Surf's Up

I got news for you, the ocean changes color all the time....Every day is different...

You have no news for me.

"Every day is different." indicates your ignorance of the implications.

"Days" are not relevant.

What would you know, you live in the desert....over the course of time I have seen the ocean every shade of blue and green, all in the same place...

As long as it ain't red...

Red tide in a harbor, Japan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_tide

Those were my thoughts exactly!

Lyn,

hope you are not worried sick. It is alright to worry. It is not alright to use a simulation to make everyone else worried about the color of the ocean for whatever that means.

I am with SE on this one. The color of the ocean can change in minutes. So what?

More Algae? More Plankton?

How has it changed in the past.

And then did you know that the oceans are the main driver for climate? So maybe what we could be seeing is that the oceans change and it might have an effect on the climate?

Its is important to separate cause and effect.

Dont ya worry! The science is not settled on this one!

Time for the iron bomb.

At one time there was a scientist who claimed to be able to create an ice age by seeding equatorial waters with a tanker load of ferric chloride. Phytoplankton needs nitrogen, phosphorus and iron and equatorial waters are limited by iron availability. Previously algae and phytoplankton blooms had been observed in ocean waters downwind from Asian deserts and the Sahara following major dust storms due to the iron transported by the dust. The phytoplankton and algae blooms consume CO2 much more effectively than land based biota and lead to a decrease in atmospheric CO2 and ocean acidification as well.

Maybe it's time for a gofundme campaign to feed the hungry phytoplankton and precipitate the next ice age.

The trouble with climate models is that there are too many unknown unknowns. The failure of the models to predict global temperatures over the past decade was a noted embarrassment to climate scientists.

No one knows how phytoplankton will evolve or respond to changes in atmospheric CO2. At this point it should be well known that atmospheric CO2 has varied dramatically over the eons with no input from humans. And despite those fluctuations phytoplankton still exist and flourish in the oceans.

There are dozens of problems that humans will deal with over the next century. Despite all the hype given to climate change, its a relatively minor problem compared to so many others. And even if we spent trillions of dollars to reduce CO2, the actual impact of that money would be minimal.

We also need to be aware of a potential ‘global cooling’ due to changes in the Sun. Sunspots are at a record low, and low sunspot numbers have been correlated with mini ice ages.

I think your answer "to do nothing" is a very dangerous attitude.

The global temperatures have been rising and the last 5 years have been the hottest 5 years on record.

Combating climate change wouldn't be a complete loss of resources. Consider the millions of jobs it would create. It could be as effective as war for stimulating the economy lol.

The effect of sunspots is minimal compared to what we cause on the planet. Your claim about that has been disproven many times as the cause of the increase in temperature. The sun is actually in a low point right now yet we are still seeing a rise. We're lucky it's not rising too, otherwise we'd be in big trouble.

There is nothing funny about stimulating economies with a war or a replacement of it.

While you might enjoy certain actions of certain companies who made decisions of their location based on climate saving related ideas, this does not mean everyone does enjoy the hypocrisy and waste of resources.

How is the winter over there where you are? Does it help with cooling the servers of the world wide web? Understandable a warmer climate might not be beneficial. But then how are you to decide how people should enjoy their climate?

Been to see the sun? Or are you one of the very few people that actually never travel further South where it is warm and nice and enjoyable?

Now the OP thread is about a color change of the Oceans. Would you have an idea what we are supposed to be afraid of? Or can you agree that this is a rather asinine attempt of scaremongering among all the other ones?

Unfortunately your conclusion depends on whose data and bias adjustments you accept. Much of the currently accepted data are estimated local temperatures based on climate models rather than actual measured data. I've done an advanced degree in environmental science and from first-hand I see much too much bias adjusting and cherry picking of data to support conclusions and study grant requests that a full review of the unadjusted raw data does not support.

There is a counterargument that taking action in a system you don't understand fully can be much more dangerous than doing nothing. It results in things like walking catfish in Florida and groundwater in the northeast that is heavily contaminated by highly toxic EPA mandated gasoline oxygenators. The climate is a complex and chaotic system and the one thing that we DO know is that the current models don't work beyond about a week.

I understand your point, but simply reducing greenhouse gasses and ozone depleting chemicals is likely a good and safe starting point. Actively changing the chemistry of our atmosphere or oceans does however, sound far more risky without knowing the exact consequences.

