Originally Posted by TnT

A simple kitchen counter-top experiment, followed by some conjecture can be pretty scary:

A glass of ice and water on the counter. A thermometer. Watch the temperature of the ice water as it melts. Nothing much happens, as the melting ice maintains the temperature at or slightly above freezing. Then, as the last bit of ice melts, the temperature shoots up.

It's gonna be interesting.

The physics:

A substance at the temperature of a phase change (freezing/melting; boiling or subliming/condensation) remains at the same temperature. Water has a very high heat of fusion -- something very high for the freezing point. As a solid or a liquid it is an excellent buffer for heat, but once it vaporizes it is a greenhouse gas.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The physics:

A substance at the temperature of a phase change (freezing/melting; boiling or subliming/condensation) remains at the same temperature. Water has a very high heat of fusion -- something very high for the freezing point. As a solid or a liquid it is an excellent buffer for heat, but once it vaporizes it is a greenhouse gas.

My point.

There are several death spirals that are seldom mentioned that could obtain. Often, only CO2 in the atmosphere is discussed, as if that is the only problem. In fact, the CO2 released from fossil fuels that is dissolving in the sea water could turn out to be an even bigger problem.

It is also interesting that when hydrocarbons are burned, water is formed along with the CO2. AND, as air temperature rises, it holds more water vapor.

One can only wonder where the Tipping Point is, or more probably, was.

Originally Posted by TnT

My point.

There are several death spirals that are seldom mentioned that could obtain. Often, only CO2 in the atmosphere is discussed, as if that is the only problem. In fact, the CO2 released from fossil fuels that is dissolving in the sea water could turn out to be an even bigger problem.

It is also interesting that when hydrocarbons are burned, water is formed along with the CO2. AND, as air temperature rises, it holds more water vapor.

One can only wonder where the Tipping Point is, or more probably, was.

There's another issue unrelated to the physics that may be creating as much obstruction as old-fashioned greed. Air conditioning makes warmer climates more bearable in hot weather, and the lack of cold weather and snow are more popular than not. So, by letting the warming continue, we think that we can live in the mid-latitudes, and enjoy the weather of the sub-tropics. Virtually no one understands hysteresis. They assume that we can just let things warm, and stop it when we're warm enough. By the time this is determined to be demonstrably wrong, the change will be well advanced with much more on the way.

Along with not being displaced by a robot, it's one of the few advantages of being old.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

There's another issue unrelated to the physics that may be creating as much obstruction as old-fashioned greed. Air conditioning makes warmer climates more bearable in hot weather, and the lack of cold weather and snow are more popular than not. So, by letting the warming continue, we think that we can live in the mid-latitudes, and enjoy the weather of the sub-tropics. Virtually no one understands hysteresis. They assume that we can just let things warm, and stop it when we're warm enough. By the time this is determined to be demonstrably wrong, the change will be well advanced with much more on the way.

Along with not being displaced by a robot, it's one of the few advantages of being old.

Right. Just turn up the air conditioner. Except that air conditioners themselves generate heat in their own right and cause more heating (of the rest of the world) than they do to cool a building or automobile. The pesky Second Law of Thermodynamics strikes again, and the scientifically-illiterate and scientifically-dishonest as usual offer a solution that will make things worse.

Science and even the discussion of science are unsuitable activities for a cheater, a liar, an ideologue, or a fool.

Speaking of liars, cheaters, ideologues, and fools discussing science:

Ted Cruz, the junior U.S. senator from Texas and first official contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, compared people who think that the climate is warming to "flat-Earthers" and described himself as a modern-day Galileo in an interview with the Texas Tribune.

"On the global warming alarmists, anyone who actually points to the evidence that disproves their apocalyptical claims, they don't engage in reasoned debate," Cruz said in an interview with reporter Jay Root on Tuesday. "What do they do? They scream, 'You're a denier.' They brand you a heretic. Today, the global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the flat-Earthers. It used to be [that] it is accepted scientific wisdom the Earth is flat, and this heretic named Galileo was branded a denier."

Root noted that Cruz's disbelief that the planet is warming puts him out of step with younger voters. But Cruz dug in.

"I'm a big believer that we should follow the science, and follow the evidence. If you look at global warming alarmists, they don't like to look at the actual facts and the data. The satellite data demonstrate that there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 17 years," said Cruz. "Now that's a real problem for the global warming alarmists. Because all those computer models on which this whole issue is based predicted significant warming, and yet the satellite data show it ain't happening."

