Dr Andrew Glikson writes for Quadrant and I respond .
This is a copy. It begs the question. Dr Glikson, is an Earth and paleo-climate scientist at the Australian National University. He’s paid to give us both sides of the story.
No, Dr Glikson
by Joanne Nova
April 19, 2010
Dr Andrew Glikson says the right motherhood lines [see: Case for Climate Change]: he talks about empirical evidence, and wants evidence based policies. All this is good, yet he sidesteps the main point — what exactly is the evidence for the theory of man-made global warming? It’s the only point that matters, yet when he presents evidence it’s either not empirical, not up to date, or not relevant. Why?
By hitting all the right key phrases a reader might accidentally think that Glikson is presenting key evidence and good reasoning. Take this for example: Glikson fears we’re turning away from evidence-based policies. (Me too!) But to complete the sentence he lists all the committees who predict bad weather 90 years from now. It makes for good PR, but is not scientific evidence.
Committee reports count as “evidence” in a court of law, but in science, certificates, declarations, contracts, commission hearings, or 3000 page reports don’t mean anything. Clouds don’t give a toss about what committees predict.
Irrelevant and incorrect
Arctic ice and sea levels are at least empirical evidence, but in this case, they’re irrelevant.
They don’t tell us anything about what caused the warming. Almost any cause of warming would melt sea ice. Then there’s the problem that global sea ice is looking fairly robust. The Arctic has shrunk some, but the Antarctic has grown. Each year millions of square kilometres of ice melt on each half of the globe, and each year they also refreeze. Peak global sea ice is roughly the same now as it was in 1979.[1] And far from being “worse than expected,” Arctic sea ice in 2010 is breaking records—still growing until the end of March.[2]
Rising sea-levels are similar—they’re evidence of warming, but not evidence that carbon caused the warming. And as far as the “it’s worse than we thought” theme goes: where is the scary surprising uptick? If anything, instead of an upcurve, the graph has slightly flattened off. The trend is utterly predictable, except that it might be rising less fast than the predictions.
Any careful scientist ought to be very qualified in using statements implying “accelerating trends”. Unfounded claims about the need to rush in and sign the dotted line are like a sales pitch: Hurry, last chance! Don’t wait for more evidence…
Note that sea levels have been rising for 200 years. Long before humans emitted significant amounts of CO2. Half of man-made CO2 has been emitted in the last 35 years, but the trendline remains the same before and after.
Harmful carbon?
Glikson also tries to suggest that carbon is only beneficial for plants in glasshouses “where humidity is high”. Awkwardly for him, field studies from fifty years ago show that atmospheric carbon dioxide is the rate-limiting factor for plants — meaning they use up all the CO2 they can between sunrise and 12 noon each day, then slow down until the carbon levels are restored in the air overnight.[3] One of the main purposes for water molecules in plant tissue is to be exchanged for CO2 (known as evapotranspiration), so not surprisingly not only do plants prefer higher CO2 — they grow faster — they also cope better with drier conditions. Overall, hundreds of studies show that plants typically grow 20-50% more biomass with higher CO2 levels.[4]
Curiously Glikson mentions hypercapnia in the same paragraph and associates carbon dioxide with arsenic, mercury and cyanide. But as every toxicologist knows, any chemical will become a poison at high enough concentrations. Glikson’s comparison is “true”, but mindless. Pure oxygen and water can kill you too. Knowing that does not help us decide what to do with carbon. As for hypercapnia, in humans it begins to have noticeable effects at around 75,000 ppm, which at present rates of increase will become an issue sometime around the year 39,000AD. (Look out for the onset of global headaches in 37,000 years.)
But seriously, what about ocean acidification? It’s worth noting that fears of ocean acidification are largely theoretical and calculated, rather than based on empirical evidence. Some corals grown in very high levels of CO2 thrived. When one research team reconstructed ocean pH levels with boron isotopes in corals, they found no noteable trend over the last 300 years[6] or the last 6000 years.[5] Atmospheric CO2 levels may have risen 30% recently, but at least in that marker, there’s no clear relationship between ocean acidity and atmospheric CO2. Other researchers found warmer temperatures increased calcification along the full length of the Great Barrier Reef.[7]
Wherefore art thou reasoning?
Even the IPCC has admitted the 2035 projection for the complete melting of the Himalayas was baseless (and probably a Chinese-whispers type mistake from someone misreading “2350” as 2035). Despite this, Glikson hints that it’s possible the Himalayas could even melt before 2035. His evidence? Not a peer reviewed paper on glaciers or a study of the Himalayas, but a study that showed the IPCC reports underestimated “other things”. Really. Whether a committee makes bad projections is not remotely admissible as evidence of whether kilometre wide glaciers will disappear “unexpectedly”. Why should I need to explain this to a professor? (What has happened to Australian universities?)
Endorsing low quality “science”
Glikson comments on the recent unauthorised release of emails from East Anglia, saying they hardly amount to a “ClimateGate” conspiracy by the scientific community. As usual, what he doesn’t say is revealing. Since he doesn’t admonish Jones and Mann for their petty, unprofessional behaviour, their attempts to hide data from other scientists, or to avoid FOIs and boasts of intimidating journal editors, does that mean he thinks these are acceptable? They talked about producing error bars that “might be wrong”, they cherry picked and hid sections of graphs, and they asked groups of people to delete emails and hide files. If mass emails suggesting dishonest things is not a conspiracy, what is? Either Glikson hasn’t read the emails, or he condones this. Where are the real climate scientists who stand up for transparent honest science, for verification and replication of results? If he wants us to trust them like medical doctors, we need to know that most climate scientists aim higher than “hiding declines”.
Before anyone howls that the raw data is all available, note that only the adjusted data is available, not the raw data. The UK Met Centre admits it will take three years to reassemble the data.
Fake principles
Glikson says the root of the debate is the precautionary principle, but there is no scientific principle about “precaution”. It’s a catchy PR term that works just as well for skeptics (except we don’t stoop to invoke it). Sensible public policy is based instead on a risk-benefit ratio. The best, most detailed information we have from hundreds of studies, thousands of boreholes, kilometres of ice cores, and hundreds of thousands of weather balloon and satellite recordings tells us that it’s likely there is little risk of catastrophic warming, and little benefit in reducing carbon emissions. Therefore, we should do only the easy, cheap things to reduce emissions, while keeping watch on the data, and focus our efforts instead on real problems.
What evidence do we need?
More than anything else, we need to know how much of the recent warming has been directly due to our carbon emissions and how much has been natural. We need this predict how much warming we might get this century. The “how much” question is the 200Gt gorilla in the kitchen. Half a degree or three-and-half degrees makes all the difference. But since both natural and unnatural warming causes glaciers to melt, seas to rise, and rainfall patterns to change, how do we know how much of past warming is due to us?
The central problem with “attribution” of the cause for the warming is that dozens of major forces are working on our climate, and none of them leave a business card.
Even James Hansen and the IPCC agree that carbon dioxide, by itself, will theoretically warm us only by about 1.1 degrees if CO2 levels double (as they will have, from 1750 to the end of this century). All the papers Glikson mentions, like Arrhenius, Calendar and Keeling, agree with this calculation, as do most skeptics.
What turns this single degree into a “disaster” in their theory, worth taxing every citizen on the planet for, are the feedbacks—meaning what do clouds, humidity, ice cover, bushes, trees and plankton do in a world that’s tending to be one degree warmer due to extra CO2? Does the extra humidity form the kind of clouds that trap more heat or the kind that reflect more sunlight? The first amplifies the warming, and the other dampens it.
The models all reckon the feedbacks amplify the warming, but three independent sources of empirical evidence suggests the opposite occurs, and that the feedbacks are negative (ie. they “dampen”). In that case the headline threat reads Half a Degree.[8] [9] [10]
The feedbacks are crucial to the model predictions. Without feedbacks, there’s no warming more than 1.1 degrees And just to make it more complicated, the major feedbacks are with water vapor— both the main greenhouse gas and what makes clouds.
All the major climate models predicted that increasing non-water-vapor “greenhouse gases” would warm the atmosphere mostly at around 10km above the tropics. Weather balloons have been measuring temperature and humidity since the 1950s, and are individually calibrated to 0.1 degrees. There are hundreds of thousands of measurements from around most of the world.
Compare the model predictions to the weather balloon measurements below. The graphs are not remotely the same. The models are wrong. The “Hot Spot” is missing. The net effect of the warming due to man-made CO2 has been exaggerated.
Andrew Glikson doesn’t mention the hot-spot.
The Full Debate:
Part I: Glikson “The Case for Climate Change“
Jo Nova “No Dr Glikson“;
Part II: Glikson “Credibility lies with experienced authorities“
Jo Nova “Credibility lies on Evidence“;
Part III: Glikson “The Effects of CO2 on Climate“
Jo Nova “Glikson accidentally vindicates the skeptics“.
Part IV: Glikson suggests evidence for the hot spot.
I point out how weak it is. (See the UPDATE below Part III).
Part V: Glikson The planetary atmosphere and climate change
Jo Nova Ignore the main point, repeat the irrelevant.
Part VI: Dr Glikson asked to respond again. I said “please do”. So far, he has no reply.
REFERENCES
[1] University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign : Cryosphere http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
[2] Arctic Sea Ice 2001-2020 http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/seaice/extent/AMSRE_Sea_Ice_Extent.png
[3] H. W. Chapman, L. S. Gleason, W. E. Loomis , The Carbon Dioxide Content of Field Air, Plant Physiology, Vol. 29, No. 6 (Nov., 1954), pp. 500-503
[4] Plant Dry Weight Responses to Atmospheric Enrichment, Centre For The Study Of Carbon Dioxide And Global Change. http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/dry/dry_subject.php
[5] Pelejero, C., Calvo, E., McCulloch, M.T., Marshall, J.F., Gagan, M.K., Lough, J.M. and Opdyke, B.N. 2005. Preindustrial to modern interdecadal variability in coral reef pH. Science 309: 2204-2207.
[6]Liu, Y., Liu, W., Peng, Z., Xiao, Y., Wei, G., Sun, W., He, J. Liu, G. and Chou, C.-L. 2009. Instability of seawater pH in the South China Sea during the mid-late Holocene: Evidence from boron isotopic composition of corals. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 73: 1264-1272.
[7] Lough and Barnes 1997 and 2000 as described in CO2, Global Warming and Coral Reefs, Dr Craig Idso, p48-51.
[8] Lindzen, R. S., and Y.-S. Choi (2009), On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L16705, doi:10.1029/2009GL039628. (Also updated in 2010);
[9]Spencer, R.W., Braswell, W.D., Christy, J.R., Hnilo, J., 2007. Cloud and radiation budget changes associated with tropical intraseasonal oscillations. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, L15707, doi:10.1029/2007/GL029698;
[10]Douglass, D.H., J.R. Christy, B.D. Pearson, and S.F. Singer. 2007. A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions. International Journal of Climatology.
-100 °F
Clear
Vostok,Antartica now
10
Jo, I feel that this paragraph is misleading:
“Glikson also tries to suggest that carbon is only beneficial for plants in glasshouses “where humidity is high”. Awkwardly for him, field studies from fifty years ago show that atmospheric carbon dioxide is the rate-limiting factor for plants ”
As reading Glickson’s argument it is clear that his claim is that carbon is only beneficial in greenhouses but “not to open agriculture where rising CO2 and thereby temperatures LEAD TO DROUGHTS.” (caps my empahsis).
Also when you say “they also cope better with drier conditions.” assume you mean low humidity rather than absolute lack of water? If you mean the latter I invite you to visit my veggie patch in January when the retic has been off for a week.
—————–
[ No Matt, there’s nothing misleading about it. The higher the CO2, the less water a plant needs. Hence with any limit on water supply, the plants with the easiest access to co2 will cope the best. Why do you feel a need to ask obvious questions about extremes? “An absolute lack of water?” It’s not like I said extra CO2 will give plants the magical ability to survive without H2o. Seriously? –JN
20
Good reply Joanne, but I wish someone would concentrate on co2 emissions into the distant future (by country and region )as calculated by IEA.
Wong made a speech on emissions etc in April last year and acknowleged that the developing world would be emitting 90% of global emissions and the developed world would have little influence on this future growth. ( 10%)
Martin Ferguson has said much the same thing about China and the developing world a number of times in the last 12 months.
The message is clear, whatever we do in the developed world will have little effect on co2 emissions but will help us to wreck our economies for no good reason and export jobs overseas.
Unless we have some invention of a new energy source we will be wasting billions of dollars for zero return and therefore we should choose adaptation to CC whether natural or having some influence from humans.
10
Your emphasis or not, Matt, you’re assuming a priori that rising CO2 causes rising temperatures. Or are you arguing that Glickson says rising CO2 causes rising temperatures?
Either way it’s the same old nonsense. You can’t show rising temperature from rising CO2. It ain’t there. And yes, if you don’t water your garden it will certainly die.
10
Well Roy you appear to be arguing with “most skeptics” not just me on that one:
“All the papers Glikson mentions, like Arrhenius, Calendar and Keeling, agree with this calculation, as do most skeptics.” (Nova, 2010)
10
Where indeed? A good response Jo. I doubt that I could be that restrained (and polite). 🙂
I used to be a professional modeller, working in a R&D lab (This was before I discovered the concept of having a social life).
We had professional modellers, working alongside the PhDs, because we understood “computational maths” and numerical methods (as a discipline), and they did not.
We would create models to test the various hypotheses around what had been observed in experiments, or in the field.
The models were useful because they told us very clearly where assumptions were false, or where there were things we didn’t know. They helped direct future investigation. That was their purpose. Nobody, for a minute, confused them with reality.
When we finally got a model that replicated historical observations exactly (within acceptable tolerances), we could, and did allow it to run predictively – but just for fun.
Nobody who understood what we were doing would bet their lunch on the predictions being correct, let alone trillions of dollars. There was just too much happening in the external environment that we didn’t know about, and therefore the models would not allow for.
In the current climate debate two such things are the mechanics of cloud formation, and the influence of solar activity (or lack thereof). Here we have both an elephant and a rhinoceros in the room, either of which prevent the models being valid for predictive purposes.
And without pointing to predictive models, what evidence do the alarmists have to support the notion that the current observations are anything other than a combination of naturally occurring cycles?
10
MattB: “rising CO2 and thereby temperatures LEAD TO DROUGHTS.” (caps my empahsis).”
I guess when you were slumming it over at WUWT you posted this also?
You might then explain the WUWT empirical finding today that rising temperature in the US has caused increased rainfall in almost all states 1895-2009.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/18/come-rain-or-come-shine/
And if you want to check out Oz, then Ken Stewart’s look at BOM’s performance makes interesting reading.
http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/political-science-101/
http://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/bom-seasonal-outlooks-how-did-they-rate/
Yep models say there will be droughts, dogs & cats living together, and gnashing of teeth. Real world data has this habit of embarassing modellers. Done a bit of modelling in my time, ’bout 20 yrs or so, so I know that Murphy’s pet dog’s name is Gigo and that he likes hanging around with modellers. ESPECIALLY climate modellers, caps my emphasis.
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Bruce you mean increased rainfall in the USA as confirmed by IPCC 2007? Hardly a trade secret? http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/recentpsc.html
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Glikson’s choice of references says it all. Out of 12 references, there were five political statements (I’ll count the conference as political given the name); one ‘analysis’ from an environmental organisation (Pew Centre); one blurb from the University of East Anglia (Tim Lenton Tipping_Points); two works from scientist/advocates Hansen and Ramstorf; and only three articles from moderately credible sources in leading journals or series.
AGWers talk about the wealth of evidence; but when push comes to shove they seem to have difficulty finding it in the extensive and lavishly funded published AGW science literature. It always comes down to the political statements and the usual suspects.
BTW, is it me, or is his Figure 2 a powerful visual argument against AGW? It looks like we need more CO2, not less, to ward off those nasty glaciations.
10
“Where are the real climate scientists who stand up for transparent honest science, for verification and replication of results?”
Prof Judith Curry perhaps…
recent comments on Real Climate on the investigation into the CRU are quite provocative: “The charges of “groupthink,” “cargo cult science,” and “tribalism” have some validity in my opinion.”
See also her recent posts on Roger Pielke Jnr’s blog
10
Take that Dr Glikson.
To the point and sharp.
Amr Marzouk
Manly Beach
10
Bruce @ 7
Yep, I’m confused on that score as well. The models predict drought, but the measurements say no difference – if anything, there is more rain. (The BOM did a neat side-step on this one recently.) Why is it that a climate specialist such as Dr Glikson is unaware of this? When simple errors like this creep into his work, I very much doubt that I will trust him like my GP or my airline pilot!
(You ever notice how all the “mistakes” always tend to ramp up the hysteria?)
Cheers,
Speedy
10
No, no Matty… you must not quote just half the story. As I clearly stated in my last post at WUWT on the abovementioned thread, the IPCC in their summary document states that the projections are for increased precipitation*, but they also say that there will be both increased floods and droughts resulting from their model forecasts *cough* I mean projections. Must use the subtle and woolly wording they do.
Clearly this is rotten precipitation… it will only fall in extreme events and by the multi-SydHarb with big droughts in between.
BTW Jo… I am truly surprised at you. You used the word robust in your original post 🙂 I laugh because the english language has become so twisted and meaningless as a result of IPCC double-speak.
* To be honest this is hard to make out… they say the signs and portents are not particularly clear on this and some models show decreasing precipitation. Typical hedging of bets, but I was running with your interpretation of increased rainfall for the sake of argument. To wit they say:
Source: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/technical-papers/ccw/executive-summary.pdf
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“The feedbacks are crucial to the model predictions.”
Thanks Jo for that rebuttal of warming foolishness.
It says volumes against his argument when Glikson, who like all scientists, cannot quantify those known unknowns that you speak of, yet can be so certain that he is right.
10
What struck me was the choice of language by a Doctor/Scientist.
e.g.
So in referring to mans emissions, it’s BIG NUMBERS, billions tons, GIGA tons etc.
However, in the next paragraph, when referring to earths atmosphere, this is the language…’
So now we have a THIN, VENEER, SLIGHTLY and ONE THOUSANDTH.
He says mans current emissions is about 2ppm, would that not make it 2 PARTS IN A MILLION AF A THIN VENEER? or ONLY SLIGHTLY MORE THAN ONE THOUSANDTH OF 2 MILLIONTH of Earths diametre?
Does anyone know what we call 2 millionth of a veneer? Irrelevant is what I call it.
This is the type of language used by used car salesmen.
So IMHO, this man is NOT an objective, analytical scientist looking at evidence. He is no better than the multitude of alarmist lemmings we’ve heard before.
p.s. Also note how he switches between GIGATONS and PPM in order to hide the frivolity of mans emissions.
What was that our resident jerk troll accused Jo Nova of? Sneaky? Yeah right, sneaky doesn’t begin to describe this tripe from a so called Doctor. Shame on him and his professional field.
20
Thank you Joanne – well written.
how do we stop these guys? We have a group of zealots telling us we are headed for doom and gloom, just like the religious zealots of the early 19th century that said the world would end and when it didn’t created the 7th day Adventists and a plethora of wierdo religions.
they refuse to acknowledge the real science, they berate us as being some kind of scum, I don’t know what we are to do? I read Clive Hamilton again this morning only to sigh in disbelief that some one could be so caught up in the fantasy. It’s not even his field.
I shake my head in confusion.
10
The modelled feedbacks are based on an assumed positive feedback water vapour mechanism by James Hansen.
That’s all.
Hansen’s assumed positive water vapour feedback warming mechanism
(which there is no experimental or observational evidence for “incidentally”)
actually gives way too much warming, so…
Cooling factors are invented or at best guesstimates after the fact and
fed into the models so that they produce the “right” answer – AFTER THE FACT.
The FACT being the temperature records of both HADcrut and GISS.
Guess where the “cooling factors” come from or rather are invented – modelling and the MET Office, guesstimates……
This was all shown beyond doubt, it was admitted in actual fact by the MET office,
way back in 1998, as reported by Richard S Courtney.
Courtney RS, „An assessment of validation experiments conducted on computer models of
global climate using the general circulation model of the UK‟s Hadley Centre‟,
Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 491-502, September 1999.
—–
[The spam filter accidentally picked this up (I don’t know why). I’ve only just discovered it and released it. If posts go missing, you can email me joanne AT joannenova dot com dot au . I don’t normally read the spam! -JN]
I covered all this some time ago, it is not secret knowledge, or unknown, nor easily available,
please see this if your not aware.
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-309.html
My apologies, it is a bit long, but there is much to cover and put into context.
Current climate modelling is GIGO, there is no doubt about that whatsoever.
10
The feedbacks are indded absolutely central to the present crop of climate models / modelling.
The James Hansen ASSUMED water vapour positive feedback warming mechanism is exactly that, ASSUMED.
There is no experimental or observational evidence to support it.
This same warming mechanism is in all the climate models – mostly unaltered.
BUT – it produces way too much warming…..so,
“they” have to invent / guesstimate / model “cooling factors” after the fact to get the “right” answer.
– This is a fact and has been admitted, see below.
The “right” answer being Hansen’s GISS or Met office / UEA / CRU HADcrut temperature records.
Guess who comes up with the “cooling factors” – AFTER THE FACT.
“Who” has been known for a long time now,
Courtney RS, „An assessment of validation experiments conducted on computer models of
global climate using the general circulation model of the UK‟s Hadley Centre‟,
Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 491-502, September 1999.
This is all information available in the public domain, and easily, if you just look.
I have and have put together the below linked to pdf.
Apologies, it is a bit long, but there is much to tie together and put into context.
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/forums/thread-309.html
Present climate modelling is GIGO, there is no doubt about that whatsoever.
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Hi Joanne,
I ran into the ‘would you ignore the advice of 97% doctors’ argument recently and while thinking about it I realized that I perceive doctor’s advice differently than I perceived other advice. Specifically, I expect doctors to follow their Hippocratic oath before giving be advice which includes a requirement to ‘do no harm’. IOW, doctors are specifically told that given an existing problem, it may be better to do nothing than to do something that risks causing more harm than good.
This oath means that I can know that the doctors have thought carefully about any harm caused by the recommended treatment and any recommendation takes that into account. Climate scientists, OTOH, have no obligation to consider the harm before recommending treatment and, in fact, their collective ignorance of basic economics leads me to believe they are not even qualified to assess the possible harms of their recommended treatment.
The bottom line is I now have an easy answer when asked why I put more weight on the recommendations of 97% of doctors but not those of 97% of climate scientists.
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Ok Reven – for you we’ll make it ‘would you ignore the advice of 97% of plumbers’.
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OT but here goes anyway.
Listening to 2GB this arvo and heard the last minutes of a discussion with Jason Morrison and a scientist discussing the antics of the unpronounceable volcano in Iceland releasing these ghastly “greenhouse gases” into the delicate atmosphere.
It was mutually decided that the only way to avoid such scenarios in the future would be the imposition of a global “volcano” tax. Yeah, that’ll learn ’em!
The scientist was Ian Plimer, by the way.
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MattB,
Would you ignore the advice of 97% of hairdressers?
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Raven:
Would you ignore the advice of one increasingly disillusioned and desperate AGW groupie?
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Another known unknown for Andrew G.
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2010/03/sgw.html
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What is not surprising is that ANU belongs to the International Alliance of Research Universities which is dedicated to the cause of AGW. List here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Alliance_of_Research_Universities
It would seem the entire faculty are warmers and alarmists. When the ABC need a scary climate change story they often head to ANU. Think Prof. Will Steffen from the ANU Climate Change Institute. These people are not interested in inquiring minds, rather they prefer minds moulded to their way of thinking. Do any of our universities actually encourage open discussion?
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Mark @20: “discussing the antics of the unpronounceable volcano in Iceland”
ai’-ya-fyal’-la-yo’-cool
It almost rolls off the tongue! 🙂
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tide @ 25
Yeah, ‘course it does!
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spangled drongo: @ 23
sure – another interpretation about 10ths of a degree. I’m with Lindzen who says who cares!! we are only talking about 10ths of a degree.
I got up this morning and it was 17c – it rose to 23c so what? what if I’d arisen to 17.3467 and it rose to 23.5698.
Would I really care?
10
At the end of his article he mentioned the “precautionary principle” and says
Most crucially you have not fully addressed the grotesque financial cost of policies/insurance resulting from the AGW scare. I am sure that because of the extremely large figures involved most people lamely accept the “insurance” argument and do not compare the cost of the “premium” compared with dealing with issues as they arise. And if no comparison is done – there is no alternative.
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Was watching a doco on the last ice age two nights ago. Ice cores record a temperature change of 10 deg. C in less than 100 years. Now that’s what I call climate change.
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Franks @28:
His argument is lost to me as insurance is required by the bank holding the mortgage.
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Come on professor, give us the DATA. Show us the measurable temperature feedback mechanism and that pesky hot spot!
10
Further to my post 17.
Modelling culprites (cooling factors) recently NAMEd………AGAIN.
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/
Excerpt, in respect of recent european air space ban because of modelling “predictions” of volcanic ash amounts and movements….
“Not one single weather balloon has been sent up to measure how much volcanic ash is in the air.” Lufthansa spokesman Klaus Walter added.
”The flight ban, made on the basis just of computer calculations, is resulting in billion-high losses for the economy “
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janama @16
Despite the hits that AGW have taken in recent months, failure in Copenhagen, confidence in the IPCC and CRU undermined, skeptical views gaining a foothold in the MSM don’t expect a spectacular collapse any time in the near future. Those with a strong vested interest AGW such as politicians, government bureaucracies , the finance industry, green groups and a host of other parasites looking for financial and or political advantage will keep AGW alive for as long as possible. You ask what can we do and I think we need to keep the pressure on our political masters, the response to the GST was a good example of what can be achieved, but we need to follow through.
The good news is that each opinion poll shows that skepticism is increasing and as the percentage increase this will lead to an erosion of political will supporting AGW. You will see more stories in the MSM similar to Der Spiegel and one day virtually everyone, except those with most extremest views, will tell you that they were always skeptical. I think we are looking at years and despite the adverse economic effects and the billions wasted no heads will role, no one will be held accountable AGW will simply fade away over time.
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I believe what Mark D said is the devil in the detail. The fact that climate alarmists use the idea of precautionary principle shows that even they subtlety admit that the science aren’t really settled. As They realizes there is a chance where their theories might have a chance to be bombarded, and their attempt of forcing people to do what they want might gain a major backlash, they sort to limit the damage when that happens by claiming something like “O even if global warming is not there is still go to halt industry growth and stop third world country development etc…”
The fact is that if one follows the precautionary principle, it will lead them to a contradictory situation.
Suppose there is a scientist claiming, “OMG alien life from other planet will have a carbon-base life. They might be attracted by the carbon dioxide we emit and start a invasion to Earth! Hence we most stop emitting carbon dioxide!” (lets call this proposition A)
Then another scientist claim “OMG alien life might have a phobia to carbon dioxide as it will suffocate them, we must do all our foremost to emit carbon dioxide to drive them away from a invasion to Earth!” (Lets call this proposition B)
Both proposition have no empirical evidence to support their soundness whatsoever. But all these scenario are logically possible and can be explain by modern science had it happens. If we had to follow precautionary principle we will have to follow both proposition at the same time (if you dislike a Earth invasion of course). Which will lead to a contradiction.
I seriously think that the idea of stopping industrial development that use fossil fuel to stop emitting carbon dioxide is preposterous, even had the CO2 have a strong causal relation with the temperature growth in this planet. As this will seriously hinder only possibility of third world country to develop and demolish poverty
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Oh Raven – do you know me? Believe me I do ignore the advice of 100% of hairdressers every day.
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“This is the type of language used by used car salesmen.” (Baa Humbug @15)
These alarmist climate scientists are always claiming they are so much more qualified (and I suspect they think smarter) than laymen, so we should believe them.
Then, they behave just like every con man and flim-flam artist you ever run into: Cherry-picked arguments, deliberately confusing cause and effect, ignoring inconvenient facts, and outright lies.
And they wonder why the public’s opinion of them continues to drop.
About some things, these guys are dumber than a box of rocks.
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BobC: #36
April 20th, 2010 at 1:34 am
Agreed, 100% Well said.
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“All the papers Glikson mentions, like Arrhenius, Calendar and Keeling, agree with this calculation, as do most skeptics.” (Nova, 2010)
Except for a few “skeptics” such as Gerlich, Tscheuschner, and me who claim that this “calculation” looks meaningful enough on the surface but in fact violates the second law if it is true.
Gosh – guess what – that would make Glikson’s remark “It’s worse than we thought,” applied to “global warming” hype and hysteria – more meaningful (but in another context) than Glikson could have imagined.
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MattB is just so boring with nothing original to say, just the same old all the time.
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That’s why the Matt’s of the world try to outdo one another when they talk about the “consequences” of “man-made global warming.”
If they paint a picture without “disastrous consequences” they will be ignored – so they try to “out-disaster” each other to get some attention because they are tired of being ignored!
Actually this kind “panic shouting” gets them nothing but increasingly ignored, and very rightfully so
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Feuillet: @ #34
Very good reasoning, but too late. The invasion has already happened. 🙂
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Missing sea level rises,
Missing atmospheric fingerprint,
Trenberth’s missing heat…
But the models say they are all out there. (It’s just some place it can’t be seen!)
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Speaking of Callender et al, take a look at the data set cherry-picking he used, here: http://www.canadafreepress.com/images/uploads/ball122809-1.jpg from this summary: http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/18343 .
The actual average of the 19th C (including HUGE swings) CO2 levels seems to be about 334 ppm. With highs up in the 500+ range. Totally inconsistent with the AGW thesis.
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Oops: Callendar, of course. 🙂
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It is more accurately described as the “Colander effect” – describing the influence of the actual atmosphere on energy re-radiated from the Earth.
R W Woods (1914) provided the analogy of influence of the atmosphere on thermal radiation as “catching mice in a cage made of chain link fencing”
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A C Osborn: #39#
“MattB is just so boring with nothing original to say, just the same old all the time”
Maybe his one of the Moonboot trolls?
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Correction: Maybe he´s one of the Moonboot trolls?
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Whatever happened to Georges Monbiot anyway – after his world collapsed when he learned there was (gasp!) fraud and deceit within the “climate” community revealed via the East Anglia University messages that were made public.
Monbiot suffered a meltdown, apparently, and demanded “accountability” – none was forthcoming, of course, but was Monbiot’s faith in the system ever restored?
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Baa @#15
“Also note how he switches between GIGATONS and PPM in order to hide the frivolity of mans emissions.”
I wonder how the article would read if it was written using appropriate units of measure. Probably would soothe most people to sleep.
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Onya Jo, my thoughts exactly. The reason I became skeptical? I discovered a small lie, then another, then another…..
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I was amused to see that Andrew Glickson gave Arrhenius as a reference. He was a very clever scientist – for his day – and did some good work, but it has been shown that about carbon dioxide’s effect on atmospheric temperature he was wrong.
Andrew was enthusiastic about ‘Nuclear Winter’ when I first knew him. Then he discovered ‘Climate Change’ though as a geologist he must have known all about it in Earth’s history. He seemed lately to have cooled about his hyper-enthusiasm, but then began to display an interest in the plight of refugees and similar folk. I feel he needs a ’cause’ to support, and that he is disappointed in the growing disbelief in alarmist views among ordinary people.
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Yet more evidence, if it were ever needed, why computer models (of anything ) are useless in comparison with observed fact.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/19/ash-cloud-models-overrated-a-word-on-post-normal-science-by-dr-jerome-ravetz/
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Beware the Precautionary Principle
http://www.sirc.org/articles/beware.html
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Founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change: ‘Time to ditch consensus’ « Watts Up With That?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/06/founding-director-of-the-tyndall-centre-for-climate-change-time-to-ditch-consensus/
Consensus or Con? – global warming
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704804204575069551130098386.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
When to Doubt a Scientific ‘Consensus’ — The American, A Magazine of Ideas
http://american.com/archive/2010/march/when-to-doubt-a-scientific-consensus
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The models are wrong by William Kininmonth: Meteorologist and former head of Australia’s National Climate Centre. He was also Australian delegate to the World Meteorological Organization’s Commission for Climatology (1982-98) | Climate Realists
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3855
Lindzen on climate science advocacy and modeling – “at this point, the models seem to be failing” « Watts Up With That?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/19/lindzen-on-climate-science-advocacy-and-modeling-at-this-point-the-models-seem-to-be-failing/
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Analysis of The “Harry” data file from CLIMATEGATE by a COMPUTER SCIENTIST
Data manipulation of temperature data from 2006-2009
http ://69.84.25.250/blogger/post/ClimateGate-Data-Series-Part-I-A-break-down-of-large-data-file-for-manipulating-global-temperature-trends-from-2006-2009.aspx#comment
http ://69.84.25.250/blogger/post/ClimateGate-Data-Series-Part-2-A-break-down-of-large-data-file-for-manipulating-global-temperature-trends-from-2006-2009.aspx#comment
http://69.84.25.250/blogger/post/ClimateGate-Data-Series-Part-3-A-break-down-of-large-data-file-for-manipulating-global-temperature-trends-from-2006-2009.aspx
http ://69.84.25.250/blogger/post/ClimateGate-Data-Series-Part-4-A-break-down-of-large-data-file-for-manipulating-global-temperature-trends-from-2006-2009.aspx
http ://69.84.25.250/blogger/post/ClimateGate-Data-Series-Part-5-A-break-down-of-large-data-file-for-manipulating-global-temperature-trends-from-2006-2009.aspx
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On the subject of surface stations, at http://data.giss.gov/gistemp/station_data one can click anywhere on a world map and bring up temperature graphs of the surface stations in that area used by NASA’s GISS to help calculate global mean temperature.
For Tasmania it appears that up until 1993 there were 25 stations being used. At the end of 1992 most of those stations were dropped for data gathering purposes, leaving only the ones at Launceston and Hobart Airports for the next six years. This wiped out many rural areas, all our high stations and also those on the colder, more exposed West Coast.
Two coastal stations appear to have been resurrected around 2008 – Eddystone Point on the warmer north-east tip of Tasmania and Cape Bruny on Bruny Island south of Hobart in the D’entrecasteaux Channel. They are probably now automated.
I have no idea why so many stations were dropped all at once, but interestingly, in examining the charts I found that almost all had recorded a sharp drop of between 1.2 to 1.4 degrees Celsius in the four years from 1988 to 1992, which of course would have been a rather uncomfortable fact for those pushing the AGW theory. Without the colder areas and combined with the known UHI effect at airports, Tasmania would presumably have been contributing warmer mean temperatures to the global calculations after 1992.
However, at the risk of being accused of “cherry-picking”, Launceston Airport may still be an inconvenient truth for the AGW lobby, particularly Tasmania’s “catastrophic man-made global warming” alarmists, Christine Milne, Bob Brown and the Greens. The trend line has been remarkably stable and refusing to record any local or global warming in that area. The first recorded annual mean temperature was 12.1 degrees in 1939 and 70 years later in 2009, 11.8 degrees. The 1939 mean temperature has only been exceeded five times in that 70 years and only twice with any significance – by 0.4 of a degree in 1962 and 0.6 in 1988.
A brief look at other parts of Australia show that many stations were dropped after 1992.
It would be interesting to see the results if other posters here checked the stations in their own areas. Any takers?
=================
I have also noticed that the NASA GISS website has 2 data sets for each station. One set is ‘after combining sources at the same location’ and the second set is ‘after homogeneity added’.
The first data set seems to be close to the original raw data but the second data set is their adjustment to the first. In many cases, the second set has the earlier temps decreased so that the warming looks worse than the original data set.
However, sometime in the past month or so, I noticed for many Australian stations the second data set has been changed to reflect the first set.
Try this. De Bilt in Holland is the only station used for that country. Check the ‘adjustment’ from data set 1 to data set 2.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=633062600003&data_set=1&num_neighbors=1
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=633062600003&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
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Ronnell @ 53:
Not sure about the lads at SIRC. They say:
Now rusty as my German may be, my Dutch is still passable and the two are very close on some words, “Vorsorgeprinzip” literally means cautionary principle. Not sure why SIRC came up with the other definition… on with the reading.
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PS> Otherwise the article looks like a decent synopsis of what is wrong with the Precautionary Principal (PP). It is interesting because I was reading the same arguments against the PP in “The Singularity is Near” by Ray Kurzweil just this weekend.
Kurzweil, who strongly argues the case for logarhythmic technological progress in the next few decades leading to a scientific “singularity” by 2040-50ish, also addresses the issues of the promise and perils of such technological advances. In particular the focus is on GNR technologies (Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics).
He also argues the case for technology being the main tool to stave off potential perils. e.g. the use of strong AI (Artificial Intelligence) as a defence against potentially destructtive self-replicating nanotechnology. clearly the latter is a necessity (the self-replicating aspect) because nanotechnology will not be viable on a useful scale without the ability to self-replicant. Enter stage left the scary scenarios posed in Star Trek TNG with the replicators etc. Except you could see the replicators 🙂
This is, of course, a few years off yet, but the arguments apply just as well today. To me it is almost inconceivable that we will be using similar electricity generating technologies in 50 years as today… nanotechnology, fusion or some other breakthrough will be the disruptive technology that will end the fossil fuel age, sooner or later. It will render the whole CO2 emissions debate moot IMO.
Some might argue that such a rapid change is unlikely, but I would pose you this question.. what if, in 20 years say, you could paint your house with nanotech solar cell paint that generates enough electricity for your needs? The grid would still be useful for power-balancing purposes and for industrial demand, but think of the impact. supercapacitor cells would be useful to store the power for dark/night hours.
We live in exciting times… take that whichever way you want.
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I hope that nanotechnology does not become the energy sector’s next nuclear fission, but indeed these are exciting times.
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And of course I meant FUSION:) whoops.
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Definition of Precautionary Principle:
“The precautionary principle states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is not harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those who advocate taking the action.” (emphasis in original)
This is where the principle falls down, in that you cannot prove a negative, or the absence of an effect, just as you cannot prove that God does not exist (any more than you can prove that He does …)
Or in the words of one of my favourite writers:
“The ‘precautionary principle,’ properly applied, forbids the precautionary principle. It is self-contradictory. The precautionary principle therefore cannot be spoken of in terms that are too harsh. “ (Michael Crichton, State of Fear, 2004)
“In reality, the precautionary principle presents a serious hazard to our health which extends way beyond the generation of unnecessary neuroses. The biggest correlate of our health and well being is our standard of living, as measured in conventional economic and physical terms. People in technologically advanced societies suffer fewer diseases and live longer than those in less developed nations. The biggest killer in the world is not genetically modified soya, pesticide residues or even tobacco. It is something which is given the code Z59.5 in the International Classification of Disease Handbook and accounts for more deaths world-wide than any other single factor. It is defined as ‘Extreme Poverty’.”
(Excerpt from “Beware the Precautionary Principle” from Social Issues Research Centre. http://www.sirc.org/articles/beware.html
Incidentally, following from previous posts and totally unrelated to the precautionary principle: The name of the ‘unpronounceable volcano’ in Iceland, Eyjafjallajokull, means (approximately) ‘island mountain glacier’ (from the words ‘ey’ (island), ‘fjall’ (mountain) and ‘jokull’ (glacier).
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Sorry, didn’t see that Ronnell had already linked to the SIRC article. And I totally agree with Bulldust that their translation of “Vorsorgeprinzip” is wrong …
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Regardless of any causes or contributors to global warming, I wonder if – like a bottle of fizzy-drink, the earth ( via the recent icelandic volcano) has burped up a little gas in response to a build up in heat and that the ensuing cloud will cool the planet and once more restore the ‘natural’ intenral heat balance that it appears to have had for some time now..????
hmmmm….
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“Vorsorgeprinzip” literally means provision(ing) principle.
Think of it simply as resource requirements planning.
No nuance of precaution in the term.
Of course, that doesn’t prevent the misappropriation or deliberate misinterpretation of such terms.
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u have to laugh!
18 April: Independent: Gore takes cash for water campaign from chemical firm
Environmentalists condemn former vice-president for letting controversial company fund Life Earth
Dow Chemical, the US firm, is sponsoring Life Earth events in 150 cities today. The event aims to raise money for clean water programmes. Research by environmental organisations has found dangerous levels of highly toxic chemicals in rivers, lakes and other water supplies close to several other factories owned by Dow and its subsidiaries in countries including the United States, Brazil and South Africa…
Three weeks ago, Amnesty International asked Live Earth to reconsider the sponsorship unless Dow publicly agreed to clean up Bhopal. Live Earth did not respond…
Dow is the sole sponsor for 24 hours of fun-runs and concerts organised by Live Earth, which hopes to create a global movement to tackle water shortages affecting one in eight of the world’s population. Greenpeace, which for years has been highly critical of Dow’s environmental record, refused to comment because it supports Live Earth. Live Earth also refused to comment…
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/gore-takes-cash-for-water-campaign-from-chemical-firm-1947723.html
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When you look at the temp data 1860 to 1940 there is clearly a rising trend of 0.5 degrees per century with a, well lets call it a multidecadal oscillation, over print. This is all happening within the context of a largely flat level of atmospheric CO2. If you then add on the post-1940s data I see no discontinuity in those trends up to the present day in an environment of rising CO2. The scientist in me says by the principle of Okkam’s Razor there is no need to invoke an AGW model to explain warming, at leasst until someone can explain in detail what caused the two above mentioned trends in the pre-rising-CO2 past, and then present some evidence that we are diverging from those past trends along the lines their model predicts. It appears to me that there is an APG model and followed by a desparate attempt to manipulate the data and cobble together a theory that fits with the model. The AGW model failed when the predicted temperature rises flattened out, and no longer has more validity than any number of specul;ative hypothesies.
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Slightly OT but interesting:
Anybody catch the ABC news last night about the amount of microbial life in the oceans?
Apparently 240 billion African elephants’ mass equivalent.(OK I had to look up the mass of an African elephant – I don’t know why the ABC thinks this is a good unit of measure).
An elephant weighs about 3000Kg. At 70Kg per human and 35 elephants (microbes in the oceans actually) each, the elephants out mass us by 1500 to one. As a first cut assume the biological metabolic rate of the ocean organisms is the same as people and even if people through technological activity put out 20 times as much waste product as microbes per unit mass that still means we are out activitied by 75 to 1.
Then add all the soil bacteria on land, all the green growing things and the multicellular animals from mites to Blue Whales.
Might put our impact on the planet in perspective.
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Mike Borgelt, add to your list; fungi.
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Ronnell;
Thanx for the links to Smith’s data analysis. But your links are messed up; there’s a space after the http which blows them. They have to be copy-pasted and edited before use. Also, his Part III is dead or missing; don’t know whatsupwiththat.
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Bulldust;
instead of 50 years, how about 5? Check out focusfusion.org .
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Your comments about ocean acidification are reprehensibly wrong; it’s hard to believe that your single references is an “interpretation” from a skeptical site. Actually, considering the content of this blog, it’s NOT so hard to believe.
Atmospheric CO2 levels may have risen 30% recently, but at least in that marker, there’s no clear relationship between ocean acidity and atmospheric CO2.
Wrong. All wrong. Utterly, completely, totally wrong.
The Oceanic Sink for Carbon Dioxide — References (just about everything listed in this reference section refutes your statement above)
But wait, there’s more:
Impact of anthropogenic CO2 on the CaCO3 system of the oceans
And here’s a couple other highlights:
Uptake and storage of carbon dioxide in the ocean: the global CO2 survey
The Oceanic Sink for Anthropogenic CO2
And you probably don’t know a thing about why aragonite and high-magnesian calcite are important in this issue, either. Go ahead, surprise me, do a little actual research, Jo NoClue.
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Jo,
You have written:
‘All the major climate models predicted that increasing non-water-vapor “greenhouse gases” would warm the atmosphere mostly at around 10km above the tropics.’
I checked your previous posts on the missing hot spot. Isn’t the hot spot idea mainly to do with a supposed water vapour positive feedback effect, or am I reading this wrongly?
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Brian H:
I hear ya, but I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to forecasts 🙂 Besides, all the IPCC forecasts for doom and catastrophe range from 2050 to 2100, and let’s face it, we can’t begin to wrap our minds around the tech changes that will have happened by then.