I'm not familiar enough with your comment about gasoline to make an informed response, but at first glance that classification of chemicals used don't appear to have a particularly harmful description.

The oxygenator in question was MTBE. The EPA mandated it's use. Due to previously known and estimated leaking underground storage tanks, MTBE was introduced into groundwaters which later led to it being banned after the damage was done.

Unfortunately reducing greenhouse gas emissions is neither simple nor cheap. It is expensive and difficult or it wouldn't be the multi-trillion dollar industry it is at present. It is also being used as a highly politicized mechanism for the redistribution of wealth and enhancement of regulatory revenue generation (I refer to carbon tax and cap-and-trade, which do nothing to actually reduce emissions and are not used to enhance non-carbon energy production - follow the money).

The comment of bias and cherry picking surprises me. Just this week I read that three different agencies which calculate global temperature by different means/data sets all arrived at substantially the same result.

Secondly, the melting of the Arctic is undeniable. It may not be obvious on the beach in Florida, but it is very obvious if you look north. It seems absurd to suggest that the warming data were cherry picked to satisfy a study grant request! You jest, right.

Also I am curious, where in the world are there no actual measurements and records of temperature in this day and age? Why would anyone 'estimate' temperature data from a model when the actual data exists? It makes no sense and is not believable.

Tell me why are you surprised?

The reporting of current temperatures is not the problem

The problem is the history record and changes that were made to make today look so special.

Listen carefully to this man here.

I prefer NASA as a trusted source. https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

The graph of the record of temperatures 1880 to present by 5 different agencies. Yes, there are minor differences, but the pattern overall is very clear.

https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

Anyway we won't have to wait much longer to see what happens... 2030 to 2040 is not far off, and if it's as warm as the Pliocene I dare say you may notice it yourself.

https://www.pnas.org/content/115/52/13288

If you would have at least listened to what I posted, then you would know that we are talking about NASA data.

You trust them? Then you have to understand them firsts.

But since you posted a link to a consensus you seem not interested in science facts.

Surely by know you understand that consensus science is no science. This being a link from NASA should tell you to take it with a grain of healthy skepticism.

You leave much for daring. On of it is, that people can notice climate change themselves. Me certainly not. How would I since the minimum statistical interval is 30 years to start judging climate.

Tell you what the link you send is a fine example of daring too.

one should not rad further than:

"We compare climates of the coming decades with climates drawn from six geological and historical periods spanning the past 50 My."

How can you compare something that does not exist yet with something that we have only limited information about? This is pretentious and not science.

Would it not be better to get the current climate models right to give us some account about next year maybe? Would we not trust predictions more that actually hit home in the near future?

Yet they haven't, and they wont if you ask me, since they are fundamentally flawed.

But going back to the post at hand, you do not agree that we should be worried about the color of the oceans, or do you?

I have no problem with NASA data, and as the graph shows, the variations in data compared with four other sources are not significant, and do not take away from the overall conclusion that the earth has been on a warming trend since 1880.

I also accept the atmospheric CO2 record including geological data. I think it is fair to consider what earth's climate was like when comparable CO2 was in the atmosphere.

The project of trying to forecast the effects of this sudden increase in atmospheric CO2 is certainly difficult, and no one denies it. IMO climate scientists have erred on the conservative side, however as more data is obtained each year the timeline for dramatic climate changes keeps moving up, as it becomes clear that the rate of change is accelerating due to positive feedback.

If the color of the ocean can be used to assess phytoplankton activity then I am as interested in hearing about it as any other data that reflects change in our world.

Will be totally bummed if color change in ten or twenty years turns out to be the shade of the rooftops in your beachfront properties.

The issue primarily is agencies, agendas and money. As I said, the climate change industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry with very serious impact in the regulatory sector. At the present time you can get research grants if your research will show a climate change impact. You will not get research grants if your research will show the opposite. If you can generate research results that are alarming enough, you will drive generation of regulatory requirements that will drive a channel of compliance industry that also generates a lot of revenue, whether it is actually needed or not based on the what-if concerns.

