The science is clear about the reality of global warming and the fact that humans are the dominant cause (see “Absolute MUST Read IPCC Report: Debate over, further delay fatal, action not costly“). But, sadly, that isn’t clear to most Republicans.
Anybody who thinks the public debate is over — anybody who thinks the Big Lie doesn’t work — should look at the latest poll results from the Pew Research Center (here):
The proportion of Americans who say that the earth is getting warmer has decreased modestly since January 2007, mostly because of a decline among Republicans.
Only 49% of Republican now even believe that the earth is warming! Thank you so much deniers, delayers, and mainstream media (see “Media enable denier spin 1: A (sort of) cold January doesn’t mean climate stopped warming” and other links at the end).
Even more worrisome is just how many people don’t believe humans are the cause of warming:
Roughly half of Americans (47%) say the earth is warming because of human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels [and only 27% of Republicans]. But nearly as many people (45%) say that rising global temperatures are either mostly caused by natural environmental patterns (18%), say they do not know the cause of warming (6%), or say that no solid evidence of warming exists (21%).
I’d like to thank the media, especially NBC news, for contributing to this core talking point of the disinformers (See Dateline NBC: “Whatever the cause … global warming is a reality”).
BIG LIE
According to the United States Office of Strategic Services, Hitler’s strategy was based on the view:
In fact, Hitler himself defined the term “Big Lie,” in his autobiography Mein Kempf, as
a lie so “collosal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”
I don’t think this useful term should be a banned from public use just because Hitler defined it first. I certainly apologize to anybody who is upset by the analogy — I’m not trying to compare deniers with Nazis — there is no such comparison possible — nor does it apply to all of the people who advocate one of the 5 myths below. No, the “Big Lie” refers mostly to the strategy of the professional class of those who spread disinformation for a living.
I do think the term gets to a fundamental reason why global warming denial is so effective. The science makes unequivocally clear that the health and well-being of billions of people (and most species) are at grave risk from continued unrestricted human emissions of greenhouse gases (See “Is 450 ppm (or less) politically possible? Part 0: The alternative is humanity’s self-destruction” and “Must Read Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists“).
But who could possibly believe that so many credible-sounding people, including major public leaders in the conservative movement, would so strongly argue that
- The earth is not warming and/or
- Humans are not a major cause of whatever warming is occurring and/or
- The problem is not an urgent one because the impacts are distant and tolerable and/or
- The solution is painful if not impossible with existing technologies anyway and/or
- Adaptation is a better strategy than mitigation.
It is hard to believe — indeed it is almost impossible to believe.
And it has proven almost impossible for the traditional media to deal with (see “Media enable denier spin 2: What if the MSM simply can’t cover humanity’s self-destruction?“)
I don’t have any easy answers to offer in this post. Shaming the traditional media doesn’t seem to work because they are mostly shameless — indeed the vast majority of journalists wear it as a badge of honor that they are criticized equally by “both sides.”
I suppose the only answer is vigilance. The cost of losing is simply too high.
Related Posts:
How can it be possible that only 19% of college-educated Republicans understand that the warming is anthropogenic. That’s shockingly low.
What the hell is going on with science literacy in this country??
Given what’s happened over the past 7 and a half years nothing about republicans shocks me anymore.
How can it be possible that only 19% of college-educated Republicans understand that the warming is anthropogenic. That’s shockingly low.
Many “college educated” Republicans were fratboys who majored in whatever required the least amount of effort to stay off academic probation.
That pretty much rules out any science courses…
Look for attitudes to change once we have a president next year who’s willing to stand up on this issue.
Thanks for this piece, it’s a good reminder that of what we are up against.
@jon: “college” has become a job requirement and “business administration” has quasi-religious aspects, apart from the complication that polemicists have successfully linked opposing CO2 advocacy with opposing darwin.
Joe,
You have broken the law about using Hitler to criticize someone else.
[JR: Rest of comment deleted for gross inappropriateness. I did not use Hitler to criticize someone else. I actually used a term that was first used to describe the actions of a different group. Anyway, there is no such "law," and if there were, it wouldn't apply to now widely-used term "big lie." Assuming that the deniers and delayers continue to win the fight -- that is, we continue to take no action or inadequate action -- "big lie" will be among the mildest of terms future generations will be using to describe the deniers and those who were suckered by them.]
one thing we can do about parisan-politics rolling over big concerns is shorten the electoral cycle. two years of every four being devoted to presidential campaigns is moronic. go for the european 6 weeks and give everybody the other 202 to think about reality as reality is.
> “I suppose the only answer is vigilance.”
Meaning what, exactly, in terms of actions?
I’d like to see more discussion of what actions we can take to change this public confusion, and how we can mobilize more people to take them.
(and then some action, on what comes out of the discussion!)
I am just a glacier scientist and certainly no expert on political thought. It is understandable how the republican party has fought additional endangered species listings, more clean water act regulations and more clean air act regulations. They are choosing commerce over govt. interference. In recognizing global warming it makes no sense that comprehending the existence of it and its cause should fall on political lines amongst voters, unless it is all about not wanting to adapt new regulations. I have taught global warming for over 20 years and find young republicans, college students are ready to reconsider, while older republicans are impossible to sway, and have been for many years./
Re Republican resistance – as Michael Tobis would (I think) say, it’s about networks of trust, and if all the people you trust are telling you that black is white, it’s going to be hard to shift your views to be more reality-based, since it means relinquishing said network – it’d be a wrenching, “everything you know is wrong”-type moment.
Isn’t the question why are you losing the argument? Belief is down in all categories. One would think belief should increase among Democrats who are more intelligent and open minded.
It has been a bad couple of years for those making the catastrophe case. The lesson of the boy who called wolf is that exaggerating the threat makes folks stop worrying about the threat. Meaningful or not, there is no way around the 21st century temperature stabilization which we are now told could well continue until 2015 or 2020. The hurricane bandwagon has left the parade, the upper tropical troposphere is not cooperating, ocean temperatures are cooling. Then there is the ice. Global sea ice at record (since 1979) levels. Arctic ice at recorded minimum but no less an authority than NASA issues a study that the main driver is decadal ocean oscillations and another that attributes unusual wind patterns.
How we describe others is often a window into our own self image.
A man was falling from a 200 meters building
Then a girl asked from a window “How do you do?”
He responded “Ja ja ja , still Perfect!!!”
we shouldn’t wait until it is too late
This is not about losing an argument. Among scientists there is little argument. This is about failing in educating the public. In a country where ideas like “Intelligent design” can actually spread into the public mindset, I am not surprised we fail to explain global warming.
re my
> “I’d like to see more discussion of what actions we can take to change this public confusion, and how we can mobilize more people to take them.”
Joe (and others), is this sort of discussion occurring online and in public anywhere, and if not, _why_ not? To me it seems like a no-brainer that we _have_ to do this, but if nobody else seems to think it’s called for, I’m likely missing something.
What?
@Anna
Meaning what, exactly, in terms of actions?
I’d like to see more discussion of what actions we can take to change this public confusion, and how we can mobilize more people to take them.
When PR campaigns are undertaken, such as Gore’s ‘we’ campaign, it is called propaganda. When blogs by actual scientists studying the science are created, such RealClimate, they are dismissed as biased.
These people (Republican deniers of science) have incorporated disbelief in anthropogenic warming into their ideology via Limbaugh, Junk Science, Newsbusters, etc. Even George W. Bush no longer denies anthropogenic warming. That doesn’t matter.
When ideology is in conflict with reality, ideology almost always wins. Not to get too far off topic, but this explains why people that would be otherwise incredulous about claims of wizardry will accept the existence of ‘miracles’ in their own religion.
Once the lawsuits come against the oil companies and right wing think tanks, and their internal memos come out, I think we will see a beginning of the end of denial. This will allow the science rejectors to blame their prior position on manipulation rather than their own willful disregard for science.
Hey Joe!
The People are not as dumb, stupid and ignorant as you folks of the Eastern Liberal Establishment make them out to be, and they are not easily fooled beause they remember the late President Eisenhower warning:
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
If he were alive today, he would warn the People of the danger of NGO’s who have hidden agendas, and to be very wary of them.
Jon, I think the point is that when the Republican position becomes untenable, the Republicans will have the choice of changing or dying off.
The quote is from his “Farewell Address” and follows his comments about the military-industrial complex.
@Eli
Jon, I think the point is that when the Republican position becomes untenable, the Republicans will have the choice of changing or dying off.
The anti-regulation propaganda is never meant to be permanent, it’s just meant to bide time. Limbaugh and others did the same thing for CFCs and Big Tobacco.
They don’t die off, they just apply their formulas to newer issues after the industries they provide cover for are finally subject to regulation.
As long as there are corporations that profit by avoiding regulation, there will be people willing to shill publicly for them.
[As an aside, have you seen the Prometheus post on the RealClimate bet?]
I think you can get too hung up on the “deniers” thing. We have more fundamental problems to deal with.
1. AGW is widely accepted by the public right across the globe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 1/ shared/ bsp/ hi/ pdfs/ 25_09_07climatepoll.pdf
“Seventy percent of urban Chinese respondents believe major steps are needed quickly to address climate change.”
It is clear that believing in the problem is not enough, because the same 70% of urban Chinese that want ot fix climate change are falling over themselves to buy all the latest electrical gadgets, air-con, cars, flights and the rest.
2. I have often wondered whether non-fossil fuel energy sources are really viable in the absence of the all-pervasive fossil fuel subsidy. This piece on the BBC news today reinforces the point. About 2.05 minutes in the presenter says that the cost of wind turbines is doubling every 2 or 3 years. Is this because the price of oil is doing the same thing? Without cheap oil does the energy cost of manufacturing, deploying and maintaining offshore wind turbines yields a lifetime negative energy return?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7390996.stm
It is amazing how so many lemmings can be found in one spot … marching to the sea.
Please produce a single reference to any study that has detected the human signature in climate during the past 50 years.
Please do not provide guesswork based on fatally flawed projections from inadequate and improper use of GCMs … that is simply conjecture based on faith.
It makes as much sense to regulate CO2 emissions to try to change climate as it would for the state of Florida to require every citizen to buy a snowblower to prevent hurricanes. The two are not related.
CO2 has never been detected to be a significant climate change force. It is merely assumed to be one by the IPCC.
The “greenhouse” effect in Earth’s atmosphere is NOT analogous to a real greenhouse. A real greenhouse warms because it is a closed system that traps heat. The Earth’s atmosphere is an open system and the massive weather dynamic acts to regulate heat unless overwhelmed by orbital, solar, or geologic changes that do affect climate. CO2 makes a paltry contribution to Earth’s atmospheric heat retention and its effects are overwhelmed by those of water vapor and clouds. Furthermore, CO2 and water vapor overlap in the IR frequencies they are effective. The only real portion of the IR that CO2 can have some impact over is that portion where water vapor is not effective … and in that case, CO2’s effects diminish logarithmically as more is added to the atmosphere. This, when added to the weather stabilization effect, is what neuters CO2 as a significant climate change force.
Yet the IPCC simply assumes the contrary and denies the physics. Where would they be if they didn’t?
Are you all really wiling to cost our economy trillions of dollars to achieve CO2 reductions whose result will be completely undetectable in future climate?
Whatever happened to cost-benefit thinking? If you spend trillions to accomplish nothing (but a delusional “feel good” for the moment), how does that benefit civilization?
Better to spend the money wisely … or leave it with the people to make those choices for themselves (e.g., buying better health care, better education, etc.).
I would welcome serious discussion.
[JR: This is the last time I am going to answer such nonsense. A single study? There are hundreds, as I blogged at length here.
Let’s start here — It’s a few years old now, but it is the best other review of recent science by the leading experts:
“Detecting and Attributing External Influences on the Climate System: A Review of Recent Advances” [It’s actually by “The International ad hoc Detection and Attribution Group.”]
I assume you have a subscription to Science. This is a good study. “Penetration of Human-Induced Warming into the World’s Oceans.”
Then there is: “Contribution of anthropogenic and natural forcing to recent tropospheric height changes.“
Here’s NOAA: “The Detection and Attribution of Climate Change.“
I am personally fond of this often-cited paper by NASA.
The real place to start is the IPCC’s “Understanding and Attributing Climate Change,” but you seem oblivious to the IPCC’s fine review of the literature. So here is their bibliography just through the D’s. Let me know when you’re done with all these:
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there is the same attitude in the UK…. people are not prepared to do what is required…the realization is not there (see here).
I think scientist have to step it up… there has to be not just words but action (They need to start to put their career on the line). – at and beyond the level of James Hansen, otherwise the public just wont get it (in time).
Bob Webster — You are seriously misinformed. Try reading some actual climatology. I suggest you start with this link:
http://www.realclimate.org/ index.php/ archives/ 2007/ 05/ start-here/
David Benson:
Sorry Dave, but Bob Webster is very, very right….
I spent 2 years reasearching the topic, the Alarmists are wrong, and to think that the boys over at RealClimate.Org are the representation of truth and real science? Absolutely disgusting!
Oh, by the way, I am a liberal, not a some right wing nut.
Francis — Then you are a left wing nut. One of the contributors on Real Climate is
Ray Pierrehumbert:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/ ~rtp1/ ClimateBook/ ClimateBook.html
Start learning some actual science, not just looking at wacko blogs.
I once took a seminar on politics from a very successful campaign manager. He pointed out that the typical wonk (insert: scientist) will find a crowd of people and, within a few minutes, is in a hot debate with the person most opposed to his opinions. And that the smart pol disengages with that person as fast as possible, using his time to reach out to and reinforce his connection to the people who are already favorably disposed to him or have not yet reached a conclusion.
I’ve observed the unfortunate wonky tendency in myself over the years, and I sure as hell have observed it in nearly all the climate scientists and policy wonks — they’re so busy chasing idiots like the one above that they don’t have time to reach the persuadables.
Joe’s resolution not to further engage these people and give them a platform for their nonsense was great while it lasted.
I hope everyone’s having fun vilifying Republicans on this thread, because all it’s doing is turning off Republicans who actually believe in climate change and want to do something about it.
Not everyone who’s Republican doesn’t believe in global warming. Some of them (like McCain) actually want to do something about it.
Listen to JMG here–he’s on the right track.
[Misinformation deleted.]
I have not vilified Republicans in my post. Nor will you find any post where I vilify Republicans.
Nor did I ever resolve not to debunk the disinformation campaign or point out its effect. Anyone who came away with that impression has misread what I have written.
What I didn’t vow to do is to more consistently believed disinformation or, more charitably, misinformation in the comments that has been long been debunked on this site and elsewhere.
Personally, I wish the poll had been conservatives and non-conservatives, since that is where the divide really is. Lots of moderate Republicans believe in science and are taking leadership positions. exceedingly few conservatives are — the McCain is the only example I can think of, and even he has become weak-kneed on the issue.
Sadly, JMG, the deniers get all the media coverage they need whether or not anybody challenges them. I actually spent most of my career ignoring them, but he didn’t do any good.
All progressives must know how to rebut their disinformation, since it inevitably comes up in any review, and lecture, and even in conversations with regular people in everyday settings.
And it is crucial that people understand the deniers are winning.
If this were not an existential threat to the health and well-being of the planet, it might not matter so much. But it is, and it does.
re: Republicans are not all climate-challenged
Yes, consider Maine Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Too bad there aren’t more of this endangered species (Northeast moderate Republicans), although both of them seem pretty safe, even though Snowe incurred the public wrath of Viscouint Monckton for daringto suggest to ExxonMobil that it stop funding science-denailists.
Of course, Schwarzengger is a Republican as well.
So is PG&E CEO Peter Darbee, a very sharp guy indeed.
Of course, conservatives would likely castigate all these as RINOs, and it its usual way, WSJ OpED yesterday offered “In Defense of RINo Hunting”, i.e., why liberal Republicans should be defeated.
On a more positive note, The Economist today had an article The elusive negawatt. if their search is right, that’s the first time “negawatt” has appeared in The Economist… encourage them to consider them more often – from my experience, they actually read letters and comments, unlike some other publications.
Jon, basically Roger is shocked to discover that gambling is going on in the casino and that the owners are stacking the deck. It’s not even worth making fun of.
Um, I’m conservative and I’m no “denier”. I’m a “doer”.
Look at that. The author of this blog posts ” [misinformation deleted] “, when the subject of his(or her) article is “why don’t they believe?” That’s a poor way to gain trust. Sadly it’s par for the course regarding media and global warming.
For example the Rueters came out with a story today that stated,
“UN experts say human activity, including the emission of greenhouse gases, threatens to cause the worst spate of extinctions on earth since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.”
That’s all well and good to say, but it’s equally fair to call it a guess by financially invested parties. Most readers would rightly discount this as opinion.
Then the article continues on,
“Some experts say three species disappear every hour.”
Wait a minute. Three species every hour? Show me the bodies. Hell you don’t even have to show me bodies, just name three species out of the thousands that, “three species disappear every hour” implies!
Just one dollop of the steady stream of horseshit we information consumers are expected to swallow on a daily basis.
When you lie to people, (and not even very good lies) over and over again, when you don’t even show the most modest trust in the intelligence of your readership, as illustrated above by the deleted comment discribed as “misinformation” (as if we can’t make that determination on our own), you better expect that people are going to take what you say with a heavy dose of salt.
Frankly, it shocks me that so many Democrats and Independants believe the Earth is warming. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that Pew is padding the totals, or putting it’s thumb on the scale.
Regards, Jim
P.S. When you post a truck load of links to “subscription only” papers, it only reinforces the basic perception that your motive isn’t to explain or illuminate, but rather to confuse and befuddle readers.
Honestly, the fact that about half of the Republicans don’t believe in global warming is meaningless. A Fox News poll (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,99945,00.html) shows a similar number of people believe in reincarnation, ghosts and UFOs.
Without a political earthquake over the next six months, the Republicans, already the minority party and shrinking fast, are going to be demolished in the general election.
The presidential campaign will focus on how to stop global warming most effectively and cheaply, not whether global warming exists or is caused by humans. That debate is over and Bush finished it.
Whoops, sorry, that poll mentioned in the previous comment was reported by Fox News, but conducted by Opinion Dynamics Corp., for what that’s worth.
It is interesting to see my specific questions regarding real scientific facts about the limitations of CO2 are met with a list of references to a few studies by scientists paid to find what they found! Gee, how convenient.
The “believer” community needs to get over this penchant for stacking papers (particularly ones published in “Science” or “Nature” or “Scientific American” (all of whom have lost credibility, thanks to their obvious bias and inability to intelligently address all the contrary EVIDENCE to the AGW theory) and claiming “consensus” when any objective view of the positions of actual atmospheric scientists (as if polling were important to truth) fails to support the AGW theory espoused by the IPCC and Gore.
Following false prophets will be costly … except to the prophets, who will profit enormously. Let’s just call them the “profit prophets” … because that is their motivation.
A list of references is no substitute for a simple understanding of how you rebut the observational and scientific facts that blow the AGW theory out of the water.
It would seem a simple matter to understand that, if your theory claims that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause catastrophic (or even significant) climate change, that you’d be able to provide SOME … heck, ANY … evidence to that effect in the record.
Yet you cannot … and neither can any of those scientists you’ve listed.
Try this on for size. Let’s say it’s 1934 and we’re observing that CO2 has been steadily rising in the atmosphere and now we’ve just experienced the hottest year since the Medieval Warm Period (you know, that inconvenient warming that the IPCC tried to hide until the nonsensical “Hockey Stick:” curve put together by those “scientists” was shown to be based on elementary misunderstanding of statistical techniques). To what would you attribute the temperature rise observed in the 1930s? That same period of warming presented some “unprecedented” droughts (recall the “dust bowl” stories) and “unprecedented” hurricanes (one destroyed the Flagler railroad to Key West, the other rampaged New England, and we have no idea how many went unreported because they never made landfall or spent their greatest fury in the shipping lanes). You’d have the same evidence then that you have today (but of course without the 3-4 decades of cooling that followed), less the unreliable GCMs tossing fearful projections about.
Well, its been roughly 70 years since the 1930s. And can anyone explain why CO2 was rising since as far back as we’ve taken direct measurements? Can anyone explain why temperatures dropped to produce the Little Ice Age? Can anyone explain the Medieval Warm Period? The Roman Warm Period? The cooling in between those two? The warming since the end of the Medieval Warm Period? Do you understand where this is going?
Until these “scientists” can explain what causes the multi-century climate variations with any degree of certainty, it seems a bit silly to go off and spend trillions to curb CO2 emissions when there is so much evidence to inform us that CO2 is NOT a significant contributor to climate variability (but it does make a significant RESPONSE to the same).
If you look closely, you will note that studies tend to assume things not known and treat the climate as a closed system. Until a comprehensive knowledge about climate change (not THEORY, but KNOWLEDGE) is revealed, all this chatter and listing of papers is so much noise.
Address what is actually known about how things work by starting with an explanation of what we actually know from observation and the geologic record. There is no evidence to support the AGW theory in any of it.
I ask these questions, and they go unanswered. No, a list of “studies” that do not address these questions are dodging the issue.
Until AGW believers can provide a lucid response to questions people have that explains the disparity between the AGW theory and the known behavior of the atmosphere, they will find that increasing numbers of people do not agree with their devotion to the theory. And it IS a devotion … with a religious zeal … if it is based on faith, and not observational reality.
Convince me with real responses to the specifics of the questions I’ve posed before and here … and not some library list of references (which I could also provide but which would be just as futile).
And here’s one you might try to explain … the global temperature since 2002:
http://icecap.us/ images/ uploads/ Tempssince2002.jpg
Note that it isn’t rising … in fact, my goodness! … it’s been falling!
Just how does the AGW theory predict that?
Hey Joe!
Bob Webster is absolutely correct, and you are just flat-out wrong. The list papers you produced is a registery of white-coated welfare queens (WCWC’s) in the academic and governmental research ghettos for whom “… a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.”
Todate the IPCC and its affilliated WCWQ’s have produced only computational speculation and conjecture, aka phony baloney. The AGW bubble is about to burst, big time. A year or so from now nobody is going to be taking about AGW. I Gar-Un-Tee it!
The real “big lie” is that a high probability that man is very likely the cause (IPCC) means absolute certainty that cannot be questioned.
Speaking of lies, is there any better example than the movie An Inconvenient Truth? The falsehoods contained therein continue to amaze. In the last year, three more have been discovered. There’s the phony stranded polar bear photo. Then there’s the phony Thompson Ice Thermometer graph used to prove the Mann Hockey Stick. Problem is the graph does not represent Thompson’s work, but is in fact Mann’s hockey stick with extra years added. Dr. Thompson, Al Gore’s good friend and movie adviser has admitted he was aware of this falsehood, but did not feel ethically compelled to call attention to it. Just a couple of weeks ago, it came out that the scene of ice shelf destruction is a computer created image from a disaster movie! Since AIT is what most people know about AGW, it is no wonder skepticism is on the rise.
It’s not “Mein Kempf”, but “Mein Kampf” (My Battle).
Europeans are much more familiar with the history behind this book and the devestating effects of the Second World War in Europe. You should not be surprised if the educated European would have a completely (180 degree) view on your comparison/assertion.
Joe, open your eyes to the data. Your selective filtering of all the data that refutes your BELIEF in carbon-forced AGW is leading to irrational acts. With out support of business leaders any environmental effort is doomed to failure. Don’t you have a minion to check your facts? Contact several people you trust to review the data of the last ten years and the ice build up and see if they agree with your unsupported belief structure–the world needs to end the use of carbon for energy generation to stop imaginary uncontrolled temperature increases. Please engage in some peer review of the latest data, the numbers can’t be stretched to conform to the broken climate models based on carbon-forced AGW, Has your brain/emotions hardened to exclude any new ideas that actually more closely model the world climate as it truly is? Science marches on, don’t be one of sad rigid intellects that can’t abandon erroneous theories that litter the footnotes of obscure science history books. I used to vote democrat before I started to actually pay Taxes–now that I actually pull the wagon of society instead of riding in it I’m for rational minimum government.
Take a deep breath, Let go of the broken theory. Financially you’ll much better off as early adopter of the new climate order that replaces the busted one.
What you need is some sort of website that provides a central database of deniers. That way, anyone who wants to can check on the denial status of a particular individual.
Maybe this need congressional investigation. Call people before the House Un-Environmental Activities Commission and find out why they think man-made global warming is fake, and who else they know that also denies it.
This could be especially effective if you throw AGW deniers in jail, as David Suzuki suggests.
In the own words of IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth:
“there are no (climate) predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been”. Instead, there are only “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios.”
“None of the models used by IPCC is initialised to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models corresponds even remotely to the current observed climate.”
“GCMs “assume linearity” which “works for global forced variations, but it cannot work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle … the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate”.
Jason,
Absolutely. We need to resurrect The Inquisition for AGW deniers. Al Gore can be Grand Inquisitor. He needs some type of job anyway…doing something useful.
Send the hard-core deniers to Guantanamo…..do some water-boarding on them.
The problem is that there isn’t a simple experiment or calculation that can be done to show how CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
To start with even with a 1-dimensional model of the atmosphere, you have to model how temperature, humidity and density of the atmosphere change with height. You have to model how CO2 and H2O concentrations change with height. Then you have to model how the absorption lines of CO2 and H2O change in the upper atmosphere. Then you need not only a radiative model of equilibrium states, but a radiative-convective model. Then you need to perturb that and show how changes in CO2 feed back into changes in H2O saturation and how the system dynamically evolves to a new stable equilibrium.
I’ve played around with radiative models of the sun’s interior before, and everything I just mentioned I’d consider difficult. You can’t easily sit down and come to a proof that CO2 is definitely a greenhouse gas in a way that anyone with even a bit of algebra or calculus can understand.
If its that hard to get to the point where CO2 can just be argued to be a greenhouse gas, its going to be very hard to prove that the deniers are wrong. Most people just don’t have the background to understand the arguments.
And its laughable that deniers post that they’ve “researched for 2 years” and come to the conclusion that global warming is all a myth. I spent 7 years studying physics and really understanding the science behind global warming completely is fairly tough. It winds up being an argument where the deniers make their claims and the rebuttal is a huge list of citations which the deniers use various tactics to avoid having to slog through the actual science and understand it. The science is there, but drowning them in references doesn’t really accomplish anything.
The truly ironic part about this post is that you are correct on the “big lie” theory. We have too many examples of it’s use over the last century to ignore it. Where you come off the rails is that it’s global warming that is the lie.
The science is not settled and there is no consensus.
On the former, take a look at
http://www.nzclimatescience.org/
Vincent Gray has been part of the IPCC since it’s inception.
On the latter get a copy of this
http://www.amazon.com/ Deniers-Renowned-Scientists-Political-Persecution/ dp/ 0980076315/ ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210409498&sr=1-1
Sorry, Jorb, that you have been taken in by the Big Lie of the global warming deniers. That is how effective it has been.
You’re not a regular here so you don’t know that I agree with you that there is no “consensus.” Consensus means consensus of opinion, wears we are dealing with actual scientific evidence and a strong scientific rubberstamp.
The only unknown now is whether climate change will have very serious consequences, or catastrophic ones. We don’t know yet. But the reason we don’t know is NOT uncertainty about the science — it is uncertainty about whether humans will act in the next decade to stop concentrations from going to 700+ ppm this century.
The science is quite settled that 700+ ppm is an unmitigated catastrophe beyond human imagining.
Peter — I’m afraid this is getting tedious. I’m a scientist who has reviewed all the data, stays current on the literature, and has talked to or heard from more than 100 of the top climate scientists in the world.
If you don’t believe that the climate is warming and that humans are the dominant cause, then you simply don’t believe in science. You have been taken in by the Big Lie. Nothing I can say and no amount of data that will change your mind.
The people who actually collect the climate data — NASA and Hadley — have repeatedly stated that their data shows the planet continues to warm! If you choose to believe the disinformation of others over the genuine information from the actual scientists involved, then what else cannot be called but the Big Lie?
You are certainly welcome to comment here — as long as you don’t spread long debunked pieces of disinformation.
But the best I can do for you is ask you to tell your children or children in your extended family that you are one of those who don’t think global warming is a big deal so they’ll know who to blame.
The deniers are winning the debate simply because they are correct. When the issues are debated in open like at a university, People like Eli, Tamino, Gavin get creamed–(witness the last open debate where Gaven et al lost) the public can spot a hoax when they see one. The trouble with Eli, Tamino and RC is that they live in an echo chamber and simply cut off debate when they are losing.
Joe,
You’re not seriously suggesting that we trust GISS are you?
[Rest of post is long-debunked disinformation and deleted. The great thing about science is that we don't "trust" scientists, we either replicate their work or we don't. If you don't believe GISS's well verified research, then you simply don't believe science. Sorry. Simple as that. What is so strange is that you seem to "trust" people, the deniers, who have consistently been wrong for two decades, who keep making up a new story each time their old piece of disinformation is thoroughly destroy by actual science -- except of course those pieces of disinformation they keep repeating long after they are the debunked, like the notion that a hockey stick has somehow been invalidated.]
Joe: as a Brit, I wonder if your apparent dislike of “major public leaders in the conservative movement” is colouring your judgement. Are they really as foolish as you suggest to claim “the earth is not warming”? Perhaps they’re saying that because it isn’t – see Bob Webster’s post at 12:19 am. And perhaps they’ve noticed the recent paper published in Nature showing that, because of oceanic variations, current cooling is likely to continue for another fifteen years or so. That would mean no warming for about quarter of a century – not quite as the IPCC predicted. As for their claim that “humans are not a major cause of whatever warming is occurring”, they may have noticed that current cooling has occurred despite mankind’s CO2 emissions continuing to increase – now about 30% above Kyoto targets. They may even have noticed that, although the IPCC report shows that there have been three significant warming periods since 1850 (1860/1879, 1910/1940 and 1975/1998), two occurred before CO2 emissions took off around 1950 – yet the report hardly mentions the factors responsible for the first two, let alone showing why they do not explain the third.
Being conservatives, they may well share my suspicion that the reasons for climate variability are hugely complex and inadequately understood – comprising a range of factors such as solar radiation, atmospheric aerosols, greenhouse gases (especially water vapour), orbital eccentricities of the Earth, El Ninos, changes in ocean circulation and oceanic heat content anomalies – and that the idea that humanity can somehow manage the climate by trying to manipulate just one aspect of one of these is arrogant and absurd. Perhaps some conservative leaders may even remember the story of King Canute, the early English king who, tired of the sycophancy of his courtiers, faced the waves to demonstrate to them that even he, their powerful ruler, was unable to control the tide. They might agree with me that future generations may think that those scientists who now believe that mankind can control the climate are as foolish as Canute’s fawning courtiers.
