Global Warming and the World's Oceans: 1999 Update
Authors: Westbrook Gerald T. 
Published: October 2008

At the 1998 OTC meeting, paper number 8689 reviewed global warming and the potential impacts on the oceans. This paper will revisit the areas covered in that paper and provide an update of significant developments based on an additional years research and analysis.

Al Gore, and others supportive of the administration, frequently claim that the science is done on global warming. It is the considered assessment, of this writer, that nothing could be further from the truth. Hence the emphasis in this talk will focus on the incompleteness of the science in several key areas.

In spite of this situation, policy development continues on many fronts. A review will be made of on going policy developments on this issue, including the Buenos Aires meeting in November, the status of U. S. ratification and any likely interaction with the Law of the Sea Treaty.

Introduction

Basic Scientific Questions.

Enhanced global warming, that is global warming beyond the large, basic warming that makes this plant inhabitable, can be defined as:

Equation 1 (Available in full paper).

The subscripts refer to two possible causes or sources-Anthropogenic and Natural Climate Variability, respectively. While this equation looks almost trivial, the tasks involved namely detection, (?T &gt; 0 ?), and attribution (percent of ?T allocated to ?TA and percent to ?TNCV) are incredibly difficult.

Analogous equations can be written for other parts of this issue. For example, on Sea Surface Temperature, one could write:

Equation 2 (Available in full paper)

and for sea level, rise one could write:

Equation 3 (Available in full paper)

The problems of detection of a change, and attribution of that change to society or to nature, are even more difficult for Equations 2 and 3 than for the basic warming assessment. Note what ever allocation might ultimately be appropriate for Equation 1, a different allocation would likely apply for Equations 2 and 3, due to time lags and other factors.

The Magnitude of Changes in Nature.

While the above equations talk about change, and clearly indicate the possibility ofnatural change, they do not reflect at all on the magnitude or frequency of natural change in our climate. A perusal of climate history0 will show thousands of examples. Change in our weather and climate are about as natural as one can get. I keep thinking about that old Billie Holiday song - "There'll be a change in the weather and a change in the sea".

The 1998 paper told the story of a massive flood1 that occurred 7.5 KYBP. This was the event of water breaking through from the Mediterranean into the Black Lake. It was cited as an example of the magnitude of the forces and change involved in our natural world. This deluge was caused by the natural changes in sea and lake levels as the world emerged from the Last Ice Age. From 14 to 7.5 KYBP, the level of the Black Lake fell by nearly 140 meters, after the ice sheet drainage dried up. In contrast the level of the oceans, as the ultimate sink for all the glacial melt water, increased by 75 meters over the same period. Ultimately it obtained a sufficient level to break through the slender land barriers and convert the Black Lake into a sea. These sea level changes are huge in both scope and in consequence. Many other changes in nature are of similar size.