This is a Guest Post by Dr David Evans
The big temperature picture. Graph and insight from Dr Syun Akasofu
(2009 International Conference on Climate Change, New York, March 2009).
The global temperature has been rising at a steady trend rate of 0.5°C per century since the depths of the little ice age in the 1700s (when the Thames River would freeze over every winter; the last time it froze over was 1804). On top of the trend are oscillations that last about thirty years in each direction:
1882 – 1910 Cooling
1910 – 1944 Warming
1944 – 1975 Cooling
1975 – 2001 Warming
In 2009 we are where the green arrow points, with temperature leveling off. The pattern suggests that the world has entered a period of slight cooling until about 2030.
There was a cooling scare in the early 1970s at the end of the last cooling phase. The current global warming alarm is based on the last warming oscillation, from 1975 to 2001. The IPCC predictions simply extrapolated the last warming as if it would last forever, a textbook case of alarmism. However the last warming period ended after the usual thirty years or so, and the global temperature is now definitely tracking below the IPCC predictions.
The IPCC blames human emissions of carbon dioxide for the last warming. But by general consensus human emissions of carbon dioxide have only been large enough to be significant since 1940—yet the warming trend was in place for well over a century before that. And there was a cooling period from 1940 to 1975, despite human emissions of carbon dioxide. And there has been no warming since 2001, despite record human emissions of carbon dioxide.
There is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming. Note that computer models are just concatenations of calculations you could do on a hand-held calculator, so they are theoretical and cannot be part of any evidence. Although the models contain some well-established science, they also contain a myriad of implicit and explicit assumptions, guesses, and gross approximations—mistakes in any of which can invalidate the model outputs.
The pattern suggests that the world has entered a period of slight cooling until about 2030
Furthermore, the missing hotspot in the atmospheric warming pattern observed during the last warming period proves that (1) the IPCC climate theory is fundamentally broken, and (2) to the extent that their theory correctly predicts the warming signature of increased carbon dioxide, we know that carbon dioxide definitely did not cause the recent warming (see here for my full explanation of the missing hotspot). The alarmists keep very quiet about the missing hotspot.
No one knows for sure what caused the little ice age or for how many more centuries the slow warming trend will continue. It has been warmer than the present for much of the ten thousand years since the last big ice age: it was a little warmer for a few centuries in the medieval warm period around 1100 (when Greenland was settled for grazing) and also during the Roman-Climate Optimum at the time of the Roman Empire (when grapes grew in Scotland), and at least 1°C warmer for much of the Holocene Climate Optimum (four to eight thousand years ago).
Addendum
Measuring the global temperature is only reliably done by satellites, which circle the world 24/7 measuring the temperature over large swathes of land and ocean. But satellite temperature records only go back to 1979. Before that, the further back you go the more unreliable the temperature record gets. We have decent land thermometer records back to 1880, and some thermometer records back to the middle of the 1700s. Prior to that we rely on temperature proxies, such as ice cores, tree rings, ocean sediments, or snow lines.
The powerpoint and audio from Dr Akasofu’s presentation at The International Climate Change Conference 2009 can be downloaded here.
Dr Akasofu published a paper explaining the above graph last week (thank you to Rick Werme).
A less serious commentary on the graph, written with Joanne’s help, is here.
Indeed it is a knowledge of history that sees through the global warming nonsense. I knew this as soon as the issue arose or came to my notice about 10 years ago. And now this graph confirms what I had deduced for myself over the last few months, namely epi cycles over a large cyclic trend lasting centuries. My thanks to the author and to Ms Nova for posting it here.
The trouble is Global Warming has become its own mass movement and religion, fed by propaganda and government fiat. I cannot see people listening to reason here. Too many egos have staked too much on this for them to back down now, and as Kuhn pointed out in his unreadable book on scientific revolutions they, the die hard scientists who still cling to AGW, will have to die off and a new generation see the thing with fresh eyes. SO i do not expect a change soon.
I wish people would listen to reason, but we cannot have what we want, and there is no evidence to expect such a sea change in human nature as listening to reason would require, especially when history shows how mad the human race is. So I expect the idiocy of AGW to continue unabated.
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While “blame it on the PDO” works quite nicely over the last 30 years, the previous 30 has this nagging “it’s not cooling as fast” look about it. At first blush, the obvious thought is “that must be the CO2 signature.” However, over another PDO cycle, the same pattern emerged, which makes it harder to blame CO2, because the AGW camp wasn’t worried about CO2 that far back. Personally, I think they should move the start of rising CO2 impact back closer to the start of the Industrial Revolution. Not that far, but maybe back to the early assembly lines and the start of automobile and truck/lorry production.
The idea that we’re recovering from the LIA has been around, but Akasofu-san’s paper very nicely combines the LIA and PDO and doesn’t leave much room for CO2. I’ll be including the above graph next year in my 2010 State of the Climate report. (See my web site for the 2009 version.)
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There was no global warming scare in the 1970s – certainly not with consensus scientific backing.
The Thames used to freeze up as it had wide shallow banks, and ice got held up at the various bridges, unlike the modern urban thames.
Why is O degrees anomaly not in line with 1940? More like 1960?
IPCC do not simply extrapolate the graph
Where is a cite for 1940?
You know very few agree with the hotspot issue you raise.
I’ve seen alarmist give significant attention to the hotspot – hardy keeping quiet.
should it surprise that romans tried to grow grapes wherever they went? Oh look they STILL grow grapes in scotland: but I guess they jsut figured they were better at scotch! http://guide.visitscotland.com/vs/guide/5,en,SCH1/objectId,SIG48327Svs,curr,GBP,season,at1,selectedEntry,home/home.html
Since there are no decent records prior to 1880… how come your graph shows the same gradienty confidently extrapolated?
Cheers:)
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Hi. You are missing the point in the entire debate. The EPA needs to find a never ending series of crisis’s to justify their existance and to make them relevant. Rules and regulations are being proposed that deal in quantities of parts per million. As i understand it, the chart above was derived via linear regression and presented as a fait accompli. What was always missing and never produced was the residuals from the regression run to determine if the variables being projected were autocorrelated which would invalidate the model. Based on the results of the graph above, Venus should be a lot hotter based on the co2 concentrations and pressures found there.
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It is clear that warming has accelerated, especially over the last 50 and 30 years, so I’m not sure what is meant by “steady.” Even the UAH satellite analysis shows a temp increase of 0.39degC since 1979.
“Measuring the global temperature is only reliably done by satellites…”
I’m wondering why you believe this to be true. I understand some people have problems with UHI, but satellites have their own issues. The two major satellite analyses are quite far apart (and there are two other infrequently updated analyses which differ as well). UAH in particular was in error for years. That satellite measurements are superior is often claimed by skeptics, but the reasoning behind this choice is never explained.
This is a controversial area of study; however, there are far more studies that show the medieval warm period was not as warm as today. Of course, the anecdotal evidence of grazing in Greenland is unconvincing because Greenland is used for grazing today–and has been for over a hundred years.
I see you are still espousing the missing “fingerprint” argument. But can you explain upper stratospheric cooling, which theory and models indicate to be caused by an enhanced greenhouse effect? How would changes in the PDO reduce upper stratospheric temperatures?
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Driving back form walking the dogs yesterday, the temperature rose by 5 degrees fahrenheit in less than a mile.
Ponder.
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MattB, have you ever thought of a career in comedy? I love this idea that whether rivers freeze or not is determined by whether they have smooth banks or not, nothing to do with temperature! And this idea that that there ‘was no global warming scare in the 1970s’. I think you mean cooling but you’ve got yourself a little bit confused. I guess you are too young to remember the 70’s, but those of us over 40 can remember it well – yes it did happen and yes it was supported by many scientists. (who is it who calls who the ‘deniers’?).
And if you followed up that link you posted you would find they don’t grow grapes in Scotland! They make wine from Elderflower and Silver Birch! Thanks Matt, you’ve really given me a good laugh, Cheers:)
That’s a great comment by Steve Meikle. Who was it who said something like ” The most important lesson from history is that people never learn any lessons from history “? Logic and reason have been lost completely, as illustrated so beautifully by MattB.
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lol yeah I followed a few winery links and it seems Scottish tourism websites will lead to whiskey distilleries from a winery link:) Crazy scots eh? One does have to ask though if they ever grew good wine in Scotland…
here is a nice link to the history of english wine: http://www.english-wine.com/history.html
Which lead me to wonder why no mention of scottish wine… ever.. lead me to wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_from_the_United_Kingdom
“Roman to 19th Century
The Romans introduced wine making to the United Kingdom, and even tried to grow grapes as far north as Lincolnshire. ”
Being a pom, I know Lincolnshire is not Scotland… so I’m now interested in some sort of cite of scottish wine production as it seems the web has not heard of it…
well the thames references are all from web sites detailing the history of the thames. Shallow water impeded downstream freezes… and build up if ice at impediments causes further freezing. You can read all about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Thames_frost_fairs
ANd for the record yes I have considered some stand-up in my time:)
1970s cooling scare is a total beat up… you are flat out lying to say you remember it;) fair dinkum. As a child of the 70s a vividly remember public concern about nuclear war… not global cooling.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling re: global cooling in 70s.
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Matt: “There was no global warming scare in the 1970s – certainly not with consensus scientific backing.”
And your point? That the ‘weight’ of committees and bureacracy and budgets proves something? C’mon Matt. We’ve just had inflation in bureaucrats. Now when they whip up a scare, they have funding.
Matt: “The Thames used to freeze up as it had wide shallow banks, and ice got held up at the various bridges, unlike the modern urban thames.”
Could be true. Still doesn’t matter. There are dozens of other examples – parts of European farmland froze down to 1m deep. Animals died inside barns. The Baltic was still frozen enough to walk on in mid spring. From many anecdotal records of people who lived and died in different countries, it was colder than ever. And there were thermometers then. London – 15 degrees C. Paris – 12 degrees. For weeks.
Matt:“You know very few agree with the hotspot issue you raise.”
The Alarmists can’t ‘agree’ with the missing hot-spot. By definition, they would not be alarmists any more if they did. I showed here how top guns like Santer and Sherwood agree it was missing. The only question now is whether you think it’s ok, nine years after the data was in, to discover uncertainties that increase the error bars far enough to include the observations. And even if you do accept the uncertainties are real, they didn’t ‘find’ the hotspot. They just found it could be hidden in the noise. OR – you could use windgauges (aka Sherwood), and throw out the temperature readings. That’s where the debate is at.
Matt: “I’ve seen alarmist give significant attention to the hotspot – hardy keeping quiet.”
BTW – Alarmists have not been making announcements about the hotspot til recently. The hotspot has been missing since 1999 when the warming era of data came in. The AGW crowd didn’t mention that for years while they recalculated, reestimated and statistically reworked the data. It is only because realists started to speak up they they’ve had to announce anything. Where were all the press releases before 2006 saying, gosh – the numbers aren’t even close? There have only been press releases of late saying “yes we’ve finally ‘found’ it”. Doesn’t it speak volumes that they didn’t issue the ‘lost’ annoucements – only the ‘found’ ones? How honest are they being?
Boris on the Midieval Warming Period:“This is a controversial area of study; however, there are far more studies that show the medieval warm period was not as warm as today.”
What studies? (Apart from fraudulent Mann and other tree-ring proxies?) The people who lived in greenland buried their dead in ground that is under permafrost now. Not nice to live in, not nice to dig large holes with primitive spades in. Those under-frost bones speak loudly, and there are plenty of other examples from the real world. It’s hard to use them to calibrate a temperature scale, but how, how could Greenland have been as cold then as it is today? They abandoned it when the little ice age comes in. Some proxies agree with the human records, migrations, and anthropology, the other proxies agree with computer models.
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Those 1st two points Jo, you are quite correct, there was no point in the Thames freezing or 1970s cooling (or the supposed Scottish wine) being included in the argument of the initial entry from David. They are neither here nor there – and just the kind of comments you would rightly expose as being non-science were they in a warmist article like at desmog. The fewer frills and trimmings the easier it is to get to the core arguments.
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MattB, no wonder you are so confused if you are getting all your misinformation from Wikipedia, or should I say Willipedia. If you can’t see the blatant distortion and spin there, you are beyond hope.
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That’s right – it is all a left wing conspiracy Paul! How could I forget!
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Matt, you can ask non-core questions anytime you like. It’s good to see friendly discussion. You are one of the few willing to acknowledge when others provide a reasonable answer.
So, do I score even a small point for the missing hot spot? I mean if you’re not going to read the Santer and Sherwood papers and wade through the convoluted writing, and you really do need some other non-scientific test (which I guess applies to 99% of the population), the don’t-mention-it’s-missing-until-you’ve-‘found’-it attitude tells you a lot about how forthright the Alarmists are.
For years, it would have been obvious to those close to the data that things were not even close to stacking up, but they didn’t say anything. There was no period where the public knew it was ‘lost’ prior to it being ‘found’.
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Well, it is your opinion that Mann’s work is fraudulent. Since Mann is still highly respected across many fields of study, it doesn’t appear that this is a widely held belief. Be that as it may, there are plenty of borehole reconstructions and other tree ring reconstructions (Moberg) which show present warmth greater than medieval warmth.
I’d like to see a cite for this claim. In any case, skeptics cannot point to global reconstructions to support a warmer MWP, so they point to vague anecdotal evidence, which, even if true, would serve only to show that Greenland may have been warmer in the past–rather than the entire planet. The certainty with which Evans claims that the MWP was warmer than today does not seem to be backed up by the available evidence.
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Boris, even the IPCC’s own proxies show that the MWP was as warm as today, see their fig 6.10b, http://globalwarmingquestions.googlepages.com/ar4mwp
Talking of claims not being backed up by evidence, what about “Mann is still highly respected across many fields of study”. This is the guy who recommends smoothing by reflecting data horizontally and vertically at the end points, and didnt realise that this forced the smoothed curve to go through the final gridpoint until Steve Mc pointed it out to him (Mann described it is forcing the 2nd derivative to be zero which is also true but less relevant). Also the guy who uses a ‘proxy screening’ method that is guaranteed to produce a hockey stick even when fed a random walk. He is not highly respected, he is a laughing-stock outside his little clique of friends.
“skeptics cannot point to global reconstructions to support a warmer MWP”. This is false and Boris (regular frequenter of skeptic blogs) knows that it is false. There’s Craig Loehle’s to start with. I expect
David and Joanne can provide others.
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PaulM,
Yes, I know what McIntyre thinks of Mann’s work. McIntyre doesn’t seem to be gaining much traction against Mann, and Mann continues to publish in the literature. I’d take that as pretty good evidence that most researchers don’t think Mann is some kind of “fraud.”
Yes, the IPCC’s proxies show similar warmth in 1979 as the MWP. Is it warmer or colder now than in 1979?
Loehle’s reconstruction only goes up the 1930s, as you should know.
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“Is it warmer or colder now than in 1979?”
According to the IPCC proxies, about the same!
Of the three that extend to the 1990s,
the b2000 proxy has negative anomoly for 1985-1993.
ecs2002 is negative 1986-1992 except for 1990.
dwj2006 has anomolies of .04 and .06 for 1995 and 1994.
According to the proxies the 1990s were no warmer than the 1940s!
I’ll have to add another graph to that page…
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Boris,
Anyone with a scientific background can review the critiques on SteveMc’s site. The evidence is damning and makes it clear that Mann’s work is nothing but an exercise in data mining designed to produce a predetermined result. The fact so many climate scientists ignore these widely publicized and documented problems is evidence of a deep intellectual rot within the climate science community.
BTW – SteveMc did reply to the Mann 2008 but was limited by the 250 limit. Anyone who wants to understand the criticisms has to go to Steve’s blog. The fact that the journals do not allow more detailed critiques is a problem with the journals – not Steve Mc.
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I’m no scientist (but I stayed at a Holiday Inn once) but it seems to me the bottom line is, this is not as the great Al Gore says it is, perhaps we should “chill” a bit on restructuring the economy based on the unproven hypothesis of global warming in general, man-made specifically.
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I meant to say “this is not settled science as the great Al Gore…..” Sorry…working!
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[the] “1970s cooling scare is a total beat up… …As a child of the 70s a [sic] vividly remember public concern about nuclear war… not global cooling.”
Actually the fear in the ’70s WAS about global cooling – caused by widespread nuclear war. The term at the time was nuclear winter, the theory being that smoke and dust clouds from multiple atomic bombs going off would blot out the sun and cause a massive deep freeze on the Earth’s surface.
In contrast to the current warming predictions, nuclear war is still a viable threat. Who knows, maybe THAT scenario will be latched onto by the AGW alarmists as the best and fastest way to combat global warming.
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Very interesting discussion. Here is what bothers me – even if the earth is warming, why is that “bad”? It seems to me that global cooling has the potential (and the historical record tends to bear this out) to be much worse. Why is it that no one explores the possible benefits of warming? People retire to more temperate climates, baseball has its spring training in temperate climates, there is by far more biodiversity in temperate climates.
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Ah, yes, he did publish a letter response.
However, in that letter was evidence of SteveM’s hypocrisy. He lambasted Mann for not providing references to canonical statistics texts, and then, when he had only 250 words to respond, what citation does he give? A newsletter. I had to laugh at that one.
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[…] the Jo Nova […]
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Boris,
SteveMc said Mann should use well established and understood methods. He never said that Mann specifically had to use ‘textbooks’.
The newsletter is more than sufficient to provide an example of the type of reference that Mann should have been using.
In any case, the climate science community has repeatedly demonstrated that it is not interested in anything that does not support the case for alarmism so most will ignore Steve’s comment (using bogus rationalization like the one you used). So the fact that Mann continues to publish and has his work accepted by the climate science community is not evidence of the worth of his work but evidence that climate science community cannot be trusted to objectively analyze the facts.
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Boris: These authors show the MWP as warmer than present:
Grudd, H. 2008. Torneträsk tree-ring width and density AD 500–2004: a test of climatic sensitivity and a new 1500-year reconstruction of north Fennoscandian summers. Climate Dynamics, DOI 10.1007/s00382-007-0358-2.
Loehle, C. 2007. A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-tree ring proxies. Energy & Environment 18(7-8): 1049-1058.
“Edwards, T.W.D., Birks, S.J., Luckman, B.H. and MacDonald, G.M. 2008. Climatic and hydrologic variability during the past millennium in the eastern Rocky
Mountains and northern Great Plains of western Canada. Quaternary Research 70: 188-197.”
And, as I recall, Soon and Baliunas did a meta-study and found 240 previous papers that showed the MWP as a global event, equal or greater in warmth to the present.
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Has AGW Theory produced any meaningful predictions? If trillions of dollars were not at stake, would anyone really care if it was a 1/2 degree warmer?
Americans get it. Global warming/climate change/ ranked dead last in a survey of issues Americans were concerned about. There is no crisis. Now let’s move on to something better.
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Here’s a link to a series of videos on the cooling scare in the 70’s. Terrifying, actually. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZKtJSlhFsA
It isn’t relevant whether or not the fear held consensus….only that cooling was significant enough to garner attention and alarm.
It’s an example of the power of the media to create false legitimacy… an impression that “scientists believe..XXX”.
Any so called “data” from Mann, Hansen, or the IPCC simply can’t be relied on to be accurate. They’ve destroyed their credibility with fraudulent reports. IPCC bureaucrats simply removed lead author conclusions that AGW wasn’t certain or wasn’t occuring, and substituted statements saying it was. The oscillations noted in this article have been cataloged in the past, long before the AGW hoax.
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/061/mwr-061-09-0251.pdf
And here’s an eye opening story on the saga of AGW, and its bloated prince of pompousness, Al Gore. Enjoy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3312921/The-deceit-behind-global-warming.html
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Now Tom, the 1970s cooling issue, minor as it was, was quite unrelated to nuclear winter… it was the concern that the planet was heading to ice age as a natural variation in climate. This is also a claim of a significant proportion of modern non-AGW-theorists, which I think is as wrong today as it was in the 1970s, or as correct as it was in the 1970s depending on how you look at it.
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The NOAA has a good history of the Cooling scare. (my summary below)
1972 – Kukla-Mathews publishes in Science, an article about the end of the current inter glacial. Also writes a letter to Nixon in 1972, specifically warning about global cooling.
1973 – First Climate office started in Feb 1973 (ad hoc Panel on the Present Inter Glacial). This was after a meeting of 42 of the most prominent climatologists, and apparently there was consensus about cooling. Especially as the NOAA, NWS and ICAS were involved.
1974 – Office of Climate Dynamics opened.
1978 -Carter signs Climate Program Act, partly due to the SEVERE WINTER experienced the preceding winter.
Click here for NOAA history
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From a UNESCO meeting in 1961, published in 1963. The meetings discussed cooling, and its implications on the world. Some 115 scientists from 36 countries took part in the symposium. The following is from the wrap up speech.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the evidence presented by Dr. Murray Mitchell, Dr. Rodewald and some of the other speakers is the way in which it falls into a pattern. Not only air temperature, but also subtropical rainfall, the tendency of hurricanes to move along certain tracks or sea surface temperatures, show a reversal of the preceding [warming] climatic trend during the last one or two decades. The true physical significance of Dr. Murray Mitchell’s result lies perhaps in the combined evidence, based on so many different variables.
it has been extremely difficult by this means to avoid the conclusion that the warming trends [up to the 1940s] for the world as a whole, and for the Northern Hemisphere in particular, are truly planetary in scope. On the other hand, it cannot yet he demonstrated in this way beyond a reasonable doubt that the net cooling since the 1940s has likewise been planetary in scope. That this cooling is of such nature, however, seems reasonable and this should be verifiable if the cooling in the data areas were to continue for another decade or two in the future.
All authors have been able to show, by using records dating back to the end of the eighteenth century that the warming up of large parts of the world from the middle of the nineteenth century until recently has been statistically significant. However, as pointed out especially by J. M. Mitchell and also shown for sea temperatures by M. Rodewald this increase in temperature has recently declined.“
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http://www.jstor.org/pss/1792334
A paper by Lamb (who founded Hadley Climate Center) about the cooling observed since 1960.
….an abrupt return to conditions as they were before the well known warming of climates in the early twentieth century….”
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v223/n5212/pdf/2231209a0.pdf
A 1969 paper by Lamb, on cooling. He stresses that the growing season may be shortened. A subscription is required.
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Matt:
“The Thames used to freeze up as it had wide shallow banks, and ice got held up at the various bridges, unlike the modern urban thames.”
Sorry – it was not ice floes jamming from upstream. It was solid ice across the Thames at London, where Londoners held ‘frost fairs’ all winter long. It was the time of year that commerce was conducted between the two banks without the inconvenience of the bridges. People had tents and horses, and sledges out on the Thames. It wasn’t simply ice flotsom. But as you say, what does that mean?
And as a geologist, I am not certain what your point is about wide shallow banks contributing to ice formation, nor how bridges are related to that condition.
Oh well. I won’t be back on line for some time as I am traveling and not able to get to my laptop very often right now, but I thought I wold make the little historical correction, as anecdotal as it all is.
See you
Tom
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Boris: your It is clear that warming has accelerated, especially over the last 50 and 30 years, so I’m not sure what is meant by “steady.” Even the UAH satellite analysis shows a temp increase of 0.39degC since 1979.
And what does UAH show since 1997? And RSS since 1997? And Hadley since 1998? And GISS since 2001?
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The “hockey stick” paper was dead on arrival since that absurd chart contradicted DECADES of published research in history,geology,paleoclimatology …etc.When I first saw that chart I knew it was bad.I had by then had 20+ years of reading about a real MWP and LIA that showed up worldwide.That is why I never fell for the propaganda that came with it and afterwards.That is what happens to people who are well read enough to spot such an error.
THe MWP and LIA are well proven climatic divergent trends.That hanging onto an absurd statistically contrived paper will only confirm that you are not rational.Such a person is in denial of historical facts.
It has been taken down and exposed by The Wegman panel,The NAS panel and of course the M&M team.It would be real smart to drop it and try some other possibly more credible arguments favoring the AGW hypothesis.
The Thames river froze repeatedly during the LIA period.The bank edges shape are irrelevant since the ENTIRE river froze across from bank to bank.This is a well known historical fact.1804 is the last year I know it did that.I first read about in the 1970’s.It was known that long ago.LOL…..
I lived through the latter part of the worldwide cooling trend concerns.Reading about a number of scientists who noted the cooling and were thinking it might be a portent of a new prolonged cooling trend.The media reflected that with their publications covering it.I even have a few books written by Imbrie,Bryson and Stommel.
AGW believers for some reason try hard to downplay the truth that indeed a number of scientists were concerned about a cooling climate trend in the 1960 and 1970′.Thoughts of a new ice age surge possibility showed up in their comments in the mid 1970’s.It makes no sense since it is a SEPARATE climatic trend from a warming one.Why tilt against it?
I have seen it and read all this in the above.Reality is not that hard to live with if you work with it and go on with your life.
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“1882 – 1910 Cooling
1910 – 1944 Warming
1944 – 1975 Cooling
1975 – 2001 Warming”
Has anyone looked at the historical PDO trends?
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MattB:
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:30 pm
> There was no global warming scare in the 1970s – certainly not
> with consensus scientific backing.
I guess I wasn’t scared, I was rather intrigued. I subscribed to Science News and their cover story once was on the coming ice age. I distinctly remember talking with my father about it and something he had read (probably in Science or Scientific American) that all it would take to kick things off was a summer where the snow didn’t melt in Canada. Not too long after that I flew across the country and concluded from all the pine trees that the only way snow wouldn’t melt is if the snow covered the trees. Pines have a very low albedo. Between Kodachrome 64 slide film (contrasty) and printing on Cibachrome paper (also contrasty) it can be hard to get a green pine without washing out the rest of the scene. A couple factors leading to cooling were posited to be air pollution aerosols (people later concluded they were too regional to have a wide enough impact, that doomed the nuclear winter risk too) and contrails.
There wasn’t a consensus, but there was more concern that Peterson claims. Too much of his report just doesn’t ring true to my memory.
The thing that killed the ice age talk was the first report of CO2 concentrations from Mauna Loa. The data was so wonderfully clean and descriptive that everyone wanted to embrace it. The thing that killed the cooling temperature trend turned out to be the PDO flip to positive, but we wouldn’t know about the PDO for a decade or two.
Were you around in the 1970s? I’d guess not. If you were and were interested in science you’d remember more about it.
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“It still doesn’t matter” but a couple good links to the Frost Fairs:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/River_Thames_frost_fairs
http://thames.me.uk/s00051.htm
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Boris asked about references to MWP. I don’t think he ‘really’ wanted them, but anyways …
see here for a big list:
http://www.co2science.org/subject/g/globalmwp.php
My favorite is:
http://www.ncasi.org/publications/Detail.aspx?id=3025
see http://www.ianschumacher.com/global_warming.html for a graph of what the IPCC ‘used’ to believe (nice graph with MWP and little ice age in 1990) and has never really been challenged/disputed … just dropped as it was terribly inconvenient.
Ian
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trends watch : Global Warming: A Classic Case of Alarmism | JoNova…
…The only question now is whether you think it’s ok, nine years after the data was in, to discover uncertainties that increase the error bars far eno……
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Boris;
“I’d like to see a cite for this claim.”
Tell you what Boris. Since that seems to be your main point in life, show me a cite in a peer reviewed paper [snip inflammatory comment…]
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[…] Posted by ruach on April 4, 2009 A link to a site that explains simply the flawed thinking of those who are warning us about global w… […]
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JoNova:
While it is known that we are exiting the LIA or have been. Looking at a longer time scale like 15,000 years since the glacial maximum. It appers we may be slideing into the next glaciation period. I saw this while studying the Vostock and Greenland ice cores. The information from the Swiss Alps and other locations. To me the question is will we even return to the temperatures of the MWP or will the globe continue the long slide into glaciation in a few thousand years. Here is a link to a recent paper:
http://www.atypon-link.com/IAHS/doi/pdf/10.1623/hysj.54.2.394?cookieSet=1
This shows a slight decline in temperatures since the HO.
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No global cooling in the ’70’s? Really?
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice.asp
Just who is denying what?
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Dr Evans has it right apart from the Romans growing grapevines in Scotland. They never went further north than Newcastle, from where Hadrian’s Wall was built. But they did produce wine in York where grapes will not grow today. The same grapes are now produced in France just south of Dijon so it was much warmer in those times and no SUV’s.
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I remember the global cooling scare of the 1970’s. I was in high school. I turned 15 in 1973 s you can guess how ancient i am now by doing the maths:)
But for them to deny, all in the name of protecting their theory, that there ever was a cooling in the 70’s, or a medieval warm period, or a roman warm period, as you show here, is, beside being almost unbelievably ignorant, is an intellectual dishonesty that boggles the mind.
If they want to convince skeptics of their theory they have to account for facts that seem to deny it, like these phenomena I have cited here, and not deny they happened.
All of which shows that they do not want to be confused by facts. They are a bad faith religion, even to the point of candle light vigils such as they had in my home town last weekend, the so called earth hour, and all the truth speaking by us will not persuade them.
This leads me to suspect that the sciences, being human endeavour, are in fact corrupted. I did see a book called “teh corrupted sciences” by one Arnold Arnold. But could not afford it and have never read it. Does anyone know of this book?
I must note that by corrupted i do not mean totally useless, but i do mean tha they are a mixed bag of fad, fancy and faction. I no longer regards the priesthood which are the scientists as disinterested seekers after truth and i certainly no longer think that the aspiration of the scientsts, ie objective truth, is in fact their atainment, for in no field of human endeavour is the attainment ever reached.
After all a century ago all the scientific establishment were racist, believed in eugenics and were largely social darwinist. in fact it was not scientific enquiry that discredited these, i think, but the horror that was the second world war
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I don’t know if it matter much, but last year I read an article that archaelogists were excited because thawing in Greenland was allowing the excavation of Norse homesteads that were previously inaccessible. That would suggest to me that only now are temperatures in Greenland what they were in the Medieval Warm Period. Of course, it also begs the question, what kind of CO2 spewing/AGW causing engines did the Vikings have on their long ships: gas, diesel, ethanol, or what?
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TomG – since you are a geologist I’m not surprised you don;t really understand much about estuary processes… what is it about geologists think they have some Gold Pass to be experts in unrelated fields:)
no one denys there was some cooling in the 70s Steve… I’m not even sure who is denying there are cycles that naturally cool and warm regardless of what we do.
And Mike davis… lets face it those guys in the 70s were right if you are right… being 30 years out is pretty good on those kinds of timescales…
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I dont know if Ric in #38 is a warmist or a skeptic, but form his thames links:
” This was to be the last frost fair. The climate was growing milder; also, old London Bridge was demolished in 1831, and the river was embanked in stages during the 19th century, both of which made the river less likely to freeze.”
so TomG you may want to take it up with them.
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MattB:
April 4th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
> I dont know if Ric in #38 is a warmist or a skeptic.
Check the Ric in #2 or the first two links at my web site. Actually, those might not provide the answer….
Before people get too excited about warming since the LIA or 1977, there seems to have been an interesting period 5000-7000 years ago that some people are wringing their hands over because evidence is getting exposed to weathering. Personally, I think some people wring their hands over it because it’s solid evidence that it was warmer back then. See
http://wermenh.com/climate/6000.html
It makes me wonder what else is hiding under glaciers.
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MattB: #46
I wanted to see what TomG wrote to annoy you, but apparently it’s not on this blog. I tend to value intelligence over training, after all James Hansen has an astronomy and physics training. Geologists bring an important perspective to the current climate change debate as they know the Earth has seen much worse. Well “worse” is the wrong word. Then normal state of the Earth in the last megayear or so is ice age, and we’ll likely get back there before reaching some tipping point that turns us into New Venus.
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Wow, how unscientific of me to ask for evidence of claims. For all the skeptics’ bluster, they are the ones who believe things without evidence. Please keep your promise and ignore my posts. k?thk
[I’ve snipped his comment Boris. Ahem, you did say there were lots of studies in #5, and you didn’t provide them in #14, tho’…]
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Les Johnson,
The Grudd paper also claims that 1750 was warmer than today, so do you think they have disproved the little ice age?
Loehle’s reconstruction only goes up to the 1930s or so, as I’ve already noted. But it has many other problems as well.
Edwards is a localized study.
Your posts on the “cooling scare” are not convincing. Yes, it cooled somewhat, and scientists reacted to that information. That’s all your evidence shows.
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Boris…Just curious. Do you have a degree, or an advanced degree in atmospheric physics or climate science? Or, are you just interested in the debate? Not that it matters as consensus does not equate to truth, but there are 100s of atmospheric and climate scientists out there who cannot speak out publicly who are skeptics.
Climate models are so much BS, and the physics does not make sense. And yes Mann is a egotistical scoundrel who I believe will be shown for the scientific and statistical fraud that he is soon enough.
We can pontificate and theorize about 1st and 2nd order effects, and dependent variables all we want. But time will tell…likely in the 3-5 years the impact a 1st order effect such as the prolonged solar minimum will have on the short term climate trends.
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Boris,
Loehe’s recontruction only goes up to 1939 because that is the only honest way to represent proxies without good time resolution. The fact that alarmists think that they can slap a thermometer onto the end of proxy record does not make it meaningful or honest.
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Re debate about the global cooling scare prior to 1975.
I remember very well in the sixties my science teacher telling us that an ice age was coming. Confirming this was the claim by Stephen Schneider, (now a AGWer) who wrote; ‘We report here on the first results of a calculation in which separate estimates were made of the effects on global temperature of large increases in the amount of CO2 and dust in the atmosphere. It is found that even an increase by a factor of 8 in the amount of CO2, which is highly unlikely in the next several thousand years, will produce an increase in the surface temperature of less than 2 deg. K.’ Schneider S. & Rasool S., “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols – Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate”, Science, vol.173, 9 July 1971, p.138-141. He also says in the same article that ‘….our calculations suggest a decrease in global temperature by as much as 3.5 °C.’ Time and Newsweek ran articles in the mid 1970s. Of course he later recanted but the idea that global cooling theory was seriously entertained at that time is a fact.
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Boris: 2 are localized studies. But different localities.
As we are talking about events (MWP and LIA)well before 1930, I am uncerain what your critiscm is of Loehle. I would love to hear of the other problems.
your
Your posts on the “cooling scare” are not convincing. Yes, it cooled somewhat, and scientists reacted to that information. That’s all your evidence shows.
UNESCO, Lamb, Kukla and the NOAA are not convincing? Hmmmm.
But, that was my point, BTW. It cooled, and most scientists reacted to it.
Sound familar?
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Boris: your
The Grudd paper also claims that 1750 was warmer than today, so do you think they have disproved the little ice age?
yes. At least in the Tornetrask area.
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encore post.
Boris: your
It is clear that warming has accelerated, especially over the last 50 and 30 years, so I’m not sure what is meant by “steady.” Even the UAH satellite analysis shows a temp increase of 0.39degC since 1979.
And what does UAH show since 1997? And RSS since 1997? And Hadley since 1998? And GISS since 2001?
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kasphar, The first-named author of the 1971 paper in Science that you cite was Rasool, not Schneider.
It is, however, true that Schneider gave credence to the threat of an impending Little Ice Age. He wrote in The Genesis Strategy (1976) that ‘I have cited many examples of recent climatic variability and repeated the warnings of several well-known climatologists that a cooling trend has set in – perhaps one akin to the Little Ice Age – and that climate variability, which is the bane of reliable food production, can be expected to increase along the cooling’ (p. 90).
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Ian Castles
Everytime I see this paper referred to, Schneider’s name is mentioned first (I haven’t seen the originally document). However, Wikipedi notes he was the second author, so point taken. However, he still co-authored the report and must have agreed with Rasool that CO2 was not a real threat to inducing global warming but then. This is also the year in which he received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics so he would have been looked on as somewhat of an expert in the field.
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My:
yes. At least in the Tornetrask area.
I should have added:
, and in 1750. There were at least 3 minimas during the LIA, with slight warming in between.
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Has anyone considered what the Chinese researchers have had to say? Search “Lin Zhen-Shan and Sun Xian”. 60-year cycle dominates, CO2 effect excessively exaggerated, high time to re-consider trend of global climate changes.
When the governments of developed nations ignore the Chinese, and impose costs on their industries, the Chinese Government will go along with it and laugh all the way to the bank. Why wouldn’t it?
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I absolutely remember Global Cooling as a big deal in the ’70’s. We lived in Maine, and wondered when the Glaciers would come. I remember the big ice storm in Connecticut(1974?) was “proof” of the coming ice age. Really, people were talking about it.
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Maybe North Americans were more exposed to this supposed “scare”… I guess they have always been lightyears ahead in championing cheap sensationalist journalism…
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Global cooling was big in the media in the 70s, because we’d just begun collating global temperatures and we’d seen a few years of cooling.
And there were indeed a few studies that projected cooling, but what is little mentioned is that the majority of these studies were talking about cooling over milenia in line with Milankovitch cycles. For example:
Hays et al 1976: “Such forecasts must be qualified in two ways. First, they apply only to the natural component of future climatic trends − and not to anthropogenic effects such as those due to the burning of fossil fuels. Second, they describe
only the long-term trends, because they are linked to orbital variations with periods of 20,000 years and longer. Climatic oscillations at higher frequencies are not predicted.” Indeed, a number of the cooling papers pointed out that greenhouse gas emissions would cause warming in the short term (geologically short).
Arrhenius first posited in the late 1800s that CO2 increase would lead to warming. This concept was picked up again in the 40s and 50s and became the prevailing theory of climate change in science. A formal investigation was recently taken on the state of the science in the 70s.
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/131047.pdf
This is the definitive work on this meme, and covers the media to some degree, but mostly the science of the time. It is a must read for any honest participant in this debate who believes this particular issue is meaningful. In short, 7 scientific studies in the 70s predicted cooling, and 42 predicted warming.
Even from the 50s (and 60s and 70s etc) there were public service announcements about global warming from CO2 emissions broadcast in the US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nTw0KneNLg
But the last example is anecdotal, as is the entire conversation about the global cooling story of the 1970s. The media grabs the story of the day. The evolution of the science is the real story because it is the science, not the popular media, that is being taken to task here. I recommended the pdf file above to anyone sincerely interested.
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Ric – see post 33 for TomG comments. Not really annoying me:) But he prefaces his opinions 99% of the time with “As a geologist”.
Anon: “I’ve got a sore back”…
TomG: “As a geologist I can strongly recommend…”
yes geologists are awesome, I even dated one for a while, but maybe as a geologist he should walk to a river and winter and see if it is more likely to freeze at the banks where it is shallow/obstructed or in the middle where the fastest flows are…
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There are a few problems with the argument in the top post.
Firstly, it is circular reasoning, stating its conclusion as its premise. The ‘prediction’ (not projection or scenario) given is that warming will continue at the rate seen since the Little Ice Age. The basis of the argument, while not expressly stated is heavily implied – the warming we have seen is natural and therefore will continue to be naturally derived.
This conclusion must perforce undo the extraordinarily large body of work stetching over decades and even back to the late 1800s that increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmopshere will increase the temperature of the planet. This is not done in a remotely comprehensive way. Indeed, the plethora of radiation studies, empirical evidence and analysis over many decades has been dismissed in a couple of unreferenced paragraphs. A truly skeptical reader won’t buy that for a second, and will look for more comprehensive analyses. (But there are fewer true skeptics debating climate change than you would think).
No mention is made that the rate of warming has increased over the last century, and again in the last 50 years, and again in the last 25. (A shorter period than that would be climatically unstatistical)
The flat or cooling period mid-20th century has been discussed at length in the literature (including in some of the global ccoling sutdies of the 70s). No mention of that in the top post. An interesting place to start for curious people is ‘global dimming’. There are other hypotheses – aerosol cooling is only the more prevalent. It is disingenuous to suggest that this phenomenon scuttles AGW theory.
“There is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming.”
True only in the narrowest sense. There is no ‘smoking gun’. Just as there is no ‘smoking gun’ for germ theory, evolution theory, that smoking increases the risk of bad health etc. Correlation is the evidence in all of these.
There are multiple lines of evidence and correlative studies. Even the much-vaunted satellite measurements (which measure temperature by proxy) have shown altered spectra in the wavelengths bands absorbed by CO2. Over time, this shows as an increasing dark band in the spectra where CO2 absorbs upwelling infrared radiation.
But the strongest line of evidence of all is probably one mentioned by MattB above, and which I note has had no real takers.
If increasing GHGs in the atmosphere absorb more infrared radiation rising from the ground, and as the massive proportion of GHGs is in the troposphere, it should follow ththe stratosphere should be cooling. This was predicted from models (strange how computer modeling is sneered at only in the climate science debate – they are used all the time in a wide variety of sciences and engineering). It turns out that the stratosphere is cooling. This pretty much debunks any sun-driven global warming theory, as the stratosphere should warm as well as the troposphere (and the upper levels of the atmoshere, too), if the sun is causing global temperatures to rise (and the much-vaunted satellite data show a cooling sun over the last 30 years). The stratopshere is cooling because heat is being prevented from reaching it by a thickening layer of greenhouse gases in the layer of atmosphere immediately beneath it.
That is the most significant, but hardly the only evidence for the theory of anthropogenic global warming. (The author of the top post refers to it as “the IPCC climate theory”. This is an inaccurate designation.)
One glaring flaw – a contradiction really (among several) – is this.
“The global temperature has been rising at a steady trend rate of 0.5°C per century since the end of the little ice age in the 1700s”
followed later by
“Measuring the global temperature is only reliably done by satellites, which circle the world 24/7 measuring the temperature over large swathes of land and ocean. But satellite temperature records only go back to 1979. Before that, the further back you go the more unreliable the temperature record gets.”
Of course, one has to wonder how certitude in the former statement can be upheld considering the latter. One thing is clear. This is not a science-based article. It’s a decidedly unskeptical opinion piece with no balance whatsoever. But then I’m new here, so I don’t know what standards are meant to apply.
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I am an attorney, not a scientist, and know well enough not to engage in disputes beyond my expertise; but it seems to me that the “evidence” of global warming fails to justify the trillions contemplated “to defeat it”.
Sure, there may be a quantum of evidence to support it as a philosophical movement, but from a scientific standpoint? Enough to alter public policy and economic systems?
These are curious, bedevilling, times.
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If the dispute is beyond your expertise, on what do you base your opinion?
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Barry, spadecat will be paying taxes and extra fees presumably. He has every reason to expect that someone who wants his money for their project ought to be able to give him a reasonable civil answer. (That’s what the free press is supposed to do…).
Just because people don’t have training in climate science doesn’t mean they have no ability to judge whether others are providing a convincing answer.
No smoking gun in germ theory? Isolate the germ, infect someone, create the disease, isolate the germ…analyze the DNA…isolate the protein, the toxin. Some infectious agents and diseases are in doubt, but not ‘Germ theory’?
Where are the correlations for carbon and temperature?
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Barry,
Are you trying to sound more educated than you are? The 19th Century prose doesn’t help your argument, but rather obfuscates and weakens it and that’s before you present a single coherent argument.
You might want to take a primer and read Joanne’s “Skeptics Handbook” for starters. You clearly have no idea what constitutes “evidence” or the logarithmic effect of CO2. Nor do you have the slightest clue about the number of assumptions involved in climate modeling, or how the climate modelers assume away observable natural phenomena like clouds.
Computer modeling in a closed system or where most of the variables are fully understood is indeed useful. The point about climate models is that most of the variables are not fully understood, a point even the IPCC makes.
Even the surface temperature data fed to climate models comes via a lot of statistical “infilling” (models) because there isn’t adequate global station coverage. And that’s even before you consider any issues about UHI.
The argument isn’t about whether heating or cooling occurs, the argument is about the anthropogenic versus natural components. At the moment there is absolutely no empirical evidence that can prove that human activity is the primary cause of the recent warming.
I’d be willing to bet that most informed skeptics agree that humans may have an impact, but at the moment there is no empirical way to measure that impact.
As Spadecat pointed out, so far the “non-evidence” hardly justifies spending trillions to solve a problem that might not be a problem and which may be entirely natural and beyond our ability to significantly influence anyway.
We’d be better off spending our money on problems we can definitely address like disease, starvation, education and other purely human issues.
30
The whole AGW issue could easily be resolved. Someone should organize a formal debate, where each side could present their data and arguments. The other side could then offer rebuttal.
The debate could be in sections, covering such items as rising sea level, melting ice, etc. The debate would be run by a respected, non partisan person. No emotional harangues, personal attacks, or other nonprofessional behavior would be tolerated. Statements would not be allowed without supporting data. At the end of the debate, it should be clear whether there is AGW or not, and he current looney toons business would end.
Since the tracking of CO2 with temperature and the Mann graph have been discredited, there is no evidence to support the notion of destroying the world economy. However, lots of people remain convinced of AGW. Let’s have the debate, open and professional, and put it to bed once and for all.
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Ted Rado: “The whole AGW issue could easily be resolved. Someone should organize a formal debate…”
The problem is that most scientists on the AGW side refuse to debate (Hansen, Mann, Schmidt, Santer just to name a few). Joe Romm attempted to debate the AGW side last month, but even with a PhD, all he could manage was ad hominem, argument from authority, name-calling and exaggerated assertion. But at least I’ll give him a vote for having the guts to stick his neck out there, unlike the other named individuals.
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“Barry, spadecat will be paying taxes and extra fees presumably. He has every reason to expect that someone who wants his money for their project ought to be able to give him a reasonable civil answer”
I’m not sure how this relates to my question, which was based specifically on what Spadecat said, not on anything else.
Unless you are trying to say Spadecat’s opinion is based on his wallet?
I’m all for skepticism, and criticism. But I would add that without any genuine curiosity behind it it is simply cynicism.
“Just because people don’t have training in climate science doesn’t mean they have no ability to judge whether others are providing a convincing answer.”
How does someone with no training in climate science effectively ‘judge’ climate science?
Gotcha.
That theory lived for hundreds of years before some experiments in the 1800s provided the smoking gun. Germ theory was resisted by many in the public and by medical practioners, probably to the cost of many lives. Even today there are serious articles written against it (not in the science literature, though, to my knowledge).
http://www.homoeopathytraining.co.uk/docs%20main/downloads/Exposing%20the%20Myth%20of%20the%20GERM%20THEORY.pdf
You will be getting the analogy by now.
Smoking and disease is an even better analogy, for reasons you are no doubt familiar with. Or have you published a column debunking that theory, too – because there is no ‘evidence’, just correlation.
“Where are the correlations for carbon and temperature?”
I think you meant to say “CO2 and temperature”.
For starters, it is an empirical fact that increased CO2 in a controlled volume of atmosphere will absorb more energy passing through that volume. This is the basis of global AGW theory.
We have correlation in ice records – when the planet’s temperature changes considerably, CO2 follows closely. In the glacial changes associated with ice changes, CO2 lags temperature changes by a few hundred years and then amplifies the warming already underway. These are clear correlations, albeit from proxy records. The details are interesting and we might discuss them later. But this answers your question shortly.
In the modern era, we have rising CO2 concentrations and rising global temperatures. Two caveats are applicable:
1) Neither the yearly temperatures not CO2 emissions are expected to rise monotonically.
2) The cool or flat temperature trend mid-20th century is climatically significant and is addressed in the literature. The fact of this phenomenon does not undo AGW theory, but it does pose interesting questions.
The implication n the top post – that we are experiencing natural weather variation – is missing a fndamental premise. If not CO2, what has driven the increased temperature?
It can’t be “Mutli-decadal oscillation” (ENSO or PDO?) because these trends are short-lived. If these were the main drivers of temperature change, we should have seen roughly equivalent temperatures at the beginning of the 20th century, in the 1930s and in the 1990s. Instead, each period has been warmer than the last.
This is the fundamental problem with the skeptical canon. No mechanism proposed has withstood scruitny. We are asked, as we are implicitly asked in the top post, to assume that a natural mechanism is the cause of overall warming since 1900, but we are not told – cdonvincingly – what that mechanism/s is.
When I began reading David Evans’ post, I was interested because I thought it might be about mainstream projections. I think there is room for debate about how fast we are warming. But I don’t think there are many (any?) experts left who refute the basic premise. John Christy, in charge with Roy Spencer of the UAH satellite temperature record and a strong critic of the mainstream view, is in no doubt that the warming recorded is due to greenhouse gases. This particular contention, as with doubts about germ theory, is no longer pushed by informed people.
I wonder if you read the study on 70s cooling I linked previously. There are a number of absolute claims in the top post that should be balanced – particularly since they are increasingly outlying views or just plain wrong.
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“Are you trying to sound more educated than you are? The 19th Century prose doesn’t help your argument, but rather obfuscates and weakens it and that’s before you present a single coherent argument.”
I don’t know if I’m trying to sound more educated than I am, but I’m sharp enough to recognize an ad hominem opening with no substance.
Are you anti-intellectual?
“You might want to take a primer and read Joanne’s “Skeptics Handbook” for starters. You clearly have no idea what constitutes “evidence” or the logarithmic effect of CO2. Nor do you have the slightest clue about the number of assumptions involved in climate modeling, or how the climate modelers assume away observable natural phenomena like clouds”
I’ve done much better than that. I’ve read a lot of the literature. That’s where anyone should start. I’ve also read far more than I can remember from contrary sources. And I know the difference between empirical and a priori evidence. Assuming you’ve also familiarised yourself with the mianstream literature (rather than getting all your information from contrary sources), and seeing as you seem to be more intelligent and modern than I, you can perhaps point out to me what is and isn’t evidence.
If only you knew how much I have discussed the ‘logarithmic effect of CO2’! I know enough to say that your phrase makes no sense. You meant to say “the logarithmic effect on heating from increasing concentrations of CO2”. I also know that the ‘effect’ isn’t strictly a logarithm, but the profile is similar. As an aside, the ‘logarithmic’ effect becomes linear and finally exponential after a certain atmospheric density is reached – but that won’t be an issue for us here. We’ll never get that much CO2 in the atmosphere (barring some astronomical cataclysm).
Climate modelers assume nothing about clouds. It is one of the greatest areas of uncertainty and still being heavily investigated. Whatever is put into models represents the best understanding of physics and climate/weather systems. No one says it’s perfect. Are you perhaps thinking of Lindzen’s recent post at WUWT? Chris Colose posted an excellent response.
Of course there are areas of uncertainy. One of the benefits of this modern age that my vernacular is so ill-suited for, is that lay people like us have almost instant access to the cutting edge. This should be exciting. But there are a lot of cynics out there who premise their ‘interest’ on pecuniary, political or ideological grounds. They are not fit to judge the science because they are not able to think objectively, to open their minds and damn the consequences. They think they are talking science, they use scientific words, but ultimately they are talking politics and using sciencey words to sound convincing. And they clutch any tract from unqualified people, or cherry-pick a study or two to warm their prior convictions. But what they never, ever will do is consider the matter boradly and dispassionately. Joanne defended Spadecat’s right to question the economic impacts on him personally and at large – as if I was somehow preventing him or criticising him for it. Then she advised anyone was fit to ‘judge’ this complex field of knowledge. I found neither comment dispassionate or objective. All this is more in the vein of advocacy.
As you can see from my last paragraph, that kind of ‘logic’ begets a bit of philosophising in me. 🙂 Should we continue, I’d rather stick to the science, which is what this thread is about, I assume.
We ‘alarmists’ can’t win. We’re either catty, or appeal to authority, or long-winded, or indulge in 19th century prose. I’ve read complaints upthread and elsewhere that AGWers are rude, and this seems to be meaningful in some way. I’ve not been that at least. Because you’ve impugned my intelligence, does that mean you lose?
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Ted,
You are describing the scientific publishing process.
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‘We have correlation in ice records – when the planet’s temperature changes considerably, CO2 follows closely. In the glacial changes associated with ice changes, CO2 lags temperature changes by a few hundred years and then amplifies the warming already underway.’
Your quote, Barry. So what caused the warming in the first place? And why, when CO2 amplifies the natural warming, doesn’t it just keep warming to Venus-like proportions? And all this temp variance (15C) and CO2 only banded between 200-300ppm. Maybe because CO2 is not the driving force! Now that would make sense.
Read Ferenc M. Miskolczi analyses of finite v infinite atmospheres at http://met.hu/doc/idojaras/vol111001_01.pdf to get some idea as to the effect of CO2 on temperature and why the current models could well be wrong.
And then try to make sense of this.
From 1880 – 1910 there was a CO2 increase of 9ppm which resulted in a 0.15C drop in temp.
From 1910 -1940 there was a CO2 increase of 10ppm which resulted in an 0.5C increase in temp.
From 1940 – 1975 there was an increase of around 25ppm which resulted in a drop of 0.1C in temp (aerosols, pollution?).
From 1978 – 2008 there was an increase of around 50ppm which resulted in a rise of 0.45 in temp.
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A non technical question: why would anyone assume the Cosmos would not have a more profound effect on Earth than accumulation of industrial gases?
Why would anyone not want to wait to see if AGW is going to be the crisis it is predicted to be, that is, wait until the observations confirm or deny the hypothesis? Why the bias against observation?
Why would anyone not think humanity could adapt until then?
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i So what caused the warming in the first place?
I should declare that I am no scientist, have no formal training in any of the physical sciences, and my maths is weak, too! All I’ve got to serve the debate is what I’ve learned from 3 years of intense and broad reading. All I can do is try to present want I’ve learned honestly and as clearly as I can.
Ice ages are initiated by periodic (but not exactly symmetrical) changes in the orbital patterns of the Earth, which saw the earth closer to the sun and with a greater tilt, bringing polar ice sheets further into the glare of the sun. The largest impact was felt (roughly) every 100k years, but there are smaller impacts at other periods within that.
The combination of decreased albedo and CO2 released from warming oceans amplified the rather weak forcing of insolation change. It is calculated that the solar ‘forcing’ can account for a fraction of the final heat after approx 5000 years of warming to an interglacial. Greenhouse gas amplification is considered to account for between 33 and 50% of the total warming.
The reason that CO2 concentrations have rebounded is likewise because of changing orbital patterns. When the oceans cool, they start reabsorbing CO2. Over the longer term, rocks and sediments absorb carbon from the atmosphere. This slower process is evident in the ice-core records. During deglaciation, CO2 rises quite rapidly once it gets going. As the Earth cools into glaciation, the CO2 draw down happens at a much slower rate.
In the last few deglaciations, the periods for which have been fairly consistent, the CO2 rose from 180 – 280ppm over roughly 5000 years. but it took milenia to get back to 180ppm. We now stand at about 385 ppm. It is unlikely that atmospheric CO2 concentrations will return to pre-industrial levels for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
You can get a primer on the Milankovitch theory of ice ages from here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
If you’re curious about relative attribution to the warming, this paper was one of the first to undertake the analysis.
http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf
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“Ice ages are initiated by periodic (but not exactly symmetrical) changes in the orbital patterns of the Earth, which saw the earth closer to the sun and with a greater tilt, bringing polar ice sheets further into the glare of the sun.”
So much for being clear! That should read: Ice ages are initiated by periodic (but not exactly symmetrical) changes in the orbital patterns of the Earth. Major deglaciations have occurred when the earth moved closer to the sun and with a greater tilt, bringing polar ice sheets further into the glare of the sun.
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“From 1880 – 1910 there was a CO2 increase of 9ppm which resulted in a 0.15C drop in temp.”
The forcing effect of CO2 was rather weak at the beginning of the instrumental temperature record and was overwhelmed by natural variability. This still happens today.
“From 1910 -1940 there was a CO2 increase of 10ppm which resulted in an 0.5C increase in temp.
From 1940 – 1975 there was an increase of around 25ppm which resulted in a drop of 0.1C in temp (aerosols, pollution?).”
Yes, aerosol cooling is the leading hypothesis.
“From 1978 – 2008 there was an increase of around 50ppm which resulted in a rise of 0.45 in temp.”
Just so. And there is no natural mechanism that explains the rise as effectively as the CO2 rise. An alternative theory would not only have to pinpoint a different mechanism, it would have to explain why CO2 increase has NOT been the cause. This would take some doing as you would then be arguing against the emiprical fact of the spectral properties of increased CO2 in a volume of atmosphere. It might be possible but I’ve not seen that done convincingly yet.
At least we know the sun is not responsible for the last 30 years, and “multi-decadal oscillatons” can’t explain the temperature rise of the last centry (althought ENSO does correlate with changing trends to a fair degree).
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Barry It is as you say – warming releases CO2 back from the oceans and ice and back into the atmosphere. You then say, ‘Greenhouse gas amplification is considered to account for between 33 and 50% of the total warming.’ This amplification would also include water vapour, which is >90% of all GHG. As oceans warm, there are higher levels of evaporation. Depending whether it creates high or low level cloud will mean the earth could warm faster or cool. Since the earth has never kept exponentially warming (or cooling) there must be naturally occurring negative feedback mechanisms in place.
Look at the rise in warming and CO2 levels between 1910-1940 and 1978-2008. Doesn’t really add up, does it? I think the rise may be caused more by ‘urban heating’ than CO2.
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Barry – I was interested to read in your post a particular AGW defense against the embarrassing fact that temperature changes in the Vostok ice core data appear to lead changes in CO2 concentration by about 800 years (I think I first saw it on realclimate.org)- the idea being that CO2 amplifies observed temperature increases after they begin. This could of course be true, but the time lag certainly tends to weaken the proposition that CO2 concentration is a major driver of temperature. WUWT has an excellent article on this which suggests that, given a detailed analysis, comparisons of CO2 concentrations and temperature trends in the data indicate that CO2 is in fact a minor factor next to whatever is causing the original warming. They may of course be wrong – do you have specific support for the claimed amplification of rising temperature trends by CO2? I’m interested in seeing the basis for that argument.
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“This amplification would also include water vapour, which is >90% of all GHG. As oceans warm, there are higher levels of evaporation. Depending whether it creates high or low level cloud will mean the earth could warm faster or cool.”
That’s right.
“Since the earth has never kept exponentially warming (or cooling) there must be naturally occurring negative feedback mechanisms in place.”
In terms of the ice ages, the initiating mechanism for both deglaciation and reglaciaton is the orbital changes.
“Look at the rise in warming and CO2 levels between 1910-1940 and 1978-2008. Doesn’t really add up, does it? I think the rise may be caused more by ‘urban heating’ than CO2.”
I don’t see why it ‘doesn’t add up’. The warming signature remains virtually unchanged when data from urban centres are removed.
I’ve been interested in Anthony Watts examination of US weather stations. The public discusion was cut off last year when the stations they had accumulated (they were about a third of the way through the project) as ‘good’ sites showed a warming signature almost identical to the formal temperature records. I wish they had kept the discussion open. I’ve been informed by Watts that the results will be made public in a month or two.
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Barry (post 69)
Good to see an admission that there is no evidence.
If only there was a correlation between atmospheric CO2 and temperature! AGW asserts that there is a linear relationship between CO2 levels and temperature: as Gore said in his movie, the higher the CO2 level the hotter the temperature. Therefore if AGW was correct there would be a (linear) correlation between CO2 and temperature – correlation is not causation, but a lack of correlation proves there is no linear causation.
On a millions-of-years time scale, there is no correlation worth speaking of. See http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/PageMill_Images/image277.gif.
On a thousands-of-years timescale the correlation is excellent, as illustrated by Gore with the ice cores in his movie. But the new ice core data with higher time resolution from the late 1990s showed that changes in CO2, both up and down, lagged temperature changes by an average of 800 years. So the CO2 changes cannot have caused the temperature changes. This was firmly established by 2003: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/299/5613/1728. (Note that Gore’s movie was made in 2005, two years later. Imagine if he had told the whole truth: the temperature changes occurred 800 years before the cause he was alleging. Absurd!) Alarmists propose there was amplification of the temperature rises by the subsequent CO2 rises, but there is no evidence of this – the data is consistent with either there being no amplification or with there being some amplification.
On a tens-of-years time scale, the correlation between CO2 and temperature is poor: As the article notes, there is cooling for about 30 years every three decades, while CO2 keeps increasing. See http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/NCDCanom1880.html (CO2 in blue and temperature in purple).
If AGW was true, there should be good correlations on all time scales between CO2 and temperature. There aren’t, and the good correlation in the ice cores is due to causation – where temperature changes caused CO2 changes, due to changing CO2 vapor pressure over warming and cooling oceans that contain dissolved CO2.
Barry, you agree there is no evidence that CO2 caused the recent global warming “in the narrowest sense” and point to correlations instead – yet instead the correlations prove that CO2 is NOT the main driver of global temperature in the linear sense asserted by AGW. You continue
“There are multiple lines of evidence and correlative studies.”
Sounds good, what are they? Seriously, please don’t keep them secret. If you mean that the models incorporate much sound science, that is correct. But those models also incorporate many guesses, gross approximations, and assumptions, so the models are not an expression of sound science – they are an expression of sounds science AND assumptions, guesses, and gross approximations.
You quote as evidence that the satellites show increased absorption of upwelling infrared radiation in the CO2 bands. Well of course: CO2 is a greenhouse gas (proved a century ago in labs) and its levels are increasing. Extra CO2 adds to the blanket at the CO2 absorption frequencies. Yes, every extra molecule of emitted CO2 heats up the planet a bit. But the relevant question is: how much? Evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas is not evidence that it was the main or even a significant cause of the recent global warming.
Here are three indications that “how much” the extra CO2 of the last century is responsible warming the planet is somewhere between “insignificant” and “not much”:
1. The climate models assume net positive temperature feedbacks that amplify any surface warming by about 3. In the case of a CO2 doubling , the rise of 1 deg C for no-feedback warming gets multiplied up to the IPCC central estimate of a 3.2 deg C rise by these positive feedbacks. But the ERBE satellite (Earth Radiation Budget Experiment, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Radiation_Budget_Satellite) results of measured outgoing longwave radiation contradict the models. They show that the temperature feedback is in fact negative, reducing the expected temperature rise due to a CO2 doubling to about 0.3 deg C. See
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/30/lindzen-on-negative-climate-feedback/
2. The climate models show a pronounced hotspot at the top of the tropical lower troposphere in the warming pattern (signature) of the recent warming, 1979-99. Radiosonde measurements show the hotspot did not occur in the recent warming. Therefore the climate models are wrong – and fundamentally wrong, because the hotspot in central to the large temperature increases predicted by the models for a CO2 increase. The mechanism in the models that creates the hotspot is the water vapor feedback, which is assumed by the models to be strongly positive. If we reduce the water vapor feedback in the models to a small positive value in line with the non-observation of the hotspot, then the temperature rise predicted by the models for a CO2 doubling drops from 3.3 deg C to less than 1.5 deg C. See
http://sciencespeak.com/MissingSignature.pdf.
3. Miskolczi has the most advanced, empirically-backed, and detailed climate theory. He has been working on detailed models of radiation going through the atmosphere spectral line by spectral line, since the 1980s. His Hartcode is more detailed than anything in the IPCC climate models. He solved the climate theory mathematically using a realistic top-of-atmosphere height, instead of the infinite height previously assumed for mathematical convenience. He used to work for NASA. Ok, this third point is only theory – not evidence like the last two – but it is a credible theory. He found that a CO2 doubling would give rise to only a 0.24 deg C warming. He shows that an increase in the CO2 blanket causes a corresponding reduction in the water vapor blanket (remember, water vapor is a GHG too, with mostly different absorption frequencies from CO2). That is, his theory is that the climate system should exhibit negative feedback to temperature changes, exactly as found observationally in point 1. Miskolczi points out that the atmosphere can pick up as much water vapor from the oceans as it wants from the ocean, and discard any water vapor it wants as rain, to maintain its preferred energy balance. See
http://miskolczi.webs.com/
http://met.hu/doc/idojaras/vol111001_01.pdf
So Barry, even though the obvious thickening of the CO2 blanket is of course occurring, there are good theoretical and experimental reasons to expect it to have little effect on temperature. Even though one GHG band is getting thicker, perhaps another (the water vapor blanket) responds by getting thinner! Net effect: not much.
Your “strongest line of evidence of all” is the observed pattern of broad stratospheric cooling and broad tropospheric cooling. This is caused by GHG blanket thickening (on the outgoing radiation), and in a mirror image, by ozone blanket thinning (on the incoming radiation). Two reasons why this is not evidence that CO2 was the main factor causing the recent global warming: (1) the effect is confounded by ozone depletion, which did in fact occur during the period in question, and (2) it doesn’t tell us how much warming is the result of the CO2 increases.
BTW, a cooling stratosphere does not debunk any “sun-driven global warming theory”. First, an increase in radiation from the sun would result in a warmer stratosphere as you say, but that effect on the stratosphere may be outweighed by the cooling effect of ozone depletion and CO2 increases that occurred at the same time. Second, the stratosphere has nothing to do with the most likely solar effect, shielding us from cosmic rays – that is a result of the sun’s magnetic field.
Finally, speaking as an engineer and modeler, the reason we dismiss the climate models as fairly useless is because they extrapolate while containing many guesses, assumptions, and gross approximations. (Oh, and some people are trying to use these models to justify actions that will cause widespread poverty and misery, particularly for poorer people who can barely afford energy at current prices.) Models are used all the time in science and engineering, but a lot of effort goes into finding the values of all the mechanisms and parameters. Some woolly values can be tolerated in a model that is essentially interpolating in some parameter space between points for which there is good data. But most importantly, when the models contradict the data we change the models so that they match the data.
Climate models on the other hand contain an unusually high level of assumptions, guesses and gross approximations. They are used to extrapolate – into the future, which is unavoidable because that is what we really want them for. But they are so poor that they cannot be given all the data to say 1995 and successfully predict the next 14 years. Even the IPCC doesn’t call their outputs “predictions”, because it is not confident enough. And most crucially, the models contradict the data (missing hotspot, wrong outgoing longwave radiation, temperatures since 2001) but they are not changed! Instead, every effort is made by alarmists to change or ignore the data, while preserving the models and the political theory that they support. That is not in the spirit of science or successful engineering. I hope you no longer find it “strange how computer modeling is sneered at only in the climate science debate”.