To author(s) of this article: Mate(s), have you tried to apply Hitler’s words to your own AGW propaganda? Fits nicely…
Joe,
Sorry, what exactly was the problem with the links in my last comment (which you deleted) to the GISS and hadley sites? These are the people you’re relying on to support your arguments? How then can their information be “debunked misinformation”?
Jorb — You a bunch of tired, long-debunked myths, none of which is more poisonous than the one line that of yours that I printed. You think this issue is which side do you “trust” more. NOT!
Scientists keep on refining their understanding in their search for the truth, while somehow people like you interpret each improvement in understanding as an admission of a terrible mistake that proves the whole scientific enterprise has failed.
The deniers just keep repeating stuff that isn’t true in the hopes that their Bush-like consistency makes them appear more trustworthy.
The comments on this blog post show just how successful the disinformation campaign has been.
I am well aware that it’s not about trust, but you yourself rely on GISS and Hadley. You said so yourself in an earlier comment – below.
“The people who actually collect the climate data — NASA and Hadley — have repeatedly stated that their data shows the planet continues to warm!”
I’m not interested in what they say, I’m interested in what their data shows, and that’s what I tried to show. The NASA/GISS data is dubious and Hadley’s more recent data doesnt agree with your statements.
The NASA/GISS data is not “dubious” — that statement has no factual support.
Hadley’s most recent analysis doesn’t agree with YOUR statements.
Furthermore, CO2 and water vapor overlap in the IR frequencies they are effective. The only real portion of the IR that CO2 can have some impact over is that portion where water vapor is not effective … and in that case, CO2’s effects diminish logarithmically as more is added to the atmosphere. This, when added to the weather stabilization effect, is what neuters CO2 as a significant climate change force.
When you see deniers making statements like this, then you can fully appreciate how scientifically illiterate they are. It is pretty clear that Bob Webster et al. are just parroting material that they don’t understand.
And as for Webster’s complaints about Joe’s reference dump to articles he can’t access without a trip to the library…. well, it’s not like he’d ever read (or understand) them anyway.
These denier clowns are like sunday-school kids who just watched “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” and now think that they are experts in evolutionary biology.
This IS all about “winning”, isn’t it? I guess there are two ways to measure which side is “winning”, public support and global temps. As far as public support goes, why yes, Alarmists are losing ground…across the board as you so kindly point out. And with an almost completely compliant mass media behind you, to boot!
If you were serious about saving Man and Earth you would consider your own tactics and behavior, ask why they have failed, and done whatever possible to change them for the better.
If you only wanted to win the argument, you would simply dismiss your opponents as stupid and evil, engaged in some huge “disinformation campaign.”
As far as temps go, let’s just say it’s going to be a long time before they’re on your side again. Look on the bright side! If AGW can overcome a negative PDO and AMO AND minimum solar activity you’ll probably win! I wouldn’t bet on it, though!
Joe, I actually do feel sorry for you. You are obviously passionate about your view point
But the facts are not with you:
[Disinfomation deleted.]
Mike M: I WOULD bet on it. Would you? I doubt it.
“Furthermore, CO2 and water vapor overlap in the IR frequencies they are effective. The only real portion of the IR that CO2 can have some impact over is that portion where water vapor is not effective … and in that case, CO2’s effects diminish logarithmically as more is added to the atmosphere. This, when added to the weather stabilization effect, is what neuters CO2 as a significant climate change force.”
DENIERS: Look, this is a objection to global warming that was current 1900-1960. Post WWII the US military started studying the IR absorption based in the stratosphere (they had a certain interest in IR transmission through the stratosphere) and found that H2O can CO2 did not form “bands” but “picket fences” and that there was no saturation of absorption due to H2O. The absorption “bands” of CO2 and H2O change based on temperature and pressure.
I consistently see deniers posting 1 atmosphere pressure spectra of CO2 and H2O and concluding that CO2 couldn’t possibly be a greenhouse gas. They are making the same mistakes that scientists were making before research occurred that began in the 1950s.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
Joe said, “Personally, I wish the poll had been conservatives and non-conservatives“. Unfortunately those terms now have a Humpty-Dumpty meaning only (i.e. they are meaningless). To illustrate this, consider which political party best fits the dictionary definition of conservative: “disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.” I maintain that is the Democrats, who are basically trying to maintain/defend the policies of the 1930s-1970s against attack from the radicals, and “limit change” in CO2. Now consider the definition of radical: “favoring drastic political, economic, or social reforms”. I maintain that is the Republicans, based upon a whole slew of policy proposals. A conservative (dictionary definition) would want to maintain the level of CO2 in the atmosphere. Only a radical would propose an experiment that affects the entire Earth in subservience to an ideology. Those are primarily the Republicans. Yes, sane Republicans exist, but as John Mashey points out, their own party is increasingly rejecting them.
There seems to be a very consistent pattern where deniers are objecting to global warming based on objections that were finally answered by science back in the 1950/60/70/80s.
Is this deliberate? Are cynical AGW deniers who understand the scientific debate simply going back to the history of old debates and recycling old objections?
Because the answers are all there in the historical scientific record. Solar cycles, volcanoes, aerosols, anthropogenic contributions to CO2, CO2+H2O absorption bands, feedback of CO2 into increased H2O greenhouse effect, all these debates are already settled. They’re just dredging them up — and they are effective because if they puzzled scientists in the 1950s-1980s its not like there’s a simple answer — so they are all effective snowjobs.
Earl:
Yeah, Conservatives/Republicans have completely lost the plot.
They’re more and more frequently becoming the party of rationalization and denial, and with a kind of “moral relativism” becoming prominent that would not have been associated with “conservatism” in the past. They fall back on “respecting different opinions” and “different points of view” in their arguments all the time when they start hitting factual issues where the real world isn’t validating their policies and views.
Joe, I thought you were different then other WEB Blogs. So when I post links refuting your position you delete them. One of them was from NPR–that is a real right wing source?
This is why you are losing the debate!
Bob Webster & others — You do understand that without global warming (so-called greenhouse) gases the world would be too cold to inhabit? Who was the first scientist to do some work of this? When? Who was the first scientist to measure the direct global warming properties of carbon dioxide and also water vapor? When? Who was the first scientist to do the global warming calculations (using classicl physics)? When?
Read Spencer Weart:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
to find out. Hint: This is far from instantly-new science.
As for Bob Webster’s alligations, they are unproven, untrue and comtempable. Quit just MSU (Making Stuff Up).
[And by the way, with regard to climate I'm not just a conservative (in the old-fashioned sense), I'm a reactionary.]
The links that Joe deleted show:
transcripts of Real Climate losing climate debate
Data showing the Earth has not warmed much over 10yrs–no alarm there!
Data showing the Ocean cooling
Data showing record Southern Hemisphere sea ice
Data showing NASA says cooling coming due to PDO shift
Data showing new climate models which use AMO Ocean data predict cooling for the next 10-20yrs
Data showing GISS temp is wrong
[JR: You don't really read this website do you, where most of this nonsense has been dealt with repeatedly? Anyway, you really don't seem to know what the word "data" means, since none of your links point to "data" that supports any of your claims.]
No problem, Joe. Name your terms. $1000. No GISS temps to be used for evaluation. ( I won’t play with a marked deck.) State the size of volcanic eruption needed to invalidate the wager, etc.
[JR -- Mike: Let's keep it simple. We can use the Hadley data. I say the decadal average global temperature from 2010-2019 will exceed the decadal average from 2000 to 2009. If there is are TWO volcanos as large as Pinatubo, then the bet is invalidated and neither side wins. (I am not a volcano expert so I'm open to specific ways of quantifying volcanoes, but I'm going to give you one.)]
Oh, and I showed that in England they threw out the AGW Mayor and installed a climate skeptic—all “disinformation” though that can be found on Google by anyone who cares, but Joe should keep secret from the sheeple on this blog
That the expected, cyclical change in PDO to COOL mode can, in one year, reverse and overwhelm the alleged catastrophic warming of the last 140 years
[JR: That statement is a complete and utter fabrication. Please point to even one peer-reviewed article to support this absurd claim. Heck, even point to one accurate representation of published data that supports this claim. Seriously, this absurd claim has been debunked several times on this blog alone. I simply am not going to allow you or anyone else to keep making up stuff and publishing it on this blog. Sorry, I have a responsibility to my readers, especially new readers, some of whom may get to this particular post without having read all of the debunkings -- although I just ran another one from Hadley.
The rest of post deleted because it is an unending stream of unsubstantiated disinformation in one unreadable block paragraph.]
Uh, good point Mr. Allen, but paragraphs would help.
Outstanding, Joe, I even get a volcano. You’ve got guts. I’ll get to work on setting up the escrow account. Talk to you next week! BTW, I am 92 years old.
Just kidding!
Global warming refers to a warming of the average global temperature. It does not preclude cooling in some locations. In fact, if some locations are cooling while the globe is warming on average, it follows that there must be other areas that are warming even faster than the global average. This is precisely what is happening in the Arctic, where temperatures over the past few decades have risen twice as fast as the global average, with potentially disastrous consequences
Global warming is the leading explanation we have for the known facts. It is a theory, but not one we can sanely test it in the real world by waiting until the CO2 reaches potentially dangerous levels
It has been said that we are running a car with the garage door closed.
I have a propoiiton for the deniers. Go run your car engine in your closed up garage for the next six hours. Please come back and post your results.
Nuff said.
Bob B — Here are the 10-year average global temperatures since 1850 CE:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/10yave.jpg
Mike M. & Joe — With regard to structuring your bet, I suspect that SO2 production is more important than VEI. Here is a link for you to start with:
http://denali.gsfc.nasa.gov/research/so2/article.html
entitled “Global Effects of Explosive Volcanism : TOMS Results from the El Chichon & Mt. Pinatubo Volcanic Eruptions”
Obviously, this isn’t a free forum, it is a highly-regulated propaganda site publishing only what some ding-dong moderator sees fit as furthering the dis-informational cause, of which my censored submission spoke in detail.
The current satellite MSU data readily shows the 2006-2007 mid-troposphere temp decline of 0.53 to 0.73°C (UAH, RSS) wrought by the PDO shift: http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/RSSglobe-m.html
to wit, Senior Ding-dong
Keep up the fanatical scrutiny save any opposition appearing to disturb the devout.
That the expected, cyclical change in PDO to COOL mode can, in one year, reverse and overwhelm the alleged catastrophic warming of the last 140 years tells any keen observer all that needs to be known….
[JR: Again, that statement is simply false, so everything that flows from it is also false and hence deleted.]
Global Warming and Cooling – The Reality
CO2sceptic (Site Admin)
Wednesday May 07, 2008 2:39 PM BST
Stephen Wilde has been a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society since 1968. The first two article’s from Mr Wilde were received with a great deal of interest throughout the CO2 Sceptic community.
In Stephen Wilde’s third and exclusive article for CO2Sceptics.Com, he explores the mechanics and mechanism involved that are attributed to the Earth’s Warming and Cooling, needless to say the presence of CO2 is not part of the process.
Global Warming and Cooling – The Reality
It’s all very well doing what alarmists do which is to say that CO2 is rising and temperatures are rising so in the absence of any other known cause it must be man-made CO2 that is warming the planet. That approach ignores both the differing scale of the possible influencing factors and the clear historical relationship between cooler climates and periods of a less active sun. The presence of the sun must be a much bigger influence on global temperatures than the greenhouse characteristics of CO2 on it’s own.
At most the greenhouse effect can only be marginal though some have tried to talk it up by asserting that the planet would be very much colder without a greenhouse effect, which is correct, but avoids the issue of the rather small proportion of the overall greenhouse effect provided by CO2 and the even smaller proportion provided by man. It also begs the question as to whether the oceans are slowly releasing CO2 as a result of natural warming. If the oceans warm for any reason they will release CO2 into the atmosphere because water holds less CO2 at higher temperatures.
The greenhouse effect, as a whole, may smooth out rises and falls in temperature from other causes but is not itself the determining factor for global temperature. If the heat from the sun declines the global temperature will fall with or without any greenhouse effect and if the heat from the sun increases the global temperature will, of course, rise. The greenhouse effect does not create new heat. All it does is increase the residence time of heat in the atmosphere.
In the ice core record, CO2 increase has always lagged behind temperature rises and the lag involved is estimated to be 400 to 800 years. There has never been a period when a CO2 rise has preceded global warming. I have seen it argued that the past 30 years has been so exceptional that it MUST, for the first time in the history of the globe, be CO2 driving the warming trend. That is an assertion of such low probability that it should require very powerful evidence to support it. I have seen no such evidence. Indeed, on a cursory inspection the slow but steady increase in atmospheric CO2 is clearly not coming through in a slow but steady rise in global temperatures. Instead we see rises and falls in global temperatures that bear no obvious relationship to the steady rise in CO2 unless one puts the cart before the horse and announces that there is no other possible reason and the trend period adopted is carefully chosen to suit the proposition.
All it needs to cast doubt on the CO2 theory is an alternative possibility to explain a rising global temperature trend over the past 500 years and there is one. Everyone will have heard of the Little Ice Age and the global temperature would appear to have been recovering from it ever since. On a balance of probability is that not the more likely explanation of an overall warming trend ever since? Why introduce manmade CO2 at all except for politically motivated reasons? By all means exclude a recovery from the Little Ice Age as the reason if one can but the burden of proof is heavy and probably impossible to discharge with current knowledge. There was also a Mediaeval Warm Period (MWP) that preceded it. It has been asserted by some that the MWP was not as warm as the planet is now but there is evidence to the contrary such as Viking settlements in Greenland at the time. It has also been asserted that the MWP was not worldwide but some recent indications have been found in South America that it was warm there at about the same time. In any event it is unlikely that such a warm period affecting Greenland and Western Europe would not be worldwide. The heavy burden of proof is on those who would seek to deny it.
Be that as it may, there is a probability rather than a possibility that the warming trend since the lowest point of the Little Ice Age is continuing to this day and is the real cause of recent observed warming with only a minimal contribution, if any, from man made CO2 emissions.
Then there is the matter of scale. The greenhouse effect is mainly a phenomenon of the land surface and the atmosphere because more of the incoming heat is absorbed by water as compared to land and a lower proportion is reflected to participate in the greenhouse effect. However the surface of Earth is 70 % water. Water has a hugely greater heat carrying capacity than the land or the atmosphere above it. Land loses most of the heat it receives during the day via overnight radiation and the atmosphere loses heat rapidly via convection, rainfall and radiation to space despite the greenhouse effect. The true heat store that we need to consider, dwarfing by far any atmospheric greenhouse effect is all that water. I describe the implications of that below.
It seems so complex but the global heat balance only comes down to three parameters that swamp all others.
Heat from the sun.
The fact that 70% of the planet is water covered.
Heat, radiating out to a very cold Space.
Extra heat is constantly being generated within the Earth by convection and movement caused by external gravitational forces from the sun and other planets but that only seems to disrupt the basic scenario intermittently.
The heat from the sun varies over a number of interlinked and overlapping cycles but the main one is the cycle of 11 years or so. That solar cycle can last from about 9.5 years to about 13.6 years and appears to be linked to the gravitational effects of the planets of the solar system combining to affect the sun’s magnetic field which seems then to influence the amount of heat generated and incidentally affects the number of sunspots. For present purposes I will concentrate on the past 1000 years during which the 11year cycle has been the main factor linked to observed temperature changes. For pre thermometer numbers we have to rely on less reliable indicators of past temperature.
It is clear that temperatures have varied so much over the past 1000 years that there have been substantial effects on human societies so disruption caused by weather and climate is by no means unusual. Many civilisations have fallen as a result of entirely natural changes in climate. Interestingly, they often blamed themselves for offending the Gods, nature or the planet (that sounds familiar!).
It is necessary to note that those disruptive changes have occurred quite quickly. A decade or two is quite enough to see changes that result in considerable hardship.
Because 70% of the planet is covered by water most heat from the sun is accepted by water. The seas take a long time to warm up or cool in comparison to land. Heat reaching the land by day is soon radiated back out to Space at night. Water has a much greater lag both in warming and cooling which also means that as a store of total heat the oceans are hugely effective. The strongest sunlight reaching the Earth is around the Equator that is primarily oceanic. The equatorial sun puts heat into the system year in year out whereas loss of heat is primarily via the poles with each alternating as the main heat loser depending on time of year.
The Earth therefore accumulates or loses heat to and from, primarily, the oceans. The land and the atmosphere are largely an irrelevance. That heat then has to find it’s way out into Space over time. Before it can be radiated out into Space heat has to pass through the atmosphere.
The planet cannot maintain and does not maintain a constant temperature. It is not even possible to identify a specific current temperature for the whole planet and for present purposes there is no need to do so.
All I need to assert at this point is that whatever the Earth’s temperature is at any given moment it will always be in the process of warming or cooling and, of course, the rate of that warming or cooling is highly variable.
Because the Earth is always either warming or cooling the point of balance could well be very fine so to attribute ‘blame’ to any particular factor we have to ascertain the scale and degree of sensitivity of each factor we wish to consider.
The point I need to make here is that on the basis of historical evidence from weather and solar cycle records the largest single factor influencing global temperature, whatever it might be at any time, is variations in the input of heat from the sun.
It is clear from the historical record that warmer weather accompanies short solar cycles and cooler weather accompanies longer solar cycles. Although I refer to weather the fact is that weather over time constitutes climate so for present purposes they are the same. During the recent warming the cycle lengths were less than 10 years so that meant we were getting more heat from the sun whatever the alarmists say about Total Solar Irradiance (a flawed and incomplete concept).
So far, the current solar cycle (number 23) is into the 12th year in length and may go to the full 13.6 years for known astronomical reasons. The very fact that it is longer than the previous two cycles suggests we are getting less solar energy already and, surprise, surprise, it is now being accepted by alarmists that warming has stalled and the planet may be cooling for the next 10 years at least. All they can do now is bleat that the underlying man made warming signal is still there but they cannot prove that to be the case nor can they demonstrate the scale of it in relation to natural causes.
As far as I can see nobody seems to be able to say why the observed changes in weather that accompany changes in solar activity actually happen. They seem to be disproportionate to the changes in heat coming from the sun. This is where I feel the need to make a suggestion.
The ENSO (El Nino Southern Oscillation) Cycle has been heavily investigated for many years but seems to be looked at as a freestanding phenomenon that just redistributes heat around the globe, sometimes warming and sometimes cooling.
I think that is wrong. I believe that ENSO switches from warming to cooling mode depending on whether the sun is having a net warming or net cooling effect on the Earth. Thus the sun directly drives the ENSO cycle and the ENSO cycle directly drives global temperature changes. Indeed, the effect appears to be much more rapid than anyone has previously believed with a measurable response occurring within a few years of a change in solar energy input. Indeed I see some evidence for the proposition that for various reasons cooling occurs faster than warming but I will save that for another time.
It was no coincidence that during the years from 1975 to 2000 we had a strong emphasis on El Nino with warming-also known as a period of positive Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and now, with an emphasis on La Nina we have cooling or at least a stall in the warming (a period of negative PDO).
As regards the Pacific Decadal Oscillation that is simply a periodical change in the predominance either of El Nino (positive mode) or of La Nina (negative mode). El Nino events can occur in a positive PDO mode and vice versa.
I believe that both ENSO and PDO are manifestations of the same process and are directly driven by shifts in the balance of heat output from the sun as it switches to or from net warming and to or from net cooling effects on the Earth.
It was no coincidence that the change from one ENSO mode to the other was approximately contemporaneous with the extension of solar cycle 23 to a period longer than the preceding two solar cycles and at about the same time the PDO switched from positive to negative.
Although there are similar periodic oscillations in other oceans such as the Atlantic and the Arctic I believe that they follow the lead of ENSO and PDO. In effect they simply continue the distribution of the initial warming or cooling state around the globe and of course there are varying degrees of lag so that from time to time the other lesser oceanic oscillations can operate contrary to the primary Pacific oscillations until the lag is worked through.
I believe that this is a clear and simple theory of solar driven global climate change which should now be tested empirically.
Just looking at the activity levels of the past few solar cycles and the temperature and ENSO changes that occurred at about the same time would have revealed the truth if those who should have known better were not trying to implicate man generally and western nations in particular. Refer to my two earlier articles for fuller detail.
The fact is that the Earth could well be a highly sensitive water based thermometer as far as solar input is concerned. The balance between overall warming and overall cooling is probably finely linked to the energy received or not received from the sun over decadal time periods or possibly even less.
Advances have been made in predicting the likely activity levels of the sun so it should be possible to make general predictions as regards the onset of warming or cooling trends on Earth from solar observations and astronomical measurements of planetary influences on solar cycles.
Finally, one should consider whether other warming or cooling influences might have any significance to humanity and the environment.
The fact is that the solar effect is huge and overwhelming. Other influences can only ever delay or bring forward what would have happened anyway because of the time scales involved with solar changes that tend to develop and intensify over centuries. One must also remember that, the warmer the Earth gets, the faster the radiation of heat to Space because of an enhanced temperature differential so it would be false to propose an ever increasing positive differential as a result of adding any warming effect of man made CO2 to the effect of solar changes.
The length and intensity of a solar cool down would strip out the human portion of any extra CO2 quite ruthlessly because the cooler temperatures would increase the amount of CO2 absorbed by the oceans and oceanic life would flourish to lock it away in the carbon cycle again in the form of organic calcium carbonate from a multitude of tiny sea creatures (which generally prefer cooler waters) falling to the sea bed.
In effect, all life on Earth has the benefit of an oceanic and atmospheric air conditioning system that clears out excess CO2 as well as well as dust, other particulates and noxious substances created by either the planet itself or the life forms on it from time to time.
Of course a single organism can upset the balance of it’s own environment for a time but the planet always renews itself and repopulates with new life forms if necessary.
The solution is always a new balance between numbers and lifestyle for any particular organism and that includes us.
That is why, despite hugely different environmental conditions in the past, including far higher CO2 levels, there has never been a ‘tipping’ point that changed the pattern of glaciations and interglacials that have occurred with clockwork precision based on astronomical movements throughout the historical record.
Nor need we fear any man made addition to solar warming because the proportion of the warming which we would be responsible for would be insignificant against the scale of the solar induced portion.
In any event, since cooling is worse than warming for humanity and most life on the planet, our production of CO2, however large in our puny terms, would be wholly beneficial for life on Earth.
CO2 is the least of our problems so our attention and resources should be better directed to a more general concept of sustainability.
Deniers tend towards denying that there is an objective “out there” reality or at least believing or asserting that that a meaningful reality does not contain probabilities in it. To them this is all about winning an “argument” between two sides, not the process of discovery of an external world. They have been inculcated by the last 40 years of anti-science cultural bias in the US media and political realm that if you assert yourself enough, repeat lies enough, that you “win”.
Because climate science deals in probabilities and there is “noise” in the complex climate system, they are able to construct partisan arguments “for” and “against” the general trend by snipping piecemeal at the data without looking at the big picture. The deniers’ theory of science would actually prohibit that there would ever be an meaningful climate science because of the multi-factorial and “noisy” nature of the climate system. They are holding climate science responsible when in fact it is the nature of the object of study, the climate, that is the source of the uncertainty.
If these deniers were to use the same interpretive framework in their daily lives they would not be able to function in society or the biosphere in general. In the complex world of biological creatures, probabilities and filtering the signal from the noise are more important for survival than 100% convictions and certainties.
Joe, I think that you might contribute to stoking these debates because you, as a popularizer of climate science, tend to condense the scientific results into “yes” and “no” and then run into these exchanges. I am tempted to take the same tack myself given the obviousness of the data, but perhaps it makes as much sense to attack the denial of the probabilistic nature of the world, and the foolishness of this denial as a plan of action.
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
That site has a good, referenced historical record of the global warming scientific debate. Most of Wilde’s points are addressed in science that was done prior to 1990.
I’d like to see just one global warming skeptic/denier who actually seemed to have read the literature.
Do you people really think that scientists have never thought of the idea that variations in the sun could influence the climate??? It has only been debated since 1801 when Herschel first suggested it based on the observations of other variable stars.
The referenced historical record is here:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm
The summary of current thinking is pretty much summed up in these two paragraphs from the above URL:
However, rough limits could be set on the extent of the Sun’s influence. Average sunspot activity did not increase after 1980, and overall solar activity during the period since 1950 looked little different from earlier periods. The satellite measurements of the solar constant found it cycling within narrow limits (less than one part in a thousand). As for cosmic rays, they had been measured since the 1950s and likewise showed no long-term trend. Yet the global temperature rise that had resumed in the 1970s was accelerating at a record-breaking pace. It seemed impossible to explain that using the Sun alone, without invoking greenhouse gases. For one thing, the stratosphere was cooling, which was exactly what models predicted would result from the greenhouse effect, but was the reverse of what should result from a solar influence(57*)
The consensus of most scientists, arduously hammered out in a series of international workshops, flatly rejected the argument that the global warming of the 1990s could be dismissed as a mere effect of changes on the Sun. The pioneer of historical solar influences, Jack Eddy, wrote that if the Sun were “the only agent of climatic change, we would live in a world where the mean global surface temperature varied, in any century, through limits of at most about 0.5°C.” Similarly, in 2004 when a group of scientists published evidence that the solar activity of the 20th century had been unusually high, they nevertheless concluded that “even under the extreme assumption that the Sun was responsible for all the global warming prior to 1970, at most 30% of the strong warming since then can be of solar origin.” When Foukal reviewed the question in 2006, he agreed that there was no good evidence that the Sun had played a role in any climate change back to the Little Ice Age. (Meanwhile, new historical evidence suggested that the cold of the early modern centuries might have been partly due to a spate of volcanic eruptions.)(57a)
Joe, How is the ice in the Arctic so large if the globe is truly 1 degree warmer? How do the sea water temps and volume continues to refute the alleged arming? Are the alleged melted glaciers waters backed up behind the three gorges dam?
politically the wising up of the democrats to the errors of alleged carbon forced AGW should clue you in that the ‘worm’ has turned. The choir is leaving the AGW church for real environmental truths.
I agree with Hoexter’s statement about your binary reasoning being way too simple to explain the climate as it is.
If CO2 is just a minor player in the Climate Epic, all of the extreme “solutions” are unwarranted.
It is time to open up to the “big picture’ of climate models and abandon the broken ones.
Lamont, yes there is plenty of evidence the Sun has had a major influence of the past 400,000 years. The current temp rise of 0.6C is a tiny tiny blip on top of past temperature excursions, which by the way show CO2 following temp and not the other way around
RE: “most scientist”
This is actual a very small group of people. It doesn’t include the millions of other scientist and engineers who have training in physics and chemistry and are quite capable of understaning the phony balony being tauted by the IPCC and its affilliated white-coated welfare queens.
Peter Foley,
You are taking what I said and turning into its opposite. I’m saying that normal, scientific weighing of the probabilities will lead to you support Joe’s conclusions not dispute them. You seem to be doing the opposite. You are simply grasping at straws, in this case a hint of criticism of Joe, to try to escape the depressing reality of climate change.
Bob B wrote “… which by the way show CO2 following temp and not the other way around”. Wrong again. Sometimes this happens, sometimes in close synchrony and sometimes global warming (so-called greenhouse) gases lead.
You really ought to learn some climatology instead of just repeating whatever you happen to read on sites dedicated to an assult on reason. Start here
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
for example.
Wrong wrong wrong–Mr David
BTW–I have plotted out the Vostok Ice core data myself on an EXCEL spread sheet and what you are saying is pure crap
Harold Pierce Jr — You have it backwards again. Every major scientific and technical body has a statement which in effect supports the IPCC concensus, worldwide. The only one still neutral, AFAIK, is the Association of Petroleum Geologists. That group group withdrew its ‘against’ statment.
So its about 136 to 0 now. You are on the zero side.
Maybe instead you might care to learn some actual science, instead of just MSU (Making Stuff Up)?
David–do you know what the mathematical term causality means?–
In >90% of all major temperature excursions within the Vostok data—CO2 “LAGS” Temp
go plot it yourself and learn something!!!!!!!!!!
Here—go plot is yourself and then come back and we can compare how many time CO2 leads temp:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ paleo/ icecore/ antarctica/ vostok/ vostok_data.html
remember to scale the peak-to-peak between CO2 and temp
Harold Pierce,
You apparently do not understand what a complex system is. The climate is a complex system. The only way that we can describe trends and forces in the climate is through probabilities. There is a very high probability that the fossil fuels that we burn are responsible for the increase of carbon dioxide and other GHGs and that these gases are responsible for the warming that observe.
To ignore this very high probability is the height of foolishness
The throwing of insults at people because you don’t like what they’re saying (or don’t have the capacity to understand it) won’t make the reality go away.. Sorry!
Hoexter
And is there not an equal probability that, considering the non-conclusive nature of CO2 debate, CO2 has a negligible effect in the overall greenhouse THEORY? Being only a 3.5% contributor when water vapor is included? And man’s contribution even less? That being a 0.117% contributor? And we’re likely DRIVING climate change? Hardy Harr Harr! If industry was outputting smeltzgiblet in large volumes, that gas would be the perpetrator.
Our CO2 is insignificant as against natural emissions and uptake. What religious dominance lost in the age of reason, CO2 alarmism now endeavors to restore. A fount of guilt for ready manipulation by those channeling Gaia.
Cant — the answer to your question is a very simple “no.” Read the IPCC report and then you’ll understand why.
Cantilever,
Can you tell me what is different in those natural processes in say 1850 to to say the the last decade? Water was around then in the same abundance as it is now.
Do you know what a climate forcing is?
Tom
The Democrats will, yet again, destroy their chances for an easy general-election win (Kerryology, Goreanthropy). GOP campaigners have simply enlisted the strategies of the jackasses. Frame an issue and point up the Democrat’s historical incompetence or exploitation of it. Case closed.
In case your computer has been down, AGW ranks near the footer in polls about voter concerns. It will play virtually not at all in the election and voter considerations, as it has been non-playing so far. But lifestyle-crushing gas prices – now there’s an immediate concern! AGW is simply so much gas belching from fear mongers bent on outlandish tax hikes.
Hoexter
A climate forcing is a propensity exercised by environmental fanatics to force the climate into responsibility for all naturally-occurring weather events (under the sub-forcing of man and his use of the modern apparatus known as the accelerator). Thus we have: climate-change accelerator (merely a footnote).
Cantilever,
You have just confirmed my assertion above that deniers such as yourself interpret everything, including the scientific data, as a fight between two partisan groups of people. If you don’t acknowledge that climate forcings, both natural and manmade exist independent of political debates, you have just excused yourself from any serious discussion of the climate.
Hoexter
Indeed, a partisan debate, between those loyal to the scientific method (cautious & skeptical) and those wishing to affirm a pessimistic, catastrophic, humans-are-to-blame ideology that is increasingly being refuted by non-catastrophe as well as tropospheric temperature stability for 7 years, and now a massive, record temp decline in a 1-year period. And I’ll do the excusing around here Mr. Imperious.