All Club of Rome, IPCC etc projections are based around business-as-usual type scenarios where technology doesn’t radically change from what it is today. That assumption by itself is grossly inaccurate. That is pretty much my point. I leave the more courageous technology predictions to others.
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I must agree with Herr Felsche on the true interpretation of der Vorsorgeprinzip
… but I also regret to admit that the Eurocrats and “the ghoulish green ecopoliticians” of Europe have promoted this ordinary term used in supply management etc for their own devices.
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Ronnell @ 57
Yep, I believe ALL rural stations in Australia were dropped in 1992- GISS had finished making their anomalies and trends and only kept urban sites after that.
KS
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MattB:
Was interested in your 97 % thing….
97 % of published papers state that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for 20 years or LESS (in fact most state under 10 years)… These published papers over the last 60 years rely on actual measurements to come up with that.
The IPCC claims that it is more like 50 – 200 years (based on no measurements what so ever, just that The model says it must, otherwise their hypothesis does not add up).
isotope mass balance calculations show that if CO2 in the
atmosphere had a lifetime of 50 to 200 years, as claimed by IPCC scientists, the atmosphere would necessarily have half of its current CO2 mass. An obviously silly situation, therefore, of course there must be a “hidden CO2 sink”, which holds ~ 50% of the CO2 (this is why the IPCC carbon budget is missing 50%) sadly no study has been able to find this sink.
One side has emperical data, the other side has theory only.
I dont care if 99.999999% support the theory, I’ll go with
the emperical data. (and so should any sensible person)
Graphic that shows the papers and MEASURED time CO2 spends in the atmosphere. compared to what the IPCC states,
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a5e507c9970c-pi
Colour me sceptical…
cheers
Jim
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Climate Change Reconsidered Document
Have a read of the document on the “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)” website http://www.nipccreport.org/
Well worth a read!
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Jim: “97 % of published papers state that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for 20 years or LESS (in fact most state under 10 years)… These published papers over the last 60 years rely on actual measurements to come up with that.
The IPCC claims that it is more like 50 – 200 years (based on no measurements what so ever, just that The model says it must, otherwise their hypothesis does not add up).”
I don’t believe you.
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Jim – this article may assist your confusion:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-residence-time.htm
There may well be reasons that the skeptical folks are correct… but yours ain’t one of them sorry.
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Perhaps this will help?
http://themigrantmind.blogspot.com/2010/02/another-ipcc-mistake-bias-with.html
Please note the link to the IPCC as a reference
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It is a shame your link doesn’t come in 1st Mark D, because then this thread would be a good lesson in moving from ignorance to enlightenment.
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Oakden Wolf: #72
April 20th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Hang on a minute, is this the pot calling the kettle black?
You say..
Then you go on to provide 4 links (like 4 is more authorative than 1) but every one of those 4 are papers from the same authors, Christopher Sabine and Richard Feely.
One would hardly expect these two authors to contradict themselves in subsequent papers.
But hey, you could have linked to Peter Dietze or Jarl Ahlbeck. But then again, they have papers that contradict the alarmist IPCC view don’t they?
Simply put, you have no grounds to use deragotory terms like “reprehensibly wrong” and “do a little actual research, Jo NoClue.” because clearly, regarding ocean alkalinity, CO2 sinks and airborne fractions of CO2, the SCIENCE IS NOT SETTLED.
Whilst we’re here, maybe you can help me with a query I’ve had for a while now.
“Why is it that it’s almost always exclusively the alarmists like yourself who post rude comments and find it hard to question with civility and respect for the host of the blog? Seen as you’re one of these “reprehensibly” rude people, I thought you might be able to enlighten me about this common behaviour of alarmists.”
My theory is that alarmists are chit scared that their doom n gloom scenarios have been trashed by mother nature. Brings out the anger maybe? What do you reckon Wolf?
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Oakden Wolf: @72
Here’s a nice scary article for you on ocean acidification. Note the plethora of maybe, possibly, could have, in their predictions. They even predict whales and dolphins may have their communications upset by the acidification of the oceans as sound travels further in a more acid ocean. Acidity has increased by 30% they claim! 30% of what?
If you get to the end you will see the reason for such a glossy presentation as the research coffers are filled for another few years on the back of the scare.
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/PDF/bijm3468/bijm3468.pdf
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Malcolm Turnbull: “But as Margaret Thatcher said, right back nearly 20 years ago in 1990, this is about risk management. Or as Rupert Murdoch said, we have to give the planet the benefit of the doubt.” ( http://www.theaustralian.com.au/politics/this-is-about-the-future-of-our-planet/story-e6frgczf-1225804387491 )
Hence the Precautionary Principle has validity here.
Jo Nova: “Rising sea-levels are similar—they’re evidence of warming, but not evidence that carbon caused the warming.” Sorry Jo. They are just not ‘evidence of’ warming; they are definite proof of it. The University of Colorado satellite altimetry is also shows that all the argument about land-based thermometry and urban heat-island effects is irrelevant. The planet is warming. So now the discussion should be confined to the possible causes of this, both natural and anthropogenic. It is quite possible that some of it is down to anthropogenic CO2. Likewise, quite possibly all of it.
Jo Nova: “ … If mass emails suggesting dishonest things is not a conspiracy, what is?” May I suggest something like Tobaccogate? See http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100503/hari .
Jo Nova: “Either Glikson hasn’t read the emails, or he condones this. Where are the real climate scientists who stand up for transparent honest science, for verification and replication of results? If he wants us to trust them like medical doctors, we need to know that most climate scientists aim higher than ‘hiding declines’.” No need for Andrew Glikson to respond to JN on this; it was done at the end of March by the Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons, which concluded (in full):
“The focus on Professor Jones and CRU has been largely misplaced. On the accusations relating to Professor Jones’s refusal to share raw data and computer codes, we consider that his actions were in line with common practice in the climate science community. We have suggested that the community consider becoming more transparent by publishing raw data and detailed methodologies. On accusations relating to Freedom of Information, we consider that much of the responsibility should lie with UEA, not CRU. (Paragraph 136)
“In addition, insofar as we have been able to consider accusations of dishonesty—for example, Professor Jones’s alleged attempt to “hide the decline”—we consider that there is no case to answer. Within our limited inquiry and the evidence we took, the scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact. We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus as expressed by Professor Beddington, that “global warming is happening [and] that it is induced by human activity”. It was not our purpose to examine, nor did we seek evidence on, the science produced by CRU. It will be for the Scientific Appraisal Panel to look in detail into all the evidence to determine whether or not the consensus view remains valid. (Paragraph 137)
“A great responsibility rests on the shoulders of climate science: to provide the planet’s decision makers with the knowledge they need to secure our future. The challenge that this poses is extensive and some of these decisions risk our standard of living. When the prices to pay are so large, the knowledge on which these kinds of decisions are taken had better be right. The science must be irreproachable. (Paragraph 138)”
(The disclosure of climate data from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia; Eighth Report of Session 2009–10, at http://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/phil%20jones%20house%20of%20commons%20report.pdf )
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Don’t waste your or our time here Charlie with posts like that – we’ve all read those reports – why don’t you go away and go and fawn at Clive Hamilton – he’s more your sort of idol.
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That’s quite a good way of putting it but not convincing for people who are already committed to the idea of the precautionary principle. Such people would just say, “Oh it can work if used with a bit of common sense, you just have to apply it along with some good judgement.”
The real problem with the precautionary principle is that using it does not in any way expand your ability to predict the outcome of events, and thus it delivers zero useful information to the decision making process. Common sense and good judgement work better without the precautionary principle than they do with.
In summary, all the precautionary principle says is when you have multiple choices of action, always choose the safest course of action. Sounds great, until you then are faced with figuring out which is actually the safest course of action (including short-term and long-term outcomes).
Let’s suppose I want to buy a house. I could take out a loan, but a loan would be risky because I might lose my job and go bankrupt unable to pay it back. Thus the “safe” option is to save money. While I am saving money to buy a house I want to apply the precautionary principle to my investment. I might have an option between various risks and various rates of return so I choose what I decide is the lowest risk (completely ignoring rate of return) and I buy a huge safe, stuff my cash in there and make no return at all. Since my objective is to buy a house, I need to save enough money that I have slightly more purchasing power than everyone else who wants to buy the same house (else they get it and I don’t). Giving myself zero return would require that everyone else trying to buy that house has negative return, or that I work a whole lot harder than they do to make up the difference.
The supposedly “safe” option is not safe at all when it fails to achieve objectives. In a climate where house prices are rising I might save cash forever and never get enough together to buy the house. If rents go up then it will eat away my cash pile and I get nothing.
What I’m saying is that risks exist in all possible courses of action, and good decision making fundamentally depends on being able to make moderately accurate predictions of cause and effect. You will never achieve this by applying a precautionary principle.
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And another age kamakaze crashes in. That post was nowhere near hitting anything
who’s setting these guys up? I mean Charlie is quoting a committee that was well known to be a damage control exercise…..
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How do you or Murdoch know what is of benefit to the planet? Answer: you have no clue.
All you have to offer is doubt built on more doubt, there is no benefit on offer here.
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The emphasis being climate science community, who behave in ways completely unacceptable to any other science-based community.
Suppose I told you that all of my accounts were fully in keeping with common practice in the Enron accounting community?
Sorry, but if climate scientists want to convince me of anything, they have to meet my standards of transparency, and the standards established over several hundred years of respectable scientific discourse; not whatever “common practice” they have knocked up for themselves in the past few decades.
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Tel,
I agree completely. The whole deport smacks of the lehman brothers argument “but everyone else was doing it so why are you picking on me?”
of course the answer to that one is because it’s wrong, you got caught and we need to make an example of you.
Unfortunately for some reason, accountability for ones actions don’t seem to apply anymore.
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Tel #87 #89 #90
Great posts, well said. H/T
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Charlie @85
Sorry the Precautionary Principle precludes the use of the Precautionary Principle.
It is quite possible that some of it is natural. Likewise, quite possibly all of it.
Notwithstanding the limited and cursory nature of committee and its findings recent events suggest the science is far from being irreproachable. Still hope springs eternal.
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Charlie: #85
April 20th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
Hi Charlie.
Regards sea level rise being “proof” of warming, I’d like to ask you to consider the following and tell me what you think.
Water is one of the most unique substances we know of.
As it cools, it contracts, as other substances do, UNTIL IT REACHES 4DegC.
Once it starts to cool below 4DegC, it ACTUALLY STARTS TO EXPAND AGAIN. Hence ice floats on water, approx 1/10 above and 9/10 below waterline.
Please look at the chart I posted at the “IPCC 5600 Small Lies” thread, comment #139
See the vast areas of ocean below 1km depth? And also the surface waters around the poles? They are all at or below 3DegC.
Now if the waters around the South Pole (1DegC) were to warm up to say 2DegC, the volume of water would actually “shrink” due to warming.
By the same token, the vast area from pole to pole at up to 900m depth is at about 4DegC. Now if this area was to COOL DOWN to 3 or 2DegC, then the volume of water would INCREASE with cooling.
There are just far too many variables affecting sea level for anybody to be able to claim that there is “proof” that one thing or another causes it and by how much.
All we know for certain at the mo is if land based ice melts, it will contribute to the quantity of water held by the oceans.
Everything else is hypotheses or conjecture, just like my “cooling waters increase sea level” conjecture.
p.s. On many occasions I’ve blown up bottles of beer in my freezer trying to cool it down quickly.
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That was great Baa Humbug 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Feuillet: #34
The precautionary principle has two parts, and works thus:
If [situation] then this [development] might occur, with this possible [consequence].
So, as a precaution, We must/should take [mitigation action] immediately, and then continue to take [avoidance actions] indefinitely.
The words in bold are “conditionals”. These set the scary scenario – “If there is a bogeyman under the bed, then he might jump out and eat me.”
The words in italics are “determinants”. These are unconditional responses to the scenario just defined – “So I must always check under the bed, and continue to sleep with the light on.”
It is a very old propaganda technique. It really saddens me to see it being used by university professors who should know better, and by politicians who have control of our taxes.
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Ahhh!! The Precautionary Principle.
The last bastion of unscientific reasoning.
Green and Armstrong(2009) said..
And this from John McLean
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Here is a lovely question and answer about “the precautionary principle” by lord Monckton.
The question..
Moncktons reply..
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Baa Humbug: #97
John McLean was wrong on one point.
The technique that is now known as the “Precautionary Principle” can be traced back to the early days of Madison Avenue, circa 1915, in the Government of the day’s efforts to convince the American people that America should enter the war in Europe.
But there again, the Cultists have never been very good at history, so it probably doesn’t matter.
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“As reading Glickson’s argument it is clear that his claim is that carbon is only beneficial in greenhouses but “not to open agriculture where rising CO2 and thereby temperatures LEAD TO DROUGHTS.” (caps my empahsis)”
There are so many wrong things packed into this one sentence. Extra CO2 does not lead to significant warming. Warming, particularly if it were greenhouse warming, would lead to more rainfall and not droughts. Extra CO2 leads to plants being able to deal with water-deprivation more successfully. Plants stressed by any factor, perhaps with the one exception of purposefully depriving the soil of nitrogen by the experimenter ….. do a lot better with extra-CO2.
Its very hard to deal with people who write things with so much compounded error embedded in their words.
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Baa Humbug #94;
The solution to the beer problem is to drink ale. It’s brewed warm, and should be drunk the same way for maximum flavor and enjoyment. 🙂 Only that lousy lager stuff needs to be chilled back down to its brewing temps.
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So this is going to be the new mantra; Precautionary Principle.
The more this is invoked the more individual rational scientists will cross over to the skeptical side (or get off the fence they are sitting on). It is the final evidence of AGW being a political issue not one based in science.
Unfortunately, the concept will sell well to the indoctrinated green idiots. It is at first so smart and simple sounding.
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The Precautionary Principle is ludicrous in this context on the face of it. The actions suggested are utterly ineffective even on the most hopeful of projections, and would cause more death and misery than the condition they are trying to prevent. You’d have to be a loon to consider them!
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Baa @ 94:
I invoke the precautionary principle on behalf of the remaining beer stocks. YOU ARE HEREBY CUT OFF! no beer for you! 🙁
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it is hardly new Mark… 20 odd years I think. I don;t mind it, but to be honest you should just do what the science says and not need a back up. It is as good as saying “don’t do anything stupid” but it is clear that everyone interprets that as they see fit.
As someone who is comfortable with it, however, I interpret it as doing what appears to be the best option even if there is some uncertainty, as otherwise you’d do nothing, ever, about anything.
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MattB, The expression may not itself be new but as a warmist’s Mantra it is new (my observation). I have been seeing it everywhere in the last few months in interviews, editorials, blogs and news stories. Before the last few months, the Mantra was “The science is settled”
It appears we agree,. That is to say; in this context it is useless.
Matt, have you ever heard the expression;
If it ain’t broke don’t “fix” it?
There is farm wisdom at it’s simple best. i.e. “doing nothing ever about anything” is often the best plan. (it certainly offers predictability)
Ideologues, bureaucrats and politicians are constantly rabble-rousing for change. It is how justify themselves and how they get votes. That doesn’t mean the change is good or necessary. For example the LEFT (US style) with it’s populist appeals and ideology. In too many cases the “change” negatively affects personal freedom and/or costs more tax dollars. This is precisely the observation that many of us skeptics have been stating about AGW. And by the way, the connection to socialism.
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It’s so easy to talk about stopping business and commerce, “going green,” shutting off electrical power, eliminating coal, etc
People who talk like that don’t have a clue about where civilisation came from or how it operates,
The whole thing is just so stupid it makes me sick.
How about you, Matt? Doesn’t the idea “eliminating civilisation” and returning to the Stone Age make you sick to your stomach?
If it doesn’t make you sick, then you might as well get it through your “head” (if there’s one there) that the thought of it MAKES HUMAN BEINGS SICK
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Meg, #73
Oops Meg, you’re reading it correctly, you’ve found an error. It should include water vapor and it indeed is most probably the reason the hot spot is around 10km. I’ll fix that tomorrow. I have no idea how that made it past the checks. Thanks for pointing it out.
20
Mark D:
#102
and #106
Yup. The people who make these things up – the “applied psychologists” – are very good at doing what they do. It is referred to it as “concept moulding”.
I refer to them as “mind-worms”.
If you have a low scepticism quotient, or leave your defences down, they will burrow in through your ears and eyes, occupy your mind, and provide justification for every bit of odd behaviour you can imagine.
Information sharing – communication – public relations – advertising – propaganda – concept moulding – brain washing. Same stuff. Just different places on a spectrum.
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“The Arctic has shrunk some, but the Antarctic has grown.”
The Arctic sea ice extent line has bent toward the average line again.
Here
For a long time now I have been watching the Solar wind speed and density each day at spaceweather.com Nearly every time the solar wind speed and proton density has been running high for a few days the Arctic sea ice extent responds by moving away from the average line (less ice). Each time the solar wind speed and proton density has been running low for a few days the Arctic sea ice extent responds by moving toward the average line (more ice). In the top right corner of the Spaceweather page is a “Time Machine”. Use this to go back and check over the last little while if you are curious. Obivously there are other longer term effects but watching this quick response of the ice to the sun has been entertaining.
It makes me wonder about the missing heat problem with the radiative balance equation. This would seem to be the result of direct ELECTRICAL heating not EMR.
Also where in the radiative balance numbers is the heat from radioactive decay on the earth counted? I think the missing heat problem is “worse than first thought”.
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The precautionary principle would also dictate that we do nothing until we can understand the missing hotspot in the atmosphere and the missing Ocean heat. Still we could take this to the illogical conclusion and move the west coast population of North Central and South America inland a thousand K or so just to be safe based on the eathquakes and volcanic eruptions triggered by Danny Glover and the latest IPCC reports.
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Rereke Whaakaro:
speaking of psychology, if u know anything of the Tavistock,
[The copy of what turned out to be unauthorized text about this event has been removed. The apology letter from Tavistock used to be at this link. –JN]
Bristol UWE: Inside Out: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on our Environmental Crisis
(Note: This conference is intended primarily for counsellors, psychotherapists, and others with a grounding in psychoanalysis)
A Conference by the Centre for Psycho-Social Studies, UWE
Saturday, 17 April 2010 9.30 to 16.30 at UWE, Frenchay Campus, Bristol
Sally Weitrobe (Institute of Psychoanalysis) – Human Engagement with Climate Change Denial
CPSS will be mounting a follow-up to the public conference FACING CLIMATE CHANGE in October 2010.
https://store.uwe.ac.uk/catalogue/products.asp?compid=1&deptid=13&catID=510&hasClicked=1
so this is how it is done? scary.
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Pat, no offence but people react to exagerations and fear. Somtimes a cigar is just a cigar. Follow the money, who gains.
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Off topic: does any body else see the hypocrisy in this, Government’s both state and federal keep telling us how evil coal is, yet NSW State Government are moving to change the law so BHP can move onto private properties to explore for coal seams.
This from The Caroona Coal Action Group.
Don’t like the Supreme Court’s decision? Just change the Law.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010 17:50
We’ve just heard that the government is due to introduce the Mining and Petroleum Legislation Amendment (Land Access) Bill 2010 in the NSW Legislative Assembly thursday (22nd April).
This clearly shows Minister Macdonald has no regard for the law or the Supreme Court of this State.
The court uncovered a regime in NSW where miners have for years been allowed to enter private land, flout the law and take short cuts with the environment and landholders rights. Now that they’ve been caught out, the government’s reaction isn’t to uphold the law but instead to totally rewrite it to benefit the powerful mining lobby.
The Minister’s changes would legalise the very behaviour from miners which the NSW Supreme Court found not only threatened the environment but undermines the rights of landholders, financial institutions and many other parties.
The message from Minister Macdonald is clear – mining is king in NSW and let nothing stand in its way including the law.
64% power rises coming in NSW over the next 3 years, they’ve got to reduce co2 so lets price power out of reach of pensioners and low income earners, but give those greedy multinationals open slather to keep digging up the coal.
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Pat: #112
OMG! Do we all have a mental disease?
No, take deep breaths – it is [the people who assume skeptics are “deniers” yet who don’t look at the evidence themselves who are mistaken] – whew, had me worried there for a moment.
[post edited to remove a comment about a particular researcher in the context of an unauthorized press release].
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Pat @ #112
So they don’t think “The science does not add up” as a good enough reason not to believe the scare mongers. If you don’t believe the lies you must be psychotic.
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MattB…
1) not sure I care wether you believe me or not..
(at least you are beginning to display the correct SCEPTICAL attitude… now if you’d only apply that to more things you’d be on the right track).
2)Thanks for the link, interesting hypothesis…(seemingly
not accounting for some real world information)
did not see how it coped with the known (greater Co2 concntration means more of it pulled out of the atmosphere and oceans by the flora and fauna to aid with more growth).. and the implications that has for the supposed long life of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Isotopic Mass Balance Modelling does not agree with it. It suggests at a global level that about 5 years is the life
of C02 in the atmosphere.. it does this by looking at the mass balance of certain isotopes in the atmosphere versus
in the oceans (a equilibrium ratio of about 1 (atmospheric
C02) to 50(oceanic C02), as I understand it…
not sure if this link will work… but just copy/paste and
you should be right…
http://www.cprm.gov.br/33IGC/1345952.html
cheers
Jim
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Precautionary Principle
Since we know CO2 is causing a 5 to 7 degrees temperature rise per doubling (as proved by the IPCC) but the global temperature is still falling, the CO2 rises must be partially masking a catastrophic global temperature drop of even greater proportions. Until we can explain the cause of temperature drop, under the precautionary principle shouldn’t we be doing something about that as well. Imagine the disaster if we were to stabalise CO2 emissions now and the temperature kept falling!
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Climate Scientist laments: ‘Co2 is not the right villain’ — rising Co2 is ‘obvious boon to agricultural productivity’
http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:Vf-Um3lqEQ0J:network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/07/steven-d-levitt-and-stephen-j-dubner-the-green-gadflys.aspx+national+post+levitt&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
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Quadrant Online – Climate Modelling Nonsense – CARBON DIOXIDE VAPOUR TRICK
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2009/10/climate-modelling-nonsense
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This is the BS you get from the people that support this GLOBAL WARMING FRAUD!!!!!!!
THIS HAS TO BE STOPPED!!!!!!!!!!!!
NO DOUBT THE MORONS WANT AUSTRALIANS TO EAT IMPORTED PRAWNS CONTAMINATED WITH HEAVY METALS, TOXIC CHEMICALS, HORMONES AND ANTIBIOTICS!!!!!!!!!!
THE days of being able to buy fresh, local prawns are under threat from Federal and State Labor following the release of plans to prohibit prawn trawling in the Solitary Islands Marine Park, Federal MP Luke Hartsuyker said.
The NSW Government yesterday announced a proposed new plan of management to expand the sanctuary zone from 12 to 20 per cent and to totally prohibit prawn trawling in the park within two years.
“The extreme actions of the NSW Government follow the Rudd Government’s announcement to further assess an area up to 80 kilometres off shore in order to establish a new Commonwealth Marine Reserve,” mr Hartsuyker said.
“The local commercial fishing industry understandably feels very threatened by both Federal and State Labor.
“The NSW Government has now made it very clear that they want the commercial fishers gone. There is nothing balanced about this approach.
“Both Federal and State Labor want to rip the heart and soul out of the local commercial fishing industry.
“If Labor gets its ways we will no longer be able to catch local prawns and consumers will have no choice but to purchase imported seafood.”
Mr Hartsuyker said it would not only cost jobs, but would also be a boon for the seafood black market.
“Today’s announcement also highlights why the local fishing and tourism industries are so concerned about the process to establish commonwealth marine reserves,” he said.
“There are serious concerns that Federal Minister Peter Garrett will be guided by the extreme ideology in his department.
“Those concerns are now well based given what the NSW Government has now announced.
“The flow on effect to commonwealth waters is scary.
“Sustainable fishing is vital, but I believe it is wrong to blanket ban prawn trawling over the complete area.”
Member for Coffs Harbour, Andrew Fraser, has slammed the decision by NSW Minister Frank Sartor to place further restrictions on the Solitary Island Marine Park.
Mr Fraser said it was obvious this decision was being made in an order to garner Green preference in Labor-held marginal seats in Sydney such as Balmain and Marrickville.
“The decision to ban prawn trawling in the marine reserve cannot be supported by any scientific evidence as prawn trawling is done in areas where there are no reefs, because reefs will damage fishing nets worth thousands of dollars,” Mr Fraser said.
“I believe recreational fishers will also be severely impacted with sanctuary zones being increased from 12 per cent to 20 per cent as sanctuary zones are only the reef areas and the vast majority of reefs and islands are already sanctuary zones.
“This will mean that fishing competitions such as the Easter Classic could disappear altogether because if you can’t fish where the fish are, you can’t catch any fish and therefore, you can’t have a competition.”
Mr Fraser is urging Coffs Coast residents to make a submission objecting the proposal.
“I totally agree with Mr Sartor when he says 87% of people favour the marine park, but if he locks it up to the extent that is being planned he will find that people’s support of the marine park will disappear,” Mr Fraser said.
“All sensitive areas are currently protected and commercial and recreational fishing can take place without damaging the Marine Park.
“My message to Mr Sartor is to stop destroying a recreational and commercial fishing industry in Coffs Harbour in order to gain preferences from the Greens in Sydney’s marginal seats.
“If the prawn and fisheries close we will have increasing imports, and industry sources have advised me that black market reef fish will be purchased by restaurants as they won’t be able to buy it locally.”
http://www.coffscoastindependent.com.au/news/local/news/general/labor-ripping-heart-out-of-commercial-fishing-hartsuyker/1807523.aspx?storypage=0
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“How about you, Matt? Doesn’t the idea “eliminating civilisation” and returning to the Stone Age make you sick to your stomach?”
of course…. I guess it is why I want to reduce GHGs.
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Shocker: Solar panel manufacturing creates potent GHG’s
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/27/shocker-solar-panel-manufacturing-creates-potent-ghgs/
Wind Energy’s Ghosts
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
Death of the wind farms
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/death_of_the_wind_farms/
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Brian: #121
surely the prawns will be replaced with farmed prawns not imported ones.
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Ronnel @ #123
The NF3 issue emerged a couple of years ago in the IT press. Everyone was getting virtuous about dumping their power draining CRT monitors and replacing them with energy efficient LCDs. I think it has been nicely hidden that NF3 is used in the etching of LCD monitors since all the reports written by the AGW believers and referenced by the IPCC have been on LCD monitors that probably replaced perfectly functional CRTs.
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LCD and HD TV use of NF3
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“janama”, the point is that there is NO SCIENTIFIC BASIS for banning the prawn harvesting in the area.
There are ENORMOUS VOLUMES OF naturally occurring prawns.
They are DEFINITELY NOT UNDER THREAT.
It is more the case of FANATICAL green policies and CONTROL….
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What’s with all this talk against the precautionary principle? It’s quite useful. I employ it constantly. Every time I see someone proposing it, as a precaution against taking any ill advised action, I immediately write off whatever is being proposed.
See, it’s a good thing! You just aren’t using it right.
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“MattB”, The very act of reducing GHGs and implementing an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) WILL be the cause of reverting at least back to the 19th century lifestyle!
Have a read of the following document……
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/articles/climate-policy/science-and-policy/backtothe19C.pdf
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Steve – I guess I should be thankful you didn’t link to the CEC.
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Rereke @c 109 “Mind worms” great phrase! I’d like to talk some time about why some people have the “PSQ” (paranoid skeptic quotient) and others are oblivious. It seems so contrary to Darwin…..
As far as psychotherapists are concerned, I have not met one yet that didn’t need their therapy more than their clients. It is frightening that they are invoking the sanity argument though.
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MattB:
Do your part to reduce CO2 emissions now by having the power shut off in your house,quit work, rid your self of any means of transportation, do not buy anything from any store, And stop breathing as each time you exhale you personally emit CO2. This way you will have applied the precautionary principle to your own life style.
Others:
The PP has been invoked for a few years here on this continent (NA).
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Baa Humbug, #83:
Oh goody. I got 8 dislikes. Like I’m out to make friends or something!!
Your theory is wrong. JoNova is truly clueless about ocean acidification, if the supplied reference is an indication of her level of knowledge. I called her statements “reprehensible” because to indicate with any authority that her statements were accurate — to pass herself off as having an informed expert opinion when she most obviously does not — misleads people such as yourself who may think that her statement have any validity.
I tagged her with a name so she might notice me. Being polite would probably just get me ignored. Scientists shouldn’t be polite when someone is being mendacious; they should call a spade a spade. I did. Misleading information like this promotes and prolongs dangerous fossil fuel use and slows the implementation of sensible alternatives like nuclear and solar.
Note that in my text comment on my first link (which was a list of references) I noted that virtually any of the cited papers from that particular Sabine and Feely work could refute JoNova’s statement. I stand by that statement. She said:
While the statement is poorly worded, its intent is clear. And it is wrong. Tracer studies: CFCs, carbon-14 — demonstrate the penetration and mixing of surface waters in which increased CO2 has become dissolved, due to the enhanced air-sea flux. Accurate pCO2 measurements over thousands of ocean stations show where the flux is negative and positive. Extremely accurate measurements of
total alkalinity, total CO2, and pH (now out to four and five decimal places of accuracy) characterize the changing carbonate system of surface waters precisely. This change is caused by one thing: the increased atmospheric
pCO2, which enhances the air-sea flux, and puts more CO2 into the oceans, causing the pH of the surface waters to decrease (hence, “acidification”). Biological effects of this change have been documented. The sinks and sources, once quantitatively incomplete, are now essentially known and properly attributed. I can say with confidence that the attribution of oceanic surface water pH change to increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 is as established as strongly as any point of scientific knowledge can be established. Furthermore, since the current rising concentration trend is known, and the current effects are measurable, projections of this trend into the future can also be made with good confidence.
Because I know all of this to be true and accurate and right, I have little patience and respect for those who present an inaccurate characterization of the true situation. What should I have done? “Oh Ms. Nova, just a point of discussion; your statement about ocean acidification not being attributable to increasing atmospheric CO2 is a misrepresentation of the current state of scientifically-established knowledge on this issue. I would politely request a retraction and an apology to your readers regarding your misstatement.”
Like that’s going to get any reaction. And since I didn’t expect any reaction from the authoress, I made my position, and hers, clear.
If she wants respect, she can show me. Write a followup on this blog about ocean acidification that indicates she’s examined and considered the references I provided. Address their statements and provide alternatives. That would demonstrate a remarkable responsibility to the
truth that to this point I do not see in evidence at all from her.
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MarkD:
The new term being used is neuroscience rather than Psychotherapy. It is a combination of studying the effects of propaganda and refining the process of subliminal communication. If questionable science and the promotion of fear does get you involved then the “Mind Worms” ( I like that term) are called in to fine tune your argument and provide more means of intimidation.
Real science would have the best starting point but that would have eliminated the fantasy being promoted. There is historic evidence of mass behavior control that sort of matches what we see today but today they have had the opportunity of refining the methods.
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Some additional information that seems to contradict some of Jo’s.
1. 2.6%/decade decrease in Arctic Ice extent. See: Arctic Sea Ice News.
2. Accelerating Antarctic Ice loss. See: Physorg
3. Accelerating Greenland ice loss. See Science Daily.
4. Avg. yearly sea Level rise 20thCentury = 1.7mm. Avg. yearly sea level rise 1993-2007=3.4mm. See: CSIRO.
5. Increasing Plant Growth with additional CO2? See: It’s pretty clear that some plants may get larger from addtionaly CO2, but whether the nutritional value is kept is being questioned.
6. The relationship between atmospheric CO2 and Ocean Acidification is well understood. See for example: Royal Society Ocean Acidification.
7. The old problems with measuring the heating in the atmosphere. See: US Climate Change Science Program. In particular the following quote is interesting:
“Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming
near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to
challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of humaninduced
global warming. Specifically, surface data showed substantial
global-average warming, while early versions of satellite and radiosonde
data showed little or no warming above the surface. This significant
discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and
radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. New data sets
have also been developed that do not show such discrepancies.”
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Oakden:
I see that you have been studying the writings of other famous researchers such as Charles Lutwidge Dodgson who wrote as Lewis Carroll about hallucinogenic experiences. Your writing style reminds me of the Brothers Grimm and your message is similar to “Chicken Little”.
Every thing you have brought up is based on make believe and it may exist in an alternate universe but there is no evidence that it exists here.
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Michael Webster:
What you provided is links to pseudo scientific research based on Post Normal science used to support desired funding.
Sea Ice: There is not enough evidence to claim a loss of sea ice and warming is not the cause if ice loss but wind direction is the main factor. The historical record shows lower sea ice in times past. Historical records show less glacial ice in times past. Historical records show wrmer temperatures in times past during the last 10K years. Your entire position is bogus.
The organization that produced the USCCSP report is a government agency that is defending its existence by promoting AGW because without AGW there would be no need for that group and there is not need for that group just as the EPA has become obsolete by their own actions. NOAA makes claims that are not supported by real scientific research because they homogenized the data to fit the agenda.
I see Moonbat’s group decided to pay a visit!
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See Webster these are all lies. You read something in the sciencedaily, which is the Pravda of this movement, you don’t actually go beyond the press release, and it appears you swallow everything that the journalist says. You are trying to act like you know this stuff and yet to me you are coming across as if you are still in secondary school.
There is a certain tandem-riding Scotsman who works in Japan. I for one can think of few things more ridiculous then a Scotsman riding a tandem, but never mind. This fellow seems to think that Bayesian statistics is a reasonable technique to use to find out what a doubling of CO2 will do to the temperature. He thinks this is reasonable no matter that the issue had turned political. Funnily enough everytime he applied his procedure his estimates came out less than the last. So he resembled a more traditional Scotsman you were trying to hit up for a loan.
“Why do you want to borrow $20? I haven’t got $15. And I wouldn’t lend you $10 even if I had the $5 to lend you.” Something like that. The Bayesian method is biased towards the starting estimates. So that the ambit claims of lunatics was pushing his estimate up. It was all rather silly. He couldn’t come up with any real evidence for his almost 3 degrees for a doubling, which would be nice if true. So he fobs me off on this ocean acidification nonsense.
I was fooled by this. I made my eyes sore reading everything at google scholar I could get my hands on. The only evidence that could be found was the conclusive evidence for the massive waste of research dollars.
So stop assuming from the press releases that this is done and dusted. To find if they have evidence or not you have to dig right into the report and audit these clowns for logic. When it came to ocean acidification its a big lot of nothing. So stop parrotting this stuff. Because its all lies.
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Well said Mike.
P.S. I think Dr. Suess is in there too!
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Raven @18,
I wouldn’t be so sure about Doctors. Here is some information on the use of Doctors in support of cigarette smoking:
More Doctors Smoke Camels than any other cigarette.
You should look at whether they have evidence, and whether that evidence is largely in agreement with other sources of evidence.
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“The Arctic sea ice extent line has bent toward the average line again.
Here
For a long time now I have been watching the Solar wind speed and density each day at spaceweather.com Nearly every time the solar wind speed and proton density has been running high for a few days the Arctic sea ice extent responds by moving away from the average line (less ice). Each time the solar wind speed and proton density has been running low for a few days the Arctic sea ice extent responds by moving toward the average line (more ice). In the top right corner of the Spaceweather page is a “Time Machine”. Use this to go back and check over the last little while if you are curious.”
Thats just terrific. But isn’t it such a disgrace that the climate modellers are only dealing with electromagnetic radiation from the suns photosphere. Forget about the effective electrical current that this bombardment of solar wind particles represents. Forget about Birkeland currents. They don’t want to know about it. If its not easily brought into their Watts-Per-Square metre model these unscientists would rather not know.
Somebody just the other day was telling me about P-Holes.
“Positive electron holes go straight through the earth to the core. They have cosmic ray detectors in the earth to prove it.”
These p-holes are sort of moving pathways for electrical current flow, going as far into the earth as its ever been possible to measure them. Now do you think the frauds at Goddard are going to drop everything and incorporate this other energy flow that we know about, into their climate model? No of course not. You need scientists to do that sort of thing. Not these radical leftist clowns.
If we have three or more flows of energy helping to determine the temperature, then clearly the marginal difference of some sort of change to only one of them is going to be way less then what we expected, had we been thinking that there was only one source of energy flow.
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Mike Davis,
I’d like you to point me to where in recorded history the NorthWest passage was fully open prior to 2007. This is what you appear to be claiming by saying historical records show less sea ice in the past.
The unsupported claim about NOAA does not advance the debate.
Graeme, I’m really not sure what you are trying to say in talking about the Scotsman and the Bayesian statistics. The models can use any techniques they like so long as they consistently predict, and can be verified against new observations and against past data.
Please tell me what was actually calculated and how. I think just putting down statistics without the detail is not helpful.
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Graeme,
with respect to your energy flows, we have evidence from the satellites of a reduction in energy radiated from the planet. This reduction is in the bands usually absorbed by CO2.
It does not matter where the energy goes once in the system. The key point is we measure more energy into the atmosphere than leaves it – and that is the cause of global warming. If we have even more additional energy being received from space that you are talking about, then this can only add to the warming.
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Oakden Wolf:
why not read some real acidification research by an organisation that is not attached to the government tit to survive.
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=63809&ct=162
You’d better get back to your girlies on your website.
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What’s with the “we” Michael Webster. Professor Lindzen disagrees with you BTW!
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janama,
using “we” was a probably clumsy rhetorical device.
On the other hand I am interested to find that Professor Lindzen disagrees with the particular satellite observation I mentioned. So Professor Lindzen disagrees that the satellites show less radiation leaving the atmospher in the bands absorbed by CO2 – See: here.
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Oakden Wolf: @133
Just a pedantic point, but one the we empiricists insist on…
Measurements to 4 or 5 decimal places is not about “accuracy”. What you mean there is “precision”.
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Oakden;
2 words 4U: lakes, and limestone.
Lake acidification isn’t happening, despite exposure to the air. Maybe any added oceanic CO2 has something to do with thousands of undersea volcanoes? Especially since the concentration is greatest near them?
And for millions of years huge deposits of limestone have been building up thanx to the efforts of corals, diatoms, etc. So the planet is currently in a CO2 famine.
The best way to respond will be to use coal furnaces to heat crushed limestone to liberate all that sequestered CO2, and get back to a normal level of 1,000 ppm or so.
10
There’s a good refutation of the Precautionary principal by Ken Cussen in the Australian Journal of Environmental Management.
Ken Cussen. Handle with care: assessing ther risks of the precautionary principle [online]. Australasian Journal of Environmental Management, v.16, no.2, June 2009: 66-69.
“The precautionary principle is often invoked as a way of handling risk in situations of scientific uncertainty. This paper questions the usefulness of the principle, arguing that, depending on how it is interpreted, it is either vacuous or dangerous. Further it is argued that the principle contains some unwarranted value assumptions.”
See also Ken’s interview on ABC’s counterpoint: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2010/2774914.htm
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janama @ 144,
since you’ve pointed out an organisation that is acceptable to you on the basis of not being public, I thought you might be interested in other information from there:
An Ocean Warmer Than a Hot Tub
Btw. why are you guys so obsessed with the “Government tit”?
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Michael Webster
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039628-pip.pdf
and Dr Roy Spencwer believes CO2 is insignifican to climate anyway.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
I note you sidetracked the real acidification research.
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Michael Webster @150
some tired old 2006 research.
here’s the current state of ocean surface temperatures.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/MSU%20UAH%20SST%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
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Michael Webster @ 142,
Ok, how does 1903 – a Mr Roald Amundsen “He is known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage”
And yes, there have been other instances of people successfully traversing the northwest passage pre Al gores an inconvenient truth…. Maybe the warming was due to the whaling or something?
You might want to check your facts before posting here….
Back to you Mike Davis… Sorry couldn’t help but in with such a stupid AGW Dodo Kamakazie statement.
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Wow great link to the NW passage: Wow 3 years! Must have been real open:)
“In 1903, Amundsen led the first expedition to successfully traverse Canada’s Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (something explorers had been attempting since the days of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, and Henry Hudson), with six others in a 47 ton steel seal hunting vessel, Gjøa. Amundsen had the ship outfitted with a small gasoline engine.[5] They travelled via Baffin Bay, Lancaster and Peel Sounds, and James Ross, Simpson and Rae Straits and spent two winters near King William Island in what is today Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, Canada.[4][5]
During this time Amundsen learned from the local Netsilik people about Arctic survival skills that would later prove useful. For example, he learned to use sled dogs and to wear animal skins in lieu of heavy, woolen parkas. After a third winter trapped in the ice, Amundsen was able to navigate a passage into the Beaufort Sea after which he cleared into the Bering Strait, thus having successfully navigated the Northwest Passage.[3] Continuing to the south of Victoria Island, the ship cleared the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on August 17, 1905, but had to stop for the winter before going on to Nome on the Alaska Territory’s Pacific coast. Five hundred miles (800 km) away, Eagle City, Alaska, had a telegraph station; Amundsen travelled there (and back) overland to wire a success message (collect) on December 5, 1905. Nome was reached in 1906. Due to water as shallow as 3 ft (0.91 m), a larger ship could never have used the route.”
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Michael Webster @150
Do you want to conjecture what caused the higher levels of CO2 concentration all those years ago when the oceans were hotter than a hot tub? Could the dinosaurs have found a way of burning coal, oil etc? Maybe we should be retrospectively taxing those cretins that emitted CO2 back then – ecoterrorists.
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Michael Webster @150
And when you have a reasonable answer to what caused the CO2 concentration to rise you might want to consider why the CO2 concentration subsequently declined. Apparently there was not a runaway greenhouse effect since we aren’t living in a Venusian atmosphere. You might want to ask which came first – the CO2 increase or the temperature increase?
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Madjak @ 153
“Maybe the warming was due to the whaling or something?”
No. It was due to the petrol engine they had fitted in the boat. 🙂
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janama,
Your link to the Lindzen paper does not dispute the outgoing longwave radiation data that I cited. It in fact uses those results.
I’ve seen that acidification research before, and it does not dispute that the Ocean is acidifying due to global warming. It merely points out that experiments on some marine organisms show them to be more resistant than expected to ocean acidification.
Grant @155,
Noone disputes that CO2 has been higher in the atmosphere in the past. In fact the fossil fuels that we use now were layed down over a huge period from the CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere.
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MattB,
So you’re admitting that it was Open? That doesn’t sound like you – conceding something? Maybe you’re learning to only try and defend the defensable positions?
Michael asked for information and it was given.
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Michael Webster @ #158
“In fact the fossil fuels that we use now were layed down over a huge period from the CO2 absorbed from the atmosphere.”
I have heard two theories for the origins of “fossil fuels” but absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere does not feature in either of the them. I’d be interested in learning how this process supposedly works.
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“Graeme,
with respect to your energy flows, we have evidence from the satellites of a reduction in energy radiated from the planet.”
No you don’t you are lying. What we have is evidence that extra CO2 changes the signature of some of the radiation radiated out. Its a big leap to say this signature change, by which we can find the composition of the atmosphere of pretty distant planets, is equivalent to a total energy change. In fact its worse then a leap because you are lying outright. When we have had warming we have had more radiation outward and not less.
Now you’ve just got to learn to check all these wild claims you are making. You’ve shown a marked inability to delve a little bit deeper into individual claims of this nature. I’m not the least bit interested in some idiot throwing back wild one-liners he’s picked up from headlines, realclimate or deltoid.
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“I’ve seen that acidification research before, and it does not dispute that the Ocean is acidifying due to global warming. It merely points out that experiments on some marine organisms show them to be more resistant than expected to ocean acidification.”
Look I’m sick of this. Give me the implied rate of move towards a less corrosive neutral.
You don’t know do you? What is the rate? And how was it found out? You don’t know because I checked all these studies and I couldn’t get a very good or convincing answer.
How much of this move towards neutral can be ascribed to meltwater? You don’t know that either do you?
And don’t say global warming when you mean CO2 rise. Speak English you dolt. Global warming would have the oceans expelling CO2. And where is the acidification inherent in that?
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janama @152,
the link you post is not for Ocean temperatures, it is for tropospheric temperatures above the oceans.
You quote Roy Spencer who had to admit he got his tropospheric temperatures wrong! The Roy Spencer who also denies the theory of evolution.
More on Roy Spencer here.
