Clark
(Meteorologist)
Sun Jun 12 2005 05:13 AM
Re: Thankfully Arlene Remains Tropical Storm

Terra (and everyone) -- debate's all about making the science better. Global warming is a topic that can polarize even the most brilliant of meteorologists & climatologists -- and it has! -- and one with a lot that remains to be discovered. Compared to many other science, the process of understanding its effects is really in its infancy; we don't have any reliable way of modeling it due to a lack of past data, while similar limitations arise in understanding what is currently going on.

SSTs do have a negative feedback loop, however; that much we have discovered. At around 31 C, something called the convective albedo thermostat kicks in, whereby unorganized convection starts to fire up over the waters. As a result, incoming solar radiation is limited and the convection uses up some of the available energy from the water, thereby reducing SSTs. If overall SSTs were to warm by 1 degree, it is theoretically possible that you could see more/stronger storms, but then you have to consider the impacts upon the entire global circulation. How will it impact the redistribution of heat across the globe? What about our oceanic currents? And the strength/location of midlatitude cyclones? Those are all, to a large degree, questions left unanswered by the computer modeling of warmer SST scenarios, which just consider the SST feedback loop into the storm. It is a series of questions, though, that we will have to answer in the near-future if we are to understand what may or may not happen.

Of course, what could happen if the Earth's system were to be completely changed as a result of global warming is anyone's guess. Physical processes we think we know and understand, not just in meteorology but in a wide array of sciences, may be completely different. It's a matter, however (and in my opinion), of trying to understand what is going on now, what we do know about bits and pieces of the science related to the problem, and how to piece it together with what little data we have to come up with an educated guess (ideally all without special interest groups and/or politicians -- on both sides! -- interfering with the process). We're halfway there.



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