Hey Michael,
“Climate Forcings” have nothing to do with the real world. GCM’s use them and as stated earlier, IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth has acknowledged:
“None of the models used by IPCC is initialised to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models corresponds even remotely to the current observed climate.”
Wow, it’s raining crazies today, Joe. Look, the debate that is taking place in this thread today is not about science, it’s about ideology and politics. I will wage a dollar against a doughnut that nearly everyone of the denialists here today is a conservative/libertarian. ideologue. I used to be one myself in my youth so I know the type well. They believe in a free market as the solution to all human problems and, since the free market doesn’t solve all human problems, in order to cling to their ideology (religion) they must constantly deny any facts that contradict their a priori world view.
Ideology is anti-empirical. An ideologue believes that he already has all the answers (the antithesis of the skeptical-scientific world view.) If a conservative/libertarian ideologue were to accept global warming as real then he would be forced to admit that government action is required to deal with it. For an conservative/libertarian ideologue that is impossible because he/she KNOWS that government is the cause of ALL problems and that the solution to all problems is “freedom”.
Marxists understand this way of thinking perfectly because Marxism too is an ideology, only in Marxism the great enemy isn’t the State it’s private Capital. It’s no accident that in the former Soviet Union a clear distinction was made between bourgeois (Western) science and Soviet science. There were no facts, only political points of view.
That there are no facts outside the “truths” of one’s ideology is a basic, if not always publicly expressed, tenet, of all ideologues be they religious zealots, communists, fascists or libertarian-conservatives.
Arguing with such people is a waste of time because they only listen to facts in order desperately to compose counter arguments. I say desperately because for such people their entire sense of identity is wrapped up in their ideology. If they really listened to facts, they might stop believing that they know all the answers. And then, horror of horrors, they might have to face a world of UNCERTAINTY. And that would be intolerable.
Bob B — Good for you. Now go and learn about PETM, when certainly global warming gases, probably from the massive eruptions of the Siberian Traps, caused massive, rapid temperature increases.
As I said, actually learn some climatology. For example, when the global warming property of carbon dioxide was first measured and who did it.
# Bob B Says:
May 10th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Lamont, yes there is plenty of evidence the Sun has had a major influence of the past 400,000 years. The current temp rise of 0.6C is a tiny tiny blip on top of past temperature excursions, which by the way show CO2 following temp and not the other way around
===============
Okay, the problem with the AGW skeptics is that you can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim that all the AGW climate models are crap without actually knowing anything about them and then propose a model off the top of your head with no attempt at verification. And by claiming that the sun has a large effect you are *proposing* a model of climate change. You are attempting to make a scientific claim about the effect of the Suns radiation on the Earths climate and that results in a model of how the Earth’s climate changes based on the Sun’s radiation. The ground rules have to be fair here, and your climate models need to be treated the same way that AGW climate models are.
The model that you are proposing is actually very easy to falsify. If you credit the current warming trend as being due to the solar cycle that establishes a magnitude of the Sun’s effect. You can run this model backwards and find that it predicts large climate fluctuations for the past couple hundred years which were not actually observed. You don’t have to go back 100,000s of years. Just run the model back to the pre-industrial age and it fails to be validated.
Also, nobody claims that the Ice Ages were triggered by CO2. The ice ages are triggered by Milankovich cycles. CO2 in that case does lag and simply acts as a positive feedback loop and an amplifier. However, there are events like the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum that are thought to have been driven by GHGs (in this case methane clathrites). That CO2 does not drive the Ice Ages does not mean that CO2 is not a GHG and is not involved in climate feedback loops.
CantileverRob — Those who intend to follow the scietific method begin by learning the established science. Try starting here:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
rather than ranting about ‘ideology’ and othr things you do not understand.
CantileverRob:
Here’s the history of the scientific discovery of CO2 having GHG effects:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
The history of the scientific discovery of the CO2 increase in the atmosphere being attributable to human activity is here:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Revelle.htm
CantileverRob: “Indeed, a partisan debate, between those loyal to the scientific method (cautious & skeptical) and those wishing to affirm a pessimistic, catastrophic, humans-are-to-blame ideology that is increasingly being refuted by non-catastrophe as well as tropospheric temperature stability for 7 years, and now a massive, record temp decline in a 1-year period.”
Uh, on a 7 year period that takes us back to 2000 which was 0.2C colder. I believe you meant to say 9 year period of “stability” — which takes us back to your cherry picked year of 1998 and the large El Nino event of that year.
And if we’re going to extraplate temperature trends over 1 year periods, what about the 2 month trend from January to March of this year? Extrapolate that trend out and we’re going to become venus within our lifetimes:
http://climateprogress.org/ 2008/ 04/ 13/ breaking-news-the-great-ice-age-of-2008-is-finally-over-next-stop-venus/
The strong La Nina event we just went through is ending:
http://www.wunderground.com/ blog/ JeffMasters/ comment.html?entrynum=927&tstamp=200804
The cold snap we went through is entirely explainable and is not a climate trend, it is weather. By summertime (northern hemisphere) the trend will be hotter again.
Oh and the thing about the Milankovich cycles and the Ice Ages are that the Milakovich cycles themselves have a small effect. Without positive feedback loops you wouldn’t get Ice Ages. So it is necessary for CO2 to be a GHG in order to get an Ice Age out of the Milankovich cycles. The CO2 concentrations do lag, but they then magnify — so for the normal Ice Age cycles the CO2 concentrations act as both an effect and a cause. They are not, however, the trigger (although they were the trigger for the PETM event). In the AGW model CO2 is also acting as both a cause and a trigger. In this situation other variables like the GHG properties of H2O, the loss of albedo from the shrinking northern ice caps and glaciers, the release of methane from melting permafrost, etc are not triggers but are acting as positive feedback loops like CO2 acted during the Ice Ages. and in this case methane release is acting as an amplifier, but during the PETM event it was the primary trigger.
Humans First etc.,
How do climate forcings not have anything to do with the real world? What was the Mt. Pinatubo eruption? Or, the favorite of deniers, variations in insolation from the sun? These are natural forcings. Then there are manmade ones about which we are supposedly arguing.
You are demonstrating for all, the definition of denial: “Make the World Go Away” as Eddy Arnold sung.
The word DENIER is used here so readily and frequently, with the negativity and polarization (if not superiority) it implies; when SKEPTIC would do most adequately. Where would anyone get the idea that pro-AGWers are devotees of an ideology or religion? From their condescending terminology? A partisan, theological clash from the get-go. “We know the truth, you are mere Deniers of it.” Any brotherhood of seekers after truth is thwarted. It is will to power, and nothing more! And as for the latest satellite data (0.53°C cooling) and Argo buoy system data (15 year temp stability, last few years a slight cooling trend in the oceans), that apparently hasn’t been cerebrally integrated yet. For now, doomsday has been postponed on account of climate change (contrary to the forebodings). I supposed the next phase is to be Masking Deniers, as the climate unexpectedly cools and CO2 goes on a rising like a hot air balloon. Apparently, this entire climate issue is the product of programming geeks who sought to exponentially expand the number and length of news and blog article comments, thus ensuring employment for their fellow geeklings while encouraging bandwidth expansion via reader interactivity. Again, will to power by the marginalized.
This sort of discussion is repeated endlessly on so many sites, but it is completely pointless. No-one ever changes their minds and the science is so complex that it is ludicrous arguing about it.
My position is that I basically accept that the scientists are being honest in their findings (or rather that the scientific process keeps them honest whether they like it or not). I have a superficial knowledge of the science but would not for a moment pretend that I am qualified to comment on their conclusions.
In short – I an an “AGW believer” – especially as the observed temperature trend for the last 3 decades is now looking so convincing.
I am more concerned about the politics, which is going nowhere fast. The world (particularly the US) seems to have created a political system which actively prevents any sort of effective response to climate change.
Robert is right.
The discussions are pointless as to altering anyone’s hard-headed perspective. But he fails to consider what a useful distraction it all is from the flood waters rising about our ankles, the drought crisping the lawn to a nice egg-noodle blond and the A/C short-circuiting from global-warming overload. This site is an essential sanity valve amid the harrowing displacement of coastal populations ridden with malaria trying to relocate in continental America (excuse me, there’s a knock at the door – just some panhandling Inuit). It’s a therapeutic fantasy, all this concern and brow furrowing over terrible events not due for a good 20 to 50 to 100 years, a relief valve for frustration with inactive governments that refuse to immediately trash their economies and encourage mass riots among people who can no longer drive their cars, open a soda or fart outside of 8 inches from a Craftsman GHG sequestration system. Sometimes the medium is the message, like that highly-energy-consumptive Al Gore, parading about as a prophet on a private, CO2- spewing jet. He knows the full value of personal distraction through hypocritical endeavor. Us little folk, we have virtual forums with the far-less guilt-inducing release of CO2 caused by computer stand-by operation. We’re merely being faithful to our scale and position on the sinners ladder.
With all due respect, anyone that advocates against action on reducing AGW needs to be honest about the ramifications of that stance on the USA (apologies to those reading from abroad for my ethnocentrism).
Efficiency programs will drive down electricity use and save people money. This will not only reduce CO2, but also sulfur dioxide (asthma, acid rain), nitrogen oxide (smog, acid rain, asthma) and mercury (neurological toxin).
Pushing domestic renewable energy technologies will not only reduce CO2 and other emissions but also create jobs, boost local economies and take steps towards energy independence and price stability.
More measures exist, but I hope my point is made.
Whether intentional or not, when one denies the science and argues against action on climate change, significant benefits to this country are being delayed.
Lamont
Of course our CO2 goes into the atmosphere and not directly into bottles of classic Coke. But the deeper concern as yet fully undefined is what effect human CO2 actually has on the greenhouse effect, considering that the CO2 concentration is miles beyond absorptive saturation, and was so way back at 300 ppm. Double it and neither God nor the atmosphere will actually notice (as even higher CO2 concentrations attest during historical periods much cooler than the present).
The psychiatrists are considering entering CO2 Fixation as a new syndrome in their disorders reference books, CO2phobia already being in there along with Anti-Denialism.
You give in as an AGW proponent despite the only glaring scientific certainty: none of the scientists are certain about what we might have wrought by enjoying fossil fuels or what that truly means for our future. Due to the state of the young science, and endlessly-variable perspectives on all the climate theories, nothing is certain, or predictably so, except that the climate will continue to naturally change, as is its verifiable historical habit, or obsession, so to speak. A rush to indict mankind is a silly as looking to your dog because there is a dead cat in the yard. It could have died from shorting the PV panel terminals, or simply in protest that you withheld its salmon ration in deference to eco advice on ensuring sustainability.
Bauer
Please enlighten us as to the grand benefits of ethanol production (a prime, Green solution) now robbing the poor and miserable of their flour and tortillas, tilling rain-forest land that would have remained untouched but for corn profit, and jacking up the price of all food due to corn’s fundamental use in feed stocks. And all for a fuel with a higher cost of production, water usage and lower energy content than gasoline (also making it more polluting on a miles-driven equivalence scale). If you read the history of California renewable energy programs you will discover its recurrent non-implementation on any useful scale as a result of Green litigation (for the very reason that large-scale use threatens to prolong the industrial economy held in such contempt – yes, even by those with shiny cars, dishwashers and cappuccino machines). Jobs? Indeed, for lawyers only, and, well, a smattering of protest-sign makers. Who is it now crying our for a halt to ethanol production…numerous European government leaders who got tangled up in the Greenery? Quick, savior-like solutions have immediate, negative ramifications when implemented sans forethought (political expediency in deference to the overzealous Greens – equally afflicted with myopia and destructive self-interest (presented as noble concern for all mankind, of course). Run from those who propose your savior.
David, you are blowing smoke. I dare you to go plot the Vostok data yourself and come back and show me where you think CO2 is leading temp in the ice core data—if you don;t you are just a blow-hard and you should stop with your sheeple rebuttals
Lamont “If you credit the current warming trend as being due to the solar cycle that establishes a magnitude of the Sun’s effect. You can run this model backwards and find that it predicts large climate fluctuations for the past couple hundred years which were not actually observed. You don’t have to go back 100,000s of years. Just run the model back to the pre-industrial age and it fails to be validated.”—I never said the Sun is responsible for the very recent warming.
Basically Roger Pielke has challenged RC and their ilk to prove thier models have any skill what so ever—crickets chirping. Gavin–LOL even states that that they cannont be verified or validated—they are crap!
Cantilever,
You continue to focus on the fact that other people are trying to point out something going on the in the world out there that you are intent on papering over. Your focus is on those other people: “will to power” “overzealous Greens” and not at the topic at hand, the climate and our potential impact on it.
Therefore the label “denial” or “denier” comes to mind. Your focus seems to be on saying that because a group of people are holding people responsible for some impact on the environment, they must be wrong or politically motivated. What’s wrong with being responsible…if we are responsible? Why go through all the mental and rhetorical gymnastics?
By the way, I don’t see anything in Bauer’s comment that talks about ethanol. You are either imagining it, or you are just trying to prop up a flimsy argument with some creative rhetorical posturing.
CantileverRob
Not sure how ethanol became something I’m promoting. Perhaps I’m being confused for a major agricultural corporation. All kidding aside, for all the reasons you listed, corn based ethanol is stupid, agreed?
As for jobs, I put a PV system on my home and specified USA parts. The panels came from Mass, the inverter from Oregon, the labor was local. Any way you slice it, that’s 11,000 energy dollars right back to this country.
Cantilever Rob:
But the deeper concern as yet fully undefined is what effect human CO2 actually has on the greenhouse effect, considering that the CO2 concentration is miles beyond absorptive saturation, and was so way back at 300 ppm.
Not long ago, I attended a lecture given by Dr. Ralph Keeling at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (he’s the son of the legendary Charles Keeling and is himself an accomplished scientist). During the Q&A session afterward, he was asked about CO2 absorption saturation. He replied that the saturation argument was complete nonsense, because the saturation bands broaden with increasing CO2 concentrations. He also said that we are nowhere near CO2 IR absorption saturation levels.
So Cantilever, your argument is completely bogus — the fact that you keep trotting out garbage like this shows that you are a denier, not a skeptic.
A genuine skeptic can be distinguished from a denier in that the skeptic actually understands the science that he/she is skeptical of. You show absolutely no such understanding, as is shown by your manifestly stupid claim above — hence the label “denier” (as opposed to “skeptic”) applies to you.
To caer bang bong
“… exponentially higher levels of CO2 would be needed to produce a linear increase in absorption, and hence temperature….”
“Some [arrogant] people also think that line broadening of the CO2 absorption lines by pressure, water vapor, or temperature provides an escape from the saturation dilemma…”
What does ’saturation’ mean?
Many people seem to be confused about the “saturation” argument. It’s easy to calculate, using the known extinction coefficients [10], that 99% of the radiation in the CO2 absorption bands is absorbed within only a few tens to hundreds of meters of the source. These coefficients are derived from measurements in modern, high-resolution spectrometers. But strong absorption is also found even with older, lower-resolution instruments. So what does this mean? Is the global warming theory false? Or should older measurements not be trusted? Here is what it means:
1. The “saturation” argument does not mean that global warming doesn’t occur. What saturation tells us is that exponentially higher levels of CO2 would be needed to produce a linear increase in absorption, and hence temperature. This is basic physics. Beer’s law has not been repealed.
2. Some people have gotten the idea that water vapor, which is mainly present at lower altitudes, is somehow necessary for the CO2 to absorb infrared radiation, and that therefore at higher altitudes, CO2 is not anywhere near saturation. This is not true. The presence or absence of water vapor has no bearing on whether radiation is absorbed by CO2. That is because, for all practical purposes, the absorption bands of H2O and CO2 important for warming are different. (If they weren’t, CO2 absorption would be so insignificant compared to water vapor that it wouldn’t be a potential problem, and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.)
3. CO2 is very nearly homogeneous throughout the atmosphere, so its concentration (as a percentage of the total) is about the same at all altitudes. Although the pressure is lower at high altitudes, there is also a much greater volume. That is why the ozone layer, which is around 30-90 km in altitude, is still able to absorb almost all of the shortwave UV, even though its concentration is only 8-12 ppm. So the importance of low concentrations of gases should not be underestimated. But water vapor is a red herring: it has essentially no effect on what CO2 does. Where water vapor becomes important is in the earth’s response to CO2.
4. Some people also think that line broadening of the CO2 absorption lines by pressure, water vapor, or temperature provides an escape from the saturation dilemma. But in line broadening, the absorbance peak is only smeared out; the total amount of energy absorbed is not affected. For the same reason, measurements with lower-resolution spectrometers, which slightly smear out the absorption lines, are still valid.
Cant:
“Of course our CO2 goes into the atmosphere and not directly into bottles of classic Coke. But the deeper concern as yet fully undefined is what effect human CO2 actually has on the greenhouse effect, considering that the CO2 concentration is miles beyond absorptive saturation, and was so way back at 300 ppm. Double it and neither God nor the atmosphere will actually notice (as even higher CO2 concentrations attest during historical periods much cooler than the present).”
Saturation of CO2 and H2O only occurs near the surface. Higher in the atmosphere the air is less dense, colder and drier, which is where there’s a window that CO2 can block IR emissions. You are only back about in the 1950s as far as your understanding of CO2 and absorptive saturation.
From:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm
Most experts stuck by the old objection to the greenhouse theory of climate change — in the parts of the spectrum where infrared absorption took place, the CO2 plus the water vapor that were already in the atmosphere sufficed to block all the radiation that could be blocked. In this “saturated” condition, raising the level of the gas could not change anything. But this argument was falling into doubt. The discovery of quantum mechanics in the 1920s had opened the way to an accurate theory for the details of how absorption took place, developed by Walter Elsasser during the Second World War. Precise laboratory measurements studies during the war and after confirmed a new outlook. In the frigid and rarified upper atmosphere where the crucial infrared absorption takes place, the nature of the absorption is different from what scientists had assumed from the old sea-level measurements.
Take a single molecule of CO2 or H2O. It will absorb light only in a set of specific wavelengths, which show up as thin dark lines in a spectrum. In a gas at sea-level temperature and pressure, the countless molecules colliding with one another at different velocities each absorb at slightly different wavelengths, so the lines are broadened considerably. With the primitive infrared instruments available earlier in the 20th century, scientists saw the absorption smeared out into wide bands. And they had no theory to suggest anything else.
A modern spectrograph shows a set of peaks and valleys superimposed on each band, even at sea-level pressure. In cold air at low pressure, each band resolves into a cluster of sharply defined lines, like a picket fence. There are gaps between the H2O lines where radiation can get through unless blocked by CO2 lines. That showed up clearly in data compiled for the U.S. Air Force, drawing the attention of researchers to the details of the absorption, especially at high altitudes. Moreover, researchers working for the Air Force had become acutely aware of how very dry the air gets at upper altitudes—indeed the stratosphere has scarcely any water vapor at all. By contrast, CO2 is fairly well mixed all through the atmosphere, so as you look higher it becomes relatively more significant.(9a)
The main points could have been understood in the 1930s if scientists had looked at the greenhouse effect carefully (or if they had noticed Hulburt’s paper, which did take a careful look). But it was in the 1950s, with the new calculations and measurements in hand, that a few theoretical physicists realized the question was worth a long and careful new look. Most earlier scientists who looked at the greenhouse effect had treated the atmosphere as a slab, and only tried to measure and calculate radiation in terms of the total content of gas and moisture in a column to the top of the atmosphere. But if you were prepared to tackle the full radiative transfer calculations, layer by layer, you would begin to see things differently. What if water vapor did entirely block any radiation that could have been absorbed by adding CO2 in the lower layers of the atmosphere? It was still possible for CO2 to make a difference in the thin, cold upper layers. With the new absorption data in hand, Lewis D. Kaplan ground through some extensive numerical computations. In 1952, he showed that in the upper atmosphere the saturation of CO2 lines should be weak. Thus adding more of the gas would certainly change the overall balance and temperature structure of the atmosphere.(10)
4. Some people also think that line broadening of the CO2 absorption lines by pressure, water vapor, or temperature provides an escape from the saturation dilemma.
Some people indeed… like the climate-scientists at Scripps!
Cantilever, you are nothing more than a Dunning-Kruger poster-child.
CantileverRob:
You clearly don’t understand physics and radiative equilibrium. If there’s a layer of the atmosphere where CO2 isn’t saturated at 250 ppm and is saturated at 400 ppm then that is the layer where the greenhouse effect will occur. You just have to go up the column of air until you encounter sufficiently low CO2 and H2O to get transmissibility in the IR at 250, then increase the CO2 concentrations and its like throwing on another layer of clothing before going outside. It heats up everything in the lower layers.
Your point #4 is also completely false. There is a continuous distribution of photons that are emitted by the Earth in the IR, but each photon is at a discrete wavelength. If you take CO2 under higher temperatures and pressures where the lines are broader and measure what percentage of radiation it will absorb when its saturated, it will asorb less when the lines are narrower due to lower temperatures and pressures in the higher atmosphere. Photons that have discrete energies that lie in the gaps between the lines will get through the CO2 blanket at low temperatures and densities, while they will not get through at higher temperatures and densities. Your lack of understanding of this indicates that you don’t understand basic atomic physics.
Wow. I guess this post struck a chord. Didn’t really know so many deniers and their victims read this blog (hmm, victims is the wrong word, since we are all victims of the deniers — ok, I’m going with disciples). Glad to see so many people sticking up for science.
Of course, this blog isn’t really written deniers and delayers and their disciples — I have previously blogged on why “skeptics” is the wrong word, since it already applies to real scientists
This blog is first and foremost for progressives (hence the name). Second, for anybody who wants to stay ahead of the curve on climate science, climate politics, and especially climate solutions. But if I can annoy deniers/delayers along the way, well, it is smallest amount of karmic backlash conceivable considering the multiple catastrophes they are working so hard to bring upon the next 50 generations.
Gives me some ideas for future posts….
And I guess laser cooling doesn’t work in your world, Cant.
One way of looking at how laser cooling works is that the warmer gas has broader absorption lines. The laser that cools the gas is slightly off the resonant center of the absorption lines of the gas in the sample. As the gas cools (because the laser is tuned at a lower frequency so is only absorbed by gas which is travelling towards the laser which gives it a backwards kick and preferentially cools it) the aborption lines of the gas sample narrows. One the aborption line of the gas sample is narrow enough the laser transmits through the sample instead of being absorbed and the sample has cooled.
I guess this doesn’t work in your world though.
Depressing reality of climate-change = More snow and twenty years since a over 100 degree heat wave. I’m trapped in one of the cold pockets that cover the majority of the earth’ s surface.
In spite of the media’s bias for doom and gloom the facts are surfacing for the herd, the anti-AGW push-back when the years of disinformation penetrate the zeitgeist will be considerable and deserved. False prophets should keep an exit plan ready.
It gloriously apparent CO2 isn’t the be all and end all of climate models, let us find out what is.
physics apparently has a well-known liberal bias…
and cold pockets don’t cover the majority of the earth’s surface:
http://www.wunderground.com/ hurricane/ 2008/ apranomalies.gif
and all that blue coming off the pacific ocean is from the swamp cooler called La Nina. that is going to go away in the next couple of months. the pacific ocean will stop turning over and the surface will heat and that graph will start to look really red and ugly…
Joe,
It is a self-limitation to say the blog is primarily “for progressives”. I might very well be one of those people. However, this blog I think is just a little bit better than one that serves only one community that has a particular social or political agenda. The thing about the climate crisis is that effects everybody. So why limit yourself with the “for progressives” label?
If you really believe in the truth of what you are writing, the blog should priimarily be for “anybody who cares about the future of the planet or cares about the science of climate change”. Maybe secondarily for “progressives”, who are a subset of those people. Jim Hansen, for instance, doesn’t identify as a progressive…is this blog not for him?
You are also, by inserting this kind of community-affiliation announcement into this debate, subtly reinforcing the view of the deniers that the science IS partisan. I don’t think it is and I don’t think you usually argue as if it is, but this type of announcement does play into that view that we are dealing with “our facts” and “their facts”.
The pressure broadening that they talk about is not representative of any real atmosphere. They talk about a 4x concentration increase to get the pressure broadening that they talk about. That is an increase from 300 ppm (their baseline) to 1200 ppm. No where in any forecasts do we have enough oil to get to that level. Also, their pressure broadening calculation does not correspond to equation 5.24 (page 89) in Loudon which is the definitive calculation related to pressure broadening. Why? Because CO2 is a non polar gas that normally does not radiate strongly in the infrared and it is only at higher pressures that the “wings” grow (higher pressure is defined as multiples of atmospheric pressure of the gas itself, not the gas in a real atmosphere).
Also, there is a temperature dependency for absorption and emission of radiation; From Loudon
Both Doppler broadening and collision broadening have temperature as a factor in the equations. Newsvine does not allow for putting real equations in but here goes a facimile.
B(beta) = 1/k(sub[b])T where k=omega/speed of light (omega is defined here as the wavelenght of the emitter/absorber, and T = temperature. Beta is the simplification in the calculation for the doppler variance, which makes the equation temperature dependent.
The same substitution is in the equation for pressure or collision broadening.
This makes sense in that the energy of the molecule is based upon temperature to start with and the line width broadening is effected by a change in energy which can only come from collisional effects with other molecules (for small changes in energy that shifts the emission wavelength).
By definition pressure broadening is collision broadening which is temperature dependent, meaning that that the definition on realclimate ignores the temperature component and the pressure broadening is based upon an unrealistic increase in CO2 concentration in order to get the pretty graph that they wanted; and pressure/collision broadening is based upon the entire atmosphere, not just CO2 so as altitude increases (pressure decreases), those emission lines narrow, which is why the IPCC models do not agree with the actual data on the temperature at the altitudes where CO2 desaturates.
3
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#11.11 – Mon Apr 7, 2008 3:25 PM EDT
Cantilever:
You have seriously jumped the shark and clearly don’t understand anything about atomic physics.
it isn’t an increase in the concentration of CO2 in a layer of the atmosphere that causes collisional broadening. I believe you’re thinking that the argument is that in a given layer of the atmosphere as the CO2 concentration increases that the “wings” in the absorption bands get wider and that causes the layer to increase in its absorption? If so, you’ve got the wrong the picture completely.
First of all the point is that as you go up in the atmosphere CO2 and H2O lines become narrower and no longer overlap throughout the IR spectrum. This means that H2O lets through more IR due to the narrowing of the aborption bands. That means that there are fine gaps in the IR spectra where H2O lets through radiation where CO2 may have lines which will absorb the radiation.
This narrowing of spectral lines has less to do with the concentration of CO2 and the pressure overal of the atmosphere, but the temperature and the doppler narrowing of the bands.
Then as you go up in the column of air you get to drier air where there simply is less H2O and H2O is no longer saturated just due to insufficient concentrations of CO2.
Then you hit a band where at the current distribution of CO2 the concentration in the upper atmosphere falls off enough to no longer be saturated in the bands where CO2 absorbs in the IR. And it doesn’t even matter at this point that at lower layers in the atmosphere that H2O may have even been saturated in this particular wavelength. That energy has been abosorbed and re-radiated and will get now get absorbed more if you increase the CO2 concentrations at that altitude.
At this layer in the stratosphere, H2O is not saturated, CO2 is not saturated, and if you increase the CO2 concentration you increase absorption and increase the greenhouse effect. The primary issue is that CO2 extends higher in the atmosphere and can reach beyond where H2O has a high enough concentration to saturate its IR absorption bands. Then there exists a boundary where CO2 also falls off and is no longer saturated in its IR absorption bands. If you increase the CO2 concentrations beyond this layer in the stratosphere you then thrown a warm blanket around the entire planet, which gives rise to global warming.
Joe – this discussion has no practical importance. The debate may continue but the reality is that those you insist on calling deniers have lost it: most western politicians and mainstream media assert AGW is real and that, without radical action now, humankind’s outlook is grim, even catastrophic. Nonetheless, proponents of the AGW hypothesis have comprehensively lost the war: the world isn’t interested.
From 1990 (the baseline for Kyoto CO2 reductions) to 2004 global fossil fuel emissions grew by 26% – a growth that continues apace (China, for example, spends 35 times as much on oil now as in 1999, with demand expected to treble by 2030 and India has recently decided to invest massively in coal generated power), for Chavez, Putin, Ahmadinajad and King Abdullah oil is the foundation of economic and political power and they have no intention of relinquishing it, deforestation continues and populations still expand. Yet the UN’s 2007 Bali conference achieved nothing and last month Britain’s “greenest budget ever” hype proved meaningless; even the European Union’s resolve to define tough new targets crumbled recently as its leaders fought for home industries (see “The hot air of hypocrisy” – The Economist, March 22, 2008). Western governments, facing economic recession and voters who tell opinion pollsters that they regard AGW as either unimportant or a scam, are pushing climate change yet further down the agenda and are busily expanding airports, investing in roads, deferring fuel price hikes and exempting aviation and commercial shipping from emission targets – voters are what matter in a democracy. And I don’t see the US under a new President being much different, despite today’s rhetoric. Meanwhile, the AGWers are themselves mired in internal controversies – e.g. about whether nuclear power or biofuels or even wind power are acceptable solutions.
Anyone expecting all this to be reversed in time to avoid AGW’s predicted consequences lives in dreamland. If the hypothesis is valid, the global outlook is dire. Indeed, humanity’s best hope is that the AGW hypothesis turns out to be false. Fortunately that appears increasingly likely to be the case.
er, um what was the original post about now….
I wonder what the support for the US entering WW2 was before Pearl Harbor?
It is a similar situation here – what will be CC’s Pearl Harbor be?
It looks like the Oceans are still cold:
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
It also looks like the PDO is still strong negative:
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest
more cooling in store
Michael H: What can I say? This blog was launched by the Center for American Progress Action Fund and is titled Climateprogress. That said, I don’t believe that saying “This blog is first and foremost for progressives (hence the name)” means it is “primarily” for progressives. Maybe that’s just semantics.
But I am confident that the majority of readers are progressives, so I try to deliver content that I think will be most useful to them. I confess I was surprised that so many DDs (denier disciples) came out of cyberspace to post here — but if 73% of conservatives don’t believe humans are causing the global warming we’re experiencing, I shouldn’t have been so surprised
There is no escape from the fact that the climate problem cannot be solved without the embrace of multiple solutions that have always been considered “progressive” in nature. Regulations, government standards, clean energy development and deployment programs, and the like. You don’t have to be progressive to embraced those solutions — you only need to understand that global warming is an existential threat to the health and well-being of billions of people. But that requires being someone who accepts a general understanding of the scientific community, which again has become associated with progressives.