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When CO2 is absorbed into the ocean via either the massive volcanic undersea activity or via absorption from the atmosphere there are a number of places it can wind up. Two that come to mind are:
1. It can settle on the ocean floor, effectively out of the biosphere, via carbon rain. I think some folks would see this as a source of these methyl clathrates. But then again that may be bogus.
2. It can wind up becoming part of the sedimentary rocks on the ocean floor.
Now this is a continuing process. There is simply no apriori reason to believe that we have any substantial effect on ocean ph via CO2 emissions. Sorry to break that too you. If we did we can see it would be a transitory thing. Why would it not lead to more sedimentary rock formation just as one example?
You’ve got nothing with this story. Its not science. They are just guessing. This is liver quiver stuff. They don’t have the data. So give up this nonsense.
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“You quote Roy Spencer who had to admit he got his tropospheric temperatures wrong! The Roy Spencer who also denies the theory of evolution.”
You pathetic lying dishonest piece of trash. When a real scientist gets something wrong, finds it, and corrects it then this is what being a scientist is all about.
Go away you lying filth. You are a freaking spambot you idiot.
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Michael Webster,
I am waiting for you to admit that your views on the northwest passage being only opened up in 2007 due to global warming were utterly incorrect and that the source which fed you this lie has misled you and many other people on this matter. If you could name your source for this lie, that would probably be quite good also.
And, yes, this would be the only time you will see me use wikipedia – I mean your statement was so flawed even wikipedia couldn’t save you.
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Madjak you wally! It took them three years because only bits of it were open at a time? And they’d been trying since Columbus. I don’t think I’m being crafty to suggest that an honest interpretation of “Northwest Passage being fully open” would be that at a given point in time there was a continuous navigable path between one end and the other. You’ve pointed to a navigation that took 3 years, each winter frozen back in. It is meaningless in the context of the passage being open. A great adventure yes, feat of navigation yes, but it is irrelevant to these discussions of AGW.
PLEASE one of you skeptical types agree with me so I can see that you are not all sucked in by any skerrik of propaganda!
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I mean the great Graeme Bird would surely not be sucked in by Madjak’s NW passage tripe? Come on Graeme, you know you re desperate to agree with me here. Surely your rational approach will not stand for such rubbish?
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Graeme,
I always enjoy a discussion with you where we can logically look at evidence without resorting to name calling.
It appears that you allow Roy Spencer to get things wrong, but when the IPCC correct their 2035 Himalayas assertion – a tiny point in a non technical part of a huge document – you claim its evidence of a conspiracy. Note: that the Spencer and Christy mistake was found, and they admitted it, but they failed to modify their conclusions that were now shown to be wrong.
In response to your arguments about CO2 in the ocean.
1. is clearly incorrect. The CO2 is dissolved in the sea water. The clathrates are not CO2 as far as I know, but methane.
2. The increased acid of the ocean actually should dissolve calcium carbonate as I understand it, so less rocks.
Some papers on Ocean acidification are: here.
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MattB: I’m afraid you won’t get Graeme agreeing with “lying filth” like me. But I must admit, being stuck in ice for 3 years did tend to reduce the conclusiveness of the statement that the Northwest passage was full open.
Interesting that madjak needed it from me as well as you. Perhaps my word carries some extra weight around here.
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MattB,
Michael Websters statement was very clear that the northwest passage had not been fully opened before 2007. The wording was, as with so much of the scientological clap trap deliberately worded to drecieve people who either can’t be bothered or don’t have time to check the facts.
It was open before 2007, and this is a statement of fact. In fact, even your very own wikipedia was used to clarify Michales misunderstanding.
Mattb, I have been watching your rants over the last few months, and over the last few weeks in particular and really, i don’t see any point in continuing discussions with you as you have constantly put yourself in compromising situations trying to defend impossible positions, which has led me to beleive you really just want to argue. There is nothing wrong with that, of course, it’s just I have better uses for my time.
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MW;
U loon. The pH of the ocean has moved, in some locales, at most, from 8.5 to 8.2. 7.0 is neutral. 0-6.9 is acidic. 7.1-14 is alkaline.
So the alkaline 8.2 ocean is not “dissolving calcium carbonate”. Gigatons of calcium and CO2 have been pulled out of the ocean and deposited in chalk and limestone over the millennia by shellfish, coral, diatoms, etc. We urgently need to break the CO2 famine by breaking it up and cooking with coal fires to get CO2 back to comfortable levels around 1,000 ppm. >:)
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Clearly you don’t.
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MORE EXAMPLES OF HOW THE FANATICAL GREEN STATE & FEDERAL LABOR GOVERNMENTS ARE ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY AUSTRALIA’S SEAFOOD INDUSTRY!!!
SUBJECT: Minister Hunt warns of fish ban
“TIN Can Bay fishers and the town itself are facing their own Traveston dam – they’re facing obliteration,” federal Shadow Environment Minister Greg Hunt said in Gympie this week.
Mr Hunt was speaking after meeting with amateur and professional fishing identities at Tin Can Bay on Tuesday afternoon.
He was commenting on Federal Government plans to review fishing uses of a large area of ocean off the Cooloola and Fraser Island coastline, with possible new restrictions or even closures.
The area under review, from Double Island Point to the top of Fraser Island and well past the continental shelf, is the source of much of the seafood of all kinds caught by fishers from Mooloolaba to Bundaberg.
While Mr Garrett has promised a “fair dinkum process” of genuine consultation with fishing and tourism industry representatives, as well as seeking scientific and conservation advice, fishers say they fear a fishing ban may be the end result.
And they say their experience of Queensland Government reviews of their industry lends credibility to their concerns.
Mr Hunt agrees.
“The Fraser Island ‘area for further assessment’, if implemented in full, would mean the end of commercial fishing for Tin Can Bay and the end of recreational fishing probably,” he told The Gympie Times.
“If it is a full green zone. That’s the end of commercial, charter and recreational fishing,” he said, adding that this would be a disaster not only for the Cooloola Coast economy in general, but for many businesses throughout the Gympie region supplying fishers with everything from boats and tackle to fuel, groceries, accommodation and advice.
“Our view is that fishing stocks are strong. The fishery has been well managed, but there’s an ideological view that fishing is bad,” he said.
http://www.gympietimes.com.au/story/2010/04/15/minister-hunt-warns-of-fish-ban/
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Hi all
Wow, what a great debate happening here. I have no comments or opinions at mo, just a little contribution re: NW Passage
I do however have an opinion on ocean acidification.
It will take centuries(at the current rate) to change the ocean PH by any appreciable amount.
Also, the “upwelling” zones of the ocean are almost always less alkaline than the rest of the ocean, (substantially in fact). But guess where the most numerous, populous and diverse sea life exists? Yep, you’re right, in and around the lower ph upwelling zones.
Nothing to fear from 0.0017 per year change in ocean PH
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Baa Humbug,
I think it was not too long after that (1850s) when the ill fated Franklin expedition was launched:
Through cruel hardship they vainly strove,
Their ships on mountains of ice was drove,
Only the eskimo in his skin canoo,
was the only one who ever came through.
From Lady Franklin’s lament.
Some more on the effects of ocean acidification: here.
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Right Baa Humbug. But unlike the deep oceans the stupidity of these people just never seems to bottom out. Imagine getting uptight and in a panic at some hypothetical tiny move towards a less corrosive neutral?
Never have we seen such a gathering storm of dumb.
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Brian H,
the following quote talks about Calcium carbonate formation in the oceans:
“Calcification involves the precipitation of dissolved ions into solid CaCO3 structures, such as coccoliths. After they are formed, such structures are vulnerable to dissolution unless the surrounding seawater contains saturating concentrations of carbonate ions.”
and:
“Increasing CO2 levels and the resulting lower pH of seawater decreases the saturation state of CaCO3 and raises the saturation horizons of both forms closer to the surface. This decrease in saturation state is believed to be one of the main factors leading to decreased calcification in marine organisms, as it has been found that the inorganic precipitation of CaCO3 is directly proportional to its saturation state.”
See: here.
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Michael – you are correct – I linked to the wrong chart by mistake.
here are all the charts
http://www.climate4you.com/
click on oceans. Some are heating some are cooling – it’s called natural variation.
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janama,
I must admit it presents a complex picture. I’m not really sure what I’m looking at here. Some of the charts seem to rise and others are dead level (apart from natural variability).
There are charts to do with atmospheric temperature, and others to do with ocean temperatures at different points. Also there is a very interesting one on sea level rise down the bottom.
There is a lot of extra work being down to accurately and consistently measure ocean temperatures at greater depths now as well.
Sorry, I can’t reach a conclusion from these charts because of my lack of knowledge.
01
Michael – climate4you posts all the charts – very interesting website – spend some time there. 🙂
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Sorry Grant, I missed your replies earlier.
The fossil fuels are created out of deposits of organic matter, particularly plants. The plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. When they die, and aren’t completely broken down, and depending on the geology of the area, they carbon they have absorbed during their life is sequestered. The CO2 from burning their fossil fuels effectively puts back into the atmosphere the carbon that was removed many millions of years ago.
To answer another point you make, a runaway greenhouse effect, as I understand it is merely to do with positive feedbacks adding to the initial climate forcing, and causing more heating than the initial forcing alone would. The fact that when the Earth has warmed in the past, the CO2 has risen as a positive feedback is an example of this kind of thing.
Eventually the heating gets high enough so that the radiation balance is returned and the heating stops.
In past climate changes it may have required thousands of years before the Earth cooled again, perhaps due to the Milankovich cycles, or some other cause.
In any case, the only way I know that you can sequester carbon is through plant growth. The organic matter that is grown would have to be stored in some way though.
Obviously the oceans are great carbon syncs, but they saturate.
So in answer to the question about where all the C02 went, I believe that it must have been taken back out of the atmosphere over a long period by plants.
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Michael Webster: #176
April 21st, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Firstly please don’t just provide a link without a comment on the substance of the link. Can’t go chasing up every document fellow commenters link to. I did glance at the article though. I get worried whenever I come across the phrase “scientists say”. Here is a piece from your link
MichaelW you provided the link so you may know from where they got the figure of 30% of CO2 released goes into the ocean, do you?
I think you will find research in the area of reduced ocean alkalinity and CO2 sequestration in the various spheres is scant at best. My suggestion would be to make general statements whilst blogging about this subject, as definitive or “it’s settled” type statements are easily thwarted.
(Now please don’t make me dig up the IPCC quote stating the above, I’ve got too much to do at mo).
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Michael Webster: #182
April 21st, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Please explain the above????
They saturate? how? when? at what temperature do they saturate?
If alarmists don’t believe CO2 could saturate in the atmosphere, how on earth could they believe it saturates in the vaaaaasstttt oceans?
You lost me on this one Michael W
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check out this site
http://renewablesoil.com/dr-christine-jones.html
Christine reckons we could sequester all the world’s CO2 in Aussie soils and benefit from it.
10
There are no acidic oceans, none whatsoever. The phrase “gradually more acidic” is flat out wrong.
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“It appears that you allow Roy Spencer to get things wrong…”
So you are challenging me on the idea that good science means constantly correcting your own mistakes? You are actually contesting me on this matter are you blockhead? Go away. You are just lying filth mate. You are just spamming. You are just lying leftist filth mate. You have been exposed.
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MattB Seen these?
“Northwest Passage Opened; Tanker Near End of Trip Fulfilling a 500-Year Dream Northwest Passage Opened by Tanker Manhattan”
New York Times September 15, 1969,
“S.S. Manhattan churned through the Arctic ice this evening to become the first commercial ship to negotiate the Northwest Passage to Alaska.”
December 5, 1932, Monday New York Times
SOVIET SHIP CIRCLES FRANZ JOSEF LAND; Feat, Accomplished for First Time, Is Described by the Leader of Expedition.
U. S. VESSELS SAIL ARCTIC PASSAGE
New York Times. August 28, 1954.
U.S. Cutters Conquer Northwest Passage; 3 Coast Guard Craft First of the Nation to Make Transit CUTTERS CONQUER ARCTIC PASSAGE Canadian Ship on 2d Voyage Spar Assists Freighter
New York Times September 25, 1957
“From 1940 to 1942, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner St. Roch navigated the passage from west to east for the first time as a show of Canadian sovereignty over the North. At the end of its journey, the St. Roch turned around and went back, making it the first vessel to complete the journey in both directions.”
From here
“In 1969, an American tanker, the S.S. Manhattan, made a voyage through the Northwest Passage without asking Canada’s permission.”
“In 1970, the ship made another trip through the passage. In the end, Canada imposed environmental regulations on trips through the passage, but the issue of who controlled the waters was not resolved.”
Source As above.
“The 1418 and 1419 maps shows the NE passage clear of ice along its entire length. The old Chinese map attached to Robin Lind’s email of 4th November shows the “route” line passing from the Chukchi Sea through the Bering Straits to China.”
From Here
“Oronteus Fineus was another one who drew a map of incredible precision. He too represented the Antarctic with no ice-cap, year 1532.
There are maps showing Greenland as two separate islands, as it was confirmed by a polar French expedition which found out that there is an ice cap quite thick joining what it is actually two islands.
Not only this but most of the old Greenland maps show the coastline without ice and they depict rivers in the valleys, not glaciers, suggesting this area was mapped during a warmer period of the Earth’s history – most likely during the warm period 5-7,000 years ago.”
From Here
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Siliggy: #188
April 21st, 2010 at 9:30 pm
What a good post.
I bet I know the next statement….
“Yeah but they’re NOT peer-reviewed sources. 🙂
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No it is that they are irrelevant to the discussion about the passage being open in 1903.
The canadian St Roch expedition took 2 years.
As far as I can tell at the time of the US Cutters voyage one of them, the Storis, was a blinking icebreaker.
as for the Manhattan “In 1969, the SS Manhattan made the passage, accompanied by the Canadian icebreaker Sir John A. Macdonald. The Manhattan was a specially reinforced supertanker sent to test the viability of the passage for the transport of oil. While the Manhattan succeeded, the route was deemed not to be cost effective, and the Alaska Pipeline was built instead.”
the next reference is the NE passage, not the NW passage. The only climate interest there is you’d pass Yamal Peninsula en-route.
The last reference – wow interesting, although I note apparently the antarctic had no ice cap??? are we sure that is reliable?
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” The phrase “gradually more acidic” is flat out wrong.”
less alkaline… more acidic… talk about splitting hairs.
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I’m perfectly happy with “less alkaline”, and such details do matter when presenting an idea accurately and truthfully.
You would think that by random chance articles discussing the matter would use either phrase, but what you find is the word “acid” or a very similar word gets chosen every time, probably to encourage association with acid rain. That is one of many examples of misleading people on a systematic basis. Frankly I’m fed up with it, and have resolved to start calling out such details on a regular basis until the AGW supporters start talking plain truth, rather than their usual effort of suggesting one thing, but actually meaning something else.
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You don’t think it is just because people don’t know what less alkaline/basic means? I really doubt it is just an AGW related development. my guess would be simplification for the US market.
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MattB;
By your double-talk logic, let’s compromise on “more neutral”. Equally accurate.
And as for where the carbon dioxide is going, the overwhelming sequestration locale is limestone. Rock. From the seawater. Corals. Diatoms. YCLIU.
Driven the planet into almost the lowest CO2 level in geological history, a famine.
jananma;
sequestering all the world’s CO2 in Aussie soils would be a truly perverse form of suicide, since every plant and animal and human on the planet has a body made primarily of carbon chains formed exclusively from atmospheric CO2.
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MattB I know what B stands for: Babble. The polar ice has been less than today. Period. The threat of “unprecedented ice melt” is a lie, propaganda. You argue tangents.
MW You have posted an endless supply of fear-mongering pseudoscience links. If you can’t recognize the propaganda and the “careful” selection of the most fright inducing words then go back to school. If you do recognize the propaganda and then continue to try to use them you are (as Graeme points out) lying by omission.
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Brian you say that as though a neutral ocean would be a good thing?
B is to Babble as D is to Richard.
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More acidic/less alkaline is the same argument as Global Warming/Climate Change.
This has nothing to do with peoples understanding or the US market.
Imagine my shock to read that MattB thinks it’s possible that Climate Science is being “sold” by marketers just like soda pop or KFC (Not Kemtucky Fried Chicken, just KFC)
The terms evoke images of “bad” or “unwanted”. We don’t like acid in our tummies nor on our faces, so it must be bad for the oceans.
But ofcourse the scientists (and their marketing people) know that the most diverse and populous areas of the oceans are the upwelling areas which are typically about 1 full PH less than other areas. They also know that regions of ocean/sea can have it’s PH fluctuate by more than 1 unit on a daily/weekly basis.
To say that an annual drop in PH of 0.001 to date is dangerous can only be a marketing/scare tactic.
Nobody on the alarmist side is warning of Global Cooling (not since about 1979 anyway). They only ever warn about Warming. To say that we are worried about Climate Change is just marketing speak. They wish to evoke images of a peaceful serene climate for thousands of years, along comes modern man and CHANGES it all. Affects it, alters it etc.
Both terms are disingenuous at best. Anybody with a fair mind would accept that without affecting the quality of their science argument.
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Baa-Humbug @ 83, Jamama @ 84
What our mutual friend Master Wolf fails to address is how life on earth has survived and prospered, even when the atmospheric CO2 levels have been much greater that 1000 ppm for so much of our paleohistory. Seeing that life is supposed to have evolved from a sea that contained more CO2, what is the issue? It is akin to the story of the Brer Rabbit pleading not to be cast into the briar bush – which is where he came from.
I suspect that much of Master Wolf’s bluster and bluff is designed to distract people from the inadequacies of his own arguments and to bolster his puerile ego. Once again, it are the points that the AGW crew omit that are much more significant than the points they promote.
Cheers,
Speedy
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Son of Mr Humbug, Sir.
Perhaps you can explain to me how CO2 is supposed to have a half life in the atmosphere of around 50 – 200 years (depending on what IPCC number you believe), while, at the same time, “at least” 30% of the fresh CO2 from combustion reports directly to the oceans. I’m a simple man, and readily confused.
Also. That the oceans contain about 50 times more CO2 (in tonnage terms) than the oceans. Doesn’t that make the oceans an enormous SOURCE of CO2 during global warming (which causes CO2 to be released from solution in the oceans)? If so, why doesn’t this generate an unstable climate feedback – more CO2 => higher temps / hotter oceans => more CO2 (ex solution) => higher temps / hotter oceans?
In financial terms, there’s a bit of double counting going on here. The same CO2 in the atmosphere is being demonised in the oceans – clearly it can’t be in the same place at once. The AGW mob need to look at Henry’s Law to understand where CO2 is deporting between the atmosphere and the oceans – and to realise how much “less alakaline” the oceans (in theory) would have been when the atmosphere was 8000 ppm CO2.
Cheers,
Speedy.
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MW and MB:
here is a graph from research done by USCCSP about Arctic region temperatures from the past:
http://downloads.climatescience.gov/sap/sap1-2/Plate-2-Timeline.pdf
You can download the entire report here:
http://www.globalchange.gov/publications/reports/scientific-assessments/saps/292
I apologize for referring to history as being time past and not just recorded history of European settlement. The Vikings provided evidence of warmer temperatures near the arctic region and the NSIDC admits the loss of ice in 2007 was primarily due to wind direction more so than warming. The existence of tree trunks where there is currently permafrost may be a form of evidence of a warmer period but that would only be if one understood biology!
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I’d just like to let everyone know that I refuse to respond to Brian H.
He is suggesting I drink WARM BEER oughhh!!!
I am an Australian, I can’t drink warm beer oughhh!!!
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The “Global” ocean PH balance issue is about as important as the Global” sea level issue and the “Global” temperature issue. All are NON existent. One can average regional averages and claim to understand something but statistics can provide any answer desired. When misused as it is by the climate alarmists it can provide support for otherwise pseudo science.
As some one else said Gigo was the name of the dog that ate UEA’s temperature records.
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If “Necessity” is the “Mother” of invention. Then Gigo is the mother of climate alarmism.
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Matt @ 196: B is to Babble as D is to Richard.
If you want to call me names just get it out. No need to be clever.
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“Errors” in the radiosonde date were NOT found. Instead the assumption was that the hot spots just hadn’t been found/measured, so the data was changed to fit a “theory.” And as and old upper-air guy I resent someone’s assertion that hundreds of folks all made the same “error” and missed the “hot spots.”
Maybe you can furnish a summary of the “errors” and explain why very strict QC practices failed repeatedly due to overlooked “errors” committed by multiple countries, at multiple sites, over a period of years.
The changes made to the soundings were based on wind directions by folks who didn’t even know how wind directions and speed were computed in the early decades of soundings. And if that were the case, why weren’t the “hot spots” found in later days using updated equipment and procedures for, among other items, wind and temperature measurements?
Basically it was a game that is played. It is called, “My theory is better than your measurements.” HOGWASH!
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MattB:
At #166 you assert:
Ah! That explains your many posts here: i.e. you have reading difficulties.
Richard
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OOps! 196, not 166.
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Baa @ 201:
I am sorry that you feel this way! Brian is correct and I concur that Ale is typically fermented at warm[er} temperatures than lagers, and that you are missing out on the full flavor that the brewer intended if you drink it colder than cellar temperature 12-14 C (54-57 F),
http://www.camra.org.uk/page.aspx?o=180651
That is not “warm” beer IMHO.
Your abuse of beer described earlier at 94 however is reason enough to never respond to someone (if you were a lesser person I think Mike H and me would take that route)! Think of the poor beer man! Think of the Co2 released! Oh the humanity sob sob weap.. Have you no heart? 🙂
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Mark D,
What if you don’t like the full flavor intended by the brewer? Perhaps that flavor is best suppressed by drinking it colder or, as I do, avoid drinking the bleeping stuff altogether no matter what its temperature.
The argument is about a matter of subjective personal taste. Such a taste is outside the bounds of objective proof or even support. It should be left up to personal choice. The so called experts can drowned themselves in a vat of their favorite brew at their favorite temperature for all I care.
Don’t bother pointing out that I may have never tried a really good (fill in the blank). I would be extremely unimpressed. You drink what you want to drink the way you want to drink it. I will do the same for myself.
Gasp! An actual non-drinker of beer or ale posting on an Aussie blog. Can you imagine that?
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A joke, to owners of British Leyland manufactured products:
The British drink beer warm because, Lucas makes refrigeration equipment
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Lionell, Certainly you may (and should) express your opinion, but as an example; is there not a right way to tie a neck tie (and you’d be free to experiment with your own knot), there are right and wrong sides of the highway (even though you could drive on either side), and you might prefer salt and pepper on your ice cream. Drinking beer too cold is just wrong. (you are correct though it is often to cover up the taste of a poor quality beer). Even though you don’t personally like consuming the waste products of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, surely you have to admit what Baa is guilty of (beerocide) is just not acceptable?
Brian V. As an owner of a Jaguar Luxury Sport Coupe, I can tell you that isn’t so funny….Lucas is the Prince of Darkness.
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November 2nd, 1922. Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/03/16/you-ask-i-provide-november-2nd-1922-arctic-ocean-getting-warm-seals-vanish-and-icebergs-melt/
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Good to have some of Lionels wisdom again.
Hey I drink beer usually in the summer, usually after a long days work out in the paddocks on my tractor, ONLY because it’s wet and cold and quenches my thirst and only light beer.
I have many things to say about warm beer but Lionell is right, to each his own when it comes to taste.
Beerocide, I like it, muwahahhaa
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Siliggy: @ 188
well documented, great work, still I think that pair are only here to aggravate.
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Baa Humbug:
You said back at #85:
“Water is one of the most unique substances we know of. As it cools, it contracts, as other substances do, UNTIL IT REACHES 4DegC. Once it starts to cool below 4DegC, it ACTUALLY STARTS TO EXPAND AGAIN. Hence ice floats on water, approx 1/10 above and 9/10 below waterline…
“… By the same token, the vast area from pole to pole at up to 900m depth is at about 4DegC. Now if this area was to COOL DOWN to 3 or 2DegC, then the volume of water would INCREASE with cooling.
“ There are just far too many variables affecting sea level for anybody to be able to claim that there is ‘proof’ that one thing or another causes it and by how much.”
I read that and said to myself “you know Charlie, Baa Humbug might just be onto something there.” But rather than google round on the www looking for evidence one way or another, I decided to find out directly for myself from the great book of nature.
So yesterday I performed an experiment of my own, which you can confirm if you like as it does not need any elaborate equipment. I got two identical slender empty jars (St Dalfour Black Cherry jam was in them before). They both had labels coming to identical heights, and I filled each so that the bottom of each meniscus was level with the top of each label. One I filled with salt water, which I prepared in another jar to around the salt concentration (by taste) of sea water, and the other I filled with tap water. I assumed equal starting temperatures. Then I put both into the freezer compartment of the fridge, along with a thermometer I purchased from Magnet Mart two years ago. It told me that the freezer was at -13C.
The depth in both at the start was 112 mm. I took the semi-final readings after a layer of ice about 5 mm thick had formed on the surface of the fresh water. At that stage, the fresh water had expanded to a level of 117 mm, while the salt water was still at 112 mm, with still no ice on its surface. I assumed that at that stage both jars would have been at 0C.
Then I returned both to the freezer and left them overnight, assuming that by morning the fresh water would be frozen solid, with the jar hopefully still intact. But I wanted to see what happened to the jar of salt water. This morning the salt water was still at 112 mm, and the fresh had completely solidified into ice, the top of the ice being at 124 mm. Happily, the jar had not cracked open. (I too have had that happen with bottles of beer left too long in the freezer.)
This morning I found this (first item on the Google page):
“The density of ocean water is determined by its salinity (or salt content) and temperature. The saltier and/or colder the water is, the denser it is. Salt water is most dense at its freezing point, unlike fresh water, which is most dense at about 3.9°C (39.0°F). Oceans are highly stratified: deep ocean water is heavy, and the lighter water is on top. This often is not the case in the atmosphere: warm air near the ground surface is lighter than the overlying air it displaces, resulting in unstable conditions and thunderstorms.
“The stratified, stable nature of oceans is important because otherwise there would be no sea ice , nor would there be warm tropical seas. Tropical oceans are temperature-stratified: a thermocline separates the warm, light water on top from the frigid deep waters. Polar oceans, on the other hand, are salinity-stratified: the salinity is slightly lower on top, especially in the Arctic and near the estuaries of large rivers such as the MacKenzie in Canada and the Ob in Russia. This fresh-water outflow will stay on top of the Arctic Ocean and mix only very slowly, because it is lighter. Instead of a thermocline, there is a halocline, a layer in which the salinity changes rapidly with depth. *
“Salty water freezes below 0°C (32°F): this is why salt is used to melt the snow or ice on a road pavement. The saltier the brine , the lower its freezing point. This is also why salt traditionally was added to the water–ice mixture used to make ice cream.
“Ocean water with a typical salinity of 35 parts per thousand freezes only at −1.8°C (28.9°F). So if there were no halocline in the polar oceans, then the cooled top ocean layer, being denser, would sink into the deep ocean, in the same way as thunderstorm clouds rise in the atmosphere, and the entire ocean column would have to cool to −1.8°C before its surface could freeze.”
(http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Re-St/Sea-Water-Freezing-of.html )
I conclude that either my thermometer was out to lunch or I had too much salt in the salt water. But that does not alter my conclusion: if the ocean levels are rising, it is because the oceans are warming; cooling can be ruled out.
So what is doing the warming? Well, the Precautionary Principle (not well liked around this site, I admit) recommends that we assume that it is human-generated greenhouse gases until it’s proven otherwise. I know the PP has its downside: some have even been led to believe that it is self-contradictory and self-defeating. No self-respecting principle should ever do that to people.
But that’s not the worst of it. For the last 6 days it has kept the skies of Europe clear of aircraft and has cost the airlines a mint. Some around here I know would have recommended that the planes keep flying regardless. Monckton would have joined in the chorus I’m sure. Probably from a hot air balloon.
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MattB @ 191
It’s not splitting hairs. it doesn’t become acidic till it drops below 7. Pigs will fly before that happens.
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Charlie: #215
April 22nd, 2010 at 7:53 am
Hey Chuck, thnks for the detailed reply. Informative.
My conjecture was just that, a conjecture (now beaten by a jam jar)
There goes my hopes of some research dollars.
So if salt water is most dense at freezing point (-2DegC) then a block of salty ice would sink in water? Can salt be frozen in ice?
I guess the moral of the story is “add salt to your beer before putting it in the freezer”
But seriously, a good post Chuck. Thnx
I still contend that far too many variables involve sea levels and far too many uncertainties in measuring sea levels, especially at the (x)millimetre per year levels
Don’t start me on the PP Please. We all take precautions, even Monckton, but I doubt he cracks peanuts with a sledgehammer.
Regards your jibe at Monckton, that was unnecessary. Do you know what his thoughts are on the current airways closure?
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Wow, a lot of responses. Some of them not too rude.
Rod@235,
I posted this reference for Roy Spencer/John Christy admitting they had the measurements wrong, previously. I assume Roy Spencer and John Christy are crebible to you. If you read the article you’ll notice that they haven’t changed their opinion on whether the hot spot was found or not though.
Baa Humbug @ 183,
I think reference you are talking about is the on @ michaelw 178. I have gone to Wikipedia at this page and found the link is reference number [13] at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately I can only see the abstract. I also can’t comment on how well understood the science is. The IPCC reports include a “level of scientific understanding” (LOSU) scale, and are quite transparent about how much (in their assessment at least) scientific understanding there is. I’ll need to look into the LOSU for the carbon cycle at some point.
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In USAF survival school they said that floating ice was NOT salty. I don’t think they made that up, but fortunately I was never in a situation to put it to a test despite many, many hours over the arctic.
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Sea ice is not salty.
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Baa Humbug:
An enthusiastic review of Monckton’s book ‘APOCALYPSE? NO! Why global warming is not a crisis’ has written: “Monckton reserves his most scathing comments for the precautionary principle as a (moral) justification for taking action against the human carbon dioxide ‘scourge’. This principle holds that if there is uncertainty about cause and effect it’s better to be sure than sorry. He examines two such well-intentioned applications of the principle in the last half century that have been unmitigated disasters…” (http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2008/aug2008p17_2873.html )
From that and what I know of Monckton, I would say my assessment was fair, and would argue that to be consistent Monckton would have to have opposed the recent suspension of aircraft movements in Europe.
There are many old sayings that sum it up: when in doubt, err on the side of caution; better to be sure than sorry; fools rush in where angels fear to tread; etc. The tobacco companies had their own version of it of course: better to be sure (of our profits) than sorry (about those who die of lung cancer, emphysema and chronic bronchitis). I have no doubt that some fossil carbon companies are saying much the same today.
As for salt and beer: take the screw top off each warm stubby, add a heaped teaspoon of salt, and screw the top back on before it fizzes away to nothing. Then place in freezer and crack open the whisky while you wait. Later, return to the freezer and start on the beer. Provided you’ve had enough whisky, you won’t taste the salt.
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Michael Webster #218
Thank you for the reference, it was very interesting. I will not argue that our instrumentation was dead accurate, but finding “errors” is another matter. I would point out that that the normal times for RAOBS are, and always have been, 00Z and 12Z, and that therefore not all runs around the globe were equally affected by sunlight. But the “hot spots” don’t show up on night runs either. Also, the instruments are subject to rising underneath, through, and around clouds, precip, humid layers, cloud shadows, inversions, and jet streams. Trying to determine if the sun affected it, or how much, especially years after the fact seems to be a very slippery proposition to me.
I can’t get back to the article without registering with the NYT Times, but the hot spots were NOT found. The question is, were they there?
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That is friggin brilliant! Saves the beer, solves the “hot thirsty (low sodium)” issue and by Jiminy introduces whiskey….You Da Man!! Seriously, does this actually work? 🙂
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Baa Humbug @184,
Unfortunately I can’t remember the exact equation (or find it again) that I saw for radiative forcing. I’ll see if I can guess a version and explain it though.
The Earth’s Energy Flux is the difference between the amount of incident (solar) energy entering the atmosphere, and the amount of energy radiating out of the atmosphere. I’ll call this S in the equation. Obviously you want S to be 0 otherwise the Earth is heating (S >0) or cooling (S < 0).
The radiative forcing equation (I'm not sure its called that) is:
delta S = x * delta F – delta T
where:
– delta S is the change in energy flux at the atmospheric boundary. See: Earths Energy Budget.
– delta F is the radiative forcing. See: Radiative Forcing.
– delta T is the change in (surface?) temperature of the Earth.
From the above it appears that if the radiative forcing (delta F) increases, the energy flux S into the atmosphere becomes positive and the earth is Warming.
In order to get the energy flux back into balance (ie. 0), delta T has to increase.
In any case, I’ve just thought an analogy is a better explanation.
Place an iron ball into a fire. If you take it out from time to time, you will notice that it gets warmer as time moves on. Whiles it is warming, it is actually absorbing more energy from the fire than it is radiating. Eventually the ball stops getting hotter. This is because T has increased to the point where the ball is radiating exactly the same amount of energy as it is receiving from the fire.
Anyhow, hope I’ve explained it ok.
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Rod @222,
thanks for looking at the article. I can only say that I have heard both sides of the story, and I can’t make an honest claim either way. There is so much detail and data to this debate that it would probably take anyone many years to become confident about their conclusions.
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Baa Humbug @184,
The saturation I am talking about is similar to the saturation of salt or sugar in water. You get to a point where you can’t dissolve any more of it. Unfortunately I can’t give you more information than that.
Different amounts of CO2 can be dissolved in water at different temperatures. For example I think heating the oceans actually causes them to release CO2 – one of the positive feebacks for climate change.
The saturation talked about in the atmosphere is a different type of saturation – ie. where adding additional CO2 to the atmosphere will not increase the amount of absorbed radiation. Thats more complex too though.
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Michael Webster @ 143:
I would like to know what happens to the heat energy when the above claimed “flow” is “reduced” in the “bands usually absorbed by Co2”? could you explain in detail?
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Mark D @227,
Unfortunately you are asking the question that is often cited from Trenberth – “at the moment we can’t account for the lack of warming and that is a travesty”, or something like that.
So I definately can’t give detail. What I can say is that the energy budget calculations that Trenberth does, try to account for the additional energy that is measured as not radiating from Earth by looking at warmings of the ocean, the land and various levels of the atmosphere.
There are several possibilities. Possibly the warming is occuring where it is not well measured. Possibly there are un-examined heat syncs. Possibly it is radiating out to space in some way that is not detected in the measurements.
I hope that these questions that are being well investigated.
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Rod Smith:
In the freezing of seawater, the salt separates out, leaving nearly salt-free ice floating on the surface, and more concentrated salt water underneath it, which then proceeds to sink, and goes on to contribute to the circulating thermohaline currents in the oceans. So I think you would have been able to survive by using sea ice for your (fairly) fresh water source if you had needed to. I would expect that a plastic bottle full of seawater placed in a freezer would only part freeze, as the frozen out brine I expect would become too salty to freeze. But I haven’t tried it.
The Wikipedia article on water puts it as follows:
“The density of water is dependent on the dissolved salt content as well as the temperature of the water. Ice still floats in the oceans, otherwise they would freeze from the bottom up. However, the salt content of oceans lowers the freezing point by about 2 °C and lowers the temperature of the density maximum of water to the freezing point. That is why, in ocean water, the downward convection of colder water is not blocked by an expansion of water as it becomes colder near the freezing point. The oceans’ cold water near the freezing point continues to sink. For this reason, any creature attempting to survive at the bottom of such cold water as the Arctic Ocean generally lives in water that is 4 °C colder than the temperature at the bottom of frozen-over fresh water lakes and rivers in the winter.[clarification needed]
“As the surface of salt water begins to freeze (at −1.9 °C for normal salinity seawater, 3.5%) the ice that forms is essentially salt free with a density approximately equal to that of freshwater ice. This ice floats on the surface and the salt that is ‘frozen out’ adds to the salinity and density of the seawater just below it, in a process known as brine rejection. This denser saltwater sinks by convection and the replacing seawater is subject to the same process. This provides essentially freshwater ice at −1.9 °C on the surface. The increased density of the seawater beneath the forming ice causes it to sink towards the bottom. On a large scale, the process of brine rejection and sinking cold salty water results in ocean currents forming to transport such water away from the pole. One potential consequence of global warming is that the loss of Arctic ice could result in the loss of these currents as well, which could have unforeseeable consequences on near and distant climates.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Properties_of_water
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MarkD @ 223:
“Seriously, does this actually work?”
In theory, yes. But I’ve never actually tried it.
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Michael Webster: #224
April 22nd, 2010 at 1:24 pm
That’s not the explanation I was looking for.
Did I give you the impression that I knew nothing about the earths energy budget?
What you said in full was…
If the heating stops, it can’t be a “runaway” can it? In making these sorts of claims, you need to back them up with something solid that in the least gets us thinking.
So when I asked “please explain the above”, I was expecting an explanation on what STOPS the warming.
A reasonable expectation when one suggests a positive feedback coupled with a runaway effect. The planet has been around for over 4B yrs. Has had the current continental configuration for millions of years. Not once has it experienced a “runaway” warming as your claim suggests it should have, unless ofcourse you are aware of a mechanism that stops this runaway.
Other than nuclear fusion, can you give me one example of a runaway positive feedback (or a positive feedback loop if you will) which exists in the known universe?
I’m surmising that what you tried to explain in the paragraph I backquoted was just “positive feedback” and not “runaway greenhouse”
Am I right?
00
Janama, #144.
Thank you immensely for the link confirming that increasing atmospheric CO2 causes ocean acidification, the erroneous point of Ms. Nova’s that I was addressing.
Quoting your linked article:
as well as
and the concluding section
What a great article to find and post on the Web site of the author of the “The Skeptical Handbook”!!! My thanks again, and thanks for visiting my site as well.
Some other comments:
Tel #192
“becoming less alkaline” is the process of acidification. It would still be acidification if the seawater pH was 11, instead of 8.2 or so. Science doesn’t need to preserve your sensibilities and call it “reverse alkalinization”.
Baa Humbug, #183
The 30% absorption number comes from the research of Sabine and Feely (and numerous colleagues) already posted here.
http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/feel2331/anthropogenic.shtml has got a total (near the end).
More information:
How long can the ocean slow global warming?
Ocean Acidification: ‘Evil Twin’ Threatens World’s Oceans, Scientists Warn
Quote:
“Future acidification depends on how much CO2 humans emit from here on — but by the year 2100 various projections indicate that the oceans will have acidified by a further 0.3 to 0.4 pH units, which is more than many organisms like corals can stand,” Prof. Hoegh-Guldberg says.
Speedy, #198:
Prithee, when did the formation of dolomite stop, and why? There are vast mountain ranges composed of dolomite which was once sediment in the oceans, and yet in modern-day oceans, it is not forming anywhere.
The simplistic answer: the chemistry of the oceans was different millions of years ago! Except at times which in the fossil record are exemplified by mass extinctions, the oceans were basically stable. Life adapts and it is easy to adapt and thrive under conditions that are stable over millions of years. Extinctions and biome shifts happen when conditions change rapidly, and organism populations cannot adapt or evolve to keep up.
Speedy, #199:
The oceans are currently a slight sink for CO2; as they warm and more CO2 becomes dissolved in surface waters, the sink becomes less strong (and may eventually reverse), but it hasn’t yet. You may ask why: the answer is ocean circulation. In the areas where the air-sea flux of CO2 is into the oceans, the water is cold, and it sinks, taking the CO2 with it. CO2 degasses in warm tropical waters. The current balance is such that more CO2 is going into the oceans than is being released.
Michael Webster and Baa Humbug, #226:
For one thing, see my replies to Speedy up above. Oceanic surface waters are supersaturated 5-6x with respect to calcite. The oceans take up CO2 from the atmosphere in windy and cold areas, where the water sinks to the deep abyss, where the water is undersaturated with respect to all forms of CaCO3. That’s how the oceans can currently keep absorbing CO2, even though in the warm areas of the ocean the flux is reversed, i.e., CO2 is being released. Saturation of the sink means that the net effect of all these processes changes such that the oceans cease net absorption of CO2 and become a source to the atmosphere. Combining the effects of warming and acidification will probably eventually lead to this situation. So when using the term “saturate” as was done in the post, it’s not the same as chemical saturation, even though the saturation state of ocean waters with respect to CaCO3 is one aspect of the overall computation.
If you need me to explain, I can start pointing to references with diagrams. Feely and Sabine’s supplied citations cover a lot of this topic.
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Michael Webster: #226
April 22nd, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Thats quite easy to find out. If the oceans couldn’t take up anymore CO2, then the atmospheric concentration of CO2 wouldn’t fluctuate so much from season to season or even day to night. But we know that it does. The Mauna Lua observatory charts (unsmoothed) show these variations quite clearly.
On a related matter, if the oceans were saturated, then there can’t be an “ocean acidification” problem. We can pump whatever amount into the air we like, none of it will get into the oceans???
But we are told that 30% of our emissions are being absorbed by the oceans. (causing the worry of acidification)
ps regards the following at #182
Billions upon billions of phytoplankton die and sink into the depths, carrying with them the carbon they seperated from CO2 by way of photosyntheses. A major major sink.
In fact a very new paper suggests that Baleen Whales faeces contains a million times more iron than the water they live in, making the faeces an important providor of the necessary iron for phytoplankton photosynthesis, hence the importance of saving Baleen Whales.
00
Baa Humbug,
I answered your question I believe. But now that you rephrase it, the runaway effect is where extra positive feebacks continue to feed the heating. There is a point where heating stops because the temperature and therefore the radiation of the Earth balances the incoming solar radiation, despite the radiative forcing. Think of the iron ball in the fire I described earlier.
In any case I believe you misinterpret what is meant by a runaway greenhouse effect. In the current case, the climate scientists might speculate that on the basis of current CO2 emissions, the Earth is due for a 3C rise this century. Then there is a possibility that after a small amount of that warming the Ocean Clathrates start to be released, and we suddenly have a 10C rise over the century due to the additional methane.
That is what is meant by runaway. It in no way suggests infinite energy is able to be manufactured by changes in the Earths atmosphere. The changes in the Earth’s atmosphere just lead to some additional absorption of Solar radiation. The Runaway effect is just an effect where even our limite control of CO2 emissions goes out the window because we’ve caused a positive (but not infinitely positive) feedback to occur.
Sorry you were already familiar with the Energy budget. It took quite a lot of effort to write that.
00
Baa Humbug (@ 231): I don’t think anyone seriously suggests that what is often referred to as ‘runaway climate change’ would go on forever. But such could conceivable go on, and for long enough to do an awful lot of damage; like what happened in the end-Permian when about 90% of all species died out. Quckly; that is, over a mere few thousand years.
“Other than nuclear fusion, can you [Michael W.] give me one example of a runaway positive feedback (or a positive feedback loop if you will) which exists in the known universe?”
Some Australian bushfires (eg Canberra 2003) fall into that category. Likewise plagues, eg rabbits, prickly pear in Australia. Some infectious diseases (eg gangrene) likewise.
The worst of the lot to date of course has been rap music.
00
Baa Humbug @233,
thanks for the info about the phytoplankton. Others also pointed out other carbon sinks I think.
Oakden Wolf clearly has more understanding than me of absorption of CO2 by the oceans, so I might check out some of his links.
00
Michael Webster: 234
April 22nd, 2010 at 3:37 pm
With all due respect, I have not misinterpreted. I did not choose the term “runaway” Runaway means it goes on and on until something stops it. A runaway truck down a hill will eventually stop because it’ll hit something or lose momentum due to gravity etc, these are negative feedbacks.
In claiming that there can be a “runaway” warming, but limited to..say your figure of 10DegC, we must know what stops it at that level. Do we? Do you? Otherwise the earth would have to warm until it reaches the approximate day time temp of the Moon (similar enough distance from the sun)
This has NEVER happened in the history of this planet. To claim a runaway affect in a system as complicated, as full of both positive and negative feedbacks as our climate is, one needs to show how and when this runaway is stopped by negative feedbacks. Otherwise it’s a conjecture or hypothesis at best, hardly worth getting our knickers in a knot over.
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Charlie: #235
April 22nd, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Chuck none of the above are examples of a positive feedback loop, though in the case of rap music I’ll make an exception and relax the laws of physics 🙂
00
Baa Humbug,
the warming is stopped once the temperature rises to the point that the radiation balance is restored.
You do not need negative feebacks.