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I have reached the conclusion that AGW makes Scientology look respectable (almost), and Michael Mann makes L Ron Hubbard look like another Einstein.
Seriously, I cannot think of a junkier form of “science” than AGW. Alchemy, N-rays, hormone interrupters, acupuncture, you name it – AGW is the culmination of 10,000 years of thought put into sorcery, witchcraft, and every other delusion put into words that strung together, give the appearance of rational thought.
Humans have finally reached the nadir of their intellect – but the good news is, the only direction possible to go now – is up
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“do you have specific support for the claimed amplification of rising temperature trends by CO2? I’m interested in seeing the basis for that argument”
Steve, did you read the study I linked in my post you referred to?
http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf
There are others on the subject if you’re interested enough to search for them.
“the embarrassing fact that temperature changes in the Vostok ice core data appear to lead changes in CO2 concentration by about 800 years”
I’m not sure what you mean to imply by ’embarrassing’. The CO2 lag has been part of climate science for nearly 20 years (yes, the lag is figured to be 800 +/- 200 yrs). You can find mention of it in the IPCC reports. There is no contradiction or weakening of the AGW theory here. Obviosuly, we’re not coming out of an ice age (we’re heading into one – in tens of thousands of years). The study of atmospheric changes during glacial changes informs rather than leaches at AGW theory. The ice core records help establish, or test, climate sensitivity, for example.
An interesting feature that can be found in some papers, is that CO2 apears to have driven temps n the hemisphere facing away from the sun during deglaciation. That is, one hemisphere warms up, temps leading CO2 rise, and because the gas is well-mixed in the atmosphere, it leads temp rise in the ‘shaded’ hemisphere. I’m not sure if this strand is robust – I’ve only read papers available online.
There is one event in the geological record that is also intriguing, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) event. While the knowledge is far from definitive, the leading theory is that greenhouse gases (methane in this case) were suddenly released into the atmosphere, driving temperatures (and CO2) up. I’ve not read any studies on this, but here’s the wiki page on it to begin with if you’re interested in following it up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene-Eocene_Thermal_Maximum
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barry – #67
Thanks for posting the link, this is Peterson’s paper I mentioned above. I suppose it must be the definitive paper, though I’m not real impressed. Peterson does have a strong AGW bias, and his reports just don’t “feel” right, as in, they just don’t match what I recall of that period. Also, the current AMS leadership itself is horribly biased as Joe D’Aleo and Bill Gray would be glad to tell you.
A much more interesting report to my mind is “Fire and Ice” at http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/FireandIce.pdf . It looks at media reports on the imminent Ice Age (1895), the benefits of ongoing CO2-related warming (1938), how the cooling since 1940 … will not soon be reversed (1975), “Our ability to live is what is at stake” (2006). One of its recommendations is “Don’t stifle debate.”
However, neither of these are of much practical use. The PDO was described only 10 years ago, the satellite record is only 30 years old and started after the PDO entered a warm phase. We know a lot more than we did even in the 1970s, and while forgetting the past is foolish, what we’re learning this decade is so much more important than what people though in the past.
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barry – #69
It’s easy to argue that 100 years is not enough to time to describe the climate, shouldn’t we look at least at an entire ice age plus interglacial?
There are case where a period shorter than 25 years is interesting. Some of the rapid climate shifts disclosed in the Greenland ice cores cover a timeframe like that or less. When the PDO last flipped warm around 1977, the “Great Pacific Climate shift” happened quickly. Given the recent flip to its cool mode I think it’s worth looking for short term effects and the recent cooling is what we’d expect.
Two things that made me conclude that CO2 has less effect than the “consensus” says are:
1) CO2’s IR window is very nearly saturated, that’s why there’s the logarithmic response to additional CO2, (and then the feedback function used in the models tries to increase the warming effect).
2) Joe D’Aleo’s conclusion that PDO vs. temperature correllation is much greater than CO2 vs temperature is quite striking. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/25/warming-trend-pdo-and-solar-correlate-better-than-co2/
Akasofu-san’s talk was based on http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf which says:
“When examining Figure 1a, it is natural to consider intuitively, as a first approximation, that the temperature changes may be approximated by a straight line, together with “fluctuations” superposed on it (Figure 1b). After an early version of Figure 1b was constructed in about 2003, the author found that Bryant (1997) approximated the changes already by a straight line and mentioned that there are only a few points outside the 95% confidence limits (Figure 1c), but he did not elaborate further on the significance of the linear trend. The gradient of the straight line is about 0.5°C/100 years, in agreement with that in Figure 1b.”
(NB. The context of that caption is the temperature record over the last 100 years.) The paper goes into more detail and expands the reach of temperature records. It lists as some goals:
Referring to Figure 2b [the figure at the top of this topic], the purpose of Sections 1 and 2 of this paper is to show:
(1) There existed the Little Ice Age (LIA) between 1400 and 1800, during which the Earth experienced a relatively cold period.
(2) The recovery from the LIA was gradual.
(3) This gradual recovery from 1800-1850 was, at a first approximation, linear and that the same linear change continued until about 2000.
It would be nice to have better temperature records, but you have to work with the available data.
If Akasofu is right, then there may not be much room for CO2 as a global warming source. Someone will ask “Why?” and that should spawn a new round of research.
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Being a first time commenter here, I first have to commend Joanne on Her Web Site. I love the way you “communicate”. I love your Web Site.
Second, I wish to say “Thanks” for a great post, Mr. Evans. It’s further verification in My Minds Eye towards AGW and one more nail in the so called “Coffin”.
I was just getting my start in the World during the 70’s. In 1978, I went thru a Blizzard for the first time and hope my last because of my age now. That was an experience you do not forget. Anyway, I remember all the Hype in the papers and magazines on how the Ice Age was returning. Environmentalists were warning Us all. Here’s an article I posted at GWH.com:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-1,00.html
It’s an article from Time Magazine in 1974! A good perspective I think. I would like to invite anyone here to check Us Out. http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/news.php We have a lot of good material and keep up with the latest on AGW.
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Barry #78
“I don’t know if I’m trying to sound more educated than I am, but I’m sharp enough to recognize an ad hominem opening with no substance.”
Actually, it was a direct question because your sentence structure and word choice lead me to believe that you are posturing. That suspicion comes from experience. At no point did I employ the second half of what is required to create an ad hominem, namely saying your argument was invalid as a result.
“Are you anti-intellectual?”
No, but I am against convoluted prose that obfuscates an argument.
“I’ve done much better than that. I’ve read a lot of the literature. That’s where anyone should start. I’ve also read far more than I can remember from contrary sources. And I know the difference between empirical and a priori evidence. Assuming you’ve also familiarised yourself with the mianstream literature (rather than getting all your information from contrary sources), and seeing as you seem to be more intelligent and modern than I, you can perhaps point out to me what is and isn’t evidence.”
Your initial posting made clear that you do not know what evidence is, and so far you’ve provided none to counter any arguments here. Nothing in your writing so far indicates that you’ve read any primary sources from either side. You are, however, hitting all the Grist talking points quite nicely.
“If only you knew how much I have discussed the ‘logarithmic effect of CO2’! I know enough to say that your phrase makes no sense. You meant to say “the logarithmic effect on heating from increasing concentrations of CO2”. I also know that the ‘effect’ isn’t strictly a logarithm, but the profile is similar.”
No, I meant to keep the sentence simple rather than adding words that make the meaning no clearer. Those who know more than the Grist script know exactly to what I was referring.
“As an aside, the ‘logarithmic’ effect becomes linear and finally exponential after a certain atmospheric density is reached – but that won’t be an issue for us here. We’ll never get that much CO2 in the atmosphere (barring some astronomical cataclysm).”
Only in climate models that make that assumption.
“Climate modelers assume nothing about clouds. It is one of the greatest areas of uncertainty and still being heavily investigated.”
In fact they do assume. Read the primary literature and not the secondary and tertiary literature. They state that fact quite openly precisely because cloud effects are not understood.
“Whatever is put into models represents the best understanding of physics and climate/weather systems. No one says it’s perfect.”
And they are loaded with assumptions and estimates based on assumptions. This point is even admitted in the IPCC AR4.
“Are you perhaps thinking of Lindzen’s recent post at WUWT? Chris Colose posted an excellent response.”
No, I’m actually referring to: Roy Spencer, “Global Warming as a Natural Response to Cloud Changes Associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)” 20 October 2008. However, I did see Dr. Lindzen’s post and the not so excellent response by Chris Colose. Dr. Lindzen’s discussion was about negative feedbacks – a completely different issue from direct negative RF caused by cloud albedo.
“They are not fit to judge the science because they are not able to think objectively, to open their minds and damn the consequences.”
That’s rich. Who are you to say who is or is not fit to judge anything? That’s more of the alarmist talking points and you talk about objectivity?
“They think they are talking science, they use scientific words, but ultimately they are talking politics and using sciencey words to sound convincing. And they clutch any tract from unqualified people, or cherry-pick a study or two to warm their prior convictions.”
NMore humor no doubt, since it was the AGW side who dragged the whole debate into the political and media sensationalist arena in the first place.”
“But what they never, ever will do is consider the matter boradly and dispassionately.”
Right, think Al Gore’s forklift, think Hansen’s “death trains”. That’s truly dispassionate discourse, eh?
“Joanne defended Spadecat’s right to question the economic impacts on him personally and at large – as if I was somehow preventing him or criticising him for it.”
Actually you did criticize him.
You said, “If the dispute is beyond your expertise, on what do you base your opinion?”
Sure looks like you are criticizing to me and obviously it did to others.
“Then she advised anyone was fit to ‘judge’ this complex field of knowledge. I found neither comment dispassionate or objective. All this is more in the vein of advocacy.”
Joanne is correct. Your line of objection is the normal AGW tactic of trying to silence anyone who dares question the orthodoxy, by declaring them unfit to comment.
“As you can see from my last paragraph, that kind of ‘logic’ begets a bit of philosophising in me. 🙂 Should we continue, I’d rather stick to the science, which is what this thread is about, I assume.”
For someone who wants to stick to science, you certainly stray all over the place.
“We ‘alarmists’ can’t win. We’re either catty, or appeal to authority, or long-winded, or indulge in 19th century prose. I’ve read complaints upthread and elsewhere that AGWers are rude, and this seems to be meaningful in some way. I’ve not been that at least. Because you’ve impugned my intelligence, does that mean you lose?”
Well, you’ve pretty much described the AGW argumentative technique and sorry, your initial post was convoluted and archaic. Straightforward prose is best when presenting an argument. I didn’t impugn your intelligence I questioned whether you were “posing” a higher level of education. Again, this question was based upon past experience.
Barry #82 you say: “I should declare that I am no scientist, have no formal training in any of the physical sciences, and my maths is weak, too! All I’ve got to serve the debate is what I’ve learned from 3 years of intense and broad reading. All I can do is try to present want I’ve learned honestly and as clearly as I can.”
Fine, not a problem. Knowing your background helps others frame their responses to your comments more appropriately. Some of the people commenting here are scientists, statisticians and other disciplines well-qualified to comment on the science, they just don’t make a big deal about their qualifications. And some of these commenters have been studying this issue for well over 10 years. Heck, Joanne is a “convert!” 🙂
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Greetings, David Evans.
You appear to have a narrow definition of ‘evidence’. You would be arging that there is no evidence that smoking causes disease, I think, or that motive, posession of the weapon and lack of an alibi do not constitute evidence in a murder case where there are no witnesses. Correlation IS a form of evidence – not a case-closer by itself, but as part of a broad framework, or case.
I will list what I consider evidence for AGW theory.
Tyndall demonstrates CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
Arrhenius posits that CO2 concentrations are increasing in the atmosphere, and that this will lead to warming. The rise of CO2 is definitvely established by Keeling.
Lab tests the world over corroborate what is now an empirical observation. Increased CO2 in a sealed volume of atmosphere in the lab retains more radiative energy pasing through that volume.
The ‘smoking gun’ that shows the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution is almost entirely anthropogenic is revealed in studies of changes in its isotopic signature.
The globe has been warming, generally, since the late 19th/20th century. The evidence for this is numerous – the surface temperature records, satellite temps, receeding glaciers, poleward regression of tree lines, the decreasing Arctic sea ice (the Antarctic is thermally isolated, comparitively, form the rest of the globe – most of the heat is transported northwwards).
The sun’s output and glalactic rays have not changed appreciably over the last 50 years, but warming turned up sharply in the last 30. Multi-decadal oscillatons account for variability over 20 – 30 year periods, but not for the warming signatre over the last 100 years or so. As far as I know, no competing theory to explain the temperature changes of the last 100 years, and especially the last 30 has withstood investigation.
The theory of anthropogenic global warming has an empirical basis and is corroborated by observation.
Caveats: interannual variability is not expected to be overwhelmed by rising concentrations of greewnhouse gases. We will still have colder and warmer years in the short term. The cooling or flat period mid-20th century is a true anomaly, and has been much discussed in the literature, It does not undo AGW.
If the above list does not constitute ‘evidence’, I’m not sure how you’re using the word. I believe the term you mean to employ is ‘proof’ – of the smoking gun variety.
Of course, policy is made all the time on statistics, correlations and projectons. That’s a different discussion, though, about politics and risk management.
‘Alarmists’? Are you a serious enquirer or a propagandist?
The amplification process has been examined by serious scientists for twenty years. Here is a 1990 study attmepting to quantify CO2 feedback during the last deglacitation.
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2003Q4/211/articles_required/Lorius90_ice-core.pdf
The science has stenghtened around that propositon ever since. Also in that paper (and many others) is the reference to insolation changes being to weak to account for the warming. I’m not sure where you are getting your infrmation from.
Clearly you did not read my post very carefully. I cited that exact study (my link is to the full document) and averred that orbital changes are the trigger for changes in glaciation.
I mentioned in that post that CO2 led temperatures in the hemisphere facing away from the sun during deglaciation. From the study we’ve both linked:
You now refer to multi-decadal oscillations:
I have already mentioned above that these decades-long oscialltions can account for variability in the temperature record, but do not account for the rise in temperature over the century. As I said several posts ago, if there was no warming over the period, temperatures in the early 1900s should be similar to those of the 1930s and 1980s+. As the graph you have referenced shows, this is not the case. Each period is warmer than the last. ENSO (the strongest climatic influence of ocean-atmosphere couple systems) has a strong signature in the oscillating nature of the temperature record, but has no impact on the warming trend. So what is the mechanism driving the overall warming? Further, you’ve ignored completely the literature on aerosol cooling mid 20th century. Why have you omitted this from your review of the temperature record? There is some balance missing here.
No. The presence of CO2 in the atmosphere, rising or falling, does not preclude other climate system variability. There is no reason to expect a monotonic, linear response year to year or even decade to decade. The signal becomes aparent over the long-term.
I cannot comment cogently on correlation in the distant, geological past, but I would point out that the Earth system was very different million – hundreds of million – billions of years ago. Continental arrangement was quite different, for starters, as well as circulation patterns and albedo. AGW theory does not imply that extremely long-term, large-scal changes in geology, snow cover, biomass, or the sun have little impact on the climate system.
On clouds you cite: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/30/lindzen-on-negative-climate-feedback/
It would appear that Lindzen is using outdated data (and still trying to make his IRIS theory work when it has been reviewed and rejected).
http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/lindzen-on-climate-feedback
The Watts post has been updated, but hardly satisfactorily – there is no quantfication. I will be monitoring it for updates further, but I don’t think Lindzen’s hypothesis is going to get much traction.
I don’t know why you back this article over the wealth of literature on the subject. Why so selective? Why do you not balance Lindzen’s views against the mainstream?
I read last year on the hot spot issue, but don’t remember much of it. I’ll have a look, and at the Miskolsci paper. I am, unfortunately, completely unqualified to formulate my own opinion, but I will try to follow the debate – I’m sure there are some web pages devoted to Mskolsczi’s paper. It seems to be inevitable whenever an outlier attempts to completely overturn mainstream theory on this subject.
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Spadecat himself said the dispute was beyond his experise and then ventured a strong opinion on the topic. My question was a logical follow on from that. No malice or criticism in it. It was, in fact, a genuine query, not rhetorical. I quite liked the tone of his/her post. Climate science is definitely beyond my expertise – why would I malign another for the same deficit?
You may ask me the question I put to Spadecat without worrying whether I feel insulted.
10
Perhaps you missed the many posts here where that has been discussed?
The logarithmic aspect is not predicated on saturation.
You may be interested in these posts:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii/
And Spencer Weart’s fine site on the history of AGW theory has a few remarks on saturation also.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
and particularly:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
What leads you to believe this has not been examined in the literature to date?
David Evans asked for studies that provide multiple lines of evidence for AGW. I refer you both to the extensive list of scientific papers referenced in the IPCC reports (several thousand, IIRC, and which have references to previous studies that the work was built on).
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Barry #95: “You may ask me the question I put to Spadecat without worrying whether I feel insulted.”
I would have never asked the question in the first place as it was irrelevant to Spadecat’s questioning spending on something that hasn’t been proven to be a problem.
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From the top post:
I expect to be alive by then so I’ll be able to verify that hypothesis or otherwise. 🙂
It is sometimes asked how long a period of cooling it would take to convince people who endorse the mainstream position that AGW theory is overblown/refuted. I’d like to ask a similar question.
Understanding that there is stochastic variability in the short-term that masks a climate signature, what would be a reasonable condition to undermine the above posit. For example, if by 2015 it was still the case that 10 of the preceeding 12 years were the hottest in the instrumental record, that warming had *resumed*, and that the record for the hottest year globally (1998/2005) had been broken, would that overturn the above hypothesis?
For me, if the previous record had not been broken by 2015, and if warming had not *resumed*, I would begin to seriously doubt that AGW theory was robust. If that was still the case by 2028, I think the theory would be in tatters (barring a series of volcanic erutons or other cataclysmic event).
Looking at the ENSO and PDO records, it apears we’ve had, like now, previous coincident cool periods for both, and yet the global temperatures today are hotter than at those times. Doesn’t this suggest an underlying warming mechanism?
And if this is just ‘warming from the LIA’, what is actually driving it? I don’t think that question has been answered here. I haven’t been able to download Akasofu’s paper yet.
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JLKrueger, Spadecat’s query was based on his opinion of the mainstream theory of climate.
Spadecat:
Spadecat is saying there is insufficient evidence to support the science and questions whether that justifies spending trillions, isn’t he/she? My query is entirely relevent to that. Part of the scientific study has to do with the (physicl) costs of doing nothing v mitigation. Economic reports based on the mainstream science have tackled the fiscal projections but I did not attempt to reply to his economic concerns because they are not detailed in any way. which reminds me of something upthread…
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David Evans:
That is completely wrong. This is a semantic issue. The reasons model runs are called ‘projections’ or ‘scenarios’ and not ‘predictions’ is that these are the appropriate terms to use when considering a range of conditons. Because future CO2 emissions can not be predicted*, for example, a variety of scenarios are modeled under different rates. Different outcomes follow and these are, as an ensemble and individualy, rightly called projections.
* Scenarios include ‘business as usual’, increased rates of emission and scenarios where the emissions decrease.
I will try to respond to your other points as time allows.
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Barry #96: “I refer you both to the extensive list of scientific papers referenced in the IPCC reports (several thousand, IIRC, and which have references to previous studies that the work was built on).”
It’s rather amusing that you presume to refer Dr. Evans to scientific reports after openly admitting that you are not a scientist and have only three years of reading under your belt. You are evading the arguments by trying to redirect.
The reports referenced by the IPCC are based upon climate models, which are based upon assumptions. Climate models tend to operate on circular logic. They are not evidence. Try again.
If you were to actually read the referenced reports, you would find that most do not state the AGW case quite as strongly as you seem to think. They are laced with qualifiers as are the susequent IPCC reports.
And yes, I rather think many here know Gavin Schmidt and The Team on “Real Climate” quite well. Why would you think you are pointing us to something new?
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Barry #98: Along the lines of what constitutes success or failure of the AGW hypothesis, Brian Schmidt and I made a public bet for US$9,000:
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2007/04/new-global-warming-bet-for-7-10.html
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2007/04/climate-skeptics-guest-post-why-david.html
Somewhat arbitrary, but we put our money where our mouths were.
Akasofu’s site seemed a little slow earlier today, but I left it to load for a few minutes and his pdf turned up in my browser.
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Barry #100: “The reasons model runs are called ‘projections’ or ’scenarios’ and not ‘predictions’ is that these are the appropriate terms to use when considering a range of conditons.”
No, Barry. A scenario is not output. A scenario is not analogous to a projection (which is output), but the entire framework of the model run. A scenario includes the input assumptions and other parameters in the total modeling enviroment.
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The reason that IPCC projections are not called ‘predictions’ was explained with emphasis by Dr John Zillman, Chief Delegate for Australia to the IPCC, in his World Meteorological Day address ‘Our Future Climate’ on 21 March 2003. Here is an extract from Dr Zillman’s address:
“The IPCC community have employed the concept of ‘scenarios’ to describe a set of alternative inputs to the climate models that are used to demonstrate, for example, how the global climate system might respond to a range of different concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The input scenarios are not forecasts and the IPCC has been meticulous in refusing to attach relative probabilities to their occurrence. They are ‘what if?’ devices aimed at demonstrating the modelled sensitivity of the global climate system to different levels of greenhouse forcing. By the same token, the outputs from the models are not, in any sense, to be regarded as predictions of actual future climate. To underline this point, the IPCC has, since 1992, referred to model outputs as projections and, when numbers are quoted (be they global warming rates or anything else), they are always directly tied to the input scenarios from which they derive…
“Even though – and we are going back to the late 1980s – the IPCC scientists stressed that the ‘predictions’ from the climate models were nothing more than ‘what if?’ assessments to indicate how the real climate system might be expected to respond to enhanced greenhouse forcing, and that the estimates of warming must always be linked to the input scenarios, the media and those who sought to make the case for greenhouse gas emission reduction, almost invariably quoted the highest values of warming, avoided any reference to the input scenarios and presented them as IPCC forecasts of actual future global climate. The IPCC – and I place on record that it was Brian Tucker of CSIRO who was instrumental in achieving the change – soon realised that we had to find a different word from ‘prediction’ to describe the output of the climate models. And so the word ‘projection’ entered the IPCC lexicon in 1992.
“Regrettably, however, it made little difference to the media. Over the following decade, no matter how meticulously the IPCC reports have linked the climate model projections to their input scenarios and no matter how forcefully the IPCC has asserted that it has no basis for attaching any probabilities of occurrence to the emission or concentration scenarios, the media and greenhouse gas reduction advocates have continued to strip away the caveats and quote the highest global warming numbers to convey the impression of impending climate catastrophe; and the IPCC critics and greenhouse sceptics either quote the lowest numbers to suggest that there is no problem or strip away the caveats and quote the highest numbers to discredit the IPCC as irresponsible and driven by a green agenda.
“It may be that the posturing and debate that this has produced have ultimately helped in enhancing communication and understanding of the issues at stake but no aspect of the work of the IPCC has brought me closer to despair about our ability to use science wisely to inform policy-making. The distinction between scenarios, projections and predictions is fundamental to the whole process, yet the more forcefully one makes the point as a scientist, the more resolutely many in the policy community seem to turn off. The most frustrating response after a much more detailed and, I would like to believe, more lucid explanation that I have had the time to present here is “what you’re really saying is …”, followed by a statement that makes absolutely clear that the respondent has completely missed the point.”
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Dennis James #93
> [In 1978] I went thru a Blizzard for the first time and hope my last because of my age now. That was an experience you do not forget.
Was that the midwest blizzard (lowest recorded barometer at Cleveland, Ohio) or the New England blizzard (broke an all-time 24 hour snowfall that was set less than a month earlier).
I was in the latter – http://wermenh.com/blizz78.html – and my wife was in the former, I have a few comments about that at http://wermenh.com/blizz78a.html . People find those pages pretty much every day throughout the year. While some of the New England storm’s records have since been broken, nothing has matched the ferocity and timing of that storm.
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barry:
April 6th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Likely, I don’t spend too much time here. I do spend too much time at WUWT….
So, why does Joe D’Aleo come up with a better correlation for PDO vs temp than for CO2 vs temp? My guess is that increased low level warming, assuming it happens, causes greater convection and more heat radiates from higher in the atmosphere. OTOH, Some of the cold nighttime temps that have been reported in the last few years aren’t supposed to be happening. Convection isn’t at play then. My suspicion is that the feedback factor is much lower than models have assumed. Perhaps it’s just that cold lows in the temperate zone are associated with Continental Polar air masses that are inherently dry. Ultimately the answer may lie in clouds and albedo. While it’s important to study the individual components of a system, it’s important to remember there’s a system out there.
I’d be a lot happier if the politics infesting the field would go away, that’s one of my main arguments in http://wermenh.com/climate/science.html . Until the recent PDO flip, we were faced with a situation where CO2 said warming and PDO said warming. Now the two drivers are saying the opposite and that will make it a lot easier to tease apart those two drivers in the thousands of future papers.
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Dr. Evans writes:
This is simply untrue. AGW recognizes that there are many influences on climate and CO2 is merely one of them. All things being equal, rising CO2 should raise temps. All things are rarely equal, otherwise attribution studies would be easy as pie.
But Lindzen uses an obsolete version of that data set to reach his conclusions. See http://chriscolose.wordpress.com/2009/03/31/lindzen-on-climate-feedback/
Unfortunately we cannot get rid of observed humidity changes. Global humidity data is still pretty uncertain, but it shows the WV feedback is positive. In addition, models predicted the humidity changes associated with the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.
Miskolczi has not quite overturned 100 years of atmospheric science yet. There are serious questions about M’s application of Kirchoff’s law to give one example. Of course, his tiny climate sensitivity would leave glaciations completely unexplained as well.
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Ian Castles #104
So, given the hypotheses behind warming due to CO2 (and increasing H2O), we need predictions to verify the hypotheses. One reason people hang onto the IPCC scenarios is because there is little else that is verifiable. Some that are out there, e.g. increased global hurricane activity, have been failing. A warming Earth means that heat has to be stored somewhere, but Argos hasn’t found it in the top two km or the oceans. Predictions about Arctic Ice Cap loss/thickness/etc are mired in bias and lately a failing sounding unit, but at least some of those predictions have deadlines not too far away.
Frankly, I’d be glad to junk all the IPCC projections to help get us to understand that we really don’t know what’s happening. We should reduce our focus on CO2 (it was a good idea at the time) and spend more time studying other known and potential drivers.
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If you want to disagree with the 4800 IPCC 4 scientists who all AGREED that global warming is occuring at an “unnatural” rate and that it is antrhopogenic that’s absolutley fine. But please buy a house on Florida’s coast or somewhere in Bangladesh and promise to LIVE it when it goes underwater. Please.
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Re: Dr Zillman’s address
If the good Dr. Zillman’s remarks are to be believed, it certainly seems that he was saying the science is not settled. I suspect the vast majority of scientists referenced in the IPCC reports share Dr. Zillman’s more open view at least as stated in the extract provided by Ian. Of course his remarks are after the TAR and prior to the release of AR4.
Indeed the wording in the FAR and SAR was far more open to this interpretation. Beginning with the TAR, however, there is a nuanced shift in language that manifests itself more as political in AR4.
The efforts of many true scientists simply seeking truth were hijacked by a politically motivated few. No amount of dissembling can alter that fact. Since AR4 presentations coming out of the IPCC, the Summary for Policy Makers in AR4, and remarks by people like Dr. Rajenda Pachauri (Chairman IPCC) speak to a political motivation that subsumes the scientific.
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Boris #107: “This is simply untrue. AGW recognizes that there are many influences on climate and CO2 is merely one of them.”
Ye gads! A heretic in the AGW tent!
If what you say were true, people like James Hansen and Rajenda Pachauri would not be pushing so hard for what amounts to international economic suicide by focusing on CO2 reduction. To be fair, Pachauri likes to add cow farts as a major problem too.
The Radiative Forcing Components table on page 4, Summary for Policy Makers, AR4 graphically presents that CO2 overwhelms all other factors. Policy makers aren’t going to focus on nuanced language filled with qualifiers, but they will zero in on the huge red bar. You can’t possibly think that the IPCC weren’t trying to drive policy makers to a particular conclusion with this distorted graphic.
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I have already a home on Florida’s Eastern coast, Ms Smith, the inheritance from my family.
I pay a lot of money for hurricane insurance coverage, although the consequences of AGW do not seem to be covered under the policy.
If anything, I have seen the waterfront boundary possibly increase, very slightly, over ten years. Although I have not had the property surveyed to make an accurate assessment. The value of the property has remained pretty flat over twenty years, as a result of its location.
I sincerely doubt that I will live to see the property underwater, and I doubt any owner of the property will see any measureable change to the land boundary within one hundred years.
If I had but one goal in my life, it would be to divert people’s attention away from the meaningless issue of AGW so that people could focus on issues that are real and capable of being addressed with human thought and action.
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Ms Smith #109: “If you want to disagree with the 4800 IPCC 4 scientists who all AGREED that global warming is occuring at an “unnatural” rate and that it is antrhopogenic that’s absolutley fine. But please buy a house on Florida’s coast or somewhere in Bangladesh and promise to LIVE it when it goes underwater. Please.”
That number is bunk. John McLean has already shown why: IPCC Can’t Count.
And over 31,000 US scientists on the Petition Project disagree along with over 700 on US Senator Inhofe’s report plus similar petitions being circulated in other countries.
So what? Lining up numbers of scientists on both sides only shows that there isn’t “consensus.” It doesn’t prove anything either way. Science isn’t “settled” by votes.
Not all of us are stupid enough to build at or below sea level along coasts. Sea levels have been rising since the start of the Holocene Interglacial. Nothing new.
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Hey Brian,
I wonder why the insurance companies haven’t thought of that yet (AGW insurance).
Given the highly unlikely scenario of AGW resulting in your property going under, they could be raking in the money from the terrified lemmings who worry about it without worrying about ever paying out! 😉
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As shrewd as insurance companies are – even THEY don’t appear capable of pushing this fraud upon the public, at least without more evidence that AGW is real.
Evidently the (apocryphal) authority of
4800
1900
1261
952
312
88
29
of the world’s smartest scientists from IPCC4 just doesn’t seem to be enough evidence for some “doubters”
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RE: “1970s cooling scare is a total beat up… you are flat out lying to say you remember it;) fair dinkum. As a child of the 70s a vividly remember public concern about nuclear war… not global cooling.”
I grew up in the 1950’s and Early 1960’s (JFK was assinated when I was in 10th grade). After the Cuban crisis and JFK’s death, people were not as worried about nukes, that era of paranoia was over for most of us. The coming Ice Age in the LATE 1970’s was a big scare at first, before everyone realized that the news got their facts wrong on the timing (it was not as imminent as reported). Between the JFK asassination and the Ice Age scare the big thing was Viet Nam, not nukes, just never ending war.
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Strawman
10
Rubbishing climate models as become such a mantra that you might be forgiven for thinking that the scientific papers supporting the IPCC are all about GCMs. But you could not be more wrong. Climate modeling is only one avenue of research and development among many under climatology. Referenced in the IPCC docs are papers on ice-core records, sediment analysis, geological analysis, geochemichemistry of the oceans, dendrochronology, spectral analysis, bore holes, OBSERVATIONS of glaciers, ice sheets, precipitation, drought, wind, temperature (regional, sea, land, stratospheric, global), the sun, hurricanes, aerosol particulates, sun-like stars, statistical analyses, isotpoic ratios, sea level, biomass… the majority of papers are not products of global or regional climate models.
Have you ever looked at the list of studies referenced at the bottom of any of the main chapters? Your assertion is fantastically wrong.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm
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(My last post vanished after clicking submit. If it reappears, please delete it)
Rubbishing climate models has become such a mantra that you might be forgiven for thinking that the studies supporting the IPCC are all about climate modleing. But you could not be more wrong. Many (perhaps most) studies are OBSERVATIONAL. Sediment analysis, bore holes, the temperature record (sea, land, global, regional, stratospheric, the sun, biomass, spectral analysis, dendrochronology, sea level, carbon cycling, sun-like stars, glaciers, ice sheets, ocean geochemistry, contrails, isotopic analysis, radiosnde data, cyclonic activity, the effects of urbanization on sunlght activity, river disharge events, ice dynamics, multi-decadal ocean atmosphere systems, heatwaves, cold snaps, flora, fauna… Much of this can be found in the 3rd chapter alone – entitled ‘Observations of Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change’. Your assertion is fantastically wrong.
That is so – it would be suspicious if they were not qualified. There are very few papers in the IPCC that focus specifically on the question “Is AGW happening”. The focus of most papers is much tighter, more specific. Studies are not written to satisfy the needs of lay-people in blogs looking for simple answers.
Have you actually looked at the list of references in the IPCC docs?
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm
You’ll also find numerous studies on GCMs in the later chapters.
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The hypothesis might well be straw; but straw, nevertheless, is a real substance
Thus far nothing more tangible than the 1’s and 0’s of some silicon chips has been put forth as “evidence” that AGW is any more real than anti-gravity machines.
Is that a “one”? or a “zero”?
That’s a Zero.
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The scientists (about 2500) that contributed as authors, lead authors and reviewers on the IPCC have not been polled as to their opinions on the product. But if you want an idea on any consensus on AGW, this page is a good start.
http://www.logicalscience.com/consensus/consensusD1.htm
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I realise that you are being deliberately obtuse.
David Evan’s misrepresentation of AGW is a strawman that he proceeds to gleefully knock down and pretend that he has falsified AGW.
CO2 is not the only factor which influences the temperature. The relationship between the two is not asserted to be linear. Temperatures are not expected to rise monotonically.
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I’m not sure you have assumed so, but if you have, whoever told you that a “monotone” function is “linear”?
The function f is montonone increasing whenever x>=y => f(x)>=f(y) and similarly for monotone decreasing.
I don’t think AGW would support a “monotone decreasing” relationship betw. CO2 and temperature, and I don’t think AGW would mean much without the assumption of a “monotone increasing” relationship between the two
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Strawman? Oh seriously.
AGW asserts that there is a linear relationship between CO2 levels and temperature in a statistical sense: as Al Gore said in his movie, the higher the CO2 level the hotter the temperature. Obviously AGW doesn’t say the correlation is perfect, because obviously there are other factors that influence temperature.
The central alarmist assertion is that higher CO2 levels are highly correlated with higher temperatures. They used to point to the old ice cores as proof — in Gore’s movie it is the only reason offered for blaming global warming on carbon emissions. And Barry in post#69 agreed that “There is no actual evidence that carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming” only in the narrowest sense, and went on to imply that “correlation is the evidence”.
The lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature at all time scales is a serious problem for AGW. So many excuses for why CO2 didn’t drive temperature in the past, but does now! Even though temperatures are not currently going up, but CO2 is rising — again!
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Nobody.
One of the strawmen that both Joanne Nova and David Evans are hitting with an oversized club is that AGW asserts that temperatures should be increasing monotonically because CO2 levels are.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/ceivideo/videos/46/
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That does not logically imply a linear relationship. Even Al Gore said the relationship was more complicated than this. Al Gore does not equal AGW.
Nobody except “skeptics” are asserting that temperature should follow CO2 concentrations over the time scale of a few years. Go ahead keep on beating the strawman.
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“Nobody except “skeptics” are asserting that temperature should follow CO2 concentrations over the time scale of a few years.”
Chris creates a strawman. The point we refer to is that there is NO cause and effect correlation on any timescale: not over a few years, a hundred years, a thousand years, a million years or a billion years.
“One of the strawmen that both Joanne Nova and David Evans are hitting with an oversized club is that AGW asserts that temperatures should be increasing monotonically because CO2 levels are.”
Chris is asserting something neither of us have said.
Thus Chris creates yet another strawman so he can accuse us of making a strawman. The absurdity is pathetic.
Chris, back it up with a direct meaningful quote, or apologise for making up yet another strawman. In the paragraph you quoted in #124 (from #122) David is obviously referring to any and all time frames, and not just ‘a few years’. The sentence you snipped is a note of observation, that just happens to repeat all of history, not something the argument depends on.
Notice how some people shift the thread away from discussing the evidence and we end up discussing dependent clauses in comment sentences instead?
No more posts from you until this point is resolved.
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http://www.viddler.com/explore/ceivideo/videos/46/
At 20:30 David says “They [the IPCC] said back in 2001 that with the Hockey Stick graph that the temperatures would be monotonically increasing very rapidly”
He then puts up a graph showing the last 13 years.
I challenge you to find a direct quote from the IPCC to support the assertion that temperatures should be increasing monotonically over this time scale.
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Ric Werme, Post 105, Hi Ric! The Blizzard of 1978. I live in N.W.Ohio. Yes, that’s what I’ve heard. Record Barometric Low!
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Chris Noble #124
As I mentioned before, my understanding is that temperature follows the state of the PDO better than it does CO2, so there’s no reason to expect there’s a correlation. Since it’s been demonstrated there is only a poor correlation anyway, I’d expect the recent PDO flip to dominate any CO2 warming over the last few years. That’s what happened, and I think will continue for several more years. Thnk Snow!
So, if I’m not a skeptic, what should I call myself? Realist? Mr. Right?
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The big difference between the sceptics and the alarmists (believers) in this debate is this.
The sceptics don’t have to prove that there is no warming because they don’t want to spend trillions of our dollars on their unproven theory.
It is incumbent on the alarmists to provide the evidence that this is a problem and that it can be solved by throwing vast sums of other people’s money at it.
And no, computer model predictions, projections or scenarios are not evidence.
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Patricia Wrightson wrote a book called “The Ice is Coming” and it was first published in 1977, probably she started writing it a few years before publication. It’s a fairy story mixed with Aboriginal mythology (not science by any means) but it’s one more piece of the general cultural conscience showing an expectation of global cooling back in the 1970’s.
It does also bring up the possibility that Aboriginal mythology could contain traces of earlier ice ages.
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Chris Noble, I don’t know where you are going with your objections to what Joanne and David have presented, but returning to the meaning of “monotone increasing” function, you are evidently asserting that IPCC would not disagree with claims that for some increasing compositions of CO2 in the air during a specified time period (of years, albeit perhaps a few), it is possible that global temperatures could decrease over that period.
If that’s so, wouldn’t the whole IPCC thesis be wiped right off the map?
Wouldn’t that be equivalent to the assertion, “there is no relation between CO2 composition in the air and annual global temperature that we can discern or project”?
I will go along with the last statement all the way; then IPCC and I aren’t at odds with anything.
But if you want to argue with what Joanne and David have said, then you must accept the consequences of what your contentions are
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Matt: Re: No. 68
“Ric – see post 33 for TomG comments. Not really annoying me:) But he prefaces his opinions 99% of the time with “As a geologist”.
Anon: “I’ve got a sore back”…
TomG: “As a geologist I can strongly recommend…”
yes geologists are awesome, I even dated one for a while, but maybe as a geologist he should walk to a river and winter and see if it is more likely to freeze at the banks where it is shallow/obstructed or in the middle where the fastest flows are…”
I will steer clear of an ad hominem reply, which you fully deserve.
Let me respond only that AS A GEOLOGIST, a large percentage of my practice is in Fluvial Hydrology and Geomorphology – for your btter understanding, that is the action and landforms associated with streams. I can guarantee that I know more about streams than you even know CAN be known about them. Why don’t you take a walk to a stream and jump in.
And your response did NOT provide an answer.
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Off the topic: I have been married for forty years and so it is irrelavant to me, but I think the LAST THING I could date or marry is a scientist or engineer; the thought of that gives me a violent headache.
Alright now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
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Lol Tom I was being fairly light-hearted;) As a geologist I figured you’d be an expert on picking tone;)
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Brian
“Chris Noble, I don’t know where you are going with your objections to what Joanne and David have presented, but returning to the meaning of “monotone increasing” function, you are evidently asserting that IPCC would not disagree with claims that for some increasing compositions of CO2 in the air during a specified time period (of years, albeit perhaps a few), it is possible that global temperatures could decrease over that period.”
of course the IPCC would not disagree with that.
“If that’s so, wouldn’t the whole IPCC thesis be wiped right off the map?”
No – because it is what the IPCC is saying.
“Wouldn’t that be equivalent to the assertion, “there is no relation between CO2 composition in the air and annual global temperature that we can discern or project”?”
No. all it says is that the IPCC accepts that from time to time other forcings will knock temperature the other way. Say for example a significant volcanic eruption may well introduce a cooling trend. This is all part and parcel of mainstream climate science.
What is true, I believe, is that the IPCC says that forcing from increased co2 in the atmosphere will always raise temperatures… ie there is never a stage where adding CO2 would force temps lower… but it never says that CO2 will always be the strongest forcing at any given time.
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Ok, Chris – congratulations, you’re half right. I didn’t say it, but David did say, as you quote: “They [the IPCC] said back in 2001 that with the Hockey Stick graph that the temperatures would be monotonically increasing very rapidly.”
Chris asked: “I challenge you to find a direct quote from the IPCC to support the assertion that temperatures should be increasing monotonically over this time scale.”
If this 2001 IPCC graph could speak, it would say ‘monotonically’.
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/graphics/2001wg1/large/05.02.jpg
There is no downward trend even considered in the range.
David’s comment matches the hockey stick style graph he referred to, so it’s not a strawman; the IPCC and other alarmists do paint a picture that there is such a strong correlation between CO2 and Temperature that they ‘go up together’; and he’s hardly “hitting it with an oversize club” to just point out there is another 13 year period out of 500 million where a cause and effect correlation can’t be found.
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Thank you Matt we are now in perfect agreement
“There is no relation between CO2 composition in the air and annual global temperature that we can discern or project.”
All this argument over nothing, many arguments end this way.
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[…] To read the rest of this article on the JoNova.com site, click here. […]
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I’m just a plodder trying to sort through this AGW discussion so I did a little research re post 136 et al.
From 1880 – 1909 there was a CO2 increase of 9ppm and the temps dropped 0.15C (annual means from the NASA GISS global temp map).
From 1910 -1940 there was a CO2 increase of 10ppm and the temps rose 0.50C.
From 1941 – 1975 there was an increase of around 25ppm and the temps dropped 0.01C.
From 1976 – 1997 there was an increase of around 33ppm and the temps rose 0.55C.
Since 1998, CO2 has risen 22ppm and the global temp dropped 0.15C.
So, since 1880, CO2 increases monotonically. Temps however fall, rise, fall, rise, fall (annual means from the NASA GISS global temp map land-ocean).
Overall there appears some correlation between CO2 and temp rise but it is so inconsistent (especially the rise between 1910-40 as compared to the past 30 years). As the earth warms, maybe more CO2 is released from oceans/ice which provides both negative and positive evaporation feedbacks such as higher levels of water vapour (causing higher nighttime temps) but more cloud cover (lowering daytime temps). There must be so many other natural influences which impact on the climate which the models do not address it makes the AGW position almost untenable.
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Untenable? Or nonexistent, would be a better choice of wording I think.
There isn’t a method to correlate CO2 composition of the air and annual global temperature OF THE PAST.
Ladies and gentlemen, HOW in the WORLD can this POSSIBLY be done FOR THE FUTURE?
Sometimes I think this whole AGW idea is a dream that I will awaken from, and realise that no one actually believes it, and I was needlessly worried about rational thought vanishing as a defining characteristic of human beings.
When that happens, I will report back – but meanwhile, I feel considerable unease that this might not simply be a (bad) dream
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The IPCC (and any serious climatologist) emphasises that long-term trends do not cancel out short term weather variability, including no-trend or cooling periods of as much as 20 years (some model runs have periods like this, but with overall warming to the end of this century). The largest natural forcing on decadal scales is ENSO, which moved into a cool period recently. Meanwhile, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is also in a cool phase. It’s no surprise that the temperature trend does no show warming/as much warming over the last few years. Natural variability doesn’t disappear while we pump out CO2.
There is nothing whatsoever in the IPCC documents that claims CO2 rise would be closely tracked by global temperature in the short term. Argument to the contrary is a straw man. If anyone can cite otherwise, please do so.
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Kasphar presents data going back more than 100 years, we don’t have a good handle on that, do you want to call 100 years “short term”?
The “100 year straw man”. I like it.
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barry: your
The IPCC (and any serious climatologist) emphasises that long-term trends do not cancel out short term weather variability, including no-trend or cooling periods of as much as 20 years (some model runs have periods like this, but with overall warming to the end of this century).
The IPCC states that anthropogenic influence to be at least twice that of natural variability.
Best-estimate projections from models indicate
that decadal average warming over each inhabited
continent by 2030 is insensitive to the choice among
SRES scenarios and is very likely to be at least twice
as large as the corresponding model-estimated natural
variability during the 20th century. {9.4, 10.3, 10.5,
11.2–11.7, Figure TS-29}
Also, as Joanne pointed out, there are no one or two decadal dips in projected temperatures, in the chart located in the IPCC’s Summary for Policy Makers.
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That sounds fairly “monotone increasing” to me.
IPCC4 is right out to lunch with their projections.
Actually, it is the people who prepared the “Summaries for Policy Makers” who are guilty of the distortion and projection based on nothing more tangible than wishful thinking.
The careful reading of the IPCC Reports themselves demonstrate (to me) that the investigators themselves are well aware of the limitations to what they have concluded or suggested about the future.
The politicians of the IPCC such as Pachauri have distorted the true scientific work of the IPCC4 to meet their own agendas.
A fraud, sham, disgrace. I am surprised no more contributing scientists spoke out against the distortion and lies of the people interested in designing policy.
Fear.
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Barry The idea of warming ‘in the pipeline’ has been discussed by many AGWers (including Barry Brook) at http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/03/06/how-much-warming-in-the-pipeline-part-ii-abcs/.
I just checked my town using the BOM site which has averages for 30 year periods. The max av temp between 1971 – 2000 was 0.2C below the long-term average. This is in a time when temps were supposed to be rising. So I checked the max av temps from 2001 and 2008 and guess what? Still below average. Also, the max av temp for the first three months of this year is almost 0.9C per month below average.
I looked at Sydney and Melbourne av max temps for the same thirty year period and they were 0.6C and 0.3C above av respectively, Perth was 0.1C above, Hobart 0.3C above and Darwin 0.1C above but Canberra was average.
I just checked a few country areas and came across Murrurundi’s 30 year max av temp (1971-2000) and found it was 0.6C below average. In 1911-1940 it was 0.4C above average – thus a drop of 1.0C over that time. So we will have to wait until 2010 to find the past 30 year max averages to see if this warming ‘in the pipeline’ has any substance.
It appears that city temps seem to be rising at a faster rate than country areas (UH)?) but this would require a lot of time to research the data and compare. Also many stations don’t have adequate 30 year data because of a change to another the station during that period.
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I’m still waiting for a direct and meaningful quote from the IPCC that temperatures are supposed to rise monotonically.
The projected average temperature rise from the IPCC is about 0.02 C per year. This is much less than the expected year to year fluctuations from the ENSO etc.
Displaying a graph of CO2 concentrations and global temperatures for the last 13 years and asserting that this disproves AGW is a strawman.
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Hi David Evans,
Somethings I find that are more alarming than any of the scenarios the AGW true believers can create is the “Geo Engineering” scenarios that are being suggested.
Tons of iron sulphate dropped into the southern Atlantic to create a large algae bloom, absorb CO2 in it’s growth, consumed by plankton that die and drop to the ocean floor, taking the encaptured CO2 with them.
Failed – M.V. Polarstern did this experiment last month, and it failed as the plankton was eaten by larger critters.
Tim Flannery’s sulphur dioxide shot into the upper atmosphere or emitted from high flying aircraft – (sunglasses for the planet) – not yet!!
Millions of small mirrors to be shot into the upper atmosphere – reflects sunlight away from the Earth – not yet!!
Millions of man made CO2 absorbing trees, to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere and store it underground (goes with fairies in the bottom of the garden)
Now the latest idea from John Holdren, POTUS Obama’s science advisor, as posted on “Watt’s Up with That:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/08/6871/
The concept of putting particulate matter pollution into the upper atmosphere to reduce temperature(similar to volcanic discharges).
As the green Warmista smog appears to have overtaken reason in the US, this latest threat to the planet could be implemented.(only as an emergency matter of course)
These concepts of Geo-engineering are the real threats to the planet, unlike the non-threat caused by a colourless, odourless, non polluting gas CO2, an essential part of our atmosphere.
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In the 2007 Summary for Policy makers, the temperature chart going forward; “Multi-Model Averages and Assessed Ranges for Surface Warming” (pg 14) shows no decadal or multi-decadal declines nor even slow downs. Just a steady rise.
And, as I stated earlier, the IPCC, in the same document, also says that decadal warming will be at least twice that of natural variability. (pg 12)
In other words, monotonic.
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or this, from the 2007 SPM:
For the next two decades, a warming of about
0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES
emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of
all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept
constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of
about 0.1°C per decade would be expected. {10.3,
10.7}
Nope. No mention of a slowdown or a cooling in the near (20 yr) future.
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Do you really expect people to believe that the IPCC is predicting that the temperature will rise by about 0.02 C every year, year after year, without any fluctuations?
The ENSO and PDO are supposed to disappear? Year to year fluctuations that are in the temperature record before 2001 are going to disappear?
[snip: another unfounded insult / unknowable motivations. – JN]
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Where are you getting 0.02 deg/yr from?
The IPCC expects that temperatures will increase at least 0.2 deg/decade over the next two decades. No mention of any slow downs. And no slow down observed in its averaged models.
For the next two decades, a warming of about
0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES
emission scenarios.
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Chris: I am talking decadal, and you are talking annual.
Actually, I am quoting the IPCC, who is talking decadal.
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3. also mon·o·ton·ic (mn-tnk) Mathematics Designating sequences, the successive members of which either consistently increase or decrease but do not oscillate in relative value. Each member of a monotone increasing sequence is greater than or equal to the preceding member; each member of a monotone decreasing sequence is less than or equal to the preceding member.
And, the IPCC shows each decade temperature as greater than or equal to the preceding decade.
Monotonic.
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David Evans displayed a graph showing the variation of global temperatures over a 13 year period. He complains that the temperature variations on the scale of years or even months within that time period do not correlate with CO2 concentration.
This is a strawman.
Nobody, not the IPCC, nor any climatologists have ever asserted that they should.
The 2001 graph that Joanne linked was based on simple climate models that only looked at anthropogenic forcings with a few different scenarios. This is why the graph is smooth and monotonic. It does not include natural fluctuations but this does not imply that they magically disappear. It was only meant to show the anthropogenic contributions.
The 2007 graph uses more realistic models but again does not imply that natural variations will disappear.
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The IPCC has shown in its graph in the SPM, and implied in the same document, that temperatures will rise on the decadal scale, with no pause; ie; monotonically.
And, sorry, it does imply that natural variations, over the decadal timescale, will disappear. The document explicitly states that natural variation will be 1/2 or lower, of decadal warming. ie; monotonic.
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simple test Chris. “monotonic” is defined as each following period being greater or equal to the preceding period.
Show me on the IPCC SPM chart (pg 14), where any decades projected temperature is less than the preceding decades.
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Then at least show a graph with temperatures averaged over 10 years.
Any correlation between CO2 and temperatures is only expected to show up on time scales greater than 10 years.
The graph that David Evans displayed is a strawman.
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Why averaged over 10 years? The IPCC SPM graph is yearly, but no decadal period temperature is less than the previous decade. ie; monotonic.
If we averaged it over 10 years, you would get the same result.
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chris: your
Any correlation between CO2 and temperatures is only expected to show up on time scales greater than 10 years.
yeeesssss… which is why the IPCC quotes on decadal scales. And their charts show no decadal period temperature being less than the previous decade. ie; monotonic
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This is why these “climate debates” never get anywhere; Chris Noble has been shown the same thing seven times, and tells people they’re trying to project their own stupidity onto him.
Obviously nobody is getting anywhere with Chris and nobody is going to.
Chris, let’s face it, some people who wrote the “Summaries for Policy Makers” kind of faked it, like it or not. And clean up your act with the “you’re stupid” remarks. That doesn’t belong here.
For a revealing, somewhat entertaining, and quite shocking behind the scenes look at the preparation of the IPCC Summaries, read about Rutu Dave here
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2009/02/very-revealing-talk-by-ipcc-rutu-dave.html
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chris: and lets get this in order: You had asked for data from the IPCC showing or saying that temperatures will rise monotonically. I have done that. Repeatedly.
Why do you keep bringing up David’s chart?
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Here are some simple question.
Does it make sense to compare annual temperatures over a 13 year period with CO2 concentrations and expect a correlation?
Does the IPCC or any climatologist assert that there should be a correlation over this sort of timescale?
If not why does Davide Evans put up this sort of graph?
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Chris: again. from your post 126.
I’m still waiting for a direct and meaningful quote from the IPCC that temperatures are supposed to rise monotonically.
I have given you the quotes and the data from the SPM that show, state and imply monotonic increases.
I have not seen or analyzed David’s graph. If you would like me to, let me know, and then we can discuss David’s graph.
In the meantime, we were discussing your request for quotes from the IPCC on monotonic temperature increases.
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Chris Noble #162
> Here are some simple question.
> Does it make sense to compare annual temperatures over a 13 year period with CO2 concentrations and expect a correlation?
Of course not, CO2 correlates with temperature only poorly. The PDO correlates better, and the effect of a PDO flip between its warm and cool phases does show up over a short time frame.
Haven’t we been through this above?
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I was talking about monotonic on an annual scale. David Evans did not mention ten year averages. His graph only covered 13 years.
[David did not mention yearly scales either. – JN]
If you take decadal averages then the temperature is still increasing in recent decades. It hasn’t stopped despite 1998 being a record year. The ten year trends are positive.
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I guess the lesson here is:
“Climate Science… it’s not Rocket Science.”
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What does monotonic over a 13 year time period mean then?
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Barry #94:
[Sorry, Joanne only just noticed a couple of hours ago that your #94 got caught by the spam filter (because it contained more than three links). Then the blog software put it in the Comments in the sequence it was submitted, not in the sequence it appeared in the Comments.]
“Evidence” in this context means observations that prove or suggest that human emissions of CO2 are the main cause of the recent global warming.
Yes, CO2 was proven to be a greenhouse gas in laboratories over a century ago. Yes, every extra molecule of emitted CO2 heats up the planet a bit. But the relevant question is: how much? Evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas is not evidence that it was the main or even a significant cause of the recent global warming.
(BTW, I wouldn’t be too sure that most of the extra CO2 in the last century is anthropogenic. Isotopic analysis shows that the extra CO2 has a C12/C13 ratio that much closer matches CO2 from the ocean, not the C12/C13 ratio of biogenic CO2 (from plants and fossil fuels). See ‘Sources and Sinks of Carbon Dioxide’, by Tom Quirk, Energy and Environment, Volume 20, pages 103-119, unfortunately not online.)
Yes, temperatures are increasing at a trend rate of 0.5C/century, and CO2 is rising. But no, those two factors are not well correlated. See original article: “human emissions of carbon dioxide have only been large enough to be significant since 1940—yet the warming trend was in place for well over a century before that. And there was a cooling period from 1940 to 1975, despite human emissions of carbon dioxide. And there has been no warming since 2001, despite record human emissions of carbon dioxide.”
Evidence that global warming was not mainly due to increased irradiance from the sun, or aliens with ray guns, is not evidence that CO2 done it.
Assertions by august authorities that “CO2 done it” are not evidence (in other words, proof by authority is not evidence). Likewise, proof by repetition by government bureaucrats, scientists in the media, famous ex-politicians, celebrities, and multiple scientific committees does not constitute evidence (although of course in any non-science context that mix would be exceptionally persuasive).
Yes, there is plenty of evidence that global warming has been occurring. But proof of global warming is not proof that CO2 is mainly responsible. Most of AR4 is about observations that global warming occurred, and its effects, but there is no evidence in AR4 that CO2 is mainly responsible. (I have searched chapter 9 many times for such evidence and failed to find it. I find assumptions, assertions, and modeling results, but no evidence.)
Correlations would be supporting evidence, but either the correlations are weak (decadal and million-year time scales), or we know the causation is running the wrong way (thousand-year time scale in ice cores).
Yes, seasonal and PDO-type variation makes it harder to detect a CO2 signal in the temperature, but as Akasofu’s graph shows, the warming we are currently seeing is adequately explained by the usual 30 year oscillations around a rising trend that was in place well before human emissions of CO2 could have been significant. (And could the rising trend be linked in any way to the trough in solar activity around 1700 and its gradual rise to the grand solar maximum in the 1990s? Interesting coincidence, heh? What if the sun becomes less active again? I notice none of your post mentions solar-magnetic effects, and I noted previously that your reason for ruling out increasing irradiance had a loophole. Note: the inevitable alarmist “proof” that it wasn’t the sun is still not evidence that CO2 done it.)
Which is why I changed my mind about AGW, Barry – I used to be an alarmist, and worked as a consultant and carbon modeler for the Australian Greenhouse Office. But I became skeptical after the ice core data reversed. And when I learned about the missing hotspot I became pretty sure that AGW was wrong, or at the very minimum that heating due to our carbon emissions was sufficiently minor not to be a problem.
BTW, if the AGW people call me a “skeptic” and “denier”, I cannot see how they can object to being referred to as “alarmists” – especially in light of Akasofu’s graph at the top. “Alarmist” is a neat term that encompasses their stance and instantly identifies them as AGW believers. “Alarmist” and “skeptic” seem like reasonably fair and complementary labels.
Amplification has been “proved” and “disproved” several times each way. Obviously bunk on both sides. Ask any control theorist – from the limited data, you cannot tell whether there is significant amplification. The ice cores are compatible with either hypothesis. (By the way, if there was amplification, what stopped warming in each previous episode? Cannot have been much amplification!)
If CO2 is the strong driver hypothesized in AR4 then there should be strong a correlation between CO2 and temperature, and presumably on all time scales (the alternative, that CO2 is only a strong driver sometimes, is too silly to be falsified).
Miskolczi is a hard read, but I recommend a skim to try and get the main ideas. He has some interesting ideas in there.
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Les, the IPCC quote specifically says “to 2030”. That’s a long term trend (20 years) and an average derived from a range of model runs. It says nothing about short-term variablility.
Joanne:
Those profiles are likewise not examining short term variability.
If you want to see model runs showing interannual variability of temperature, including cool periods, just have a look at the graphs in Chapter 10 of the latest IPCC product.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter10.pdf
page 764
(For a quickload page just of the charts – http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-10-5.jpg)
What should be absolutely clear at a glance is that temps are expected to go up and down in the future in line with natural variability while the long-term trend is warming.
If it’s not immediately obvious that some model runs show flat or cooling periods for even up to 10 years (some individual runs not shown here even show 20 year cooling periods – with overall warming), magnify the page. Check out the run that peaks in 2020 (A2 scenario) that has a cool trend to 2030. There’s also a runs that show a similar trend to the last few years. In some products the ensemble mean is presented as a smoothed line. This is the type of projection cited by Joanne, here: http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/graphics/2001wg1/large/05.02.jpg – totally inappropriate in a discussion about short-term variability.
From Chapter 10 IPCC:
The ensemble mean shows a ‘monotonic’ rise simply because it is not geared to show short-term variability, NOT because short-term cool or flat-line periods are unanticipated.
The various quotes cited by Les and others are products of ensemble averages. Much of the conversation on this reflects a failure to distinguish between products.
None of this is a commentary on how accurate the models are – just a clarification on what is and isn’t said in the last IPCC report.
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I downloaded the GISSTEMP dataset and did a linear regression on the last 13 years.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt
The trend for that data is 0.2 deg/decade which is exactly what the IPCC projected.
Trends for other datasets will be different but they are all positive and do not in any way falsify the connection between CO2 concentration and temperature
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Chris #172: “Trends for other datasets will be different but they are all positive and do not in any way falsify the connection between CO2 concentration and temperature.”
More to the point, such trends don’t prove that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing the temperature rise. And that is the crux of the debate.
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Reply to misplaced Barry post:
“Rubbishing climate models has become such a mantra that you might be forgiven for thinking that the studies supporting the IPCC are all about climate modleing.”
Given that statement, there is no way you comprehend AR4 and by extension, no way you have read or comprehend the underlying referenced studies.
“But you could not be more wrong. Many (perhaps most) studies are OBSERVATIONAL.
Sediment analysis, bore holes, the temperature record (sea, land, global, regional, stratospheric, the sun, biomass, spectral analysis, dendrochronology, sea level, carbon cycling, sun-like stars, glaciers, ice sheets, ocean geochemistry, contrails, isotopic analysis, radiosnde data, cyclonic activity, the effects of urbanization on sunlght activity, river disharge events, ice dynamics, multi-decadal ocean atmosphere systems, heatwaves, cold snaps, flora, fauna… Much of this can be found in the 3rd chapter alone – entitled ‘Observations of Surface and Atmospheric Climate Change’.”
You don’t know what you are talking about.
First and most important, NONE of these things are evidence that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have caused the modern warm period, which is the underlying assumption of the AGW crowd and the IPCC. Again, you fail to understand evidence. NONE of those observations prove a causal link between anthropogenic CO2 emissions and climate change. They are simply observations of events which may have other causes.
Second, ALL projections ARE based upon models, which rely on numerous assumptions. It is the projections that have policy implications and which therefore draw the greatest attention.
You clearly do not understand that sediment analysis, bore holes, temperature anomalies, etc. are statistical reconstructions. MODELS! The fact that any graphs with lines and curves can be created at all is due to statistics, which involves assumptions, in other words, MODELS.
Even satellite temperature anomalies are the result of statistical reconstruction, but are thought more accurate because less statistical infilling is required to produce the resulting anomaly. ALL temperature reconstructions involve assumptions and are models.
The fact that I might observe a rise in CO2 and a correlated rise in temperature does not prove causality. The seemingly simple task of producing a global temperature anomaly at all requires assumptions and statistical modeling. The linkage between anthropogenic CO2 and temperature is provided by models, which are dominated by assumptions, one of which is that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are now driving climate change over and above natural forcings and feedbacks.
A climate study simply stating observations is meaningless. Such a study could not possibly draw useful conclusions (it got hot, it got cold, ice melted). So what? Therefore the conclusions of the reports require models. Models require assumptions. The reports are based on models. I have not misstated anything.
“Your assertion is fantastically wrong.”
Mine is not an assertion, but a demonstrated fact. I challenge you to produce a single report referenced AR4 that does not reference a model.
You are creating a red herring in an attempt to divert the discussion again, or you are simply clueless. I suspect a combination of both given your robust adherence to Grist talking points.
The core issues we are discussing are:
1. Proving causality (anthropogenic CO2 emissions causing the modern warm period).
2. The utility/accuracy of model-based climate projections in relation to observations.
Reports attempting to provide the causality link are based upon models, not observation. Reports making projections are wholly based upon models, not observation. Observations help in parameterization for models, but the complexity of the real world system requires significant corresponding assumptions in order to make curves fit the statistical hypotheses.
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The rest of misplaced barry:
“There are very few papers in the IPCC that focus specifically on the question “Is AGW happening”.”
No, but that is the conclusion reached by the IPCC and the main AGW proponents like Hansen, Schmidt, Mann, Santer, etc. It is the conclusions of the IPCC that are driving policy decisions and those decisions are focused on AGW, specifically as driven by anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
“The focus of most papers is much tighter, more specific. Studies are not written to satisfy the needs of lay-people in blogs looking for simple answers.
Have you actually looked at the list of references in the IPCC docs?”
This is typical condescending AGW drivel.
Given that you’ve admitted to having no formal scientific training, background, weak math skills, and ONLY three years of reading under your belt, your condescending tone throughout your comments is hilarious.
You’ve already been told that many of those commenting here (including some of your allies) are formally trained scientists, statisticians (meaning their math skills far exceed yours), computer modelers and people who’ve been studying this far longer than a mere three years.
Condescension from Gavin Schmidt over at “Real Climate” or Tamino at “Open Mind” or James Hansen is annoying, but at least they have a professional leg to stand on. From you, it is high comedy.
I got the email notification of Barry’s comment to which I’m replying here and my immediately preceding, but can’t find it here.
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They are certainly consistent with the IPCC projections based on what is expected from anthropogenic CO2.
David Evans used a strawman to claim that they were inconsistent.
If the “skeptics” have such a strong case then why do they create these strawman versions of what “AGW asserts” and what the IPCC says?
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There was a snafu. Barry’s post at 94 got sent to the spam folder by the spam filter for having more than three links, and sat there for about a day until discovered a few hours ago by Joanne. She classified it as “not spam”, whereupon the blog software put it in as 94 — in the correct sequence for the reception of posts, but not the correct sequence for appearance of posts in the comments.
Barry’s two subsequent posts got treated as spam too I believe, presumably because of the previous spam classification.
I think the three links rule sucks, and I have fallen foul of it myself. Presumably there is a good reason for it. BTW, this blog (like others) get a lot of spam — machine-generated posts of keywords and links.
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Chris #172:”I downloaded the GISSTEMP dataset and did a linear regression on the last 13 years.
The trend for that data is 0.2 deg/decade which is exactly what the IPCC projected.”
In order to do a linear regression you need a dependent variable and at least one independent variable. The GISSTEMP dataset is only one variable (the anomaly). Therefore it sounds like you really did a simple trend on observed data, which is not a linear regression.
Could you show your linear equation demonstrating at least two variables?
“Since IPCC’s first report in 1990, assessed projections have suggested global average temperature increases between about 0.15°C and 0.3°C per decade for 1990 to 2005. This can now be compared with observed values of about 0.2°C per decade, strengthening confidence in near-term projections.”((IPCC AR4, Summary for Policy Makers, page 12)
Given that 70% of the datapoints you used occur prior to the 2005 IPCC cutoff for AR4, (observed data already in the 0.2°C per decade glide path) what exactly have you proved? Your trend, not regression, was bound to be in the ballpark.