But I have tried to write in a way that would be useful to all non-conservatives. That’s why I say, “Second, it is for anybody who wants to stay ahead of the curve on climate science, climate politics, and especially climate solutions.”
The short answer: Truth is winning.
joe, can we get a top button at the bottom of page – handy for blogs like this.
Joe,
You may think that I am splitting hairs but there is a difference between “progress” or even being “for progress” and being “a progressive”. Almost everybody is “for progress” or at least very few will say they are against it. On the other hand, not many people (and perhaps this is a sign of the success of the neo-conservative smear machine) will identify themselves as progressives or to use the old word, liberal.
Beyond the issue of the popularity of the label, practically speaking, you seem every time you say that the blog is “for progressives first” be excluding or reducing to interlopers what I believe to be the majority of your readership who are probably middle of the road. It’s as though you are using the climate issue as an “entering wedge” for the group of political and social attitudes people associate with progressivism, or you’ve arrived at your position via your commitment to a set of political ideals rather than through an examination of the scientific and socioeconomic facts.
You seem to asking people to subscribe to a long and fairly demanding series of social attitudes (about the death penalty, gun control, schooling, etc.) while also dealing with this issue.
I am in agreement with you that the instruments of government regulation and programs are key tools in combating climate change, though they are not the only ones. However, I don’t think you need people to agree with all progressive positions or self-identify as progressive for them to embrace or at least affirm the use of these instruments.
The distinction is subtle but I believe will make a difference in the persuasiveness of what you write here. You don’t have to downplay your political affiliation or identity but it doesn’t seem to be the primary content of what you write about here on the blog. And that is, in my mind, to the greater benefit of the Center for American Progress and to progressives…not the other way around.
Joe: you say, at the beginning of this thread, “The science is clear about the reality of global warming and the fact that humans are the dominant cause”. Then, in a post today (9:02 am), you categorise anyone who doesn’t believe that “humans are causing the global warming” as a DD or “denier disciple”. Hmm, well go to the 2007 IPCC Report and look at Table SPM -1 on page 8 of the Summary for Policymakers of Working Group 1 (http://www.ipcc.ch/ pdf/ assessment-report/ ar4/ wg1/ ar4-wg1-spm.pdf). You’ll see that Row 3 is concerned with seven phenomena including, for example, “frequency increases over most land areas” of warm spells or heatwaves. Column 2 is headed “Likelihood of a human contribution to observed trend”. Re this example, it says that a human contribution is “more likely than not” (defined elsewhere as better than 50%). Also it refers to a footnote (f) that says “Magnitude of anthropogenic contributions not assessed. Attribution for these phenomena based on expert judgement rather than formal attribution studies”. In other words, it concludes that there’s a better than evens likelihood that humans contributed to (note: a “contribution” could be as little as 1%) the phenomena – a conclusion itself based on little more than guesswork (“expert judgement”) about the extent of human contribution. Many who are doubtful about the AGW hypothesis would agree with that position, which doesn’t remotely meet your “humans are causing the global warming” test. Therefore, according to your definition, they and scientists contributing to the IPCC report are all “denier disciples” – a definition that would seem to cover almost everyone except extreme AGW alarmists. Surely you don’t mean that? Or do you?
Bob B — I never wrote that CO2 led temperature in the Vostok ice core proxy record. However, during the peak of the Eemian interglacial you will find that CO2 and temperature peak together.
What is more important are those dramatic intervals in the paleorecords which show global warming gases producing strong temperature increases. PETM is one of those and Wikipedia as a adequate beginner’s page on it. More interesting is the melting of the Antractic ice screen in the mid-Miocene.
As we will soon be doing the same.
Michael Hoexter — Political progressivism is only about 100 years old. Liberalism, in the old-fashioned sense, is a 18th Century concept.
With regard to climate, I am a reactionary. I want the old one back as soon as may be. I find that more important than the currently popular variations of government. Anyway, that makes me a progressive in Joe Romm’s sense. Especvially in that with regarads to climate, I suspect he also is a reactionary.
Got it?
Rob Guenier — The IPCC AR4 was written by many hands (it shows) and in a scietifically conservative way. This is exactly the wrong notion of conservatism for policy makers. For policy, the most damaging possibilities, even if low probabilty, need to be emphasized according the rational decision theory.
I suppose I can be more precise after reading
G.C. Pflug & W. Romisch
Modeling, Measuring and Managing Risk
World Scientific, 2007.
Rob — Seriously. Read the IPCC report:
“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely (>90%) due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/ wg1/ Report/ AR4WG1_Print_SPM.pdf
Michael H. — I think perhaps you are splitting hairs and perhaps misunderstand me.
You write: “what I believe to be the majority of your readership who are probably middle of the road.” I’d Love that to be true, but I doubt it. If it is true, it is because I try very hard to be non-partisan, as I commented in March. Some Republicans deserve praise and get it on this blog. Some Democrats deserve criticism and get it.
Now, nonpartisan doesn’t mean I’m not pro-progressive and anti-conservative — although I must confess that I don’t see how the refusal to conserve our resources and the refusal to conserve our livable climate and the complete disregard for the health and well-being of our children and indeed all future generations really deserves the label “conservative.” That strikes me as an agenda of radical change for the worse being imposed on billions of people not yet even born.
I actually think my views are quite conservative, as David puts it. I would actually call them pro-life if the term had not been co-opted for other purposes.
David, stop reading crap–go plot it tyourself
Bob B — The last super-eruption of Mt. Toba was about 75,000–70,000 years ago. I have found two different datings for this VEI 9 event, one about 71,000 years agao and the other about 74,000 years ago. The error bars do not overlap. The geologist I asked about this seemed to find these datess accurate enough. But for archaeology, it is not.
This super-eruption is a definitive event in human evolution. The modern human species almost died out; a recent study putting the number of survivors as low as 2,000 (widely scattered) individuals. A precise dataing for the event will benefit genentic studies as well as more traditional archaeology.
I briefly looked for some indication of the event in the Vostok ice core temperature study by Petit et al. Maybe I can find an indicator. But it seems you may well be better set up to look for it. One should find a short, sharp downturn in temperature followed by a fairly rapid recovery. Also, with the down spike in temperature there should be an up spike in CO2 and sulfates.
Of course, this is a recent enough date that the evidence ought also to be available in Greenland ice cores. These have the advantage of very much more precise datings although they suffer from lack of CO2 records. A typical undertaking is to use CH4 events to correctly correlate Antarctic ice cores with Greenland ice cores to use the data from both polar regions with synchronous datings. In any event the NGISP ice core seems to have the best indicators of volcanic activity. It ought to be locatable there, but not as simply the largest spike. Those are due to nearby Iceland eruptions.
Forget it David
Bob B — Ok.
If you want to determine the number of times temperature led CO2 at each significant upswing out of a stade into an interstadial or interglacial, and by how long, I suggest using the longest ice core record. Is that Dome C?
Anyway, I believe this has been done from a graph in a 2007 paper by Hansen et al., available from his website. That graph indicates temperature usually leads, but not always.
I’m not sure what to make of that. Another paper, discussing sea temperature proxies for the recovery from LGM shows deep water warming first, then surface water and finally the atmospheric CO2 rises, persumably because the warmer water expressed CO2.
Bob B, you, like so many others, flail and sputter on and on that since CO2 lags temperature in the ice core record it proves that CO2 does not cause warming, but this very contention only demonstrates your ignorance of climate science, paleoclimate history, geologic history, and what is known about the physics of greenhouse gases.
False Premise No.1: Since CO2 rise follows temperature rise in the ice core record, CO2 therefore can not cause warming.
This is simply illogical.
Fact No.1: We know that CO2 can and does indeed cause warming by absorbing and emitting infrared energy and transferring some of this energy to other gases in the atmosphere through collision. This has been known and demonstrated by laboratory experiment for almost 150 years now. Satellite photos of Earth in the infrared bands absorbed by CO2 are opaque–the Earth’s surface can not be seen in them. This is a done deal that no amount of shrill hand waving will erase.
Now, the reason that CO2 lags temperature in the ice core record is that as an ice age ends CO2 is a feedback, not an initial forcing. But this does not mean that CO2 does not add warming, just that it does not add the initial warming.
At the end of an ice age warming is initiated by increased solar insolation, caused not by the sun getting brighter, but due to cyclical changes in Earth’s orbit and tilt of its axis. (The Milankovetch cycles, look them up.) But we know that these orbital changes alone are not enough to end an ice age since their maximum warming effect can readily be calculated and it simply is not enough to get the job done. Fortunately there are other things that do add enough warming to get the job done. One is that as ice sheet area shrinks, less sunlight is reflected back out to space, causing newly exposed land and water surface to absorb sunlight and warm. Another is that as the newly exposed land warms permafrost melts, allowing organic material in the soil to decompose and emit methane and CO2. Also, as the ocean slowly warms it can hold less dissolved CO2, so it too emits CO2 into the atmosphere. And finally, as the atmosphere warms it can hold more evaporated water vapour. (Look up relative and absolute humidity.) Since we know that CO2, methane and water vapour are all three greenhouse gases, we also know that all three cause yet more warming, hence the word ‘feedback,’ and hence the lag of CO2 behind temperature in the ice core record.
False Premise No.2: CO2 can only act as a feedback.
Again, this is simply illogical.
Fact No.2: Since we know that CO2 does indeed warm the atmosphere, we know that when more CO2 is added to the atmosphere directly, rather than as a natural feedback to some other cause of warming, it will still add more energy to the atmosphere and cause warming, this time acting as a direct forcing. To assert otherwise is unsupportable by logic or science.
We know that we, meaning us, meaning humans, are now adding CO2 directly to the atmosphere faster than the ocean and biosphere can absorb it. We know this because we’ve been measuring it since 1958. We’ve already increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere by almost 38%, and right now we are adding CO2 33 times faster that at ANY time in the ice core record. (Graph that!) We know that the added CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels because we’ve measured the drop in the isotope carbon 13 in atmospheric CO2 from historic and paleohistoric natural levels, which means that the increase is from fossil carbon fuels, which are naturally low in carbon 13. On top of that, we’ve increased methane in the atmosphere by almost 150%.
In other words, we humans are assuming the role of a naturally warming ocean at the end of the ice age, and the result will be the same: the accumulating CO2 will add warming. The only questions are how much, how fast, and what natural feedbacks will add their own warming, and how much and how fast.
And finally, as David Benson pointed out to you–repeatedly, there have been several episodes in the geologic past—long before the ice core record, which is not even 1 million years long–where enormous releases of CO2 and methane drove temperature, leading to high enough temperatures fast enough to cause mass extinctions. Look up the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and the End-Permian-Triassic extinction, for example.
exusian — Well done.
Thanks David, not that it is likely to have much, if any effect.
Denial is a very powerful psychological defense mechanism when one’s ideology or belief system is challenged by reality.
exusian – Can we get that in the tabloids some how!
You should aim to put that explanation on YouTube too.
Permission to reproduce?
Our species believes old legends. But people are too stupid to study simple science.
Stupidity is going to murder us all. Perhaps no remedy against it any more.
PaulM,
Permission to reproduce granted, but please correct my spelling of Milankovic (Serbian spelling) / Milankovitch (Anglicised spelling). There are a few other typos, as well.
exusian — Maybe not, but I found it a useful summary. Thanks for taking the time.
Yes, Joe, I’ve read the IPCC report (your post 5:04 pm yesterday). Some background: I took a serious interest in GW only recently, initially biased in favour of the AGW hypothesis. I’m a lawyer not a scientist, so may be ill qualified to comment on detail – but was impressed by the quality of much of it. However, I’ve experience of reviewing technical matters and know that expert opinion can be wrong. Also I know something about computers (I once ran the UK government’s central computing agency) and hard experience has made me suspicious of computer-based projections. Nonetheless, I approached the report with an open mind. I was disappointed.
Three observations about the SPM:
1. I was put off by its PR spin – totally unsuitable IMHO to a scientific document. Three examples: (i) At launch, the UN Press Release was headlined, “Evidence is now ‘unequivocal’ that humans are causing global warming”. The world’s media dutifully reported this – apparently, within 24 hours of its being published, a Google search produced thousands of hits such as “Humans Caused Global Warming Unequivocal, says UN”. Yet it’s a misrepresentation: the SPM uses the word “unequivocal” only once, and not in this context: see paragraph 1, “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal …” (ii) Paragraph 1 says that the 100 year temperature trend from 1906 is greater (+ 0.74 deg C) than the 100 year trend from 1901 (+ 0.6 deg C), giving the impression that it’s getting worse. But the reason is that there was a sharp drop in temperature from about 1900 to 1906: see Figure SPM.1. A truly scientific document would have made this clear. (iii) The world map at Figure SPM.4 on page 5 apparently shows how temperatures are rising on all continents. But Antarctica is excluded. It seemed to me that this was probably because there was no warming in Antarctica and to show that on an attractive chart might undermine the “global” nature of the message. Again, a truly scientific document would not have done that.
2. Therefore, it seemed possible that the SPM’s key assertion that “the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations” might itself be a PR statement. So I looked for the evidence underpinning its precision. Finding nothing of substance in the SPM, I looked elsewhere. Thus I came across the WG 1 Table to which I have referred yesterday (4:19 pm). That these different and detailed conclusions are not mentioned in the SPM is disturbing – possibly the “science” is not so well founded as I had supposed.
3. I was puzzled by the SPM’s treatment of major warmings since 1850 other than the most recent. For example, see Figure SPM 1, which shows a temperature change during the early part of the 20th century [1906/1940] much the same as the change at the end of the century [1976/1998] – both 30-year periods with similar rates of increase. Go further back and there’s a more egregious example: in 1860/1879 there was an increase with an apparently greater rate than 1976/1998. See Figure SPM 1. Yet CO2 emissions were much lower in the earlier part of the century (taking off about 1950) and very low in the 19th century: see SPM 1 of the WG 1 report. This seemed odd: if factors other than CO2 emission caused the earlier warmings, how could the authors be sure they did not apply to the recent warming? Surely this deserves careful and detailed explanation? The scientists contributing to the report must have a view – but it’s not in the SPM. Why not?
So, Joe, a careful review of the SPM turned me from a sympathiser with the AGW hypothesis to what you would call a “denier” – in reality, a sceptic.
OK, denier it is. The first two points are non-scientific non-issues.
As for the third, The 1906 to 1940 warming is well explained in the literature or my book. No major volcanoes, some solar heating, some CO2 heating.
You really ought to read the whole analysis on forcings.
The fact that the SPM – from which the media and policy makers take their lead and on which a whole edifice of global exhortation has been built – is essentially a “non-scientific” PR exercise is hardly a “non-issue”. As to the second point, the fact that scientists contributing to WG1 have (a) made assertions at variance with the claimed consensus and (b) must thereby be categorised within your weird definition as “deniers” is extraordinary. A “non-issue”? I don’t think so. As to the third, I’m referring to the IPCC report – not your book. And the IPCC report barely mentions those earlier warmings. This is scarcely conducive to its alleged standing as a comprehensive document.
You know it’s no wonder people (who are not hostile to the concept) are increasingly turning against the AGW position when its protagonists treat anyone who dares to question their position with seeming contempt. You are your own worst enemy.
Rob Guenier — Doing proper statistics with regard to climate is not so easy. Here are the 10-year average global temperatures since 1850 CE:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/10yave.jpg
The IPCC AR4, especially the SPM, is not the best place to begin learning climatology. I started with W.F. Ruddiman’s “Earth’s Climate: Past and Future” and then moved to other books and papers. David Archer’s “Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast” receives favorable comments.
Just remind me why the Antarctic ice mass has continued to increase for over 30 years, and why total southern hemisphere sea ice has reached new highs in recent months. Surely all this warming should be causing melting everywhere by now?
Just remind me why the Antarctic ice mass has continued to increase for over 30 years, and why total southern hemisphere sea ice has reached new highs in recent months. Surely all this warming should be causing melting everywhere by now?
Yawn… so we have another ignorant denier who is too lazy to stay current with the science…
http://www.nasa.gov/ home/ hqnews/ 2006/ mar/ HQ_06085_arctic_ice.html
Thanks, David. The trouble is that those of us who are reasonably well informed about public matters and experienced in dealing with politics and the media inevitably look to the IPCC report for our basic information. After all, that’s the document that the media and politicians (in the Western democracies) regard as the authority on climate change. So, when we examine that document and find it seriously wanting, we become understandably sceptical about its alleged conclusions – especially when the consequences are so far reaching. I am, for example, concerned with world poverty. (As you’re recommending books, I suggest you read “The Bottom Billion” by Professor Paul Collier.) When I see already desperate people (people without a voice) being further damaged by well-meaning Western liberals anxious to reduce their “carbon footprint”, distorting the allocation of aid to meet an AGW agenda and insisting on the cultivation of biofuels – all based on data from the IPCC – I think it essential that any doubts are made public and the document subjected to intelligent analysis.
And, of course, the whole thing is made nonsensical by the fact that, however strongly people like Joe may feel about this, the world (Western voters, oil producers and developing economies) is taking zero practical notice of the issue and CO2 emissions are continuing to grow way beyond the Kyoto targets: see my May 11 3:36 am post. As I said, anyone who thinks this will change is living in dreamland.
A word to Joe. You seem to live in a world of bizarre contradiction. On the one hand, i draw your attention to scientists who say (IPCC WG1) that there is a better than even chance that there is a human contribution to specific warming phenomena. You characterise them as deniers. On the other hand, you draw my attention to a statement drawn up by PR consultants and bureaucrats (hopefully with some scientific input) saying that warming is very likely due to human GHG emissions. You characterise that as science. Seems odd to me.
I’ve been reading the suggested links and find them very interesting. Impressed by the work put into assembling a history of CO2 and the “greenhouse” effect. Not through with the literature yet, but I thought it wise to check in on the comment stream. Very interesting.
Not too far back, Lamont wrote (among other things): “First of all the point is that as you go up in the atmosphere CO2 and H2O lines become narrower and no longer overlap throughout the IR spectrum. This means that H2O lets through more IR due to the narrowing of the aborption bands. That means that there are fine gaps in the IR spectra where H2O lets through radiation where CO2 may have lines which will absorb the radiation.” This is pretty much the essence of the bottom line on the CO2 discussion in the cited link I’ve been reading. However, there seems to be an obvious question that needs to be answered (actually, a whole host of them) before one can simply conclude, “human emissions of CO2 are therefore causing significant climate change, Q.E.D.”
First, if “CO2 and H2O lines become narrower” higher up in the atmosphere, wouldn’t that also decrease the effectiveness of CO2 as a heat retention agent? If H2O now has “fine gaps” through which the IR can penetrate to allow CO2 to act upon it, wouldn’t CO2 also suffer from it’s own gaps?
Second, since the “simple” model views the effectiveness of both H2O and CO2 as covering a swath of the IR without gaps and overlapping to some degree (in lower atmosphere, at least) in their individual “swaths” of coverage, doesn’t the more complex model that recognizes a more “picket fence” analogy essentially only change the coverage of each swath and the degree of overlap of the two (basically, just increasing the spectra of the IR over which neither are effective)? Seems that in the simple model, H2O and CO2 have their own, somewhat overlapping, regime of effectiveness, whereas in the revised model, the same is true, though each being effective over a smaller portion (as with H2O) of the IR spectrum. If the coverage at higher altitudes is reduced to the point where there is no overlap (more narrow “pickets”), doesn’t that suggest that the potential for CO2 as a heat retention agent is similarly dramatically reduced?
Considering the overall limitation on CO2 as an effective contributor to temperature increase at the surface (given the logarithmic decay with increased saturation of CO2) coupled with this apparent dramatically reduced range of IR over which CO2 can be effective, doesn’t this suggest a real problem with CO2, particularly the relatively trivial contribution to atmospheric CO2 by humans?
Regarding excursian’s comments (May 11th, 2008 at 8:38 pm), I believe your arguments suffer from logical and factual weakness, but do not have the time to go into it here (I’ve taken too much time already). From what you’ve written, the conclusions do not follow the premises. If you would like to have private email communication on this, I would welcome a chance to explore your reasoning more fully. I’ll be happy to provide you with an email address on request. I’ll understand if you don’t have the time or inclination. We all have other lives to lead.
One comment on the nature of this discussion over the past few days. There generally seems to be an effort at real discussion, but there are a few indulge in name-calling and discussion tinged with an air of intellectual superiority. Neither name-calling nor hubris will ever contribute to knowledge and both are a terrible form of argument.
On balance, though, the discussion is stimulating and sufficiently free of irrelevancies that serve as a signal of a weak argument.
First, if “CO2 and H2O lines become narrower” higher up in the atmosphere, wouldn’t that also decrease the effectiveness of CO2 as a heat retention agent? If H2O now has “fine gaps” through which the IR can penetrate to allow CO2 to act upon it, wouldn’t CO2 also suffer from it’s own gaps?
If the absorption lines did not become narrower, then CO2 would be a much stronger greenhouse gas that it actually is. Do you really think that climate-scientists and physicists have, in their 50-100 years of study and experimentation on CO2 IR absorption properties, overlooked the effects of IR absorption line narrowing? If so, you really should write up a paper and submit it to a peer-reviewed journal.
A Nobel awaits you if you can show that the scientific community has been wrong about CO2’s effectiveness as a greenhouse gas all these decades.
Bob Webster wrote: “particularly the relatively trivial contribution to atmospheric CO2 by humans”
Trivial? I assure you, a 38% increase in an atmospheric gas capable of absorbing infrared energy is anything but trivial.
I find that those who play up the ‘trivial’ amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, only .0383% by volume, or 385 ppmv and increasing by 2.5 ppmv per year, never mention that even water vapour makes up less than 1% of the atmosphere by volume. They also never mention that nitrogen and oxygen make up around 99% of the atmosphere (~78.% + ~21%), but that those two gasses are transparent to infrared energy, which means that less than 1% of the atmosphere by volume is entirely responsible for making Earth’s average surface temperature 33°C–make that 33.7°C–warmer than it otherwise would be.
That’s a pretty powerful 1% by any measure, don’t you think? The fact is the very habitability of Earth hangs on that 1%. We’re not increasing the amount of nitrogen or oxygen, and we’re not increasing the amount of water vapour, except as a feedback as the atmosphere warms, but we are increasing not one, but several of the greenhouse gases in that 1%, namely CO2, methane, nitrous oxides, CFCs and a host of other man-made trace gases. That increase is anything but trivial.
Bob also wrote:
“First, if “CO2 and H2O lines become narrower” higher up in the atmosphere, wouldn’t that also decrease the effectiveness of CO2 as a heat retention agent? If H2O now has “fine gaps” through which the IR can penetrate to allow CO2 to act upon it, wouldn’t CO2 also suffer from it’s own gaps?”
Yes it does. The higher in the atmosphere, the lower the density of CO2 and the more narrow its absorption bands, thus increasing the number of IR photons that will escape to space, thereby cooling the atmosphere. But, and it’s a significant but, increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will increase the elevation at which IR escape becomes more likely than absorption, keeping the energy in the atmosphere longer, allowing it to warm the atmosphere through back radiation, further absorption, and molecular collision.
There is also another important property of elevation in play, namely that the amount of water vapour in the atmosphere drops rapidly with elevation as both temperature and pressure drop with elevation. (Relative and absolute humidity drops.) This means that by the upper-mid troposphere water vapour drops below the level of CO2 and no longer dominates CO2. In other words, there is little to no remaining overlap between CO2 and H2O. And since we are adding CO2 directly, the depth of atmosphere where H2O does not overlap CO2 is increasing. Further down, in the region where H2O does dominate, increasing CO2 increases pressure, broadening the IR absorption bands, so even there the greenhouse effect is not saturated.
Glad to see that you are reading about the science, Bob. I agree that it definitely helps elevate the level of discussion.
Re: Bob B
Yes, we through out the ‘Mayor of England’ and elected a ‘climate skeptic’ in an election which was fought almost exclusively around the issue of global warming.
Oh, hang on…
Re Bob B:
Yes, we threw out the ‘Mayor of England’ and replaced him with a tory skeptic, who fought his election campaign entirely on the issue of AGW and proved to be an expert in all the issues involved.
Wait, hang on…
Bob Webster — The radiative physics of water vapor and carbon dioxide is well explained in Spencer Weart:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
The human contribution to carbon in the active carbon cycle is large. Emissions:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.htm
which leads to dramatically increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. Mauna Loa:
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/ gmd/ ccgg/ trends/ co2_data_mlo.html
which then causes the temperature increases I previously posted for you.
On the matter of the IPCC AR4: I find it quite a disappointing and difficult document. The primary reason is too many authors. Worse, there is an attempt at ‘concensus’. Obtaining concensus amoung scientists is like herding cats. In any case, I don’t find it all surprising that you have discovered various internal inconsistencies; different sections were written by different groups; the final drafts were completed after the SPM was released.
Despite all that, the central fact is the clear signal of AGW, for the reasons expounded by Weart and demonstrated in the linked graphs.
Bob Webster wrote: “Considering the overall limitation on CO2 as an effective contributor to temperature increase at the surface (given the logarithmic decay with increased saturation of CO2) coupled with this apparent dramatically reduced range of IR over which CO2 can be effective, doesn’t this suggest a real problem with CO2, particularly the relatively trivial contribution to atmospheric CO2 by humans?”
This makes good sense to me.
IPCC pretty much agrees, if you look into the numbers (IPCC SPM 2007, p.4). Radiative forcing (RF) of CO2 is 1.66 W/m^2 with the forcing from other greenhouse gases essentially cancelled out by negative forcing from aerosols, land use, etc.
http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/ wg1/ Report/ AR4WG1_Print_SPM.pdf
Arrhenius and Stefan-Boltzmann tell us a doubling of CO2 from a pre-industrial 280 ppmv in 1750 to a projected 560 ppmv by 2100 will result in a total increase in temperature of 0.7C. The relationship is logarithmic and we are about 45% there, so CO2 has theoretically caused a warming of 0.3C to date, with another 0.4C expected by 2100.
This is not alarming.
And, since the relationship is logarithmic, CO2 will need to double again to 1120 ppmv in order to cause a further 0.7C increase.
Will this ever happen and, if so, when?
All the known fossil fuel reserves of the world represent a cumulative CO2 emission of 1150 GtC (billions of tons carbon). That’s all there is out there, even including oil shales, tar sands, etc.
We currently emit 7.5 GtC and atmospheric CO2 rises by 1.9 ppmv per year. So if we continue burning fossil fuels at today’s rate, they will last 150 years and we will have increased atmospheric CO2 by 290 ppmv (at the same ratio that currently stays in the atmosphere).
It is reasonable to assume that the world will gradually move from fossil fuels for power generation and for automotive fuels, as these become more scarce and costly, so that the 150-year projection is probably too pessimistic. And as we switch to other sources (nuclear, renewables, bio-fuels, etc.) and these dwindling resources are switched from combustion to other high value end uses (petrochemicals, plastics, fertilizers, etc.), there will be less CO2 generated from their use.
But let us ignore these limiting factors.
IPCC (p.16) warns us of “climate-carbon cycle coupling”, which suggests that a higher percentage of the emitted CO2 will stay in the atmosphere as the “climate system warms”.
Let’s assume 100% stays in the atmosphere. And let’s assume this all goes into the troposphere, which represents 75% of the total atmospheric mass of 5 quadrillion tons (5,000,000 Gt).
All the fossil fuel carbon that exists on Earth would increase atmospheric CO2 from today’s 380 ppmv to 1120 ppmv.
Greenhouse theory (at IPCC’s RF for CO2) tells us that increasing CO2 from 380 to 1120 ppmv would result in a RF of 5.78 W/m^2.
This calculates to 1.1C temperature increase from today until all the fossil fuels on Earth are consumed, some day in the far distant future.
This certainly confirms the conclusion reached by BobWebster that the climate impact of CO2 is relatively trivial.
Everything else is assumed positive feedbacks and hype.
Max
Caerbannog wrote: “A Nobel awaits you if you can show that the scientific community has been wrong about CO2’s effectiveness as a greenhouse gas all these decades.”
Svensmark and CERN are working on it.
Max
manacker — You managed, somehow, not to pay attention to just ‘trivial’ matters as Arctic sea ice reduction, glacier and Greenland ice sheet mass loss, seasonal changes, etc. ad nauseum.
I already linked to Spencer Weart’s “The Discovery of Global Warming”. Disgest that and then come back…
Wrong manacker. Should Svensmark and the CERN CLOUD experiment demonstrate that cosmic rays do have an influence on cloud formation then they will have made a major contribution to climate science by showing the existence of a new forcing, but they will not have altered the physics of greenhouses gases or the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas one iota.
David B. Benson wrote:
“manacker — You managed, somehow, not to pay attention to just ‘trivial’ matters as Arctic sea ice reduction, glacier and Greenland ice sheet mass loss, seasonal changes, etc. ad nauseum.”
Not to mention permafrost methane and seabed methane calthrates, and ocean acidification.
Those in denial are very good at not paying attention to things.
manacker — The IR properites of carbon dioxide are well enough understood to build CO2 lasers. So you should really go do the reading I suggested before considering tertiary effects.
To show what I mean, consider the following popularization:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/ 2008/ 05/ 080512120523.htm
entitled “Solar Variability: Striking A Balance With Climate Change”
Max: Your logic is unassailable … but it will be assailed.
D.B. Benson writes: “Bob Webster — The radiative physics of water vapor and carbon dioxide is well explained in Spencer Weart:” (link followed) Ironically, Benson’s reply was to my comments beginning with: “I’ve been reading the suggested links and find them very interesting. Impressed by the work put into assembling a history of CO2 and the ‘greenhouse’ effect …” and continued with (after a quote from Lamont): “This is pretty much the essence of the bottom line on the CO2 discussion in the cited link I’ve been reading.”
Note: The material to which I was earlier directed by several in this thread is precisely the one to which I was referring … and is the same that Benson suggests I read. Well, I have. And I posed those questions with that as a background.
Regarding the “trivial” amount of CO2 from human emissions, my comment was morphed into something others may have said in the past, but certainly not what I wrote. I did not make statement about the percentage of the atmosphere that CO2 makes, concluding that it’s small so it doesn’t matter. Mischaracterizing a comment is an easy way to try to discredit it.
The basis for my comment that human produced CO2 is trivial is the fact that the annual human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is approximately 3% of the total. 3% is trivial by any stretch. Yes, I understand that if you concentrate all discussion on just this 3% produced by humans (and none of the other 3%s produced by other processes) and assume only the human 3% matters as a key driving force for climate change, you can (by taking every favorable view of information pointing in that direction and ignoring all the information pointing elsewhere) create a scenario that suggests humans are responsible for significant climate change. But that is hardly scientific, even though its elements may be framed in scientific terms.