To use a similar analogy to the runaway truck down the hill, if you fall out of a plane, do you continue accelerating, or do you hit terminal velocity?
You hit terminal velocity because the amount of force that you use to push through the air is proportional to your velocity and increases as you go faster until the up force balances with gravitation.
In any case I believe you are mis-interpreting runaway. One more attempt at an analogy.
You push a shopping cart, and it moves forward but always decelerating because you are on level ground. You push it again, and it moves forward, but goes over the lip of a hill and starts careening down the hill. You might call that a runaway shopping cart because a second force started acting on it that was separate to the initial force you supplied.
I think it is simply this that is meant by runaway in the climage change sense.
00
Michael Webster: #239
April 22nd, 2010 at 4:56 pm
No Michael, in a positive feedback loop, there has to be a negative feedback to stop the runaway. e.g.
Add GHG-causes warming-causes more GHG-causes more warming-causes more ghg-causes…tell me when to stop.
As I stated before, in this scenario, the earth will reach radiative balance when it’s temp at the top of atmosphere reaches that of the moon at day time, because that is the amount of energy available to the planet from the sun.
Now something in the climate system stops these positive feedbacks before that happens. We know because there has been ample time for this to happen in the past, but it hasn’t happened.
Again I ask, what has stopped this from happening? Do you know?
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Michael Webster: #239
April 22nd, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Just a quick addition.
You use the falling from the plane analogy. The up-force is the negative feedback.
In the shopping trolley analogy, the trolly doesn’t go on and on forever, just like my truck analogy, it either hits something or loses monentum due to friction and gravity, these are the negative feedbacks.
If you believe (or anyone else believes) that the earths temp. could rise by 10DegC due to positive feedbacks, then you must know what will stop it at that 10DegC level. Reaching radiation balance ain’t it.
A body can reach radiation balance at any level, it all depends on the source of the warmth. 1Wm2 or 100Wm2 or 1000Wm2 for that matter.
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Baa Humbug
What stops a positive feedback situation from going runaway? Possibly negative feedbacks but also that the positive feedbacks diminish in intensity as the effect grows. For example, the logarithmic nature of CO2’s impact means that as levels grow the impact of additional CO2 diminishes. As permafrost melts it releases Methane. Once the permafrost has completely melted, methane release will taper off. As temperatures rise, Ice sheets melt, changing Albedo. But they can’t produce any more Albedo change once they are completely melted.
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Glenn Tamblyn: #242
April 22nd, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Perfect, thankyou Glenn, spot on. There IS negative feedbacks in the system. And yes you are absolutely spot on regards the logarithmic affect of CO2.
So this begs the $64,000 question. At what point do these negative feedbacks stop the positive loop? Who says and why it is at a 10DegC rise or any amount “unprecedented” in the planets history?
Some hard fast facts would be good. Computer models don’t cut it.
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Its interesting that Jo likes to use the missing upper Troposphere Hotspot as evidence against AGW, without commenting on the fact that the very dsagrams she is showing also show one of the strongest bits of evidence FOR AGW caused by increased GH Gases – Stratospheric Cooling.
Here is a list of predictions expected from AGW – Global Warming caused by GH Gases:
1. General Gloabsl Warming – Observed
2. Startospheric Cooling – Observed
3. More Surface warming at Night – Observed
4. More Surface warming in Winter – Observed
5. Increased absorbtion of Outgoing Longwave Radiation in the absorption bands of the GH gases – Observed
6. Overall increase in Brightness Temperature in OLR as a consequence of warming – Observed
7. Increase in Downwelling Longwave Radiation in the absorption bands of the GH Gases – Observed
8. Greater warming in Polar Regions – Observed in North, Not in South
9. Upper Tropospheric Hot Spot – Not Observed.
7 1/2 out of 9 ain’t bad.
Lack of warming in the southern polar region has been ascribed to increased circum-polar Gyre winds blocking the Antarctic continent from being influenced by weather from further north, due to the impact og the Ozone Hole. Maybe 8 out of 9
The Climate modellers freely admit that they have a problem in their models wrt to this. But remember this prediction is the most complex and detail dependent aspect of the predictions. Air flow behaviour rather than radiative behaviour dominates this aspect of prediction. But if the warming was say due to the sun then many of the earlier predictions wouldn’t be coming true either.
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Baa Humbug (@238-241):
As far as I can ascertain, there have only been two periods in the Earth’s biological history when the mean temperature exceeded 25C, and in each case only briefly and in association with a major extinction event. (http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm )
My guess is that the damper that kicks in is atmospheric water vapour. Get enough of it into the air and the clouds become abundant and thick enough so they block out the sun sufficiently to prevent further rise. A negative feedback there.
Practically any global satellite inmage ( eg today’s at http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDX1374.shtml ) shows a concentration of cloud in the tropics: an indicator of what might take place more widely when the climate gets really hot.
However there are many indicators that a quick transition to a hothouse Earth would spell disaster for many species and for Homo sapiens in particular.
All positive feedback loops terminate sooner or later. Their defining characteristic is self-amplification while they are in process. Even those that give rise to supernovae switch off after a few weeks or months.
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Baa Humbug,
I still stick to my radiation balance point.
The forcing from CO2 or anything else can be completely unchanged. The change is that the Earth warms and radiates more energy, and that is what restores the balance.
Once again think of the Iron ball in the fire. What is the negative feedback there that stops the warming. The answer is there is not one. It simply gets so hot that it is emitting the same amount of energy as it receives.
PS. Perhaps there is a negative feedback in the iron ball, maybe to do with some heat theory I don’t understand, but I don’t think it is necessary for the point I’m making.
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Charlie: #245
April 22nd, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Well that’s great Chuck, your guess is as good as anyones at the moment. A guess may be classified as a conjecture or possibly a hypothesis, but certainly not a theory or law.
If we don’t know what “kicks in” when and why, then we don’t know enough. I’m sure you’ll agree.
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Michael Webster: #246
April 22nd, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Michael you’re not responding to me. YES I’ve thought about the iron ball. It will eventually reach the T of the fire it’s in. No negative feedbacks. Now look at our system, the energy from the sun reaching the top of atmosphere is the fire, the earth is the iron ball. Do you expect the earth could reach the level of energy at the top of atmosphere? If yes, how? what level of GHG’s will cause this?
If not, then what stops the rise in energy, why does it stop and when?
Chuck gave it a shot (kudos to Chuck) by guessing that it may be WV. It may well be, there is almost limitless amounts in the oceans, which means his guess warrants further thought.
But I asked you what you think stops the warming? Why? When? Any examples from earths past? How relevant are the examples given the different structure of the continents etc etc
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Baa Humbug (@ 247) “If we don’t know what ‘kicks in’ when and why, then we don’t know enough. I’m sure you’ll agree.”
I certainly do. Knowledge is never final. But some hypotheses look better than others. The most crook-looking is the assumption that business-as-usual is sustainable, and will run into no negative feedbacks. If political action does not turn GW around, then nature herself probably will.
But I’m not sure you’ll agree.
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Chuck I’m at work running back and forth, so can’t always respond in a timely F.
I’m doubtful any political legistlation will alter our climate to any measurable degree.
I do agree nature will.
Regards looks of hypothesis: looks can be deceiving. A hypothesis must be treated as just that, a hypothesis.
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Let’s check a dictionary:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/acidification
“To make or become acid”
Hmmm, BZZZT! fail on that one, none of the oceans are acid, there is no acid being made.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acidification
“to make acid, to convert into an acid”
Failed again it would seem.
Then you start pretending that science is somehow on your side with this one. So do some research and see where the word “acidification” gets used — all of it environmentalists. Regular chemists don’t even use the word “acidification” it was a word invented for environmentalists to describe acid rain. So let’s look at an actual chemistry dictionary here:
http://www.chemistry-dictionary.com/definition/acidification.php
Which is exactly a description of acid rain. There is nothing remotely scientific about using this to describe a calcium carbonate reaction. It is just plain misleading and I’ll once again repeat, AGW supporters can never tell the plain truth… every single time, twisty, tricksy, and slippery they wriggle around with half truth and almost truth but that’s all that comes out of them.
It has nothing to do with my sensibility and everything to do with honesty.
The whole “Ocean Acidification” blanket advertising is an attempt to create an association between CO2 and acid rain. In reality it has nothing to do with acid and everything to do with calcium, and no one has yet shown that the oceans are actually running short of calcium.
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Rod #205;
Yes, the belabored “windy” explanations for the discounting of hundreds of careful detailed measurements are classic. There can be no finer example of the discounting and denigration of data by the pseudo-scientist Warmists.
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Charlie #215;
The problem with the PP at this time seems to be who is using it, and how. It is surely not just a coincidence that the ash model that shut down Europe’s airspace for most of a week was on the CRU computer. Other models and physical observation, such as it was, had the cloud restricted to a couple of large patches in the North Atlantic. Test flights over and around Europe by cargo planes had no problems whatsoever.
PP update: assume that any assertion out of CRU is a 180° truth-reversal, and act on its opposite.
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Charlie @249;
Watch the wording. You implicitly presume GW is happening, and that it is AGW, and that human behavior can change it. Not only are none of those established, even the Kyoto-Copenhagen protocols at their most vigorous only claim to have fractions of a degree effect over the next century. Which makes them an inane misdirection of resources, coincidentally into the hands of agencies and institutions who are generating the models and trying to pass them off as actual information and “proof” their enlightened humanity-saving rigorously enforced oversight is necessary, and needs a few trillion $$ in urgent (but permanent and involuntary universal) funding.
Thanks, but no thanks.
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Baa Humbug #250;
There are 3 stages to acceptance or otherwise of a statement in science:
Speculation (a model with no testing done or proposed)
Hypothesis (model that generates testable predictions, some of which may have been checked)
Law (statement that has passed all tests proposed or performed, with no failures or exceptions found).
GW and AGW don’t qualify as hypotheses, because they haven’t offered any “falsification” tests proponents are prepared to stand behind, and their “projections” have failed in many respects (e.g., Hot Spot) without any acknowledgment that such failures are meaningful, much less fatal (as they in fact are.)
So let’s use proper terminology and call them the GW and AGW Speculations.
As for “Climate Change”, since there is no such thing as a steady-state climate, it’s tautological double-talk, and doesn’t even qualify as a Speculation.
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Re: my #255 above — I should really have Theory in between Hypothesis and Law, as in the Theory of Special Relativity. It has had considerable validation, but can’t be reconciled in detail with some aspects of quantum mechanics, so isn’t yet called a Law.
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There is one other aspect to feedback that seems to have been ignored in this debate so far. So here comes something from left field. Hold on to your hats!
There is a pessimistic saying attributed to Murphy amongst analogue electronics people.
“Amplifiers will oscillate but oscillators won’t”.
Think about this in regards to “runaway” and “tipping point”. The earth has a thermal time constant. So what happens if the gain of any positive feedback ever gets above 1(100%)?
For those who did not get that what about a CO2 oscillation? Imagine that the elevated CO2 feeds up plants, trees, algae and phytoplanktons etc. Then the seas are hit simultaneously with extra low solar activity, nutrients from floods, nutrients from dust storms and nutrients from volcanic eruptions. Could demand for CO2 exceed supply until the plummeting CO2 levels kill the demand and us all?
If there is a natural cycle could a feedback gain of less than one still increase the amplitude of the natural oscillation? If humans have increased CO2 while it was also in the upward part of a pre existing reasonant cycle then could decreasing CO2 output in the downward part add to the amplitude of the oscillation?
Where does that leave the precautionary principle?
I hope there are large linear negative feedbacks.
Lance Pidgeon
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BrianH #255
I refer you to my list at #244. Predictions of AGW as a result of increased GH Gas activity. Prediction & Observation
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Michael Webster@170,
You never responded, so I’ll repeat my request:
I am waiting for you to admit that your views on the northwest passage being only opened up in 2007 due to global warming were utterly incorrect and that the source which fed you this lie has misled you and many other people on this matter. If you could name your source for this lie, that would probably be quite good also.
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Brian H (@ 254): “You implicitly presume GW is happening, and that it is AGW, and that human behavior can change it. Not only are none of those established…”
I said there: “…Knowledge is never final. But some hypotheses look better than others. The most crook-looking is the assumption that business-as-usual is sustainable, and will run into no negative feedbacks. If political action does not turn GW around, then nature herself probably will.”
That the planet is warming is as safe an assumption (given rising sea levels) as anyone can make, and a helluva lot safer than going the other way in the interest of the sectional lobbies behind business-as-usual; as I explain in other comments I have made on this thread. It does not surprise me in the slightest that such people and their most energetic supporters are against the Precautionary Principle. (A disclosure here: I own BHP and other resource stocks.)
Likewise given rising seas (as strong an indication that we are likely to get that GW is happening) it is far safer IMHO to assume that it is AGW rather than than natural GW. If I am wrong, then my grandchildren will say someday “silly old Grandpa; all that fuss over nothing.” But in the highly probable event that the climate ‘skeptics’ turn out to be wrong, their grandchildren will probably be less generous. As they sweat life out.
On the CRU emails, you might care to have a look at Monbiot’s interesting debate with Steve Easterbrook at http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/04/08/debate-with-steve-easterbrook/
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Tel @ 186:
and the followup @ 251:
Very well said! I can offer this additional observation; when reading “gradually more acidic” the reader is placed at the starting point that the ocean is acid already. A slight-of-hand statement that most editors in MSM would not get. More propaganda. The defense of this kind of untruth (as shown here by our warmist friends) is lets say…..Despicable!
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The precautionary principle as it is being applied to AGW is self contradictory. The measures being proposed as a precaution clearly involve unacceptably high levels of socio-economic risk as well as severe threats to food production. Imposing a high level near term risk to avoid a more distant less certain one is not a precaution. It is more like amputating healthy limbs to avoid the risk of breaking them in a future fall.
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Walter Stark (@ 262): “The measures being proposed as a precaution clearly involve unacceptably high levels of socio-economic risk as well as severe threats to food production.” Well, they are clearly unacceptable to some.
Much the same was said by some English people in the 1930s against those in favour of rearmament against the rising tide of Hitlerism. Understandably, those naysayers have not had much of a press since.
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MadJak @259,
I would be happy to admit what you request, except for the fact that the reference you provided showed nothing of the kind. In fact in what you post, Amundsen was stuck in ice for 3 years as was pointed out to you. Other navigations were performed with the aid of ice breakers.
Here is some more information that seems to confirm what I am saying:
Northwest_Passage.
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Charlie,
You say, “Well, they are clearly unacceptable to some.”
Did you actually mean acceptable instead of unacceptable?
However, the main point remains, the precautionary principle prohibits risk taking, so the preventive measures being proposed are unacceptable if we are to follow its prescription.
On your last point, do you think WWII would have been avoided or shortened if England had begun an arms race with Germany in the 1930’s?
Rarely do threats manifest as expected. Attempts at preemptive action tend to be misdirected and wasteful. Often, watchful waiting until the nature and magnitude of a threat become clear can be the most effective response.
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Baa Humbug @248,
Ok. I think the basic point is the Earth must emit as much energy as it receives from the sun. If it emits less the Earth is warming. If it emits more (in the absence of nuclear fusion or some such thing) it is cooling.
All energy that enters the Earth’s atmosphere must pass through the top boundary of the atmosphere (wherever that is). Similarly all energy that exit’s the Earth’s atmosphere must escape through the top boundary of the atmosphere.
If the Earth is warming, the amount of energy that is radiated from the Earth is less than the amount received. The Earth must heat in order to restore the balance. Increasing the temperature increases the radiation passing out through the atmospheric boundary. T increases until the balance is restored.
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Walter Starck @265,
sorry to butt in, but on the point of England joining an arms race with Germany and whether it would have shortened the 2nd World War, I’m pretty certain it would have.
On the other hand, despite England’s poor armament and training, they would have also needed France (at least) to update.
One of the key problems was that the German’s had embraced mechanised warfare in a way that none of the other armies had at the time. Additionally the command structure of the French in particular was vastly inferior to the autonomy that the individual German army groups had.
In any case, the Allies were vastly underprepared for the War when it came, and this was negligent on the part of their political leaders – though understandable for democratic countries that were weary of war.
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Walter Stark (@ 265): “Rarely do threats manifest as expected. Attempts at preemptive action tend to be misdirected and wasteful. Often, watchful waiting until the nature and magnitude of a threat become clear can be the most effective response.”
I’m sure that’s true in a limited number of situations. However, it is also an argument against vaccination, plant and animal quarantine, fire alarms, smoke detectors, and even driving on the correct side of the road. The captain of the Titanic by that line of reasoning should have stood down his iceberg lookouts. Come to think of it, he might as well have.
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I find it quite staggering that Madjak has the gall to say to Michael
“I am waiting for you to admit that your views on the northwest passage being only opened up in 2007 due to global warming were utterly incorrect and that the source which fed you this lie has misled you and many other people on this matter.”
The reply in 264 is spot on.
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Michael Webster @228
With reference to the missing heat on Pilkie snr blog there is a series of interesting exchanges between Trenberth, Pilkie and Willis, based on these comments it seems that the most likely explanation is that there is no missing heat.
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allen mcmahon @228,
I’ll look into that – I haven’t been to Snr’s blog.
I’ve certainly heard Trenberth being quite flexible about the issue in the past (a couple of years ago), I’m not sure if he has made progress in getting more certainty however.
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Webster and MattB
Is it your claim that Arctic ice is at an unprecedented low today?
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Mark D,
no, the claim is that it has increased since 2007, but is nowhere near back to 1979 levels.
The page I am looking at includes this statement:
So it is above the record low, but still well below the average.
Btw: The link is: here.
There also appears to be significant evidence of thinning of the ice in the Arctic, from which one could conclude that sea ice extent and Arctic Ice mass are not completely correlated.
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Jo Nova: You state right at the masthead of this thread: “This [threadstarter] is a copy. It begs the question. Dr Glikson, is an Earth and paleo-climate scientist at the Australian National University. He’s paid to give us both sides of the story.”
No. He’s not paid to do any such thing, though an obligation to give both sides of the story woulod be upon him if he was a TV journalist interviewing politicians. As a research scientist his only real obligation is to advance research in the specific projects allocated to him in his field.
One interpretation of the above is that the taxpayer is not getting value for money, and maybe Glikson should be disciplined or even sacked. My own opinion as a taxpayer is that he gives us excellent value for our money.
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Mark D. No. Where have I given you that impression? I am happy with the NSIDC website’s opinion on Arctic sea ice extent.
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Charlie,
The examples you provide all involve clearly known risks and countermeasures which are cheap, effective and themselves pose negligible risk. There in a quantum of difference between employing known solutions to known risks and trying to apply theoretical solutions to hypothetical ones. The former is assessable and achievable the later is unquantifiable and infinite.
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Michael Webster: Nasa are happy to only show March, however on the Japanese site you get all the months and April 2010 has been the largest sea ice extent since the IJIS started measuring (only 8 years). Nasa don’t want to talk about any ice in April, all part of their policy of what you think they are saying is not what they are actually saying.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
As for the “ice thinning” business, just another exercise in moving goalposts. Climate scientists take their averages over 30 years but change their methodology every 6 months.
Why has the arctic ice peak moved from March to April? How are you going to use CO2 to explain this?
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Walter: An interesting reply.
1. “The examples you provide all involve clearly known risks and countermeasures which are cheap, effective and themselves pose negligible risk.” I disagree. A major economic battle is looming in Australia of free trade vs plant quarantine, which is going to be very costly if it turns into a trade war. Re climate: according to Nicholas Stern’s analysis of the economic costs of countermeasures to cut back greenhouse gas emissions to levels recommended by the IPCC, the money costs will be reasonable if the nations get into dealing with the CO2 early, but will mount if the measures are delayed. Delay seems to be the political choice being made, leaving it to the next few generations to foot the mounting bill.
2. “There i[s] a quantum of difference between employing known solutions to known risks and trying to apply theoretical solutions to hypothetical ones.” Much of the concern in the climatological community arises because the envisaged situations arising out of high atmospheric CO2 concentrations are pretty well written in the geological record. We are not talking of invading Martians here. Evidence comes not just from the Earth’s rocks but also from other planets. (What got James Hansen concerned was his (early) work for NASA on Venus. In rough terms, the more CO2 a planet has in its atmosphere, the hotter it will get.) Reduce CO2 emissions and you reduce atmospheric CO2. Nothing terribly hypothetical about that.
3. “The former is assessable and achievable the later is unquantifiable and infinite.” See 1. But your statement is true of other situations. At the start of WW2, nobody knew for sure how long it would go on for and what it would cost. But all that was seen as irrelevant beside the outcome expected if it was not fought.
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Tel @277,
I’ve just seen that graph, and it does indeed show that the ice extent from being the highest for the period of April since 2005, has now moved above 8 years of sea ice extent.
I don’t see why NASA would cherry pick a particular date as more suitable than others, given that the comparison is always against different years at the same date.
In any case, the ice thickness is extremely important. The Ice extent was used as a measure of Ice mass for a long time now. NASA has also been talking about ice thinning for a long time, and it is an important part of determining just how much ice is there.
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That’s strange, the voyage of Beluga Fraternity and Beluga Foresight delivering equipment to Siberia was reported worldwide as clear evidence of Global Warming — and that was performed with the aid of Russian nuclear-powered ice breakers. Funny how the rules of this game arbitrarily change whenever convenient.
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Oh, I see you are a newcomer to climate science. After a while pointing out the cherry picking and double standards just becomes second nature.
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I’m enjoying reading thru this thread.
Just a quick observation. The analogy below is inapt.
There was clear precedence regards not only Germany herself but a myriad of other conflict events in mans history.
Now when it comes to AGW, I’m struggling to find any precedence in earths history, nor can I find any observational evidence (like arms build up or clear threatening language by Hitler for example) suggesting disaster is imminent.
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Baa Humbug: “Now when it comes to AGW, I’m struggling to find any precedence in earths history, nor can I find any observational evidence (like arms build up or clear threatening language by Hitler for example) suggesting disaster is imminent.”
You are quite likely right. The climate/biological crisis many are worried about and see looming will probably be without precedent and in its own right unique if it happens.
But google end Permian or mass extinctions for further info on the past.
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Charlie:
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
Been there done that Charlie. Theres still hot debate about what caused the mass extinctions. They can’t tell from the proxies if the SUVs were 4 cylinder or big V8 dongs
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Graeme Bird Re:138
Thankyou for your comment and for using the terms “Birkeland currents” and “P holes”. Searching these has yielded much fruit.
“If we have three or more flows of energy helping to determine the temperature, then clearly the marginal difference of some sort of change to only one of them is going to be way less then what we expected, had we been thinking that there was only one source of energy flow.”
Am beginning to accumulate a list of these miscellaneous inputs and outputs.
Did you know that the movement of sea water generates electric power because as the water moves the electrons are effectively flowing. This means that huge amounts of energy may be delivered through those same Birkeland current paths out onto the long magnetic tail. From there the changes in current could cause EMR energy to be lost to space from the circuit. Wonder how much energy the regular tides or the 2004 tsunami etc send out into space?
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Baa Humbug: “Theres still hot debate about what caused the mass extinctions.”
Well that’s OK then. As long as there’s debate there’s no need for concern. Must remember that. 😉
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Charlie If Mass extinctions can be caused by lack of CO2. What precautions should be taken?
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More about the Northeast passage and NORTHERN SEA ROUTE.
Bob Malloy Re 188,214 and Baa Humbug Re 189 Thankyou for your comments.
You may enjoy reading these also.
This one seems to show why information about what went on during the “1940’s blip” may be hard to find.
“She left Germany on 3 July 1940 with a crew of 270, sailed up the Norwegian coast and then, with the assistance of the Soviets, navigated the northern route, crossing the Bering Straits into the Pacific Ocean in early September. She returned safely to Germany on 30 November 1941, after sinking seven ships.”
This one also gives clues about the 1940’s blip..
“During the war lend-lease vessels, including liberty ships handed over to the Russians,
made 120 voyages with cargoes from the American west coast via the Bering Strait to northern
ports. Information is scarce about these extraordinary voyages by relatively thin-skinned ships,
the largest to use the sea route up to that time.”
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Charlie: #286
April 23rd, 2010 at 9:40 pm
What exactly is it you’re concerned about Charlie?
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Well MattB and Webster can you explain why there is ANY ice rebuilding given the continual unrelenting rise in atmospheric Co2?
Siliggy, have you got friction on your list?
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“have you got friction on your list?”
Do now!
You are a clever fellow.
Wiki says: “The dissipation of energy by tidal friction averages about 3.75 terawatts, of which 2.5 terawatts are from the principal M2 lunar component and the remainder from other components, both lunar and solar.”
Now what is that in Watts/M^2?
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Siliggy, there is more; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_tide
I can’t help formulate the friction in the atmosphere but it must be there. This is different than the friction of weather related masses moving because it is lunar and solar gravity driven. Weather related friction is probably a net zero energy exchange.
I have never seen or heard the “experts” consider these inputs and even if they did they would probably spin it to be “scarier than ever doom” I’d like to see your list some day because if there are enough loose heat sources it might explain all of the “unexplained” warming currently attributed to Co2.
There is one last friction that I believe exists too. That of the crust moving in a tidal fashion. Call me silly if you want but if lunar gravity can move the mass of the oceans it must also have some effect on the crust as well. Good luck finding anyone to confirm that idea though. Maybe Louis H. or Richard S Courtney can shed some light on whether geo-science has considered this.
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Re: CO2 and oceanic acidification. My recent report may be of interest – Observations on Growth of Reef Corals and Sea Grass Around Shallow Water Geothermal Vents in Papua New Guinea. It may be downloaded at:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2010/03/climatescam-and-coral-growth
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Baa Humbug: If one does the calculations as to the tonnages involved, one sees that the mining and burning of fossil carbon adds significantly to the greenhouse gas load of the atmosphere. Climatologists (about 97% of them) have raised serious concern over this. Combustion of fossil carbon also adds significantly to the dissolved CO2 in the oceans: the latter being minuscule in relation to the mass of oceanic water but significant in relation to oceanic biomass. Marine biologists in large numbers have expressed concern over the effects of this on oceanic food chains.
‘Climate skeptics’ have pat answers for all of that: the great conspiracy of the world’s climatologists (and marine biologists) to secure research funding; science is not a democracy; etc, etc. Of those dismissals I am in turn highly sceptical.
The paleoclimate record shows much natural warming and cooling, and much natural extinction. However the present high rates rate of atmospheric CO2 and surface ocean pH change will conceivably lead to foreseen and presently unforeseen possibilities. What the unforeseen ones are I have no idea, but the foreseen ones include polar warming sufficient to trigger meassive release of methane from the norhtern permafrosts, amplifying the warming still further. The train pulls into the terminal with massive hydrogen sulfide releases from ocean sediments in response to the methane amplification. All of the above is precedented in the geological record, and while I will probably avoid it, I doubt if my grandchildren can be so sure. Or their children.
We puny insignificant minuscule humans came close to blowing the Ozone Layer apart with CFC releases; fortunately turned around significantly by the Montreal Protocol, but there are still a few ‘CFC skeptics’ round the place. It is safer to take such concerns seriously than to just dismiss them, even if one has a financial relationship with the mining and other industries involved.
Transition to non-GHG releasing energy sources will have to happen anyway, by which I mean sometime in the next 100 or so years: pretty well unavoidable in the lifetime of a baby born today.
Well Baa Humbug, that’s enough for one morning. I want to tidy up my vegie garden, and it’s raining.
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Walter Starck: #293
April 24th, 2010 at 6:51 am
Hi Walter
Have only read the abstract so far Walt but have downloaded the full to read later. Thnx for that and well done.
I recently saw a global map charting the ocean PH levels. Interesting that the areas with the lowest PH (by almost 1 full unit) are the upwelling zones, which just happen to host the most populous and diverse forms of ocean life.
By the way, your March 2010 paper “Extraordinary Claims in Great Barrier Reef Assessment Require Evidence” was excellent. Comes in handy when debating with Ove H G
regards
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siliggy #291
0.00685 w/M^2
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Charlie:
April 24th, 2010 at 8:23 am
Well Chuck, I’ll take you to task on that statement. Whilst you tend to your veg patch, I’ll get some sleep and reply later with some numbers.
Unless ofcourse you’ve already done the calculations re: tonnage then pls post them.
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Baa Humbug,
For an update on the GBR Assessment report situation see:
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Glenn Tamblyn: I have heard that name before…welcome. Are you looking to jump ship?
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Baa Humbug:
Too cold and wet in the cabbage patch.
Most of the statistics below are readily accessible straight off the search front page via appropriate search terms like ‘world coal reserves’. So I won’t clutter this with links.
According to the World Coal Institute’s published estimate, “there are over 847 billion tonnes of proven coal reserves worldwide. This means that there is enough coal to last us over 130 years at current rates of production. In contrast, proven oil and gas reserves are equivalent to around 42 and 60 years at current production levels.” http://www.worldcoal.org/coal/where-is-coal-found/
There is about 7 times more fossil carbon in coal than there is in oil, and it’s probably the same for gas. So let’s round that coal mass up to a trillion tonnes, or 10^12 tonnes, neglect the oil and gas, and assume that carbon makes up half of that rounded up coal estimate: 0.5 x 10^12 tonnes or 5 x 10^11 tonnes. When burnt it will produce about 4 times as much CO2 by mass: 20 x 10^11 tonnes = 2 x 10^12 tonnes.
The mass of the atmosphere is about 5 x 10^15 tonnes: about 2500 times greater than the mass of all that yet-to-be-produced CO2. However, that mass of the present CO2 load in the atmosphere is 3 x 10^12 tonnes. So the yet-to-be-produced CO2 is 2/3 of the present total mass of CO2 in the air, and when added will raise that mass by about 70%, taking it from its present 387 ppm to 660 ppm in the next 130 years, assuming all the fossil carbon is burnt and there is no net carbon sinkage.
Land clearing and agricultural practices which reduce soil carbon may also be contributing significantly. The fact that atmospheric CO2 is relentlessly rising indicates to me that the natural ecosystems cannot cope with it. As pasture and crops are pruned back as fast as they grow, growing forests are the main likely terrestrial sink. But on that front, there is a lot of lost ground to make up.
CO2 saturation arguments have been advanced (eg as in Jo Nova’s ‘Skeptics Handbook’ and elsewhere) to the effect that more CO2 in the air won’t matter, because its infra-red blockage has just about reached its upper limit. I doubt that for various reasons which I won’t go into here, but they mainly have to do with the reality down on the ground on planet Venus. And yes, I’ve read Jo’s argument about the Venusian atmosphere and why it can be discounted, and I don’t buy any of it. (Well, I might put a deposit on one or two paragraphs, provided it was returnable.)
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Glenn Tamblyn RE:296
For the missing heat input due to Lunar and solar tidal friction of the sea you calculated 6.85mW/m^2.
I get 7.35 mW/M^2 from Wiki’s 3.75×10^12 (tidal friction) divided by 510.072×10^12 (Surface area).
The total radiative imbalance is supposed to be only about 900mW/M^2.
All these little numbers will add up and each one like this that is not altered by CO2 reduces the percent change that CO2 can make.
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Charlie, You should go away now be 4 it gets bad. All that you just said is whacked. Bad math, bad science just plain bad. Go back to your friends leave now. Save the world somewhere else.
Fair warning.
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Jo says “More than anything else, we need to know how much of the recent warming has been directly due to our carbon emissions and how much has been natural. We need this to predict how much warming we might get this century. The “how much” question is the 200Gt gorilla in the kitchen.”
Radioactive heating.
From Page 8 of Volcanoes of the solar system by Charles Frankel This heating is estimated at 80mW/M^2
Add this to the tidal sea friction and we are close to 10% of that supposed 900mW/M^2 radiative imbalance after only counting two other miscellaneous inputs. So where is the warming?
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Mark D (@ 303): “Charlie, You should go away now be 4 it gets bad…” (Etc).
Your well considered argument is noted.
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Don’t skip reading this miscellaneous output. It suggests a real clanger!
How to cool the planet using an endothermic reaction.
An endothermic reaction needs to absorb energy to proceed. So heat can be taken in and stored by an endothermic reaction. Photosynthesis is an endothermic reaction. For every kilogram of glucose that is produced 15MJ of energy is stored. This means that plants are cooling it down as they grow. Carbon dioxide feeds plants and encourages growth. So CO2 is causing plants etc to soak up the light instead of it being absorbed as heat. More CO2 means more photosynthesis. More photosynthesis means more cooling.
I wonder if the amount of cooling in Watts per meter squared could be more than the radiative imbalance? Also when the sun is more active do plants etc react by cooling more?
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Siliggy #302
“For the missing heat input due to Lunar and solar tidal friction … ”
Who says its missing heat? Itsn’t this simply a small part of the heat budget for the planet that is essentially unchanging? How do you prpose that tidal friction has changed to constitute a new forcing. Realistically the only factor changing tidal friction is the slow receding of the Moon. So sure, it is changing, reducing, over timescales of 100’s of millions of years. So this is totally irrelevent in discussing the change that CO2 can make.
Mark D.:
Nope. More like a small attempt to convey some sanity.
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Charlie: #301
April 24th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Charlie Charlie Charlie. I was hoping to have a good debate with you. You know, the type of debate where we learn off of each other and learn about each other and merrily blog into the sunset.
But you make that difficult when you use tried and trusted alarmist terminologies. e.g.
Atmospheric CO2 HAS TO RISE, we are coming out of a little ice age.
And let me give you an analogy.
You have died, you’re standing at the base of heavens stairs which has one million steps to it. You climb 2 steps per year. Would you say that was a relentless climb? (Atmoph CO2 rising by about 2ppm)
And please don’t waste both our time with lots of numbers full of assumptions. How can you possibly assume there is no nett sinkage? It leaves your numbers (which are wrong by the way) irrelevant.
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Given that the sunny side of Venus is about the same surface temperature as the dark side — how can the this happen under the standard Global Warming scenario (i.e. sunlight comes in, infra-red gets trapped)?
Note that almost no sunlight even gets to the surface of Venus, the clouds are way too thick, so any solar heat collection is happening far above the surface.
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we, here in the asylum, are a always looking for a cure. 🙂
Ref. Siliggy 302; Glenn,
isn’t one of the “proofs” of Co2 caused warming that the surface measurements are warmer than they should be?
Charlie, how/why do you reason with the unreasonable?
I suppose there might be a point in arguing with an assumption that is wrong, But why?
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Siliggy @304,
So indeed, where is the warming? Yesterday morning, Friday, April 23, 2010, there was frost on the roof all over the neighborhood as I was leaving for my office.
I have lived in this area for 41 years and I’ve never seen overnight frost in April. Never! This is unprecedented in my memory. Southern California does not do this in April except in the mountains at much higher altitude.
This of course proves nothing. But with CO2 steadily increasing and the AGW theory saying that temperature must be rising accordingly…well, color me even more skeptical.
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Baa Humbug: If the CO2 concentration in the air is steadily rising (at around 2 ppm per year) then it is being added to the air faster than natural systems can remove it. Hence no net sinkage. There is sinkage, but not enough to reverse the trend upwards. And coming out of a little ice age? The long term glacial cycle indicates that we should be heading into another ice age, not heating up as we are; though there is always room for short term fluctuation within any long term trend.
As for my calculations being wrong: please remember that I was away from school the day we had maths. 😉
Tel: “Given that the sunny side of Venus is about the same surface temperature as the dark side — how can the this happen under the standard Global Warming scenario (i.e. sunlight comes in, infra-red gets trapped)?” Very good question. Right now, I dunno.
The main Venus problem is accounting for the high temperature at the base of a fairly still atmosphere.
As you no doubt know, most common fluids are poor thermal conductors and most heat transmission through them is by convection. But that cannot work when the fluid is heated from above, as hot fluids rise. But given that Venus has the hottest surface of all the planets, it constitutes a major problem for those who find personal security in the idea of saturation of infra-red absorption by CO2.
Venus does not have significant internal heat generation. Its surface heat all comes from the Sun. But what happens on a massive scale there thanks to its heavy atmosphere, almost all of which is CO2, can reasonably be assumed to happen on Earth too to some limited extent, depending on the CO2 load in our atmosphere. The limited extent just referred to is none the less not something IMHO we can be complacent about.
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Glenn Tamblyn @307
I DONT. This is your own fantasy distortion of what has been said. I do not see this as new at all. I have not said “tidal friction has changed to constitute a new forcing”. How did you let this delusion of what has been said get in to your dream like state?
Glenn you have then proceeded to argue with your own fantasy:
Then you come to an illogical conclusion that is unrelated to your shadow boxing arguement.
These other inputs are relevant to the change that CO2 can make. To highlight this imagine that the heat produced by one of them was 235W/M^2. You would then be looking for the obvious missing heat. Just because it is small does not mean it does not count. Nor does it somehow change logic.
Now why did you pick on the small input at 302 and not the larger input at 304 or the massive and potentially counter active input at 306? Is this because you are behaving like a wolf circling a group of prey and looking for a weak target to take down. Step back and have a look at how your zeal for the cause has blinded you before it is any harder to recover control of your mind.
Sorry about being a bit rough with this come back but the hope is that the smelling salts will wake you up.
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If convection cannot carry the surface heat away, then seems fairly easy to account for the buildup of heat. This is exactly what happens in any glasshouse here on Earth. We could call it the Glasshouse Effect (but plastic sheet also works fine), or perhaps the Baby in the Parked Car effect. Nothing to do with trapped infra-red, everything to do with lack of convection cooling. The same effect works just as well in an oxygen/nitrogen mix atmosphere. Actually, it works even better in a vacuum bulb — if you put a dark object in a glass vacuum chamber and stick it out in the sunlight it gets plenty hot.
There is no radioactive material in the core of Venus? You have evidence for this?
Let’s suppose all heat does come from the sun. We would expect the sunny side to be hotter than the dark side by a significant amount (unless you believe that the surface can retain heat with no input energy for 243 Earth days, which I find difficult to believe). Without ground-level convection there is no way to transport surface heat sideways. I believe we have reasonably direct observation that the surface of Venus is equal temperature on both sides so the solar input theory sounds decidedly questionable.
However, if the surface energy input was a mix of radioactive heating from underneath and infra-red energy being radiated down from cloud layers above then the equal temperature would make perfect sense. Lack of convection cooling is what allows the heat to build up.
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Tel: “There is no radioactive material in the core of Venus? You have evidence for this?”
“Early models of the thermal state of the mantle assumed
that the heat loss on Earth (82mW/m^2) could be scaled to the heat loss onVenus.
In fact, on Earth, the main cause of surface heat loss is plate tectonics (Sclater
et al 1980); the heat generated by mantle radioactive decay is only about 40mW/m^2. We argue… that the internal heat generation on Venus is likely to be
similar to that of Earth; the question remains, however, as to the surface heat
flux in the absence of plate tectonics. Recent convective models (Solomatov &
Moresi 1996, Smrekar & Parmentier 1996, Nimmo & McKenzie 1996) have
all produced values in the range 8–25 mW/m^2.” http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~fnimmo/website/paper5.pdf
The jury is still out on that, but it looks like internally generated heat radiating from the surface is between a tenth and a quarter of the value for Earth.
The main point to remember I think is that the CO2 on Venus has the same physical and chemical properties as the CO2 here on Earth. If it contributes to heating Venus, it must contribute also to heating Earth. The scales are different but the properties are constant.
“However, if the surface energy input was a mix of radioactive heating from underneath and infra-red energy being radiated down from cloud layers above then the equal temperature would make perfect sense.” Experimental verification of this would not be hard to set up. I don’t know of any myself. But I susdpect that convection would only start in such a heat sandwich if the gross heat input from below was greater than that from above.
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Siliggy
You are rather unclear. You are discussing several factors that are part of the energy budget for the planet. However in your words “All these little numbers will add up and each one like this that is not altered by CO2 reduces the percent change that CO2 can make.” So you seem to be discussing things that change the energy budget. Therefore, you need to be discussing the magnitude of the change in these effects, not the absolute magnitude of there value. So an effect that has a magnitude of around 0.00685 w/M^2 as its absolute value and is changing very slowly over millions of years is utterly insignificant in an energy budget of around 340 W/M^2. Remenber, you need to differentiate between the underlying budget, and the much smaller imbalance in that budget. So too for the other effects you mention. They are miniscule in comparison in absolute values, so their change values will be even more miniscule.
Remember, focus on the change in the value, not its absolute value.
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Charlie @315,
Just because pears and apples are related doesn’t mean you can draw conclusions about one from knowledge of the other. For instance, pears spoil much faster than apples. They’re picked, packed and shipped to market before they’re fully ripe for that reason; but not so for apples.
So what’s the point? Just because Venus and Earth are both planets with CO2 in their atmospheres doesn’t mean that you can draw conclusions about one from knowledge of the other. In this case it’s worse because you’re trying to draw conclusions about Earth from what can only be described as quite limited knowledge of Venus. You’ve never been there. You can’t go there and make observations. You have exactly the data that was designed to be sent back plus what Earth based observation can reveal and nothing else. If that data leads to questions you have nothing but theorizing to answer them.
Theory is the province of academics. They thrive on it (unfortunately only too well sometimes). But theory is not a good guide for making public policy. And the fact that the dark side of Venus keeps about the same temperature as the sunny side is a very big hole in your comparison.
We simply do not know enough about Venus to be making the argument that it’s so hot because of all the CO2 in its atmosphere. Much less can we then say Earth will suffer the same fate if CO2 keeps increasing here. In fact, CO2 has steadily been increasing and the Earth stubbornly refuses to comply with the global warming theory. If it did you’d have no need to appeal to Venus to scare up support for AGW. Sorry about that but reality bites hard sometimes.
Reality has no regard for theory or for what you or I may think, want or need. It knows what it should do and does it. Our job is to try to figure out what reality is so we don’t waste our time with foolishness. There are more than enough real problems to worry about.
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Glenn Tamblyn
You have said.
Why is it that other people quickly understood and yet you still do not?
Five days ago Graeme Bird said:
Graeme’s excellent wording here shows he understood what other inputs and outputs will do to thermal equilibrium. It also gave you another explanation and another chance to get it but still you don’t.
Mark D said:
He gave you another chance to get it.
Although i say to his comment that some of the heat from weather related friction would be radiated out into space or dissapear into the miscellaneous outputs and therefore it should be counted.
Perhaps your failure to comprehend this comes from the way you have read a different meaning into the word “Change”.
You said:
This is where you have jumped the rails and missed the point. The change is a change from an incomplete and incorrect energy budget to a more complete and therefore more correct one. Not a change that can be measured in days, months or years.
With ‘a’ being incoming solar radiation, ‘b’ being OLR, ‘c’ being miscellaneous inputs and ‘d’ being miscellaneous outputs.
If the equilibrium (which would be appoximately reached after five time constants)that is found from (a – b) is different to that reached from (c – d) then the real equilibrium will be between (a – b) and ( c – d). The more c’s and d’s that are found the less effect a and b can have.
Again you used “0.00685 w/M^2” When very simple maths that you have not commented on gives 0.00735 W/M^2.
If you want to focus on dynamic change to the 0.9W/M^2 imbalance perhaps then it is good to RE mention the 6W/M^2 (6000mW/M^2) here on page 16 under the heading “variation is large”. Note this was before the imbalance went down from 2.4W/M^2 to 0.9W/M^2.
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Roy Hogue (@317): “Reality has no regard for theory or for what you or I may think, want or need. It knows what it should do and does it. Our job is to try to figure out what reality is so we don’t waste our time with foolishness. There are more than enough real problems to worry about.”
With respect, that’s self-contradictory. You say that reality ‘has no regard for’ theory, yet at the same time that it is our job to figure out what reality is. We could discuss the extent to which reality (however defined) has regard for anything. Most of it is not conscious of itself, and the little bit that is tends to be a mixed bag. But that’s a big topic.
Through the history of science, theory has played a major role in human understanding. Theories that get us somewhere are taken up and advanced; those that don’t are junked. But without theoretical insights, I doubt we’d have got even as far as the stone axe.
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Siliggy, @ 318; very fine volley! I also think that the closer the formula comes to net=0 the more one might question how the earth’s internal heating was calculated. So much of the deep oceanic heating is not well understood or quantified.
