Gulf Stream

[I_M4_AU 7,837]

1 hour ago, Leftfield said:

I'm assuming you have examples of climate scientists being drastically wrong, as I asked for in my previous post?

Here is some examples of politians expounding on about doom and gloom due to climate change:

Also in 1970, the Boston Globe ran with a chilling headline, “Scientist Predicts A New Ice Age By 21st Century.” In the associated article, researcher James Lodge warned, “Air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the next century if population continues to grow and earth’s resources are consumed at the present rate…”

Time joined the cooling trend June 22, 1974: “Telltale signs are everywhere, from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7 F.”

“The relationship of global climate to food supplies is a case in point: climatic researchers are becoming alarmed that in the next 10 to 100 years humanity will be unable to feed itself—not through technological insufficiency or political mischief—but because of climatic changes that it can barely understand or control.”

Even in 1978, global cooling was a “No End” fact, according to another New York Times article: “An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.”

However, just a year after the global cooling article, the New York Times predicted catastrophe via global warming in a February 1979 story: “Climatologists Are Warned North Pole Might Melt,” featuring a jarring opening paragraph: “There is a real possibility that some people now in their infancy will live to a time when the ice at the North Pole will have melted, a change that would cause swift and perhaps catastrophic changes in climate.”

It was the end of the 1970s and big cold failed to arrive. Bring on big heat.

On June 30, 1989, the Associated Press squeezed decimation into a tight, 11-year window, with an ominous article, “Rising Seas Could Obliterate Nations,” containing a jaw-dropping opener: “A senior UN environmental official (Noel Brown) says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.”

In 1990, aware the apocalypse was stalled, Mostafa Tolba, doubled down: “We shall win or lose the climate struggle in the first years of the 1990s. The issue is as urgent as that.”

Only three months later, UK prime minister Gordon Brown urged nations to pull a historical handbrake ahead of a climate conference: "There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next 50 years and more. If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice. By then, it will be irretrievably too late.”

In 2014, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius upped Brown’s 50 days to 500. “We have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”

Twelve years to 2031. In January 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put her chips on 2031 as the potential end of days. "Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we're like: 'The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don't address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it? And, like, this is the war—this is our World War ll.”

Eleven years to 2030. Echoing Ocasio-Cortez in March 2019, but shaving off a year, UN General Assembly President Maria Garces declared an 11-year window to escape catastrophe: “We are the last generation that can prevent irreparable damage to our planet.”

In June 2019, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden threw his support behind Ocasio-Cortez’s dozen-year projection: “Science tells us that how we act or fail to act in the next 12 years will determine the very livability of our planet.” 

Full circle back to 2023, and the UN’s latest “time-bomb,” released March 20, as described by the Associated Press: "Humanity still has a chance close to the last to prevent the worst of climate change's future harms…”

In step with near annual UN declarations from the past 50 years, Secretary-General Guterres once again sounded the alarm: “The climate time-bomb is ticking.”

But therein lies the beauty of doomsday predictions: When one fails, make another.

https://www.agweb.com/opinion/doomsday-addiction-celebrating-50-years-failed-climate-predictions

I only copied a few of the more rediculous (as we look back) instances in the last 50 years.  If you read the article it lays out 50 years of prediction that have yet to pan out.  Now 50 years ago those were interesting articles that nobody took seriously, but now that Biden has turned it into a political tool for his party to run on.  Note: his big tool he will hit Republicans on is abortion, not climate change (even though climate change is an existential threat).

1 hour ago, Leftfield said:

that man has not change anything in a meaningful way.

Have they changed anything meaningful with respect to climate and the weather?  I don’t recall any, a lot of talk though.

 

1 hour ago, Leftfield said:

What does this even mean? How in the hell does the Biden administration have anything to do with what scientists are modeling or predicting? Every time this discussion starts to move to facts, you make it political. 

The Biden administration (AOC and friends) made it political in the 2020 Presidential race.  He passed his infrastructure bill that was heavily skewed toward his existential threat.  Trump gets out of the Paris Accord, the left goes nuts and Biden runs on the existential threat of Climate Change.  The reason it has elevated to spending $trillions of dollars is political.  

1 hour ago, Leftfield said:

believing it to be plausible to silence that much opposition and create that much false information is bonkers-level conspiracy thinking.