At the moment causality is still not proven.
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Chris:
If the IPCC were being honest they would include the possibility that temperatures could go down in their graphs. They don’t. You defend the spin-meisters.
You asked for a quote. David spoke about a graph, so I gave you a graph that exactly matched what he said. As usual you deny that we’ve supplied the evidence, and we end up nitpicking dependent clauses instead of discussing the climate. Even if you had won your point here, you would have achieved, what? The wild success of showing one person talking about the climate did not include every possible qualifier he could have in the sentence, and could have phrased things differently?
This is about one man, on behalf of himself, talking against billion-dollar-bureaucracies that publish 800 page reports who spent years writing with professional teams and graphic designers, and yet somehow run out of space to put in any qualifiers in their summaries.
You interpret unpaid commentators to the imaginary literal letter in a spoken presentation, and yet you are happy to let the fully funded IPCC produce unbalanced, inaccurate graphs. That graph does not imply temperatures below 2000 are even possible. The IPCC would know that most readers will not have time to assess fine points about the ‘simplicity’ of climate models. If these models are so simple and inadequate that they can’t even get the next seven year trend right, would it not be honest to include error margins from say plus or minus 5 degrees? (Why bother making a graph at all?)
David’s point about the disparity with models and temperatures over the last 13 years has never been more than incidental. As with the Skeptics Handbook, we claim that it shows the models are poor, not that it disproves AGW. You ignore the real reasons AGW is falsified: no causative correlation on any time scale, no empirical support, and no hot spot.
We are only interested in honest polite discussion here. You make excessive demands about inconsequential points, never say thank you, and never acknowledge when we (or JLKrueger, or Les Johnson) answer your questions and prove to be right (yet again).
If you acknowledge we met your demand for a quote, that it doesn’t qualify as a strawman, that you don’t judge the IPCC by the same standards you expect of us, you may make a new point. We have better things to do than be one-on-one coaches for those who lack manners, honesty and the ability to assess logic. — JN
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Hello again, David. This post on your post of a couple of days ago, which I didn’t finish answering.
I am hopelessly unqualified to determine the validity of Lindzen’s and Miskolczi’s work. Miskolczi’s paper – the math – is Greek to me, unfortunately. However, I investigated as best I could in a number of different ways, leading me to put some questions to you.
Reading the debate at various places I came across similar contentions noted by Boris at April 6th, 2009 at 10:42 pm upthread.
Lindzen has used outdated data (when he should have been aware of it, apparently).
According to a number of independent and clearly genuine enquirers (and others more snarky) at a variety of web sites, Miskolczi has inappropriately applied Kirchoff’s law and the climate sensitivity he comes up with would make ice ages impossible.
Assuming you do not have the skill to assess the validity of these two papers, I have to ask why you give them such credence – above and beyond anyone else’s. You said that M had ‘solved’ the climate theory. On what grounds do you say so?
As far as I have learned, science progresses piecemeal. Rarely does a single author or paper overturn established understanding. Thus, I find it strange that you have elevated Miskolczi’s work as opposed to, say Ramanathan 1978 (and later), or, as Miskolczi cites, Trenberth’s study – or any of the other papers on the subject.
Why is HARTCODE better than the 60 year-old HITRAN database or any of the other spectral LBL databases/coding systems (aside from Miskolczi’s say so)? I unearthed a paper saying HARTCODE showed a warm bias across the spectra, for example.
I accessed M’s paper through google scholar. One way a layman can check if a peer-reviewed paper has been given credence by the scientific community is to see how many times it has been cited. For this paper, there is only one cite, in a newsletter of the AIG (not a formal study), which included the word ‘catastrophists’. (AIG has a particular interest representing geologists working in the mining and fossil fuel indistries)
Of course, this by itself does not demonstrate the validity or otherwise of M’s paper, but it makes me even more puzzled that you assign superior credibility to it against mainstream understanding of spectral analyses and the earth’s radiation budget under rising GHG emissions. Are you competent in the field of spectral analysis and radiative transfer? Or what other reason do you have to favour this particular paper – or Lindzen’s? What gives you such confidence in outliers?
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David – interesting bet. I’ve visited those pages previously rummaging around the netb. I have read you around the web a bit and already know you are a polite participant. I still don’t like the denialist/alarmist labels, though. They’re antagonistic. And I would not describe many who participate in these debates as actual skeptics. Sorry if my replies are slow – I’m researching/re-researching as we go and checking that against my own opinion along the way, as a result – as all good skeptics should! 🙂
A real skeptic doubts their own opinions, too. Reserves a modicum of doubt for everything, really. Anyone who expresses certainty is selling something.
That’s an absolute fact. 😉
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Joanne,
You may have missed my post upthread (171) where I linked to AR4 graphs rebutting this idea. Here’s the quick-link again.
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-10-5.jpg
Can you honestly say that these graphs, from AR4 Ch 10, do not show temps going up and down?
Please check my post 171 for details. I would be interested in your answer to that.
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JLKreuger
That is what you said, and which I answered in my post listing a range of topics covered by papers which are observational.
If you meant to say that IPCC projections are based on climate models, then we have no argument. But what you wrote was rather more general.
You reply that the observational studies use ‘models’. Sure – pretty much any science or engineering employs modeling. An equation can be said to be a model. But this is a different kettle of fish. You moved the goal posts. You specifically said ‘climate models’. You meant GCMs, right? Clearly, a enormous amount of references in AR4 are not papers on climate models.
You are right – I’ve read very few of the papers referenced (but I have read the report and have an idea of what is referenced). Many of them are inaccessible on the net – I’ve actually paid for a few. But I doubt that anyone here could claim to have read more than a handful either. Have you read a majority yourself?
I don’t know you or any of the other participants here. I do not assume your level of knowledge and respond simply to what is writen. I will judge your competence for myself and I will learn that from example, not from stentorian admonishments. If you feel that I have been condescending, I apologise.
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David
As I understand it, satellite records show that the sun has been waning slightly (or no trend) for 30 years. How does this correlate with rising temps from 1976? And isn’t the general consensus that solar variation (and insolation changes due to orbital dynamics) has a small impact on global temperatures?
http://cce.890m.com/solar-cosmic-rays/
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Thanks, by the way, for retrieving my posts.
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LKrueger #173
April 9th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Nor do they support only the hypothesis that CO2 is the dominant cause. For example, a 13 year positive trend is also consistant with 11 years of a warm PDO and a two years of a cool PDO.
I avoided getting involved in this acrimonious debate until solar or PDO (et al) effects predicted a cooling trend. While they all pointed to a rising trend observations can not easily be used to assess the strength of each cause.
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It is perfectly possible for the amplification to have been quite large (over some regions), and yet for warming to have stopped. It merely implies that the system has nonlinear gain (as does every physical system ever discovered), or possibly that there are additional dimensions to the problem that no one is bothering to measure (or both of the above). Nor is it difficult to come up with a plausible theory for why this would happen.
Consider factor A is the amount by which a small increase in CO2 will cause increase in temperature, and factor B is the amount by which a small increase in temperature will cause an increase in CO2. The small-signal loop gain will be A times B.
Suppose that the primary physical cause of factor A is greenhouse warming which is throttled at high CO2 concentrations because only so much infra-red is available in the right window to be captured by CO2. Thus as CO2 gets higher, the small-signal gain of factor A limits towards zero (think about starting with a white wall and spray painting it red, a little bit of spray paint is very obvious but once the wall is red you can spray as much as you like and there will be no visible change).
Further suppose that the primary physical cause of factor B is solubility of CO2 in the ocean. This is known to be a complicated equilibrium depending on the available calcium ions, pH, stratification and other factors. Let’s keep it simple and say that when there is a high availability of carbon the ocean will grab some significant fraction of that and move close to saturation and so changes in temperature will move substantial amounts of carbon. When there is a global shortage of available carbon, the ocean will be far from saturation and won’t have much carbon to deliver so changes in temperature won’t have much effect. In short, factor B limits towards zero for low CO2 concentration (especially if temperature is also low).
Thus the small-signal loop gain (which A times B) reaches its maximum value only for a middling range of CO2, and approaches zero at either extreme value.
That are no doubt many other plausible explanations for why effective system gain would be non-linear and have limited regions of relatively high small-signal gain, just about all of chemistry behaves like this (try titration for example, you can plink and plink and plink drops into solution and nothing happens, then one more plink and a huge colour-change occurs, after the colour change you can go back to plinking more drops into solution but the show is over, nothing more to see).
“Silly” that the world might be non-linear? Are you serious?
Is it really implausible that this problem might include dimensions that are currently being ignored? As far as I can see from reading IPCC AR4 ch5, they really have no working model of the CO2 equilibrium between ocean and air, and only a relatively small number of measurements of what is a rather complicated problem. Factors such as the availability of calcium ions, the availability of nutrients for microscopic sea life, change in pH, change in relative concentration of types of microscopic sea life, availability of silicon for diatoms, deep ocean circulation, stratification and probably heaps more are highly likely to have changed over the lifespan of the earth.
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Barry#184
The sun has two quite distinct ways of affecting weather here on earth:
1. Irradiance — the amount of radiation emitted by the sun
2. Magnetic — the sun’s powerful magnetic field shields us from cosmic rays, and cosmic rays have a cooling effect on the earth because they precipitate low clouds. Measured by number of sun spots, or Ap index. The number of sunspots was very low in 1700, coinciding with the little ice age, and rose gradually to be quite high in the 1990s, corresponding to the warming trend of 0.5C/century in Akasofu’s graph. It’s only correlation, but it is suggestive.
AFAIK, climate models omit the cosmic ray link to cloudiness. And again, models aren’t evidence anyway.
Waxing and waning of the sun refers only to the irradiance from the sun. The magnetic fields or solar activity however is quite a different story.
There seems to be a pronounced lull in sunspots right at the moment, suggesting (again, only correlation) lower temperatures ahead for the next solar cycle.
I understand that David Archibald noticed the correlation between sunspots and earth temperature. The correlations between solar activity or cosmic rays and temperatures are good on all time scales (see Shaviv, Svensmark), better than with CO2 — though of course this is hotly disputed by alarmists (most of whom, ahem, draw paychecks for jobs that would not exist except for belief in AGW — not that that makes them wrong, just prone to bias).
Give it another few decades and we’ll have this sorted out. There is *so* much to be skeptical of in climate science!
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Not that I am the great moral voice of reason – but I think you are harsh on Chris Noble’s posts (ie saying no more)… I think he is worth more of a fair go.
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MattB: #189
April 9th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
> … I think you are harsh on Chris Noble’s posts
You’re right – if we had any sense we’d ignore him.
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Barry#180
The Lindzen data is an unfinished story: I await to hear what Lindzen’s reply is. Even if Colose is completely correct, Lindzen’s methodolgy still implies that the models should have approximately zero temperature feedback, not negative as Lindzen claimed, or positive as currently in the models.
Miskolczi came up with an obviously more complete and better solved theory (eg finite height to atmosphere instead of infinite as previously) that seems to be supported by data (including the missing hotspot). But it contradicts too much of AGW, so it cannot be supported in any way by the climate science establishment. Again, we’ll probably have to wait a few decades to see whose theory is best. Obviously AGW has problems such as the missing hotspot, Lindzen’s analysis, the temp. evolution expressed in Akasofu’s graph, weak CO2 correlations, etc; at least Miskolczi’s theory seems ok with those (which is why it is more attractive).
Yes I do have the skill to assess Miskolczi’s papers. But I don’t want to invest a month to fully understand them because everyone will just ignore anything I say about them anyway. My involvement in global warming skepticism is unpaid and I’m too busy.
Miskolczi’s theory is complicated enough that only paid professionals are going to bother to fully understand it. But all the professionals in climate theory are paid by AGW sources (exception: a handful of tenured professors are relatively independent of who pays them). So his theory is going to lie ignored and not seriously evaluated (because only us skeptics would ever champion it, but we are part time and unpaid). In a more perfect world that wouldn’t happen. And just because nearly all professionals are paid by AGW funding does not make non-AGW types “outliers” — there is only right and wrong, and AGW is obviously looking fairly-wrong at this stage (litany reminder: missing hotspot, weak correlations with CO2, temperature evolution shown in Akasofu’s graph, satellite observations of OLR, etc). Maybe Miskolczi is right, or maybe just more right than AGW, or maybe even more wrong. I think his theory deserves a better hearing. Again, we’ll see in a few decades.
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Tel#187
Yes, all that is possible (and your understanding of linear systems stopping when driven into non-linearity is good, IMHO).
Something more powerful than CO2 both started and stopped the previous warming episodes.
“Silly” in the sense that while the AGW hypothesis is basically that “CO2 drives temperature”, which is falsifiable, the alternative “CO2 drives temperature sometimes” is not falsifiable (without further specifying when it does and when it does not) and is not being proposed.
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What are “AGW” sources? How much does the IPCC pay the scientists that review and author the reports?
Am I mistaken in thinking that people lke Gavin Schmidt and James Hansen work for government bodies – that their wages are paid for by the government? Then, how do you account for NASA and NOAA (for example) publishing papers and publicly speaking on global warming through the Bush years, when their ‘paymasters’ would quite obviously have preferred a different message?
This is an unfortunate turn in the conversation. We’ve entered the realm of politics. I don’t cast aspersions on scientists who receive funding, directly or indirectly, from ‘fossil fuel’ sources. Poisoning the wells is hardly a helpful way to assess the science. Neither does appealing to authority (well, I’m not going to give cred to a neuroscientist for a blog on climate sensitivity).
I am impressed that you can assess Miskolczi’s paper. If a complete analysis would take too long, have you considered taking up just an analysis of a particularly controversial portion of his paper – that of his application of Kirkoff’s law?
Your answer – that you have not assessed the paper – again makes me wonder why you give it credence. What on earth makes you think he’s ‘solved climate theory’, then?
Cosmic rays: the link I provided shows a breakdown in correlation between clouds and cosmic rays.
Hot spot: is a product of moist adibiat, isn’t it? Not radiative transfer? And there are a number of fairly recent papers positing that the inconsistency is to do with poor data.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/tropical-tropopshere-ii/ (links to relevant papers included in the post)
I had read briefly on it when the issue first came up a while back. No doubt you’ve followed the argument. What do you make of this paper?
http://www.realclimate.org/docs/santer_etal_IJoC_08_fact_sheet.pdf
I, too, look forawrd to Lindzen’s reply to Chris Colose. And for a more detailed critique on Miskolczi’s paper.
You are seriously saying that my interpretation of what is an outlier is bound by funding sources? Or is that your own interpretation?
In this context, Outliers are hypotheses or papers that call into question or dismiss scientific understanding supported by a weighty body of work.
Please tell me this discussion is not going to boil down to who is lining their pockets. I won’t discredit serious papers on that basis, no matter who is paying whom. If there is a political or percuniary influence, that can only ever be speculated upon. There’s never any proof – unless you’re going to adjust your view of what constitutes ‘evidence’. In any case, it always boils down to the science, doesn’t it? Not right and wrong, I think, but degrees of validity.
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Yes, we will see as time unfolds. Though I provisionally accept the mainstream view (what else can I do without the skill to assess the work?), I am certainly not ‘alarmed’.
A wonderful corollary of trying to muddle through the debate and papers, for me, is a greater interest in weather and climate phenomena generally, whether it be an expanded context for local events or a new appreciation for the fluxes in the environment (ice dynamics, for example). My accelerated interests now go beyond the theorized human influence, but is a result of that discussion. I wonder if I would have keyed in so much if it hadn’t been for debating opponents of the mainstream view and reading others wrangling over it.
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Barry #183:“If you meant to say that IPCC projections are based on climate models, then we have no argument. But what you wrote was rather more general.”
These red herrings are getting tiresome.
The IPCC does no original research. Their projections are a synthesis of reports and the work of others. The conclusions of those reports are based upon models. Models are the foundation.
“You reply that the observational studies use ‘models’. Sure – pretty much any science or engineering employs modeling.”
In engineering we never have as many unknowns, the systems are not as complex, and they are generally closed/semi-closed systems. Models work very well in those kinds of environments. Few sciences try to model systems as complex as Earth’s climate. Climate science is in its infancy with so many admitted “not understood” parameters that ascribing certainty to the main AGW hypothesis is lunacy.
“An equation can be said to be a model. But this is a different kettle of fish. You moved the goal posts. You specifically said ‘climate models’. You meant GCMs, right? Clearly, a enormous amount of references in AR4 are not papers on climate models.”
Equations are models there’s no “can be said to be” about it. We aren’t talking about kettles of anything. Kettles are relatively closed systems and easy to model.
I’ve moved nothing. Moving goal posts is a tool of AGW apologists (see climate change vs global warming, see wind proxy for missing troposphere hotspot vs actual observation of no hotspot).
The projections showing the linear increase in temperature come from GCMs, agreed. Are there other references in AR4 that do not use GCMs? Yes, they use other models that are still trying to define complex non-linear processes in an open, somewhat chaotic system and are loaded with assumptions. Models are virtual reality. Models are not reality.
“You are right – I’ve read very few of the papers referenced (but I have read the report and have an idea of what is referenced). Many of them are inaccessible on the net – I’ve actually paid for a few. But I doubt that anyone here could claim to have read more than a handful either. Have you read a majority yourself?”
I don’t believe I criticized you about not reading a “majority” of the reports. I expressed doubt based upon your responses as to whether you have read and understood any of the reports referenced in AR4.
I also challenged you to produce one referenced report that was not based upon a model, since you made the assertion that “lots” of AR4 was based upon observation.
You are the one who produced a laundry list of alleged observations as proof that something other than models fed the IPCC projections/pronouncements. I will be happy to accept your above statement as surrender on this point.
I’ve never made the claim that I’ve read a “majority” of the reports. I’m selective, have many interests and at the moment I do this as a mental break from far more immediately life-changing issues like bullets and IEDs.
“I don’t know you or any of the other participants here. I do not assume your level of knowledge and respond simply to what is writen. I will judge your competence for myself and I will learn that from example, not from stentorian admonishments. If you feel that I have been condescending, I apologise.”
A danger of diving into arguments on these “layman’s blogs,” as you called them, is that they are oft frequented by both real scientists with impressive credentials and laymen who have significant scientific and statistical training and people who’ve been reading the material a lot longer than you have claimed for yourself.
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Barry #194:” Yes, we will see as time unfolds. Though I provisionally accept the mainstream view (what else can I do without the skill to assess the work?), I am certainly not ‘alarmed’.”
Given your conclusion, not being alarmed, your acceptance of the “mainstream” view is illogical.
These points are pressed by alarmists with the “mainstream” view:
1. Temperatures are rising at an unprecedented rate and are already “higher than ever.”
2. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the primary overriding cause of this allegedly unprecedented temperature rise.
3. As a result of the above two points:
a. Immediate and drastic action is required to halt anthropogenic CO2 emissions even if such action destroys world economies.
b. If we don’t take this action, the planet will be uninhabitable within a few centuries (The Gore proposition).
Point 1: Neither the “higher than ever” claim nor the “unprecedented rate” claim have been proven. In fact, if you are looking for a “consensus” there is agreement that for 96% of Earth’s history, there was no ice anywhere. The threshold for permanently melting the polar icecaps is a sustained mean temperature exceeding roughly 18°C. Earth’s long-term mean temperature (for 96% of Earth’s history) is roughly 22°C. Earth has been there before and life adapted and survived. If we are truly the apex life form on this planet, we will do just fine. It is easier to adapt to warmth than to cold.
Point 2: Not proven (models aren’t proof). This is a hypothesis and nothing more. The AGW hypothesis is that man’s contribution to a trace gas (less than .01% of the atmosphere) overpowers all other natural climate forcings and feedbacks.
NOTE: I’m saying that man’s contribution is less than .01%. I’m well aware that the total CO2 atmospheric is currently just below .04%…still a trace gas.
The fact that other natural forces have, in the past, overpowered the total atmospheric CO2 component falsifies the hypothesis. The fact that we are currently in such a period where the total atmospheric CO2 is being overpowered by other forcings and feedbacks falsifies the hypothesis. Current understanding of ice cores demonstrates that warming precedes CO2 increases. If that is true, it falsifies the hypothesis.
Since neither of the first two points are proven, accepting the “cure” is completely illogical.
The “cure’s” alternative (3.b.) is likewise nonsense because it is circular logic based upon an already falsified hypotheses supported only by model assumptions.
If you are not “alarmed” then you should have no objection to not rushing into cures for a problem that may not exist, or for which man may not be to blame.
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Barry: your
Can you honestly say that these graphs, from AR4 Ch 10, do not show temps going up and down?
Yes, I can honestly say that these charts do not go “up and down”, on the decadal scale.
I again invite you to pick any year, in any scenario, and go back 10 years. In no case is the temperature 10 years earlier lower than the year you pick.
Monotonic.
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“But all the professionals in climate theory are paid by AGW sources.”
It would be more accurate to state that research into alternative hypotheses is deliberately starved of funding. Generally any statement in a study proposal that runs counter to the orthodoxy will result in the study being denied funding. In this sense the current reliance on government funding is corrupting science.
Given that people like Gavin and James are funded through tax dollars, they should be more open with their methodologies, code and raw data. They are not. The fact that they stonewall and refuse to disclose information is what leads to conspiracy theories and speculation on motives.
In an objective environment where scientists and the media were fulfilling their obligation to seek truth, this would not happen. This discussion morphed long ago from a scientific one to a political and sensationalist one.
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“But all the professionals in climate theory are paid by AGW sources.”
Ha – I am a pure denier and am paid by the US Government; I work for the US Department of Energy.
The official DOE policy is that “man-made climate change” is real, but the DOE can neither silence me nor stop my activities.
The reason is that James Hansen of the US NASA is far more politically active than I am; depite repeated attempts by the conservatives to stop Hansen from doing it by removing him from an official position, Hansen remains protected by his political allies.
And since Hansen cannot be stopped, neither can I.
Hooray for Jim Hansen!!!
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chris: your
I was talking about monotonic on an annual scale.
Why? That is just plain silly, when I, and the IPCC are talking on decadal scales.
If you take decadal averages then the temperature is still increasing in recent decades. It hasn’t stopped despite 1998 being a record year. The ten year trends are positive.
The 10 year trends are only positive on GISS data. You should know, but apparently don’t, that GISS does not have 1998 as the record year, but 2005 instead.
Also, since 1998, using GISS data, the slope, while positive, is insignificant at 0.0104/yr (with R2 = 0.123. The 8 year trend (since 2001) is negative, but still insignificant.
On RSS, UAH and Hadley data, the trend over the entire 10 year period is negative. RSS and Hadley are negative since 1997.
On all data sets, R2 approaches unity, the closer to the present.
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Barry #193: “I won’t discredit serious papers on that basis, no matter who is paying whom. If there is a political or percuniary influence, that can only ever be speculated upon.”
Great, a positive sign. Who funds the research is indeed irrelevant.
However, starving funding for alternative theories, denying publication of well-founded studies and refusing to fully share the methodologies, data and code from publicly funded research is open to criticism because it leads to a skewing of available information.
The fact that you currently find a weight of papers leaning one way is due to political influence on the funding. Hansen et al ruthlessly exploit their political connections to shut down debate and push their political agenda.
Want proof of Hansen’s political and activist bias? I’m not making it up. You can read his own words on his web site at Columbia University. Dear Michelle and Barack.
And then think of Hansen’s “death trains.” Very objective and scientific, eh? No hyperbole in that line.
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JL: your
However, starving funding for alternative theories, denying publication of well-founded studies and refusing to fully share the methodologies…because it leads to a skewing of available information.
A good example of this is the federal (Canadian) government putting out a call for the government funding research on wet lands, and the NEGATIVE effects that climate change would have on swamps and ponds.
The government is telling the researchers what the conclusion is, before the study ever starts. Obviously no papers will be submitted showing positive consequences.
They are also inviting only the most dire of predictions, as it is obvious that only the most dramatic scenario will receive the funding.
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Les #200:”You should know, but apparently don’t, that GISS does not have 1998 as the record year, but 2005 instead.”
And 1998 is only in 3rd place…2007 beat 1998 in the GISS dataset too.
In multi-decadal plots (30, 60, 120), the slope becomes even more insignificant, consistent with natural rebound from Ice Age temperatures and nothing alarming. Admittedly, the 120-year plot is based upon very few data points, but then that’s really the point.
I find it very difficult to get excited over climate trends that operate on geologic time scales and for which we have limited instrumented data. We are only scratching the surface in our knowledge of climate. Alarmists are getting excited over climate occurring within a blip of geologic time (roughly thirty years of warming).
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Hello again Les,
Do you not mean *higher* than the year you pick?
I can do that, but I don’t think this is the point you are trying to make. If you’re looking at decadal changes, you’d need to average the years of one (projected) decade and compare with a subsequent averaged decade (that’s a simple way of doing it).
But to answer your challenge, look at the run that has a peak in 2019 in A2. It’s the top line in the ensemble at that point and easy to pick out. In 2028 (and 29), the temperature is lower.
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/graphics/ar4-wg1/jpg/fig-10-5.jpg
I saw a nice graphic of a greater number of model runs somewhere a while back, and there was a run that showed a cooling trend for 20 years. I’ll see if I can find it.
And let me contextualize my post you replied to once again – it was a reply to Joanne who linked to a smoothed line graphic from the IPCC in response to the challenge from Chris Noble “I challenge you to find a direct quote from the IPCC to support the assertion that temperatures should be increasing monotonically over this time scale.”
There is no such quote, so Joanne posted a graph of a smoothed line instead, with the comment “if graphs could speak…”
http://www.ipcc.ch/graphics/graphics/2001wg1/large/05.02.jpg
I think you’ll agree that Joanne did not meet the challenge. I simply wanted to show what annual scale projections actually looked like.
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There are a number of published papers out there that belie that claim. David Evans has posted one (Miskolczi’s). Roy Spencer and John Christy are still being paid and are still being published. Even Gerlich and Tscheuschner’s woeful paper was published.
On the one hand you approve my rejecting the political (funding) angle. On the other you begin to make argument on that basis.
I’ve only got one answer to that, and it bears directly on the personalities you cite. Jim Hansen and his colleagues were being paid by the Bush administration. If they were economic slaves to their paymasters, why did they publish directly against the tendencies of their benefactors?
You can have the last word on that. I’m not interested in this sort of speculation – and speculation it is. Unless you can specifically cite a few examples of funding being cut off for alternative analysis, or scientists using political associations to shut down anyone else’s work.
Specifically. Hansen’s letter to Obama is definitely not evidence of him interfering with anyone else’s work.
One more thing. I never cite Gore. Anyone else who does should be subjected to Godwin’s law and immediately be dismissed. The case for or against AGW is purely a scientific matter. That is the basis of this discussion according to the top post. Political and pecuniary motivations and associations are always speculative at best. If there’s too much mission creep, I’m out of here.
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David, regarding correlation, you might find this interesting.
http://moregrumbinescience.blogspot.com/2009/03/does-co2-correlate-with-temperature.html
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David, do you think it will take as much as 20 years to ascertain the veracity of Akasofu’s thesis? I think less. If temps are correlated to PDO, and if the premise, as it seems to be, is that temperature trends change immediately with PDO flips, then I’d wager a few dollars that we’ll see a clear temperature rise in this purported cool phase by 2020. In other words, I bet we won’t see a repeat of the profile from the 1940s to 1970s and that should be clear by 2020. I presume that CO2 warming will overwhelm the PDO cool phase. I’m sure you have a sound statistical reason for waiting longer, but nevertheless…
I’m not a rich person, so I’ll make a modest wager of AUS$100. I hope the economy doesn’t keep tanking to 2020!
Writing from Bondi Beach, by the way.
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Krueger,
climate change differences aside, travel safe, fella.
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Regarding correlations with ocean/atmosphere cycles, this video displays a graph showing excellent correltation of ENSO with themperatures. (from 4:00)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0JsdSDa_bM
It also briefly looks at the difference between weather and climate – brought to mind by some posts above about local cold weather events.
Regarding the topic of the top post, ENSO is an oscillatinmg cycle as well, and, as it oscillates, is not responsible for the overall warming of the 20th C to now.
We’ve had suggestions of what might be responsible for the overall warming trend of last 100 years or so, but sun spots and cosmic rays have poor correlation with temps.
(that link again) http://cce.890m.com/solar-cosmic-rays/
And the link between cosmic rays and cloud formation is not well established.
The top post premises with a continued warming out of the LIA. If that is so, still we need a better idea of the physical mechanisms that are causing this alleged continuation.
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Thanks, I prefer to start with the premise that there are no linear systems. There are systems for which a linear approximation gives plausible answers, and there are systems for which a linear approximation gives complete rubbish. We already know that weather is chaotic and highly nonlinear so we already know that linear approximations of weather are useless.
Climate is essentially weather, averaged over space and time, so maybe this averaging process brings it closer to a linear approximation and maybe it doesn’t, but that’s a question that neither side of the argument has bothered addressing (I believe Edward Lorenz was trying for many years to get people interested in this issue, then finally gave up).
I’m fully convinced that the sun is the primary forcing function for the Earth’s climate, everything else has to be secondary to that. Other than some residual radioactivity in the earth, there are no available energy sources. However, using a solar concentrator and a vacuum bulb you can produce high temperatures relatively easily from the sun, so the sun has no shortage of available energy to make things hot (under the right conditions).
On the other hand, the historical record shows the climate moving over a wide range and remaining stable (i.e. not triggering any runaway mass destruction). To me, that spells out that some non-linear rule of diminishing returns must be kicking in to prevent a similar scenario to the vacuum bulb. I see nothing shocking in this, we see a law of diminishing returns popping up in all aspects of engineering and economics so it makes a lot of sense to see it in climate science as well.
Learning where and why the non-linear effect becomes significant is the most important thing to study, that tells you where the boundary is.
Agreed, I don’t have any theory good enough to warrant an attempt at falsification but I’m confident that a theory based on linear “X causes Y to this degree” formulas will never closely match historic data (except over a limited period) and be a very poor predictor of future data as well. I’ve actually found it very difficult to explain to people the difference between “small-signal” gain (i.e. the local derivative of the curve) and “bulk” gain (i.e. the overall effect of a large change). I’ve come to the conclusion that the entire concept of coming up with a magic number “climate sensitivity” (which is supposedly three degrees) is just a PR stunt because it means nothing in terms of real understanding of the system.
I wonder how James Annan is feeling about his $10k, if the above cyclic theory is correct then those Russians are looking pretty good for the period between 2012 and 2017. My personal feeling is that some warming is occurring, but the IPCC has totally overstated their case and they are going to be a laughing stock in 10 years time. I see myself as an environmentalist and I don’t see alarmist panic as being in any way beneficial to the environmental movement.
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I get a figure of about 6.5% anthro contribution.
Like this:
CO2 is (averaged) 17% of the greenhouse effect.
Industrial emissions have increased CO2 in the atmosphere by about 105ppm – from pre-industrial levels of about 280ppm. That’s an increase of 37.5%
37.5% of 17% = 6.35%
I’m sure those calcs are naive, but I know you cannot properly calculate anthro contribution from just the mass of various atmospheric gases – you have to use greenhouse contribution as your base point, otherwise you’re including non-GHGs and not accounting for the spectral nature of different GHGs, which are certainly not derived from comparisons of total mass in the atmosphere.
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Barry #205:
“There are a number of published papers out there that belie that claim. David Evans has posted one (Miskolczi’s). Roy Spencer and John Christy are still being paid and are still being published. Even Gerlich and Tscheuschner’s woeful paper was published.”
The fact that there are resilient and resourceful scientists who still believe in scientific integrity and who find ways to get published does nothing to negate my argument. These very same people you have cited will all tell you that the system is stacked against them.
One need look no further than Obama’s budget, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009” aka Stimulus Bill, or the “Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009” in the US to see that all research funding is directed to one side of the argument. And in the Budget, you see that the real goal is collecting revenue, not mitigating climate.
“On the one hand you approve my rejecting the political (funding) angle. On the other you begin to make argument on that basis.”
You are twisting what I said. Nowhere did I make any argument that funding source invalidates the study, though that is the common argument on your side (shills for big oil). At least you claim not to support that argument.
Les pointed out that if the Grant Offer stipulates a particular viewpoint, then that is the viewpoint that will be funded and ultimately published, not a contrary study. You’d be pretty hard-pressed to counter that fact.
“I’ve only got one answer to that, and it bears directly on the personalities you cite. Jim Hansen and his colleagues were being paid by the Bush administration. If they were economic slaves to their paymasters, why did they publish directly against the tendencies of their benefactors?”
Hansen et al were in place long before President Bush and they have political allies who shield them. Hansen is now on Obama’s “Science Team.” President Bush had a hands-off apolitical approach to staffing at the major government science centers, despite the fact that certain quarters like to pillory him for being “anti-science.”
“You can have the last word on that. I’m not interested in this sort of speculation – and speculation it is. Unless you can specifically cite a few examples of funding being cut off for alternative analysis, or scientists using political associations to shut down anyone else’s work.”
I’ve already answered that above and it isn’t speculation. Government money flows exclusively to the AGW crowd. I’ve cited three specific pieces of US government action/legislation where all the money flows one way (billions of dollars). Show me a single government funding source that supports any alternative research, let alone reaching those funding levels.
“Specifically. Hansen’s letter to Obama is definitely not evidence of him interfering with anyone else’s work.”
Hansen’s letter is evidence of Hansen’s shift from science to politics and that is how I presented it. It was not presented in any way to show that Hansen interfered with other’s work. However, it is obvious that you prefer to ignore Hansen’s public statements. You’ve never replied to Hansen’s “death trains.” Hansen’s public political and alarmist posturing is a matter of…well…public record.
“One more thing. I never cite Gore. Anyone else who does should be subjected to Godwin’s law and immediately be dismissed.”
Good, but ole Rajenda K. Pachauri (chairman of the IPCC) talks up Gore as if he’s the savior of the scientific world. He’s happy to share the Nobel and happy to remain silent on the utter trash of Gore’s science fiction.
“The case for or against AGW is purely a scientific matter. That is the basis of this discussion according to the top post.”
So it should be, but it isn’t. The AGW side dragged this into the political and sensationalist arena. That’s the significance of Al Gore’s involvement.
BTW, as far as the science goes, causality still hasn’t been proven. Y’all have failed on that one.
“Political and pecuniary motivations and associations are always speculative at best.”
Not when there is publicly available legislation to read. Not when people like Gore are hip deep involved in companies that will profit from selling carbon credits. Public record dude. Not speculation.
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Barry #212:
I’m talking the entire system, not the GHG subset. GHGs only account for about 4% of the total atmosphere. Of that 4%, about 99% is H2O vapor. The human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is negligible on those scales.
Your calculation goes right back to the assumption that GHGs and CO2 specifically drive warming and totally ignores any potential negative feedbacks that may be present in the entire system.
Second, your calculation also assumes that 100% of the CO2atmospheric increase is due to human emissions.
Your side is arguing that a trace atmospheric gas dominates all other mechanisms. It is a point you have yet to prove.
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Barry #209:
Thanks for the kind thoughts.
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The algorithms on the spam filter picked up a recent post by Chris Nobel. I don’t know why, since I cleared his post yesterday. Askimet is getting spookily effective. (Could be the repetitive nature?)
Chris has postulated a strawman (and a few variations) that we use the last 13 years to prove AGW is falsified, when neither of us do. We use it as incidental evidence. Chris ignores those points we do claim falsify AGW. He has repeated his theme, #122 #125 #126, #128, #148, #152, #156, #159, # 164, #167, #169, # 176. Way back in #124 David replied. I replied # 127, 138, 179.
I’ve emailled his latest post back to Chris to ask him to repost it without:
1. unscientific comments on motivations
2. with acknowledgement that I provided the quote he asked for, and that we do not and have never claimed that lack of a recent linear rise falsifies AGW. (The quote in question, BTW was about a specific graph. I provided that specific graph.)
Since he now wants to change tacks and refer to the Skeptics Handbook, I’ve asked for direct quotes. (So we can discuss points that were said, not points that were misconstrued, inferred or invented.)
We need more discipline and clarity of thought. C’mon Chris. Are manners really that difficult?
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barry: #209
That’s probably a nice series (I’ve only watched a couple of those “Climate Denial Crock of the Week”), sort of a RealClimate without the rancor but with the all the one-sidedness. At least, a nice series if that’s what you want.
This DCW says ENSO is making things warmer. The starting point of this blog entry is well beyond that lesson with the short-term (60 year cycle) that the state of the PDO causes (or is caused by?) the frequency of El Nino/La Nina. The long-term cycle or event is the recovery from the the LIA.
If there’s a DCW that addresses Akasofu’s paper, I’d like to see it. If there isn’t one, please request Peter produce it.
Others can save 6 minutes of their lives and see a similar graph at http://wermenh.com/climate/climate2009.pdf
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Hi Ric,
It doesn’t, as is clear from the graphic. It only correlates with short-term variability (warm and cool years/short periods). It’s not suggested ENSO is the cause of long-term warming.
I read your pdf, Ric. Though this is not the place for a discussion of it, it seems to me you have misrepresented mainstream views. For example:
Why does the temperature anomaly go up and down? A lot of people say “It’
Ignorant people might say that, but I, as ignorant as I am, would say that many factors influence temperature, including ocean/atmosphere systems.
Your graph laying PDO over temps shows a rising trend for the PDO+AMO. Is that a proper representation? I’m not sure if the temps are scaled properly. And, most strangely, why does the graph finish in 1996 when the paper was written in 2009? Does the purported correlation continue beyond?
There are other issues I would like to ask you about. If you are interested in a conversation, perhaps there is a free thread somewhere you could direct me to? If not, I have an idle forum standing by for just this oppurtunity.
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You wouldn’t be implying some kind of motivation on my part, would you? 🙂
The series is entertaining, but mostly I like it because the points are made simply and clearly, with pretty graphs and all. I rarely cite it (that was my first time, in fact), but I did in this case strictly for the 2 reasons I mentioned. The ENSO/temp overlay is the main one, my point being that oscillating variability doesn’t equal long-term upward trends. That appears to be something of a contention on this thread.
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David, if you’re still around, Barton Paul Levenson has posted a rebuttal to Miskolczi’s paper.
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Miskolczi.html
I have read around at various sites discussing the paper, and this seemed to be the most condensed version of criticisms. For your interest.
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Les, how did you go spotting that cooler year after ten years thing?
I found the graphic with more model runs and longer cool periods.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/
If you’re interested, you can follow the link to CMIPS products. Either you can run simulations yourself, or check out this ensemble assuming 1% per year increase of CO2.
http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/projects/cmip/overview_ms/tseries.pdf
Following the red line (I’m slightly colour blind, so I hope I have that right) you can see a cooling trend of nearly 20 years in that run early in the series – finishing with an overall warming trend consistent with the other runs over the 80 year series. The red line ends up being the mean – just by eyeballing. You can also see a cooler year in the red line than one 30 years previous.
To wrap up, some model runs do indeed show decade-long (and longer) cooling periods, but wind up warming in the long-term. When profiles are represented as an average of the ensembles, the stochastic variability is damped, just as the IPCC says. There is nothing about the last few years of cooler temperatures that is inconsistent with expected variability.
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And no monotonic warming is anticipated, either annually or at ten-year intervals. Any periodicity greater than that overstretches the meaning of ‘monotonic’ in this context, IMO.
Monotonic:
of a sequence or function; consistently increasing and never decreasing or consistently decreasing and never increasing in value.
changing in one direction only; thus either strictly rising or strictly falling, but not reversing direction.
A sequence of values increases monotonically if and only if they never decrease. Conversely, a sequence decreases monotonically if and only if they never increase.
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Sorry about my monotonic posts! I figure most contributors here are asleep or enjoying Easter. Happy Easter!
New paper out saying that cool spells are anticipated in a warming world.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/cool-spells-in-a-warming-world/
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If it’s cold, that’s consistent with AGW, if it rains, that’s consistent with AGW, if the weather changes, it’s consistent, and if it doesn’t, well that is caused by AGW as everyone knows by now.
The following presents a view of AGW that is far too balanced, in my opinion
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/sebastianjer/comment.html?entrynum=126
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Barry, Roger Pielke Jr says that Andrew Revkin of the NYT was duped by this paper, because the authors wrongly interpret it as showing that the CURRENT period of no rise in temperature is “likely”, rather than that SUCH periods are likely (‘Spinning probabilities in GRL’, 7 April 2009, http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/spinning-probabilities-in-grl-5113#comments ). Pielke considers it remarkable that a paper embodying ‘such basic confusion and spin’ should have passed peer-review.
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Quoting:
“This is a controversial area of study; however, there are far more studies that show the medieval warm period was not as warm as today.”
Commenting:
It’s not controversial at all. To deny the Medieval Warm Period is ignoring history, observation and science. High in the Rockies, you find bristlecone pines that are thousands of years old. Higher yet, above the present tree line, you find frozen stumps whose deaths date to near the end of the MWP. Besides that there are a plethora of historical accounts. Vikings grew crops where today nobody can. Ask a Norwegian.
Some of those famous retreating glaciers are uncovering tree stumps, as well. Wasn’t warmer? Tough doggone trees they had back then!
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What I tend to find is that spurious claims are made about what is expected under AGW, and when those claims are shown to be spurious, that prompts people to throw up their hands and say “anything goes under AGW”. In this thread, the spurious claims were that temperature rise should be monotonic, and the implication that a cool period of X number of years undermines the projections.
What is expected is long-term warming averaged over the globe. The shortest ‘prediction’ we have from the IPCC is of a warming over 20 years. Someone quoted it upthread. When people try to make argument against AGW theory by latching on to a briefer period, all it takes is a few cites to correct the misapprehension. That’s what I spend most of my time doing in this debate – distinguishing what has and has not been said by various parties. Misrepresentation is THE most comon fault.
Ian, I haven’t paid for the paper, so I haven’t read it, but I believe I’ve cited actual model projections properly to establish that ‘cool’ or flat periods like the current one appear in model runs that wind up with overall warming. Whether such periods are ‘normal’, ‘likely’, or ‘rare’ is of some interest, but the concept that cool periods of a few years to a decade or a bit more fatally undermines AGW theory – is wrong. Please read my recent posts where I attempt to substantiate this and tell me if I’ve failed to corroborate my argument.
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Barry, In my opinion, the IPCC chart to which you provided a link (#220) neatly illustrates the point under discussion.
It is true that a projected future cooling was exhibited according to ONE realisation of ONE scenario (one of those in the A2 family) over ONE or maybe more decadal intervals. But, to take an extreme case for purposes of illustration, saying that ‘cool spells are anticipated in a warming world’ is like warning that ‘plane crashes are anticipated in a world in which there are thousands of flights every day.’ It can’t be inferred from this accurate statement that the crash of any particular flight is ‘utterly normal’ or ‘likely’ (to use Revkin’s words to characterise the current period of no warming).
Your statement that ‘There is nothing about the last few years of cooler temperatures that is inconsistent with expected variability’ is correct as far as it goes, but one could equally say that there’s nothing about a coin coming up ‘heads’ ten times in a row that is inconsistent with the expectation that there’ll be about 500 heads in 1000 throws.
At some point, however, after 10 or 20 or 50 successive ‘heads’, the suspicion will arise that the results may be attributable to the coin rather than than to an extraordinary coincidence. Equally, a prolonged period of no warming or cooling will at some point lead to justifiable suspicious about the GCMs.
There are some pertinent discussions of these issues on Lucia Liljegren’s blog at http://rankexploits.com/musings/ (see her posts in the category ‘GCMs’ and, in particular, her patient and thorough replies to inquirers in comments).
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The paper is on NOAA’s website. Here it is.
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/csi/images/GRL2009_ClimateWarming.pdf
I note that Pielke Jnr’s post directly supports my argumentation above. He goes on to discuss likelihood of cool periods. Fair enough.
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Not so. I’ve provided three references, and there are quite a few runs with cool periods that match the current situation at various intervals. In the paper above, the authors avow they picked one at random.
I completely agree. Let’s stay tuned.
I have a busy weekend ahead. I will visit Lucia’s blog at your recommendation when I have time again – thanks for pointing to it. In the meantime, could you provide a more specific link? There’s a lot to choose from!
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barry #217
Well, okay. The important part is that the PDO correlates with temperatures over the PDO record.
Actually, that line is going to get replaced and shouldn’t have survived my review. It adds nothing and is distracting. I just get distracted with too much other stuff to get back to it.
I wasn’t really trying to represent or misrepresent mainstream views. I wanted to write something reflecting the state of the climate, interesting events, observations, and papers over the year, and let it be somewhat biased toward my views. If the mainstream views include what the Society of Environmental Journalists advocates, then I should have things that don’t match! As for picking on the sillier of mainstream (and An Inconvenient Truth) claims about polar bears and news media reporting on single years of data as evidence of climate change, well too bad. I’ve seen worse on Realclimate.org
The graphs come from Joe D’Aleo. I haven’t verified the temperature Y-axis on the left, the axis on the right is likely scaling Joe did as part of his correlation work. Joes has an even better correlation with PDO+AMO+Solar, but I wanted just PDO in part because it stands on its own pretty well and in part to avoid claims about combining enough curves lets you match almost anything. (Mann’s hockey stick suffers from some of that.) The curves end in 2000, which is neither the 1996 you suggest nor the 2008 when they were produced. I did ask Joe for an updated set, figuring the recent cooling would improve the PDO fit, but all he could offer was something without r^2 figures. He’s busy too. Recent cooling and cool PDO means the PDO correlation should improve and the CO2 correlation become worse, though the century-long periods means the figures shouldn’t change significantly. I think I asked Joe for data over the satellite era, in part for the better data and in part because the recent cooling would have a greater effect within the shorter period.
A primary goal this year is to learn scipy and numpy, mathematics codes for one of my favorite programming languages, and maybe R, and produce some of my own presentation-quality graphs with them. I can also make a strong case for spending less time on climate stuff and catch up on everything I’ve let slip!
Email works, see http://wermenh.com/contact.html , though I’d rather have a discussion in a more public arena to influence(?) more people.
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Barry, I suggest going to ‘GCMs’ in the list headed ‘Categories’ at the right of the home page of the link that I’ve posted. This links to five posts (but many relevant comments on the threads).
And, at the risk of undermining what I’ve said about Lucia’s patience, I commend her comment (#12697) on the ‘Look, I can use made-up data, just like Gavin!’ thread, in which she criticises Dr Gavin Schmidt of RealClimate as follows:
‘Because Gavin fails to consider type II error, he is misintepreting “failure to reject” as “supporting” models. This is a typical undergraduate error made by those who don’t understand what the results of a statistical test even mean. So, he seems to be suggesting that something falling inside the +/- 95% bounds somehow means support [for] the models and therefore contradicts the current “reject”. Assuming this is what he means (and it seems to be what his readers think he means) then he is making an utterly foolish, ignorant claim. In reality, if we consider the power of this statistical test, we would anticipate failing to reject to occur even if the models are well off track.
‘The fact that, using real honest to goodness data we are observing “rejects” so shortly after the 2007 publication of the AR4 when the projections were actually dissemimated to the public is very meaningful.”
I don’t follow what you mean about Roger Pielke Jr’s post ‘directly supports’ your argumentation above. Pielke strongly contests the argument in the Easterling and Wehner paper in GRL, as interpreted by Andrew Revkin, to the point of suggesting that E&W should not have passed peer review.
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The reason why I am a sceptic of the theory that ‘global warming is caused by human CO2 emission’ is the following.
Let us do the following experiment to verify the validity of the above theory: put in a vessel 0.03% carbon dioxide (the proportion before industrial revolution, 300 ppm), 1 % Water vapour, 78% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and 0.9% of Argon. We next expose the vessel to a given amount of solar radiation for a given period of time and we record its temperature.
On another identical vessel we repeat the same procedure except we change the proportion of carbon dioxide to its current proportion of 0.04% (400 ppm). I will be surprised if you see a temperature difference of even 0.1 degree centigrade between the two results.
That is why I am sceptical about global warming caused by CO2 emission. Even if this is proven I am against increasing tax on energy. Tax on energy means increase in living cost, which will bring misery to the millions of the world’s poor. With out control and social engineering, let us better use nuclear energy, like France, where the country has enjoyed this reliable energy source for 30 years.
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UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6
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Barry in #226, you are rejecting what David Evans has written this article about, there is nothing more I can say than you’ll have to wait another 30 years or so to decide who is right, and I’ll stick with “if it didn’t happen before this time it isn’t going to happen.”
In the meanwhile I’m not going to live in Green Hell (as Steven Milloy has named the utopia the evironmental “movement” would like to condemn the human race to),
and I will fight that with every single thing I have available to use
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GIrma why would you be convinced either way by an experiment that has no relationship whatsoever with our atmosphere? Strange way to go about things?
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[…] Planet Gore: Below, a graph from the presentation by Dr. Syun Akasofu at the recent Heartland conference here in New York, which offers some useful historical perspective on temperature trends. Jo Nova guest blogger David Evans discusses it here. […]
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MattB #235
> Girma why would you be convinced either way by an experiment that has no relationship whatsoever with our atmosphere? Strange way to go about things?
When learning the internals of an unfamiliar complex computer program I like to start with fixing bugs in it. It provides a goal and reaching there involves learning new material and discarding erroneous assumptions along the way.
While Girma’s starting point explains nothing about radiative transport of energy (hint, you need gases and external environment at different temperatures) (hint, you need a sample size large enough to capture IR photons and reradiate them), it is a good starting point.
How did you arrive at your current understanding? I hope you didn’t blindly accept the output of the IPCC without accounting for their political goals first.
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So they do – my fault for skimming.
I’d rather have a public dscussion, too, to allow more people (hopefully with better skill than me/us) to weigh in. I don’t imagine we’ll influence many people in blogsites. Partly because most people seem to come to the table with their minds made up, and partly because not many people read these discusions (I imagine less than 50 read the comments section here).
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To distill the flow of argument, it has been posited (here and elsewhere) that the last few years of cooling is unanticipated by the IPCC and therefore projection models are falsified, and therefore AGW theory (I don’t know how better to phrase this) is falsified. Further, it has been claimed that the IPCC recommends that warming will be monotonic (the time scale – annual/decadal? – has not been clear), and I intended to demonstrate that this was not so by pointing out individual model runs. As far as I can see, having plotted first and second order polynomials over a range of periods to December 2008 (10, 20, 30 years for example) and with a variety of surface records, the current ‘cool’ period began 2004 – 2005. For the period from 1998, the trend is (roughly) flat. I have responded with the latter in mind, calling it a cool period for the sake of argument.
All I have tried to show is that cooling/flat periods of these lengths are not unexpected and therefore don’t ‘disprove’ climate models (and the theory of global warming). Nothing else. Pielke writes:
That is a specific cite in between other comments he makes in line with my own argument.
As I said in that post referencing Pielke’s support, he goes on to talk about the likelihood of such cool periods occuring. His argument is that the lack of robust discussion on this in Easterling’s paper means the paper is of poor quality.
He does not make much of a case out of this thread himself, other than that it is ‘rare’ – and he, too, references Lucia’s blog. Otherwise, he misrepresents some of what is actually said in the the paper. To whit:
Pielke:
The word “misleading” is used once in the paper. Here is what is actually said:
His criticisms in this vein have much more traction when citing Revkin’s article on the study.
Pielke is making argument on a premise quite different to that of Easterling’s document and is claiming that Easterling’s premise is not worthy. I disagree, as would, I hope, many of the posters here, who wish to see their criticisms answered directly by the science community. As the criticism rebutted in Easterling’s paper – that the current cool or flat period undermines the theory of global warming – has significant presence in the semi-popular literature (and, by the way, on this thread), why are ‘skeptics’ annoyed that it has been answered directly?
However, I think it is a pity that the science community feels the need to address such canards. I reckon that’s indicative of the amount of noise the canard generates, rather than the quality of it. Pielke would like scientific papers strictly to consider deeper matters. So would I. Less informed critics want their questions answered now. Mercifully, this paper is brief, as is the work behind it. Appropriately so.
Here are the two links again – the first to the paper, the second to Pielke’s criticism of it – so that you can make your own mind up where Pielke has accurately or inaccurately represented the purpose and claims in the paper. (I don’t assume you haven’t read it – just in case)
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/csi/images/GRL2009_ClimateWarming.pdf
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/spinning-probabilities-in-grl-5113
The meaningfulness of the ‘rarity’ of the current period is worth discussing. I don’t dispute that. I’ll try to find the relevant posts at Lucia’s after the weekend.
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Hello Girma.
I’m not sure if that is an appropriate way to conduct the experiment (someone more qualified may clear that up). You may be interested in a likewise simple test done in a laboratory.
http://www.espere.net/Unitedkingdom/water/uk_watexpgreenhouse.htm
Not with the parameters you specified, unfortunately.
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Reviewing Akasofu’s paper, I find the hypothesis that we are experiencing continued warming out of the LIA unconvincing. No physical mechanism is posited – instead, it’s just the planet returning to some implied ‘normal’ state. Also problematic is that recent temeratures are well above the implied baseline, and that the rate of warming has increased over the last 50 years/century. Akasofu has simply assumed (ok – he presents his hypothesis as a ‘possibility’) that somehow the Earth is rebounding from the LIA – that the LIA is an anomaly beneath a ‘normal’ earth temperature, rather than just a fluctuation with no tension against this implied normal. This is in contrast to studies of these periods that look for physical mechanisms rather than assume a mean state (not to be confused with statistical interpretations).
This premise has to be firmer in order for his thesis to work. As far as I’ve read on the LIA in the popular semi-media, this case is not a strong one. That fluctuations correlate to some degree with multi-decadal oscillations is not too surprising. What is missing from Akasofu’s thesis is the physical basis for the overall warming signature. Assumptions that it is natural rebound aren’t good enough.
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This premise has to be firmer in order for the thesis to work. As far as I’ve read on the LIA in the popular semi-media, this case is not a strong one. That fluctuations correlate to some degree with carbon dioxide in the air is not too surprising. What is missing from IPCC’s work is the physical basis for the overall warming. Assumptions that it is not natural variation of climate aren’t good enough.
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I know you’re being rhetorical, but this assertion simply isn’t true. There is an empirical basis for an enhanced greenhouse effect from increased CO2. There is a physical basis in radiative transfer analysis.
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Oh, OK, Barry. Got it now. Cool.
Right now I feel like telling some AGW jokes.
Next to AGW, Jim Jones and Jonesville doesn’t even look like a “cult.”
“Scientists” got involved with the IPCC because they were stupid to make a living selling bridges they didn’t own.
The Government doesn’t put out a warning not to buy into AGW because it has concluded that people are smart enough not to buy bridges that other people try to sell them that they may not in fact own.
There was a time that a number of factors were used to evaluate whether someone was “stupid.” Now there’s only one.
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AGW = Acquiescing Governments Win 🙂
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How do you get into politics these days? Become a climate scientist.
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The null hypothesis should always be that changes are a natural variation.
The specific mechanism, whether natural or manmade, is a different story.
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Agreed. But the null hypothesis has no impact on the implied condition of rebound.
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If anybody is interested in temperature trends across Western Australia from the 1800s to the present day … http://www.waclimate.net
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“But the null hypothesis has no impact on the implied condition of rebound.”
Barry, I think you have missed the whole point of the article. Dr. Akasofu has stated that the “rebound” IS part of the natural variation of the climate.
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That’s exactly what I’ve been talkng about. He just states it.
This is the sum of Akasfu’s premise.
Akasofu is clearly saying here that the earth has some ‘ideal ‘normal’ temperature that the LIA has departed from. The key word is “recovery”.
No discussion of that mechanisms caused the LIA, no discussion of what caused it to *end*. No defintion of what the ‘normal’ climate regime or temperature may be. Just a statement.
It’s odd. Usually I see critics hammering proponents for assuming some sort of ‘normal’ climate conditon that we’ve supposedly strayed from. This is exacly what Akasofu is inferring with LIA, but no one seems to mind so much today.
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Boy, you’re a pretty hard case, Barry.
It is assumed that the LIA and a “recovery” from the LIA are based on astonomical influences, Barry, and the Earth’s relative position with respect to the Sun.
The thirty-year ocillations within the overall actronomical cycle(s) are normal climatic events, caused by a number of factors, none of which identify CO2 as responsible for a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a degree change in temperature.
One doesn’t add “addtional” mechanisms to accout for observations if there are enough known physical mecahinsms to explain observations within the limits of measurements.
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The warming after the LIA would have started before any significant CO2 impact so I would conclude that would have been a ‘naturally occurring change’. If you look at the Vostok record, temps fall and recover all the time (there is a temp range of some 14C without any influence from CO2 at all). I don’t assume there is any ‘normal’ climate so the 1961-90 average temps used for comparison seems a rather flawed basis for climate anomalies. If temps can vary so much in the past, then an 0.8C increase is well within normal temp range.
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As far as the UN goes, I can understand why they WANT the AGW to be true.
But for others (unless they have a yearning to control other people, especially people they don’t like) – why do they WANT AGW to be true?
My impression is based on the comments of the AGW enthusiasts here, and elsewhere. Beneath the surface they appear to have a longing for the truth of this AGW nonsense – why?
It would seem “noromal” to me that anybody in their right mind would be HAPPY if such a thing as AGW was not valid, and they would be enthusiastic to learn there is no basis at all to it.
Mysteriously, the reverse is true
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I meant to add that the 30 year (or so) cycles are the culmination (or the integration, really) of a number of climatic events known not to be tied to astronomical influences, including the Southern Oscillation (inaccurately associated with El Nino); the NAO, the PDO, etc. A number of factors are indicators of these, but not the actual “causes.”
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Brian (254): Believers in AGW want, nay NEED, their belief to be true because it underpins their world view, which is that humans are wicked, there are too many of us and we are wrecking the natural world by virtue of our very existence and “obsession” with growth, technological progress, comfort etc. etc. We can atone for our collective wickedness by renouncing our energy-hungry lifestyle and revert to a simpler life in “harmony with Nature”. They need AGW to be true so they can justify the demands they are making of us all.
A lot of them are Gaia-worshipers or neo-pagans, either explicitly or implicitly. See fairly recent interview with Tim Flannery on ABC’s “Enough Rope”
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s2369164.htm
(How Tim Flannery was named “Australian of the Year” a few years ago defies imagination: In the interview linked above he is quoted as saying, among other outrageous claims: “I don’t think the 21st Century is going to be as carefree as the 20th Century”. The 20th Century “carefree”????)
Australian Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, made worldwide headlines when he said, “some of the more hysterical and extreme claims about global warming appear symptomatic of a pagan emptiness, of a Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature. Years ago,” he added, “I was struck by the fears that middle-class kids without religion had about nuclear war. It was almost an obsession with a few of them. It’s almost as though people without religion, who don’t belong to any of the great religious traditions, have got to be frightened of something. Perhaps they’re looking for a cause that is almost a substitute for religion […] In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions”
The now deceased writer Michael Crichton also spoke about environmentalism as a (substitute for) religion:
“… But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it’s a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe”.
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There is another, more prosaic reason: No one likes to be wrong! I have possibly posted this quote somewhere here before, but it’s so good, I’ll post it again:
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.”
– Leo Tolstoy
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Yes I have seen the quote from Count Tolstoy and it surprises me to see someone’s writing and sentence structure that reminds me so much of my own in Post #256.
One possible reason for this observation is, we both read the same authors when we were younger and I’m not going to speculate any more on that.
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Extending what Anne-Kit has said just a bit, it seems universally characteristic of humans to need an “enemy.”
The devout find this enemy in the Devil, and fifty years ago Westerners found the enemy in the form of Communists.
A decade ago Westerners found the enemy in “terrorists” (of Middle Eastern descent).
Conveniently (or inevitably, possibly) this “enemy” has reappered in the form of the Human Race, and this rather abstract entity takes the more personal form of one’s neighbour (if they don’t buy a hybrid automobile, solar panels, etc and appear to be unconcerned or nonchalant about the state of the “environment”)
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It’s been a couple of years since I read much on it, but at that time there were a number of hypotheses competing: volcanic activity, multi-decadal and centennial oscillations (internal processes), and also solar changes (external forcing), for example. I’m not aware that any of these have recently achieved a remarkable prominence since then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
I’m also not aware of any LIA hypothesis centred on orbital variations. AFAIK, orbital variation is considered an initiator of large scale, long term glacial events at 40k yr – 100 k yr intervals. IE, orbital changes are too slow to be held responsible for significant centennial changes.
If you have references for studies in line with your assertion, can you link them here? Peer-reviewed studies, preferably, but news items in reputable science publications would do as well. I’ve just started reading on the subject again.
Akasofu’s paper does not mention any particular cause for the LIA or the climb out of it – except for the vague assertion of ‘recovery’, implying that the event is an anomaly with respect to a ‘normal’ climate state. Because this premise is asserted rather than substantiated, I think the paper suffers from circular reasoning – the 20th century temperature rise is natural because the temperature rise is natural. His conclusion is an iteration of his unsubstantiated premise.
I don’t mean to be hard. I’m just being skeptical. Peer-reviewed science papers are filled with qualifiers and usually mention competing hypotheses. Akasofu’s paper is rather more certain and devoid of any discussion of the physical causes of LIA, although there is plenty of substantiation for the event itself. It reads more like advocacy than a science paper. His premise may be sound, it’s just that he hasn’t demonstrated that.
I would be delighted if AGW was wrong or greatly exaggerated, by the way.
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Here you are Barry and I hope you read Russian
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/acp-7-2003-2007Russian.pdf
I also hope you’ll forgive me if meet your last assertion with a certain amount of scepticism
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The period for the LIA is not exact, by the way, but in the literature is bounded, at a maximum, between 1200 and 1950 (but more often at 1850). Akasofu works from an assumption that is at odds with the science to date. Some work is needed, then, to validate that assumption. That’s basically what I’m saying.
Just for interests sake, Schmidt and Mann co-authored a paper discussiing the influence of solar irradiance on the LIA. The lead author was Drew Schindell.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Shindell_etal_1.pdf
Not saying that hypothesis the winner or anything, just something I was looking at. The common criticism that solar influence is under-examined by the ‘orthodoxy’ also floated into my mind.
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The best news I have heard today is, Michael Mann appears to accept that the Little Ice Age existed at all
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Afraid I don’t read Russian, Brian. Is there anything in English?
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The conclusions are based on models, so I don’t know how much traction that will get with you. 🙂
Mann acknowledges there was a slight global cool period that is sometimes called the Little Ice Age (he’s referrd to it as such, and as a “mini ice age” and more formally as the Maunder Minimum), and considers that the effect was not uniform globally, mainly centred on NH continents. I don’t know what you mean by
I suspect you’ve oversimplified your premise.
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In this power point presentation
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/Mann/lectures/SantaCruz-Public06.ppt
backing up a talk Mann gave at the University of California at Santa Cruz on Wednesday 10th May 2006, Michael Mann replicates the wiki graph which includes “Little Ice Age” captioned under the period.
I found reference to the lecture at climateaudit, where a contributor who attended noted that Mann talked about the “mini ice age”.
I googled for a text on the lecture but only came up with the ppt.
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=Michael+Mann+at+University+of+California+at+Santa+Cruz+on+Wednesday+10th+May+2006.&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
Here’s the graph he used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
As I said, most of my time in this debate is spent trying to tease out what has and has not been said – mainly regarding the mainstream view, which is misrepresented very frequently. Misrepresentation is THE most common fault, and by no means limited to critics. I wish people would take more care.
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[…] The big temperature picture. Graph and insight from Dr Syun Akasofu (2009 International Conference on Climate Change, New York, March 2009). The global temperature has been rising at a steady trend rate of 0.5°C per century since the end of the little ice age in the 1700s (when the Thames River would freeze over every winter). On top of the trend are oscillations that last about thirty years in each direction: […]
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So sorry, Barry, if I seemed to suggest in any way that Michael Mann might be perceived as a “denier.”
[A short story that relates to Michael Mann: With the promotion of the notorious “hockey stick” graph of Mann’s, a 13-year old boy from the USA became convinced that it was impossible for him to reach the age of 20 and he hence wrote his own obituary. The boy is now 17 years old and I don’t know if his views of his own liklihood of reaching 20 years have changed, or if the discrediting of that particular fraud had any impact on his apparent fatalism.]
Barry, I can’t shake the feeling that your statement “I would be delighted if AGW was wrong or greatly exaggerated …” is not a completely forthright representation of your true views of this.
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Brian, why would anyone not be delighted if AGW were in fact not happening? How strange that you would question Barry’s sincerity? I certainly get the feeling, however, that many skeptics would jump for joy were we to plunge in to a pulverising ice age.
And Brian in 259 – yes indeed it seems that many many humans have nominated Al Gore, James Hansen, and “greenies” to be their enemy of choice.
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Why would I question Barry’s sincerity? Because Barry doesn’t seem satified to hear that “global warming” or “global” anything else for that matter is governed by natural forces and not human activity.
Would I be happy to see an ice age come along? I would be sad to see an ice age happen when the Government had taken steps to limit fuel for people that is for sure. Once the Government does something like that it is very difficult to reverse the laws.
Do I have animosity toward Al Gore and his sycophantic ilk? No more animosity that I have toward anyone else who, through their misguided arrogance, are either obblivious or wilfully malicious toward fellow human beings, who are not as well off financially as they and who cannot possibly survive under the atrocious demands these people would place on others.
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I feel exactly the same way about you.
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As I view myself, Boris, SOMEONE has to has to be a strong and willful as Gore is, and otherwise Gore and his coterie would just ride roughshod over innocent victims with his menacing demands, people who have no idea of what it was Gore would like to do to them.
Sorry about that Boris, but I am going to keep it up until the public has rejected AGW and everything that goes with it, or I die, which ever comes first.
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The IPCC thought it would foist something on the general public without too much resistance or legitimate question.
The IPCC did not plan on a couple of hundred people in the world dedicated to making sure that did not happen.
