by Judith Curry
By popular request, here is new thread on one of the original ‘hot topics’ at Climate Etc.
Somehow, an old post from Nov 2010 Skeptics: make your best case has become revitalized, with some new comments. There seems to be interest in re-opening this topic, so here is a new thread. From the original thread, the objectives:
This thread provides an opportunity to put forth skeptical arguments related to the topics broadly covered by the IPCC WG I Report The Physical Science Basis. This thread is designed for academic and other professional researchers as well as citizen scientists.
Here’s Tree Lobster’s best case:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/2126384614
Brains. Good.
I agree. Humans use only 10% of their brains. Jeff Condon is struggling with that issue today, realizing that despite all his efforts our country has become one of entitlement rather than empowerment.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/the-healing-blog/
It is hard to “make your best case against AGW propaganda because Climategate exposed sixty-four years (2009 – 1945 = 64 yrs) of international intrigue that has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with climateand everything to do with establishing the tyrannical government that George Orwell described in 1948: http://www.george-orwell.org/1984
However, I will respond by posting the case against AGW dogma here:
https://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1127
Here’s an excellent video on the current status of the rapidly unfolding drama of Climategate, as we head toward an election or revolution:
http://tinyurl.com/9stcnxw
You got me good with that one. I guess I’ll need to revise my belief that you have no sense of humor.
Thanks, David. Steven Goddard (and Josh) seem to grasp that humor may be our only defense against organized insanity until
a.) Constitutional limits are restored on government, and
b.) Integrity is restored to government science.
Humans use only 10% of their brains.
I’m very skeptical of that! :-)
The 10% of your brain thing is not science. It’s an idea that dates back to the 1890’s. MRI’s and other types of research reveals most of our brain is active most of the time.
Are you skeptical of efforts to distract attention away from real problems, by trying to incite Mideast violence for their own purposes?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/cindy-lee-garcia-actress-islam-bashing-movie-vile-death-threats-forced-family-hide-article-1.1161852?localLinksEnabled=false
omanuel: Humans use only 10% of their brains.
I understand Albert Einstein was so smart he only had to use 7% of his brain. A lot of people in America today seem to need at least 35% of their brains to use a vending machine.
Thanks, vrpratt. As concluded in my summary of Climategate, most politicians have succeeded well by not using their brains:
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/#comment-1127
vrpratt, here’s the conclusion to AGW propaganda:
http://personalliberty.com/2012/09/24/propagandizing-the-masses/#comment-714735
“Here’s an argument that suggests to me that the transient climate response (TCR) is unlikely to be larger than about 1.8C. This is roughly the median of the TCR’s from the CMIP3 model archive, implying that this ensemble of models is, on average, overestimating TCR”
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/blog/isaac-held/2012/04/30/27-estimating-tcr-from-recent-warming/
With prominent skeptics like Isaac Held making such a case and the decreasing rate of ocean heat uptake, possibly due to changes in cloud behavior indicated in recent studies, the discriminating skeptics think it is the “believers” that should be making their case with data sets extending past 2000.
Forgot the story line.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/Global%20Warming%20Graph_zps61ae4444.png
Except for the fact that there is no decreasing rate of ocean heat uptake.
The Sketical Warmist (aka R. Gates)
Since the threading is FUBAR, http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-241689 that was my response.
One of the reasons that I doubt estimates of long term ocean heat uptake is that there is a limit to OHC or our world would not be covered with water.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/drawing%20outside%20the%20lines%20WC%20co2%20and%20Milankovic_zpsd3176c2f.png
The Antarctic ice cores and special trees in the Rocky Mountains are poor representations of changes in OHC over the past thousands of years. Tropical oceans would be the better measure of changes in long term capacity since they are the primary region of ocean heat uptake. The pole are examples of ocean heat loss. So you should be determining how much CO2 impacts the rate of heat loss at both poles.
Your confidence on the degree of ocean heat uptake and the cause of the ocean heat uptake are rather entertaining, but I will repeat, that the rate of ocean heat uptake has reduced and that there has been a recovery of heat loss from ~1900AD.
Every hear of Unforced Variations? There are Bond Events and D-O events that require some settling time where heat capacity tries to settle into a new “normal” They are quite repetitive and not limited to the Northern Hemisphere Climate.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/unforced-variations-in-climate-not.html
captdallas
Um, Held is suggesting that CIMP3 ensembles overestimate transient climate response by just 0.2C. Even if we assume (very unscientifically) that he is bang on, this is hardly cause for jubilation and champagne.
***
I’m only going from your graph, but you seem to be conflating SST with OHC. They are of course not equivalent nor necessarily even correlated.
BBD,
Actually, SST is a good proxy for OH uptake. In 1995 the rate of SST increase slowed in time with the rate of stratospheric cooling. Comparing SST with lower tropo, mid tropo and stratospheric temperatures is a simple Wattmeter to estimate the rate of positive or negative imbalance. You can even compare troposphere temperature to detrended sea level rise to verify the change. There is a crap load of data including El Nino 3.4 heat change in the upper 300 meters and ARGO to 1000 meters showing the change in the rate of ocean heat uptake. The 0 to 2000 meter ARGO still shows an increase which is consistent with the thermal lag one should expect. Yet youse guys cling to any thread to support “theory” like true believers.
For Held’s 0.2C, that still doesn’t include the natural variability that appears to be grossly under estimated in the models.
SSTs are a better indicator of heat flux from the upper ocean to the atmosphere than of *OHC*.
And wrt Held, TCR and models, natural variation *averages to zero over time*.
BBD, SST are a good indication of ocean heat uptake. The energy entering the oceans would be related to the temperature at the ocean atmosphere interface by temperature differential. Heat does not miraculously “jump” over that interface through some mystical back door. Since we have thousands of proxy reconstructions of past sea surface temperature, relating current heat uptake to surface temperatures allows one to estimate past ocean heat content.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-best-place-to-start-is-at-beginning.html
You may find that amusing since I am not a “scientist” , but with the newer data available only in the past decade, there are a lot of interesting anomalies that are not only diverging from the models but the theory. Several theories actually.
Peter Webster turned me on to this author, http://amselvam.webs.com/earlsel/socpp.PDF , and I found a “soft” science in search of mechanisms. Her work indicates there are a variety of natural cycles which because of entropy, will average out over an extremely long period of time. There are a few of those “pseudo” cycles that may be somewhat predictable, one with a period of 1470 +/- 500 years and another with a period of 150 +/- 50 years. The cooling event in ~1900 looks like it reset the 150 +/- 50 year cycle and since current SSTs are near the average upper bi-stable limit of long term SST, I thought it might be kinda cool to ties some theories together.
Doing that requires thinking way outside of the current thermodynamic box using non-equilibrium thermodynamics which basically allows you to make stuff up, see if it works, then go with the results. Kind of liberating actually :)
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/Eastern%20Pacific%20SST%20with%20CO2%20and%20Milankovic_zps26b4f6e8.png
That is 400k year of Eastern Pacific, CO2 and Milankovic cycles. Believe it or not, the Eastern Pacific so far more closely matches CO2 than any other location. So I am fairly confident that longer term natural variations are a tad larger than 0.1C degrees. As a matter of fact, that crazy 1945 drop in temperatures appears to be ENSO related.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/super-duper-la-nina.html
A Super Duper la nina associated with the AMO shift. Imagine that?
I could be wrong, but hey, I am having fun :)
captdallas
Natural, internally forced, not externally forced variability gets you wiggles. Longer term trends require external forcing or a reorganisation of the laws of physics.
BBD,”Natural, internally forced, not externally forced variability gets you wiggles. Longer term trends require external forcing or a reorganisation of the laws of physics.”
Nonsense. If I divert 20% of the ACP current up the west coast of south Amercia it would change the rate of heat uptake and distribution. You would have a more sustained la nina climate for centuries until the deep oceans arrived at a new relative equilibrium. That just requires redistribution of the Antarctic Sea Ice extent from western to eastern which could be forced or the result of forcing a thousand years ago. Internal variability has longer time constants that have to be considered.
So go ahead and do it. The nonsense is exactly illustrated by your example.
Evidence? (Not self-published graphs).
captdallas
Are you by any chance trying to ‘get rid’ of orbital forcing? ;-)
A small point, but the ‘mismatch’ between orbital forcing and glacial terminations is an illusion. Unfortunately, one fostered by much talk of a ‘100ka cycle’ which does not exist.
Late Pleistocene terminations occur every second or third obliquity cycle (41ka) when low eccentricity modulated both by obliquity and precession result in summer insolation maxima at 65N (Huybers & Wunsch 2005). This yields a range of 82ka – 123ka between terminations and eliminates the ‘mismatch’ with the misnomered ‘100ka cycle’.
A fundamental issue for ‘orbital sceptics’ (sorry) is the mid-Pleistocene Transition (MPT). The 41ka obliquity cycle is clearly dominant during the late Pliocene/early Pleistocene but around 700ka this shifts to the approximately 100ka cycle. To paraphrase an apocryphal elderly lady: ‘it’s orbital cycles all the way down!’
BBD, not trying to get rid of anything. The Earth response to orbital cycles would change with time. The more efficient the circumpolar current becomes at regulating heat flow the smaller the amplitude of the apparent solar forcing. With a small response, the rate of procession would become more stable. Like the absence of the Chandler wobble, the top spins more evenly, at least until the next major event. Since Summer/Winter orientation is a major orbital factor some what independent of solar system dynamics, you can’t use one without considering the other. That improved stability provides an opportunity to better define internal oscillations that impact procession.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/Atlantic%20SST%20with%20CO2%20and%20Milankovic_zpsc5111ef5.png
With the exception of the last glacial maximum, the Atlantic varied in a 2C range. The mass of the ice during the LGM likely had an impact on the procession and may have “reset” orbital impact to a new apparent frequency. The “normal” 2C range should help reconstruct orientation and answer a few of the remaining questions.
The first would be a reasonable estimate of the upper limit of average global SST. That appears to be 21C +/- 0.5C. Global sensitivity would depend on base line selection, but the oceans will provide a limit.
If you are curious you can use the new BEST data base with the Tmin option and see that there are some interesting differences. In the Southern hemisphere, the rise in Tmin has been very stable and now the diurnal range is getting larger again.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/oceaniaTmin.png
What does that indicate to you?
I’m sorry captndallas, but we don’t seem to have enough common ground to continue a rational discussion.
BBD, that doesn’t surprise me :) When you think natural variability will average out over a couple of decades, rational climate conversation is limited :)
A transient climate sensitivity of 1.8c is right about what we would expect for an equalibrium response of 3c. Held is a real skeptic, not a climate “skeptic.”
So that makes an unreal skeptic that should tell scary stories about “global warming” melting Andean ski slopes? There was anthropogenic impact there with all those snow bunnies skiing on a 40k year old glacier.
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/08/more-land-use-stuff.html
That might of had an impact too?
Robert: A transient climate sensitivity of 1.8c is right about what we would expect for an equalibrium response of 3c
How does an equilibrium response have anything to do with the next two centuries? An equilibrium response is something calculate thousands of years into the future.
A measured value for the total climate sensitivity of CO2 ought to be the holy grail of the proponents of CAGW. After all, if one could actually meaasure how much global temperatures rise as a result of an increase in CO2 content of the atmosphere, and prove that all the rise in temperature was, in fact, caused directly by the additonal CO2, it would settle for all time whether CAGW existed or not. It would be like a Michelson/Morley moment. There would be no more arguments, no more uncertainties. Just plain old classical physics as practiced by the giants of the past. No more post-normal science.
Yet, it is a strange fact that none of the proponents of CAGW seem to be the least bit interested in trying to use what little empirical data we have, to try and come up with a measured value for total climate sensitivity. So far as I am aware, only two of us have tried; Willis Eschenbach and myself. IIRC, Willis came up with a figure of around 0.1 C for a doubling of CO2, and I think the value is indistinguishable from zero.
I wonder why the proponents of CAGW are so reluctant to even consider how total climate sensitivity might be measured. It is almost as though they were afraid that the number, if it could ever be measured, would be found to be completely different from the hypothetical values they derive from dubious physics and the output of non-validated models.
Jim Cripwell,
No it wouldn’t. Because even if CO2 increases and temperature increases (or helps to avoid cooling), the benefits may exceed the costs.
Therefore, climate sensitivity is one important input to demonstrate CAGW. there are two other essential inputs:
First, the ‘damage function’. that is how bad or good are te impacts of warming. We have very little information on that.
Second, the ‘rate of decarbonisation of the global economy’. I suggest we will decarbonise the global economy this century and we could do so far faster then we are doing if the ‘Progressives’ would stop blocking progress. If we decarbonise faster, then the climate sensitivity is irrelevant.
Yes. Those progressives have so much power, don’t they Peter? Wby everything you don’t like can be blamed on them.
The victim mentality is really strong in you, isn’t it?
You are right, Joshua. Bet you don’t hear that very often, do you? The Progressives are not the only problem. There are meddlers of every political persuasion who use sound bites, fear mongering, and feel good slogans to pass all kinds of laws and regulations without looking at the bigger picture for unintended consequences or going back later to fairly evaluate if the policies worked. Instead a different set of meddlers will react emotionally or in a calculated way (as politicians are wont to do) and pass a new set of laws in reaction to the unintended consequences of the first 1,000 laws and regulations. 80 years later, here we are. Stuck on a blog arguing with economic illiterates who want to use sound bites, fear mongering, and feel good slogans to continue the cycle. But Progressives are the worst because that is their sole purpose in politics. Republitards suck almost as bad and have equally bad policies in most of the same places as Proglodytes but also have asinine policies all their own.
“Possessive’s”
Joshua,
As usual you avoid the point. Typical.
It’s another example demonstrating it is impossible to debate what’s important with CAGW alarmists.
Peter Lang,
…it is impossible to debate what’s important with CAGW alarmists.
So you’re saying that we are impermeable to reasoned argument? That no matter how you put it, we just refuse to see the evidence that’s as plain as day that CAGW scam is part of a wider UN conspiracy to impose world communist – led government?
On the other hand, you guys carefully weigh each piece of scientific evidence. The word ‘denier’ couldn’t be further from truth. You are genuine seekers after truth and aren’t quite convinced that the argument for CO2 control is quite as strong as the IPCC might claim.
Is that a fair summary?
Peter, you are tangling in the economical issues with the scientific question. His question was just on the science, as is this thread (WG1).
Jim,
If applied science is not focused on what is relevant, it should not be funded.
Climate science needs to provide the information needed for policy decisions. If you don’t want the science to be guided by what is needed for policy decisions – i.e the economics of adaptation versus mitigation policies – then please accept that the public funding for poorly directed and irrelevant research should be terminated.
The purpose is to find the extent of the problem first. Economics cannot make any sense until that is done first, otherwise it is even more hypothetical than it usually is. Sure, you can assume AGW is correct and cost that, but that is not what is being discussed at all on this thread.
I wonder how the CAGW alarmists will respond to the comment by PJB. Will they ignore it or will they comment. I’ll be interested to see how these people comment:
Robert
Joseph
BartR
WHT
Glenn Tamblyn
Jim D,
You don’t understand. Climate Scientists have been playing with that for over two decades and making little progress in reducing the uncertainty of climate sensitivity. Meanwhile, the other important parameters – e.g. damage function and decarbonisation rate – have had little attention. If these had had as much attention as climate sensitivity, we may have discovered – as many already expect – that warming is no big deal and we will solve the issue with economically rational solutions. That is, there is no need and no justification for the high costs, highly damaging mitigation policies advocated by the Alarmists.
I suspect it is pointless trying to explain this to you. I doubt you can understand it.
Jim D,
I’ll try to make this even simpler for you.
If global warming is not a problem, climate sensitivity is irrelevant.
And another point, if we can achieve decarbonisation without economically damaging policies, again climate sensitivity is irrelevant.
Do you get it now?
Since we are making slow to negligible progress reducing the uncertainty on climate sensitivity, it makes sense to out the effort into investigating the other two parameters:
– damage function
– decarbonisation rate
Do you get the significance now?
Jim, Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change inextricably blends economics, politics and climate “science” together. Post-Normal Science blends science and policy. Policy introduces politics. Politics affects regulation (control) and economics. Regulation limits the liberty to decide for yourself and the funds you may earn and keep to act on your decision.
The issue is not warming from trace CO2. The issue is how much, when and whether it would be harmful or beneficial.
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
@Peter Lang: If global warming is not a problem, climate sensitivity is irrelevant.
One of the rare occasions on which I get to agree with PL.
Peter Lang,
If applied science is not focused on what is relevant, it should not be funded.
Economists often say things like this about all science, not just applied science , or even applied climate research science.
The problem is that all science first has to be funded, and then has to be done, and only then, or even much later than then, can any sensible decision be made on relevance.
I believe both Girma and DocMartyn have at various times plotted the CO2 and against temperature and found a sensitivity corresponding to 2 degrees C per doubling. This is the simplest way to get the data to show consistency with AGW.
The idiot tracker has this one nailed
—————————–
Here’s the problem. Lukewarmism doesn’t get its adherents where they want to go – because even if we accept at face value their claims, the world would still require intense efforts to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases in order to stave off disaster.
Scientists estimate a warming of 2C as the upper limit of what our civilization can adapt to, and not suffer disaster on a planetary scale. This is probably an optimistic number:. . .
The hard lower limit of climate sensitivity — the lowest it can possibly be and account for our direct observations – is about 1.1C (the real number is very likely to be in that range of 2.6C-4.1C – but we are following the “lukewarmist” argument to see where it leads). The change in forcings expected from a “business as usual” 21st century are +8.5W/m^2 – about 2 1/3 doublings of CO2.
Hence with the lowball number – the number Steven Fuller attributes not to lukewarmers but to out-and-out deniers – put us on course for 2.5C of warming this century. In other words, the lukewarmers’ own numbers belie their causal attitude to reducing greenhouse emissions.
——————————-
Lukewarmerism is incoherent. Flat out denial of human driven climate change is intellectually confused.
“Scientists estimate a warming of 2C as the upper limit of what our civilization can adapt to, and not suffer disaster on a planetary scale.” This is made up non-sense. There is no bounded, well defined description of any disaster. The Holocene Climatic Optimum involved Northern summers that were MUCH hotter ( unless someone has a theory as to why 50 W/m^2 more of TOA insolation didn’t matter ) and at the same time colder winters. Civilization didn’t collapse, on the contrary this was the ‘Cradle of Civlization’! Imagining a ‘disaster’ without bounding and defining it, doesn’t make it so.
—- “The change in forcings expected from a “business as usual” 21st century are +8.5W/m^2 “—-
See the nice, linear, save for some wiggles trend?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi_2012.fig3.png
0.8 W/m^2 for a third of a century?
2.4 W/m^2 for a full century not 8.5?
It is just this type of exaggeration that is the best case against gw hysteria!
The coney honey has a gripe on for us lukewarmers. Pity he has to cite a fool who labels himself (quite accurately) an Idiot who can’t keep track of the people he slimes.
Perhaps Eli’s definition of incoherence is due more to academic sherry than logic. But then, Eli’s slipping a bit and needs whatever help he can get. As one half of the Steven Fuller cited by Mr. Idiot and his mental equivalent, Eli Rabett, I can tell you that our Lukewarmer proposition of a sensitivity of 2.5C was a political offering made in hopes of reaching a political agreement.
Back to your TA’s, Eli. And your teaching assistants, too.
“Scientists estimate a warming of 2C as the upper limit of what our civilization can adapt to …” Eli, some years ago a US campaign, still alive in Australia, advocated (approx) eating “five serves of fruit and veg a day.” The number was arbitrary; it was picked as being good for sloganeering. Similarly, and, I think with reference to that, the source of the 2C figure was a leading German climate scientist who was asked to nominate a target temperature increase figure which could be used in warning (or frightening) the populace at large about CAGW. He admitted in a long interview with Der Spiegel, linked on No Tricks Zone at the time, that there was no scientific basis for the 2C figure he nominated, he thought that it would serve the purpose. (I saved the article but can’t find it.) He did not say that it was “an upper limit of what our civilization can adapt to.” I’ve never seen an authoratative explanation as to why our capacity to adapt would be so limited, nor can I imagine how it would be. Unless you can produce such an explanation, you should drop that statement.
Lets see I I can clarify for Eli since I’m somewhat of the father of Lukewarmerism.
Origins: The position First got its name back on climate audit where bender was taking a poll about the following; How much warming that we see is due to humans. There were roughly three positions;
None: less than 50%, more than 50% and the majority of us were in the middle. A) the world is getting warmer. B) C02 warms the planet.
C) less than 50% of observed warming is due to humans. The position was named Lukewarmer.
Later, Lucia picked up the term and she was looking at projected trend from GCMs. The IPCC was saying .2C per decade. Observations were tracking at about .15C per decade. So, this seemed a better number to put as the basis of our beliefs. The models run hot, we think that we will see less than .2C per decade.. because that is what the data shows.
Later I cast the definition in terms of basic physics and sensitivity.
A) since we believe in radiative theory we are committed to a sensitivity value of NO LESS THAN 1.2C per double.
B) Since we think the models run hot at 3.2C per doubling…
We conclude. There is a greater than 50% probability that the true
sensitivity values lies between 1.2C and 3C. That is, given an over/under bet of 3C.. we take the under bet.
You are welcomed to look at the CDF of the IPCC sensitivity PDF.
That is our science position. Its the ONLY position we all agree on.
Policy? Well Tom has suggested that we can agree to base policy on 2.5C. I’ve said we can base policy on 3C. Bottom line WE TAKE NO POLICY POSITION. Now, this position which I’ve laid out manytimes has been systematically misrepresented by Robert, by BBD, you name it. Lets just repeat for the record what I’ve said consitently
Lukewarmers stand for: Free data; Free code; Open debate
On the science: radiative physics is correct. There is Greater than
50% chance that sensitivity falls below 3C rather than above 3C.
A lukewarmer could choose to be concerned about the high tail.
THAT is a risk/policy choice. Not science. Lukewarmers are free to promote any or no policy. Science is one thing, what we choose to do about the risk is something different.
Just curious how the rate of change in CO2 is factored into the range of estimates for temperature increases. Rates of change in forcings have big impacts on feedback processes, and thus, a doubling of CO2 over 1,000 or 10,000 years will have a much different final effect than a doubling over 200 or so years. This isn’t just that the equilibrium temperature will be reached sooner, but that the final equilbrium temperature will be different in both cases as the nature of the system and the character of the feedback processes is changed because of the different rate of change in each. We see this all the time in biological systems, and it likely occurs in the complex dynamics and feedbacks of climate as well.
Steven Mosher,
Thank you for stating the position of ‘warmists’ very clearly. On the basis of that definition I am definitely a warmist.
One of the key points is: 50% probability climate sensitivity <3C.
Now for the policy bit (my interest). Nordhaus uses 3 C as the central estimate in his analyses and also considers the effect of the distribution on the cost-benefit results.
Based on the climate sensitivity and the other inputs (which as per AR4) he uses for his cost benefit analyses he concluded there is a $3.5 trillion net benefit to 2050 benefit of applying a carbon tax based on the assumptions used for the analyses. (i.e. negligible when put in context of global GDP of $35,000 trillion over 50 years). However, the assumptions used in the analyses are academic and totally unrealistic for the real world – they cannot be achieved. As Richard Tol said here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-239101
It is clear to most people that carbon pricing is an unrealistic aim.
LOet’s drop the idea of carbon pricing as soon as we can. Instead, let’s develop a pragmatic solution where everyone can be better off. A “No regrets” policy, where the solution to cutting GHG emissions is also a solution that improves economic growth, not impedes it, and by so doing improves health, wealth and happiness for the peoples of the planet. Impeding economic growths with high cost, ineffective policies like carbon pricing and renewable energy will have the opposite result.
We could have that solution if we wanted to. If you look carefully at the Nordhaus analyses, the solution will become apparent to most.
Details summarised here:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/24/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic/#comment-234611
Corrections to my previous comment. My first three sentences should have said:
Steven Mosher,
Thank you for explaining what ‘Lukewarmists’ means. On the basis of that description I am a Lukewarmist.
One of the key points is: >50% probability that climate sensitivity <3C.
Wow Dr. Halpern. Experts say that? There are additional factors you ignore here. The gigantic error bars on direct and indirect aerosol effects. The serious problems with trying to say there is a single temperature that can be measured with reasonable error bars for the entire planet. The huge size and complexity of the problem when you are dealing with every single aspect from the sun, possibly other planets, and dealing with atmospheric physics and chemistry, geology and vulcanology, and the entire ecosystem of the planet and trying to measure and model all of them together. And yet with all this complexity, you KNOW that this is an extremely serious problem and seem to have few remaining questions. You just want immediate action and want to poke fun at anyone who has a more cautious view.
Just to pick a few specifics. There is a lag due to the heat capacity of the oceans. No one understands what the lag actually is yet. This could change the result to 1.1 degrees C in 180 years instead of 90. No one knows for sure how well ecosystems will adapt but most catastrophic scenarios in the past have been wrong. Such as attributing problems in frogs with human causes and then later finding out it was a fungus (or virus?), no time to look it up, must go teach my class in membrane biophysics. Maybe you should stick to spectroscopy for awhile. My view is that another 10-15 years will tell us a lot. How much is due to a natural cycle and the fact that we have only had satellite data for 30 years. Whether arctic ice starts to recover, whether coral starts having a hard time, whether the planet begins to green significantly (although 15 years is a pretty short time, maybe more studies with data from 1979 to 2025 will be published), and what the sun does, do temp.’s stay flat, fall, or rise steeply again. No reason to get your panties in a wad, doc.
Dear Eli,
I believe you miss the most important quote:
> Or they could take the bull by the horns and claim, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that warm can tolerate warming of 3C or 4C without any major problems (the last time the world was that hot was several million years ago; there were no ice caps to speak of and the sea level was hundreds of feet higher). The trouble with that position is that it undermines the whole thrust of lukewarmism – which is to acquire credibility (or, to be fair, possibly to exercise intellectual honesty) via the advantages [physics exist, it is warming, and there are no conspiracy].
http://theidiottracker.blogspot.ca/2010/09/between-science-and-hard-place.html
That last point is a bit moot, considering that cynics could assume a lukewarm position:
> A cynic might even point out that there was more money for studying tree rings if you hooked it up with climate change, than in dating pueblos. Sort of like adding in a terrorism angle if you’re looking for government funding for municipal works.
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/31826075755
***
Besides, you might be interested in this explanation of the Overton window by way of the decoy effect:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-241688
Marketing gurus should be able to discount the decoy effect, on which perhaps the auditing sciences rest.
Bill,
You say:
> No one knows for sure how well ecosystems will adapt […]
Is this your opinion as someone who did study this question?
If you did not study that question, on what is based this appeal to ignorance?
For you do realize that you’re making an appeal to ignorance, right?
Not that we can be sure about that.
No one knows for sure that you exist.
All we know is that you’re on the Internet, and that you’re a dog.
tl;dr – Please mind your ad hominems.
The Rabett, as usual, is fixated on phony choices.
———- ” I happen to be quite alarmist.”
Which part of the scientific method is ‘alarm’?
“Business As Usual”
Please Eli, stop using this false construct.
What does Minnesota Mining and Minerals(3M) make today? It doesn’t have much to do with mining.
What is the predominant product produced today by Pittsburgh Plate Glass(PPG)? It isn’t plate glass.
How much coal consumption did the US EIA project for the US in it’s 1979 projections for the year 2010? Try two billion plus tons of coal by 2010.
Ten years ago anyone who would have claimed that coal mine productivity in the US(and for the most part globally) was going to drop 30% in a decade would have been locked in a looney bin. Coal mine productivity did drop 30%.
What will coal mine productivity be in the year 2020? 2030? 2040? What will the costs of alternatives be?
I don’t know, you don’t know, no one knows. All we know from past experience is it will be different then what we expected.
We can make nonsense statements like ‘if current trends continue’…but we know ‘current trends’ don’t continue indefinitely.
Energy is a multi-trillion dollar business and there are a lot of people who would like to help themselves to a share of that business by doing something called ‘innovating’.
To paraphrase a great Victorian Tory :
Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.”
“You speak of — “said Egremont, hesitantly.
“Scientists and folk who but comment in climate blogs.”
You’re about the sixth person I’ve heard claim that. Let’s compromise; in the future, I will refer to you as the lukewarmer’s chief deconstructionist and literary adviser. Fair?
Now, I defined lukewarmism as I was using the term in the post above. I primary used Easterbrook’s definition (he’s one of the other five.) You are welcome to your definition, but it sounds to me as though you’re really just describing yourself.
That was one of the points I made; nothing lukewarmers say about climate sensitivity is anything you can’t find in the AR4 (as the prediction based on certain studies). But because lukewarmers, in my experience, define themselves in part as in opposition to the “consensus,” there has to be more to what they believe than just a low-ish climate sensitivity. And that’s where the problems arise.
I used to drive Lucia nuts with this, before the Blackboard became primarily gambling with fake money and recipes. “The trend is 0.15C! (or whatever) The multimodal estimate is too high!”
“OK.” I would say. “Perhaps in the fullness of time you will be proven right about that. Climate sensitivity could be 2.4C — even 2C! Of course, while that is interesting from a scientific perspective, it’s totally irrelevant from a policy perspective because you need aggressive mitigation in either case.”
My, she hated that. Wouldn’t have the discussion at all. Insisted low(ish) sensitivity = no problems. And I’ve found that same fallacy among many self-described lukewarmers. You, I think, are an exception.
Dear Eli,
A simpler explanation of lukewarmism (of which Moshpit only gets the trademark, a trademark he borrowed I believe, if I read CA correctly, since the Pope of lukewarmism is Dick) is this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoy_effect
Basically, the strategy is this one:
1. Portray your opponents as alarmists.
2. Present yourself as the rationally optimistic middle ground.
In politics, this is the Overton window:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
Marketing gurus know this.
INTEGRITY ™ – It’s what we sell
1. Portray your opponents as alarmists.
2. Present yourself as the rationally optimistic middle ground.
##############################################
our opponents are not alarmists. Our opponents are
A) skeptics and ignorant people who dont understand science
B) scientists who over estimate their certainty
We have no position on policy. I happen to be quite alarmist. I think there are actions we must take today if we are to have any chances in the long run.
As for being optimistic? Not so much
Middle ground? I would say we exist above the debate.
willard, complicating the definition of lukewarmer is not simplifying it. Moving ahead of the two failed sides of the climate argument does not leave us in the middle.
You are correct about Eli missing the point, however. He does, as usual. So do you.
> Scientists who over estimate their certainty.
Replacing “alarmists” with “scientists who over estimate their certainty” would suit me well.
But then why is it that the term “alarmist” get so much ice time?
For instance,
> Some might notice Keith’s remarks about how Andrew Revkin, a member of the media, served as an effective counterbalance to the press releases overhyping research results and climate alarmism.
http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2012/09/03/pushing-back-on-climate-hype/#comment-119585
INTEGRITY ™ — De-Hype the Hype
***
> We have no position on policy
The majestic We, yet again.
As if any tribe position on that debate entailed a policy.
Most of the times, it’s the other way around.
This meme is a fake.
INTEGRITY ™ — Genuinely Fake
***
You are being lukewarmingly “handled”, folks.
mosh
what actions do you believe to be so urgent that they need to be taken today?
tonyb
+1
willard
“The majestic We, yet again.
As if any tribe position on that debate entailed a policy.”
The reason why “we” have no position on policy is that policy is not proscribed by any set of facts. Minor matter of an is/ought distinction.
basically, we have a position on the science. We don’t enforce “thin green lines” or try to throw people who agree about the science under a policy bus. We are not advocates. We are not in the middle of the debate, we are above it. I love spatial metaphors.
> We are not advocates.
Honest brokers might consider that all this branding amounts to stealth advocacy, then.
Speaking of greenline tests:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/tagged/beingtested
Claiming “We don’t enforce “thin green lines”” (notice again the majestic We) might run contrary to facts, notwithstanding the wiggling room left under the verb to enforce.
Maybe it’s just a vocabulary thing.
INTEGRITY ™ — It Depends What You Mean
tony
“mosh
what actions do you believe to be so urgent that they need to be taken today?
tonyb
################
for one, helping china shift from coal to gas.
Robert
“You’re about the sixth person I’ve heard claim that. Let’s compromise; in the future, I will refer to you as the lukewarmer’s chief deconstructionist and literary adviser. Fair?”
