Yes I can see how you might reach that view point Moray especially if you stopped reading after the first sentence of the second paragraph. There are over 286000 articles on how and why the ocean absorbs carbon dioxide. Yes it is slow but given that is a life-cycle process of the Earth it goes on continuously and always will go on and on a massive scale given the size of the oceans (over 70% of the Earth). I realize that complex systems like the Earth and its oceans are more then can be duplicated in laboratories which is why it works contrary to popular thinking but the fact is that the ocean does absorb massive amounts of carbon dioxide and it also releases massive amounts.
The sun warms the seas (which warm much more slowly then terra firma and humans) and just when we think its hot it starts cooling down as the ocean releases CO2. Are the two related? I think there is a direct connection between the Sun warming the sea and CO2 emissions. I dont know about CO2 releases and global cooling. The picture that Gore uses in his argument is that the two are related. It is true and it is also true that the CO2 emissions trail the warming of the Earth by about 800 years. So if you yell and scream and pass laws to prohibit CO2 emissions prepare to never exhale again and prepare to hold the oceans in contempt.
Cows burp poop and politicians deliver speeches and the result is the same.
Thats about what your selling too.
Merry Christmas
The difference between us is that you've already decided that you are smarter than those that do the work. Somewhere along the lines of Lazs and "It's the sun, stupid." , like that's the last place anyone with a PhD would look.....
Your argument is flawed by one simple point. We've already proven that by absorbing CO2 into the ocean slowly, you make carbonic acid. This is the way H2O can take up any CO2 by itself. By making carbonic acid, you lower the pH of the ocean due to raising the acidity. We've proven the pH of the ocean is decreasing in this manner (
http://royalsociety.org/document.asp?id=3249)
So then.... if the ocean is releasing all this C02 because
you say it's the
sun warming it and releasing the CO2, doesn't that mean that the carbonic acid was already there? The pH of the ocean should then be rising, by your argument, due to the release of all this stored CO2, when in fact it has been proofed repeatedly that the exact opposite? Explain to me if I've misunderstood your argument.
CO2 lagging previous temperature changes is easy..... Those were
natural climate shifts (see:
WE WEREN'T PUSHING CO2 into the system), and were not
initiated with a change in atmospheric content.... Meaning something else changed to start the shift (generally orbital cycles, Milankovich cycles), and the
feedback loop of CO2 pushed further. CO2 didn't start it, it pushed the balance after it became higher in concentration. The only way that your skeptic "lag theory" could hold any amount of credence is if CO2, but more importantly CH4, were not greenhouse gases. If this were true, then it could be stated that a natural exterior force drove the previous climate shifts, and that gaseous concentrations were a byproduct, having nothing to do with the climate shift. We both already know that CO2 and CH4 are proven greenhouse gases.
I'm not selling you anything. But I am glad to you are reading, at least. Now drop the preconceived notions that you have, and maybe you'll see the forest for the trees.