If government programs fund research into climate change and your paycheck is depend on agreeing with said programs do you see how scientists can agree climate change is real?  

 

1 hour ago, Leftfield said:

You have no facts, so you revert bashing the administration that is actually reacting to the data.

This administration is reacting to what Trump did with the Paris Accord, read the room and moved in the opposite direction.  

[Leftfield 2,601]

8 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Here is some examples of politians expounding on about doom and gloom due to climate change:

Also in 1970, the Boston Globe ran with a chilling headline, “Scientist Predicts A New Ice Age By 21st Century.” In the associated article, researcher James Lodge warned, “Air pollution may obliterate the sun and cause a new ice age in the first third of the next century if population continues to grow and earth’s resources are consumed at the present rate…”

Time joined the cooling trend June 22, 1974: “Telltale signs are everywhere, from the unexpected persistence and thickness of pack ice in the waters around Iceland to the southward migration of a warmth-loving creature like the armadillo from the Midwest. Since the 1940s the mean global temperature has dropped about 2.7 F.”

“The relationship of global climate to food supplies is a case in point: climatic researchers are becoming alarmed that in the next 10 to 100 years humanity will be unable to feed itself—not through technological insufficiency or political mischief—but because of climatic changes that it can barely understand or control.”

Even in 1978, global cooling was a “No End” fact, according to another New York Times article: “An international team of specialists has concluded from eight indexes of climate that there is no end in sight to the cooling trend of the last 30 years, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.”

However, just a year after the global cooling article, the New York Times predicted catastrophe via global warming in a February 1979 story: “Climatologists Are Warned North Pole Might Melt,” featuring a jarring opening paragraph: “There is a real possibility that some people now in their infancy will live to a time when the ice at the North Pole will have melted, a change that would cause swift and perhaps catastrophic changes in climate.”

It was the end of the 1970s and big cold failed to arrive. Bring on big heat.

On June 30, 1989, the Associated Press squeezed decimation into a tight, 11-year window, with an ominous article, “Rising Seas Could Obliterate Nations,” containing a jaw-dropping opener: “A senior UN environmental official (Noel Brown) says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.”

In 1990, aware the apocalypse was stalled, Mostafa Tolba, doubled down: “We shall win or lose the climate struggle in the first years of the 1990s. The issue is as urgent as that.”

Only three months later, UK prime minister Gordon Brown urged nations to pull a historical handbrake ahead of a climate conference: "There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next 50 years and more. If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement, in some future period, can undo that choice. By then, it will be irretrievably too late.”

In 2014, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius upped Brown’s 50 days to 500. “We have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”

Twelve years to 2031. In January 2019, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put her chips on 2031 as the potential end of days. "Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we're like: 'The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don't address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it? And, like, this is the war—this is our World War ll.”

Eleven years to 2030. Echoing Ocasio-Cortez in March 2019, but shaving off a year, UN General Assembly President Maria Garces declared an 11-year window to escape catastrophe: “We are the last generation that can prevent irreparable damage to our planet.”

In June 2019, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden threw his support behind Ocasio-Cortez’s dozen-year projection: “Science tells us that how we act or fail to act in the next 12 years will determine the very livability of our planet.” 

Full circle back to 2023, and the UN’s latest “time-bomb,” released March 20, as described by the Associated Press: "Humanity still has a chance close to the last to prevent the worst of climate change's future harms…”

In step with near annual UN declarations from the past 50 years, Secretary-General Guterres once again sounded the alarm: “The climate time-bomb is ticking.”

he room and moved in the opposite direction.  

So not a single example of a climate scientist's predictions being way off. Got it.

You may note (or not) that most of the examples you give talk about the time left to initiate meaningful change to limit temperature increases, not the actual "end of the world." You can find plenty of examples of politicians or media sources using hyperbole or drastic claims for their own ends, but ignore the headlines and look at what the actual scientists are saying.

Also always fun to see how far back climate critics will go with their arguments. Ignoring the actual content of your examples, nine of the fifteen were from more than 30 years ago. 

I'll go through the link later.

 

19 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Have they changed anything meaningful with respect to climate and the weather?  I don’t recall any, a lot of talk though.

