The deniers are winning, especially with the GOP
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:
May 9th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
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??
May 9th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Given what’s happened over the past 7 and a half years nothing about republicans shocks me anymore.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
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…
May 9th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Look for attitudes to change once we have a president next year who’s willing to stand up on this issue.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Thanks for this piece, it’s a good reminder that of what we are up against.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
@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.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
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.]
May 9th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
> “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!)
May 9th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
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./
May 9th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
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
May 9th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
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?
May 9th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
@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.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Jon, I think the point is that when the Republican position becomes untenable, the Republicans will have the choice of changing or dying off.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
The quote is from his “Farewell Address” and follows his comments about the military-industrial complex.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
@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?]
May 9th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
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
May 9th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
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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May 9th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
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).
May 9th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
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/
May 9th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:11 pm
[Misinformation deleted.]
May 9th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Um, I’m conservative and I’m no “denier”. I’m a “doer”.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
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.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:08 am
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).
May 10th, 2008 at 12:19 am
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?
May 10th, 2008 at 12:27 am
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!
May 10th, 2008 at 1:29 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:53 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 2:31 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:06 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:28 am
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”.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:43 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:57 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:54 am
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
May 10th, 2008 at 7:49 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:55 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 8:36 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:07 am
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.]
May 10th, 2008 at 9:20 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 9:31 am
To author(s) of this article: Mate(s), have you tried to apply Hitler’s words to your own AGW propaganda? Fits nicely…
May 10th, 2008 at 10:03 am
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”?
May 10th, 2008 at 10:28 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:55 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 11:30 am
The NASA/GISS data is not “dubious” — that statement has no factual support.
Hadley’s most recent analysis doesn’t agree with YOUR statements.
May 10th, 2008 at 11:34 am
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 11:56 am
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!
May 10th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
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.]
May 10th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Mike M: I WOULD bet on it. Would you? I doubt it.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
“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
May 10th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
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!
May 10th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
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.]
May 10th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
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.]
May 10th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
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.)]
May 10th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
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
May 10th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
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.]
May 10th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Uh, good point Mr. Allen, but paragraphs would help.
May 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
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!
May 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
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”
May 10th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
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.]
May 10th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
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)
May 10th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
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.
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
May 10th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
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.
May 10th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Wrong wrong wrong–Mr David
May 10th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
BTW–I have plotted out the Vostok Ice core data myself on an EXCEL spread sheet and what you are saying is pure crap
May 10th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
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)?
May 10th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
David–do you know what the mathematical term causality means?–
May 10th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
In >90% of all major temperature excursions within the Vostok data—CO2 “LAGS” Temp