Siliggy; One more “imbalance” for you to ponder: we all know that the sun varies in output. Why do we seem to assume that the inner earth heat output is static or slowly declining? (at least that’s all I have seen)
Is it not possible that the various interactions within the earth are more dynamic? I do not see where this doesn’t fit with the electric universe theories either.
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Charlie @319,
You’re right; many good theories have helped advance human knowledge. But wait a minute. You seem to want to use a comparison of Earth with Venus to support making public policy to take action against a problem that you can’t even prove we have.
The Earth is not following global warming theory. Reality is therefore something quite different than you suppose it to be. I read the paper you linked. They infer this and model that and build one thing on another. It’s all very fascinating to be sure but they don’t know whether anything they’ve said is true or not. How do they validate their assumptions much less their models? Of course that doesn’t stop anyone from wanting to impose draconian restrictions on CO2 emissions does it?
If your theory leads you to experiments you can perform to actually determine whether your theory is right or not, then good. Otherwise it’s just an interesting toy. My math teachers taught me not to do certain things: don’t divide by zero; don’t integrate or differentiate at or through a discontinuity in a function; and don’t interpolate beyond the end of your data. That last one is a good analogy for what you’re trying to do with Venus.
Venus is doing what its reality tells it to do. But it’s not going to tell you how or why. And you can’t ever go there and find out all the answers so you’re forced to do educated guesswork. That’s fine as long as it stays in the research lab. But it’s not fine anywhere else. With 243 days of exposure to nothing but space a lot of heat would get away from Venus. CO2 is not an insulating material, much less a thermos bottle. So as Tel points out, something is going on there that you don’t understand. I don’t know if his theory is correct, but it would account for the heat. And Tel is not one who throws out off the wall theories.
You already see that the Earth isn’t jumping on the global warming bandwagon. So reality is biting you. And your job is to figure out what’s really happening instead of what you want to happen to support some theory. I don’t know how else to say it. Theory is a tool, not an end result. Theory proves nothing until you can prove the theory itself with empirical data by observation or experiment that anyone who wants to try can duplicate and get the same result.
I don’t know what your background is but mine is software engineering. I program computers all day long. Yet I have a firm grip on what science is all about. And it leaves me wondering why so many who say they’re scientists don’t have that same grip on the foundation principles of their profession.
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Roy Hogue: #321
April 26th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
h/t to you Roy, it was a pleasure to read your post.
I may have a possible answer to…..
Possibly, you weren’t taught by ‘earth scientists’ who themselves were brought thru the system during the great “green” revolution of the 70’s and 80’s.
These people have been in the public funded system since they were uni students. They know NOTHING ELSE. They are far removed from reality not having experienced any reality.
Some of them rely entirely on the public system for their livelihoods, always have, always will.
Some of them realise this and are taking advantage of the current situation, (my guess, Mann, Briffa, Jones, Flannery, Karoly) others are (I hate to use the term but it’s as close as you’ll get to it) brainwashed into believing that we can sustain our lives by de-industrialising (my guess, Hansen, Santer, Schmidt et al)
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Mark D @ 320
Hmmm
If the earth is a Magnetohydrodynamic generator and if the magnetic fields of the sun and earth interact. How much power is transfered, how much is radiated or recieved from the magnetic tail.
In 267 Michael Webster said:
Magnetic fields do that!
Now what values for (c-d)>?<? Oh #%&*! It's all so un"Settled".
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Siliggy, From your link above: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast25jan_1/
Lets see….forms on the Day side, several hundred MILLION degrees, Multi-Million-Amp currents…….What say! Sounds like a serious underestimated heat source there! and oh yes our present level of ignorance says what:
Siliggy, Can I make a deal with you? if we solve these mysteries you can take all the technical credit (for your Noble prize) but can we agree to split any royalties?
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Roy Hogue (@321): As I have pointed out in posts above, the Earth is definitely warming because sea levels are rising. Atmospheric CO2 levels are also rising. Non-natural sources: the clearing of forests and the burning of fossil fuels are likely responsible for the CO2 rise. Venus shows there is likely a strong connection between the CO2 and planetary warming. The world’s climatologists (97% of them as far as I can gather from the polls I’ve seen) go along with that, and endorse the warning that the consequences could be calamitous and in the lifetimes of babies born today, for reasons I have also outlined above. Meanwhile the non-climatological scientific world is divided, with some like Martin Rees and Stephen Hawking supporting the climatological mainstream, and some like Freeman Dyson and Ian Plimer against it.
Transition to the non-carbon energy economy will have to be done relatively soon, and the technology is there for that, and only requires relatively modest ongoing investment considering the potential costs in doing nothing, as Stern pointed out.
In all I have just said there are many points of entry for contrarians and nitpickers, and always will be, because nothing in science is ever 100% certain. And I haven’t so far even made mention of the Precautionary Principle.
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Charlie, are you really running this up the flag pole again?????
Damn not the babies not the BABIES!?!?!?!?!?!
Really? which technology is there for that? Modest ongoing investment? How much is “modest”?
Once again I have to say WRONG WRONG WRONG! (at least you are polite)
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Siliggy @ 323,
as you quoted, all Energy entering and exiting the system must go through the boundary. I was mainly posting that in reference to the Solar radiation we receive, which becomes heat when absorbed.
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Siliggy @318
Taking Graeme’s quote “If we have three or more flows of energy helping to determine the temperature, then clearly the marginal difference of some sort of change to only one of them is going to be WAY LESS then what we expected, had we been thinking that there was only one source of energy flow.” (my emphasis)
His statement has a fundamental flaw. He is correct that the presence of other energy flows may modify the balance, but by how much. If you have 3 flows, and flow 1 is multiple orders of magnitude greater than flows 2 or 3 then even modest variations in flow 1 can swamp the effect of flows 2 & 3. And changes in flows 2 or 3 would be insignificant compared to flow 1. So his statement implies an assumption that the flows are of comparable magnitude. If they aren’t his statement is false. Since the principle flows in your (a-b) are around 340 W/M^2 and you are talking about flows in you (c-d) of milliwatts/M^2, the order of magnitude of the effects you are chasing is insignificant.
For example, MarkD and Solar Plasmas and Mega Amp currents. Some perspective. An average bolt of lightning is 30,ooo amps, with large ones up to 300,000 amps. There are around 16 million lightning storms around the world every year. So, a ligghtning bolt might be a significant amount of energy on the very localised scale where a storm is happening. And there are a lot of storms. But on a planet wide scale lightning bolts are a tiny factor – much more is the energy of the storm themselves. So to the plasmas. Mark seems to think that multi-million degree temperatures are significant. But what is the mass and density of the plasmas, how much energy is bound up in them. And Multi-million amp currents on the scale of a whole planet aren’t that significant. And the key question. How common are these events. In an average year, what percentage of the time are they occurring? 1%, 0.0001%? For if they are quite infrequent, then the energy involved in them has to be divided by the percentage time they are occurring to determine their overall contribution.
To your quote about plants and endothermic reactions. Absolutely true. Put you are missing all the exothermic reactions. Plants metabolise some of the energy they absorb and release it as heat or do work with it; plants get burn’t in bushfires and release their stored heat; Plants get eaten by animals to fuel their bodies, releasing energy as heat and work. And finally all the plants and animals die and decompose, another exothermic reaction. Its all a cycle, and the net effect is zero.
Now to any magneto/hydrodynamic type effects from the earth. Yes, this could be a source of variation. However any such variation must occur over time scales much larger than any associated with AGW. The material deep within the earth is too dense, viscous and slow moving for changes to happen any quicker. In fact we know they can’t because if the interior dynamics of the earth could change fast enough to produce such effects on these timescales then the volcanic and earthquake consequences of such voltility would make this an extremely dramatic planet to live on.
So to your comment “and we are close to 10% of that supposed 900mW/M^2 radiative imbalance after only counting two other miscellaneous inputs. So where is the warming”
You seem to be suggesting that you are trying to account for the ‘supposed’ imbalance from several sources. And you claimed that I misunderstood your use of the word ‘Change’. I suggest to you that you are using ‘Change’ in exactly the sense that I meant it. You are seeking to account for an imbalance, a change in the energy balance that has arisen. Before there was a balance, AND NOW THAT BALANCE HAS CHANGED. So 1 or more contributing factors must have changed to cause this to happen. So by all means discuss changeable factors, such as your reference to using earthshine to look at Albedo change, that is relevent. But essentially static factors such as tidal friction are irrelevent.
Also you seem to think that if you can find enough other factors, this will somehow diminsh the effect of GH gases. As if their effect is what is left over after accounting for everything else. That reasoning is arse-about. The Radiative Forcing impact of GH gas changes is very well understood and quantified to quite good accuracy. It is the gorilla in the room, and all the other factors have to fit in around it.
By the way. Where do you get your figure of 0.9 w/M^2. I have never heard that quoted anywhere else before. Seems like moving the goalposts to try and make kicking a goal easier.
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Glenn Tamblyn:
The effort you have put into that reply is appreciated. Am too tired to answer all now so just a bit.
You said:
Yes that is exactly what I thought of it too.
Perhaps it is hard to see but i put a link to it under the text “900mW/M^2.” back in post 302.
With the wide error margins on all the inputs and outputs the 900mW/M^2 could be way off.
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Mark D: “Modest ongoing investment? How much is “modest”?
It’s relative term, used by Stern as I recall in his report. And as he said, the longer the change is delayed, the more expensive it will be overall.
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When one is calculating “budget” do you not add all the sources (inputs) on one side and then add all the sinks (outputs) to arrive at your net+ or -? Budget is not “change”. What I am considering here is that we don’t know the change because we don’t yet know both sides of the budget.
Glenn @328
You say ref. endothermic reactions: Its all a cycle, and the net effect is zero.
In a short (geologic time) run it is not necessarily true. It will be a Net – while any climate allows for more plant bulk (as in for instance higher Co2) and if sequestered (as in fossil fuels) then that effect is not going to balance for a very long time. You and warmers are suggesting that all your calculations account for these things. I say to you BUNK. Tell me what is the total living carbonaceous mass on the earth right now? Tell me what it was 20 years ago? 200 years ago? How much is in the ocean for those same periods?
You also say:
Now lets just assume that you KNOW what happens in the inner earth. Lets suppose you are correct in the time scale that magneto/hydrodynamic type effects would take a long time to be noticed. LETS JUST THINK what if something external and big happened back in time just far enough for them to be felt as additional heating say in the last 20 years?
Glenn, You discount something that science is just beginning to understand and then insist we fit it around your gorilla! In fact you don’t even know how big the zoo is. See I can argue with your understanding without even addressing Co2 (which by the way not everyone is convinced is anything but a spider monkey in the room)
Finally with regard to plasma effects I just have to say: “Several hundred million degrees and whirls around Earth in multi-million-amp currents” are pretty big numbers. Do you have an answer for your own questions:
“How common are these events”?
“In an average year, what percentage of the time are they occurring”?
By the way these energies are variable due to cosmic forces that today are observed to be in a range. Has this range always been the same? As it pertains to the magneto/hydrodynamic type effects and the delay you “know” would be the result; what if these plasma events were much stronger in the past? What if they also occur in some kind of cycle that we are in a minimum of?
I’m with Siliggy on this “Oh #%&*! It’s all so un”Settled
PS is the energy from lightning bolts an external + source or a net 0 from energy already here?
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I forgot to add the following questions:
What will that mass be 20 years from now? 200 years?
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Mark D.:
April 27th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
Keep going Mark. I’ve been following this debate for (I think) three days now.
You’re doing a good job. Kudos 2u
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Thanks Baa, feel free to comment too. I am hoping that Courtney and Hissink show up. The topic is worthy of much discussion.
I am very happy that so far the discussion is polite and collegial as well.
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Glenn Tamblyn, I reread my post to you and find some of my remarks may seem condescending. That tone is not intended and Like Siliggy thank you for the time you have put into your posts.
As I said previously, this subject deserves discussion and I am happy to hear your comments.
Likewise Charlie, I do want to reply to you as well but am short of time for the moment.
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Charlie @325,
The one thing you have not done is establish any link between your first sentence and your second as I quoted you above. In fact, you have not even begun to establish that sea level increasing by [name your amount] is caused by warming in the first place. And actually by reliable satellite temperature measurement the Earth is not warming.
Now how much of a sea level rise do you claim has happened? It’s millimeters by any figure I know. Hardly exciting!
The problem here is that someone theorized that increasing CO2 would increase Earth’s surface temperature. So-o-o-o-o now there are a lot of people with face saving to do. Thus the contortions to try to prove that that past warming is in some way unusual. But it isn’t. And worse, some of them see money to be made if we can be made to believe global warming is a dire threat.
Climate has always changed both long term and short term (a minor ice age that we’ve been recovering from). And it always will. Do you think that Arctic ice has never melted before? It happens regularly. Go back a few threads and look for the pictures of U.S. nuclear submarines surfaced at the North Pole in open water that date from the 1960’s.
If sea level has risen a bit and CO2 has increased, what is it that tells you that the one caused the other? Just because you see something for the first time (some warming) is not proof, much less even evidence that it’s never happened previously. And if it’s happened previously the meaning of what you see now is quite different from what it would be if there had never been warming before. But there has been warming before. You need to be a little more skeptical of what you’re being told. That will teach you to do your homework before buying into things.
CO2 is already doing almost all the warming it can. The warming from any additional CO2 is negligible. See The Skeptics Handbook. There’s a convenient link at the top of this page.
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Baa,
Thanks!
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Roy Hogue @336.
Just a brief comment on your last post. I am actually in a discussion with Sisiggy & MarkD on other subjects which I will try to reply to later, and also trying to get some work done in my day job but…
For evidence of CO2’s contribution to warming you need to look at the satelite data – Harries et al 2001, Griggs et al 2004, Chen et el 2007, Also changes in downwelling longwave radiation – Philipona et al 2004, Murphy et al 2006, Wang et al 2009. On sea level rise you might like to look at Chao et al 2008 on how empoundment – building of dams – has artificially reduced sea level rise by 3 cm from what it otherwise would have been. Also the satellite data for the last 16 years showing measured rise of around 5 cm – http://sealevel.colorado.edu/. Look also at Church et al 2008, Donnelly et al 2004, Gehrels et al 2006.
As to the reliabilty of the satellite record, the two groups doing satellite temperatures (UAH & RSS) show differing results, they have serious technical issues to deal with, faulty calibrations on the NOAA-16 satellite for example and differing ways of handling issues such as Diurnal Drift. The UAH data set which you are probably referring to has a long term trend of around 0.137 DegC/Decade but an error margin of +/- 0.05 DegC/decade. so between 0.087 to 0.187
And of course the satellite data is looking at multi-kilometer thick swathes of the atmosphere, not just the surface and is not necessarily representative of surface records. Finally you need to go to the UAH and RSS sites and investigate how they both use Weighting Functions in the calculation of their series. These use weightings for data from different altitude bands to determine there final results. And these weighting functions extend right to the very top of the troposphere and into the lower stratosphere, even for their lower troposphere data series. Given that there has been much more cooling in the stratosphere than warming in the lower troposphere, these weighting functions are quite likely to be introducing a cooling bias to the final results due to cooling higher up ‘bleeding through’ in the results due to the weighting functions, with the likelihood that they are underestimating warming. This is a partial explanation for the differing values obtained by RSS & UAH – UAH has a more even spread to their weighting function while RSS uses more sharply defined ones, so UAH tend to show less warming due to more ‘bleed’ effect
As to Saturation and CO2 can’t do much more. Well that is plain wrong. Go read up on the research carried out in the 1950’s that disproved the idea of saturation. Not just theroetical research but real world observational programs beginning with the US Air Force during the War. Read up on the work of Gilbert Plass. As to CO2 can’t do much more, that is the standard [snip] distortion of how to represent the logarithmic nature of CO2’s impact. Since a world without GH gases would be around 30 degC cooler, they have done a lot and more can still contribute.
The approximate formula for the forcing contribution for additional CO2 is 5.35 * ln(C/Co) W/M^2 where Co is a reference CO2 concentration and C is your current one. So using Pre-Industrial levels of around 280 ppm and current ones of nearly 390 ppm, that gives us a forcing relative to pre-industrial levels of 5.35 * ln(390/280) – 1.773 W/M^2; still contributing.
As to your comment “The problem here is that someone theorized that increasing CO2 would increase Earth’s surface temperature”. Wrong. They ‘theorised’ that increasing CO2 (and other GH Gases) would increase the Total Heat Content of the climate system by creating an energy imbalance. Temperature rise in the atmosphere and elsewhere is then a consequence of that heat rise. And Heat Content has risen; 2*10^23 Joules since 1950 – Murphy et al 2009. To convert that to something a bit more visceral, that is 3 Billion Hirohima Bombs. And most of that heat rise is in the oceans; around 90% of the heat content rise is in the oceans with the atmosphere only about 3% of the total.
If you want to discuss AGW, please look at the Science, not things like Jo’s comic book!
Now back to doing those accounts…
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Glenn Tamblyn, With apologies about taking this off of our other discussion (I just can’t let this slip away without comment).
May I take issue with impoundments causing -3 cm of ocean level? If you accept the effects of impoundments then you must also allow ocean rise because of vast irrigation. The US Ogallala aquifer has lost 312 km³ since 1950*. Without knowing, I’ll speculate that the rest of the agricultural world has been doing about the same thing; pumping H2o out of underground, to make food for the world. Where does that water go?
Then there is the horrible loss of US wetlands (so touted by environmentalists) an estimated 115 million acres (465388488576 sq/m) were lost from 1600 to present in the US alone* and significant amounts between 1950’s to 1970’s. Would you like to comment on where that water went? That, according to my math is over 10% of B. F. Chao et al 2008* if those wetlands were just 2m deep. Just the US mind you, and with only 30 minutes of thinking about it!. Now I looked for a study to cite for my observation and found none. So how about would you like to wager upon whether the impoundments world wide contain more or less than these lost wetlands and undergroung aquifers world wide?
This is exactly the kind of sloppy (or intentional biased) thought that is pervasive in the “settled science” camp (maybe science everywhere) that makes denial so easy. I suggest that all need to measure with less bias (or at least report other than always negative) Likewise, (and a side note) I find it slightly aggravating that loss of wetlands is environmentally bad and impounding water is also environmentally bad. Double dipping at the propaganda trough.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer
http://www.epa.gov/wetlands/vital/status.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1154580
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PS another wager pending: sea level rise over world agricultural production in the last 100 years.
correlation or not?
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Glenn Tamblyn: #338
April 28th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve been following this debate. I don’t wish to butt in but to help me follow the debate better, can you clarify a couple of things from your post #338 for me pls.
You seem quite accepting of “errors” or “biases” in the sattelite record. Are you also accepting of the oft documented errors and biases in the surface T data? If not, why not?
Do you also accept that the sattelites are callibrated to the surface record?
Sattelites do indeed “look at” swathes of atmosphere. Which in your opinion is more important in relation to the GH affect, surface T’s or atmospheric T’s?
A world without GHG’s would indeed be colder, but wouldn’t you also agree that during daylight hours, a world without GHG’s would also be much warmer, e.g. the Moon? Therefore your statement that they can still contribute applies equally to contributing to more cooling. Wouldn’t you agree?
You are referring to Murphy et al (2009) An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950 JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 114, D17107, 14 PP., 2009 doi:10.1029/2009JD012105
There’s those “surface temperature records” again. Are we confident?
My bolding.
p.s. The et al in Murphy et al are..
S. Solomon: Review editor of WG1 (that is every paragraph in the working group 1s eleven chapters go through her review. Plus she was a drafting author of the SPM)
K H Rosenlof: Co-Ordinating author of WG1 chps 2 and 3
T Wong: Contributing author to WG1 chpa 3 and 9 (note: the co-ordinating lead authors of chp 3 are Trenberth and Jones :))
R W Portman: Contributor to WG1 chp 8
P M Forster: Co-Ordinating Lead Author WG1 chp 2, contributing author to chps 3,8,9 and 10.
Murphy Solomon Portman and Rosenlof are from the NOAA. Wong is from NASA and Forster is from uni of Leeds in the UK
The above as a matter of interest.
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Mark D
Yes of course you have to. I am just not aware of any studies that have managed to quantify it. Here is a link to Rahmstorf & Vermeers recent paper on sea level rise where they cover various issues, including Chao et al and others including link 23 Milly et al which says something on the subject you discuss – I haven’t had time to follow it.
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/51/21527.full
The point of my post to Roy Hogue was in relation to distortions and over-simplifications of the science such as the gross generalisation that the satellite data is any more reliable than other sources. Debating the complexities of the science is one thing, grossly oversimplifying and distorting it is something else entirely
Hence my reference to Jo’s Sceptics Handbook as a comic. As a piece of science journalism it is a rather poor peice of work. Perhaps Jo might like to open a thread devoted to the contents of her handbook where all the science that is missing from it could be debated. Maybe version 3 would be a more robust work. Sceptics should want to know the answers to things, not hide them, and I am afraid I have been deeply underwhelmed by Jo’s effort – mainly recycled strawman arguments.
For those like me who think that on the balance of the evidence AGW is real, and that on the balance of the projections serious and immediate action is our moral obligation to our grandchildren, it is really sad to see that so few of those on the sceptical side actually really try to put forward anything substantive. There are some who are trying to do this honestly, but they get drowned out by the mass of supposed sceptics peddling scams and conspiracy theories, tales of fudged data and quite barbaric character assassination, endlessly repeated strawman arguments for which they never want to here the rebuttal to what they say and a refusal to engage with the complexities of the real science in a balanced way. And of course the endless displays of the Dunning-Kruger effect from armchair experts. So the few honest and above all diligent, rigorous and impartial sceptics tend to get drowned out by the noise.
As to your wager, I’m not a betting man, but I’m sure there probably is a correlation between sea level and world agricultural production. Just as there is probably a correlation with fertiliser production, Natural Gas production, and a whole range of things. ‘Correlation hunting’ can be a dangerous game. A may be correlated with B because A is correlated with C and B is correlated with C. And just because there is a correlation between 2 things doesn’t mean there is a causative link. And even if there is, which way the does the link run?
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Mark D,
you mention plant biomass as a potential negative feeback. It probably is a negative feedback if changes in CO2 produce more plant growth despite changes to the climate from CO2. You would need to keep that biomass there though, eg. ensure that the increased Biomass wasn’t cleared from the land without replacement. It appears the the affects of warming are not going to be good for plant growth in the short term.
You’re second point is that there may be unknown additions to the Earth’s energy budget that are not to do with Solar radiation. That’s possible. On the other hand, the Energy budget that Trenberth calculates is to do with Incoming vs. outgoing solar radiation. Regardless of whether or not other external sources of heating are occuring, the calculation for the additional heating from the change in CO2 should remain valid so long as they are correct in the first place.
That is, if the effect of the radiative forcing of adding CO2 to the atmosphere is supposed to be an additional 3C over a period of say 100 years, then that is the amount that it will warm due to the additional CO2 regardless of other climate effects. In the case of negative effects, then the temperature should be 3C higher than it would have been in the absence of the CO2 forcing.
This is pretty difficult stuff, so I’m happy to be shown to be wrong.
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Glenn Tamblyn: #342
April 28th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
Two paragraphs, 16 lines. Nothing substantive to say.
We’ll assume you’ve read the Handbook cover to cover, so howsabout you get back on your keyboard and post some details defending your diatribe.
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Roy Hogue (@336): “The one thing you have not done is establish any link between your first sentence and your second as I quoted you above. In fact, you have not even begun to establish that sea level increasing by [name your amount] is caused by warming in the first place. And actually by reliable satellite temperature measurement the Earth is not warming.” So satellite data that tells us the Earth is not warming is reliable, and that which tells us it is, is not. What in your view is a more probable reason for the measured sea level rise of ~3mm/year?
” …CO2 is already doing almost all the warming it can. The warming from any additional CO2 is negligible. See The Skeptics Handbook. There’s a convenient link at the top of this page.”
As I’ve said before, I’ve read the SH on this, and I don’t buy it. Why? Venus. (And I don’t buy the explanation-away of Venus the SH offers either.)
I do not think that I do you and certain others around here (and Parliament House in Canberra) an injustice when I say that you not only do not accept the climatologists’ case that there is AGW; you do not accept even the possibility of it; when the possible consequences for our children, grandchildren and on are so devastating. This I find incomprehensible.
Your home almost certainly will not burn down this year, or be burgled. Do you have it insured?
I’m with Margaret Thatcher: give the planet the benefit of any doubt.
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Glenn: Please take continue to take my in the context of understanding. I don’t doubt your conviction on the matter. I want to better understand your conviction perhaps you’ll better understand mine.
I need to parse this paragraph so that I can ask and comment about individual details:
When you use the term “balance” you imply that there is room for doubt about some of the evidence and some of the projections. Is my interpretation correct?
Do you see that this sounds very similar to the skeptics with regard to conspiracies?
It has been my observation that the competent Skeptics try frequently. They largely are treated by the Settled Science Team in exactly the same way as you highlight next:
And I have slightly re-arranged this paragraph not to put words in your mouth but for you to see how similar our observations are:
There are some AGW supporters who are trying to do this honestly, but they get drowned out by the mass of Politicians peddling scams and conspiracy theories, tales of the end of the world.
Other than your choice of the word “few” I agree with you completely. (I suggest the noise is not just other armchair skeptics though)
A reflection of my observations has allowed me to find the:
Regurk-Gninnud effect:
1. Competent individuals tend to overestimate their own level of skill.
2. Competent individuals fail to recognize genuine skill in others.
3. Competent individuals fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy.
4. If they can be trained to substantially improve their own skill level, these individuals can recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill.
Then you say:
Yes I agree with you (though it does not remove the fact that correlation can still be a hint, whether powerful or otherwise). I wasn’t making a claim of proof. We both know that the water used in agriculture and reduced wetlands goes somewhere. In this case the correlation would seem to be a strong hint. (I have already admitted not having cite-able proof)
Please don’t take this as a challenge to your moral values but to me yes you are a betting man. You are willing to bet a significant amount on the AGW hypothesis and that it is true.
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Mark D said(331):
NO! Abosolutley not. That is precisely what you should not do if you want predictive ability. I will explain further down. You added:
Which shows the true intent of you point(thanks). I have quoted you out of context for mathematical purposes only.
Glenn Tamblyn said (328):
This is well worded true and correct(ISH). You have a good point but not good enough!
To demonstrate this lets imagine some hypothetical and purely fiction situation. Using 341.3 in 340.4 out for path (a-b). These are numbers taken from here on page 314. Now imagine that the exothermic decomposition/combustion c path is 2.4 and 3.4 for d endothermic photo synthesis (fictional numbers). This state of affairs would cease if CO2 was not rising. The hypothetical photosynthesis path (c-d) imbalance is 2 orders of magnitude lower than the radiative balance yet it shifts the balance to cooling. Until it stops rising at that rate. CO2 may also cause cooling by helping to convect heat up to a place that is more efficient for the heat to be radiated out into space. So by your logic because CO2 may have two cooling mechanisms to counteract its heating mechanism. It’s contribution to the budget is so small that:
So by your own logic CO2 can be dismissed as insignificant.
Oh BTW please do not get the impression that i agree there is a positive radiative imbalance. With the main driver of the radiative balance being the sun and with the large cosmic ray albedo effect. The massive decline in solar activity has obviously shifted the balance to cooling.
These path numbers should not be just added together because independently attached to every path is it’s associated time constant or time delay. The thermal time constant of the planet is perhaps something like 8 to 16 years. So the cooling from the decline in solar activity will become more obvious as time goes on. The CO2 cooling due to photosynthesis would also be delayed but by a different amount. While planktons may only have a life span in days other things will live for thousands of years. You say that the photosynthesis cooling is counteracted by decomposition and by fire etc. Well the massive fires all over the place in 2009 would have contributed to this last gasp of warming then would they not? Also the enhanced decomposition due to solar warming would have acted as a positive feed back to the solar forcing over the last two decades would it not?. The time delay attached to decomposition could be very long so maybe it will help us ride through the cooling in the future.
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Glenn Tamblyn said (328):
One of them was:
Yes it was observed but AGW was not the reason. Under the text below is more hype and panic but it does show more on how this was observed.
“And you can see here this lacing network of contrails er covering at least fifty per cent, if not seventy five per cent or more of the sky in that area. It doesn’t take an expert to er realise that if, if you look at the satellite picture and see this kind of contrail coverage that they’ve got to be having an effect on temperature at the surface.”
How much cooling is caused by solar energy being reflected back out into space from contrails?
This is not a different path. It is a short cut.
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81:MattB from 20 April
Regarding CO2 residence time – a strangely unsettled issue given its core importance, I have looked into it:
The reference you give is a blog at skepticalscience.com by a Doug Mackie, a chemistry research fellow. Doug points out the difference between the physically measured short 5 year Residence time or Turnover time of actual isotopic CO2 injected into the atmosphere and Lifetime or Adjustment time of CO2 to a step increase of CO2 in the whole atmospheric box models you can derive from overall CO2 amounts and fluxes in the models, claiming the former is irrelevant for IPCC models.
Doug’s acknowledged evidence for Residence time numbers 36 studies, while his only evidence for claiming relevance and magnitude of a CO2 lifetime of 100 to 200+ years is his statement:
The referenced IPCC Report Sect 2.10.2 only gives a table for greenhouse gasses with CO2 being an exceptions under footnote a:
– a model! again, no observation.
Tom V. Segalstad counters Doug’s above rationale for long lifetimes so:
and adds
So, as far as I can gather – the IPCC argument goes as follows:
Because atmospheric CO2 has risen and the assumed explanation in our models of this CO2 rise is man’s CO2 emissions which are known (neglecting warming seas or submarine volcanoes as additional source of CO2), then the Lifetime of CO2 must be much longer that the 5 year Residence time – ie about 50-200 years (through assumption and models that CO2 sinks are non-linear or multi-compartment with an evasion “buffer” factor and saturate on a short time scale, and ignoring that this still leaves a 50% “missing sink” in the IPCC report and that there is no direct observational evidence for this). However, now, they argue, because CO2 resident times ‘are’ so long, our models fit the observations and must be right – and we can use them to project 100 years into the future, and CO2 we emit now will stay around for a century.
References:
Actual published observational studies relevant to CO2 lifetimes vs Resident times and IPCC assumptions:
Un-refereed reviews
Conclusion: According to published scientific papers, 100 to 200+ year CO2 lifetimes are model constructs unsupported by any observations and use circular logic. CO2 resident times of 5-15 year should apply to models. Skeptics are not confusing CO2 residence times with CO2 lifetimes.
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Michael Cejnar @ 349:
Very excellent analysis.
It seems yet another example of fitting the science around a predetermined result.
I wonder if MattB will have a response.
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Siliggy, @ 347
Why are you always picking on me? 🙂
How does one get to “predictive ability” when one has not yet finished with quantification and CORRECT analysis?
Excellent argument @347.
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Michael Cejnar @349
I have to disagree with Segelstad here. The assumption he is making is that Henry’s Law is applicable as a description of the gas balance behaviour between the oceans and the atmosphere. I don’t think that is the case. When I was doing my Engineering degree (way too many years ago) we learnt a range of physical Laws such as Henry’s Law. We were taught them by being taught the derivation of the law, the assumptions, idealisations and limitations it was based on and thus what the limits to its applicability were. However out in the Blogosphere I often see these some of these Laws being mis-applied, seemingly due to a lack of understanding of their limitations. Henry’s Law, Beers (and the related Beer-Lambert) Law and the most misused, The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. It is common that the undergraduate level of understanding/use of a physical principle is not as detailed as the Post-Doctoral/Scientific research level.
Henry’s Law (in the context it is being used here) relates the equilibrium between the partial pressure of a gas on one side of an interface to the amount of that gas dissolved in a liquid on the other side, tking into account pressure and temperature. It is thus referred to as a limit law since it defines what the equilibruium will be at a limit. However it assumes that the volumes of the 2 phases are in close proximity to each and there is no need to account for how the substances under question are transported to the region of the interface from some larger distance. Henry’s law does not allow for these transports in any way.
So taking the CO2 in the atmosphere, CO2 concentrations in the Northern Hemisphere are around 2 ppm higher than the Southern, reflecting the fact that more CO2 is emitted in the North. The lag is around 1 year or so, reflecting the inter-hemispheric mixing time of 1-2 years. So transport of CO2 to the interface in the southe has a lag of a year or so. Far more significant is the delays in transport of CO2 from the interface down to deep water. Diffusion rates for a whole range of substances can take decades or centuries. Often it is actually the overturning of ocean currents between bottom and top that is the fastest path for transport.
So to simply assume that Henry’s law is totally applicable is invalid. It applies in the region near the Air/Sea interface up to distances where transport times are not relevant. Other mechanisms need to be invoked to deal with transport to/from the interface region. And if the transports cannot keep up with exchange at the interface, the interface region cn become ‘blocked’ and the speed of the transports becomes the limiting factor. I can’t comment on whether the ‘buffer’ method is an adequate method for analysing this, but you need to use some method.
Also Segelstad’s comment about “because POC [particular organic carbon] can sink to the bottom of the ocean in less than a year”! What has the sinking behaviour of particulate organic carbon – grains of soot etc – got to do with diffusion of dissolved gases in water! Doh.
So Mark D “It seems yet another example of fitting the science around a predetermined result.” No. Another example of not applying simplistic scientific reasoning and understanding
Siliggy @348
“And you can see here this lacing network of contrails er covering at least fifty per cent, if not seventy five per cent or more of the sky in that area.” Reality check. Have a look out the window and tell me what percentage of the sky is covered by contrails. And what is the relevence of that to temps warming more at night? Planes fly day & night and contrails have a cooling effect although small. I described a warming effect.
Siliggy @347
“Using 341.3 in 340.4 out for path (a-b)…. Now imagine that the exothermic decomposition/combustion c path is 2.4 and 3.4 for d endothermic photo synthesis (fictional numbers). ”
In the event that the magnitude of the imbalance of your figures for c & d were real, this would constitute around a 30% imbalance in the photosynthesis cycle. 30% of the energy going somewhere. Something like that has happened in the past, it was called the Carboniferous period and it is when most of the worlds coal was laid down. See any sign of massive forests being entombed in the current era. Any imbalance in any of your c/d terms of this magnitude would have clearly observable consequences if this were occurring on a sustained basis. If such an imbalance has arisen recently, you need a causative mechanism for why such an imbalance has arisen.
“CO2 may also cause cooling by helping to convect heat up to a place that is more efficient for the heat to be radiated out into space” Such transports in the atmosphere are already part of the climate models and CO2 is an insignificant part of that process at 390 ppm. GH gases are low percentages of the atmosphere as far as there contribution to FLUID MECHANICAL and THERMODYNAMIC behaviour. Nitrogen and Oxygen dominate. GH gases have a disproportionate impact because of their impact on RADIATIVE behaviour.
“The massive decline in solar activity has obviously shifted the balance to cooling.” The decline isn’t massive – imprecise non-quantitative reasoning. The decline is around 0.1 – 0.2 W/M^2 as opposed to the additional forcing from CO2 alone since pre-industrial times of around 1.7 W/M^2. A lot of your following points in the same paragraph are all non-quantitative. Please put some meat on the bones of those atatements by quantifying them a bit otherwise they are just idle speculations.
Mark D @346
“When you use the term “balance” you imply that there is room for doubt about some of the evidence and some of the projections. Is my interpretation correct? ” Yes. In my view there is little doubt about the fact that greeater quantities of GH gases will cause a warming forcing. This is basic Radiative Physics and is very solid. However there is still significant unceratinty around the magnitude of the climate change these radiative changes will generate. Hence the range of projections. I tend to think the truly lower projections are unlikely since evidence from too may sources is tending to disagree with them. The higher end projections are based on additional mechanisms such as Methane, Major Albedo changes, Land use change and effects that are slower feedbacksetc. They are certainly plausable but somewhat more speculative. But this is why more recent projections have tended to be higher – Hansen, Hadley Centre etc. They have started trying to add longer term mechanisms into their models and these are generating higher predictions.
“It has been my observation that the competent Skeptics try frequently. They largely are treated by the Settled Science Team in exactly the same way as you highlight next: ” I disagree with this. A small number of scientists – Lindzen, Spencer, Christy, Svensmark for example are putting forward ideas that are taken seriously. That does not mean their ideas are accepted because there appear to be serious flaws with them – the Iris Effect, Cosmic Rays and Clouds etc. But the number of scientists I am aware of doing this is quite small. Then you have the likes of Carter, McLean, DeFreitas, Plimer etc. There work has holes in it so big you can drive a truck through it so you either doubt the use of the word ‘competent’ or you suspect other motives.
The Dunning-Kruger effect or Regurk-Gninnud effect if you will is something that reasonably competent perople are perhaps especially vulnerable to. Having a reasonable degree of expertise but not enough they assume that those they criticise only have the same degree. This effect is often seen in comments that begin ‘These Scientists think … insert supposedly obvious blunder here” In reality it is the speakers lack lack of understanding and their assumption that their own level of expertise puts them on a par with ‘These Scientists’. The best example I can think of this is probably Ian Plimer.
As to I’m not a betting man…… Unless you are forced to make the bet. Analogy. We are in a ship in stormy seas, we have reason to think the ship has a hole in its side but we aren’t sure how big. But she is down at the bow a bit. But taking to the lifeboats has its own risks. But leave it too late and the lifeboats might be destroyed. What do you do? You are forced to take the bet.
And so to “serious and immediate action is our moral obligation to our grandchildren,
Do you see that this sounds very similar to the skeptics with regard to conspiracies? ” We ahve reasonable grounds for thinking that serious climate change, coupled with and compounding all the worlds other problems could pose a serious risk to the survival or at least the wellbeing of human civilization in the latter part of this century. However the science as to magnitude is not settled, and won’t be for some time, maybe several decades yet. And the changes we need to make are profound. I disagree that they are changes that will harm us, but they are changes that we need to look at as transformations of society. In just about any other context the appropriate course of action would be .. wait and see, then act. However climate change has a characteristic that breaks this otherwise normal rule. By the time we have a good handle on the magnitude of the change, around the middle of the century, it will already be locked in place. If it turns out to be not too bad, well, fine and dandy. But if it is at the mid to upper range of projections, then the world is heading for something that looks like Mad Max by the end of the century. And the appalling fact is the only way of preventing it is to act now. We can’t sit here and say in 2050, Whoopsee, looks like its going to be bad, best do something about it. BY THEN IT IS TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. The only time we can prevent it is by acting now. If we play the wait and see game, we are placing a monstrous bet with the lives of our descendents and future civilisation. And they won’t even have the opportunity to get recompense from us if the bet is lost. We will be long gone. Thus it is centrally a moral question.
The time lag between when we have to take action and when we will have good certainty about what and how much action is needed makes this a profoundly difficult problem. And I think it is entirely understandable that there is a strong psychological drive within all of us to deny it. Possible terrible consequences of we don’t act, vast change is needed in order to act and change can feel like destruction, even when it is actually only trasnformation. And all the issues are vast scales, technical issues, long time frames – everything that day to day life isn’t for most of us. And the people telling us about this are from a foreign tribe called ‘The Scientists’. The urge to deny it is a very powerful one. It is not an understatement to say that AGW is part of the greatest challenge in human history. Finally human psychology goes head to head with Mother Nature.
o to Bas Humbug @341 & 344
My point about the temperature record is that they all have problems and no one of them is totally reliable. Like the parable of The lindmen & The Elephant, you need to listen to all the different descriptions of the beast to have any chance of getting a true picture. My specific point about the satellite data is that I believe there is a systematic bias within it that is not well recognised (and can be corrected for) resulting in a ‘bleed through’ from stratospheric cooling that is adding a cooling bias to the lower tropospheric trends, artificially lowering them.
“Do you also accept that the sattelites are callibrated to the surface record?”. No actually, although I might be wrong. My understanding is that primarily they have been tested against (calibrated if you like) against the Radiosonde record.
Then on Murphy et al you comment on temperatures and radioative forcing but ignore the main thrust of the paper – direct measurement of the Total Heat Content Change.
Then you list the Authors with some implied point… Oh?, is that it? There all part of the Cabal! Baa Humbug. Bollocks. If you want to discuss Climate Science, fine. But if you are interested in the Toxic Swamp that is the “Its all a scam. We are being conned by ‘These Scientists’, lal lal la” then you can go swim there on your own. I don’t do fantasy.
By the way, one of the key studies cited in Murphy et al is Domingues et al. They provided the work on Ocean Heat Content. Lead Author on that is Catia Domingues from CSIRO Hobart. Part of the Cabal too??
Finally, Baa Humbug “We’ll assume you’ve read the Handbook cover to cover, so howsabout you get back on your keyboard and post some details defending your diatribe”. I am. But with work commitments and the fact that there is a lot to go over that takes a bit of time. Watch this post next week.
Have a good weekend all.
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Glenn Tamblyn (@352): An excellent post. Well done.
I marvel at your patience and perseverence.
There are none so blind as those determined to look the other way.
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Glen Tamblyn @ 245
Upper tropical hotspot:
Except that from my modest understanding, the upper tropical hotspot is the specific mechanism by which the disputed H2O amplified GH warming are meant to happen in the models. Most of your other predictions appear either non-specific, such as surface warming, or explainable by weak CO2-only GH effect, which is not seriously disputed.
Can you can explain how the H2O augmented GH warming part of the climate models can be valid with no upper tropical hotspot.
Glen Tamblin @ 352
Wow, a large post and you seem know your stuff.
However, if you get the time to actually read the reference to Segalstad, you will find you missed the point. He makes no simplistic assumption of Henry’s law, POC is organic matter of which the sea contains a bit – not soot, and he seems well aware of diffusion. I also don’t understand what your discussion of 1-2 year CO2 North-South transit time has much to do with the 90 to 190+ year discrepancy in transit time.
Segalstad addresses deep oceans, in part, as follows:
I have shown experimental radioisotope-metric evidence for short CO2 residence times, and absence of any observational evidence in IPCC for its 200+ year times, so putting aside your bit of a straw man of Henry’s law, can you point me to any hard evidence of the IPCC’s 200+ year CO2 resident times.
Regards
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Yes I do!
“There are a lot more microbes in marine sediments than people thought,” Girguis said. “The thing I find astonishing is that … it’s possible there’s more biomass in the deep sea sediments, in the form of microbes, than the total biomass on all the continents.”
“This marine life is responsible for over 95 per cent of respiration in the oceans, thereby helping to maintain the conditions humans need to survive on Earth”
BTW did you know that Chemosynthesis is also an endothermic reaction?
EG:
6 H2S + 6 CO2 + energy–> C6H12O6 + 6S2
SO now we see that CO2 causes cooling via
a) Photosynthesis
b) Chemosynthesis
and c) Enhanced convection which you say is “already part of the climate models”.
Oh and gas hydrate release is also endothermic and because the burning of fossil fuels requires air intake. Atmoshperic methane is burnt. This very slightly improves the The Stoichiometric Air-fuel Ratio. So the burning of fossil fuels turns the atmospheric methane to CO2 and water while the methane helps to reduce the burning of fossil fuels.
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Glenn Tamblyn,
Now that I’ve had time to go researching Gilbert Plass I’m left very unsatisfied. Unless you can lead me to something better, all I can find is his theorizing on the subject. Needless to say, this is what skeptics object to. You should not make public policy on the basis of theory. The argument against the so-called precautionary principle is a very strong one.
Now I do find all this very fascinating and I’m still interested. So can you point me to something about this?
Thanks
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Roy
Here is a link to the HiTran spectroscopic Database which is the descendent of the original work by the USAF
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/hitran//
Also a discussion of the subject at RealClimate.org from several years ago
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument/
Gilbert Plass’s contribution was a calculation of the real effects of CO2 etc based on the much better spectroscopic data that was becoming available at the time. Particularly the impact of lower pressure & temperature at high altitude on the character of the absorption.
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@Glenn Tamblyn
I await your answer expectantly.
I searched myself regarding absent Tropospheric hot spot. Answers by AGW proponents have an astonishing range:
1. AR4 did not mean to say it is specific so does not disprove models
2. No hotspot means either data or models are wrong, so we believe data must be wrong and its just a quation of finding it (post-modern science – social issue trumps data)
3. After years of looking for possible inaccuracies, observational data’s error bars have been successfully widened enough to encompass the possibility of a hot spot.