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Cheer up, Boris. There are lots of web sites where they put out the welcome mat for global warmers and alarmists, and people with that philosophy can shout off their distaste for sceptics and “deniers.”
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[…] global warming (AGW) scare continues to lose ground to scientists willing to point out the obvious about the Emperor’s New Clothes (hat tip to Jerry […]
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Dave Evans has already pointed out that scientists 2003 studies of ice cores clearly show that atmospheric increases in CO2 FOLLOW, NOT LEAD, atmospheric increases in temperature by 800 years. Therefore, one can say that CO2 does NOT cause global warming and, therefore, global warming, as hypothesized, and, if it exists at all, is not human caused.
Further, the global warming models and the climatologists who make them are simply playing heuristic games. A proper scientific model of climate cannot be created on grids with wide meshes. It would take hundreds of Fourier series 2nd order equations of all of the relevant parameters to even begin to model the environment. The equations are unsolvable with any of today’s computers. Nor will they probably ever be solved. Most of the climate models have set the heat transfer of the atmospheric components to zero. That is an unscientific fraud. Also, Water vapor is not taken into account properly because it is not accurately measureable in the atmosphere. Yet, atmospheric water has the greatest capability of intercepting infrared heat; and, especially, heat FROM the sun, of which the infrared component is about 45%. No mention of this is made in any climatological modeling or data.
No one seems to have questioned the mechanisms of exactly how atmospheric gases “trap” heat in the atmosphere or how it is retransmitted back to earth’s near surface atmosphere. Climatologists appear to have forgotten that heat rises and that most of the heat transmitted from earth to the troposphere is through conduction and convection. Gas molecules get excited when heated. Their kinetic energy increases. They expand. They ascend to higher altitudes, transmitting this heat to their colder surroundings until stability is achieved. Radiation in the infrared spectrum is not a factor in the heat transmission to the atmosphere just as it is not the main cause of heat rising (temperature increasing) in a greenhouse. This is scientific misconduct to suggest such a similarity. The radiant heat earth transfers to the atmosphere is virtually insignificant.
Physicists have tried to duplicate this ‘heat trapping’ mechanism in the labs. They have doubled the current atmospheric value of CO2 and measured the two most important characteristics: the capability of the gas to transmit heat and to diffuse it, isochorically. There were no changes in theseheat transfer or diffusivity values in any of the gas components or with atmospheric air with the doubling of Atmospheric CO2. The conclusion was that, if there had been significant changes in these characteristics, “we would have found a new ‘superinsulator’ never previously found on earth”.
Atmospheric trace Gases, such as CO2, Methane, etc. cannot reflect heat. Heat can be reflected only by a gas in a liquid or solid phase, such as water (clouds). So, no heat is ‘reflected’ back to earth from such fictitious sources as “greenhouse gases”.
Finally, and obviously, heat from a cold source (the atmospheric temperature averages – 18 Deg. Celsius) cannot be transmitted to a warmer area (earth’s near atmosphere with avg. temperature +15 deg. Celsius) without mechanical work, as in a refrigerator. Climate models that have created this are in violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. They have created a perpetual motion machine of the second kind.
The ‘greenhouse effect’ is a scientific falsehood. Climate models are unscientific. The whole hypothesis of global warming is a scientific fraud. It was created by a Discredited United Nations IPCC, which studies were never of the reliable double blind type and whose published results were never peer reviewd or allowed for comment by the government ‘scientists’ involved.
It is a sad era where science has been so distorted for political gain.
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Ann Kit-Littler posts a particularly stupid ad hominem about AGW theory being a neo-pagan religion. How does that cover people like me, a born-again Christian, or Dr. John Houghton of the IPCC, ditto? Neither of us is a pagan in any way.
How about debating the actual issue instead of finding ways to insult the people you disagree with?
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John “Jack” Leicester posts a message so chock full of scientific errors it’s hard to know where to start pointing them out. I guess I’ll just take each one in the order it appears.
“Dave Evans has already pointed out that scientists 2003 studies of ice cores clearly show that atmospheric increases in CO2 FOLLOW, NOT LEAD, atmospheric increases in temperature by 800 years. Therefore, one can say that CO2 does NOT cause global warming and, therefore, global warming, as hypothesized, and, if it exists at all, is not human caused.”
Your “therefore” is a non sequitur. Yes, in a natural deglaciation, CO2 follows temperature, because the slight warming from Milankovic variations causes the oceans to emit carbon dioxide, solubility of CO2 in seawater going down as temperature increases. That is not what is happening now. The new CO2 is not coming from the ocean, it is coming from fossil fuels, as we can tell from the radioisotope signature (Suess 1955). And carbon dioxide is still a greenhouse gas. In glacial cycles, the Milankovic variations are not, in and of themselves, enough to explain the observed temperature variations. You need CO2 as an amplifier.
“Further, the global warming models and the climatologists who make them are simply playing heuristic games. A proper scientific model of climate cannot be created on grids with wide meshes. It would take hundreds of Fourier series 2nd order equations of all of the relevant parameters to even begin to model the environment. The equations are unsolvable with any of today’s computers. Nor will they probably ever be solved.”
Manabe and Strickler published a pretty good radiative-convective model of the atmosphere back in 1964. Since then the models have improved considerably. Your assertion that they can’t model climate accurately is pretty lame in view of the fact that they DO model climate accurately.
Huh? What? What does “the heat transfer of the atmospheric components” even mean?
“That is an unscientific fraud. Also, Water vapor is not taken into account properly because it is not accurately measureable in the atmosphere.”
Every RCM and GCM in the world accounts for the radiative effect of water vapor, and where in the world did you get the idea that it can’t be measured in the atmosphere? There are all kinds of ways to measure it, varying from sampling bottles to satellite radiative transfer methods.
That last sentence is just wrong. As I said, they all take it into account. And there are reams of data about it.
“No one seems to have questioned the mechanisms of exactly how atmospheric gases “trap” heat in the atmosphere or how it is retransmitted back to earth’s near surface atmosphere.”
I think John Tyndall pointed out that it worked back in 1859, as a result of his lab experiments, and the explanation for how it happens is a consequence of quantum mechanics. This is all something you could have learned with a Google search.
“Climatologists appear to have forgotten that heat rises and that most of the heat transmitted from earth to the troposphere is through conduction and convection.”
Sensible heat transfer from Earth’s surface to the atmosphere averages about 17 watts per square meter. Latent heat transfer is about 80. Radiative is about 356. See Trenberth et al. 2009, which I believe is available on the web as a preprint. An earlier Earth atmospheric energy budget, Kiehl and Trenberth 1997, is also available and gives similar figures.
“Gas molecules get excited when heated. Their kinetic energy increases. They expand.”
Molecules expand?
” They ascend to higher altitudes, transmitting this heat to their colder surroundings until stability is achieved. Radiation in the infrared spectrum is not a factor in the heat transmission to the atmosphere”
356 watts per square meter, Jack.
” just as it is not the main cause of heat rising (temperature increasing) in a greenhouse. This is scientific misconduct to suggest such a similarity.”
No, it is scientific illiteracy on your part not to understand the process and sheer bloody-mindedness to infer from your lack of understanding that scientists are somehow being dishonest. Physician, heal thyself.
” The radiant heat earth transfers to the atmosphere is virtually insignificant.”
356 watts per square meter, Jack.
“Physicists have tried to duplicate this ‘heat trapping’ mechanism in the labs. They have doubled the current atmospheric value of CO2 and measured the two most important characteristics: the capability of the gas to transmit heat and to diffuse it, isochorically.”
Huh? What? Come again?
” There were no changes in theseheat transfer or diffusivity values in any of the gas components or with atmospheric air with the doubling of Atmospheric CO2.”
That would certainly come as a surprise to the guys at NASA who compiled the HIGHTRAN and HIGHTEMP databases. Wonder where they got their figures? Or where Tyndall got his way back in 1859?
” The conclusion was that, if there had been significant changes in these characteristics, “we would have found a new ’superinsulator’ never previously found on earth”.
Atmospheric trace Gases, such as CO2, Methane, etc. cannot reflect heat.”
Nor does the greenhouse effect depend on gases reflecting heat, or anything else. Where did you get the idea that reflection was involved? Scattering in the thermal IR is almost zero.
” Heat can be reflected only by a gas in a liquid or solid phase, such as water (clouds). So, no heat is ‘reflected’ back to earth from such fictitious sources as “greenhouse gases”.”
See above. The greenhouse gas doesn’t work by reflection.
“Finally, and obviously, heat from a cold source (the atmospheric temperature averages – 18 Deg. Celsius) cannot be transmitted to a warmer area (earth’s near atmosphere with avg. temperature +15 deg. Celsius) without mechanical work, as in a refrigerator. Climate models that have created this are in violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. They have created a perpetual motion machine of the second kind.”
Nope. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says there cannot be a NET transfer of heat from colder to warmer object without added work. But there is no net transfer from the colder atmosphere to the warmer ground. The atmosphere at about 255 K mean temperature radiates about 333 watts per square meter to the ground, and the ground at about 288 K radiates 356 watts per square meter to the atmosphere, so the net transfer is from ground to atmosphere and there is no violation of 2LOT. I’ve given all you the figures you need above to calculate the entropy. Do the math.
“The ‘greenhouse effect’ is a scientific falsehood.”
No, it’s physics established now for 150 years.
” Climate models are unscientific.”
Scientists use them all the time.
” The whole hypothesis of global warming is a scientific fraud.”
You are too easy with accusations of fraud, friend. Just because you don’t understand the science doesn’t mean the scientists are lying. Stop bearing false witness.
” It was created by a Discredited United Nations IPCC, which studies were never of the reliable double blind type and whose published results were never peer reviewd or allowed for comment by the government ’scientists’ involved.”
Well, of course not, since the IPCC reports are reviews of the literature, not the literature itself. But they list the studies they are reviewing. Read the AR4 and see. Plenty of peer-reviewed papers there.
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http://www.co2web.info/np-m-119.pdf
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I wonder why Dr. Akasofu didn’t use all the available data for his regression?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:10/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/to:1940/trend/plot/esrl-co2/scale:0.005/offset:-1.75
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I concur wholeheartedly with that sentiment. Nevertheless, I found myself laughing when I read it.
Given the ad hominem that we on the Skeptic side endure on bastions of principled scientific debate such as “Real Climate,” “Open Mind,” “DeSmog,” “Climate Progress,” “Grist” and “Manbiot,” just to name some of the most prominent, I found it ironic that an AGW adherent would whine about ad hominem.
In fact, you ought to be happy you aren’t simply banned from contributing on most Skeptic blogs, as the above named blogs do to anyone capable of carrying a reasoned argument against the AGW hypothesis. As a general rule, the thing that most likely gets you banned on this side of the fence is excessive profanity.
I’m willing to bet you haven’t lectured your co-conspirators on the blogs I named above about “sticking to the science.” Go clean your own tent before you start lecturing Skeptics about the evils of ad hominem.
In the beginning all skeptics wanted to argue was the science, only to be shouted down with claims that “the science is settled.” Your side dragged this debate into the political and sensationalist arena. The scientists on your side rarely correct the media when they distort nuanced scientific reports with sensationalist nonsense. They let the distortions go uncorrected because it fits their political agenda and feeds the money machine.
One side tried arguing science while the other side made slick science fiction documentaries and preached to scientifically illiterate politicians. Arguing science against emotion won’t work. You’ve got people on your side arguing that Skepticism should be classified as a mental illness.
You might be a principled AGW adherent willing to argue only science, but if that is true you are a rare bird. Your most prominent “spokespeople” are not so principled, nor do they have the courage to openly debate the subject. They just keep repeating the mantra, “the science is settled” and “you are just deniers.”
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Brian Dodge #280:
>I wonder why Dr. Akasofu didn’t use all the available data for his regression?
My guess is that what appears to be a new paper is mostly a reissue of his original. I would have preferred he extended the data, but perhaps he didn’t want to include a new short cooling segment. The PDO flip is a bit ambiguous, it appeared to flip around 2001, but went back up until 2007 and has been negative since. The net effect since 2001 has been cooling.
If you use Akasofu’s time splits based on the PDO (why didn’t you?):
1882 – 1910 Cooling
1910 – 1944 Warming
1944 – 1975 Cooling
1975 – 2001 Warming
and add 2001 – present Cooling, you’ll get:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:10/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1882/to:1910/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1910/to:1944/trend/plot/esrl-co2/scale:0.005/offset:-1.75/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1944/to:1975/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1975/to:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2001/trend
N.B. – I plotted the last segment twice because the first one was too faint to see well.
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Barton Levenson, #278
Nearly all statements you have made in your long response, which purport to be factual, are in fact inaccurate. But I am weary of writing long-winded responses, and shall refrain, unless there is some gain for me to do so.
In this case the gain for me would be, for you to agree that your statements or conclusions are not valid.
If you feel so inclined, pick any of your statements that are taken as your evidence of the veracity of AGW, which you believe would compel you to reject AGW – if those statements were found to be invalid.
Go ahead.
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JLKrueger says, “You’ve got people on your side arguing that Skepticism should be classified as a mental illness.”
Not to mention a crime, too.
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I refer you to a report “UN IPCC Scientist Dr Steven M.Japar, a PhD atmospheric chemist who was part of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Second and Third Assessment Reports, and has authored 83 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of climate change, atmospheric chemistry, air pollutions and vehicle emissions, challenged the IPCC’s climate claims.”
(he said) “Temperature measurements show that the [climate model-predicted mid-troposphere] hot zone is non-existent. This is more than sufficient to invalidate global climate models and projections made with them.”
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JLK, you really should have your own blog. Oh, I see that you do. http://accskeptic.blogspot.com/
Excellent. You can never have too many climate skeptic blogs.
As for BPL’s complaint about insulting people you disagree with, it’s amusing to see that on his page he writes:
“Explaining climatology is great fun, but it’s even more fun to point out why some other poor slob is wrong about it. Especially when the slobs in question are trying to keep humanity from taking badly needed steps to avert the worst effects of the coming crisis. I’ll add to this list whenever I run across another egregious example of denier error or dishonesty.”
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By the way, Barton, if you can take a swat at Anne-Kit for suggesting that AGW is a neo-Pagan religious cult involving rather bizarre rituals and very questionable canonical figures who represent this cult
– then you might as well do the same to me, because everything Anne-Kit suggests is true about this synthetic religious pseudo-scientific crypto-paranoid quasi-neolithic semi-nihilistic revanchist answer to civilisation, I will tell you is true about it, tenfold.
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Excuse me Barton: Where exactly did I say “ALL believers in AGW are neo pagans”?? Obviously, with you as a prime example, there are a few out there who are true believers but who really should know better than to fall for this kind of grand scale deception. What does the Bible say about deception, Barton?
I do not indulge in ad hominem attacks, I leave that to your camp. My post consisted mainly of quotes from other people and was only specific in one instance, where I referred to Tim Flannery’s pagan beliefs. Which, if you cared to actually read the transcript from the interview I linked to, are pretty obvious from the man’s own lips.
You, on the other hand, called my comments “stupid”. Now THAT’s ad hom! (ad fem? 😉
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Brian Valentine writes:
pick any of your statements that are taken as your evidence of the veracity of AGW, which you believe would compel you to reject AGW – if those statements were found to be invalid.
The argument for AGW, reduced to a bare minimum, is:
1. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas (Tyndall 1859).
2. CO2 is rising (Keeling et al. 1958).
3. The new CO2 is coming mostly from fossil fuel combustion (Suess 1955).
4. Therefore the surface temperature should be rising, and the increase in temperature should be related to the rise in CO2.
The confirmation is:
5. Temperature is rising (NASA GISS, Hadley Centre CRU, UAH, RSS, etc., etc.).
6. ln CO2 accounts for 76% of the variance of temperature anomaly from 1880-2008.
Which of the above do you dispute?
Brian Valentine writes:
everything Anne-Kit suggests is true about this synthetic religious pseudo-scientific crypto-paranoid quasi-neolithic semi-nihilistic revanchist answer to civilisation, I will tell you is true about it, tenfold.
I’m sure you would say all kinds of things, and very vehemently. The question is whether you have any evidence at all to back up your charges. (“Quasi-neolithic?” You think climatologists chip stone tools? Cool skill, if true.)
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Anne-Kit,
Do you understand what “ad hominem” means? It’s a formal logical fallacy: The arguer is a bad person or has bad traits, therefore we can disregard what he/she says. Did you not mean to infer, from calling believers in AGW neo-pagans, that their beliefs were therefore invalid?
Sorry if the word “stupid” offended you. I didn’t say you were stupid, which would have been an ad hominem. I said your argument was stupid. Logical fallacies are stupid arguments, by definition.
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Anne-Kit is diplomatic.
On the other hand, I have reached the point where I don’t mince words:
AGW is a STUPID concept.
By extension, the flock of sheep that have bought into AGW (for whatever reasons) are STUPID.
AGW is beyond the anti-intellectual basis of Pagsnism. AGW is gut-wrenching MISANTHROPY applied with sickening ELITISM.
The only concept remotely similar to AGW in modern times is STALINISM.
AGW is so extreme it would SICKEN a NEO-NAZI.
There. And as far as I am concerned, this is a “polite” evaluation of it.
[Before anyone replies… yes, this comment will be rephrased… – JN]
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Alarmists seem to find most everything that is anti-AGW or anti-alarmist “offensive” in some way;
in my remarks, they needn’t look too deeply to identify something that might “offend” them.
I have had it with global warmers. Their belief system becomes their idea of a legal system for everyone else, and I make no apologies on behalf of the people who would suffer greatly as a result of their very misguided “idealism.”-BV
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Brian Valentine writes, in his usual gentle, logical style:
AGW is a STUPID concept.
What is stupid about it? Try to be precise.
By extension, the flock of sheep that have bought into AGW (for whatever reasons) are STUPID.
All those thousands of scientists are stupid? How did they get their degrees?
AGW is beyond the anti-intellectual basis of Pagsnism [sic]. AGW is gut-wrenching MISANTHROPY applied with sickening ELITISM.
What is either misanthropic or elitist about it? Please be specific.
The only concept remotely similar to AGW in modern times is STALINISM.
AGW is a theory that technological emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the Earth, and that this will have dangerous effects. Stalinism is the direction of a vanguardist Marxist-Leninist party to center it around a dictator with extraordinary powers. I fail to see the connection.
AGW is so extreme it would SICKEN a NEO-NAZI.
What is extreme about it? Please be specific.
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Brian #289, 290:
You really need to learn not to hold back so much! Let ‘er rip! 😉
Concur wholeheartedly. The economic misery these people are aiming will cause more than just discomfort. It will kill people.
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I suggest everyone do the same thing:
– Take no prisoners when dealing with AGW and alarmists
– Make no apologies for doing so.
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Brian Valentine writes:
– Take no prisoners when dealing with AGW and alarmists
– Make no apologies for doing so.
May I suggest a third?
– Make sure you know what you’re talking about before posting.
Might help.
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OK Barton, thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.
Maybe if I go back and study some fleabag sci-fi novels involving vampires and lesbians my writing style might improve.
Ya think?
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PS Captain Kirk and the Klingons all think that AGW is stupid, too.
I don’t know if that has any influence on your thoughts about AGW or not, Barton.
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no prisoners this week. Maybe next week. This week, we’re not taking prisoners.
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Barton Paul Levenson: #293
Can I play through?
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Splendid, Ric – masterful.
My only point of contention – item 3, the origin of the additional CO2 of the air.
The (delta)-13C and (delta 1)-13C of the additional CO2 of the air are consitent with CO2 of fossil fuel combustion, and the stoichiometric loss of oxygen in the air is consistent with fossil fuel combustion, although the isotopic compositions of the oxygen associated with the additional CO2 supposedly arising from sossil fuel combustion are NOT consistent with the oxygen assumed to be associated with the carbon arising from hydrocarbon fuels.
All three are consistent with carbon dioxide arising from ancient carbonate of ocean origin, whence it arose from rising atmospheric temperatures, of deep ocean strata, some 800 years average diffusion and convection through the ocean.
We are just now emerging from the LIA, you know.
Come on over to the skeptical side, Barton, lots more people are needed to counter proposed “climate” legislation that would do such unfathomable harm to our fellow humanity.
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Just came across this post.. The global warming debate sounds very much like the Y2K bug alarm, where we were told that the world was going to come to an end because our dishwashers, microwaves and VCRs will stop working. A lot of $ was spent to “fix” that.
It concerns me that this is sooo commercial.
GM
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Brian Valentine writes:
Maybe if I go back and study some fleabag sci-fi novels involving vampires and lesbians my writing style might improve.
Ya think?
You don’t have to be a professional writer to debate scientific and political issues on the internet. But in order to convince people, you have to have a reasonable approach and to know what you’re talking about.
Captain Kirk and Klingons are fictional characters, Brian.
BTW, considering what a huge fraction of Americans are fans of horror and science fiction, is it wise to imply that they are all divorced from reality? There are a lot of SF fans on the internet, you know. If you don’t like those genres, that’s fine, but why insult everybody who does like them?
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Ric Werme writes:
Every repeat of Tyndall’s experiment since 1859 has confirmed that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and we now have a quantum mechanical explanation as to why. No physicist or chemist in the world denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas these days.
Not really. Global warming means more drought in continental interiors (and it turns out that weeds do better at higher temperatures than crops do). Australia has lost a third of its agricultural production just in the last few years due to massive drought.
The correlation is very close, r = 0.864 for 1880-2008 for dT and ln CO2. And, agreed, CO2 isn’t the only factor that affects temperatures. In addition to other greenhouse gases, variations in sunlight, albedo, cloud cover, aerosols, and many other factors all play a role. But for the global warming of the past century and a quarter, CO2 accounts for most of the variance.
Temperature is still rising. Remember that a trend has to be statistically significant. The World Meteorological Organization defines climate as mean regional or global weather over a period of 30 years or more. A few years cooling doesn’t mean anything; the trend is still up.
Radiative forcing is proportional to the logarithm of CO2 level (see, e.g., Myrhe 1998). For dT and ln CO2 r = 0.864 (76% of variance accounted for, which means every other factor together only accounts for a quarter).
Note that D’Aleo’s sample is a quarter smaller than mine.
What is the physical mechanism for “recovery from the Little Ice Age?” If David Evans is under the impression that the climate acts like a spring in simple harmonic motion, he’s wrong. Where is the energy coming from?
There’s no question that CO2 causes warming. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Put more of it in a planet’s atmosphere and the ground must warm, unless some countervailing force cancels it out. They’ve been looking for such a force for decades without finding one. Some types of aerosols work, but they’re just not present in large enough amounts, or persistent enough, to disrupt the trend for any length of time.
Perhaps we can let this discussion end – the various posters are the only ones reading this deeply and we’re likely not going to change our mind based on what other posters say.
I’m not sure that the posters are the only ones reading. I often find out later that a lot of people (“lurkers”) are reading but not posting, and often it’s those people who haven’t mind up their minds yet. Those are the people I’m trying to reach. I’m not expecting to convert someone like Brian Valentine.
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Brian Valentine writes:
Good call. Ric’s post was polite, stuck to the issues, and cited sources. Try it.
The ocean is giving off 90 gigatons of carbon a year and taking in 92. You could have looked this up. The new CO2 is not coming from the ocean. And if it were, you’d have to explain what was happening to the CO2 coming from fossil fuel combustion. The various sinks (including the ocean) only take in about half of it. Absent nuclear reactions, matter can’t disappear.
As I asked Ric, what is the physical mechanism which drives “emerging from the LIA?” Where is the energy coming from?
It’s not realistic to ask someone with a degree in physics, who has been writing atmosphere models for twelve years, to suddenly embrace climate pseudoscience. It’s like asking an astronomer to come over to Velikovsky or an archaeologist to embrace von Daniken.
It wouldn’t harm humanity at all; it would prevent a disaster.
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Guennadi M writes:
Y2K was not a disaster because people spent a lot of time, effort and money correcting the problems beforehand. And the problem wasn’t household appliances, it was mainframes handling financial applications and running air traffic control and hospital software. Losing those would indeed have been a disaster.
Because the disaster was averted doesn’t mean there was no threat in the first place.
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There was NO Y2K bug as such, at all. Countries like Russia, with a lot of nuclear heads, didn’t do anything to “fix” it and nothing has blown up. I remember a news segment where Americans were saying “oh my God!” when talking about the fact that Russia was not doing anything about that Y2K bug. The Y2K bug was very much a western thing, and a very commercial one. If the Y2K bug existed, they would be able to test and replicate “the problem”, instead of instilling fear into people’s minds. There was no disaster to avert.
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You’re a good writer, Barton Paul – balanced, and graceful.
And yes, I am too vitriolic at times.
Why am I so corrosive? Because of the potential harm to people that anti-CO2 laws would cause to people, especially poor people, and which, in the long run, would invite nothing more than gangsterism and Soviet-style plutocracy.
So, with your fime writing skills you could be a persuasive skeptic – why not do that, and this would be a benefit to humankind. – BV
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Readers out there not posting – you know that AGW is one big fraud set up by governments and so-called “scientists” with an agenda.
You know without even studying it that AGW makes no more sense than blaiming “global warming” on the Moon.
It doesn’t matter how “scientific” people like Levenson sound, their agrguments can be squashed in ten seconds flat, and if something’s a fraud and you’re not getting swept up in it, then tell your lawmakers BEFORE a lot of people get hurt.
Human beings have common sense, fictional characters don’t. Don’t allow sci-fi writers become your reality. – BV
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Barton Paul Levinson in post #306 says “Y2K was not a disaster because people spent a lot of time, effort and money correcting the problems beforehand”
I agree 100%, however, it was the alarmism beforehand that has parallels with AGW.
With the Y2K bug, we were breathlessly told that planes would fall from the sky, entire electricity grids fail, water shut off, etc. etc. Pure alarmism. There were plenty of people I know (sane, sensible people) who stocked up on bottled water and torch batteries just in case. Portable generator sales where I live went through the roof.
There was never any chance of the above scenarious happening. Maybe some bank accounts would have gone astray and a few data bases mucked up, but fixing this “bug” would have happened quietly in the background anyway until it was beaten up by the media quoting “experts”.
You can only cry wolf so many times before the public catch on and stop listening. Perhaps AGW alarmists would have more people listening if their claims weren’t so ridiculous.
When the AGW alarmists can start having a reasoned debate, without the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it alarmism, then I may start listening again.
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Sounding the alarm makes perfect sense when there’s something to be alarmed about. If we continue business as usual with regards to burning fossil fuels and deforesting the world, the world will warm noticeably, with the following consequences:
1. Increased drought in continental interiors. This, in my opinion, is the single biggest and most short-term threat from AGW. Ask the Australians, who have lost a third of their agricultural production in just the past few years due to drought. And it’s going to get worse. If we lose agriculture, our civilization falls with a massive die-off.
2. More violent weather along coastlines.
3. The retreat of glaciers which provide fresh water to a billion people in Asia and Latin America. This will create a lot of “climate refugees,” which will in turn create a lot of wars. Consider how Americans feel about Mexican immigrants, then think about how India or China would welcome 100 million refugees from Bangladesh.
4. In the long run, the loss of trillions of dollars worth of infrastructure to rising sea levels. And note that a city does not have to be under water to be uninhabitable. All that has to happen is for the sea to rise high enough to seep into aquifers and back up sewers. Without fresh water and sewage, a city becomes uninhabitable within a matter of days. We’re talking about losing Miami, Jacksonville, Houston, New Orleans, San Francisco, London, and many others.
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Brian Valentine writes:
According to one recent survey, 97% of climatologists agree on the broad outlines of AGW theory. That’s thousands of scientists around the world. That they’re all fabricating results as part of a political conspiracy is hard to believe.
But you know with studying it that it explains observations so well that no other theory is even in the running.
Give an example?
People will be hurt a lot more by doing nothing. The cost of business as usual is not free.
Energy infrastructure doesn’t last indefinitely. It gets replaced to the tune of tens of billions of dollars worth of capital per year. There’s no reason the new grids shouldn’t be smart grids, the new power plants based on solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass energy, the new cars hybrids or running off biodiesel or methanol, and that we shouldn’t lay lots of track for rail lines both inside and between cities, and insulate homes.
Is that a swipe at me? Yes, I’m an SF writer. I also have a degree in physics and I’ve been writing atmosphere models for twelve years. I got into this field originally not because of concern over global warming, but because I wanted to be able to predict the temperatures of hypothetical Earthlike planets. When you study planetary astronomy you learn about the greenhouse effect and how it works, and once you know that the problems with letting CO2 rise in the atmosphere become obvious.
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I’m stepping in on one point only because I’m getting tired of hearing it. I’ll let Brian deal with the rest.
Would you care to actually reference the study as opposed to handwaving? Are you perhaps thinking Doran and Zimmerman, published in EOS, 20 Jan 2009? That seems to be the one your side keeps flinging out there on the table this year.
If that is the one and if you bothered to actually read the report, you’d find that the 97% figure comes from 75 out of 77 respondents who could be classified as “climatologists.” (The climatologist classification was provided by the respondents and not independently verified.) That’s hardly thousands of climatologists. Nor was the invitation to participate sent around the world, but to only US institutions.
The “consensus survey” consisted of only two leading questions, neither of which says what you say the survey measured except in perhaps the broadest terms:
1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?
2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
More to the point, what they think is irrelevant.
How they voted is irrelevant.
Consensus is the last refuge of poor science.
If you are perchance referencing another flawed “consensus survey” please provide the reference.
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Is that a swipe at me?
No it’s a swipe at Jim Hansen. Stop acting like a paranoid.
Ladies and gentlemen, ignore alarmists like Levenson. The Human Race has made it this far just fine, and the World Isn’t Coming To An End next week, or next year, or next century, either.
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The single most revealing thing about the alarmists pushing the man-caused global warming nonsense is this: they positively and desperately WANT global warming — especially in all of its most outlandish claims — they WANT it to be true. They WANT mankind to be facing an utter disaster that will require us to forgo most of the benefits of living a civilized existence and instead exist in stinking poverty.
If some new evidence were discovered tomorrow proving beyond all doubt that global warming is not a problem, would they celebrate? Hell no, they’d be thrown into such a black depression they’d need severe psychological counseling to have any hope of regaining their sanity.
You may judge for yourself the nature of creatures — and some can be found in these very comments — who drool over the prospect of seeing human civilization destroyed and mankind forced to shiver or swelter in the dark, deprived of freedom and sentenced to a short, brutal existence.
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One alarmist/statist tried to paper over the deadly impact anti-CO2 legislation will have on our economy with this:
“There’s no reason the new grids shouldn’t be smart grids, the new power plants based on solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass energy, the new cars hybrids or running off biodiesel or methanol, and that we shouldn’t lay lots of track for rail lines both inside and between cities, and insulate homes.”
This is pure, unadulterated Gore-bot fantasy. There isn’t the proverbial snowball’s chance in hades that “solar, wind, geothermal and biomass” can produce enough energy — that we can afford — to replace fossile fuels. The real reason this alarmist favors these changes is because he knows that the only way to make these technologies “work” is to force mass rationing of energy use — and he looks gleefully forward to the day when government will control the setting on your thermostat and dictate which days of the month you’ll be permitted to leave your home in your government-approved Pelosimobile so that you can go to market and stand in Soviet-style food lines for your weekly ration of meat and bread.
Make no mistake about it folks, these global warming alarmists are out to destroy everything that makes your existence comfortable and safe.
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these global warming alarmists are out to destroy everything that makes your existence comfortable and safe.
“… out to destroy everything that makes your existence possible.”
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Barton, Post #311 – “If we continue business as usual with regards to burning fossil fuels and deforesting the world, the world will warm noticeably”
Got any proof?
As for your 4 doomsday scenarios – got any proof that these are caused by man-made CO2? I’d be happy to read any papers that link any of these to man made CO2.
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Proof?
What the hell “proof” do you want?
This is real, because Bsrton says so, got it?
That’s all the damned “proof” that you or anybody else needs.
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Brian Valentine offered this correction:
“…out to destroy everything that makes your existence possible.”
I agree with this correction. These bastards aren’t merely out to extinguish our comforts — they seek to extinguish our very lives.
As John Galt says of the looters that destroy America in “Atlas Shrugged”: “They do not wish to live — they wish to see you die.”
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So? What makes you think you’re so much better than a cartoon polar bear that can’t swim to an ice floe to rest uopn because the ice is disappearing so rapidly, anyway.
Barton Levenson asks, rhetorically, “what is it that makes you so sick about global warming alarmism?”
Yeah. What, indeed, is it that makes me so sick.
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J L Krueger writes:
Have you ever had a course in statistics? Do you understand the idea of sampling a population as opposed to examining every member of the whole population?
Peer review and consensus are how modern science works. It has been an unbelievably productive system. It works, and it works well.
The scientific consensus isn’t a vote. It’s an acknowledgment of what’s known and what isn’t known, reflected in what gets pursued in research and what doesn’t. For example, it’s part of the scientific consensus that the Earth orbits the Sun and not vice versa. There are, believe it or not, scientists who disagree, like Gerardus Bouw, who has a Ph.D. in astronomy but is trying to revive geocentrism. But he’s outside the consensus, and can therefore be safely ignored. The theory he’s proposing was massively falsified a long time ago. There’s no need to examine it again.
Same with the idea that global warming isn’t happening or isn’t caused by human greenhouse gas production.
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Michael Smith writes:
1. What they want is irrelevant. It’s an ad hominem argument. The only relevant criterion is: is what they’re saying true or false?
2. Nobody is proposing that we deal with global warming by “forgo[ing] most of the benefits of living a civilized existence and instead exist[ing] in stinking poverty.” Where did you get the idea that anyone in their right mind was saying anything of the kind?
It’s not okay to just make stuff up about the people you’re arguing with.
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Michael Smith writes:
Nonsense. The potential for any of them, with the possible exception of biomass, is huge. More solar power falls on the Earth by many orders of magnitude than human energy use. You’re just wrong.
And the “that we can afford” is wrong as well. If you check current electricity costs, wind now costs nine cents per kilowatt hour in California, the same as natural gas, as opposed to ten for coal and fifteen for nuclear.
Listen, you insolent little twerp, I had relatives who died in the GULAG. Don’t you EVER accuse me of being a Communist. If you want to do that, do it to my face so I can rearrange yours.
Needless to say, your fantasies about what I believe have no basis in anything other than your own psychological problems.
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Andrew Simpson writes:
Go back and read what I said in my first post in this thread. Science doesn’t deal in “proof,” which properly belongs to mathematics and formal logic. It deals in evidence, and the evidence that
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas
CO2 is rising
The rise is coming mainly from fossil-fuel burning
Temperature is rising
The temperature increase correlates closely with the CO2 increase
is overwhelming. The fact that you’re not familiar with it doesn’t mean the evidence doesn’t exist.
If you want to start studying the subject, you might start with Spencer Weart’s (2003) book, “The Discovery of Global Warming,” which is also available on the web, updated, at:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/
Another good summary is George Philander’s (1998) “Is the Temperature Rising?”
To begin to understand atmosphere physics, try J.T. Houghton’s “The Physics of Atmospheres” (2002), and do the problems. Another good intro is Grant W. Petty’s (2006) “A First Course in Atmospheric Radiation.”
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Brian Valentine writes:
Where did I say that?
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For you to make that condescending comment makes it clear you did not read the actual survey or their methodology. Yes, Barton. I’ve got an advanced degree in Operations Research and Systems Analysis. Statistics is what we do. Their sample set was not created as a representative sample of all climatologists. Read the actual study before you make such asinine comments.
No, peer review is a publishing process. It’s actually fairly new historically and driven by the fact that journals can’t possibly publish everything. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was not “peer reviewed”. There is no way he could get it published today given his credentials at the time he developed it.
In climate science, the peer review process is dominated by a small group of referees who frequently collaborate and this induces bias. When your referees block studies by researchers eminently qualified in their fields simply because the studies do not conform to “consensus” it’s time to take a long hard look at that process.
Let’s see, some famous scientific consensuses:
The Earth is flat.
The Earth is the center of the universe.
Maggots come from rotten meat.
Two objects of different size falling from a height will fall at different rates.
And like your crowd is doing with your beloved AGW hypothesis, the proponents of these consensuses tried to silence dissent. Simply shouting “the science is settled” does not pass muster as scientific refutation.
No Barton, the Earth orbiting the sun is an observation that can be measured. The former consensus, defended by the Church on the basis of Scripture, not science, was proved false.
Gerardus Bouw is basing his “theory” on Scripture, not science. It doesn’t matter what degree he has if he’s taking that approach. He’s one of those creationists who acquired a PhD with the specific goal of attaining “scientific credibility” when pressing his creationist ideas.
You are presenting a strawman.
His “theory” is invalid because it isn’t based upon science. He uses easily falsifiable calculus in order to make his “theory” look adequate and it probably passes for the mathematically challenged, but his main underpinning, stated clearly in his presentations, is Scripture.
Those of us who don’t buy your AGW hypothesis do so because your side has yet to produce any actual evidence that overturns the null hypothesis. We ask for evidence, you give us computer models and Al Gore.
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Look out, girls – Barton is doing his “Raging Bull” number.
Barton – go back and write some more s/f novels involving lesbians, will ya?
You’re a lot more entertaining that way
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Ah, the real BPL steps forth. You are part of a socialist drive to destroy Western economies. You are supporting socialist, nay communist actions. If that defines you as a communist, so be it.
You want to make more threats Barton? Come on over to Afghanistan, where real men play for keeps and I’ll give you the opportunity to try.
You people don’t even have the guts to honestly debate the topic, but you can act real brave over the Internet, especially in forums where you can pile on and where your “Closed Mind” and “Virtual Climate” moderators ensure that no one with any real skill or understanding can post. What a joke!
Your condescending tone doesn’t make your non-evidence any stronger. You have a crap case that you can’t support with real evidence. Nothing you or your co-religionists have presented overturns the null hypothesis. Correlation is not causation. The shrillness of your side’s attacks and your constant repitition of the mantra demonstrates the utter weakness of your case.
Even with all the advantage of getting out there first with your slick packaging and the mainstream media totally in bed with your socialist agenda, reality is hitting you in the face and people are waking up to your junk science.
Right now the only question is whether your socialist agenda will be firmly in place and the West ruined before enough people wake up to your fraud.
Go on back to your Tamino sycophant buddies at “Closed Mind.” I’m sure they’ll give great “high-fives” for your efforts as you guzzle your communist, AGW kool-aid!
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Me Barton, you Jane
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“Come on over to Afghanistan, where real men play for keeps “
Krueger calls Barton’s bluff… and doubles it. Thank you.
We are so enjoying the slam-dunk performance out here in blog-spectator-land.
#329 is up for ‘Top-Ten-replies-of-2009’ 🙂
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Right now I’m programming a video game called “AGW” –
this game features a super-hero named “Barton” who trashes people who make fun of him
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Not to get back on subject or anything, but has anyone thought to point out to the “anti-CO2-ists” that the input to this thermal system is not static. The temperature record tracks the Sun’s output record much better than the emissions estimates. Also, does it seem a bit egotistic to think that increasing any gas content of the atmosphere by less than .01% would cause a major change in temperature by itself? Put bluntly, if the house is hot you check the thermostat first, not uncle charlie’s flatulence.
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You have conveniently left out the carbon feedback responses in your warming model. Simply extrapolating linearly when there is an exponential or semi-exponential CO2 and other GHG release totally ignores the increased radiative forcing due to these releases. You also are ignoring that with increased warming as well as deforestation we are losing our CO2 sinks. The IPCC report includes these and other feedbacks and responses that the simple extrapolation model you have used ignores.
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Chris, your avatar on this website appears to show the eyeglasses upside down.
Is that what is causing you to perceive in an upside-down fashion how the world actually operates?
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J L Krueger writes:
It was published in Annalen der Physik in 1905.
The evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas was first provided by John Tyndall in 1859.
The evidence that CO2 is rising was firmly established by the work of Keeling et al. since 1958 and by ice core work since then.
The evidence that the new CO2 is coming mainly from fossil fuels was provided by Hans Suess in 1955 and Suess and Revelle in 1957.
The evidence that temperature is rising is provided by land surface temperature readings, sea surface readings, balloon radiosonde readings, borehole readings, satellite temperature measurements, melting ice caps and glaciers, tree lines moving toward the poles, earlier hatch dates for eggs of fish, frogs, insects, and birds, and earlier bloom dates for flowers and flowering plants.
The evidence that the rise in temperature correlates with the rise in CO2 can be established by anyone with access to the internet and a copy of Excel. Here, I did the work for you:
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Correlation.html
How much evidence do you want? There’s a hell of a lot more evidence than just “computer models and Al Gore.” Have you actually studied the peer-reviewed literature on the subject? Have you read copies of the Journal of Geophysical Research, Atmospheric Science, Geophysical Research Letters, or even the articles in Science and Nature dealing with global warming? How in the world could you possibly conclude that there’s no evidence? The evidence is overwhelming.
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J L Krueger, in yet another demented post, writes:
If you don’t understand the difference between putting controls on CO2 emissions and switching to renewable sources of energy on the one hand, and state-socialist dictatorship on the other, then you understand neither climate science and proposed climate policy, nor communism. For the former, I’ve recommended some good sources. For the latter, you might want to read Marx and Engles’s 1848 The Communist Manifesto, Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? and Robert Conquest’s many histories of the Soviet Union. Antonov-Ovseyenko’s The Time of Stalin (1982) is indispensible for understanding what real Communism is like. Hint: it ain’t a cap-and-trade policy for controlling CO2 emissions.
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charles tetlow writes:
Well, no. I regressed temperature anomaly for 1880-2007 on ln CO2, dust veil index, and four measures of solar influence (one at a time to avoid multicolinearity) — TSI, sunspot number, years since maximum, and years since minimum. Ln CO2 accounted for 76% of variance, DVI about 2%, and none of the solar measures were statistically significant. Not one. The best I got was t = 1.4 for sunspot cycle.
CO2 in 1750 was 280 parts per million by volume. It is now 387 ppmv. That’s an increase of 38%, not 0.01%.
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It was published in Annalen der Physik in 1905
Oops. Score -1 for Barton.
Hint: it ain’t a cap-and-trade policy for controlling CO2 emissions
What a silly statement. Look at how Stalin controlled the population – by collectivization of the land. What does this cap and trade thing do?
It is COLLECTIVIZATION of the WHOLE ATMOSPHERE for God’s sake – can’t you see that?
If you lost relatives in the Gulags – why the hell aren’t you anti-Communist? Go to Czechoslavakia – ask them – what “communism” is – ask THEM if Green Euphoria is communism or not
They’ll tell you what communism is
And I can’t believe for the life of me that you are trying to sell this crap to other people.
You’ve outdone yourself with s/f Barton – you have gone and frightened your self.
Do everybody a favour and DON’T try to sell your own brand of s/f mysticism as what “ought” to be somebody else’s reality
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Brian, honestly you are delusional, for your own sake please do some serious research on the subject. Barton is backing his views up with facts and other credible information and you are spouting rhetoric and misunderstood information. I assume your are an intelligent man so I suggest you take a step back and analyze the information instead of deciding before hand and looking for information to support your view.
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please do some serious research on the subject
how’s 35 years of it is that enough for you?
Chris please put your glasses on right so you don’t fall and take a hike.
Thanks.
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Barton #336:
You’re right – there is lots of evidence the world has warmed, and also evidence that CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas in the lab. But I don’t think anyone is disputing these points, so you can stop defending them. OK? The guys you’re debating here are way past that.
“How much evidence do you want?”
One paper would be a good start. What we who-are-not-convinced would like to see is evidence that the laboratory effect of carbon (at current ppm levels) translates to global atmospheric warming. We won’t accept climate models. We want observational evidence (like all good scientists have for hundreds of years). We want someone who has recorded a meaningful correlation of co2 to temperature. We won’t accept a backwards correlation ‘as meaningful’. Nor will we accept a recent short term correlation which – like almost all the other recorded events, began first with temperature and carbon rose later. Temperatures have been rising since 1800, long before SUV’s. See also the postage stamp plot. http://joannenova.com.au/2009/05/03/shock-global-temperatures-driven-by-us-postal-charges/. I can make a correlation between any two rising properties. It doesn’t prove anything.
If you had a situation where carbon moved ahead of the climate, where the turning points were obviously correlated (not just a ‘slope’), then I’d be impressed. As it is, no one can point to even one paper. Not One – that has observational evidence from the real world. CO2 turning points don’t correlate well with temperature ones.
You have nothing. Bluff and bluster count for zip among thinkers, (though they apparently achieve a lot among those who like to herd.)
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Brian Valentine writes:
Well, no. We’ve had a cap-and-trade policy in the US since 1989 for controlling sulfate emissions–it was a Bush administration initiative. It has worked very well in controlling the acid rain problem in North America. Contrary to industry warnings at the time, it didn’t cripple the power industry or induce economic collapse. Nor did the US become noticeably socialist afterwards.
I am. Have been for a long time.
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JoAnne Nova writes:
Does comparing the greenhouse effect on other planets count? Venus and Mars also have measurable carbon dioxide greenhouse effects. How about paleoclimate data? CO2 and temperature track pretty well for the ice ages (yes, I know about the 800-year lag time). Are you familiar with the Faint Young Sun paradox?
No planetary astronomer in the world doubts that the CO2 greenhouse effect in the lab translates to real atmospheres. Neither do climatologists.
Huh? What? Come again?
You don’t accept statistical analysis of historical time series data as meaningful? Why not?
I get r = 0.86 for ln CO2 and dT for 1880-2008. That’s in the same year.
But after the industrial revolution started. Solar variation played a role, too, since TSI rose after the Dalton Minimum.
Right, correlation is not causation. But AGW theory doesn’t rest on climate correlations. They only predict them, and the evidence bears out the predictions. We have a physical mechanism that accounts for the correlation, and the physical mechanism was known for a century before the correlation could be observed.
Note, also, then I perform Cochrane-Orcutt iteration on my time series analysis to correct for autocorrelation in the residuals, I still wind up with 60% of variance accounted for when rho-hat has fallen to negligible levels.
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum is a good example, and the Permian mass extinction may involve one as well. The recovery from the “Snowball Earth” episodes of the Huronian and Vendian probably show it as well–that’s something to look for in future research; I’m making a prediction here. And, as I said, the same-year correlation has been very close for the past 130 years.
See above.
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Venus and Mars also have measurable carbon dioxide greenhouse effects.
Score -2 for Barton, now you are down to -20 for your remarks about what Communism is (or isn’t) – acid rain comes from sulfur, which one can do other things about, but zip can be done about CO2 from burning fuel and you know that.
Venera surface heat MOSTLY comes from the heat of solution of sulphur trioxide in water that forms the ubiquitous sulphuric acid clouds covering the surface, and I don’t care what else you have read about Venera surface heat, whatever it was, it was wrong. (Ray Pierrehumbert was DEAD wrong about it.)
Martian atmosphere has a higher rel partial pressure of CO2 than Earth does, and the diurnal surface temps can be calculated EXACTLY from the s.h. of Martian soil, the size of the planet and the density of the atm as an ideal gas and nothing else is involved.
I don’t care what else you have read, it was wrong.
(Even Eli agrees with me about Mars, and he ain’t no skeptic for sure)
If you’re as anti-Commie as you say you are then quit acting like a Trotskyite
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“Peer review and consensus are how modern science works. It has been an unbelievably productive system. It works, and it works well.” – B P Levenson
Oh yeah? I’m a peer, and I didn’t review it, and if I had, it would have ended up in the toilet.
You don’t accept statistical analysis of historical time series data as meaningful? Why not? – B P Levenson
JoAnne has written a column about postage stamp rates as a joke to demonstrate “why not”
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum is a good example, and the Permian mass extinction may involve one as well. The recovery from the “Snowball Earth” episodes of the Huronian and Vendian probably show it as well–that’s something to look for in future research; I’m making a prediction here. And, as I said, the same-year correlation has been very close for the past 130 years.
Barton doesn’t believe in Asteroids, as rightfully, he shouldn’t. That’s cooked-up crock from deniers, asteroids doen’t even exist.
Every science fiction writer knows that.
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Reference: Barton Paul Levenson #326
I said: “Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was not “peer reviewed”. There is no way he could get it published today given his credentials at the time he developed it.”
To which you replied:
Two points:
1. It was the Special Theory that was published in 1905 and not peer-reviewed, not the General Theory.
2. The General Theory of Relativity was published in 1916, also in Annalen der Physik and also not peer-reviewed.
I didn’t say it wasn’t published. I said it wasn’t peer-reviewed and I framed my statement in the context of today’s peer review process.
Comprising less than 4% of all greenhouse gas and less than .04% of the atmosphere. H2O vapor comprises about 96% of GHGs. And your point is?
And the most recent ice core work shows that warming precedes CO2 increase. Causality link broken.
It is Hansen’s obsession with this study that has driven his overestimation of greenhouse gas effects. Most climate research ignores stratospheric influences that dampen greenhouse effects. For example MODTRAN, used heavily in climate studies, does not incorporate stratospheric downward thermal radiation.
There still is no universally accepted value for the anthropogenic component of CO2. Even the IPCC expresses it in terms of multiple scenarios due to high uncertainty. In the period that Suess and Revelle studied this, it is unlikely that the oceans would have been outgassing as much as during the period between about 1977 – 2001 since the colder oceans at that time could sequester more CO2.
Additionally, even the IPCC in AR4 points out that up to 1/3 of the CO2 that should be in the atmosphere (based upon models) can’t be accounted for, so something we don’t understand is at play.
AGW alarmism concentrates on the last 30 years during which there are a number of natural factors involved like PDO in positive phase (recently switched negative), AMO positive (recently switched to negative), NAO positive (now negative), solar activity last 30 years highest since record-keeping began (now in significant decline).
Let’s start the instrumental record:
1. Land surface temperatures. Highly suspect due UHI and poor coverage. Significant bias likely in readings.
2. Sea surface readings. Are currently flat to declining, to be expected since solar activity was declining toward minimum the last five years and will likely continue to drop as SC24 struggles to start up.
3. Radiosonde readings. Flat to declining the last 7 years.
4. Satellite readings. Flat to declining for at least 7 years.
While temperatures may have risen somewhat over about a thirty year period the increase has not been proven to be outside the range of natural variation.
As for the rest of your evidence about warming, it’s all within natural variation for the planet. Glaciers advance and retreat, wildlife and plants adjust to their environment, or they die, just as they have since before humans showed up.
The Antarctic icecap is not declining, but increasing, as recently reported by the British Antarctic Survey. With the exception of the western quarter of the continent where temperatures may have increased slightly, temperatures have been declining.
Global sea ice extent is near an all-time high in the approximately 30 years that records have been kept.
In 2008, the Arctic started its recovery and it’s currently near the average, well above the melt of 2007 that was due to factors other than temperature. A recent German airborne expedition to measure thickness found the first year ice to be nearly twice as thick as expected.
Correlation does not equal causation, even if your measurements for CO2 and temperature were infallibly accurate, which they aren’t.
You have demonstrated:
1. Temperatures may have increased some over about a thirty year period.
2. Atmospheric CO2 may have increased by some unverified factor due to human activity over and above natural variation.
You still have not proven:
1. That any observed increase in temperature is outside natural variation.
2. Causality (That the rise in CO2 caused the perceived increase in temperature.)
I want proof that the temperature increase is significantly outside natural variation and that CO2 caused that increase before I’m willing to destroy our economy with extra taxes, starve the poor of the world through the diversion of food crops to fuel, or prevent poorer countries for using the most abundant, proven and cheap resources available to develop their economies. I’m not willing to settle on correlation.
And what are these studies based upon? MODELS! Yes, Barton I’ve been reading the literature for over 25 years, however, I only recently became active in the fight due to the insanity put out by Gore and the impact that had on gullible, scientifically illiterate people easily swayed by polar bears on ice cubes.
Your side is locked on a trace atmospheric gas and you have assumed, not proven, that climate is highly sensitive to variations in that gas. You are ignoring or downplaying virtually every other separate climate component and assuming you have near perfect understanding of all the complex interactions between all the climate components. Given that: no model can accurately predict ENSO, all existing models failed to predict the current cooling trend, existing models predicted a tropospheric hotspot that has never materialized, it is clear we don’t know as much as your side thinks we know.
As long as it was a normal scientific debate with real give and take in search of truth, I could watch from the sideline and not get any more concerned than I do for other scientific debates. Now that it’s become sensationalized and politicized by your side, I’m fighting back.
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Krueger you’re flogging a dead horse, Barton knows that CO2 causes mass extinctions because that’s what he learned doing his science-fiction writing.
I don’t know how much outside research was required for his stories about lesbians, he doesn’t discuss that issue.
The only act Barton can respond with is his Tarzan chest-pounding stunt when people call him a communist, and he has already demonstrated himself to be one.
Like I said before – ask a Czech what a “communist” is. Maybe Barton can go beat up everyone in the Czech Republic for identifying him as a “Communist”.
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Brian, not for him do I expend the energy, but for those reading who are not actively participating in the discussion and who are trying to learn something.
I fully concur that the Tamino-Gavin-Hansen-AlGore sycophants won’t change even if buried up to their necks in snow and ice. They’ll still be claiming that there is “hidden warming” in the system and any minute now we’ll all be roasted. Their models say so.
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Demented? If I recall correctly, it was you who first went demented and threatened to rearrange someone else’s face.
I understand fully. I don’t have blinders on like you do. Maybe you need to do a better job of actually reading instead of skimming. And read the legislation that is being proposed instead of the biased press synopsis.
For the former, most of us on this side of the debate have read the sources. It is your side that tends to ignore anything contrary to your AGW view.
As for the latter, again you display your presumptiveness and condescension. What makes you assume I don’t know about communism? While you were sitting on your ass writing in safety and comfort, I was facing our communist enemies. I’ve seen first-hand what communism is and what it does to people.
HINT: Cap-and-Trade isn’t about controlling CO2 emissions, it’s about controlling people’s lives and collecting revenue to fund the enactment of a socialist agenda.
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Brian Valentine writes:
The clouds don’t cover the surface. They begin about 45 kilometers above the surface. And heat of solution is nowhere near enough to account for surface heat. You’d need to have it happening continuously on a much larger scale (orders of magnitude larger) than observed.
I’m afraid it’s not wrong. The high surface temperature of Venus is due primarily to the carbon dioxide in its atmosphere.
There’s a slight effect from the scanty amount of water vapor in the air (about 210 ppmv), but most of the effect is from the carbon dioxide.
Prove it.
Trotskyites are distinguishable from Stalinists from their belief in the “continuing revolution,” and that worker states will degenerate unless the revolution becomes worldwide. I haven’t said anything remotely relevant to that issue. The SWP doesn’t really interest me.
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J.L. Krueger writes:
By what measurement does water vapor “comprise[] about 96% of GHGs?” Mass? Volume? Fraction of greenhouse effect? Try as I might I can’t reproduce that number. Where did you get it?
Yes, in a natural deglaciation, temperature rises first and CO2 follows. CO2 warming then raises the temperature further. The Milankovic Cycles which govern ice ages time when ice ages and deglaciations occur, but the mechanism by which they work — changes in the distribution of sunlight on the Earth’s surface due to orbital changes — is not enough to account for the observed changes in temperature. You need CO2 as an amplifier.
Saying “temperature has led CO2 in the past, so CO2 can’t affect temperature” is like saying “chickens produce eggs, so eggs can’t produce chickens.”
The oceans give off about 90 gigatons of carbon dioxide a year and take in 92. They are a net sink for CO2 under present conditions, not a source. We know the new CO2 is coming mainly from fossil fuel combustion by its radioisotope signature.
This was true about ten years ago, but they have closed off more and more of the “unknown sinks” every year. Most of them apparently involve biomass and soil.
Solar activity has shown no significant trend for the last 50 years. Here are some time series for TSI if you want to look for yourself:
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/LeanTSI.html
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/SvalgaardTSI.html
They account for UHI. Here are some of the studies:
Hansen, J., Ruedy, R., Sato, M., Imhoff, M., Lawrence, W., Easterling, D., Peterson, T., and Karl, T. 2001. “A closer look at United States and global surface temperature change.” J. Geophys. Res. 106, 23947–23963.
Peterson, Thomas C. 2003. “Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found.” J. Clim. 16(18), 2941-2959.
Peterson T., Gallo K., Lawrimore J., Owen T., Huang A., McKittrick D. 1999. “Global rural temperature trends.” Geophys. Res. Lett. 26(3), 329.
You’re confusing depth temperatures with surface temperatures, and BTW, the ARGO readings turned out to have problems. Ocean temperatures are still rising. See:
Domingues, C.M., J.A. Church, N.J. White, P.J. Gleckler, S.E. Wijffels, P.M. Barker, and J.R. Dunn 2008. “Improved Estimates of Upper-Ocean Warming and Multi-Decadal Sea-Level Rise.” Nature 453, 1090-1093.
Cite a source, please.
Cite a source, please.
No, the Earth at times has been much warmer and much colder. Which is relevant how, exactly? Our agriculture and economy are adapted to the unusually stable climate we’ve had for the last 10,000 years. The fact that it was colder during the Ice Ages or warmer in the Mesozoic isn’t really relevant.
See above.
According to the GRACE satellites, the mass of the Antarctic ice cap is down, not up. See:
http://www.csr.utexas.edu/grace/
No it isn’t. See:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/02/wapo_ombudsman_agrees_that_wil.php
See above.
No, correlation isn’t causation, but when the theory predicts the correlation and empirical evidence finds it, that’s a pretty nice bit of confirmation.
Didn’t they say the cap-and-trade for sulfates would destroy the economy, too? And the Clean Air Act? And pretty much any environmental legislation that has ever come up? Once thinks of the boy who cried wolf.
The proposed cap-and-trade regime in the US refunds most of the money to the taxpayers and uses the rest for R&D, which, historically speaking, helps the economy rather than hurting it.
I agree that would be a bad idea.
Fossil fuels are only cheap if you don’t count the environmental damage. And it’s the poorer countries who will suffer most from global warming, especially the ones that will have their agriculture devastated and their fresh water taken away. (Though it seems to be a wealthy country, Australia, that was first to have its agriculture collapse due to drought.)
Neither am I. It’s just one bit of evidence among many.
No. Models and field work and lab experiments and statistical analysis.
Then it’s hard to understand why you think evidence for AGW comes only from models.
It is. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Earth’s temperature is intimately affected by how much there is. In fact, Earth’s habitability depends on something called “the carbonate-silicate cycle” which works partly through the effect of CO2 on surface temperatures. See if you can google for the extensive research on this subject by Berner, Lasage, Kasting, etc.
ENSO is an oscillation. That means it doesn’t show a trend. It goes up and down. We’re talking about the overall trend when we’re discussing global warming.
There is no current cooling trend. See:
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Ball.html
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Reber.html
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J.L. Krueger, continuing the deranged political stuff, writes:
The fact that you confuse it with doing something about global warming.
See what I mean?
Was the first Bush administration trying to control people’s lives snd collect revenue to find the enactment of a socialist agenda when they put in a cap-and-trade regime to control sulfate emissions? I didn’t know the GOP was socialist. When did that happen?
Let’s look at how we might control carbon dioxide if rising carbon dioxide is indeed a threat to human well-being, as thousands of scientists agree it is.
1. A socialist or communist approach would be to establish an extensive bureaucratic organization to oversee all production facilities, and lay out in long, detailed documents how much CO2 can legally be produced by each type of process, which processes can legally be used, and exactly how each type of industry should control its CO2 output.
2. A more market-oriented approach would be to levy a tax on CO2 emissions, or put in a cap-and-trade regime. This would allow companies to figure out whichever way was cheapest and most cost-effective for them to control the emissions, without having to rely on complicated government regulations. The vast majority of the decision-making would be in private hands.
See the difference?
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See the difference between bright pink communism and flaming scarlet communism?
In one case, people are left to suffer a little while longer before they die, which is more entertaining for Tamino Royales.
As for Venus, look at Russian data from Venera 1, which landed on Venus and transmission lasted for all of two hours before sulphuric acid ate through the whole thing.
As for Mars, prove it youself by looking at the difference in diurnal surface temperatures.
Since you’re the expert on Outer Worlds in Outer Space, that ought to be a snap for you.
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Thump Thump Thump
Me Tarzan
Me gonna bash you
Thump Thump Thump
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Barton said: “2. A more market-oriented approach would be to levy a tax on CO2 emissions, or put in a cap-and-trade regime. This would allow companies to figure out whichever way was cheapest and most cost-effective for them to control the emissions, without having to rely on complicated government regulations. The vast majority of the decision-making would be in private hands.”
Market oriented? The guys are trading something that has NO INTRINSIC VALUE except by government decree. Hahahhahaha – I own some slightly less dirty air over remote regions in China – want to buy it off me? This isn’t market oriented – take out the ‘government input’ and see what value the free market puts on that dirty air over China. Zip. Nada. Nothing, 6 less than a half-dozen. Those carbon contracts would be a ‘free’ – as in ‘lets give them away’ – market.
Barton said: it would “allow companies to figure out whichever way was cheapest and most cost-effective for them to control the emissions, without having to rely on complicated government regulations”
Yes, yes. I want to buy carbon credits from Nigeria where the government probably doesn’t put complicated regulations on them, like auditing them with trained people to see if they are actually saving any carbon. Remember the value of these carbon credits is so obvious no one will be able to cheat, I mean, the gold embossed certificate for $100 billion in credits is as good as … gold right? You can feel it, see it, notice the light reflecting off the type face.
You must be kidding to suggest that a free market would spend anything on imaginary credits if the government wasn’t ‘guaranteeing’ their value, (with the full force of the police and the army.)
Hello Fiat currency. Hello crime, corruption, fraud, and the inevitable unnecessary crashes and booms. See http://joannenova.com.au/2009/02/04/carbon-credits-another-corrupt-currency/
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In her last paragraph JoAnne described the Ruble of the Soviet Government, which had no value in free markets – Rubles could be exchanged for dollars only within black markets
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Re: Barton #352
Barton, continuing his red-herring sidestepping tries to equate the first Bush Administration’s goal of controlling substances that are actually poisons with the Obama administration trying to regulate one which is essential to life. The Bush Administration, unlike the Obama Administration, was also not otherwise trying to fund government take-over of the banking industry, the healthcare industry, auto industry and eventually the energy industry. While Bush’s goal achieved results in reducing real pollutants, his method was the final nail in the coffin of the US steel industry.
Comparing the goal of reducing SO2, NO2, NOMx and Hg (harmful to life as in will actually kill) to reducing CO2 (beneficial and essential to life) is distortion.
Of course Barton is too blind to recognize the difference between goal and approach. It’s not the specific approach that makes something socialist/communist, but the desired end-state or goal. The desired end-state of this Administration is a socialist nation and they are using every “crisis” to bring that about. As the Administration has not yet achieved totalitarian power, it must use indirect methods to achieve the goals.
Regardless, the mechanisms that you described are being discussed in Congress by his socialist allies. (HINT: Read the President’s Budget to see how important this nonsense is to keeping his proposed deficit…cough…cough…manageable.)
Cap-and-Trade = Smoke-and-Mirrors. Obama is simply masking his broader socialist agenda in trappings of “environmentalism.” He’s simply using the imaginary AGW crisis to further his other objectives. The communists failed in their direct approach, so they are using and indirect one and gullible, blind idiots are swallowing the whole thing.
“So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.” (Obama interview with SF Chronicle, 17 January 2008)
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I have some real dirty air here in Kabul, Afghanistan that I’ll sell Barton for only about $100,000. He can get in on the ground floor and probably trade up for dirty Chinese air in about a year and make a fortune.
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So how do you like Kabul?
I was going to go there in 2005 but I went to Baghdad instead.
No regrets.
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By the way I happen to LIKE some pollution (not CO2, either).
Pollution means money and jobs.
Three cheers for pollution!
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Brian Valentine writes:
Venera 1 never made it to Venus. The first Venera probe to land on Venus was Venera 7. The probes (Venera 7 through 14 and Vega 1 and 2) were destroyed by temperature, not sulfuric acid, of which there’s too little to matter near the surface. The surface temperature of Venus averages 735.3 K (Venus standard atmosphere of Seiff et al. 1986), which simply melted the metal and silicon the probes were made out of after an hour or so.
Prove what? What are you referring to here?
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Joanne Nova writes:
I think you have cap-and-trade confused with carbon credits. Also, the proposed law would be internal to the US, not international.
The fact that the credit permits might have no intrinsic value is like the fact that paper money has no intrinsic value. The value of a commodity in a marketplace is set by the interaction of supply and demand. If you were only permitted to emit so much, there would certainly be a demand for the emission permits; thus they would have value. US currency is no longer backed by gold, but people still want it.
No doubt the law, like any law, would be vulnerable to corruption if it were poorly written and/or poorly enforced. That doesn’t seem to be a valid argument against passing such a law. The laws against murder are routinely violated, too, but things would be worse if murder were legalized.
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J.L. Krueger writes:
The nail in the coffin of the US steel industry was that US steelworkers were being paid $20 an hour for little more than pressing a button every few minutes, while their counterparts in Europe and Brazil and Korea were paid $7. And the big decline of the steel industry took place in the 1970s and 1980s. The cap-and-trade regime for sulfate emissions was passed in 1989.
Reminds me of how the John Birch Society used to “prove” that Eisenhower was a Communist back in the ’50s. BTW, the AGW crisis isn’t imaginary.
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Brian Valentine writes:
Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ayn Rand. Pollution means foisting a cost of production onto other people instead of covering it yourself. It’s a form of theft.
I live in western Pennsylvania. I’d love to see what the people of Donora, PA would say to your paean to pollution.