Actually not. I believe if your do your research you will see that I was there at the birth of the movement when the term was coined. And then throughout the history of its development I was there at every step shaping the definition.
Go ahead prove me wrong
> Go ahead prove me wrong.
How to switch the burden of proof in one step only.
Yet another fake argument.
***
In any case, I believe the name of David Smith (a “voice of reason”, if Judy remembers what some old students told her) should be mentioned:
> Personally, I’m a “lukewarmer”, in that I believe that manmade CO2 makes the world warmer than it would otherwise be, but whether that effect is big or small, or important or not, is unknown to everyone. My suspicion is that the CO2 impact is small and not particularly important, but I keep reading and asking questions, in the hope of learning whether my suspicion is valid or not.
http://climateaudit.org/2006/10/08/currys-comments-on-klotzbach/#comment-66275
***
There are other questions, but we won’t burden ourselves with lukewarm paternity claim about branding of what honest brokers may see as stealth advocacy.
Another from David Smith:
> Here is a goofball site I stumbled across while doing some tornado reading. I have no idea who writes this stuff. It appeals to my lukewarmer, we’re-gonna-be-OK inclination.
http://climateaudit.org/2006/10/29/road-map-2/#comment-67964
Jim Cripwell
Re: applying empirical data to evaluate climate sensitivity. Some other examples:
“Dr. Sherwood Idso describes 8 natural experiments to determine climate sensitivity:
1. Changes in atmospheric water vapour at Phoenix, Arizona 0.173 C/W/m2.
2. Changes in atmospheric dust at Phoenix, Arizona 0.173 C/W/m2.
3. Annual temperature change (land 0.171 coast 0.087) 0.113 C/W/m2.
4. Earth total GH effect 0.097 C/W/m2.
5. Equator to pole temperature gradient 0.103 C/W/m2.
6. Venus – Mar extrapolated to Earth (0.4 C) 0.1 C/W/m2.
7. Faint early Sun paradox (0.4 C) 0.1 C/W/m2.
8. Tropical ocean water vapour (ocean 0.071 land 0.172) 0.101 C/W/m2.
Best estimate 0.10 C/W/m2. The corresponds to a temperature increase of 0.37 Celsius for a doubling of CO2.”
Sherwood Idso, CO2-induced global warming: a skeptic’s view of potential climate change, Climate Research, Vol. 10, 69-92, April 9, 1998. etc.
Lindzen, R. S., and Y.-S. Choi (2009), On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications. Asian Pacific Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 47(4), 377-390, 2011
DOI:10.1007/s13143-011-0023-x
See also NIPCC reviews on Climate Sensitivity
It is sad for their theory that we have already had twice their 0.37 C warming with only half a doubling. They may be off by a factor of 4.
Are you assuming there is no “natural” non co2 component to warming? If most of the observed warming is natural (non co2) then their theory could be correct.
It’s been warming since the low point of the Little Ice Age was reached in 1650. Whatever caused that can be responsible for most or all of the warming since 1850 as well.
If climate sensitivity were really that low, it would take a gigantic natural forcing to make up even half of the observed warming. Yet we find no evidence of such a forcing anywhere.
Woo look! Mystery forcings. Well, I say ‘look’, but obviously we can’t see them or detect them or measure them or anything like that. We just… have faith… ;-)
Mr. Natural is whipping up some clouds and some raindrops.
David L. Hagen | September 18, 2012 at 10:41 pm | Reply
” Best estimate 0.10 C/W/m2. The corresponds to a temperature increase of 0.37 Celsius for a doubling of CO2.”
Interesting. I arrive at roughly the same number from a different path. Assume 1.1C is no-feedback sensitivity over dry land. Multiply by percentage of earth that is dry land. 0.30 * 1.1C = 0.33C. Land isn’t totally dry and ocean isn’t entirely cooled by latent flux so that’s no more than a ballpark number but 0.37C is not just in the same ballpark it’s in the same dugout within spitting distance of the same spittoon.
@David Springer: Assume 1.1C is no-feedback sensitivity over dry land.
Why? No one has a clue what “no-feedback sensitivity” means. It’s a completely vacuous concept.
Peter Lang,
You don’t understand what Jim Cripwell has been boringly droning on about for the last few months. He’s saying that Climate sensitivity needs to be measured. The only way that can be done of course is to allow CO2 to increase to much higher levels than we now have and see what happens. If the effects are small then people like Jim will say “see nothing to worry about after all’. If not, they’ll come out with the “correlation doesn’t prove causation argument” and deny that anything has been measured anyway.
So, you see, its not a real argument. Its just way of saying that nothing needs to be done on CO2 emissions right now.
@tt: He’s saying that Climate sensitivity needs to be measured. The only way that can be done of course is to allow CO2 to increase to much higher levels than we now have and see what happens.
I would be fascinated to see any evidence whatsoever that this is the only way. We have 160 years of data, is all that just chopped liver for you?
We don’t know the net ‘forcing’. The only way is when the cooling is so strong that warmists cannot come up with more ad hoc negative forcings.
“Yet, it is a strange fact that none of the proponents of CAGW seem to be the least bit interested in trying to use what little empirical data we have, to try and come up with a measured value for total climate sensitivity”
Not true Jim. The majority of scientific studies into Climate Sensitivity do that just that. They look at empricial evidence of how climate has reacted to changes in forcing. By looking at past climates. From recent things like the impact of volcanic eruptions, to one study looking at geological estimates of past climate looking back over 420 million years. And it is those studies that are starting to narrow the range of possible values down. Less than 2 – very unlikely. 2-4 most likely 4+. moderate possibility.
This is a problem with trying to use the blogosphere to inform yourself about what is going on in climate research. It doesn’t happen on the blogosphere. If you want to see what is happening you will unfortunately need to spend a bit of money, buting subscriptions to the top 10-20 scientific journals where the real conversation happens.
Blogs like this are just a shadow play in comparison.
Did you really write this?
“So, either Mother Nature deigns to give the world a terrifying wake up call. Or people like us have to build the greatest guerilla force in human history. Now. Because time is up…Someone needs to convene a council of war of the major environmental movements, blogs, institutes etc. In a smoke filled room (OK, an incense filled room) we need a conspiracy to save humanity.”
Oh Steven, where would we be without stolen emails, eh?
Still, at least this one proves, once and for all, that the
conspiracy theorists‘sceptics’ are indeed imagining things. Unless of course GT has been deliberately excluded from the real conspiracy.;-)
For Whom the Wakeup Bell Tolls,
It Tolls for Thee.
So what if he did?
BBD
“Oh Steven, where would we be without stolen emails, eh?”
well, for one we would think that Glenn is sincere in his attempts to engage. Now of course he can apologize for what he said. Many of us have had to do that. Before I jump to the conclusions that the text was accurate I thought I would give him the benefit of the doubt.
Fair. But since you want to assume its accuracy before you hear from Glenn, I’m wondering what you think of it?
OOOOHHH
Cat Fight
Subscriptions to 10-20 top journals where the real conversation happens.
You mean where the real pal review happens.
Plenty of data leaks out from behind the paywalls. Sometimes you don’t even need FOIA authority to pry it loose!
Besides just one pal with university access can email the PDF’s to those unfortunates adrift amongst the ignorant unwashed masses outside the academic profiteers and their enablers in the trade rag business.
Glenn Tamblyn: From recent things like the impact of volcanic eruptions, to one study looking at geological estimates of past climate looking back over 420 million years.
This is complete garbage. Neither volcanic eruptions nor paleoclimate has anything whatsoever to tell us about modern global warming. If you think otherwise prove it with real data.
That is a rather fuzzy “fact” I would think. I think it is more like follow the Orange line in the absolutely marvelous graphic linked above. Whether the pace of ocean heat uptake returns to the 1955 to 2000 pace in less than 60 years is likely or not would be a more sensible topic to discuss than “fuzzy facts”. There are oscillations to consider after all :)
Let me point out that on the previous thread about Arctic sea ice, I put forward a case, based on very simple science and logic, that if we look at Antarctic sea ice extent at the same time we look at Arctic sea ince extent, it is absolutely clear the whatever is happening in the Arctic, it is regional. There is no case to be made that the record low levels of Arctic sea ice have anything to do with CAGW and increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. Whatever the cause is of a massive melt of Arctic sea ice this year, it is completley natural. And no-one has challenged my approach.
I believe I replied twice on the previous thread about why positive albedo feedback applies more strongly to the Arctic than Antarctic. Also it is tough to melt a continental ice cap, as we see also with Greenland.
No Jim. We can’t say that. Yes, the change is regional but that doesn’t mean the underlying causes aren’t more global. Warmer ocean currents flowing into the Arctic from the Atlantic and through the Bering strait. Increased flows of (relatively) warmer fresh water from rivers in Siberia due to melting Permafrost for example.
And the issue with Arctic melting is less about what is causing it but rather what the impacts will be.
The warmer flows into the Arctic Ocean combined with low ice cover results in a much higher loss of heat to space than there would have been with high September ice coverage. In other words, the amount of ice coverage acts as a governing mechanism on Northern Hemisphere and probably global temperatures. The low albedo of open ocean compared to sea ice is of little importance when the seasonal isolation is low.
+1,000,000
−1
OK, in addition to the positive feedback, the fact that the warmer water flows north, not south in the major oceans, is a big factor too, plus the warmer rivers come off the warmer northern continents into the Arctic Ocean. Many factors favor the Arctic for warming.
My best case:
The AGW sand castle, as shown in the graph below, was built by smoothing all the oscillations in GMST before 1970s and leaving the warming phase of the oscillation since then untouched and calling it man-made.
http://bit.ly/OaemsT
I call this the “Hockey Stick” of the 20th century, in contrast to the Hockey Stick of the millennium.
The handle of the hockey stick of the 20th century is made of the secular trend until 1970 and its blade is made of the transient (multidecadal oscillation) warming trend since 1970.
What the data shows is a uniform warming since the little ice age => http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd
There is no HOCKEY STICK in the data.
Girma, your chart shows Hansen’s C forecast nailed it, his B was better than a no-change extrapolation, and his A was no better than a no-change extrapolation. Two out of three ain’t bad.
My best cases
The models are wrong in their projections as shown below:
Observation versus IPCC Projection =>http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/IPCC-Predictions-2011.PNG
Observation versus Hansen Projection => http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/Hansen1988Scenarios.gif
AGW and ice albedo have nothing to do with it: wrmists are in denial about the blooming plankton abehind the meltdown .
Capelin rush into the Arctic to feed on the things, hotly pursued by bigger fish, culminating in the hot-blooded tuna atop the food chain.
As the bluefin buzz about scarfing down their unlimited calorie diet, they release prodigious amounts of metabolic heat, contributing to the underwater volcanic eruptions that cause the so- called albedo feedback loop by cooking entire schools of squid and releasing their ink into the water.
As everyone knows , there is no such thing as “back Radiation” and hence nothing to stop galactic cosmic rays from magnetizing the ink, and causing it to be drawn to the surface by the iron sun. Nor, despite repeated FOIA requests, has the Unviversity of Virginia released any data demonstrating growth rings in medieval tuna otoliths prove the CACW theory.
Killer read, O-man.
It skewers all the climate clowns presenting their crackpot theories on this thread.
So this is what it has come down to. A request to present the best-case and predictably the immediate knee-jerk response comes from about a dozen of the 3 dozen clowns that push their pet ideas. All worthless, BTW.
You have to stand back and marvel at how this has turned into a Coast-to-Coast wacko fest.
Observation versus IPCC Projection =>http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/IPCC-Predictions-2011.PNG
Observation versus Hansen Projection => http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/Hansen1988Scenarios.gif
There is no hockey stick in the temperature record => http://bit.ly/Aei4Nd
Is that wacko fest?
In science, if theory does not match the observation, you chuck the theory. So chuck, AGW.
In science , <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1TbosA_JLgwcjj6SfOqmvQu4oEgkWNQOw7XgvxvUZoJE"when crackpots ignore the data , you chuck the crackpots.
Girma, have you defended your work at Rons or Nicks?
WHT and O-man just proved the warmists have no science to discuss.
Jim2 are you that clueless to fail to see what kind of comedy circus you are a part of?
Ever heard of the Journal of Irreproducible Results? Long history of scientists engaging in sarcasm.
> You have to stand back and marvel at how this has turned into a Coast-to-Coast wacko fest.
Indeed, marvelling could become contemplative and induce calmness.
Marvel? Or cry?
We sat down by the rivers of Bullshit and wept
Very clever, OmniPepsodent!
Not.
Probably written through the process of Intelligent Design.
My best case is simple, as science should be. AGW via GHGs is about atmospheric warming, which should be relatively steady, as every new GHG molecule counts. The satellites are our instruments for measuring whether or not this warming is occuring. The only warming they show, in the last 30+ years, is a single step warming coincident with the great ENSO. Thus there appears to have been no new GHG warming. None, so AGW is falsified. QED by observation.
I see no “single step”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/linkableblob/39220/data/graph6gliksonjpg-data.jpg
Your graph is too messy. If you plot UAH from the beginning until the beginning of the big ENSO cycle in 1998, you get a flat line. Then plot it from the end of the cycle in 2001 until today and you get another flat line, but this second flat line is higher, that is earmer, than the first flat line. This difference is the step warming, which coincides with the big ENSO cycle.
My conjecture, and it is only that, is that this step is a small abrupt event, due to an ocean circulation change, which is the standard theory for abrupt events.
The primary point is that there is no evidence of GHG warming in this specific pattern, and UAH is the best data we have. Science is about specifics, because it is the specifics that falsify hypotheses. In this case AGW is the hypothesis.
I agree with the step up in baseline in 1997/1998 El Nino. I pointed this out at the Blackboard a couple years ago. Lucia said she didn’t believe in step functions in fluid mechanics.
My guess was that was disgorgement of missing heat in the pipeline. Therefore, future global warming will reveal itself in a punctuated equilibrium style.
Who knows! That’s the real point
actually, bifurcations and shifts are not uncommon in nonlinear dynamics
… such that the mean of many thousand dynamical bifurcations and shifts in the course of any given year adds up to a planetary energy budget that is remarkably predictable.
Excellent point, Judith … numerous climate-skeptic concerns are allayed by embracing global energy measures! :) :grin: :lol: :!:
Fan-Oh-More
Exactly. And the uncertainty in the planetary energy budget is orders of magnitude greater than the sum total of CO2, feedbacks and aerosols. That’s a big fudge-factor to cover your disgorgement of weasel-words!
Isn’t the onset of turbulence basically a step function? The flow capacity of a pipe drop suddenly when laminar flow abruptly becomes turbulent. This is central to fluid mechanics.
Your observation is correct, David Wojick! :) :) :)
But when we observe the fluid dynamics of the ocean and atmosphere, we do not see “the onset of turbulence”, rather what we see is nearer to fully developed turbulence.
This is why local prediction of weather is infeasible, whereas reasonably reliable long-term energy-balance predictions of warming can be based upon (relatively) simple thermodynamical considerations.
The key ideas of global-scale climate-science are not complicated, David Wojick! :) :) :)
@curryja: actually, bifurcations and shifts are not uncommon in nonlinear dynamic
Are they in any way common in multidecadal climate?
Which is all that matters when projecting forward a century.
@David Wojick: UAH is the best data we have
Best for David Wojick. UAH is actually pretty bad given how little data we get from it: only from 1979, and only from thousands of times further away than a vast amount of other temperature data that has accumulated since well over a century ago. UAH data is basically garbage.
Wrong does not describe what he is. Wrong does not cover enough ground to do the job.
You need to think like a geologist and auto-filter the noise with your eyes.
David,
First of all, satellites are not our only instruments for measuring whether warming is occuring, we have thermometers too.
Secondly, although the warming effect of GHGs should be relatively steady there are of course other factors affecting atmospheric temperatures on shorter scales, so one would not necessarily expect the observed warming to be steady over short timeframes.
Andrew, there is no thermometer that measures average atmospheric temperature. We do have complex statistical models that attempt to derive an average temperature from an unrepresentative sample of thermometers located in the boundary layer, but that is a model, not an instrument, and a questionable model at that.
Nor is 32 years a short time frame. This is in fact the time frame that AGW is based on, containing the supposed warming in the surface statistical models, which does not exist in the satellie record.
In two more years we’ll have two disjoint 17-year periods of satellite observation; of course, 1970’s satellite technology interpreted by evangelical missionaries who put the Bible back in Science may not be everyone’s idea of the most reliable dataset, but at least it’ll amount to something then. And when we have five disjoint 17-year periods, we’ll have something statistically worth looking at, maybe.
Five disjoint 30-year spans would be better.
But then, we already have all of that and more from the surface record; while it’s not the dataset anyone sane would have set out to use to record climate observations globally if they knew what we know now, it’s been validated and verified, and stands up for some limited uses.
Such as verifying that David Wojick is just plain wrong on facts.
I am assuming you are referring to the caped crusaders Spencer and Christy.
Bart, what you are calling a dataset is the output of several questionable complex statistical models, operating on poor data, not an observation. These models have neverq been validated, in fact the satellite record falsifies them. What other source of validation is there?
What specific facts are you claiming I am wrong on?
By the way Bart, your 17 year number has no mathematical meaning. It is a rule of thumb derived by Ben Santer, using a surface statistical model, and assuming AGW. Nor are the flat periods in the UAH step pattern disjoint in any meaningful way. The pattern covers the entire 32 year period.
> [Y]our 17 year number has no mathematical meaning.
A rule of thumb sounds like a mathematical meaning, cf. heuristics.
The notion of “mathematical meaning” deserves due diligence.
By no mathematical meaning I mean it is not derived from statistical theory, the way, say, a confidence interval is. It is an empirical claim, based on the lengths of flat intervals in the HadCru temperature model output, and assuming there is an underlying warming trend due to AGW. Given that the statistical model is weak and the assumption is merely an hypothesis, it has very little credibility.
Indeed, BartR’s claim is empirical. This was the hint:
> Such as verifying that David Wojick is just plain wrong on facts.
This means that the “this has no mathematical meaning” jab is quite meaningless.
Speaking of meaninglessness, here’s a gem:
> Given that the statistical model is weak and the assumption is merely an hypothesis, it has very little credibility.
I too prefer when my assumptions are not merely hypotheses.
We have at least 100k worth of philosophical credibility just there.
Bart R
”when we have five disjoint 17-year periods, we’ll have something statistically worth looking at, maybe.”
+1
David Wojick | September 19, 2012 at 11:40 am |
For someone who claims to have studied Logic at some point in the distant past, your inability to handle contrapositive conditionals is surprising.
I don’t need or make special claims about any magical properties of Dr. Santer’s 17-year periods here; all I need is to communicate the understanding that shorter periods than 17 years are inadequate for any sort of trendology due low signal:noise ratio on the dataset Santer used, which gives us plenty of cause to consider Mr. Christy’s salted dataset inadequate to the use you put it to.
32 years doesn’t provide a statistically significant number of disjoint climates, which the Meteorologists still define as 30-years, to establish comparisons.
Like Sheik Amar, “No matter your skills as a promoter, you can’t organize an ostrich race with just one ostrich. “ All you can do is stick your head in the sand.
Bart R
I am not sure where you learned your logic. For a guy who berates the other one for not understanding logic and contrapositives, you probably need to revisit you understanding (if any) of logic and contrapositves. There are several problems in your statement. But I dont have time (given that it is insanely late now) to address all of them. I will address one of them.
You state the “understanding” (axiom as implied by you) that “shorter periods than 17 years” (call it variable P) “are inadequate” “for any sort of trendology” [whatever that means, call it variable Q]. lets make it simple and say Q is really “no trend”. So now we have you saying P->Q is an axiom, without showing how it is an axiom. It is not like you are saying cows moo, for us to take that as an axiom, without questioning you. That is what David was questioning to begin with. The contra positive on this says if there is no trend then that means the period is shorter than 17 years. How in the world is the statement you make below (where the axiom is not at all an axiom) “which gives us plenty of cause to consider Mr. Christy’s salted dataset inadequate to the use you put it to” anything to do with the contrapositive of the first statement, not to mention has any implications to the 32 year period David talks about?
If you really have some explainable logic behind these assertions, you should at least make your english translations much more comprehensible and tight so we can actually see the logic there, instead of berating the other guy for lacking logic.
sorry I meant to say the contrapositve statement is “if there is a trend then the period is longer than 17 years”. Not the one I wrote below. before I fixed it was I reading it back, I ended up clicking on Post comment by mistake . I guess I need to get to bed, this being too late.
The MSUs don’t measure temperature directly. The TLT *estimate* is a patchwork of modelled (!) reconstructions, nothing more. And it is quite possibly biased low (Po-Chedly & Fu 2011) because errors in processing data from higher in the troposphere affect the *estimated reconstruction* of TLT temperature. Nobody can say that the satellite reconstructions ‘falsify’ anything.
Shiv,
> You state the “understanding” (axiom as implied by you) that “shorter periods than 17 years” (call it variable P) “are inadequate” “for any sort of trendology” [whatever that means, call it variable Q].
P and Q are propositions. If they are to be variables, they should be propositional variables. That means there is one and only one proposition there:
(P) Shorter periods than 17 years are inadequate for any sort of trendology.
The emphasis is there to show the important part of propositions.
There seems to be a confusion between propositions and predicates in your analysis.
Shiv | September 20, 2012 at 2:54 am |
Brave effort, and nice to see.
I don’t pretend to be faultless; (sometimes, I even purposely include errors out of some mischief or for some pedagogy-inspired ends, which is silly as the errors I make naturally far exceed the learning opportunities of the cleverness I imagine I have). See if you can spot the difference between the purposeful error I make below, and the unintended ones:
But what willard said. Sort of.
I have two unknowns, X and Y. If they are fully disjoint and well-ordered, I can know if X>Y is true. This is axiomatic.
Trendology requires us to know if X>Y for all values in the sample domain over a range to establish if there is a trend on that range. We require a bit more if we’re to apply Statistics.
In the case of Climatology, Dr. Santer has shown by confidence intervals (signal:noise ratios) that if our domain is global average monthly temperature (a clumsy metric to rely on), then the requirements of Statistics are not fulfilled without disjoint collections spanning at least 17 years on the HadCRU dataset to use as representative samples. Other datasets may have different values than 17 years.
A decent statistician won’t call statistics on less than five samples meaningful. UAH can’t even give us two samples yet.
A decent Meteorologist, according to the published standards of their profession, considers 30 years (not 17) the minimum length of a climate.
Either way, GISS, CRU, and BEST can provide enough discrete samples to allow meaningful statistical processing.
If you can’t provide enough discrete samples to allow meaningful statistical sampling, you cannot make meaningful assertions of the type Dr. Wojick has about step functions or trends with any confidence.
Construct for me, if you would, in terms of predicate logic the propositive form of this statement.
Then you will see why I “berated” Dr. Wojick for failing to recognize the appropriate corollary contrapositive.
“The MSUs don’t measure temperature directly. The TLT *estimate* is a patchwork of modelled (!) reconstructions, nothing more.”
There are reconstruction, as are ground station measurement – as all systems which attempt measure global temperature.
But satellite measurement is more accurate way to measure global temperature, than compared to using a weather network which measure local temperature [for weather purposes] and attempting to average these.
“And it is quite possibly biased low (Po-Chedly & Fu 2011) because errors in processing data from higher in the troposphere affect the *estimated reconstruction* of TLT temperature. Nobody can say that the satellite reconstructions ‘falsify’ anything.”
Your reference if correct, doesn’t make your point.
“The analysis reveals that the UAH TMT product has a positive bias of 0.051 ± 0.031 in the warm target factor that artificially reduces the global TMT trend by 0.042 K decade−1 for 1979–2009. Accounting for this bias increases the global UAH TMT trend from 0.038 to 0.080 K decade”
The claimed error is 0.051 ± 0.031, ground stations have a larger error.
So, if satellite can’t falsify, than nothing we got can falsify. And so we left with the wonderous pseudoscience.
@Shiv: I am not sure where you learned your logic.
I’m sure you learned your logic here. You write like a crackpot.
@David Wojick: By no mathematical meaning I mean it is not derived from statistical theory, the way, say, a confidence interval is. It is an empirical claim, based on the lengths of flat intervals in the HadCru temperature model output, and assuming there is an underlying warming trend due to AGW. Given that the statistical model is weak and the assumption is merely an hypothesis, it has very little credibility.
I beg to differ. No assumption about AGW need be made to demonstrate that 17 years is an excellent number to use in this context.
All you have to do is ask what fraction of n-year windows exhibit a rise in temperature, as a function of n. 18 months before Santer came up with his 17-year figure, my energetic assistant Robbie calculated that 15 years was the bare minimum.
The data for this can be seen here. As n is increased from 5 to 15 years, the above-mentioned fraction gradually increases from a half (i.e. completely random chance) to one (100% certainty).
No assumption about AGW is made here. If David Wojick continues to insist otherwise in the face of this clear data then his pants are on fire.
Faulty basic premise David. That the primary place you would expect to observe ‘warming’ is the atmosphere. Actually the key place you look for warming is the oceans. It takes more than 1000 times as much heat to warm the oceans by 1 Deg as it does the atmosphere. And relatively small variations in heat trasnport betwen the air and the oceans can make the air temperatures jump around quite a bit while having minimal impact on the oceans.
So the kkey indicator is heat build up in the oceans. And they have been warming steadily since around 1970. No slow down, no cooling.
What they say is the oceans were thrown into the mix, a hasty patch job for GW theory, once surface temperatures plateaued. It’s retarded, but that is what they claim.
Indeed JCH, the idea that an atmospheric GHG increase should warm the oceans without warming the atmosphere is a major rewrite of GH theory, to say the least.
Moreover, the statistical model that purports to show long term ocean warming is far worse that the surface statistical models, which only use area averaging, not volume averaging, and which at least have some fixed stations. Cobbling together miscellaneous Navy submarine reports to get hundredth of a degree changes is not a sound model.
Then too, if all of the GHG increase heat is going into the oceans, who cares? The oceans are very cold. Not that I believe this is actually happening.
It is not a rewrite. In terms of the history of the theory, the pipeline is very old.
David Wojick
Eh? You’ve heard of the ‘Charney Report’, I hope? You know, the one from 1979 which states:
My mistake. It should not surprise me that there is a 33 year old speculation lying in the literature that might explain what we see. I would be happy if the climate community recognized the step as real and began investigating why it has happened, including this qualitative possibility.
David Wojick
You are desperately ill-informed.
As opposed to BBD who is just desperate.
And cowardly. A desperate coward conspiring behind closed doors. You’re a butt buddy of Glenn Tamblyn, huh?
David Wojick: the idea that an atmospheric GHG increase should warm the oceans without warming the atmosphere is a major rewrite of GH theory, to say the least.
Quite right. So was the transition from a geocentric to a heliocentric model of planetary motion. What point are you trying to make here?
OMG! Steadily since the around 1970s! Now I have a new arbitrary baseline to consider!
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/oceaniaTmin.png
Oh sorry that is the BEST Tmin temperatures for Oceania. I hear that Tmin is kinda an indication of CO2 forcing. Of course there is probably a tree in Siberia that is a more scientifically correct proxy for the true temperature change or perhaps we could ask the Tuna?
Your attempt at falsification of AGW suffers from a fatal shortcoming. This is that the entity which would have to be observed, an event belonging to a statistical population, does not exist for IPCC climatology.
Great topic. I got into it a bit with Andrew Revkin about the lack of warming over the last 15 years. His point was that since it was a “super el nino” that marks the fall off in warming starting after 1998, it’s not legit. to attach much importance to it. He’s invoking “natural variability.: Ok, but when Hansen issues his frequent predictions of another super el nino (ever hopeful, always wrong) he’s clearly not thinking natural variability, but I suppose a “loaded dice” scenario…
I think the skeptic’s answer to revkin et al would be well, show me some predictions from 15 years ago stating that since we’re coming off a super el nino there won’t be any warming for the next decade or two. Failing that, I don’t see that it’s at all fair to start waving the natural variability flag after the fact.
Anyone?
Pokerguy,
I don’t know what people were saying in 1998, I wasn’t following this issue very closely then, but surely what matters is what we actually know now. The argument that it is misleading to draw conclusions based on trends starting in 1998 is either correct or it’s not – I would argue that it is, given that there was a clear spike in 1998 and temps immediated dropped back down again (according to HadCrut 1999 was cooler than 1997). But either way that argument is entirely unaffected by what someone might have said or not said in 1998.
Glenn Tamblyn,
I am a sceptic about catastrophic consequences of global warming and about the mitigation policies, both proposed and already implemented. Furthermore, I’ve been following the policy debate on CAGW, including providing policy advice to government, for over 20 years – i.e. since before the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
You say:
IMO, this comment demonstrates why you believe what you are saying, while I disagree with you. I agree with Judith. Your comment shows you are talking just about climate science. But the sceptics see climate science as one issue amongst many. They bring a much greater breadth and depth of knowledge and experience to the debate. Climate scientists and academics simply do not have as large a breadth and depth of relevant experience to draw on.
Your comment states many of the standard down-in-the-weeds arguments about climate science. But it avoids what is important to know for rational policy advice, such as:
1. What difference will the Australian carbon tax and ETS make to the ecology of the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park and to rainfall in the Murray Darling Basin?
2. What is the cost and benefits of carbon pricing, given that the assumptions that underpin the modelling are impracticable and cannot be achieved in the real world? As Richard Tol said in answer to my question here:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-239101
See my question here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-239089
4. What is the impact of global warming. I am not interested in the scaremongering adjectives and narrative. I want to know the damage costs per degree of warming. We know climate change is not catastrophic, so we must make policy decisions on an economically rational basis. But so far, after 20 years of very large taxpayer funding to climate science, we still have little useful information on the damage function (see Nordhaus Table 7-2 here to understand what I am talking about http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf).
5. The ‘Garnaut Climate Change Review’ has exaggerated the impacts of climate change and the damages so as to provide justification for the Australian carbon tax and ETS. (see my comment of earlier today here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/12/the-costs-of-tackling-or-not-tackling-anthropogenic-global-warming/#comment-240670
My BS meter is set to high sensitivity because activist climate scientists have been exaggerating and overstating the case for urgent and economically damaging policies for over 20 years. James Hansen predicted the oceans would evaporate. You know about Australian Climate Commissioner, Tim Flannery’s exaggerations, overstatements and scare mongering. Similarly, with Will Steffen. You’d know about how we were led to believe in the early 1990s that the planet was doomed unless we quickly reduced our CO2 emissions. You’ll recall the Australian Government committed in 1992 to the ‘Toronto Targets’ – “Australia will cut its CO2 emissions to 1988 levels by 2000 and to 20% below 1988 levels by 2005”. Of course, as we all now know, the arguments about imminent catastrophe were exaggerations and false.
Glenn Tamblyn,
You ask:
Well, why didn’t you start your comment by stating your definition.
As generally used catastrophic climate change means:
1. If we don cut CO2 emissions by 20% below 1988 levels by 2005, it’ll be too late. We’ll have runaway global warming and life on Planet Earth will cease to exist [stated in various ways by Bob Hawke’s government (1991-92) based on information provided by climate scientists and fanned and encouraged by them)
2. If we don’s stop burning fossil fuels and stop the coal death trains in the very near future, life on the planet is doomed (Climate change scientist and activist James Hansen)
3. If we don’s stop burning fossil fuels the oceans will evaporate
4. Garnaut Climate Change Review added cherry picked upper bounds upon cherry picked upper bounds to get a sea level will rise of 1.1 m by 2100 as a basis for his damage cost estimates for justifying the Australian ETS.
Sea level rise is not catastrophic when taking proper account of the times scales involved and demonstrated our ability to adapt. It is just a cost, and not a big cost anyway when put in proper context. It may be offset by benefits of warming, we just don’t know because the work has not been done on the damage function.
You haven’t mentioned the time it will take. As you put the question, it is simply extreme scaremongering. You are implying it is a threat for the near term. Sea level will not rise as a tsunami so it is not catastrophic. It’s just a cost to be weighed against other costs and benefits of warming and reducing the risk of cooling or delaying cooling.
How can ice starting to melt (your words) be catastrophic? Its ridiculous to say ice starting to melt, even if true, is catastrophic.