I have looked at the raw data. I have looked at the bias adjustments and the supposed justifications for those adjustments. This is not limited to the climate change issue. I had a first row seat for the discussion of the Cascadia subduction zone "Big One" and watched the evolution of the coastal inundation project research as well as the building code regulation changes and implementations that resulted. I was and remain appalled by the perversion of the scientific method for cash and power. Were you aware that the 300 year carbon 14 date for the "Magnitude 9 Big One" was based on cherry picking carbon dates from the "Ghost Forest" where the complete set of raw data indicated the trees were dying over period from 2000 years ago to the present, indicating a gradual subsidence rather than a single date vertical drop. The absence of any elements of a large earthquake in native tribe oral traditions or in the records of the Spanish missions on the California coast from that period calls it into further question.

Were you aware that the sudden appearance of the ozone hole was in part due to the discovery of a NASA software code error? When NASA first started measuring high altitude atmospheric ozone concentrations they put the readings into a computer model that had "data correction" in place. The original software assumption was that there is ozone in the atmosphere and a zero reading was an error. The software used numeric analysis that had the atmosphere segmented up into cells and if it found a zero in one cell, it averaged it with adjacent non-zero cells. This process repeated until all cells were non-zero. It automatically erased the ozone hole. The initial assumption was in error as it ignored French research from 1914 on ultraviolet light levels in the arctic that upon review were a solid indication of an ozone hole. In 1914, there was not even a concept for an ozone layer and very little information on the upper atmosphere. NASA is not infallible. The supposed sudden appearance of an ozone hole, even though it apparently had always been there, drove the bans on halogenated organic molecules, such as Freon and Halon and the ferocious taxing of those substances and the banning of styrofoam even though the causal effect in the atmosphere has never been demonstrated and subsequent review indicates the hole is a normally occurring natural feature of the atmosphere.

I am a skeptic. I know other reputable scientists and engineers who are also skeptics. Consensus science is trash if it can't stand up to review of the complete set of raw, unadjusted data.

I'm always amazed when people complain about a money agenda in climate change research. Yes this is a problem in our society, where science is influenced by wealthy and powerful entities that stand to benefit from the 'right' results, but why single out climate science? The big emitters who stand to lose business or face costs - big oil, chemical industry, automotive makers... represent a very wealthy and powerful lobby. They were wealthy and powerful when concerns about climate change, pollution or similar subjects were utterly fringe and not backed by a dime!!!! If anything, I believe the money motive has remained stronger on the 'denier' side.

As for errors and assumptions that later prove to be incorrect, it takes a scientist to recognize and acknowledge errors and make corrections, improve methods, and move forward. I have no problem with that. Skepticism can be fruitful for science when it identifies a legitimate source of error which can be addressed in future work. However with the amount of work that has now been done, and the number of scientific critical minds that have been applied to review the data and conclusions, I don't find your doubts very credible. The small percentage of skeptics within climate science have certainly had a hearing of any reasonable doubts, and had their methods, data, and conclusions scrutinized and rejected by the same professionals who agreed with NASA & the like, instead.

No problem!

The climate has forever been a balancing act. As it warms, more moisture is produced at the equator. More moisture, more forest and grassland, more oxygen. Photosynthesis absorbs co2 and gives off o2. If humans were to just adapt and plant more green, that would be far more useful and conservative than 'building ' more machines, besides, all medicine resides in the living green growing things, not in the dead black (oil) and white (pills) things.

The OP is about an innovative use of satellite data collection. I don't think anyone is "afraid" of different shades of ocean color (except red, right! )

".. atmospheric CO2 has varied dramatically over the eons with no input from humans" I found this type of generalization persuasive or at least, worth considering... until I looked at the actual data. Atmospheric CO2 has not reached 400 ppm since the mid Pliocene 3 million years ago. It is a fact that CO2 levels broadly tracked the interglacial and glacial periods in between, naturally rising to about 280 ppm during the warmest times - that is, to pre-industrial levels.

It's also the case that the rate of CO2 increase and associated climate changes are unprecedented in the record of earth's changing conditions. The rate of change means a bumpy ride in the meantime. There are going to be a lot of people displaced, and it puts the economy at risk I have no doubt about that. Economic collapse would definitely suck, while we're trying to pull off the transition.

We could go to 800 ppm if we don't bring on the alternative energy effectively. And that is not nearly as nice a world as even the mid-Pliocene. I definitely see the positive, of economic growth focused on inventing and applying new energy tech.

Of course that is hardest on the fossil fuel industries and big emitters.