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Global Warming, an issue that virtually every man, woman, and child knows at least something about. The People are finding ways to cut their Carbon Dioxide (CO2) output. The People buy hi-brids, because it’s “going green” (ain’t gonna lie, i could use one myself, gas prices are killing me) and releases less CO2. Most large media companies claim that Global Warming is destroying our atmosphere, which could result in out Earth being completely destroyed. Personally, I don’t believe everything I hear in the media, rather, I believe almost nothing that the media says. Which results in me doing my research, finding out whether the media tells the truth or not. Turns out, the media was right, well sort of….
Here’s the research/math. According to F. A. Davis’s Medical Dictionary, the average male exhales approx. 550 CC’s of mixed gases upon every exhale. It turns out, only about 28 CC’s are actually Carbon Dioxide (CO2). There are about 6.6 Billion inhabitants of the Earth, so:
28CC’sX6.6Billion= 184.8 Trillion CC’s of CO2 released when the whole world takes a breath.
1 CC of CO2 equals about 0.00000198 Kg’s so: 184.8 Trillion CC’s X 0.00000198 equals 365,904 Kg’s of CO2.
The average man breaths approx. 13 times a minute. Which translates to approx. 6.8 million times per year. Multiply that to the total amount of CO2 humans exhale in one breath, and it turns out that approx 2 Trillion Kg’s of CO2 is exhaled a year, just by humans.
For a reference, in 2004 The Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center in Oak Ridge Tennessee found that in 2004 humans had burned approx. 7910 million Metric tons which equals 7,910,000,000 Kg’s (approx 8 Billion Kg) burned since 1751.
The ratio of Carbon burned (over 250 years) compared to the ratio of Carbon exhaled (over one year) looks something like this: 8Billion Kg’s to 2 Trillion. Which simplifies to: 8 to 2,000 Kg’s. To put this on a more universal scale, there was approx. 400 Million Kg’s of CO2 burned in the year 2004. Compared to the annual exhalation rate, the simplied ratio looks like this: 1/5,000. So for every Kg of CO2 burned, five thousand Kgs was exhaled.
So in conclusion, humans exhale WAY more CO2 than we could possibly burn in 250 years, in just one short year. And that is just humans exhaling, what about our furry little friends of the animal kingdom? They exhale CO2 also. So I think this proves, that global warming is completely natural, and any person telling you different needs to look at this proof.
http://globalwarming-solowing.blogspot.com/
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Barton Paul Levenson #364
> I live in western Pennsylvania. I’d love to see what the people of Donora, PA would say to your paean to pollution.
That’s probably not a well known place to Australian readers here, but it’s worth reading about. http://www.depweb.state.pa.us/heritage/cwp/view.asp?A=3&Q=533403 is a collection of stories, http://www.docheritage.state.pa.us/documents/donora.asp
BTW, I went to Carnegie-Mellon Univ (BSEE 1972) in Pittsburgh while working steel mills still lined the river. While the particulates were cleaned up then, when the air inversion settled in overnight the smoke from the mills would fill Panther Hollow and gradually engulf the campus. After bicycling home, my shirt would smell of smoke, not sweat.
Pittsburgh is a lot cleaner now, but I think there’s still one coke plant and several coal power plants. Made me appreciate nukes.
An another ex-Pittsburgher is James Peden. Then he attended the University of Pittsburgh and was an Atmospheric Physicist at the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh and Extranuclear Laboratories studying ion-molecule reactions in the upper atmosphere. Now he lives in Vermont and is “better known as Jim or ‘Dad'”.
His comments about this sordid field are at http://www.middlebury.net/op-ed/global-warming-01.html
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May 13, 2009:
I worked in the HVAC field for 15 years. I remember cleaning my clothes after servicing a unit with the hose from my drum of freon back in the old days. We used freon like compressed air (which wasn’t right). I think the “Inconvenient Truth” is a bunch hooey. I think our regulatory folks (EPA)are a bunch of political stooges maintaining the current politicos agendas. I also believe we are in a global environmental crisis, which only includes global warming.
Air pollution and water pollution are causing significant health issues in highly populated areas such as China. I am convinced global warming has already occurred, but the fact it will or has occurred may not be a bad thing for humanity, but nobody knows. Everyone should try to minimize their personal environmental impact in my opinion. Drive Hondas (made in the USA)instead of F-350s, live in smaller homes (unlike Albert Gore), use dorm refrigerators instead of full-sized units, heat water only when needed, ect…
The primary problem currently facing humanity is over-population. Global warming, air pollution, water pollution, food shortages, water shortages, and fuel shortages are all symptomatic of explosive population growth. We must deal with this issue. All other environmental debates are meaningless, until we can maintain a sustainable population which could be as low as 1 or 2 billion versus the nearly 7 billion on the earth now.
We are goldfish in a bowl…..anyone who has had an aquarium can understand the issues we face. The earth is not boundless.
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Barton for someone who claims to be anti-Communist you write like a bureaucrat for the Socialist Worker’s Party.
You couldn’t be any more anti-Capitalist than Engles was.
You ARE indeed anti-Nazi and any rational hiuman can understand that.
But Capitalism isn’t Third Reich-ism and somehow or other you have to stop equating the two.
– Mars exhibits dirunal; surface temperature differences of up to 200 K because there is no greenhouse effect from anything.
– The Venera probes were destroyed by sulfuric acid, which they could do nothing about. Don’t you think the Russians knew how hot the surface was there?
– Don’t you think people who have measured radiant properties of gases in furnaces would have noticed some “enhanced greenhouse effect” from carbon dioxide mixtures a long time ago? It’s funny how this miracle works only in the atmosphere, and cannot be reproduced in furnaces.
Another ESP trick. Can’t reproduce it in the lab – doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
All I can do is fight you ideas, which I continue to do. I’m trying to make sure that people like you don’t get your wishes about cap and trade or any other Communist agenda.
That’s how it stands
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koth442 posts:
Human and animal respiration is balanced by plant respiration. Humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out CO2, plants breathe in CO2 and breathe out O2.
In general, natural sources are matched by natural sinks, which is why the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was stable for so long.
Imagine a bathtub with the faucet rushing in water at huge speed, but a big hole in the bottom of the tub such that as much rushes out as rushes in. The level of water in the tub is stable.
Now add a tiny trickle from an additional faucet. The level in the tub will rise and eventually pour over the side.
That’s the situation with human-produced CO2, and the reason the level in the air around us has risen from about 280 ppmv in preindustrial times to 387 ppmv this year.
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Brian Valentine writes:
You’ve never read anything by the SWP, have you?
I believe in private ownership of the means of production and that in general, prices should be set by the interaction of supply and demand, not by fiat. That means I’m a capitalist, not a Communist of any variety.
But I do believe in government regulation where the market doesn’t take care of externalities.
I haven’t.
The radiative equilibrium temperature of Mars is 210 K. The average surface temperature is 214 K (Mars standard atmosphere of Barh 1985). Rampino and Caldera give 218 K. Where do you think the extra heat is coming from?
Of course they did. They expected the probes to melt. And they did. Sulfuric acid had nothing to do with it.
For a good overview of the Russian planetary probes, see Yuri A. Surkov’s “Exploration of Terrestrial Planets from Spacecraft” (1997). It’s expensive, but if you live near a university with a physics and astronomy department they probably have a library copy.
It is reproduced in furnaces. Carl Sagan’s original paper (1960) on the Venus greenhouse effect used absorption data from engineering studies of furnaces. The classic paper on infrared absorption by greenhouse gases in furnaces is Hottel et al. 1941 (Transacations of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers 63, 297). Hottel goes into more detail in his 1967 book on Radiative Transfer.
It was first found in lab work by John Tyndall in 1859.
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“prices should be set by the interaction of supply and demand, not by fiat.”
Yay – way to go Barton. I totally agree, so that means you’re against cap N trade now? Congratulations for spotting the new fiat-currency-we-don’t-have-to-have. The non-existent demand for “less carbon in the air” will kill off the carbon credit market in a day. Do yes, let the free market in.
As far as comment #369 goes: Barton – what if God put an overflow outlet in the bath?
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[…] Global Warming: A Classic Case of Alarmism Someone needs to send this to Al Gore This is a Guest Post by Dr David Evans The big temperature picture. Graph and insight from Dr Syun Akasofu (2009 International Conference on Climate Change, New York, March 2009). The global temperature has been rising at a steady trend rate of 0.5
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I’m going to write an essay, titled “Going No Where At All with Barton and Getting Frustrated Because of It,”- but the essay would be so boring no one could stomach the first paragraph.
I’ll be real brief here because a long winded response would mean nothing anyway
Tyndall proved that CO2 absorbs in the IR – the effect was probably already known to Berthelot, and only recently, upon the rise of AGW as Religion, has Tyndall become revered as a Founder of the Church of Global Warming of the Latter-Day Saints, and otherwise Tyndall would stay more well associated with experiments that demonstrated how to estimate the composition of colloid from mixtures, as well he should have.
The same sainthood has been bestowed upon the image of Arrhenius, whose own work on “greenhouse effects” was decimated in 1904-1907 papers that appeared in the Phil Mag.
Otherwise, no one would associate Arrhenius’s name with more than the equation
k(T) = ko exp-(Ea/RT)
I am a student of Hottel’s student; I helped my own thesis professor complete tables of alpha(lambda,T)for CO2/H2O in furnaces
If you don’t realize what I mean about the “claimed greenhouse effect on Earth for CO2/H2O gas mixtures not demonstrated in furnaces” – then go be a denier, darn it – because if that is your evidence for the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere than by definition you ARE a denier
You’re dead wrong about Venus, you’re dead wrong about Mars, Surkov’s book has been in paperback on bookshelves in Dalton for years; all I remember is his speculations about the surface chemistry and atmospheric chemistry of Venus, the physical chemist Boris Derjaguin speculated (in a Russian article) some years ago about the fate of the Venera on Venus, Sagan was wrong about the Early Sun paradox on a million year old Earth with liquid water, which he claimed came from the greenhouse effect of methane and it was the geothermal heat and not the greenhouse effect that allowed liquid water to form on an Earth with a still too cool early O-sequence Sun for the presence of liquid water on Earth.
I probably seem like a right-wing lunatic to you, and you strike me as an s/f nut who continually claims he finds “messages from beings in outer space” that are “hidden” in Sagan’s SETI microwave data, and we went no where after all of that.
/end of wearisome discussion with Barton
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one last itmem to Barton
Sure I’ve read stuff from the SWP they used to leave copies of their newspaper all over the college library when I was a kid.
The words “dialectic” and “dialectical” probably appeared at least thirty times of each and every page they published
Other than the usual harangue about Corporations, I remember that the Editor wrote and article about “homosexuality” “vanishing” in a utopian Marxist society that was wasn’t “polluted” with Capitalist “hatred” – a professed Lesbian provided an incensed reply, that must have been, 1964 or 65
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I think all (many) of us can agree that we don’t know the precise causal relationships of humanity -> atmosphere -> temperature. I think, however, that even those who disagree with the conclusions of the scientific community as a whole should agree that the consequences of global warming would be very severe. The bad outcome-averse part of all of us feels a tug towards reducing our emissions.
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Argue, bicker, piss and moan. Excuse those, deride this, justify that, exclude these… Will the main slope of ‘recovery from little ice age’ remain linear?
If we arrive at a consensus one way, it M A Y already be too late. If we conclude to the opposite, we rest on the laurels of the doctorates. Until next upswing. Then we do all this bickering AGAIN, so the real question becomes this: exactly when will this curve of the sum of events finally turn asymptotic? I believe we will ask for yet another ‘consensus of the doctorates’, but by then, we will have wasted n*30 year oscillations. I’ll be gone by n=1, so my best to you youngsters.
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After spending most of the last five years in Iraq, I came to Kabul as a change of scenery…right when things started heating up a bit.
Kabul itself is great. It’s a bit overcrowded because people from the countryside have migrated here for jobs and security.
Aghans are wonderful hospitable people and I’m frequently in situations where I wouldn’t have wanted to be caught dead in Iraq. Our “Green Zone” here is a lot less secure than Baghdad’s was – things are more open. We live in “safe houses” in town rather than on the base if that’s an indicator. The florist around the corner from my house sold Christmas trees and Christmas decorations this past Christmas season and did a fairly brisk business.
Weather here is pleasant enough, even in the summer. Last year we only hit 100°F once (31 July). It’s nowhere near as humid as Baghdad either. This spring has been both wetter and cooler than “normal” whatever that is. We didn’t break 80°F until this past Monday (11 May). There, threw in some climate/weather. 😉
Seriously, the Afghans are convinced that between the Soviets and the Taliban, the loss of trees contributed most to their local climate turning hotter and dustier. They’ve been planting trees at a record pace this spring and we frequently see Afghans on bicycles clutching saplings and cars with trunks loaded with young trees as we travel around town.
Back to our regularly schedule arguments. 😉
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Prove it. You haven’t.
If not imaginary, I’ll settle for contrived because it sure isn’t a real crisis except for your side wanting desperately to destroy Western economies. In that sense it is a political crisis, but it isn’t and an evironmental one at all.
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Spuffler #377:
“Will the main slope of ‘recovery from little ice age’ remain linear?”
Spuffler, that’s it isn’t it. We really Have No Idea. We don’t know if at some point whatever mysterious factor that caused the little ice age either stopped pushing down, or some other mysterious force started pushing up… so when will this thing that we can’t name stop, or this lack of a different thing we can’t name start? Who-the-heck knows. Not climate modelers, that’s for sure, because it doesn’t correlate with carbon.
So – yes there’s a risk in doing nothing, but there’s also a risk in doing something.
How many people do you want to starve in order to protect us from mysterious forces we can’t name?
Do the easy stuff… don’t waste energy if there IS an alternative. Don’t burn forests for the fun of it. Riding bikes can be great….yada yada yada
Do ONE hard thing… lets do more research to figure out what mysterious forces do control the climate, but we need real research, with a real debate: no name-calling, no intimidation, and full balanced coverage in the press.
That’s right, us young radicals are asking for honest polite intelligent debate.
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George Ford (368), did you just recommend the elimination (Stalin style??) of 5-6 billion people??
koth442 (366), I think your math has at least one error that I noticed – a high factor of 1000. (28 x 6.6G = 185 billion, not 185 trillion)
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JLKrueger #378 – I went to Kabul in Sep last year – as a tourist – here are some of my notes http://www.guennadi.com I agree that lack of tress is the greatest disaster for this country. (Maybe there will be a way to use the $ from carbon trading to setup some tree farms in AF)..
On the other note, I came across Flood Maps where NASA data is integrated into Google Maps. You can set the sea level rize to see what areas will be flooded.
http://www.ausbusiness.net/review/flood-maps-global-warming/
GM
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Well, Krueger, I’m actually glad I went to Iraq instead,
it sounds kind of morose, but somehow I preferred the company of suicide bombers and lunatics, they made the days move along a lot faster than being in the company of “nice people,” which I am now and have been prior to that
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Nice try Barton, now you are being very disingenuous. Hell, I was being generous going as low as 96%. At 0 – 4% of the total atmospheric volume, measured in ppm, you can do the math. 98% H2O vapor by volume is most often quoted figure I’ve seen. Of course your side mostly ignores or downplays H2O vapor, being very inconvenient for your arguments and not even the IPCC bothers to quote a value, preferring instead to talk generally that H2O vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas.
You’ve yet to prove that the current warming is not a natural climate variation similar to the MWP or RWP within the current interglacial. Milankovic Cycles may govern the deep Ice Ages, but they didn’t account for the DCP or the LIA, which were cooling periods within the general warming of the current interglacial.
Influence/affect and cause are two different propositions and yours is a pathetic analogy.
As measured how? Exactly how many stations globally are taking empirical measurements of CO2 and its signature? Hint: the number is smaller than three digits. The satellite meant to take more empirical and global measurements never escaped the atmosphere and crashed.
The cutoff for data in AR4 was 2005. That’s not even four years ago and there are no current studies that have “closed the gap.”
Solar activity has shown no significant trend for the last 50 years. Here are some time series for TSI if you want to look for yourself:
According to NASA the last fifty years were the most active on record.
In talking about the currently quiet sun, NASA’s David Hathaway says: “Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high,” notes Hathaway. “Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years. We’re just not used to this kind of deep calm.”
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has pushed back the next solar maximum to mid-2013 and predicts it will be a weak maximum.
Additionally, Willson, R.C. 1997. Total solar irradiance trend during solar cycles 21 and 22. Science, 277, 1963-5, demonstrated that solar irradiance had been increasing and predicted that if the trend continued, it would add .5°C to global surface temps.
Hmm, that’s just about what the most recent increase was. But then SC 23 died a quiet slow death and SC24 still hasn’t really gotten started.
If you look at the surface stations that GISS, NOAA and Hadley use in calculating the anomaly, and then filter for those labeled “rural” and then plot those stations and view them even from Google Earth, you’ll see that most are no longer rural. So there is no way they are adjusting for UHI for those stations, let alone the questionable nature of the adjustments they do make. Given the problems with US surface stations (almost 70% of those surveyed to date have Type 4 or 5 errors), it is likely that these problems are magnified in other lesser-developed countries.
No, I’m not confused but I’ll admit to being loose with terminology on that one.
James Hansen, Josh Willis, Gavin Schmidt et al, “Earth’s Energy Imbalance: Confirmation and Implications” (Science, 3 June 2005, 1431-35), state that ocean heat is a robust metric for measuring global warming.
However, heat is not temperature and ocean heat content has declined since 2003.
Loehle, 2009: “Cooling of the global ocean since 2003.” Energy & Environment, Vol. 20, No. 1&2, 101-104(4)
Josh Willis of NASA corrected for the cold bias in ARGO and his numbers still show declining ocean heat. Willis, J. K., 2008: “Is it Me, or Did the Oceans Cool?”, U.S. CLIVAR, Sept, 2008, Vol. 6, No. 2.
Domingues, et al, 2008 was not about rising sea temperatures, but about thermal expansion factors in determining sea-level rise “using statistical techniques that allow for sparse data coverage and applying recent corrections to reduce systematic biases in the most common ocean temperature observations.” The end-point of their data was 2003 and since then the oceans have lost heat.
Angell, J.K. 2009. Global, hemispheric, and zonal temperature deviations derived from radiosonde records. In Trends Online: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, U.S.A.
Try UAH, RSS, and CRU. RSS data reads the highest, but it is still flat to falling. In calculating their anomaly they used a different baseline that tends to induce a higher anomaly than UAH or CRU. Additionally, the RSS satellite is suffering orbit degradation, which affects their readings.
Hmm, it’s been much warmer and much colder without human influence in the past, so we are in agreement. That’s called natural variation and we are well within the bounds which is exactly what I said. Within this interglacial, we are well within the boundaries of the RWP, MWP at the high end and the DCP and LIA at the low end, still natural variation.
No, according to the model that made estimates of data collected from the satellites between 1996 and 2006 there was an estimated loss. GRACE does not take direct measurements. Eric Rignot et al, based estimates on a glacier analysis and extrapolated those results to the rest of the continent.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, it is up. You can easily compare the years since 1980 for both extent and concentration.
I said: “Global sea ice extent is near an all-time high in the approximately 30 years that records have been kept.”
Yes it is, do the math. Add up the sea ice extent for each icecap using the data available at National Snow and Ice Data Center
Re: My comment about Arctic Ice your answer:
Getting weak Barton. See Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis
What empirical evidence? You’ve yet to show any empirical evidence linking CO2 increase to the current temperature increase. You’ve yet to overturn the null hypothesis. You are ignoring all other climate components.
And somehow you think the energy industry won’t raise consumer prices to cover the costs. Businesses don’t pay taxes Barton, they collect them for the government. Anything the government forces a business to pay, gets passed to the consumer. Economics 101. But I suppose that if the Obama Administration succeeds in nationalizing everything, it could be possible to not pass on costs. I’m sure as hell not holding my breath about getting any “refunds” from the government. Giving me back some of what I paid out in the first place, isn’t a gain for me, especially when my other expenses go up.
Try digesting this from a White House memo released this week:
“Making the decision to regulate carbon dioxide … for the first time is likely to have serious economic consequences for regulated entities throughout the U.S. economy, including small businesses and small communities.”
Sorta like the guys pushing this crap agree with those who are opposed in recognizing the economic consequences. And don’t forget the Obamasiah’s quote from my earlier post about bankrupting power companies. Your side is admitting the potential economic damage.
Barton’s reply to my statement about starving the poor due to diverting food crops to fuel.
And yet that’s exactly what the asinine ethanol mandates do. That’s even before we start discussing the destruction of land carbon sinks in the process to produce more material to make ethanol, or the diversion of water to produce ethanol.
Easy for you to say when you already have energy in abundance, while they need the energy NOW! You are asking them to commit national economic suicide. The poorer countries will suffer far more from cooling than from warming.
Are you trying to say there were never droughts before we started burning fossil fuels? Drought projections, like all the other doomsday scenarios, are based upon models. Given the models can’t predict temperature, I rather doubt they’ll be very successful predicting droughts. What was that about a boy crying wolf? Why exactly do you think the public is waking up to this scam and skepticism is growing, not declining?
A statistical correlation isn’t evidence and you’ve yet to produce any empirical evidence proving that the current warming (what little there is) is outside the bounds of natural variation or that anthropogenic CO2 caused it.
You’ve not produced an iota of empirical evidence. No lab experiment or field work has demonstrated that climate is sensitive to CO2. The output from which your AGW hypothesis draws breath is the result of models and is based upon assumptions. Statistical analysis is more modeling.
I actually read the studies rather than reading the abstracts and press releases. Every single study that you, or any of your AGW brethren, have produced is the output of modeling with hundreds of assumptions, estimates and WAGs.
So is H2O vapor. There’s a lot more H2O vapor than CO2 and your models mostly ignore it because, as the IPCC admits, it isn’t understood.
You are assuming that climate sensitivity to CO2 outweighs all other forcings and feedbacks.
Gee Barton, I had no idea that the “O” at the end of “ESN” meant oscillation. If models can’t accurately nail the start and end of even one major ocean cycle that is, by definition, somewhat predictable (ESNO is just one of many), they can’t accurately project climate trends. That is why most models do not address oscillations, even though they impact climate. The recent solar cycle shift is another example where the models could not get it right. Why? Because we don’t know all we think we know.
Fact is: The major oceanic oscillations are not well-understood, clouds are not well-understood, H2O vapor is not well understood, solar input is not well-understood, to name just a few uncertainties that the IPCC admits to in AR4.
If you have little understanding of multiple system components, then you can’t have a good understanding of how it all fits together to create the climate equilibrium that makes life on this planet possible. You can only make gross approximations based on assumptions.
I’m now on the floor laughing! Barton cites himself as a reference! What a hoot! Gee, maybe I should try that. I’ll bet you weren’t “peer reviewed” so, by typical AGW debate logic, that means it doesn’t count! I noticed that you couldn’t help lacing your erstwhile “refutations” with ad hominem.
Barton you are not going to convince me with what you’ve managed to produce. I’m not likely to sway you. You want to believe that a trace atmospheric gas comprising less than .04% of the entire atmosphere overpowers all other climate components. That’s an assumption and a hypothesis that has yet to be proven.
The difference between us is that I recognize and accept that we humans don’t know everything. It doesn’t hurt my sense of worth to know that we are pretty damn insignificant in the universe. There are too many uncertainties, none of the forces work in isolation, the interactions are complex and poorly understood, and not all the interactions produce a net temperature gain. We are not more powerful than nature.
No matter what the politicians decide, anthropogenic CO2 will likely continue to rise over the next five years. In about five years, my own WAG, we will have the opportunity to see whether the currently quiet sun (projected to remain fairly quiet the next 20 – 30 years, yeah models), the ocean cycles, cloud feedbacks and all the other things that make climate what it is falsify your CO2 hypothesis.
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That’s sort of why there’s disagreement Phil, we don’t agree.
The main points of the AGW hypothesis include:
1. That the current observed temperature increase is unprecedented.
2. That the current observed temperature increase is not natural and is caused by anthropogenic (human created) CO2.
From those two points, the AGW community concludes that the negative effects of warming will be catastrophic to life on the planet and outweigh any potential benefits, therefore requiring drastic immediate action to stop it. This conclusion is reached not by evidence, but by model output.
We on the Skeptic side don’t by the first point, because there is historical evidence to the contrary (Medieval Warm Period and Roman Warm Period to name just two).
We don’t buy the second point because there is no evidence that increasing CO2 has ever preceded temperature rise on earth. There is evidence that temperature rises have preceded CO2 rise. There is plenty of evidence that CO2 has at times in Earth’s history been orders of magnitude higher than today and life thrived.
Hence we don’t buy the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 emissions have caused the current warming. We tend to believe that it is a natural rebound from the last Ice Age and part of the natural cycles that have been taking place on Earth for over 4 billion years.
We don’t buy the hypothesis that warming would necessarily be bad. We tend to think that trying to stop a natural change is a waste of money and effort. We should be dealing with problems we can solve right now like disease, hunger, providing shelter and energy to our growing population, education…the list is long and resources are finite.
Additionally, we need to recognize that interglacials tend to be short, while Ice Ages are long. We may be nearing tail-end of the Holocene Interglacial and if that is true, the potential effects of cold will be far worse than those of warmth. Our time, effort and resources would be better spent in mitigation for both extremes, rather than trying to stop something over which we have no control.
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A couple of broken links in my post #384 to Barton:
Yes it is, do the math. Add up the sea ice extent for each icecap using the data available at National Snow and Ice Data Center
Re: My comment about Arctic Ice your answer:
Getting weak Barton. See Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis
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Afghanistan doesn’t need our help planting trees. They have the means to handle that and are already planting trees. They get it, they’re on it.
What Afghanistan needs is reliable energy so that they don’t have to rely on wood and old tires (they burn tires in the winter since there is neither enough electricity nor wood). Think of the immediate health implications of that fact.
Thousands of Afghans die every year due to the cold. Last winter the family a couple houses down from me lost four children due to hypothermia (50% mortality rate). The UN failed to deliver wood because it was too cold. Sadly, though our guys had befriended the family, they were too proud to ask for help and our guys were unaware of their plight.
This past winter seven of the Afghans I work with lost one or more relatives to hypothermia and, in Kabul at least, it was a mild winter by Afghan standards. Cold kills more human beings than warmth.
Afghanistan has coal, natural gas and probably oil, and they have rivers that can produce hydroelectric power. They need help developing those resources and the infrastructure to distribute it, none of which will be possible without security.
To see what areas may be flooded assuming the models are correct. However, even under the model scenarios this flooding will not happen overnight, or over decade, or even over a hundred years. It will take thousands of years for this to happen. A timelapse model gives a false impression of the speed with which these things occur. We’ve got plenty of time to adapt even if the models are correct and, given their track record, I’m not holding my breath on that one just yet.
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Look, Krueger, Barton’s got all this figured out, he wrote a scientific article about how the Venusians went extinct because one of them figured out how to make an SUV, and now look what a mess their atmosphere is.
That ought to serve as a warning to all
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Brian Valentine writes:
Not at all. There isn’t a planetary astronomer in the world who denies that there’s a CO2 greenhouse effect on Venus, and to a lesser extent on Mars.
Well, some other good sources if you’re interested are Maron and Grinspoon’s “Venus” (1997), and the “Venus” and “Venus II” compilations from the University of Arizona. See especially Taylor’s papers on the Venus greenhouse effect.
I think the Faint Young Sun paradox is still resolved with the assumption that there was a higher level of greenhouse gases in the early atmosphere, though there’s still much dispute as to what the mix was. A lot of Jim Kasting’s papers deal with that.
Not sure what you mean about the Sun being “O-sequence.” If you’re referring to spectral class, the sun was never an O-class star.
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JL Krueger posts (at great length):
The mean volume fraction of water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere is about 0.387%, coincidentally ten times the level of CO2 at the moment. That would make it 91%, not 98%.
Of course, a molecule of carbon dioxide has 2.44 times the mass of a water vapor molecule, so water vapor would be 80% by mass.
And while water vapor provides 60% of the clear-sky greenhouse effect (Kiehl and Trenberth 1997), carbon dioxide provides 26%, so it would be 70% of the greenhouse effect caused by the two (there is also a small effect from ozone, methane, and nitrous oxide, of course).
We have a physical theory that predicts the current warming. We have statistical evidence that verifies it. We pretty much know what the natural and artificial forcings have been for over a century. Yes, we can pretty well rule out a natural variation.
Carbon dioxide is a well-mixed gas in the troposphere. You don’t need many samples, just enough to be statistically significant.
Right, they were higher than the previous fifty years. They’re still static as far as trend goes. You can’t explain a steep rise in temperature starting 30 years ago with an effect that’s been flat for 50 years. It doesn’t make any sense.
You mean they’re lying about doing so in the papers I cited? We’re verging into conspiracy theory here.
Energy and Environment is not a peer-reviewed journal. It was set up for climate deniers to publish sciency-sounding papers. Note the recite rate compared to real journals.
But it is neither flat nor falling. To call the recent downtick a “trend” it would have to be statistically significant. It isn’t.
Look, examine any chart of temperatures for the last 100-150 years. There are many, many times temperature has jogged down for a few years, and just as many time when it has jogged up. To isolate the trend you need a large sample, and 5-7 years just doesn’t do it.
The World Meteorological Organization defines climate as mean regional or global weather over a period of 30 years or more. There’s a reason they came up with that number (and incidentally, they did it long before global warming was an issue).
No, we’re not. The Medieval Warm Period was not warmer than now. It’s warmer now than at any time in the past 2,000 years.
What kind of evidence do you want? We know CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We know there’s more of that. Ergo, the temperature should rise. The temperature has risen. The rise closely matches the rise in CO2. What more do you want? Seriously, what evidence would you accept?
Fallacy of composition. You’re assuming that if the price of one commodity rises, the price of all other commodities must rise as well. No. In the short term spending is a zero-sum game. You can’t drive inflation by increasing the cost of one commodity. You can’t do it at all unless you either increase the money supply, increase the velocity of money, or decrease the growth rate.
Nonsense. First of all, there isn’t any cooling. Second, poor countries stand to lose most of all from global warming, especially the billion or so people in Asia and Latin America who stand to lose their fresh water supply due to glacier retreat. And how will it benefit poor countries to have agriculture collapse due to runaway drought?
No, I’m saying the incidence of drought at any one time is increasing, as predicted by the climate models. Check FAO statistics for the details.
It’s field work that has established that
CO2 is rising.
Temperatures are rising.
Glaciers and ice caps are melting.
Tree lines are moving toward the poles.
Drought is increasing.
Eggs are hatching earlier for fish, frogs, insects, and birds around the world.
Flowers and flowering trees are blooming earlier around the world.
There are tens of thousands of scientists around the globe working their butts off in the field to collect and correlate data, analyze samples in the lab, and published their results. That you’re not aware of the work being done doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Why don’t you read a few recent copies of Geophysical Research Letters or Journal of Geophysical Research or Atmospheric Science or Journal of Palynology, or just visit the NOAA web site? The information is out there if you’re willing to look for it.
Well, yes. Every argument in the universe depends on premises at some point, including your arguments. Is there an argument somewhere that isn’t based on assumptions? That would be news to philosophy departments worldwide.
Huh? What? Come again?
Statistical analysis is statistical analysis. Modeling is modeling. They’re not the same thing. Statistical analysis is basically reporting the data. Modeling is assuming you know the relationships and seeing what happens when you feed in different scenarios.
Nonsense. Every climate model in the world includes the radiative effect of water vapor. I know mine do.
No, you’re still not getting the difference between an oscillation and a trend. Repeat after me: “An oscillation has no trend.”
ENSO is weather. Global warming is climate.
JL, I didn’t cite myself as a reference. I pointed you to an analysis I did. The references are to Hadley Centre temperature data. That’s the reference.
You can perform the same analysis I did. Please do so. The data is publicly available and all you need is a copy of MS Excel or some program that can do a regression analysis.
“Proof” applies to formal logic or mathematics, not science. Science works by induction, not deduction. Evidence is what counts.
And the fact that CO2 is a trace gas has no relevance to its radiative effect. The almost 100% of the atmosphere made up of nitrogen, oxygen and argon is not radiatively active. Water vapor and carbon dioxide are.
So do I. But unlike you, I don’t assume that because we don’t know everything, we know nothing. That would be a non sequitur.
We know enough to know that global warming is really happening, that human technology is doing it, and that it’s the biggest problem humanity has ever faced after nuclear war.
Carbon dioxide molecules don’t know whether they’re produced naturally or artificially. The same rules of physics apply.
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J.L. Krueger writes:
Neither were warmer than now.
Google “Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum” and “Snowball Earth.”
The Milankovic Cycles that govern ice ages are mathematically predictable far into the future and retrodictable far into the past, since they depend on the well-understand mechanisms of celestial mechanics. If you do the matrix math that governs Milankovic cycles, you find that we passed the peak of the interglacial 6,000 years ago and have been cooling since then. We would still be cooling if AGW hadn’t interrupted the trend.
Increased drought in continental interiors. More violent weather along coastlines. Loss of fresh water to a billion people who depend on glacier melt to feet their rivers and streams. Possible complete collapse of human agriculture, followed by collapse of human civilization as we know it.
Earth will survive. Humanity will survive. Comfortable lifestyles like we’re used to will not–unless we stop burning fossil fuels and tearing down forests.
The next stade in the Milankovic Cycles isn’t due for about 20,000 years, and we’ve probably already ensured that it won’t become an Ice Age (too much CO2). The one after that is 50,000 years in the future. Human agriculture may collapse due to AGW in the next 50 years.
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There you go, Krueger, Barton proved it, Q.E.D.!
Now trash that dammed Hummer brfore we’re all extinct, will ya?
As he quell’ed every vain attempt
To remove from the Sereph’s hand
The sword that once belonged to Michael,
Brushing aside vainglorious futility
As he took his place upon the throne
Facing the north side of the Hill of God
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Barton,
I dealt with Venus here: http://joannenova.com.au/2009/03/22/desmog-accidentally-vindicates-the-skeptics-handbook/
With 90 times Earth’s atmospheric pressure there’s no way Venus wouldn’t be hot. We don’t need a ‘greenhouse’. The pressure pretty much covers it. Think ‘lapse rate from hell’.
And regarding the PETM. I’ve dealt with that too… See comment #10 on http://joannenova.com.au/2008/11/26/attempting-to-intimidate-a-skeptic/
There’s a nature paper out in 2008 that estimates that carbon rose 3000 years after temperature. Once again, carbon is a back seat driver.
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And if you think all I can write is doggerel, have I got news for YOU:
Oh, awful Sea-OH-Two
Making the world so dreadful
For Me and for You.
Our selfish addiction
To gasoline and oil
Will bring the world’s end
Right down to the soil.
It’s time to say “Cool It!”
And give it our Best
To give Mother Nature
Some well-deserved rest.
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“:Human agriculture may collapse due to AGW in the next 50 years.”
Human civilization might implode due to superstitious beliefs in trace gases.
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[Copywrited and permission to publish elsewhere is not granted.]
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DISCLAIMER: I’m not responsible for any illness arising from my poetry.
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I will give 100,000 Saddam Iraqi dinars (worth exactly nothing) to the first person who can provide a more stupid statement made within the past month than
“Human agriculture may collapse due to AGW in the next 50 years.”
Submissions for this contest may not include one’s own words.
Decisions of the judges is final.
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duh im so weetodd did i dunno howta guugul sumptn like dis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Type-O_stars
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And lo, the Prophet Barton came to Earth from Venus bearing words from the AGW gods about the evils of SeeOhTu. But the people were skeptical and asked of him proof.
“Proof? I don’t need no stinking proof! I have the word of the AGW angels Hansen of the GISSTemp, Tamino of the Closed Mind, Mann of the Bristlecones, Santer of the Multi-proxies, and Gavin of the Model E. They speaketh to the all-knowing, the infallible AGW god-computer model and they have told me, so I believe.”
“What about the Medieval Warm Period?” They asked.
“Didn’t happen,” The Prophet Barton replied.
“What about the Little Ice Age?”
“Didn’t happen,” The Prophet Barton shouted.
“There are written historical records that say otherwise,” the people said.
“Didn’t happen,” The Prophet Barton insisted. “Mann of the Bristlecones said so, so it is.”
“But the people who actually lived back then said…”
“Nonsense! They were deniers! Only the Bristlecones speak truth!”
And the people turned away, but The Prophet Barton told them of calamities that would befall them if they did not heed his words. “You will be frozen and you will roast, you will drown and you will be parched, black will be white, up will be down, right will be left.”
And the people said, “Say what? Wait a minute. How can you freeze and roast at the same time? What is this crap?”
The Prophet Barton sneered, “How dare you question the god-model! The god-model has decreed it, so it is!”
And the people laughed and said, “Go Away! Come back when you have actual evidence.”
And the Prophet Barton’s eyes bulged and he turned purple and he shrieked, “I’ll rearrange your face!” But he made certain he did this from a great distance, lest there be some out there who could kick his rectal cavity up to his ears.
And the people who were skeptical grew in number, because they felt strange hands on their wallets, and they experienced the weather growing colder and the sun quieter, and prediction after prediction failed to come to pass.
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[Sorry – that hearsay and gossip fell into a cyber worm hole]
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The technology seems to be blooming – even if it is a scare, that’s one positive result.
The obscene extermination rate on the other hand, is something to be scared about.
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JoAnne Nova writes:
A static level of pressure cannot generate heat. If Venus’s atmosphere were hot from compression it would cool off with time. Venus is 4.5 billion years old and its atmosphere has probably had the same pressure, within a factor of two or so, for most of that time.
Remember that the Venus atmosphere radiates infrared, and that it is roughly balanced with the incoming sunlight at the top of the atmosphere (I know there’s no actual “top,” but you know what I mean). For the surface to be hotter than the top requires more thermal energy to exist lower down, and that energy has to be coming from somewhere. Standard physics says that the sunlight is staying longer in the atmosphere due to the greenhouse effect.
If your “pressure” theory is correct, please explain why the surface of Mars is 4 K hotter than its equilibrium temperature even though the surface pressure is only 6 millibars.
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JoAnne Nova writes:
I can assure you that trace gases exist. You can demonstrate their existence with a variety of lab experiments, ranging from chemical tests to infrared spectrometry.
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Nobel gases are chemically inert.
Nobel gases are diathermanous.
Implicit in Joanne’s statement are the words, “… superstitious beliefs in [the effects of] trace gases.]
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Jo at #372… what if God put in an overflow???? Surely you cannot be serious???
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Joanne on Venus: Think ‘lapse rate from hell’. (actually, I could’ve worded that better. It’s really “Lapse rate ad infinitum”)
Barton: A static level of pressure cannot generate heat.
Noooo it can’t. Barton, you’re right, the atmosphere of Venus would cool down …. if the sun went ‘out’.
Maurizio Morabito does some nice back-of-the-envelope calculations to explore just how powerful the thick atmosphere effect is: http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/venus-and-a-thicker-atmosphere-earth/
If Maurizio is right, apparently the dry adiabatic lapse rate of air on venus is not that different to earth’s, yet we have 0.04% CO2 and Venusians have like 96%. That super-saturated Co2 seems to make a biiig difference to the lapse rate eh?
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MattB! Hello. Welcome back.
“… what if God put in an overflow???? Surely you cannot be serious???”
Surely you can’t be serious?
Are you really that shocked that among the thousands of complex interactions on our climate that one or two of them might give negative feedback, or there might be a point where adding more carbon made no difference, and therefore either mechanism could act like an overflow?
The lack of past correlation with CO2 suggests that this is almost a necessary requirement.
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It was the God bit that drew my attention:)
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JoAnne Nova writes:
Well, no, it wouldn’t. The adiabatic lapse rate is just
(absolute value) g/cp where g is local gravity and cp is the specific heat at constant pressure. On Earth, the engineering g is 9.80665 m/s^2 and dry air has cp = 1004 J/K/kg, so the adiabatic lapse rate works out to 0.00977 K/m or 9.77 K per kilometer. (The actual lapse rate averages 6.5 K/km in the troposphere due to effects from water vapor, which is condensible under most Earth conditions.) For Venus, g is 8.88 m/s^2 and cp is about 850, so adiabatic gamma is about 10.4 K/km (7.7 in reality). The composition of the air affects things only slightly and the pressure doesn’t even come into it.
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JoAnne Nova writes:
I get r = 0.86 for 1880-2007:
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Correlation.html
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BPL, a sandbox-I question: how does cp at a constant pressure mesh with the varying pressure of the atmosphere?
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Okay everybody –
If anyone has been persuaded by ANY of Barton’s comments, please log in and say “AYE”!!!
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Barton Paul Levenson #410
Well, except for one interesting way of looking at it. BPL might have
a better source of data, but look at http://lasp.colorado.edu/~bagenal/3720/CLASS14/14EVM-5.html and refer to http://nova.stanford.edu/projects/mgs/profile.html and the temperature http://nova.stanford.edu/projects/mgs/images/t3213.gif and pressure http://nova.stanford.edu/projects/mgs/images/p3213.gif
Look at the pressure profile for the 10^3 mb (i.e. 1 bar) point. This is close to the average sea level pressure on Earth. That pressure is at about the 50 km elevation on Venus. What’s the temperature there? Look at the temperature profile, and it’s about 330-335K. That’s about 60C, pretty hot compared to Earth at 1 bar, but not too bad for being one planet in.
If there’s a severe greenhouse effect, then that level in the atmosphere ought to be absorbing and reradiating a lot of energy, so I submit that level would make a much better place to compare greenhouse effects. The temperature profile from 50 Km down to ground level follows something like the adiabatic lapse rate, and therefore must be a lot hotter than at 50 Km. Of course, the pressure down at ground level has to be a lot higher than 1 bar so I’d say pressure most definitely does come into play.
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Rod B writes:
There’s probably an effect from pressure, but it doesn’t seem to be very great under most circumstances. You can find cp equations of state on the web if you’re interested.
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Ric Werme writes:
It doesn’t come into play in determining the lapse rate. That’s all I was addressing.
According to the standard Venus atmosphere of Seiff et al. (1986), surface pressure on Venus averages 9,210,000 Pa (compared 101,325 for Earth), and mean global annual surface temperature is 735.3 K.
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lol, it reminds me of the statement a steadfast republican made to me, which I will now quote (not quoted directly, correctly, and probably doesn’t even have many of the original points, for my brain works that way) for all to laugh at:
“Gee, lets see, it rained today, so, using global warming logic, I can foresee that the amount of rainfall we will receive will go up by the amount of rain we received today until we either drown or the water levels rise to the point where we no longer have any land what so ever! See, I just took a perfectly normal event, and blasted it to gigantic Al Gore level proportions, so, if you look at things that way, I’d say we’re all going to die from drowning, so who cares about global warming, its not like we’ll last long enough to be affected by it”
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Care to explain how arguing over this nitnoid of 7% has anything to do with CO2 being able to dominate the rest of the climate system? I’m not going to continue arguing over a value that even the IPCC has not definitively established.
As assumed in the formulation of models.
No, you have a hypothesis, based upon assumption that offers one possible explanation for the current warming. It didn’t predict or prove anything.
You have computer model output weighted to reach a specific conclusion favorable to your hypothesis.
The height of arrogance from the AGW community. You think you know everything. You don’t. You’ve yet to disprove natural variation.
That same troposphere that’s missing the “hotspot” due to alleged CO2 induced warming? Gee, that was supposed to be the key atmospheric measure.
Solar activity has been at its highest observed level the past fifty years. You can sure explain a 30 year temperature rise in conjunction with the PDO being in its warm phase the past 30 years. Makes perfect sense to those who don’t think they know it all.
The fact that they have crappy quality control, crappy statistics and all three SST reporting agencies refuse to divulge their complete methodology, code and raw data only speaks to the poor quality of their science. No conspiracy theory required.
Yes, actually it is peer-reviewed. Certainly at least as professional of “Nature” which brought us Mannian Bristlecone Machinations and Steig’s bad data Antarctica temperature study. As neither will share their code, and Mann won’t share his data or complete methodology, it’s sort of difficult in the reproducibility realm. Reproducibility is one of the foundations of real science.
As “Nature” doesn’t publish anything critical of AGW, they aren’t really an unbiased journal.
Even if your first statement were true, your second is nothing but ad hominem. Incapable of actually disputing the studies, you simply dismiss them because they don’t come from one your AGW-biased sources. I note you ignored the Willis study and he works for NASA.
You are assuming a lot about the quality of surface temperature measurements over the last 100-150 years. You have yet to prove that the general rise in measured surface temperature is anything other than a natural recovery from the LIA. Temperature has not been rising since at least 2003, that means it’s currently flat to falling. I said nothing about a trend yet.
As defined by models. Historical evidence, ignored by the modelers, says otherwise. You cannot grow wheat and flax in Greenland today because the soil temperature never gets to 15°C long enough for the seed to germinate, yet the Vikings grew wheat and flax for about 350 years in Greenland.
The Western Greenland colony was abandoned around 1347 because supply ships could no longer get through the ice and crops failed over multiple years. The rest of the colony was abandoned shortly thereafter.
Assuming everything else remains constant.
It also matches other factors, like PDO in positive phase.
Something empirical would be nice. Something other than a model or assumptions ignoring other factors would be nice.
You can when it is the one commodity that generates the power to run factories move goods across the planet. You are incredibly naive if you think otherwise.
Nonsense? Tell that to the thousands of Afghans who die every winter due to cold, or to the hundreds of thousands who die every winter world-wide due to
hypothermia induced by cold.
What runaway drought? Glacier retreat doesn’t spell the end of fresh water and water locked up in a glacier isn’t fresh water that people are using.
Prove that the incidence of drought is greater than at any time in this Interglacial. Your source doesn’t.
None of which proves cause and effect. Retreating glaciers have revealed old Bristlecone stumps in their wake. Hmm, that sorta means that before the glaciers, there were forests.
Yep, see what a good thing warming is? Fishies, birdies and flowers have longer seasons in which to procreate! And we have longer seasons in which to grow more food!
I do read the literature and your arrogant assumptions are annoying. If you read more than the abstracts and highlights, you’d be aware that the studies don’t state anything with the level of certainty that you claim!
We aren’t talking philosophy, we’re talking science. You are speaking with absolute certainty where none exists.
I do this for a living when I’m not in a war zone. A mathematical equation written to describe relationships in a set of raw data is a model.
Statistical analysis is usually done using descriptive or optimization modeling. Data doesn’t normally fall in nice straight lines so you use a model, based upon assumptions about the data, to find patterns and define relationships. Your assumptions help you pick the statistical tool (model) that you use for the analysis.
Deterministic modeling is done when you are trying to predict outcomes using variables that you know with high certainty. A subset of these are stochastic or probabilistic models, which are used when you have greater uncertainty. Most climate models are stochastic models.
Prove it. Even the IPCC says otherwise. And while you’re at it, supply the code to one of your famous climate models. I’m certain you have a published study based on this model (hell I’m not even demanding peer-review), right?
No, I do know the difference. ENSO is one of many oscillations that influence climate.
Repeat after me: “If you can’t accurately model weather five years out, you can’t accurately model climate 30 years out.”
Yes you did. If you wanted to simply point me to Hadley, which would simply be indicative of your continuing snobbery, you could have done that. Instead you pointed me to two of your posts.
Your simplistic analysis proved only that you are adept at gross assumptions.
What? Barton’s new world science, we needn’t prove anything, just say it is so.
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JL Krueger writes:
Not “assumed.” “Concluded.” Have you read the paper?
You’re using the layman’s definition of theory as “educated guess” or “hypothesis.” To a scientist, theory is the highest level of importance a body of scientific thought can attain–thus atomic theory, quantum theory, theories of relativity. Arrhenius’s classic 1896 paper laying out the theory predicts that if CO2 continues to rise, the world will warm as a result. That’s a prediction by definition.
As I said, we have statistical evidence that verifies it. Here’s an example:
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Correlation.html
Now you can argue whether I’m right or not, but you can’t argue that I used a computer model here. This is a statistical analysis, not a dynamical simulation.
Arrogance has nothing to do with it. We can account for the effect from anthropogenic and natural causes, and we have. There just isn’t much statistical residue to play around with. Natural variation of any kind, known or unknown won’t do it. That’s just the nature of statistical evidence and attribution studies.
I’ve never known Energy & Environment to turn down a paper. The criterion for getting into E&E is that you submit something opposing AGW theory. That’s all you need.
E&E is just as professional as Nature? Can I quote you on that? What a great example of denialist thinking. I love it.
Mann has shared all his data and his complete methodology. Look here to begin with:
ftp://holocene.evsc.virginia.edu/pub/sdr/temp/nature/MANNETAL98/
Right, and Mann’s results have been independently reproduced by over a dozen similar studies.
They’re just the foremost scientific journal in the world, that’s all.
What is the physical mechanism driving “natural recovery from the LIA?” Are you under the impression that the climate acts like a spring in simple harmonic motion? It doesn’t. Where is the energy coming from?
No, by temperature reconstructions which depend entirely on empirical evidence gathered in the field.
JL, the PDO is an oscillation–in fact, that’s what the “O” stands for. It doesn’t affect the trend, which is up.
Okay, try here:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2006&month_last=12&sat=4&sst=1&type=trends&mean_gen=0112&year1=1880&year2=2006&base1=1951&base2=1980&radius=1200&pol=reg
(A map of global temperature trends shows warming.)
http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/Global%20Mean%20Temp.jpg
(The global ground weather station network shows warming.)
http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/Angell-Balloon.jpg
(The balloon record shows warming.)
http://members.cox.net/rcoppock/UAH-MSU.jpg
(The satellite record shows warming.)
http://nsidc.org/news/press/20050928_trendscontinue.html
(Melting sea ice shows warming.)
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/
(More on sea ice.)
http://nsidc.org/sotc/glacier_balance.html
(Glacier retreat shows warming.)
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/pollack.html
(The bore hole record shows warming.)
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
(Rising sea level shows warming.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png
(More on sea level.)
Global warming means more drought in continental interiors. Ask the Australians.
A billion people in Asia and Latin America get their fresh water from glacier melt. As the glaciers retreat, that source will decrease. Sharply.
It sure proves the world is warming. And since AGW theory predicts that rising CO2 will cause rising temperatures, and CO2 is rising, and temperatures are rising, and the two are closely correlated, that’s all the evidence most people need.
*sigh*
It’s a statistical model. Global Climate Models are not statistical models, they are dynamical models. Do you understand the difference?
No, they are not. They are all dynamical models. There is nothing stochastic about them. They do not use Monte Carlo methods.
Well, why don’t you look at the code from one? Here’s the code from NASA GISS Model E:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/
And mine include code for water vapor as well. Want to see the water vapor code from my most recent Earth RCM? I’ll post it here if you like.
Here are the absorption coefficients:
real(dbl) :: kH2O(Nbands) = (/ &
& 0.00d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, &
& 0.00d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, 0.37d0, &
& 3.24d0, 0.13d0, 9.86d0, 3.80d0, 0.01d0, &
& 0.09d0, 55.10d0, 48.10d0, 1.00d0, 0.58d0, &
& 0.23d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, &
& 0.00d0, 0.08d0, 3.82d0, 16.90d0, 60.90d0, &
& 118.00d0, 101.00d0, 90.50d0, 20.90d0, 20.90d0, &
& 5.54d0, 0.09d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, 0.00d0, &
& 0.01d0, 0.13d0, 0.20d0, 2.29d0, 39.40d0, &
& 336.00d0, 609.00d0, 1180.00d0, 918.00d0, 791.00d0, &
& 872.00d0, 478.00d0, 149.00d0, 0.00d0 /)
Here’s the main loop from the radiative properties subroutine. Note the H2O terms:
do L = 1, N
PresFactor = LP(L) / P0 ! Elsasser 1960.
TempFactor = sqrt(T0 / LT(L))
diff = 1.66d0
factor = diff * PresFactor * TempFactor
do b = 1, Nbands
tauStar(H2O) = factor * kH2O(b) * LSM(L, H2O)
tauStar(CO2) = factor * kCO2(b) * LSM(L, CO2)
tauStar(CH4) = factor * kCH4(b) * LSM(L, CH4)
tauStar(O3) = factor * kO3(b) * LSM(L, O3)
tauStar(Ci) = factor * kCi(b) * LSM(L, Ci)
tauStar(Cw) = factor * kCw(b) * LSM(L, Cw)
T(H2O) = exp(-tauStar(H2O))
T(CO2) = exp(-tauStar(CO2))
T(CH4) = exp(-tauStar(CH4))
T(O3) = exp(-tauStar(O3))
T(Ci) = exp(-tauStar(Ci))
T(Cw) = exp(-tauStar(Cw))
Tclear = T(H2O) * T(CO2) * T(CH4) * T(O3)
Tcloudy = Tclear * T(Ci) * T(Cw)
Toverall = (1d0 – Lfc(L)) * Tclear + (Lfc(L)) * Tcloudy
LbandA(L, b) = 1d0 – Toverall
if ((loopCount 1d0) then
LbandA(L, b) = 1d0 – LbandR(L, b)
LbandT(L, b) = 0d0
else
LbandT(L, b) = 1d0 – LbandA(L, b) – LbandR(L, b)
end if
end do
end do
Here’s the whole water vapor distribution subroutine (pretty simple, isn’t it? Obviously I’m using the same sort of scheme as Stephens 1990):
!=====
! SetWater finds the amount of water vapor in each layer.
!=====
real(dbl) Function SetWater(Lnum)
use RCMstuff
implicit none
integer :: Lnum ! Layer number.
real(dbl) :: Pratio ! Pressure ratio.
!—–
Pratio = LP(Lnum) / LP(N)
SetWater = 2.86e15 * Pratio ** 4.1
End Function SetWater
Nope. I just write RCMs for fun. The real climatology work these days is done with GCMs, which are much more complex. I’m writing a book about RCMs, though.
You’ve got weather confused with climate. Weather is day to day variation. Climate is a statistical average over a wide area and a large amount of time. In fact, the World Meteorological Organization defines climate as mean regional or global weather over a period of thirty years or more.
Here’s an example to illustrate the difference. I don’t know what the temperature will be tomorrow in Cairo, Egypt. (Weather.) I do know that it will almost certainly be higher than the temperature in Stockholm, Sweden. (Climate.)
Right, but I wasn’t quoting myself as an authority. I was pointing out that if you actually analyze the data, you don’t get the conclusion you implied.
Look, do the math yourself. I’ve given you all the numbers.
Don’t confuse simple with simplistic. The contention was that temperature is falling over the last decade. All you need to do is a regression of temperature against time for that period and you find that it is NOT falling. That’s not something that’s open to debate. It’s not something you can have different valid opinions on. The trend is not falling. Period.
Any scientist in the world would tell you you don’t “prove” things in science. And induction does not mean “just say it is so.” It means, “infer conclusions from the evidence.” The point is that science depends on evidence, not argument, and therefore that “proof” is the wrong term to use.
I haven’t, but others who have done the attribution have shown that. “Shown” it, not “proven” it. I have shown that most of the variation is explained by carbon dioxide:
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Correlation.html
That’s the logical conclusion given that carbon dioxide is doing it and the source of the carbon dioxide is artificial.
Sure they will. “Logarithmic” doesn’t mean “flat.” Here’s the actual relation (Myrhe et al. 1998):
RF = 5.35 ln (C/Co)
where RF is the radiative forcing in watts per square meter, C is the CO2 concentration and Co is a reference level for the CO2 concentration. Clearly doubling CO2 results in an increased forcing of 3.7 W/m^2. With a climate sensitivity of 0.75 K/W/m^2, that produces an increase of 2.8 K in surface temperature.
Nobody ever said it was. But it’s the main source of the recent global warming.
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Barton: No one (except you) is confusing weather and climate. A five year trend is not ‘weather’, and no matter what you call it, the models can’t predict it.
And yes. Us Australians know what drought is, but we’re a whole leap ahead of that. We also know that if aliens were heating the planet with ray guns, we’d get more droughts. To be blunt: It don’t prove nothin’ about whether CO2 matters. Which makes it just like glaciers, ice caps, satelite records of warming, ground based records of warming, global records of warming, and all the rest. None of them differentiate between global warming caused by CO2, or the Sun, by solar magnetic effects, by changes in cloud cover, by unknown orbital changes, or by E.T. with lazers, or God with a toaster.
No one here is arguing that the climate hasn’t warmed (from mid 70’s to 2001, or from mid 1700’s to now), you are fighting your own war against an imaginary enemy. The rest of us are on a different battle, at a different party. We’ve left the court room and gone home. Actually, you’re the last man standing at a party most us couldn’t be bothered with.
Our planet is not a ‘model’. Observational evidence is the only thing that counts, and you don’t still have any. The only thing climate models “conclude” is that if you stick in the same numbers to the same model, you’ll get the same results.(probably).So?
And as for CO2 explaining “76% of the variation in temperature”, awkwardly, postal price changes explain 72% (as calculated by Acad Ronin in Comment 115 on The postage stamp page…)Oh No. Between them we’ve explained 148% of global warming. Could it be that statistical analysis could be right AND meaningless at the same time?
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Good Night – embedding Pascal code in your response,
if that isn’t persuasive, then I don’t know what is
I’m sure glad I have the compiler turned “OFF” on this web browser or I’m not sure WHAT this web page would look like : )
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Those who live in an ice age should try to stay warm. Geologists help us keep perspective on things, showing us the “normal” state of earth as of recent history (geologically recent) is COLD. I choose to stay warm. I also would like to use wind power more and be more efficient about everything we do energy-wise, which is separate issue. The general warming trend is good to have, although the cooling we have seen in the past few years, which apparently will continue for a decade more (?) sends a chill down my spine. I teach general science courses for non-science majors at a university and have to be a jack-of-all trades for this. My presentations on global warming have tried to show the students the views of IPCC people and their studies, as well as the science and scientists who disagree (we do not use the term DENIERS as it implies an irrational person on the same level as those who deny the Jewish Holocaust by the Nazis or the American moon walk). Most of my students leave class thinking that global warming talk is mainly alarmism. I am of the optimistic opinion that when you give people good information they tend to arrive by themselves at the right conclusion.
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JoNova writes:
Well, no, they can’t. They’re not designed to. They’re designed to analyze climate, and climate trends take 30 years to poke through the noise.
No, but other things do. The signature of warming caused by CO2 is cooling in the stratosphere coupled with warming in the troposphere and at the surface. That’s exactly what’s happening. Solar warming we can rule out for a number of reasons, the most important one being that solar output has been flat for 50 years.
Hon, I don’t go to that type of party any more. I’m happily married. Thanks very much anyway.
We have empirical evidence that CO2 is rising, that temperature is rising, and that the two are correlated. We have a physical theory which predicts the correlation. We have the warming signature of CO2 warming in particular (see above). What more do you want?
That’s true for any model. The models we use to design airplanes and bridges also have as a feature “that is you stick in the same numbers to the same model, you’ll get the same results.” What’s your point?
DO you have a physical theory to explain how postal stamp increases cause warming? For that matter, have you analyzed your regression to see whether the correlation is spurious or not? What was the Durbin-Watson statistic? The autocorrelation coefficient of the residuals? Do you even know what I’m talking about?
You’ve never taken a course in statistics, have you?
I suppose it depends on how you define “right” and “meaningless.”
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Biran G. Valentine writes:
That’s Fortran-95, Brian. They’re both procedural languages, but Pascal is a “block-structured” language and Fortran isn’t. They’re not really that similar.
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tj writes:
The next stades which could cause an ice age are 20,000 and 50,000 years in the future, and anthropogenic global warming has probably erased any possibility of the first one acting.
No, it isn’t. If unchecked, it will cause more droughts in continental interiors, more violent weather along coastlines, the removal of fresh water supplies for a billion people in Asia and Latin America as the glaciers they depend on to feed local rivers retreat, and the loss of trillions of dollars worth of coastal infrastructure due to sea-level rise.
Why do you think that?
Do you understand the difference between signal and noise? Do you realize that it generally takes 30 years to discern a trend in climate? A few years of cooling is meaningless.
I think deniers is accurate. People who deny that AGW is real or a significant problem are in the same category of people who believe in Velikovskian astronomy, young-Earth creationism, or the idea that aliens built the pyramids. AGW denial is pseudoscience, pure and simple.
A shame you’re misinforming them so badly.
I agree. Too bad you’re obviously not doing that.
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You’re right, Barton, only FORTRAN has DO loops.
Block structuring can be done with any programming language, Pascal was developed simply to make top-down programming easier (and program redirection essentially impossible)
(some versions) of FORTRAN 95 also feature matrix arithmetic, and you could have structured your elements with that.
Nice job there, smashing TJ. If I was to give an off the cuff assessment of AGW “theory” my summary would sound remarkably like yours – except mine would contain some references to AGW and “pyramid power” and “crystals” used to develop “climate models” that reproduce exactly nothing accurately. T
hey are like a water-filled balloons that if squeezed in one direction (say to make historical temperatures reproduce records) the rest bulges out in another direction and we find out, say, that it has been raining in the Caribbean for the past fifty years straight without letup.
Barton it’s time go to tell the aliens in Area 51 in New Mexico, the secret Government hangout for aliens, that their AGW concept isn’t working too well here on Earth, please come back later with some better ideas maybe.
TJ, everyone reading with weblog (except maybe for about 4 or 5 paranoiacs) supports you, keep up the good work and thanks.
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Brian writes:
No, it can’t. With a block-structured language you can treat any group of statements as a single statement by including them in a properly delimited “block.” With Pascal you do that with BEGIN and END statements; in C and its many derivatives you use wavy brackets. You can’t do it in Fortran.
Block-structured languages are easy to recognize by all the semicolons at the end of statements. Fortran doesn’t have any.
Pascal was developed as a pedagogical language to teach first-year programming students. It wouldn’t be anybody’s first choice for simulation programming. Aside from details like having no way to handle complex numbers unless you write the routines yourself (Fortran has them built in), Pascal has no exponentiation operator. The statement
c = a ** b
in Fortran would have to be rendered in Pascal as
c := exp(b * ln(c));
with all the extra function calls implied. That kind of thing, plus the recursive logic needed to handle statement blocks, is the main contributor to what makes Pascal so useless for numerical simulation–it’s slow as dirt. Fortran, on the other hand, is the fastest compiled language on the planet, which is why it has always been the language of choice for numerical simulation and always will be.
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Barton, your work is appreciated, too. I don’t take kindly to name-calling, however, Brian. The ad hominem attacks on both sides are rising too high, I think.
Joanne:
“We’ve left the court room and gone home. Actually, you’re the last man standing at a party most us couldn’t be bothered with.”
Seriously? Come on.
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I will agree with you about FORTRAN being the language providing the fasted compiled object, Barton, assembly language is of course faster because registers are referenced directly, but it isn’t compiled, it’s assembled. (Plus it takes about two months to learn how to write a program that performs a simple addition.)
I like FORTRAN, always have, it seems to me to be kind of a dinosaur now, because (younger) programmers do everything in C or (the non-standardised) C++ – graphical interfaces can be applied much easier.
But C compilers don’t optimize the object, most FORTRAN compilers do, and large numerical simulations are carried out much faster. Plus FORTRAN can be structured a lot better to handle overflow.
FORTRAN handles numbers, C can handle anything, FORTRAN is too klunky for words handling characters and strings, everybody does everything on a PC now, and I don’t see FORTRAN making a comeback, unfortunately
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Hmm, gone from bickering about climate to bickering about computer languages. While most of my 40 year career has been writing operating systems (mostly assembler in the early days to mostly C now), I’ve worked on various supercomputers.
Pretty much every language written has its uses (even Intercal, a parody of useful languages).
Various pointless notes, from picking on Brian’s post:
Assembler: “Plus it takes about two months to learn how to write a program that performs a simple addition.”
Back in the olden days when computers were design to be programmed in assembler and didn’t have caches or pipelines to deal with, I could write on the PDP-10:
; Demo code to add and print two numbers passed in registers T1 and T2.
sum2: move T3, T1 ; We'll put the sum in T3
add T3, T2 ; Simple addition
DISIX [[sixbit "% + % = %"]
WDEC T1
WDEC T2
WDEC T3]
popj p, ; Return to caller
I have no idea how the spacing will display. DISIX and WDEC are from an I/O package that provides very flexible I/O, usually a bane of assembler coding.
Fortran: I didn’t look up the precise quote, but someone once wrote “I don’t know what the programming language of future supercomputers will look like, but it will be called FORTRAN.” The latest standard for Fortran adds object oriented programming support! Most of Fortran’s speed comes from library calls it makes and vendors do some rather astounding things to recognize optimizations or directly support the BLAS (Basic Linear Algebra Subroutines, IIRC) library.
Java: “(younger) programmers do everything in C or (the non-standardised) C++ – graphical interfaces can be applied much easier.”
Most of the jobs I’ve seen lately are for Java and C++ folk. I’m not very fond of Java (too “computer scientistish”) and haven’t bothered to learn C++ (to learn about object oriented programming, I chose Python since it started out with object support. Some important C++ libraries have very nice Python interfaces and make for a very nice development environment, e.g wxPython, numpy, scipy.)
Optimization: “C compilers don’t optimize the object”
Back in the 1970s, people were claiming that compilers could generate better code than assembler programmers. Utterly laughable at the time, but C compilers now pass arguments in registers, optimize for cache pipeline issues, and in may main attempt at writing an assembler routine for DEC’s Alpha CPU, did come up with faster code than I did. At first. My second pass did benefit very slightly from knowing I could do more agressive prefetching of data. The Alpha code generator, used for both C and Fortran, does some amazing stuff.
“C can handle anything”
C’s string support is virtually non-existant, in part by design. That was one thing that spawned my search for a new language when I concluded it was time to rewrite an address list application (I never did convert the C code that figures the US Postal Service sortation for periodicals), though I should. I use Python pretty much for anthing that deals with strings. BTW, Python is block structured, but uses indenting instead begin/end or braces.
“Everybody does everything on a PC now.” In some circles. However, a lot of serious supercomputer of years past applications, e.g. finite state analysis (NASTRAN) a climate modeling are Fortran codes that run pretty well on PCs. When you need to do some serious computing and only a Petaflop will do, see http://www.top500.org/
I would like to learn R, a language for statistical analysis that Steve McIntyre uses heavily at climateaudit.org. Hey – a climate link after all!