4. We managed to show the hot spot with indirect wind sheer temp proxy, so please ignore the direct temperature data (Sherwood).
So after 9 years of trying to confirm the hot spot – lending new meaning to confirmation bias, best we have is Sherwood’s wind sheer proxy data is the best we’ve got.
I still await any observational evidence for 200+year CO2 Lifetime.
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Glenn Tamblyn, @352
I have had some time to look into the Dunning-Kruger effect. I have found this study which confirms my observations namely that the “effect” is not confined to “reasonably competent” and lower but instead even the competent i.e. EVERYONE.
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/kburson/files/bursonlarrickklayman.pdf
The pro AGW websites that invoke the Dunning-Kruger effect are almost universal. I suggest to you that it is a propaganda tool and I also recognize that you used it.
I say to you that we can continue discussion but I hope you do not mix propaganda with science. To show good faith it would be nice if you retract the Dunning-Kruger effect ploy.
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Glen Tamblyn,
At post 338 you say:
I assume the “-” is intended to be “=”. I’m not a high powered math guy but this is ordinary College Algebra level stuff. I note with interest that you can pick any C and Co that have the same ratio and get the same result. So when you can start from wherever you want and use this equation you can always show significant forcing. QUESTIONS: what is the correct Co to account for the forcing of the CO2 already in the atmosphere at 280 ppm? Then what is the result of keeping that Co constant and using C = 390? And then, would not the additional forcing from the additional 110 ppm be 5.35*ln(390/Co) – 5.35*ln(280/Co), again, keeping the same reference level Co? If the reference level can change then I’m not buying it. And the reference level should show us what’s happening because of the 280 ppm you accept as normal. What say you?
Then there’s the constant, 5.35. I look at that and I don’t recognize it. Where does it come from and what validates it? I can’t find it. I did finally find this page…
http://www.nov55.com/equations.html
where they take great exception to this number. Apparently no one knows for sure where it comes from but it seems to trace back to Dr. James Hansen. He was interested in showing a certain degree of warming from a doubling of CO2. And it takes 5.35*ln(2) to give what he wanted, approximately 3.71(rounded) W/M^2. This gets you about the 3 degrees he was after. You can read nov55 for yourself. Needless to say, when the original 3 C became untenable and was lowered the constant would need to be lowered, in fact, several times. This idea of forcing due to water vapor isn’t thought too highly of either.
Now the use of this equation at best renders results based on it incorrect. And at worst is dishonest. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt about that but I’ll not buy into what you’re selling here.
You’ll see a whole laundry list of objections on nov55 and you’re welcome to explain them all if you want to.
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Mark D @ 324 said:
Mark it sure does but i was thinking more along the lines of it being a way for energy to leave the planet. The magnetic path and the large currents in it would form a very effective radiating antenna at super low frequencies (Sub Hz). Were you thinking about warm blankets surrounding the earth like the ones in the pictures here?
Glenn Tamblyn @ 328 Said:
Hang on back up a bit. “Scale of a whole planet”, no no the length of the magnetic tail is estmated to be about 1000 times the radius of the earth. Oh and whoa back up again “Multi-million amp currents”. Current in Amps is not a measure of Power. That is (I sqd)R. Now a million has only six zeros but when you square a multi million figure what do you have? Then when you realise that the path resistance R for one earth radius now needs to be multiplied by 1000 how many zeros do you have?
Still the magnetic fields can not be that powerful or they would be able to change the length of the day or shift the water in the sea’s right?.
“Indeed, for the first time, Nils Olsen and Mioara Mandea have computed a model for the flow at the top of the Earth’s core that fits with the recent rapid changes in the magnetic field, and is also in agreement with the changes in the Length-of-Day variation.”
It’s a model and is therefore wrong (junk in = junk out)but why and how much?.
What if the effects are not so isolated away from us in the core etc but are in the seas?
“In a radical rethink of accepted geophysics, new research in the US links variations in the Earth’s magnetic field with the ebb and flow of the world’s oceans. Given the practical importance of these field variations in navigation and atmospheric modeling, the implications of this new research extend far beyond academia.”
“For example, researchers had recorded changes in the intensity of current circulation in the North Atlantic; Ryskin shows that these appear strongly correlated with sharp changes in the rate of geomagnetic secular variation (“geomagnetic jerks”).”
“This could also be linked to tectonic plate movements that have shifted the world’s land masses around the globe, forcing ocean currents to adopt entirely new routes.”
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Roy Hoguea2360
Some samples from Nov55:
“With a specific heat of air of 1.012 Kj/Kg/K, an average density of the troposphere of 0.51 Kg/m³ and the heat spread over 5,000 m³, that’s 2550 Kg of air. Four watts is a kilo-joule every 250 seconds. It thereby takes 22 days to heat that much air 3°C. If it keeps heating for 44 days, the temperature increase is 6°C. It starts to boil water in 747 days.”
What is this gobbledeegook?
“There is no definable relationship between rate of heat added and resulting temperature. It depends upon rate of heat loss. Nature equilibrates at some point, and humans have not the slightest ability to determine how the equilibration occurs, which means the numbers and equations are totally contrived.”
Woopsee! There goes Thermodynamics out the window. Guess my entire degree was all for nothing. And all those Engineers who think they can design engines, boilers, heat exchangers, and so on. All of them must be doing it by fluke.
“Here’s the problem with the Stephan-Boltzmann constant: Satellite measurements indicate that the sun’s energy approaching the earth is 1366 watts per square meter. The amount reflected away is said to be 26%. The amount absorbed into the atmosphere is said to be 16%. (See NASA chart). That’s 1366 minus 26% minus 16% = 792 W/m2. That’s how much radiation would fall on a black asphalt surface at the equator at noon. The Stephan-Boltzmann constant indicates that in a dark basement, a concrete wall at 59°F (the global average temperature) would emit 390 W/m2. That’s 49% as much radiation emitted from a dark, cold basement as falls on a black surface at the equator. It isn’t happening.”
Wrong. He is comparing Peak incoming at the equator at noon to his cellar wall, presumably to get you to make the unconscious comparison between the hot Sun and the cold room. Of course he is careful to say at the equator at noon since the average incoming over the course of the day is only about 1/4 of this. And his point that the cellar wall will be radiating 390 W/m2 is correct. It is happening. Everything all around us is radiating all the time, including our own bodies. And each wall in that cellar is also absorbing radiation being emitted by the other walls.
“You have to realize that physicists pull their equations out of thin air and adapt them to a purpose, usually to expedite technology. It’s not a scientific process. Their math is always too simplistic to represent the complexities of nature.”
Excuse me while I pick my jaw up off the floor. The mathematics used in PHYSICS is simplistic!
So excuse me Roy, but someone who says the Stephan-Boltzmann Law is wrong and that Physicists pull their equations out of thin air! Case closed, he is another Internet crank with ideas divorced from reality. You need better sources than this. Try actually looking at the scientific literature.
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Glenn Tamblyn @362,
Excuse me Glenn, but you went to great length to not answer my questions. So perhaps this is prophetic?
If I ask a question of any of the regulars here I’ll get an answer to what I asked. Apparently that little detail escapes you.
I never challenged Stephan-Boltzmann or anything else except the specific equation you used at 338. I pointed out that others challenge the constant 5.35. You can follow the links on nov55 to see that nov55 isn’t alone.
I asked you some simple questions and one would think that anyone who wants to be taken seriously would answer them in a straight forward manner. Instead I get a long rant about things I never mentioned and are irrelevant to my post.
Whatever you may think of nov55 is yours to think. And just so you know, I would never present an opinion, whether pro or con, the way it’s done there. But the bottom line is this — you completely sidestepped giving me an answer to my questions. I’m clearly not the only one who doesn’t recognize 5.35 and you could have told me where it comes from. But you didn’t think it worth your time to do anything except rant about nov55.
I see no benefit in any further conversation with you. I’ve given you complete respect even though we disagree. I don’t see that same respect in return.
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The sea ice has extent has taken a dive:
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
Back @ 111 I said:
“Nearly every time the solar wind speed and proton density has been running high for a few days the Arctic sea ice extent responds by moving away from the average line (less ice).”
Is this a coincidence?
“A high-speed solar wind stream hit Earth’s magnetic field on May 2nd, sparking a geomagnetic storm that lasted more than 15 hours.”
Notice that the solar wind speed is still high.
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OK Roy.
Try http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/
or
even just wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing
Instead you referred me to a site from someone whe seems to think that he is able to single handedly overturn any part of science that doesn’t suit his agenda. All without any reference to the scientific literature. Essentially a crank. If you or anyone is serious about being sceptical about something, it requires rigour and an even-handedness in that scepticism. If you went to a site like that, saw some of the absurd statements being made by him, and didn’t just immediately react with a ‘well, best to ignore this whacko’ moment and move on to a more reliable source, where is the rigour and scepticism in that.
This is an observation made frequently on pro-AGW sites, about the frustrations of trying to debate with sceptics. A continued reluctance to accept arguments from mainstream science and the literature, fine, but then a willingness to embrace any and all sorts of poor reasoning without applying the same level of scepticism to that. Where is the rigour and the evenhandedness?
When you point me at a site that is so flaky for your argument, where is the respect in that?
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Hi Everybody:
Have not checked this thread since late last week, it’s been well worth my time this morning. The conduct of all contributors over the last few days is appreciated and the discussion enlightening, thanks to all for the many excellent links.
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Glen,
You missed the point completely — which is that others as well as Roy Hogue don’t know where that 5.35 constant comes from and would like to see it justified by someone, anyone, in a way that can stand up under examination. Skeptics are not stupid. They simply disagree with you. Many here are your equal if not your better in terms of degrees and knowledge.
It is a common thing with AGW believers that they think skepticism is somehow wrong or unacceptable. I would argue that you should maintain a healthy skepticism yourself. I do! I’m always looking over my sholder and if someone can show me something that stands up under examination I would be in the AGW camp. I daresay it’s the same for most here. Joanne herself was a dyed-in-the-wool believer utill she realized that reality wasn’t living up to the theory. And therein lies your stumbling block.
As for respect, I seem to remember a comic book…
I will make you this offer — when you have published something that is so much in demand that it gets translated into 13 different languages by volunteer labor (as the comic book has), come look me up and we’ll go out and have a drink to your success — on me. Actually, as many drinks as you want. All on me.
In the meantime understand something. It’s this attitude that skeptics are wrong and you’re right no matter what that made me a skeptic in the first place. Your degree(s) nowithstanding, science does not work that way.
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Roy
My problem with the variety of people who put themselves forward as ‘sceptics’ (and I accept that this is a wide gamet of people) is the degree to which the existing science is often mis-represented. Then when the mis-representation is pointed out, far too many in my experience do not at least acknowledge the points made and at least accept that there are other factors not being mentioned. You say that Jo felt the science wasnt living up to the theory. Then in her Handbooks, she puts forward arguments that I feel aren’t accurate descriptions of the theory. Along with a lot of more political commentary.
You mention a reference to a ‘comic book’, and Baa Humbug was rather strident on the subject. Well, in the following post (assuming Jo’s site allows what is a rather large document. If not I will try to break it up – be patient) I provide my attempt at a follow up to the comic book statement. And I stand by that description. The issue for me here isn’t whether you or others agree with what I put up. It is that in not putting up this and much more, Jo is failing to act like what she professes to be; A Sceptic. A sceptic doesn’t have sides, and a sceptic wants to see everything. Yet her handbooks are seriously deficient in that respect and she presents them as being ‘what its all about’. I don’t expect you to accept all, or even any of this; I am sure we will have to agree to disagree. But where is any of this, even as discussion points in Jo’s handbooks. And don’t forget. Vsn 2 is very recent. Jo has had ample time to research the diversity of science out there.
Agree or disagree, here is my follow up to the comic comment. (if it will fit)
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Jo is a Science Journalist, and her handbooks are called Sceptics Handbooks, not Denialists Handbooks. Therefore her intent should be to promote open minded enquiry of all the science, with sceptic/denialist claims subjected to the same dispassionate enquiry as AGW claims. Read the tenor of Jo’s opening comments,
her reference to AGW proponents as ‘Believers’
, Talk of surgical strikes to cut through to what matters, don’t get ‘distracted’ by talk of complexity. Keep it simple so that the reality can’t be seen – segue here to various Strawman Arguments.
I will be highlighting a range of issues below that Jo doesn’t even mention. You may not agree with all of them and may have others yourselves, but if Jo were doing her job as a diligent journalist, she should raise them. Honest Scepticism would want
everything possible revealed. And I am note attempting to make an argument. I am reporting on the argument. And this isn’t exhaustive since quite frankly, working through all the problems has been exhausting.
And always remember, a Sceptic doesn’t have a side.
So, lets work through both handbooks
Book 1
1. The Greenhouse Signature is missing! Having said earlier that she accepts the existance of the Greenhouse effect but that that is not Global Warming, her first point is about the signature for the GH effect. Then Jo proceeds to focus on a secondary prediction rather than the core observations related to the GH effect and any change in it (remember AGW is also called the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect). And the key signatures of EGE are Radiative Behaviour, So, in order of descending priority as evidence ( and predicted effects) are:
A. Changes in the Outgoing Longwave Radiation spectrum – General rise due to warming of the planet and decline in the frequencies associated with GH Gases
B. Changes in Downwelling Longwave radiation reflecting greater absorption in the atmosphere. Particularly increases in the freqiencies associated with GH Gases.
C. Cooling in the Stratosphere
D. Greater warming at night and in colder weather
All these effects have been observed and are in stark contrast to the effects expected if the warming was due to increased solar output for example. Also Albedo changes such as due to Clouds would not have this effect since they would mimic the effects of solar output changes.
Then, as lower order expected effects we have, Ocean Warming, Polar Warming and the Upper Troposphere hotspot. These are consequential effects, based first on the radiative behaviour and thus the energy balance implications. Then the Thermodynamics & Fluid Mechanics of Climate get applied to this to derive these effects. So they are not signatures of the EGE, but rather expected consequences of it. So, Ocean Warming, tick, Northern Polar warming, tick, Southern Polar warming, cross (but with evidence suggesting an explanation that is not AGW related), Upper Troposphere Hotspot, cross.
So key signatures Present
Major derivative prdiction, 2 (maybe 3) out of 4
And right there on Jo’s own figure, is one of the Key Signatures, Present. Stratospheric Cooling. She sort of doesn’t mention much about that does she!
2. The Strongest Evidence was the Ice Cores! False. Ice core data is only one of many lines of supporting evidence. Over simplification here to set up a Strawman. Then the next argument that since CO2 followed Temperature, ‘CO2 was in the back seat’. And the disingenuous question that maybe something else was causing it. Golly Gee, we have no idea what. Also the claim that AGW Proponents say that CO2 Amplifies the effect – she does like putting words in peoples mouths. Well, no. CO2 doesn’t amplify, it continues on after the initial effect has faded away. And the common estimate that I have read is that CO2 contributes about 40% of the full glacial cycle. And the Ice Core record is of particular interest to the Climate Scientists since it is a living laboratory for investigating Climate Sensitivity – how much climate changes in response to different forcings.
The common understanding of a glacial cycle goes something like this:
At the bottom of the cycle, various cyclical changes in the Earths orbital parameters called Milankovitch Cycles cause a small warming influence, not enough to cause the full cycle but enough to get it started. Then, if you look closely at the graph, at the same time, around 138,000 yrs, CO2 does start to rise, but only slowly. What is not shown here is the likely increase in Methane that will occur at the same time – more warmth, more warm bogs, permafrost starting to melt. Methane is a much more powerful GH gas than CO2 but is breaks down chemically to CO2 & Water within a short time. So Methane release can have a significant warming effect that is short lived leaving only small traces of CO2 behind. Then as the temp starts to warm, CO2 outgasses from the oceans due to temp rise and the CO2 starts to contribute. The dominant reason for the 800 year lag is most likely that this is the typical time for ocean currents to overturn the oceans, bringing more colder, CO2 rich water to the surface to outgas. So Milankovitch & Methane then CO2 later. However the Milankovitch contribution will start to decline but later another effect kicks in – Albedo change due to loss of the ice sheets. They are huge so it takes thousands of years before they shrink and start to break up, exposing darker bedrock. So at the end of the rise it is some Methane, and CO2 and Albedo Change. Finally the Milankovitch cycle starts to turn the otherway, all the permafrost has melted and CO2’s effect starts to drop due to the logarithmic effect. And eventually the Ice sheets diminution starts to stop. The peak of the Interglacial is reached. And through all of this water vapour changes in the atmosphere magnify this effect
Then we head down. Milankovitch starts to drive in the other direction. CO2 release may still continue, driven both by the time lags for heat to penetrate the deep oceans and turn-over from ocean currents. Soon after Albedo change starts to kick in early. It takes thousands of years of slow warming to remove the great ice sheets, expose the bedrock underneath and change albedo, but during the cooling phase only a small amount of extra snow fall starts to reverse the albedo. A couple of metres of snow will have much the same albedo as a 3 kilometer thick ice sheet. So down we go. Then slowly the cooling starts to overcome the outgassing of CO2 and the oceans start re-absorbing the CO2. Another factor slowing the decline in CO2 is that the vegetation built up during the interglacial takes time to die and decompose as the cold advances. So this adds CO2 to the atmosphere while the oceans are starting to absorb it.
So Milankovitch then Methane then CO2 then Albedo on the way up, Milankovitch then Albedo then CO2 on the way down. Now look at the Ice core graph Jo presents. CO2 starts to increase a little at exactly the same time as Temp’s start to swing up. Then it lags the temperature rise by that 800 year figure, just as you would expect. The earlier release is driving the subsequent temp rise. Note also that the CO2 curves tracks the Temp curve pretty closely during the rise. Then on the down cycle, any correlation between CO2 and Temp is much worse since Albedo change is a stronger driver here and vegetation die off clouds the CO2 picture. Closer correlation when expected, looser correlation when expected.
Then Jo throws in this little gem “If CO2 was a major driver, temperatures would rise indefinitely in a ‘runaway greenhouse effect'”. And Gee, this hasn’t happened. Wrong Jo. Positive Feedbacks only create runaway conditions if the magnitude of the positive feedback grows as the main function grows. If the feedback is positive but declining as the growth progresses, ultimately dropping to zero feedback, then no runaway. It climbs to a certain level then plateaus. GH Gases have a logarithmic effect with concentration – more provides a steadily diminishing impact. And there needs to be a source of GH gases that can continue to supply more as Temp’s change and in fact supply at a steadily increasing rate to compensate for the logarithmic effect. The Temperature behaviour of Henry’s Law doen’t provide this. Other drivers such as Albedo are also limited – Ice loss can change Albedo, but only until all the ice is melted. Then no more feedback.
3. Next we have the ‘The world isn’t warming recently’ meme. Jo doesn’t give her source for the 2 sets of data but I assume that the ‘satellite’ data is from UAH. As I have said elsewhere, I believe that we need to be cautious of the satellite data from both UAH & RSS – there may be a ‘bleed through’ effect where stratospheric cooling is adding a cooling bias to the satellite record. Also a paper by Fu et al 2004 makes interesting reading on this point.
Next she cites the poor location of some stations – absolutely true. However NOAA have done an analysis of data using just high quality stations vs all stations. Small effect but not significant. Next this bad stations effect needs to be extrapolated to the rest of the world. Next this effect needs to be extrapolated to the oceans which are 70% of the earths surface and thus 70% of the temperature record. Wait a minute. How can there be a bad stations effect at sea? Particularly since the ocean records are largely satellite based since 1980. So it seems for Jo that satellite data is good for one side of her argument but can be ignored for the other side.
Next we have the fact that Jo makes no mention at all of the overwhelming dominant component of Global Warming – Heat accumulation in the Oceans. Warming has added 30 times as much heat to the oceans as the air so this is where our primary focus should be. So, we have that bad stations may have introduced a small warming bias in the US, but comparison with good stations suggests not much. And the US is around 5% of the worlds land surface, so we have to assume that the same problems occur world wide. Then this is only around 30% of the worlds surface anyway. And even then we are only discussing about 3% of the warming anyway.
So we have the absurd statement “The main ’cause’ of global warming is air conditioners”. Note the quotes around cause – probably to be a bit wry. The main evidence of Global warming is what is happening in the oceans – everything else is a sideshow by comparison.
Finally, We have the absurdity of showing very short term data and drawing long conclusions about it. Jo’s own expression – ‘long term trends are all that is left’ Yes Jo, Long term Trends. Global Warming, the thing that remains after all the short term variability is removed. The idea of looking at short term data is quite wrong. Commonly 5 year or 11 year running averages are used. 5 year smooths out the effects of El Nino events, 11 year smooths out the solar cycle. The standard used to differentiate Climate from Weather is time scales of 20-30 years. So, is there natural variability, Yes. But that is the point with variability. It varies. Up a bit, down a bit. But that doesn’t mean it has a long term trend.
Finally, ‘Models can’t predict the climate over 7 years, why should the be right over 70’. Jo, 7 years ISN’T CLIMATE. And they are more likely to be reliable over long periods rather than short precisely because the drivers of short term variation all tend to get smoothed out over the long term, leaving the long term drivers visible. And don’t make the mistake of comparing a Weather model with a Climate model, they are totally different things.
4. Next Jo raises the Saturation argument. Firstly I would refer anyone to the following links for more detail on why Saturation does not apply:
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/
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateBook.html
Next the logical inconsistancy of the following statement “The carbon that’s already up in the atmosphere absorbs most of the light it can (wrong by the way) … but it can’t do much more, because there are not many left-over photons at the right wavelengths”
Either the carbon has soaked up all it can, which does not imply that it has soaked up all that is available, or it has soaked up all that is available which implies that there is carbon not involved with anything. Jo seems unclear what she means and the 2 things are logically inconsistant. The evidence says that the first case is actually the applicable one. CO2 has absorbed a certain amount but nowhere near all the OLR in its absorption bands.
And as time has passes, it is absorbing more. So not saturated yet. Evidence? Satellite data over the last 30 years. Also increases in downwelling longwave radiation in the same bands.
Note also how Jo describes how the radiation is absorbed but fails to mention (like many putting forward faulty arguments about the GH effect) that it is also re-radiated. The reality is a continuous interplay of absorption, reradiation and energy transfer to surrounding molecules through collisions – each molecule in the lower atmosphere will experience several billion collisions a second.
Then Jo shows a graph of the further contribution of CO2 with increased concentrations. Probably the most unclear method of displaying this data, but showing the continued impact of O2, in line with the logarithmic growth expected. However this is logically inconsistant with her earlier statement. If CO2 is nearly saturated
, how can there be any additional impact. Then there is a reference to
“The models make brutal estimates and many assumptions (seems Jo has spent a lot of time examining exactly what the models do, in detail) Lab-warming doesn’t translate to planet warming. Which is ironic since the caption under the graph says it was generated using the modtran program. Much of the control of the Modtran program and its methods resides with the US Air Force who hold some of the patents on its methods. Derived from their years of observation of real world, up there in the sky, spectroscopy.
“Models don’t know but they assume clouds are net warming”. Well actually Jo if you look at the IPCC’s reports they clearly state that the largest area of unknowns is aerosol/cloud effects and that they are assumed to be a COOLING.
She comments that the impact of further CO2 will be less and less. True Jo, everyone knows that. And the effect is “unmeasurable”! Not from the satellite data it isn’t.
Then conclusion that more CO2 should show up in the ice cores – as I said above, it does!. No mention that it show up in changes in OLR & DWLR spectra which it does. And there has been an increase in temperatures, particularly in the oceans.
“Cutting through the fog”
I won’t try to address everything Jo has here, I have already mentioned some points. However in the first box “Can you name a single piece of evidence showing higher CO2 means significantly higher temperatures today?” Well I have mentioned some evidence. But look at how Jo words this. Nobody has suggested “significantly higher temperatures today”. The projections are about what temps will be decades from now. But a classic Strawman Argument – reframe the question to make it easy to knock down. Because many people don’t spot the trick. It is the question that is at fault, not the answer.
“The Real World trumps the laboratory every time.” Damn right Jo. Satellite data, high altitude spectroscopic data, DWLR spectra. All part of the real world. And again, Strawman argument. Reframe the question so that Climate Scientists are painted as boffins in labs, not in the ‘Real World’
“But carbon dioxide is at record levels”. Well no as you point out Jo, just records on a very short time scale. Then seque into the long climate record and how much higher CO2 was. And no Runaway Greenhouse. I have already discussed the fallacy of ‘runaway thinking’. The ancient
climate record is an oldy but a goody. Since Jo discusses this in more detail in handbook 2, I will leave comment until then. Surfice it to say that she has left out a great big factor that completely invalidates this argument. So much so that without the GH effects of CO2 and others, complex life may never have evolved on the Earth. No people, puppies or penguins
Then a nice offensive cartoon, showing ‘the boffins’.
Finally something I can agree with Jo about. Emmissions Trading Schemes etc are probably a very ineffective way of address the changes needed.
So to Handbook 2. I will jump around a bit here. Firstly following on about ancient CO2. Page 19, “Carbon levels have been much higher in the distant past”. But Temp’s were around 22 DegC during those periods. Surely a smoking gun?
Not. Jo, showing again her penchant for putting words in peoples mouths lists some supposed AGW Proponents arguments that counter this.
Well let me put the key AGW argument that Jo seems to have missed.
“Temp’s were stable in the past while CO2 was much higher because the Sun’s output was much lower. Without the warming effect of much more CO2, the earth would have been an iceball.”
All of our understanding of the behaviour of stars, nuclear physics, the observed behaviour of huge numbers of other stars we have observed says that as stars in the size range of our sun age, their heat output grows. The estimate is that 4 billion years ago the Sun was putting out only 70% of the heat it does today. So the question is why didn’t the early Earth freeze?
This is referred to as the Faint Young Sun problem, and was being discussed as early as the early 70’s. Even with the expectation of all the GH gases in the early atmosphere, CO2, Methane, Water Vapour, Ammonia, there still didn’t seem to be enough combined GH effect to keep the planet warm enough to stop it freezing. Yet geology shows strong evidence of vast amounts of liquid water way back to the early Earth. Even now research is throwing up additional substances that may also contribute additional GH Effect.
Fast Forward to the time period in the graph. If The Sun was only 70% of today 4 billion year ago, it would have been at around 95.5% of todays level at 600 Million years ago. Thats around 60 W/M^2 less than the current level of 1366 W/M^2. Compare that to the famous Maunder Minimum that was only 1-2 W/M^2. So we needed that much extra CO2 just to keep the temp stable.
And as the Sun’s output climbs, so to CO2 levels drop. This pattern is only interupted by periods of Ice Ages.
Jo also thinks that CO2 levels have dropped because ‘Life on Earth sucked it out of the sky as it evolved’. Absolutely true partly. However there is another factor, even stronger than this – chemical weathering of rocks. Chemical reactions between the surface of silicate rocks and carbonic acid produced from reactions between water and CO2 in the atmosphere produce carbonate that ultimately ends up as deposits in the deep ocean. Volcanic activity, Moutain upwelling etc can al change the rate of this process. Over long time scales this is the dominant sequestration component of the carbon cycle.
Note also the grey area on the graph. This is the error margins for the CO2 levels. Quite a lot of uncertainty but a long term trend for CO2 down as the Sun’s energy goes up. Some scientists believe that the long term trend for this is that 500 million years from now the only CO2 level at which temperatures will be viable for life will be at such low CO2 levels that plant life will not be able to survive. The end of Life on Earth.
Is Sun & CO2 and Temp’s together enough to explain this graph? Largely but not totally. But other known factors such as vulcanism and mountain uplift; the big factor of continental drift and where continents are located and the impact this has on the predisposition to Glaciation periods; and the changing pattern of life on earth, particularly the massive sequestration of carbon during the Carboniferous period means that most of the graph is actually quite understandable. The one stand-out that wasn’t well enough explained was the Ordovician Ice Age around 440 million years ago. A deep Ice Age temperature wise but no CO2 dip to cause it. However recent research by Young et al suggests that the Ordovician Ice Age was actually only about 1/2 a million years long and was proceeded by a sudden but short lived drop in CO2 levels as the trigger, probably caused a short period of volcanic eruptions increasing weathering rates and carbon sequestration. The older research wasn’t detailed enough. Nothing like keeping current of the science is there Jo.
Look at the periods were Temp’s were fairly stable at 22 DegC. If temps are stable then the atmospheric water vapour level is fairly stable since water vapour content in the atmosphere is governed by temperature not evaporation rate. Albedo change wouldn’t be significant since it is already warm so not much ice to melt, and with largely stable temps, it wont alter much. So this leaves just Clouds and GH effect as influences. If water vapour levels aren’t varying, why would cloud quantities. Even if clouds are growing, currently they reflect less than 30% of incoming sunlight. So to compensate cloud albedo would need to grow at over 3 times the rate at which solar output is growing. And what is the mechanism driving that long term trend? Whereas the mechanism proposed for GH effect fits the bill very strongly, with only small contributions needed from other effects to explain the whole graph.
Another important point to note. If higher CO2 is an important component in explaining the 600My record, and much higher levels of CO2 were needed to provide the warming required to sustain temps in the past, then that blows the ‘its saturated and can’t do much more’ argument out the window.
As to Svensmark’s Galactic Cosmic Ray theory. Maybe. Certainly the idea that GCR’s may contribute to cloud formation is not implausible. However, there some issues. Ionizing a molecule is just the first step in producing a Cloud Condensation Nuclei. The next step requires some process whereby the size of the molecule/particle can grow by about 5 orders of magnitude in order to become a CCN. And then it is simply competing with various other sources of CCN’s in cloud formation. So the big question would be how much of cloud formation is GCR related. Then the question is what will the long term trend for GCR’s be. If GCR penetration to the Earth simply oscillates with the Solar Cycle then any contribution of GCR’s to clouds would be an oscillating factor, but not a long term trend.
Now to CO2 and food. I have read a range of reports about the effects of CO2 on biomass yields. They are equivocal. Some say yes, some no. An important point here is we aren’t interested in biomass in general. Only the biomass we actually eat. And since the worlds food supply can be described as essentially grains and a few flavourings, what matters is the main grain crops; better yields for tomatoes isn’t the main game in food supply. So we also need to look at the impacts of temperatures on grain yields. Crop ecologists have been looking at this for some time now. A rough rule of thumb used by them is that a 1 DegC temperature rise LOWERS crop yields of many major grains by 10%. They are particularly vulnerable during the pollination phase. Also warmer weather is expected to bring more extreme hot days that can wipe out crops. Also greater weather variability due to warming is likely to be a big factor, particularly variability of the Asian and West African Monsoons. Its not much use having a good crop one year if the number of years where the crop fails due to variable weather, failed Monsoons or extreme temperature events is too high. Add to this declining groundwater levels, greater evaporation rates in warmer climates declining flows from Glacial melt and the future for food security doesn’t look good. And in a food scarce world because of higher population, erratic food supplies are very bad indeed. I doubt that any productivity gains from the CO2 fertiliser effect would compensate for all the other negatives.
“How to create a crisis…” Here Jo shows her anti-science bias most strongly, strange since she touts the need to be scientific. She ridicules the use of error bars. In all of science, when reporting results, reporting your analysis of the error margins of the analysis is integral to that. Anything else utterly unprofesional. So Jo professes the validity of good science practice, then ridicules that practice, even though she herself included error ‘bars’, in her graph on ancient CO2 v Temps. Next she makes a comment about ‘ignoring’ the hump during the 30’s & 40’s as something unexplained. Well no. Solar output was higher early in the century, recent research has thrown up the strong possibility that the hump may have been exagerated during the 1940’s due to measurement issues with sea surface temperatures, and the hump was followed by a temp drop believed to be due to the postwar boom and high air pollution until the 70’s – look up the stories of death rates from smog back then. Finally she doesn’t mention that the graph she refers to is of aggregations of Model projections. Models can’t model everything, true. Particularly solar variations. So they model average behaviour for phenomena such as solar that they can’t ever predict.
‘Apparently the entire original global records of climate data are now gone, “lost”‘. Totally false. The raw data is still available. Go to the Global Historical Climate Network. If you want to, dig deep and look at the scanned copies of the original station logs. If you want, go to the national weather services who collected the data. As to the responsibility
to provide data, the FOI rules allow its refusal under vexatious enquiry rules. Would you call 40 FOI requests in one month, each taking 18 hours or so to process, from multiple individuals who all wanted data from another country than their own reasonable enquiry or vexatious. Why would Steve McIntyre, a Canadian, be enquiring of an English organisation about Canadian Climate data?
As to the Central Tenet that raw data should be made available to anyone. Many scientists would be amazed by that. A central tenet of science is replication. Do your own experiment and use your own methods to see if you arrive at the same result. Most scientific papers describe results and methodology so the methodology can be checked for logic faults etc. But to check deeper you need to remove any assumptions, errors or biases that the other worker may have in their data by collecting your own. This is the basis of good science. This is what killed off Cold Fusion years ago. However since the raw data is climate records, you can’t go back in to the lab. However, you use the real raw data – GHCN and other repositories. So Steve McIntyre should have gone to GHCN, got the data and done the work himself if his intentions were scientific. However if his motives were either lazy or more hostile, harrass people for the effect it will have, well…. If I had been in Phil Jones; shoes I would have reacted the same way – do your own work you lazy slob.
Now to the MWP. Note that the graph is from CO2Science.org, a climate sceptic site. Is this a graph of every study that has been done, or simply of those that fit – unclear. The graph shows temp diffference but doesn’t show type of study, error range, and most importantly duration of the warming at each site and just as importantly, when. I have seen similar graphs showing studies that varied from several centuries of warming to a spike no more than 20 years wide. And time periods that varied from 1000-1400 years, the medieval period, to 500-900 years, definitely pre-medieval. To qualify as evidence for the MWP as a Global phenomenon you need evidence of warming at different points around the world for comparable durations and at around the same time. And evidence of what any omitted studies showed. Otherwise you run the risk of ‘Confirmation Bias’. Compare this with a recent study by Mann et al of 1000 separate studies that reported the MWP was only significant in the Northern Hemisphere/Atlantic basin. So show us all the evidence we need to evaluate this, not a filtered result from a source that is questionable in its impartiality.
Next The Hockey Stick. A few basics. Mann et al issued a correction to their paper after some faults were pointed out. Multiple reports since have said that the science was solid. McIntyre was criticised for among other things basic arithmetical errors in his analysis, confusing degrees with radians. And for a counterpoint view on the Wegman Report, read these posts over at DeepClimate about the backroom machinations around McIntyre, Senator Inhofe and his staff, the selection of the committee and the ‘supplying’ of information to it. Always refershing to get a counter view on a subject rather than presume one side are the whitehats and the other the blackhats.
Next to water vapour. The water feedback is one of the uncertainties in climate change. Entire scientific conferences have been held debating just water feedbacks. Jo accepts the uncertainties then seems to plumb for the idea that because a few people have views at one end of the range of opinions, that is the one we should base our actions on. Alternatively, if there is a range of views, we should ask which ones have more severe consequences and act based on them. As to clouds, Yes Jo, just as the IPCC report says. They can warm and cool. And they are recognised as the largest uncertainty in our understanding. And the IPCC reports identify them as probably having a cooling impact. Also, Jo hasn’t mentioned anywhere in her discussion of clouds the impact of aerosols. These are believed to be the largest source of Cloud Condensation Nuclei, against which Svensmark’s GCR source has to compete. And much of the aerosols in the atmosphere come from our pollution. If clouds have a net cooling effect and aerosols are a major source for clouds, what happens if we clean up our air. One possible source for some of the reduced warming in the last decade is increased aerosol production from the booming but dirty economies of China, India etc. I have worked in China. The air quality looks like old footage from the 50’s & 60’s. Yuck.
Then we have the 79 Billion for ‘Climate Change Research’ vs Exxon’s 23 million. Firstly, most of that money is spent on hardware – Satellites, Radiosondes, Argo Floats, Hydrographic research ships, drill teams, aircraft, chemical labs; these don’t come cheap. Next, the raw data from this research is available to most researchers. For example, Professors Spencer & Christy, prominent climate sceptic scientists, are at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, UAH, the source of one of the satellite temperature records. In their work they use data from a range of satellites launched by NOAA & NASA. Because the point is its not ‘Climate Change Research’, its ‘Climate Research’.
And this reflects a major change in tone from Jo between versions 1 & 2. Apart from the faults I have pointed out, Vol 1 was at least substantially discussing scepticism about the science. Volume 2 is laced with political tirades, invectives, railing againt Ad Hom attacks then launching them. In Vol 1 you might have called Jo a Sceptic. Vol 2 reveals that Jo is now a died-in-the-wool Denialist. Centrally she seems to lack the impartiality that is the essence of Scepticism. Jo has definitely decided to pick a side.
There is a host of new research that Jo could be reporting on since Vol 2 is quite recent but she doesn’t seem interested in doing that; just the tired old things. For more recent science, try some of the other sites that are more interested in reporting the science than the conspiracy theory crocks.
And at this point I am afraid exhaustion has set in. I find picking through anymore of Jo’s comic too depressing.
I am sure you won’t agree with some, maybe many things I have mentioned. And there is probably much more that could be said. But the point is they are all issues you should be aware of, irrespective of whether you agree with them. Fo Jo to be putting out a Handbook to inform people, she has a journalists responsibility to check her facts and report all these issues. It is for you to weigh them up and make your own decision about there significance, Not Jo.
Jo’s responsibility is Detailed Reportage, not half-baked polemic. For that is the point. These aren’t Sceptic’s Handbooks. They are Denialist Polemics.
Jo should be at least honest enough to admit that.
00
Kudos to Jo
Her site allows large enough posts for real comments.
00
Glen,
Two things:
1) You still haven’t said where the 5.35 constant comes from.
2) You now have twice mentioned large amounts of heat in the ocean. But never have you given the one thing that turns that data (equivalent of x billions of Hiroshima bombs) into information. By how much has ocean temperature actually risen and since when?
I read everything you wrote. I’ve seen a lot of it elsewhere. The one thing I’ve not seen is the answers to the questions I asked. Should I laugh or cry?
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Glen you are the most articulate bullshit artist I have seen on this site. You mentioned nothing nor gave anything towards the AGW
thoughts. You tried to castigate Jo and you must feel relieved to spout such diatribe. Most probably you are paid by some alarmist or political group.
Folks I met this type at University, they thought that bullshitting with academicese type arguments, they looked authoritive and said nothing. Actually, they just criticised without making any points to ponder.
Glen you are an expert in academic gobblegook, you should be in politics. LOL
00
To add Glen. CO2 emissions do not contribute to climate change.
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. Even when the proportion or percentage of CO2 from human activities enhance the CO2
in our atmosphere, greenhouse gases are 95% water vapor, and 99% of Co2 is naturally produced. CO2 being 4% over all. Now if we get that right, why, why, should we tax CO2. ESPECIALLY WHEN SO CALLED CO2 EMITTERS LIKE COAL FIRED ELECTRICITY PLANTS ETC., WILL BUY CARBON CREDITS TO PAY FOR THEIR EMISSIONS. Won’t stop or cease emissions
it will just make we consumers pay more.
Not only CO2 but methane. Oh my Gawd. If I stop eating meat, it will save the planet from warming, even though all human CO2 emissions cease? LOL
Cattle and all ruminants burp and fart methane. However their pee
and manure fertilizes soils and benefits the environment by encouraging more sub soil microbiology. Methane disperses quickly. And is a small trace gas in with CO2 and water vapor that make up our
necessary greenhouse gases.
Now – after this small diatribe of mine, why don’t you give us a little more scientific analysis al Gore etc., that is in contrast
to Jo’s.
Rather than just bullshit on without saying anything of importance.
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Glenn Tamblyn:
Glen there are much wiser people on this site to debate you, but even lowly old me find some of your points weak and hardly worth the time it must have taken you to compile.
You say we need to be cautious of satellite data. What’s that leave us, three sets of data that are known to be homogenised, manipulated repeatedly, constantly changing that the compilers admit are in a mess. Please spare us.
You mention the ARGO buoys but neglect to mention that since their introduction they have recorded dropping sea temperatures, and that when compiling world temps UEA, NOAA and NASA Giss all ignore them, one can only imagine why. No it’s real easy they don’t show warming.
That’s flawed logic I’ve come across many times before. As the main objection to Mann’s work is the missing MWP and Little Ice Age we both know CHGN doesn’t have them on record, and it’s Mann’s proxies that are in dispute. No one can either verify or disprove an-others work by using different methods or using different inputs proxies etc.
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Glenn,
Well there you have it! I gave you the rope and you hung yourself.
The problem with believers is that they can’t help being superior to a mere skeptic. It’s shown in everything you’ve posted. When you thought you could convince me you went at it with a vengeance I seldom see. But when the final act played out you were just another jerk who shows up on joannenova with the regularity of a clock. Tick, jerk! Tock, jerk! Tick, jerk! Tock, jerk!
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Glenn Tamblyn:
Kudos to Jo not to waste her time replying it.
He he…..
Really Glenn your comment was wayyyy toooo looooong.
00
Glen,
when will you answer Roy’s comment from # 367,where he writes:
what about that 5.35 constant?
00
Firstly Tamblyn, kudos for taking the time and effort to post with such detail. Though I think you may get a smack on the bum for using the “D” word.
Such a long post deserves a long reply, made longer still due to the need to backquote.
#368 you say…
Jo would tell you that it’s a ‘fence sitter” who doesn’t have sides. She would also tell you that being a TRUE sceptic, she changed sides 3yrs ago when she was given new evidence.
“What it’s all about”? Err Tamblyn this is a HANDBOOK, not a direct rebuttal to the whole 3000 page IPCC AR4 put together by 1000-2000-3000-4000 scientists over 6 years. The HB’s opening paragraph states “strategies and tools you need…”
Meant for laymen (like me) and students etc
That’s a bit rich isn’t it? Up to now you’ve posted comments that amount to literally 100’s of words. Where in any of it did you demand the same from the IPCC reports? Or the Realclimate site you refer to? Where have they made “dispassionate enquiry” of sceptical papers?
Afterall, the world doesn’t hold it’s breath for Jos handbook, but it does every 5-6 years for the IPCC reports. So far 4 reports amounting to nearly 10,000 pages and no room for “dispassionate enquiry” of alternate/contrary viewpoints?
Quotes from the AR4:
WG1 Chp9 pp 702
Models and observations also both show warming in the lower part of the atmosphere (the troposphere) and cooling higher up in the stratosphere. This is another ‘fingerprint’ of change that reveals the effect of human influence on the climate.
Chp 8 Box 8.1 pp 632
“Water vapour is the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere…… it is the response of tropospheric water vapour to warming itself – the water vapour feedback – that matters for climate change.”
“In GCMs, water vapour provides the largest positive radiative feedback (see Section 8.6.2.3): alone, it roughly doubles the warming in response to forcing (such as from greenhouse gas increases).”
“for uniform warming, the largest fractional change in water vapour, and thus the largest contribution to the feedback, occurs in the upper troposphere. In addition, GCMs find enhanced warming in the tropical upper troposphere, due to changes in the lapse rate (see Section 9.4.4).”
You may feel that the “hotspot” isn’t too important, but the IPCC surely thinks it is. Trying to underplay the importance of the hotspot does you no credit.
So, key signature present? NO
More next post.
00
But then in the same paragraph you say…
So according to you, a “living laboratory” isn’t the strongest evidence. Yet you didn’t bother to list any of the “strongest” evidence from “dead” laboratories. Over simplification on your part maybe?
You repeatedly denounced Ms Nova for not being scientific, indeed you reiterated with the “and I stand by it” quip, and yet you “scientifically” respond with “common understanding……”goes something like this???
That long paragraph starting with “At the bottom of the cycle..”
Are they your personal opinions or are there some papers you can point to confirming all this as ‘settled”. Or are we just entertaining each other with personal opinions, “comic book” style perhaps?
At what level (ppm) does CO2 effect start to drop off? What certain level before plateauing?
I’m afraid to say I find none of this conjecture convincing. “The oceans turn over in 800yrs, CO2 effect reaches it’s peak just as Milankovitch turns his cycle around”. Nope, not convinced at all. There are literally hundreds of papers attempting to quantify these things, all vary by large amounts. NO ONE KNOWS FOR CERTAIN
And I asked you before, why should we NOT be cautious of the thermometer data? Data from Haiti, Pakistan, Libya Sudan etc What about readings taken by cadets on merchant ships traveling on well established shipping routes leaving vast areas of ocean
un-monitored? What about data from tree stumps dug out of the bog in the Yamal peninsula? No need to be cautious with those? Sceptical maybe?
