Article

2009-11-17 Europe

Spiegel: Obama Has Failed The World On Climate Change

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Posted by Frank G 2009-11-17 11:09|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 "if the rest of the world were to follow the US example in their approach to fossil fuels, the oceans would not only heat up, but would probably soon begin to boil....

....like OVENS! cooking everyone!

Posted by Besoeker 2009-11-17 11:29|| 2009-11-17 11:29|| Front Page Top

#2 Whining as only a EUoweenie can. As Glenn would say, who are the rubes?

Posted by Spot">Spot 2009-11-17 11:32|| 2009-11-17 11:32|| Front Page Top

#3 For once I must agree with this Glockenspiel. Americans have done too much harm to Germany by buying all those ecosystem destroying, carbon belching Teutonic panzer machinas und luft wagons. While in America, forests are expanding and now cover a greater area than when Columbus was but an illegal alien. Primal forests are encroaching on Detroit and Seattle can only be described as "green" year round.

So America, help our poor, suffering, concrete entombed German cousins, sacrifice one of the 7 quadrillion American trees and buy Detroit. Do your part for the climate, help expand the near extinct Central European wildlife, and make Germans proud of Amerika once again. Gaia and Der Spiegel readers beseech you.

Posted by ed 2009-11-17 11:43|| 2009-11-17 11:43|| Front Page Top

#4 Seems he lied to the Europeans.

Heartbreaking.

Posted by Bobby 2009-11-17 11:52|| 2009-11-17 11:52|| Front Page Top

#5 As with all his other failures, Zero's failures are victories for free men.

Posted by AlanC">AlanC 2009-11-17 12:34|| 2009-11-17 12:34|| Front Page Top

#6 O-bow-ma doesn't need any stinking climate change summit. His nomination was when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. Don't they know they know they are criticizing the Chosen One.

Posted by tipper 2009-11-17 13:10|| 2009-11-17 13:10|| Front Page Top

#7 From http://timworstall.com/2009/11/17/good-grief-14/

response 2 (not me).

#

#

2 Nigel Sedgwick // Nov 17, 2009 at 1:34 pm

In the referenced newspaper article by Dr Stuart Clarke, I did not find any mention of the low-pass filtering effect caused by the specific heat capacity of the oceans. I actually think this is very important, not least because that specific heat capacity is vastly greater than that of the atmosphere.

The mass of water in the oceans is about 1.4×10^21 kilogrammes: from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean#Physical_properties

The specific heat capacity of sea water (at 36F is about 3.93 kJ/kg (compared to 4.19 kJ/kg for fresh water): from http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-fluids-d_151.html

Assuming the sea water specific heat capacity of 3.93 kJ/kg, this means that approximately 5.5×10^21 kJ of energy is required to heat the oceans by 1C (one degree Celsius).

The average solar irradiance hitting the disc of the earth is 1,360 W/m2; the Earths cross sectional area is 127.4×10^6 square kilometres, so the average total solar irradiance of the Earth is 1.740×10^17 Watts: from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#Solar_constant

It thus requires the total energy from around 31.61 million seconds of solar irradiance, totally adsorbed and directed to that end, to warm the oceans by 1C. This is 1.0023 years.

Given that, in practice average annual solar irradiance varies by only a very small proportion (IIRC less than 1%), that only a fraction of that energy is not re-radiated, that average cloud cover causes only a small fractional change, that only a (perhaps largish) fraction of that energy difference goes towards ocean warming or cooling, and the limitations from deep-to-surface and surface-to-deep ocean currents, I think we can expect that the oceans impose a lowpass filtering effect on any fluctuations in the Earths average temperature that will have its effect over many decades, perhaps even centuries. Obviously though, there will be shorter term and more direct effect at the Earths surface and in the atmosphere, even as rapidly as day and night and summer and winter.

Overall, I dont think we should expect some definitive and fairly simply interpreted scientific evidence next year, or even in a couple of years after that.

However, if the weather over several years returns pretty much to that we experienced in the 1960s in the UK, I think we can draw the conclusion that the theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, IIRC put forward in the 1970s (after the ice-age scare disappeared), is distinctly weakened.

Best regards

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2009-11-17 13:32|| 2009-11-17 13:32|| Front Page Top

#8 Oh dear. Mr. Sedgwick actually used science on them, Bright Pebbles? How utterly unfair!

Posted by trailing wife 2009-11-17 14:22|| 2009-11-17 14:22|| Front Page Top

23:54 JosephMendiola
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