Many times, the choice of language is greatly influenced by the libraries that are available. LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python/PHP/Perl) applications all really on strong library support.
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The bottom line for me and AGW:
I can justify one degree C increase in avg surface temp from the doubling of CO2 in the air, which means the effect really isn’t present, because this effect could not be distinguished from natural climate variation. (Taking the empiricist’s position “not measurable” = “doesn’t exist”.)
Outside of that, the “water feedback” corollary to CO2 increases is too hokey to be taken seriously, it is the culmination of a number of improbable events acting together to make an even less probable event occur, since there are so many other more likely scenarios the projected outcome for water “feedback” has to be eliminated based on pure probabilistic assessments alone.
One day people will realise that “cannot model existing climate with CO2 effect present in the analysis” is equivalent to “CO2 effect doesn’t contribute” – and until that day comes I’ll just have to keep howling I suppose.
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It’s figurative – We ask for evidence that carbon is to blame for global warming, and Barton offers (again and again) different versions of evidence that the world is warming. No one here disagrees that the world has warmed (1800 – now, or 1979-1999). None of us have bothered going to the “denial that the globe is warming party” because there’s plenty of observational evidence and we’re satisfied it is warming (with a 200 year time frame). I’ve already pointed this out politely.
Barton has yet to admit he can’t find any observational evidence that carbon is to blame for the current warming. He has lab tests, a recent correlation (that doesn’t fit very well), past correlations which are all backwards, and climate models (aka opinions) but no evidence.
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LISP was developed to handle strings, obviously, and if I am not mistaken some of the Java has incorporated it.
Historical Mistakes in Computer Science:
Remember when the Defense Department took Pascal, added some block structuring, called it Ada, and decided to use it for everything?
The DoD might as well have proclaimed, “from now on, all aeroplanes will be made of steel alone.”
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The assembly for the PDP-11 is at least decipherable; here it is for the System 360, which reads cards (or the same format on a page)
START 0
SAVE (14,12)
BALR 12,0
USING *,12
ST 13, SAV+4
LA 13,SAV
L 15,READADDR
LA 1,CARDADDR
BALR 14,15
PACK DBL(8),CARD(6)
CVB5,DBL
PACK DBL(8),CARD(6)
CVB 7,DBL
LR 6,7
AR 6,5
MVC OUTAREA(6),CARD
MVC OUTAREA+8(4),CARD+8
CVD 6,DBL
L 13,SAV+4
RETURN (14,12)BALR 14.15
RETURN (14,12)
SAV DS
CARD DS
OUTAREA DC
DBL DS
READADDR DC
PRINTADD DC
CARDADDR DC
OUTREAD DC
END
I think I have the line numbers referenced correctly; this is meaningless without uns=derdtanding the system, and when converted to a PC version with cache, this is unreadable
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Brian writes:
The magnitude of the effect has very little to do with attributing the cause. You need to do a statistical analysis, and for 1 K it would be pretty easy with enough data points (say, 100 years or more). Also, doubling CO2 by itself would raise temperatures about 1.2 K. With feedbacks, it would be more like 2-4.5 K.
Google “Clausius-Clapeyron relation.”
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JoAnne writes:
1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas (Tyndall 1859). Demonstrated in lab work then and ever since.
2. CO2 is rising (Keeling et al. 1958). Demonstrated in sampling then and ever since. Don’t tell me directly sampling the atmosphere isn’t empirical.
3. The new CO2 is anthropogenic. Demonstrated in lab work from field samples by Suess in 1955, again by Revelle and Suess in 1957, and ever since. Again, lab work and field data collection.
4. Temperature is rising, a point you concede.
5. The changes in temperature correlation closely with the changes in CO2.
The conclusion is logically inescapable that anthropogenic CO2 is causing the warming. Want me to lay it out in syllogisms?
Unless you can known down one of points 1-3, AGW is an inescapable conclusion. Points 4-5 are just confirmation. Which of points 1-3 do you disagree with, and why?
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Brian writes:
Brian, Pascal IS block-structured. Always was. It was the first block-structured language. That’s the whole point of the “BEGIN” and “END” keywords.
00
Google “Clausius-Clapeyron relation.”
Okay Barton I will, after you Google “equilibrium”
I should have said, Ada addied some ADDITIONAL block structuring. Look it up.
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BarTon: #436.
Points 1-5 is only inescapably logical for those who KNOW (in a faithful, trusting way) that there are no other major movers of the climate that could be warming the planet (from 1979-1999). That means it isn’t logic as the rest of the world understands logic.
Point 1. The LAB is not the Planet. No ocean currents. No clouds. No rain in that test tube.
Point 2. Co2 IS rising. So? So is the price of postage stamps. So was solar magnetic activity. So is land clearing. So so so… there are lots of factors at work.
Point 3. Irrelevant. Co2 is Co2. Are you trying to argue that we make different CO2 to what the oceans release?
Point 4. I’m not ‘conceding’ anything. That’s your spin. I’ve always said the world is warming. You keep dishonestly trying to make it into a ‘point’. Like I said, you’re all alone at that Party. Time to move on.
Point 5. Correlate? All historical correlations are backwards, and the current one only correlates if you squish the graph and hide all the ossilations up and down which don’t match at all with CO2.
BarTon repeat after me: There Could Be Other Things That Change The Climate. The poor Co2-Temperature Correlation Could Be Coincidental.
And No. None of the above counts as empirical evidence, meaning by observation from The Planet, that CO2 Has Ever Made the Planet Warmer (at these concentrations, or higher ones).
A lab test is an empirical observation of lab conditions. It does NOT show that higher CO2 levels increase cloud cover, or humidity, which are all essential if we are to get catastrophic warming.
Water is the most important greenhouse gas and we know very little about how and why atmospheric water changes. Without the positive feedback from water vapor the greenhouse warming is less than half of what the moderate IPCC recommendation is.
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Barton Paul Levenson #437
>Brian writes:
>> Remember when the Defense Department took Pascal, added
>> some block structuring, called it Ada, and decided to use
>> it for everything?
> Brian, Pascal IS block-structured. Always was. It was the
> first block-structured language. That’s the whole point
> of the “BEGIN” and “END” keywords.
I worked on porting a Ada runtime library to an Alliant min-super computer. We needed it largely because it was a checkbox on various gov’t procurements. I don’t know if anyone used it, Fortran (the compiler did vectorization and parallelizing) was the language of choice for that system.
Like AGW, there were True Believers in Ada. They didn’t like it much when I used “Aduh” in some Emails. Some of its process handling constructs required Unix kernel changes to support.
I believe Ada had its strongest roots with PL/1, though it is different enough to be its own language. I never considered it a Pascal derivative. Maybe Modula-I (a Pascal follow on that was meant to be useful in real life).
Pascal is most definitely not the first block structured language. That honor goes to Algol in the late 1950s one generation earlier. I learned Algol at Carnegie-Mellon in 1968 from Alan Perlis, one of the original developers and first chairman of the CMU Computer Science Dept. Perlis taught the lecture session of that course to give us newbies a sense of what computer science was all about and left most of the language nitty-gritty to the grad students in recitation classes. The grad students may have learned more than we did in the lectures.
Perlis also wrote the final exam, and left for vacation in Hawaii without giving the grad students an answer key.
Hmm, Wikipedia says Perlis was born in Pittsburgh – I never knew that.
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My first introduction to Pascal was the course, “The design of well-structured and correct programming with Pascal,” usint the text of the same name, and cripes if Ada didn’t look like that. (Both terms are specifically defined.)
MODULA-1 didn’t look like that to me at all. I vaguely remember PL/1 and I don’t recall it looking like Ada.
Algol of couse gave rise to B, Pascal, and Simula.
My very favourite language used by no one anymore is APL. I had a course in experimental linear algebra using that, and the young instructor foolishly stated, “I want to see everyone write programs as concisely as possible, no one can write them more concisely than me.”
He had to lift that advice, because that language can be written so that virtually no one can predict the outcome.
The language is not very good for actual computations because the linear algebra is not optimized for the tasks to hand (i.e., it doesn’t know a sparse matrix from a banded matrix etc.)
Remember the do-it-yourself compiler language SKELETON?
I was certain that some grad student somewhere had used that to cook up Ada as a joke
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JoNova writes:
I’m talking about formal logic, JoAnne, the kind that they teach in introductory logic courses on college campuses. Again, do you want me to lay it out in syllogisms? It might be a useful exercise.
CO2 doesn’t cease to be a greenhouse gas outside the laboratory. How would a molecule of CO2 “know” it was in a laboratory and not outdoors, anyway? The other factors are not what we’re discussing. Obviously, more CO2 won’t warm the planet if some other factor works against it–but we know all the relevant factors, and the ones working against it aren’t enough to prevent the rise.
You’re aware that correlation is not causation, right? There’s a correlation between Andean earthquakes and oppositions of Uranus, but it’s not likely there’s any physical connection there. In the case of CO2 and temperature, we have an established physical mechanism, and the relation survives tests for residual autocorrelation and so on which your postage stamp relation does not. Try it.
What’s the Durbin-Watson statistic on your postage-stamp-temperature correlation, JoAnne? The autocorrelation coefficient? Do you understand why I’m asking these questions?
Nope. I’m just saying the added CO2 is anthropogenic, thus “anthropogenic global warming.” Are you sure you don’t understand this?
Right, you agree with me that the world is warming. The question is why. Put the 4th point in context with the other points and you’ll see why I include it.
What does this even mean? Do you mean I should be using data points from the future? How?
So far you reject 1) laboratory experiment, and 2) statistical analysis. Are there any other major tools of science you want to throw out?
Nonsense. I used all the points. CO2 accounts for 76% of the variance. Everything else accounts for 24%. I’m not hiding anything. Don’t you understand how a regression analysis works?
I’ll go you one better: There ARE other things that change the climate. Sunlight, cloud cover, surface albedo, other greenhouse gases, natural and artificial aerosols. But they simply haven’t been major influences on the global warming of the last 129 years. Especially not the last 30.
The poor Co2-Temperature Correlation Could Be Coincidental.
What kind of evidence would you accept?
Increased cloud cover would COOL the ground, JoAnne, since the albedo effect of clouds dominates over their greenhouse effect except for very high-altitude clouds.
Absolute humidity rises with temperature (the Clausius-Clapeyron relation), so a small rise in temperature caused by CO2 is amplified by the increase due to water vapor. This is called the “water vapor feedback.”
Well, temperature changes the vapor pressure (Clausius-Clapeyron again). Increased wind speed increases evaporation. Pressure matters, too.
Right, but there’s no reason to think the actual situation will be “[w]ithout the positive feedback from water vapor.”
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Ric, you’re absolutely right, and I was wrong on that point. Algol-60 WAS the first block-structured language, not Pascal. And Simula-67 was also block-structured. My bad. This is an especially bad lapse for me since I studied both Algol-60 and Simula-67 at Pitt in the early ’80s.
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What’s the difference between telling Barton about the effects of CO2 in the air and telling the wind?
The wind won’t give stupid answers in reply
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By the way Barton
The Clausius-Clapyeyron equation:
1) relates the vapour pressure of a liquid to the enthalpy of vapourisation and temperature; nothing more, nothing less
2) Is entirely equivalent to the relation
chemical potential of substance in liquid = chemical potential of substance in vapour state in equilbrium with the vapour
nothing more, nothing less
vapour pressure has no meaning outside of equilibrium
blah blah blah
damnit I’m talking to my shoes for the ten thousandth time
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It’s amazing how many idiots with no education and minimal intelligence are not too ashamed to post opinions on the internet about things they know nothing about and which conflict with the nearly unanimous opinion of people who actually analyze and try to comprehend the stuff for a living. Simply amazing.
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Toto?
Where are you, Toto?
Mister Tin Man, will you help me find Toto?
if i only had a BRAINNNNNNN
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Many of the posts for each position reinforce that there is not clean data, there is too many factors for any model to be accurate, so all of the “science” (what little there is without a way to make experiments) amounts to a big guess. I don’t want to spend trillions of dollars on a “guess” no matter how many professional guessers agree with it! Now reductions in co2 by increased efficiency etc are worthy on their own without a bunch of folks stirring up the masses with stuff they don’t understand.
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BarTon,
I am talking about formal logic. Argument From Ignorance. All your reasoning hinges on knowing that CO2 does something because We Have Ruled Out Everything Else.
Since we can’t predict the climate, obviously we don’t know what drives it. Therefore we Can’t possible Rule Out Effects We Don’t Understand.
Please don’t lay out anything in syllogisms – I don’t want to have to point out the flaws. Learn what argument from ignorance means.
“The argument from ignorance, also known as argumentum ad ignorantiam (“appeal to ignorance” [1]), argument by lack of imagination, or negative evidence, is a logical fallacy in which it is claimed that a premise is true only because it has not been proven false, or is false only because it has not been proven true.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
Faulty reasonging: We know “CO2 is bad because the world has warmed and it wasn’t solar irradiance…”
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vulcan alex writes:
You’re making a qualitative argument about a quantitative subject. Yes, there are many factors involved, some of which we don’t know about yet. But through statistical analysis we can estimate how much of an effect each has. There’s a very simple concept in analyzing a given time series (e.g. temperature) called “variance accounted for.” If you know that, say, two of the factors known to be related account for 78% of the variance, you can be sure that every other factor, known and unknown, can only account for 22%. Not knowing everything is not the same as knowing nothing.
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Joanne Nova writes:
No. Straw man argument. I’m not saying that at all, and neither is any other climate scientist. The theory of AGW does not rest on climate correlations, it rests on radiation physics, and was predicted long before the time series data was available. The time series data is only confirmation.
Your very premise is wrong here. Who says we can’t predict the climate? Remember, climate is a long-term statistical average, and we’re very good at predicting that sort of thing. You know how a casino stays in business, don’t you? Even though the individual events in it are utterly impossible to predict?
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There are known unknowns
And there are unknown unknowns
We have procedures to deal with the former
But serendipity only will reveal the latter
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Sorry for the delay in replying to Barton’s comment. Internet is not always cooperative from Afghanistan and things have been a little busy of late.
Note to all observers: As I pointed out to Brian Valentine, I’m under no illusions about convincing Barton of anything.
Yes, clearly you haven’t, or you didn’t understand the thrust of the paper (Kiehl and Trenberth, 1997). The study concluded nothing of the sort, indeed it reached no definitive conclusions. Stated quite clearly in the opening sentence of the abstract, “The purpose of this paper is to put forward a new estimate, in the context of previous assessments, of the annual global mean energy budget.” And a little later, “Partitioning of the radiative energy throughout the atmosphere is achieved through the use of detailed radiation models for both the longwave and shortwave spectral regions.” (emphasis added)
Within the study’s closing summary the authors state, “In discussing increases in greenhouse gases and their impact on climate change, the dominant contribution of water vapor to the current greenhouse effect is often overlooked. We have also demonstrated that the presence of clouds in the atmosphere complicates these percent contributions due to the strong wavelength overlap between absorption by water vapor and liquid.” (emphasis added)
That’s hardly a ringing endorsement of CO2 as the main forcing.
Global mean energy budget and radiative forcings are conceptual frameworks for modeling the Earth’s climate system. Further, radiative forcing values are not measured, but calculated and it is those calculated values, based on sets of assumptions that feed radiative models.
The oceans (by far the most significant energy sink) only received cursory attention in the context of El Niño events in the cited study. Ignoring the oceans is a huge flaw in global energy budget estimates and models. The atmosphere doesn’t have the capacity to absorb the energy that the oceans absorb.
Snobbery and condescension on full display again. No, Barton I am not using “educated guess” as my understanding of theory. In the scientific process you make observations, formulate a question about those observations and then propose a hypothesis that seeks to answer that question. You have a hypothesis and nothing more. The AGW religion hasn’t shown me, or most skeptics/climate realists enough to elevate AGW hypothesis to theory.
Ptolemy’s theory of an earth-centric solar system was classic…and wrong. An unquantified “prediction” isn’t of much value. The whole house of cards is based upon an assumption of 1°C temperature rise with a doubling of CO2 in the absence of any other forcings or feedbacks.
That’s not evidence.
You used a mathematical model. Mathematical models are approximations of reality, they aren’t reality. Whether you use a computer is irrelevant.
Arrogance had everything to do with it. The real world is not a model. A model is only an approximation of reality, it isn’t reality. You’ve proven NONE of your assertions with empirical evidence.
Look ladies and gentlemen, Barton, again speaking with absolute certainty without offering any actual evidence, implies that he’s seen every paper ever submitted to Energy and Environment and knows the review and publishing outcome of each and every one.
Barton, if you are going to make an accusation like that, kindly provide the proof.
Yeah Barton, go ahead and quote me. Let’s throw one of “Nature’s” recent highly professional efforts out there for everyone to see.
Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year: David P. Schneider, Scott D. Rutherford, Michael E. Mann, Josefino C. Comiso, Drew T. Shindell, Eric J. Steig: Nature 457, 459-462 (22 January 2009)
Not only did the referees not catch the fact that the weather stations were spliced, incorrectly reported (falsified?) and the data was simply bad, but the methodology employed Mann’s discredited 3 PCA analysis. The referees didn’t catch the bad data, but readers did within less than two weeks of publication and proved it with enough evidence that the British Antarctic Survey issued corrections on the data three weeks after publication.
Four months on and Steig is still resisting full disclosure, claiming in essence “the dog ate my homework” when asked to produce code and archives of his runs. However, he at least archived some runs within months rather than dragging out resistance for years like Mann did.
Perhaps you haven’t followed the discussion Barton, but the controversy with MBH98 erupted after publication. Referring me to the initial study doesn’t prove your point. Mann is also using the “dog ate my homework” defense.
Mann has never revealed how his confidence intervals were calculated, how he determined the number of principal components to retain, or how tree ring series were selected or excluded. The source code produced for the House Energy and Commerce Committee was incomplete. In addition, he hasn’t archived results for individual steps to enable back-engineering.
If you mean within the incestuous group known as “The Team” that’s not independent. Most reconstructions of his 3 PCA methodology have discovered that just about whatever data you put in the front end, you end up with a hockey stick.
Arguing from authority again and not very convincing given their recent AGW track record. Explain the giant screw-up with the Steig study. It was hardly the hallmark of professionalism, but certainly indicative of closed-minded, biased groupthink. On AGW matters they are patently biased and don’t publish anything critical of the AGW religion.
So now Barton is arguing that climate has always been stable, there were never Ice Ages and never periods of Earth history where there was no ice anywhere. The Earth does go through cycles, but that’s not the same thing as harmonic motion. Your high school debate attempt to pin that on me is hilarious.
This may come as a surprise to you, but there is nuclear ball of fire 1.3 MILLION times larger than Earth only 8 light-minutes away. It’s where the energy has always come from.
GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out. Temperature reconstructions are mathematical approximations – models. They consist of enormous statistical infilling and numerous assumptions.
There are fewer than 10,000 surface stations on the entire planet. Even assuming (not a valid assumption) that the 10,000 surface stations are spread evenly across the planet’s surface, that would mean a surface station approximately every 5100km2. That’s a resolution roughly four times worse than the granularity claimed in AR4.
The reality is even worse since GISSTemp typically only uses about 6257 surface stations in the initial pass which would yield a ration of 1/8152km2. Not all these stations survive the manipulations to be included in the final anomaly. Over 2/3 of the stations are in the industrialized countries of the Northern Hemisphere, so the reality is that the distribution is so skewed that there is no way you can conclude the outcome is empirical. This is all before you even begin discussing problems like UHI. (HadCRU and NOAA have similar issues.)
Right, a 30 year oscillation during the most recent positive phase of which almost all your temperature rise occurred. Ignoring that fact won’t make it go away.
The PDO recently turned negative, where it will likely stay for about 30 years. Since the switch, temps have stopped rising. There is lag in all this so only time and actual observation will settle the argument.
Simultaneously with the current negative PDO, the sun has checked out on vacation with a pattern very similar to the Maunder minimum. As of 26 May, the current Solar Minimum has achieved “Grand Minimum” status and there are only three minimums that exceeded the current minimum’s count of spotless days (Maunder, Dalton and the unnamed minimum from cycles 12 – 15). Even avowed “Warmists” like NASA’s David Hathaway are concerned about what they are seeing. In conjunction with all the major oceanic oscillations having gone negative, the initial impact has the potential of being severe.
There has been a generally agreed upon increase of about 1°C over the last century. Not out of bounds for natural climate variation. So? Doesn’t say what caused the century worth of overall warming.
Australia has been regarded as the driest inhabited continent for centuries. This is new?
Yes, I just see them lining up at the glacier spigot for their water. So now you are saying that glaciers have never retreated before? Gee I’m sure that’s news to most geologists, you know, the guys who look at the planet in terms longer than a single human generation.
That’s all the evidence needed by people so blinded by the AGW neo-pagan religion that they are incapable of grasping the complexity of the entire system and think that somehow a single trace gas controls the fate of the planet.
Note the continued snobbery.
Dynamic models are a subset of stochastic models. There are many variations, but the common name is dynamical stochastic model. Regardless, splitting hairs over model definitions just illustrates your desperation. Dynamical stochastic models still rely heavily on parameterizations for unknown relationships and the end results are probabilistic, not certain. In layman’s terms, there’s a lot of WAGs involved.
See above. Not all stochastic models use Monte Carlo methods.
I stand corrected on whether models include water vapor. I’m not sure what I was thinking of when I wrote that. The majority of the models assume a positive feedback mechanism for water vapor.
Like gee, I had no idea that GCMs were complex! Guess what? The real world climate is even more complex than your models AND we really don’t know how it all fits together in the real world!
Clearly, my statement differentiated the difference between weather and climate. I said, “If you can’t accurately model weather five years out, you can’t accurately model climate 30 years out.”
Your “explanation” is simplistic. In a simple linear regression, the trendline of the anomaly over 100 years is up. So what? That’s natural variation. Expressed as a smoothed curve, temps are flat to declining the last 7 – 10 years.
More hair-splitting Barton? I seem to recall Einstein saying something like, “It doesn’t matter if 100 scientists agree with me, it only takes one to prove me wrong.”
So where is your evidence. You ain’t got ‘ny!
Blinders affixed to all possible alternate explanations for the wee rise in temps over a century. You’ve shown your AGW bias and nothing more. Proxy manipulation and ignoring historical evidence isn’t showing a damn thing. It’s manipulating data to reach a predetermined conclusion.
No, that’s the AGW hypothesis. No empirical evidence to support it.
Don’t recall saying that logarithmic means flat, but I sure as hell know that the assumed rate of increase in temp due to an increase in CO2 significantly declines. You are assuming climate sensitivity to CO2. Radiative Forcing values are calculated, not measured and are based upon assumptions.
You’ve provided no evidence that this is true.
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Yes, simply amazing how the AGW crowd can’t pass on a pure ad hominem attack totally lacking in any substance or evidence.
Yes, simply amazing how with the full backing of the mainstream media, Pseudo-scientific UN panels where the lead authors assess their own studies, and ludicrous claims by scientists like James “Death Trains” Hansen and Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann and politicians like Henry “Ice Holding Down the Tundra” Waxman that there are still people out there capable of thinking for themselves.
Sort of like how Copernicus, Galileo and Columbus didn’t agree with the “near unanimous opinions” of their day.
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Normal people know what a joke it is, it is only the tea-sipping liberals who want to control everybody anyway who believe in it
“Say, Mister Cattle Rancher – Did you know that your Cattle and you Pick Up Truck are overheating the Planet? Al Gore says you ought to know better, and if you don’t know any better, he will help to make it so that will know better, whether you like it or not.”
“[explitive] [explitive] [explitive] [explitive] [explitive] [explitive] [explitive]!”
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Alarmist or not, we need to cut down on our emissions anyway. That means fuel efficient vehicles, that means global awareness, that means Mr. Cattle Rancher needs to get down off his high-horse (pun fucking intended) and help us “tea-sipping liberals” actually try to act intelligently collectively rather than individually for a god damn change.
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I fat-fingered some numbers in my last reply to BPL #453:
In discussing surface temperature measurements I typed:
That should read: 51,000km2.
In discussing the first set of filtering in GISSTemp I typed:
That should read: …which would yield a ratio of 1/81,520km2.
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Anon, you are not making sense. Does anyone else understand what Anon wants to convey? Please go back to the drawing board and try again, s-l-o-w-l-y, thinking your arguments through carefully and logically, using grammatically correct sentence structures and preferably without expletives. Thank you.
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JL Krueger writes:
It’s not discussing forcing at all. You have contribution to the greenhouse effect confused with forcing. Water vapor contributes most of Earth’s greenhouse effect. CO2 is the dominant forcing in anthropogenic global warming. There is no contradiction there. If you think there is, you don’t understand the subject.
El Nino is weather. The study was of climate–the Earth’s mean annual radiation budget.
Most modern GCMs are “coupled atmosphere-ocean general circulation models.”
When you say AGW is “only a theory,” that’s exactly what you’re doing.
It was quantified. Have you read the paper? It’s available free on the web.
Yes. Technically the data the statistical analysis is performed on is the evidence. This appears to me to be a distinction without a difference. What’s your point?
“Empirical evidence” refers to observations, data gathered, ultimately, through the use of human senses. We have empirical evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that CO2 is rising, that the Earth is warming, and that the two effects correlate. What more do you want?
Seriously. I’ve asked Joanne Nova this twice without getting an answer. Maybe you can answer:
What evidence would you accept?
I have followed it. Your charges are crap. Mann has provided all his data and all his methods. I pointed you to where the data was publicly available.
Right, you get one 1/16th of the magnitude he got in his paper. And every other study, whether using decentered PCA or not, still comes up with a “hockey stick” shape for temperature versus time over the past millenium. Sorry, that’s just what actually happened.
How does that follow from anything I said? You appear to have quoted me without reading the quote.
The solar constant doesn’t drive the ice ages, JL. Google “Milankovic cycles.” They would exist even if the sun’s output were perfectly flat.
Do you understand how sampling is done? Your idea that there must be a perfectly even distribution of stations is just wrong. There just needs to be enough in each area to give a reliable average.
I notice you’re dissenting from Joanne Nova here, who accepts that the world is warming. You seem to be arguing that the warming is an artifact. You would have to explain, then, why the alleged problems with the surface stations haven’t caused different results than we get from sea surface readings, balloon radiosonde readings, satellite readings, borehole readings, etc., etc., etc., all of which come up with about the same rates of temperature increase.
So how come the trend for the last 128 years is also up? The quadruple 30-year oscillation, perhaps?
No, they have not. The trend is still up. Do the math.
So you’re contradicting your assertion above that the increase is not reliable empirical data?
Nope. About 100 times faster than normal, though.
No, but attribution studies and knowledge of radiation physics does.
Their losing a third of their agricultural production in the last few years due to drought is new, yes.
The glaciers melt and feed rivers, JL.
No. But we never had a billion people depending on glacier melt for their fresh water before.
What do you have against religion, JL? Are you assuming everyone else on the blog is a militant atheist? I’m sure not.
And AGW isn’t a religion, it’s a scientific theory — one especially well backed up by the evidence.
In many, many ways a single trace gas does control the fate of the planet. Google “carbonate-silicate cycle.” The lack of such a cycle is the main reason Mars is uninhabitable. The effects of that cycle are what determine the habitable zone around any star. That cycle is what has kept Earth life-bearing during most of its history. Please learn a little planetary astronomy. Start with looking up and reading the many published papers on the subject by such people as Kasting, Walker, Hays, Berner, and Lasaga. It’s a huge body of scientific theory and research.
NONSENSE! Do you even understand what the word “stochastic” means? It refers to a random process, JL. GCMs do not use randomizers. Dynamical models do not use randomizers. They do not use Monte Carlo methods. I can’t even begin to say in how many ways your statement above is wrong, ignorant, and stupid.
Please don’t just make stuff up.
We don’t have to know how it all fits together, we just have to know most of it. Once again you’re assuming that if we don’t know everything, we know nothing. No. Fallacy of bifurcation. We don’t know all the effects on an airplane, either, but we know enough to model how one will perform.
Right, but that statement shows a deep confusion between weather and climate, even if you know the two different words. Your “if-then” is a pure non sequitur.
So it’s not falling. So stop saying it’s falling.
No, that’s AGW.
Meaningless, since the sample size is too small. You generally need 30 years to pick a climate trend out of the weather noise.
How does a statistical analysis of the historical evidence ignore the evidence? Do you read what you write before you post it?
How is doing a regression “manipulating data,” other than in the most prosaic definitional sense? How would you do a regression so that it doesn’t “manipulate data?” And how was the conclusion predetermined?
No matter how many times you and JN chant “No empirical evidence,” you’ll still be wrong. I’ve listed the evidence over and over again, you just insist on ignoring it.
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JL Krueger writes:
For the most part they did. Copernicus was a monk who accepted that all orbits had to be circles, since circles were perfect, and used epicycles in his model. Galileo had the same idea, rejecting Kepler’s suggestion that orbits might be elliptical.
And Columbus indeed disagreed with mainstream opinion–he was a crackpot who believed the Earth was much smaller than it actually is, due to a mistaken interpretation of one line in Aristotle about the Earth’s shadow on the Moon. Columbus believed the Earth was 5,700 miles in diameter, with a circumference of 18,000 miles, as opposed to the mainstream figures, found by Eratosthenes c. 300 BC, that it was 8,000 miles in diameter with a circumference of 25,000 miles. That’s why he thought he could sail straight west to India with a normal load of provisions. Had the Americas not existed, Columbus and all his crew would have died. He went to his grave believing he’d found India.
He was funded because, as you would like, ideologues were in charge of funding and directing science. Ferdinand and Isabella had ruthlessly persecuted Jews and Muslims in their quest to unite Spain behind one ideology, and part of that was that they rejected the science espoused by their Moorish and Morisco citizens. Columbus, despite being from Genoa, was a chance to promote “Spanish science.”
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BPL: “Global warming means more drought in continental interiors. Ask the Australians.”
JLK: “Australia has been regarded as the driest inhabited continent for centuries. This is new?”
BPL: “Their losing a third of their agricultural production in the last few years due to drought is new, yes.”
Barton, I am not qualified to check most of your other assertions (nor do I have the time … my God, when does this man sleep? work?)
But this one just sticks in my gullet as I’ve just been researching Australian agriculture stats for my employer! Here are the real figures:
“AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION UP BY A QUARTER
Tuesday, 10 February 2009
Good weather conditions and higher prices for grain crops have helped push the overall value of Australia’s agricultural production 24 per cent higher for 2007-08.
Preliminary figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the annual value of agricultural production increased to $44.5 billion.
Cereal and other grain crops had the biggest increase of 41 per cent – or $25 billion – because of higher production and prices.
But there was a severe 44 per cent drop in cotton production.”
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200902/s2487562.htm
Now, before you try to make something of the drop in cotton, here’s what the cotton growers’ association say about that (wholesale wrong application of herbicides, apparently:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/29/2477063.htm
And here’s what the same guys say about the future of cotton in Australia:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/09/2462181.htm
May I quote your own words back to you? “Don’t just make stuff up!”
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“He went to his grave believing he’d found India.”
Dogfish he did, he at least knew the climate and general topography of Southern Asia.
IPCC was funded because, as you would like, ideologues were in charge of funding and directing science. Al Gore had ruthlessly persecuted unbelievers of Ravelle’s delusions in his quest to unite “science” behind one ideology, and part of that was that he rejected the science espoused by the mainstream ever since Arrhenius lived. Gore, despite being from Tennessee, had a chance to promote “Velikovskian science.”
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[Ravelle was to later recant his ill-considered hypotheses, but by that time Gore had enough power to mostly supress and mock Ravelle’s contrition as the pseudo-confession of a senile old fool]
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Barton #460
So now Barton is claiming that Copernicus, Galileo and Columbus did nothing counter to the prevailing opinions of their day.
Your terminal hair-splitting is getting a tad annoying.
On the issues which cemented their place in history as visionaries, they went against prevailing opinion. And that’s all that really matters.
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Krueger,
Barton gets his historical interpretations of Galileo, Copernicus, and Cristobo Columbo efforts as goofed up as he does in his interpretation of the global climate, so there’s no need to speak to that.
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BPL, you are talking complete gibberish and making a fool of yourself. This one is a gem:
“And every other study, whether using decentered PCA or not, still comes up with a “hockey stick” shape for temperature versus time over the past millenium. Sorry, that’s just what actually happened.”
Most of the AR4 proxy reconstruction look nothing like a hockey stick.
See for example
http://globalwarmingquestions.googlepages.com/ar4mwp
This one also really made me laugh:
“I notice you’re dissenting from Joanne Nova here, who accepts that the world is warming.”
Clearly you haven’t read Joanne’s skeptic’s handbook, where she says, point 3 on page 3, in bold
Temperatures are not rising
In your own words: “Please don’t just make stuff up. Do you read what you write before you post it?”
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Brian posts:
“Revelle.” And who was it Gore persecuted, and how did he do that, precisely? As far as I can tell, all the persecution was the other way. The White House tried to muzzle James Hansen. Mike Mann had his notes and papers subpoenaed by a Congressional committee and was ordered to defend himself before that committee, in the style of HUAC in the 1950s. Scientists had their papers rewritten by bureaucrats. Jim Salinger was fired.
But whenever someone points out the mistakes and lies of the deniers, the deniers cry that they’re being persecuted. They really, really don’t like free speech. Apparently they think people shouldn’t be allowed to criticize them, and that if someone does criticize them, it’s persecution. And they talk about how their opinion is being suppressed, even though they can chatter about their views to their hearts content on the internet, publish books, get interviewed on TV and radio, and absolutely dominate right-wing talk radio.
If this is persecution, please persecute me.
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JL Krueger writes:
Read my lips: Columbus was WRONG. DEAD WRONG. Educated people in his day did NOT believe the Earth was flat. They had known it was round ever since Eratosthenes measured its circumference about 300 years BC. Columbus thought it was much smaller than it really is. He went against established theory, but established theory was RIGHT and he was WRONG. You believe the false stories put out about Columbus in the 19th century because you’ve never consulted primary sources. Why don’t you read what Columbus actually wrote?
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PaulM writes:
Paul, go back to Joanne Nova’s post above yours, at #439, where she says:
I was going by what she wrote here, more recently. Apparently she has changed her belief, in which case good for her for showing intellectual flexibility and the willingness to learn.
Wish others here could say as much.
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Sorry, Bart, I had been thinking about J Maurice Ravel, who I like (rather than Roger, who i don’t have a lot of respect for).
For Heaven’s sake, Hansen looks like he was the target of a witch hunt, and people were only asking him why he was a Government worker, AND CHARGING PEOPLE for speaking and “advising,” AND STILL BILLING HIMSELF as a NASA guru.
Cripes I would be fired from the DOE for that – I have never taken a nickel from anyone.
So who did Al Gore “persecute”?
Check up on the name Will Happer, and what is job was 1991-1993, and why, just why, did Happer have that job until 1993 only?
Will Happer wasn’t the only one.
Ozone Al was named Ozone Al by Democrats believe it or not – Clinton actually thought the guy was way way out there, but Ozone managed to manipulate people behind the scenes.
Yours Truly was nominated as a candidate to IPCC, yes indeed, and Yours Truly was interviewed by IPCC people in 1999 to serve as reviewer, some questions about my thoughts about AGW were posed, Yours Truly provided a most candid response, and was not invited to the party.
Who wants riff-raff at their parties, anyway.
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Brian writes:
Aw, gee. They didn’t want to invite an obvious flaming crackpot to work on a science literature review, so you’re being persecuted. C’est dommage.
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The IPCC wasn’t very kind to dissenters on the IPCC. Reports about the scientific chapters being modified to fit the Summary for Policy Makers have left me pretty skeptical of all government-run science, especially where there’s pork to be changed to sausage.
A decent Aussie-centric link that summarizes the IPCC’s disrespect for the not-so-obvious flaming crackpots is http://jimball.com.au/Features/IPCC-False_evidence.htm
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Thank you, Ric, for a polite reply instead of my first considered not so polite reply
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Swine flu. another classic case of alarmism. 99 people died. How is it compared to 22,000 people dying from malaria during the same period of time. http://www.ausbusiness.net/review/swine-flu-99-malaria-20000/
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Guennadi,
I understand you are .. um.. frustrated that thousands haven’t died. But swine flu is nothing like climate change. We have direct observational evidence that millions have died in the past due to H1N1. It’s virtually guaranteed that even if swine flu is nice to us it will kill people.
You can’t say the same about CO2. There’s no evidence it has killed anyone.
I’m a microbiologist by training. Influenza is damn scary. There are nasty bugs out there that modern medicine is virtually powerless against. Swine Flu might not be one of those bugs, but we didn’t know that a few weeks ago, and it’s subject to change at any moment.
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Guennadi M:
> Swine flu. another classic case of alarmism.
Don’t let your guard down! I didn’t know much about the 1918 “Spanish flu” until an episode of “Upstairs, Downstairs” used it to bump off a cast member. Alistair Cooke’s comments about it killing more people than the War was quite an eye-opener. When SARS rolled around, I went off and read a book about the 1918 flu and was amazed to find it may have originated in the US (Kansas) and the impact it had in places in New England I thought I was familiar with.
BTW, the 1918 flu spread in two stages, the first was not too severe, but it mutated into something that made it much more dangerous to people with healthy immune systems. Don’t write it off yet – nor H5N1. Another scary thing is how quickly the 1918 flu spread, most of the deaths occurred, IIRC, in just a few weeks. That’s not enough time to develop a vaccine.
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Joanne’s point is a good one. The present version of Swine Flu doesn’t appear to be very toxic, but viruses mutate. It’s much better to take precautions and not need them than to fail to take precautions and turn out to need them. In the first place you’ve wasted some money and alarmed people; in the second a lot of people die.
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As I see it, viral DNA (or RNA) mutations are random, most of these mutations being non-pathogenic to humans so the mutations don’t persist, the number of possible virulent viral variations to a presently non-communicable ones being small, the probablity is very low
(Barton procedes to trash Brian)
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Barton, your not-so-subtle analogy with AGW sucks! With influenza viruses you are talking about scenarios with clear, documented precedents – viz. the Spanish flu – AND precautions that literally don’t cost the earth and are relatively easy and non-invasive to apply.
With AGW you have NO historical precedents, NO correlative evidence, NO real-world evidence, NO recorded deaths, AND very, very shaky scientific theory at best. Let’s not even get started on the price of the precautions we are asked to take!
Quite frankly, this whole AGW debacle would not interest me one jot if it was just a theoretical tiff between scientists. It’s the social cost if we fail to turn the world opinion that worries me, and it worries me a great deal. I have two teenage boys. With the GFC and Kevin Rudd’s “stimulus package” and a AU$300 BILLION deficit which my sons will most probably spend most of their working lives paying off, I’m going to fight tooth and nail to prevent further damage being done to them (and to people less well off than us) by the introduction of any carbon taxation, whatever form it may take and whatever the government du jour may choose to call to sweeten the pill.
The very fact that Western nations now have the ridiculous institution of “Climate Change Ministries” is bizarre and surreal and quite frankly makes me want to vomit!
That lies and politics go together is unfortunately not news (I am particularly blessed to be working for one of the few ‘straight shooters’ in politics). That our Prime Minister and Climate Change Minister have come up with a “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” is beyond the pale.
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Good, Anne Kit
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… and before any nitpickers point out that AU$300 Billion is peanuts compared with the US deficit, let me remind you that there are only 20 million of us and 300 million US citizens …
(Check cool new search engine Wolfram Alpha where you can go check your figures by typing in “population of Australia vs USA”!)
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Anne-Kit writes:
It wasn’t any kind of analogy, subtle or otherwise. I was simply talking about Swine Flu.
The paleoclimate record? I guess that would be “prehistorical precedents.”
Try here:
http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Correlation.html
Haven’t you been reading my posts? I listed a lot of the evidence. The evidence says CO2 is a greenhouse gas, CO2 is rising, the new CO2 is from artificial sources, and temperature is rising. Those are all from measurements. Evidence, by definition.
Been reading the news? The most recent estimate is that climate change is already killing 300,000 people per year.
What’s shaky about it? It rests on quantum physics and radiation transfer theory, which are very well established indeed.
We have to replace hundreds of billions of dollars worth of energy infrastructure every year whatever we do. Why not make it renewable? What’s wrong with building trains or insulating houses?
And you forget that the price of doing nothing is not zero. The price of doing nothing is increasing destruction leading eventually to the collapse of our civilization. How much will that cost?
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“The paleoclimate record of (A)GW at work.”
Oh Jeezis here we go again with the “dinosaurs invented the SUV and summarily destroyed themselves with the CO2 in the atmosphere” argument.
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(Sigh) I was looking forward to an early bedtime. Here goes:
A-K: “Barton, your not-so-subtle analogy with AGW sucks!”
BPL: “It wasn’t any kind of analogy, subtle or otherwise. I was simply talking about Swine Flu.”
Yeah, SUURE you were! (wink) 🙂
A-K: “With AGW you have NO historical precedents,”
BPL: “The paleoclimate record? I guess that would be “prehistorical precedents.”
?? And the prehistorical burning of fossil fuels was perpetrated by … aliens, perhaps? Or were the dinosaurs just particularly and excessively flatulent?
A-K: “NO correlative evidence,”
BPL: “Try here: http://www.geocities.com/bpl1960/Correlation.html”
You are kidding me, right? Wait, wait: “Evidence” presented by Barton Paul Levenson is corroborated by link to evidence provided and peer reviewed by … wait for it …. (drum roll) … BARTON PAUL LEVENSON!
A-K: “NO real-world evidence,”
BPL: “Haven’t you been reading my posts? I listed a lot of the evidence. The evidence says CO2 is a greenhouse gas, CO2 is rising, the new CO2 is from artificial sources, and temperature is rising. Those are all from measurements. Evidence, by definition.”
Barton, I stopped reading (most of) your posts some time ago. Evidence, perhaps, of your gullibility, not of AGW.
A-K: “NO recorded deaths,”
BPL: “Been reading the news? The most recent estimate is that climate change is already killing 300,000 people per year.”
I read newspapers for a living. And with a background in Public Relations I have a very jaundiced view of the integrity of the media (with a few notable exeptions). Whose estimate exactly? Al Gore? Tim Flannery? The National Enquirer? News of the World? Entertainment Tonight? Paris Hilton? Or is it maybe the same media that try to tell us Pacific Islands have already disappeared because of global warming? Or that Antarctica is melting? Or that the North West passage has never before been navigable? Or that the 2004 tsunami was caused by climate change?
A-K: “AND very, very shaky scientific theory at best.”
BPL: “What’s shaky about it? It rests on quantum physics and radiation transfer theory, which are very well established indeed.”
It could be resting on Isaac Newton’s noggin or Albert Einstein’s backside for all I care, it’s still shaky.
A-K: “Let’s not even get started on the price of the precautions we are asked to take!”
BPL: “We have to replace hundreds of billions of dollars worth of energy infrastructure every year whatever we do. Why not make it renewable? What’s wrong with building trains or insulating houses?”
Because renewables are not able to meet our energy needs at our current level of technology, and because renewables are unreliable and require fossil fuel backups, and because renewables are not viable economically even with government subsidies; when will you people listen? We’ve done this for decades in my native Denmark and the real ugly story that you don’t hear is that Denmark has to buy electricity from other countries!
And building trains and insulating houses are very laudable things to do but it ain’t going to cut it in your scenario of catastrophic man-made warming! Let’s for a moment assume – and this is purely an assumption for the benefit of this example – that you clowns are right about AGW: Your Supreme Priesthood, sorry the IPCC calculate that even if ALL signatories to the Kyoto Protocol meet their commitments to draconian GHG emission reductions immediately, the maximum achievable reduction in global temperatures by 2050 is less than 0.1 degree Celsius. That’s ONE TENTH OF A DEGREE in 40 years! Helloooo!
BPL: “And you forget that the price of doing nothing is not zero. The price of doing nothing is increasing destruction leading eventually to the collapse of our civilization. How much will that cost?”
And here we go again. This would be what Bjorn Lomborg calls “the litany”.
The price of doing nothing about a non-existing problem is …. Nothing. Wake up, Barton, you’ve been had.
End of story.
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Oh, yeah, now Barton’s convinced, and now he’s gonna come back and say he’s been wrong all along
Actually if he comes back we’ll start all over again with some more of what looks like the same of some odd three hundred messages ago.
Then at Post 1062 we’ll find ourselves at Post 482
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Ann writes:
Hon, I know what I meant better than you do. Accusations you can’t prove just make you look obsessed.
Doesn’t matter what the source was. There have been episodes of global warming driven by massive releases of CO2. Google “PETM” or “Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum” for an example.
True, we’ve never had AGW before. Why does that mean it’s not happening now? We’ve never had space travel before, either, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
Is my analysis wrong, Ann? Please point out the error(s) if so. The data is from NASA GISS, Mauna Loa, and the Law Dome team. Did I get any of it wrong? If so, which?
If you haven’t been reading my posts, how can you know that I haven’t posted any evidence? Either you read it and you know I posted evidence, in which case you’re being dishonest, or you didn’t read it and posted that I’d posted no evidence anyway, which was stupid.
You think Antarctica isn’t melting? The GRACE satellites seem to disagree with you. And if you don’t know which estimate I meant above, it kind of undermines your assertion that you pay attention to the news.
Just because you say it is? That’s not very convincing.
Who says? You?
For the moment. The more we put in, the less backup we’ll need. And they’re not really unreliable in the first place. Solar thermal plants store excess heat in molten salts and use it to run the turbines at night or in cloudy weather. In practice, they achieve as much on-line time as coal-fired plants.
And while the performance of one wind turbine might be unpredictable, the performance of a bunch of them spread over a wide area is not.
The ideal solution is solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass, all linked by wide area smart grids.
Wind power is cheaper than fossil fuels and nuclear NOW. The current prices for electricity in California are 9 cents/kWh for wind, 10 for coal, 15 for nuclear.
Think about what you just said for a minute. Wind power is viable in Denmark because it’s part of a wide area grid with a number of different types of power source. My point.
Not by themselves, no. We also need to switch to renewable sources of energy.
Source, please?
It’s not a nonexistent problem at all. It’s the most dangerous problem humanity has ever faced outside of nuclear war. The fact that you don’t want to believe it is irrelevant. You’ve clearly shown that you don’t understand the science involved, so your uninformed estimate of the danger isn’t worth much.
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I found the original of Ann’s confused citation. It does not, of course, occur anywhere in the IPCC AR4 report. It’s an estimate by an industry group of what the Waxman-Markey Bill in the US alone would achieve if nobody else in the world took any measures. Here’s a prolonged discussion of Chip Knappenberger’s estimate:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/the-tragedy-of-climate-commons/langswitch_lang/po
A far cry from “even if ALL signatories to the Kyoto Protocol meet their commitments to draconian GHG emission reductions immediately, the maximum achievable reduction in global temperatures by 2050 is less than 0.1 degree Celsius. That’s ONE TENTH OF A DEGREE in 40 years!”
Check your sources more carefully, Ann.
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Bart,
Hammering away at Anne-Kit isn’t going to move the discussion much farther along right now.
Perhaps you could try to instill some momentum into some folks who might be dragging their feet down the street about a Copenhagen agreement – or worse, look likely to punk out of the festivities.
Those folks include the Japenese, the Chinese, the national India, the Russians, and a whole bunch of poor folks in developing nations who seem pretty sceptical about gettin’ burned
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A-K: “NO recorded deaths,”
BPL: “Been reading the news? The most recent estimate is that climate change is already killing 300,000 people per year.”
> I read newspapers for a living. And with a background in Public Relations I have a very jaundiced view of the integrity of the media (with a few notable exeptions). Whose estimate exactly? Al Gore? Tim Flannery? The National Enquirer? News of the World? Entertainment Tonight? Paris Hilton? Or is it…?
It’s worse. From http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/30/u-n-s-global-warming300000-deaths-a-year-report-kofi-implies-close-enough-for-government-work/
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Brian, your words (# 485) were prophetic.
Barton, I acknowledge that you are sincere in your beliefs and I am grateful for the fact that we still have the freedom to be able to speak our minds here without censorship.
I still maintain that you are deceived, and it makes me sad because I sense that in essence you are a good man. I am going to leave it at that.
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Thank you, Anne-Kit, for you example of gentlewomanliness and may I follow your example.
I have a terrible problem with incendiary behaviour which contributes to nothing.
If I remove this, then no matter what anyone accuses us of, Anne-Kit, and Joanne, at least no one can claim that their beliefs or their responses were the result of someone else’s (mine) ill behaviour.
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It would seem we had an Australian presence at the NY Climate Change conference on Tuesday:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25584035-11949,00.html
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I see MAJOR flaws with Dr. Akaso’s assertions:
(1) He is basing his theory of cycles – based solely on statistical plots of numbers – without any attempt to understand the physical forces that create the.
The GW scientists, in contrast actually simulate all the physical forces on the planet (solar radiation, CO2, aerosols, etc) using supercomputers and compare this with the long term temperature records.
(2) Seems to me Dr. Akaso is also presuming a GIANT cycle of 400 years from the Medieval Warming Period to the Little Ice Age. This is ONE point for making this assumption!
Are we really supposed to assume that there is a GIANT overriding cycle that oscillates between warm and cold (that is mysterious – we cannot understand) based on one data point. Classic statistics says you need at least 30 data points for any trend to be valid. This is definitely missing here.
Even the 30 years sub cycles that Dr. Akaso says runs within the larger 400 year cycles – I don’t see he’s pulled 30 points for this.
(3) Not to mention – where does he even get his temperature graphs? Why are they so different from reconstructions used by the top climatologists in the world? Did Dr.
Akaso construct his own graph.
Here is Wikipidea’s graph of the long term temperature record.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy
Differences:
• I don’t see the 30 years subcycles on this graph.
• Also missing on Dr. Akaso’s graph is the STEEP incline in the last decades.
This is the hottest decade in the last 150 years AND in the last thousands of years. One doesn’t see this on Dr. Alaso’s graph – nor does he refer to it.
[Note: I am aware there were some statistical criticisms of Mann’s earlier temperature graphs – but these have been revised after expanding some of the data samples used.)
(4) Dr Akaso makes a big deal about there being a relative “cooling period from 1940 to 1975, despite human emissions of carbon dioxide”
This has been explain by use of aerosols
GW Scientists <<explain the relative cooling that take place from 1940 to 1970 as due to to a high concentration of sulphate aerosols in the atmosphere, emitted by industrial activities and volcanic eruptions. Sulphate aerosols have a cooling effect on the climate because they scatter light from the Sun, reflecting its energy back out into space.
The rise in sulphate aerosols was largely due to the increase in industrial activities at the end of the second world war. In addition, the large eruption of Mount Agung in 1963 produced aerosols which cooled the lower atmosphere by about 0.5°C, while solar activity levelled off after increasing at the beginning of the century
The clean air acts introduced in Europe and North America reduced emissions of sulphate aerosols. As levels fell in the atmosphere, their cooling effect was soon outweighed by the warming effect of the steadily rising levels of greenhouse gases. taken from New Scientist]
If Dr. Akaso finds a flaw with the aerosol explanation – why doesn’t he explain what this is, instead of * ** pretending** this explanation does not exist?? Seems suspicious to me.
Conclusion:
The fact that Dr. Akaso is
(i) relying solely on numerical statistics to look for patterns of cycles,
(ii) he does not have enough data to infer repeating natural trends of 400 year cycles with mini-30 cycles in between – to be statistically significant.
(iii) he has no physical explanations for why there should be any cycles in these intervals.
(iv) his temperature trends look unlike the ones used by the consensus of the top climatologists – example and also misses the steep incline in the last 30 years (this is the hottest decade in all the temperature records.)
(v) He points to periods of relative cooling (1940-1975) and acts like scientists have no explanation for it – which is not true. GW scientists say they have good fits of their models with the actual data when taking into account aerosols..
makes Dr. Akaso look suspiciously a FRINGE ideologue pushing his own agenda– not a real scientist.
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Dear Pat,
guess you mean “Akasofu” right?
As far as his sources go… Get the temperatures from Hadley or NCDC and draw a line through them yourself. You’ll see the ossilations.
The PDO has about a 30 year timetable – which fits just fine.
I can’t take anything else you say seriously while you argue from ignorance.
“GW scientists, in contrast actually simulate all the physical forces on the planet”
ALL the forces? Not even close. We know they don’t consider solar magnetic forces, and then there’s all the things we don’t know that they don’t know. A whole universe to pick from. Ruling out the effects of ‘everything else’ in an infant science like climate-science is, is a grand-mal delusion.
Ah yes, you refer to New Scientist. Be aware, if it doesn’t support AGW – they won’t tell you about it. I too once thought they were an investigative journal. More fool me. Likewise Wiki – gripped by politically correct zealots. You need better sources.
BTW – I think the aerosol problem is that most aerosols were pumped out in the Northern Hemisphere, so it should have cooled more than the southern half of the globe (or warmed less), but it didn’t. And since 1979 – the north has warmed much more than the south. Oops.
This is not the hottest decade in the last thousands of years – not unless you like fraudulent graphs based on curves you can generate with random numbers instead of real data. Bones under permafrost. Ice cores. Migration patterns…sediments,… you name it. It was hotter 1000 years ago, and hotter 5000 years ago.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Warm_periods.jpg
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> You’ll see the ossilations.
Cool typo. Ossifying oscillations. Stabilized sand dunes?
> It was hotter 1000 years ago, and hotter 5000 years ago.
And a bit before that. One amusing hand wringing moment came from a scientist who was perturbed that receeding glaciers were exposing old tree that had been preserved for 6,000 years and were going to be lost to rot. Presented as a modern horror of warming, he completely neglected to mention that 6,000 years ago there was a mature forest where there is now ice.
After noticing a few reports from that time frame, I wrote http://wermenh.com/climate/6000.html, “Glacial Retreat of 5,000-7,000 Years Ago.”
Pat: “he does not have enough data to infer repeating natural trends of 400 year cycles with mini-30 cycles in between – to be statistically significant.”
One of the problems with climatology is that it will be millions of years before we have a long enough “modern” record to be able to make satisfacatory stasticical analyses, and by then plate tectonics and the great human out-migration from the home planet will confound things anyway.
So we’re stuck with inadequate data over inadequate time with inadequate accuracy and no side can say with absolute confidence what will happen next year.
You don’t like Akasofu’s work, I don’t like Mann’s Hockey Stick. I’m surprised Wiki discusses so much of the problems with it, but if you read some of Steve McIntyre’s eassys about trying to get data and the amount of time he had to put in to reverse engineer, you may conclude Mann et al are hiding something.
Also, one reason there aren’t short term oscillations on the hockey stick is that a “goal” was discredit the Medieval Warm Period, much to the delight of the IPCC which prominently featured it in the 3rd report.
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Just a comment on one historical data point – the fact that the last time the Thames froze over was in 1804 is most likely a consequence of the demolition of the old London Bridge – which has been compared more to a dam than a bridge, resulting in much less rapid exchange of water, particularly upstream of the bridge, and hence lower water temperatures in winter.
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Sorry, your argument doesn’t hold much water, pardon the pun, because the Old London Bridge was not demolished until 1831 when the “Rennie Bridge” (begun in 1824) was completed about 30 meters upstream.
Additionally, the water flowing between the bridge’s starlings (piers) flowed so fast that they were, in effect, rapids that were so dangerous as to be nearly impossible to navigate. It was said that a wise man passed over the bridge and a fool beneath.
If anything, demolishing the Old London Bridge slowed/moderated the river flow at that point rather than the other way around. Think “Bernoulli’s Principle.”
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[…] of those cooling periods? have you bothered to check? have you ever checked this graph out- Global Warming: A Classic Case of Alarmism | JoNova from memory the time when one of those massive cooling periods was in place was when they were […]
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I have a serious question concerning climate warming in the last few hundred years, that has been unable to be refuted at various global warming websites. It appears to explain a great deal about T trends, and concerns heat lag effects following a peak of solar activity in the mid 20 century:
1) Average daily heat lags are around 2 hours after peak solar incoming rays (about 2-3pm, after a peak around noon). This relates to a lag around 20-25% of total time of warming from dawn.
2) Average annual highest T occurs about 6 weeks after the longest day of the year, again around 20-25% of total warming trend since the winter solstice.
My question is: when this 20-25% is applied to the total warming trend of the sun from around 1750-1950, suggests a lag heat effect of T of around 40-60 years, peaking around the early 2000s, which is exactly what is observed.
This seems to me a simple and powerful explanation of the entire solar warming trend, inclduing the T flattening that is currently occurring, withouth needing to invoke C02.
Also, the lag effect of 40-60 years after peak solar activity shows more warming in the latter 20th century in the northern hemisphere, which is expected since there is less ocean in the northern hemisphere.
Also, from this model, predictions can be made over the next 20 years, at least, since the sun has now waned slightly
1) Northern hemisphere should not warm much over the next 20 years (well below IPCC forecasts). Current T flattening suggests ocean-land equilibrium has been reached in the northern hemisphere.
2) Southern hemisphere T may continue to warm slightly, since the larger area of ocean may still exhibit a heat lag effect.
3) Overall T should not increase much over the next few decades, if the sun is dominating climate change since ~1750-2000s.
Note also: flattening of T around the 1950-70s relates to absorption by the oceans, paralleling a flattened, sustained peak in solar activity. Lag heat then kicked in from the 1980s-2000s. This heat lag effect should be now, largely over.
I have never seen this conceptual model mentioned or debated, that is:
that the lag heat effect in the latter 20th century relates to the ENTIRE warming trend of solar activity since ~1750-1950, ie, the total area under the curve of rising solar activity since 1750, ( and including flatenned solar activity since 1950), and not short term solar activity peaks and troughs, as depicted in various research papers (eg Usoskin 2005, Haigh 2003 etc).
This model could explain much, including why many global warming websites point to the period 1978-1998 as being unexplanable by flattened solar activity, withouth examining the longer term heat lag effect on earth of about 40-60 years, from the ENTIRE warming trend from ~1750-1950.
Could a serious scientists have a look at this. Every day on earth this time lag of 20-25% occurs, in average daily peak
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According to the History Channel, we were in a “Little Ice Age” from 1300ad to 1900ad. Further, Deep Ice Core Drillings determined that the Earth’s Climate has changed back and forth, rapidly, from Hot To Ice routienly, over the past 100,000 years.
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[…] Source: JoNova […]
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Dear Pat,
A note about simulation and modeling from Joe Weizenbaum (see Computer Power & Human Reason):
What is important in the present context is that models embody only the essential features of whatever it is they are intended to represent. … What aspects of reality are and what are not embodied in a model is entirely a function of the model builder’s purpose. But no matter what the purpose, a model, and here I am concerned with computer models of aspects of reality, must necessarily leave out almost everything that is actually present in the real thing. Whoever knows and appreciates this fact, and keeps it in mind while teaching students about the use of computers, has a chance to immunize his or her students against believing or making excessive claims for much of their computer work.
(Weizenbaum 1984, xvii)
Next time a guy in a suit offers you a computer model, just say “no”.
Or if you prefer Milne:
The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
—A. A. Milne
Here’s to thinking!
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I don’t know if this is germaine to the thread as I have not ploughed through the comments. If it isn’t, I apologise for being Off Topic.
The url http://www.livinginperu.com/blogs/features/808 has a story about Inca agriculture. They could grow crops at higher altitudes than can be done today. When was that? In the Medieval Warm Period.
The “Hockey Stick” hypothesis, derived from statistical analysis of temperature proxies, claims that we are currently experiencing the warmest climate of the last thousand years.
This statistical analysis has since been shown to be flawed, but the hypothesis remains,broken perhaps but still on the field.
The above report joins several other unequivocal indications that the Medieval period was globally warmer than the present:
a. Archaeologists are still digging norse cadavers out of the Greenland permafrost.
b. Finnish researchers have shown that treelines existed further north in medieval times.
c. Artefacts found in the recently opened Scheidenoch pass in Switzerland show that it was also open in the Bronze, Roman and Medieval periods.
These three pieces of evidence are from the North Atlantic area, and deniers of the Medieval Warm Period have been able to claim that perhaps this was a local North Atlantic phenomenon.
Well not any more! The new evidence is from the Southern Hemisphere and the Pacific area. The hockey stick is fasified, and with it a central plank of hysteria. We don’t live in the warmest time, merely in the warmest time since the last warmest time which was about 800 years ago. And our warmest time is cooler that theirs.
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There are strong arguments that global warming is alarmist (although I can’t say I’m all that qualified to know!). But surely the actions taken by governments due to the ‘fear’ of the CO2 induced global warming, even if unnecessary, are better than if they were to act under the impression it was just a cyclic thing? A lot of the renewable/sustainable energy growth in the last few years (although we have oil prices too) is likely to be attributed to CO2 alarmists.
Also, did I read somewhere that there was ice core evidence that CO2 rises could seen to be caused by global heating rather than a cause of it?
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Ali (504), It’s all a matter of degree. I think developing alternative energy sources is a good thing at least to plan for the depletion of oil and gas (sometime anyway); if we also get some AGW mitigation on the side nearly for free, that’s fine. But as the old saw goes there’s nothing wrong with doing anything as long as we realize there are two and only two ways to do it. One way is smart; the other is stupid. To institute mitigation with no regard for the societal cost of doing so is a stupid way, yet that’s what the “alarmists” want to do. (Ignoring that they rationalize this by declaring with full confidence and zero knowledge that there are no secondary societal costs.)
Ignoring that nobody knows what’s in the House’s latest version of the so-called cap and trade bill (including our US Congressional heroes), in it’s basic form the CO2 tax on coal electricity utilities was considerably more than the cost of coal itself, for example. Sounds like more than an overnight doubling of rates to me. Gas-fired utilities would not quite double their fuel cost, but their rates would skyrocket (the term Obama used in the campaign, BTW) as soon as the coal utilities started to close — which is what Obama wants. Stupid. And, BTW, until we get all-electric vehicles all of this utility mitigation will do nothing for oil requirements, imported or not. If we’re going to push alternative energy, let’s at least do it with foresight, rational planning, and due diligence. Beware of banshees in the night!
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Global warming is a complete lie! read,.. genesis 8:22 nuff said!
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“Colin Davidson:
July 5th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
The hockey stick is fasified, and with it a central plank of hysteria. We don’t live in the warmest time, merely in the warmest time since the last warmest time which was about 800 years ago. And our warmest time is cooler that theirs.”
The Hockey Stick paper only covered the Northern Hemisphere.
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Report on the real world state of AGW:
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/co2_report_july_09.pdf
AGW is not only not happening, its not even connected enough to the real world so as to be false. Is simply arbitrary assertions without foundation in fact. In other words, is verbal noise that adds more heat to the atmosphere than AGW.
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CLIMATE VULNERABILITY AND THE INDISPENSABLE
VALUE OF INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM
Reprinted from
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
VOLUME 20 No. 5 2009
The debate over climate and energy policy raises fundamental questions. But
ultimately, it is not a debate over how many parts-per-million of carbon dioxide should be in the atmosphere, or whether the average global temperature should be 57 degrees or 62 degrees—as if we can control that anyway.
Fundamentally, this is a debate about how society should be organized. The
advocates of statism have made their position clear and are actively working to
advance their cause. It is time for those who value freedom to do the same.
From: http://www.aynrand.org/site/DocServer/ee_climate_vulnerability_keith_lockitch.pdf?docID=2221
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All of this talk, all of this disagreement, can be found to be needed or not, by the existence, or non existence, of one, single fact: it’s always been this way and it’s going to be that way, forever.
IF you have a tropospheric hot spot, you have AGW. IF you do NOT, then you DO NOT have AGW. Period. Forever, and ever, and ever, for as long as the laws exist which govern electromagnetic particle-wave function.
If you’ve got that hot spot then there is AGW. If not, then not only is there not AGW there is not CO2 driven GW of any kind; there is not Greenhouse Gas driven warming of any kind.
For those of you, seeing all this talk about having degrees in physics, those who got them, should have gotten them in radiative physics, because this is as simple, as two questions:
Do directional antennae, work?
Do reflective backdrops to heat sources such as wood burning stoves work?
If they do, then they, are working by the very exact, and unchanged – in ANY WAY – mechanism the tropospheric hot spot MUST COME INTO EXISTENCE if the thermal radiation at the boundary region where CO2 is ALLEGED – WRONGLY – to take over, and reflect back, some of that heat turns around, and heads back down, to the earth, or even back into the atmosphere at large.
IF that HEAT is TURNING AROUND at a BOUNDARY REGION then there MUST BE: an intensified region of heat in an envelope coincident with the reflective event.
And there will be – NO WAY to hide it. There IS no way to hide it because it’s presence, would signal itself, in SEVERAL ways: from heat, to optic, to information-transfer electromagnetic radiation: radio – and there would be no more way to hide it than to hide any other massive, and quasi-steady state electromagnetic/thermal event.
The atmosphere is CONSTANTLY being sampled; CONSTANTLY being plied, with optical equipment such as optic telescopes; it is being CONSTANTLY irradiated by microwave and milli-microwave signaling from vast, and widely disparate groups – from industry to amateurs to universities to business: and they ALL share atmospheric information regarding the state of transmission/reception (propagation) conditions.
Aviation, signals transmission/reception, security/defence sectors, ALL are operating in the atmosphere out to any distance reached when communicating with satellites: so don’t try to tell anybody, that there’s this ‘huge blind spot surrounding the earth, nobody looks at’ because every single telescope and satellite dish that looks up: every piece of information transmitted via SO many SOURCES: is dependent on a THOROUGH and UNDERSTOOD quality assessment of that atmosphere.
Degrees in physics. Which physics degree doesn’t include an understanding of the way a lens works, because AGW through CO2 uses the curved envelope of gas around the earth, as a partially reflective, RETURN LENS for HEAT.
