I'm always amazed by politics.
http://mining.about.com/od/Coal/a/Top-5-Coal-Fires-Hotspot.htm
#5, a coal fire that's been going for 6,000 years ... amazing!
And from this article, the title is amazing:
http://intellectualventureslab.com/?p=11324
And the conclusion is also amazing in its simplicity... the results of even the most complex modeling can be summarized by just a few heat-balance concepts... isn't that amazing ... that details in weather patterns, ocean circulation etcetera play a minor role in the bigger picture ....
I was wondering a bit about the process of heat capture by CO2... and in principle, a higher CO2 content would trap more heat near the ground and would lower the temperature higher up (like what happens between the troposphere and the stratosphere). But if the atmosphere gets hot, the gas becomes light and moves up, and emits its heat higher up in the atmosphere... therefore the troposphere heats up as a whole, and its totality helps trapping heat.
The thing I don't really get about the global warming, is that the Antarctic isn't warming up as much as the Artic. It is warming... but a lot less.
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/GW_NotGlobal.htm
http://www.climate-change-knowledge.org/uploads/James_Hansen_2012_temperatures.pdf
I can think of these factors:
- The ice radiates little heat that CO2 can capture (during the summer)
- It's cold and there's not much water vapor
- It's high altitude (a 2km ice sheet...) with lower air pressure (and thus less CO2 density)
- There is not much warm wind coming in, it's a cool low pressure zone with lower atmosphere circulation going outward - so that the only wind coming in comes from high altitudes, but that is heated less because it's colder and has less water vapor...
http://www.weather.com/blog/weather/8_20620.html
- The ice is very cold and takes time to warm up. Maybe that slows down the warming trend a little.
- Part of the "warmth" could be absorbed by melt, at the edges of the ice-sheet (this rapidly cooling down winds that blow inwards, whenever they do).
Perhaps a combination of these factors reduces the warming effect, it could be something regional and unique for the Antarctic.
Ohy my... amazing as well:
http://www.satellitetoday.com/publications/st/feature/2013/07/15/recent-satellite-data-inconclusive-on-climate-change-prompts-new-mission/
300 billion tonnes of melt a year, woohoohoo. That's a lot.
And what about this:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121010191749.htm
It's a direct attack by CO2 on glaciers!
This is about cloud cover:
http://mclean.ch/climate/Cloud_global.htm
I didn't know that 2/3 of the earth is covered in clouds, on average... I thought it was far less than that.
Of course there are skeptics...
http://www.c3headlines.com/2013/02/evidence-declining-cloud-coverage-real-cuprit-80s-and-90s-global-warming-solar-sunshine-bill-gates.html
I dunno what to think of this. Clouds reflect heat (daytime), but they also trap heat (daytime + nighttime + direct absorption). So will 1% more or less clouds really make a difference?
http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2002/22apr_ceres/
"Fewer clouds would open a window through which heat could escape to space and thus cool the planet." That is exactly the opposite of the skeptic... isn't that just amazing. Oh wait, that hypethesis was wrong, observations proved that.
And there's a very big difference in behaviour between upper clouds and lower clouds... upper clouds trap net heat, lower clouds reflect net heat... that's interesting, but that's really hard to incorporate in models
Like this dude argues:
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/cloudiness.htm
But of course ... well ... does cloud cover really depend on temperature, and to what extent can it mitigate other warming effects (by CO2 and general water vapor increase) ?
This is a more in-depth discussion...
http://www.euclipse.eu/summerschool/Lectures/Bony_2.pdf
And what about that darned humidty...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_humidity
"useful rule of thumb is that the maximum absolute humidity doubles for every 20 °F or 10 °C increase in temperature."
- How about that... does that mean there will be twice the precipitation when temperatures actually rise by 10 degrees? I think it will... after all, if air travels over the ocean, the ocean will supply all the water vapor it needs (the water is cooling down in the process).
- Also, more water vapor means lighter air, leading to increasingly strong convection.
- Also, air will absorb more moisture from the ground (because it can contain more water). Since ground doesn't have extra capacity to hold moisture ... it will probably mean that the ground will become drier in general. Even if there's more intense rain, rain is easily transported away by rivers and after the rain, the ground will dry up quicker. In an extreme case, you might get huge rivers, meandering through shrublands... brr. I hope I'm wrong about this. Maybe I'm wrong...
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/12/counterintuitive-models-wrong-rainfall-more-likely-over-drier-soil/
It might be perfect for growing grapes because they have deep roots... lots of sunshine and the occasional shower to supply the deeper groundwater might give us the perfect growing conditions for the perfect wine.
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/grapevine-root-systems-59167.html
This seems comforting, apparently deserts are getting greener...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/26/climate-change-is-making-deserts-greener.html