So again, to what do you attribute rising temperatures? Yes, the climate changes over time, but do you dispute that temperatures are rising at a much faster rate than the historical average?

 

21 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

The Biden administration (AOC and friends) made it political in the 2020 Presidential race.  He passed his infrastructure bill that was heavily skewed toward his existential threat.  Trump gets out of the Paris Accord, the left goes nuts and Biden runs on the existential threat of Climate Change.  The reason it has elevated to spending $trillions of dollars is political.  

So the government passes legislation to combat a problem, and you call that political? Was it political when the government passed established Medicare, or passed Civil Rights legislation, or for that matter any law? You only call it political because you disagree with it. For those of us who think it is a problem it's hardly political.

 

25 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

If government programs fund research into climate change and your paycheck is depend on agreeing with said programs do you see how scientists can agree climate change is real?  

So every climate scientist works for the government? And not a single whistleblower coming forward to expose their fraud?

No independent research funded by private organizations whatsoever? Surely there are enough wealthy critics to fund scientists to show that either temperatures are not rising, or there is another cause other than human activity.

 

28 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

This administration is reacting to what Trump did with the Paris Accord, read the room and moved in the opposite direction.  

Sure, that must have been the reason. 

Oy vey.

[I_M4_AU 7,837]

13 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

So not a single example of a climate scientist's predictions being way off. Got it.

When did *climate scientists* actually start?  The articles from Time and Newsweek are based off of scientist.

18 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

So again, to what do you attribute rising temperatures? Yes, the climate changes over time, but do you dispute that temperatures are rising at a much faster rate than the historical average?

I was talking about any mitigation that has changed climate or weather in any meanful way.  Climate changes occur even when there were no humans and/or industry to cause it.

 

23 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

You only call it political because you disagree with it. For those of us who think it is a problem it's hardly political.

It is political if you are building 500,000 charging stations to service a relatively small part of the population.  The laws you mentioned were for the greater good.  Did the government build all the gas stations or was that left up to individual investors?  Sound policial to me.

 

27 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

Surely there are enough wealthy critics to fund scientists to show that either temperatures are not rising, or there is another cause other than human activity.

Yes there are scientist that dispute the narrative.

 

29 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

Sure, that must have been the reason. 

Knowing what you know now; do you think it was a well laid out strategy?  Why is Biden producing more oil?  He told a young lady during his campaign he was going to kill the fossil fuel industry.  What happened to that?  It must have been just a campaign promise he failed to keep.

[NCAubs 377]

You people are geniuses.  

[auburnatl1 4,917]

58 minutes ago, NCAubs said:

You people are geniuses.  

[Leftfield 2,601]

On 3/10/2024 at 4:03 PM, I_M4_AU said:

When did *climate scientists* actually start?  The articles from Time and Newsweek are based off of scientist.

Climate science has been around a good while, but computer modeling is what really took it to new levels. Computers that could run large scale modeling didn't start showing up until the 80's. 

Newsweek article wouldn't open. The Time article was one I addressed in the previous discussion - if you notice, it says that all scientists agreed that vastly more information was needed, and obviously it was. Once international climate programs began and data was being collected in earnest, models started becoming more accurate.

 

On 3/10/2024 at 4:03 PM, I_M4_AU said:

I was talking about any mitigation that has changed climate or weather in any meanful way.  Climate changes occur even when there were no humans and/or industry to cause it.

This is just unbelievable....in one of my previous posts, I said:

"Proving you have not learned one thing about the climate since this all began. For the I-don't-know-how-manynth time, of course the climate changes. That's not the problem. The problem is how quickly it's changing. Why can't you grasp this?"

...and yet here you are spouting the same inane line that you did before. 

 

On 3/10/2024 at 4:03 PM, I_M4_AU said:

It is political if you are building 500,000 charging stations to service a relatively small part of the population.  The laws you mentioned were for the greater good.  Did the government build all the gas stations or was that left up to individual investors?  Sound policial to me.

It's a relatively small part now, but the whole point is that more people will eventually be buying them. Is it better to wait until then to get the infrastructure in place? You and others against it constantly bitch about how our current infrastructure won't support it, then through the other side of your mouth you're now complaining that the government is trying to get ahead of it. Make up your damn mind.

