market, which would offer secondary buyers inexpensive options which they don't currently have. This would also help to overcome the various socio-cultural barriers related to adopting newer transportation technologies. (Also, it would increase the number of contractors and government employees familiar with the repair and maintenance of the more complex hybrid vehicles, who would eventually filter out of the public sector and into the private, reducing costs.)

On the subject of transportation technologies, it might be time to take another look at jitneys as an alternative to public transit, especially in communities poorly served by public transit. (Jitneys being multi-passenger vehicles that travel fixed routes, like buses, but are capable of providing more-or-less door to door service, like cabs.) Jitney services were regulated out of existence in the early 20th century, mostly at the behest of the big public transit companies, and the barriers to their existence are political (public transit corporations and transit unions), not technological.

At the top level, the focus should be put on increasing our wind, solar, hydroelectric, and nuclear power output, with the ultimately goal of phasing oil and gas out of our power generation network entirely. This would be expensive, but the technologies are there, and it could be done before I am an old man. (People talk about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, but I'd rather reduce our dependence on foreign oil, foreign coal, domestic oil, and domestic coal.)

That should give you a general idea of the kinds of things that I favor.

I don't know if these suggestions are "politically correct", in the sense that they'll make you less suspicious of my motives or whatever, but there they are. And I don't know if they involve the kind of government involvement that you want, but each of them is achievable in the short-term.

Nobody talks about the things we might do about the problem beyond a few regulations here or some punitive rhetoric there because the debate has been hijacked by apocalypse junkies in love with their fantasies and people who deny that there's any kind of problem at all. This leads to all or nothing formulations which aren't really going to get us anywhere.

In the long-term, the bigger problem is really outside of our borders. If it's true that global warming is the result of human activity, then approximately 1/5th of the world managed to screw things up pretty badly. The other 4/5ths (aka "the developing world") is well on its way to exacerbating the problem. And it's going to be really hard for the United States and the West to tell them they can't have what we have because it'll screw up the planet.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I think that this is the most widely ignored fact of all in this entire debate.

Yep. It's the big elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.

Originally Posted by Semo '75

In the long-term, the bigger problem is really outside of our borders. If it's true that global warming is the result of human activity, then approximately 1/5th of the world managed to screw things up pretty badly. The other 4/5ths (aka "the developing world") is well on its way to exacerbating the problem. And it's going to be really hard for the United States and the West to tell them they can't have what we have because it'll screw up the planet.

I'll often, when trying to identify the 'core center' of the upcoming crisis, attempt to bind various areas of human activity together. I generally start from an ecological perspective. Too few resources. Too many people. Too much waste. Count CO2 as one form of waste among many, though perhaps the most important form. The ecological backdrop plays into economics, with a primary symptom being division of wealth, both external divisions between wealthy and poor countries, and internal divisions between classes in any given culture. Division of wealth (lack of resources and those resources not being evenly divided) leads to ethnic - religious - cultural strife, which in turn leads to security related problems including terrorism and warlord government.

Focusing on any one layer of this -- ecological, economic, social or security related -- is apt to prove futile. Any serious attempt to resolve the upcoming crisis will require a perspective that addresses the multiple layers as a single problem.

The observation that "they can't have what we have because it'll screw up the planet" sits on top of all of the above like a cherry on a sundae.

My signature, by implication, invokes FDR's Four Freedoms, including Freedom from Want. When invoking the Four Freedoms, FDR added the phrase 'everywhere in the world' to each. (Well, there were three everywheres and an anywhere.) As Jefferson's "All men are created equal' was applied at another level in the Civil War, it might be that Freedom from Want, everywhere in the world" may need to be addressed in a far truer sense than when it was originally proclaimed.

Freedom from want will probably never disappear completely. The problem I see with trying to make it disappear or even modified is that the level of want has increased exorbitantly in the last half century or so. Nervous restlessness could tempt people to act in a reckless manner. This is particularly so when dealing with personal desires, whatever they may be. The advent to television no doubt enhanced this scenario, where people who somehow managed to get enough money to afford a set saw things in ads that were beyond their reach but which they coveted. Sometimes acting on impulse can be favorable, but usually it turns out to be dangerous.

Keep in mind that unexpected influences are prevailing(record high gas prices, the housing meltdown) and today's situation is encouraging foolsih behavior and erratic actions.