In terms of mass then we’re losing nearly a trillion tonnes per year of glacial ice. Over the last 10 to 20 years the ice loss averaged 400 billion tonnes per year, most of which was from Greenland. In the last few years Antarctica has been melting and the rate is increasing, it’s now at about 500 billion tonnes per year as shown in this graph:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/Grace/...
<< increased evaporation rates >>
Almost all the water vapour in the atmosphere is found in the troposphere and here there’s been an increase of between 6% and 10% in terms of total mass. In the stratosphere the percentage increase is higher but as it contains less than 1% of the water vapour, the increase in mass relative to the troposphere is relatively small.
In terms of total mass the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere is about 13 trillion tonnes, the increased evapouration has added about one trillion tonnes.
Measured as the rate of evapouration, across the entire planet water evapourates at the rate of 2.7 litres per square metre per day (one tonne per square metre per year). The increase will be in the order of 250ml/m2/day.
<< increased vegetative growth at the edges of arid regions >>
It varies tremendously from one region to another. In places where desertification has extended the area of aridity then there’s a loss in vegetative growth, in other places where rainfall has increased and/or temperatures are more optimal for plant growth then there will have been an increase. For peripheral regions only there will be a net increase, maybe in the order of 10%, but that’s just a guess.
<< and the amount of energy that would need to be stored in those products to perform those actions >>
This would have to be measured as the absorbed photon energy, this can be calculated using the photosynthetic efficiency of plants. Despite what we like to think, plants are pretty useless at converting sunlight into energy, half the sunlight goes to waste because chlorophyll only absorbs in the 400 to 700 nanometer band. Further energy is lost through photon degradation, incomplete absorption etc. As a result only about 5% of the sunlight hitting a leaf will be utilised.
Approx one fifth of the planet is covered with vegetative matter so the global photosynthetic efficiency will be about 1% of the total energy received from the Sun, this equates to approx 60 zettajoules or 2 Petawatts. Allow a 50% margin of error as this is only a rough calculation, I’m sure someone somewhere will have calculated a more precise figure (see edit).
<< And how many changing energy stores, either positive or negative, can be accounted for with exact data? >>
If you were to include things such as photovoltaics then we can measure the precise energy. In the larger, natural word I doubt there’s anything where we could get exact data, not least because it’s constantly changing. Some things we can measure pretty accurately such as Earth’s energy budget and calculations based on this should be accurate to within about 0.1%.
Other things are harder to measure such as global precipitation levels. Radar and satellites tell us where it’s raining and approximately how intense but they don’t give accurate precipitation measurements. For that we have to rely on ground stations, Data for populated areas and polar regions is good but is much sparser in the deserts, steppes, mountains, oceans etc.
EDIT: Someone somewhere has done a calculation. The study relates to cyanobacteria and notes that this accounts for ≈25% of Earth's primary photosynthetic productivity which is ≈ 450TW, multiply by 4 = 1.8PW, so my initial figure of 2.0PW wasn’t far off.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...
Energy (heat) is stored in all living things. The increased populations and their energy over the past 4 to 5 decades is surely stored in the added life itself. I would say that is an absolute surety. There is increased populations of many species including humans. This includes plant life. We know that biomass has increased by 5% to 10% in many places.
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Atmospheric CO2 means energy. Nothing else.
Compare increases of biomass and other population increases due to more CO2 being in the atmosphere. Make your comparison to all of the deaths it has caused. CO2 is the basis of most all of life and why we continue to flourish. Temperature increases are (at best) minimal compared to all it has helped and/or created.
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Here's a # for you Jeff :
Let's give you the temperature increase of 0.8C since 1880. What is that in F? 1.44F roughly? Temperatures vary from season to season in the middle latitudes by as much as 120 F. Temperature increase of less than 1.2% in 133 years? We know that the population has increased almost 700% since the late 1800s. More life? We also know that biomass has increased 5% to 10% in many places since 1982 according to satellite data. Is there a direct correlation there somewhere? How much has the biomass of the planet increased since 1880? Let's investigate that instead of calling CO2 a villain. CO2 in our atmosphere may cause a little warming, but it also helps in producing more life and by a wide margin. I'll take the 0.8C rise in favor of more life. I've never seen it actually cause a death in its current state in our atmosphere. Have you?
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Jeff - How much of the 0.8C increase are you looking for? How much energy is absorbed by increased populations every year? What's the temperature suppose to be? How much is absorbed by the biomass or even the increased deer population? How much is absorbed by the increased polar bear population http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/06/11/ne... ?
The only thing missing is common sense. What, in effect, you are saying that you punched in 2+2 on your adding machine and it came up with 5. So now, since you think the adding machine could not be malfunctioning, there must be a missing number.
John Barnes,a climate scientist bemoans this very fact : “If you look at the last decade of global temperature, it’s not increasing,” Barnes said. “There’s a lot of scatter to it. But the [climate] models go up. And that has to be explained. Why didn’t we warm up?”..."We do have satellites that can measure the energy budget, but there’s still assumptions there. There’s assumptions about the oceans, because we don’t have a whole lot of measurements in the ocean.”.
Let us face it, there is just too much the greenies don't know and are unwilling to learn.
We are kindly trying to get you back on track. We are having a hard time doing it.
Jeff M:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?...
Here is a time when I caught Trevor lying three times. And you would much rather believe him than Pat, who has never been caught in a lie? This shows that you aren't out for truth. It shows that you want people to join you in your fairytale.
There is no missing heat, you know that CO2 has limitations in raising heat, the whole premise is based on increased water vapor making the big rise, however it is not happening, there are no big positive feedbacks and there are no predicted troposphere hot spots, but there are negative feedbacks (clouds, increased vegetation, and so on)
edit.
I keep saying it yes and it is based on reality, empirical evidence 0.8C in a century, and 6.7 inches sea level rise in a century
there is no missing heat it's not missing, it's just not there, so the answer is zero.
the absolute truth is that anyone who subscribes to the pathetic idea of 'missing heat' is one of the following two things,
1] a political activist trying to con people
2] a moron or mentally ill person
so which are you, i'm thinking maybe [1] but i could be wrong
you can use big words and try to sound scientific and clever but talking crap will always remain talking crap, and anyone who remotely dabbles in basic physics sees right thru you
ps have you found the invisible man yet or is he still missing
The missing heat is a consequence of known physical variables concerning increases in greenhouse gases and a host of other elements. Much of this warmth has gone into the deep oceans. However there is still some unaccounted for. Does anyone have any data on things such as the overall glacial and ice cap loss, increased evaporation rates, increased vegetative growth at the edges of arid regions, and the amount of energy that would need to be stored in those products to perform those actions? And how many changing energy stores, either positive or negative, can be accounted for with exact data?
