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BenevolentM -> RE: An Attempt to Understand the Science Behind Global Warming (10/6/2013 9:46:19 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DomKen
Never heard of anyone able to track a source of a stable isotope. Get the book if you care since it does appear to be a new field.
Since it is a new field it is understandable that you didn't know about it. What is driving the field is the ability to make the sort of sensitive measurements needed can be done more easily than it was in the past. In the past we accepted statements such as
quote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_atomic_mass
This value is the mean value of atomic weights of a number of "normal samples" of the element in question.
and ignored the later part of the sentence 'of a number of "normal samples" of the element in question' in practice. The existence of normal sample implies the existence of abnormal samples. Here is a visual that should be interesting that depicts the isotopic variation of stable water bound oxygen through out the earth.
https://sites.google.com/site/westlabgroup/isoscapes-home
Recall the forgotten element oxygen? I wonder to what extent can we trace the origin of the greenhouse gases? The main argument for global warming appears to be a straight forward one. It is more sophisticated than the kindergarten explanations we have been given, but not so sophisticated that you need a Ph.D. in the field to understand it.
Conservation of energy. Energy is input into the system chiefly from the sun. There are other sources of energy, however. For example, geothermal and tidal. A portion of energy from the sun escapes back into space immediately. Apart from the effects of clouds how much energy gets radiated back into space immediately is more or less constant. A portion of the energy is stored temporarily and a portion of it is stored permanently. The emphasis to date has been the portion that is stored temporarily.
The fly in the ointment at the present time appears that the potential storage capacity of the ocean may be far greater than anyone realized when you consider the storage capacity of salt and water and the depth of the oceans. It is the variable in the equation that no one really took seriously until now. The oceans may have the capacity to store heat permanently. What do I mean by permanent? The ability to store heat and release it only after several years has pasted. When you consider how deep the oceans are I would not be surprised if it turns out that heat can be stored in the oceans for more than a thousand years before it reemerges.
To date it has been assumed that the portion of incident energy from the sun that is stored permanently is negligible. Storage equals delay. Rocks will for example absorb energy during the day and emit heat at night. Perhaps the oceans will save us, but if what gets stored in the oceans may reemerge within our life time at an inconvenient time.
Energy doesn't get destroyed. It only gets transformed or its transmission delayed. What alarms people is conservation of energy. It can't just disappear. If you wrap the planet in a blanket common sense tells you it is going to get warmer. Common sense is not what science is about, however. Our attempt to understand climate change is causing us to enter new territory. Just like how a new term isoscape has entered into existence. The relationships are highly non-linear, but we continually use linear reasoning on both sides of the ideological divide.
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