Have you considered how catastrophic would be to hold CO2 levels to 450 ppm, especially given that most climate Alarmists oppose us getting low cost nuclear power. Low cost nuclear power is the most viable alternative we have to cut CO2 emissions, but it is opposed to most climate alarmists. That is a prime example of the irrationality and lack of objectivity of climate scientists. If you have no idea about how catastrophic it would be to hold CO2 concentrations to 450 ppm, then perhaps you could get an idea from these two references:
Nordhaus (2008) A Question of Balance
Pielke (2011) An evaluation of the targets and timetables of proposed Australian emissions reduction policies.
Your credibility is gone at the first paragraph in your comment. I’ve dismissed you as an irrational, alarmist.
If you want to get through to me, you’d need to make a contribution at the level of rational policy debate. You could start by pointing out if there are any serious errors (not the relatively minor ones I know and have discussed in comments) in this post:
What the carbon tax and ETS will really cost
And this comment (and my two preceding comments) on SkepticalScience on the misleading thread about Nordhaus (written by Dana 1981): http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1325#82373
Could I urge you to look at my comments near the end of this thread in which I summarised the costs and benefits of the proposed climate mitigation policies, including limit CO2 concentration to 450 ppm. My summary comments start here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/24/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic/#comment-234611 The first comment uses Nordhaus’s results to highlight that a low cost alternative to fossil fuels is by far the best policy.
You asked why global warming is not catastrophic. Here is my answer:
How bad is global warning?
Following are a few key references that, taken together, show global warming is not a threat of catastrophe. It is a matter of costs and benefits and appropriate policies informed by economic analyses.
Copenhagen Consensus 2012 does not rank mitigating climate change as one of the top priority items we should spend our resources, effort and wealth on to improve human well being.
Scotese Palaeomap shows the planet is in a ‘Coldhouse’ phase – i.e. there is plenty of room to warm before we get outside the planet’s ‘normal operating temperature. The chart shows that the planet’s temperature ranges between a minimum and maximum temperature (about 10 C to 25 C). The ‘normal temperature’ is near the higher end of the range. The current temperature is nearer to the low end of the range. Only three times since multi-cell animal life began (about 550 million years ago) has the planet sunk into a coldhouse phase like we are in now. The planet is in an unusually cold period. So what is so bad about warming?
IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 6, Figure 6.1 shows that for most of the past 400 million years the planet has been without polar ice caps – i.e. the planet is normally much warmer than at present. So what is so bad about warming?
IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 6 includes statements buried in the text that show life thrives when the planet is warmer and struggles when colder. So what is so bad about warming?
Hansen and Sato (2010) (Figure 1
) shows the planet has been in a cooling trend for the past 50 million years. And we’ve recently (8000-5000 years ago) past the peak temperature in the current 100,000 year Glacial-Interglacial cycle. So the planet is in a cooling trend – heading down towards the next ice age. Cooling would be catastrophic. Arguable, anything we do to reduce the risk of cooling, and extend the period until cooling begins, is good for life on planet Earth.
Nordhaus (2012) “Economic policy in the face of severe tail events
” says no identified ‘thick tail’ risk of catastrophic consequences has been identified. The Abstract says: “However, we conclude that no loaded gun of strong tail dominance has been uncovered to date.”
Conclusion, Global warming is not catastrophic or dangerous. There will be transition costs. So, we need policies to minimise the costs and disruptions. We first need to understand the costs and benefits of different policy options.
References:
Copenhagen Consensus (2012)
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Projects/CC12.aspx
World Economic Forum “Global Risks 2012”
http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2012-seventh-edition
Scotese Palaeomap
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 6, Figure 6.1
http://accessipcc.com/AR4-WG1-6.html#6-3-1
IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 6
http://accessipcc.com/AR4-WG1-6.html#6
James Hansen and Makiko Sato (2010) “Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change” (Figure 1)
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
Nordhaus (2012) “Economic policy in the face of severe tail events”
http://www.weforum.org/reports/global-risks-2012-seventh-edition
Nordhaus (2007) “A Question of Balance”
http://nordhaus.econ.yale.edu/Balance_2nd_proofs.pdf
Peter Lang (2012, What the carbon tax and ETS will really cost
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/
“You asked why global warming is not catastrophic.”
No, he didn’t. He asked for your definition of “catastrophic,” a term you were using. Instead, you provided a rush of diarrheal misinformation, and failed to answer the question.
Robert,
That comment is the sort of avoidance and obfuscation that is standard practice for the CAGW Alarmists. It’s why I don’t trust anything you or the others of your ilk preach. “Catastrophic climate change / global warming” and “dangerous climate change / global warming” are CAGW advocates terms. Therefore you and your ilk need to define them. I’ve given you many examples of how these terms have been used over a period of two decades.
Why don’t you Google the terms and find out for yourself. The fact you didn’t and play avoidance and obfuscation like this clearly displays your intent, and it doesn’t look appear to be scientific honesty or professional integrity to me.
I Googled and the first hit is:
Weitzman (2009),ON MODELING AND INTERPRETING THE ECONOMICS OF CATASTROPHIC CLIMATE CHANGE
http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/3693423/Weitzman_OnModeling.pdf?sequence=2
Cited by 524 (mostly CAGW alarmists I’d guess)
Your comment is another example of why nothing you and your ilk say can be trusted. You are all about weaselling disinformation and trying to mislead those who do not have the time to check.
Robert,
Here’s another, a section heading in IPCC AR4:
2.2.4 Risk of catastrophic or abrupt change
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch2s2-2-4.html
It’s from your bible so that must be good enough for you, or wait ….. how will he weasel out of this one?
Peter’s still to scared to answer the question.
What is your definition of “catastrophic,” Peter?
You don’t know, do you?
Are you such a coward that you can’t define your terms, fearful of how easily your arguments can then be shredded?
Why don’t you face your fear and answer the question?
I presume, since no one has attempted to refute this, let alone provided a persuasive argument to refuted it, that it stands. That is, man-made global warming is not catastrophic.
I take it that this must be accepted as irrefutable by the CAGW Alarmists and they think their best tactic is to ignore it rather than challenge it. I expect they have made the tactical decision to not challenge in case, by challenging, they undermine the arguments their beliefs are founded on.
If I had the weak case they have, I’d be pretty quiet too.
Wow, you’re pathetic.
Too scared to say what you mean by “catastrophic.”
Ignoring repeated questions to that effect.
And from your hiding place, you accuse others of ignoring you.
Funny! :)
Robert
You are an idiot. You have never been able to justify that the mitigation actions you favor make sense in a world with limited resources.
Robert,
“Catastrophic Climate Change” (and variants of it) are CAGW terms. Therefore, you should be telling me the definition, not me telling you. I am quoting the CAGW Alarmists’ term.
Why don’t you tell me what you think it means since a) you are one of the CAGW alarmists and it is them who use the term (as a weapon in their scaremongering campaign), and b) you don’t accept what I’ve written as sufficient explanation of what I understand the CAGW Alarmists mean by the term? I’d point out that I’ve referred you to your bible, IPCC AR4, where ‘Catastrophic’ is used in a section title and also referred you to the first paper that came up in a Google search (it has over 500 citations). If that’s not sufficient for you, nothing would be.
I actually recognise that no answer would suit you because you are an ideologue and zealot of the worst kind. Your mind is locked shut.
I also recognise that the irrelevant comments and vitriol you post frequently are your way to divert discussion from what is important.
I suggest Rob Starkey’s comment is spot on:
Peter, I thought this was an excellent and well reasoned post. Food for further thought.
Like many Americans, you should really start eating better.
@Peter Lang (definition of CAGW): If we don cut CO2 emissions by 20% below 1988 levels by 2005, it’ll be too late. We’ll have runaway global warming and life on Planet Earth will cease to exist [stated in various ways by Bob Hawke’s government (1991-92) based on information provided by climate scientists and fanned and encouraged by them)
Climate skeptics have been using the term CAGW for years without ever defining what climate skeptics mean by it. Great to have a definition at long last. Many thanks, Peter.
Here’s IPCC on cataspstrophic (abrupt, irreversible?):
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg3/en/ch2s2-2-4.html
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/mains3-4.html
Peter Lang,
You keep on quoting William Nordhaus as if he were agreeing with your line of argument. He isn’t.
He’s saying ” My study is just one of many economic studies showing that economic efficiency points to the need to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions immediately. Waiting another 50 years is not only economically costly, but will also make transition more costly when it eventually takes place.”
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/global-warming-real-has-consequences-part-i
Here is a somewhat less technical case.
Stipulate that the earth has warmed over the past 130 years and that CO2 is the dominant driver over the past few decades.
Catastrophic, runaway, tipping-point global warming requires net-positive feedback–requires that the system be unstable. Yet the climate system has apparently maintained equilibrium for eons, through periods when the CO2 level was an order of magnitude higher than today’s and the temperature was many degrees higher (I will not right now research the exact numbers).
We know that Earth’s temperature, define it however you want, is stable. We know this.
We know this from the geologic record and from the fact that we live in the environment we live in and not in a runaway greenhouse. I cannot accept any theory that requires this not to be so.
Positive feedback doesn’t imply runaway. This has been over many times before as it is commonly misunderstood. It implies an amplification factor greater than 1 for a forcing change. Since the forcing change is finite, so is the feedback.
We all go to the climate wars with the troops we’ve got.
it’s unfortunate that Judith Curry’s have turned her into a virtual Bill Moyers by creating a forum where those who don’t know what they are talking about convene to disinform not only themselves but the public at large.
All can freely express themselves at ClimateEtc without censorship. The AGW proponents have the opportunity to refute the skeptics argument at ClimateEtc. What is wrong with that?
We are not allowed to comment at RealClimate. We are not allowed to comment at Deltoid. We are not allowed to comment at OpenMind. We are allowed to comment only at ClimateEtc. Why do you want us censored?
Girma | September 18, 2012 at 10:47 pm said: ” Why do you want us censored?”
Girma, freedom of speech is more important, than all the money in the world. This is from somebody who has grown up, east of the Iron Curtain.
Only people interested in brainwashing and manipulation, impose censorship. People ”knowing” that they are wrong; prefer the other side of the story not to be known. People with bad intentions; prefer everything different, to be silenced.
Instead of Al Gore; we should nominate Judith Curry for Nobel p. As defender of freedom of speech and the traditional American way. It’s a pity that most of the commenters would prefer somebody to be silenced – it tells everything about them
Omniloxodont,
If you don’t want your beliefs challenged, then why don’t you stick to the web sites where they cannot be challenged – where opposing views are deleted. There are plenty of such sites.
@Peter Lang: If you don’t want your beliefs challenged, then why don’t you stick to the web sites where they cannot be challenged – where opposing views are deleted. There are plenty of such sites.
Spoken by someone who is so opposed to having his own irrational ideological beliefs challenged that he insults everyone who doesn’t accept them by calling them irrational ideologues.
Perhaps we’re all irrational ideologues.
In a dramitic declaration against interest Leftists in Boston reveal words from the Golden One. Incredible:
http://start.toshiba.com/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CDA1CGO902%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=1018
He says, Oy veh it’s hotter than hell woman.
Judith: Are Lukewarmers allowed to submit topics on this thread?
If so, then I’ll suggest that climate scientists re-examine satellite-era sea surface temperature data, using the best dataset that’s publically available, Reynolds OI.v2. While that sea surface temperature dataset indicates the global oceans have warmed, it shows no evidence of an anthropogenic warming signal. None whatsoever. My most recent post on the subject is “The Warming of the Global Oceans – Are Manmade Greenhouse Gases Important or Impotent?”:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/09/16/the-warming-of-the-global-oceans-are-manmade-greenhouse-gases-important-or-impotent-2/
Bob you have made a strong well supported case for other than CO2 as the driver of at the least much of the warming in the last half century.The argument that “We have looked everywhere and it can only be CO2” studiously avoids the influence of ENSO.
dalyplanet | September 18, 2012 at 11:40 pm said: ”Bob you have made a strong well supported case for other than CO2 as the driver of at the least much of the warming in the last half century”
.
dalyplanet; that is a ”loaded comment” It hasn’t been any warming in 20 century; saying that was warming = you are promoting swindler’s lies. Nobody knows what was the GLOBAL temp last year, to save his life. Nobody is monitoring the GLOBAL temp; they monitor on few places; as fodder for the ignorant. Comparing one unknown with other unknowns – is the contemporary CON. Warmings / coolings are localized – there is NO global warmings; same as the universe wasn’t spinning around the earth, and never will. Confusing climatic changes, big and small as GLOBAL warmings – is the mother of all con.
God theres absolutely no agreement among skeptics is there. If they had a good case between them ud think they’d have largely all honed in on it.
lolwot has a good point thee. Not a new one, just a good one.
First I never said global warming as warming is regional. Second your theory, and I have visited your site to see your ideas presented, ignores the solar ocean cloud coupled mechanism that the earth can gain and lose energy over short and long time periods affecting regional temperature fluctuations.
loiwot It seem to show you have to deny, distort, and delete a lot of science to conclude that CO2 is the sole thermostat controlling the earths temperature.
Bob should do a post on his obsession with ENSO and sea surface temperatures. Then we can bring up the topic of the real metric of anthropogenic warming in the oceans which is ocean heat content, and also talk about the fact that SST’s are not a good metric of the total heat being stored in the ocean, but rather, better indicators of heat flux from ocean to atmosphere. Then we can talk about the reason why tropopsheric temperature records are usually set during El Nino’s as more heat is being released from ocean to atmosphere on average during El Nino’s, and conversely, more energy is being retained by the oceans during La Nina.
Of course, the notion that La Nina and El Nino are “opposite” of each other is NOT something that is being taught by any qualifed expert, and exists only in the uneducated mind. In this regard, Bob is correct in saying that La Nina is the normal state of the tropical Pacific, and that El Nino is an “abnormal” state (hence why tropospheric temperature records are often set during this “abnormal” El Nino state when their is higher net heat flux from ocean to atmosphere.)
But the focus on SST’s and ENSO by Bob is a bit of a side-show distraction. The main event going on in the oceans is the storage of energy deep down…far below the sea surface. 10 years ago the uncertainty surrounding how much energy was being stored was very high, but in the past few years we’re getting a better and better handle on the exact amount being stored. We also are getting a better and better handle on how this heat is being transported around the global ocean at depths below the surface, and even how much of this heat is being transported to the Arctic via deeper currents, where it is doing considerable damage to the sea ice.
So bring it on Bob. Let’s talk about your ENSO and sea surface issues, and then we can talk about where the real action is in terms the anthropogenic effects on the global ocean.
R. Gates says: “Bob should do a post on his obsession with ENSO and sea surface temperatures. Then we can bring up the topic of the real metric of anthropogenic warming in the oceans which is ocean heat content…”
R. Gates, it’s not an obsession. I’m providing a service—you’re just too blinded by your misunderstandings and preconceptions to see what I’ve been doing.
Additionally, you’re well aware that I have also addressed the natural warming of the global oceans using NODC Ocean Heat Content data in past blog posts. In fact, if you had bothered to read the Table of Contents in the Preview of my book, you’d have noted that it’s presented in “Chapter 5.9 A Look at the Long-Term Impacts of ENSO and Other Natural Variables on Ocean Heat Content Data”. In it, I’ve expanded on those past discussions and data presentations. Here’s a link to the preview. The preview is free, R.Gates.
R. Gates says: “Then we can talk about the reason why tropopsheric temperature records are usually set during El Nino’s as more heat is being released from ocean to atmosphere on average during El Nino’s, and conversely, more energy is being retained by the oceans during La Nina.”
Being a former denizen of WUWT, you’re also quite aware that I’ve presented discussions of the natural warming of the land+sea surface temperatures and lower troposphere temperature anomalies in my past posts. I’ve also included them in my book in “Chapter 5.10 Examples of the Obvious Long-Term Impacts of ENSO on Lower Troposphere and Land-plus-sea Surface Temperature Anomalies”. Refer again to Table of Contents in the Free preview linked above.
All you have to do is follow the warm water that’s left over after an El Niño, R. Gates. Recall that Trenberth was very upset about not being able to determine the volume of that leftover warm water, and not being able to determine where it goes. Well, for the past 3 ½ years, I’ve simply been illustrating the aftereffects of that leftover warm water.
And your comment “…more heat is being released from ocean to atmosphere on average during El Nino’s, and conversely, more energy is being retained by the oceans during La Niña…” is only partly correct. It’s true for the tropical Pacific, but not for the rest of the global oceans. We’ve had that discussion before, R. Gates. ARGO-era ocean heat content data of the tropical North Atlantic, for example, shows very clearly that ocean heat content there increases during El Niño events and decreases during La Niña events.
R. Gates says: “But the focus on SST’s and ENSO by Bob is a bit of a side-show distraction…”
The reality: your attacks on my work are groundless; they are based on your misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the breadth of my work; so your comments here are the distraction. Do something constructive, R. Gates— buy a book—it’s got lots of pretty pictures. You might even learn something if you can remove your AGW blinders. On second thought, don’t bother—I don’t want your money. It’s more fun having you as an adversary who comments without knowledge of the subject matter. Keep this up, though, and people might think you’re working for me on a commission, presenting arguments that are easily dismissed, so that I can sell more books.
Adios
When somebody says more heat is released during an El Nino, they mean net. So which is it? If there is an El Nino, ocean wide, does OHC go up or go down?
Again Bob, you proven why your obsession with ENSO and SSTs is a distraction from the issue of what is causing the long-term warming of the planet. Why is ocean heat content increasing to the deepest levels of the ocean we are regularly able to measure? This is the only question that matters in terms of Earth’s energy imbalance. Also, we are seeing the warmest oceans in hundreds if not thousands of years as measured by paleo data. Clearly something beyond the ENSO cycle is at work here.
R. Gates says: “Why is ocean heat content increasing to the deepest levels of the ocean we are regularly able to measure?”
Curiously, R. Gates, the last time I looked, the Ocean Heat Content was not increasing per theory as represented by Climate Models:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/figure-112.png
Looks like I’ve gotten behind in my OHC updates. The last one was is more than 6 months old:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/october-to-december-2011-nodc-ocean-heat-content-anomalies-0-700meters-update-and-comments/
R. Gates says: “This is the only question that matters in terms of Earth’s energy imbalance.”
We cannot account for the energy imbalance so introducing it is misdirection in this discussion. You go off and worry about energy imbalance while the rest of the world considers global temperatures, 70% of which is made up of sea surface temperature.
R. Gates, you haven’t changed. I thought your new blog name had some meaning. Apparently it doesn’t. In a discussion of sea surface temperature, you’re happiest attempting to redirect the topic of conversation. You may wish to check the definition of a troll.
Adios, R. Gates.
JCH: The key term in your question was “ocean wide”, which I assume means globally. We’ve only got a few years of truly global Ocean Heat Content data. For the 2009/10 El Niño, the loss in OHC from the tropical Pacific was countered by the gain in the Rest of the Global Oceans, so there was little gain or loss.
Something curious happened, though, during the 2010/11 La Niña. One would have expected tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content to rebound during it, but there was no rebound. Either cloud cover didn’t decrease to the extent it normally does during a La Niña or the tropical Pacific redistributed warm water faster than could be made up by an increase in Downward Shortwave Radiation (which is associated with the decreased cloud cover). The rebound in tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content didn’t happen until the 2011/12 La Niña.
Regards
Bob Tisdale says:
“You go off and worry about energy imbalance while the rest of the world considers global temperatures, 70% of which is made up of sea surface temperature.”
——
Bob, can’t you see how your obsession with sea surface temperature has skewed your perception of reality? 70% of global temperature is made of of sea surface temperture? Seriously Bob, are you just going to ignore the rest of the ocean down to greater depths and atmosphere, for the sake of the your beloved sea surface? Here is where you show your true colors. Your refusal to look at warming from an total energy balance perspective, which is the only honest way from a pure physics perspective betrays your obsession with ENSO and SST’s, which in the long-term, simple are indicative of energy in transition within the Earth system, but add no energy to the overall system– i.e. ENSO does not represent a net forcing on the system but amounts to a zero-sum game in terms of Earth’s energy balance. Hence, in terms of the long-term energy we are seeing added to Earth’s energy system, your beloved ENSO is a dead-end explanation.
R. Gates: Are you still here, yakking to yourself? You go round and round with the same failed arguments, shifting variables. Everyone here can see that, R. Gates. Round and round in circles, simply rewording your opinions a little.
I started off with sea surface temperature. You shifted to TLT and OHC. When I reminded you of my blog posts that showed ENSO can explain the warming of TLT and that land+sea surface temperature and that ENSO and sea level pressure can explain the warming of OHC—and further advised you that I went into more detail on those topics in my book—you shifted to radiative imbalance. I then had to jog your memory again—that there’s no way to attribute the radiative imbalance to Mother Nature or greenhouse gases. So what do you do then? You turn around and start back on TLT and OHC again and twist in radiative imbalance.
Oy vey!
Then, to top it off, in your recent comment, you add a statement that is blatantly incorrect and it’s so very obviously wrong that anyone who understands ENSO can see it. You wrote, “ENSO does not represent a net forcing on the system but amounts to a zero-sum game in terms of Earth’s energy balance.”
The only place where ENSO “amounts to a zero-sum game in terms of Earth’s energy balance” is in climate models, R.Gates. If you understood the processes of ENSO, you would not make such a goofy statement. Or maybe you have learned ENSO and you’re purposely misrepresenting it. It’s not beyond you. In the past, you’ve misrepresented what I’ve said—which is why I banished you from my website.
Good-bye, R. Gates. Your new audience here at Judith’s blog will catch on to your nonsense eventually—if they haven’t done so already.
I’m done replying to you here, R. Gates. Feel free to continue to preach to your audience of one, yourself.
Tisdale, you are a clown if you think that pressure alone can increase ocean heat content (OHC).
You are one of roughly 40 Crackpots competing with an alternate theory on this blog’s comment site. Just so you know who you are competing with. And that doesn’t consider the consensus position that heat content is increasing based on the GHE
WHT
Eh, dearie me. Is it that many? I’m so new here it just seems like ‘many’.
WebHubTelescope says: “Tisdale, you are a clown if you think that pressure alone can increase ocean heat content (OHC).
I’m not sure M. Susan Lozier, Susan Leadbetter, Richard G. Williams, Vassil Roussenov, Mark S. C. Reed and Nathan J. Moore, who are the authors of “The Spatial Pattern and Mechanisms of Heat-Content Change in the North Atlantic” appreciate being called clowns, WebHubTelescope.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/319/5864/800.abstract?rss=1
Also, would you like to explain the late 1980s shift in North Pacific OHC with something other than sea level pressure?
http://i48.tinypic.com/731mb7.png
Without that upward step cause by a shift in North Pacific sea level pressure, WebHubTelescope, North Pacific OHC would have cooled over the past 55+ years.
WebHubTelescope, YOUR comment broadcasts your ignorance about what warms the oceans to depth.
Feel free to reply when you can base your comments on data, not on your assumptions.
Adios.
I am not going to disagree that the deep ocean water is important, however it does seem quite simple to replicate the surface temperature history using a moving average of Nino3.4 with solar and aerosols (if one can accept a bit of a major fail pre-1900 and in the late 1940’s):
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/97672676/HadCrut3%20and%20simple%20moving%20average%20Nino%2C%20Solar%2C%20StratAero%20model.jpg
Why are El Nino and La Nina episodes and events relevant to temperature in 2050 when they don’t last any longer than 7 years?
Well, annual global temperatures don’t last any longer than 1 year either.
It might be relevant because ENSO seems to have always had a bit of a mind of its own. e.g slides 10 and 11, in:
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/~atw/yr/2011/wittenberg_20111017.ppt
They are not. Bob T., thinks he’s discovered some new energy source for the planet. When I said ENSO is a zero sum game in terms of Earth’s energy balance Bob scoffed at that. Is there some new energy here Bob? Over the long-term of course ENSO is a zero sum game. It is all about energy distribution within the Earth’s energy system, but Bob seems to think that it can account for long-term warming, which of course it cannot. When I point this out, and the fact that OHC is far more important in terms of Earth’s energy balance, he declares he is through with me. Very sad.
R. Gates, I have requested directly to you somewhere recently, to explain how this ocean heat is being invisibly transported into the ocean depths, and how this heat will reappear in the short or distant future. A clear description would be enlightening to my understanding and greatly appreciated.
dalyplanet | September 22, 2012 at 10:39 pm said: ” to explain how this ocean heat is being invisibly transported into the ocean depths, and how this heat will reappear in the short or distant future”.
dalyplanet, Gates is not here to enlighten, but to keep the confusion. go back tro my blog and read all 11 posts; you will have answers even on questions you never asked regarding climatic changes and the PHONY global warmings.
Here is small example on your question: oceans warm up extra, on different places -El Nino / La Nina. It’s triggered by activating submarine volcanoes / hot vents (99.9% of them are on the bottom of the sea) – currents distribute that heat.
For any reason gets warmer, the sea doesn’t store heat for long period. Reason: as soon as it warms up extra -> evaporation increases INSTANTLY. Evaporation is cooling process 2] more evaporation = more clouds; clouds are as ”sun-umbrellas’ for the sea. I didn’t overlook, what you are referring – if it’s not in the first sentence. It’s all there; don’t run away from all the real proofs
Here is the best base case:
ALL the global temperature data sets since 1979 indicate a trend LOWER THAN HANSEN’S SCENARIO C.
That was the scenario in which emissions stopped in 2000.
So, doing nothing has been even better than completely stopping CO2 emissions by Hansen’s own testimony!
If that is not an indictment of AGW over-reaction, I don’t know what is.
You can see this, if you have an HTML5 capable browser here ( wait 30 sec for the page to load all data sets. ):
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/ClimateWatcher.html
So why do sceptics have to make a case? Amazing. How about warmers prove their case and show the data, now that would be novel. Hey maybe debate, know that would be really novel.
How come warmers are so vile? See what happened to Anthony Watts after he appeared on PBS.
They have. It is called the IPCC WG1 report.
Right. All global temperature trends since 1979 are less than the best estimate low scenario rate.
Because they have not attended charm school.
What happened? Did Big Bird lay an egg?
“See what happened to Anthony Watts after he appeared on PBS.”
Be not afraid. If public ridicule of his ignorance and dishonesty harmed him, Mr. Watts would long ago have had to find another line of work.
At STP, one cubic meter of pure, dry air has a mass of 1.29 kg and contains 0.00078 kg of carbon dioxide. How can such a small amount of carbon dioxide absorb enough OLR to cause any heating of this large mass of gas?
Because at stp, one cubic meter of air contains around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 CO2 molecules. More than enough to absord virtually all the IR radiation being radiated from the surface up through that cubic meter, at least in the bands where CO2 absorbs.
100000000000000000000000 is 393 ppm, correct? So for each CO2 molecule you have 500 oxygen and 1900 nitrogen molecules, and the oscillations of those CO2 molecules due to the fractional IR spectrum absorption at 2,4, and 15um is not only trapping all the heat, but a very slight change in the molecular ratio to 2:500 and 2:1900 (Co2 doubling) is supposed be the driving force in this system?
With this level of accuracy in the reasoning, one could disprove every known law of physics.
current temperature is well inside the bounds of the past ten thousand years. there is no better case than that.
To make the best case, look at the actual data. What the alarmists are saying and forecasting is just not what is happening.
It’s not well inside the range, its creeping towards the top. 1c more warming and we’ll be well outside it.
Temperature has been within plus and minus two C for the past ten thousand years. currently we are less than plus one.
one more still keeps us inside the range of the past ten thousand years.
Provide the data that is the basis for your wrong claim and I will show where you are wrong
NOAA ice core data shows plus and minus two degrees for the past ten thousand years and they show us to be less than plus one right now.
Please show NOAA where they are wrong
What NOAA ice core data for GLOBAL temperatures are you using?
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page7.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page8.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page24.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page9.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page10.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page14.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page38.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page27.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page16.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page28.html
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page19.html
“current temperature is well inside the bounds of the past ten thousand years. there is no better case than that.”
If only it were true.
This thread is proving a rich mine of denier delusions. Most “best case” comments, much like this one, start with a simple factual error right out of the gate.
I am not a sceptic for two reasons:
(1) I have never seen a good scientific argument for dangerous global warming. In the 20th and 21st centuries even the correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration is poor. There is no argument worth being sceptical about. The reasons were basically risk assessment, not science.
(2) Before 1940 anthropogenic global warming of 0.45C did occur but then it stopped, either because the degrees of freedom of the CO2 molecule had all been used, or the quantum of heat necessary to excite the next level was insufficient to do so. The pre-1940 heat was permanent and worked its way through the oceans until 2000 when a new equilibrium was established.
Alexander
One problem with thinking that the warming in the 1940’s was global. It wasn’t. It was primarily warming in the Arctic. Now we are seeing warming all over the globe.
Yes, YOU are seeing warming all over the globe but is it really there?
THAT is the 64,000 trillion dollar question that is yet to be answered to a sufficient level of quality. Very extraordinary evidence is necessary to justify the destruction of modern technological civilization and to establish a global dictatorship who is to micromanage every person’s daily activities.
As far as any rational investigation can expose, the cost of such a solution vastly outweighs the cost of doing nothing but what humans and humanoids have done for the past several million years: change the environment to suit his wants and needs. THIS is the connection between science and economics. It is real and the quality and duration of our lives is dependent upon getting it right.
Now, if you presume as the extreme environmentalists presume, that man is a blight on the earth and must be eliminated, you may apply the solution to your self and lead by example. You will then have my respect for being consistent but I will NOT follow your lead.
And the predominant warming still seems to appear in areas of the globe where there are few temperature monitoring stations. Why is that? And Glenn claims “warming all over the globe”. If so, why did BEST show about a third of stations showing cooling or flat temperatures? It was only in the aggregate of all data that they were able to achieve a net global warming.
Actually two adjustments to the raw data SHAP (Station Homogeneity Adjustment) and TOBS (Time of Observation Bias) account for ALL the warming in the instrument record produced by BEST and predecessors. Half the warming since 1880 is attributable to each adjustment. More people should know that.
warming all over the world
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2012&month_last=8&sat=4&sst=4&type=trends&mean_gen=08&year1=1900&year2=2012&base1=1900&base2=2012&radius=250&pol=reg
lolwot
GISS BS.
Before 1940 anthropogenic global warming of 0.45C did occur but then it stopped, either because the degrees of freedom of the CO2 molecule had all been used, or the quantum of heat necessary to excite the next level was insufficient to do so.
Only a very small proportion of the warming pre-1940 was anthropogenic – the largest factor is believed to be solar, with volcanoes also playing a role.
That claim is hilarious!! Who threw the switch (turning off solar and volcanic influences and turning on the anthropogenic one)?
Solar activity levelled off, volcanoes became more active again, the anthropogenic influence grew as emissions and the overall level of GHGs in the atmosphere increased. These things happened gradually, n one threw a “switch”.
Doug Hurst 19 September 2012 at 1335
Good science should produce good predictions and no alarmist prediction I know of in the past twenty years about temperature, sea level, storm frequency etc has even approached reality. Something is clearly wrong with the data, the science, or both – sufficient grounds alone for scepticism.
Again, a “best case” that is just factually wrong.
Every thing that we keep track of that has to do with climate is well inside the bounds of the past ten thousand years except co2. That does mean that co2 does not have an effect on the other parameters. Temperature and sea level and albedo do their own thing with no care about what happen with co2.
Having once been a “warmist” I was astounded by some catastrophic predictions from Tim Flannery, James Hansen, Al Gore and the rest of their ilk. We all know now that it was nonsense, meant to install fear. Luckly for us cooler heads prevailed. The penny dropped, these people were (and are) doing very well keeping the faith (and fear) alive. They reminded me of the fire and brimstone preachers and other evangelists – and then it hit me. It’s the new religion; its all here – blame, guilt, redemtion and now the crusades (Greenpeace demonstrations and obstructions etc).
As an amateur astronomer, I always assumed the mantra that Venus has a “runaway greenhouse” and that the Earth could become like Venus if CO2 concentration rose. This is not entirely wrong, just mostly so.
The term “Venus’s runaway greenhouse” was introduced (by James Hansen) to explain its high temperature of 475 degrees C, higher than Mercury being much closer to the sun. This instilled the seed that this could happen to Earth. What was conveniently left silent was the 92-93 atmospheric pressure at Venus’ surface and Mercury atmospheric pressure being zilch. At this pressure CO2 is supercritical (it becomes supercritical at about 40 atmospheres – i.e. a gas acting like a liquid with wider absorption lines) and gas temperature/pressure equations(eg Avogadros and the combined gas law PV=nRT ) no longer apply. Yes, pressure has a greater influence on temperature than a greenhouse effect.