While the argument that the satellite data does not show temperatures rising is a favorite among climate deniers, it represents a skewed view on what we know about temperatures conditions on Earth. Average global temperatures are still increasing, just not as quickly as they did in previous years, largely due to ocean cycles. And claiming that a pause disputes that warming is occurring ignores the preceding decades of temperature records that show them rapidly increasing when compared with historical averages.

Cruz also brought up another favorite denier talking point: that the world was worried about "global cooling" in the 1970s. "I read this morning a Newsweek article from the 1970s talking about global cooling. And it said the science is clear, it is overwhelming, we are in a major cooling period, and it's going to cause enormous problems worldwide. And the solution for all the advocates in the '70s of global cooling was massive government control of the energy sector, of our economy, and aspects of our lives," he said.

"Now, the data proved to be not backing up that theory. So then all the advocates of global cooling suddenly shifted to global warming, and they advocated it's warming, and the solution interestingly enough was the exact same solution -- government control of the energy sector and every aspect of our lives."

But while this argument is often repeated, it's also not quite true. A few articles in the popular press, like the Newsweek example he cited, did discuss the idea of global cooling. But it was far from a widely held or well-tested theory in the scientific community at the time. And the author of that 1975 Newsweek piece has come out and said that it should not be used to try to debunk today's climate science.

Nevertheless, Cruz argued that he's a champion of the science on the issue. "I am the child of two mathematicians and scientists," he said. "I believe in following evidence and data."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_6940188.html

We have a good checklist for crackpots, including those elected to high office. Some of them are of course very high -- on "Koch-aine".



The Crackpot Index
John Baez

A simple method for rating potentially revolutionary contributions to physics:

1. A -5 point starting credit.

2. 1 point for every statement that is widely agreed on to be false.

3. 2 points for every statement that is clearly vacuous.

4. 3 points for every statement that is logically inconsistent.

5. 5 points for each such statement that is adhered to despite careful correction.

6. 5 points for using a thought experiment that contradicts the results of a widely accepted real experiment.

7. 5 points for each word in all capital letters (except for those with defective keyboards).

8. 5 points for each mention of "Einstein", "Hawkins" or "Feynmann".

9. 10 points for each claim that quantum mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

10. 10 points for pointing out that you have gone to school, as if this were evidence of sanity.

11. 10 points for beginning the description of your theory by saying how long you have been working on it. (10 more for emphasizing that you worked on your own.)

12. 10 points for mailing your theory to someone you don't know personally and asking them not to tell anyone else about it, for fear that your ideas will be stolen.

13. 10 points for offering prize money to anyone who proves and/or finds any flaws in your theory.

14. 10 points for each new term you invent and use without properly defining it.

15. 10 points for each statement along the lines of "I'm not good at math, but my theory is conceptually right, so all I need is for someone to express it in terms of equations".

16. 10 points for arguing that a current well-established theory is "only a theory", as if this were somehow a point against it.

17. 10 points for arguing that while a current well-established theory predicts phenomena correctly, it doesn't explain "why" they occur, or fails to provide a "mechanism".

18. 10 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Einstein, or claim that special or general relativity are fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

19. 10 points for claiming that your work is on the cutting edge of a "paradigm shift".

20. 20 points for emailing me and complaining about the crackpot index. (E.g., saying that it "suppresses original thinkers" or saying that I misspelled "Einstein" in item 8.)

21. 20 points for suggesting that you deserve a Nobel prize.

22. 20 points for each favorable comparison of yourself to Newton or claim that classical mechanics is fundamentally misguided (without good evidence).

23. 20 points for every use of science fiction works or myths as if they were fact.

24. 20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.

25. 20 points for naming something after yourself. (E.g., talking about the "The Evans Field Equation" when your name happens to be Evans.)

26. 20 points for talking about how great your theory is, but never actually explaining it.

27. 20 points for each use of the phrase "hidebound reactionary".

28. 20 points for each use of the phrase "self-appointed defender of the orthodoxy".

29. 30 points for suggesting that a famous figure secretly disbelieved in a theory which he or she publicly supported. (E.g., that Feynman was a closet opponent of special relativity, as deduced by reading between the lines in his freshman physics textbooks.)

30. 30 points for suggesting that Einstein, in his later years, was groping his way towards the ideas you now advocate.

