http://www.seafriends.org.nz/oceano/oceans2.htm

TemperatureTemperature (along with salinity) affects the density and thus the stability of the water column. This in turn profoundly affects many biological processes in the upper ocean. Warmer water is less dense and thus tends to stay on top of colder water. During winter, storm winds mix the water column, and the temperature is nearly uniform in the top several hundred meters. As spring approaches, increasing solar radiation warms the surface waters and this warmer, buoyant water stays on top. This increases the stability of the water column, preventing deeper, nutrient-rich water from being mixed into the surface from below. The stable surface layer keeps the phytoplankton near the surface where there is plenty of light, plus plenty of nutrients brought to the surface by winter mixing. This combination of conditions allows the organisms to grow rapidly, and a spring bloom occurs.CTD. CTD stands for Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth recorder. It is an electronic instrument that continuously records the salinity (by measuring conductivity), temperature, and depth (by measuring pressure) as the instrument is lowered on a hydrowire from a ship. The temperature is instantly recorded from the surface to depth, and gives a profile of temperature and how it changes throughout the water column. (Return to top)Salinity Salinity refers to the saltiness of the water. Salinity (along with temperature) affects the density and thus stability of the water column. This in turn profoundly affects many biological processes in the upper ocean. Saltier water is more dense and thus tends to sink below fresher water. Oceanographers can identify where a water mass comes from just by noting its salt content and temperature. CTD. CTD stands for Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth recorder. It is an electronic instrument that continuously records the salinity (by measuring conductivity), temperature, and depth (by measuring pressure) as the instrument is lowered on a hydrowire from a ship. The CTD continually records salinity from the surface to depth, and gives a profile of salinity and how it changes throughout the water column. BATS technicians also analyze the salinity of water collected from the CTD once it is back onboard ship. They make this measurement on a salinometer. This machine measures the salt content of the water directly, rather than by measuring the water's conductivity. (Return to top)
Many organisms are also adapted to live at different temperatures; thus the temperature of the water can determine the diversity or numbers of organisms living there. As temperature changes with season and location, the diversity and numbers of organisms can change as well.
Temperature data is collected with the

Salinity data is collected with the

 

http://www.icr.org/article/evidence-for-global-warming/

Evidence for Global Warming

by Larry Vardiman, Ph.D. *

Introduction
The global warming issue will not go away. Evidence continues to mount that some type of warming is occurring, maybe temporarily or of longer duration. But, is it caused by man and can anything be done about it? Environmental activism to reduce carbon dioxide emissions has reached a new intensity. The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to rule on a suit which demands that the Environmental Protection Agency regulate the release of carbon dioxide as part of its air pollution responsibility. The president is being heavily lobbied to subscribe to the Kyoto Protocol which would require the U.S. to emit less carbon dioxide than it released in 1990. A book and a movie with the titles, An Inconvenient Truth, which press the case for global warming were released during 2006 by Al Gore, former vice president of the United States.^1,2 He makes the case that man's actions in burning fossil fuels are projected to increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to the highest levels in history. He insists that uncontrolled releases of carbon dioxide will eventually melt the polar caps completely, raising sea level and inundating many coastal communities like New York, Miami, New Orleans, and Los Angeles; and drastically changing agricultural patterns because of redistribution of temperature and precipitation. And finally, on February 2, 2007, the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report on global warming was released. Interestingly, the report reduced the alarmist rhetoric because climate modelers found that they had overestimated the rise in global temperature and observations did not support the predictions.
Measures of Global Warming
For many years I have been a skeptic of global warming because the climate record available to assess the effects of increased carbon dioxide emission has been too short to say with confidence that the effect is real. There is no question that the concentration of carbon dioxide shown in Figure 1 has been increasing exponentially for almost 50 years now. These data were collected by C. C. Keeling of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii.³

Fig. 1. Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentration.

Fig. 2. Sea-surface Temperature.

Fig. 3. Frequency of Hurricanes.

Fig. 4. Extent of Sea Ice.