We could compare a hypothetical Earth’s much higher temperature with a 92 atmosphere pressure but it would be largely irrelevant for a Venus/Earth comparison. However if we rise higher up, some 50 km, above Venus’s surface the pressure is around 1 atmosphere. This is closer to a like with like comparison. So what is the temperature there?
Lo behold, according to Magellan and Venus Express the temperature at 52.5 km and 54 km is between ..wait for it.. 37C and 20C.. similar to Earth (well, well). Even the function between height and altitude is similiar to Earth at that height. OK, not convinced? Let’s look at the worst – lets’ go down to 49.5 km – we are now at a pressure a little higher than Earth’s atmospheric pressure and the temperature is as high as 75 C. But wait there is more – solar radiance is 1.9X times Earth. So using I=kT^4 for black body radiation, and if you apply that to Earth’s mean temperature (ie bring Earth to Venus’s distance from Sun) of 15C it will increase to about 67deg C; at the very worst case Venus is about 8 C degrees warmer. And remember we are dealing with 97-98% CO2 atmosphere (v Earth’s 0.039%).
Yes, it could be argued that there are discrepencies in this comparison – of course there are. Other factors, for example, would include Venus’s near twice Earth’s albedo (reflection of the visible spectrum) – countering the increase solar radiation, Earth’s ocean cooling (releasing latent heat high in the atmosphere, radiating the heat into space) lacking on Venus, Venus’s lack of water vapour (greater greenhouse gas than CO2), the radiation from below making Venus’s bond albedo (emission from all wavelengths) to be nearly 3x Earth’s which radiates warming up the higher atmosphere. These discrepencies and others have an effect of countering more/less each other, how much and how relevant is debatable.
But this comparison does point to the fact that once you discount pressure Venus is not that hot after all, despite 97% CO2 atmosphere. It does make you think and ask the question – “Is there a problem, really?” and, as Peter Lang raised, what is the real harm of a warmer world? Even at much higher concentrations CO2 does not harm us (it is not a pollutant); submariners breath up to 8000 ppm CO2 over considerable periods. Horticulturists have shown that crop production is dramatically boosted at 600-650 pmm CO2.
Perhaps our world would be a better planet a few degrees warmer and we should look at this in a positive frame of mind rather than the negative alarmists.
I can’t but feel that all this climate alarmism has similiarities to Shakespeare’s play “Much ado about nothing”.
John Morland, you have been added to the list.
Nice crackpot spin rationalization, “what’s the problem with a Venutian climate?”
Thank you, WebHubTelescope, I appreciate being added to yet another “list”. This has happened numerous times in my life and this is another notch for my continual challenging any apparent BS that comes my way, questioning and seeking clarification of new thoughts or views and my reasoned and flexible approach to life.
In my humbe experience I have noticed those who keep a “list” tend to be those rigid people who have difficulty with rational points of view (such as religious zealots, egotists, conspiratists, doomsayers and “settled” or junk science advocates).
As for “what’s the problem with a Venus climate?” – No problem. Conceivably you could have floating settlements with crew and scientists at approx 50 km above Venus’s surface at 1 atmosphere pressure with a comfortable temperature outside (bring the nitrogen and manufacture oxygen and food/water of course) -just like you can have settlements on Earth’s surface or floating on Earth’s oceans. The engineering challenges are different, of course.
Oh and I forgot to mention – Gilbert and Sullivan’s lord high executioner (in “The Mikado”) singing “As Some Day it May Happen”
“As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list — I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed — who never would be missed!
There’s the pestilential nuisances who write for autographs —
All people who have flabby hands and irritating laughs —
All children who are up in dates, and floor you with ’em flat —
All persons who in shaking hands, shake hands with you like that —
And all third persons who on spoiling tête-á-têtes insist —
They’d none of ’em be missed — they’d none of ’em be missed!
CHORUS
He’s got ’em on the list — he’s got ’em on the list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed — they’ll none of ’em be missed.
WHT, I agree with most of what John Morland has to say. Could you be more specific as to your objections?
(On the other hand I don’t see anything in JM’s understanding of Venus’s situation that would contradict the premise that rising CO2 on Earth poses a hazard.)
Vaughan
I will pick one statement of Morland
Webby, you need to improve your reading skills.
Nobody (except you) has written “what’s the problem with a Venutian climate?”
The problem is that there are some wingnuts [your expression] out there who are suggesting Earth might get a “Venutian climate” if human CO2 emissions are not curtailed drastically.
This is obviously BS.
There isn’t enough carbon in all the remaining fossil fuels on our planet (as you know full well) to get over about 1,030 ppmv in our atmosphere WHEN THEY ARE ALL GONE.
To put that into perspective for you:
Earth has an atmospheric mass of 5,140,000 Gt.
When all fossil fuels have been burned up, it could have a CO2 concentration of around 1,030 ppmv or 1,563 ppm(mass), which means a total CO2 mass of 8,033 Gt.
Venus’ atmosphere has 93 times the mass of Earth’s
It is composed of 96.5% CO2
So Venus has 461,300,000 Gt CO2 or 57,500 times as much as Earth could ever have.
So, if total atmospheric CO2 is your worry – there is no comparison.
If total atmospheric mass is your worry, there is also no comparison.
Let’s leave Venus where it is and forget all these BS warnings of a “Venutian climate” on Earth, caused by AGW.
Max
@manacker: When all fossil fuels have been burned up, it could have a CO2 concentration of around 1,030 ppmv or 1,563 ppm(mass), which means a total CO2 mass of 8,033 Gt.
Oh Max, you are such an unreliable fount of information. Where on earth did you get this 1030 ppmv figure? Even 6000 ppmv would be a gross understatement. Earth’s crust contains way more fossil fuels than you imagine.
John Morland,
Let me try to understand what you are saying. You are saying Venus isn’t that hot at 475 degC surface temperature because the pressure is much higher at 92 atmospheres. I pump my bike tyres up to about 9 or 10 atmospheres and they end up at ambient temperature if I don’t ride on them for a few hours. Even if I had tyres which were inflated this hard they wouldn’t be noticeably hotter either.
You can go underwater in the ocean to experience higher pressure too. Its actually colder down there.
But if we went higher in the Venusian atmosphere it will be cooler? Just like it is on Earth? So if we don’t like the result of global warming we can build tall towers and live in them?
So the first part of your argument is intended to show that CO2 is not a pollutant, not a GH gas and any increase is not going to make the Earth warmer? But, you seem to accept that you may be wrong about all that, and then ask “what is the real harm of a warmer world? ”
So, if you are wrong about CO2, you reckon you’ll still end up being right as any warming will be a good thing?
It’s not the most convincing of arguments. I’d say if you can’t even trust yourself to know the answer to the first part of the question you can’t trust yourself on the second either.
tempterrain
It’s the “density of the atmosphere” rather than the “lapse rate”, which makes the main difference between Earth and Venus (or Venus and Mars, which both have a CO2 atmosphere).
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/08/venus-envy/
Max
WUWT ?? Oh come on, Max, if you are going to provide a reference, try to make it from a scientific source.
tempterrain
You scoff at WUWT as a source.
Yet you apparently did not even read the interesting lead post on ESA’s Venus Express Mission by guest poster Steve Goddard.
Instead of “attacking the messenger”, address the content (if you can).
Otherwise, you just look silly.
Max
Who is Steve Goddard? Is that his real name? Where’s the evidence he knows what he’s taking about?
tempterrain
You ask me:
IOW, you don’t even know who the messenger is, yet you attack him, rather than addressing his message (which really has nothing to do with AGW on our planet, in the first place).
“Goofy”, is what I call that behavior.
Max
Attack him? I think you must be confusing me with someone else. I’m just asking a few questions.
Your bike tyres are warm when you pump them up to (say) 50 psi , which is not 9-10 atmospheres, but a little over 3 times more than outside atmospheric pressure. The tyres cool shortly afterwards because they do not form part of a powered system, Venus does.
However, If you could pump, quickly, CO2 in your tyres to 93 atmospheres they would melt before you could get anywhere near that pressure.
If you want to experience first hand air pressure and its effect on temperature (Gay-Lussac’s and the combined – ideal gas laws), go to Death Valley, in winter. You walk around sweating in shorts, T-shirt and hat at nearly 200 feet below sea level whilst surrounded by the 10,000 -11,000 foot snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Then the Sun sets, shortly after you start reaching out for your pullovers and coat. Yes, pressure makes a difference and, yes I have experienced just that in February 1998.
Let’s push the boundaries further, Jupiter (rather a poor example, I know, because it emits more energy that it receives from the Sun – i.e. its own continually powered system from within) but still shows the effect of pressure with temperature – Jupiter, 5 times further from the Sun than Earth, with a very, very thick atmosphere.
What is the temperature at the bottom of its atmosphere? Well, an educated guess is 10,000 degrees at 200Gpa. Go further out, Saturn (9x further than Sun -Earth), and you will find similiar temperature and pressure figures.
The ocean, ah yes, the ocean – glad you mentioned it. The last time I checked water is not a gas and it is incompressible (ok, except in neutron star like gravitational force), most light (and certainly infra-red part of the spectrum) is absorbed in the first few feet, by the time you get to (say) 100 feet it gets dark indeed (yes I have dived to that depth) not much heat/radiation there!
Now the last part, not trusting myself by covering my bets. I am not an utter denialist (climates change – period), and I did point out differences between Venus/Earth at 1 atmosphere, but you got to admit, the temperatures are similiar despite the CO2 difference.
We are adding mass to our atmosphere (CO2 as 29% more mass than O2), hence very slight pressure increase over time. And the mere fact we are burning the fossil fuel adds to the overall heat input into Earth’s atmosphere, which has to be radiated out to space. As well, there is the main infrared 15-micron (+/-2 micron thickness) CO2 absorption line (which under Wien’s displacement law peaks at 193 degrees Kelvin, -80 degrees C. Gosh, a lot of warming influence there!). So yes, there is a slight warming (emphasis on “slight”). But after hearing the alarmist/catastrophic predictions, my comment is “Oh please!
The view I expressed of the warmer world could be better, is for the doomsayers. Even if they are right, then why be so negative? Why do they act like the merchants of doom? Can’t they see warming and higher CO2 levels could be better for life (and humanity) on Earth? Would this help to dissipate the angst and confrontations in the current debate. Or do they view it is in their interest to promote the fear?
John Morland,
Firstly my bike tyres are those thin high pressure type which do need to be inflated to much higher than 40psi.
But mainly I’m querying your assumption that higher pressure necessarily means a higher temperature.
It does in the Earth’s atmosphere up to about 10km or so but as the troposphere turms into the stratosphere it starts to get warmer again.
In this reference, the authors say in their abstract:
http://www.nioz.nl/public/fys/staff/theo_gerkema/jas04.pdf
“A column of dry air in hydrostatic equilibrium is considered, bounded by two fixed values of the pressure, and the question is asked, what vertical temperature profile maximizes the total entropy of the column? Using
an elementary variational calculation, it is shown how the result depends on what is kept fixed in the maximization process. If one assumes that there is no net heat exchange between the column and its surroundings—implying
that the vertical integral of the absolute temperature remains constant—an isothermal profile is obtained in accordance with classical thermodynamics and the kinetic theory of gases”
So would the Earth’s atmosphere without GH gases, ie totally transparent to IR, have an adiabatic lapse rate or would it be isothermal?
I had a discussion with Pekka on this point a year or so ago. I think initially I was wrong and I’ve now changed my mind. It would be isothermal. So the presence of the existence of an adiabatic lapse rate is evidence that the GH effect does exist.
Jupiter is undergoing gravitational collapse and the compression generates heat. Venus is undergoing compression and so does not generate heat by that method. High pressure on venus is an effect, not a cause of it’s high temperature. That high temperature is caused by its greenhouse effect.
tempterrain,
What does the pressure in your bike tires have to do with the effect of gravity inside a ball of gas?
Gases are compressible. Liquids aren’t. Water is a liquid.
Yes it is cooler as one ascends above the Venusian surface, or climbs a terrestrial mountain.
So far, no theory or evidence has been presented that shows how CO2 might have the proclaimed warming effects. All there is is a hypothesis that is based on a theory of how a greenhouse works which has been proven invalid.
But that aside, what is wrong with either a warmer world, or one that is colder? You don’t expect things to be static, do you?
I have a motorcycle sitting in the garage that hasn’t move in years. The tires are inflated to 40 psi and are exactly the same temperature as anything else in the garage. Heating due to ideal gas law in a closed volume only raise temperature as the compression is taking place. Absent constantly increasing pressure the gas reaches equibrium with the ambient temperature like anything else. The gravity of Venus is not constantly increasing. As well the ideal gas law is different for closed vessels of constant volume and gravitationally confinement. Gravitational confinement isn’t constant volume. As energy is added to a gravitationally bound gas it is free to expand instead of rising in temperature. Volume instead of temperature is the free variable.
Assume that the super-critical CO2 of the Venusian troposphere insulates the surface as well as rock. Also assume that Venus’ heat of formation and ongoing internal heating by radioactive is the same as the earth. Lastly assume that the geothermal gradient of the earth’s crust as we dig down into the rocks and get closer to the molten core continues, unlike on the earth, up through that uber dense CO2 troposphere on Venus. You’ll find that the depth and thermal resistance of the Venusian troposphere is sufficient to account for the surface temperature of the rocks. In other words the Venusian troposphere isn’t trapping heat from the sun it’s trapping heat from the molten core of the planet.
One of the big giveaways that Venus’ surface temperature isn’t due to the sun is that the surface is isothermal. Venus’ daylength is almost the same as its year length which means the same side faces the sun for months on end. Yet the surface temperature is isothermal, same on both day & night sides, same at equator and poles. Surface winds are very slow and cannot account for this. Venus’ surface is rough and rocky. With a 90-bar atmosphere and high winds its surface would be scoured smoother than a billiard ball.
Thank you David Springer, you have clarified what happens at Venus’s surface and why it is continually so hot. This further shows that comparing Venus’s temperature surface with a hypothetical 93 atmosphere pressure Earth would not be as relevant comparison as the 1 atmosphere comparison. This is mainly due to the different gases (CO2v O2 and N2) having different thermodynamic critical points at different pressures and temperatures . However just for the record, if Earth could have a 93x atmosphere, the temperature would very high indeed, perhaps as high as in the ball park figure of 400 deg C.
Tempterrain
I am using David Springer’s reply button (David, my apologies!) to repond to your comments above. Yes, the stratosphere gets warmer, this is a new ball game – where ozine (o3) absorbing UV radiation turning into O atoms. This is outside the parameters under discussion which is like with like (Venus v Earth). Venus does not have ozone in its upper atmosphere.
As to yout comments if the atmosphere i totaly transparent (ie no greenhouse) then I doubt it would matter what pressure the atmosphere is. This whole warming only happens if there is some (even small) greenhouse effect. Once that has been established then pressure/temperature is game on in the solar powered system. If there is NO greenhouse then the whole thing becomes like your tyre. Conversely if there is more greenhouse effect (eg CO2 atmosphere) there would not be much change in temperature.
As to whether this hypothetical atmosphere have an adiabatic lapse rate or be isothermic – I agree with you (and Pekka), it would be isothermal.
John Morland,
You accept that when the transparency of a planet’s atmosphere is very high, or even totally transparent, then the atmospheric pressure is not a factor which would determine surface temperature. Good – but this acceptance seems to be at odds with your previous statements on pressure and temperature. In fact the surface temperature would be the planet’s effective temperature which is 255K for Earth and 231K (surprisingly low) for Venus.
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/Albedos.html
So, to continue with a thought experiment, what happens when we reduce the transparency? The elevation at which the Earth has a temperature of 255K starts to rise. The more GH gases which are added the higher this level becomes. At present this height is approximately 5km, on average. Heat is transported upwards by a process of convection which of course can only happen if there is a temperature gradient to drive it. The lapse rate. This means that the Earth’s surface becomes warmer than its effective temperature.
It is the same with a Venusian atmosphere. The Venusian atmosphere is much less transparent than that of Earth and so the difference between its effective temperature and measured surface temperature is much greater.
“So would the Earth’s atmosphere without GH gases, ie totally transparent to IR, have an adiabatic lapse rate or would it be isothermal?”
Sum the kinetic and gravitational potential energy of a pound of air at the surface and a pound of air at high altitude and it will be equal in an isothermal gravitationally confined column.
If you use a thermometer alone to measure thermal energy you’ll miss the gravitational potential energy and observe a lapse rate. The strict defintion of thermal energy however includes gravitational potential energy because conservation requires it.
Hope that helps clear things up.
David Springer,
Clears things up? I must admit that I’m still not sure either way about this. But the natural intuition that the temperature must be warmer at the bottom, because molecules gain energy, when falling, is (possibly?) wrong because it’s exactly compensated by another phenomenon: Those molecules that have little energy cannot go up as well as those with more energy.
Don’t know what to say. Testing it is difficult. It’s hard to isolate a gravitationally bound column of gas and stop convection in it. See here for someone that claims to have done it and how:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/lucy-skywalker-graeffs-experiments-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
Basically what I described is the Loschmidt Gravito-Thermal Effect. It’s very old controversy, not disproven, dates back to a 3-man dispute between Loschmidt, Boltzmann, and Maxwell. I actually formulated Loschmidt’s position from first principles and then went on to discover Loschmidt beat me to it 150 years ago.
http://books.google.com/books?id=-nWyk7jH5_EC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=loschmidt+boltzmann+maxwell&source=bl&ots=51peIH0WPJ&sig=l8BEj_PBj8OJOQgyD4qklES5SF8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nrBcUJbeK8z9rAGdwoHYDw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg
The main objection is hand-waving about it violating 2LoT – a perpetuum mobile of the second kind. PM2s are not prohibited by law since they don’t violate conservation so they’re uber fun for wool gathering by engineers. But no one has observed or constructed one. Maxwell’s Demon is the classic thought experiment. I don’t believe a gravitationally induced lapse rate will supply the mechanism but I could be wrong. I just couldn’t think of a practical way to exploit it but I didn’t waste a whole lot of time trying. I believe Hawking Radiation is a Gendankenexperiment that demonstrates the possibility of a PM2 – a mass collapses into a black hole and eventually it all radiates away via Hawking Radiation leaving nothing behind. That’s a PM2. Gravity does weirdshit so I wouldn’t be real quick to write off Loschmidt but I’d be highly inclined to write off any human-made PM2 in the foreseeable future. :-(
Don’t know what to say. Testing it is difficult. It’s hard to isolate a gravitationally bound column of gas and stop convection in it. See here for someone that claims to have done it and how:
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/lucy-skywalker-graeffs-experiments-and-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
Basically what I described is the Loschmidt Gravito-Thermal Effect. It’s very old controversy, not disproven, dates back to a 3-man dispute between Loschmidt, Boltzmann, and Maxwell. I actually formulated Loschmidt’s position from first principles and then went on to discover Loschmidt beat me to it 150 years ago.
http://books.google.com/books?id=-nWyk7jH5_EC&pg=PA202&lpg=PA202&dq=loschmidt+boltzmann+maxwell&source=bl&ots=51peIH0WPJ&sig=l8BEj_PBj8OJOQgyD4qklES5SF8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nrBcUJbeK8z9rAGdwoHYDw&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg
The main objection is hand-waving about it violating 2LoT – a perpetuum mobile of the second kind. PM2s are not prohibited by law since they don’t violate conservation so they’re uber fun for wool gathering by engineers. But no one has observed or constructed one. Maxwell’s Demon is the classic thought experiment. I don’t believe a gravitationally induced lapse rate will supply the mechanism but I could be wrong. I just couldn’t think of a practical way to exploit it but I didn’t waste a whole lot of time trying. I believe Hawking Radiation is a Gendankenexperiment that demonstrates the possibility of a PM2 – a mass collapses into a black hole and eventually it all radiates away via Hawking Radiation leaving nothing behind. That’s a PM2. Gravity does weird stuff so I wouldn’t be real quick to write off Loschmidt but I’d be highly inclined to write off any human-made PM2 in the foreseeable future. :-(
tt@ It is the same with a Venusian atmosphere. The Venusian atmosphere is much less transparent than that of Earth and so the difference between its effective temperature and measured surface temperature is much greater.
Although John Moreland seems to know what he’s talking about, tempterrain nevertheless has exactly the right answer here. I’d be very interested to see whether tt and Moreland can reconcile their ostensibly very different viewpoints.
Nobody knows what is the GLOBAL temperature. Global temp is NOT as human body I.e. when it gets warmer by a degree under the armpit – the whole body is warmer by that much – global temp variations ate on trillions of places. b] human temp is same day and night, not global – why is global temp treated as monitoring human temp? To mislead!!! http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/unavoidable-two-hurdles-to-cross/
2]”Official Global temperature” is ALL the heat in the troposphere and NOTHING more. Including ”stored sea temperature” into it; is same as including heat stored in the new trees, heat stored in the magma, in the plutonium – cherry picking is for smokescreen and confusing the already confused http://globalwarmingdenier.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/global-temperature/
3] the amount of polar ice doesn’t depend on the phony GLOBAL warmings / global coolings; but on the availability of raw material (water vapor) for renewal of ice melted b] on increasing / decreasing speed of the sea currents below the ice. Using polar ice for confusion – is prevention to protect the ice, from the real offenders = premeditated crime.
Stefanthedenier,
“when it gets warmer by a degree under the armpit – the whole body is warmer by that much
That’s not true for males. Male reproductive organs are designed to be cooler that the rest of the body. Then hands and feet can be noticeably colder than the rest of the body in cold weather, as you might have noticed yourself.
So does that mean “nobody knows” what my or your body temperature is either? If its not uniform, it’s just too hard to calculate? Is that what you are saying?
tempterrain | September 19, 2012 at 4:58 am said: -” Male reproductive organs are designed to be cooler that the rest of the body”
tempterain, if they get a degree cooler, is 36C. Temp in 12h gets cooler out there, by 10-15-20-25C – but differently every night, different on trillions of places; unless you put your ”pee-nuts” in the freezer every night… if you do, I’ll believe you – Warmist are a weird mob. . Your thermometer shouldn’t be shoved under your armpit – but where you keep your fingers – will be same temperature, thermometer and your fingers.
tempterain, you will not be able to split hair; when you are under oath, on the witness stand
Male reproductive organs are designed to be cooler that the rest of the body.
Why do you think we Scots wear kilts? (My great-great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland to Australia in the mid-19th century. Here’s me at age 17.)
Vaughan Pratt | September 22, 2012 at 2:40 am asked: ‘Why do you think we Scots wear kilts?”
Vaughan, thank’s for proving my point, by correcting me. usually I don’t comment on anatomy; but tempterain was splitting hair; to show how wrong he can be, so I did, and will now
.
Because human body can tolerate temp up to 41C, but not the testicles – they have a self-regulating system, to stay around 37C, Even if person is shivering or overheating. a]Scots don’t need pants, because of constant coldness, the prunes disappear in b]. In the tropics they spread to cool and hit the knees. (proves that tempterain doesn’t know even about his own testis – but he talks about climate on the other side of the planet, and the phony global warming) Vaughan, thanks for the assistance
tempterrain | September 19, 2012 at 4:58 am | Reply
“Male reproductive organs
are designedhappen to be cooler that the rest of the body.”Fixed that for ya. Talk like that will get you in big trouble with your peer group. Quote miners like me can then come along and say things like “See, you can’t even casually talk about living things without saying they were designed.” Bandwagon science requires exquisite care be taken in the narrative lest in a moment of weakness your common sense gets the better of you and you stray off the reservation as a result.
Well I sometimes use the word creatures too. That doesn’t mean I think they were created by a supernatural being.
The skeptic case is easily summarized – and proven – as follows.
1. The historical record and the geological record show no correlation whatsoever between global temperatures and CO2. Three historical warm periods prior to the present – the MWP 900-1300 AD, the height of the Roman Empire 100 BC-300AD, and the Hittite-Mycenean period, 1800-1400 BC – occurred with much lower CO2 concentrations in the air than today, and again we have the decline in temps since 1998 despite increased CO2 in the air during this time. Not to mention the melting of the glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. Moreover, 1.5 billion years ago, as blue-green algae were just starting to produce O2 from CO2, Earth’s atmosphere was ~ 20 percent CO2 (and 20 percent of an atmosphere at least 50 percent thicker than today’s). So why didn’t the Earth burn up and the oceans boil off then?
2. Direct observations and simple arithmetic show that human-caused emissions are an infinitesimal fraction of all biogenic emissions of CO2. Humans alone exhale 3.5 gt of CO2 every year. We are among the lower emitters on a per-pound-of-body weight basis among the animal kingdom (birds and small mammals can emit up to 10 times as much PPOBW). Even ectothermic vertebrates emit more than humans, on average – don’t forget that reptiles always warm themselves in the sun, and their CO2 output increases to endothermic levels. Insects, which probably make up the biggest share of anumal biomass on Earth, may emit CO2 at even higher PPOBW rates than birds and shrews. And humans represent less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the animal biomass on Earth. Where does that lead, in terms of just one source of CO2? Do the math – if humans are average emitters, that’s at least 70 gt/yr from animal respiration alone, the the actual figure is probably substantially higher for the reasons just stated. And what about volcanoes? A single eruption can emit more CO2 than a year or more of burning fossil fuels – this is calculated by the amount of volcanic gas propellant (95 percent CO2) needed to transport ash and debris in the quanrtities and to the distances observed. In 1815, when the volcano Tambora erupted, it flung at least 60 years’ equivalent of today’s fossil fuel burning in order to propel the trillion tons of dust around the world that made 1816 the year without a summer. And then what about CO2 emissions from tectonic plate movements? What about releases from the oceans? In comparison with these other sources of CO2, fossil fuel burning pales into mathematical and statistical insignificance.
2. Further direct observations show that CO2 itself is an infinitesimal factor in climate change compared to other factors. Water vapor, an equally potent heat trap, composes, at normal temperatures and humidities, anywhere from 30 to 140 times as much of the atmosphere. as CO2 does This is figured very simply by taking the vapor pressure of water as a fraction of atmospheric pressure at a given tempereature, and then multiplying it by the relative humidity. And besides water vapor, what about solar luminosity (which can vary by up to 3 percent over a 1,000-year period, or the density lf the interstellar medium that the Earth passes through, also variable and with varying effect on solar radiation reaching Earth?
Moreover, 1.5 billion years ago, as blue-green algae were just starting to produce O2 from CO2, Earth’s atmosphere was ~ 20 percent CO2 (and 20 percent of an atmosphere at least 50 percent thicker than today’s). So why didn’t the Earth burn up and the oceans boil off then? And the Venus analogy is inapplicable. Venus, with at least 250,000 times the atmospheric CO2 inventory of Earth, is hot really only because of its high atmospheric pressure, 94 x Earth;s – an effect similar to what happens with compression in the cylinders of a diesel engine.
3. The methods and tactics used by the AGW scaremongers themselves give compelling evidence of the falsity of their claims (and incidentally, of what to expect in terms of oppression, economic ruin and millions upon millions of unneccessary deaths if they get their way in policy). If you use false data, which as the Climategate emails show you know is false, to predict climate change, you cannot get a true and honest result. If you use models engineered to confirm a conclusion already reached before any “research” is done, as again you described and admitted to in the Climategate emails, the you will not get a true and honest result. What you have is garbage in, garbage through and garbage out. What is most striking is that some of the people doing these things even admit to lying and yet claim it’s OK to do so. Of course, for these people the end justifies the means, no matter how ugly the means.
And then the efforts to suppress contrary evidence, the libeling of skeptics (Dr. Fred Singer, for example) and the bullying and intimidation (to the point of physical threats against skeptics) by the AGW crowd is itself an admission that they know they haven’t a leg to stand on. Why would you shout down, or cut off the microphone of, someone trying to present the results of their research which differs from yours, if you were secure in your own findings? The AGW crowd’s attitude is, if you can’t win an argument by reason and facts, you win it by force.
In contrast with the AGW scaremongers, the skeptic commenters on this blog have pretty consistently demonstrated a commitment to honesty and concern for human well-being. As I’ve said before, it is we skeptics who hold the moral high ground in this controversy, whereas the AGW crowd wallows in a stinking swamp of venality.
CRL/AGW scaremongers reading this – you can deny the phyical fact tha AGW is bull@#$%&*!!, that it is political hackwork and not science all you want, and it won’t change things one iota (except perhaps to make you look even stupider and more mean-spirited than you already do now)
I rest my case..
This is the kind of thing that convinces you but not the fact that the last time CO2 had values over 500 ppm was the Creataceous period that was much warmer, and basically an ice-free hothouse. Are you just being selective with your facts, or did you not know this?
The point is not that it was warmer at 500 PPM but that the supposed secondary positive feedbacks from water vapor, methane, etc. were not open-ended and the Earth eventually cooled. The same logic can be used for when CO2 levels were far lower then the present, why didn’t the the Earth keep cooling, causing a perpetual Ice Age?
“Earth eventually cooled.”
Millions upon millions of years later.
It cooled because CO2 was reducing due to geological processes in the last few hundred million years. You could consider that there is an equilibrium temperature for each CO2 content.
Thanks Chad
Excellent contribution by John Morland, where most of my family and relations live they could have done with some extra degrees since May, and more so over the next 6 months when all gardens in England will be moribund. The total lack of common sense of all climate scientists is their main characteristic, apart from their determined ignorance. For example a widely syndicated op.ed in The Sunday Times reached The Australian on Monday and showed that GHGs “trap” heat without mentioning that they also radiate it. Real scientists see no evidence in the infrared spectrum of any buildup of heat from rising CO2, for the simple reason that it is almost instantly radiated to space, as John Tyndall first showed back in 1861.
Australian climate scientists have gone one better, with their childish belief that it is the aggregate of GROSS cumulative emissions of GHGs since 1750 that is what produces whatever virtually undedectable warming there has been since then, regardless of the vast absorption by the oceans and biospheres such that only 44% of CO2 emissions have remained airborne.
The question is not well posed. Best case for what? I would suggest best explanation for why the world is at least half a degree warmer than it was half a century ago. Or for some, best case that it isn’t.
Jim D
I have to disagree with your opinion that “the question is not well posed”.
This seems pretty self-explanatory.
What part do you not understand?
Max
“Best case for what?”
At a guess, I think she means your best case for ignoring the conclusions of the vast majority of trained and publishing climate scientists in favor of a fossil-fuel-funded exercise in wishful thinking.
Robert,
You just can’t help spewing your compulsive and trite fossil-funded nonsense. Try to stifle this knee jerk impulse, it just results in an “own goal”.
Robert
You are on the slippery slope of “argument from authority” rather than “argument from evidence”.
It’s a loser, Robert (check Feynman for “why”).
Max
The IPCC puts forward multiple lines of evidence pointing to AGW, so a best case has to go through all of these lines and give an alternative. I thought I would give you an easier target, but you don’t even want to take that up.
‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system. ‘ AR4 s3.4.4.1
Low frequency variability is real. They seem to involve changes in cloud radiative forcing. Voilà – most warming in the satellite era was from cloud radiative forcing.
I’m skeptical of everything. The first response, the first reaction, to any new idea or thought I see or hear or imagine is, for me, always “NO! NO! NO! That’s NOT right! That can’t be how it works! That’s WRONG!” Your ideas. Their ideas. My own ideas. Every time.
Which, I can assure you, is not a particularly comfortable tic to be obliged to endure, an abnegatory Tourettes, a cynical tinitis ringing in my head whenever I, for instance, come here and read comments. Or go anywhere and read anything.
The redress for this condition is to return again and again to Cartesian epistemology, reasoning from First Principles, building a bridge from that arch-denialist kneejerk reactionary to the relatively more pleasant world of ordinary acceptance or rejection or uncertainty in varying degrees about all things one slender plank at a time, to an ab initio nehwon lit by logic, thence Mathematics, thence reasoning by other well-founded formulations.
I don’t imagine I’m alone in the world with issues of kneejerk reactions to new ideas; there’s plenty of evidence others make instant decisions about things they read, see or hear. The difference appears that many seem to enjoy wallowing in unconfirmed first impressions, living an unexamined life in a prima facie sty.
From first principles: blue eyes do not contain blue pigment; this can be confirmed in any well-equipped high school biology laboratory if you are not squeamish and they have appropriate blue-eyed animal subjects to examine, though simpler to reproduce the same blue tint by adding flour to milk and stirring in front of a bright light. Ergo, particles suspended in solution can scatter light differentially in a way related to their size and the wavelength of the light.
