Much has been made of James Hansen’s recent claim in a youtube video that runaway global warming will make the oceans boil. However, people have not picked up an earlier point, where the father of global warming alarmism clearly contradicts the consensus.

In the first minute of the clip, Hansen talks about the impact of ice sheets disintegrating in the polar regions. All this extra cold fresh water decreases ocean temperatures. This, in turn, increases the temperature gradient between the poles and the tropics. This, in turn, increases the strength of storms.

If Hansen looks his own GISSTEMP figures for global average temperatures, he will notice that the warming has been higher is the Artic than in the tropics. According to UNIPCC in 2007, the fastest warming in this century will be in the Arctic. I propose that cooling of the Arctic Ocean will have two effects. First it will counterbalance the most extreme warming of the planet, thereby reduce the total temperature rise. Also it will counter-balance some of the rise in temperatures, so reducing the impact of Greenland ice melt and slowing the reduction in sea ice. Second, it will reduce the impact of extreme storms. If melting ice cools the oceans, it is a negative feedback.

Sources of the boiling oceans comment are:-

WUWT comments 2 and 3 by Eric Worrall

http://carbon-sense.com/ on April 13^th 2013

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