31. 30 points for claiming that your theories were developed by an extraterrestrial civilization (without good evidence).

32. 30 points for allusions to a delay in your work while you spent time in an asylum, or references to the psychiatrist who tried to talk you out of your theory.

33. 40 points for comparing those who argue against your ideas to Nazis, stormtroopers, or brownshirts.

34. 40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.

35. 40 points for comparing yourself to Galileo, suggesting that a modern-day Inquisition is hard at work on your case, and so on.

36. 40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is. (30 more points for fantasizing about show trials in which scientists who mocked your theories will be forced to recant.)

37. 50 points for claiming you have a revolutionary theory but giving no concrete testable predictions.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

Cruz gets 40 points for comparing himself to Galileo Galilei.

Blatantly false statements:

If you look at global warming alarmists, they don't like to look at the actual facts and the data. The satellite data demonstrate that there has been no significant warming whatsoever for 17 years. Two there. One point each.

So then all the advocates of global cooling suddenly shifted to global warming, and they advocated it's warming, and the solution interestingly enough was the exact same solution -- government control of the energy sector and every aspect of our lives. Conspiracy by the 'scientific establishment'. 40 points.

I am the child of two mathematicians and scientists. Vacuous and irrelevant. Two points.

I score him down to -77 in so few statements.

Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

New crops for Oklahoma = yucca and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_edible_cactus

The American diet is due for one hell of a change.

to be fair, edible cacti are not uncommon, we have prickly pears here in western Minnesota, usually on the south side of hills with sandy soil.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Big trouble in the Golden State as the rainfall conditions of Baja California move north:



Yellow -- abnormally dry (Crescent City, Needles)
Sand -- moderate drought (Blythe)
Orange -- severe drought (Eureka, Santa Rosa, Weed, Barstow, Brawley)
Red -- extreme drought (Chico, San Francisco, San Jose, Monterrey, Riverside, San Diego)
Dark Brown -- exceptional drought (Sacramento, Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Lancaster, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Anaheim, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite national park, Kings Canyon National Park, Sequoia National Park)

That looks exactly what a northward shift of the boundary between the Mediterranean and Warm Desert climates should look like. Jesus Christ. The southern Central Valley looks like it is shifting from a Csa climate to BSh.

Originally Posted by TnT

A simple kitchen counter-top experiment, followed by some conjecture can be pretty scary:

A glass of ice and water on the counter. A thermometer. Watch the temperature of the ice water as it melts. Nothing much happens, as the melting ice maintains the temperature at or slightly above freezing. Then, as the last bit of ice melts, the temperature shoots up.

It's gonna be interesting.

The ice at the poles play a key role in keeping the deep oceans cold and thus full of oxygen. Were the arctic ice cap to disappear and the antarctic ice sheet shrink enough to no longer reach the coast the sinking of ice-cold polar sea water will stop and the deep ocreans will warm up and become stagnant and anoxic, like the Black Sea.

All those famous deep sea animal communities at hydrothermal vents will die; in fact those communities only developed in the past 50 million years, after the current Ice House phase began.

Originally Posted by Odin

That looks exactly what a northward shift of the boundary between the Mediterranean and Warm Desert climates should look like. Jesus Christ. The southern Central Valley looks like it is shifting from a Csa climate to BSh.

...

My take:

The desert zones will remain desert. Bakersfield doesn't look like desert because it is so heavily irrigated -- but when the irrigation water vanishes, it will look like desert. One esthetically-offensive effect: some of the world's most attractive coastlines (containing Malibu, Santa Barbara, Big Sur, Monterrey, Carmel, Santa Cruz, and above all San Francisco) could become moonscapes.

There was a year in which San Francisco got less rain than Phoenix. Egad!

The Koppen classifications relevant to California and some surrounding areas:

Deserts are BWh for places with hot summers and mild-to-hot winters... like Phoenix, BWk for places with cold winters... like the Bonneville Salt Flat, or BWhk (places with a mild temperature range but practically no rainfall)... like coastal Peru.

Change the W to S for steppes, or semi-deserts... and add an s for a summer deficiency of rainfall. BShs is to be found in Fresno and low areas of the the eastern Los Angeles area, BSks for Reno, and BShks for coastal San Diego and Tijuana.

Csa is for the hot-summer Mediterranean climates as in Red Bluff, Sacramento, and (surprise) just across the state line in Ashland and Roseburg, Oregon. Csb is for the cool-summer Mediterranean climates all along the California coast and just inland as far south as about Pacific Palisades. (Farther south, the rain is insufficient for a Mediterranean climate on the coast. Higher elevations in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas can be Csb -- like Pasadena.