There are invisible wavelengths of light, including infrared; this can be confirmed by diverse methods. Tyndall and Arrhenius laboriously and painstakingly — according to lengthy recorded documentation — confirmed these facts by experiments and arithmetic anyone can reproduce today upon the effects of CO2 (and other GHG’s) on the scattering of heat produced by the effect of visible (and other light) absorbed at the Earth’s surface as infrared. We know this ab initio, and any hypothesis conflicting with this must account for what effects cancel this foundational fact of radiative transfer Physics.
When we observe global patterns of temperature — a horrible metric, to be sure, but one which heroic levels of statistical processing done by Dr. Richard Muller’s BEST team have hammered to confidence levels that allow us to be more than 95% certain of these scientific observations, and by Newton’s Fourth Principle we must therefore accept as true, or very nearly accurate — we do see there are effects that partially occlude or cancel the Greenhouse Effect on some spans of time. The two principle obscuring effects appear to both be aerosols: industrial soot and volcanic dust. While we might be able to keep soot in the atmosphere for generations, there are good reasons to expect that’s a bad plan.
Other more minor occlusions to GHE include ocean circulations which by their nature are limited by the number and size of oceans, and anyone who can count into the double digits will realize we’ve enumerated all the oceans on Earth, and therefore know the number and length of their major circulations. None of these major circulations much exceed seventy years so far as has been observed, and we’ve had in excess of seventy years of Global Warming.
In all and in sum, considering solar and orbital effects — or as the South Dakota Legislature would have it (http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2010/Bill.aspx?File=HCR1009P.htm), all “variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena,” (I kid you not, that’s actually in something passed by the SD legislature) do not by first order estimation amount to any effect that will lastingly and in balance counteract AGW, and land use only appears to push in the same direction as the GHE. For the sake of brevity, if you doubt this, look up the size of each influence ranked by amount of energy per unit time per area: even the much-vaunted UHI is only 10% or so of GHE, at most, mostly in the same direction, and itself occluded by the effects of Urban Dimming of roughly the same scale.
Which tells us we can identify CO2E level change due human causes as the largest and most persistent external forcing on the Earth climate. We can rest here. Temperature is not important. Climate sensitivity is not important. We have a complex system and Chaos and perturbation. Chaos Theory demonstrates clearly the common general traits of such systems: they change state to less stable conformations, or they collapse spectacularly to a ground state.
Given the size of the Earth, ground state collapse is unlikely. But unstable climate with increasing extremes is a situation of Risk imposed by the sources of the external forcing.
Risk is costly, it has a price. We can identify the sources of the perturbation as the emitters of CO2E beyond the ability of the Carbon Cycle to buffer in natural sinks. The Carbon Cycle is therefore scarce, rivalrous, excludable and valuable; emitters of CO2E are thereby Free Riders, and governments that do not privatize the Carbon Cycle are condoning the picking of our pockets by these Free Riding carpetbaggers.
Sure, you can go on and calculate all the fine points of temperature and ocean acidification, use climate models and ice cores — in fact, I endorse Scientific pursuit of more such knowledge — but there’s no economy in decision making involving such extraneous details.
We know everything we need know. We’re being stolen from, and we should be reimbursed for our losses.
BartR,
You are an example of a closed minded ideologue.
You practice “policy driven science”, where you policy is to promote anything that assists your Left ideology.
Funny. I thought Bart was advocating private and market-driven approaches, in particular free of government subsidies. Doesn’t really sound leftist to me.
It must be an attitude that sets off these wingnuts into a rage.
Webby
Left.
Right.
Fuggidaboudit, man.
Sloppy agenda-driven “science” doesn’t need to carry a political affiliation.
It remains sloppy agenda-driven “science”.
Max
Bart R. has some very odd ideas the definition of “free.”
WHT,
I think in Peter Lang’s lexicon ‘Left ideology’ is so inclusive that it would take in anyone in the US Republican Party, the UK’s Conservative Party, and Australia’s Liberal Party etc who might advocate sensible economic policies.
He’d find it inconceivable that someone who might accept the consensus position on AGW wouldn’t also be a ‘leftist’.
What you seem to miss is that I don’t do the Science.
I skeptically evaluate it, and do the Economics.
Why is it you don’t recognize Economics when you see it?
Bart writes a very long piece about all sorts of things – scientific methods, techniques for thinking about things etc. And your response is that he is practicing ‘policy-driven’ science and its about a ideology.
Thank you Peter for one of the shorted, most concise examples sI have ever seen of psychological projection I have ever seen.
Fixation on questions of ideology and so on is obviously a very large part of your personality since you are so quick to think you are seeing the same thing in others.
Here is something you might like to try doing Peter. Try it just for a day and see what happens.
Every time you hear/read something you don’t agree with, try to imagine why that other person might have said thatt if their motives WERE NOT about ideology. Could you manage that Peter? Could you try to put yourself into the minds of others, of people who couldn’t give a tinkers damn about looking at life in Ideological terms. People for whom Ideology, of what ever flavour, is about as dull as watching grass grow.
You might discover a few things about your fellow travellers on this planet Peter. The vast majority of us don’t operate from an Ideological basis. That’s just too boring. We leave ideological thinking to politicians and other weirdos.
So if you can then imagine people holding views for easons other than ideology, you might be on the road to understanding your fellow humans a whole lot better Peter.
Well said Glenn.
You and Marlowe beat me to it, so just a futher +1.
What makes me despair is that no matter how logical, articulate and internally coherent the comment (outstanding example: BartR, above) the reflexive denial is always the same.
Glenn,
Every day, in every way, you just keep on getting better and better. And I am so impressed, Glenn, that you have no truck with any of that there tacky, ideology business. But, then, I guess you’re just that kinda guy–right, Glenn?
Rather, it appears, Glenn, the things that make you what you are–make you “tick”, Glenn–seem to sort themselves out, in part, as follows:
-A predictible, pretentious penchant for “psychological diagnoses”, of the two-bit, useful-to-the-hive’s-agenda variety
-Another predictible penchant for patronizing, holier-than-thou, sanctimonious, oh-so-long-suffering, self-congratulatory, Pecksniffian outbursts of pity for us ignorant-peon, “fellow-traveler” earthlings who “just don’t get it” (Did I just hear the words “fellow-traveler”!?–now there’s a “slip” of a term, Glenn, that should instantly engage your inner, totally-non-ideological Dr. Freud. Unless, of course, your employment of the term, “fellow traveller”, Glenn, was really nothing more than some sort of dog-whistle, “Secret Forum” code word, served up to activate BBD and Marlowe Johnson so that they’d pop-up and spit-out a couple of good-comrade, conditioned-reflex, gushing, hive-bozo “attaboy” comments in support of your last.).
-A somewhat original penchant for Dr. Phil-wannabe, over-earnest, orotund, kinda-creepy lecture-boogers, remarkable for the freak-show extravagance of their unctuous moralizing.
-And, Glenn, if a certain, hacked, “Secret Forum” e-mail, currently circulating the blogosphere, is, indeed, one of your little, hopped-up, scary-dork, tin-pot Giap masterpieces, then we can add to the list a penchant for conspiring to start “guerilla wars” (Oh brother!)–not for ideological reasons, we know that, Glenn, but apparently for nothing more than just the hell of it!
You know, Glenn, we all appreciate that you eschew all that darn ol’ boring ideology good stuff and all. But, I gotta tell yah, guy, those thingies you do embrace in the place of ideology, through some sort of an amazing, once-in-a-millenium-fluke, believe-it-or-not co-incidence, seem to be pretty much precisely those that are also embraced by your basic, dime-a-dozen, hive-creep, party-line hack, scare-mongering, lefty ideologue. Curious co-incidence, don’t you think, Glenn?
Bart R
You start off pretty well with:
But then you mess it all up with a long, confusing ramble.
Let’s let those who are truly skeptical of the IPCC report and its CAGW premise point out specifically why they are so, and let’s see if you can rebut these arguments (if you are skeptical of their validity).
Max
manacker | September 19, 2012 at 5:17 am |
You’re a little late to the party. Most comments posted as ‘best cases’ so far are rehash of previously rebutted, invalidated, deprecated, proven faulty pet theories. Can you point to one that isn’t?
Statements that stick?
1. “I am not a crook.”
2. “I did not have sex with that woman…”
3.’climate change is not a hoax,’
11062012
You didn’t build that.
Tom may be a piece of fake data trying to make McIntyre and Watts look bad.
Bart R
You ask me:
Here’s one: I challenged you to come up with empirical evidence to support IPCC’s premise of strongly positive net feedback from clouds.
In my challenge I cited one recent study, which shows (based on CERES satellite observations by Spencer + Braswell), that the net overall feedback from clouds with warming is strongly negative, rather than strongly positive, as assumed by IPCC’s climate models..
So far you have skirted around this challenge.
Balls in your court, Bart.
Max
manacker
If cloud feedback was strongly negative, the climate system would be relatively insensitive.
Internally forced variation would be damped down over short timescales. Externally forced variation on decadal and multi-decadal scales would be flattened out. Nor could a mere spatial and seasonal reorganisation of summer insolation be capable of terminating glacials.
In other words, every single thing we know about climate including the beloved MWP and LIA, would not – could not – have happened.
We’re being stolen from, and we should be reimbursed for our losses.
Are not you yourself the user of fossil fuels? How can you steal from yourself?
Girma | September 19, 2012 at 7:37 am |
The issue of course isn’t the access to the fossil fuels, which are carefully guarded and priced and licensed and owned and protected by their interested drillers and refiners and distributors.
The issue is the access to the unguarded and unprotected, but infinitely more valuable Carbon Cycle that all life and all climate depends on for survival and stability. I’m merely arguing that this scarce, rivalrous, excludable, valuable resource ought be treated with the same principles of Capitalism as fossil fuels, and the owners of this resource get paid by the Law of Supply and Demand.
Why do you object to Capitalism?
Terrestrial plants get their carbon directly from the atmosphere. Animals indirectly get their carbon from plants. You are arguing for keeping carbon locked up underground depriving living things of it. I’m for unlocking it putting it where it does the greatest good for the greatest number of living things.
I say this just to be clear which one of us is interested in abundance of life and which of us is stupid and greedy.
> Terrestrial plants get their carbon directly from the atmosphere.
That must why we call them terrestrial.
David Springer | September 19, 2012 at 11:49 pm |
Please don’t open up the “stupid and greedy” thing. It’ll draw willard down on your head, and we know you don’t come off well in those things.
I don’t think everyone agrees your way to promote living things is exactly for the greatest good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXH_12QWWg8
Which makes it a good thing you were never elected to speak on behalf of all life on Earth.
BartR,
Since David Springer is all for unlocking it for the greatest good of the greatest number of living things, we all should expect him to redistribute all his ressources soon.
I’ll take one of his dog, if you don’t mind.
God beat you to it, Willard. But thanks for the offer.
David Springer,
Too bad.
You should bear in mind that arguing from the greater good and all that might be tough to reconcile with your “get out of my lawn” stance.
Even clowns can see that:
http://clowninginthemidwest.wordpress.com/2007/04/26/its-official-davescot-is-a-weak-excuse-for-a-human-being/
Bart R | September 19, 2012 at 2:05 am | Reply
“When we observe global patterns of temperature — a horrible metric, to be sure, but one which heroic levels of statistical processing done by Dr. Richard Muller’s BEST team have hammered ”
Penciled, not hammered, is the word you’re looking for. There is no warming at all in the raw data. It’s entirely manufactured by two “adjustments” invented in the 1980’s. Somehow the temperature record didn’t need these adjustments for the 100 years prior to that or prior to the need to show that anthropogenic CO2 was more than plant food.
The two adjustments are called SHAP and TOBS for Station Homgeneity Adjustment Procedure and Time of Observation Bias respectively.
The only reliable temperature record that gives us global coverage, designed to accurately measure trends in the hundredths of a degree per decade, and truly global coverage is the satellite record beginning in 1979. The rest is useless as it is simply not fit for the purpose, was never designed for that purpose, and not amount of manipulation can bring it up to the task. You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Garbage in, garbage out.
David Springer | September 19, 2012 at 7:03 pm |
Fallacious arguments. You have got to stop playing with fallacies like this. You’ll go blind to reason.
All data analysis is interpretation. The interpretations of the datasets are routinely challenged and compared to rigorous standards and audited. It’s true that at the outset these audits and challenges were inadequate and lazy, and the data management outside of a limited set of efforts remains less than desireable, and it took things like McIntyre’s audits and revisiting of the data by the likes of Muller to shape things up so far as they have gotten.
But the satellite record itself isn’t that great.
Here’s a glimpse at the standard I’d like to started in the 1970’s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0_VSkoZvaE&feature=related
Of course, the materials, techniques and technologies didn’t exist in their current form back then, but now that we do have them, it’s really long past time we stopped being so slack.
That said, the data can be shown to be fit to some purpose; such as showing AGW to be significant above a 95% confidence level on the multidecadal scale, and that CO2 level modified by volcanoes and industrial particulates expresses fingerprints of the connection of CO2 to temperature to the extent of coffin nail spikes reducing the degrees of freedom of curve fitting to zero: CO2 causes warming.
http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/annual-with-forcing.pdf
Bart R | September 19, 2012 at 11:58 pm | Reply
“Here’s a glimpse at the standard I’d like to started in the 1970′s”
You go to war with the instrument record you have not the instrument record you wish you had.
BartR,
You want the truth?
You can’t handle the truth!
If truth had handles, you could.
But truth does not come with handles.
So you can’t.
Oh, and please come back to war when you’ll have a gun as big as David’s. No, not a slingshot. A real gun.
willard (@nevaudit) | September 20, 2012 at 10:05 am |
You think size matters?
Springer’s a signalman. I am a lighthouse.
BartR,
Who cares who you are
What matters is light
To make love shines through
Any hardness, any size.
Bart R
You may be “a lighthouse”, but it appears that the switch is turned off.
Max
manacker | September 21, 2012 at 10:39 am |
Does no one know this joke? Astounding. One of the finest bits of military humor in history.
http://www.snopes.com/military/lighthouse.asp
Yes! Tourettes! That explains the gratuitous insults sometimes dispensed by Bart R!
Not in this post, thankfully.
It is a good and entertaining post but still boils down to “we can’t think of anything else” for an explanation. On your comment “None of these major circulations much exceed seventy years so far as has been observed”, consider that the “circulations” are not synchronized and thus likely have longer term global implications. You make it all sound suspiciously simple.
Robert Austin | September 19, 2012 at 8:41 pm |
Technically, they’re incidental insults, not gratuitous insults. And really, I think they’re more than just a sometimes thing.
The standard you set of “we can’t think of anything else” is inaccurate. “We” used heuristics to guide our discovery of first causes, and followed scrupulous ab initio reasoning, which is the opposite of “can’t think of anything else” in epistemology. Because of the form of strict logic to develop the inference of AGW, “we” _don’t_ think of anything else, because nothing else comes out of the logical method.
But then “we” go on and do think of everything else “we” can to challenge the findings “we” have deduced logically from the fundamental principles of Physics, because “we” in this case refers to a bunch of Scientists, and a majority of them actually embrace the precepts of Scientific skepticism, and test their conclusions tirelessly.
And sure, if there were teleconnections that could be established that might imbue the temperature changes due circulations with a span in excess of seven decades — based on the interference patterns of said cyclic phenomena — that might mean something. But the teleconnections are weak and there are enough of them across the fifty some climate basins of the globe that we can treat them as nondeterministic. Which means we have plenty of data to use to challenge the ocean circulation hypotheses, and when we expose these to even rote trendology we see they fail. As do solar cycles. As do zodiacal cycles.
All of which we even mention not because we’re straw-graspingly trying to think of anything else, but because we have a conclusion from logic that we want to test, because Science doesn’t rely only on pure reason, but also on the experimental method.
And these tests are valuable. If not for the skepticism and investigations and examinations and discussions, we’d likely have a much poorer understanding of Climate in Science today. Pressure makes diamonds.
A Global Temperature is irrelevant.
Yarbles, I’m afraid old chap.
But don’t mind an old warmist commie like me. Here’s prominent sceptic Dr Roy Spencer, PhD, explaining why you are mistaken on this point.
Enjoy!
Interesting. Anonymous coward BBD is willing to quote Spencer so long as Spencer agrees with anonymous coward BBD. Fascinating. Hypocrisy thy name is Big Butt Dullard or something equally fitting with those initials.
Yes, BBD will troll like he’s getting paid for it.
Andrew
David,
That’s British Bull Dog.
Please mind your acronyms.
I’m sure you like that one.
Yap! Yap! Yap!
Do you chase postmen?
Sorry willard old chap. The yapping dog I refer to above is some kind of springer.
Thank you BBD,
That was an informative link but I disagree with Spencer on this. Just as the most important index the world economy is not a global average yearly income and then making estimates of what the incomes were in ancient times and comparing them. The planet has several climates and microclimates. For example the ice levels are unusually high in the Antarctic now and low in Arctic and its in the local climates that we should worry about. Greenhouse gases vary greatly at the poles from the equator.
Are you a credentialled expert? If not, who cares what you think? I don’t mean this harshly – it’s just how things work.
> Just as the most important index the world economy is not a global average yearly income and then making estimates of what the incomes were in ancient times and comparing them.
Is the world economy an index?
Bad Andrew
I’ve been looking at your horrifying little blog. I understand you better now, but like you even less.
Jim D –
You mistakenly attribute the warmth of the Cretaceous to CO2 concentration. If your logic applied to the early archeozoic, when, as I pointed out, CO2 was 200,000ppm at a time when there was 50 percent more atmosphere, the Earth should long since have lost its oceans and burned up But it didn’t, and it isn’t about to today. In fact, your citation only provides further proof of the disconnect between CO2 and temperature over geologic time.
Bart R –
You’re absolutely right, we are being stolen from – and if there is any justice the purveyors of AGW bull@#$%&*!! should be made to disgorge all the monies they took in “research” grants, and all the monies already wasted on futile schemes like sequestration – and the government entities who fostered theft by carbon taxes should be compelled to refund all such taxes paid by the victims of this thievery in Australia and British Columbia and wherever else, back to those who have been thus ripped off.
Chad Wozniak | September 19, 2012 at 2:41 am |
I don’t say this lightly. Your reasoning abilities reflect poorly on the human species.
British Columbia, let me use small words, does not keep the fees it takes from those who buy carbon to burn.
The BC “Carbon Tax” is revenue neutral. The BC government doesn’t get to keep what it collects, but must in the same tax year it collects pay out the CO2E fees to the people directly, and has done so either by check or by tax rebate since day one. True, they don’t do it the way I would, by floating the rate of the fees to maximize return to investors — the people of BC who arguably own its air equally – by the Law of Supply and Demand, but it’s a start. In other words, while the theft is still ongoing in British Columbia, it’s going on less than anywhere else in the world.
You really should stop talking crime-coddling crap.
Chad
Apart from not knowing where you get your figure of 200,000 ppm (20%), yes you are right – go back through geological time and CO2 levels were very much higher than now. Which is just as well really soince in the past the heat output was lower. Higher CO2 levels compensated for a cooler Sun to stop the Earth from freezing.
It’s amazing how easily one can reach totally the wrong conclusion by only considering some of the facts but not all of them.
Greenhouse effect doesn’t fix Faint Young Sun paradox. You should know that. It’s why it’s still a paradox. Duh.
Faint young Sun paradox remains
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Arising from M. T. Rosing, D. K. Bird, N. H. Sleep & C. J. Bjerrum, Nature 464, 744–747 (2010)
The Sun was fainter when the Earth was young, but the climate was generally at least as warm as today; this is known as the ‘faint young Sun paradox’. Rosing et al.1 claim that the paradox can be resolved by making the early Earth’s clouds and surface less reflective. We show that, even with the strongest plausible assumptions, reducing cloud and surface albedos falls short by a factor of two of resolving the paradox. A temperate Archean climate cannot be reconciled with the low level of CO2 suggested by Rosing et al.1; a stronger greenhouse effect is needed.
The Faint Young Sun Paradox is the reason we are here. The guys that posed the paradox are the geniuses that figured out Venus and applied that “greenhouse: effect to Earth. I guess if you can’t deal with real problems you major in astrophysics.
Furthermore, for the benefit of those who mistakenly say the Sun was much cooler 50 million years ago, it wasn’t. The Sun wasn’t “a lot cooler” 50 million years ago when Earth’s temperature began its decent towards ice ages and, if it continues, to the end of civilization as we know it. (it was perhaps 0.3% cooler 50 million years ago).
If we could avcoid our biases for a moment, and consider this issue:
The planet is in a long term cooling phase. What should we do about it to protect civilisation, to slow the decline into the next ice age, to reduce the probability and severity of a sudden cooling of the planet?
What could we do? Let’s think. Any ideas?
The planet is in a long term cooling trends when we consider periods of 50 million years, 10 million years, 3 million years, 400,000 years, 8,000 years. (see Figure 1 here:
James Hansen and Makiko Sato (2010) “Paleoclimate Implications for Human-Made Climate Change” (Figure 1)
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
We have more hope of understanding the climate in the Cretaceous than in distant eras where we have insufficient evidence of the atmosphere’s constituents. Let’s make an effort to understand why the Cretaceous was warmer with 500-1000 ppm of CO2, because those numbers are reasonably well known. It is common for skeptics to say, but we don’t know this or that a billion years ago, so we can’t understand 100 million years ago, even if we know ten times more about it. This is just drawing the conversation off the topic, however deftly it is tried.
Bart R, you say:
“Tyndall and Arrhenius laboriously and painstakingly — according to lengthy recorded documentation — confirmed these facts by experiments and arithmetic anyone can reproduce today upon the effects of CO2 (and other GHG’s) on the scattering of heat produced by the effect of visible (and other light) absorbed at the Earth’s surface as infrared. We know this ab initio, and any hypothesis conflicting with this must account for what effects cancel this foundational fact of radiative transfer Physics.”
Earth’s surface radiates more than it absorbs (as infrared or longwave) and the net flux is upward in average. Net radiation at the surface counts and of course the other non-radiative fluxes need to be taken into account properly. Evaporation and convection transfer more heat away from the surface than radiation. The atmosphere on the other hand is cooled exclusively by radiation where the so-called GHGs radiate the gained energy to space.
Falsification of AGW doesn’t have to conflict with the radiative properties of H2O and CO2.
Edim | September 19, 2012 at 2:57 am |
Earth’s surface radiates more than it absorbs..
Case in point of ideas that make me respond skeptically.
Conservation of Energy suggests were this assertion of radiating more than is absorbed true, to any significant degree, then Earth must needs cool at an alarming rate. I’ll accept that this tidbit — as it’s superfluous to the main point — is a mere eccentricity, based on the plentiful evidence than commenters here have an eccentric bent.
Which still leaves a group of assertions that do not square with observations reported by NASA (look it up), and confirmable by any individual willing to launch a weather balloon (it costs a few hundred dollars, but it can make you a Youtube celebrity, so a value proposition for those who seek social media renown), or more simply survey the consilient non-NASA sources (look them up) and do some math.
You haven’t falsified AGW by assertion.
You’ve merely shown more reason to be skeptical of claims unverified by scrupulous ab initio methods.
Which, when done, tend to confirm AGW by the GHE, and a direct correspondence between human caused CO2 level change and costly extreme weather events and expensively shifting agricultural conditions.
Edim.
“Earth’s surface radiates more than it absorbs (as infrared or longwave) ” ! And what source do you have for that quite amazing statement?
I said Earth’s surface and as longwave, red arrows here:
http://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/images/Erb/components2.gif
What I mean is that the net longwave flux is upward.
Steven Mosher | September 19, 2012 at 1:07 am |
“…..Later I cast the definition in terms of basic physics and sensitivity.
A) since we believe in radiative theory we are committed to a sensitivity value of NO LESS THAN 1.2C per double.
B) Since we think the models run hot at 3.2C per doubling…
We conclude. There is a greater than 50% probability that the true
sensitivity values lies between 1.2C and 3C. That is, given an over/under bet of 3C.. we take the under bet.
You are welcomed to look at the CDF of the IPCC sensitivity PDF.
That is our science position. Its the ONLY position we all agree on.
Policy? Well Tom has suggested that we can agree to base policy on 2.5C. I’ve said we can base policy on 3C. Bottom line WE TAKE NO POLICY POSITION. Now, this position which I’ve laid out manytimes has been systematically misrepresented by Robert, by BBD, you name it. Lets just repeat for the record what I’ve said consitently
Lukewarmers stand for: Free data; Free code; Open debate
On the science: radiative physics is correct. There is Greater than
50% chance that sensitivity falls below 3C rather than above 3C.
A lukewarmer could choose to be concerned about the high tail.
THAT is a risk/policy choice. Not science. Lukewarmers are free to promote any or no policy. Science is one thing, what we choose to do about the risk is something different.”
Well, I guess I am not a lukewarmer.
I do not think global temperature will rise more than 2 C before get to the year, 2100.
Nor do I think global CO2 will exceed 800 ppm before 2100.
And I think it’s silly to worry about something more than 88 years into the future.
I think of 2 C as being the upper limit, and 3 C as next to impossible- and would go so far saying unlikely – to next impossible within 200 years- despite the idea that stupid to look this far in the future.
I do not know why within the next 88 years we can not have some serious volcanic eruptions someplace in the world, and would say the 20th century appears to be fairly quiet in terms of large eruptions. It seems possible that before we get to 2100 we could more volcanic activity than we had during the 19th century. How one ignore potential eruptions that may put over 100 cubic km into the atmosphere when talking about climate, is a wonder.
It also seems there could 50% than we could some longer periods of low solar activity in time period up to 2100.
It seems recent trend has less than .15 C per decade, and that 1.5 C in century is probably on the high side.
It doesn’t seem in the least rational to assume that rising global Co2 levels caused global glaciers to stop advancing and begin the global retreat. And it seems it’s unlikely that any human activity was responsible for stopping the advance of glaciers globally, nor were responsible causing them to retreat globally. And it seems a large part of warming of 20th century was not caused by human activity, or specifically an increase in Global CO2 levels caused by human activity.
It does seem that some amount of warming could caused by rising CO2 levels but it seems it’s less than 1/2 of the warming.
It seems to me, that at some point before 2100, that wine grapes may grow in the UK, it seems the treeline may extend northward, and Greenland may get as warm as during MWP. I would it’s somewhat surprising this hasn’t already happened as much one could expect, but I believe this is possible before 2100. Though I don’t see tropic condition in UK occuring in centuries- well beyond time period worth considering.
It also seem possible we see more ice free arctic waters, but don’t see how such conditions lead to any “runaway warming”, cooling effects seems more likely
Following are three major issues distinguishing natural forcing over anthropogenic forcing of temperature etc.:
Phase Lag of Global Temperature
David Stockwell at Niche Modeling shows a high correlation of the integral of Total Solar Insolation (TSI) variations and global temperature with a 2.75 year lag. This matches the Pi/2 (90 degrees) lag predicted by Stockwell’s Solar Accumulation Theory. See: Key Evidence for the Accumulative Model of High Solar Influence on Global Temperature
I see Sockwell’s correlation evidence of this lag vs IPCC’s rejecting TSI’s impact as critically important evidence for the dominance of natural causes over the anthropogenic greenhouse model.
Temperature and CO2 Phase lag
I expect the global temperature shows a phase lag because of the land/ocean and heat capacity difference between hemispheres. I expect Stockwell’s solar – temperature phase lag model to also apply to annual variations in ocean temperature which should vary with latitude with the poles being 180 deg out of phase. (This will be smeared out by the thermo haline circulation.)
Consequently, there should be a corresponding annual variation with the solar – ocean temperature phase lag in CO2 concentrations varying with latitude and 180 deg out of phase at the poles. For visual confirmation, see Fred Haynie’s CO2 graphs in FUTURE OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE – Kidswincom.net
http://www.kidswincom.net/climate.pdf
Natural oscillation based temperature predictions
Temperature predictions based on natural trends and oscillations with minor (if any) anthropogenic contribution appear to be performing better than IPCC’s GCMs. e.g., See:
Nicola Scafetta’s hybrid temperature model predicting temperatures from 2000.
See scafetta’s updated prediction at the bottom of his web pate: Scafetta v IPCC
Scafetta N., 2012. Testing an astronomically based decadal-scale empirical harmonic climate model versus the IPCC (2007) general circulation climate models
In 1999, geologist Don Easterbrook began predicting a change in temperature regime (about 2000?) due to the change in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from warm to cold. See:
Evidence-Based Climate Science: Data opposing CO2 emissions as the primary source of global warming (2011) Elsevier Science ISBN: 978-0-12-385957-0
See preprints
D’Aleo, J. and Easterbrook, D.J., 2011, Relationship of multidecadal global temperatures to multidecadal oceanic oscillations: in Easterbrook, D.J., ed., Evidence-Based Climate Science, Elsevier Inc., p. 161-184.
Note especially:
See also: Syun-Ichi Akasofu who models temperature as a long term warming from the Little Ice Age superimposed by a PDO based temperature oscillation. e.g. On the recovery from the Little Ice Age Natural Science Vol.2, No.11, 1211-1224 (2010) doi:10.4236/ns.2010.211149
Hale Cycle drives Precipitation & Runoff cycles, NOT surface evaporation
WJR Alexander et al. showed strong correlations/causation between the (~21 year) Hale solar cycle and Southern African Precipitation & Runoff, but NOT with surface evaporation.
.
Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development*
W J R Alexander, F Bailey, D B Bredenkamp, A van der Merwe and N Willemse Journal of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering • Volume 49 Number 2 June 2007 pp 32-44
https://www.up.ac.za/dspace/bitstream/2263/5326/1/Alexander_Linkages(2007).pdf
CO2 LAGS global temperature
The phase relation between atmospheric carbon dioxide and global temperature, Ole Humlum, Kjell Stordahl, Jan-Erik Solheim, Global and Planetary Change Available online 30 August 2012 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2012.08.008
Discussion: Review of Humlum Et Al 2012 “The Phase Relation Between Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide And Global Temperature” By Donald Rapp
Decadal temperature trends decline from warming to cooling
As Easterbrook, Scafetta etc. predicted, the global temperature trend has been declining from mild warming to flat and now has begun to cool.
See Lucia Lilijgren at The Blackboard
Using ARMA(1,1): Reject AR4 projections of 0.2 C/decade.
With solar cycle 24 being the lowest in a century, this could mean substantial further global cooling over the next couple of decades. e.g., until the ~60 year PDO cycle starts to turn to its warm phase in ~ the mid 2030s.
Solar Climatology
Jan-Erik Solheim, Kjell Stordahl & Ole Humlum
“The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24”.
David Archibald predicted>:
Mae culpa. Lucia calculated trends from each year up to the present, starting in 1975 up through 2003 – not “decadal” except the last.
The IPCC is a child of the UNEP and the WMO, both UN agencies. The UNEP head, Maurice Strong, leading the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, stated “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?” The UNEP is responsible for Agenda 21.
Reasonably democratic countries make up only about 50 of 194 members of the UN. The UN sponsored the Commission on Global Governance, 1995 which recommended: global taxation, a standing UN army, end of the veto powers in the Security Council, a parliamentary body of NGOs, binding verdicts from the International Court of Justice. The UN Durban conference called for an International Climate Court to compel Western nations to make reparations for a past climate debt.
The climate conferences prior to 1985 were unwilling to make strident statements due to the uncertain state of climatology but the Villach conferences in the mid 1980s brought the UNEP and NGOs to the conference and the first strident calls emerged.
At the Madrid conference in 1995, the IPCC chair Bolin and the WG1 chair Houghton allowed Ben Santer to rewrite WG1 Ch8 to bring it into line with the politically approved SPM.
In 1998, Stephen Schneider, an IPCC coordinating lead author stated: “Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
In 2010 the InterAcademy Council reviewed the processes and procedures of the IPCC. It’s Exec Summary omitted all of the negativity of the body of the report which identified: conflict of interest, poor management, poor treatment of uncertainty, bias and political interference. Some quotes: “High confidence was attributed on little evidence and to vague statements; Conclusions were stated so vaguely as to make them impossible to refute; Many statements have weak evidentiary basis.”
The current IPCC chair, Rajendra Pachauri, does not have the background to head a credible impartial assessment agency, being on the board of the failed Chicago Climate Exchange with Maurice Strong and other environmental advocates. Pachauri’s running of his own NGO TERI should have disqualified him. The IPCC authors have never been selected by an open process similar to the selection of a jury. Many would loose their jobs if the belief in CAGW cannot be sustained.