However, it is still unclear if the conclusions are valid that this increase in carbon dioxide is due to man's burning of fossil fuels and that it is causing the apparent recent warming trend which is melting the polar caps. Several questions continue to nag researchers in the climate community. Is the globe really warming? Are the polar caps really melting? How much of the increase in carbon dioxide is due to man's influence? If man were to attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions would it actually do any good? And finally, are there any other possible explanations for the apparent global warming? These are not simple questions and it will require a much longer period of record to be confident in any conclusions.
In order to answer the first two questions, massive amounts of global data must be averaged over a relatively long period of time. And because the effects of global warming are so small compared to the global average, great care must be taken to avoid bias in collection and analysis of the data. Many pitfalls in this process have already occurred which have produced a lack of confidence in the results.
I determined to take another look at the evidence and see if I could detect any recent trends in the atmosphere, ocean, and cryosphere which would seem to support the concept of global warming, choosing to select several small data sets. The data sets I used are limited in spatial and temporal scope making them relatively easy to analyze without bias. However, the results need to be qualified because they don't necessarily reflect long-term, global trends.
The three data sets I analyzed were (1) the sea-surface temperature in the Gulf of Alaska,⁴ (2) the frequency of hurricanes in the southeastern Atlantic and Caribbean,⁵ and (3) the polar extent of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean.⁶
Analysis
If global warming is occurring then sea-surface temperature should also be increasing, hurricane frequency should be on the rise, and polar sea ice should be melting. Figures 2-4 show that the trends for all three processes seem to be consistent for at least the short term. Sea-surface temperature in the Gulf of Alaska has increased about 3% over the past 30 years. Hurricane frequency in the western Atlantic appears to have increased about 3% over the past 150 years. And, the Arctic sea-ice extent has decreased about 5% over the past 25 years. Note, within the general trends, however, shorter period oscillations occur. Hurricane frequency is the most variable, with 30-40 year periods of lower and higher frequency. This has become particularly noticeable since about 1995 when a sudden increase in the frequency of hurricanes hitting the southeastern U.S. followed a 30-year period of lower hurricane frequency. These shorter period oscillations are normal in most geophysical phenomena and are evident in the sea-surface temperature and Arctic sea-ice extent as well, although with less fluctuation.
Based on these limited observations, it appears likely that global warming seems to be occurring over at least the past 30-50 years. I would be quick to add, however, that because of the limited spatial coverage and short time period of these data, it is still not possible to say if these trends will continue. There may be even longer-period fluctuations which we don't yet see in the data. When long-period records of data are plotted, oscillations for many periods are often seen.
These data do not address the question about man's part in causing the warming trend. It is true that increased carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere would be expected to increase the greenhouse effect and possibly cause warming. It is unclear whether global warming is due to increased carbon dioxide concentration or if carbon dioxide concentration is the result of global warming. The oceans contain thousands of times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere and can release significant quantities of carbon dioxide if they are warmed or the pH altered. If some, as yet, undiscovered process is warming the ocean, it could initiate the release of carbon dioxide from the ocean to the atmosphere which, in turn, is warmed even more by radiational heating.
One possible scenario may be found in a recent series of articles by Henrik Svensmark and Nigel Marsh, cosmic ray specialists from Denmark, who have shown an indirect connection between galactic cosmic ray (GCR) intensity and global temperature.^7,8,9 They are studying the influence of the Sun on the flow of GCR to Earth. The Sun's changing sunspot activity influences the magnetosphere surrounding the Earth permitting more GCR to strike the Earth during high periods of activity. When the Sun is active, the intensity of GCR striking the Earth is increased, causing more ionization in the atmosphere, creating more carbon-14, and possibly creating more cloud condensation nuclei (CCN). This increase in CCN, in turn, appears to create more low-level clouds which cool the Earth. When the Sun is quiet the GCR intensity striking the Earth is reduced, allowing the Earth to warm. Svensmark and Marsh have shown a striking statistical correlation between sunspot activity and global cooling and warming over the past 1000 years. The recent rise in global temperature may partially be due to current low solar activity supplemented by a recent increase in carbon dioxide concentration measured at Mauna Loa. The connection which still needs further study is the production of CCN and clouds by GCR.
Conclusions and Recommendations
So, what can we conclude? I believe it is safe to say that:

• Global warming appears to have been occurring for the last 30-50 years.
• This warming may only be a short-term fluctuation but could be a longer-term trend.
• Evidence is still inconclusive whether man is causing the warming.
• No "natural" causes for global warming have been confirmed.
• One possible new theory is that galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) modulated by solar activity affects low-level cloud cover and is causing the warming.

Global warming may affect some parts of our society negatively but would likely benefit others. In fact, the current warming trend may be returning our global climate closer to that prevalent in the Garden of Eden. Compared to climate changes which have occurred in earth history, a temperature rise of a few degrees is a small fluctuation which will not lead to a complete melting of the polar caps or another ice age. Earth has a stable environmental system with many built-in feedback systems to maintain a uniform climate. It was designed by God and has only been dramatically upset by catastrophic events like the Genesis Flood. Catastrophic climate change will occur again in the future, but only by God's intervention in a sudden, violent conflagration of planet Earth in the end times (II Peter 3:1-12).

Related articles

• Is global warming an international concern (wiki.answers.com)
• What caused global warming 40 million years ago? [Geologic Time] (io9.com)
• "Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide in Rhea’s Atmosphere" and related posts (geology.com)
• Global warming: carbon dioxide emissions worldwide fell in 2009 (csmonitor.com)
• Op-Ed Contributors: To Fight Climate Change, Clear the Air (nytimes.com)
• Car Idling Emissions and How its Pollution Worsens Global Warming Condition (brighthub.com)
• "Oxygen and carbon dioxide detected on Rhea" and related posts (tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com)
• New front opens in war against global warming. (washingtonpost.com)
• EPA proposes new rules for carbon dioxide storage (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• UN: Greenhouse gases at highest level since pre-industrial times (guardian.co.uk)
• Man-made Global Warming: Factual or False? (socyberty.com)
• You: New front opens in war against global warming (washingtonpost.com)
• Climate change experts adjust strategy - Washington Post (news.google.com)
• Clearing the Air at Cancun Climate Summit (triplepundit.com)
• EPA Sets New Rules for Carbon Dioxide Storage (abcnews.go.com)

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/

Carbon (C), the fourth most abundant element in the Universe, after hydrogen (H), helium (He), and oxygen (O), is the building block of life. It’s the element that anchors all organic substances, from fossil fuels to DNA. On Earth, carbon cycles through the land, ocean, atmosphere, and the Earth’s interior in a major biogeochemical cycle (the circulation of chemical components through the biosphere from or to the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere). The global carbon cycle can be divided into two categories: the geological, which operates over large time scales (millions of years), and the biological/physical, which operates at shorter time scales (days to thousands of years). Carbon is the essential element for life on Earth. Not only is carbon found in all living things, the element is present in the atmosphere, in the layers of limestone sediment on the ocean floor, and in fossil fuels like coal. (Illustration by Robert Simmon, NASA GSFC) Geological Carbon Cycle Billions of years ago, as planetesimals (small bodies that formed from the solar nebula) and carbon-containing meteorites bombarded our planet’s surface, the carbon content of the solid Earth steadily increased. All the carbon that cycles through the Earth’s systems today was present at the birth of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. The above image from the Hubble Space Telescope Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) shows a disk of gas and dust around a young star. [Image courtesy D. Padgett (IPAC/Caltech), W. Brandner (IPAC), K. Stapelfeldt (JPL) and NASA)] Since those times, carbonic acid (a weak acid derived from the reaction between atmospheric carbon dioxide [CO2] and water) has slowly but continuously combined with calcium and magnesium in the Earth’s crust to form insoluble carbonates (carbon-containing chemical compounds) through a process called weathering. Then, through the process of erosion, the carbonates are washed into the ocean and eventually settle to the bottom. The cycle continues as these materials are drawn into Earth’s mantle by subduction (a process in which one lithospheric plate descends beneath another, often as a result of folding or faulting) at the edges of continental plates. The carbon is then returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide during volcanic eruptions. In the geological carbon cycle, carbon moves between rocks and minerals, seawater, and the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reacts with some minerals to form the mineral calcium carbonate (limestone). This mineral is then dissolved by rainwater and carried to the oceans. Once there, it can precipitate out of the ocean water, forming layers of sediment on the sea floor. As the Earth’s plates move, through the processes of plate tectonics, these sediments are subducted underneath the continents. Under the great heat and pressure far below the Earth’s surface, the limestone melts and reacts with other minerals, releasing carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is then re-emitted into the atmosphere through volcanic eruptions. (Illustration by Robert Simmon, NASA GSFC) The balance between weathering, subduction, and volcanism controls atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over time periods of hundreds of millions of years. The oldest geologic sediments suggest that, before life evolved, the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide may have been one-hundred times that of the present, providing a substantial greenhouse effect during a time of low solar output. On the other hand, ice core samples taken in Antarctica and Greenland have led scientists to hypothesize that carbon dioxide concentrations during the last ice age (20,000 years ago) were only half of what they are today.