Now, where is the signature of that lens? IF YOU CAN SHOW IT HAS BEEN FOUND THEN YOU HAVE ELECTROMAGNETIC REFLECTION.
IF YOU CAN NOT SHOW IT then you do NOT have REFLECTION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY IN THE FORM OF INFRA-RED HEAT.
period.
now go get your money back from wherever you bought that degree, and ask them to explain to you, how a reflective lens, or a shaped antenna works, and while you’re at it, have them explain to you, how AGW idiots – constructed an ENORMOUS lens, which has changed the ENTIRE radiomagnetic/optical envelop surrounding the planet – and nobody found out about this yet.
Because if you are stupid enough – to think a reflector, encompassing the entire planet, wouldn’t be noticed due to the anomolous lensing transpiring due to refractive activities involving that mechanism –
then you don’t even deserve to be in the field of physics, at all; because that is B.A.S.I.C. electromagnetic physics, in the near visible region – so it’s not like there’s any mysteries here.
There would be so many signatures where that heat turned around up there in the envelope
dust, would be ionized/manipulated due to charge differences at the layer of greatest temperature layering;
optics of the gases themselves, would be IMPOSSIBLE to miss, across the dynamic layering.
Signaling using electromagnetic radiation in certain wavelengths, would show repeated, obvious, dynamic characteristic variances along CLASSICAL electromagnetic spectral parameters.
SHOW US WHERE THE HEAT IS BEING TURNED BACK AT THE BORDER OF THE ATMOSPHERE and YOU HAVE A MECHANISM: you WON’T BE ABLE TO HIDE THAT MECHANISM, BECAUSE IT WILL STAND OUT LIKE A LIGHT BULB – so to speak: and it will SURROUND the earth with a PERFECT CHARACTERISTIC ENVELOPE OF IT’S OWN.
Otherwise: your bullSHOOT STORY has got a BIG BIG HOLE. Like: IT DOESN’T EXIST BY DEFINITION.
IF YOU CANNOT EVEN SHOW ANY OF THESE THERMS ARE BEING TURNED AROUND, then THERE IS NO CO2 REFRACTIVE LENS.
Again and for the last time, – PERIOD.
For those of you who think.. ”Well, maybe this IS so complicated that….” etc, let me give you an example, of how STUPID the entire AGW concept is:
Einstein et al, the REAL PHYSICISTS of this world, measured the effect, of gravity on a LIGHT BEAM. Ok?
And these AGW people are trying to get YOU to BELIEVE that there is a REGION of the atmosphere INSIDE the planet’s envelope – not far away in another planet’s system but HERE – that is reflecting HEAT using a simple concept: a refractive gas lens: and they are CLAIMING to you, that NO ONE ON EARTH: not the MILITARY nor the COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATIONS nor the AVIATION INDUSTRY nor the ASTRONOMY FIELD nor the METEOROLOGICAL BUSINESSES/FIRMS of this ENTIRE PLANET:
ALL of them – more, than less, to one degree or another – KNOWING that EVERYBODY ELSE is WORRIED and trying to FIND and MEASURE this REFRACTIVE LENS? And not ONE OF THEM CAN IDENTIFY THE BOUNDARIES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS CREATED IN, AND AROUND, THIS LENS, through observation of things like:
ionization of dust,
refractive layers which hold/reject various other physical events/particles/fields of force generated by this ENORMOUS heat reflecting lens?
This is what, AGW people want YOU to believe in. That NOBODY seems to be able to find this HUGE refractive element –
that’s what i said: refractive element: it’s in position, it’s been working, it works more intensively as you amplify it’s effects by pumping it with – charging this refractive lens with – more of the specular gas in question – NOBODY can find this even to SAVE THE PLANET?
bUT Einstein could measure gravity on starlight in the 1930s, and today, we are utilizing particle detection and field-of-force detection, that DWARF the sensitivity of Einstein et als’ instrumentation.
No. That, quite simply, is the most bizarre, and unusual thing, you could possibly be asked, to swallow in one, fell swoop.
Because REMEMBER: at the real heart of this, you’ve got NOTHING MORE: than a heat reflector, and it’s just made out of a shaped gas, refraction lens.
That’s ALL this is about: a heat refractive lens.
But it’s big enough that it covers, many many hundreds, thousands, of square miles: and it’s effect, is constantly growing: or at least, it’s presence, is being reinforced – but nobody can discover it.
I call bull on the AGW theory as a mechanism and I call bull on anybody who says they can show that such a CO2 lens is actually functioning thus, in our atmosphere, at the present: either in a mitigated or dampened oscillation in it’s periodicity regarding it’s performance over time – or, in full refractive glory – it makes no difference.
Show me the lens.
You can not do that.
This isn’t some mystical substance, it’s heat. In a VERY regular form within classical physics.
And even if there’s some claim that because this CO2 lens is somehow magical due to it’s quantum mechanical periodicity, the heat it’s spitting back out isn’t guided by some set of physics other than classical physics, because there is NO QUESTION AT ALL this is about CLASSICAL THERMAL DYNAMICS at the business end of the AGW scam.
So: you either show me the signature of that lens in action or you’ve got no lens. All your claims of AGW boil down to one inescapable fact: nobody can find your lens, NOR can they find the dynamic heat signature of the thermal energy claimed to be, being refracted.
Because there’s no hot spot: and if you’ve got a reflector, and you’ve got a particle-wave function, you have a hot spot.
Because if you don’t, then all mathematics regarding all electromagnetic reflectors, is nullified.
Or else your Anthro Global Warming expedition involving the magical lens – that is reflecting magical, invisible heat – is nullified.
And not one single scientifically interested party or conglomerate of parties has been able to find it, in some dozen years.
But AGW ‘End of the world as we know it’ ‘Magic Lens’ers want you to believe, that YOU and EVERYBODY ELSE is just unable to detect their magic lens.
Well not exactly. They want you to believe, that not one single scientific organization on this planet, nor any group therefrom derived, can find a HUGE HEAT SIGNATURE of this heat being TURNED BACK in a BOUNDARY REGION big enough and POTENT ENOUGH to ALTER GLOBAL CLIMATIC FUNCTIONS.
This – not any thing else – is the simplest – and, most easy test. And it’s presence MUST BE REAL or else there IS no lens, refracting all this heat back to the earth’s atmosphere.
There’s nothing complicated, about ANY of this. All the laws, are known. All the particles and their wave functions are known. The lens material is known, the approximate location of the lens is known, and what’s coming off that refraction lens is well known as well: simple heat.
Now – AGW’rs want you to believe, that all this is going on, and yet, nobody can find the simple, classical evidence, of this lens in action, even with all the COMBINED MIGHT of ALL the SCIENTIFIC ORGANIZATIONS ON EARTH looking for it’s signature reflector characteristics.
Or else: it’s not there.
You say which.
I just stumbled onto this site for the first time, and make no qualms about needing to come back and defend any of this, a child could see the lunacy of the concept, that an enormous, albeit not too intense lens, is refracting heat back onto the earth, and not one physics/science organization on earth, for a dozen years, has been able to find ANY evidence of this lens.
Matter of fact, do you know what the AGWrs are saying about their missing lens and it’s signatures? They’re claiming all this heat, is magically, mysteriously being refracted back, but it’s on the wind, so you can’t find it.
Doppler radar hasn’t found the lens’s signatures. Intergalactic optical systems, haven’t found the lens’s signature. All the different frequencies of radio/microwave/satellite communications have never noted the lens’s signatures, in affecting communications. The world’s super military think tanks who worry about ballistic missiles, or planes, or other potential intrusions, somehow manipulating the lens’s heat refractory characteristics, haven’t ever found this lens.
No, because you see, you have to be a believer, that the world is going to burn up because of this lens, to see it.
That’s what they are telling you.
Electromagnetic radiation, girls and boys. Not exotic or special radiation, but the heat that reflects off a rock, or back off a layer of gas.
It’s not complicated. AGW people want YOU to believe that THEY have a special relationship with the heat that reflects off a rock, that NOBODY ELSE ON EARTH CAN UNDERSTAND AS WELL AS THEY DO.
Or, off a molecule of gas. ONLY THEY can see the magic lens. ONLY THEY can see the magical turnaround of the heat, right on the face of that lens.
Heat differentials are different, ionization of dust, various other gases, due to charge differentials as these various physics artifacts encounter this reflective lens of gas, and it’s refracted heat wave fronts – ONLY THEY – can even KNOW of the ”MAGIC LENS.”
They can’t even show you where the SIGNATURE of the LENS’S EXISTENCE is, on the FACE of the HEAT REFRACTIVE LENS – in other words, their mythical ‘gas reflector.’
That’s what this is about, I know i’ve said this half dozen times: but they are telling you they have discovered a
MAGICAL REFLECTOR
and that NOBODY ELSE can SEE IT
nobody else can MEASURE IT’S HEAT AS IT COMES OFF THE FACE OF THE REFLECTOR
and nobody even has instruments that can MEASURE it, it’s so special: because if they COULD –
they WOULD HAVE.
Reader: do you REALLY – i mean really – believe, that this group of people have discovered a MAGICAL REFLECTOR that NOBODY – i mean NOBODY ELSE
on the FACE OF THIS EARTH
can detect the presence of in space, just a few miles above the earth, in a DOZEN YEARS even at the cost of maybe, SAVING THE ENTIRE PLANET’S current civilization?
But that it’s reflecting enough energy to change the entire global climate’s variability functions… but nobody – N.O.B.O.D.Y. can even detect any evidence it exists? A HEAT REFLECTOR that CAN NOT BE DETECTED, to SAVE THE PLANET and potentially make someone BILLIONS of dollars not to mention MILLIONS in the lifetime of the men/women/group discovering it…
Do you really believe that a specially annointed group of middle-of-the-road intellects, who are afraid to even release their methods, many times, has discovered a MAGICAL HEAT REFLECTOR?
Because that’s what they’re telling you they’ve done. And it is SO magical that it can reflect significant heat back to the earth without a T.R.A.C.E. OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE LENS IN SPACE, WHERE IT IS WORKING, AROUND THE GLOBE.
Yet, we can measure the deflection of a star’s light, by gravity. Wait – we could do that, back in EINSTEIN’S time. But we can NOT discover this ENORMOUS, MAGICAL HEAT LENS, TODAY.
You who bought physics degrees to discover that magic lens, either need to go get your money back, or keep ginning up new crowds, because if you think that anybody is going to buy THAT story for long, you are in for a sad, sad future: for the legacy of your name, and the legacy of those associated with you.
Because NOBODY in their right mind, believes that Einstein et al could detect light being bent by the gravity of some body in space – but that YOU have discovered a MAGICAL HEAT REFLECTOR that NOBODY has been able to detect either the HEAT or the physical ACTION of, all these years, while it’s busy cooking us all alive. Rofl.
No. And your little magical heat reflector’s dismissed, even if you have a lightweight aluminum clad version you claim will cook lunch on the front lawn.
Apologies are obviously extended for syntactical or other errors, it’s a discussion about a heater reflector, not rocket science.
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ah, i see the post is barely legible; that’s what I get for not editing but then again i don’t get very excited about needing accuracy over mythical, magical heat reflectors, only certain people know are there. If this pertained to something remotely realistic more care would be needed, i confess.
My apology for sans-edit post
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I think i’m going to go tell, all my friends, that I have discovered, a magical heat reflector: and that it lets some of the heat go through, but it reflects some back, but that there is no heat detection system, EVER DEVISED, that can detect the heat coming back off of it.
The lens, is detectable; it doesn’t actually show any of the outward indicators of a functioning lens when it’s doing it’s work, but more specially, the HEAT – which COMES OFF IT’S FACE
is MAGICALLY, UNDETECTABLE.
And I’m going to tell everybody that this heat reflector has BEEN WORKING for more than TEN YEARS while EVERYBODY ON EARTH tried out their most SOPHISTICATED SCIENTIFIC HARDWARE and they can’t detect the magical heat coming off it.
And I’m going to tell them, that the amount of heat coming off this magical reflector, is enough to change the temperature of the entire earth.
No, because that’s babbling lunacy.
And that’s what AGW people are trying to tell YOU, to go tell everybody else, YOU believe in. A MAGIC HEAT LENS that’s BAKING THE EARTH, but EVERYBODY TOGETHER, can’t even find a TRACE of the MAGIC INVISIBLE REFLECTED HEAT. For TEN YEARS.
Flying lesbian vampires, indeed..
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I think they are hovering above us, hiding behind the magic lens. The same forces that hide the heat magically, hide the lesbian vampires.
Or maybe it’s special ‘quantum forces’ that make the magic heat reflector work it’s magic invisibility on the heat it magically reflects.
Did i mention invisibly?
Yea; a quantum magical heat reflecting lense that can hide enough heat to bake the earth, melt the ice caps, and render hordes of lesbian vampires invisible. That’s the ticket.
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W.G.,
You are right. All we need is ONE counter factual to discredit the entire AGW – the sky is burning – we are doomed – obsession. Interestingly, the one you mention plus many others have been presented repeatedly. The AGW true believers still believe. The only conclusion that can be drawn from that fact is Science and Concern for the Continuation of Man is NOT the method and motivation for their belief. Reason, reality, and logic have nothing to do with it.
Their advocated “cure” for their fantasy of AGW, the banning of high energy production, would destroy modern technological civilization and most of living man along with it. THAT is their goal. This is evidenced by their continuing belief and advocacy of the insanity in spite of the clear evidence that modern man MUST have a huge and growing supply of high quality energy to continue to exist and thrive.
They are NOT innocent in the matter. Even their apparent seeking of power and control over others is nothing but a smoke screen to hide the desire for human extinction from both themselves and others. The last century PROVED beyond even a psychotic’s doubt that centralized power and control over others is simply a step on the path to ultimate extinction of the society that practices it. This can be denied only by willful ignorance of history and massive evasion of blatantly evident fact.
What can we do about it? At the very least, we must give up the fiction that they mean well and act accordingly.
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I think it’s safe to demand to see the electromagnetic signature evinced in one of the MANY ways the medium reveals itself.
Only a loon would be so stupid to suppose such an enormous, FLUCTUATING field-front comprising such a ringlike – nay ORBlike – electromagnetic event large enough to INFLUENCE GLOBAL CLIMATIC FLUCTUATIONS –
Can’t be found: for T.E.N. Y.E.A.R.S. as the MOST ADVANCED SCIENTIFIC SOFTWARE, HARDWARE, with HUNDREDS and even hundreds of THOUSANDS rolling over in their minds,
“how, oh how, will we EVER be able to detect the ENORMOUS PLANET HEATING LENS, that the people who looked into the logs and boreholes said has GOT to be there?
Logs and boreholes are the tools these people use on the ground; a little bit of forensic chemistry goes on but there’s nothing unheard of. THEY might think so or their fans, but no: they got their understanding of the fundamentals at the same schools their own generation did, and there’s not a first rate intellect among them I ever heard of.
The fact that someone would buy into such a B.I.Z.A.R.R.E. PRECEPT: is incongruous with the tope ‘degreed’.
Much less in PHYSICS. I can not b.e.l.i.e.v.e. what I have seen passed off as ‘possessing an education’ except that I know I am seeing it and know I have watched a great number of wannabes claim to think.
It would be a possibility that maybe such deeply unknowables were off in the realm of some obscure, relatively untried science, where the potential artifact sought as evidence was some minute and fleeting, nearly impossible to even DESIGN a SENSOR FOR, EVENT.
This literal – MOON BARKING LUNATIC DRIVEL is testable in almost EVERY SINGLE SCIENCE MANKIND EVER DEVELOPED: and is reputed to be SO BIG, that it is ENGULFING THE GLOBE.
H.E.A.T. Like the stuff that bounces off the back of an APPALACHIAN WOOD STOVE.
There would be OPTICAL artifacts. There would be IONIZATION artifacts: not only of gases but of the SOLIDS wherever they contacted the field in front of the FACE of the REFLECTOR.
There would be gas MOTION generated in signature events as the reflector’s face consolidated and waned thru natural fluctuations, over time;
there would be THERMAL ARTIFACTING which ALSO fluctuated according to the reflector’s parameters – in time, and in specified locations, like the ENTIRE FRONT where ACTIVITY CHANGED TO A MEASURABLE SIGNIFICANCE.
There would be ELECTROMAGNETIC COMMUNICATIONS TIME and QUALITY of signal EVENTS as certain frequency-selective spectra encountered the face/boundary regions of the reflector’s thermodynamic variations: these would occur most reliably at certain angles to the face of the refraction element’s face, and when the signals were of adequate strength and frequency to use the intensified/rarified regions of gas, as spurious refractors.
There would be CHEMICAL events: as air, becoming ionized and selectively processed through the MAGIC LENS’s fields of influence. This is a GAS ENVIRONMENT people, not alien forces from another dimension. REGARDLESS of the LOON-SPEAK about the MAGIC GAS having QUANTUM MECHANICAL PROPERTIES of whatever kind, the HEAT being formed into dynamic volume concentrations can NOT:
UNLESS of course we want to believe these third rate ‘analysts’ are going to introduce a new type of INFRA RED ENERGY that NO ONE HAS EVER POSTULATED, CALCULATED, HEARD OF: one which BREAKS ALL EXISTING THERMODYNAMIC LAWS BY BEING TOTALLY – i’m sorry what? U.N.D.E.T.E.C.T.A.B.L.E. BY A.N.Y. M.E.A.N.S E.V.E.R. D.E.V.I.S.E.D. B.Y. S.C.I.E.N.C.E.
bUT A little while LATER it’s ‘regular old heat’ again. Ex-friggingSCUSE YOU? WHAT DID YOU JUST TRY TO SAY TO US?
That your MAGIC LENS, somehow is HIDING this HEAT from THE ENTIRE SCIENTIFIC AGGREGATIONAL SENSORS OF EVERY MAJOR ORGANIZATION IN THIS WORLD…
THAT is what they tried to say… you DO know that right folks? Yes – that through some strange mechanism, “P.e.r.h.a.p.s. the MAGIC LENS is HIDING the heat FROM US.
Yes. That IS what AGW MOON BATS actually said. Not the FANBOI moon bats the REAL ONES: the PROMULGATORS of this DRIVEL.
There would be ALTERATIONS IN HUMIDITY UPTAKE AND RELEASE around the BOUNDARIES of this MAGIC LENS when it was HIGHLY ACTIVE.
There would be SO MANY SIGNALS THIS GIANT, WORLD CLIMATE DEFORMATIVE LENS WAS THERE, YOU WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO MOUNT A SENSOR OF ANY KIND, that had much sensitivity, and NOT SEE THE SIGNATURES OF THIS LENS, in nearly EVERY SINGLE DIFFERENT SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE KNOWN TO MAN.
But “It’s up there – and it’s INVISIBLE!” IS WHAT WE ARE TRYING – I’m certainly not being told but perhaps SOME people are – to TELL PEOPLE.
They DISCOVERED A HUGE, GLOBE ENCOMPASSING, MAGIC LENS, THAT MAKES HEAT VANISH, TO APPEAR MAGICALLY, LATER, through UTTERLY UNKNOWN MEANS:
and NOT ONLY THAT:
IN DOING THIS, IT SIMULTANEOUSLY, IS WIPING OUT, EVERY SINGLE MEASURABLE ATTRIBUTE OF ITSELF, KNOWN TO MODERN SCIENCE, that INDICATES that it has been ACTIVE;
A. N. D.
it is SIMULTANEOUSLY ERASING EVERY SINGLE VESTIGE OF THE E.N.O.R.M.O.U.S. VOLUMES OF THERMAL ENERGY IT IS
MAGICALLY
making VANISH via a MEANS that is – APPARENTLY: from a DIMENSION WE HAVE NOT GOT THE ABILITY TO EVEN MEASURE THE EXISTENCE OF: MUCH LESS IT’S MORE PRECISE CHARACTERISTICS.
and ALL OF THIS:
VERIFIED by the fact, that we HAVE TRIED to DETECT some how – SOME HOW to SAVE THE PLANET – even A SINGLE TRACE of the GASES, THERMAL ENERGY, RESIDUAL IONIC SIGNATURES, LAYERING OF GAS, MONITORING OF RAIN FRONTS AND CYCLES OF WEATHER using DOPPLER RADAR
We have LOOKED FOR THE MAGIC LENS from SPACE; using SATELLITES and using PROBES. We have looked HIGH AND LOW
But there’s no magical lens, kids.
Do you understand now? Because IF IT EXISTED: there WOULD be MANY ways to VERIFY it’s ACTIVITY.
Even if it was MAGIC ‘quantum’ CO2. “It could be, QUANTUM mechanics.” I almost snorted coffee through my nose.
You need ta’ start THINKIN WITH YOUR DIPSTICK JIMMY!!!!
Because that hatrack you’re lucky is attached to your body so you can’t lose THAT isn’t doing the job.
i just.. well, I’m just glad I didn’t read the crib notes in my chemistry, thermodynamics, optics, fluid dynamics, radiative physics; because meteorology is a combination of those sciences, and I’m familiar with them ALL.
Now: until somebody starts coughing up MAGIC LAWS about the MAGIC LENS’ ability to make EVERY SINGLE TRACE: CHEMICAL, PHYSICAL, IONIC, OPTICAL – of this GLOBAL REFRACTOR/NET REFLECTOR powerful enough to SET the ENTIRE HEAT BALANCE OF A PLANET: WHOSE SURFACE IS 3/4 WATER: practically speaking, the most THERMALLY INERTIAL SUBSTANCE IN ALL OF OUR PLANET –
INTO OSCILLATION inside say.. 50 YEARS –
this debate is over. You might not REALIZE it’s over, but it was over when I brought up that this is electromagnetic-spectrum energy on a MASSIVE SCALE and you deny that any – ALL of the laws regarding the things IT IMPACTS WHEN IT CONCENTRATES OR RARIFIES in a VOLUME SPACE STILL EXIST.
Not ONE of the laws: A. L. L. OF THE LAWS REGARDING ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY, AGW’RS DENY ARE EVEN REAL ANY MORE.
A.L.L. of the laws of physics have been revoked involving the detection and measurement of:
Air/gas travel when energized
ionization of solids
ionization of gases
metrics surrounding precipitation
electromagnetic signaling
optics
thermal metrics
gas chemistry
and more…
ALL THESE SCIENCES are MAGICALLY, unable to DETECT ANY of the SIGNATURES of the HEAT – that comes off the MAGIC REFLECTOR.
The HEAT IS COMING OFF THE REFLECTOR: but the MAGIC REFLECTOR has rendered the heat and ALL IT’S SECONDARY, and TERTIARY ARTIFACTS signaling it has BEEN THERE:
c.o.m.p.l.e.t.e.l.y. I. N. V. I. S. I. B. L. E.
eITHER THAt
or YOU
are wrong about your SPECULATIVE lens you cannot provide ONE SINGLE PHYSICAL MEASUREMENT of, the ACTIVITY of.
You point to ALL of nature: saying “all this – is being caused” – picking out a few favorite aspects such as the entire ice caps’ shrinkage, the oceans acidification, the LACK of rainfall HERE, the EXCESSIVE rainfall there – the COLD weather is impacted by not being so cold. The HOT weather is affected by not being so HOT. The COLD weather is impacted by being COLDER: the HOT
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weather is NOT SO HOT;
but there is NO WAY to detect this MAGIC REFLECTOR you claim is just a few miles above us, and COMPLETELY set up, and active.
No. You’re just a loon.
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civil records search…
Can point me to other similar posts on civil records search? Really appreciate it. Thanks….
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A SIMPLE MANS LOOK AT GLOBAL WARMING
Here in the United States Congress is trying to decide whether or not to pass a cap and trade bill. It already passed our House of Representatives. The concept is to sell carbon credits on the stock market. It is based on the idea that man is causing global warming. It struck me if you really believe that man is causing global warming. He should stop the use of carbon-based fuels completely.
Selling carbon credits, so we can keep on doing it is nonproductive. It was obvious that it was just an attempt to hide taxes. I don’t know what the rest of the world is doing in this area. I’m sure it is similar. I am a hydrogen advocate. We all know that when you burn hydrogen you get water.
None of our representatives, including our president mention hydrogen. They are calling for the development of clean coal, a figment of their imaginations. On this basis, I decided to take a simple mans look at global warming.
The first thing I did was look for a source of global warming that is not under our control.
The most obvious is the Sun. One that seems to get very little attention is volcanoes. I have just posted a blog that describes what I found when I reviewed the available history of volcanic activity on this planet.
The first surprise that I got was man has faced global warming before and global cooling.
I noted the graph at the top of this blog. I can see the oscillations clearly, it matches what I saw. I also believe there is a sub harmonic to that oscillation. The trend of that oscillation, at this point in time, is up. I believe this is a natural trend of the planet. As the temperature slowly rises the ice caps start to melt. (The mirror is getting smaller) Then something happens and down we go again. I believe a large volcanic eruption will send the temperature down. So will a large enough meteor strike. Whatever causes it appears to be very rapid. Then the temperature starts to rise slowly. This basic cycle has been going on for 4 1/2 billion years.
I think the sub harmonic is more like a sawtooth. Not a sine wave. I have a graph in my blog that shows volcanic activity on the planet. It tracks the temperature rise very nicely. I believe the volcanoes; along with occasional meteorite is our thermostat. Man has nothing that equals the amount of power required to change this planet. If you’re interested in a simple mans words. Check out my July posting:
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
RP Dingwall (Vikingbob)
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[…] levels of CO2 cause ice to melt not only in Antarctica, but Greenland and North Pole. There are many discussions on the net about Global Warming, but a picture illustrates the issue better than thousand […]
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The CO2 isn’t resident in the atmosphere forever, just a century or so. Natural processes do remove it. So there is a sustainable amount of fossil fuel use: an 80% or 90% reduction would probably do it.
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Did you know that man has been through global warming before?
Did you know that water vapor is by far the main green house gas?
Did you know that global warming is a natural trend?
Did you know that the earth’s volcanoes are the world’s thermostat?
Did you know that man has been through global cooling before?
Did you know that the Cap & Trade bill does nothing to stop Global Warming?
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
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I would like hydrogen to be a worldwide standard. http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009/08/truth-about-hydrogen.html
If nothing else the cities would smell better. It also would make all countries energy independent. I believe if we turned loose the creative minds in the world we could have it in a couple of years. The Cap & Trade bill that passed the US House of Representatives will set back Hydrogen development in the USA. Our new administration has removed government funds from Hydrogen development. The word now is clean coal. HUMMM.
Cap & Trade is just a way of hiding a tax! The driving force behind the bill is so called, manmade global warming. That is what brought me to Dr. Akasofu posting.
I was researching global warming. My approach was a little different. I wanted to show there were other things on this planet that have a lot more power they we do. I found the information in his posting excellent. We have been going up and down for 4.5 billion years. My posting is:
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
The US politicians smelling tax money are going crazy over global warming. I am interested in what is happening in the rest of the world.
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Dingwall: I would like hydrogen to be a worldwide standard.
Hydrogen is NOT an energy source. It takes more energy to produce free hydrogen than can be obtained by burning hydrogen. Were is that energy going to come from? You may not like it but the Three Laws of Thermodynamics are laws that CANNOT be broken no matter how many legislators say otherwise. The bottom line is THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH!
In spite of the fond fantasies of environment worshipers, no more than a minute fraction of the needed energy is going to or even can come from solar, wind, and the like. Its going to have to come from burning fossil fuels or from nuclear reactors. There is no third choice beyond returning civilization to what it was before the stone age.
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Lionell Griffith: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH!
If you had taken the time to read my blog ”The truth about hydrogen” http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009/08/truth-about-hydrogen.html
You would know that I am aware of and agree with everything you say about hydrogen. You say it is not an energy source that is the whole theme of my blog. It is however an energy storage medium. A damn is not an energy source yet we build them. A Storage battery is by nature not an energy source yet we are running cars from them.
You state that you don’t believe that windmills and solar panels will ever provide enough energy. Only atomic power and fossil fuels can do that. I agree with that statement at this point in time. I however believe in the inventors of the future.
I think once it becomes a worldwide standard that windmills will improve solar panels will improve. And I hope lots of atomic power plants will be built. The United States has not built a new atomic power plant in 35 years. I think that is ludicrous that’s what the politicians can change. Not the laws of physics.
I’d like to make a case for a windmill here. Windmills are erratic, because the wind sources are fickle. When you have a good wind, you need somewhere to store the energy. I suggest that we make hydrogen out of it. The new carbon composition tanks will hold up to 10,000 pounds and are designed for hydrogen. The French are using them already.
If the wind is slow, we make a little hydrogen if the wind is fast, we make a lot of hydrogen. The same is true of solar panels. We cannot connect a system of this type to an electrical grid. It has to be stable.
The beauty of both of them is that generators of this type can be set out in the middle of a desert without a pipeline or wire hooked to them. And slowly but surely fill up tanks with hydrogen. These systems will need little maintenance, a trucking system similiar to the one that milk farms use can go around and pick up the hydrogen. That’s a lot easier than overhead wiring. They can on wheels and operate right on top of a farm. It allows the farmer to use the land he is not cultivating or mixed with his crop. It would give him another cash crop. The outback could be full of them. Right now, many of the farmers here in Florida are trying to put up cell phone towers, because they get paid every month.
I visualize hydrogen cooperatives. Many other alternative fuels use feed grain and up goes the price of pork.
I know you’re not planning to be around too much longer, because oil is still available. So it does not concern you. I believe the only answer for the future is hydrogen.
I am in total agreement with you it will take energy to make it. If we start now our farmlands won’t be strip mined. Oil blobs won’t be washing up on our beaches.
We are attacking our food supply from two ends, the major coal reserves in United States are under what we call our breadbasket.Our cattle ranches and farms are located on top of the coal. It is close enough to the surface to be strip mined.
British Petroleum has just drilled a well 7 miles deep in the Gulf of Mexico 215 miles from Miami, Florida. There are lumps of oil washing up on our beaches from the other wells that exist there already. There are areas in the gulf where they don’t allow fishing. The fish are to contaminate. I guess only environment worshipers like good food.
I realize that we can use atomic power and plug a battery powered automobile into it and things could work just fine.If we forget about the toxicity of the battery and the length of time it will hold a charge.
Here again, energy in equals energy out or we can restate it cost in equals cost out. Wind and solar are free. Oil wells cost lots of money. The harder it is to find oil the more it will cost.
When the energy to make it run is free. It will allow an awful inefficient system to compete. Also I want to see these planes frying with a long extension cord hanging from them.
In your writing I did not see the answer to the basic question. When oil runs out, what do we do next, atomic power is nice for stationary use, but it’s awful hard to fly a plane with a reactor on its back.
Take the time to read all of my blog.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com
I would appreciate your comments. They are about energy. I believe we need more energy not less. When the choice is between a dirty fuel that is going to run out and a clean one that is not, I choose clean and something for the grandkids. Atomic is great for stationary use Hydrogen and some innovation can do the rest! One day it will have to!!!
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The problem with (some of) the climate change alarmists and (most of) the greenies is they are not really interested in finding alternative energy sources that would allow for “business as usual”.
Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked Online, had this interesting commentary (“Greens Cling to moral fix”)in The Australian last week:
” … This discomfort with geo-engineering reveals that greens do not see climate change as a challenge to be addressed, but rather as physical evidence of mankind’s moral turpitude.
They are instinctively opposed to geo-engineering because it would involve humankind exercising yet more control over the planet, and because it might allow us to continue pursuing economic growth, industrial development and city-building without having to worry about any adverse effects on the climate. And it is precisely that – mankind’s potentially guilt-free pursuit of progress – which greens are most opposed to.
Worst of all, the focus on geo-engineering would detract from the social engineering that environmentalists are so keen on. If society were to use technology to try to reshape our climate then that would give ordinary people the green light to continue buying, flying and living as they see fit, and from the environmentalists’ perspective that simply will not do.
Environmentalism is increasingly a campaign to encourage people to live meeker lives and to realise the error of their greedy ways. And such a movement cannot tolerate any big measures that might allow people to continue consuming and travelling as much as they please.”
Full article:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26040345-7583,00.html
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I would like to comment on the posting from
Anne-Kit Litter
“The problem with (some of) the climate change alarmists and (most of) the greenies is they are not really interested in finding alternative energy sources that would allow for “business as usual”.
I agree with this posting completely. I am located in the state of Florida USA. I have a blog called a simple man’s view of global warming.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
My effort was to produce something in plain English that would allow people to see that there are other causes that can be responsible for global warming.
I am a hydrogen advocate.I thought if I showed them another way that we could continue business as usual, and not feel any guilt. The greenies would love it. They could drive those big RVs using hydrogen and produce no pollution at all. There is absolutely no interest in fixing what they call the problem. The article is correct. They want us to change our way of life. I have written several other blogs on energy and the reception to them was similar. They want us riding bicycles.
I believe that energy is what has separated men from the animals and is what will provide us a future. The more energy we have the better.
Our politicians won’t even discuss hydrogen they are pushing something called clean coal, a figment of somebody’s imagination. There is a tax and con bill “OOPs” I mean Cap and Trade before our Congress right now. The greenies are behind it 100%. It will not stop the use of carbon based fuels. They are planning on selling credits, so we can keep on using it.
It will be the largest single tax increase every levied on us. That is the money for the agenda that they are pushing. I don’t know if Australia has something similar.
The cars that are being proposed look like go carts. They are asking everyone to reduce their standard of living. The excuse of course, is global warming. I was surprised to find that the same thing is happening in Australia.
When I started my blog I did not expect the response that I have gotten. My solutions were not as sophisticated as those proposed in Britain’s Royal Society, but they also would’ve helped. Your conclusion is correct. It is our way of life they wish to change. I am sending the link to the article to people that think like I do. I think it explains what is going on perfectly. Thank you Australia.
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Viking Bob, it is going on everywhere in the Western industrial world: USA, Canada, Europe, UK, Australia, New Zealand. I live in Australia but I hail from Denmark (a fellow Viking?) and most of my friends back there, and my family as well, are totally brainwashed. The only difference is that in Europe and UK they are further down the drain than we are in the Americas and Australia. This in no small part due to the pressure from the European Union, the governing laws of which all member states are subject to.
It’s a mess. See my post on “A Case Against Precipitous Climate Action” on this blog yesterday, about the blatant call for civil disobedience and the “need to bypass democracy in protesting for action on climate change”. But I am optimistic, I do think we can turn it around – at least as long as our freedom to speak is upheld.
There are outspoken skeptics and critics everywhere, not least here in Australia. Check also http://www.quadrant.org.au (Go to “Doomed Planet”) for great Australian writing supporting our views. We have our own proposed version of the Cap-and-Trade Bill: It’s called the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)and it is also awaiting a vote in our Senate. Some call it the “Employment Termination Scheme”.
And keep spreading the word!
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“The CO2 isn’t resident in the atmosphere forever, just a century or so. Natural processes do remove it. So there is a sustainable amount of fossil fuel use: an 80% or 90% reduction would probably do it.”
Yeah, not forever and not even 100 years-or anything even close to that.
You should be aware that there is NO scientific paper on CO2 residence time yet published which supports the assertion of a long residence time for atmospheric CO2 based on ACTUAL MEASUREMENTS. The IPCC uses estimates of the CO2 residence time that are the result of computer modeling. This is where they get their “50-200 years” figure, NOT from any of the studies based on measured data, which show a much shorter residence time. This computer model based estimate first appeared in the IPCC’s 1990 report and is still used. The paper(Houghton, J.T., Jenkins, G.J. & Ephraums, J.J. (Eds.) 1990) which first made the 50-200 year claim CLEARLY AND FREELY ADMITTED that this estimate was based on computer modeling.
The problem is, the real measured residence time of CO2 was already well-established when these statements were originally made, and the plethora of available measurement-based studies consistently concluded that the residence expressed as half-life time is short, somewhere between 5 and 6 years, and certainly no more than 10. Of the 36 studies published, NONE concluded that the residence time is ANYWHERE NEAR the IPCC’s modeled “50-200” years.
This long residence time is a necessary corollary to the IPCC’s assertion that human emissions have caused “all or nearly all” of the CO2 increase observed since the atmosphere contained the “pre-industrial baseline” figure of 280 ppm CO2. If CO2 actually has a short residence time, then there’s no way you could reasonably attribute “all or nearly all” of that ~100 ppm increase to human emissions; most would have to be due to natural causes. So this “50-200 years” residence time represents a cynical ‘made to order finding’ which is used to this day to lend a shred of credibility to the idea that humans are the cause for recent atmospheric CO2 increases.
But for these inter-related assertions of persistent CO2 and “all or nearly all” human attribution to be true, the atmosphere SHOULD contain about 21% CO2 sourced from fossil fuels. But the isotopic mass-balance studies clearly show that this number is more like a paltry 4% fossil-sourced CO2. Furthermore, when the IPCC attempts to forensically reconstruct today’s atmosphere WRT CO2 concentration using their model-derived “50-200 year” residence time, they find the current atmosphere contains only HALF of the ‘expected’ CO2! According to their accounting, we should be at 800 ppm RIGHT NOW! Rather than admit that their “50-200 year” residence time is a FICTION, they are now off on a quixotic quest for the missing sink for the other 400ppm that they can’t find!
The trouble with a lie is that you have to tell 10 new lies to cover for the first!
Jim Rennison
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This post is in response to Jim Rennison Post 528.
“The CO2 isn’t resident in the atmosphere forever, just a century or so. Natural processes do remove it. So there is a sustainable amount of fossil fuel use: an 80% or 90% reduction would probably do it.”
This was a comment on a line in my post 518. “It struck me if you really believe that man is causing global warming. He should stop the use of carbon-based fuels completely.”
It was taken out of context. I was talking about taxing carbon credits. I am a hydrogen advocate and am trying to stop a cap and trade bill that is before our Senate.
I understand there is a similar bill is in the Australian Senate. I learned this thanks to: Anne-Kit Littler Post 527 I am sure it is just a tax trap like the one in the US senate. There is a universal constant that sometimes we forget about it is called politicians.
I agree with what you are saying in this post. True C02 numbers are impossible to rely on. I also hear no talk about water vapor. It is the largest greenhouse gas of them all.
I decided to take on global warming from an engineer’s point of view. When you are a consultant engineer, you must have real answers. I decided to look at it the way I would a consulting job. If a customer asked me to design something like the Earth and make things happen the way they do, how would I do it?
Consultants don’t have the luxury to write a paper and let people argue over it. You must produce something that works. I kept hearing all the talk about man causing global warming because of the use of fossil fuels. I cannot believe we have that power!
After reviewing the data I came to the same conclusion you did. The data about CO2 is unreliable at best. And most likely totally useless.
It has gone up and down in our atmosphere forever. It has to be there or our plants will die!! That will end us and all of the air beathing life on earth.
I think the other sources of CO2 have been forgotten in a effort to blame man for his greedy excesses.(Progress)
The greenies want us to feel guilty and give up our big cars. My answer was to power them with hydrogen. That sugestion was not well received.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
Thanks again to Anne-Kit Littler: Check out this link
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26040345-7583,00.html
It put in words what I was running into.
I looked for other sources of CO2. I found volcanoes are a major producer of CO2. The undersea volcanoes also produce CO2, which turns to carbolic acid in the ocean water, a good reason for Coral to die.
I hunted for the most reliable information I could get on volcanoes. There were some numbers about how much CO2 volcanoes eject. Total output information was not available. Many of the volcanoes that we believe to be dormant are still releasing gases including CO2. Exactly how much CO2 is being emitted no one really knows. Best information says it is a lot. The other information that seems reliable is the number of volcanoes presently active on this planet. It has doubled in the last 100 years.
To me it makes sense that if there are more volcanoes that are producing CO2. Maybe they are the cause of most if not all the increase in CO2. Unless a new type of cork is designed. I don’t know how we’re going to stop the volcanoes or even measure their CO2 output!
I posted a blog in July called “A Simple Man’s View of Global Warming”, where I made a case for global warming to be a natural effect caused by our volcanoes! It is apparent that in many cases they have caused extremely large weather changes on this planet. The change will occurred in days not years. The soot and ash circles the Earth blocking the sunlight. Also a sulfur dioxide can make sulfuric acid in the atmosphere and reflect the heat. Sometimes this effect goes on for years. Down goes the temperature of the Earth.
That’s an awful lot of power. I don’t know what we have that can equal that!
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
I hear about the plans to put something in outer space. That worries me, if a volcano goes bang, and we can’t turn off what we have done. Where do we get the heat from that will be necessary to bring the temperature of this planet up again?
We live in a very narrow temperature window. It is between the upper and lower switch points of water closer to the bottom that we need to exist. I think we put things in place that we can’t shut of at our own peril. If you consider the temperature range that exist in the universe nature has been doing a pretty good job over the last 4.5 billion years.
Vikingbob
My posts are 518 521 522 524 526
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Jim Rennison (528), I too have felt the source and lifetime estimates seem a little goofy. But there remains some questions that need plausible answers. Are there any references that 1) describe the micro or macro process of CO2 absorption in rock/earth? (Water and plant absorption seem well-founded.) 2) support your assertion of isotope studies showing 4% CO2 from anthropic sources? Isotopic analyses is the “authoritative” explanation from the warmists, though they never seem to back it up with specific numbers. 3) what would the other natural sources of CO2 be? Volcanoes, per Viking Bob, are certainly one, but it’s very dubious IMO to attribute a lot of the recent (150 years) increases to volcanoes. Studies I have seen pretty much say, despite the intuitive thought, volcanoes are a small source of CO2.
BTW, I fully agree with the real motivation of greenies and warmists. It doesn’t apply to all to be sure, but despite their vociferous objections one can often find an underlying thread (some but very few are up front and in your face) that it is our greed and selfishness that is the problem that needs fixing. They will always maintain our standard of living will not be affected, but go on to rationalize how driving put-puts and growing your own food will really provide a satisfying existence. Get back to nature! All get together in the evening in the community hut with battery driven lamps sitting around the dirt floor singing Kumbaya!
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Rod,
I would direct your attention to the work of Prof. Tom V Segalstad of the Univ. of Norway at Oslo. The carbon cycle, CO2 residence time and isotopic signature studies are his area of special expertise. The ‘simple’ answer to the question of where the ‘extra’ CO2 is coming from is “the oceans”, on account of the fact that they are warming up, and have been doing so since the earth has been emerging from the “Little Ice Age”. And yet in an apparent contradiction, that is also the place where any ‘excess’ CO2 goes. So how can the oceans be both an emitter and net sink for CO2? The answer lies in the idea of an “equilibrium concentration”.
First, let’s look at the ocean/atmosphere ‘system’ and see how this idea works. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is always at an equilibrium with the CO2 dissolved in the ocean. The amount of CO2 which can exist dissolved in the oceans is dependent on the temperature of the ocean. A cold ocean can dissolve more CO2 than a warm ocean. As the ocean warms, it can contain less dissolved CO2. At 25C, the ocean can contain approximately 50X the CO2 concentration as the atmosphere can. Or from the other point of view, at this temperature, the atmosphere always contains 1/50 the concentration of the ocean. This is the “Equilibrium Concentration” of atmospheric/oceanic CO2, and remains fairly constant at a given temperature.
And yet, the oceans never stop absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere, even as they warm. But then why does CO2 not build up in the oceans? The warmers assert that it does, and raise another bogey man in the idea of “Ocean Acidification” But this idea ignores another very important equilibrium concentration that exists in the oceans between dissolved CO2 and carbonate rocks. Any ‘excess’ CO2 absorbed by the oceans is very quickly precipitated out of solution, and through a sequence of chemical reactions becomes calcium carbonate. This becomes the ‘final’ resting place for excess atmospheric/oceanic CO2, NOT the liquid oceans as the warmers assert, and is why the oceans cannot acidify; they have virtually INFINITE buffering capacity.
So atmospheric CO2 exists in an equilibrium concentration with CO2 dissolved in the ocean, which in turn exists in an equilibrium concentration with carbonate rocks in the ocean. The temperature of the ocean determines the solubility ratio between atmosphere and ocean as well as the solubility/precipitate threshold for the carbonate minerals. The oceans still respond to the perturbations to the ocean/atmosphere equilibrium state(expressed as a partial vapor pressure) by absorbing CO2, but the ‘excess’ is quickly precipitated out of solution as CACO3 instead of remaining dissolved.
As the ocean warms and the equilibrium concentration of CO2 air/ocean changes, so also does the threshold of vapor pressure which forces the oceans to uptake ‘extra’ atmospheric CO2, thus the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases, even while the oceans are absorbing ‘some’ of the extra CO2. I put the word some in quote because to use this term here, it makes it sound as though the oceans are ‘struggling’ to uptake more CO2 and those human additions are the reason atmospheric CO2 is increasing. Actually, the amount that they are uptaking even in a warmed state is stupendously huge; it’s just that the ‘threshold’ point of concentration in the atmosphere has changed with the increase in temperature, which ‘allows’ the atmosphere to contain more CO2. Any CO2 emitted to the atmosphere, be it by volcanoes, forest fires or human industry in excess of the new equilibrium concentration is still absorbed and quickly precipitated out.
This is not some new revelation; the basic science of this oceanic chemistry has been known for over 50 years, as has been the case with the short residence time for atmospheric CO2. You can even read about these CO2/CACO3 reactions on Wikipedia, not exactly the skeptic’s best friend, right here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_carbonate#With_varying_CO2_pressure
This is just another of many examples of how the AGW alarmists are replacing good science with junk science.
Jim Rennison
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Comment: Jim Rennison Post 531
I realize we are in different hemispheres. Science is science and doesn’t change no matter where you are. I agree with your post completely. I would not even give it credit by calling it junk science. I would just call it junk. I started working on computers in 1954 in the military. They were analog in those days, and a few relay driven Digital’s. That was followed by 20 years with IBM and 30 years in my own business doing digital design. Whenever I see something that says it was obtained by computer modeling. I become suspicious. The weather bureau in the US uses six different models to predict the path of a hurricane. They average them. It’s almost never right. There was a famous advertising blunder here in the US. A drug company had a major advertising campaign, where they made this statement. “Best for people proven on our computers” needless to say it fell flat.
Whenever I see junk being used to support a position I suspect there is an agenda behind it. It at first may not be obvious. When I started my project to learn about global warming I presented people with scientific information. The result of which was, their eyes glazed over. In Rods post 530 he states that I believe volcanoes are the reason for global warming. My intent when I wrote “A Simple Man View of Global Warming” http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
was an attempt to deflect those that were claiming it was us. I wanted to give an explanation that did not cause people’s eyes to glaze over. I truly believe what is going on is totally natural and volcanoes are part but not all of it. I give this blog out free at a local flea market. Since I’ve gotten rid of most of the science people are taking the time to read it.
I’m trying to write something that a 10-year-old can read and understand. I am trying to put doubt in people’s mind. I want them to question what they are being told by people like Al Gore. If we can’t turn the masses, I don’t believe those who understand the science will ever succeed.
Water vapor as a greenhouse gas is hardly mentioned. All I see is CO2, which most people don’t understand at all. Even the graphs presented in my blog are not completely understood by the average person. There is another statement that I find woven in between different pieces of the junk. It states this will be the warmest that this planet has ever seen. They totally ignore the “Holocene and Maximum”.
Thanks to Anne-Kit Littler Post 527. I found the answer I was looking for. We are being put on a guilt trip. An attempt is being made to change our way of life. The AGW alarmists along with their partners the politicians are pushing the agenda for different reasons. The result, however, will be the same. The politicians are looking at the taxes. The greenies are looking for what those taxes will buy them! This has given them a common agenda!! This is why the facts don’t seem to be getting anywhere. They are taking advantage of the fact that the average person does not understand science.
Those of us who do have a tendency to forget that, I know I am guilty. Science to most people is dry, and emotionless as it should be. The greenies stir up the emotions with all the doomsday scenarios. When emotions replace facts is hard to get through to them.
I admit I have an agenda it is to get the world to use hydrogen. I have worked on this project since 1948. I was 14 years old when I started. I built a hydrogen powered engine, and because of the Hindenburg disaster (1936). No one will let me run it. The Hindenburg haunts me to this day. It is one of those disasters that made it into our textbooks. The children graduate school, believing that hydrogen is dangerous. I would be interested if the textbooks in Australia carry this same information.
I realize that it’s been pointed out to me over and over that it requires energy to obtain hydrogen. I know there is no free lunch. There are however lunches that smell better than others. Hydrogen is the only energy source that when we use it. We get back what we started with. The way we handle the pollution it creates is by drinking it.
Nothing is free, oil-rigs cost money, transportation costs money, refining plants cost money. Storage batteries are expensive and are toxic in landfills.
I am trying to get people to look at hydrogen storage as an energy storage medium, similar to a battery. They both must be charged. If the US Cap & Trade bill goes through it will kill hydrogen development in the US until the oil runs out. The same will be true in Australia if your Senate approves the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)They can’t panic people into paying taxes on it. Especially after the campain they have been pushing against it.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009/08/truth-about-hydrogen.html
Also see my post 524
Thank you for the opportunity to present my thoughts.
RP Dingwall (Vikingbob)
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The figures don’t show this. The ratio of carbon absorbed by the oceans to carbon retained in the atmosphere is overall dropping.
http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/5867/37851912mg6.jpg
Data from here.
So not only are the oceans capacity to absorb carbon finite, the kinetics shows that they are noticeably approaching “saturation”.
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Two recent papers on ocean acidification are discussed in this Science Daily article:
Ocean Acidification: Impact On Key Organisms Of Oceanic Fauna May Be Worse Than Predicted.
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The fact that the oceans and atmosphere can contain varying concentrations of CO2 is in NO WAY proof that they can ever contain DANGEROUS or ANOMALOUS concentrations of CO2; one does not automatically follow from the other. The very idea that this might be possible is founded on the principle that CO2 has a long residence time in the atmosphere, with it’s corollary principle that dissolved CO2 must also have a long residence time in the oceans.
The problem with this idea is that the residence time of atmospheric CO2 is already known, and it is short. 36 studies published in respected journals over a 50+ year period by different teams of scientists with varying funding sources and residing in various countries have all come to a similar, if not quite identical conclusion; atmospheric CO2 has a short residence time, expressed as half-life, not to exceed ~10 years, and more accurately, between 5 and 6 years. This residence time implies that a really large quantity of CO2 is ‘fluxed’ out of the atmosphere every year; on the order of 135-150 Gt. The only possible place for such a large amount of CO2 to ‘disappear’ to annually is the oceans; the terrestrial biosphere just can’t consume that much so quickly. That means the oceans must also have robust fluxing mechanisms, since they must cope not with just our tiny 8Gt annual emissions, but the other 135-150Gt as well. The well-known and understood carbonate precipitation reactions are the most logical fluxing mechanism.
The AGW alarmists assert that atmospheric CO2 has a long residence time. This is an absolutely CRUCIAL position for the AGW case, since if we are to suppose that anthropogenic emissions have caused the recent rise in atmospheric O2, then we must adopt a long residence time to be able to forensically reconstruct the present atmospheric CO2 concentration given the accepted start point of 280 ppm and known anthropogenic releases. Only a long residence time will allow this. With a short residence time, we can only attribute a small percentage of the recent atmospheric CO2 rise to anthropogenic emissions, so the vast majority of the observed increase must be entirely of natural origin.
If you accept the empirically well-supported idea that atmospheric CO2 really does have a short residence time, then you must also accept the idea that the oceans have robust fluxing mechanisms for dissolved CO2; in this case, the latter DOES follow automatically from the former.
The only ‘evidence’ that atmospheric CO2 has a long residence time is obtained from computer modeling, NOT actual atmospheric studies. So which do you choose to believe; 36 atmospheric studies, or one ‘modeled’ residence time of “50-200 years” generated in 1990?
Jim Rennison
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Hmmm, if the oceans were reaching the limit of how much carbon they could hold, I would expect to see the “ocean uptake” value getting smaller every year, eventually right down to zero when the container is full (if you accept the analogy).
Your graph shows this “ocean uptake” value getting larger every year so if there is a limit on ocean carbon capacity we clearly are not close to that.
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I started my quest to learn about global warming less than six months ago. My first attempt was to look at the science. I have learned it is very easy to get trapped into concentrating on one item and forgetting the rest. The first thing I looked at was “Greenhouse Gases”. The question that arose from this investigation was; why are we concentrating on CO2 when water vapor is the largest greenhouse gas?
The next thing I looked for was energy sources that could cause, or allow, warming, other than greenhouse gases. It is obvious that the main contributor to global warming is the sun. The next is the position of the planet in respect to the sun. Tilt and orbit being major contributors. We all know controlling the sun’s energy will control the earth’s temperature. The Northern Hemisphere is approaching winter. You guys in Australia are going to get summer. Lucky you!
Because it was all the rage I decided to continue looking at greenhouse gases. To make this information really useful you must assume that tilt and orbit remain a constant. Right here we have a problem. We know that is not true.
I looked for something that produces large amounts of greenhouse gases that are not human. The first thing I isolated was Volcanoes. I also looked at forest fires, burning coal mines, etc. Everything I looked at had no real facts. Most of it was estimates or computer modeling.
Statements that said, volcanoes produce less than we do, could not be proven. The same information was repeated over and over again, and I could not locate a reliable source.
Many of the so-called dormant volcanoes were venting CO2, but no one was measuring it. Even erupting volcanoes produced only estimates.
Volcanic eruptions also produce large amounts of water vapor. Again, no one is measuring it. The fact that there are over 100 more volcanoes active today than there were 100yrs ago is very well hidden. (So far this year, that total seems to be dropping) This led to my blog “A Simple Mans View of Global Warming”
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
The question that still remained was: Why are we concentrating on CO2 when water vapor is the largest of the greenhouse gases?
The only answer I can come up with was; we humans could be blamed for CO2. It also would be believed by the masses.
In the USA, the Greener’s have burned over 500 SUVs in protest. With all the plastic, gasoline and the buildings they burned, I am sure, they produced more greenhouse gas then the vehicles would have if they were driven.
I was beginning to believe that global warming was agenda driven, not science driven. There are too many other reasonable possibilities.
Once something is stated as fact be it true or false it is repeated over and over.
I was becoming convinced that it was politically driven. So our politicians can tax the hell out of us.
When I found this blog I got the missing piece of the puzzle. It was provided by Anne-Kit Littler Blog 525.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26040345-7583,00.html
This showed an alliance between two groups that to me was totally unexpected. It explained why so much false information is being spread and focused on. As I have stated before, I am a hydrogen advocate. I had thought that the Greeners would be behind hydrogen. They are not!
The problem is the politicians need the money. This way they can give the Greeners the lifestyle they want.
If we switch to hydrogen there will be no Cap and Trade or Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
A friend of mine called it a truly shocking and unholy marriage but a marriage it is! Who would have thought it possible!
We all know that if something is repeated over and over again. It will be eventually thought to be true.
As much as the Internet is excellent for sharing truths it also makes it possible to share untruths.
I have read the posts on this site and found many intelligent people.
The plight of the scientist is to look for facts. They are what science is really about. The plight of a person with an agenda (politician) is to do anything and say anything necessary to make it a success.
Create enough smoke, and soon people will believe there is a fire.
To us scientists I say it doesn’t matter if we are right or wrong. Saving the planet is not the agenda behind Global Warming.
In the USA, Australia and as best I can determine most of the western world it is a life stile change.
Let’s keep in mind that the Sun once revolved around this planet and in a perfect Circle. Galileo almost lost his life over that one.
I look at global warming as potluck stew! Agenda and scientific fact, all mixed together. I believe if I look deeper there will be more agendas in that pot than science.
Money makes the world go round!
Thank you again Australia
Viking Bob
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For what it’s worth (published 10th September 2009):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1212442/The-world-colder-decades–hotter-long-run-expert-predicts.html
Seems rather similar to what David Evans predicted six months ago… we could have some Bayesian analysis of estimates and merge together the Evans prediction with the Latif prediction to make them twice as likely to be true!
Then again, possibly Dr Latif reads this web page when he is running out of ideas, so they may not truly be independent estimates.
No one can explain how the IPCC is going to achieve their “target” prediction of 3 degrees warming by the end of the century but I guess they have plenty of time to beat up new waves of excitement.
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The earth has continued to rise in temperature since the ice age. I state that in my blog. I call it a natural occurrence. There have been ups and downs but the trend is up. That is long before we could have an effect. As long as the temperature stays below the lower switch point of water for a given area the effect is not easily seen. The changes occurs over thousands of years. The caps will recede at a steadily increasing rate. There is less ice to melt each year.
It is like a band slowly moving north for use south for you. We have reached a point now where it can affect our sea level cities. All the temperature needs is less than a one degree decrease and the effect will start to recede.
The history over the last 200,000,000 years or so, says that going down for a while is a likely occurrence. The thing that could really change things fast is a natural disaster like a large volcano erupting.
The other thing that may cause a new wave of excitement as “Tel” describes is the push for Cap and Trade in the USA or the Emissions Trading Scheme in Australia.
There are a lot of Greenies with nothing better to do sitting in front of computer terminals.
There was a meeting at the UN today about Global warming. There is no doubt that they are pushing the point, we are the only cause.
I am watching the number of active volcanoes it was on the increase until 2007-8. It has started down since then. See the Graph on my blog.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
Thank you “Tel” for pointing out that article. I will use it. Join me in my quest for Hydrogen. I know the problems. I have faith in the world’s inventors. It can be made to work! Our cities will smell good especially if we put a perfume dispenser in the tail pipes.
Vikingbob
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You want to know what’s going on in Europe? This is what’s going on in Europe:
“How Wishful Thinkers Are Forced To Reconnect With Energy Reality
You couldn’t make it up even if you tried:
One day Energy Secretary Ed Milliband sets out his proposed expansion of the U.K.’s wind power-led alternative energy revolution; the next day, Vestas, the U.K.’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, shuts down a big part of its British operations citing “low demand” and public opposition to onshore wind farms.
Just bad luck or bad PR? Not quite. Simply another blatant example of the ongoing “disconnect” over energy between those suffering from WTS (Wishful Thinker Syndrome) and the hydrocarbon-fueled present and future energy realities.
In 2006, Germany’s Angela Merkel was hailed as the “Green Chancellor” for promising to rid her country of coal and nuclear power in its bid to give a clean energy “world lead.” Three years on and Merkel’s government actively supports the construction of a new generation of 26 coal-fired power plants as well as keeping Germany’s nuclear power stations open.”
—
“… wind power is a complete disaster with the much-vaunted “Danish green energy miracle” turning out to be a well-worn myth in an industry that would blow out tomorrow without ongoing and massive public subsidy.”
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“Capitalism and consumerism have brought the world to the brink of economic and environmental collapse,” the U.K.’s Prince of Wales ruminates, adding that “the age of convenience is over.” As international columnist Mark Steyn comments, “The Prince then got in his limo and was driven to his other palace.”
—
“As we have seen, however, national leaders will ultimately refuse to impoverish their industries even to “save the planet.” The still-“disconnected” flower-power generation and its idealistic offspring would do well to grasp that the energy future is not green. It is hydrocarbon, and will continue to be for another century at least.
Perhaps it’s just that we have yet to learn a language they’ll understand? Maybe we should run the energy stats past them one more time, make a peace V-sign and (gently) ask: “Reconnected yet, man?”
Priceless 🙂
Full article:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=505738
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Perhaps it’s just that we have yet to learn a language they’ll understand? Maybe we should run the energy stats past them one more time, make a peace V-sign and (gently) ask: “Reconnected yet, man?”
I love that statement!! It puts things in perspective.
I really appreciate the information in your post. What they are attempting to do in Germany surprises me. They are pushing hydrogen like crazy, but when they stop atomic power they are disconnected.
I wonder if we don’t have another agenda. The Germans and the French have not gotten along for years. Maybe the Germans are saying; if the French do it we will not. Just a thought.
The USA is doing nothing but talk about either one. No atomic and no hydrogen. Just clean coal a figment of someone’s imagination. If it is implemented, the bread basket of the United States will be destroyed. I like energy, but I like food better!
I am just a simple man, so I’m going to try and put in writing something that maybe they can understand. I know the readers of this blog do understand this.
Let’s take a look at oil. Why is it so great? The reason being, Mother Nature took the time and energy to make it into a form that allows us to use that energy in multiple ways.
Oil is nothing but an energy storage device similar to a car battery. The difference being it comes already charged by Mother Nature.
The Panama Cannel operates totally without pumps, because Mother Nature does the heavy lifting. It evaporates the water turns it to rain. Puts it in a lake, and we use it to lift the ships through the locks. It is another storage battery.
When I lived in upstate New York there was a proposal by the power companies in Canada and the United States that we recover some of the energy generated by Niagara Falls. The idea was to create a lake, just below Niagara Falls and during off peak time use pumps to fill it. This way, the energy from Niagara Falls could be stored. Minus the energy it took to lift it. You can guess what happened to that idea.
We all know energy in equal’s energy out, minus efficiency. The thing what is missing out of this is time and cost.
A very inefficient process, given the time can accomplish the goal. It also helps if the original energy is free. Energy only gives us three choices. Use it, store it or lose it. What is great about it is the method of storage is flexible.
We don’t have the time that nature did when oil was generated. We need the energy now. This means to replace oil we must duplicate the energy that nature used to produce it in the first place. We all know that energy(OIL)provided by nature is going to run out. The other alternative is to stop or reduce using energy. That is what the greenies are proposing.
I do not believe this is what we should do we need more energy not less.
You know, I am a hydrogen advocate. I realize hydrogen must be generated. It is only an energy storage device but so is oil.
I also believe in atomic power is the closest thing we have to the sun, which was responsible for generating our oil in the first place.
I push hydrogen first in the hope that it will create a demand and the powers at be will become reconnected. That is if there’s anything left of capitalism to motivate it.
Hydrogen I believe is the only thing that can replace oil for portable use. Nature did it the first time and all it had was holes in the ground and a bunch of weeds. Now it’s our turn we have developed storage tanks.
Solar cells are inefficient they require time to accomplish the goal.
I have a little toy made out of soda bottles that I play with. It is a solar powered hydrogen generator. On a good day I can make enough hydrogen to run a small gas light all night. Not very efficient, but the process works. Put enough of units similar to this, not the soda bottle version just the concept, out there and maybe we can make up for the inefficiency with pure volume.
Hydrogen can also be used in low volume applications. A farm for example may be able to offset some of its operating costs with a low volume unit. Many farms use windmills to pump water. It saves running power lines out into the middle of a field. The wind is also free. If he has extra hydrogen he can sell it.
Transmission lines have loss the longer they are the more they lose. Down goes efficiency. It gets worse as we consume more electricity
Underground plumbing is a lot more efficient. Atomic power plants producing hydrogen and pumping it through pipes to our homes and cars would improve the efficiency and reduce the vulnerability of the present system. Even if the pluming leaks it will not contaminate the ground water and is not a green house gas. It is less dangerous than natural gas. It goes up and blows away. All those expensive copper transmission lines and transformer farms could go. The existing pipelines for natural gas could be used in their place. Technology is available to turn hydrogen into electricity when necessary.
I do not believe in electric cars unless they use hydrogen powered fuel cells. The battery powered units are efficient but their practicality and overall energy use efficiency is questionable. The batteries still need to be charged!
I think Wal-Mart may be right. They want to place a Wal-Mart within 15 miles of everyone that lives in the United States. I guess battery cars would work for them. Electric cars are only going to increase the load on our power grid.
Small reactors, similar to those used by the navies of the world should be used wherever possible. This would reduce the distance between power generating stations and the construction time of large systems. The only real way to improve the efficiency of the system is to improve the efficiency of the distribution mechanism. Trucks And underground pluming can deliver hydrogen for use anywhere.You cannot do the same with electricity. A train can move a lot of energy if the cars are full of Hydrogen. Full of electricity not so much.
I realize this is a totally different way to look at energy distribution. But when the oil is gone I believe this is what we are going to do. If the efficiency for solar panels, improves nothing stops them from replacing atomic energy or at least working with it.
I know I’m a bit of a nutcase. I guess that is what makes me an inventor. When we had all those floods in the Midwest a couple of years ago I suggested that we us our atomic submarines that are in mothballs. They are held in battle ready status. That means the reactors are fueled. Take them as far up the Mississippi River, as we could get. Put them out in the middle of what would become a field when the water subsided then bury them in cement. You know the reaction I got to that one. It would have been almost instant power generating capacity.
Do you think this simple mans words might get through? I doubt it
The title of this blog is global warming “A classic case of alarmism”. I think that is correct. One thing stands out when you look at the global temperature. It is the great Ice Age. If this planet were not warming naturally, there would still be 2 miles of ice over Lake Michigan. That would’ve been the starting point for our industrial revolution. The thing that continues to surprise me is that people have accepted the guilt.
Thank you again Australia. We forget sometimes, we came from the same seed.
If you wish to be bored to death check out my new September posting.
THE WORLD NEEDS A LIMITLESS PORTABLE CLEAN ENERGY SOURCE.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html
Viking Bob
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Hi Australia. I thought I would pass this on to you. This is what the whole global warming thing is all about!
vikingbob
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/aqx_p/15327?OVRAW=cap%20and%20trade%20bill%20senate%20status&OVKEY=cap%20trade%20bill&OVMTC=advanced&OVADID=48038617522&OVKWID=236907240522
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Hi Australia,
I’m sure you’re all aware of this, but I thought I would pass it on. I like the cartoon.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=13816
Check out some of the other blogs they are also interesting.
http://www.dailytech.com/Princeton+Physicist+Calls+Global+Warming+Science+Mistaken/article13773.htm
The cap and trade bill is still sitting in the Senate doing nothing. The war here is over health care. The politicians are being politicians nothing new there.
vikingbob
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[…] […]
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Thanks for the link! Believe it or not, the jerks in the Senate are still talking about the catastrophe that is about to happen. It is already passed our House of Representatives. I hope the Senate in Australia has more common sense.