The IPCC never conducted literature searches to identify the papers to be addressed rather it allowed chapter authors to choose papers that were suitable to illustrate their story. Many chose their own papers. Many papers were published by journals with IPCC authors on their editorial boards. Papers were written especially for the story and deadlines eased to allow their publication.
The ClimateGate emails discredited some important AR4 WG1 authors. A co-chair of AR5 working group, Ottmar Edenhofer, stated in 2010 “But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
I would be skeptical of any report on the benefits of smoking by the Tobacco Institute and see no reason to treat the IPCC any differently. For me the science is not settled. It has never been assessed.
Wow! That really puts the case concisely in one place as to why we would be foolish to put much faith in IPCC or ‘policy driven science’.
What an excellent and concise summary.
I dunno about concise. It was a detailed story about IPCC corruption that can be summed up by three words: “Follow the money”.
I wonder how the CAGW alarmists will respond to the comment by PJB. Will they ignore it or will they comment. I’ll be interested to see how these people comment:
Robert
Joseph
BartR
WHT
Glenn Tamblyn
Peter Lang | September 19, 2012 at 4:22 am |
It’s hilarious that you congratulate a conspiracy theorist for his concise summary of fear-mongering “One World Government” paranoia and then have the hypocrisy to use the word “alarmist”; it doesn’t occur to you that spreading myths about a cabal at the UN taking over the world is alarmism?
Cherry picked out-of-context lines from oil baron Strong and lifelong scholar Schneider, given that both have a huge body of public work to draw upon to glean better understanding of the subtle irony, nuance, and actual intent of those lines when revisited in context tell us all we need to know about pjb253: he either thinks we’re idiots who would believe such a slim fabric of propaganda, or he’s genuinely disconnected from any semblance of reality. Clearly, you didn’t go back to the text of Strong’s speech, where you won’t find him saying the line so frequently attributed to him by sycophantic George Hunt acolytes.
The Maurice Strong quote is actually taken from a 1992 interview about a fictional novel Strong was thinking of writing: “What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group’s conclusion is ‘no’. The rich countries won’t do it. They won’t change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”*
Look it up from primary sources. Like a skeptic would. *Gibson, Donald. Environmentalism: ideology and power
Or do you think “fictional novel” is secret code for “plan to take over the world?”
While I don’t agree with Strong on a lot, and Schneider had his share of foot-in-mouthitis, I just don’t get the fascination paranoiacs have with either of them. Why can’t they go back to blaming aliens and Satanic cults?
Bart R
I was not aware of Gibson’s book. Its reviews look interesting. However I can’t find a copy for less than $85 so it will have to remain on my wish list for a while. I have read many of the books that it covers, post 1900 anyway.
Not motivated to wade through the “huge body of public work” of the “lifelong scholar Schneider” who reserved the right to decide between effectiveness and honesty.
I advanced no conspiracy theory, merely offered some points. Connect them as you please.
Climatology is such a broad subject that an assessment would require an IPCC like effort and I don’t find the IPCC credible enough to justify the policy decisions that have already been taken.
> I advanced no conspiracy theory, merely offered some points. Connect them as you please.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog-whistle_politics
BartR is correct about the origin of the Strong quote being from a description of a novel.
BartR,
If you prefer a non-fictional source, try this:
> America, these are desperate times, and I’m beginning to think that our measures just aren’t desperate enough. If we are to counter the many negative factors currently affecting our economy, we’re going to have to do something drastic. Luckily, it turns out that our values are worth money, and if we’re having a yard sale, we might as well go all the way. I guess what I’m saying is — isn’t it time we start talking about legalizing violence?
http://bygonebureau.com/2010/05/21/a-proposal-for-the-legalization-of-violence/
I’m sure Rich Matarese would agree.
pjb253
You have given an excellent summary of the historical and political background leading directly to the current CAGW hysteria. This story is important for us all to read, in order to understand how things could become so wacky.
On this thread skeptics can also address specific points related to the shaky “science” behind the IPCC claims and the CAGW premise.
There is no question that the politics (as you describe it) came first chronologically – but the “science” is being used today to sell the political agenda (and this “science” is faulty, as is being pointed out here).
Max
pjb253 | September 19, 2012 at 6:53 pm |
Demanding impossible perfection is a form of fallacy.
So you don’t trust the IPCC? Boo-hoo. So what?
How is that an argument that justifies to me the continued picking of my pocket by people squandering the Carbon Cycle that I have an equal share in, and ought expect equal benefit from, and to be able to limit unequal harm to my interests by its overuse?
pjb253 | September 19, 2012 at 6:53 pm |
So I’ll take it that now that you’re aware of Gibson’s book, you’re acknowledging that the entire foundation of your narrative is false, based on a misquote and the narration of an event that did not happen the way you said, and you’re withdrawing your claims in their entirety because you were just plain wrong?
I have just read a 20 page summary of Gibson’s book. While there is a possibility my Maurice Strong quote was out of context, the book’s summary offers far more points than my comment and they can be connected into a far more sinister narrative. Thanks for the reference. Goodbye, as I have used up the 3 comments per posting that are allowed to a polite person.
Bart, are you really suggesting Strong wasn’t expressing his own strongly held views in that passage? Interesting way to look at it.
Jim
JimJ | September 20, 2012 at 9:56 pm |
I’m suggesting that people who build arguments on lies and then lie about them are liars, however polite they pretend to be. Of course, these are just suggestions.
Connect them how you will.
Back radiation is a complete BS. Atmospheric CO2 has no physical property to cause any warming. CO2 does not retain heat content. CO2 is one of the best ingredients that earth living things have to change the sun’s energy into stored chemical energy. Thanks to CO2.
“Back radiation is a complete BS”
One small fly in the ointment there Sam. We have been able to observe backradiation for decades. How can something that actually exists and has been observed be BS?
Simply you guys (warmists) misunderstood your observation of radiation as back radiation.
I’m afraid you’re demonstrably wrong there, Sam. Back-radiation is the theory of operation behind millions of electronic ventilation controls for commercial buildings where fans that exchange outdoor air with indoor air are triggered when CO2 generated by the building’s occupants rises above a set level.
This manufacturer of such ventilation controllers was kind enough to put a theory of operation document on the web:
http://www.raesystems.com/sites/default/files/downloads/FeedsEnclosure-TN-169_NDIR_CO2_Theory.pdf
The construction is basically the same as 19th century experimental physicist John Tyndall’s laboratory apparatus for measuring the far IR absorptive properties of different gases except these devices use modern technology to reduce a roomful of gear down to the size of a thimbal and also acheive accuracy and precision that Tyndall could only dream about.
The flaw in the CO2 global warming hypothesis isn’t that back radiation doesn’t exist. It clearly does and is used for practical applications. The biggest flaw in the ointment is how a body of water responds to increased back-radiation. It raises the evaporation rate. Rather than heating the water it simply converts liquid water at temperature X to water vapor at temperature X with an enormous amount of energy stored in the vapor insensibly. This stored energy, which does not manifest as an increase in temperature (which is why it’s called latent energy) is mechanically transported by convection thousands of feet above the surface where it eventually becomes sensible again when the vapor condenses into a cloud. Thus the increased back radiation is carried away from the surface without raising the surface temperature. This then changes the environmental lapse rate so the air at say 1000 meters altitude is 1C warmer that it would have been otherwise and clouds are now forming 100 meters higher than they would have otherwise. This mechanism requires no change in surface temperature. Clouds, which have a net cooling effect by shading the surface, do not contribute to surface warming. This is unlike rocks exposed to back radiation. Rocks don’t evaporate. They must necessarily get warmer. But the earth’s surface is mostly water and even in the 30% which isn’t ocean surface there’s still a lot of evaporative cooling taking place and evaporative cooling drills right through the greenhouse gases like they weren’t even there.
Thus we have, roughly, a maximum surface response of 1.1C temperature rise to a CO2 doubling over very dry (including frozen!) land only with much lesser amount over moist or liquid surfaces. Overall I belive this works out to as much as 0.5W of surface warming per CO2 doubling. Natural climate variation appears to bury anthropogenic CO2 forcing in the noise except perhaps over many decades of observation with suitably sensitive instruments. We’ve had suitably sensitive instruments deployed for only 33 years and the record we’re getting from them supports a sensitivity well below the IPPC-blessed minimum of 1.2.C which is rightly a maximum in the absence of water vapor feedback not a minimum. The earth is a water world not a solid grey body. Catastrophic global warming hypothesis is built upon how an ideal grey body equally illuminated over its entire area would respond to increased CO2 not on how a rotating sphere mostly covered in water and unequally illuminated responds to the same variation.
“as much as 0.5W of surface warming” should read 0.5C instead
David Springer,
You have no clue about Trenberth’s back radiation BS.
David Springer,
If you considered yourself a skeptic, you should be able to tell radiation Vs back radiation.
On general topic of skeptics or those with different view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3Hg-Y7MugU&feature=player_embedded
Linked from:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/
[This was posted yesterday on the old “Skeptics” thread, but am re-posting here]
IPCC claim on AIS mass loss
A few years ago, Paul Matthews compiled several cases of IPCC errors, distortions and exaggerations in IPCC AR4 WG1 report:
https://sites.google.com/site/globalwarmingquestions/ipcc
These were gathered on a now-defunct Climate Audit thread, with several contributors.
Here is one specific example (copied from Paul’s summary with minor changes and my comments added):
The WG1 SPM states (p 5) that
In Table SPM1 they attribute 0.21 mm/yr of sea level rise over the period 1993-2003 to Antarctic ice loss.
These claims are contradicted by recent papers that show that the Antarctic ice sheet grew over the stated time period.
– I. Joughin and S. Tulaczyk, Positive Mass Balance of the Ross Ice Streams, West Antarctic, Science 295, 476-480 (2002) – They found strong evidence for ice sheet growth in West Antarctica.
– C.H. Davis et al, Snowfall-Driven Growth in East Antarctic Ice Sheet Mitigates Recent Sea-Level Rise, Science 308, 1898-1901 (2005) – They found that the East Antarctic ice sheet is growing at 45 Gt/yr, corresponding to a sea level decrease of 0.12 mm/yr.
– D.J. Wingham et al, Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet, Phil Trans Roy Soc A 364, 1627-1635 (2006) – They found that the Antarctic ice sheet is growing at 27 Gt/yr, corresponding to a sea level fall of 0.08 mm/yr. The study covered 72% of Antarctica and the period April 1992-April 2003.
The IPCC cites the Davis et al paper in section 4.6 but ignores the Wingham et al paper (this paper came out in 2006, but other 2006 papers are cited).
On the other hand, the IPCC cites other papers by Shepherd and Wingham that happen to support the IPCC agenda (for example “Warm ocean is eroding West Antarctic Ice Sheet”).
The Joughin et al. and Davis et al. studies cover only a portion of the Antarctic Ice Sheet, but the Wingham study has calculated a mass balance for the entire AIS, based on continuous 24/365 satellite altimeter measurements over the entire time period mid-April 1992 to mid-April 2003 covering 72% of the AIS and has extended this to the whole AIS by adding estimates for the non-measurable areas too close to the pole and near shorelines, which are not captured by satellite altimetry.
Wingham’s findings of 27 Gt/year mass gain are clearly not compatible with the IPCC claim of 71 Gt/year mass loss over the same time period.
Instead of citing (or even acknowledging) the Wingham study, IPCC chose to simply ignore it.
Max
PS I will cite other examples from this summary in separate posts, with thanks and credit due to Paul Matthews, who provided several of the examples and compiled the summary.
All of this is rather irrelevant given data today (eg grace) shows greenland and antarctica losing mass (even acceleration). Not to say I trust this Paul Matthews analysis anyway, I don’t. I’ve seen how skeptics screw up the most basic analyses and seen them concoct fake biases in other areas of ar4 (eg the section on solar influence).
lolwot
What a silly statement.
The brief here is to list specific claims made by IPCC in its AR4 WG1 report which are not well founded or based on cherry-picked supporting reports while ignoring other conflicting reports.
I just presented two such examples, both specifically related to the time period 1993-2003.
IPCC reported mass loss in both ice sheets over the 1993-2003 time period, while reports based on continuous measurements over the entire 1993-2003 time period showed mass gain.
IPCC simply ignored these reports and based its conclusion on spot studies covering only a small portion of the time period or only parts of the entire ice sheet.
What happened after the 1993-2003 time period or in some other part of the world is totally irrelevant, lolwot.
Max
What exactly is your point then? Antarctic and Greenland are losing mass. We know that.
“IPCC simply ignored these reports and based its conclusion on spot studies covering only a small portion of the time period or only parts of the entire ice sheet.”
Or so Paul Matthews claims. It might have been a relevant discussion if we didn’t already know Antarctic and Greenland are losing mass.
lolwot
Are you dense?
You ask “what exactly is your point?”
It is simply that IPCC IGNORED the ONLY scientific study, which estimated the mass balance OF THE ENTIRE ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET with measurements TAKEN CONTINUOUSLY OVER THE ENTIRE TIME PERIOD, which concluded that THE AIS GAINED MASS OVER THIS TIME PERIOD, when it made its contradictory claim in AR4 WG1 that the AIS LOST MASS OVER THIS TIME PERIOD.
What happened BEFORE or AFTER this time period is immaterial to my “point”.
What was concluded in SPOT STUDIES cited by IPCC, which covered a SMALL PORTION of the ENTIRE SURFACE of the AIS or of the 1993-2003 TIME PERIOD is also immaterial.
Have you grasped it now?
It’s really not that complicated, lolwot.
Max
Max,
The Antarctic ice sheet contribution to sea level rise over 1993-2003 was given as 0.21 +/- 0.35. Clearly this range includes the possibility of a -0.08mm/yr contribution, so the Wingham paper would not have altered it. Obviously at least one paper which inferred net mass gain over Antarctica must have been included in the AR4 review, which makes the agenda/conspiracy angle look odd.
This is one of the problems with scientifically ignorant people trying to critique science. Different papers reach different conclusions –ooooh, scandal!
And if they stumble upon a case where science has advanced in the last decade, why, it’s the second coming of Richard Nixon. Never mind that science is full of disagreements, and changing understandings of different phenomena.
Fraud! Incompetence! Bad things!
Robert | September 19, 2012 at 6:08 pm | Reply
Yes Robert. Science, unlike every other human endeavour, is totally devoid of fraud, incompetence, and bad things. It’s as pure as the driven snow. So honest and full of goodness it makes Mother Teresa look like an incompetent Attilla the Hun.
Do you have any idea how ridiculous you are?
Paul S
The old rationalization that somehow the net gain in Antarctic Ice Sheet mass was included in the error bars of the claim that there was a net loss in Antarctic Ice Sheet mass is ludicrous.
And, yes. there were “other studies” that showed mass loss.
These were largely spot studies covering a small portion of the cited 1993-2003 time period or only a small portion of the total surface area.
The ONLY report, which covered the ENTIRE April 1992 to April 2003 period and the ENTIRE AIS was the Wingham study, which IPCC ignored.
Sorry, Paul: NO SALE.
You’ve got to come with a better argument than that.
Max
IPCC claim on Greenland Ice Sheet over period 1993-2003
OK, here’s another one, also from Paul Matthews’ compilation (cited above).
The AR4 WG1 SPM claims (table SPM.1, page 7) that sea level rose at 0.21 mm/yr over the period 1993-2003, due to melting of the Greenland ice sheet. But several published papers have found that in fact the Greenland ice increased or was static over this time period:
– H.J. Zwally et al, Growth of the Southern Greenland Ice Sheet, Science 281, 1251 (1998). They found an ice sheet thickening rate of about 5 cm/year.
– C. H. Davis, C. A. Kluever, and B. J. Haines, Elevation Change of the Southern Greenland Ice Sheet. Science 279, 2086-2088 (1998). They found a small increase (1.5 cm/year) over the period 1978-1988.
– R. Thomas et al, Mass Balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet at High Elevations. Science 289, 426-428 (2000). They find that “On average, the region has been in balance”.
– O. M. Johannessen, K. Khvorostovsky, M. W. Miles, and L. P. Bobylev, Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland. Science 310, 1013-1016 (2005) – They used satellite altimetry over the period 1992-2003, and found the “spatially averaged increase is 5.4 cm per year over the study area”.
– H.J. Zwally et al, Mass changes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and shelves and contributions to sea-level rise: 1992-2002. J. Glaciol. 51, 509-527 (2005) – Found an overall mass gain of 11 GT/yr.
AR4 cites the last two of these (though they incorrectly refer to Zwally et al as 2006) but not the first two. AR4 also incorrectly shows Zwally et al as showing mass loss in fig 4.18. AR4 also attempts to discredit Johannessen et al (fig 4.18 caption) by saying that the results were ‘without firn densification correction’, and by showing it as a dotted line in their figure.
Several alternate measurement methods were in use over the 1993-2003 time period. Most of these only covered a small portion of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Many were spot studies covering a few weeks or months. The only measurement method that continuously covered the entire GIS except coastal areas that cannot be captured is satellite altimetry.
Johannessen covers essentially all of the GIS except coastal areas, but does not convert the elevation changes to a mass balance. Zwally provides information, which is not contained in the Johannessen study: namely, converting elevation change to mass balance, including the firn correction and extending the study area to cover the entire GIS. It covers essentially the same time period as Johannessen (mid-April 1992 to mid-April 2003), but truncates the 6-month colder period from October 2002 to April 2003 from the study. This leads to the supposition that Zwally’s reported gain in ice mass of 11 Gt/year may be understated, since it ignores the gain in snow mass from an entire 6-month cold season. Simply substituting Johannessen’s figures, which DO include these six months, for all the areas that could be measured by Johannessen and using Zwally’s numbers for the remaining non-measurable marginal areas results in a calculated increase of GIS ice mass from around 11 to around 23 Gt/year.
With or without this adjustment, however, either result is clearly incompatible with the IPCC claim of a loss of 71 Gt/year over the same period.
Again, IPCC has cherry-picked the reports it considers relevant and ignored the others.
Max
(More to follow)
Until someone can show me a lab experiment which shows that adding another 100ppm of CO2 to the current atmosphere will show a temperature increase, I see no reason to believe any of this. Nobody on here can provide me with a link to any such experiment.
Videos on youtube of alka seltzer in soda bottles don’t count (because the pressure inside the fizzing bottle will be higher, and the carbon dioxide level will be higher than is relevant)
The daft BBC video of venting (very cold) CO2 in front of a flame doesn’t count.
Neither do experiments measuring absorption lines of atmospheres and CO2, because they are not measuring temperature.
It is up to the warmists to demonstrate the science to the skeptics.
Mark
The experiment can’t be performed in a laboratory or anything of a similar scale. To demonstrate the GH effect or any change in it you need a very tall air column – kilometers long – that is at different temperatures and prssures at different altitudes. It is essentially the density & temperature variations up through the air column that is the source of the GH effect.
However you can investigate it using the methods employed in many branches of science. You use the natural world around us as your laboratory. So you take your knowledge of the properties of various gases, perform the calculations to determine what observations you would expect to see. Then you go somewhere where tose conditions do occur and take some measurements. If your measurements agree with your expectations that gives your theory some support. If you repeat this many times, under different natural conditions and keep getting results that agree with your expectations, your theory gets stronger.
And this is exactly what was done, many times over during the 60’s and 70’s. Using balloons, high flying aircraft then satellites observations were made of the IR spectrum observed at different altitudes and compared to the expectations from theory. This was done so often back then that the science of the GH Effect was basically proven by th mid 70’s.
If you want to repeat the experiments tourself you can. Take the following steps.
1. Collect the data on the radiative properties of the gases in the atmosphere – this is freely available in databases such as HiTran.
2. Write a computer program to apply this data and information about the temperature and composition of the air column to the solution of the Equation of Radiative Transfer. You will need to put a fair amount of effort into getting this right since there are lot of important details to consider. But there are loads of textbooks on this subject to guide you. You will also need a computer with some serious horsepower to do the calculations.
3. Gather meteorological data on the composition of the gases in the atmosphere. You can do this for all the gases except water vapour – you will need to measure that in step 6
4. Buy a high altitude Weather Balloon.
5. Fit it with good quality instruments to measure temperature, air pressure, humidity and altitude. Also a good quality instrument for measuring the IR spectrum in detail.Also radio so the results can be transmitted back down to you.
6. Launch your balloon and let it ascend nice and high. Preferably to at least 20,000 meters
7. Take the meteorological readings from the balloon and all the other data you have collected and feed it into your program and calculate the IR spectrum you expect to have seen at different altitudes as the balloon ascended.
8. Compare this with the IR spectrum you actually measured on the balloon. If they agree pretty well then you can give that run a tick.
9. Repeat this process at different locations, times of year etc and hopefully keep accumulating ticks.
If you have a lot of money you might be able to afford a high altitude aircraft – a U2 or something. Maybe even your own satellite. Al so you can extend the altitudes at which you take measurements
Or. You could just rely on the results from 2 decades of exactly this sort of research during the 60’s and 70’s to provide you with the proofs you are looking for.
Thanks Glenn for you very thorough answer.
I would still like to see the results of an experiment done in the lab, adding a small amount of CO2 to the atmosphere and measuring the temperature changes.
Glenn, you said
“It is essentially the density & temperature variations up through the air column that is the source of the GH effect.”
I can’t see how a few hundred ppm of CO2 can make any significant change in the density of the air. And the effect of temperature variation of the atmosphere, due to CO2, can be determined by lab experiments. (These could be done at different pressures).
However, I can see how density and temp variations, high up in the atmosphere, can cause a greenhouse effect, independent of CO2.
I fully admit that I am not a scientist, so I appreciate input from people who are
Mark B
Adding CO2 to a parcel of air in the lab won’t change the temperature at all. That is the point. The GH effect doesn’t work that way.
To elaborate. When I referred to density it was referring to the overall density of the atmosphere of the atmosphere, not CO2’s contribution to that. Density matters in this way.
At sea level pressure, and hence density a cubic meter of air contains around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 CO2 molecules out of a total of around 25,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 total of all molecules.
That tells us the number of CO2 molecules available in that cubic meter of air to absorb photons of Infra-red radiation. Then we need look at the probability of a CO2 molecule absorbing such a photon if they happen to interact – the probability isn’t 100%. And the probability isn’t the same for all frequencies. CO2’s propensity to absorb IR radiation varies significantly for different frequencies.
Knowing this we can start to estimate how far a photon of any particular frequency will travel before it is likely to be absorbed – probability of encountering a CO2 molecule x probability of being absorbed by it. This lets us work out the average distance it takes before essentially all the photons at any particular frequency have been absorbed. For the peak absorption frequencies of CO2 at sea level pressure that is of the order of 10’s of metres.
We can then do similar calculations for water vapour and other GH gases and combine all those results.,In practice this is done in Spectroscopy by measuring in the lab what is called the Absorption coefficient of a gas at each frequency.
The net result is that across all the frequencies where GH gases have an affect, virtually all the IR Radiation is absorbed within 10’s of meters.
Once a GH gas has absorbed a photon and its energy level has increased it doesn’t just hang on to that energy forever. It can pass that energy off. Firstly it can re-radiate that energy. producing another photon that heads of in a random direction with the same energy as the previuos photon. For radiation in the IR bands we are talking about the average time before this re-radiation event occurs is of the order of 10’s of milliseconds. In contrast for radiation in the visible light bands the average delay is of the order of a billionth of a second – the equation used to calculate this average time was first discovered by Albert Einstein.
There is a second way in which a GH molecule can give up the energy it has acquired and this is through collisions with all the other molecules around it. At sea level temperature and pressures, every molecule in the atmosphere collides with billions of other molecules every second. Like billiard balls crashing together, spreading the energy around. And since this happens very much more often than the reradiation events, this is overwhelmingly the method by which the absorbed IR radiation is distributed. At ends up being added to the general pool of energy in the air – within 10’s of meters.
But the story doesn’t end there. All these continuous collisions between all the molecules mean that at any instant a certain percentage of all molecules will spontaneously by at higher energy levels. And a certain percentage will spontaneously radiate some energy as IR radiation as a result – Einstein discovered the equations that govern this as well. But then this spontaneously emitted IR radiation will only be able to travel 10’s of meters in any direction before it is re-absorbed by another GH molecule.
So the net effect is that the air is a continuous ferment of collisions, radiation and re-absorption. And the energy that is absorbed by the air from radiation from the surface is simply adding to this stew. If our eyes could see in these IR frequencies, the very air itself would look fairly opaque and glowing.
So if radiation from the surface is continually being added to this ‘stew’, why doesn’t the air just keep getting hotter and hotter? Close to the ground some of this radiation can actually be reabsorbed by the ground – this is called back radiation. But as well the energy can slowly makes its way to higher altitudes. Not by a single sudden transmission of a beam of IR radiation, but by a chaotic dance of collisions, absorption and re-radiation that slowly moves energy upwards.
And there is another important factor here. Convection. Hot air rises so as the atmosphere lower down is absorbing energy – not just from absorbing IR radiation from the Earth but also due to convection off the Earth’s surface and from evaporation, convection is moving this air upwards. In fact convection is the much larger part of how energy gets moved to higher altitudes, with the radiation ‘dance’ I described being a much smaller part of the transport mechanism.
So, the lowest part of the atmosphere absorbs virtually everything radiated by the Earth in those frequencies where GH gases are active. Some o this gets radiated back down to the surface, the rest of the energy gets transported to higher altitudes.
Now, finally, we get to my point about density and altitude. As you rise higher into the atmosphere, the air gets thinner, its density is lower. The GH gases such as CO2 will still be the same PROPORTION of the total number of molecules in the air (around 0.04% for CO2), but the total number of molecules in any cubic meter of air drops. So each time an increase in altitude drops the density by 10%, take one zero of those large numbers I mentioned above.
The important consequence of this is that the average number of collisions between molecules drops because there are fewer of them around, and the average distance that a radiated IR photon can travel before it gets absorbed again becomes longer. Instead of 10’s of meters it bcomes 100’s then 1000’s of meters. So the balance of the processes that spread energy around start to shift more to reradiation and less due to collisions.
And importantly, as the average length needed before re-absorption occurs increases, more and more of the IR photons that are emitted upwards are actually able to travel far enough without being absorbed that they make it all the way out to Space and escape. So energy that was radiated by the Earth’s surface but absorbed by GH gases is finally able to escape to space at much hhigher altitude.
Thus the importance of density as I described it earlier. But all that I have described so far only delays the escape of energy to space. But it doesn’t restrict it. There is still a missing piece to the puzzle.
Temperature. At higher altitude the air temperature is colder, much colder, way below zero. And at lower temperatures, the total amount of IR radiation being generated is lower. So if we had eyes that could see in the Infra-Red, the air at higher altitude wouldn’t be glowing as much.
So although energy can now escape to space up there, the amount of energy that can do so is lower than it would be if it was ground level because the air is colder. This is the final piece in the jigsaw puzzle.
If there were no GH gases, the Earth would be much colder. A common figure given is -33 C rather than the actual average temp of +15C but this is only indicative. What we would see is that when looking at the Earth’s IR spectrum from space we would observe a pattern of IR radiation that matches a surface at this colder temperature. And it would be a, relatively speaking, smooth curve following the expected curve defined by something called the Planck Function that describes the expected radiation spectrum you will see for a body at a certain temperature. The Sun’s spectrum for example follows the Planck function for its surface temperature pretty well.
In contrast, the spectrum for the Earth is very much more irregular, with some sections reflecting what we would expect to see from a body at -55C, and others those of the average surface temperature +15C. Because in some parts of the spectrum the GH gases are reducing the emissions to space by the method I described above. As a consequence the surface is warmer and in those parts of the spectrum where GH gases don’t have an effect, the spectrum is showing more energy reaching space.
Because the GH gases are restricting how much energy can get out to space at some frequencies, the Earth warms until the energy that is able to escape to space in the other frequencies where GH gases don’t operate is large enough to compensate for this. And it takes warming of the surface to achieve this.
So what happens if we add more GH gases, particularly CO2. The section of the spectrum that is reflecting a temperature of -55C corresponds to the lower and middle Stratosphere. Higher still in the very high atmosphere temperatures actually start to rise again. So more CO2 can’t force the spectrum down to a temperature corresponding to a temperature below -55C because that is as cold as it gets up there. Rather what happens is that the part of the spectrum that corresponds to -55 C gets wider.
Earlier I described how the probability of a CO2 molecule absorbing an IR photon isn’t constant across all the frequencies that CO2 can absorb in.The propability of absorption is higher in the center of CO2’s absorption band and lower at the edges, the so-called ‘wings’.As a result, in those frequencies in the wings the lower probability of absorption means that the altitude at which IR radiation in those frequency bands is able to start escaping to space is lower down in the, relatively, warmer upper Tropospehere. If the concentration of CO2 increases, the air needs to be thinner before those frequencies can start to ‘reach’ space. And this shifts them further up into the colder loswer stratosphere. The net effect of this is that the ‘notch’ that can be seen in the IR spectrum due to CO2 gets wider. So less energy is able to escape from the Earth. So the surface warms to compensate until the energy escaping through the regions not affected by GH gases has increased enough to compensate. The energy balance is restored but the suface has had to warm to bring this about – Global Warming.
Good exposition, Glenn Tamblyn.
The only thing that I would point out is that the characteristic emission altitude is not governed by the partial pressure of a greenhouse gas but is governed by the overall pressure at that altitude. That altitude occurs where the atmosphere is thin enough such that the mean time between molecular collisions is larger than the excitation time of the greenhouse molecules. A large change in, say a doubling of CO2 concentration results theoretically in only a minor change in the altitude of characteristic emission to space. The altitude of the characteristic emission layer defines the top of the troposphere and the lapse rate structure of the troposphere dictates the surface temperature of the earth. This is why, paradoxically, the temperature structure of our troposphere is defined by greenhouse gases but is not particularly sensitive to their concentration. Hence the logarithmically declining surface temperature increase from increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Likewise, the tropospheric temperature profile of Venus would be little different if the 97% CO2 was changed to 1% CO2 plus 96% of a non radiative gas of the same molecular weight as CO2.
Glenn,
Again, I appreciate the time that you must have spent writing such a detailed answer.
It is the first paragraph that puzzles me most: If CO2 is absorbing infra red (as the absorption spectra observations indicate), why couldn’t this be detected as a temperature increase in lab experiments (using an infra red heat source or sunlight)? As I have said previously, these could be done at different pressures and with different water vapour concentrations to simulate different altitudes.
I am reading through Tamblyn’s beautiful exposition of CO2 green house effect (where were you a few years ago with this for me) but I am mentally saying to myself, yes –but, yes –but. Then along comes Springer and he elegantly lays out the “but” part completing the picture. Now how to condense those two posts into an elevator speech ? Thank you gentleman for making the complex simple.
I think the lab would have to have a chamber that would extend from the depths of the ocean to outer space, and then it would have to perform some tripped out special effects. It’s probably beyond the engineering capabilities of mankind: recreating the earth’s climate system in a bottle.
And, it would probably still require a model!
Glenn Tamblyn | September 19, 2012 at 8:47 am | Reply
“The experiment can’t be performed in a laboratory or anything of a similar scale. To demonstrate the GH effect or any change in it you need a very tall air column – kilometers long – that is at different temperatures and prssures at different altitudes. It is essentially the density & temperature variations up through the air column that is the source of the GH effect.”
No, it isn’t. The greenhouse effect is insolation in the tropics able to warm the mixed ocean layer to a maximum of 35C, which is the highest temperature seen by ARGO buoys on the surface anywhere. The warm tropical mixed layer then spreads out across the ocean surface somewhat like a drop of oil. The greenhouse effect on a water world is due to the ocean not the atmosphere. Water is a greenhouse fluid. Pure H20 is virtually transparent to shortwave and thus the ocean is thermalized by impurities which absorb shortwave. Water is exceedingly opaque, far more than any greenhouse gas, to far infrared. So the ocean thermalized by sunlight to a depth of 300 meters or so cannot cool by radiating upward. That sun-warmed water must be mechanically transported to the surface somehow where the majority of the solar-acquired energy leaves the ocean body by way of latent heat of vaporization.
