Special treat: An Eruption Cam

CanisLupusArctos · 07-03-2008, 02:57 PM

Timmy G, I heard that too, only within the last few weeks. The best analysis I heard about it reflects common sense and thus wins my agreement: An entire ocean of water is incredibly good at dispersing heat, and a volcano under an ocean would have to be earth-shatteringly humongous in order to heat up all that water enough to melt the ice.

With regards to the climate change debate I am constantly finding out more, usually from the blogs of scientists who oppose the science portrayed by the media. Curiously, their opinions have been excluded from the news reports, which in journalism is a no-no. You're supposed to have both sides of every debate in order to have an accurate news report. The news reports have been portraying it like a proven law, which is strange considering the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, "Man created it" was never more than a theory. Yes, warming was proven through the 1900s. The cause has never been determined. Scientifically speaking, anything that hasn't been proven as law ("gravity") is still open to question and testing, and from a journalistic standpoint it therefore is a story that has two sides.

According to the blogs of the opposition scientists, the world's warmest year was 1998, and a recent study even knocks it back to the 1930s ("Dust Bowl" era.) The antarctic ice sheet is growing, although ice is being lost in a couple of places that keep getting attention. There has been talk of a volcano discovered under one of those ice shelfs, which would be capable of melting the ice since the heat transfer would be almost directly from the rock to the ice above.

The arctic ice sheet grew a lot last winter. It grew a lot more than any of the AGW promoters thought, because one of the world's three best icebreakers took a boatload of them for a "last look at the ice" cruise through what they thought was easily-breakable ice and it got stuck, then frozen in. I believe I linked to that report in a thread on this forum somewhere. It was about a month ago. According to Weather Underground's sea temperature map (and several of the bloggers I read) Hudson's Bay in Canada is mostly frozen even now - July 3.

Some of the other stuff the bloggers have pointed out is that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have warm and cold cycles, each lasting for many years. The Pacific just went into cold phase, which is likely going to affect the North American climate, but it has very little access to the arctic. The Atlantic still has a few years left in its present warm phase, and one look at a map shows that this ocean has a great deal of access to the Arctic.

In Greenland's history (which I read several years ago and the bloggers also point out) there was a lot more farming than there is today, an indicator that Greenland was recently warm enough to sustain more people than it does today. The ruins of their culture can still be seen.

One of my favorite blogs (from meteorologist Anthony Watts at wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com) has been conducting his own study of how well-sited the instruments of weather stations are. A lot of the more historic stations (like Boston) were established when those locations were small cities or maybe even glorified towns. Now they're filled with pavement and bricks. Ever touch that stuff after it's been sitting in the summer sun? You need oven mitts. In the mid-90s, the National Weather Service relocated a lot of their offices into less-urbanized areas (like Gray ME instead of Portland, and Taunton MA instead of Boston). I remember at the time they said part of the reason was for weather readings that are more capable of representing the area... away from all the pavement and building materials that make it 98 degrees in Boston when it's only 90 in the wooded suburbs. Watts has found a lot of weather stations whose temperature sensors are located too close to parking lots, driveways, or heated buildings.

A few other things I find curious are the fact that no AGW report in the mainstream press seems to cover the pollutants as I learned them in college, never mind from AGW-opposers. These include the fact that water vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas out there (level of humidity, which is water vapor, plays a huge role in my temperature forecasts.) That's followed by methane. CO2 is weak compared to those two. Recently I've been hearing a lot of hype over "clean coal - emits less CO2". I find that surprising because the biggest problem we had with coal before was sulfur. Sulfur combines with water to make sulfuric acid -- acid rain. But everyone seems obsessed with carbon, the basic building block of life.

A recent study some of the bloggers linked to stated that NASA sattelites found the earth's plants are more productive than we've ever recorded, and linked it to CO2. THAT I find plausible, because plants breathe CO2 like we breathe oxygen. When someone's not doing so well, paramedics will put that person on high-flow oxygen (by mask) because it's what we need. I'm an asthmatic, so I've been given oxygen before and I have to say it made me feel great! Especially after the asthma attack passes and it's just extra oxygen... going back to normal room air is almost disappointing. For plants, CO2 is the equivalent. Give it to them, and they won't refuse it. They'll use it. And they exhale oxygen.

Like many people I'm losing more of my trust for the mainstream media all the time. This distrust started a few years ago when a couple of the Boston TV meteorologists told me of the battles they were facing whenever dealing with the newsroom. The newsrooms were just beginning their ratings wars, and the meteorologists felt that coverage of their (our) science was getting compromised by it. Nowadays it's a lot more obvious.