Meaning what Tamblyn? Are we supposed to rush off to find this paper to see what’s interesting about it?
NOAA published it’s own station quality criteria. NOAA used data from these stations, good and bad, for years, until surfacestations alerted everyone to the bad siting issue. So then NOAA audits itself and says “no problem folks, nothing to see here”. You really don’t have a skeptical bone in your body do you Tamblyn. Except when it comes to skeptical views.
This whole paragraph about 70% oceans, extrapolation etc is quite incoherent. You’ll need to revise it for it to be worthy of a thorough reply.
Worse problems actually. The US data set is the gold standard. So data from Ghana, Siberia, China Bangladesh etc has to be more suspect. Period.
More next post.
00
So what is happening in the oceans? Since long wave radiation can’t penetrate the sea surface by more than a mm or so, what’s warming the oceans? Are they in fact warming? By how much? Since when? What data?
My understanding is that a station at the Nadi airport, Fiji (for example) is used for a grid area 1200km square. That’s a lot of ocean area supposed to be the same micro climate/temperature as the airport at Nadi. Also, any grid with any land area, has the land data extrapolated to the sea surface area. (I’m happy to be corrected on this point). So your figure of 30% is likely way off.
No trend? This is incoherent. The Milankovitch cycles, 90-100 thousand year ice age cycles, all natural variability, all have trends. Yet you say no trends? 90,000 years not long enough?
Climate Models are unable to simulate major climate events like the ice ages, nor interglacial warm events (Roman, Minoan Medieval etc) nor the interglacial cool events (Younger Dryas, Little Ice Age) They also can’t simulate short term climate phenomena like ENSO and PDO. Nor can they simulate climate 10-20 months, 10-20 years in advance. We are to believe they can simulate climate 50-100-200 years hence? Go figure.
4-) In point 4 you refer us to 5 links. The first 2 of which are to realclimate.org. That’s OK. But wait, what’s this? Further down in your comment, paragraph beginning
Now Tamblyn, can you see the problem I have with this? Can you see the truck coming? Did we forget to mention realclimate is ground zero of alarmism? Are we playing pot, kettle, black games or good for goose, good for gander games?
Errr, ahem. I know a blogger named Glen Tamblyn who says, repeatedly, that we should be CAUTIOUS of satellite data.
I know another Glen Tamblyn, who says we should take satellite data as EVIDENCE.
Which Glen to believe? Both, CAUTIOUS EVIDENCE. What percentile confidence level does cautious evidence have?
That’ll be all I think.
00
369. Jo is a Science Journalist, and her handbooks are called Sceptics Handbooks, not Denialists Handbooks. Therefore her intent should be to promote open minded enquiry of all the science, with sceptic/denialist claims subjected to the same dispassionate enquiry as AGW claims. Read the tenor of Jo’s opening comments, her reference to AGW proponents as ‘Believers’, Talk of surgical strikes to cut through to what matters, don’t get ‘distracted’ by talk of complexity. Keep it simple so that the reality can’t be seen – segue here to various Strawman Arguments.
I will be highlighting a range of issues below that Jo doesn’t even mention. You may not agree with all of them and may have others yourselves, but if Jo were doing her job as a diligent journalist, she should raise them. Honest Scepticism would want everything possible revealed. And I am note attempting to make an argument. I am reporting on the argument. And this isn’t exhaustive since quite frankly, working through all the problems has been exhausting.
And always remember, a Sceptic doesn’t have a side.
So, lets work through both handbooks
Book 1
1. The Greenhouse Signature is missing! Having said earlier that she accepts the existance of the Greenhouse effect but that that is not Global Warming, her first point is about the signature for the GH effect. Then Jo proceeds to focus on a secondary prediction rather than the core observations related to the GH effect and any change in it (remember AGW is also called the Enhanced Greenhouse Effect). And the key signatures of EGE are Radiative Behaviour, So, in order of descending priority as evidence ( and predicted effects) are:
A. Changes in the Outgoing Longwave Radiation spectrum – General rise due to warming of the planet and decline in the frequencies associated with GH Gases
B. Changes in Downwelling Longwave radiation reflecting greater absorption in the atmosphere. Particularly increases in the freqiencies associated with GH Gases.
C. Cooling in the Stratosphere
D. Greater warming at night and in colder weather
All these effects have been observed and are in stark contrast to the effects expected if the warming was due to increased solar output for example. Also Albedo changes such as due to Clouds would not have this effect since they would mimic the effects of solar output changes.
Then, as lower order expected effects we have, Ocean Warming, Polar Warming and the Upper Troposphere hotspot. These are consequential effects, based first on the radiative behaviour and thus the energy balance implications. Then the Thermodynamics & Fluid Mechanics of Climate get applied to this to derive these effects. So they are not signatures of the EGE, but rather expected consequences of it. So, Ocean Warming, tick, Northern Polar warming, tick, Southern Polar warming, cross (but with evidence suggesting an explanation that is not AGW related), Upper Troposphere Hotspot, cross.
So key signatures Present
Major derivative prdiction, 2 (maybe 3) out of 4
And right there on Jo’s own figure, is one of the Key Signatures, Present. Stratospheric Cooling. She sort of doesn’t mention much about that does she!
2. The Strongest Evidence was the Ice Cores! False. Ice core data is only one of many lines of supporting evidence. Over simplification here to set up a Strawman. Then the next argument that since CO2 followed Temperature, ‘CO2 was in the back seat’. And the disingenuous question that maybe something else was causing it. Golly Gee, we have no idea what. Also the claim that AGW Proponents say that CO2 Amplifies the effect – she does like putting words in peoples mouths. Well, no. CO2 doesn’t amplify, it continues on after the initial effect has faded away. And the common estimate that I have read is that CO2 contributes about 40% of the full glacial cycle. And the Ice Core record is of particular interest to the Climate Scientists since it is a living laboratory for investigating Climate Sensitivity – how much climate changes in response to different forcings.
The common understanding of a glacial cycle goes something like this:
At the bottom of the cycle, various cyclical changes in the Earths orbital parameters called Milankovitch Cycles cause a small warming influence, not enough to cause the full cycle but enough to get it started. Then, if you look closely at the graph, at the same time, around 138,000 yrs, CO2 does start to rise, but only slowly. What is not shown here is the likely increase in Methane that will occur at the same time – more warmth, more warm bogs, permafrost starting to melt. Methane is a much more powerful GH gas than CO2 but is breaks down chemically to CO2 & Water within a short time. So Methane release can have a significant warming effect that is short lived leaving only small traces of CO2 behind. Then as the temp starts to warm, CO2 outgasses from the oceans due to temp rise and the CO2 starts to contribute. The dominant reason for the 800 year lag is most likely that this is the typical time for ocean currents to overturn the oceans, bringing more colder, CO2 rich water to the surface to outgas. So Milankovitch & Methane then CO2 later. However the Milankovitch contribution will start to decline but later another effect kicks in – Albedo change due to loss of the ice sheets. They are huge so it takes thousands of years before they shrink and start to break up, exposing darker bedrock. So at the end of the rise it is some Methane, and CO2 and Albedo Change. Finally the Milankovitch cycle starts to turn the otherway, all the permafrost has melted and CO2’s effect starts to drop due to the logarithmic effect. And eventually the Ice sheets diminution starts to stop. The peak of the Interglacial is reached. And through all of this water vapour changes in the atmosphere magnify this effect
Then we head down. Milankovitch starts to drive in the other direction. CO2 release may still continue, driven both by the time lags for heat to penetrate the deep oceans and turn-over from ocean currents. Soon after Albedo change starts to kick in early. It takes thousands of years of slow warming to remove the great ice sheets, expose the bedrock underneath and change albedo, but during the cooling phase only a small amount of extra snow fall starts to reverse the albedo. A couple of metres of snow will have much the same albedo as a 3 kilometer thick ice sheet. So down we go. Then slowly the cooling starts to overcome the outgassing of CO2 and the oceans start re-absorbing the CO2. Another factor slowing the decline in CO2 is that the vegetation built up during the interglacial takes time to die and decompose as the cold advances. So this adds CO2 to the atmosphere while the oceans are starting to absorb it.
So Milankovitch then Methane then CO2 then Albedo on the way up, Milankovitch then Albedo then CO2 on the way down. Now look at the Ice core graph Jo presents. CO2 starts to increase a little at exactly the same time as Temp’s start to swing up. Then it lags the temperature rise by that 800 year figure, just as you would expect. The earlier release is driving the subsequent temp rise. Note also that the CO2 curves tracks the Temp curve pretty closely during the rise. Then on the down cycle, any correlation between CO2 and Temp is much worse since Albedo change is a stronger driver here and vegetation die off clouds the CO2 picture. Closer correlation when expected, looser correlation when expected.
Then Jo throws in this little gem “If CO2 was a major driver, temperatures would rise indefinitely in a ‘runaway greenhouse effect’”. And Gee, this hasn’t happened. Wrong Jo. Positive Feedbacks only create runaway conditions if the magnitude of the positive feedback grows as the main function grows. If the feedback is positive but declining as the growth progresses, ultimately dropping to zero feedback, then no runaway. It climbs to a certain level then plateaus. GH Gases have a logarithmic effect with concentration – more provides a steadily diminishing impact. And there needs to be a source of GH gases that can continue to supply more as Temp’s change and in fact supply at a steadily increasing rate to compensate for the logarithmic effect. The Temperature behaviour of Henry’s Law doen’t provide this. Other drivers such as Albedo are also limited – Ice loss can change Albedo, but only until all the ice is melted. Then no more feedback.
3. Next we have the ‘The world isn’t warming recently’ meme. Jo doesn’t give her source for the 2 sets of data but I assume that the ’satellite’ data is from UAH. As I have said elsewhere, I believe that we need to be cautious of the satellite data from both UAH & RSS – there may be a ‘bleed through’ effect where stratospheric cooling is adding a cooling bias to the satellite record. Also a paper by Fu et al 2004 makes interesting reading on this point.
Next she cites the poor location of some stations – absolutely true. However NOAA have done an analysis of data using just high quality stations vs all stations. Small effect but not significant. Next this bad stations effect needs to be extrapolated to the rest of the world. Next this effect needs to be extrapolated to the oceans which are 70% of the earths surface and thus 70% of the temperature record. Wait a minute. How can there be a bad stations effect at sea? Particularly since the ocean records are largely satellite based since 1980. So it seems for Jo that satellite data is good for one side of her argument but can be ignored for the other side.
Next we have the fact that Jo makes no mention at all of the overwhelming dominant component of Global Warming – Heat accumulation in the Oceans. Warming has added 30 times as much heat to the oceans as the air so this is where our primary focus should be. So, we have that bad stations may have introduced a small warming bias in the US, but comparison with good stations suggests not much. And the US is around 5% of the worlds land surface, so we have to assume that the same problems occur world wide. Then this is only around 30% of the worlds surface anyway. And even then we are only discussing about 3% of the warming anyway.
So we have the absurd statement “The main ’cause’ of global warming is air conditioners”. Note the quotes around cause – probably to be a bit wry. The main evidence of Global warming is what is happening in the oceans – everything else is a sideshow by comparison.
Finally, We have the absurdity of showing very short term data and drawing long conclusions about it. Jo’s own expression – ‘long term trends are all that is left’ Yes Jo, Long term Trends. Global Warming, the thing that remains after all the short term variability is removed. The idea of looking at short term data is quite wrong. Commonly 5 year or 11 year running averages are used. 5 year smooths out the effects of El Nino events, 11 year smooths out the solar cycle. The standard used to differentiate Climate from Weather is time scales of 20-30 years. So, is there natural variability, Yes. But that is the point with variability. It varies. Up a bit, down a bit. But that doesn’t mean it has a long term trend.
Finally, ‘Models can’t predict the climate over 7 years, why should the be right over 70′. Jo, 7 years ISN’T CLIMATE. And they are more likely to be reliable over long periods rather than short precisely because the drivers of short term variation all tend to get smoothed out over the long term, leaving the long term drivers visible. And don’t make the mistake of comparing a Weather model with a Climate model, they are totally different things.
4. Next Jo raises the Saturation argument. Firstly I would refer anyone to the following links for more detail on why Saturation does not apply:
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/
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateBook.html
Next the logical inconsistancy of the following statement “The carbon that’s already up in the atmosphere absorbs most of the light it can (wrong by the way) … but it can’t do much more, because there are not many left-over photons at the right wavelengths”
Either the carbon has soaked up all it can, which does not imply that it has soaked up all that is available, or it has soaked up all that is available which implies that there is carbon not involved with anything. Jo seems unclear what she means and the 2 things are logically inconsistant. The evidence says that the first case is actually the applicable one. CO2 has absorbed a certain amount but nowhere near all the OLR in its absorption bands.
And as time has passes, it is absorbing more. So not saturated yet. Evidence? Satellite data over the last 30 years. Also increases in downwelling longwave radiation in the same bands.
Note also how Jo describes how the radiation is absorbed but fails to mention (like many putting forward faulty arguments about the GH effect) that it is also re-radiated. The reality is a continuous interplay of absorption, reradiation and energy transfer to surrounding molecules through collisions – each molecule in the lower atmosphere will experience several billion collisions a second.
Then Jo shows a graph of the further contribution of CO2 with increased concentrations. Probably the most unclear method of displaying this data, but showing the continued impact of O2, in line with the logarithmic growth expected. However this is logically inconsistant with her earlier statement. If CO2 is nearly saturated
, how can there be any additional impact. Then there is a reference to
“The models make brutal estimates and many assumptions (seems Jo has spent a lot of time examining exactly what the models do, in detail) Lab-warming doesn’t translate to planet warming. Which is ironic since the caption under the graph says it was generated using the modtran program. Much of the control of the Modtran program and its methods resides with the US Air Force who hold some of the patents on its methods. Derived from their years of observation of real world, up there in the sky, spectroscopy.
“Models don’t know but they assume clouds are net warming”. Well actually Jo if you look at the IPCC’s reports they clearly state that the largest area of unknowns is aerosol/cloud effects and that they are assumed to be a COOLING.
She comments that the impact of further CO2 will be less and less. True Jo, everyone knows that. And the effect is “unmeasurable”! Not from the satellite data it isn’t.
Then conclusion that more CO2 should show up in the ice cores – as I said above, it does!. No mention that it show up in changes in OLR & DWLR spectra which it does. And there has been an increase in temperatures, particularly in the oceans.
“Cutting through the fog”
I won’t try to address everything Jo has here, I have already mentioned some points. However in the first box “Can you name a single piece of evidence showing higher CO2 means significantly higher temperatures today?” Well I have mentioned some evidence. But look at how Jo words this. Nobody has suggested “significantly higher temperatures today”. The projections are about what temps will be decades from now. But a classic Strawman Argument – reframe the question to make it easy to knock down. Because many people don’t spot the trick. It is the question that is at fault, not the answer.
“The Real World trumps the laboratory every time.” Damn right Jo. Satellite data, high altitude spectroscopic data, DWLR spectra. All part of the real world. And again, Strawman argument. Reframe the question so that Climate Scientists are painted as boffins in labs, not in the ‘Real World’
“But carbon dioxide is at record levels”. Well no as you point out Jo, just records on a very short time scale. Then seque into the long climate record and how much higher CO2 was. And no Runaway Greenhouse. I have already discussed the fallacy of ‘runaway thinking’. The ancient
climate record is an oldy but a goody. Since Jo discusses this in more detail in handbook 2, I will leave comment until then. Surfice it to say that she has left out a great big factor that completely invalidates this argument. So much so that without the GH effects of CO2 and others, complex life may never have evolved on the Earth. No people, puppies or penguins
Then a nice offensive cartoon, showing ‘the boffins’.
Finally something I can agree with Jo about. Emmissions Trading Schemes etc are probably a very ineffective way of address the changes needed.
So to Handbook 2. I will jump around a bit here. Firstly following on about ancient CO2. Page 19, “Carbon levels have been much higher in the distant past”. But Temp’s were around 22 DegC during those periods. Surely a smoking gun?
Not. Jo, showing again her penchant for putting words in peoples mouths lists some supposed AGW Proponents arguments that counter this.
Well let me put the key AGW argument that Jo seems to have missed.
“Temp’s were stable in the past while CO2 was much higher because the Sun’s output was much lower. Without the warming effect of much more CO2, the earth would have been an iceball.”
All of our understanding of the behaviour of stars, nuclear physics, the observed behaviour of huge numbers of other stars we have observed says that as stars in the size range of our sun age, their heat output grows. The estimate is that 4 billion years ago the Sun was putting out only 70% of the heat it does today. So the question is why didn’t the early Earth freeze?
This is referred to as the Faint Young Sun problem, and was being discussed as early as the early 70’s. Even with the expectation of all the GH gases in the early atmosphere, CO2, Methane, Water Vapour, Ammonia, there still didn’t seem to be enough combined GH effect to keep the planet warm enough to stop it freezing. Yet geology shows strong evidence of vast amounts of liquid water way back to the early Earth. Even now research is throwing up additional substances that may also contribute additional GH Effect.
Fast Forward to the time period in the graph. If The Sun was only 70% of today 4 billion year ago, it would have been at around 95.5% of todays level at 600 Million years ago. Thats around 60 W/M^2 less than the current level of 1366 W/M^2. Compare that to the famous Maunder Minimum that was only 1-2 W/M^2. So we needed that much extra CO2 just to keep the temp stable.
And as the Sun’s output climbs, so to CO2 levels drop. This pattern is only interupted by periods of Ice Ages.
Jo also thinks that CO2 levels have dropped because ‘Life on Earth sucked it out of the sky as it evolved’. Absolutely true partly. However there is another factor, even stronger than this – chemical weathering of rocks. Chemical reactions between the surface of silicate rocks and carbonic acid produced from reactions between water and CO2 in the atmosphere produce carbonate that ultimately ends up as deposits in the deep ocean. Volcanic activity, Moutain upwelling etc can al change the rate of this process. Over long time scales this is the dominant sequestration component of the carbon cycle.
Note also the grey area on the graph. This is the error margins for the CO2 levels. Quite a lot of uncertainty but a long term trend for CO2 down as the Sun’s energy goes up. Some scientists believe that the long term trend for this is that 500 million years from now the only CO2 level at which temperatures will be viable for life will be at such low CO2 levels that plant life will not be able to survive. The end of Life on Earth.
Is Sun & CO2 and Temp’s together enough to explain this graph? Largely but not totally. But other known factors such as vulcanism and mountain uplift; the big factor of continental drift and where continents are located and the impact this has on the predisposition to Glaciation periods; and the changing pattern of life on earth, particularly the massive sequestration of carbon during the Carboniferous period means that most of the graph is actually quite understandable. The one stand-out that wasn’t well enough explained was the Ordovician Ice Age around 440 million years ago. A deep Ice Age temperature wise but no CO2 dip to cause it. However recent research by Young et al suggests that the Ordovician Ice Age was actually only about 1/2 a million years long and was proceeded by a sudden but short lived drop in CO2 levels as the trigger, probably caused a short period of volcanic eruptions increasing weathering rates and carbon sequestration. The older research wasn’t detailed enough. Nothing like keeping current of the science is there Jo.
Look at the periods were Temp’s were fairly stable at 22 DegC. If temps are stable then the atmospheric water vapour level is fairly stable since water vapour content in the atmosphere is governed by temperature not evaporation rate. Albedo change wouldn’t be significant since it is already warm so not much ice to melt, and with largely stable temps, it wont alter much. So this leaves just Clouds and GH effect as influences. If water vapour levels aren’t varying, why would cloud quantities. Even if clouds are growing, currently they reflect less than 30% of incoming sunlight. So to compensate cloud albedo would need to grow at over 3 times the rate at which solar output is growing. And what is the mechanism driving that long term trend? Whereas the mechanism proposed for GH effect fits the bill very strongly, with only small contributions needed from other effects to explain the whole graph.
Another important point to note. If higher CO2 is an important component in explaining the 600My record, and much higher levels of CO2 were needed to provide the warming required to sustain temps in the past, then that blows the ‘its saturated and can’t do much more’ argument out the window.
As to Svensmark’s Galactic Cosmic Ray theory. Maybe. Certainly the idea that GCR’s may contribute to cloud formation is not implausible. However, there some issues. Ionizing a molecule is just the first step in producing a Cloud Condensation Nuclei. The next step requires some process whereby the size of the molecule/particle can grow by about 5 orders of magnitude in order to become a CCN. And then it is simply competing with various other sources of CCN’s in cloud formation. So the big question would be how much of cloud formation is GCR related. Then the question is what will the long term trend for GCR’s be. If GCR penetration to the Earth simply oscillates with the Solar Cycle then any contribution of GCR’s to clouds would be an oscillating factor, but not a long term trend.
Now to CO2 and food. I have read a range of reports about the effects of CO2 on biomass yields. They are equivocal. Some say yes, some no. An important point here is we aren’t interested in biomass in general. Only the biomass we actually eat.
And since the worlds food supply can be described as essentially grains and a few flavourings, what matters is the main grain crops; better yields for tomatoes isn’t the main game in food supply. So we also need to look at the impacts of temperatures on grain yields. Crop ecologists have been looking at this for some time now. A rough rule of thumb used by them is that a 1 DegC temperature rise LOWERS crop yields of many major grains by 10%.
The rest deleted for space……
“How to create a crisis…” Here Jo shows her anti-science bias most strongly, strange since she touts the need to be scientific. She ridicules the use of error bars. In all of science, when reporting results, reporting your analysis of the error margins of the analysis is integral to that. Anything else utterly unprofesional. So Jo professes the validity of good science practice, then ridicules that practice, even though she herself included error ‘bars’, in her graph on ancient CO2 v Temps. Next she makes a comment about ‘ignoring’ the hump during the 30’s & 40’s as something unexplained. Well no. Solar output was higher early in the century, recent research has thrown up the strong possibility that the hump may have been exagerated during the 1940’s due to measurement issues with sea surface temperatures, and the hump was followed by a temp drop believed to be due to the postwar boom and high air pollution until the 70’s – look up the stories of death rates from smog back then. Finally she doesn’t mention that the graph she refers to is of aggregations of Model projections. Models can’t model everything, true. Particularly solar variations. So they model average behaviour for phenomena such as solar that they can’t ever predict.
‘Apparently the entire original global records of climate data are now gone, “lost”‘. Totally false. The raw data is still available. Go to the Global Historical Climate Network. If you want to, dig deep and look at the scanned copies of the original station logs. If you want, go to the national weather services who collected the data. As to the responsibility to provide data, the FOI rules allow its refusal under vexatious enquiry rules. Would you call 40 FOI requests in one month, each taking 18 hours or so to process, from multiple individuals who all wanted data from another country than their own reasonable enquiry or vexatious. Why would Steve McIntyre, a Canadian, be enquiring of an English organisation about Canadian Climate data?
As to the Central Tenet that raw data should be made available to anyone. Many scientists would be amazed by that. A central tenet of science is replication. Do your own experiment and use your own methods to see if you arrive at the same result. Most scientific papers describe results and methodology so the methodology can be checked for logic faults etc. But to check deeper you need to remove any assumptions, errors or biases that the other worker may have in their data by collecting your own. This is the basis of good science. This is what killed off Cold Fusion years ago. However since the raw data is climate records, you can’t go back in to the lab. However, you use the real raw data – GHCN and other repositories. So Steve McIntyre should have gone to GHCN, got the data and done the work himself if his intentions were scientific. However if his motives were either lazy or more hostile, harrass people for the effect it will have, well…. If I had been in Phil Jones; shoes I would have reacted the same way – do your own work you lazy slob.
Now to the MWP. Note that the graph is from CO2Science.org, a climate sceptic site. Is this a graph of every study that has been done, or simply of those that fit – unclear. The graph shows temp diffference but doesn’t show type of study, error range, and most importantly duration of the warming at each site and just as importantly, when. I have seen similar graphs showing studies that varied from several centuries of warming to a spike no more than 20 years wide. And time periods that varied from 1000-1400 years, the medieval period, to 500-900 years, definitely pre-medieval. To qualify as evidence for the MWP as a Global phenomenon you need evidence of warming at different points around the world for comparable durations and at around the same time. And evidence of what any omitted studies showed. Otherwise you run the risk of ‘Confirmation Bias’. Compare this with a recent study by Mann et al of 1000 separate studies that reported the MWP was only significant in the Northern Hemisphere/Atlantic basin. So show us all the evidence we need to evaluate this, not a filtered result from a source that is questionable in its impartiality.
Next The Hockey Stick. A few basics. Mann et al issued a correction to their paper after some faults were pointed out. Multiple reports since have said that the science was solid. McIntyre was criticised for among other things basic arithmetical errors in his analysis, confusing degrees with radians. And for a counterpoint view on the Wegman Report, read these posts over at DeepClimate about the backroom machinations around McIntyre, Senator Inhofe and his staff, the selection of the committee and the ’supplying’ of information to it. Always refershing to get a counter view on a subject rather than presume one side are the whitehats and the other the blackhats.
Next to water vapour. The water feedback is one of the uncertainties in climate change. Entire scientific conferences have been held debating just water feedbacks. Jo accepts the uncertainties then seems to plumb for the idea that because a few people have views at one end of the range of opinions, that is the one we should base our actions on. Alternatively, if there is a range of views, we should ask which ones have more severe consequences and act based on them. As to clouds, Yes Jo, just as the IPCC report says. They can warm and cool. And they are recognised as the largest uncertainty in our understanding. And the IPCC reports identify them as probably having a cooling impact.
Also, Jo hasn’t mentioned anywhere in her discussion of clouds the impact of aerosols. These are believed to be the largest source of Cloud Condensation Nuclei, against which Svensmark’s GCR source has to compete. And much of the aerosols in the atmosphere come from our pollution. If clouds have a net cooling effect and aerosols are a major source for clouds, what happens if we clean up our air. One possible source for some of the reduced warming in the last decade is increased aerosol production from the booming but dirty economies of China, India etc. I have worked in China. The air quality looks like old footage from the 50’s & 60’s. Yuck.
Then we have the 79 Billion for ‘Climate Change Research’ vs Exxon’s 23 million. Firstly, most of that money is spent on hardware – Satellites, Radiosondes, Argo Floats, Hydrographic research ships, drill teams, aircraft, chemical labs; these don’t come cheap. Next, the raw data from this research is available to most researchers. For example, Professors Spencer & Christy, prominent climate sceptic scientists, are at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, UAH, the source of one of the satellite temperature records. In their work they use data from a range of satellites launched by NOAA & NASA. Because the point is its not ‘Climate Change Research’, its ‘Climate Research’.
And this reflects a major change in tone from Jo between versions 1 & 2. Apart from the faults I have pointed out, Vol 1 was at least substantially discussing scepticism about the science. Volume 2 is laced with political tirades, invectives, railing againt Ad Hom attacks then launching them. In Vol 1 you might have called Jo a Sceptic. Vol 2 reveals that Jo is now a died-in-the-wool Denialist. Centrally she seems to lack the impartiality that is the essence of Scepticism. Jo has definitely decided to pick a side.
There is a host of new research that Jo could be reporting on since Vol 2 is quite recent but she doesn’t seem interested in doing that; just the tired old things. For more recent science, try some of the other sites that are more interested in reporting the science than the conspiracy theory crocks.
And at this point I am afraid exhaustion has set in. I find picking through anymore of Jo’s comic too depressing.
I am sure you won’t agree with some, maybe many things I have mentioned. And there is probably much more that could be said. But the point is they are all issues you should be aware of, irrespective of whether you agree with them. Fo Jo to be putting out a Handbook to inform people, she has a journalists responsibility to check her facts and report all these issues. It is for you to weigh them up and make your own decision about there significance, Not Jo.
Jo’s responsibility is Detailed Reportage, not half-baked polemic. For that is the point. These aren’t Sceptic’s Handbooks. They are Denialist Polemics.
Jo should be at least honest enough to admit that.
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Say Glenn, I have some other information here: http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2008/04/peer-reviewed-articles-skeptical-of-man.html complete with links to the papers.
In summary below without links
Peer-Review Papers Skeptical of “Man-Made” Global Warming:
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Just a thank you to both Baa Humbug and Mark D for their in-depth replies to Glen Tamblyn. A second thanks to Mark for that list of references, they all help newcomers such as myself to understand the subject better.
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Add my thanks to Bob Malloy’s.
Roy
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That 5.35 number is probably as good as anything you could read off the wall at a public restroom — just dummied up to make an equation come out with the result someone wanted.
Can anyone verify for me that rest of the equation the way he posted it is valid or not, 5.35xln(C/Co)? I don’t believe it’s legitimate to start with a reference concentration (Co) that can be whatever you want it to be.
Roy
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Roy Hogue:
May 7th, 2010 at 12:48 pm
Hi Roy
The equation is OK Roy. But the 5.35 is just a guess.
If you go to the SPPI site, click the papers, then grab one of the “monthly CO2 report” pdf’s, any one will do. In it you’ll find Moncktons CO2 Log ready reckoner.
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Baa,
Thanks!
Now another question or two so I’m sure I understand this: I think that Co (B in Monkton’s parlance) should be kept constant at some agreed on figure so everyone is computing the proportional change from the same base value. This has been my understanding all along. It doesn’t take more than some college level algebra to understand how logarithms work. Am I correct? Otherwise you can always show a large rate of increase by choosing a larger starting base value less than C.
If that’s true then what would be the correct base value Co?
Again, thanks for the info!
Roy
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Hi Roy
Yes the “agreed” base figure is the pre-industrial level of CO2, 280ppm
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G’day Roy. Doubt this will help much but it demonstrates one of two problems i have with that 5.35 number if you take the CO2 increase over two years from the NOAA data here
Two examples:
1)
The CO2 For January 1998 was 365.00 PPM
Two years later the January 2000 CO2 was 369.07
So the CO2 increased 4.07 PPM over the two years.
At the same time the UAH temperature data here shows the January 1998 anomaly as 0.58 deg C. and the January 2000 anomaly as -0.24. That is a temperature drop of 0.82!(-0.811 from here) and is that likely to happen again one sunspot cycle later?
Ten years later (one year short of an 11 year cycle) rather than accelerating the rate of CO2 rise drops.
January 2008 385.42
January 2010 388.65
That is 3.23 PPM over two years and the UAH temperature anomaly goes up.
January 2008 -0.20
January 2010 0.64
0.82 or 0.75 from here ?!?
OK those two show that CO2 was not the dominant factor in the short term and if it had any effect at all it was cooling.
So what about long term?
That NOAA data only goes back to 1958 and that satellite data only goes back to 1978.
So if we use this and this to compare the temperature and CO2 levels. Then you do wonder if the CRU data is correct with the temperatures so low at times like 1942. Did they shoot themselves in the foot or does CO2 follow temperature up but also work to keep temperatures down?
Baa humbug If that “real CO2” site is correct then 280 may not have happened.
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Baa, Siliggy,
I think we all know that 5.35 is, as I said, off-the-wall (@385). Otherwise Glenn would have been willing to substantiate it. However, he leaves the result in W/m^2 which can be converted to degrees C by multiplying by 0.75 (only figure I have found for this). So Glenn’s equation, 5.35xln(390/280)x0.75 works out to be 1.3 C. By leaving the result in W/m^2 it looks more terrible than it is. But that temp rise is still much too large.
Monkton’s calculator in his monthly CO2 report gives coefficients as follows for direct conversion to degrees C:
Using the SPPI central number I get 0.5 C.
Using the IPPC central number I get 1.6 C.
So there’s a screw loose somewhere. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. I just want to be sure that I have it all straight myself. Is Glenn’s number (1.3 C) in significant disagreement with the IPCC? 0.3 C probably depends on your point of view. Anyway, that’s where he’s getting his numbers. 5.35 probably has a long gray beard by now and is firmly embedded in the culture that Glenn follows.
Now here are my remaining problems:
1) It seems that the exact sensitivity to increasing CO2 is not known with any precision. Otherwise, why the range of coefficients? The IPCC central coefficient differs from the SPPI central coefficient by 3.3 and there’s a temperature difference of 1.1 C as a result. I’d not call that insignificant. Is the IPCC cooking basic physical properties of CO2 along with temperature data? Or is the real range of the coefficient that unclear? Or what? Given what the IPPC is I suspect that they exaggerate everything they can. But how does John Q. politician know the difference?
2) If everyone agrees on 280 ppm as the base CO2 level then I will not quarrel with using that value. But I would have expected the equation to also take into account the pre industrial 280 ppm as a starting point. After all, it’s already doing something. Is there some rational for not doing so? As a guess, is it that water vapor is so much stronger that it doesn’t matter enough to worry about?
Again, Baa I’m in debt to you for leading me to the right information. My big problem is time to go searching for things, or when I get something, time to thoroughly analyze and digest it. So thank you once more!
Siliggy,
You raise an interesting point about 280 ppm. Perhaps Baa or someone else can provide some information. All I can say is that I doubt that CO2 ever caused cooling.
Roy
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Please disregard the list I posted @ 382 I just learned this:
With thanks to Poptech!
(The above message from Poptech is found here at #41: http://joannenova.com.au/2010/05/name-calling-fairy-dust-conspiracy-theorist/ )
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CO2 causing cooling. I’ve been out of the loop a bit lately following the UK elections. (Disaster too a hung parliament). Greenhouse gases of which CO2 (both naturally created and human activities) together can and do help cool and warm the planet, depending on where you live and at what altitude.
Cloud cover will keep you cooler in some regions. But volcanic eruptions have been known to cool the planet sometimes as in the case
of Toba 70,000 yrs ago, created a volcanic 7 year long winter in parts of the world allegedly killing off half the planet’s human and animal inhabitants in some areas only. And more recent volcanic eruptions have been blamed for cooling the temps. But not forever!
For example cloud cover here in winter can stop frost forming.
In the Sahara desert, without cloud cover, the temps in their summers and winters vary from 50C to minus at night without cloud
cover.
So if you were to say CO2 cools the climate water vapor being 95%
of greenhouse gases do warm and also cool the surface temps.
But not AGW, just the amount of solar activity and cloud cover.
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Sliggy and Roy
Hi
Sliggy there is no point busting brains over a couple of years of data. Whatever result you get is not indicative.
Roy, the pre-industrial level of 280ppm used as a starting point is merely a convenience thing. (doubling to 560ppm will be reached late this century)
Remember the logorithmic affect, i.e. doubling from 70ppm to 140ppm will give the same warming as from 140 to 280 and 280 to 560.
hope this helps
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Hi everyone, just picked this up from An Honest Climate debate blog. Posted today by Emeritus Professor Oliver K. Manuel.
Now – I don’t understand the scientific significance. I don’t understand it one bit, but maybe you can?
Prof.Manuel under a blog item “Pachauri is no fossil fool”
He reckons the origins of the IPCC go back to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment back in 1972 organised for potential global governance promoted by Maurice Strong.
He mentions it was about the time that NASA started manipulating experimental data that showed the Sun-Earth’s heat source might be the unstable remains of a super nova, rather than the great ball of Hydrogen by H fusion.
He refers to an article he had co authored in Nature in 1972.
http://tinyurl.com/27lzpy6
As I said – I don’t understand the significance of this, but
maybe one of you can?
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Bush Bunny @394,
After reading the paper by O. K. Manuel et al I’m unable to see any real significance. It appears to say that the early Earth or meteorites impacting the Earth show a possible exposure to the result of a super nova. But why this is of more than academic interest is beyond me. Maybe I’m misreading its meaning though.
I didn’t know Hansen/NASA were once theorizing about the sun being the unstable result of a super nova. I wonder how one would tell the difference. In any case, given Hansen, I would doubt whatever I read. Also, some hard to explain heavy isotopes of xenon hardly constitutes a proof of anything. And that seems to be about all there is to build a case on.
Maurice Strong is another matter. And he was in this whole UN power grab up to his ears from the beginning. If there ever was an organization suffering from delusions of grandeur it’s the UN. They have gone far beyond their charter, even to the point of proposing to tax citizens of sovereign nations. There is not a curse or obscenity in this world good enough to tell you how far I think the UN has sunk into the self-righteous, holier than thou swamp they’re in. They are the best example in the world of how lack of accountability corrupts — another triumph of post modernist thinking for all to see. But the sheeple are blind!
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Baa,
Thanks once again.
I think my problem is that seeing the math, it didn’t appear to agree with what I’ve seen argued both verbally and graphically in a number of places. I can see that I was reading more into the thing than I should have — one of the dangers of having less than all the information there is to have.
Roy
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Baa Humbug Please forgive me for this. I am not being a smart ass. It is a serious point.
You said:
While i agree the more data you have and the longer the time it is taken over the more accurately the trend(s) within the data can be seen. It seems to me to be a very big mistake to take ruler to it and draw a straight line. Also it seems very destructive to average the data for five years etc.
It may benefit some if they were for an exercise forced to use CO2 and temperature data that had been fed through a high pass filter first (differentiated).
While my comment was to Roy it was also in context and more relevant to the earlier multiple path argument in this thread. Anyway back to the point. Imagine how much you would discern about and differentiate between the influences in this data if you did the above average and straight line thing instead of analysing and displaying it the way your computer will do it. click here
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Siliggy: #397
May 10th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Sliggy this thread is now reaching 400 comments over about 3 weeks. Though I’ve been following the comments, I probably have missed/forgotten some of them. So yes I prolly did not take your comment # 389 in context.
You do however say things like…
This is drawing a very long bow. I made my comment to cover your back. Statements like that can be shot down very very easily.
by the way, your last link #397 ????
How did you know ELO was one of my fav bands? I’m still crook at mum for chucking out my old LP’s 30yrs ago. But what has ELO Rockario got to do with any of this? What have I missed?
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The data is the song! If you draw a straight trend line through that data what will the line show….Nothing! What do you discern if you look at the rapid changes in audio…Everything!
Glad you enjoyed the music.
Have a look at the SINGLE long slow s curve in these. It dips to a minimum in the mid nineties. If you draw a straight line you won’t see it.
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Sliggy are you talking about smoothing? You’re making me feel dumb.
I’m in the middle of some tight research, my head is chocka block full as it is.
My understanding is…one reason for smoothing over say a 5yr or 10yr period is to iron out anomalies or noise like ENSO events etc.
Maybe I should have butted out of the conversation you’re having with Roy
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Sorry Baa. My point is that mixing nonlinear or non symetrical signals will cause modulation. So smoothing rather than ironing them out..irons them in. Also it adds a delay so that old increases masquerade as a current and continuing trend.
I feel dumb too. It’s not my idea and I dont understand it yet. I am just beginning to understand and admire the good work done by these people by identifing other signals and subtracting them out.
“The lower panel shows the match achieved by
removing El Nin~o, the North Atlantic Oscillation, volcanic
aerosols, and also a linear trend (0.14 + or – 0.4 K/Decade).”
and this bloke:
“The curve of the global average CO2 concentrations shows only small deviations from the trend line. The annual growth rates, however, vary significantly. In some cases they go beyond 3 ppmv/yr.”
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Hello All
I have read all the comments with interest and here are some responses.
Firstly
Bush Bunny – “Most probably you are paid by some alarmist or political group”. Actually no. And I am surprised you didn’t mention ‘Chardonnay sipping’ or ‘Latte drinking’. The reason I haven’t been back to this site for some time is that my wife & I run a struggling small business and keeping it afloat during a recession so we don’t loose our home – some idiots in Wall street thought we would all enjoy a nice recession. Which is not to burden you with my problems but to point out the danger of making assumptions about people. Thanks for the nice Ad Hom BB.
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Roy Hogue
I gave you the source I used for the 5.35 figure which was at NOAA. The susbsequent conversations here seem to have
revolved around ‘Where does it come from. No one seems to no’. At which point Baa Humbug referred you to Monckton!!. Not-Lord Monckton. Gimme a break. And suggestions that it was just pulled out of the air from somewhere
So this morning I did some digging. Google “CO2 5.35”
First hit was RealClimate.org http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/the-co2-problem-in-6-easy-steps/
At step 4 there is the following:
“The most up-to-date calculations for the trace gases are by Myhre et al (1998) and those are the ones used in IPCC TAR and AR4.
These calculations can be condensed into simplified fits to the data, such as the oft-used formula for CO2: RF = 5.35 ln
(CO2/CO2_orig) (see Table 6.2 in IPCC TAR for the others). The logarithmic form comes from the fact that some particular lines are already saturated and that the increase in forcing depends on the ‘wings’ (see this post for more details).
Forcings for lower concentration gases (such as CFCs) are linear in concentration.”
I will follow Myhre et al and Table 6.2 shortly
Next Google hit was someone called Norm Kalmanovitch who did something that tried to use a comparison of the OLR emmission spectrum of Mars compared to earth to disprove the 5.35 figure and included this statement “The sole support for AGW is the climate models, and the sole support for the climate models with respect to CO2 is the forcing parameter. There is no actual physical rational for the forcing parameter, because it was simply contrived from the assumption that observed warming of 0.6°C was due entirely to a 100ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. There was never any verification of this parameter either by theory or observation”. He is about to demonstrated to be wrong and someone who hasn’t done his homework.
Next Google hit was http://members.casema.nl/errenwijlens/co2/howmuch.htm Near the top was the following
“The effect of CO2 on temperature is the Arrhenius law.
dE=[alpha]ln([CO2]/[CO2}orig), where alpha is 5.35 (Myhre et al.)
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/222.htm”
A reference to Myhre again and TAR.
Follow the TAR reference first and it leads to ‘section 6.3.4 Total Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Forcing Estimate’ of the TAR
(IPCC third Assessment Report)
Page down a bit and there was Table 6.2, just as in the link from RealClimate
——————————-
Table 6.2: Simplified expressions for calculation of radiative forcing due to CO2, CH4, N2O, and halocarbons. The first row for CO2 lists an expression with a form similar to IPCC (1990) but with newer values of the constants. The second row for CO2 is a more complete and updated expression similar in form to that of Shi (1992). The third row expression for CO2 is from WMO (1999), based in turn on Hansen et al. (1988).
Trace gas Simplified expression Radiative forcing, F (Wm-2) Constants
CO2 F = a ln(C/C0) a = 5.35
F= a ln(C/C0) + ß (C – C0) a = 4.841, ß = 0.0906
F= a (g(C)-g(C0))
where g(C)= ln(1+1.2C+0.005C2 +1.4 x 10-6C3) a = 3.35
CH4 F= a (M – M0) – (f(M,N0) – f(M0,N0)) a = 0.036
N2O F= a (N – N0) – (f(M0,N) – f(M0,N0)) a = 0.12
CFC-11a F= a (X – X0) a = 0.25
CFC-12 F= a (X – X0) a = 0.32
f(M,N) = 0.47 ln[1+2.01×10-5 (MN)0.75+5.31×10-15 M(MN)1.52]
C is CO2 in ppm
M is CH4 in ppb
N is N2O in ppb
X is CFC in ppb
The constant in the simplified expression for CO2 for the first row is based on radiative transfer calculations with three-dimensional climatological meteorological input data (Myhre et al., 1998b). For the second and third rows, constants are derived with radiative transfer calculations using one-dimensional global average meteorological input data from Shi
(1992) and Hansen et al. (1988), respectively.
The subscript 0 denotes the unperturbed concentration.
——————————-
There was Myhre et al again, and a reference to Hansen 1998, but not for the ln(C/CO) form of the equation.
So look for “Myhre et al” on Google
First hit was this http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/1998/98GL01908.shtml
“GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 25, NO. 14, PP. 2715-2718, 1998
doi:10.1029/98GL01908
New estimates of radiative forcing due to well mixed greenhouse gases
Gunnar Myhre, Department of Geophysics, University of Oslo, Norway
Eleanor J. Highwood, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK
Keith P. Shine, Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK
Frode Stordal, Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU), Norway”
This was the paper, but just the abstract, rest stuck behind a paywall.
Further down in Google found this link http://folk.uio.no/gunnarmy/paper/myhre_grl98.pdf. Bingo, no paywall.
Please read the paper. The 5.35 is in Table 3 at the end. Note how they use radiative transfer models to calculate the value. Not plucked out of thin air, not a fudge factor to fit temperatures. As for Norm’s comment “There was never any verification of this parameter either by theory or observation” – Wrong
This search took me about 30 minutes. So why has everyone else found it so hard?
