Re: [asa] Claude Allegre, one of France's leading socialists and among her most celebrated scientists, was among the first to sound the alarm about the dangers of global warming.

It's close to impossible to address the 'objections' by global warming
deniers individually, although there appears to be a significant
overlap in their claims. In this case I would like to address the
claim that (http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777)
(by that time majority chair Inhofe)

<quote>Oceans Cooling

Another bombshell to hit the global warming alarmists and their
speculative climate modeling came in a September article in the
Geophysical Research Letters which found that over 20% of the heat
gained in the oceans since the mid-1950s was lost in just two years.
The former climatologist for the state of Colorado, Roger Pielke, Sr.,
noted that the sudden cooling of the oceans "certainly indicates that
the multi-decadal global climate models have serious issues with their
ability to accurately simulate the response of the climate system to
human- and natural-climate forcings." See:
http://climatesci.atmos.colostate.edu/2006/09/
</quote>

At first, these findings may appear quite shocking. But the reality
once again shows a much more interesting picture.

First of all, the data show that sea surface heights continue to
increase, despite the cooling.

See http://sealevel.colorado.edu/ for the latest data from the Topex
and Jason satellites. So if the temperatures at the surface are
cooling, and the surface height continues to increase, there are two
possibilities, either the cooling is offset at a greater depth, or we
have significant inflow of cold and fresh water.

Let me explain. The sea level height is determined by the temperature:
warmer water expands and thus will increase the sea level. So if there
is a significant cooling, this means that the sea level should
decrease. Since this did not happen, two alternative hypotheses remain

1. The cooling is off-set by a warming at depth
2. The cooling is offset by actual inflow of water, causing the actual
sealevels to rise not because of temperature but because the 'basins'
are filling with more water.

See http://wcrp.ipsl.jussieu.fr/Workshops/SeaLevel/Posters/3_14_Willis.pdf

Pay attention to the conclusions that there is an inflow of fresh (and
cooler) water. Anyone willing to 'guess' where this fresh and cold
water may be coming from?

<quote>
Conclusions

A decrease in globally averaged 0/750 m thermosteric sea level was
observed between 2003 and 2005. Including the recent decrease, the
trend in 0/750 m thermosteric sea level is 1.3 ± 0.14 mm/yr. Due to
the decrease, a substantial increase in the rate of sea level rise due
to the input of freshwater is inferred. The inferred rates of
freshwater input are 0.7 ± 1.0 mm/yr from 1993 to 1999 and 2.9 ± 1.1
mm/yr from 1999 to 2005, where these errors include estimates of the
potential systematic error
</quote>

Of course anyone who would have read the original paper
(http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/lyman/Pdf/heat_2006.pdf) would have
known this

<quote>
The recent cooling of the upper
ocean implies a decrease in the thermosteric component of sea level.
Estimates of total
sea level [Leuliette et al., 2004; http://sealevel.colorado.edu],
however, show continued
sea-level rise during the past 3 years. This suggests that other
contributions to sea-level
rise, such as melting of land-bound ice, have accelerated. This
inference is consistent
with recent estimates of ice mass loss in Antarctica [Velicogna and
Wahr, 2006] and
accelerating ice mass loss on Greenland [Rignot et al., 2006] but
closure of the global sea
level budget cannot yet be achieved. New satellite observations from the Gravity
Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE; launched in March, 2002 and administered
by NASA and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt, GRACE will map Earth's
gravity field approximately once every 30 days during its lifetime)
should soon provide
sufficient observations of the redistribution of water mass to more
fully describe the
causes of recent sea-level change.
</quote>

And what did GRACE find?

<quote>Another tool useful in the study of sea level is NASA's Gravity
Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE). GRACE precisely measures
surface height not only of the world's ocean, but also the giant
bodies of ice that feed it. If ice mass height drops and ocean level
rises, GRACE can measure both changes simultaneously. GRACE
observations determined that from 2002 to 2005, Antarctic ice lost
enough mass to raise global sea level by 1.5 millimeters (0.05
inches).</quote>

see also http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/mar/HQ_06085_arctic_ice.html

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Received on Mon Mar 5 22:46:05 2007