JF Aus, I'm not a scientist! Please don't think I'm somehow qualified to assess this stuff myself... I run miles in stark terror when I see equations.

What I'm saying is that from the real scientists I read, the peer-reviewed guys have answers to every (legitimate) question from the Denialists, and the Denialists have got diddly-squat.

And my guess is that the scientists would say the pea-soup has a much thicker density than a light algae bloom on top of an ocean. But do watch the Crude DVD, it is well worth it.

Seriously, if you can, just watch this video and about a minute in it will SHOW you with your own eyes how Co2 can trap heat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6Un69RMNSw&feature=related

Please watch it.

The industrial revolution and resulting exponential increase of fossil fuel use in the 20th century increased Co2 in the atmosphere from 280ppm to 385 parts per million. Doesn't sound like a lot, but when one realises earth's atmosphere is something like 5,000,000,000,000,000 tons, you can see that raising it 105 parts per million of 5 quadrillion is still a heck of a lot of **Co2 tonnage** which will trap a bunch more heat.

(Which is what the Radiative Forcing Equation measures, or so the experts tell me.)

JF don't let Eclipse talk down to you. He has zip understanding of physical processes as demonstrated by his assertion that "Water takes 1000 times more energy to heat than the atmopshere" and "that extra heat is slowly transferred [from the atmosphere] to our oceans". It gave me a laugh this morning. Peer review please Eclipse, seeing you seem to think that is the only test of truth!

The first is a round figure he plucked out of the air, and the second would be a violation of the laws of thermodynamics. But I bet Eclipse didn't do well at physics or chemistry.

You can't argue with someone who says "I don't understand this field, but these people I have heard of say this, and you ought to believe them because I do." It's no different from Runner putting a bible into your hand and telling you that all you need to know is there.

How do you deal with peer reviewed papers that contradict the ones you cite? Well, if you don't understand the concepts you just say "my peer review is better than their peer review" which is pretty much what we have here.

Or you try to divert attention, which is what he is doing with the MWP. You try to hide the fact you didn't know what you were talking about by saying that merely turning up a fact doesn't contradict your assertion, you have to have a whole theory of everything to explain that fact.

I have a problem with your algae because I just can't see the mechanism. How do you say that Algae increase absorption of light energy in the first place, and how does that energy get transferred into the sea?

Eclipsed Now,

Re “The industrial revolution and resulting exponential increase of fossil fuel use in the 20th century increased Co2 in the atmosphere from 280ppm to 385 parts per million”

I would think it would be near impossible to show that the increase in CO2 was the result of industrialisation. Especially given that by all accounts I’ve scanned , by far the greatest percentage of CO2 arises from natural sources –and the measure of such natural sources has been minimal to non-existent over much of the period in question.

It has been my observation that the proponents of AGW make a lot of assumptions/ guess’s.
And other’s who are not scientists, not “qualified to assess [the] stuff” , latch onto it and doctrinise it, because it suits other agendas they have –what is your secret agenda?

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html

**GrahamY**
Attack me, I'm an easy target.

Whatever you do **don't** answer the vital questions about the MWP that I've asked you repeatedly. I'm not side-tracking, I'm asking you to prove relevance.

EG: Climatologists freely admit there have been *far hotter* periods in earth's history, with *much* higher levels of Co2 from natural causes. But this does nothing to diminish our current cause for alarm, and in many cases confirms it.

As for the oceans, did I make a mistake? I have heard different figures, but it must depend on what they are discussing... how much water compared to how much air, contexts of that water, etc? Please do share if it is different to my layman's understanding from the following sources.

"Dr Domingues says the oceans store more than 90 per cent of the heat in the Earth’s climate system and act as a temporary buffer against the effects of climate change."
http://www.csiro.au/news/OceansWarming.html

"Even though oceans hold 1,000 times more heat than the atmosphere does, the atmosphere moves heat around much more quickly which evens out their effectiveness"

"The oceans are crucial because they store so much heat. It takes more than 1000 times as much energy to heat a cubic metre of water by 1 °C as it does the same volume of air."
http://www.science.org.au/nova/newscientist/016ns_009.htm

This link also summarises alarming studies into effects of ocean warming, including El Nino, droughts in Africa, etc.

**Horus** go back to the basics please.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/carbon_cycle_version2.html

The thing I find about you Denialists is that every time I track down the peer-reviewed answer you guys are caught out lying, or twisting half-truths. You should be embarrassed by the poor state of Denialist propaganda. I don't have to be a scientist to know when someone has been caught out lying.

EG: In the other thread: "They predicted cooling in the 70's". What an outright misrepresentation of the majority opinion of climate community from the 70's! It's insulting and rude, but did Mark retract it from this other OLO sponsored Denialist piece? Of course not. Shame shame. And shame on OLO for publishing this rubbish.

Eclipse the ocean drives atmospheric temperature, not the other way around. You can't prove your point by quoting others who are also scientifically illiterate, even if they do write for journals that call themselves "New Scientist".

The basic mechanism is this. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere at wavelengths which have very little effect on its temperature. It is then absorbed by the earth and the oceans. They then heat-up and re-radiate most of the energy, a large proportion of which is in the infrared band and can be absorbed by gases in the atmosphere, of which water vapour is the most significant (somewhere around 95%).

The sea is hotter than the atmosphere on average so there can be no net transfer of energy to it from the atmosphere. The re-radiation of infra-red in the direction of the sea will slightly increase its temperature. As there is a causal relationship between the temperature of the sea and the temperature of the air, then air temperature should be a good proxy for sea temperature. So until the atmospheric temperature failed to behave as predicted no-one was too worried about the temperature of the ocean.

In 2007 after around 8 years of plateaued or decreasing atmospheric temperature, suddenly we got these claims that the extra heat was "in the system" and was contained in the sea. But if this is true, we should be able to measure the increase in temperature. Unfortunately for this theory there has been a decrease in ocean temperature over the last few years as measured by the Argo buoy system.

El Ninos and La Ninas exist because of energy differentials and distributions in the ocean, not necessarily because it is hotter or colder in toto.

You really don't seem to get On Line Opinion. We are a forum for ideas and we publish a broad range. People whose views you probably approve of are in the majority on global warming here. We don't vouch for the accuracy of every thing that every author says, and nor should we. Anymore than peer-reviewed journals vouch for everything that they publish.

You forgot to mention having as many accounts as you want and being able to defame AGW proponents with impunity.