Composition of the Atmosphere

The original atmosphere may have been similar to the composition of the solar nebula and close to the present composition of the Gas Giant planets, though this depends on the details of how the planets condensed from the solar nebula. That atmosphere was lost to space, and replaced by compounds outgassed from the crust or (in some more recent theories) much of the atmosphere may have come instead from the impacts ofcomets and other planetesimals rich in volatile materials.The oxygen so characteristic of our atmosphere was almost all produced by plants (cyanobacteria or, more colloquially, blue-green algae). Thus, the present composition of the atmosphere is 79% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 1% other gases.

Layers of the Atmosphere

The atmosphere of the Earth may be divided into several distinct layers, as the following figure indicates.

Layers of the Earth's atmosphere

The Troposphere

The troposphere is where all weather takes place; it is the region of rising and falling packets of air. The air pressure at the top of the troposphere is only 10% of that at sea level (0.1 atmospheres). There is a thin buffer zone between the troposphere and the next layer called thetropopause.

The Stratosphere and Ozone Layer

Above the troposphere is the stratosphere, where air flow is mostly horizontal. The thin ozone layer in the upper stratosphere has a high concentration of ozone, a particularly reactive form of oxygen. This layer is primarily responsible for absorbing the ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. The formation of this layer is a delicate matter, since only when oxygen is produced in the atmosphere can an ozone layer form and prevent an intense flux of ultraviolet radiation from reaching the surface, where it is quite hazardous to the evolution of life. There is considerable recent concern that manmade flourocarbon compounds may be depleting the ozone layer, with dire future consequences for life on the Earth.

The Mesosphere and Ionosphere

Above the stratosphere is the mesosphere and above that is the ionosphere (or thermosphere), where many atoms are ionized (have gained or lost electrons so they have a net electrical charge). The ionosphere is very thin, but it is where aurora take place, and is also responsible for absorbing the most energetic photons from the Sun, and for reflecting radio waves, thereby making long-distance radio communication possible.The structure of the ionosphere is strongly influenced by the charged particle wind from the Sun (solar wind), which is in turn governed by the level of Solar activity. One measure of the structure of the ionosphere is the free electron density, which is an indicator of the degree of ionization. Here are electron density contour maps of the ionosphere for months in 1957 to the present. Compare these simulations of the variation by month of the ionosphere for the year 1990 (a period of high solar activity with many sunspots) and 1996 (a period of low solar activity with few sunspots):


Notice the substantial differences in these two animations, corresponding to the strong influence of solar activity on the structure of the Earth's ionosphere.