Warming Climate Is Affecting Cascades Snowpack

[JosephH]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090512153335.htm

 

ScienceDaily (May 15, 2009) — There has been sharp disagreement in recent years about how much, or even whether, winter snowpack has declined in the Cascade Mountains of Washington and Oregon during the last half-century. But new research leaves little doubt that a warmer climate has a significant effect on the snowpack, as measured by water content on April 1, even if other factors keep year-to-year measurements close to normal for a period of years.

 

Water content can vary greatly depending on temperature and other conditions at the time of snowfall. Typically an inch of snow at temperatures near freezing will contain significantly more water than an inch of snow a colder temperatures. "All things being equal, if you make it 1 degree Celsius warmer, then 20 percent of the snowpack goes away for the central Puget Sound basin, the area we looked at," said Joseph Casola, a University of Washington doctoral student in atmospheric sciences. ...

[JoshK]

Queue up right wing disagreement and claims that the climate is not warming...

[Fairweather]

Again, Josh, I don't think anyone disagrees that glaciers are shrinking. The why is still up for debate in the opinions of significantly more than a handful. I recently had an astrophysics prof who remains very skeptical re CO2 and he is, by no means, a "right winger".

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html

 

I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong, but it's a shame you remain completely unwilling to even consider other causes such as solar output or soot. Despite the ongoing virtual-hysteria, the science remains uncertain, ITOOM.

[JosephH]

I find just the symptoms of glaciers and thawing tundra by themselves to be compelling, but take the sun and volcanoes out of the equation and what's left really is us...

 

"CO2 from active volcanoes is 1/150th of anthropogenic emissions"

 

"Changes In The Sun Are Not Causing Global Warming, New Study Shows"

 

"Apparent Problem With Global Warming Climate Models Resolved"

 

"Scientists Agree Human-induced Global Warming Is Real, Survey Says"

 

[ivan]

ultimately too, the cause is irrelevant - the indicated treatment would be the same, no? it doesn't matter how you got a fever of a 105, the bottom line is you need to immediately take aspirin, right?

[Fairweather]

ultimately too, the cause is irrelevant - the indicated treatment would be the same, no? it doesn't matter how you got a fever of a 105, the bottom line is you need to immediately take aspirin, right?

 

No. The prescription for CO2 induced warming is radically different from that which calls for reducing atmospheric particulates. What you're describing above is called "do something" disease. Josheph provides four links that read as "yea, buts...". I'm not sure how many flaws in an argument it takes before one is at least willing to question the premise. Apparently, more than four.

[JBo6]

OK, kind of buzzed while I write this, so entirely possible I missed a key aspect, and I apologize if so.

Joseph's first link is showing how humans release much more (150x) CO2 than volcano's. Second link is rejecting the theory that there has been decreased cloud formation(resulting in an increase of albedo, and therefore more warming) due to changes in galactic rays. Do the rays serve to introduce particles or ions, that after they get the chance to grow larger function as cloud condensation nuclei? I have gotten the berylium concentrations as a measure of galactic waves talk before, but that pretty much flew right over my head.

Third link is talks about possible reasons for warming 10 km above the Equator. Is this relating to the whole top down, versus bottom up warming? I don't quite see the relevancy besides creating confusion, and had never heard the argument of warming in the Tropopause over the Equator offered as evidence either way.

Forth link is a summation of a brief study done that offers the newest Zogby type poll on what "X" people/scientists believe.

 

Now a few questions based on Fairweather's recent post. Don't atmospheric aerosols have a overall affect of keeping the planet cooler than it would be otherwise. I hate to provide wikipedia as a source, but am too lazy to look up the paper by Jim Hansen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming The theory is that the increased amount of aerosols that were put into the atmosphere early 1900s and 1800s served to mask the affects of CO2 on warming, but as the Clean Air act and other emission standards begin to take effect we are cleaning our atmosphere compared to the past 150 years resulting in a decreased albedo and more warming occurring as part of that feedback.

 

I could be completely talking out of my ass, but it would be nice to hear what people think.