Since I don't spend my days poking thermometers into glaciers, I have to rely on information sources. Part of my background is journalism (a job I have worked before) so I decided to be a journalist for myself and seek out sources on both sides of the AGW debate. The AGW theorists are easy to find; just turn on the news. The opposers aren't hard to find either, but you have to do a little searching. I would urge everyone to read as much as you can from both sides and make your own call. I haven't made up my mind 100% but when I apply each new report to things I know, I'm finding the AGW opposers are making more sense. For example: people are blaming the midwestern floods on AGW, but in order to get moisture to precipitate out of the air rapidly ("heavy precipitation"), you need to mix a lot of cold into the equation.

One blogger pointed out that the whole topic of "Climate Change," from a language perspective, is a very general term that literally refers to an action science has proven to be perfectly normal: This planet's climate has never stayed the same. It is a living planet, always changing. If what they really mean is "Manmade global warming" then they should just call it that, so that at least people won't freak out over the fact that this planet is an ever-changing one. If AGW is real, let them freak out about that, but only keeping in mind that with or without AGW, this earth will continue to change, and it will continue to prove that it has about the same regard for us as we do for ants.

After all this, one might think I'm opposed to clean air - not true at all. I'm an asthmatic. I have trouble breathing man-made exhaust fumes especially on those hot summer days in the city. But what bothers me is that no one seems to want to clean up the air for health reasons. They're focusing almost all the effort on reducing pollution in the name of AGW rather than the simple fact that people (like me) choke on those fumes.

Bringing this back to volcanoes (this thread,) one highly explosive volcano could definitely change the climate. Rattlesnake Gal, thank you for sharing that info! I had never read that account.

The geologists watching Chaiten have been baffled from the beginning, and they still are. Right now we're watching an ongoing eruption that seems to be settling down. Or it could be that the new lava dome has plugged the hole and pressure's still building behind it. No one knows. A few have said it possesses the capability to be another Tambora, while most are saying it would be more like Pinatubo if had a big explosion.

Sorry if that was a lot more info than you bargained for! I've been doing a lot of reading lately. But now it's time to do some swimming.

disclosure: The Bloggers include www.seablogger.com (an admitted amateur who seems to be respected by those who know a lot more.)... http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com.... www.climateaudit.org.... and others that they link to.