It seems remarkable that if a relatively minor GHG like CO2 can, by such a trivial deviation, through the entire climate system into a “catastrophic” warming spin, then it ought to be pretty easy to find past instances where significant deviations in atmospheric CO2 caused similar warming. Yet no proof exists that any such CO2-produced warming has ever been a significant climate change agent. Sure, theories are a dime a dozen, but where is the scientific evidence that shows CO2 has ever been a significant climate change force? It has been only recently in Earth’s long history that atmospheric CO2 dropped below 400 ppm (based on geologic record dating back 540 million years). Amounts that were 5x, 10x, 15x today’s levels did not cause significant global warming (some occurring during some of the worst ice eras in climate history).
A more than 50-year interest in meteorology, climatology, and geology with a special interest in ice ages, epochs, and eras, and the apparent disinterest of the IPCC in understanding climate change prior to 1976 has been the primary source of my reluctance to accept the theory espoused by the IPCC and Gore.
My 30-years experience with all aspects of modeling and simulation of physical systems, makes the statements of IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth quoted earlier quite revealing:
“there are no (climate) predictions by IPCC at all. And there never have been”. Instead, there are only “what if” projections of future climate that correspond to certain emissions scenarios.”
“None of the models used by IPCC is initialised to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models corresponds even remotely to the current observed climate.”
“GCMs “assume linearity” which “works for global forced variations, but it cannot work for many aspects of climate, especially those related to the water cycle … the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate”.
I am also quite familiar with the abuse of model output. I seriously doubt that those who developed the GCMs would appreciate their being used as “forecasts” of future scenarios that are then trotted out as a prediction of future climate. But that is precisely what has been happening.
The more I’ve read the link suggested above, the more convinced I’ve become that CO2, while likely responsible for some warming, is not a significant climate change force. There is simply no evidence to support that conclusion, but there is plenty of theory that is being overwhelmed by contradictory evidence.
And by the way, take a look at Arctic ice shield coverage for 1980 to 2008 for this date. You will notice that the retreat being warned of so recently has all but vanished as ice coverage surged this past winter.
Glaciers retreat, others advance. Globally, both are occurring as they have since climate began. Neighboring glaciers, one advancing, one retreating. Obviously, other factors are at work.
Let’s take the time over which cooling is supposed to reign (until 2015?) to learn more about what drove climate changes naturally before any introduction of CO2 by humans. It seems to be a bit unscientific to be ignoring natural climate variation, accepting ignorance for its causes, and then leap to conclusions about human causation of recent (rather unremarkable) decadal scale climate variability.
Sorry for the slip … “through” should have been “throw” in “It seems remarkable that if a relatively minor GHG like CO2 can, by such a trivial deviation, through the entire climate system into a “catastrophic” warming”
Been a long day here.
David B. Benson wrote: “manacker — The IR properites of carbon dioxide are well enough understood to build CO2 lasers. So you should really go do the reading I suggested before considering tertiary effects.”
Can you tell me what you are talking about here?
Are you disagreeing with the greenhouse theory according to Arrhenius and Stefan-Boltzmann or the RF of CO2 of 1.66 W/m^2 according to IPCC?
These are the bases for the 0.7C increase resulting from a doubling of CO2 (from 280 ppm in 1750 to 560 ppm in 2100).
Shall I walk you through the calculation so that you can better understand it?
They are also the bases for a total cumulative forcing potential of all the carbon that exists in Earth’s total fossil fuels of 5.78 W/m^2 at 1120 ppm CO2, with a resulting temperature increase of 1.1C from today.
Do you have a better estimate of how much CO2 the world’s total remaining fossil fuels could generate? If so, what is your estimate?
This tells me that the GH theory indicates an additional warming from today until all fossil fuels on Earth are consumed of 1.1C (assuming that all the additional CO2 produced from now until then stays in the atmosphere).
This is not very alarming. In fact, it is downright boring.
Regards,
Max
The basis for my comment that human produced CO2 is trivial is the fact that the annual human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is approximately 3% of the total. 3% is trivial by any stretch.
Hmmmm….. who doesn’t see the obvious problem with Bob Webster’s logic here?
Bob Webster — Your post is simply filled with misunderstandings, so many I doubt you have actually read much of “The Discovery of Global Warming”.
(1) CO2 is an important global warming (so-called greenhouse) gas. Without it the planet would be too cold for survvival.
(2) More CO2 ==> more warming. (Quantities are not important until you understand that principle.)
(3) I’ve already posted for you graphs of emissions and subsequent atmospheric CO2 increases.
The only remaining piece3 of the puzzle is just how important the feedbacks to CO2 are. This forms the long term climate sensitivity. The current best estimate is about 3 K. This has nothing directly to do with computerized climate models; indeed one can go quite far in projecting future (even regional) climate without computers, just using the available studies in paleoclimate.
Now it does seem to me that you have picked up, and reguritated, almost every denialist argument around. It is clear you have learned nothing important from your study of the events in deep time; here I am thinking of PETM and the melting of Antarctica in the mid-Miocene. So it does appear to me that you care to use the scientific method; if I am wrong about this, then everyone who intends to use it first must study what is already known about the science before attempting to (rationally) criticize some aspect of it.
In the case of AGW, every major scientific body in the world has issued a statement which in effect endorses the IPCC AR4. So it does appear that you denialists are outnumbered about 136 to 0.
manacker — The current best estimate for the climate sensitivity of CO2 doubling is 3 K. I fear your calcuations are seriously underestimating the harm. Do you have any conception at all why that might be the case?
For the benefit of David B. Benson I will elaborate on fossil fuel reserves and atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
In an article by Andrew Dessler on another site the question of fossil fuel reserves limiting the total atmospheric CO2 concentration to a maximum of 500 ppmv was raised. This article raised some interesting questions regarding the limitations of anthropogenic CO2 as a significant greenhouse gas..
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/5/6/10545/14025
There are a lot of estimates out there, but the Oil + Gas Journal estimates:
Proven oil reserves word-wide are 157 billion tons
Current use is 3.5 billion tons/year
So at today’s level of usage, there are 45 years
This number includes a portion of the Canadian tar sands currently under development, but not the worldwide oil shale deposits (USA and elsewhere); these non-included sources are huge and could increase reserves by an additional 300-400 billion tons.
1 ton of oil generates 0.85 tons of C (as CO2), and around 75% of the oil is used as fuel, so including oil shale the total oil reserves would generate around 290 GtC.
Proven natural gas reserves are 176,000 billion cubic meters
Current use is 2,800 billion cubic meters/year
So at today’s level of usage, there are 62 years
1 cubic meter of natural gas generates 0.55 kg C (as CO2), and around 60% of the natural gas is used as fuel, so we have a total CO2 generation of around 60 GtC.
Coal reserves (Wikipedia) are 909 billion tons
Current use is 6.2 billion tons/year
So at today’s level of usage, there are 147 years
1 ton of coal generates around 0.91 ton of C (as CO2), and around 95% all of the coal is used as fuel, so the total coal reserves would generate around 800 GtC.
All together this represents around 1,150 GtC (as CO2).
We are currently generating 7.5 GtC/year; at the same time atmospheric CO2 is increasing by 1.9 ppmv/year. So, assuming the same ratio stays in the atmosphere, the world’s total supply of fossil fuels would increase atmospheric CO2 by around 290 ppmv, from today’s 380 ppmv to 670 ppmv.
The greenhouse theory tells us this would represent a RF of 3.03 W/m^2, which would increase temperature by 0.6C from today.
So it appears that the 500 ppmv, which Andrew Dessler quoted from Professor Rutledge’s study, could be a bit low (possibly the oil shale was not considered in the reserves), but it is not that far off. But the warming from consuming all the fossil fuel reserves would certainly be less than “catastrophic”.
But since IPCC (SPM 2007, p.16) warns us, “climate-carbon cycle coupling is expected to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as the climate system warms, but the magnitude of this feedback is uncertain”. In other words, a greater percentage of the CO2 emitted will stay in the atmosphere as oceans warm and absorb less.
So, with this in mind, we can assume that 100% of the CO2 emitted will stay in the atmosphere indefinitely, and the concentration will reach 1120 ppmv as an absolute theoretical maximum value when all fossil fuels have been used up.
Under this maximum-maximum worst-case scenario, the RF would be 5.78 W/m^2 which would increase temperature by 1.1C from today.
This is not alarming, as pointed out earlier.
Max
David B. Benson wrote: “manacker — The current best estimate for the climate sensitivity of CO2 doubling is 3 K.”
IPCC disagrees with you on this one.
[JR: Rest of post deleted as outright disinformation. David Benson's statement is an accurate representation of both the IPCC and the peer-reviewed scientific literature. This is, as regular readers know, the fast feedback sensitivity. Many, including the nation's top climate scientist, have published analyses suggesting the sensitivity is much higher, when you throw in the slower feedbacks, which include the sinks saturating and the tundra.]
manacker wrote “We are currently generating 7.5 GtC/year;…” You are out-of-date. Somewhere between 8.5 and 9 GtC. Doesn’t matter.
Go find the IPCC estimate of climate sensitivity. You’ll find it is 3 +- 1.5 K.
There is actually quite a bit of research on this important number. You will find it is well-constrained at the lower end by paleoclimate studies and at the high end by a recent paper by Annan & Hargreaves.
Given the fact that rice is already at the upper limit of its temperature range (almost), one should proceed accordingly and stick with the estblished science rathr than the as yet undigested studies.
There are three sensitivities generally posited:
0.7 – 1.2C………………Feedbacks balance or are slightly negative
1.5 – 4.5C………………IPCC feedbacks majority positive
6 – 9C and above…….Feedbacks unstoppable positive
Bob Webster said:
“Regarding the “trivial” amount of CO2 from human emissions, my comment was morphed into something others may have said in the past, but certainly not what I wrote. I did not make statement about the percentage of the atmosphere that CO2 makes, concluding that it’s small so it doesn’t matter.”
Fair enough, Bob, but then you go right back down the “CO2 is trivial” rabbit hole again by saying…
“The basis for my comment that human produced CO2 is trivial is the fact that the annual human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is approximately 3% of the total. 3% is trivial by any stretch.”
… which, if you mean annual human produced CO2 is 3% of the total of annual CO2 emissions from 1) respiration, 2) soil and organic decomposition, 3) the ocean, 4) land use change, and 5) burning of fossil fuels and cement production, puts you on even thinner ice. In fact, it puts you on no ice at all since 1 and 2 are canceled out by photosynthesis and the ocean is a net absorber of CO2. Plus, 1 through 4 all cycle carbon that is already in the active carbon cycle, while only 5 injects fossil carbon, effectively ‘new’ carbon, into the active carbon cycle, meaning that 5 is almost solely responsible for the 38% rise in CO2 since preindustrial levels, which measuring the drop in carbon 13 in atmospheric CO2 supports.
My argument remains:
We’re not increasing the amount of water vapour, except as a feedback as the atmosphere warms.
We ARE increasing CO2, methane, nitrous oxides, CFCs and a host of other man-made trace gases that are greenhouse gases, and that increase is not trivial, no matter how you care to quantify ‘trivial’.
To Exusian.
My comment about trival was made in context (originally) with the discussion that essentially resolved to this view:
1. A simplified GHG model views water vapor as being effective over a broad range of IR. Same for CO2. These two ranges overlap, but do not cover the entire spectra of IR. Because water vapor saturates the GHG heat retention potential over its range of effectiveness, CO2’s capacity to retain heat is reduced to its mutually exclusive portion of the IR spectra, thus reducing the potential for CO2 to actually contribute to warming. However, because water vapor is not effective over the entire IR spectra and is not found in as deep a layer of the atmosphere as CO2, there remain layers (high) of the atmosphere over which CO2 dominates water vapor as a heat retention agent. (I am making this as simple as I can).
2. A more correct view is reflected in the “picket fence” model of the portion of the IR spectra where water vapor (and CO2) have potential to retain heat in the atmosphere. However, the realization that there are gaps in the IR spectra (from the first model) leads to a few observations, namely: (a) the range of IR over which both water vapor and CO2 can be effective is reduced, thus reducing both of their potential to retain heat (obviously, the IR in the “gaps” won’t be converted to retained heat by either), (b) some gaps (water vapor & CO2) may overlap, some may not, (c) some of the effective bands of water vapor may overlap with CO2’s effective bands, some may not, and (d) the IR that passes through water vapor’s “gaps” is available for CO2 to be effective at any altitude, assuming it is not in one of CO2’s gaps, too. This leads to some questions. One of them dealing with the changing characteristics of the IR “bands” over which water vapor and CO2 are effective as altitude changes. As I understand it, those bands become narrower with altitude (I believe you reiterated that yesterday). Consequently, as altitude increases, the IR “gaps” in which CO2 is not effective increase as the bands over which CO2 is effective decrease.
The question then becomes, what is the tradeoff between the ever-decreasing portion of the IR over which CO2 can retain heat and the increased amounts and increased potential for CO2 to dominate heat retention effectiveness at higher altitude due to the absence of water vapor?
A simple answer would be helpful. Do we even know the answer? Does the answer include a consideration of atmospheric dynamics (convection, advection … atmospheric mixing), or must we limit this “model” view to a static column at some particular location? What is the effect of considering atmospheric dynamics over the oceans, seas, and large lakes vs. land? Mountains vs. plains vs. deserts? What is the effect of longitude on this question?
I seriously doubt that climate & weather knowledge have reached the level where these questions can be answered to the extent that they can explain real-world climate and climate change.
This is one of the bases for my strong doubts about the role CO2 plays in climate CHANGE.
Yes, CO2 is a GHG. Don’t know anybody who disputes that. However, the record clearly disputes the notion that “more CO2″ will produce sufficient warming to change climate. Is there some marginal warming? Of course … there necessarily MUST be until the atmosphere is saturated with CO2 to the extent that additional CO2 will do absolutely nothing to retain heat.
Contrary to some assertions, there is no likelihood of CO2 ever producing a “runaway” warming on Earth. That is not to say that there might not be something that could … but given everything else is relatively unchanged, Earth has endured about every possible stimulus (astronomical, geological, orbital, solar) that would provide an opportunity for runaway warming or cooling, and neither has ever been established over the many thousands of millions of years of climate on Earth. Certainly, past CO2 levels (100 MYA – 500 MYA provides a good geologic record) have been vastly higher than CO2’s capacity to retain any additional heat and, ironically, there have been several “snowball Earth” episodes over that span of time.
So it is in that context that I suggest that the amount of CO2 added to the atmosphere by human endeavors is trivial. This is simply another way of stating that I cannot come to the conclusion that CO2 is a significant climate change agent until (a) a better case is made than the links to information previously provided (because we get just so far with that discussion and it seems to end with a conclusion not sustained by the evidence provided!), and, (b) better knowledge of the science of weather, climate, and climate change is gained.
The rest is mere speculation built on isolated theories buttressed by computer simulations that are completely inappropriate for a serious scientific inquiry of this kind.
Two things I can tell you from all my experience with computer simulation models of physical events is that (1) they should never be used until they are exhaustively verified and validated, and, (2) even then, results should NEVER be used to predict or forecast the actual events they model. While that may seem strange, it is more often the case than not that in the development of a simulation model, many assumptions about or simplifications of actual processes must be made. Consequently, the simulation model should only be used as a tool to guide the research … and then, ONLY after they have been rigorously verified and validated.
The use of GCMs by the IPCC is nothing less than shameless.
Bob W.
Bob Webster said:
“My comment about trival was made in context (originally) with the discussion that essentially resolved to this view:”
Then where does your use of the 3% figure above come from? I note that you no longer mention it below. If you are asserting that CO2 accounts for only 3% of greenhouse absorption then you are flat wrong. Water vapour, which varies greatly in atmospheric concentration both spacially and temporally, accounts for between 36 and 70% of the greenhouse effect, while CO2, which also varies spacially and temporally but is much more widely mixed throughout the atmosphere than water vapour, accounts for between 9 and 26%. Even methane, which is measured in parts per billion, accounts for 4 to 9%,, while ozone is down in the 3-7% range.
“Because water vapor saturates the GHG heat retention potential over its range of effectiveness”
The saturation myth remains a myth no matter how many times it is repeated. Pressure broadens the absorptive range of any greenhouse gas, so neither H2O nor CO2 are saturated. If you doubt that, try explaining the surface temperature of Venus in an atmosphere that is almost 97% CO2.
“CO2’s capacity to retain heat is reduced to its mutually exclusive portion of the IR spectra”
No, it is not, and it isn’t no matter how many times you assert that it is. But I will grant you that where H2O dominates CO2 any individual IR photon does have a much greater chance of being absorbed by an H2O molecule than by a CO2 molecule. A second key point about increasing pressure is that as pressure increases, the mean free path for any individual IR photon is reduced, keeping the energy in the atmosphere longer before it manages to reach the level at which it has a greater chance of not being absorbed and thus escaping. Since we are not adding more H2O to the atmosphere, except as a feedback to warming, we are not increasing the pressure in the atmosphere. But we ARE adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, so we ARE increasing the pressure of both CO2 and H2O in the atmosphere, which means we are decreasing the mean free path, especially in the lower atmosphere where H2O dominates CO2 since H2O is not increasing.
“However, because water vapor is not effective over the entire IR spectra and is not found in as deep a layer of the atmosphere as CO2, there remain layers (high) of the atmosphere over which CO2 dominates water vapor as a heat retention agent. (I am making this as simple as I can).”
Well, at least we agree on that much.
“As I understand it, those bands become narrower with altitude (I believe you reiterated that yesterday). Consequently, as altitude increases, the IR “gaps” in which CO2 is not effective increase as the bands over which CO2 is effective decrease.”
Agreed.
“However, the record clearly disputes the notion that “more CO2″ will produce sufficient warming to change climate. Is there some marginal warming? Of course … there necessarily MUST be until the atmosphere is saturated with CO2 to the extent that additional CO2 will do absolutely nothing to retain heat.”
What ‘record’ might this be? And again with the ’saturation’ myth.
“Contrary to some assertions, there is no likelihood of CO2 ever producing a “runaway” warming on Earth.”
Something else we can agree on.
“Certainly, past CO2 levels (100 MYA – 500 MYA provides a good geologic record) have been vastly higher than CO2’s capacity to retain any additional heat and, ironically, there have been several “snowball Earth” episodes over that span of time.”
I think you’ll find that there is only one hypothesised ’snowball’ episode between 790 and 630 mya, while there have been numerous ‘hot house’ earth episodes, including some extreme events associated with mass extinctions. You also seem to pass over the fact that 500 to 100 mya the sun was considerably weaker than it is today, and that the distribution of continental land masses was very different. No one asserts that CO2 is the only thing that can affect climate.
To Exusian.
You ask: “Then where does your use of the 3% figure above come from? I note that you no longer mention it below. If you are asserting that CO2 accounts for only 3% of greenhouse absorption then you are flat wrong.”
From your earlier message where you quote me as follows:
“The basis for my comment that human produced CO2 is trivial is the fact that the annual human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is approximately 3% of the total. 3% is trivial by any stretch.”
Is it not true that CO2 as a GHG derives from 100% of atmospheric CO2? Is it not true that humans emit only 3% of all CO2 into the atmosphere annually? I understand the point about how so much of CO2 is being taken up annually, too. But why is it that only human emissions are considered abnormal when all others are given a pass? Is there something about fossil fuel generated CO2 that makes it different from other CO2 so that it persists in the atmosphere longer and is more difficult for natural processes to absorb? If so, that would be a strong case to make. Are there not other processes that vary in both their release and absorption of CO2? The further point is that whatever heat retention CO2 is responsible for, it results from the entirety of atmospheric CO2. If current human emissions amount to only 3% of the current atmosphere’s CO2 at any given time, then human emissions cannot be responsible for more than 3% of current CO2 warming. According to the figures you cite (CO2 accounting for between 9% and 26% of GH warming), wouldn’t that make human CO2 emissions responsible for between 0.27% and 0.68% of total GH warming. That seems trivial to me.
I am continually drawn back to the logarithmic decline of effectiveness of CO2 as an atmospheric warming agent as more and more are added to the atmosphere. So if the 3% of total atmospheric CO2 that humans emit grows over time, it does so with diminished effectiveness as a warming agent.
Regarding: “The saturation myth remains a myth no matter how many times it is repeated. Pressure broadens the absorptive range of any greenhouse gas, so neither H2O nor CO2 are saturated. If you doubt that, try explaining the surface temperature of Venus in an atmosphere that is almost 97% CO2.”
I understand what you’ve stated, but find the conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow. How does “so neither H2O nor CO2 are saturated” follow from “pressure broadens the absorptive range of any greenhouse gas” without consideration of the concentration of H2O in the lower (highest pressure) atmosphere? At any rate, it isn’t really important whether or not H2O saturates it’s GHG capacity or not, considering the “picket fence” gaps through which IR can pass to higher altitudes … where, of course, the pressure is less, the gaps are greater (as a consequence, as you’ve stated already), and the effectiveness of GHGs should diminish accordingly. I was trying for a simplified view of the issue regarding gaps.
Regarding (first is quote from my last message):
BW: “However, the record clearly disputes the notion that “more CO2″ will produce sufficient warming to change climate. Is there some marginal warming? Of course … there necessarily MUST be until the atmosphere is saturated with CO2 to the extent that additional CO2 will do absolutely nothing to retain heat.”
Exusian: “What ‘record’ might this be? And again with the ’saturation’ myth.”
Check out the second last graph in Dr. Patterson’s article at http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M showing four ice eras, at approximately 450 mya, 310 mya, 180 mya, and the current one that began 60 mya. Note that two of these (450 mya and 180 mya) were during very high levels of atmospheric CO2, the first approaching “snowball Earth” conditions (I’ve also seen others refer to one of the more recent eras containing a “snowball Earth” episode. There are clearly more than one hypothesized snowball Earth periods, but there is not general agreement on whose proxy records are best in this regard. Obviously, there are real problems trying to reconstruct a consistent climate record from various geologic records stretching back over such large time frames, particularly given the speed with which Earth’s geology changes relative to hundreds of millions of years.
It is also interesting to note the first two graphs from Dr. Patterson’s work showing little correlation between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature and a substantial correlation of global temperature with solar activity.
Getting back to “the saturation myth” perhaps I don’t clearly understand what you mean by “saturation.” When I referred to H2O “saturating” its capacity to retain heat in the lower atmosphere, I was referring to the view that H2O exists in sufficient quantities in the lower atmosphere to saturate its capacity to retain additional heat in those IR bands over which it is effective. Meaning that any additional atmospheric H2O added will not contribute to atmospheric warming. Evidently, your position is that H2O does not exist in sufficient quantities to saturate ITS capacity to retain heat. Fine. It really isn’t that important an issue, quite frankly. I hold no strong view either way because I haven’t researched that aspect of the issue. So I’ll take your word for it … if, indeed, that is what you mean.
Back to “saturation” for a moment.
Venus has “almost 97% CO2″ and Mars has about 95% CO2. Both have atmospheres that are nearly saturated with CO2. But that isn’t the “saturated” I refer to (and I doubt it is what you mean, too). I am referring to the point at which adding any more gas does nothing to retain additional heat. For practical purposes, let’s say that GHG saturation occurs when no significant warming can be achieved by adding any additional amount of the GHG to the atmosphere.
So, if I understand you correctly, your position is that additional water vapor added to the atmosphere will produce additional warming (or, to be specifically accurate … additional water vapor added to the atmosphere will provide a potential for greater heat retention). I prefer the latter, given we really don’t know what additional water vapor will do in terms of cooling (forming additional clouds and precipitation).
While you didn’t address them, I stand firmly by the position I stated regarding the IPCC’s use of GCMs.
I thank you for your responses. They are helpful and give me some new perspectives that are always helpful. I do hope you do not take any of my comments as being contentious, because that is certainly not the intent. I try to be direct, and sometimes that approach is mistaken for something else. I do appreciate your taking time to address these issues and have this discussion.
I would like to give you a little insight into how I came to be a skeptic about the alarmists’ (not suggesting that you are an alarmist, BTW) position about global warming. Back in the 1950s after my family had moved to NW New Jersey (I was 13 at the time) we experienced some really super snowstorms. Some were never reported in the New York City papers because communications were not what they are today (we lived in a county with more cows than people) and the climate was quite a bit different in the far NW than what NYC experienced. Those massive snowstorms (one memorable event began March 20 and ended March 22 with an addition of 38″ of new snow on top of a heavy winter leftover of 7″ with snow falling at 3″/hr during the storm’s height one night). At any rate, I was hooked on weather from then on and subscribed to the Daily Weather Maps put out by the US Weather Bureau (well before NOAA). Periodically during the year, weather maps (which came by postal mail from Washington, D.C.) would contain climatological data for the US on the reverse of the daily map. Because maps arrived several days later than the surface map features, I learned to use the 500 millibar map (showing isotherms at the 500 millibar altitude) as a helpful tool in “long range” forecasting (which generally meant what occurred the day the map arrived plus one or two more days). This all led to library books about weather and climate. About 30 years down the line in the 1980s, Time-Life published a Planet Earth series that provided more fodder for my curiosity about geology and climate. The “Ice Ages” volume was fascinating and went into considerable detail concerning ice eras, ice epochs, and ice ages (and interglacials). I was particularly interested in a section dealing with “The Complex Rhythms of Cold” which began: “Human beings have never experienced the earth’s normal climate. For most of its 4.6-billion-year existence, the planet has been inhospitably hot or dry and utterly devoid of glacial ice. Only seven times have major ice eras, averaging 50 million years in length, introduced relatively cooler temperatures; humankind arose during the most recent of those periods.”
It might be worth noting that the current ice era, clearly on the ebb (and one of the least cold) began 60 million years ago. Knowing the ice age cycles, ice epoch cycles, and the overdue end to the current ice era, naturally I became skeptical of efforts to find blame possible climate warming on human activity without actually being able to understand much about when the current climate cycles will end (and why they began). If the current ice era is ending and the current ice epoch is ending or even if the current ice epoch alone is ending, there will be large natural changes that will warm the climate. While there are theories about what causes ice epochs and eras, and what terminates ice epochs and eras, there is yet to be a definitive work that could satisfactorily explain all the prior ice eras and the many ice epochs embedded within those ice eras. When it comes to ice ages and interglacial cycles, we find more is known, but there is still uncertainty. When it comes to the lesser variations of climate, e.g., Holocene, Roman WP, Medieval WP, Little Ice Age, we are beginning to at least develop some reasonable theories that can be put to the test, but there is still just too much uncertainty involved.
So with that background, we start to hear the efforts of a governmental panel of the UN tell us that humans are going to significantly alter the planet’s climate if we don’t do something dramatic and costly yesterday, well, I tend to be less than enthusiastic. Particularly knowing that some highly regarded atmospheric scientists have left the IPCC WGs because they strongly believed the scientific data being provided to the summary writers was not being fairly presented. Then there is the matter of the IPCCs irresponsible use of GCMs to try to justify their dire warnings.
I hope this provides a little insight into the reason why at least one person is skeptical of the claims. I am willing to be convinced. Thus far, I find the arguments/discussions interesting (for the most part), and in some ways instructive (always a good thing), and they do help at least shed some light on why there are differences of opinion on the subject.
I apologize for the length, but felt it might be helpful to some readers who have never been skeptical of the IPCC position to understand how someone might be so inclined.
Regards,
Bob W.
exusian & Bob W.,
You agree there is no likelihood of CO2 ever producing a “runaway” warming on Earth. If this is true, a major premise of this blog is in jeapardy. Maybe you both could explain why his projection of overwhelming positive feedback is incorrect.
“Runaway” warming is classically defined quite differently than the positive feedbacks.
Note to editor:
[JR: Rest of post deleted as outright disinformation. David Benson’s statement is an accurate representation of both the IPCC and the peer-reviewed scientific literature...]
Before you delete something, check your facts (Arrhenius, Stefan-Boltzmann, IPCC SPM 2007).
Makes you look silly otherwise.
Max
[JR: Sorry, Max, but the IPCC is quite clear on the matter -- as is the peer-reviewed literature.]
Paul K — Real Climate has at least two threads about this: one is on the impossiblity of a Vensus-style runaway; the other discusses the Annan & Hargreaves paper. In neither case is the major premiss of this blog in the slightest danger.
Bob Webster — You have made the classic error of assuming that a few hours of study makes you more knowledgable than the climatologists who have devoted their entire career to this knowledge.
The premise in possible jeopardy is overwhelming positive feedback to the point of catastrophe which is not quite the same as “runaway”. I know what exusian and Bob W. think about “runaway”. I’d like to here what they have to say about overwhelmingly positive feedback.
“overwhelming positive feedback”? Nah, just regular old positive feedbacks that are found throughout the literature and now the IPCC.
Paul K — The last really major climate disaster was PETM, which obviously invovled substantial positive feedbacks. Of more direct interest to fairly near future human affairs is the mid-Miocene melting of the Antarctic ice sheets. With enough radiative forcing, Hansen et al., in a draft paper, argue that this will once again occur, leading to up to 70 meters rise in sea stand. The paper also states that this can be viewed as a long-term climate sensitivity of 6 K. Others dispute at least the last point.
Anyway, is 70 meters rise enough of a catastrophe for you?
Vastly more than enough for me.
Just regular old positive feedbacks that are found throughout the literature and now the IPCC get a 1.5 – 4.5C warming which I described as majority positive feedback. It is not the level of feedback ascribed to by climateprogress. You have repeatedly said the IPCC grossly underestimates the feedbacks. Your view is that feedbacks are so strong as to bring us Hansen’s end of creation. I believe that is rightly described as overwhelming positive feedback.
Honestly, Paul — do you even read this blog? Try here.
“Elsewhere (Hansen et al. 2007a) we have described evidence that slower feedbacks, such as poleward expansion of forests, darkening and shrinking of ice sheets, and release of methane from melting tundra, are likely to be significant on decade-century time scales. This realization increases the urgency of estimating the level of climate change that would have dangerous consequences for humanity and other creatures on the planet, and the urgency of defining a realistic path that could avoid these dangerous consequence.”
Note to the editor:
“[JR: Sorry, Max, but the IPCC is quite clear on the matter — as is the peer-reviewed literature.]”
[JR: Again, the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 is quite well defined by the IPCC and the subject of countless peer-reviewed papers that calculate it in a number of different ways. You can deconstruct it all you want on another blog, but unless you have some peer-reviewed articles that debunk the literature and offer an alternative, you are peddling disinformation.]
To Bob Webster (and anyone else still reading a thread now off the front page),
Bob wrote: “Is it not true that CO2 as a GHG derives from 100% of atmospheric CO2? Is it not true that humans emit only 3% of all CO2 into the atmosphere annually? I understand the point about how so much of CO2 is being taken up annually, too. But why is it that only human emissions are considered abnormal when all others are given a pass?”
