sunsettommy
02-25-2006, 02:58 PM
Global Warming (GW): Marine Matters
Submission by Dr. Roger Pocklington, FCIC, of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (Dartmouth, Nova Scotia) for the Canadian media regarding the science 'backing' the Kyoto Accord.
Snip:
Regional marine climates: Bermuda
In 1969, I went to work at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research (BBSR) where I was responsible for physical and chemical measurements at the famous hydrographic station 'S' that lies southeast of Bermuda (32o 10' N, 64o 30' W) in 3,200 metres of water, close to the centre of the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean. While serial observations on land extending back a century or more are not uncommon, no such records exist for any location in the ocean. Station 'S' has been occupied regularly by the staff of BBSR since it was initiated in 1954 and is the longest continuous oceanic series in the world. Trends in the data from this station are indicative of change over much of the subtropical North Atlantic. By 1972, the station had been running long enough for me to look for consistent trends in the time-series.
I detected a cooling in the sub-surface waters (to 1,000m) that had persisted over a decade and a half (Pocklington 1972). At that time, the mean temperature of the whole Northern Hemisphere was known to have declined since the 1940s and opinion was that a return of the Ice Age was imminent (Mathews 1976) so declines in the water temperature at Bermuda were only to be expected, and my results were right on target with the then-fashionable global cooling hypothesis.
But by 1976, the cooling trend in subsurface waters in the station 'S' time-series had reversed, and in the past 2 decades the waters off Bermuda have become steadily warmer, though they remain cooler than they were at the start of the series. Now, if observations at station 'S' had begun in the mid-1970s, this recent warming trend would have been seized upon as a clear sign of 'Greenhouse Warming'. Since the series began in 1954, however, we can see that the true picture is of cooling in the first part of the record with warming thereafter to values not yet equivalent to the initial ones. From this we should all bear in mind the salutary lesson that: 'the inferences that can be drawn from any time-series are highly dependent upon the length of series made available to you.'
Regional marine climates: Sable Island
Located at the edge of the continental shelf of Nova Scotia, this is an excellent example of an isolated island that, because it has always been uninhabited except for weather station personnel, is unaffected by any urbanization (i.e. local forcing of temperature). It is one of the global sites used to monitor changes in the CO<SUB>2</SUB> of the atmosphere. The record of surface-air temperature since the 1890s shows an initial decline to a low in the mid-1920s, then a rapid increase until the early 1950s, followed by a decline to the end of the century. The rise and decline was substantial (~2 deg.C) and cooler now than it was 100 years ago. This is not surprising, because Atlantic Canada in total has experienced a warming trend from 1895 to the mid 1950s, followed by a marked cooling of 0.7 deg.C into the 1990s (Anon. 1997).
Regional marine climates: Greenland
An increase in surface-air temperature off both the west coast and the east coast (Angmagssalik) of Greenland through the first decades of the last century culminated during the late 1920s in the warmest pentad of the record. Since that time, both coasts have cooled; in the west to the lowest values on record, and in the east to a minimum in the 1970s followed by warming to the long-term mean. I could go on in detail from one station to another, but we don't have time, so please accept that our stations in the North Atlantic all follow the pattern of warming from cold decades at the start of the 20th century to a later maximum with subsequent cooling. On examining the data, one quickly notices that the stations with their warmest pentad in the last three decades have had their locations moved to airports. The probable explanation is that airports are heat islands, paved runways and the burning of fuel keep adjacent air warmer.
Regional marine climates: Conclusion
Surface temperatures in the extratropical North Atlantic are currently close to (or below) their long-term means, and below those in the warmest decades of last century (or earlier). These real results do not support the idea that the world ocean is warming to an unprecedented degree. Early General Circulation Models (GCMs; IPCC 1990) calculated a warming of eight deg.C or more during the winter in the northeast Atlantic for a doubling of the CO<SUB>2</SUB> concentration in the atmosphere. We are already halfway to an effective doubling (when the concentrations of all 'greenhouse gases' are added together) and the warming shows no sign of happening; our region (Atlantic Canada) was one to two deg.C below the long-term mean as recently as 1998. Cooling over the northwest Atlantic Ocean and over regions of eastern Canada and west Greenland has been observed by several investigators. 'Since 1970, winter surface temperature time series from stations in the region have shown noticeable decadal cooling' (Shabbar et al. 1997); 'the spatial distribution of temperature change reveals a cooling between 0.5 to 1.0-deg.C during the last 30 years over the northwest Atlantic and parts of eastern Canada' (Khandekar 2000).
The modelers have now gone one step further. We are told that they predict the cooling that we found in the N. Atlantic (IPCC 1996). [I find it a little difficult to accept that someone can predict something that's already happened; perhaps 'post-dict' would be a better term]. If the current cooling in the N. Atlantic is now predicted in the models, then there occurs to me a:
Question: 'Had we found warming in the North Atlantic, would that be taken as evidence against your GW hypothesis?
Answer: 'No; eventually, it will warm.' So warming in the North Atlantic will be taken as evidence in favour of the GW hypothesis, and cooling in the North Atlantic has been taken as evidence in favour of the GW hypothesis. This hypothesis can hardly be called a scientific one, as it appears impossible to falsify!
http://www.envirotruth.org/globalWarming_MarineMatters.cfm
Submission by Dr. Roger Pocklington, FCIC, of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (Dartmouth, Nova Scotia) for the Canadian media regarding the science 'backing' the Kyoto Accord.
