Al Gore starts his An Inconvenient Truth with carbon dioxide (CO2) readings from Mauna Loa showing an increasing trendline since the '60s, and further emphasizes the connection with ice core data showing warming is correlated with increased CO2 back 600,000 years. Yet close studies of ice core data show that the increase in CO2 lags warming by as much as 1073 years (best fit to data), which is very close to a 1200 year cycle of thermohaline circulation (deep water to surface) in the oceans. Gore seems to have uncovered a self-regulatory mechanism of the planet, where the surface waters absorb atmospheric CO2, pull it into the deep currents, and a millennium later it gets released. If so, he inadvertently solves a huge problem with his CO2 theory: if increasing CO2 leads to runaway global warming, why haven't we become a lifeless Venus long ago?
His argument has to be we are somehow overwhelming the natural self-regulatory mechanism due to spewing out man-made CO2. Perhaps, but the GW advocates have been in a pursuit of the missing CO2, since only about half of this industrial CO2 seems to remain in the atmosphere. Maybe it ends up in rain forests. Or maybe it is but a bit player in a larger climate drama of how warming changes CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
Now they have another problem to solve: a close look at the data over the Mauna Loa period also shows CO2 growth lags warming, by 6 - 9 months. So rather than causing warming, recent CO2 growth seems to be a consequence of it.
If the currrent trend towards global cooling continues, we should notice a drop in CO2 growth and then in CO2 quantity, creating a top in atmospheric CO2 and a flip in the CO2 trendline to downwards sloping. In other words, the smoking gun of anthrogenic (man-made) global warming is pointing the wrong way, and is about to go off right into the GW advocates' faces. Of course, they will blame the current economic downturn. Maybe we need a GW bailout?
I'm a weather "tragic". I network 5 long range forcasters in Australia.
The first Glacial growth of North American Glaciers in 50 years is very signifigant.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080110144824.htm
and
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Alaskan_Cold_and_Glacial_Advance_Due_to_PDO.pdf
It correlates well with the Atlantic Multidecadian Oscilation Index (AMO Ocean Index) in conjunction with the Pacific Decadian Oscillations (PDO Index) which both indicate that there is a strong likehood of a return to a "Wetter" Growing Season Rainfall Cycle in the Next Few Years for South Eastern Australia and that this is "Wetter" Rainfall Cycle is expected to continue for approximately 45 years duration."
http://www.holtonweather.com/article2.htm
Cheers
Al
Posted by: Alistair from Oz | Saturday, January 03, 2009 at 09:30 AM