Yes to your first and second questions. To your last one, human emissions are considered abnormal because the fossil carbon in fossil fuels is not part of the normal active carbon cycle, and all other sources are given a pass because none of the others are increasing naturally.
Sure, forests are decreasing, so they are taking up less CO2 for photosynthesis, but it is human action that is responsible for most of that deforestation (land use changes such as conversion to agricultural and pastureland, coffee and oil palm plantations, unregulated and illegal timber cutting, slash & burn agriculture and consequent uncontrolled and out of control burns, desertification caused by overgrazing, urbanisaton). Sure soils and permafrost are beginning to emit more CO2 and methane as they warm, but that warming would be a feedback to CO2 forcing. Sure the ocean is starting to show signs of being able to absorb less CO2 and becoming more acidic, due to either becoming saturated faster than carbon can be fixed by marine organisms and deposited on the sea bed, or to ocean warming (warmer water can hold less dissolved CO2), or likely both. Either would be a result of increasing human generated CO2.
Meanwhile we know with certainty that human generated CO2 is increasing because we are burning ever increasing amounts of fossil fuels and we can measure it. Plus, we know with absolute certainty that the carbon in fossil fuels has not been in the active carbon cycle for millions of years, so we are not only increasing the carbon in the atmosphere, we are increasing carbon in the entire active carbon cycle, overwhelming natural CO2 sinks that are being reduced (forests), becoming saturated (oceans), or work on slow geologic time scales (sea floor sedimentation, crust subduction, silicate weathering).
I would agree that 3% would be trivial if we were only talking about a single year, or even two, three or even a decade. But we aren’t. That’s 3% each and every year, and growing, plus it is cumulative because it doesn’t all go away. The key factor is that is not just this year’s 3%, its an accumulated 38% increase, because half of all the ‘new’ fossil carbon derived CO2 that we put in the atmosphere each year is not taken up by natural carbon sinks and what isn’t will stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.
Please, read up on the carbon cycle. You can start here:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ Library/ CarbonCycle/ carbon_cycle4.html
Bob: “I am continually drawn back to the logarithmic decline of effectiveness of CO2 as an atmospheric warming agent as more and more are added to the atmosphere.”
Poorly phrased. The decline is not logarithmic, it’s the increase that is logarithmic. The difference matters.
Bob: “I understand what you’ve stated, but find the conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow. How does “so neither H2O nor CO2 are saturated” follow from “pressure broadens the absorptive range of any greenhouse gas” without consideration of the concentration of H2O in the lower (highest pressure) atmosphere?”
An IR photon doesn’t care if it is absorbed by a molecule of H2O or one of CO2. Adding more of either increases the total population of absorbing molecules, or, increases pressure, AND, as I added above, shortens the mean free path to the next absorption. You do understand that absorption and subsequent relaxation by emission or collision is on the order on nanoseconds, don’t you? And that immediately after emission a greenhouse molecule is free to absorb another photon? So, a higher population of absorbing molecules and a shorter mean free path means more photon absorptions per given unit of volume over a given unit of time, which means it takes longer for the energy of any single photon to escape to space. That’s where the warming comes from.
Bob: “At any rate, it isn’t really important whether or not H2O saturates it’s GHG capacity or not, considering the “picket fence” gaps through which IR can pass to higher altitudes … where, of course, the pressure is less, the gaps are greater (as a consequence, as you’ve stated already), and the effectiveness of GHGs should diminish accordingly.”
But as I wrote previously, although the gaps widen as pressure drops, the point at which a photon is more likely to escape than be absorbed is elevated, thus increasing both the depth and the population of greenhouse gas molecules. That the effect become weaker the higher you go is the way that it has always been, but the depth has not always been elevated. Yes, the difference is small. So is the temperature increase, and that’s a very good thing, don’t you think?
Bob: “Check out the second last graph in Dr. Patterson’s article at http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=010405M showing four ice eras, at approximately 450 mya, 310 mya, 180 mya, and the current one that began 60 mya. Note that two of these (450 mya and 180 mya) were during very high levels of atmospheric CO2, the first approaching “snowball Earth” conditions (I’ve also seen others refer to one of the more recent eras containing a “snowball Earth” episode.”
I don’t doubt that you have, but that doesn’t make it so. As for graphs, I much prefer this one: ___
And if you are going to look at periods of glaciation you are also going to have to look at periods of elevated temperatures.
Bob: “there is not general agreement on whose proxy records are best in this regard. Obviously, there are real problems trying to reconstruct a consistent climate record from various geologic records stretching back over such large time frames, particularly given the speed with which Earth’s geology changes relative to hundreds of millions of years.”
Agreed. The further back in geologic time you go the larger the error bars get for both temperature and CO2 proxies. We really don’t have a very good handle on either. But we can fairly accurately calculate the intensity of the sun, and it was considerably less intense the further back you go. I realy don’t have the time to dig into paleo climatology and geologic time, and besides, it’s not my strong suit. (But I’m working on it.)
Bob: “It is also interesting to note the first two graphs from Dr. Patterson’s work showing little correlation between atmospheric CO2 and global temperature and a substantial correlation of global temperature with solar activity.”
Yes, I was going to mention them. Aren’t you the least bit curious why they end in the early 1980s when much more recent data is readily available? The same truncated graphs were used in the Great Global Warming Swindle and on countless web sites and blogs, btw. Fact is, the sun spot proxi plot diverges from the temperature plot about 1980, while both the temperature and CO2 plots continue to rise steeply. Doesn’t that make you just a tad suspicious? Curiously, in the early versions of these graphs standard smoothed data was used up to 1980, and unsmoothed data was used afterwards, which happened to give a much better fit between the sunspot proxi and temperature, but they were caught out on this and subsequently the graphs were simply truncated to eliminate the inconvenient data. Now if that doesn’t make you more than just a tad suspicious I don’t think anything will.
Bob: “Getting back to “the saturation myth” perhaps I don’t clearly understand what you mean by “saturation.”
See above.
Bob: “Venus has “almost 97% CO2″ and Mars has about 95% CO2. Both have atmospheres that are nearly saturated with CO2.”
This is not only not right, it isn’t even wrong.
Venus is not saturated, it’s just out of carbon. See David’s link to the recent discussion of Venus at RealClimate.
And look up what the volume, mass and pressure of Venus’ and Mars’ atmospheres, then get back to us on this one.
Bob: “I am referring to the point at which adding any more gas does nothing to retain additional heat. For practical purposes, let’s say that GHG saturation occurs when no significant warming can be achieved by adding any additional amount of the GHG to the atmosphere.”
That’s just it, there is no such point, only diminishing returns because the effect is logarithmic. Plus, feedbacks add different gases and entirely different effects. There is no overlap of GHGs and a change in albedo as ice caps melt, for example, and the melting of seabed methane calthrates would plug new holes in the ‘picket fence’.
Bob: “So, if I understand you correctly, your position is that additional water vapor added to the atmosphere will produce additional warming (or, to be specifically accurate … additional water vapor added to the atmosphere will provide a potential for greater heat retention). I prefer the latter, given we really don’t know what additional water vapor will do in terms of cooling (forming additional clouds and precipitation).”
Yes, adding additional water to the atmosphere would add additional warming. Except that we can’t add additional water to the atmosphere, even if we tried, thanks to relative and absolute humidity. All it will do is rain or snow out over a few days. We ‘d have to either make the atmosphere warmer first, or add more atmosphere (increase pressure) first.
Gee, what is it we’re doing? Oh right, making the atmosphere warmer.
Bob: “While you didn’t address them, I stand firmly by the position I stated regarding the IPCC’s use of GCMs.”
I didn’t address them because I’m still studying how GCMs work, but there is a lot of discussion–and debate–about how they work over on RealClimate.
That said, reading through your comments on GCMs above suggests to me that you may not have a very good understanding of how GCMs are structured, how they work and are constrained, and what they are used for. There are at least three active threads on the topic at RC right now, including the two on the wager, which is intended not to belittle the modelers they are wagering against, but to illustrate the rash interpretations of the model by the MSM and blogs. I think you’ll find the discussion highly interesting.
Bob: “I thank you for your responses. They are helpful and give me some new perspectives that are always helpful. I do hope you do not take any of my comments as being contentious, because that is certainly not the intent. I try to be direct, and sometimes that approach is mistaken for something else. I do appreciate your taking time to address these issues and have this discussion.”
And I thank you for yours, Bob. It’s much more pleasant and interesting to calmly and respectfully discuss the science than just talk past each other and try to tear arguments apart.
As for your insights and memories, I also recall much heavier snowfalls in my youth–and much more severe droughts than anything I’ve seen as an adult, but then I lived less than 100 miles from the eastern seaboard then, and I now have subsequent memories of a very different climate regime in the Great Lakes region. To me it sounds totally natural when someone explains that it takes a milder winter to get increased snowfall, when to someone else it sounds totally counter intuitive. But I’ve seen it in action. Let it get cold enough for the lakes to freeze and Buffalo doesn’t get the lake-effect storms. Same with Greenland and Antarctica.
Take care– ex
Ooops, here’s paleo temp/CO2 graph I intended to link to:
http://globalwarmingart.com/ wiki/ Image:Phanerozoic_Carbon_Dioxide_png
Paul Kay wrote: “I know what exusian and Bob W. think about “runaway”. I’d like to here what they have to say about overwhelmingly positive feedback.”
Unfortunately the words “runaway” and “catastrophe” tend to be conflated in the climate change discussion. Strictly speaking, conditions that would lead to a runaway warming as on Venus simply do not exist on Earth, while the conditions that do exist are self limiting: there is only so much fossil carbon and methane to oxidise; there is only so much water vapour the atmosphere will hold at any temperature; there is only so much ice that can melt, even under the worst possible case scenario.
“Catastrophe” is a much less well defined term. What is catastrophic depends on how much you are effected by what happens. For some a single summer heat wave will be catastrophic. For some a sea level rise of only a quarter of a meter will be catastrophic. For others the failure of a single monsoon will be catastrophic. How many individual catastrophes would there need to be before we can agree that it is a catastrophe for human kind?
I understand “overwhelmingly positive feedback” to mean a feedback large enough that it eclipses the combined human generated climate forcing, rendering any effort to mitigate our own emissions moot. Let the Arctic ocean become ice-free in summer for enough seasons and it becomes almost certain that methane calthrates will destabilise, and if that happens an overwhelming positive feedback will be unleashed, and the difference between catastrophe and runaway warming will also be moot.
exusian wrote “… it becomes almost certain that methane calthrates will destabilise …” Everything you wrote is quite good, except for this phrase. I doubt that the calthrates destablized even during PETM; there is no evidence for it and people have looked. There is evidence that bogs expressed very large quantities of methane. That seemed to be enough of a positive feedback.
David B. Benson wrote: “With enough radiative forcing, Hansen et al., in a draft paper, argue that this [melting of the Antarctic ice sheets] will once again occur, leading to up to 70 meters rise in sea stand, citing a soon-to-be-published “imminent disaster” prediction by James E. Hansen, the climate scientist turned AGW activist of “tipping point” fame.
Let’s talk Hansen, hyperbole and politics.
In his testimony to the US House of Representatives, Hansen started out by painting a picture of imminent catastrophe, based on “GISS modelE studies” (quotes from the testimony and the reports cited in the main report). Hansen’s predictions strayed from his area of expertise (temperature measurement and greenhouse gas impacts) to other areas, where he is not an expert
http://www.columbia.edu/ ~jeh1/ testimony_26april2007.pdf
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/ hansen/ preprints/ Wild.070410.pdf
“our home planet is now dangerously near a ‘tipping point’”
the “predominance of positive feedbacks” has caused large swings in past climate
“global temperature is at its warmest level in the Holocene”
“the safe global temperature is, at most, 1 degree C greater than year 2000 temperature. It may be less.”
“the dangerous level of CO2 is at most 450ppm, and is probably less”
“likely demise of the West Antarctic ice sheet”
“sea level rise this century may be measured in meters”
“animals are on the run”
“population of [polar] bears in Canada have declined about 20%”
“states from West and Central Texas, through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and both Dakotas would likely become more drought-prone”
“This warming has brought us to the precipice of a great ‘tipping point’. If we go over the edge, it will be a transition to ‘a different planet’, an environment far outside the range that has been experienced by humanity. There will be no return within the lifetime of any generation that can be imagined, and the trip will exterminate a large fraction of species on the planet.”
After making these model-based predictions of disaster, Hansen threw in a personal whine:
the “response of the government has been to “kill the messenger”.
He then went on to discuss “steps needed to defuse the global warming time bomb” and propose all sorts of policy changes to avert the otherwise certain and imminent disaster scenario he had painted earlier (carbon taxes, etc.). Here he entered the domain of politics, not really his specialized field of expertise (but every American has the right to a political viewpoint, as he pointed out).
Hansen’s predictions go way beyond the “mainstream” AGW view, as expressed in IPCC reports. While these reports also only emphasize negative effects from AGW and ignore studies that contradict these, they are much more level-headed and far less shrill than Hansen.
Most importantly, Hansen presents no real evidence for his claims of a “tipping point”.
For a good debunking of Hansen’s testimony see:
http://www.co2science.org/ scripts/ CO2ScienceB2C/ education/ reports/ hansen/ hansencritique.jsp
As just one example of the “mainstream” view on sea level rise compared to Hansen’s prediction of “meters” of rise in this century, a recent study entitled “Decadal Trends in Sea Level Patterns: 1993-2004” concluded that the increase over this period was 1.6 mm/year (or around one-half the rate reported by IPCC in its 2007 SPM report). It did conclude, however that “systematic errors are likely to dominate most estimates of global average change” and the “database is insufficient to compute sea level trends with the accuracy necessary to discuss the impact of global warming”.
http://ocean.mit.edu/ ~cwunsch/ papersonline/ Wunschetal_jclimate_2007_published.pdf
A 2006 report calculated a mass balance for the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet over the time period mid-April 1992 to mid-April 2003. This report, which was ignored by IPCC in its 2007 SPM report, showed a net mass gain of 27 Gt/year over the 11-year period.
http://bowfell.geol.ucl.ac.uk/~lidunka/EPSS-papers/djw3.pdf
Some months after the IPCC SPM report was published the authors of the earlier report published a study that concluded that Greenland and Antarctica combined are losing mass today, not primarily due to melting, but due to the flow of ice to the ocean from ice streams and glaciers, which has apparently accelerated in the past decade, concluding that over the course of the 21st century, these processes could counteract the snowfall gains, so that there could be a negative mass balance. The conclusion was that this combined effect could be enough to raise sea level by 0.35 millimeters per year (3.5 centimeters over the 21st century, not 70 meters, as predicted by Hansen).
http://www.sciencemag.org/ cgi/ content/ abstract/ 315/ 5818/ 1529
Hansen testified that the current warmth is unprecedented in human history. There are many historical references that show that there was a warmer Medieval Warm Period that was recorded throughout the civilized world at that time. There are also recent scientific reports that confirm this. A recent report using non-tree ring proxy data has confirmed that the MWP and LIA were “real and global” and that the “MWP was warmer than the late 20th century”.
http://www.ncasi.org/ publications/ Detail.aspx?id=3025
In testimony to the US House of Representatives, another well-respected climate scientist, John Christy, directly contradicted Hansen’s disaster predictions in testifying that projections of drastic climate changes in the future from global warming have not been adequately proven, and it is important not to make radical changes in energy policy based on such projections. In his testimony he told the lawmakers that, “scientists cannot reliably project the trajectory of climate.”
So I’ll put my bets on the more level-headed scientists that are not predicting “imminent disaster”, rather than on Hansen who is obviously scare mongering.
Max
Maybe you’re right, David. I certainly hope so.
BTW, that ooops was an add-on to a very long reply to Bob that is awaiting Joe’s OK.
manacker — 70 meters is for both WAIS and EAIS. Nobody is predicting that this sized melt will happen this century. However, this is certainly in the offing if the global temperatures reach those which occured the last time all of Antarctica melted, in the mid-Miocene. And that would be indeed a ‘tipping point’ (although I don’t care for the term).
Drastic, rapid climate changes have happened in the not-so-distant past. Indeed, look at the Artic sea ice last summer…
You are simply wrong about the temperatures now versus the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). Hansen asserts from his analysis of the data that the global temperature is now as high as ever during the Holocene; that is much higher than during MWP, a slight warming during a cool interval of the Holocene. I have looked at the data a different way; in my analysis it will be another 2–3 decades before this temperature is reached. Which it will be. Either way, we are now leaving the comfort of the Holocene on our climate adventure; in doing so there is definite danger of leaving agriculture behind. That is a ‘tipping point’ of another kind.
I’ve checked the paleoclimate papers regarding the areas Hansen mentioned, but also a few other regions; for most of those warmer means drier. I.e., worse conditions for agriculture in those areas (where there is intense agriculture now). Rice is now at about its high temperature limits in the tropics. Although there will be plenty of rainfall, rice productin will decline. Are you aware that the world is already short of rice?
In rational decision theory, one should multiply the probability of an outcome by its (dis)utility. Perhaps you now begin to understand why I am a climate reactionary; I want the old climate back, as soon as may be. Everybody else, that is, other than climate reactionaries, including your so-called ‘level-headed’ scientists, are seriously risking the future.
manacker — Reagrding ice melting: The Stefan solution to the one-dimensiional heat equation is applicable to the freezing and melting of ice on lakes and slow-moving rivers. For constant air temperature the freezing rate is proportional to the square root of time; the ice thickness starts to grow rapidly and slows down over time. To melt this ice, just reverse time; the melt starts slowly and grows faster over time. These simple approximations agree fairly well with ice drilling depths on the frozen Great Lakes.
Nobody thinks that glaciers and ice sheets are so simply explained. However, the rate of the shortening of glaciers was 4 m/y from 1955 to 1980 and 12 m/y since then. Let the Stefan solution offer a cautionary warning…
I understand “overwhelmingly positive feedback” to mean a feedback large enough that it eclipses the combined human generated climate forcing, rendering any effort to mitigate our own emissions moot.
I don’t think eclipse is the right word. Feedbacks push the effect of CO2 on temperature one way or the other as do forcings. The increase in temperature from CO2 alone is relatively small. A net positive in feedbacks and forcings is necessary to raise temperatures to the levels in IPCC and would have to be even greater majority positive to reach the Hansen/Romm projection. So overwhelming positive feedbacks don’t eclipse CO2, they extremely enhance the effect of CO2. This scenario also seems to have a cascading progression. Note well that the cascade example given – calthrates – was labeled incorrect by David B. Benson, whose bona fides are well established here.
p.s. Nothing on either side in the discussions of the various projections materially affects the need to replace fossil fuels.
A message to exusian
At an average temperature of 457C, Venus has often been cited as an example of runaway greenhouse warming “gone bad”.
You pointed out that “conditions that would lead to a runaway warming as on Venus simply do not exist on Earth, while the conditions that do exist are self limiting: there is only so much fossil carbon and methane to oxidise; there is only so much water vapour the atmosphere will hold at any temperature; there is only so much ice that can melt, even under the worst possible case scenario.”
These are all valid observations. The differences between Earth and our neighbors are immense.
The atmosphere of Venus has a mass of 480 million Gt, about 93 times the mass of the Earth’s total atmosphere. It is composed of 96.5% CO2, so this represents around 460 million Gt of CO2. The surface pressure is 90 times that of Earth.
Earth’s atmosphere has a mass of 5 million Gt, with around 380 ppmv of CO2, so this represents 2,900 Gt of CO2. And Earth’s average temperature is around 15C.
Mars’ atmosphere has a mass of only 25,000 Gt, with around 95% CO2, so this represents 23,800 Gt of CO2 (8 times as much as Earth). The surface pressure on Mars is only 0.007 times that on Earth, and the average temperature on Mars is –63C.
The crucial difference between Earth, Venus and Mars as far as climate goes, though, is not the relative CO2 mass of their atmospheres, but their relative distance from the sun.
As Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee point out in their book, “Rare Earth”, both Venus and Mars are outside the “continuously habitable zone” (CHZ) in our solar system.
The authors describe this CHZ in our solar system at 0.95 to 1.15 times the distance from Earth to the sun, a fairly narrow range.
Venus, at around 0.7 times our distance from the sun, receives 2 times the solar energy which Earth receives, while Mars, at 1.5 times our distance to the sun, receives only around 0.4 times the solar energy we received.
There is no doubt that the heavy atmosphere of Venus and the thin atmosphere of Mars play a role in determining their temperatures, but there is also no doubt that the key factor in determining their climates is the amount of solar energy each planet receives.
But it does confirm your point that the situation on Venus is so totally different from that on Earth that there is no comparison, no matter how many gigatons of CO2 are emitted into our atmosphere by our human activity.
Regards,
Max
Maxacker, good analysis, as always… By the way, since, as you have definitively shown, it is indisputablical that the key thing is distance from the sun, and CO2 is basically immaterialist, and the moon is also within the “CHZ”, who do you think that the Lakers can win the Stanley Bowl this year?
Note to PaulK
“Nothing on either side in the discussions of the various projections materially affects the need to replace fossil fuels.”
This is going to happen, PaulK, with or without carbon taxes or cap and trade schemes that make a few already wealthy people richer at the expense of everyone else (particularly those at the bottom of the pyramid today).
It is clear that the fossil fuel reserves of Earth will only last 80 to 150 years, if we keep burning them at current rates. So we will shift from a fossil fuel energy economy to a non-fossil fuel economy – probably primarily nuclear for electrical power (like France) with a bit of solar/wind, where this makes sense, and bio-fuels (like Brazil) for automotive fuels. And we will use our limited fossil fuel reserves for higher added-value end uses. Whether the nuclear/hydrogen cycle for automotive fuels ever makes sense is still unclear, in view of the low overall thermal efficiency and the safety problems with hydrogen as a fuel. A better bet might end up being higher efficiency electrical cars in combination with nuclear power generation. And who knows what new technologies the future will bring?
So I agree with you on the inevitability of replacement of fossil fuels. But I do not believe this requires carbon taxes or cap and trade schemes.
What do you think?
Regards,
Max
Message to David B. Benson
As an example of “rapid climate change” you cited: “Indeed, look at the Artic sea ice last summer.”
Hey, you don’t even need to go back that far to find a rapid climate change. Look at the Arctic sea ice this winter.
Regards,
Max
Joe: you rule out data provided by Max as “outright disinformation” and assert, in support of this, that “the IPCC is quite clear on the matter”. Yet, when, in my May 11th post (4:19 pm), I draw your attention to scientists who say quite clearly (IPCC WG1) that there is a better than even chance that there is a human contribution to specific warming phenomena, you say that is “non-scientific”. It seems, therefore, that the IPCC is a definitive authority – unless it fails to support your agenda when it can be casually dismissed. Surely not?
[JR: I don't dismiss what you posted -- it was merely irrelevant to the discussion we were having. But there is no question that if one accepts science, then you have to accept the IPCC in the main. Sure, you can provide more recent peer-reviewed analysis as to why the IPCC underestimates what is happening, and I do, but the basic analysis is based on the broad peer-reviewed literature, so it needs to be taken seriously. Most of the deniers posting on this blog, however, don't do that, so yes they are easily dismissed.]
Max wrote: “There is no doubt that the heavy atmosphere of Venus and the thin atmosphere of Mars play a role in determining their temperatures, but there is also no doubt that the key factor in determining their climates is the amount of solar energy each planet receives.”
Which is exactly why I urged Bob to research the point a bit more when he stated that “Venus has almost 97% CO2and Mars has about 95% CO2.” That is of course correct, but very far from complete, as you thoroughly point out.
But then tidal wrote: “it is indisputablical that the key thing is distance from the sun, and CO2 is basically immaterialist”
Aside from grammatical gaffes, tidal couldn’t be more wrong in the choice of the word immaterial. Now tidal needs do a bit of research and get back to us on what the surface temperature of Venus would be without that massive 96.5% CO2 atmosphere.
Hey, you don’t even need to go back that far to find a rapid climate change. Look at the Arctic sea ice this winter.
No, look at the average *thickness* of Arctic sea-ice this winter, as compared to the average thickness of Arctic sea-ice in previous winters.
(It’s that area vs. volume thing that so confuses AGW “skeptics”.)
Yea, well, math isn’t exactly their strong suite, is it?
But, Joe, my comment was precisely relevant “to the discussion we were having”. You had categorised anyone who doesn’t believe that “humans are causing the global warming” as a denier. So I provided plain evidence that scientists contributing to IPCC WG1 did not share that belief and must, therefore, be deniers according to your definition.
You chose to dismiss that as a “non-scientific non-issue” – just as did my further observation that the IPCC’s SPM was heavily influenced by PR considerations. I could accept that you (a) regard some IPCC scientists as “deniers” (strange as that seems to me) and (b) don’t think the SPM’s PR spin is important – but raise my eyebrows when you later refer to the IPCC (influenced it seems by deniers and spin) as if it were nonetheless an ultimate authority.
um. exusian – I kind of know all that. The surface temp would be about -40C, if I recall correctly. I was just a little exasperated and having a little fun, but I guess since the post is there for posterity now, I should clarify, lest anyone else challenge me to solve for j*=εσT^4 or something…. Anyway, I cracked *me* up with that one at least!
This survey is truely shocking! 47% still belive that Humans are the main cause of climate change? Despite no solid evidence to support it, and a decade of mounting counter evidence on top of the clear historical data that it is temperature change that drives CO2 change and not the reverse.
I am shocked and amazed.
Sorry tidal, I missed that you were pulling Max’s leg.
“I am shocked and amazed.”
And I am not at all surprised,
given the fallacies in just that one posted comment.
I have now read many more of the comments and discovered that the host actually thinks GISS is a good data set and if we don’t believe it we don’t believe in “Science”.
I thought this was a serious discussion, I guess not.
The crying wolf analogy is very appropriate. How often do you have to be lied to before you start doubting?
Well done, shocked and amazed, for getting us back to the original subject of this thread: the general public’s views about climate change. More instructive, I believe, than the poll cited by Joe is a major poll published recently here in the UK (Gallup has reported very similar findings in the US). Respondents were asked what they thought was “the most important issue facing Britain today”. Note (this is important): responses were unprompted i.e. a list of possible answers was not provided so respondents were not biased by how they felt that “ought” to respond. Only 3% identified “the environment” (no mention it seems of “climate change” or “global warming”) and even more significant I suggest, when asked about “other important issues”, only another 4% mentioned the environment. So it seems that hardly anyone at all (left or right) really regards climate change as an important issue. That IMHO is why politicians pay lip service to climate change but do nothing much in practice. If anything the opposite: they go on, for example, expanding airports, investing in roads and power stations and exempting commercial shipping from their feeble “targets”. As I’ve said before (my post of May 11th at 3:36 am), in the end it’s voters’ views that matter. Yet CO2 emissions continue their inexorable rise.
Yes, the GISS data set is a good data set. One of many, many, many data sets that all show the same thing. You can ignore science all you want, but at the very least you should explain to your children that you were one of those who helped fight efforts to stop the catastrophe they are living through.
Dear Shocked and amazed,
please see http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php #9
Yes Earl I read that one almost every day.
Joe
Unless you have a record of the original data and a legitimate explanation for the numerous after the fact “corrections” in the GISS data being overwelmingly down pre 1970 and up since, as well as the site bias over time that is likely to be larger than the entire warming signal, you have a mighty weird definition of “good data set”.
I am not causing a catastrophy, if you want to talk about rational solutions I’ll listen. here is a start; nuclear power and closing the nuclear fuel cycle could easily cut emissions 50%. Why aren’t you talking about that.
Sorry — you are contributing to a catastrophe if you focus on in significant changes in the GISS data set (see here). You are literally missing the forest for the trees.
If NASA’s data set is so flawed, how come NASA has made some of the most accurate predictions over the past 25 years about climate change — whereas all the people who have foundtiny inconsequential issues have been consistently wrong in issue after issue after issue?
I talk a lot about nuclear — I dare say I’ve blogged on it more than most. You obviously haven’t bothered to look at recent posts here. But it is nearly inconceivable that nuclear could be more than about 10% of the solution, As I have explained repeatedly on this blog.
As I said in my most recent post (11:52 am today), Western democracies are doing nothing of substance to “combat climate change” because their electorates are not interested. And I doubt if a new US President will be any different – despite current rhetoric. But the rest of the world – especially the massively expanding Eastern economies – is barely even paying lip service to the issue (see my post of May 11th at 3:36 am). Hence the massive and continuing growth of CO2 emissions. As I have said, anyone who believes this process can be reversed in time to avoid the alleged consequences projected by the IPCC and others is living in dreamland. If the AGW hypothesis is valid, the global outlook is dire.
So I’d like to suggest that Joe and contributors to this thread lift their heads for a moment from the esoteric matters that so concern you and think about this: how do you see things turning out and what’s your personal agenda in relation to that outcome?
Shocked and amazed — Try reading “The Discovery of Global Warming” by Spencer Weart:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
to lessen your shock and increase your amazement at how many good people have put so much effort into understanding some (important) things about climate.
Seems as if Democrats are having trouble drinking the GloBull Warming Kool-Aid also…………
Global Warming Ranks Dead Last as Issue with Iowa Democrats in Poll
Washington Post-ABC News Poll
Even among Democratic voters, ‘global warming’ is less than nothing politically. I thought you all might delight in seeing the revealing results of this ‘Washington Post-ABC News Poll’ (Question 9), which was conducted by telephone between November 14-18, 2007, among a random sample of 500 Iowans likely to vote in the Democratic caucuses (the results have a four percentage point margin of sampling error, and the percentages are rounded, thus giving slightly higher than 100%).
When asked “What is the single most important issue in your choice for the Democratic candidate for president?”, Iraq/War in Iraq 33%, Health Care 26%, Economy/Jobs 10% and Ethics/Honesty/Corruption In Government 5%. Global warming ranked dead last among 16 identified issues with less than 1%.
I guess the “Educated Liberals” have trouble reading simple graphs………
http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/7390_large_hadcrut.jpg
[JR: You're a funny guy, Brute! If you are interested in reality, rather than one month's worth of data, you can just check out some of the earlier posts on this blog. The great ice of 2008 ended a couple of months ago.]
Simple-minded (and fabricated) graphs for simple minds looking for what they want to see.
Read this simple disclaimer from Hadley Centre, whose data set that graph is based on:
Quote:
“We have recently changed the way that the smoothed time series of data were calculated. Data for 2008 were being used in the smoothing process as if they represented an accurate esimate of the year as a whole. This is not the case and owing to the unusually cool global average temperature in January 2008, it looked as though smoothed global average temperatures had dropped markedly in recent years, which is misleading.”
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/ hadcrut3/ diagnostics/ global/ nh+sh/
Thanks for proving that you can fool some of the people all of the time.