Also, how exactly is trying to head of ecological disaster not for the greater good? Again, just because you don't believe there's a problem doesn't make it political.

Tell me what problem there was to solve that the government should have stepped in to add gas stations?

 

On 3/10/2024 at 4:03 PM, I_M4_AU said:

Yes there are scientist that dispute the narrative.

Eagerly awaiting your posting of their reports. I'm sure Exxon would hire them, so then they'd have scientists that disputed global warming instead of accurately predicting it.

 

On 3/10/2024 at 4:03 PM, I_M4_AU said:

Knowing what you know now; do you think it was a well laid out strategy? 

A well laid out strategy to rejoin the Accords? Well, yeah. It's laughable you think he did that as a reaction to Trump rather than seeing it as doing the right thing.

 

On 3/10/2024 at 4:03 PM, I_M4_AU said:

He told a young lady during his campaign he was going to kill the fossil fuel industry.  What happened to that?  It must have been just a campaign promise he failed to keep.

Wow. A politician pandering? Never seen that before.

 

 

 

[AU9377 4,931]

On 2/11/2024 at 9:59 AM, auburnatl1 said:

I did an Alaska cruise several years ago and did one 25 years earlier - was shocked how far back the glaciers had retreated. Again - whether it’s natural fluctuations or co2 is another debate. But in either case our (great?) grand children may define “normal” differently than we did.

I've been trying to get people to understand this for years.  There is no debate that the world is getting warmer.  I would also argue that, while some of it may be cyclical, most evidence strongly points to human behavior having a hand in speeding up the cyclical changes.  The most valid debate is whether or not actions taken now can actually impact what is already underway?

Regardless of the answer, cleaner air and water should be something that everyone understands to be a good thing.

[Leftfield 2,601]

24 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

I would also argue that, while some of it may be cyclical, most evidence strongly points to human behavior having a hand in speeding up the cyclical changes. 

Simplest way to look at it is CO2. Levels in the atmosphere are far higher than they've been in at least 3 million years.

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/

I have seen no counter arguments to anthropogenic climate change that explain why CO2 levels have spiked so quickly. Happy to be proven wrong, so I don't have to worry about it any longer.

Just to be clear, that last sentence was not directed at you...I'm not saying you are a skeptic.

[I_M4_AU 7,837]

33 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

The most valid debate is whether or not actions taken now can actually impact what is already underway?

Ding, ding ding.

34 minutes ago, AU9377 said:

Regardless of the answer, cleaner air and water should be something that everyone understands to be a good thing.

But at what cost?  That is the debate.

[JMWATS 92]

On 3/9/2024 at 11:37 AM, homersapien said:

Irrelevant. 

The current warming is a result of the industrial revolution.  It's not a part of epochal climate cycles. It's the same mechanism that drove these historical cycles, but highly accelerated due to our unleashing the carbon stored during the carboniferous period.

https://skepticalscience.com/climate-change-little-ice-age-medieval-warm-period.htm

I can take you to a dive site off Pensacola that is a petrified forest.   The climate has been changing for a very very long time.  

[homersapien 11,373]

5 hours ago, JMWATS said:

I can take you to a dive site off Pensacola that is a petrified forest.   The climate has been changing for a very very long time.  

Love to go!  I earned a NAUI certification from back when I attended Auburn in the 70's.

But assuming that post was attempting to make a point, here's my response:

How old is that petrified forest?  I'm guessing the trees that formed it grew during the "ice age" which extended from about 2.6 million years to 11,000 years BCE.

In other words, the evidence of that climate change is totally irrelevant to the more recent changes in CO₂ content - and associated temperature rise - occurring in the Anthropocene, particularly starting from the "Industrial Revolution".

Edited March 13 by homersapien

[johnnyAU 3,630]

2 hours ago, homersapien said:

Love to go!  I earned a NAUI certification from back when I attended Auburn in the 70's.

But assuming that post was attempting to make a point, here's my response:

How old is that petrified forest?  I'm guessing the trees that formed it grew during the "ice age" which extended from about 2.6 million years to 11,000 years BCE.

In other words, the evidence of that climate change is totally irrelevant to the more recent changes in CO₂ content - and associated temperature rise - occurring in the Anthropocene, particularly starting from the "Industrial Revolution".