Summer rainfall appears at high altitudes in the Sierra, so climates could as easily be called Dfb as anything else in Yosemite National Park and the Gold Rush country.

The current deserts just get hotter, with perhaps some more monsoon-like precipitation that might be enough to make Phoenix and Tucson decidedly greener... like Midland or San Antonio, Texas. But the monsoon rains barely reach California. But picking some representative locations:

San Diego BShks to BWhk
Los Angeles city center BShks to BWh
Riverside BShs to BWh
Malibu Csb to BWhk
Santa Barbara Csb to BWhk
Fresno BShs to BWh
Monterrey Csb to BShks
San Jose Csa to BWh
Stockton Csa to BWh
San Francisco Csb to BShks
Yosemite Valley Dfb to Csa
Reno NV BShks to BWk
Sacramento Csa to BWh
Redding Csa to BShs
Eureka Csb to BShks
Susanville BSks to BWk
Crescent City Csb to Csb
Roseburg OR Csa to BShs

Mediterranean climate? Go to northern Oregon or Washington State.

This is the sort of landscape that one might see in San Francisco:



(Ovalle, Chile) -- a city that gets about 5 inches of rain a year but mild temperatures all year. Basically, this is what San Francisco would look like with about a quarter of the rain.

Now imagine what happens if the winter rains completely fail:



Imagine this terrain surrounding San Diego. (It is Antofagasta, Chile... as I last recall, San Diego looks like an unusually-prosperous Latin-American city).

Make allowances for architectural differences. San Francisco is about what you get when you ram New England and Latin America together. I haven't been in San Diego for nearly 40 years, so I can't describe its architecture well. You can't cheat the climate, though.

I would like to see much of NASA funding transferred to developing energy technology.

A Historical Tour of the Clean Energy Future
A progress report on ARPA-E’s efforts to clean up energy production

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-historical-tour-of-the-clean-energy-future/

…. "ARPA-E started in 2009 with a budget of $400 million, about one third of what its intellectual predecessor, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) got for its start in 1962. With ambitions to instigate a second industrial revolution, the agency received proposals for some 3,700 would-be world-changing energy technologies and handed out $151 million to 37 of them, ranging from turning water and CO2 into fuel with nothing but sunlight to better batteries. The largest single award, for $9.1 million, went to Foro Energy to help develop laser drilling that could make it cheaper to tap Earth's heat to generate electricity.


ARPA–E's offices within the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) are meant to feel more like a Silicon Valley start-up than a part of a sclerotic bureaucracy tasked primarily with minding nuclear weapons and their legacy. ARPA–E staff, including directors, serve three-year terms. The short time frame is meant to inspire the "fierce urgency of now," a quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr. that hangs on the wall of DoE HQ, a concrete block building on stilts with row after row of box windows. The plan was to be a government agency that did not fear risk—a bureaucracy without bureaucrats. "We wanted to be measured in our craziness," Arun Majumdar, ARPA-E’s first director, told me in 2013 after he had left the agency. “ t is early and you want to create a reputation of solid foundations in technology which are risky but not wacky."

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — A road leading to spectacular views of California's Yosemite National Park opened to drivers on Saturday, marking the earliest date for the occasion in at least 20 years.

Glacier Point Road takes drivers to a lookout perched at 3, 214 feet above the valley floor, where visitors can view spectacles such as the Half Dome rock, Yosemite Falls and Yosemite's high country. The road closes each winter blocked by snowfall, and last year the park reported an April 14 opening. In other years, the road remained closed until late-May.

This year's March 28 opening is the earliest listed in records dating back to 1995 published on the park's website. California is struggling through its fourth consecutive year of drought, with a mountain snowpack at a fraction of normal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...m_hp_ref=green

OSLO, March 19 (Reuters) - Arctic sea ice this year is the smallest in winter since satellite records began in 1979, in a new sign of long-term climate change, U.S. data showed on Thursday.

The ice floating on the Arctic Ocean around the North Pole reached its maximum annual extent of just 14.54 million square kms (5.61 million sq miles) on Feb. 25 - slightly bigger than Canada - and is now expected to shrink with a spring thaw.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...climate-change

Freakishly hot -- by Antarctic standards:

According to the weather blog Weather Underground, on Tuesday, March 24, the temperature in Antarctica rose to 63.5°F (17.5C) — a record for the polar continent. Part of a longer heat wave, the record high came just a day after the previous record was set at 63.3°F.