There is already snow on the ground in Montana. That is a month early. Knowing our politicians, they will probably blame the cooling on global warming.
Vikingbob
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[…] they are looking at. So Clippo – I found this graph of world temperatures which I posted earlier: Global Warming: A Classic Case of Alarmism « JoNova Whats your opinion of it? Is the data correct for […]
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I am in a little different position than most of you that contribute to this blog. I have been to the North Pole. I have a certificate that says so. I am a member of the polar bear club. I also have been in Church Hill. Canada’s most northern town. I was in the military and it was the early 50s. I spend one full year in the Baffin Islands. I tell you this for a reason. During the summer the Hudson Bay is water, not ice. Some of the pictures that I see being used by Al Gore and other warmers were taken in the springtime when the ice is melting. Thats when you get the floating pieces!!!
In the fall the bears gather around the town of Church Hill, waiting for the Hudson Bay to freeze over. Then out they go onto the ice looking for seal holes, so they can hunt. This is what got me started looking at global warming. It wasn’t the graphs that were wrong or the science. It was the photographs. I recognized them.
I still have some pictures from the Baffin Islands, no fat happy Polar Bears though. Those bears are hungry not eating for six months. I think it will be easier for them to hunt without ice. They are great swimmers and boy can they run. The seals will be easier to catch. Up the population will go not down!
When I found such deception especially from a politician I decided to look into global warming. I looked for something that would have the effect necessary to change the Earth’s temperature. I could not believe that man was doing it. I found out very quickly that volcanoes had the power. They not only give off large amounts of CO2. They give off large amounts of H2O. No matter what you read there are no reliable numbers available.
That also bothered me because I started seeing things saying we were putting out a hundred times more CO2 than the volcanoes. I could not find out how they knew this. The other thing that bothered me was water vapor being 98% of the greenhouse gas. Clouds in the sky reflect heat from both sides. It has a double whammy. I also found out that the number of active volcanoes was increasing. I thought that was interesting. I wrote a simple man’s look at global warming.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
Not to say I had found the truth. Just to show that there’s another way that could cause it. The graph on global warming matched volcanic activity, very closely. Just a note here, the Smithsonian website that I was using for my data on volcanoes has suddenly been drastically changed for the year 2009. The data showing a decline in volcanic activity is all gone now. I have been watching it closely all I can say is hummmm.
The graph attached to this blog. I believe is true. The data is correct. The downturn it shows tracks exactly with what I saw in volcanic activity. I have not corrected my graphs, because the data I was using is now gone. When I get good data I will up date them.
I have stated this before; computer modeling is great as long as we can verify it. I live in Florida, the weather bureau forecasted 17 major hurricanes this year. They have six models that they average. We have had no hurricanes just a couple little ones out in the Atlantic. They keep downgrading their forecasts. Every time they put the real data into the models. To me it is still fortune-telling. How can I believe the models that are forecasting global warming when they can’t get the weather right.
Let’s go back 20,000 years ago or so. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_age we all agree that there was an ice age. At least half of northern hemisphere was covered by it. Let’s move forward to 150yrs ago and start our industrial revolution. Where did the ice go? I believe the planet has a natural tendency to warm, and when something dramatic happens down it goes. This cycle has been going on for billions of years and will continue.
Science is fact driven. Politicians are agenda driven. The politicians are mixing fact with fiction to stir the pot and produce rather than a “Classic Case of Alarmism”, which I agree with totally. I would call it an “Agenda Driven Case of Alarmism”. Global warming has given the politicians, the greatest ability to tax us that has ever been presented to the world. That is the conclusion that I have come to. It is nothing more than that.
There is so much money to be made that I’m not sure it can be stopped. The same group that gave Al Gore, the Nobel Prize just gave our president the same prize. They both support man being the cause of global warming. I say again Hummmm!!
MONEY MONEY AND MORE MONEY!!!
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/aqx_p/15327?OVRAW=cap%20and%20trade%20bill%20senate%20status&OVKEY=cap%20trade%20bill&OVMTC=advanced&OVADID=48038617522&OVKWID=236907240522
The long winded Vikingbob
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Vikingbob,
It will stop.
1. They cannot continue after all the existing wealth and all the producers of wealth have been cannibalized.
2. An alternative is for the producers to go John Galt. See Atlas Shrugged for instructive details.
3. Another alternative is for We the People to come to our senses and kick the rotting parasites out of office.
I see all three of these alternatives heading for a violent collision. The only questions are when and will there be anything left for the survivors to be able to pick up the pieces.
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Vikingbob
High Lionell Graffith
I agree with some of what you say I disagree that violence is the end result. I think it is time for people like you and I to stand up and present our opinion. As long as we have the vote and the freedom to speak. It is our problem if we don’t use it. I take from the sentence, we the people. I guess you are an American, if I am wrong please tell me where you are from. I do not track anyone on this blog. I think this whole problem is worldwide. We the people is also worldwide. Maybe people like you and I can start speaking up and talking to people that will make the whole thing work. It takes a lot of thinking so let’s think. We need a hydrogen economy, because energy is the solution for everyone Hydrogen. It takes nothing from any country. It gives to use all.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hydrogen-h2/
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Vikingbob,
I am an American. In my usage, “We the People” stands for all peoples of the earth being consumed by government intrusion of any specie. I agree on the point that its time we stand up, think, and speak out. We must demand that our individual rights be respected, that each individual be treated as sovereign over his own domain, and that the government shall be a servant who’s only duty is to protect those individual rights. I have been doing this for a rather long time in the venues available to me.
I have a problem with the idea of a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen is not and cannot be a source of energy. It is at best only a store of energy. It actually takes more energy to make free hydrogen than you can get back from burning it. Where is that energy coming from? Certainly not from the sun or the wind. Especially not in the abundance required of a modern technological industrial civilization.
If there were a sufficiently inexpensive and abundant source of energy developed, it could be used to make free hydrogen or even hydrocarbons as abundantly as we want and need. Such a source does not yet exist and it won’t happen by magic. It won’t ever exist if we prohibit the use of fossil and nuclear fuels. Slaves cannot do it even with an abundant source of energy because it will be the product of the mind and not bent backs. It will take political freedom and a high energy economy for someone to be able to invent and develop it.
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I am sure this is not necessary here. I have added this link, just in case there is someone reading this blog that does not understand energy especially the part Einstein gave us. It is what we are discussing it pertains to all of us. I don’t want to leave anyone out. It is time to act now. We need more energy, not less. Hydrocarbons will run out!!!! Even if we use hydrocarbons to the last drop what I propose will make them last longer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
In responce to Lionell Griffitch – I agree with pretty much everything you say, I do believe there is a limited place for government. Rural electrification,(US) interstate highway system,(US) the Three Gorges Dam,(China) Hoover dam,(US)were built by government. There are a lot more of these projects worldwide. I am sure our Australian friends can point to some in their country. If you notice, the majority of these projects were designed to get us more energy or transport our goods. These are things that can help our businesses grow. They do not belong running our companies. It is our job to watch them very carefully when they are involved.
The government can help get it going and competition will keep it going. I would not suggest the government at all, if it were not for the enormity of the job. We need energy and lots of it soon. We are being told to cut back. A job looser if I ever saw one.
It may not be in our lifetime that fossil fuels run out. But run out, they will. The cost of obtaining them will also increase. This will cause the price of hydrogen development to increase right along with it.
I do not propose stopping the use of fossil fuels, until they can be replaced. We only have one source of energy that has the possibility of replacing fossil fuels. It is atomic power. If you read my different blogs will see that I state that. There is something that we tend to forget in the generation of energy. It is what I call the magic multipliers T&P “Time” & “Producers”.
We need it fast! Mother Nature had millions of years to generate hydrocarbon fuel for us. We do not have that luxury. It is ridiculous to think about strapping a nuclear plant on your car or to an airplane. They need a portable fuel. The only answer without fossil fuels is hydrogen. I don’t believe that we can consider the cost. It must be done. Think of the jobs it will create, and they will last forever.
What I am proposing http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hydrogen-h2/ is that we start the changeover to hydrogen now. It will take a hundred years or more to accomplish. It can be implemented anywhere in the world.
If you live in the US and your home is in the Midwest. You should be worried. That is where the coal is. It will be strip mined. I don’t know about Australia. Maybe someone can help me out. This is where our breadbasket is. Once it is gone it will never grow food again. To me, that is not thinking green. It is just common sense! You don’t destroy something you need just to get something else you need. Especially when you don’t have to do it!!
The human race is growing and we’re going to need things to eat, as well as energy to make our lives better. I would continue the use of fossil fuels and start building atomic power plants as fast as we can be put them together. I would diversify and encourage the installation of small units, similar to those used by the Navy. This will change that magic multipliers “T & P. The energy availability will start to grow much sooner.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009/08/energy-independence-step-one.html
When we use electrical energy, and we turn on a light bulb. There is a generator somewhere that must start outputting that power. If the generator or power line goes down out go the lights.
If we have an underground pipeline full of hydrogen it won’t even be noticed Allowing more time for repairs. It will be a giant energy storage system. Electricity can be stored in batteries, but they are limited in their capacity to hold a charge. They also have a limited life and are hazardous when disposed of or damaged. You cannot fill up a truck with stored electricity, but you can a hydrogen tanker.
Presently to attach to the electrical power grid using wind or solar as a generating source. You must charge a battery that runs an inverter that matches the line frequency and allows you to put the power out on the electrical lines. That means you have to access the wires.
Hydrogen has no such problem, small units can be placed anywhere. A farmer or entrepreneur can set up solar panels or windmills anywhere. Any small system can be used to generate and store hydrogen. He has the magic multiplier “Time” on his side. Even if it’s once every couple of months, he can retreive his tank of hydrogen and take it to a collection center. In effect it can put anybody in the energy business. That is where the other magic multiplier “P” comes in, the more suppliers will lower the price. Remember, you don’t have to distill it. So anyone can produce it.
Do I believe this will ever replace the atomic power plant “NO”. Just a lot of little guys will help the big guys stay honest. The problem with oil, is it only shows up in certain places. This leads to monopolies. If you got water you’ve got hydrogen.
I believe the inventors of the future will reduce the cost of producing hydrogen. Once it is fully accepted as the main source of power. Stored or thought of as an energy source, it solves a lot of our problems. It is just semantics. The hairdryers will still work, and as usual, no one will care what we call it. Just that they can use it. Oil is a storage battery charged by the sun and gravity over millions of years. We can get hydrogen instantly with a couple of stainless steel razor blades, and a battery.
Sorry, Australia. I know this blog is about global warming, but I believe they are tied hand in hand. The global warming advocates see an opportunity to get control of the energy in the world. To me it seems like a spread the wealth scheme. The more wealthy a country is the more energy it is going to use. The more carbon credits it will need. They will be bought from countries that are not very developed. The money will then be used to develop the country. Which will need more carbon credits and start buying them, and so on and so on. The smart countries are rushing to build atomic power plants. That frees them from this carbon thing. This carbon credits scheme is also impossible to police. Two of the most populous countries in the world, India and China will have nothing to do with it. The US however is helping India build reactors without allowing them to be built here. What is the government opinion in Australia?
Windy Bob (I mean vikingbob)
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Inventors at work!!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091018141718.htm
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More Inventors at work
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/blog2/index.php/hydrogen-production/sun-and-water-create-hydrogen-in-china/
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This response is for the blog post 546 Warming: A Classic Case of Alarmism « JoNova Whats your opinion of it?
As I’ve stated before, I’m just a simple man. I try and mix common sense with scientific knowledge. When I read your question. I went to the site that I always use to check out volcanic activity. http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/find_eruptions.cfm
Much to my surprise it had been changed, starting with January 2009. I have waited till now, to fully respond to your question. I had hoped they would fix it. This way I could give you my most up-to-date answer. They have not. Each month it says 58 volcanoes. The data for 2008 is still there. I am trying to find out why the change. I have yet to get an answer.
On my blog ” A Simple Man’s Look at Global Warming”
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html.
I have two graphs that are together. One shows the number of active volcanoes. The other shows the temperature variation from 1880 through 2010. I realize we’re not there yet. My plans were to keep updating both graphs each month. Several sources of temperature information are still available. I use raw data to develop my graphs temperature graph. It’s tracks very closely to the one on this blog. My last update was for September 2009. If you will read the caption, you will see that the total was 40 volcanoes. This is a sharp decrease from 2005. That year there were 74 volcanoes active. I realize the power and location of the volcanoes can have a lot to do with it. But the simple man’s approach was to count them.
If you compare the two graphs, you will see the variations in the number of active volcanoes tracks the temperature fairly well especially from 1995 to the present. I realize this is a rather crude attempt to find an answer. I’m no expert, but as I’ve stated in the past.
Once there was an Ice Age. Now it’s gone. Man had not industrialized than. That leaves us with the question. What melted the ice?
My volcano graph says, we’re heading down again. How low? That is the question. I don’t believe in computer modeling in this application. I just can’t complete 2009 until I get good information on active volcanoes. The way the year started it could be a big dip.
I hope this helps.
Vikingbob
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http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/find_eruptions.cfm
is no longer working.
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its funny how almost absolutely every comment is super long and detailed. C-C-C-Combo Breaker! kinda.
maybe global warming is real maybe its not but all these measures we’re taking to stop this effect, real or not, can’t hurt the world and only help it so why stop? cost is a reason i’ve heard.
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Why not?
Because we feed the banking sharks with more money and power.
When money is misdirected it ends up supporting corruption and fraud. eg. CDM’s paid to china to build hydro dams end up helping bankers buy yachts, and feeds the mafioso in china. They evict homeowners, don’t pay them enough compensation, flood their valleys and commit these people to homelessness or more slavery to bankers through mortgages.
Policy by accident is not the way we should plan things.
If solar energy, wind gauges, or hydro or nuclear, or more efficient cars makes sense we should consider that for it’s own value, not as a solution to a fake problem.
We could for example tax fuel or gas to encourage the switch… oh, we already do.
Employing thousands of accountants, lawyers and auditors to monitor a scheme that’s pointless means all these honest hardworking people are wasting everyones time and resources. They could be feeding kids in Haiti.
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There is no man-made global warming!
The planet has been going up and down in temperature for 4.5 billion years. It has been warmer than it is right now, and it has been colder. There has been more CO2 and less.
One fact all scientists agree on is 20,000 years ago there was an Ice Age. In the United States there were no great lakes. That area was covered by 2 1/2 miles of ice.
The ice started melting around 18,000 years ago. The earth has been steadily warming since. Long before we came along with our industrial revolution!!
Look at the graph at the top of this blog and read the words. You will notice a steady cycling of Earth’s temperature up and down, but the trend is up. We are not causing it. It is all natural. You can’t forecast the future of the Earth’s atmosphere thousands of years ahead. The IPCC predictions are computer models, they mean nothing. Except money in someones pocket.
The Cap-and-Trade Bill in the USA, Emissions Trading Scheme in Australia is a Rich Mans scheme to get richer.
Once carbon trading starts only the rich people will be making money from it. Those who own the credits will have power over us all. We will pay for it in the cost of everything! When politicians get money we know what happens!
If they really believed that fossil fuels are responsible for global warming, would they not advocate the end of this use completely? Instead they want to sell the rights to continue its use.
IT’S “MONEY = POWER” NOTHING ELSE!
I am a hydrogen advocate, as we all know using it produces water. Hydrogen needs to be generated. Atomic power is the answer to that in high volume.
It does, however, lend itself to small, non Atomic, entrepreneurs such as farmers.
Hydrogen will give us the best of both worlds.
Those who want to use a little energy and produce it themselves or those who want to have a business and sell it to others have a friend here.
The little guy really has a chance. Anyone can make it in low volumn!! It can create millions of good jobs anywhere in the world! No country can control it. The inventors need to be turned loose not held back.
We need more clean energy, not less!!!.
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hydrogen-h2/
Vikingbob
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“Those who own the credits will have power over us all”
And there is nothing to stop the Chinese Government buying up all the credits that come up for sale, regardless of price. Or lending money at attractive interest rates to a company, secured by a charge over its credits.
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This is a response to Robert Williams
Your comment is absolutely dead on. The ability to buy carbon credits is not understood by most of the people who hear about this bill. Thank you for understanding.
The Chinese are already buying up energy assets all around the world. They own part of the new Brazil offshore find and the BP find 125 miles from Miami, Florida USA. Take a look at what they are doing in Africa. They also have an agreement with Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
You don’t have to take my word for any of this. Just use the Internet and search it out for yourself. Australia, what are they doing around you?
Let’s take a look at population. Australia 23,000,000 the USA 304,000,000 China 1,500,000,000 Let’s not forget India 1,200,000,000. Who do you think is fighting to get the energy for their country? They are not wrong. That is their job.
We have got to start looking out for ourselves. We need an energy revolution, not a real revolution. If we can get control of our energy many world problems will go away.
I am not sure we’ve ever looked at it this way. Australia and the United States are in a very similar position.
They outnumber us at least 500 to one. I would be very pleased if someone in Australia would contact me and see if there’s anything we can put together. You know I’m a hydrogen advocate. We the simple people of the world can put this thing together! Ideas of others, not just my own are important to me. The inventors of the world are really needed here.
The post from Robert Williams as I said was right on. If you think we are not right tell us what you think that way. I am interested in that also.
Not just words of Hate, that is easy. I want words of reason.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009/08/energy-is-really-weapon.html
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Please head on down to Australia and explain to us all why the Never Ending Drought is going to break, I would love to see all you graphs Statistic and whatever you come up with it will be Hilarious that’s for sure.
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Which never ending drought is that, Debbie? And are you saying that –
1) There is a drought somewhere in the world, ergo
2) CO2 from burning fossil fuels must be the cause?
Because if it is, you need to check the way you evaluate evidence. Best to leave the emotions at home and engage your brain when looking at cause and effect.
Have you read Joanne’s handbook?
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I live in Sydney and it rained three months solid last Winter and has regularly rained this Spring. Needless to say, it’s raining today. Some time ago I planted a lime tree at a deliberate confluence point where runoff would pool around it, because government water restrictions were in full force and I thought I would need every drop. Last winter the leaves turned yellow and started dropping off, when I searched for information about this symptom, it seems the number one cause is over watering 🙁
The levels in Warragamba Dam were lowest in 2007 and have substantially increased since then:
http://www.iliveinsydney.com/water/dams/daily.png
Water restrictions in Sydney have been eased off greatly (not completely removed). The Hunter valley had flooding in 2007 but I went up there much more recently on holiday. Guess what happened? It rained.
BTW: Here’s the official average rainfall map for Australia:
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/climate_averages/rainfall/index.jsp
As you can see, most of the rain falls near the coast. That’s normal for Australia, coastal land is worth more money (regardless of the danger from rising sea levels), because it gets more rain.
Here’s the map of rainfall over time for the last few years, close to average (although some years are wetter than others, 2007 was exceptionally wet, 2008 was on the dry side, 2009 seems to be heading into a wet patch).
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/silo/rain_maps.cgi?map=contours&variable=totals&area=md&period=36month®ion=md&time=latest
Oh yeah, did anyone check the reports of the bumper Australian wheat harvest this year? Looks like those poor Americans will get their burger buns after all.
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http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/815751/severe-weather-causes-floods-and-outages
It goes without saying that both the drought and the floods are simultaneously the fault of climate change. Climate change makes the water hate humans. The water wants to spank the naughty humans for learning the secret of fire.
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Polar bears
http://www.athropolis.com/news/polarbears.htm
This backs up what I said in my post 547. I was there for over a year. The first photo I saw that made me realize it was a fake shows only one bear on an ice floe. I have not found that photo yet. I should have kept it. It is out there somewhere. It was part of literature that came from Al Gore supporters. If anyone knows where to find it send me the link. The old saying tell a lie often enough and it will become the truth is really true.
When a scam like this is copied all over the world it turns on the guilt. To win a Nobel Prize for something like this is unbelievable. He keeps getting richer and richer.
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/watch/default.htm?program=mediawatch&pres=20070402_2120&story=3
Churchill Today! If these buses were driving around your bedroom how many kids would you have? Polar bears tend to be exhibitionists. When you’re a 9 foot tall 1500 pound male you do whatever you want to do.
http://www.athropolis.com/news/polarbears.htm
The latest polls in the USA say that people are starting to wise up and don’t believe that CO2 is the problem. That has not stopped Al Gore. Now it seems it’s really methane not CO2. It is our cattle that are the real problem. I have done standup comedy, and I’ve got to tell you. I wish I had this material than. I could do 10 routines about it. I’ll just give you the newspaper headline and the new buzzwords. Remember you heard it here first. “Carbon Footprint” is going to be replaced by “Gaseous Butt print”. Here is the headline “Polite Australian kangaroos save the world from Global Warming” read the link and write your own routine.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/2020/
Why Eating Kangaroo Can Save Polar Bears
Part 4 of the 20/20 special “20 Questions: You Never Thought to Ask.”
I could do the same thing with this one. I won’t give you any hints here. After you see it you won’t need any.
Can a Garden Hose Stop Global Warming?
Part 3 of the 20/20 special “20 Questions: You Never Thought to Ask.”
I thought I would throw this in because it never seems to end. It’s time to laugh at it. There is nothing man can do about the changing climate on this planet. The proposal putting things in outer space blocking the sun technically could work. The problem is when the earth changes its mind and start heading in the other direction I hope we can shut them off. It could be the fix that dooms us all.
We have had a severe drought in the Southeast. It has been going on for about three years. The doomsayers said we were doing it to ourselves. It was Man-made Global warming. This year, suddenly we have rain. The earth will run its routines, whether we like it or not. The very people that are running around yelling about man-made global warming are the same people that are stopping hydrogen development in this country. I believe it’s all about the sale of carbon credits. Us little guys will never get any part of it.
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Thought you might be interested in this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMe5dOgbu40
What is happening down there?
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Its very interesting that a site like this attracts so many other lemmings who’s children will be sitting there as he sea flows up over them. Reminds me of the anti-war people who ignored Hitler until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Sticking ones head in the sand must be a major human trait. I suspect its tied to lower IQ…
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Tom- lemmings or realists? If you think that you will be covered by sea water soon then go live with Gore but reality suggests that sea levels are not rising as they were 100 years ago, in fact there is data to point the way to sea level falls or at least reaching a level that will remain for some time. I do not run models so I can only guess, rather like the models. Iwould suggest that anyone who believes models over data might have a shortage of grey calls. Perhaps you should look at yourself!
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If the children born tomorrow do nothing for their whole lives but sit on the edge of where the ocean is now; and sea levels rise at the worst possible rate which has been estimated to be maybe as much as 1m per century then for the sea to “flow up over them” would require them to live well beyond the average human lifespan.
So far actual measurements of sea level rise have been of the order of a few millimeters a year, these children probably will not live long enough to find any measurable effect whatsoever. May I suggest some tiny cursory effort should be put into researching the genuine disasters that have already happened in history (of which there are plenty) before predicting doom?
America was right to wait for a direct attack before joining the war. You just imagine the situation if America had attacked Japan first and then dropped the A-bomb to finish the job. Think of the hand wringing and the demand for reparations and how unfair it would all be then.
Jumping into a war quickly and without being absolutely sure is about the stupidest thing any nation can do.
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Ah Tom,
It is easy to see dissenters are gaining more ground.
Just listen to the alarmist sheep starting to bleat louder.
During the ’70’s with another alarmist scare – The Great Global Freeze – the sandwich boards announced:
“Repent you sinners – The End is Nigh”
Nothing much has changed, the sandwich board has been replaced by the internet and MSM announcing another version of “Repent you sinners – The End is Nigh” as reported by the Warmista’s who have a product to sell.
The message should read:
“Repent by buying your carbon indulgences, to save your children and grand children from a fate worse than an Al Gore lecture”
Our friend Tom:lemming, should put all of his efforts into how can our countries block the signing away of our sovereignty at the Copenhagen Climate Treaty in Dec ’09
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I really wonder what the conversation would have been 18,000 years ago when it was discovered the great ice age was ending. Who would the Clovis people blame when a 2 1/2 miles thick glacier decided to melt.
I told you before that I was a standup comic. I’ve come up with this theory, just for fun. Imagine this being presented right after Al Gore gives one of his lectures.
The Tectonic plate that Australia resides on is the fastest moving on the planet. What is really happening is you guys are off balancing the planet causing the earth’s tilt to change. ( Just enough science to fool the masses) You have got to slow down! That will make the warming go away.
You can say what you want about Al Gore. He sure is making money.
Let’s get together and publish a paper telling the world about this new theory. Let’s propose that a carbon fiber cable be hooked from Australia to Antarctica.
That plate is moving relatively slowly if at all. That will put the brakes on Australia. The whole global warming thing will go away.
We could even say that the Australian Navy has secretly connected this cable already. This way when the temperature goes down, we can claim credit. I think this theory makes as much sense as Al Gore. Junk science is junk science. I hope we can laugh together.
The question I asked at the beginning of this blog is totally avoided by the greeners. They can not tell me what happened to the ice without having global warming. What caused the ice in the first place is also never answered?
We live in an up down world. We are only around a hundred years or less. All we get is a tiny snapshot.
The Little Ice Age wiped out the Vikings that were living on Greenland. I wonder what or who they blamed for the cold.
Anyone that wants to join me in this new theory. We could see if we could get a little of Al Gore’s money. We could call it “how Australia stopped global warming”. I’ll bet you can come up with a better name than that.
Keep in mind the switch point of a water. In less than 1° it goes from a liquid to a solid. A very small change can cause a very big effect.
We live in a very, very tiny temperature window. The temperature range in the universe is enormous.
(See – we can mix facts like this in our new theory. It has nothing to do with it, but it makes it sound more scientific)
Viking Bob
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Hi Viking Bob,
Two problems with that suggestion to stop the tectonic plate that Australia sits on from skating up the sides of Mt Everest.
1) You did say “Carbon” fibre cable?(is that different to ‘carbon’ used to describe CO2?)
2)Hooking it up to the Antarctic may result in towing that continent up to the Temperate Zone hastening it’s melting ice cap.(as promised by Al Gore)Then the sea level would rise and we’d all be drowned (according to Al Gore and our own Dr Tim Flannery)
-All in jest – Sorry about that.
Jeff
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Hi Jeff.
Your analysis gave me quite a laugh. It was perfect. You got the idea of the carbon fiber cable. This carbon is doing the reverse of CO2. It is saving the planet. The advantage I have is I’ve seen the secret Navy report. When they installed cable they took into account your concerns. They used those silly things about mass in motion and mass at rest. They placed the cable at an angle. When the tension starts to build Australia being the mass in motion will want to slow down. All that energy must go somewhere. The obvious thing is for it to start to toe, Antarctica. Because of the angle of the cable which is connected from the easternmost tip of Antarctica to the western most tip of Australia. Australia will start to rotate counterclockwise. The motion will cause it to move south west. Farther and farther south west it will go. Antarctica being the mass at rest will want to remain stationary. Eventually it will start to rotate counterclockwise. This will allow Australia to pass right under the tip of Africa. Then the cable will be cut. With the inertia that Australia has it will shoot straight up the Atlantic Ocean like a slingshot. Antarctica may have turned a little, but will still be pretty much in the same place. Australia will soon move far enough north to stop the Gulfstream and down the temperature will go. The Australian Navy wins Al Gore loses.
Viking bob – I wish to thank Al Gore he is my technical advisor.
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A few days ago Google hooked up to the World Bank database and made available such things as CO2 usage per capita in different countries. Check it out: http://bit.ly/1BPJDY and more details available here: http://www.ausbusiness.net/review/world-bank-public-data-available-through-google/
GM
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Check out this link it is extremely well researched. http://www.isthereglobalcooling.com/ if you are not a scientific thinker. Read the summary.
If you are a scientific thinker, you will love it. It gives you all the information you need to see how he came to his conclusions. That’s what scientists do.
Politicians will say anything that will push their agenda. This is how Al Gore is getting away with his “Inconvenient Truth”. The scientists use facts. They research things and produce information like the “Is there global cooling” website. The average person, if he or she went to this website. I doubt would even click on one of the links. The best you can hope for is they read the summary. Even if they used the links they don’t have enough scientific knowledge to understand what they are looking at. They are not scientists. Scientists keep producing more and more information to prove their point. The average person just goes into information overload. Unless you are a scientist it doesn’t mean much.
Al Gore knows and takes advantage of this. He uses a fancy movie and fleshy handouts, cute pictures of polar bears that appeal to the emotional side of the human race. Pictures of polar bears are cute, but they are not scientific fact. Scientists keep pushing the facts.
Al Gore is pushing his agenda by appealing to human emotions. Somehow those of us that think like scientists have got to figure out how to use Al Gore’s emotional attack against him.
Too many people have accepted the fact that we are guilty of causing global warming. We need a cuddly bear to represent us. How about the Koalas? I know they’re not a bear, but if Al Gore can lie so can we. They are cute.
This is what needs to be publicized around the world.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3308582/Al-Gores-climate-change-film-is-propaganda.html#
Here is another link, you may be interested in. Our EPA tried to censor this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSNQzSjb38g
We are going to run out of fossil fuel. As many of you know I am an advocate for Hydrogen and Atomic power. This approach could help make it happen. When the switchover is made I see a problem. The politicians are going to need a new tax.
I am basically a free-market guy. Right now, Atomic power and Hydrogen are being held back in this country by government regulations. The same tactics that Al Gore uses are also being applied to Atomic power and Hydrogen. Maybe if they taxed fossil fuel use, it will crack loose and the walls will come down. MAYBE
Viking Bob
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I will not be back to see any reply’s. I just would like to say one thing. If the skeptics are right and we ignore them and try to reduce re-use and recycle then we spend money. That would be good for the economy. It would create jobs. Worst case… raise someones taxes. If the alarmist are right and we ignore them then many lives will be lost unnecessarily. But hay, we could use a little population control… right.
The fact is that we could go on arguing about this for decades to come. If the alarmist theory is right… well lets just say that I would rather be safe and spend some money than selfish and destroy us all
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Joanne Nova
I think your blog may have more power than you know. In my entries on your blog 554 and 555. I talked about the information I was using for my blog “A Simple Man’s Look at Global Warming” disappearing.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html
I never tried to hide where the information was coming from. Your blog is the only place I really discussed it. This was before the big rip off hit the world. I just checked the same website http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/find_eruptions.cfm the site is operating again. All of the information for 2009 is blank. Before they took it off. The information said the active volcanoes had dropped dramatically. To me, this meant the global temperature was going to follow. I know I’m just a simple man and was following volcanoes just for fun. Makes you think doesn’t it
? Maybe they were reading this blog. If they were, everyone that contributes here helped make them nervous. Now they’re hiding everything.
Vikingbob
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Just give up. It’s a pointless debate as not one of you can possibly have any effect on the situaation politically or materially. All you are doing is spouting off at one another with your opinions and then backing them up with information you are getting second, third hand or even made up. This is how it will work:
Nothing will be done. Nothing. Various groups political, environmental etc will attempt to score points off one another for financial gain either as increased taxes or grants in order to deal with the problem. At various tiems teh media will latch onto the topic on a slow news day or if it seems that scientist/politician has come up with something especially scary. Either way nothing will be done.
Next something either will or won’t happen and it will have to be major at which point we all a) realise it was mistake or b) start actually fixing the problem by throwing massive amounts of money at it.
For examples of this see: tobacco industry (doctors advertising it as healthy), mercury and uranium as food additive/medical marvel, soft drinks as good for kids, vitamin supplements better than fruit and veg, agent orange/white, blue, etc, post traumatic stress syndromw, mad cow disease, AIDS, bird flu, swine flu…
When the s**t hits the fan (which it will at some point) you won’t see it coming so quit discussing it, stockpile up, prepare for emergencies as normal and go about life as normal. You can’t make a difference. You won’t make a difference. All you can hope is that you will be one of the lucky ones who survive – in ten years, 30 years, 50 years or never.
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Milander @ 578: You can’t make a difference. You won’t make a difference.
Maybe but what if we can and don’t try? How will we know?
Your recommendation is as if we are riding in a speeding bus. The bus is heading for a cliff. The driver is slumped over the steering wheel and is unresponsive to voice commands. You say we should do nothing but tighten our seat belts (wait, buses have no seat belts), sing another verse of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, and hope for the best.
I say, we must give it our best shot. If it doesn’t work, we are no worse off than if we had done nothing. If we succeed, we are a much better off. So far, this approach is working much better than doing nothing and hoping for the best. The ETS in Australia is dead, Copenhagen and Cap and Tax in the US is stalled, public opinion is turning, and the press and the political class are starting to pay attention to what we are saying. Its looking rather good to me – much better than it has looked in 20 years.
We may still not win the war but a war is not won without winning the critical battles. THAT is exactly what we are doing and intend to keep on doing.
00
Welcome Milander,
I speak for myself. I have an agenda. I believe the world needs more energy, not less. I am trying to get hydrogen use considered the same as a storage battery. I would like to see all the power transmission lines taken down and replaced by underground plumbing. It would become a giant energy storage system. It also has the potential to put the little man in the energy business. This could take total energy control away from big oil.
There are many places where energy is wasted, because it cannot be stored. I’m not going to go into a long dissertation here. If you have any interest. Check out my website http://www.invents.net and go to my blog or http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com .
I started this quest in 1948 when I first got interested in hydrogen as a potential energy storage system. I have not given up since then. Yes, I am just one little voice. But little by little, I hear others saying the same thing.
Please any of you that read this don’t send me Emails about “no free lunch”. I thoroughly understand that it takes energy to get hydrogen. I believe we waste or don’t use much of the energy that we have available because we can’t store it. Electrical power must be used as it is generated. Hydrogen gives us that ability to store huge amounts of energy. Batteries just don’t cut it. If we could only save half of what we are wasting it would be worth it. Besides fossil fuels are going to run out. Once hydrogen takes hold the inventors of the future will do the rest.
Why do I tell you this? You are now another person who has heard my idea. Will it change anything? I do not know. That does not mean I will give up. Most of the people that contribute to this blog have their own ideas and are presenting them here for all of us to see. We can agree or disagree, because we are free to do that. It is that freedom that we must protect. For that freedom we most learn to take the good and push out the bad.
I believe that freedom and truth are the forces that make civilization move forward.For that we must communicate. Ideas that are presented here may not be used is day. Sometime in the future it can influence thinking. For that reason I appreciate what I read here. The disagreement as much as the agreement is designed to make us and let us think.
Why did a hydrogen advocate get involved in global warming? It was easy I have been in the Arctic. I live in the northern hemisphere. So, what I say will pertain to that part of the planet. I realize the same is true of the Southern Hemisphere, depending on the tilt of the planet. I have been in the Arctic and visited the North Pole. (See my entry, 547 on this site) A friend of mine showed me a picture of a polar bear on an ice flow. She said the poor thing is trapped look, the North Pole is melting Al Gore says so.
The literature came from a group of people supporting Al Gore. I took one look at the picture, and I realized it was taken during the spring or summer. The Hudson Bay, which is at the top of Canada melts during the summer. That is where they live not the North Pole. I knew that because I was there for over a year. The more I studied Gores work the more I realized it was fake. The North Pole has six months of light and six months of dark. The picture was very bright. It was taken June through August. There are ice flows that are in Hudson Bay during that time but most of it is water and has been for thousands of years. I also learned that polar bears are excellent swimmers. If he wanted off that ice flow, he would it just jump in the water and swim to shore. The Bears ride around that way all the time. They are captain of their little ship.
They can’t drown they are loaded with fat, and even their hair is hollow. If it’s early spring when the ice starts to break up is very thick and there is a lot of it. There was only one ice flow in the photograph, and it was obvious it was melting. My guess was the picture was taken in Late July-August. I have since seen literature that backs this up.
Al Gore’s literature is a fake. I did not need as you stated (“All you are doing is spouting off at one another with your opinions and then backing them up with information you are getting second, third hand or even made up”) to know this literature had an agenda.
The Bears are all cute and cuddly and becoming extinct, was the theme. They never talk about the Seals, which can be just as cute and cuddly. Guess who eats who? I will make you a bet that the Seals will not vote for saving the Polar Bears. Please don’t think I am against Polar Bears. Just making a point!
The words and the photos in Al Gore’s literature were designed to twist your emotions. Immediately I was sure agenda, agenda, agenda. When I hear the words “all scientists agree” about something to do with the weather it stands the hair up on the back of my neck.
The varying opinions presented in this blog prove that point. We have trouble getting the day today weather forecast right. Let alone predict hundreds of years into the future. Science is not fortune-telling. I knew it was not science driver. I decided to write my own explanation for global warming. I call it a “Simple Man’s View of Global warming” http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html It is based on science that no one was arguing about or paying much attention to.
I think the base agenda has become obvious. Al Gore is on his way to be the first so-called Green billionaire. I think others are backing this cause, because it helps them implement their agendas. If you want to learn more about this click here:
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/aqx_p/15327?OVRAW=cap%20and%20trade%20bill%20senate%20status&OVKEY=cap%20trade%20bill&OVMTC=advanced&OVADID=48038617522&OVKWID=236907240522
What causes the weather is hard to prove. It is the only thing that affects everyone on this planet. We all face it every morning. This opens it up for an attempt to be made changing the whole social structure of mankind. I believe that is what is going on.
Take a look at this quote from Joanne Nova Blog entry 557. Please read the whole blog it is worth it. “If solar energy, wind gauges, or hydro or nuclear, or more efficient cars makes sense we should consider that for it’s own value, not as a solution to a fake problem”.
There is a law in physics that says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is also true of decisions we make in life. Let’s get the truth out there. So the actions and reactions can be studied and accounted for. Just maybe Hydrogen will get a real chance.
I told you I am a hydrogen advocate, and I thought naïvely that every greener on this planet would be behind hydrogen. When you use it you get water what else could they ask?
They are not. This also tells me that they have another agenda. It is not just cleaning up the planet.
I agree with many of the things that you point out, but if I just keep quiet they will just keep on going. If words are never spoken and opinions presented there is no chance at all. I belong to a 912 group that is over located 100 miles away from me. They have been to Washington three times already waving signs. Do they do any good? I believe they do, and even if they don’t they get up and try again! I have been unable to join them. Maybe next time.
I agree with this quote from Lionell Griffith: “I say, we must give it our best shot. If it doesn’t work, we are no worse off than if we had done nothing. If we succeed, we are a much better off. So far, this approach is working much better than doing nothing and hoping for the best. The ETS in Australia is dead, Copenhagen and Cap and Tax in the US is stalled, public opinion is turning, and the press and the political class are starting to pay attention to what we are saying. It’ on s looking rather good to me – much better than it has looked in 20 years”.
I would add this to his statement. I have found many more people that were paying little to no attention to global warming are starting to realize that global warming, is not man. The thought of taxes to fix an alleged problem is sinking in. The idea that this is an agenda is starting to be realized. The successful countries of the world having to pay because of their success? What is that about? Is what I hear.
They also are starting to see that there’s as much possibility for the temperature to go down as there is for it to go up. I believe it is going down. That is what my little study of volcanoes says.
People know computers don’t think. They do what someone tells them to do. That is why computer modeling is not a useful way to predict the future weather. People are surprised when they learn what they are hearing comes out of the mouth of a computer. It is no better than a crystal ball.
When I hear so-called scientists trying to block opposing views I question their data immediately. Most scientists who believe in what they are doing are proud to have it challenged, because they know they are right and want the world to see.
When Al Gore can answer the question, what happened to all that ice that existed across the northern hemisphere 18,000 years ago without natural global warming? I could change my opinion. I don’t think there’s any hope of that.
I have started a new campaign. I call it save the Seals. I have photographs of Polar Bears and Seals all looking cute and cuddly. The caption says “who eats who” I give this to the Al Gore supporters. You can guess the reaction. I look at it this way, if they can use emotions against me. I will use them back. Don’t you think that’s fair play? I know it’s not scientific. But so be it! Every piece of literature I get from Gore supporters has a polar bear on the front of. Even web sites have them. It is usually a mother and her club. My effort is to break the emotional lock, so they can look at the facts more clearly. This way logic can get through. Maybe
Viking Bob
00
Response to all
I like your dialogue and most of you try to research your info while some find it difficult to project your understanding, as I often do. I believe it was Einstein that said at a Science Convention, “there is no Scientific Fact that cannot be refuted” and went on to prove his point through “Rational Deniability” on several prominently accepted concepts. This in itself validates most of your opinions as being founded on Facts with some bias and I personally do not find humor in peoples efforts to reach out to participate in uniting toward resolve in the current crisis. There is valid information to be used in all theories.
History is the best forecaster of the future but most use it to define the questions of What, How, Where, and When to project specific points of view through graphic images that readily convey trends to those of us that aren’t as involved, and we appreciate it.
Where research becomes most enlightening is when it is projected with the relative factors of “Why”. The Mover’s and Shaker’s of the World Empire make things happen by Fear Motivation, Propaganda and in America for the last five decades, by Law. Prior to the JFK assassination, there was always enough Credible Representation in Congress to maintain the semblance of Constitutional Governance. Since, the “Orchestrated and Systematic Planning” for the demise of our Republic has been escalated and is validated by Legislated Mandate that has; (stimulated dissension between family, sexes, classes, races, religious and sexual preference, communities, free enterprise, freedoms of choice and expression to dissolve mutual respect), (lost jobs, lowered American made Quality and productivity standards, lost Business and Markets, compromised educational and health care standards, some segments of business monopolized and others denigrated,
inflated cost that now require two family incomes which all areas have contributed to trade deficits stimulated through unionization and enhanced by NAFTA, CAFTA, Reaganomics, etc.) (Minority and Special Interest Groups have intentionally been overcompensated through legislation to; ridicule moral and ethical standards, further exploit bigotry, “Save the animals and Kill the People”, legalize covert and radical factions, Denounce traditional American Values, stimulate controversy and in general disrupt our Multi-Cultural Society), (Government Intervention, Deregulated Banking, Accounting and Business standards to hide and shift wealth, ethics violations and Wall Street Ponzi Schemes all contributed to the toxic asset bubble and much of this paper trail disappeared on 9/11), (Specific legislated Acts to created trade imbalance, the dollar devaluation, Lowered Tax Revenues, barred audits, deficit spending, Spending ceiling, autonomous controls to certain questionable entities all contributed to our deficit), (the practiced and increased waste is mostly a game to test the publics’ awareness and flaunt Congressional Aristocracy). This has been a Bi-partisan effort from since the 1970’s.
Scientific facts, Statistical Data and Actuarial Findings are manipulated by the Powers to Be, propagated by Washington as their foundation of truth and passed on for Medias’ Sensationalized Propaganda to mislead, confuse and ultimately trick us into moving in a direction we would never go if the truth were to be known. The urgent rush to oblivion is before us and the roads to recovery are being destroyed as we go.
All of the above was abetted by Government Subsidized Support Groups that provide grass roots infiltration of neighborhoods to sway opinion and provide mental, moral and food sustenance in a variety of ways to manipulate the people toward agenda objectives. I do not infer that all community efforts are bogus or I would be guilty too.
00
Hi Exposer I would like to comment mostly on your first and last paragraph.
“I like your dialogue and most of you try to research your info while some find it difficult to project your understanding, as I often do. I believe it was Einstein that said at a Science Convention, “there is no Scientific Fact that cannot be refuted” and went on to prove his point through “Rational Deniability” on several prominently accepted concepts. This in itself validates most of your opinions as being founded on Facts with some bias and I personally do not find humor in peoples efforts to reach out to participate in uniting toward resolve in the current crisis. There is valid information to be used in all theories”.
I have always looked at scientific fact this way. It is the best available current knowledge. When more knowledge is gained the fact must be changed. A theory is just that a theory, waiting to be elevated to a fact. The speed of light is absolute, until someone proves it’s not. If you note the comment from Einstein, he said scientific fact. The problem is, in things such as man made global warming many of the things that are called facts are not. They don’t even rise to the point of being a theory.
History tells us the earth has gone through many transitions up and down. This can be proven. So I accepted it as fact. I do not call it a theory, because there is a base to it.
I also know that the largest of all greenhouse gases by far is water vapor. I take that as fact, because we can measure it quite easily. It is almost never mentioned. People sweat and can see clouds. It’s not very exciting. CO2 however is more of a mystery. people can’t see it smell it or taste it. It is easier to use in a deception.
I hear people say that the USA puts out a hundred times more CO2 than all the volcanoes put together. That is not true a true statement. I don’t know how they know it, because no one is measuring all the volcanoes. In fact, we’re not really sure how many volcanoes there are because many of them are under the ocean. I also know that a volcano does not have to be considered active to vent CO2. These are facts that can be proven. I also know that part of the Ring of fire travels up the west coast of the United States. I don’t know how to measure how much CO2 is produced there.
My belief on man-made global warming is it not a theory it is just someone’s agenda. A method of manipulating the masses hiding behind the mask of a scientific fact. Doomsday scenarios are exciting, just go to the movies. They get an emotional not a rational response. If I understand the rest of your blog correctly it describes many other times, when similar agenda driven situations have been used quite successfully. Sometimes to the detriment of us all.
You say in your last paragraph: “All of the above was abetted by Government Subsidized Support Groups that provide grass roots infiltration of neighborhoods to sway opinion and provide mental, moral and food sustenance in a variety of ways to manipulate the people toward agenda objectives. I do not infer that all community efforts are bogus or I would be guilty too”.
You make a statement at all of the above was abetted by Government subsidized support groups. I agree this can be true. I believe this subsidy with enough money behind it can come from elsewhere. That money as well as government pressure can push the people toward a given agenda. I will take you at your word when you say all these efforts are not bogus. I know personally, they are not. Sometimes people just have enough or should I say too much of what you have described in this blog. They spontaneously choose to rebel against it. Especially when their gut tells them most of what they are hearing is a lie.
one of the all – Viking Bob.
00
Whether global warming is real or a hoax, blown out of proportion or greatly underexaggerated…
It doesn’t matter.
I don’t think the debate matters. If global warming is a total hoax and we make the world a better place for no reason…we’ve still made the world a better place.
00
jo – I’m the resident crazy AGW believer nutjob here… but let me explain to you that no one here is against making the world a “better” place… it is just that they think that severly constraining our economies, resulting in mass poverty and eventually significant lowering of global population through starvation and war just to fulfil some facist/socialist/”insert preferred extreme political system here” world government while making the banks of the world very rich indeed, is the polar opposite to making the world a “better place”.
You’re going to have to do better than that sorry.
01
Jo – There is a statement that I was brought up with. I’m not sure if it came from the Bible or elsewhere. It pertains to the comment that you made. That statement says, teach a man to fish, and he will eat for the rest of his life. Give him a fish, and he will only eat for one day. This fits in with one of those crazy laws of physics, which states “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Fortunately or unfortunately, however you choose to look at it. It also pertains to life.
I will not feed wild animals. I live far in the country. My nearest neighbor was feeding the birds. They moved away. The house is now empty. The birds still came, but the food was no longer there. That was four years ago, the birds are gone now. I hope they found food elsewhere.
I will admit, I fell into the trap and kept on feeding them. What I did do was slowly reduce the amount of food that was available. All that did was cause fights. Then came the squirrels and started pack ratting it away. Finally, I just stopped feeding them. Did I make there life better or worse??
I am 75 years old, what would they do if something happens to me? The point I am making with this is when you become dependent it is very difficult to become independent. There is a lot of money and help given by all of the developed countries in the world. Much of it is gobbled up by the corruption that exists in the countries we are trying to help.
The point is the truth is very important, because your action or lack of it will have an end result. I like what MattB had to say. It may not be the one that you expect. So called man-made global warming has an impact on the whole planet. They are using the polar bear symbol to get people’s emotions involved in their agenda. Not their logic. This tells me there is something wrong!!
Remember, if we save the Polar bears, those very cute and cuddly white baby harp seals are their favorite snack. The seals and the bears live in a very hostile section of this planet. The balance of life is very delicate. Their survival depends on food supply and not becoming someone else’s food supply. If the bear population gets unusually large the seal population (food) will not be able to support them and they will die until a balance is reached.
If you were 1500 pounds and could run 100 times faster than any seal on the planet and swim almost as well. Do you think melting ice would limit your food supply? The ice protects the seals, not the bears. It wasn’t the melting ice caused by man-made global warming that was reducing the polar bear population. It was (A MAN WITH A GUN) the poachers that were doing that. That beautiful white coat was bringing $5,000. That’s a year’s pay for an Eskimo.
The increasing polar bear population is going to need food! Here is the dilemma. Who do we favor the bears or the seals? They are both so damn cute! Which one makes it a better world? Al Gore says it is the bears. I wonder if “all scientists agree” with that conclusion.
let’s define better place, before we decide that everyone should go there.
Man needs more energy not less. Energy is as important to man as food.
Just a note here from my volcano study. From 1930 through 1940 there was a spike in the world’s temperature it peaked in 1934. This and other sharp peaks in temperature have been removed from the IPCC graphs. This created a time called the dust bowl in the western United States. I didn’t check Australia to see what was happening then. If anyone has a good link send it on. A check of the volcanic activity shows that it started to increase around 1925 and peaked around 1934. It then decreased and the temperature dropped. Just interesting.
Vikingbob
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Just more stuff
We have been misdirected by Al Gore, and are concentrating on ice melting. I decided to take a look at places that have already suffered from global warming. I chose the Sahara. The reason for the changes in the Sahara are considered by scientists to be a wobble in the Earth’s axis. The wobble could account for some of the volcanic activity I have been tracking. Probably connected to tectonic plate movement. Studies of the Sahara and photos taken by NASA show that its cycles roughly every 20,000 years http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara#Climate_history
Look at climate history. They talk about the end of the great Ice Age. This tells you what the planet was doing and how big a lie Al Gore is telling when he says climate change is man-made. Throw in some large volcanic eruptions, and this is just more proof the planet cycles up and down without any help from us.
Vikingbob
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Of course Boris said that BEFORE the Climategate revelations. In the post-Climategate context, his quote has a sort of naive innocence to it – it’s like looking back to the time when you believed in Father Christmas.
You are now aware that Santa’s not real aren’t you? Boris?
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Facts are facts only in the context of intent. Too often Lies, assumption and innuendo form the hypothesis to move people in a specific direction and are later validated with select information to substantiate the propaganda. Most of us rely on contradicting facts by honest specialists to maintain some semblance of integrity in our leadership. Biased media perpetuates the half-truths, through sensationalism, in the direction that suits their benefactors.
It must be asked Why and Why Now to determine purpose and evaluate the proposals cumulative affects to determine if problem resolve is the real motivation or the legislated aftermath leads in another direction. This is all too obvious to a casual observer that has concern for the wellbeing of the fellow citizens and country. It is not so obvious to those concerned with self-preservation and personal gratuity at the expense of their neighbor.
I believe more truth can be known by using ones own intellect with open dialogue to other concerned citizens through rationalizing their critical opinions than all the research any individual could absorb by themselves. Collectively we can conclude resolve.
The bottom line is when one loses their right to choose as an individual, so looses the Society as a whole because precedence has been established and the waters tested.
There can be “NO MORE” Trojan Horse legislation passed by this administration to bankrupt and defeat our Sovereign Nation with pen and paper. Tarp, Stimulus, Bailout, has so far paid off cronies, monopolized business, covered paper trails of corruption and destroyed Americans personal security. Closed-door negotiations have destroyed any integrity that remained in the Health Care Community and the HCR and Cap & Trade will make the dollar worthless. Know your enemy and meet them face-to-face.
If any reform is to happen it will be with due diligence that five decades of legislation orchestrated by both parties, is researched and reversed by demand of the public and the immediate elimination of the FED as it exists today. The volatile situation that has been created by this administration by imposing hardship and fear is pitting nearly faction of our society against the others to bring about a state of martial law and total chaos.
Communities congregate to help each other by sharing resources, boycott everything out side your hub and protect what your group willing shares from all invaders.
The collaborators of this effort will be severely damaged at lower levels but the ripple effect will cripple tax revenues.
State Government can get on board if willing to adhere to Constitutional Governance.
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I posted above about “Dr Mojib Latif, one of the world’s top climate modellers”, so for completeness I thought I’d stuff in the story about Accuweather meteorologist Joe Bastardi coming to a conclusion that sounds, well, remarkably similar to David Evans.
Joanne, your blog sure is a popular place for weather predictors to get their predictions from.
Just for laugh value, might as well include this:
Oh yeah, probably should reference the source…
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=121447
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High Australia it’s that simple man again. I am considered an expert in nothing. I have graduated from high school,I think. That is it. This gives me a very large advantage. I don’t have to worry about peer reviews. If I am right or I am wrong, it isn’t going to collect groupies. I speak, because I have the freedom to do so. My father had a saying, if you stop seeking out people that you disagree with, learning for you has ceased.
I find the problem with experts is that is exactly what happens. People are looking to experts for answers. They feel obligated to respond, right or wrong because they are an expert. They have a hard time backing out. You know that ego thing! And a grant or two or three.
The problem is we react to these experts. Sometimes we override our own common sense.
I think the verbal give-and-take in society, if totally free, is the best way to do things. Before the Internet, we could not share our ideas very easily. The news broadcasts in the past were always filtered through someone else’s mind. Contributing to this blog lets our words be seen by the world. I see no reason to block any of them or to stop their publication. I can make my own decision, whether I agree or disagree.
Disagreement makes me dig deeper. It should be invited not blocked. I wish some of those so called experts would not worry so much about peer review and go for common sense. No grants for common sense.
I’m afraid my opinion of most so called climate experts is low. If this were 15,000 years ago, they would have been priests in a pagan religion.
The battle over climate change has been going on for thousands of years. Many of the pagan tribes were so convinced that they were in disfavor with their gods that they perpetrated human sacrifices. The Mayan and Inca Indians sacrificed their children, especially virgin girls throwing them off the tops of mountains. All that because the weather had changed and their crops wouldn’t grow.
Their guilt trip told them they were deserving of his disfavor. Parents actually brought their children for the sacrifice. I hear you saying they were not very smart. I question that. Take a look at what they built. There must be an irrational guilt gene.
I see no difference in this basic thinking and how we are reacting to global warming. We are still guilty. We must sacrifice something. We have a priest of global warming or maybe he’s a deity we have offended. I’m not sure (Al Gore).
This planet is going to change, whether we like it or not. We are on it for such a short period of time. That makes it difficult to see the 4.5 billion year picture. This planet is changing. It will change if we are here or we are not. I think many humans don’t like to admit how insignificant we really are.
As we have seen here in the northern hemisphere. Mother Nature has decided to remind us how inconsequential we are. The cold air is sweeping down from the north and the snow is falling. Only Mother Nature has the power to change so much of the planet in such a short time. That nice heat from the sun is being sent right back.
When I woke this morning, the thermometer said, 0° degrees C, 32° F. I call this the switch point of water, 60% of the northern hemisphere is now covered by a mirror.
If it remains for a while Mount Mayon will go bang.
http://www.bt.com.bn/en/news-asia/2009/12/23/philippines-high-alert-mount-mayon-eruption-looms
This will put ash in the atmosphere, blocking the sun. The temperature will go down even more. As the ash settles out on top of the snow it will melt. Water vapor will return to the atmosphere. And round and round we go. Up and down right through the switch point of water.
In Florida where I live, no one has seen these temperatures in their lifetime. The main effect of the low temperature is the low humidity. They are predicting fires. It strikes me that the same CO2 is still in the air. What is missing is water vapor. The skies at night are so clear you can see stars that were not visible before. The heat from the sun that should have been trapped by water vapor is now streaming into outer space day and night.
They say a warm period is coming. I checked the expected humidity, and guess what it’s going up. I think it is obvious from the effect on the northern hemisphere that the main greenhouse gas that affects the weather is not CO2. It is water.
The claim is that over the last hundred years. Man is changing the atmosphere. Mother Nature just changed a good part of the northern hemisphere almost overnight, wow that’s power.
The only way that CO2 can have an overpowering effect is if the water vapor in the atmosphere drops. The problem for the greener is we have very little effect on water vapor. It’s hard to feel guilty about something you can’t control and need badly.
I understand the slow build up theory. To me it does not make common sense. Grape growers say that they grow better on the sides of volcanoes. Is it the soil, or is it the CO2 that is leaking out? Hungry plants grow better in the CO2 atmosphere. Some green houses introduce CO2 during the winter.
I would love to learn more about the Australian climate. If anyone has any good links, let me know. Is there any change in Australia that may parallel changes in the northern hemisphere? Not the same, just unique. Forget about temperature changes let’s look at humidity. North and South are only names created by man. Let’s turn the planet upside down and start studying the south end. Is it really down under, or is it really the top?
“Tel” I followed that link, and it opened a whole new can of worms. It has been known for years that the magnetic pole is moving. The thing I picked out of it is the magnetic pole is moving at roughly the same speed as the tectonic plate Australia rides on. Maybe that carbon cable I have talked about is connected to the South Pole. Is the pole moving or is it just the tectonic plates that are.
We have another opportunity here to start a new guilt trip. You know that metal stuff the United States and the rest of the industrial world is moving all over the planet. You know cars, refrigerators, wash machines, tractors. All that iron stuff. That’s what’s causing the pole to shift. We don’t need to worry about the oceans rising, we can say that is due to all those iron ships filled with oil, displacing the water.
Magnetic spheres will change their exterior field strength with changes in structure. The earth is a sphere. Can’t we make something good out of that? Who wants to be the next priest of global warming due to magnetic change?
How about one of you ladies out there. We could deck you out in a wonder woman outfit with a magnetic wand and belt. It would be great. When you show up at an Al Gore meeting, the world will hear about it.
We have lots of available animal heroes. Any animal that follows the magnetic fields of the earth is a possible subject. We just need a cute one. The polar bear is taken. I don’t think he pays much attention to the pole moving anyhow. Just where to find the next seal.
Vikingbob
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Vikingbob:
I like to say I’m not encumbered with an oversupply of knowledge.
There still is a lot of garbage on the internet and no way for the average guy to sort it out. Peer review has its good points, though can be a moat around the fraternal club.
[not meaning to exclude females with “fraternal;” Just don’t know the proper word.]
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Hi Rob B:
Thank you for your fast response. The peer review that I was referring to pertains to global warming caused by man. The thing that got me started on the whole thing was several photographs that were shown to me of polar bears in distress in the Arctic. I am one of the few people that has spent time in that area of the world. I have stated this in several other responses to this blog. I will repeat some of it here.
The lady that showed me the pictures was backing Al Gore. The first picture, she showed me was a polar bear, floating along on an ice flow. The statement under the photograph, stated, this is what we have done to his environment. He can’t even reach land, he will probably die. This literature was put out by backers of Al Gore. It also stated all this evidence was peer reviewed.
What did I get out of that photograph. It was brightly lit it was obvious that it was taking in the summertime. The Hudson Bay, which is the top of Canada is only frozen in the wintertime. I was there for over a year. I was a radar man working on a site on Baffin Island for the US military. The poles have six months of light and six months of dark. You can check that out.
The other thing was having seen the polar bears. I knew that they great swimmers they have been known to swim five or 10 miles. They ride around on these ice flows all the time. If a seal swims by he is a goner.
I was also in Church hill, the northernmost town in Canada. That is the town where the Canadian polar bears come in the fall to wait for the Hudson Strait to freeze over. Then they can go hunting. The town of Church hill has a polar bear jail. When the Bears get to bothersome they put them in jail until the Bay freezes over. Then they are turned loose to go out on the ice and look for seal holes. When a seal pokes his head up they drag him out onto the ice. That is life in the Arctic.
The pamphlet had several other photographs. Obviously designed to make us feel sorry for the polar bear and guilty about our greedy ways. Almost nothing was true. It called it peer-reviewed settled science. Even the thickness of the ice was wrong. In the spring it is very thick. All summer is open water, with just a few ice flows floating around. In the fall it starts out very thin.
Take the time to look at Church Hill Canada on the Internet. There is all kinds of information there. They want tourists to come and see the polar bears. No one talks about the poor seals.
The biggest problem the polar bears had when I was in the Arctic with poaching. A polar bear coat was selling for about $5,000. That was in the 50s. The latest number I got from Canada’s wildlife division said that there are now 25,000 polar bears in northern Canada. That has triple since 1998. There are also Russian polar bears and polar bears on Greenland. No one has counted them. If I were a seal in the Arctic I would be worried.
As a result of the encounter with my friend. I decided to take a look at what was going on in the global warming world. What I found was exactly what you stated there is a lot of garbage out there. There were quotes from people, who were quoting people, who were quoting people, who were quoting people. There was a lot of scientific stuff about CO2 absorption.
I found that the largest greenhouse gas, by far is water vapor. But nowhere could I find the facts that were referred to in this pamphlet. It stated that all reputable scientists now agree. It is man caused global warming. That was saying anyone who didn’t agree was not reputable.
I decided to look into volcanoes. They are a major producer of CO2. I felt they had a lot more potential to influence the atmosphere than men do. I saw statements on the net that said, man is putting out a hundred times more CO2 than volcanoes. Nowhere could I verify this. I only found one volcano, that was being monitored. Also most are under the sea. I am now being told that all the data to back up these claims has been destroyed. That in itself makes me suspicious.
What I found when I started tracking volcanoes, was the number of active volcanoes Tracked the Earth’s temperature very closely. If my volcano predictions are correct, the Earth’s temperature has started down. The hockey stick predictions shown at the top of this blog (IPCC) are only computer generated projections. They are going to be way off.
You can see what I found about volcanoes by visiting my blog. A Simple Mans Look at Global Warming. It has not been peer reviewed.
http://vikingbobswords.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html
Then I found this:
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/aqx_p/15327?OVRAW=cap%20and%20trade%20bill%20senate%20status&OVKEY=cap%20trade%20bill&OVMTC=advanced&OVADID=48038617522&OVKWID=236907240522
I believe this is the motivator behind man-made global warming. Al Gore is on his way to being the worlds first green billionaire. The average person does not understand what is going to happen to taxes when carbon credits are sold on the stock market. Check it out. Let me know your conclusions. They are important to me, again thanks for commenting.
VikingBob
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That graph proves that Jesus could actually walk on water! :O)
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This article is a piece of Right Wing garbage!
Want a real graph? Here is NASA’s GISS record of weather instrumentation going back to 1880.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
Satellite data also shows warming:
— RSS TLT (Temperature Lower Troposphere) 30 year average from 1979: warming is 0.153 K /decade
http://www.ssmi.com/msu/msu_data_description.html#msu_decadal_trends
PS: (Please notice for deltas, or increases — K degrees is equivalent to C degrees.)
All the warming is in line or higher than the IPCC predictions which was .1 degree C per decade up to 2020 and then .2 degree C per decade for the next 20 years.
Who cares about the polar bears — the ice at the poles ARE melting!
Here is the USGS measuring glaciers in Alaska and pronouncing them melting.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2009/3046/
Here is the artic
<>
source:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5945/1236
all areas are seeing decline in ice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850
This author is just playing dishonest games with the facts!
[Oh look, a lot of links that endorse and support the graph at the top? Thanks. I guess you just wanted to use the word “dishonest”… ahh “dishonestly”. eh? __ JN]
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Here is an interesting post on the subject. The author is correct, this is a classic example of over reaction but there are nefarious reasons this time. Its all about a global carbon tax, puts another lever of control in the hands of the elite. Unfortunately, the issue of climate change now has almost no integrity and that’s not good either. What a shame.
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Its all about a global carbon tax, puts another lever of control in the hands of the elite.
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/aqx_p/15327?OVRAW=cap%20and%20trade%20bill%20senate%20status&OVKEY=cap%20trade%20bill&OVMTC=advanced&OVADID=48038617522&OVKWID=236907240522
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Great article, as well know global warming is a bunch of crap a few years ago you would have branded a heretic for saying so. But finally more people are seeing for what it is
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Some of the people who the word hasn’t gotten to are the US Senators. A cap and trade bill is being brought up before the US Senate tomorrow. It has nothing to do with global warming. It’s more like pocket filling. The politicians are drooling over the money. Every time we think it’s under control. It’s like squeezing Jell-O it squirts out somewhere else.
Al Gore just bought a $9 million home. I wonder how much energy it uses. The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is the only thing really being reported on the news. I think they will try and cram it through, while people are distracted.
That volcano in Iceland is getting very little news. Everyone is upset over the Jets not being able to fly. I personally hope it doesn’t stop the crops from growing or flying will be the least of our problems.
Viking Bob
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The 5 easy steps to being green, creating local jobs, and adverting the worst effects of climate change and peak oil.
1) Stop SprawL!!!
2) R.R.Recycle!
3) VeganLife!! / ReForest / FoodForest! / VirginForest!!
4) Wind! / GeoThermal Exchange!! / Solar
5) Electric &OpenSource: Trains!! / Cars / Media!! / Medicine
http://www.350.org/about/science
http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1989
http://www.storyofstuff.com
http://www.peta.org/vsk
http://www.democracynow.org
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You forgot a magic twanger. All you have to do is to pluck it. All will be solved!!!
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[…] probably showed him this chart and he just couldn't accept the truth http://joannenova.com.au/2009/04/glo…e-of-alarmism/ Reply With Quote + Reply to […]
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[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2009/04/glo…e-of-alarmism/ someone shoed him this graph and report his ego couldn't stand the truth. Reply With Quote + Reply to Thread […]
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[…] Global warming: a classic case of alarmism « JoNova Quote: […]
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Essentially these observations fit very well with the pattern that Girma Orssengo found here http://pathstoknowledge.net/2010/10/18/investigating-the-climate-of-doom; see points (2) and the linked articles.
Projecting the Orssengo linear+cyclic pattern forward simply says what these observations say as the assumption, keep replicating the pattern from the past forward and see what happens.
Also it seems similar to what Piers Corbyn does his analysis: looking at weather patterns from the past and projecting them forward using the current observational data as a pattern matching template to pick which of the past patterns to project forward.
It would be good to see Girma Orssengo update his analysis with the more recent data observations.
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