Where is all of global warming’s missing heat?
Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren’t quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
This is puzzling in part because here on the surface of the Earth, the years since 2003 have been some of the hottest on record. But Josh Willis at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.
In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.
“There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant,” Willis says. So the buildup of heat on Earth may be on a brief hiatus. “Global warming doesn’t mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming.”
It is an interesting question, where is the heat? But, I find it interesting that the slight cooling is not significant. Whenever there is a slight uptick in the temps, a storm, a hurricane, a drought, etc and so on, it means global warming, usually anthropogenic global warming, is coming, and we are all going to die! When there is a cooling trend, eh, no biggy.
Too be totally honest, Willis could be correct. Remember, during the American Revolution, which occured during the Little Ice Age, there was a massive heat wave during the summer of the Battle of Monmouth, and more men died from the heat then the battle.
In recent years, heat has actually been flowing out of the ocean and into the air. This is a feature of the weather phenomenon known as El Nino. So it is indeed possible the air has warmed but the ocean has not. But it’s also possible that something more mysterious is going on
Now, to me, that is a huge point, which shows that nature, not Man, has a huge impact on the current warming trend. BTW, y’all manmade global warming hysterics do understand that the Little Ice Age ended in the mid 1800’s, right?
Furthermore, the article explains that scientists really have no idea what the clouds have been doing, and, since they can increase or decrease the temps, they play a big part, too.
My point is that we have all these climahysterics running around DEMANDING action to stop global warming because Man is causing it, yet, as more and more evidence comes out, we see that it is primarily nature that causes the changes. I will not dismiss Man’s role entirely, though. He, or, to be non discriminatory, She, has some effect. And before any Climahysterics start demanding proof, perhaps they should tell us what they themselves are doing to stop global warming, other then killing trees with all their petitions and driving their SUVs to global warming rallies.
I think it’s mainly because algore stopped talking so much.
Well Teach its nice to see that you agree that man is at least PARTLY responsible for global climate change. That is a good first step. Rwewgardless of what percentage of global warming man is responsible for I think most would agree that it will be far easier to effect that portion than say, dimming the sun.
Now the next step that I would to see is you realizing that 100% of any one group of 100 millions + is going to all act the same (responsible) way.
Some people are still going to leave unnecessary lights on or do other socially irresponsible things. But we as a Americans are changing, and for the better.
As for the part about “or we are all going to die” well of course that IS CORRECT. Hot world or cold world, wet world or dry world, WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. But of course one question remains, when they DOES happen, will we be leaving a better or worse world for our children ?
John, my first reaction to your statement is to call you a twit. That would be rude and immature so I apologize for the knee jerk reaction.
I can, however, voice my own life experiences on global pollution. I used to live on Long Beach California and could barely see the city from the hills due to the smog. Over the years the pollution has been handled in several methods that were unobtrusive, such as hybrid plant on the side of the freeway that eat the toxic fumes that plants give off. It was one of several things that were done to get a handle on their pollution and they did. They were successful. Mission Accomplished. Similar things have happened in various other places as well. Washington State now has a larger and more diverse population of trees than it had before “the white man came”. We’ve done our part already. It’s time to maintain what we have and live in fair harmony instead of becoming obtrusive to our own existence.
Will,
ZOMG WHAT R U TALKING ABOOT! THERS UH KUNSENSUS!! ALL UTHER SINETITS R LIARZ!
Thank you, that is all.
John, I have never claimed that Man bore no responsibility. Actually, quite the contrary. Look back and see how Silke keeps pestering me to prove my belief that Man causes about 10-15% of the warming (yet won’t prove her assertion that it is mostly or solely Mans fault.)
I have no problem fixing what we are causing, to the extent we can. The most important thing we can do is keep the oceans clean. That is a massively long explanation for why, which I am not going to get in to, but, suffice to say, look at what Plankton does.
But, we, for the most part, need to split real environmental problems from the anthropogenic global warming issue. As Gus points out, there are lots of true pollutants out there, and we need to do what we can to reduce them, if not completely clean them up.
I need to figure out the code to get the paragraphs in comments to split.
test comment for paragraph
will it work?
let’s see
Yup.
It did.
John, its nice to see that you agree that man is at least PARTLY responsible for the global climate change. That is a good first step.
Next, we need you to realize that shutting down every single internal combustion engine overnight will effect global warming like peeing in the ocean will effect the ammonia content of the Pacific.