It isn't irrelevant at all. In fact, there is no definitive correlation between rising CO2 levels and temperature rise over the course of history, except for the ice core data which shows the exact opposite. Temperature rises BEFORE CO2 rises. 

[Leftfield 2,601]

47 minutes ago, johnnyAU said:

It isn't irrelevant at all. In fact, there is no definitive correlation between rising CO2 levels and temperature rise over the course of history, except for the ice core data which shows the exact opposite. Temperature rises BEFORE CO2 rises. 

On the bolded part you're correct, and you're unwittingly showing the problem with man putting so much additional CO2 into the atmosphere....we're throwing the normal cycle off. CO2 is generally a lagging indicator and does not by itself cause the planetary temperature cycles: those are due to the motion of the Earth and it's position and angle to the Sun.

CO2 reinforces the temperature cycles. At the start of ice ages it sinks and much of it becomes trapped in the oceans and ice. With less in the atmosphere, less heat is trapped and temperatures fall further.  At the end when the planet warms again and the ice begins to melt, the CO2 is released, traps more heat, and accelerates temperature rise.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-the-rise-and-fall-of-co2-levels-influenced-the-ice-ages/

 

 

 

[JMWATS 92]

 

How soon they forget.

Insolation and glacials - KUKLA - 1972 - Boreas - Wiley Online Library

 

"George Kukla, a climate scientist was among the first to warn of the power of global climate change and inspire government study.  In a career spanning more than five decades, much of it spent at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Kukla helped pioneer the modern understanding of how natural climate cycles work, and publicly warned that changing climate could affect humanity—though not in the sense that most scientists believe today. Synching climate records on land and at sea, he showed that ice ages in the last few million years were far more common than previously thought. Working from China and eastern Europe to Antarctica and Chile, he also helped to clarify the role that snow and ice, air pollutants, and other factors play in cooling earth’s climate.

In the early 1970s, Kukla became a proponent of the idea that earth was veering toward another ice age—a view shared by prominent scientists at the time, when the planet was in fact cooling. 

 

[Leftfield 2,601]

2 minutes ago, JMWATS said:

 

How soon they forget.

Insolation and glacials - KUKLA - 1972 - Boreas - Wiley Online Library

 

"George Kukla, a climate scientist was among the first to warn of the power of global climate change and inspire government study.  In a career spanning more than five decades, much of it spent at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Kukla helped pioneer the modern understanding of how natural climate cycles work, and publicly warned that changing climate could affect humanity—though not in the sense that most scientists believe today. Synching climate records on land and at sea, he showed that ice ages in the last few million years were far more common than previously thought. Working from China and eastern Europe to Antarctica and Chile, he also helped to clarify the role that snow and ice, air pollutants, and other factors play in cooling earth’s climate.

In the early 1970s, Kukla became a proponent of the idea that earth was veering toward another ice age—a view shared by prominent scientists at the time, when the planet was in fact cooling. 

 

Wow. Good thing we've learned some things since he inspired government study, eh?

[JMWATS 92]

1 hour ago, Leftfield said:

Wow. Good thing we've learned some things since he inspired government study, eh?

What do you drive?

[Leftfield 2,601]

7 minutes ago, JMWATS said:

What do you drive?

A car.

[JMWATS 92]

28 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

A car.

Is it a gasoline, a hybrid or a fully electric "car" ?

[Leftfield 2,601]

37 minutes ago, JMWATS said:

Is it a gasoline, a hybrid or a fully electric "car" ?

Gas. Why?

[JMWATS 92]

13 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

Gas. Why?

I thought someone who felt as strongly as you do about the warming earth would be driving an EV.  

[Leftfield 2,601]

7 minutes ago, JMWATS said:

I thought someone who felt as strongly as you do about the warming earth would be driving an EV.  

Eventually I will. Will likely do hybrid or EV for my next. I run my cars for a good while, and rarely buy new anymore. The used market for EVs and hybrids is really just starting to mature a bit beyond the Leaf/Prius offerings.

Until then, I do what I can. Car I drive gets around 30 mpg - nothing stellar, but solid. Lucky for me, I've always preferred driving cars over trucks - better feel for the road and maneuverability. Cars are much cheaper, too. I keep scratching my head at the fact that trucks have become luxury land barges. People don't realize how much bigger they are than they used to be. Driving to work I see a ton of $60,000 trucks and usually only the driver in them. 