I don’t know where you get 10% from, here in the US the replacement of coal fired plants with nuclear would reduce emissions just over 50% last survey I saw. Similar numbers for much of Europe, China, India.
Solar is finally starting to look possible though biofuel and wind are pretty much a bad idea it seems.
Battle of competing links:
http://www.geocraft.com/ WVFossils/ Carboniferous_climate.html
Explain that one in terms of catastrophic warming.
Typo correction to earlier post
“PaulK tells us that IPCC estimates a range of 1.5C to 4.5C warming for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 with feedbacks, with 0.3C as an average.”
This should, of course, read “with 3.0C as an average” (not 0.3C)
manacker — Actually IPCC AR4 states a climate sensitivity of 2–4.5 K with 3 K most likely. It is actually not an average in the usual sense.
Shocked and amazed — The configuration of the continents was different then. Makes a big difference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboniferous
Brute said: “Looks to be that global temperatures have dropped since 1998, even using your graph, with or without smoothing.”
If you mean this graph: http://hadobs.metoffice.com/ hadcrut3/ diagnostics/ global/ nh+sh/
then what you are doing is called cherry picking, and it is the mark of the statistically naive and visually illiterate, so I think we can safely assume that your background does not include science, engineering, financial planning, or any other profession that uses data and statistics. Don’t worry, that’s not a personal attack, just an observation.
What exactly do you expect to happen when you start your comparison with the warmest annual global mean temperature on record and one of the strongest observed El Nino years, and end it in a strong La Nina year?
But even the statistically ignorant should be able to see from this graph that 1998 was an exceptional outlier by any definition, and that the temperature trend actually continued upward to a peak in 2005, and that temperatures have dropped from that peak for only the last two years, not ten. (We don’t know what it will do in 2008 yet, we’re not even half way through it yet.)
Now look at the graph again. Notice how the means for each year shoot above and below the smoothed trend line in a seemingly erratic fashion? That’s called weather variability. Since climate is defined as the average of weather over time, you need to look at a long enough time to detect the trend in climate in that weather variability, and ten years is simply not long enough, let alone two. The point is we don’t yet know how long the current decrease will last, so we simply can’t tell what the trend is or how long it will last. But even if it turns out to last for several more years and then turns up again the climate trend could turn out to be increasing.
Counter intuitive, you say? Look at the graph again. Over the past 100 years, how many peaks followed by a drop have their been in that smoothed line ? four? Five?
Now, even with those peaks and drops, was the tend for the century up or down?
Here’s a very good illustration of how the long term trend (climate) can be hidden in short term noise (weather). It uses weight loss to illustrate the problem, which may be easier for you to understand:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/ hackdiet/ www/ subsection1_2_4_0_3.html
To follow the example, just use the NEXT button.
Brute: “Meanwhile, CO2 levels have steadily risen since then. Cause and effect disproven…….try again.”
No, what has been disproven is that you should expect to see a linear cause and effect in a noisy system over a short period.
If the temps have actually increased how have the arctic ice maintained their areas? Where did the “hot” surface water disappear to? How many “climate” changes are actually the direct effects of the 50% increase in CO2 ppm? My neighborhood greenhouse’s operator gases flowers to speed them up, surely some of the observed changes in plants are driven by CO2 concentrations, not temperature.
To me if the total “forcing” is only 3.6 Watts/metre *metre, then why not just block one quarter of one per cent of solar radiation. A U.S. controlled solar shade/ Fresnel lens could lower global temps and toast non-friendly countries with out expensive messy invasions. Green and Mean at once, tree-huggers and world domination types could agree on a multi-tasking solution. And it would cost a tiny fraction of any other unproven solutions offered on this web site
If the temps have actually increased how have the arctic ice maintained their areas?
The above post has many problems, but I’ve highlighted the one boner I keep seeing over and over — when are global-warming “skeptics” going to learn about the difference between area and volume?
Peter Foley said: “If the temps have actually increased how have the arctic ice maintained their areas?”
It’s called winter. It happens twice every year, once in the northern hemisphere, once in the southern hemisphere.
And blocking sunlight will do nothing to prevent increasing CO2 from acidifying the ocean.
Clueless. Absolutely clueless.
Caerbannog/exusian,
The planet has a “fever”, remember? More eco-bable & doubletalk won’t change the fact that the planet is cooling while CO2 levels are rising. The entire premise laid down by the politicians at the United Nations is wrong. Now they have to eat crow…..They bet on the wrong horse and they’ve lost. We all remember what they said and wrote. Changing the theory to fit the facts, after the fact, won’t cut it. Their predictions, based on flawed computer models was WRONG. Human contributions to CO2 levels is about as insignificant as a pimple on a flea and the IPCC is advocating massive changes to the world economy to combat it?
The previous winter has set new records for low temperatures and snowfall amounts from Beijing to Baghdad.
Polar bear populations have risen since the 1950’s; they’re fine.
Hurricanes have not intensified in frequency or severity.
Glaciers are advancing and retreating as they have for thousands of years.
My house at the beach is not in danger of being inundated.
A rise in temperature of ½ of 1 degree over a period of 100 years is well within natural variability.
You guys really take yourselves too seriously; such conceit, vanity and naiveté. Have you given any thought to the massive nuclear furnace at the center of our solar system? Do you have any concept of its size in relation to the size of the Earth? Have you considered the amount of energy generated by the Sun in 1 second? The numbers stagger the most highly educated physicists…
Could it possibly be that these politicians are lying to you? Could it possibly be that they have an ulterior motive that does not involve “saving the planet”. If eco-nuts such as Al Gore are seemingly wringing their hands over the amount of gasoline my car uses don’t you think that he’d cut back on his personal jet fuel consumption? If Al Gore is so worried about rising sea levels why did he recently purchase beachfront property?
Try this; a massive MONEY GRAB foisted on successful nations by certain members of the United Nations…..how about that for a theory………It’s a CONFIDENCE SCHEME.
Poor nations demand more money to cope with global warming
http://www.meteogroup.co.uk/ uk/ home/ weather/ weather_news/ news_archive/ archive/ 2008/ april/ ch/ dfebace71e/ article/ poor_nations_demand_more_money_to_cope_with_global_warming.html
Exusian,
I appreciate your comments to my last post. I will post (a brief) future reply to some apparent misunderstandings regarding my comments that were evident in yours (and some others). On the whole (and despite any problems arising from my failure to communicate clearly), I found your response generally representative of much of my own understanding and helpful.
I did want a little clarification concerning your exchange with Brute where you quoted a disclaimer from the Hadley Center thus:
“We have recently changed the way that the smoothed time series of data were calculated. Data for 2008 were being used in the smoothing process as if they represented an accurate esimate of the year as a whole. This is not the case and owing to the unusually cool global average temperature in January 2008, it looked as though smoothed global average temperatures had dropped markedly in recent years, which is misleading.”
Looking at the chart Brute provided a link to, I see monthly figures plotted. The above quote refers to correcting a view of a chart of yearly global temperature. Both charts can have merit and obviously a representation for the entirety of 2008 based on January alone would be misleading. Nevertheless, the Hadley charts show a clear downward trend in global temperature beginning in the 2002-2004 range. Do we really know what is causing this cooling, particularly if we accept the strong forcing of atmospheric CO2 and the continuous (accelerated) rise of CO2 in the atmosphere? What is the natural force that is overwhelming the posited strength of CO2’s potency to warm climate? Are the ENSO/NAO/PDO/ADO cycles dominating CO2’s potency, and what might be the interactions between these cycles and a long term rise in atmospheric CO2.
Can you shed any light on how the baselines (zero) for temperature is chosen for the Hadley charts?
Thanks,
Bob W.
Exusian,
Just a brief reply to your comments on my earlier message.
I can see why there is climate confusion when communication can be so difficult. We tend to get steeped in our own areas of interest/expertise and that can lead to language differences (terms) that can cause confusion.
To keep this as brief as possible (and I appreciate the indulgence of the moderator), I’ll only address a few key areas where I didn’t communicate the point I was driving at.
Ex: “I would agree that 3% would be trivial if we were only talking about a single year, or even two, three or even a decade. But we aren’t. That’s 3% each and every year, and growing, plus it is cumulative because it doesn’t all go away. The key factor is that is not just this year’s 3%, its an accumulated 38% increase, because half of all the ‘new’ fossil carbon derived CO2 that we put in the atmosphere each year is not taken up by natural carbon sinks and what isn’t will stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.”
Yes, I do understand that point. And I agree that there are many contributors from humans to changes in atmospheric CO2 other than just on the production side in the form of burning fossil fuels.
What still gives me some uncertainty about this to a greater extent than those who believe AGW is a significant long term climate issue are the uncertainties. (1) What causes the natural climate variations that certainly appear to be unrelated to CO2? (2) Do we really know enough about CO2 variability from natural processes, both on the production and sequestration sides? (I will look at the link you provided, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ Library/ CarbonCycle/ carbon_cycle4.html, for more on this … thanks!).
Bob: “I am continually drawn back to the logarithmic decline of effectiveness of CO2 as an atmospheric warming agent as more and more are added to the atmosphere.”
Ex: “Poorly phrased. The decline is not logarithmic, it’s the increase that is logarithmic. The difference matters.”
Correct, because my phrasing was too easy to misunderstand. What I meant by “decline” was the declining net warming from CO2 as atmospheric quantity increases. Semantics can be a real roadblock to communication (perhaps it’s lack of eloquence and not semantics).
Ex: “An IR photon doesn’t care if it is absorbed by a molecule of H2O or one of CO2. Adding more of either increases the total population of absorbing molecules, or, increases pressure, AND, as I added above, shortens the mean free path to the next absorption. You do understand that absorption and subsequent relaxation by emission or collision is on the order on nanoseconds, don’t you? And that immediately after emission a greenhouse molecule is free to absorb another photon? So, a higher population of absorbing molecules and a shorter mean free path means more photon absorptions per given unit of volume over a given unit of time, which means it takes longer for the energy of any single photon to escape to space. That’s where the warming comes from.”
That’s a graphic description of the process. How does that relate to the logarithmic relationship between atmospheric warming from CO2 and quantity of CO2?
Ex: “But as I wrote previously, although the gaps widen as pressure drops, the point at which a photon is more likely to escape than be absorbed is elevated, thus increasing both the depth and the population of greenhouse gas molecules. That the effect become weaker the higher you go is the way that it has always been, but the depth has not always been elevated. Yes, the difference is small. So is the temperature increase, and that’s a very good thing, don’t you think?”
Yes. In reading the CO2 paper I was much earlier directed to, that this elevated depth of atmosphere over which CO2 is effective is (in a nutshell) the major issue that led to a conclusion that atmospheric CO2 is a significant climate change force. But as you say, the difference is small and appears to get smaller with altitude. How does that translate to a surface warming that dominates climate change? And why wasn’t this the case those millions of years ago when CO2 was vastly more abundant in the atmosphere and temperatures were very much colder? These are nagging questions for me.
Ex: (re: graph of CO2 and temperature over 500+ million years) “… As for graphs, I much prefer this one: [link later supplied]
And if you are going to look at periods of glaciation you are also going to have to look at periods of elevated temperatures.”
Absolutely. But the overall picture that emerges is that atmospheric CO2, even at levels well in excess of 1000 ppm, was insufficient to prevent four of the known seven ice eras (going back 2.5 bya) during the past 500 milliion years (except for the Rothman model, even the base of the error envelope appears to stay above 500 ppm except during the P/C, 250-350 mya).
Having said that, I understand it’s very difficult to translate such evidence to current time. But it does serve as an indicator (regardless of differences in solar radiance) that other forces are either not behaving as is currently believed or in the dynamic of weather and climate, CO2 is not the dominating factor that it might seem to be.
Ex: “Yes, I was going to mention them. Aren’t you the least bit curious why they end in the early 1980s when much more recent data is readily available? The same truncated graphs were used in the Great Global Warming Swindle and on countless web sites and blogs, btw. Fact is, the sun spot proxi plot diverges from the temperature plot about 1980, while both the temperature and CO2 plots continue to rise steeply.”
But didn’t sun spot activity increase dramatically during the 1990s? And as sunspot intensity has become non-existent, we see (Hadley charts) indicating global average temperature peaked about 4-6 years ago. I have no idea why the truncated data was used. But the divergence of the 1980s is reflected in other temporary divergences. But if you look over the entire range of the data back to 1860, the correlation of the smoothed data is clear and much more significant that between the historic continuous rise in atmospheric CO2 and either global averaged temperature or global mean SST. This is not a trivial problem that needs to be rationally explained for people to accept the IPCC position regarding the potency of CO2 as a climate change agent.
Bob: “Venus has “almost 97% CO2″ and Mars has about 95% CO2. Both have atmospheres that are nearly saturated with CO2.”
Ex: “This is not only not right, it isn’t even wrong.”
I had to smile when I read that! No, I laughed.
Ex: “Venus is not saturated, it’s just out of carbon. See David’s link to the recent discussion of Venus at RealClimate.
And look up what the volume, mass and pressure of Venus’ and Mars’ atmospheres, then get back to us on this one.”
and …
“That’s just it, there is no such point, only diminishing returns because the effect is logarithmic. Plus, feedbacks add different gases and entirely different effects. There is no overlap of GHGs and a change in albedo as ice caps melt, for example, and the melting of seabed methane calthrates would plug new holes in the ‘picket fence’.”
I understand that, because of the logarithmic nature of the (declining returns) warming achieved as volume increases, that there will always be some incremental warming possible. But for all practical purposes, at some point the amount of CO2 that has to be added to achieve even a modicum of warming is monumental and, likewise, the potential of the GHG to contribute anything of significance to warming will be nil as the curve approaches (but never reaches) the horizontal. Wouldn’t it be fair to agree that there is some quantity of atmospheric CO2 beyond which nothing of significance in terms of atmospheric warming will come from adding more? Wouldn’t it be fair to call that point a “saturation” point (where the GHG quantity has, for all practical purposes, “saturated” it’s significance as an atmospheric warming agent)?
Ex: “… reading through your comments on GCMs above suggests to me that you may not have a very good understanding of how GCMs are structured, how they work and are constrained, and what they are used for. There are at least three active threads on the topic at RC right now, including the two on the wager, which is intended not to belittle the modelers they are wagering against, but to illustrate the rash interpretations of the model by the MSM and blogs. I think you’ll find the discussion highly interesting.”
I freely admit I am not a GCM modeler. But all simulation models have certain fundamental limitations (e.g., insufficient data, insufficient knowledge of underlying processes, insufficient ability to model known processes, etc.). I have read enough of the discussions of GCMs to come to several observations: (1) the underlying science is simply not well enough understood (e.g., cloud formation, precipitation, what causes changes in ocean currents and atmospheric cycles, etc.); (2) as with most such models, they use parameterization to define a range of values that might capture the range of consequences, this can be used to make up for lack of data as well as lack of knowledge about the underlying science; (3) models have not been both verified and validated; and, (4) the results are grossly misused. I agree that the MSM and blogs misuse the information produced. But so do (in my view) the IPCC SPM, Mr. Gore, and most politicians. I have nothing but the highest regard for the work of the modelers … who are doing the best they can with the limitations they have. I believe it is unconscionable that the SPM makes predictions (forecasts) from the information generated in these models.
Thanks again for your very helpful discussion on these points. I do appreciate your thoughts on these and they are quite helpful.
Regards,
Bob W.
Yes, I know. It wasn’t so brief. But the discussion is helpful and your endurance is appreciated.
Exusian, I used the area posted on cryosphere for a source. the Total area is 1000000 Km square above the 30 year average. Is there a record of ice volume?
Cearbannog, How has the volumes of the ice on Greenland & Antarctic built up over the last period warming 1970-98? I’m not aware of any running totals of the floating ice volume.
As the non sequitur of ocean acidity, just how did life survive during periods when the CO2 level exceeded the present by a factor of ten or more? To change the acidity of salt water a tenth of a PH factor just how much Co2 gas would be “sequestered”in the water that out-masses the atmosphere ~20,000 to one. As on land will not most plant life grow faster as Co2 concentrations rise? Just what is the diffusion rates of the Co2 through the sea-waters?
The strongest argument against Joe’s “Hell and High water” meme, Besides the annoying fact as temps rise the rate of evaporation increases even faster eliminating the dry hell possibility, is it hasn’t happened “recently” in the pre-human geological record.
Bob Webster — First learn to master the following three steps:
(1) Humans emit carbon dioxide:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.htm
resultsing in (2) increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/ gmd/ ccgg/ trends/ co2_data_mlo.html
which (helps to) result in (3) increasing global temperatures (10 year averages)
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/10yave.jpg
Peter Foley wrote “just how did life survive during periods when the CO2 level exceeded the present by a factor of ten or more?” Its called biological evolution. It requires rather slow changes in conditions.
Bob Webster wrote “I believe it is unconscionable that the SPM makes predictions (forecasts) from the information generated in these models.” This is bizarre. Do you believe the same regarding epidemiologists predicting desease patterns?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology
Note to David B. Benson
Bob Webster wrote “I believe it is unconscionable that the SPM makes predictions (forecasts) from the information generated in these models.”
To which you replied “This is bizarre. Do you believe the same regarding epidemiologists predicting desease patterns?”
Now I cannot speak for Bob Webster, but I would say, “If these epidemiologists predicting disease patterns are feeding exaggerated inputs into their models in order to arrive at alarming results to motivate the public into supporting a political agenda through fear mongering, then I believe the same would be true as for the climate modelers.”
A slight enhancement of David B. Benson’s “three steps”
(1) Humans emit carbon dioxide:
resulting in (2) increasing CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere
which in theory can help, along with all the many other factors out there that are still unknown at this time, to result in (3) slightly increasing global temperatures (a fraction of 1C for a doubling of CO2 concentration, which is expected to occur over the 350-year time span from the year 1750 to 2100)
however (4) somewhat complicated by unexplained multi-decadal temperature fluctuations that show no observed link to human CO2 emissions or atmospheric CO2 concentrations
Max
Question to Bob Webster
Do you prefer David B. Bensons simplified “three steps” or my slightly enhanced “four step” logic?
Or do you have another logic you prefer?
Regards,
Max
Have to admit that the book by Spencer Weart is a better read than the 1,000-page (groan!) IPCC AR4 WG1 report, but even better is this book:
http://www.amazon.com/ Unstoppable-Global-Warming-Every-Years/ dp/ 0742551172
manacker — Hate to spoil your fantasy world, but there is no 1,500 year oscillation in the paleorecords.
Back to something approaching reality, what was your four step plan again?
Reply to manacker RE:
“Do you prefer David B. Bensons simplified ‘three steps’ or my slightly enhanced ‘four step’ logic?”
That’s an easy one!
Let me put it as clearly as possible: You can provide responses for me any time. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your keen insights and knowledge … and could not have replied any more succinctly and to the point than you.
Frankly, I find the tone of David B. Benson’s replies off-putting. Perhaps if he learned to leave out the sneering he might be taken more seriously.
Regards,
Bob W.
David B. Benson, Hemoglobin producing DNA/RNA I’d assume is similar in insects and mammals, I’m assumeing it’s evolution predates the present relatively very low CO2 ppms. Those nasty coral reefs have been sequestering Co2 for a very long time as limestone. Just what is the ratio of paleo-carbon tied up as limestone to fossil hydro-carbons?
Some biologists would disagree with you in regards to the need for extended time for conditions the “junk” DNA was coded to handle in previous evolutionary iterations. Has any one, any where have any experience of a 600ppm level of CO2 causing any problems with existing Flora and Fauna sans climate?
Free replacement Eco-mania to replace the bursting Carbon-AGW bubble, what to do about the constantly rising salt levels in the worlds oceans? Maybe we should melt the ice caps to maintain a constant level of salinity.
Brute said: “More eco-bable & doubletalk won’t change the fact that the planet is cooling while CO2 levels are rising.”
I see, so, talking intelligently about science, statistical analysis and reality is just doubletalk and eco-babble.
Oh, well, serves me right for trying seriously discuss something with a rude, ignorant fool.
Bob W, Sorry no time today to carry on our discussion, but I did want to address your comment about David Benson’s off-putting tone.
I’ve been reading David’s posts here and at RealClimate for a long time. David’s tone is generally even-tempered and respectful, but I can attest from experience that rebutting the same inaccurate and untrue points over and over and over again does wear down one’s patience and tolerance, especially when those points are posed in a dismissive and contemptuous manner.
I’m not saying that was your manner, but you don’t have to read very many posts in this thread to find that manner, and this thread and this blog are tame compared to what is out there. A good many ill-informed people have no reluctance to publicly display their ignorance and contempt for those who have taken the time to study and understand the science. Unfortunately, once one’s patience and tolerance are exhausted, as mine are with Brute, then one may lash out too broadly. Better to just take a break from posting.
A good many ill-informed people have no reluctance to publicly display their ignorance and contempt for those who have taken the time to study and understand the science.
This is the Dunning-Kruger effect in action. With the possible exception of creationists, nobody illustrates the Dunning-Kruger effect better than global-warming “skeptics”.
Caerbannog, How long have you been over-estimating your skills and science knowledge? What caused your epiphany?
From my viewpoint your emotional reactions to non-believers shows your faith-based belief in carbon-forced AGW.
If the Science of AGW had a little more fact and less faith, convincing others to join the climate jihad would be much easier.
As ever more data bases such as cryosphere refute AGW with daily photos, sea temps buoys failing to show any warming, and to me the cherry on the cake- the lack of an acceleration in the rate of mean sea level increase. It will become ever harder to fill the AGW Church.
Without the use of near ground urban thermometers the rise in air temps the last 130 years is a fraction of the “advertised” number.
the more we measure, the less the warming shows.
If AGW ‘proof’ was a couple of orders of quality better, converting the educated to the school of thought would be almost painless.
Peter — This simple repetition of denier talking points is becoming tedious. Sea level rise has accelerated — honestly, where have you been?
Yes, the entire scientific community (except for a few voices in the wilderness) has failed to notice that cities are getting warmer. Thank goodness you pointed it out in time.
All those hundreds of studies documenting a changing climate around the globe were all falsified and no one bothered to check them.
You might as well believe that we never landed men on the moon.
If the evidence of the last few years does not convince someone of the dire nature of human caused global warming, there is no “data” that will do the trick. Arguing with such folks is pointless, and in any case is not the purpose of this blog, which isn’t really aimed at people who are trying to avert catastrophe, not shield their eyes and contribute to the problem’s denial. There are lots of other websites for people like you.
Note to David B. Benson
For the enhanced “4-step” version of your “3-step” logic see my post of May 16th 8:26pm.
Regards,
Max
Gore’s Alarmism Failing: Concern for Global Warming Same as 19 Years Ago
Want to talk about really inconvenient truths?
Well, despite Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s massive campaign to scare the world into thinking the planet is facing imminent doom at the hands of global warming, Americans don’t seem to be buying it.
In fact, a new Gallup poll released moments ago revealed, “a little more than a third say they worry about [global warming] a great deal, a percentage that is roughly the same as the one Gallup measured 19 years ago.”
Hehehehehe.
Here are the exquisitely delicious details:
Despite the enormous attention paid to global warming over the past several years, the average American is in some ways no more worried about it than in years past. Americans do appear to have become more likely to believe global warming’s effects are already taking place and that it could represent a threat to their way of life during their lifetimes. But the American public is more worried about a series of other environmental concerns than about global warming, and there has been no consistent upward trend on worry about global warming going back for two decades. Additionally, only a little more than a third of Americans say that immediate, drastic action is needed in order to maintain life as we know it on the planet.
Slightly less than half of Americans in 1997 said the effects of global warming had already begun to happen. That number has risen, particularly in the past two years, to the point where today 61% say the effects have already begun to happen at this point in time. About one out of four Americans, however, continue to say the effects of global warming will not happen in their lifetimes, if ever.
The fact that a majority of Americans don’t believe global warming will pose a threat to them in their lifetimes makes it perhaps less surprising to find that significantly less than a majority of Americans say they worry a great deal about it. In fact, worry about global warming is low on a list of 12 environmental problems that Gallup asks about in the Environment surveys.
There is, in fact, little more evidence of worry about global warming now than there was when this question was first asked in 1989.
Still, the trend data suggest that despite the growing attention to and emphasis on global warming in recent years, there has been no consistent increase in worry about it since Gallup began asking the question way back in 1989.
A Gallup Poll question asks Americans whether “additional, immediate, and drastic action” is necessary concerning the environment, and in this year’s update, about a third answer “yes.”
That number is down slightly from last year and, stretching back in time, is roughly the same as was measured in a 1995 poll.
And here’s the delicious conclusion that should keep the Global Warmingest-in-Chief up at night:
Although there have been fluctuations on this measure of worry over the years, the percentage of Americans who worry a great deal about global warming is no higher now than it was 19 years ago. And the percentage who do worry a great deal — 37% — is still well less than a majority, and in fact lower than the percentage who worry a great deal about such environmental issues as pollution of drinking water, pollution of lakes and reservoirs, and toxic waste in the soil.
Of course, it goes without saying that readers will likely see little about this poll in the mainstream press. But, much more important, we have to hope that every member of Congress — and President Bush — gets a copy of this survey such that all efforts to enact a carbon cap-and-trade scheme in this nation are immediately halted.
Note to David B. Benson re Dansgaard-Oeschger and Bond oscillations.
Hi David,
You wrote: “Hate to spoil your fantasy world, but there is no 1,500 year oscillation in the paleorecords.”
Tell it to the Danish/Swiss scientist team, Willi Dansgaard and Hans Oeschger, or Gerard Bond at Columbia, David.
You are technically correct that “there is no 1,500 year oscillation in the paleorecords”; it’s actually 1470±532 years throughout the last glacial period, with twenty-three such climate fluctuations identified between 110,000 and 23,000 years BP.
Bond events are North Atlantic climate fluctuations occurring every ≈1470 years throughout the Holocene. Eight such events have been identified. Bond events are thought to be Holocene equivalents to the Pleistocene Dansgaard-Oeschger fluctuations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard-Oeschger_event
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_event
Geophysical research letters 2002, vol. 29, no1, pp. 2.1-2.4
http://cat.inist.fr/ ?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=13467792
The Little Ice Age of ~400 to 200 years ago has been interpreted as the cold part of a D-O cycle, putting us in a period of warming climate (Bond et al. 1999).
The best evidence for Dansgaard-Oeschger events remains in the Greenland cores, which only go back to the end of the last interglacial. Somewhat less direct evidence from Antarctic cores (the pattern of warmings; and the methane record) suggests that they were present in previous glacial periods as well.
Regards,
Max
Bob Webster — I do attempt to be factually accurate.
manacker — Yes, all that other stuff too. Climate is complicated. But one needs to start with the most important part. After Greenhouse 101, that is.
http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/Greenhouse101.html
Max,
Honest……no. Charlatan…..yes.
Sanctimonious….yes…….. as he travels around the world in his private Lear jet collecting fees and peddling his worthless indulgences to guilt ridden elitists suckers.
Lincoln had integrity which Gore severely lacks; he knows no shame.
Yep, there’s one born every minute………..
Even the percentage of Global Warming Dupes outlined in the article is surprising. These Global Warming Alarmists have been so thoroughly brainwashed that no amount of reason or fact will change their fanaticism.
I remember reading recently that Al “C Student” Gore recently launched a 300 million dollar campaign to keep his indoctrination machine afloat. Imagine how that money could have been used to actually help people…………very sad.
I imagine the people of Burma or China could use 300 million dollars worth of food and water right about now.
Brute — Actually, I beleive the difference is between those who understand (or at least respect) science and the fools who do not.
Mr. Benson,
More sanctimonious claptrap.
Does the “science” you refer to include the Riefenstahl like Inconvenient Fraud? Or how about Mann’s notorious Hockey Stick Graph?
No young man, the difference is between “education” and common sense which is lacking in your case………… as evidenced by your comments throughout.
Do some more research and try again; this time with an open mind.
Is this bit of “science” worthy of your understanding and respect?
Global Warming May Increase Prevalence Of Kidney Stones Disease
Washington, May 15 (ANI): Global warming may lead to an increase in kidney stones disease, says a new study.
Dehydration has been linked to stone disease, mainly in warmer climates, and global warming will worsen this effect, according to the researchers.
As a result, the prevalence of stone disease may increase, along with the costs of treating the condition.
Using published data to determine the temperature-dependence of stone disease, researchers applied predictions of temperature increase to determine the impact of global warming on the incidence and cost of stone disease in the United States.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicates a 1-20 C increase in temperature by 2050 for much of the United States. These findings place a greater significance on the harmful effects of global warming, an ongoing economic and political issue.
The southern United States is considered the stone belt because these states have higher incidences of kidney stones. Rising global temperatures could expand this region; the fraction of the U.S. population living in high-risk stone zones is predicted to grow from 40 percent in 2000 to 50 percent by 2050.
This could lead to an increase of one to two million lifetime cases of stone disease. The impact of climate-related changes in stone disease will be non-uniformly distributed and likely concentrated in the southern half of the country (linear model) or upper Midwest (non-linear model).
The cost associated with treating stone disease could climb as high as one 1 billion dollars annually by 2050, representing a 10-20 percent increase over present-day estimates.
The study was presented at the 103rd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association. (ANI)
“From my viewpoint your emotional reactions to non-believers shows your faith-based belief in carbon-forced AGW….
It will become ever harder to fill the AGW Church….”
The ‘faith’ and ‘AGW church’ lines are a sure mark of someone without a real argument.
“Without the use of near ground urban thermometers the rise in air temps the last 130 years is a fraction of the “advertised” number.”
And this one is the mark of a bald-faced liar.
Brute wrote “No young man …” I’m hardly a young man anymore. For example, two of my children are practicing MDs. But I know that I know so little about the medical sciences not to comment on that abstract.
Often enough, the conclusions on science appear to fly in the face of ‘common sense’. Quantum mechanics is probably the major contender here. Climatology is much simplier, and yet still has many (minor) mysteries.
David, Brute has chose a most appropriate screen name, don’t you think?
Oops. ‘conclusions of science’
exusian — ‘chosen’ Yes, he has. Sorta like “et tu, Brute?”
Peter Foley said,
..and to me the cherry on the cake- the lack of an acceleration in the rate of mean sea level increase.
Mr. Foley,
The climate scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography strongly disagree with this claim. I attended a lecture given by Dr. Jeffrey Severinghaus at Scripps a few months ago, and during the followup Q&A session, he was asked to give his professional opinion regarding the most likely sea-level rise during the next century.
His reply? Two to six feet. I was there, and I heard him say that in person.
Now, you apparently disagree. How about telling us why we should take value your opinion over that of one of Scripps’ most accomplished scientists? What are your professional credentials relevant to climate research? Degrees? Publications? Professional experience? Let’s hear it.