Snip:
Regional marine climates: Bermuda
In 1969, I went to work at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research (BBSR) where I was responsible for physical and chemical measurements at the famous hydrographic station 'S' that lies southeast of Bermuda (32o 10' N, 64o 30' W) in 3,200 metres of water, close to the centre of the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean. While serial observations on land extending back a century or more are not uncommon, no such records exist for any location in the ocean. Station 'S' has been occupied regularly by the staff of BBSR since it was initiated in 1954 and is the longest continuous oceanic series in the world. Trends in the data from this station are indicative of change over much of the subtropical North Atlantic. By 1972, the station had been running long enough for me to look for consistent trends in the time-series.
I detected a cooling in the sub-surface waters (to 1,000m) that had persisted over a decade and a half (Pocklington 1972). At that time, the mean temperature of the whole Northern Hemisphere was known to have declined since the 1940s and opinion was that a return of the Ice Age was imminent (Mathews 1976) so declines in the water temperature at Bermuda were only to be expected, and my results were right on target with the then-fashionable global cooling hypothesis.
But by 1976, the cooling trend in subsurface waters in the station 'S' time-series had reversed, and in the past 2 decades the waters off Bermuda have become steadily warmer, though they remain cooler than they were at the start of the series. Now, if observations at station 'S' had begun in the mid-1970s, this recent warming trend would have been seized upon as a clear sign of 'Greenhouse Warming'. Since the series began in 1954, however, we can see that the true picture is of cooling in the first part of the record with warming thereafter to values not yet equivalent to the initial ones. From this we should all bear in mind the salutary lesson that: 'the inferences that can be drawn from any time-series are highly dependent upon the length of series made available to you.'
Regional marine climates: Sable Island
Located at the edge of the continental shelf of Nova Scotia, this is an excellent example of an isolated island that, because it has always been uninhabited except for weather station personnel, is unaffected by any urbanization (i.e. local forcing of temperature). It is one of the global sites used to monitor changes in the CO<SUB>2</SUB> of the atmosphere. The record of surface-air temperature since the 1890s shows an initial decline to a low in the mid-1920s, then a rapid increase until the early 1950s, followed by a decline to the end of the century. The rise and decline was substantial (~2 deg.C) and cooler now than it was 100 years ago. This is not surprising, because Atlantic Canada in total has experienced a warming trend from 1895 to the mid 1950s, followed by a marked cooling of 0.7 deg.C into the 1990s (Anon. 1997).
Regional marine climates: Greenland
An increase in surface-air temperature off both the west coast and the east coast (Angmagssalik) of Greenland through the first decades of the last century culminated during the late 1920s in the warmest pentad of the record. Since that time, both coasts have cooled; in the west to the lowest values on record, and in the east to a minimum in the 1970s followed by warming to the long-term mean. I could go on in detail from one station to another, but we don't have time, so please accept that our stations in the North Atlantic all follow the pattern of warming from cold decades at the start of the 20th century to a later maximum with subsequent cooling. On examining the data, one quickly notices that the stations with their warmest pentad in the last three decades have had their locations moved to airports. The probable explanation is that airports are heat islands, paved runways and the burning of fuel keep adjacent air warmer.
Regional marine climates: Conclusion
Surface temperatures in the extratropical North Atlantic are currently close to (or below) their long-term means, and below those in the warmest decades of last century (or earlier). These real results do not support the idea that the world ocean is warming to an unprecedented degree. Early General Circulation Models (GCMs; IPCC 1990) calculated a warming of eight deg.C or more during the winter in the northeast Atlantic for a doubling of the CO<SUB>2</SUB> concentration in the atmosphere. We are already halfway to an effective doubling (when the concentrations of all 'greenhouse gases' are added together) and the warming shows no sign of happening; our region (Atlantic Canada) was one to two deg.C below the long-term mean as recently as 1998. Cooling over the northwest Atlantic Ocean and over regions of eastern Canada and west Greenland has been observed by several investigators. 'Since 1970, winter surface temperature time series from stations in the region have shown noticeable decadal cooling' (Shabbar et al. 1997); 'the spatial distribution of temperature change reveals a cooling between 0.5 to 1.0-deg.C during the last 30 years over the northwest Atlantic and parts of eastern Canada' (Khandekar 2000).
The modelers have now gone one step further. We are told that they predict the cooling that we found in the N. Atlantic (IPCC 1996). [I find it a little difficult to accept that someone can predict something that's already happened; perhaps 'post-dict' would be a better term]. If the current cooling in the N. Atlantic is now predicted in the models, then there occurs to me a:
Question: 'Had we found warming in the North Atlantic, would that be taken as evidence against your GW hypothesis?
Answer: 'No; eventually, it will warm.' So warming in the North Atlantic will be taken as evidence in favour of the GW hypothesis, and cooling in the North Atlantic has been taken as evidence in favour of the GW hypothesis. This hypothesis can hardly be called a scientific one, as it appears impossible to falsify!
http://www.envirotruth.org/globalWarming_MarineMatters.cfm