[JMWATS 92]

Personally, I think hybrids are the answer for the near term.

[johnnyAU 3,630]

14 hours ago, Leftfield said:

On the bolded part you're correct, and you're unwittingly showing the problem with man putting so much additional CO2 into the atmosphere....we're throwing the normal cycle off. CO2 is generally a lagging indicator and does not by itself cause the planetary temperature cycles: those are due to the motion of the Earth and it's position and angle to the Sun.

CO2 reinforces the temperature cycles. At the start of ice ages it sinks and much of it becomes trapped in the oceans and ice. With less in the atmosphere, less heat is trapped and temperatures fall further.  At the end when the planet warms again and the ice begins to melt, the CO2 is released, traps more heat, and accelerates temperature rise.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-the-rise-and-fall-of-co2-levels-influenced-the-ice-ages/

 

 

 

CO2 isn't the influencer, it is the follower. As the oceans warm, CO2 is outgassed into the atmosphere. CO2 isn't warming the oceans. The miniscule amount man has added is insignificant with regards to climatic changes. Incoming SW radiation from the sun and underneath geothermal/volcanic activity warms the oceans. Downwelling LW from CO2 and methane only penetrate millimeters into the ocean surface. With oceans having 1000+X the heat capacity of the atmosphere, it is the oceans that heat the atmosphere, not the other way around. 

[Leftfield 2,601]

1 hour ago, johnnyAU said:

CO2 isn't the influencer, it is the follower. 

That's....what I said.

 

1 hour ago, johnnyAU said:

CO2 isn't warming the oceans. 

It's not the primary driver, but it does contribute.

 

1 hour ago, johnnyAU said:

The miniscule amount man has added is insignificant with regards to climatic changes.

Atmospheric CO2 is 50% higher than pre-Industrial Revolution levels. You consider that insignificant?

 

1 hour ago, johnnyAU said:

Incoming SW radiation from the sun and underneath geothermal/volcanic activity warms the oceans. Downwelling LW from CO2 and methane only penetrate millimeters into the ocean surface. With oceans having 1000+X the heat capacity of the atmosphere, it is the oceans that heat the atmosphere, not the other way around. 

Well, ya know, they're kind of...interrelated. Yes, the oceans have a higher heat capacity, but that doesn't mean the temperatures aren't affected by the atmosphere. 

Regardless, I don't know what your point is here. The concern is that CO2 is trapping more heat in the atmosphere. More heat means higher temperatures - simple as that. The ocean is a great heat sink, which is why traditionally global temperature changes occur over very long periods of time, but it can't absorb an infinite amount. 

It has also been pointed out that increased CO2 levels in the ocean are leading to acidification, which some think is an even bigger problem. If you start to see massive die-offs in the ocean, you're looking at mass famine of all species worldwide.

Edited March 14 by Leftfield

[auburnatl1 4,917]

33 minutes ago, Leftfield said:

That's....what I said.

 

It's not the primary driver, but it does contribute.

 

Atmospheric CO2 is 50% higher than pre-Industrial Revolution levels. You consider that insignificant?

 

Well, ya know, they're kind of...interrelated. Yes, the oceans have a higher heat capacity, but that doesn't mean the temperatures aren't affected by the atmosphere. 

Regardless, I don't know what your point is here. The concern is that CO2 is trapping more heat in the atmosphere. More heat means higher temperatures - simple as that. The ocean is a great heat sink, which is why traditionally global temperature changes occur over very long periods of time, but it can't absorb an infinite amount. 

It has also been pointed out that increased CO2 levels in the ocean are leading to acidification, which some think is an even bigger problem. If you start to see massive die-offs in the ocean, you're looking at mass famine of all species worldwide.

I agree. I do think the planets population growth in 2nd/3rd world countries is the other existential root cause driver of the problem (temp increase is almost symmetrical to it) - but you can control only what you can. We need lower our footprint in sane  reasonable steps  and hopefully the technology and policy will spread across the  planet over time.

Bottom line. People denying there’s even a problem caused by man looks silly and prevents a practical dialog.