The very things that define a greenhouse gas are transparency to shortwave and opacity to thermal radiation. Liquid water meets that definition better than any gas and has such a hugely larger mass and heat capacity than the greenhouse gases above it, makes the atmosphere’s composition inconsequential in comparison. Sunlight heats the ocean which causes evaporation and clouds. Clouds block sunlight slowing the rate of evaporation until a balance is reached. It don’t matter what the air is made of because the water cycle is the thermostat. This is how the Faint Young Sun paradox resolves. The earth’s albedo self-adjusted lower by dint of fewer clouds. Modern albedo is some 35% -+3% or so. Ocean is in the low single digits. So theoretically a sun that is 35% dimmer can maintain 17C average surface temperature by dint of no clouds which allows the ocean to absorb virtually everything that arrives at TOA. Absent evaporation and clouds the only way for the ocean to cool is through radiation and conduction and those are far less efficient than evaporation and convection.
It’s all about the ocean, little buddy. Forget about the atmosphere other than as a medium which makes a water cycle possible and you’ll be much farther along in understanding the big picture.
All bets are off of course when ice manages to get the upper hand over liquid water at the surface. There’s nothing much setting a floor on minimum temperature except for volcanism darkening the surface with soot and spewing out greenhouse gases until the combination is enough to start a positive feedback effect rapidly decreasing albedo.
This is why glacial periods in the Pleistocene end so rapidly. Interglacial period beginnings are marked by a rocket-like ascent of global average temperature which even more suddenly stops rising like it hit a ceiling made of stone at the same point every time. The stone ceiling is where evaporation and cloud formation come into balance.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/abrupt/data2.html
We have nothing to fear from CO2 because the water cycle sets a temperature ceiling. What we have to fear is, climatologically speaking, being near the far side of the short warm temperature plateaus called interglacial periods.
But that’s a pure water world. Our is ~30% solid surface with quite variable amount of water available for evaporation on it ranging from essentially zero evaporation below freezing to a rain forest which might as well be an ocean to a desert.
(con’t) It is the land surface that throws a big monkey wrench into the elegance of a pure water world. Dry land, unlike water, doesn’t evaporate in response to downwelling thermal. It’s mode of cooling is always the less efficient radiative path and to a much smaller extent the even more inefficienct conductive path. There and in the case of no evaporation because the surface is frozen, CO2 comes into play as a greenhouse agent. But its effect is only about 30% of what it would be if the entire earth were dry rock or frozen.
In few words one might aptly characterize non-condensing greenhouse gases and soot from volcanoes as the kindling which ignites the water cycle. Once its use as kindling has been fulfilled the water cycle is mostly in control.
David you might like this,
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/WesternCaribbeanCO2andmilankovicwithlightsmoothing_zps193611da.png
The Delta CO2 is EPICA anomaly, Qday is the Milakovic 65N solar anomaly and the Schmidt et al. Western Caribbean SST reconstruction shows how stable SST can be through glacial periods. I would think reconstruction of a water world climate should start with the water.
After studying Glenn’s explanation and this one I have I have concluded that David’s is the more plausible, simply because I have the direct experience of swimming in the sea, and unheated swimming pools which have both got warmer after being exposed to a full day of sunshine. Water has a very high thermal capacity, so a lot of energy must have been absorbed.
By contrast, Glenn’s relies entirely on the property of trace amounts of carbon dioxide to heat up in the sunlight, to such an extent, that the whole atmosphere would show significant warming. But Glenn said that a laboratory experiment wouldn’t show any more warming in an atmosphere with increased carbon dioxide (another 100 ppm), compared to an atmosphere without any carbon dioxide added.
This posted poorly so I will repeat
I am reading through Tamblyn’s beautiful exposition of CO2 green house effect (where were you a few years ago with this for me) but I am mentally saying to myself, yes –but, yes –but. Then along comes Springer and he elegantly lays out the “but” part completing the picture. Now how to condense those two posts into an elevator speech ? Thank you gentleman for making the complex simple.
Bart R –
My reasoning abilities? What spasm of effrontery and arrogance makes you think you’re competent to judge my reasoning abilities? Prove it.
You just can’t deal with your own inability to reason regarding AGW, and are trying to project that on skeptics like me.
Any skeptic can out-reason the likes of YOU. That’s a fact. You lose this argument along with all your other AGW arguments. Get used to it.
Chad Wozniak | September 19, 2012 at 4:57 am |
Oh, I think we can all judge your reasoning abilities for ourselves. No need for me to help anyone else come to their own conclusions.
Proof?
http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/tbs/tp/climate/A1.htm
There you go. Proof you have nothing but bluster and bullshit about carbon taxes. QED
Dr Curry,
It has been a good two years for the Kriegsmarine Hypothesis, not least because I have learnt to spell the word.
Arctic warming: 150 million gallons US of light oil is being pumped onto the sea north of Siberia each year, one Exxon Valdez every five weeks. This is enough to coat the surface of the Barents, Kara, Laptev and East Siberian seas many time over. Bacterial degradation of oil is slow at low temperatures so there will be a build-up year on year, with each successive melt amplifying the reduced albedo (fewer aerosols and smooth water), lower emissivity and reduced evaporation effects of an oil-smoothed surface. The Kara Sea exports its surface waters in a huge right hook aimed at the Pole. These pollution-warmed waters will presumably appear as they are flushed through the Fram Strait some years (4? 5?) after they initially hit the ice edge. Is the ice debris coming through the Strait carrying Siberian-signature oil? I’m not a betting man but I’d venture a half pint of IPA on it. As to the general spread of oil pollution in the Arctic, 92 million gallons of oil went ‘up in smoke’ in 1994, much more now of course, and some of that will have been falling on the ice. A cursory examination of melting ice images, with or without the compulsory forlorn polar bear, will show a smooth on many of them as the ice releases its frozen-in contaminants. (Some of that oil will be biological, of course — this message courtesy of Richard Feynman — but not enough for my purposes).
The warming in the Arctic around the mouth of rivers which drain from oil-producing regions is very high. Someone should sample the surface boundary layer.
In March we went to Madeira, coasting out from Northern Spain and flying over a region which had been sitting under an Azores high for some days. The smooth was astounding, extending from just below abeam the Straits of Gibraltar for 40 minutes flying time, hundreds of miles, so wide that the edges merged into the horizon haze. If we call the width a hundred miles, the entire smooth was tens of thousands of square miles. Then at the edges things changed. Let me quote myself:
“The edges sent meandering, river-like extensions into the wave-covered sea, and outside the smoothed areas some whitecaps showed, an indication of the wind speed that an oily sea surface can resist, quantifying its ability to suppress wave action. I’d judge the wind over the unpolluted sea as 4 on the Beaufort scale with the polluted areas right next to it as smooth as glass. There is an interesting paper produced by the FAO plotting winds over the four major ocean basins: during the years of World War II, wind speeds in the North Atlantic show a strange blip, about 7 m/s extra at its greatest. What caused this blip? Well, when the surface is smooth, the wind and waves decouple. Thanks to the submarine offensive there was a lot of spilled oil during those years. Normally the wind is slowed by turbulence over the waves, but a smoothed surface will aid laminar flow until at a certain point it breaks down. That is what I observed as I looked down onto those meandering striations and those thousands of square miles of smooth.
This brings us to another blip. Temperature reconstructions covering the same period as the WWII wind excursion also show a blip, a quick rise of .3 to .4 deg C and an abrupt fall in 1945. It is seen most easily in older reconstructions: it is so obviously an outlier that it has been subjected to some rather ad hoc corrections to make records match climate models and theory, a possibly dubious procedure. Perhaps the blip was a real phenomenon as there are ways in which an oil-smoothed ocean might become warmer.”
For a short ecstatic moment I thought I could assign the smooth to Mediterranean pollution — the Med is oil-covered from end to end* as I have seen from the 1970s — but then I remembered that the currents are into, not out of, the Straits. So, where did the oil/surfactant come from? East coast of USA is a reasonable guess, but I don’t know. It was a vivid illustration of how big the problem is and made me wonder if the entire ocean surface is coated with oil/surfactant which only shows at wind speeds of less than force 4. Prediction: windy regions of ocean will warm slower than calm areas.
Dr Halpern wrote:
quote
The hard lower limit of climate sensitivity — the lowest it can possibly be and account for our direct observations – is about 1.1C (the real number is very likely to be in that range of 2.6C-4.1C – but we are following the “lukewarmist” argument to see where it leads).
unquote
Unless there are other warming factors not accounted for — i.e. assumed away. Any other warming will limit the upper bound on CO2 sensitivity.
Jim Cripwell wrote:
quote
Whatever the cause is of a massive melt of Arctic sea ice this year, it is completely natural. And no-one has challenged my approach.
unquote
See above.
JF
* What is the aerosol trend over the eastern end? I’d guess it has been lowered considerably with concomitant reduced rainfall.
Julian
I have never heard of the oil slick you mention nor what effect it might have. Do you have any papers you can link to please?
tonyb
As far as I know the idea that oil/surfactant pollution is disrupting the normal processes that pull down CO2 is my own, so no papers directly related to it. However…
GLOBAL WARMING IN THE 20TH CENTURY: AN ALTERNATIVE SCENARIO
AGW may have causes other than CO2, e.g. alternative GHGs, soot, and land-use albedo change.
[http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/features/200111_altscenario/] There is another forcing to be considered which may limit estimates of CO2 sensitivity.
Background
NASA gives 1994 figures for oil pollution at [http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.html]: 363 million US gallons of oil flows down the drains every year. Oil’s smoothing effects on water have been known for millennia [Pliny, Plutarch, Bede, Kipling]. Benjamin Franklin’s experiment [http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf3/letter12.htm] allows the rough calculation that 5ml of light oil will smooth one hectare and that enough light oil flows onto the oceans to cover them completely every fortnight. Surfactant pollution also smooths the surface, with the contribution of synthetic surfactants being particularly interesting as a naive biosphere will have difficulty dealing with these pollutants.
A smoothed ocean surface means fewer breaking waves [http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-16-8-2257]. A breaking wave drives bubbles down to where gas exchange is facilitated and organic debris entrained. When the bubble subsequently bursts it releases cloud condensation nuclei as salt and dimethyl sulphide from stressed phytoplankton (dimethyl sulphide, DMS, is produced by phytoplankton and converts to particularly effective cloud condensation nuclei (CCNs)). Fewer waves, therefore, mean fewer CCNs. Only near shorelines and in very shallow water will the normal amount of stirring and CCN generation occur.
An oily oceanic boundary layer generates oily water droplets which are more prone to join together and fall back [Garrett 1978], further reducing the number of CCNs. Polluted CCNs are less hygroscopic [Fuentes et al Feb 2010]. Polluted nuclei will grow more slowly and local relative humidity around them will be higher. Droplet size will be larger and the resultant cloud — oceanic stratocumulus — will have lower albedo.
A smoothed ocean surface has lower albedo and lower emissivity than one ruffled by wind. Smoothing decouples the wind from the surface, there is less turbulence, and the boundary layer weakens.
Reduced wind/wave coupling over a smoothed surface will slow currents and reduce upwelling of nutrient-rich water. Wave action stirs the upper ocean, replenishing nutrients which are continually depleted by phytoplankton, and pumping in atmospheric CO2. Fewer breaking waves means lower nutrient levels in the upper ocean.
Plants fix carbon by different methods: C3, good when there is an abundance of CO2 and nutrients; C4 which needs less of both; CAM, the same; and C4-like, employed by diatoms. Only the first discriminates strongly against the heavier carbon isotopes.
The System Of The World
Oil covers the oceans. The wind/ocean interface decouples. Evaporative cooling slows. [G Meyers, J R Donguy & R K Reed 1986] The stratocumulus layer above becomes less opaque and has a higher relative humidity as the number of mechanically-produced CCNs falls. The smoothed surface exposed to sunlight warms more readily and, at night, cools more slowly. The surface layer warms. Less CO2 is absorbed.
Warm water stabilises and the upper ocean becomes stratified. Mixing, already slowed by the lack of wave action, reduces further. The starved waters feed fewer phytoplankton and the amount of DMS falls. Warmer air slows cloud formation. Stratocumulus cover is further depleted. The cumulus heat pump slows.
Starved phytos revert to C4 carbon fixation or are replaced by obligate C4 species: a light isotope signal is left in the atmosphere.
Silica from farming runs into the oceans or falls as dust. Diatoms flourish as limiting silica is more readily available. Their C4-like metabolism pulls down more C13, adding a spurious boost to the atmospheric C12 signal. [Dugdale and Wilkerson 2001, Neff et al 2008]
Phytoplankton populations collapse [Boyce et al, 2010] and ocean albedo reduces further, while oxygen production falls.
Oceans have reduced biological production and lower DMS generation. Relative humidity rises above them and water vapour GHG heating warms the surface. Warming surfaces discourage low level cloud formation.
‘Natural Experiment’ Demonstrations
The WWII Kriegesmarine offensive caused vast oil spills and a temperature ‘blip’ [http://www.eastangliaemails.com/emails.php?eid=1017])*
PETM [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/], one might speculate that a leaking oil reservoir heated the oceans beyond the clathrate tipping point.
The Mexican Gulf oil spill where the slick can be seen rotting clouds around its edges [http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/oil_spill_initial_feature.html ]
The Andaman Sea [http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/aug2010/2010-08-16-02.html]
Lake Tanganyika’s anomalous warming. [Verburg, Piet, and Robert E. Hecky ]
The physics of the warming of Lake Tanganyika by climate change is too large to be caused by CO2 effect.
The Gulf Oil Spill: looking at the images shown on http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/alleyes/content/gulf-oil-spill-satellite-images-click-see-all-11-images , the sympathetic eye will discern anomalous effects on the local low level cloud. A scientist specialising in aerosols tried and failed to get the aerosols above the spill sampled.
A ‘Blue Marble’ image of the Earth taken from the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA’s most recently launched Earth-observing satellite on January 4, 2012 shows the effect of Mississippi pollution on low level cloud in a striking manner. See http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/VIIRS_4Jan2012.jpg It would be interesting to see temperature data, aerosol profiles and salinity measurements in the cleared area.
Summary
Oil and surfactant polluted oceans have lower albedo, higher emissivity, less evaporative cooling, and produce fewer DMS and salt CCNs, reducing the albedo of oceanic stratocumulus cloud and slowing the cumulus heat pump. These effects warm the surface and limit the value we can put on CO2 sensitivity.
Julian Flood
*Author’s note: there are moves afoot to correct the temperature history of WWII such that the blip is smoothed away. However, there is in existence an FAO record of wind speeds during the appropriate years, produced as an aid to understanding ocean productivity. I have seen this document, but cannot find it even on the Web, perhaps because it is in GIF format and so unsearchable. However, as far as memory serves the wind increased by up to 7 m/s in the North Atlantic with lesser increases in the South Atlantic, North Pacific and South Pacific respectively, suggestive of a cause that was worldwide but less obvious in the basins further from the main Nazi submarine pens. The blip, whatever its cause, is real. The change in emissivity caused by ruffled and smooth surfaces might explain the extra heating effect. Perhaps a teaching academic could cuff a passing graduate student and set him to tracking this item down.
(don’t forget to look for those images of oily polar bears…)
JF
Tony,
I’ve tried to reply but my comment has vanished: maybe it’s dropped into the spam folder as it had lots of references — my attempt to cloak a lot of handwaving with the appearance of verisimilitude. I’ll work on it.
Briefly, I don’t think anyone else has noticed.
JF
BTW, it’s not a slick, it’s a film a few molecules thick at most.
Julian
Thanks for your detailed reply at 7.44.
I was especially taken with your earlier comment;
“Arctic warming: 150 million gallons US of light oil is being pumped onto the sea north of Siberia each year, one Exxon Valdez every five weeks. This is enough to coat the surface of the Barents, Kara, Laptev and East Siberian seas many time over.”
It seems a vast amount when taken cumulatively over the years, I have no idea of its overall effect as a CHG or as any type of aerosol, pollutant etc that may affect ‘global warming.’ in the manner described, but perhaps some like the Chief Hydrologist or Webby might have the expertise to comment.
However there are some interesting asides to your comments.
During World War two Britain had many intriguing plans to keep the Germans at bay, many of these included petroleum. The use of the stuff to set fire to the sea was well known-see section ; ‘guns petroleum and poison’ some way down this wikipedia link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_anti-invasion_preparations_of_World_War_II
There was also an enormous effort called operation pluto to send petrol from the UK under the sea in pipes to France to aid the invasion-some of which leaked into the ocean;
http://www.combinedops.com/pluto.htm
Amongst the ‘boffins’ searching for ways to use petroleum during WW2 was none other than GS Callendar the ‘father’ of the Co2 theory who was briefed to use Petroleum to smooth seas, to set fire to the seas and to clear fog from airfields, which was done by burning vast quantities of petroleum and creating a micro climate.(there is a ‘Callender cable co mentioned in operation pluto-I don’t know if there is any connection.)
Somewhere in the British war archives would be reams of information on the experiments carried out using petroleum and what effects it had. I note your comment here;
“Author’s note: there are moves afoot to correct the temperature history of WWII such that the blip is smoothed away. However, there is in existence an FAO record of wind speeds during the appropriate years, produced as an aid to understanding ocean productivity.”
I have access to a well researched book about World War two temperatures, (not yet published) Contact me privately if you are interested and I will ask the author if you can see it as it has a lot of weather data which might be of interest to you
tonyb
Julian Flood, The 1945s drop in temperature is one of the more interesting events in the record. I have gone through a good bit of the surface temperature data, and it does appear to be real and a southern hemisphere event.
http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o252/captdallas2/climate%20stuff/oceaniaTmin.png
Using the BEST Tmin data, someone really curious could come close to locating the “epicenter” of the event.
>Cosmoclimatology
Julian Flood re clouds
The major model for external forcing of clouds and thus climate is from Henrik Svensmark‘s Cosmoclimatology.
Note the impact of galactic cosmic rays (GCR) on cloud condensation nuclei with ultraviolet, sulfur dioxide, ozone and water. e.g.,
Response of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (> 50 nm) to changes in ion-nucleation Svensmark et al. 2012
Note also:
The Antarctic climate anomaly and galactic cosmic rays Svensmark, 2006
Julian Flood | September 19, 2012 at 5:07 am | Reply
“Prediction: windy regions of ocean will warm slower than calm areas.”
That isn’t a prediction it’s a well established fact oil or no oil. Try something like more warming in the northern ocean for same amount of insolation and same average wind speed because the oil damps the rate of evaporative cooling.
Bart R –
I’ll ignore your catatonia and dyslexia with regard to my reasoning ability for a moment, and make a point for the benefit of other commenters here.
If you understand economics, NO tax is ever truly “revenue neutral.” There is the cost of the bureaucracy associated with it, which for things like a carbon tax may approach the amount of the tax itself (which, regardless of claims to the contrary. is the real purpose of the tax – to support otherwise unproductive bureaucrats). And then there is the issue of inevitable income redistribution, which, as slavery taught us, is theft, plain and simple.
No matter how it is rationalized, all that a carbon tax ultimately does is waste capital. Even if, as you claim, the money is refunded to the taxpayers who paid it, which is a practical impossiibility, there is still the needless cost of running the system – monies that shourely could be better spent elsewhere, not to mention imposing more oppressive regulations on people’s daily lives.
Surely the officialdom who sponsored this exercise in economic illiteracy will deny what I’ve said here, and if they do, they’re lying through their teeth.
Chad Wozniak | September 19, 2012 at 5:19 am |
Again, you reveal the depth of ignorance of those who talk without even reading the primary sources, furnishing further evidence for people to judge your reasoning abilities. Perhaps not the benefit you intended them to glean. Also, you may wish to study up on the psychobabble: dyslexia and catatonia don’t appear to mean what you think they mean, judging by your usage. If you wish, I can connect you to support websites for people afflicted by these conditions, whom I am certain will appreciate your sensitivity.
The BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax isn’t a tax in the usual sense. The marginal cost associated with administration is tiny, as it was folded into pre-existing bureaucracy; in point of fact, by reducing tax churn, the BC Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax pays for its own puny marginal administrative costs by reducing the effective interest on tax. Look it up.
Also, what do you know about what slavery taught ‘us’? Personally? From family history? Something you read about? This polemics of yours is too banal. Give up sermonizing about the suffering of peoples whose descendents disagree with your position. Try using facts instead of arguments from emotion that you have not the slightest plausible connection to or right to invoke.
The redistribution that’s going on is from the many who own an inalienable inherent share in the air — in the Carbon Cycle — to those few who burn excess carbon for no good reason or for personal lucrative benefit. That’s called “Free Riding”. Look it up.
I understand you prefer to fear-monger some socialist left-wing one-world-government conspiracy theory over dealing with the way things really are, but can you stop insulting our intelligence by presuming anyone would be so ill-informed and relentlessly gullible as to fall for such transparent propaganda?
Bart R –
The only people here who are coddling crime are the cowards in the UK government who refused to prosecute the Climategate frauds – and the AGW scaremongers who apologize for people who lie on their applications for government grant money and use that money for their political campaigning and hackwork. THOSE actions are the real crimes – they are ILLEGAL, for good reason – and by covering for the people who do these things the AGW crowd are the ones coddling crime.
Before you make such accusations you’d better get your facts straight. I don’t see, and I imagine my fellow skeptics also don’t see, any evidence of crime coddling amongst us. Your accusations, along with all the other fascistic rubbish put out by the AGW crowd, place the lot of you squarely on the wrong side of the ideological and moral divide.
Skeptics are not one single entity, so youd all have your own individual criminal behaviors. I was at the UN office the other week, we are working on a set of laws wrt criminalizing climate denial.
Do you know yet, what color armbands we’ll be wearing?
bwdave
The zippiest armbands (now no longer available) were those red ones with a white circle including a silly-looking black cross.
They lost popularity and red ones with a sickle and hammer were in vogue for a few years. These have also become “out”.
The current fad appears to be moving to green.
Max
lolwot | September 19, 2012 at 5:53 am said: -”I was at the UN office the other week, we are working on a set of laws wrt criminalizing climate”
lolwot, if one denies that the climate is changing, doesn’t need criminal penalty – needs to be taken to a Funny -Farm. We ”DENY that is any GLOBAL warming – because isn’t one; and I can prove it
lolwot,, you need criminal penalty, as a Grim-Ripper – for you is every day of the year Halloween; BOO! How many children did you scared last week?!.. Another 88years, brimstone and petulance!!! What about if you can predict which lottery number is going to win next week…? That would be much easier; and you don’t have to sponge taxpayer’s cash.
lolwot
How about laws criminalizing “freedom of speech”?
Are you working on that as well?
Max
Chad Wozniak | September 19, 2012 at 5:46 am |
Which is it, fascistic or left wing? They’re opposites, you know.
Also, in Inhofe a coward? Because he certainly was stopped dead in his tracks persecuting (or you may prefer prosecuting, at least in public) Mann by the simple fact that there was no criminal activity that could bring a conviction. I know it’s hard to let go when you felt you were so close, but you have to face reality: Climategate has had its day, its inquiries were held, blames assigned, penalties meted out, procedural changes made, and everyone rational has moved on. Imitate them.
And .. do you not get the irony of spouting nonsensical, barely grammatical, defamations so rantingly and then saying, “Before you make such accusations you’d better get your facts straight”?
Also, though I am a skeptic, and by objective standards far more skeptical than you, I don’t count you as a fellow, if you so disparage Market Capitalism ideology and morality; you may be surprised how few do, behind your back.
Since you cite Inhofe, listen to Senator Inhofe in his own words.
See his Environment and Public Works Minority web site Welcome to the Inhofe EPW Press Office
This Inhofe?
No. See Monckton’s description of the IPCC spade.
See the unedited Inhofe
Lord Monckton also has an eloquent way of presenting the issues.
David L. Hagen | September 20, 2012 at 12:27 am |
Lord Monckton also has an eloquent way of presenting the issues.
Yes. It’s called lying.
“Lying” implies self-awareness and deception.
But Monckton is far too stupid to understand how stupid he really is.
“Making sh*t up for money” works for me.
Bart R
I find you provide no evidence for your accusation and thus fail your elementary burden of justification.
Proverbs 26:2 NIV
Can you raise yourself to study classical logic and rhetoric, evaluate the evidence, and understand the constructs and arguments?
Rise to be a man and address the facts, logic, and derivations, not the man!
David L. Hagen | September 22, 2012 at 11:11 pm |
To prove lies?
Look, Monckton’s been bearing false witness for decades, professionally. He’s a Lord, and he’s paid for speaking on topics, both of which put him in the position of a sophisticated party, which means no one ever has to prove Monckton knows what he’s saying is false to prove he’s lying.
All that is necessary is to show Monckton says untrue things. Period.
His position puts added onus on him to ensure he is truthful.
You are familiar with the expression, “false witness”, right?
And don’t go trying to snow me about DDT or malaria. I did due diligence to confirm the facts in the link I posted before I posted it, even though I’m neither a Lord nor professionally paid to offer my views. Save your own false witnessing for the Monckton fanboys. They’ll believe anything.
On the last day, you will be held accountable for every word you say.
http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/monckton-lies-again-and-again-and-again-and-again-the-continuing-saga-of-a-practicer-of-fiction/
There’s a point to the denouncement of ad hominem attacks as fallacious; however I do not say Christopher Monckton smells funny or cheats on his partner. I say he lies. This is a matter of established fact.
I do not curse him. Indeed, I do not cite religious scripture in open attacks of a religious nature. I correct the character testimonial giving credence to a man who has so defiled every precept of credibility as to abandon any refuge or shelter protecting him from the calumnies his prevarications obtain.
Monckton’s lies have done him in. All I do it remind readers of this well-founded, often proven, publicly known fact.
Bart R
To prove lies, you must prove both that the statements are false AND that the speaker knew that they were false before stating them.
You have done neither. Consider very carefully the quantifiable facts and your ability/inability to show clear moral intent, before you make such accusations.
DDT v Malaria is much more complicated.
Deaths from malaria are ignored or strongly under reported.
e.g., See: 3 billion and counting
Application of the Malaria Management Model to the Analysis of Costs and Benefits of DDT versus Non-DDT Malaria Control
DDT and Malaria Prevention: Addressing the Paradox
India Malaria Deaths Under reported
DDT
Best case? Extraordinary restrictions on the rights of the people to life, liberty and property require solid, quality evidence. The stampede to consensus is littered with the remains of so many remarkably shoddy studies and assessments because the process is bereft of any quality standards.
The case for warming has no credibility because the proponents lack integrity — integrity in terms of quality processes, integrity in terms of personal honesty, and integrity in terms of policing the corruption of others.
The 3 studies used most often around the world to push global warming on the public are: 1) the hockey stick, 2) Rahmstorf’s “worse than we thought”, and 3) Monnet’s polar bear mess.
’nuff said. Credibility exited stage left. Integrity has left the building.
Phony IPCC claim of accelerated rate of sea level rise
(Also taken from Paul Matthews compilation and modified slightly to stay within the 750-word limit)
The IPCC claims a faster rate in sea level rise in the period 1993-2003 (3.1 mm/year) compared with 1961-2003 (1.8 mm/yr), see WG1 SPM p 5,7, table SPM1. To make this claim, the IPCC have employed two misleading tricks simultaneously – (a) compare a short period with a longer period (in a record that shows strong cyclical variability), (b) change the measurement technique and scope.
Prior to 1993 IPCC uses the tide gauge record of sea level, which records measurements at several shorelines; in 1993 this was changed to satellite altimetry, which measures the entire ocean (except locations near shorelines, which cannot be captured by satellite altimetry). The change in method results in an apparent acceleration of sea level rise over previous longer time periods, which IPCC attributes to AGW, throwing out the tide gauge record, which shows significant fluctuations but no such acceleration.
To compare one set of results using one method over one time period (prior to 1993) with another set of results using a different method over another time period (after 1993) and then using this cobbled-together record to claim an accelerating trend between the two time periods is bad science, at best, especially if the record for the latter time period which uses the same method for both periods and shows no acceleration is ignored.
These false claims are repeated in the main body of AR4 WG1, in section 5.5. On page 409 it is stated that
with no supporting evidence. This last statement is contradicted by the papers by Holgate and Woodworth and by Douglas below.
Comparing two periods of similar time length and using the same methodology, Holgate found based on the long-range (1904–2003) tide gauge record that
Later on in chapter 5 (p 413), the authors acknowledge that there has been no acceleration, but attempt to rationalize this:
The IPCC authors appear to be in denial of the facts – they ‘know’ that sea level rise must be accelerating, and if the data doesn’t show it, then there must be something wrong with the data. They then make the unscientific comparison of two different time periods using two different scopes and methods of measurement to claim an acceleration between the two.
Using several different observations over the same 1993-2003 time period, Wunsch et al. found a rise of 1.6 mm/year, but added the caveat:
The chart below shows the extended sea level record, with the large decadal variations, and various estimates of the rate for the specific 1993-2003 time period cited by IPCC in AR4 WG1.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3144596227_545227fbae_b.jpg
Research papers on this subject include:
– J. Church and N. J. White, A 20th century acceleration in global sea level rise, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L01602 (2006). They find a minute acceleration in sea level rise (0.013 mm/yr/yr).
– B. C. Douglas, Global sea level acceleration, J. Geophys. Res., 97, 12,699–12,706 (1992). He finds no acceleration (despite his title!) and in fact finds a slight deceleration of -0.011 mm/yr/yr. “Thus there is no evidence for an apparent acceleration in the past 100+ years”.
– S. J. Holgate and P. L. Woodworth, Evidence for enhanced coastal sea level rise during the 1990s, Geophys. Res. Lett. 31, L07305 (2004).
– S. J. Holgate, On the decadal rates of sea level change during the twentieth century, Geophys. Res. Lett. 34, L01602 (2007).
– C. Wunsch, R.M. Ponte, P. Heimbach, Decadal Trends in Sea Level Patterns: 1993-2004, J. Clim. 5889 (2007)
Max
four leap seconds have been added in the past fifteen years.
fourteen leap seconds were added in 1972 through 1987.
spin rate of earth is faster now than then. that does mean that the oceans have dropped compared to then.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page28.html
ice volume has increased and in some more years, this ice that is at the heads of glaciers and ice pack will advance and cool the earth again as it did after the snow that fell in the warm part of the Medieval Warm Period.
Today WUWT/Anthony Watts posted yet another refutation of Stephan Lewandowsky’s thesis that climate-change denialism is linked to obsessive conspiracy-theoretic cognition …
This is WUWT/Anthony’s sixteenth post condemning Lewandowsky’s thesis. WUWT indeed? :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Meanwhile the USCG icebreaker Healy, sailing at 80° north, is may finally seeing the earliest signs of the 2012 Arctic freeze-up … a freeze-up that is mighty late and mighty far north. :shock: :shock: :shock:
“This is WUWT/Anthony’s sixteenth post condemning Lewandowsky’s thesis. WUWT indeed?”
______
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Max_OK
Hey, Maxie, take it easy on Anthony.
When you’ve got a good thing going and are on a roll, you’d be crazy not to play it to the hilt, right?
Max (not from OK)
My skepticism is mostly related to WG2, I have not many issues with WG1.
To synthetize my opinion of WG1 would be to say that they don’t observe the Einstein’s recommendation : “Make it as simple as possible but not simpler.
WG1 made it much much simpler.
The penalty for that is loss of predictive skills.
For me the starting point is to recognize the system for what it is – a non linear dynamical dissipative system perpetually out of equilibrium and never in steady state.
An example of such a system even if much simpler is fluid dynamics and its governing equations, Navier-Stokes.
Such systems represent spatio-temporal chaos and this has been known for more than 50 years.
I will not repost links to papers which prove existence of attractors for Navier Stokes solutions in Hilbert spaces which are a characteristic of such systems, I already did so several times.
A hint of such an attractor is given by the observation that the temperature field (yes one has to consider the whole fields, averages are irrelevant) has been constrained to a rather small interval (the norm that has to be used here is the Hilbert space norm) for billions of years.
Of course the temperature field is just an example and not the most important one because for the whole space of solutions one has to consider among others pressure and velocity fields which are more difficult.
From the paradigm point of view ,Tsonis work is nearest to consider the system as spatio temporal chaos. I have some difficulties with Tsonis too, especially because his choice of indexes necessitates a belief that these few arbitrary indexes somehow magically capture the dynamical behaviour of the WHOLE spatial component of the fields what is far from certain. But at least it goes in the right direction.
From that follows among others that the system doesn’t “return to some equilibriums” because the thermodynamical equilibrium points are not on the attractor. Equally notions of “sensibility” relating the energy field to the temperature field is not a constant but a function of time and space.