Tuesday’s temperature was taken at the Argentina’s Esperanza Base, located near the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Monday record was from Marambio Base, about 60 miles southeast of Esperanza. Both are records for the locations, however the World Meteorological Organization is yet to certify that the temperatures are all-time weather records for Antarctica. Before these two chart-toppers, the highest recorded temperature from these outposts was 62.8°F in 1961.

....

As Burt reports, these temperature records occurred nearly three months past the warmest time of year in the Antarctic Peninsula, December, when the average high is 37.8°F. The average high for March is 31.3°F, making this week’s records more than 30°F above average. Burt also points out that temperature records for Esperanza have previously occurred in October and April, so these spikes are not unheard of.

They should also not be unexpected: the poles are warming faster than any part of the planet and rapid ice melt is being observed at increased rates in Antarctica. According to a new study, ice shelves in West Antarctica have lost as much as 18 percent of their volume over the last two decades, with rapid acceleration occurring over the last decade. The study found that from 1994 to 2003, the overall loss of ice shelf volume across the continent was negligible, but over the last decade West Antarctic losses increased by 70 percent.

According to the British Antarctic Survey, since records for the Antarctic Peninsula began half a century ago, the average temperature has risen about 5°F, making it “the most rapidly warming region in the Southern Hemisphere – comparable to rapidly warming regions of the Arctic.”

This happened after the vernal equinox of the Northern Hemisphere (autumnal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere)... strange weather is happening.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

OSLO, March 19 (Reuters) - Arctic sea ice this year is the smallest in winter since satellite records began in 1979, in a new sign of long-term climate change, U.S. data showed on Thursday.

The ice floating on the Arctic Ocean around the North Pole reached its maximum annual extent of just 14.54 million square kms (5.61 million sq miles) on Feb. 25 - slightly bigger than Canada - and is now expected to shrink with a spring thaw.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...climate-change

This is good news. Bring on global warming!

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

This is good news. Bring on global warming!

What do you have against the people of Bangladesh, almost all of whom live near sea level? Their country will be inundated.

Global warming that results in major sea-level rise is genocide.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Freakishly hot -- by Antarctic standards:





This happened after the vernal equinox of the Northern Hemisphere (autumnal equinox in the Southern Hemisphere)... strange weather is happening.

Short-sleeve weather in Antarctica in the southern Fall. We are so totally screwed.

Originally Posted by Odin

Short-sleeve weather in Antarctica in the southern Fall. We are so totally screwed.

... but not yet, and that's the problem. At the moment, everyone is still comfortable enough. Harsh winters aren't THAT harsh, and brutal summers are still bearable, as long as the AC keeps humming. We're still growing food and have water for drinking and bathing. In short, we aren't hurt, just a bit discomforted.

People only call the Fire Department when the house is on fire. So far, they only see a few wisps of smoke, and who cares about that?

It will still be a long time before people can exploit deglaciated areas of Greenland and Antarctica or what was recently tundra or boreal forest from Scandinavia through Siberia to northern Canada. In the meantime, water that used to be ice will raise the levels of the ocean. There had better be bumper crops in comparative highlands... but weather patterns will change, and such could put deserts where there is now rich cropland.

Economic potential in most of the world relates closely to agricultural potential. Not all wealth can be created with high technology, and high technology cannot create food.

Climate change likely means some very nasty famines. People who used to take care of themselves as peasant farmers will no longer have their farms, but will end up in refugee camps.

Wallace88 -- is there a humane, conservative solution to ignoring climate change? Mow 'em down! has never been acceptable except to those who get away with it.

Originally Posted by Wallace 88

This is good news. Bring on global warming!

But it's also more of the evidence that you deny.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

We're still growing food and have water for drinking and bathing.

Unless you are California.

Originally Posted by Odin

Unless you are California.

True, but California is on board with AGW. Tornado Alley, on the other hand, will blow away before any state in that cluster concedes an inch.

Study says climate change is increasing severe storms and tornadoes, and predicts 30% increase:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/weathe...adoes/2854979/

Hey, funny! And predictable:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2c_5HDNICw

Douchbag "scientist" global warming "skeptic" proven to take huge money from the Koch syndicate and co......