07-03-2008, 02:57 PM	#10
CanisLupusArctos Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Center Harbor Posts: 1,049 Thanks: 15 Thanked 472 Times in 107 Posts	Timmy G, I heard that too, only within the last few weeks. The best analysis I heard about it reflects common sense and thus wins my agreement: An entire ocean of water is incredibly good at dispersing heat, and a volcano under an ocean would have to be earth-shatteringly humongous in order to heat up all that water enough to melt the ice. With regards to the climate change debate I am constantly finding out more, usually from the blogs of scientists who oppose the science portrayed by the media. Curiously, their opinions have been excluded from the news reports, which in journalism is a no-no. You're supposed to have both sides of every debate in order to have an accurate news report. The news reports have been portraying it like a proven law, which is strange considering the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, "Man created it" was never more than a theory. Yes, warming was proven through the 1900s. The cause has never been determined. Scientifically speaking, anything that hasn't been proven as law ("gravity") is still open to question and testing, and from a journalistic standpoint it therefore is a story that has two sides. According to the blogs of the opposition scientists, the world's warmest year was 1998, and a recent study even knocks it back to the 1930s ("Dust Bowl" era.) The antarctic ice sheet is growing, although ice is being lost in a couple of places that keep getting attention. There has been talk of a volcano discovered under one of those ice shelfs, which would be capable of melting the ice since the heat transfer would be almost directly from the rock to the ice above. The arctic ice sheet grew a lot last winter. It grew a lot more than any of the AGW promoters thought, because one of the world's three best icebreakers took a boatload of them for a "last look at the ice" cruise through what they thought was easily-breakable ice and it got stuck, then frozen in. I believe I linked to that report in a thread on this forum somewhere. It was about a month ago. According to Weather Underground's sea temperature map (and several of the bloggers I read) Hudson's Bay in Canada is mostly frozen even now - July 3. Some of the other stuff the bloggers have pointed out is that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans have warm and cold cycles, each lasting for many years. The Pacific just went into cold phase, which is likely going to affect the North American climate, but it has very little access to the arctic. The Atlantic still has a few years left in its present warm phase, and one look at a map shows that this ocean has a great deal of access to the Arctic. In Greenland's history (which I read several years ago and the bloggers also point out) there was a lot more farming than there is today, an indicator that Greenland was recently warm enough to sustain more people than it does today. The ruins of their culture can still be seen. One of my favorite blogs (from meteorologist Anthony Watts at wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com) has been conducting his own study of how well-sited the instruments of weather stations are. A lot of the more historic stations (like Boston) were established when those locations were small cities or maybe even glorified towns. Now they're filled with pavement and bricks. Ever touch that stuff after it's been sitting in the summer sun? You need oven mitts. In the mid-90s, the National Weather Service relocated a lot of their offices into less-urbanized areas (like Gray ME instead of Portland, and Taunton MA instead of Boston). I remember at the time they said part of the reason was for weather readings that are more capable of representing the area... away from all the pavement and building materials that make it 98 degrees in Boston when it's only 90 in the wooded suburbs. Watts has found a lot of weather stations whose temperature sensors are located too close to parking lots, driveways, or heated buildings. A few other things I find curious are the fact that no AGW report in the mainstream press seems to cover the pollutants as I learned them in college, never mind from AGW-opposers. These include the fact that water vapor is the biggest greenhouse gas out there (level of humidity, which is water vapor, plays a huge role in my temperature forecasts.) That's followed by methane. CO2 is weak compared to those two. Recently I've been hearing a lot of hype over "clean coal - emits less CO2". I find that surprising because the biggest problem we had with coal before was sulfur. Sulfur combines with water to make sulfuric acid -- acid rain. But everyone seems obsessed with carbon, the basic building block of life. A recent study some of the bloggers linked to stated that NASA sattelites found the earth's plants are more productive than we've ever recorded, and linked it to CO2. THAT I find plausible, because plants breathe CO2 like we breathe oxygen. When someone's not doing so well, paramedics will put that person on high-flow oxygen (by mask) because it's what we need. I'm an asthmatic, so I've been given oxygen before and I have to say it made me feel great! Especially after the asthma attack passes and it's just extra oxygen... going back to normal room air is almost disappointing. For plants, CO2 is the equivalent. Give it to them, and they won't refuse it. They'll use it. And they exhale oxygen. Like many people I'm losing more of my trust for the mainstream media all the time. This distrust started a few years ago when a couple of the Boston TV meteorologists told me of the battles they were facing whenever dealing with the newsroom. The newsrooms were just beginning their ratings wars, and the meteorologists felt that coverage of their (our) science was getting compromised by it. Nowadays it's a lot more obvious. Since I don't spend my days poking thermometers into glaciers, I have to rely on information sources. Part of my background is journalism (a job I have worked before) so I decided to be a journalist for myself and seek out sources on both sides of the AGW debate. The AGW theorists are easy to find; just turn on the news. The opposers aren't hard to find either, but you have to do a little searching. I would urge everyone to read as much as you can from both sides and make your own call. I haven't made up my mind 100% but when I apply each new report to things I know, I'm finding the AGW opposers are making more sense. For example: people are blaming the midwestern floods on AGW, but in order to get moisture to precipitate out of the air rapidly ("heavy precipitation"), you need to mix a lot of cold into the equation. One blogger pointed out that the whole topic of "Climate Change," from a language perspective, is a very general term that literally refers to an action science has proven to be perfectly normal: This planet's climate has never stayed the same. It is a living planet, always changing. If what they really mean is "Manmade global warming" then they should just call it that, so that at least people won't freak out over the fact that this planet is an ever-changing one. If AGW is real, let them freak out about that, but only keeping in mind that with or without AGW, this earth will continue to change, and it will continue to prove that it has about the same regard for us as we do for ants. After all this, one might think I'm opposed to clean air - not true at all. I'm an asthmatic. I have trouble breathing man-made exhaust fumes especially on those hot summer days in the city. But what bothers me is that no one seems to want to clean up the air for health reasons. They're focusing almost all the effort on reducing pollution in the name of AGW rather than the simple fact that people (like me) choke on those fumes. Bringing this back to volcanoes (this thread,) one highly explosive volcano could definitely change the climate. Rattlesnake Gal, thank you for sharing that info! I had never read that account. The geologists watching Chaiten have been baffled from the beginning, and they still are. Right now we're watching an ongoing eruption that seems to be settling down. Or it could be that the new lava dome has plugged the hole and pressure's still building behind it. No one knows. A few have said it possesses the capability to be another Tambora, while most are saying it would be more like Pinatubo if had a big explosion. Sorry if that was a lot more info than you bargained for! I've been doing a lot of reading lately. But now it's time to do some swimming. disclosure: The Bloggers include www.seablogger.com (an admitted amateur who seems to be respected by those who know a lot more.)... http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com.... www.climateaudit.org.... and others that they link to. Last edited by CanisLupusArctos; 07-03-2008 at 03:51 PM.