Giving just a single number is so oversimplified that it is useless.
Finally the important conclusion is that such a system is deterministic but unpredictable, e.g you cannot find a unique solution for the non linear partial equations describing it.
This is an impossibility of principle – it doesn’t matter what is the power of computers or the accuracy of the numerical models.
So what stays then are only stochastical approaches. But here the key is ergodicity and I have written much about this notion, trying to explain why it is fundamental.
To avoid repetitions, an ergodic chaotic system GUARANTEES the existence of an invariant PDF of the dynamical states on the attractor.
It doesn’t of course mean that it is easy to find but at least one knows that it exists and so, by definition, there is a chance to find it.
Ergodicity provides a foundation for the notion of “ensemble averages” because the ergodic theorem is precisely a statement about averages in the phase space (“ensemble averages”).
It is here that is situated my skepticism of WG1 – I do not see any serious work trying to prove that the climate system is ergodic.
And of course if it isn’t (many spatio temporal chaotic systems indeed are not ergodic) then any method using “ensemble averages” fails.
For all these reasons I don’t see the WG1 able to make any deterministic predictions for the climate relevant fields at long centenial time scales.
As for being able to give the invariant PDFs for the future states (e.g “uncertainty bars”) it is worse – they didn’t start working on that seriously yet and don’t even know if they exist.
Finally WG1 is work in progress and still far from the point where some semi reliable predictions on centenial scales can be made.
Btw just for the record – radiative physics, quantum mechanical absorption/emission processes and energy conservation are totally irrelevant to what I wrote above.
These fields are century old established physics that every physicists knows well and which stay basic regardless whether they are in some WG1 or not.
actually there are quite a few (some rather prominent) crackpots who contest QM and the Copenhagen interpretation but that discussion would be off topic :)
Tomas said that ‘averages are irrelevant’.
This is a most bizarre statement and makes his ensuing argument completely irrelevant.
Tomas along with Lubos Motl is the smartest the skeptic team has but they make rookie mistakes.
WebHubTelescope | September 19, 2012 at 7:49 am | Reply
“Tomas along with Lubos Motl is the smartest the skeptic team has but they make rookie mistakes.”
Really? According to who?
WHT
Tomas Milanovic provided a logical reasoning path that many of us – including me, and, most likely you – are unable to follow completely, but the key “take home” conclusion I understood very well was:
This pretty much tells it all to me.
In layman terms this is like: “OK, guys, this baby won’t fly – back to the drawing board.”
Max
“Tomas along with Lubos Motl is the smartest the skeptic team has……..”
Well, I don’t know about that. But anyway, the important thing is whether they are the smartest the scientific team as a whole have? What are their major contributions to climate science?
Temp, I think it is more, “What is their contribution to applying their science.”
They tend to fly into discussions of phase space and butterfly wings instead of throwing raw meat to the crowd.
Like,
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Hopf-bif.gif
“Just like a rogue wave in the oceans, a seemingly normal wave colliding with a saddle or standing wave can produce a wave of twice the magnitude of either wave. Energy travels in waves and can synchronize in the same manner.”
You know, some in your face non-linear dynamics in a non-equilibrium semi-reversible dissipative system with kick butt oscillations of microsecond to millennial duration! Model this beyatch :)
Or they could link to stuff like this,
http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/12/13/2005/npg-12-13-2005.pdf
I should point out that the skeptic team consists of bloggers and others that are on the periphery.
I am still waiting for Tomas to give us a toy model which shows that the earth’s average thermal energy won’t change given a forcing function change. He apparently claims that the chaotic motions will counteract any change due to a forcing function. A toy model shouldn’t be too hard to create if he draws from all these fundamental principles that he claims governs the dynamics of the system.
Tomas has no time to trifle with linear no threshold peons than can’t visualize a thermally asymmetrical liquid planet with symmetrical chaotic atmospheric energy distribution and the variety of internal oscillations possible with the numerous thermodynamic and fluid boundaries.
Suggested reading, http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/12/13/2005/npg-12-13-2005.pdf
O r some word salad if you like :)
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/states-of-climate.html
http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2012/09/states-of-climate-ii.html
‘We construct a network of observed climate indices in the period 1900–2000 and investigate their collective behavior. The results indicate that this network synchronized several times in this period. We find that in those cases where the synchronous state was followed by a steady increase in the coupling strength between the indices, the synchronous state was destroyed, after which a new climate state emerged. These shifts are associated with significant changes in global temperature trend and in ENSO variability. The latest such event is known as the great climate shift of the 1970s. We also find the evidence for such type of behavior in two climate simulations using a state-of-the-art model. This is the first time that this mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of the size and complexity of the climate system.’ </i)
Tsonis, A. A., K. Swanson, and S. Kravtsov (2007), A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L13705, doi:10.1029/2007GL030288.
‘Proxy and instrumental records reflect a quasi-cyclic 50-to-80-year climate signal across the Northern Hemisphere, with particular presence in the North Atlantic. Modeling studies rationalize this variability in terms of intrinsic dynamics of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation influencing distribution of sea-surface-temperature anomalies in the Atlantic Ocean; hence the name Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). By analyzing a lagged covariance structure of a network of climate indices, this study details the AMO-signal propagation throughout the Northern Hemisphere via a sequence of atmospheric and lagged oceanic teleconnections, which the authors term the “stadium wave”. Initial changes in the North Atlantic temperature anomaly associated with AMO culminate in an oppositely signed hemispheric signal about 30 years later. Furthermore, shorter-term, interannual-to-interdecadal climate variability alters character according to polarity of the stadium-wave-induced prevailing hemispheric climate regime. Ongoing research suggests mutual interaction between shorter-term variability and the stadium wave, with indication of ensuing modifications of multidecadal variability within the Atlantic sector. Results presented here support the hypothesis that AMO plays a significant role in hemispheric and, by inference, global climate variability, with implications for climate-change attribution and prediction.
Wyatt, Marcia Glaze , Sergey Kravtsov, and Anastasios A. Tsonis, 2011: Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and Northern Hemisphere’s climate variability Climate Dynamics: DOI: 10.1007/s00382-011-1071-8.
In a post on this study.
‘Climate is ultimately complex. Complexity begs for reductionism. With reductionism, a puzzle is studied by way of its pieces. While this approach illuminates the climate system’s components, climate’s full picture remains elusive. Understanding the pieces does not ensure understanding the collection of pieces. This conundrum motivates our study.
Our research strategy focuses on the collective behavior of a network of climate indices. Networks are everywhere – underpinning diverse systems from the world-wide-web to biological systems, social interactions, and commerce. Networks can transform vast expanses into “small worlds”; a few long-distance links make all the difference between isolated clusters of localized activity and a globally interconnected system with synchronized [1] collective behavior; communication of a signal is tied to the blueprint of connectivity. By viewing climate as a network, one sees the architecture of interaction – a striking simplicity that belies the complexity of its component detail.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/guest-post-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-and-northern-hemisphere%E2%80%99s-climate-variability-by-marcia-glaze-wyatt-sergey-kravtsov-and-anastasios-a-tsonis/
Chaos theory is not choatic motion – the latter I assume is something like randomness or stochsticity. Statistical properties of simple systems. But the above per reviewed papers provide ‘toy models’ of networks or nodes that show the behaviour of the underlying dynamically complex system.
‘This is the first time that this mechanism, which appears consistent with the theory of synchronized chaos, is discovered in a physical system of the size and complexity of the climate system.’ The clues were there – easy to see after the fact – but this is an an astonishing discovery.
Its interesting that, in response to Tomas’s post, we’ve had comments like:
” I expect I understand perhaps 1% of what you are saying.”
and
” I consider that there would be only a handful on this planet who fully understands what Tomas is saying”
But even though people don’t seem to have a clue what he’s on about, they certainly do seem to like, or claim they like, what he’s saying. Is it a bit like claiming to like the music of Shoenberg or Cage maybe?
Or maybe not. I think they like phrases like “non linear dynamical dissipative system” and “ergodic theorem is precisely a statement about averages in the phase space “. Now I’m not sure just how much validity there is in these comments, but the message itself is clear enough, and it is that the Earth’s climate is just so complex and so complicated that there’s just no hope of ever knowing what will happen if CO2 levels double or even treble . It can be further reduced to ‘because we cannot know everything therefore we know nothing so who’s to say high CO2 concentrations mean anything at all? ‘.
If Tomas is convinced that this should also be the view of mainstream science then he needs to start writing papers for peer review to test out his ideas in the normal way.
When he’s done that he should perhaps look at how the really good top scientists actually engage with the public. I’ve always been struck by just how intelligible they can make it all seem when presenting their lectures. It’s hard to imagine ever feeling that way about a TM lecture.
i>’The admission of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. Socrates
You should admit ignorance TT – you have such a lot to admit to. If we were stuck with accepting such science as you understand it – it would be a sorry state. But I have linked another few peer reviewed studies from very reputable journals just above. I don’t think it is all that difficult – by ‘viewing climate as a network, one sees the architecture of interaction – a striking simplicity that belies the complexity of its component detail’. But it is in pedagogic terms a threshold concept. A concept that must be mastered before broader aspects of the discipline can be appreciated. A threshold concept is:
•Transformative: Once understood, a threshold concept changes the way in which the student views the discipline.
•Troublesome: Threshold concepts are likely to be troublesome for the student. Perkins has suggested that knowledge can be troublesome e.g. when it is counter-intuitive, alien or seemingly incoherent.
•Irreversible: Given their transformative potential, threshold concepts are also likely to be irreversible, i.e. they are difficult to unlearn.
•Integrative: Threshold concepts, once learned, are likely to bring together different aspects of the subject that previously did not appear, to the student, to be related.
•Bounded: A threshold concept will probably delineate a particular conceptual space, serving a specific and limited purpose.
•Discursive: Meyer and Land [10] suggest that the crossing of a threshold will incorporate an enhanced and extended use of language.
•Reconstitutive: “Understanding a threshold concept may entail a shift in learner subjectivity, which is implied through the transformative and discursive aspects already noted. Such reconstitution is, perhaps, more likely to be recognised initially by others, and also to take place over time (Smith)”.
•Liminality: Meyer and Land [12] have likened the crossing of the pedagogic threshold to a ‘rite of passage’ (drawing on the ethnographical studies of Gennep and Turner in which a transitional or liminal space has to be traversed; “in short, there is no simple passage in learning from ‘easy’ to ‘difficult’; mastery of a threshold concept often involves messy journeys back, forth and across conceptual terrain. (Cousin [6])”.
http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/thresholds.html
No one likes modern classical. But I love Frank Zappa. Once I realised how deep Zappa’s roots go into modern classical – it was a bit transformative.
Couldn’t resist the Norman Gunstan interview. Norman is an Aussie cultural icon in his own right.
The most important post on this thread and the only reply is a dismissive post by WHT? Sometimes science is hard.
To be honest, I consider that there would be only a handful on this planet who fully understands what Tomas is saying. I do not claim to be one of them.
“For me the starting point is to recognize the system for what it is – a non linear dynamical dissipative system perpetually out of equilibrium and never in steady state.”
If it’s warm today, it doesn’t mean it will as warm or warmer tomorrow.
Applies locally or globally.
Clouds can add stability, in terms of temperature but cloud aren’t stable, high pressure systems can somewhat stable, differences of terrain will add instability.
Earth is basically a heat engine, but has water in the fuel lines.
“From that follows among others that the system doesn’t “return to some equilibriums” because the thermodynamical equilibrium points are not on the attractor.”
Hmm, earth isn’t trying to be a certain temperature??
Not sure what means by attractor. Earth has a limits to surface
temperatures- such limits to skin temperature commonly reached. Earth dominated by ocean, it’s max skin temperature close to air temperature, land max skin temperature is not close to it’s air temperature- ocean large controls global temperature- it is global temperature. The instablity of tropical ocean is due to cold polar water- without it, they would be stable and warm uniformity throughout. But such stability [I guess] would would crash eventually- it seems the little instabilities add stability- which similar in general to all biological systems.
“So what stays then are only stochastical approaches. But here the key is ergodicity and I have written much about this notion, trying to explain why it is fundamental.
To avoid repetitions, an ergodic chaotic system GUARANTEES the existence of an invariant PDF of the dynamical states on the attractor.
It doesn’t of course mean that it is easy to find but at least one knows that it exists and so, by definition, there is a chance to find it.
Ergodicity provides a foundation for the notion of “ensemble averages” because the ergodic theorem is precisely a statement about averages in the phase space (“ensemble averages”).”
What makes earth cool. That would seem to be what I think is meant by an attractor. At least during this Ice Age we are in.
Thanks gbaikie for elucidating some of Tomas’ main points. You have made things clearer to me and I’m sure, many others as well.
Chief mentioned in a post above that some form of reductionism will need to be done in order to unravel many of the complexities in the climate system.
I also believe that non-linear systems can also be discretised so as to enable conventional ODE’s to be substituted for PDF’s that do not yield solutions.
Sure, many assumptions need to be made but steady application of this process will progressively add to the sum total of our knowledge over time.
Sorry PDE’s not PDF’s
I responded to Tomas below.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/18/skeptics-make-your-best-case-part-ii/#comment-242194
Like I said, he makes rookie mistakes.
Always a breath of fresh air Tomas – although I feel like professing many worlds just to be contrarian.
BTW webtubcolonoscope – way to put a densely reasoned and cogent agument.
Hidden variables for me.
???
Tomas
You appear to be describing the weather not the climate. Never in equilibrium? The earth has experienced periods of hundreds of millions at a stretch where the climate was constant. That doesn’t sound very far from equilibrium to me. While it’s true in a sense it never reaches equilibrium it’s in the sense that no ideal black body exists in nature either. It’s a matter of whether it gets close enough to equilibrium so there’s no practical distinction from perfection.
The attractors, by the way, are phase transition points of water and latent energy therein the speedbumps. Quauntum physics in this discussion is a red herring and the Copenhagen interpretation is a wonderful example of a bandwagon. Physics is incomplete. What’s the consensus on dark energy these days? And are you still pushing that inflation hack in the early universe? And what’s up with the seasonal change in radioactive decay rates noted by many labs around the world? In the words of Ricky Ricardo, you quantum physicists have some ‘splainin to do.
David Springer | September 21, 2012 at 6:23 am said: ”You appear to be describing the weather not the climate”
David, weather is climate! Because they succeeded to brainwash you all; that climate is same thing as the phony GLOBAL warmings – that doesn’t mean that climate has nothing to do with the wet / dry weather – extreme cold / hot days / nights. It only means that: you are wrong on more things than you can comprehend.
Tomas Milanovic,
Thank you for your comment. It’s interesting, although I expect I understand perhaps 1% of what you are saying. However, this bit has passed my BS meter:
I’ll make a big leap and say that this means dramatic changes of climate are totally unpredictable and could occur any time whether the planet is warmer or cooler, and whether it is warming or cooling. We know this anyway from the paleoclimate data.
However, we also know we are better off warming than cooling, and if we had to make a choice between warmer or cooler, we’d choose warmer.
We also know that the areal extent of ice sheets can expand and contract rapidly. Ice sheets in the polar regions and increases the sensitivity of the climate and increases the speed of climate change and the amplitude of climate change. Climate changes are slower and the amplitude smaller when there is less or no ice at the poles. See James Hansen’s Figure 1 here: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110118_MilankovicPaper.pdf
Given this, it seems clear we should not waste our money on mitigation polices that inevitably have negligible probability of reducing the risk of sudden climate changes.
Furthermore, taking everything into consideration, we are better off to be warmer than cooler.
And another point, Pekka Pirila, Faustino and others have been arguing, forcefully, that any economic forecasts that run beyond a decade are virtually useless.
Put all this together, and I’d say we should stop wasting money on high cost, economically irrational mitigation policies.
Bjorn Lomborg has been making the case for over a decade.
We have a potential viable option for massively reducing CO2 emissions – nuclear power – but it is not yet acceptable. When these advocating mitigation but blocking progress to remove the impediments to low cost nuclear, stop blocking progress, we’ll be able to cut emissions without damaging the economies of the world.
What case has to be made? There is a problem either with the data or the understanding. I don’t know where the problem is but the people responsible need to figure it out before they should request that the rest of us take their projections seriously.
What happened to the cooling stratosphere being the “fingerprint” of AGW?
Why did about half of the increase of the OHC of the upper oceans between 1980 and the present occur in about a one year period that just happens to coincide with when the calibration to the ARGO system occurred?
Why does the most recent water vapor data show no atmospheric increase?
How come it takes CO2 takes 300 years to achieve equilibrium yet solar is expected to have achieved equilibrium and provides negative forcing the moment you get a slightly weaker solar cycle?
Why is heat transport incapable of making a difference now yet you will argue that a change in heat transport made a profound difference in the YD event?
Does AGW cause colder or warmer winters? Hurricanes? Tornadoes? More snow? Less snow? Floods? Droughts? Will I stub my toe more often due to global warming?
Get your act together and get back to us in the general public. We are patiently awaiting a cohesive hypothesis that doesn’t change every 5 minutes based upon the latest weather events. Don’t take too long. Don’t forget you have a world to save.
… and once more into the fray.
… and once more into the fray.
Best case argument against CAGW theory: Violation of thermodynamic steady-state constraints for the dissipation of energy fluxes in thermal gradients.
1. The existence of such constraints is terra incognito for every climate scientist and wannabe.
2. These constraints cover the totality of thermal energy transport mechanisms, make no presumptions of linearity and are 3-dimensional. Mathematically, they are phenomenological consequences of applying the theorem of the divergence to a system for which a non-divergent flux functional exists, thereby reducing a 3-d integral to a surface integral.
3. The classic example is energy dissipation due to a coulomb flux in electric potential gradients, W=J(V1 – V2), a surface integral in which J is the non-divergent flux normal to two surface regions of specified potential. This constraint says nothing about what’s within the surface and makes no presumption about the functional relation of flux to potential, only assuming a steady-state exists within for profiles of potential and current.
4. A corresponding expression can be derived for energy transport in thermal gradients with vector calculus. (Hint: the relevant non-divergent flux functional to be derived is the free energy flux divided by the absolute temperature).
5. The Manabe adjustment does not yield a steady-state thermal profile. Were one to create such a profile in a thermodynamic system for the given boundary conditions, it would relax towards a steady-state with a significantly lower surface temperature.
This is probably all gibberish to the majority of commentarians here, but there may remain a few lurkers functionally literate in physical science.
pdq
My proof that the global warming rate has not accelerated as shown by IPCC climate models (http://bit.ly/OaemsT ) after 1965 is the sea level rise (http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/2sources.jpg ) that does not show the corresponding acceleration.
*More* or less…
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/19578206/fake-gold-bars-turn-up-in-manhattan
we need to see things for what they *are*?;o)
Rough translation:
The heat transfer between the various thermodynamic boundary layers are not properly considered in the coupled ocean/atmosphere models. As a result, AOGCM over estimate atmospheric climate sensitivity, by not properly modeling 70% of the surface and 99.9% of the global thermal mass that interacts with the atmosphere.
Steven, please be aware that climate scientists have worked hard to heed your request! :) :) :)
To the degree that rational skeptics have read-and-reflected upon the aggregate scientific evidence, their rational skepticism has been materially abated, eh? :) :) :)
As for non-rational, ideology-first, conspiracy-theoretic denialists … heck, no-one foresees that these folks will ever let go of their numerous, various, conspiracy-centric worldviews.
On the other hand, neither is it likely that the conspiracy theorists will ever agree upon one over-arching super-conspiracy … will … they … !!! :lol: :shock: :lol:
Ain’t that plain common-sense, Steven? :) :) :)
Oops … conspiracy-theory linkey! ;)
Fan, common sense is you either understand the system or you don’t. If you have to constantly change your hypothesis based upon current events you don’t understand the system. Understand?
With respect, Steven, very few scientists would agree, and no Bayesians, and definitely not the Pope! ;) ;) ;)
Uhhh … unless they’re all colluding in the Great Conspiracy, that is! :lol: :lol: :lol:
Fan? What conspiracy? The oil company money conspiracy? Address my points if you wish but don’t bother me with innuendos regarding my motivations.
Locally, heat transport is perpetually dynamic, and yet via the First and Second Laws we *can* reliably predict earth’s energy imbalance and implications .
The fundamental ideas of climate-change science are simple, Steven! ;) ;) ;)
The Earth climate is a non-equilibrium thermodynamic system. It has many extensive properties that mean that the 2nd law – the production of entropy – is not simple but complex. Ultimately the 1st law will always work.
50/50 work for you FOMBS? :cool:
Fan, and the point I have made that you intended this to refute is?
First, thanks to Mosh for the history of Lukewarmerism, from the father thereof. As Churchill once said during World War II “History will treat me kindly, for I intend to write it.” But that didn’t make his account useless by any means. (Though it needed correcting of course, notably when the cabinet papers for May 1940 were released, showing the extent of the opposition from the most powerful in the land to Churchill in his first week in seeking to fight on – something he greatly downplayed but makes his efforts all the more heroic. In this he’s treated more kindly now. Magnanimous indeed.)
Second, has anyone on Climate Etc commented on how the PBS piece Climate Change Skeptic No Longer Doubts Human Role in Global Warming introduces Dr Curry as a sceptic who is critical of Muller on attribution. Nothing untoward about that except the label – followed at once on screen by Judith’s academic credentials beside her effective comments. As someone who is a sceptic about all the labels this interested me. The most important takeaway point: the MSM is beginning to tell the story with ‘sceptics’ a combination of Watts (who also declined the label) and Curry. A sign of significant progess in the debate, of not in the precision of the labels.
Richard Drake
“Labels”, such as “warmer”, denier” or “skeptic” are silly and usually wrong.
But here is a more appropriate one for our hostess:
Judith Curry is a climate “realist”
Definitions (from on-line dictionary):
This would be opposed to a climate “idealist”, where
and an “idealist” is defined as:
These would be “neutral” definitions, as they do not presuppose that either category is “good” or “evil”, “intelligent” or “stupid”, or acting primarily in self-interest or for some other ulterior motive.
Would you agree?
Max
Well, I like it but I don’t expect any “idealist” to adopt it :)
Moderators,
I had a posted reply to tonyb which has vanished without trace. Perhaps you could look in the spam bin as it had several links.
TIA (Ta in advance).
JF
Perhaps the best case is to wait and see for a few years, and see what temperatures do. As we are now extremely unlikelyto actually see any overall global co2 reductions, China India and the devloping world made that quite clear at Copenhagen, and even Germany is building coal fired power station, in an endeavour to keep the lights on, and electricity cheap enough for industry.
Then I think, waiting and seeing, is what will happen (despite many claims, that we can’t afford to wait) waiting and seeing, is what will happen due to economics and politics (and Chinas emmssion and global co2 will continue to grow)
Thus to my point:
If after 8 years (ie by 2020) we do not see any particulalry large increase (or reduction) of more than + or – 0.1C (or even + – 1.5C) would it be safe to assume that the model assumptions over state warming, and that sensitivity is low (or feed back are only weakly positive or even weakly negative)
ie.. when this graph has 8 years more data on it, and perhaps is still plateaud or + 0.1C
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/_nhshgl.gif
Will the politicians care?
Hopefully we can agree that graph is from an impecable source ;-)
Will everyone still be demanding urgent action?
As no action I think will be taken on emmisions by any of the major emitting countries in at least the next 8 years, wait and see is just going to happen.
Whether anyone likes it or not.
Excuse me, but is this thread for CAGW skeptics or AGW skeptics?
A significant difference, don’t you agree?
Personally, I am a CAGW skeptic, but a don’t care one wit about AGW.
John Silver
You raise a very important point.
It is for “CAGW” skeptics, i.e. those who are skeptical of the IPCC premise that most of the observed global warming since 1950 can be attributed to increased concentrations of human GHGs, principally CO2, and that this represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment, unless actions are undertaken to drastically curtail the emissions of GHGs, principally CO2.
I also am not skeptical of AGW per se and, like you, don’t care a wit about it, either.
Max
Here is the proof (observation) that climate models are incorrect.
IPCC projections for 0.2 deg C per decade warming for the next two decades => http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-ts-26.html
My model shows a plateau for the next two decades => http://orssengo.com/GlobalWarming/GmstModel.png
Let me bring this as a new piece. David L. Hagen | September 18, 2012 at 10:41 pm
gives me several references of people who have used empirical data to try and measure total climate sensitivity, and I am extremely grateful to you David. Thank you very much indeed.
However, this emphasises one of the points I tried to make originally, and which has got lost in the subsequent discussion. All the references that David produced were written by what can only be described as skeptics. None of them could be classified as proponents of CAGW. So this emphasises my point that none of the proponents of CAGW seem to be interested in using what little empirical data we have, to try and derive a measure of total climate sensitivity, and I have to wonder why.
I have read the posts on this new thread, and there is a common theme running through them. The empirical data does not support CAGW. So the obvious reason why proponents of CAGW stick to what they have been saying for decades, and refuse to look at the empirical data, is that it is obvious to them that the empirical data shows that CAGW is just plain wrong. I can see no other logical reason why any group of advocates would abandon the approach of classical physics, which have worked so well for centuries.
The only reason why proponents of CAGW are not trying to use empiical data to support their case, is that all the empirical data we have, and it is not very much, but all that we have strongly indicates that CAGW is just plain wrong. And according to the scientific method, if the empirical data disagrees with the hypothesis, we abandon the hypothesis.
What a solemn responsibility. I guess I will have to put my Chief Hydrologists hat on – h/t Cecil. As a starting point we can do no better than Newtons 4th rule of natural philosophy which is at the core of modern science.
‘In experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true notwithstanding any contrary hypotheses, until yet other phenomena make such propositions either more exact or liable to exceptions.
This rule should be followed so that arguments based on induction be not be nullified by hypotheses.’
Natural philosophy is of course concerned with the big picture. Proceeding from observation to a theory of everything. An overarching theory that is like a bridge constructed on the foundations of empirical science. As a civil engineer I know that the sturdiness of the bridge is predicated on the soundness of the foundations. Some foundations are comparatively shaky. The NAS Committee on Abrupt Climate Change characterized paleoclimatic data as like feeling around in a dark room to get an idea of the layout. We should be wary therefore of placing too great a load on such an uncertain structure. Things improve with the instrumental record of the scientific enlightenment – and although Newton said that we stand on the shoulders of giants I think rather that we are forever in the debt of many humble workers in the vineyard of science. A 400 year record of sunspots amuses me hugely – but there are many other examples.
My story starts innocently enough with a paper appearing in a volume on geomorphology I came across in an environmental science Masters program in the early 1990’s. Erskine, W.D. and Warner, R.F., 1998, Geomorphic effects of alternating flood- and drought- dominated regimes on NSW coastal streams. In R.F. Warner (ed) Fluvial Geomorphology of Australia, Academic Press, Sydney, p.223-242. The paper commences with a simple observation that these streams changed form in the late 1970’s from a high energy braided form to a low energy meandering form. On examination of the flood records from 1840 – multidecadal periods of high flows and low flows were identified. In the 20th century this included a shift to drought conditions around 1910, to a flood dominated regime in the mid 1940’s and again to drought conditions in the late 1970’s. Intrigued – I began a quest for the source of these mysterious multi-decadal regimes.
ENSO is of course involved as this is the major source of rainfall variability in north eastern Australia – and many other places globally. But the periodicity cannot be reconciled with a 25 year regime. No matter how I struggled with the mechanics of Rossby waves it simply did not fit. A clue came with the description of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation in 1996. Mysteriously – the periodicity of the PDO was exactly that of Australian rainfall regimes. How could sea surface temperature in the north-east Pacific influence decadal rainfall patterns in Australia?
It had been noted for some time that ENSO changed in the late 1970’s to more frequent and intense El Niño. It was thought that this might be a response to a warming world. The shift explained the long drought in Australia that perhaps would continue indefinitely. Knowing that these shifts had happened before – I was inclined to think there was some natural pattern in this and that we might shift back to a flood regime by sometime around the end of the century. By then it was clear that the PDO and ENSO acted in unison – with cold PDO associated with more frequent and intense La Niña and vice versa. The biological response to immense upwelling or cold, nutrient rich water – or not – in the eastern Pacific provided new ways of tracking the phenomenon. Phytoplankton in the central Pacific, sardines or anchovies in Monterey Bay, the weight of seal pups on the west coast of the US, salmon in US streams. By early in the last decade it was clear that the regime had shifted again – although the picture from SST was confused and NASA didn’t declare a shift until 2008. Close enough for Government work I suppose.
Although there were a number of related phenomenon – it explained nothing fundamental. Around 2003 I was looking at the CRU temperature record and it dawned on me – like a tonne of bricks – that the trajectory of surface temperatures reflected exactly the periods of the interrelated hydrological, oceanographic and biological phenomena I had been investigating for more than a decade. I thought about this for three days straight – and then rang a skeptic hydrologist who at least confirmed that I wasn’t going mad on my own. By 2007 I was still thinking that this was purely an energy transfer between the ocean and atmosphere. Papers emerged linking ENSO with TOA power flux in reflected shortwave – so it seemed that cloud radiative forcing was implicated as well. More recent work showed decadal changes in low level marine stratocumulus in the north-eastern Pacific (Clement et al 2009) and in the central-eastern Pacific (Burgmann et al 2008) in both the ICOADS observations and in satellite records. We can consider the latest Dessler paper on cloud feedback to ENSO – using CERES – as confirmation of these cloud dynamics.
The IPCC seems cognizant of the TOA flux record – and the implications for ocean heat content. ‘In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ AR4 s 3.4.4.2
The ERBS and ISCCP-FD records show that all warming in the satellite era was in the short wave. CERES shows that all of the ‘missing energy’ was in less reflected short wave. The conclusion to be drawn seems evident. The practices of many seem less to be in accord with Newtons 4th rule and more – at the most charitable interpretation – confirmation bias.
The story doesn’t end there. The interesting question of what drives both ENSO and the PDO provides answers to the pole to pole interconnectedness of processes in the Earth’s climate system. Subtle differences in sea level pressure at the poles caused by solar variations in TSI and UV drive more or less cold water north and south in the Peruvian and Californian Currents respectively. This dilutes the warm surface layers facilitating the upwelling of cold, subsurface water on the west coast of the Americas – the origin of ENSO and the PDO. TSI and UV are control variables that drive nonlinear feedbacks in the climate system. In the Tsonis formulation ENSO and the PDO are network nodes that – with others – are major modes of climate variability that can be used to illuminate the underlying physics of the system as a whole. It shows that the system is deterministically chaotic – in the sense of theoretical physics – at many scales. This new paradigm of climate science has yet to be widely understood.
Chief,
Let’s see someone formulate an intelligent rebuttal to this. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting, and please don’t shrug.
The science is one thing Joshua. Not interested? Why are you here? No soul – no wonder – no humour? Think of the happy seal pups in Monteray Bay and the salmon leaping in sparkling streams threading a garrison of fat bears.
Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
It is no coincidence that shifts in ocean and atmospheric indices occur at the same time as changes in the trajectory of global surface temperature. Our ‘interest is to understand – first the natural variability of climate – and then take it from there. So we were very excited when we realized a lot of changes in the past century from warmer to cooler and then back to warmer were all natural,’ Tsonis said.
Four multi-decadal climate shifts were identified in the last century coinciding with changes in the surface temperature trajectory. Warming from 1909 to the mid 1940’s, cooling to the late 1970’s, warming to 1998 and declining since. The shifts are punctuated by extreme El Niño Southern Oscillation events. Fluctuations between La Niña and El Niño peak at these times and climate then settles into a damped oscillation. Until the next critical climate threshold – due perhaps in a decade or two if the recent past is any indication.
Robert I Ellison
Chief Hydrologist
Let’s start with the first four sentences, shall we, Chief?
Huh? Why is this orphaned comment directed at me? Oh. I get it. You took insufficient evidence and drew a conclusion. Unlike what a skeptic would do, you underestimated clear uncertainties and made a foolish error in the process
I’ve never said that I’m not interested in the science. In fact, I’ve stated otherwise. I’m here because among my interests is looking at the science.
I’m here to read about the science, and to observe the combatants. I find it interesting to observe how they reason – and in particular I like looking at the climate debate as an object lesson for how people reason in controversies that overlap with political, social, cultural, and personal identifications. I have explained this many times, and you are obviously a dedicated reader of my comments. No doubt, you are asking questions for which you already have read the answers. Apparently, either you think that doing so serves some rhetorical purpose or you have difficulty integrating inf