Posted by Mike Doran on 3/15/2009, 3:01 pm, in reply to "Re: Global ACE lowest level in 30 years."

Well I am not a big fan of the 'heat pump' theory because it can't be modulated by clouds and that's how the biosphere HAD to operate. The biosphere can move clouds but not the oceans directly. Keep in mind a conductivity forcing would have to cycle. Water evaporates away and then what is left is saline and too conductive and then it would cause the salty water to sink and bring up water from the tropics that is warmer and more conductive BUT water that is so warm that it is on the top of the ocean and hence no nutrient rich upwelling. CO2 levels in that warm water drop, too, and so decarbonation events from storms would not prevail as well. There has got to be room for feedbacks in there. Right now SSTs have prevailed La Nina and the PDO shifted, too, bringing cooler SSTs globally. But these are cycles. http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=54366&ct=162 http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2008/10/20/lorne-gunter-thirty-years-of-warmer-temperatures-go-poof.aspx