“2) You now have twice mentioned large amounts of heat in the ocean. But never have you given the one thing that turns that data (equivalent of x billions of Hiroshima bombs) into information. By how much has ocean temperature actually risen and since when?”
Here is a link to one of the major teams studying ocean heat.
ftp://ftp.nodc.noaa.gov/pub/data.nodc/woa/PUBLICATIONS/grlheat08.pdf
Temperatures vary from up to 0.3 DegC at the surface to no warming at all in the depths. Some degree of warming has been detected as deep as 3000 metres. Averaged out over the entire ocean to 3000 metres this is around 0.06 DegC
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Bob Malloy:
“I believe that we need to be cautious of the satellite data from both UAH & RSS – there may be a ‘bleed through’ effect where stratospheric cooling is adding a cooling bias too. You say we need to be cautious of satellite data. What’s that leave us, three sets of data that are known to be homogenised, manipulated repeatedly, constantly changing that the compilers admit are in a mess. Please spare us.”
No Bob, It leaves us with a mixture of data sources all of which have problems. We don’t rely on any one of them but the reality will be ‘somewhere in the middle of all of them’, several surface records, satellites, radiosondes. No primacy to any data source, but not ruling any out either.
“You mention the ARGO buoys ……”
The ARGO system has reported a plateauing of Ocean Heat Content during the naughties but only down to 700m. A study by Von Schuckmann et al looking down to 2000m has the OHC still rising from 2003 onwards.
The ARGO system isn’t used for Surface Temps like GISS because they aren’t designed for surface measurements, they record deep ocean temperatures. The surface temp records use satellite based Sea Surface Temperature measurement
“But to check deeper … So Steve McIntyre should have gone to GHCN, got the data and done the work himself if his intentions were scientific….As the main objection to Mann’s work is the missing MWP and Little Ice Age we both know CHGN doesn’t have them on record, and it’s Mann’s proxies that are in dispute. No one can either verify or disprove an-others work by using different methods or using different inputs proxies etc.”
I was referring to Steve McIntyre, Bob, not Michael Mann. And if the proxies are in dispute, there are more trees out there. This what I mean. Repeat the science don’t just ‘audit’ it. Also, if the ‘main objection’ to Mann’s work is the missing MWP & LIA, the alternative take on that is that Mann’s work is evidence that they weren’t the global phenomena some believe them to be.
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Baa Humbug:
“the issue for me is…….Jo is failing to act like what she professes to be, a sceptic…
…A sceptic doesn’t have sides…..her handbooks are seriously deficient in that respect and she presents them as being ‘what its all about” Jo would tell you that it’s a ‘fence sitter” who doesn’t have sides. She would also tell you that being a TRUE sceptic, she changed sides 3yrs ago when she was given new evidence.
Here I just plain diasgree with you Baa Humbug. A Sceptic doesn’t take sides because their scepticm is directed equally at any claim. If they are not impartial they are not a sceptic. If Michael Mann can be subjected to a blow torch (unwarrented in my view), then someone like Steve McIntyre should be subjected to the same blowtorch (warrented in my view but you would probably disagree). The accuser should always be doubted, just as much as the accused.
“What it’s all about”? Err Tamblyn this is a HANDBOOK, not a direct rebuttal to the whole 3000 page IPCC AR4 put together by 1000-2000-3000-4000 scientists over 6 years. The HB’s opening paragraph states “strategies and tools you need…” Meant for laymen (like me) and students etc”
Then at least it shouldn’t represent claims that are uncertain, or outright false as truth. It shouldn’t completely ignore significant factors that completely overturn the conclusion such as rising solar output and the paleological CO2/Temp record. Simplify yes, gross distortion no. It should be a handbook for how to talk to any party in the AGW debate – proponent, or denialist. And yes I use the D word. Sometimes it is appropriate. As I said above, a sceptic doeesn’t take sides.
“her intent should be to … Afterall, the world doesn’t hold it’s breath for Jos handbook, but it does every 5-6 years for the IPCC reports.
I suspect far more people would read something like Jo’s handbook, or see Al Gore’s film, or listen to Ian Plimer or Tim Flannery than ever read the IPCC. So those individuals actually have a great responsibility to simplify for general consumption without distortion in the process.
“The Strongest Evidence was the Ice Cores! … Over simplification on your part maybe?….I’m afraid to say I find none of this conjecture convincing … NO ONE KNOWS FOR CERTAIN”
Baa Humbug, The Ice Core is presented by Jo as a simple test of a supposed direct correlation between CO2 & Temperature which supposedly fails. My point is that any relationship there is between multiple factors (including CO2) and temp’. I was pointing out the error she is making in a black and white statement like ‘The lag calls everything about cause and effect into question’. She is the one claiming a simple cause and effect relationship, particularly that there will be a close link in time; that word that has started doing the rounds in recent days, ‘lockstep’ comes to mind. the Ice Core record shows the result of complex behaviour of which CO2 is a part. So never claimed to be straight ’cause and effect’ You seem to be agreeing with me on this, in contrast to Jo’s stated opinion.
“Also a paper by Fu et al 2004 makes interesting reading on this point.
Meaning what Tamblyn? Are we supposed to rush off to find this paper to see what’s interesting about it? ”
Actually yes Baa Humbug. Any blog, Jo, ScepticalScience, WUWT, Realclimate may provide commentary, but should then point you to the science to read for yourself if you wish. If you are really a sceptic you need to be as infored as you can be about what you are being sceptical of.
“However NOAA have done an analysis of data … You really don’t have a skeptical bone in your body do you Tamblyn. Except when it comes to skeptical views.
Partly right there. Because what is often portrayed as ‘scepticism’ often seems to me to be a very selective scepticism. My view is that I am not sceptical of the motivations and integrity of sceintists and the worlds major institutions. There may be bad apples in parts but the scientific community is too large and diverse for scams, haoxes etc of the kind being suggested to happen. A few individuals, yes that’s possible. But a vast conspiracy involving 1000’s of people around the world – baa humbug. And what the vested interest of those who might perpetrate such a hoax is is hard to see. Scientists don’t make much money out of what they do. They are motivated by interest and curiosity and the possibility of status and prestige. But status in Science doesn’t go to those who are wrong, or much worse, caught cheating. So fraud in Science is
a really dangerous thing to do from a purely self interested poit of view. The very motivation driving them says fraud would be bad thing. So to suggest huge numbers of people are doing it is wildly improbable.
“The main evidence of Global warming … what’s warming the oceans? Are they in fact warming? By how much? Since when? What data?”
The warming of the ocean comes from the fact that incoming sunlight, short wave radiation, does penetrate the oceans to up to 100m, where it is absorbed. By how much?, Since when?, What Data?, see my comments earlier to Roy and the Murphy et al study I referred you to much earlier.
“My understanding is that a station at the Nadi airport, Fiji (for example) is used for a grid area 1200km square. That’s a lot of ocean area supposed to be the same micro climate/temperature as the airport at Nadi. Also, any grid with any land area, has the land data extrapolated to the sea surface area. (I’m happy to be corrected on this point). So your figure of 30% is likely way off.”
It sounds like you have seen some of EM Smith’s posts on his blog. He is wrong as far as I can tell. One example I have looked at is the Chatham Islands off New Zealand at around 44S/176W. Land only data shows one reading for all the surrounding several grid cells. Sea data only has a range of different readings in those cells. Land & Sea combined, which is the standard one used shows the sea figures, with no land component. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
“And as time has passes, it is absorbing more. So not saturated yet. Evidence? Satellite data over the last 30 years. Errr, ahem. I know a blogger named Glen Tamblyn who says, repeatedly, that we should be CAUTIOUS of satellite data. I know another Glen Tamblyn, who says we should take satellite data as EVIDENCE.
Which Glen to believe? Both, CAUTIOUS EVIDENCE. What percentile confidence level does cautious evidence have?”
Nice misrepresentation of what I said Baa Humbug. I commented on possible problems specific to the use of data from the Satellites used to measure air temperature, because of the possible impact of stratospheric cooling on the temperatures being calculated for the lower troposphere as a result of the weighting functions used in the calculations. You then generalise that to suggest that I am making a comment about all sorts of different satellite data. Excuse me, I just have to pull these words out of my mouth that someone else put in there.
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Mark D
“Glenn, that means 50% of the predictions AREN’T happening, and what about how well the models are getting the amount of warming?”
No Mark, by what I put forward, 6 (and maybe 7) out of 8 predictions are visible. And on the hotspot prediction, that isn’t specific to AGW. The climate models aren’t yet capturing a phenomenon that should occur due to any source of general warming – GH gases, Increased Solar, Albedo change. It is a fault in current Climate Models. But not a specific fault for just AGW.
“This should read “some ideas about glacial cycles go something like this:”
“NO! complete fabrication to fit your ideas! ….. You can’t have your cake and eat it too!”
See my comments to Baa Numbug above
“And since by your own admission the sea is most important “everything else is a sideshow”, how many records exist of ocean temperature before 50 years ago (you know climate)? Do you dare to blab about the “robustness” of the ocean temperature datasets?”
Where did I use the word ‘robust’? Looks like I am having to pull some more of those words out of my mouth. And my reference was to changes in the oceans in that 50 (or so) year period.
“Aahh but your side is always looking at trends and deciding the fate of the world based upon them. LOOK you have no trend for the last ten years so suddenly you say that isn’t important. If you want to stretch out the trends for 30 years to make your case then I want to stretch the record say to about 400 years. Then you see your flimsy argument about temperature rise is all washed up.”
The World Meterological Organisation definition of Climate is over 30 years. I have never seen a statement from a climate science making expectations about short term trends other than that they will be influenced by short term variability. It is the scpetics who keep highlighting short term behaviour
And you are using the ‘S’ word. Side. See my comments earlier to Baa Humbug. Sceptics don’t have sides.
“What do you think would be effective?”
This is the scary part Mark D. To achieve the scale of changes we need to give our grandchildren a reasonable changce of a secure future, with all the issues the world is facing, I don’t think any form of ‘market based solution’ will be enough. But direct government intervention, probably won’t work. The world has yet to figure out how to create governments and bureaucracies that are really capable and effective. And if we have to leave it to ‘the market’, God help us. We have had so many centuries of technological and scientific progress. We understand the physical world around us so much more than we used to. But as for the question ‘How do 6.8 Billion so called intelligent apemen organise their lives and affairs so that the wellbeing of all is looked after and we live within the limits of the planet?’. We are still primitives in this regard. Wars, Ideology, Tribal allegiences, Pollution, The Consummer Society. Its not really the grown-up way to run a planet
“But your side says the sun is only a minor contributor”
You are confusing very short term variations, 11 year solar cycles, and other cycles from the sun up to 1500 years with a 4.5 billion year long underlying trend. And you are using the ‘S word.
“Dude! prove that the Sun was 70% lower power, especially the nuclear part.”
I can’t ‘prove’ it. I have raised the point that a major body of scientific theory and evidence very strongly suggests that it is the case. And you need to understand how big this body of science is. This is the dominant understanding of how stars work, not just the Sun. And if there are major problems with the theory then many of the observations of astronomers have been misinterpreted, much of our understanding of ThermoNuclear Physics is wrong so we may not know how hydrogen bombs, reactors and medical radiation isotopes actually work. And in that case our understanding of Quantum Mechanics just went out the window. Thats the quantum mechanics that lets us understand the structure of the Periodic Table of Elements, how lasers work, and how the transistors deep inside our PC’s that are letting us have this conversation work.
Here is a link to a summary on the Faint Young Sun Paradox at Wiki. Follow its links on subjects like the Standard Solar, Model, Main Sequence Stars, proton/proton fusion chains etc. For more than this you will need to start reading up on Stellar physics from textbooks or other websites & blogs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faint_young_Sun_paradox
Here is a link to a discussion at scepticalscience.com on this as well. http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-higher-in-past.htm
“YES and what causes those pesky Ice Ages?” (everything being so well understood and all)”
Early in the earths history, any significant drop in CO2 would have been enough. More recently it appears to need several factors. A significant land mass near the poles for ice to sit on, changes in ocean currents and some reason for CO2 levels to drop. Around 35+ million year ago several factors came together and a believed to have pushed us into our current Ice AGe period. India had collided with Asia, pushing up the himalayas, increasing weathering rates and starting to drawdown CO2 levels. Antarctica was now sitting over the south pole. And then the seaway between North & South America closed with the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, altering ocean currents.
“Pure speculative BS!”
Well this is the science that is out there Mark D. You may be sceptical of it but have you actually read any of this to understand why you are sceptical of it.
“Where did all that carbon that allowed “sequestration of carbon during the Carboniferous period” come from?”
It was extracted from the air by the plants
“How do you know that temps were fairly stable at 22 degrees?”
Well Mark D. Jo said so. She has used the graph that shows it so I assume she agrees with this. Ask her.
“Further you have determined that water vapor (clouds) only contribution to cooling is by albedo? Could you be missing something?”
I am saying that whatever the net role of water vapour – GH gas, Clouds etc, it will not vary significantly if temps are fairly stable. Water vapour levels in the atmosphere are set by temperature. Read up on the Clausius-Claperon equation.
“Another loose end you agree with….”
I am not sure what you are referring to here.
“NO STOP THE TRAIN! Who said we are only interested in food biomass? Get your arms around the WHOLE interactive world. The total biomass is a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK for Co2!!!.”
I was refering to Jo’s statements such as “Carbon Dioxide, Eat it for Breakfast”, “Worldwide we can thank rising carbon dioxide for a 15% increase in crop growth” (unsubstantiated by the way) Just in the last week I have seen reports discussing how increased CO2 can lower protein content in food crops, lead to increased cyanide concentration in Cassava and the possibility that increased CO2 could lead to reduced numbers of Stomata on leaves since the plant doesn’t need as many to pull in the CO2 it needs. With reduced stomata numbers it may not be able to manage its heating and cooling as well. So the jury is out on the net impact of increased CO2 and Temps on plants. And increased Biomass is only a negative feedback if Biomass increases. If Biomass decreases such as because we are still clearing forest it is a positive fedback.
“ABSOLUTELY MORE BS!”
And your source for saying that is…
“Can you say Strawman?”
Which part of my comments were you referring to Mark D?
“See my comment on the amount of ocean temp. sites earlier than 1950 and then compare that to what you just said.”
Its unclear which part of my comments you are referring to. If it is the MWP then the studies that were used to create Jo’s graph all have dates and duration associated with them. She doesn’t show these so we can’t judge whether the graph shows anything meaningful.
“Recall that you said the oceans are the important thing. And of course you know they are water. You also know that clouds are made of water, and that water evaporates more rapidly when warmed. Consider that the most important feedbacks
(water transport) are the least well understood. Is that not something to cause pause?”
I think everyone agrees that water feedbacks are one of the areas of uncertainty including clouds. And I note that you didn’t comment on the uncertainties associated with aerosols which may suggest underlying warming is stronger. Keeping the discussion focused on the preferred talking points to stay ‘on message’ Mark?
“Please not the Exxon ploy! Can you people ever post without adding Exxon in? Is that code or something? Maybe so you people can Google each other?”
Mark D. I didn’t raise the ‘Exxon ploy’. Jo did. Have you actually read her manuals?
“Yes I can tell you are tired by now so I’ll forgive the last several paragraphs. Look out though, some people don’t like the “D” word……”
And a lot of other people don’t like what appears to be people saying the “S” word when actually the “D” word is more appropriate.
Let me give you an example from my own experience. I have responded to ‘sceptics’ citing the ancient CO2 vs Temp record (always using the same source for their graph at http://www.geocraft.com, what a small world it is) with the Faint Young Sun problem more times than I can remember. So my expectation would be that the sceptical community would ‘take on board’ that there is another large factor out there that at least needs to be recognised even if they don’t agree with it. And I am not the only person raising this point. So over time you would expect sceptics to change the question to something like “CO2 varied like this and temps varied like this and we know that Stellar physics says that the Sun’s output varied like this. Comments?” Not that they agree with it, but that they at least recognise the issue has changed. So I would expect that every sceptic who hears this point raised by me and others would then ‘get on the blower’, communicating to the climate sceptic community that ‘there is another issue we didn’t know about, the question we need answered has changed’. And over time the question in its original form should go away, replaced by the modified one. Every blog, book ets would be updated to include the new information that the question has changed.
But that doesn’t happen. Jo’s handbook V2 is recent but she didn’t use the modified question. Why not? Hasn’t she done her research?
When I first raised the point, had you heard of this before? Have you since disseminated to any other sceptics you may communicate with that ‘the question has changed, we have had some new information, I don’t agree with it but you need to be aware of this…’.
The experience of many who debate climate sceptics and a common complaint is that “debate is pointless, ‘sceptics’ duck and dive, never concede anything, don’t answer a question but change the subject. Debate with a ‘sceptic’ is like wrestling with a bowl of jelly”
As I said earlier, Scpetics don’t have a side. They should be seeking to obtain resolution of the uncertainties. If the way they debate doesn’t reflect that impartiality, then the “S” word does not apply, more likely the “D” word.
So, since I have raised it here, will Jo be editing her handbook? Will you tell everyone you know about this ‘new issue’? Will Ian Plimer issue an amendment to his book? Will all the sceptic sites carrying that graph change their question? If not, why not? If they are truly sceptical. If they don’t then the “D” word may be very appropriate.
And for me the “D” word isn’t Denialist. Its Dogma. For some people the denial of AGW is a dogma, to be defended by any means, fair or foul (Michael Mann & Phil Jones could tell you a little bit about that). And anyone who calls themselves a Sceptic would call them out on this. There are people who are truly sceptical about AGW. There are others for whom AGW Denial is a Dogma. The sceptics would want to challenge the AGW Denialists as much as they challenge the AGW proponents.
Thanks for the list of papers Mark. We can add them to the 10’s of 1000’s of other climate science papers published. The Truth is Out There, somewhere in the middle of all of them.
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Glenn, before I assemble my replies (yes I am going to break them up so that they will be easier to follow) This comment of yours struck me so to reply promptly:
Trust me when I say I can perfectly empathize with the sentiment! More evidence that we have things in common.
I’ll probably re-visit the subject but right now knowing how much time I spend doing “battle in the blog world” I feel somewhat safe saying that we’d both have better results “to give our grandchildren a reasonable chance of a secure future” if we focused more on our businesses and less time on the internet.
Lastly for now: I want to discuss the “S” and “D” words. Personally I don’t have a problem with the word denial (ist). I see the point of people here that connect it with the holocaust and I also pick up on the usage by AGW Trolls but they don’t realize it is ineffective when used as an invective. It is the number one way to identify a troll.
As for Skeptic, I accept your proper definition but I just go along with the flow of common usage. We could come up with other terms to identify these groups but what for? You know whom I mean and I know to whom you are referring. For simplicity I do group the issue into only two “sides” even though I am well aware that there are centrists among the concerned and there are plenty that won’t admit anything about what they think. None of this concerns me. It might bother you that this gets reduced to two sides. I can’t imagine how else one could carry on a blog conversation without being this general. As far as I’m concerned is all that are necessary to argue the subject. I use warmist and skeptic because they are clear and I hope not offensive.
For the record my reduction to two “sides” has everything to do with those that support the political “no more carbon” solutions and those that oppose the taxes, politics and schemes categorically. It is that easy.
I have had warmists tell me that they oppose carbon tax schemes. As far as I am concerned that is a personal conflict worthy of professional therapy.
Dogma IMHO is definitely not the correct word.
My side, “the skeptics” are not religious, I don’t find them to be ideologues, and other than blogging are without any significant organization. Authoritative (not exclusively) not to be disputed doubted or from which to diverge. (I really don’t see this either). I do think that the word should be confined to religion and I have already said IMHO the “side with more “religious” followers is the Warmists.
So you can choose names for the two sides if you don’t like mine and we’ll go from there.
00
P.S. Glenn, why don’t you try posting just one general response/question and keep the posts shorter. You and I can then get more work done (at work). We don’t have to run marathons each time.
00
Glen,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re struggling to survive. I hope you and your business get through all your trouble.
But that said — you have spent more words on this single thread than I’ve ever seen anyone put anywhere on the Internet and yet you have not been willing or able to answer a couple of what should be easy questions.
1) Where does the constant 5.35 come from? You threw this out for all to see and should therefore be willing to substantiate it.
2) You have talked about billions of times the Hiroshima bomb worth of energy accumulated in the ocean. By how much has ocean temperature risen and since when?
A long drawn out lesson on Joanne’s skepticism has contributed nothing useful. Worse, you made it in a rather angry tone and made it personal as well. None of this enhanced your stature with any of us.
If you disagree with us, that’s OK. But when I put a little challenge to you to answer some questions and to check out The Skeptic’s Handbook you lost it.
I look forward to your answers.
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Roy
Didn’t you read my post to you?
The source is the paper by Myhre et al 1998, Table 3. They used radiative transfer models to calculate the value from data in the HITRAN Database I have referred you to earlier. So the comment from another site I mentioned “There was never any verification of this parameter either by theory or observation” is false. It was DERIVED from THEORY and OBSERVATION.
I gave you a link to the NODC site that describes this from the research by Syd Levitus’s team. Also I would refer to the Murphy et al paper I cited for Baa Humbug. You were interested in the temperature rise in the oceans and I gave you some numbers. Look also at the levitus paper for graphs of temperature chnage vs depth.
Now a question for you. Why the fixation on temperature? Surely to look for primary evidence of the occurance of AGW we need to be looking at heat. Changes in heat transfer in or out of the planet and changes of heat storage within the planets systems.
00
Hmmm this is interesting:
“the illusion is created that carbon dioxide concentration in
the atmosphere is a constant, so that its “radiative forcing” effect can be calculated from its increase by use of a nonlinear
empirical equation.
The relationship between the additional radiation at the top of the atmosphere (the radiative forcing) F, in watts per
square meter (W/m²) and the additional concentration of carbon dioxide C in parts per million by volume, over the
reference level Co, is given by the formula (Houghton et al. 2001).
ΔF = 5.35 ln C/Co”
Page 22
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Glenn,
Thanks for the more direct reply. But the argument from warmers from the beginning is that temperature is rising with increasing CO2. In light of that I don’t think it’s a fixation on temperature to ask what I did.
For some reason your post at 403 did not arrive in my inbox until this morning, 05/13/10 at about 7:00 AM California time. Going back over it I see that you did answer me but the post is time stamped much earlier and I missed it. I have received notification of much later posts before the one in question and don’t know why. Perhaps Jo can enlighten us.
Concerning the value 5.35: I can only note that you used realclimate as a reference to support it and realclimate being what it is, I don’t know if what I read there can be trusted to be accurate and rigorous enough to stand up under examination. Remember, the IPCC and CRU have both had their dirty laundry hung out in public for the world to see. Realclimate just puts down skeptics in the meanest way they can. They don’t allow posting dissenting opinion according to several of the regulars here. There’s a closed mind there! Not so here – big difference! You can keep posting as long as you stay within the basic guidelines Jo wants followed. But back to the point — I have no way of knowing if derivation from the HITRAN data is even legitimate. Equations, high powered math, observation and so on are frequently done and then the result is used without proving the theory behind it. However, I accept that what you said is indeed the source of the number.
Now as you yourself said indirectly at 402, time is my nemesis. Going through a ton of references sometimes just isn’t on my agenda. The same is true of the long posts you have been doing and about which Mark D. suggested shortening things up. I do see that along with a ton of explanation you did provide simple answers. So thank you.
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Mark D
“Lastly for now: I want to discuss the “S” and “D” words. Personally I don’t have a problem with the word denial (ist). I see the point of people here that connect it with the holocaust and I also pick up on the usage by AGW Trolls but they don’t realize it is ineffective when used as an invective. It is the number one way to identify a troll. ”
I suppose the link to holocaust denial is one I don’t normally make.
My division between the Ss and the Ds is based on my observation that a large amount of what appears on the No side constitutes a misrepresentation or distortion of the science. This not related to whether they agree with the science. But to my mind a sceptic would want to understand the thing they question thoroughly BEFORE they can reach a conclusion of scepticism about it.
In contrast I feel that a great deal of what is posted on AGW Sceptic websites includes misrepresentations of the science. Whether this misrepresentation is unwitting or deliberate will vary from case to case. However for me the telling thing is when the misrepresentation is pointed out, but it is not then corrected. I find John Cooks website ScepticalScience is a good one for checking sceptics claims. Disputing the science is one thing. Misrepresenting it another. And much of this seems to occur because a range of intermediaries are acting as conduits to the science. Jo, Monckton, Watts etc. If your preferred source just gives you their opinion without suggesting, nay encouraging you to look at the science yourself, I have doubts about that source.
Another aspect that I see a lot is the prevalence of putting words in peoples mouths – “Warmists say X”; Source please!
Or psychic abilities “Their models don’t allow for Y or assume Z”; Have they read the models and found out what they do? If not, how do they know this?
And then the big one of ‘The Scam’. Its all a fraud and we are being conned by a vast global cospiracy. So we can’t trust what ‘they’ say, need to ‘audit’ it, and assume that numbers like the 5.35 in the discussion with Roy have been pulled out of thin air. Or the conflating of Science with the sterile turgid world of Left vs Right politics.
Its all a giant game of Chinese Whispers that seems to have taken on a life of its own.
And as a result I have grave reservations about the motivations of many people on the ‘sceptic’ side. By this I do not mean that all are in some way malicious or deliberate in that. In fact I think probably most are honest. But that doesn’t mean psychological motivations aren’t driving things. The psychology of denial of anything we find disturbing is very powerful. And AGW is most certainly a deeply disturbing prospect, an assault on our sense of the order of things.
So I feel the debate needs to be framed in stages.
1. The Science. Only the Science. What is happening, and the odds of different outcomes.
2. Once we have a sense of the possible outcomes, and the likelyhood of their occurring we need to decide what level of risk we can afford to take. And how that relates to WHEN we act. And this is essentially a question of who takes the risk. We don’t take it. Our grandchildren do.
3. Then what changes need to be made in order to achieve the risk trade-off we decide upon.
4. How to bring those changes about.
And each of these stages involves only the preceding stages, not subsequent stages.
So discussion of Taxes etc belongs in step 4. And consideration of financial mechanisms etc has absolutely zero relevence to the Science debate. The mechanisms we may use depend on there effectiveness and how serious the problem is or isn’t. And scepticism also needs to apply on this staged basis. So any scepticism about merit or motives in stage 4 should not impact one iota on scepticism about stage 1 for example. Don’t conflate science with politics or economics.
And I proceed in this on the assumption that in the problem of how mankind and nature adapt to each other, it is mankind that is the far more adaptable part of the equation. And that Nature is nearing its limits of adaptation.
“I have had warmists tell me that they oppose carbon tax schemes. As far as I am concerned that is a personal conflict worthy of professional therapy. ”
I am ambivalent about the use of market mechanisms, taxes etc as a means of change because I don’t trust them to deliver. The problem is we can only deliver a certain scale and pace of transformation within existing frameworks – markets methods etc. We may need a greater scale or pace of transformation. Hence the call for some that we need to address AGW with in effect a declaration of State of Emergency, suspending business-as-usual rules to achieve a rapid transition to our economies. And we can only justify that if we are all agreed about the level of threat – hazard x probability.
So to me these implementation debates are secondary questions at this point in time. My main focus is the debate about the science and reaching resolution. Steps 1 to 3. But the urgency for reaching resolution on those questions is profound. The lead time required for any meaningful transition that looks after everyone along the way means we need to start acting very soon. So recognising the need too late maybe, simply too late.
“Dogma IMHO is definitely not the correct word. Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or from which diverged.”
Here I disagree. That this is a scam is Dogma to some. That ‘We are being lied to, they are fudging the data’, without any substantive evidence is a quasi-religious belief to some through which all other things are seen; a presumption that 5.35 was pulled out of thin air for example. That catastrophe is something that CAN’T happen as opposed to won’t or may not, is a Dogma to some, hence a term such as Alarmist, rather than Alarmed. Any position that assumes certainty rather than uncertainty about something has elements of Dogma when the basis for the certainty is not rooted in evidence, reasoning and science. Any set of views that proceeds from belief to certainty without intervening steps of evidence could be called dogmatic. True, there is dogma on the AGW side as well. But my observation is that the degree of misrepresentation and distortion of the science on the sceptic side that I have seen suggests a fair degree of dogma. And again, I stress I am not talking about agreement with the science. I am talking about its misrepresentation.
For most fundamantally, AGW, if it is as bad as some of the scientists are projecting, would be one of the greatest threats in human history. Even if you don’t think it is, the possibility that it is says that the resolution of the question is perhaps the most urgent question we have ever faced. Resolution of the question is deperately urgent. And unfounded mud-slinging such as ‘they are fudging the figures’ needs to be seen in that light. Its about the message. And when people resort to attacking the messengers, well!. Its the accuracy of the message that counts.
So a comment such as Baa Humbugs about do I expect him to go read a scientific paper. Yes!
And Roy’s follow on comment to me about being angry. You had better believe it. I expect everyone involved in this debate to bring a fierce diligence and rigour to what they do. It is my grandchildren’s welfare at stake here. Hence my anger at Jo and her ‘handbooks’. She simply isn’t taking enough ‘care’ in what she does. This isn’t a game!
00
Glenn, I have been working on replies to a previous exchange which I will post next I’ll attempt to respond to 413 later. I just put this here to explain the fact that we are getting out of order.
00
Glenn,
There are a few comments I’ll respond to here reference Post 381
First lets clear the air some. I am not defending (or disputing) Joanne Nova or her booklets. She is capable of doing so without my help. None of my comments should be construed to be an opinion of this blog or all skeptics either. I apologize for jumping in on a couple of areas where your comment was in context of Jo’s statements. That said I’ll try to add value:
1.
You said:
I said: Glenn, that means 50% of the predictions AREN’T happening, and what about how well the models are getting the amount of warming? Based entirely on your own numbers.
2.
You said:
I said: This should read “some ideas about glacial cycles go something like this:”
Which is not a minor difference! “Common understanding” is in no way a scientific expression. Warmists commonly use slippery phrasing to add imaginary weight to their non-science. You should avoid such trickery.
3.
You then added 596 words (2755 characters) explaining glacial cycles:
I said: ** NO! complete fabrication to fit your ideas! What about the runaway? Half way through your simple demonstration you mean to tell me that you believe with all the forcings at the top of their game and with Co2 at an all-time high you think the same system so fragile is suddenly ignore everything you think before and cool?????? What happened to all your “well understood” systems? If you think that Milankovitch cycles are so powerful why is that not all that is driving the climate today? You can’t have your cake and eat it too
To which you said in #406:”
(Typo is yours) In the post to Baa, in 405 you didn’t mention anything about Glacial cycles so this remains unanswered.
4
You then added another 528 words (2437 characters): largely arguing with Jo, but the second to last paragraph says:
I said: “And since by your own admission the sea is most important “everything else is a sideshow”, how many records exist of ocean temperature before 50 years ago (you know climate)? Do you dare to blab about the “robustness” of the ocean temperature datasets?”
To which you said in #406”
The word “robustness” is not a quote of you, it is a question (do you see the question mark). It is also me attempting to summarize the sense I get of your previous lengthy posts. Choose the word you best think sums it up (if robust isn’t appropriate) because I’ll be damned if I am going to cut and paste everything you type (and I mean that in a friendly way). However in a nut shell, that paragraph seems to focus on the impact oceans have on climate and since you seem convinced that we have AGW (but the evidence is based predominantly on land based temperature records) By your own words I conclude that; oceans are what matters and ask: Do you dare blab (hey you do blab) about ocean datasets? In other words I imply that you found we have warming but you have found that based on land data. I also imply that we do not have very robust ocean data before 50 years ago and further if all that warming is in the ocean (your words) where is the measured empirical proof? Later after you answer, I’ll attack the wholly arbitrary concept of “climate being some say 30 years some say 50”
5
You then said: a paragraph about trends, smoothing, weather variability etc. and that we skeptics can’t make observed trends count because that is [weather] not climate. Etc etc
I said: Aahh but your side is always looking at trends and deciding the fate of the world based upon them. LOOK you have no trend for the last ten years so suddenly you say that isn’t important. If you want to stretch out the trends for 30 years to make your case then I want to stretch the record say to about 400 years. Then you see your flimsy argument about temperature rise is all washed up.
To which you said in #406”:
I appreciate your attempt to separate your self from the rest of the warmist side. (because then I can continue to have hope for you). But recall the famous hocky stick graph and tell me if that “Side” is demanding that the blade part of the graph is a “clear indication of AGW” and is it not a “short term trend”? (That is a Yes or No question)
6
You added 817 words (4242 characters) Arguing saturation with Jo, ending in:
And Glenn this is perhaps your most thoughtful, telling writing to date. I wish to take up a separate discussion on this later. You may be surprised to hear that the sentiments expressed within these comments are exactly why I think and feel the way I do about AGW. So we have more in common (more hope for me)
7
You said:
I said: But your side says the sun is only a minor contributor AND Dude! prove that the Sun was 70% lower power, especially the nuclear part.
To which you said in #406 (an annoying reference to sides please read me at 407) and further explain the present body of science RE the sun and more interestingly give a link to the Faint Young Sun Paradox.
Glenn, if you are paying attention to the very recent “electric universe” ideas you’ll have to concede that any claims of understanding about our Sun are quite possibly going to be thrown out the window (no matter how large the body of science is).
See for example:
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=ah63dzac
http://www.holoscience.com/links.php
http://www.electricuniverse.info/Introduction
Regardless of how that settles out I remind you that the Sun does exhibit variation in output. It is in a continuous state of variation. The pure speculation that the output was 70% of present output is nothing more than a guess. The Faint Young Sun Paradox is actually good proof of my points (thank you) that we DO NOT well enough understand the Sun or for that matter any effects your side calls “green house”.
To which I say: Glenn, I’ll give you a free pass on the rant but I did not say those things and I am not a “flat earther” nor am I anti-science, or a Luddite. I think there is room to freely admit we know some things and we guess at others. Sometimes even the guesses might yield better understanding. Other times those guesses lead us to support untenable fear mongering and political positions.
8
I say today: That is interesting speculation Glenn. Your first sentence is unscientifically confident. I ask you why do the poles need a land mass for “Ice to sit on”? The rest is just an idea, could even be called guessing. Naw I will call it guessing.
9
You said:
I said: Pure speculative BS!
And you reply in #406
Today I say: If you consider all that we know about our solar system, the universe etc. there eventually WILL BE THE END OF LIFE ON EARTH. The fact that you and all warmists get your jollies reminding people of that, and that you seem to claim finite knowledge like the “some scientists” is still Pure SPECULATIVE BS and I fully refute that it is the “science that is out there” any child could come up with such a story!
10
You said:
I said: Where did all that carbon that allowed “sequestration of carbon during the Carboniferous period” come from?
And you reply in #406
So I ask a new question: So then plants compete with;
For carbon? If true when will all the carbon be locked up in ocean deposits such that plants will have none?
11
You said:
I said: “How do you know that temps were fairly stable at 22 degrees”
And you reply in #406: Well Mark D. Jo said so. She has used the graph that shows it so I assume she agrees with this. Ask her.
Which is a bit of a disappointment. I’ll assume you agree with it otherwise you’d have taken her to task.
This whole portion of your post is going to need it’s own special post. It is perhaps the largest area of unknown in the whole AGW story. let me just say “at our present level of ignorance” we think…………
12
You said:
I said: Another loose end you agree with….
And you reply in #406 I am not sure what you are referring to here.
[Now you do. OK to the extent that “maybe” allows]
13
You said:
I said: NO STOP THE TRAIN! Who said we are only interested in food biomass? Get your arms around the WHOLE interactive world. The total biomass is a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK for Co2!!!.
And you reply in #406
So I apologize for not looking back at Jo’s statements for the context. As long as we are here though, if you can look outside of Jo’s booklets, (and it seems you have):
I accept that you are aware of the potential for biomass to be a negative feedback. The protein content article is interesting do you have a link? I don’t understand when you say: “With reduced stomata numbers it may not be able to manage its heating and cooling as well.” Could you clarify?
A small jury I think.
I won’t quarrel with this other than to point out thatyou always take the bad side of things. Forest clearing for a parking lot or Mega-mall yes. Forest clearing for a new forest, or farming not so much. I think also that you ignore a tremendous biomass in the oceans. Much larger than land based and not subject to chainsaws.
14
But then you said this:
I said: ABSOLUTELY MORE BS! I’ll say it again! ABSOLUTELY MORE BS!
And you reply in #406
Well I’d like to know who these “crop ecologists” are!
My source is common observation. Glenn, I live near/in the great plains area of USA. We have a yearly temperature variation of –50F to over +100F (depending on region) growing sason temperatures of +32 to over +100 and I can tell you with absolute confidence that what affects crop yield is NOT one degree of temperature. I cannot even begin to get my head around the idea that any one even a die hard AGW warmist would DARE to imagine such a thing. I cannot even get my head around how anyone would build the experiment to demonstrate the idea. What is the “one degree warmer” from day maximum to night minimum? I can only say this is embarrassing NONSENSE. This is exactly the kind of crap that makes a skeptic become a die hard skeptic!!!!!
.
.
.
.
Then finally we re visit the: “Recall that you said the oceans are the important thing. And of course you know they are water. You also know that clouds are made of water, and that water evaporates more rapidly when warmed. Consider that the most important feedbacks
(water transport) are the least well understood. Is that not something to cause pause?”
and you say:
Of course I am Glenn, you keep to your preferred talking points don’t you? But as to the bigger subject of water, water cycles, clouds etc., as I said earlier we need to visit that in it’s own separately from the rest here because it is worthy of much discussion.
I have already apologized for not immediately realizing that you were taking Jo to task exclusively. Because of that I may have interwoven my debate with yours and hers. I hope this helps clarify my comments.
00
I just went to the black board and wrote 1000 times:
I will never post a blog entry with 3224 words (14,664 characters) again!
I will never post a blog entry with 3224 words (14,664 characters) again!
I will never post a blog entry with 3224 words (14,664 characters) again!
I will never post a blog entry with 3224 words (14,664 characters) again!
00
Everyone, we can argue the point in degrees etc, until we lose breath.
The main factor in the blog is that the AGW is fraudulently contrived to benefit monetary and political reasoning. That is carbon traders etc., and the thought that global governance would be the best way to handle the climate!!!!!
I am somewhat getting bored right now with this blog.
1. Most of us have not only politically but scientifically agreed the AGW so called scientific
datas are wrong.
2. The Copenhagen conference was an expensive reason for various ideologies to make contact, from what I have observed nothing was agreed.
3. We obviously have to make take more attention to various natural environmental sustainabilities to support our abilities to provide food. This is to turn to biological farming methods and toss out chemical methodology.
4. I think there is evidence this planet is now turning back into another ice age – maybe it won’t be too bad but if it gets a bit warmer then its not from human activities but other reasons, the sun and its cycles activities, its orbit etc., within the universe,
and sub atomic activities to generate more cloud cover etc.
We have to adapt. But the worst thing that can happen is these so called climate change activities to control climate, ie., Carbon trading etc. And in some degrees
so called clean or green energy production.
If we have volcanic activity and obviously if we have an
ET impact from an asteroid or comet, we can kiss goodbye
to what we believe, and have to get on with it as well as we can.
00
Glenn Tamblyn,
At 413 you said:
PROBLEM: We do understand the science at least as well as anyone does. You, who I can only call die-hard believers, keep telling us that the matter is all settled, no more debate is possible, ad infinitum. But it ain’t so! There is no humility on your side at all. If my lifetime of working with complicated software has taught me anything at all its humility; it’s that just when I think I know it all, I’m screwing up. I’ve just spent two long days looking for a problem I created while fixing several others and I’ve yet to get a clue about the cause. So much for 43 years of experience! I’m now down to making guesses as to what might be wrong and trying experiments one-by-one to see what they tell me. So please, enough of this attitude.
You’ve put down Monkton out of hand:
That’s a quote from post 403. When I pointed out my objection to realclimate I kept it in terms of actual complaints. I didn’t say, “Not realclimate. Gimme a break.” Monkton may not suit you — perhaps because he’s sometimes abrasive or maybe because he doesn’t have your degree(s) in science or engineering — but he can argue misuse of statistics like no one I’ve seen. He just last week, in front of a congressional hearing, demolished the statistical misrepresentation — I might say malpractice — in those official warming graphs used to scare everyone.
If you want some meat to chew on pick one of Monkton’s monthly CO2 reports available on scienceandpublicpolicy.org and tell us why he’s wrong about something he said there.
If you think the refutation of the hockey stick graph is bad then tell us where the mistake was made or point us to a good reference detailing that mistake.
The bottom line is that the science has a lot of questionable stuff in it. You’re a sharp guy, so try arguing as though you don’t look down your nose at skeptics. And if you’re angry then I want to say right here for all to see, so am I. I’m dammed angry that people propose to ruin my life, not to mention my son’s and any grandchildren I may someday have with measures based on arguments hanging on CRU and IPCC dishonesty.
PS:
I did a little research and converted 5.35 to the coefficient necessary to give degrees C directly. It’s indistinguishable from the IPPC “central” number given by Lord Monkton every month in his CO2 report. It’s 4.0, quite a bit higher than the SPPI number and I intend to look into the difference if I can get the time. This is one of the bothersome things about AGW. The numbers used by warmers are frequently much larger than used by skeptics. Skeptics generally make good arguments to support their numbers. The IPCC does not.
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This debate is a never end game of accusation and counter accusation of empiricism lack of scientific evidence and open fraud.
How relevant is to find out if the CO2 from humans is the cause of the increase in water level or not?.
If the extra CO2 is not significantly caused by humans? is that an argument to keep polluting the environment?
What about collateral damages from the reductiin on the glacier levels since the 70’s? I am not talking about the Himalayas, I am talking about the Andes glaciers which feed of pure water to the Amazon river…..
What about the effects on the agriculture and the rain forest of Brazil?
Some people (Instituto Geo Fisico del Peru) indicates that since the 70’s the heights of the glaciers have dropped 10 meter. What happened in the last 40 years? an accelerated process of industrialization by countries desperate to leave the agriculture age to incorporate themselves into the late industrial revolution….
Is there a correlation there? may be or may be not.
But even if our contribution to the problem is minimum, we need to recognize that there is a problem, otherwise we are wasting time in political confrontation like rats fighting for a portion of rice on a sinking ship…..
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Luis Sarria,
I simply do not agree with your implication that Co2 is pollution. I think it is deplorable that propaganda has affected you and thousands of other people.
As for glaciers, if you have good evidence that any are retreating significantly faster than they already were, please let me know. Recall that in some glacier areas recently receeded they are finding tree remanants which means that those areas were forest and not that long ago.
The debate you refer to would only be a academic exercise if it were not for the seriousness of the impact on economies, and lives, the effect of proposed “precautionary actions”.
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Mark D.
Thanks for the reply Mark. Lets try to narrow things down before we blow all the disk space on Jo’s host site. And the key area I am discussing is Jo’s handbooks and how the science of AGW is misrepresented by her and others. People can disagree with some of it, but at least let them be honest in how they represent the thing they disagree with.
“You said:
I said: Glenn, that means 50% of the predictions AREN’T happening, and what about how well the models are getting the amount of warming? Based entirely on your own numbers.”
My point was that I listed 8 predictions of AGW, 4 directly radiative physics based and then 4 ‘derivative’ predictions based on the more complex fluid mechanics/thermodynaics of weather/climate systems. 4 radiative physics based passed. So support for the basic radiative physics proposition of AGW seems to be there. the follow-on predictions, 2 or 3 out of 4. As for the predictions of the models. Yes. Their predictions vary. But what time scale are you judgeing them over?
2.
“You said:
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Guess you folks wrote all this before the summer of 2010, eh? Russia. Pakistan. Niger. China. I just don’t get why you all get so hung up on saying it ain’t so, instead of looking at what’s happening in the world – to the world. Check out a little ecology, would ya? And Pascal’s wager while you’re at it. This is not a game.
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Slimehearted;
Nothing to do with CO2 etc. A form of jet-stream lock-up that happens periodically and makes a few locales experience weird weather.
The real Precautionary Principle: avoid destroying the economic base of much of the world’s food supply simply in order to avoid a historically minor inconvenience (warming) with a low probability of happening.
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