Why should we listen to you instead of Dr. Severinghaus?
Caerbannog shot himself in the foot with: “No, look at the average *thickness* of Arctic sea-ice this winter, as compared to the average thickness of Arctic sea-ice in previous winters.”
(It’s that area vs. volume thing that so confuses AGW “skeptics”.)”
Sorry, caerbannog, looks like you are the one who is a bit confused (maybe exusian, as well).
The ice is getting thicker as well as covering a larger surface area.
http://www.cbc.ca/ technology/ story/ 2008/ 02/ 15/ arctic-ice.html
To quote from the report:
“The cold is also making the ice thicker in some areas, compared to recorded thicknesses last year”, Lagnis added.
“The ice is about 10 to 20 centimetres thicker than last year, so that’s a significant increase,” he said.
“If temperatures remain cold this winter”, Langis said “winter sea ice coverage will continue to expand”.
Larger area X increased thickness = Greater volume.
Seems pretty clear to me, but I know that ”it’s that area vs. volume thing that so confuses AGW ‘fundies’” since “math isn’t exactly their strong suite, is it”.
Keep trying, guys.
But you’d both better put on your Kevlar-toed shoes before you shoot from the hip next time. Just some friendly advice.
Max
Hi caerbannog,
You wrote: “I attended a lecture given by Dr. Jeffrey Severinghaus at Scripps a few months ago, and during the followup Q&A session, he was asked to give his professional opinion regarding the most likely sea-level rise during the next century.
His reply? Two to six feet. I was there, and I heard him say that in person.”
“In person”, no less!
Yep, and I read that Dr. Nils Axel Börner went on record to say that any projected increase in sea level over the next 100 years that exceeds 20 cm is “NONSENSE”.
Please refer to:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/ pa/ ld200506/ ldselect/ ldeconaf/ 12/ 12we18.htm
You will see in
“Fig. 2: The sea level rise by the year 2100 according to IPCC and its evaluation by INQUA”,
both the fact that INQUA does not agree with the IPCC estimate (let alone the Severinghaus fantasy) and the word “NONSENSE” as applied to any sea level rise projection from 2000 to 2100 that exceeds 10±10 cm.
Max
Excuse the typo: it’s Nils Axel Mörner (not Börner).
Mr. Benson,
Oops. ‘conclusions of science’
Skip it……I knew what you meant………
Many “minor” mysteries? What constitutes a “minor” mystery? Please define a “minor mystery”. How many is many? You mean you aren’t absolutely certain? Isn’t that the definition of skeptical?
A “minor” error in navigation, medicine or engineering may, (and have), resulted in catastrophic consequence. You would have world economies, industry and agriculture rearranged based on imprecise conclusions and “mysteries”? (By a group of unaccountable politicians of dubious character). To date, the predictions set forth by the IPCC have proven to be GROSSLY inaccurate.
That’s quite a leap of faith.
The IPCC Carbon Dioxide Predictions are Erroneous
http://www.john-daly.com/ipcc-co2/ipcc-co2.htm
What is wrong with the forecasts?
http://bruderheim-rea.ca/warming3.htm
Yep, and I read that Dr. Nils Axel Börner went on record to say that any projected increase in sea level over the next 100 years that exceeds 20 cm is “NONSENSE”.
Boerner also disagrees with the scientific establishment about the validity of dowsing (water-witching). See http://www.randi.org/hotline/1998/0012.html for details.
Now, how about citing someone who isn’t a certified crank?
This shows why it is much much better to go with the scientific consensus rather than “lone-wolf” contrarians. Occasionally, the “lone wolf” is right, but for every contrarian who succeeds in overturning the scientific consensus, you have hundreds (or thousands) who are simply cranks.
Sea level rise not accelerating? Look at the data.
http://www.realclimate.org/images/sealevel_2.jpg
Jr,
Do Hillary and Soros really run this web page? Where does the money come from to operate this site?
Center For American Progress Action Fund
• Leftist think tank run by Hillary Clinton and former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta
• Helped launch Media Matters for America
The Center for American Progress (CAP) describes itself as “a nonpartisan research and educational institute” aimed at “developing a long-term vision of a progressive America” and “providing a forum to generate new progressive ideas and policy proposals.”
Robert Dreyfuss reports in the March 1, 2004 edition of The Nation: “The idea for the Center began with discussions in 2002 between [Morton] Halperin and George Soros, the billionaire investor. … Halperin, who heads the office of Soros’ Open Society Institute, brought [former Clinton chief of staff John] Podesta into the discussion, and beginning in late 2002 Halperin and Podesta circulated a series of papers to funders.”
Soros and Halperin recruited Harold Ickes — chief fundraiser and former deputy chief of staff for the Clinton White House — to help organize the Center. It was launched on July 7, 2003 as the American Majority Institute. The name was changed to Center for American Progress (CAP) on September 1, 2003. The official purpose of the Center was to provide the left with something it supposedly lacked — a think tank of its own.
Regarding the new think tank proposed by Soros and Halperin, Hillary Clinton told Matt Bai of The New York Times Magazine on October 12, 2003, “We need some new intellectual capital. There has to be some thought given as to how we build the 21st-century policies that reflect the Democrat Party’s values.” She later told The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss, “We’ve had the challenge of filling a void on our side of the ledger for a long time, while the other side created an infrastructure that has come to dominate political discourse. The Center is a welcome effort to fill that void.”
Persistent press leaks confirm that Hillary Clinton, and not Podesta, is ultimately in charge of CAP. “It’s the official Hillary Clinton think tank,” an inside source confided to Christian Bourge of United Press International. Robert Dreyfuss notes in The Nation, “In looking at Podesta’s center, there’s no escaping the imprint of the Clintons. It’s not completely wrong to see it as a shadow government, a kind of Clinton White-House-in-exile — or a White House staff in readiness for President Hillary Clinton.” Dreyfuss notes the abundance of Clintonites on the Center’s staff, among them Clinton’s national security speechwriter Robert Boorstin; Democratic Leadership Council staffer and former head of Clinton’s National Economic Council Gene Sperling; former senior advisor to Clinton’s Office of Management and Budget Matt Miller; and others.
In addition to the aforementioned individuals, CAP’s key personnel also includes Director of Media Strategy Debbie Berger, daughter of Clinton national security chief Sandy Berger; Sarah Rosen Wartell, who serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, and General Counsel; Mark David Agrast, Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy; and Robert O. Boorstin, Senior Vice President for National Security and International Policy.
One of CAP’s primary missions is to carry out “rapid response” to what it calls conservative “attacks” in the media. To this end, CAP maintains more than a dozen spokespeople ready to appear on short notice on national talk shows to debate or respond to conservative commentators. Among CAP’s expert commentators are its own President, John Podesta; Eric Alterman, who claims expertise on the subject of media; and CAP Senior Vice President Morton Halperin, who offers to speak on national security.
On May 3, 2004, CAP helped to launch David Brock’s Media Matters for America – which claims to serve as a “watchdog” organization monitoring “rightwing” media for ethics and accuracy. According to The New York Times, Brock conferred with Hillary Clinton, Senator Tom Daschle, and former Vice President Al Gore about Media Matters before embarking on the project. “Mr. Brock’s project was developed with help from the newly formed Center for American Progress,” notes the Times, and John Podesta “introduced [Brock] to potential donors.”
CAP posts daily “Talking Points” to guide the likeminded in their disputes with conservatives. The organization has also established an American Progress Action Fund as a “sister advocacy organization” that “transforms progressive ideas into policy through rapid response communications, legislative action, grassroots organizing and advocacy, and partnerships with other progressive leaders throughout the country and the world.”
The March 2004 Foundation Watch newsletter of the Capital Research Center reports that CAP raised $13 million in 2003. Part of that money came from George Soros, who had pledged $3 million, to be paid in $1 million increments over three years. Part came from Herbert and Marion Sandler, co-CEOs of the Oakland, California savings and loan holding company Golden West Financial Corporation (S&L).
Other recent donors to CAP include the Rockefeller Family Fund; the Irving Harris Foundation, the Philip Murphy Foundation, the New York Community Trust, the Overbrook Foundation, the Peninsula Foundation, the Robert E. Rubin Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, the Bauman Family Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the Robert and Irene Schwartz Foundation.
Center for American Progress Action Fund
Formerly known simply as the American Progress Action Fund, the Center for American Progress Action Fund is a “sister advocacy organization” and is organizationally and financially separate from the Center for American Progress, although they share many staff and a physical address. Whereas the Center for American Progress is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the fund is a 501(c)(4), allowing it to devote more funds to lobbying.[7] In 2003, George Soros promised to financially support the organization by donating up to three million dollars.[8]
The Open Society Institute
• Assets: $858,935,162 (2005)
• Grants Received: $377,413,561 (2005)
• Grants Awarded: $65,934,588 (2005)
Established in 1993, the Open Society Institute (OSI) is the most prominent of the numerous foundations belonging to the international billionaire financier George Soros, its founder and Chairman. Claiming to be “a nonpartisan, nonpolitical entity” whose funding agendas are “wholly separate” from “George Soros’s private political activities,” OSI describes itself as “a private operating and grantmaking foundation [that] “aims to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform; … implements a range of initiatives to support the rule of law, education, public health, and independent media; [and] works to build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as combating corruption and rights abuses.”
OSI’s Director of U.S. Advocacy is Morton Halperin (President of John Podesta’s Center for American Progress, and a longtime affiliate of the Institute for Policy Studies and the National Lawyers Guild).
The President of OSI and the Soros Foundation Network is Aryeh Neier, who, as Director of the socialist League for Industrial Democracy, personally created the radical group Students for a Democratic Society in 1959; he also worked for the American Civil Liberties Union from 1963 to 1978, serving as its Director for the last eight of those years.
PBS broadcaster and Schumann Center for Media and Democracy President Bill Moyers is a former trustee of the Open Society Institute.
OSI supports a wide array of leftist organizations, including: the Tides Foundation; the Tides Center; the National Organization for Women; Feminist Majority; the American Civil Liberties Union; People for the American Way; Alliance for Justice; NARAL Pro-Choice America; America Coming Together; the Center for American Progress; Campaign for America’s Future; Amnesty International; the Sentencing Project; the Center for Community Change; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund; the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN); Campus Progress; Free Exchange on Campus; Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; Democracy 21; Human Rights Watch; the Prison Moratorium Project; the Immigrant Funders’ Collaborative; the Moving Ideas Network; the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement; the No Peace Without Justice International Committee; the National Lawyers Guild; the Center for Constitutional Rights; the Coalition for an International Criminal Court; the Abortion Access Project; People of Color In Crisis; The American Prospect; MoveOn.org; the Gay Straight Alliance Network; the Youth Law Center; Planned Parenthood; the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy; the Institute for Policy Studies; Joint Victory Campaign 2004; the Midwest Academy; Jews for Racial and Economic Justice; Project Syndicate (an international association of newspapers that publish anti-American propaganda); the Rocky Mountain Peace Center; the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission; Earth Rights International; the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force; the Nation Institute; the Violence Policy Center; Gun Violence Prevention; Critical Resistance – Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex; the Center for Investigative Reporting; the Million Mom March; Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation; the Death Penalty Information Center, the Death Penalty Mobilization Fund; the Drug Policy Alliance; the Brennan Center for Justice; the Project On Death in America; the Death with Dignity National Center; the Ms. Foundation for Women; the National Security Archive Fund; the Pacifica Foundation; Physicians for Human Rights; the Proteus Fund; the Public Citizen Foundation; the Urban Institute; the American Friends Service Committee; Catholics for a Free Choice; Human Rights First; the Independent Media Institute; and MADRE.
A key funder of the open borders movement, OSI also supports the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; the Immigrant Legal Resource Center; the National Immigration Law Center; the National Immigration Forum; the National Council of La Raza; and the American Immigration Law Foundation.
Internal Revenue Service records indicate that OSI made a September 2002 grant of $20,000 to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee. Stewart was the criminal-defense attorney who was later convicted for abetting her client, the “blind sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman, in terrorist activities connected with his Islamic Group.
The Capital Research Center has published a list of additional organizations to which OSI has recently donated money, groups that according to CRC “advocate higher taxes and more government spending, oppose social security reform, litigate against property rights, oppose the death penalty, oppose tough criminal incarceration policies, oppose Bush judicial nominees, and promote balkanizing racial agendas.” These donees include the following:
• We Interrupt This Message portrays America as a nation rife with racism and economic injustice; seeks to radicalize minority youth; aims to help the “disenfranchised” and the “marginalized” to overcome negative media stereotypes; and encourages acts of rebellion against America’s alleged injustices, as evidenced by its characterization of the 1992 Los Angeles riots as a “civil uprising.”
• The Independent Media Institute publishes a number of regularly updated websites that offer news and opinion from a far left perspective; its Executive Director Don Hazen is a former publisher of Mother Jones magazine.
• The Community Rights Counsel provides legal assistance to state and local governments seeking to restrict individual property rights in the name of “community interest.”
• Equal Justice Works encourages young people to pursue careers as public interest lawyers — focusing on the areas of workers’ rights, birth control and abortion issues, consumers’ rights, disability issues, children’s rights, the death penalty, and prisoners’ rights — by funding student fellowships and helping students pay back their school loans.
• The Legal Action Center is a public interest law firm that litigates to force health-care insurers to provide coverage for people with histories of addiction to alcohol and drugs. It also opposes community efforts to block the placement of alcohol- and drug-treatment facilities in or near residential neighborhoods.
• Population Services International promotes wider access to birth control and abortion services in more than 60 countries worldwide.
• The Western States Center aims to build a “progressive movement for social, economic, racial and environmental justice in … eight Western states.”
• The Esperanza Center strives to build a political movement drawing on “women, people of color, lesbians and gay men, the working class and poor” — groups it considers “wounded by domination and inequality” in American political life.
• The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy believes that wealthy Americans pay less than their fair share of taxes; it publishes op-eds and studies that urge states to raise taxes on higher income-earners.
• The Network for a Progressive Texas is a coalition of “Texans who are committed to economic, social, and environmental justice … engaging in collective action, and building power to affect progressive change.”
• The Center for Law and Social Policy promotes government welfare entitlements under the heading of “economic security”; the Center’s Board of Directors includes attorney Peter Edelman, husband of Children’s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman.
• The Center for Policy Alternatives is a “progressive public policy and leadership development center serving state legislators, state policy organizations, and state grassroots leaders.”
• The Economic Policy Institute opposes social security privatization and free trade agreements such as NAFTA; it was founded in 1986 by journalist Robert Kuttner, Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, and economist Lester Thurow.
• The State Strategies Fund works to create a coalition of activists to support its agenda of campaign finance reform, progressive tax policy, and government-funded health care.
• DEMOS believes that America’s social and economic ills stem largely from “the values of extreme laissez faire ideology that have deeply permeated our society,” and from the fact that “[w]e’ve been told that government is the problem, not the solution.”
A strong supporter of anti-war and environmentalist organizations, OSI is a member of the Peace and Security Funders Group. It is also a member of the International Human Rights Funders Group, a network of more than six-dozen grant-makers dedicated to bankrolling leftist organizations and causes.
OSI endorsed a 2000 document called the Earth Charter, which blames capitalism for many of the world’s environmental, social, and economic problems. According to the Charter, “the dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a massive extinction of species.” “The benefits of development,” adds the Charter, “are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening.”
In the vanguard of the U.S. drug decriminalization movement, OSI in 1994 pledged $4 million to fund the establishment of the Lindesmith Center, which supports the legalization of marijuana. In 2002 OSI gave $3 million to the Tides Foundation, earmarking the money for a group called Fund for Drug Policy Reform, which opposes the War on Drugs.
OSI was a signatory to a November 1, 2001 document characterizing the 9/11 attacks as a legal matter to be addressed by criminal-justice procedures rather than military retribution. Suggesting that the hijackers were motivated chiefly by a desire to point out global injustices perpetrated by the United States, this document explained that similar future calamities could be averted only if America would finally begin to “promote fundamental rights around the world.”
OSI endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act (CLRA) of 2004, which was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Numerous OSI funding initiatives reflect the Institute’s view that the American criminal-justice system is infested with racism, and that incarceration is an inappropriate punishment for most lawbreakers. For example: (a) OSI has established a “U.S. Justice Fund” to “diminish the role of prisons … and to pave the way for the creation of a larger system of public health and social supports.” (b) In a related measure, the Institute created an “After Prison Initiative” focusing on “supporting the successful reentry of prisoners to their communities.” (c) OSI helps finance the Sentencing Project, which claims that prison sentencing patterns are racially discriminatory, and advocates in favor of granting voting rights to convicted felons. (d) OSI funds the Southern Center for Human Rights, which recruits lawyers to represent death row inmates and aims to reduce America’s alleged over-reliance on incarceration. (e) The Institute supports Critical Resistance, a program that impugns the “Prison Industrial Complex” for fostering the delusion that “caging and controlling people makes us safe.”
A strong advocate of gun control, OSI funds the Network on Small Arms, which has lobbied the United Nations to pass a measure outlawing private gun ownership and effectively overturning the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.
OSI funded the multi-year United Nations Millennium Development Project — commissioned by the UN Secretary-General in 2002 “to develop a concrete action plan for the world to … reverse the grinding poverty, hunger and disease affecting billions of people. In 2005 this Project culminated in a recommendation for a massive wealth-redistribution, foreign-aid program whose provisions, if adopted, would impose more than $150 billion in annual costs on Americans.
On August 16, 2005, OSI (in collaboration with the Center for American Progress, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, AFSCME, and the United Steelworkers Union) launched a new organization called the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN). Led by Democratic activists David Sirota and Steve Doherty, PLAN’s mission is to seed state legislatures with prewritten “model” legislation reflecting leftist visions of justice.
Between 1998 and 2003, OSI received more than $30 million from U.S. government agencies. Various State Department documents indicate that OSI has been paid to run what the Department describes as “democratization programs” in a number of countries, including Uzbekistan, Burma, and regions of Central Asia.
In an effort to present itself in the most positive light to the American people, OSI uses the services of the public relations firm Fenton Communications.
Sorry, caerbannog, looks like you are the one who is a bit confused (maybe exusian, as well).
The ice is getting thicker as well as covering a larger surface area.
http://www.cbc.ca/ technology/ story/ 2008/ 02/ 15/ arctic-ice.html
Umm…. it’s called Winter.
Now, why don’t we compare Arctic ice thickness for Spring of 2007 vs. Spring of 2008, per the following image?
http://nsidc.org/ images/ arcticseaicenews/ 200804_Figure6_thumb.png
Well, actually it’s worse than that. The image I linked to shows that Arctic ice was thinner for Feb-Mar of this year than it was for Mar-Apr of last year!
Exusian, the other data sets that measure sea temps and air temps above the surface have just a fraction of the delta T that the urban ground stations. What am I lying about?
David B. Benson, I can “prove” quantum mechanics with a radium watch and a dark room or diffraction grate. I know there is a Climate, but I’m still looking for the mature science.
Caerbannog, other reputable experts disagree with Dr. Severinghaus, Something to do with cherry picking sites that are “sinking”. I’ve never claimed any credentials I don’t have besides a fair memory and a basic college level science education—My G.P.A. was better the Al Gore’s but I haven’t hired a ghost writer. I don’t have an ‘opinion’ I just accessed the raw data. Global warming would raise the Sea Level globally.
Joe, Are you on George Soros payroll? I’m not a denier, if you want to label me let’s start with honest, consistent, and without an agenda. I repeat the basic facts that refute false claims. Find an honest method to forward your agenda—defending the reality is much easier than pushing a synthetic world view.
Returning to the post I am excited even the tree-hugger base is wising up to the misinformation. Even North Koreans know their country is pathetic—awareness of a non-problem is the first step in stopping the waste of time and resources on a boondoggle.
Did Brute post any errors?
Caerbannog, other reputable experts disagree with Dr. Severinghaus, Something to do with cherry picking sites that are “sinking”. I don’t have an ‘opinion’ I just accessed the raw data. Global warming would raise the Sea Level globally.
Global sea-level estimates are obtained via satellite telemetry. There is no “cherry picking” of individual locations involved. Of course, someone who had made an honest effort to learn about the science would have already known this.
Ummm…. You *do* know what satellites are, don’t you?
I’ve never claimed any credentials I don’t have besides a fair memory and a basic college level science education…
From what I’ve seen here, I rather doubt that your “basic college level science education” consisted of much more than a “rocks for jocks” geology class or two….
Your insinuation that scientists have “cherry picked” sinking locations to support claims of global sea level rise shows that you are lazy and ignorant (and probably not very honest). That fact that you are unaware that the most precise sea-level measurements are obtained via satellite measurements is prima facie evidence of that.
At this point, it is pretty clear that there is no point in discussing the science with you. My time would be better spent trying to teach my cat to solve differential equations.
Mr. Benson,
Oops. ‘conclusions of science’
Skip it……I knew what you meant………
Many “minor” mysteries? What constitutes a “minor” mystery? Please define a “minor mystery”. How many is many? You mean you aren’t absolutely certain? Isn’t that the definition of skeptical?
A “minor” error in navigation, medicine or engineering may, (and have), resulted in catastrophic consequence. You would have world economies, industry and agriculture rearranged based on imprecise conclusions and “mysteries”? (By a group of unaccountable politicians of dubious character). To date, the predictions set forth by the IPCC have proven to be GROSSLY inaccurate.
That’s quite a leap of faith.
What is wrong with the forecasts?
How come none of the forecasts made by the promoters of the global-warming scare turned out right so far?
The following contains a few excerpts from a very detailed and very revealing study report that explains what is wrong with the hype promoted by people such as David Suzuki.
Precise forecasts that prove correct are a sharp criterion for efficient science. The protagonists of global warming remain empty-handed in this respect in spite of great material and personal expense.
In the eighties S. Schneider from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, predicted in his book “Global Warming” a huge jump in temperature, polar ice melting away, seas surging across the land, famine on an epidemic scale, and ecosystem collapse. Today this is no longer taken seriously. Yet other climatologists, too, made forecasts in the eighties they no longer maintain. C. D. Schönwiese [99], usually critical and cautious in his statements, still predicted in 1987 a 4.5° C rise in temperature until 2030, though only as an upper limit. He thought that the sea level in the German Bay could rise by 1.5 m till 2040 and in the ocean around India even 2 to 3 m. A projection of his temperature forecast yields 11.8° C [increase] for the year 2100. At the climate conference in Villach in 1985 similar predictions were presented to the public. The IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] still predicted in 1990 and 1992 that global temperature would rise 1.9° – 5.2° C until 2100 [100] and thought that a rise in sea level by 1.10 m was possible [36].
All these predictions have turned out to be untenable. It is accepted that global temperature has risen by 0.5° C in the last hundred years. Yet during the last fifty years the temperature has remained approximately at the same level, even though 70% of the anthropogenic [human or human-made influence on nature] carbon dioxide contribution was injected into the atmosphere during this time. From 1940 to 1970 the temperature fell, and according to satellite data available since 1979, which are in good accord with balloon data [27], the trend in the lower troposphere has remained at -0.06° C per decade. The IPCC prediction made in 1992 proved so exaggerated that it had to be adjusted to reality three years later by reducing the rise range to 1° – 3.5° C by 2100. As to sea level rise, the IPCC meanwhile acknowledges (in accordance with a consensus in the specialized literature [3]) that sea level has risen by merely 18 cm in the last hundred years.[*] According to M. Baltuck et al. [3] it is very probable that the rising sea level is due to natural causes and not to man’s contribution to the greenhouse effect.[*]
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* My note: Those estimates of the extent to which sea levels rose are apparently on the high side. Far more so than with temperature records, it is very difficult to establish absolute references points by which to measure long-term changes in sea levels. It appears that the promoters of the global-warming hype have been using their tide gauge data somewhat selectively. For example, some of those gauges are subsiding because of the weight that the cities in or nearby which they are located exert on the crust of the Earth, and others of the gauges are sinking because the structures to which they had been attached, docks and piers, are sinking into the muck of the harbours in which those were erected. There are more reasons why many of the tide gauges in the world are subsiding
John L. Daly, science advisor of the Greening Earth Society, produced a detailed report of the quality of tide gauge locations and of the information they provide. He furthermore collected study reports on research by many scientist into such information and found that the alleged 18 cm sea level rise over the past century is not true to facts. He reports that, instead, the sea level rose by no more than 0.16mm a year over the last century. That is a total of 1.6 cm over the last century, less than one tenth of the 18cm claimed by the IPCC doom-sayers. Moreover, he reports that the results coming in from Project Poseidon, a satellite ocean surface survey, bear out what he found. The alarming estimates, predictions and claims by the IPCC are out to lunch. (More on that story; the whole story) —WHS
The discrepancy between IPCC forecasts and observed data stands out very clearly as to temperatures in the polar regions. The general circulation models, presented by the IPCC in 1990, predict for the regions near the poles in a CO2 doubling scenario a rise in temperature of more than 12° C [13]. If this were true, in the last 40 years with their steep increase in CO2 concentration, a warming trend with a temperature rise of several °C should have emerged. The opposite is true [20]. A joint investigation by American, Russian and Canadian scientists shows that the surface temperatures in the Arctic region observed between 1950 and 1990 are going down. They fell 4.4° C in winter and 5° C in autumn [43]. Satellite data too, available since 1979, do not indicate rising temperatures [105]. This agrees with data published by the world Glacier Monitoring Network in Zurich, according to which 55% of the glaciers in high latitudes are advancing compared with 5% around 1950. [See also: Hubbard Glacier surges —WHS]
4. Cosmic Radiation, Solar Wind, and Global Cloud Coverage
The most convincing argument yet, supporting a strong impact of the sun’s activity on climate change, is a direct connection between cloud coverage and cosmic rays, discovered by H. Svensmark and E. Friis-Christensen [111] in 1996. It is shown in Figure 6. Clouds have a hundred times stronger effect on weather and climate than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Even if the atmosphere’s CO2 content doubled, its effect would be cancelled out if the cloud cover expanded by 1%, as shown by H. E. Landsberg [53]. Svensmark’s and Friis-Christensen’s result is therefore of great importance. The thin curve in Figure 6 presents the monthly mean counting rates of neutrons measured by the ground-based monitor in Climax, Colorado (right scale). This is an indirect measure of the strength of galactic and solar cosmic rays. The thick curve plots the 12-month running average of the global cloud cover expressed as change in percent (left scale). It is based on homogeneous observations made by geostationary satellites over the oceans. The two curves show a close correlation. The correlation coefficient is r = 0.95 [meaning, that it is pretty close to being absolutely certain that there is a connection between the amount of cosmic rays hitting the Earth and the amount of cloud coverage that results from that. —WHS].
Another contentious point is how long CO2 will stay in the atmosphere, several hundred years, or only five years? New results by P. Dietze and T. V. Segalstad show that shorter residence times are much more probable than the extended ones.
When K. Hasselmann (a leading greenhouse protagonist) was asked why GCMs [Global Circulation Models] do not allow for the stratosphere’s warming by the sun’s ultraviolet radiation and its impact on the circulation in the troposphere, he answered: “This aspect is too complex to incorporate it into models” [8]. Since there are other solar-terrestrial relationships which are “too complex” such as, for example, the dynamics of cloud coverage modulated by the solar wind, it is no wonder that the predictions based on GCMs do not conform to climate reality.
Quoted from: Solar Activity: A Dominant Factor in Climate Dynamics, by Dr. Theodor Landscheidt, Schroeter Institute for Research in Cycles of Solar Activity, Nova Scotia, Canada
Objective and reputable climate researchers work in many areas of science that relate to the climate of the world. Their number is steadily increasing as the debate heats up and as the weather is turning colder. These scientists identify a radically different culprit for changes in the weather, the Sun. The Sun determines our daily weather and our long-term climate. It is the controlling influence, and it has been controlling and influencing our weather and climate for a long time, since long before there was any industrialization, long before there was a civilization, even long before before man made an appearance.
Note to Exusian:
Ex: “I’m not saying that was your manner, but you don’t have to read very many posts in this thread to find that manner, and this thread and this blog are tame compared to what is out there. A good many ill-informed people have no reluctance to publicly display their ignorance and contempt for those who have taken the time to study and understand the science. Unfortunately, once one’s patience and tolerance are exhausted … then one may lash out too broadly. Better to just take a break from posting.”
Well said and good advice.
I believe it was Daniel Webster who said (and this may be a paraphrase): “Anger never won an argument.” There is a lot of truth in that … anger is always a major roadblock to communication because so often it is returned in kind. I generally simply ignore communications that are full of anger (having found that responding “in kind” leads to nothing fruitful). Often the difficulty is to not let one’s passion become (or appear as) anger.
It’s been interesting and I thank you for the exchange.
Regards,
Bob W.
Hi Caerbannog,
You wrote: “Well, actually it’s worse than that. The image I linked to shows that Arctic ice was thinner for Feb-Mar of this year than it was for Mar-Apr of last year!”
Your picture does not show anything of the sort. It just shows increased surface area, that’s all.
But the report I linked to stated clearly that it was THICKER than the same time last year.
To repeat the quote from the report:
“The cold is also making the ice thicker in some areas, compared to recorded thicknesses last year”, Lagnis added.
“The ice is about 10 to 20 centimetres thicker than last year, so that’s a significant increase,” he said.
“If temperatures remain cold this winter”, Langis said “winter sea ice coverage will continue to expand”.
Increased area x increased thicknes = increased volume.
Is this somehow difficult for you to uncerstand?
Or is it just unpleasant to accept?
Regards,
Max
Caerbannog wrote: ‘Global sea-level estimates are obtained via satellite telemetry. There is no “cherry picking” of individual locations involved. Of course, someone who had made an honest effort to learn about the science would have already known this.
Ummm…. You *do* know what satellites are, don’t you? ‘
Yeah, Caerbannog, I know what satellites are. I’m sure Peter Foley does, too.
They are those thingamajigs (UAH) that give an accurate and comprehensive coverage of tropospheric temperatures across the globe, which IPCC prefers to ignore in favor of the sparsely covered, UHI-distorted, cherry-picked surface record, because it miraculously shows faster warming, even though greenhouse warming is supposed to be faster in the troposphere.
They are also the doodads up their in the air (ESA) that measured ice and snow thickness in Greenland and Antarctica 24/7 over a 11-year period and found that both ice sheets grew, which IPCC chose to ignore in their latest report in favor of some cherry-picked spot studies and model results that were cobbled together to show mass loss.
[JR: Rest of comment was overwhelmed by the sound of laughter from the scientific community....]
Hi Brute,
Thanks for an excellent summary of IPCC predictions gone wrong.
Some of your points are covered in the attached “scorecard”.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/hoyt/scorecard.htm
Regards,
Max