[Fairweather]

I was curious about the albedo argument too. The albedo of Earth is something like .338 and I haven't read that it has changed at all. The CO2 argument is pretty simple: UV light in, IR out. IR is "trapped" (actually, scattered) by CO2, methane, water vapor, etc, on its way back into space, and the planet warms. But it's almost as if this primary argument isn't strong enough to stand alone so these hyper-complex models are heaped upon the premise in the hope that more will be better. Some of these models climatologists have hung their hats on are now collapsing (West Antarctic Ice Sheet just yesterday), and instead of reflection you have this mad rush to do nothing more than patch them up--even to the degree that irreconcilable outcomes are said to be evidence of the models veracity! Again; I would just be happy if people like Josh were at least willing to consider the possibility the science is incomplete--if not seriously flawed. Anything less reeks of an almost-religious zeal.

Edited May 16, 2009 by Fairweather

[JBo6]

There are a few other possible ways that the earth's albedo can change with warming. There is the ice albedo feedback, which is one of the large concerns about the arctic melting. As all of the snow and ice with a very high albedo melts during the summer this exposes the darker ocean which then absorbs more of the radiation.

Another albedo feedback is as the Arctic warms trees and shrubs are able to grown further north. Since they sit above the snow they will begin to start absorbing energy as soon as the snow melts off of the branches, even though there is still snow on the ground.

[i_like_sun]

For those of you who still remain skeptical of the human impact on climate change, the answer is rather simple:

 

YOU ARE A RETARD.

[i_like_sun]

If you add every internal combustion engine together, 68% of the Earth's surface area is ON FIRE. Human burning truly began at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and climate warming mirrors this with a significance value that alarms anyone who knows anything about statistics. It is also known that although it is not the worst Greenhouse Gas, CO2 still has significant atmospheric warming properties.

 

1 + 2 = 3.

 

Where is the debate????

[Fairweather]

If you add every internal combustion engine together, 68% of the Earth's surface area is ON FIRE. Human burning truly began at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and climate warming mirrors this with a significance value that alarms anyone who knows anything about statistics. It is also known that although it is not the worst Greenhouse Gas, CO2 still has significant atmospheric warming properties.

 

1 + 2 = 3.

 

Where is the debate????

 

Correlation does not necessarily equal causation.

 

For those of you who still remain skeptical of the human impact on climate change, the answer is rather simple:

 

YOU ARE A RETARD.

 

Spoken like a true believer.

[Fairweather]

There are a few other possible ways that the earth's albedo can change with warming. There is the ice albedo feedback, which is one of the large concerns about the arctic melting. As all of the snow and ice with a very high albedo melts during the summer this exposes the darker ocean which then absorbs more of the radiation.

Another albedo feedback is as the Arctic warms trees and shrubs are able to grown further north. Since they sit above the snow they will begin to start absorbing energy as soon as the snow melts off of the branches, even though there is still snow on the ground.

 

Thanks for the civil discourse. What you state is also the reason that glacial recession does not necessarily equal ambient warming. There have been a few smaller studies re Greenland that reveal an albedo/soot darkening problem, and until these are reconciled with--and included in--the broader picture, I will remain a skeptic of the CO2 model. Even then, of course, there is the whole Martian icecap thing...

Edited May 16, 2009 by Fairweather

[i_like_sun]

Are you debating the properties of CO2 as a Greenhouse Gas? How do you explain the fact that ice cores are showing an exponential increase in CO2 over the past 100 years that perfectly mirrors Earth warming? Also, what are your credentials? Are you saying you are smarter than all of the top minds in atmospheric chemistry that are in agreement that humans are playing a prime role in heating up the atmosphere? We are experiencing an Earth that is heading into the warmest period in over 30 million years. And all of this has been achieved within the past 100 years.

 

People who debate human causality in climate change are usually staunch lobotomized republicans who own huge trucks, and, who have small dicks.

[ivan]

if i hear anyone say "ad hominem attack" this cute little girl gets it!

 

on a side note, i recommend against google image searching "cute little girl" w/ the filter turned off

[JBo6]

Are the Greenland studies focusing on albedo changes to the glacier as a reason for the melting there?

 

I'm going to give the Mars thing a try. Since Mars has a very weak to no atmosphere, and there are no bodies of water on the planet there are few things that absorb, and/or trap some of the energy that comes in. The surface can directly absorb energy but that is about all. This is where it gets real tricky for me to understand, but I think that during Mars's winter there is CO2 "snow" that forms in the north, which then sublimates during the summer. I haven't read any of the papers about Mars temperature rising, but I think what is argued is that without an atmosphere the temperature is more correlated with changes in albedo one way or another. There are also clouds that form, but I have absolutely no understanding there.