Will Nitschke – like I said, if I failed to correctly guess what you understand, and what you still need to learn, then just put down a list. It’s pathetic to say ‘no facts presented’, really pathetic, especially when you have presented not one shred of evidence to back your own confused ramblings.

From Warren’s blog post – The one area where I thought he made an explicit factual mistake in his presentation was in evaluating Hansen’s forecast to Congress in 1988. He argued that one shouldn’t judge Hansen by his “A” scenario (which is WAY off) because Hansen said at the time that this was based on unrealistically high assumptions. But in Hansen’s appendix, he says that the A scenario is based on 1.5% a year future growth in CO2 output. In fact, the world has grown CO2 output by 1.75 % a year in the last 20 (source), so in fact the A scenario is, if anything, low. The B and C scenarios should be treated as totally irrelevant. This is a mistake I think Lucia made at the Blackboard, considering B and C at all. These scenarios differ in their CO2 forecasts, not the model parameters, so the scenario closest to actual CO2 output should be chosen and the rest are irrelevant.

Since Warren was comparing to Hansen’s Testimony, not the later paper, I think it is save to say that his comparison is valid based upon the criteria he used. If Hansen made a simpler version for politicians, than it is his own fault for not having a better proof reader or a better knowledge of the English language. Either he meant emission growth when he used the term in the secondary paper which was to be entered into the Congressional Record (making it a Federal Document of Record), or he did not consider the implications of the document and poor choice of wording, and the strength of his case is weakened as he himself did not take it seriously enough to give it his best effort and work. Words mean things, especially when giving evidence before our government, even if things have been carefully stage managed to make your audience more likely to believe you.

But I would caution against extrapolating from the mind set of a person of that particular personality type to that of the actual AGW science. In fairness, sceptical websites tend to accumulate their fair share of ‘crackpots’ to balance out ‘true believers’.

Very interesting thread. I appreciate everybody who posted good quality information and who made insightful comments. Learnt a few things here this week…

The scenario A that Hansen used in his 1988 paper for CO2, methane, etc is available online. The data was provided by Gavin Schmidt outside normal NASA channels, but no one has alleged that it is inaccurate. The increase in CO2 from 1988 to present for all practical purposes is linear, and is virtually indistinguishable from the CO2 projection for scenario B and virtually indistinguishable from the observed CO2 values reported from Mauna Loa.
Data here
My graph of the data here

RPJ’s opening salvo (what RPJ would call reasoned debate, I presume) was this:

Your comments about Scenario A are misguided at best and dishonest at worst. Scenario A did not assume a 1.5% growth in emissions per year, but a 1.5%/year growth of the annual increment in CO2 concentrations (p9361 of the 1988 paper). The CO2 concentration today, under Scenario A, would be much higher than actually observed.

This is an unsupported allegation with no explanation as to how the increase would be higher, nor with any link to supporting data or analaysis. One would think a person demanding links from others would be able to supply their own.

As far as Warren’s post refuting the claim in the press that “global warming is three times fatser than worst predictions”, I believe his graphic does an admirable job demonstrating that the press hype is a bunch of meaningless drivel. Observed CO2 is a darn close match to both scenario A and B, so I have a hard time buying any rhetoric from RPJ, Scientist, or anyone else that CO2 was meant to be unrealistic. The overall forcing from those scenarios though include all greenhouse gasses, including methane, N2O, CFCs and other trace gasses. Steve McIntyre took a look at the forcings derived from each scenario compared to the calculated forcing from greenhouse gasses here. There you will see that up until 1990 or so the observed greenhouse gas forcings exceeded the projections of scenario A. So any statement that in 1988 Hansen thought scenario A was unrealistic is speculation at best, but I would be more inclined to categorize it as unmitigated BS.

I think it is pointless to wrestle the greased pig of RPJ’s semantic gyrations. Look at the projections and look at the observed greenhouse gass concentrations. Look at the projected forcings and look at the forcings calculated from the observed greenhouse gas concentrations. Then ask yourself who exactly is misguided at best and dishonest at worst.

Cheers,
Earle

I’ve read and re-read Hansen’s 1988 paper(source: my post above) and one could certainly make the case that there is some ambighity. As I noted in an earlier post here, he clearly used the term “emmsssion” in the body of the paper. In the appendix which cites his source for CO2 growth he cites Keeling, i.e., CO2 atmospheric concentrations as measured at Manua Loa on the island of Hawaii. Subsequently he used a source that appeared to measure emissions and not concentrations for CH4 as I also previously noted. I am not sure there was an accepted source for CH4 concentrations at that time. Be that as it may, he still in this case used emmissions.

It would seem to me that if Hansen was using emmissions for CO2 he would have cited the Carbon Dixoide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) http://cdiac.ornl.gov/by_new/bysubjec.html#trace or the Energy Information Administration (EIA) http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls. Both of these agencies track global emmissions.

Like you, I believe that Warrens post is “right on” in that a 1.5% incremental growth in since 1988 would but them within 1 or 2 PPM of currently measured concentrations.

Hansen muddied the waters by using the term emmissions in both his congressional testimony and the body of Hansen 1988. As for his reasons for doing so, only he can answer that question. I believe RPJ is on firm ground when he asserts that Hansen used concentrations as the basis for his “forecast” of temperatues in response to rising CO2 levels. Notice I skirted the issue by bringing in a third term. I also think the point is moot because of reasons previously stated.

I’m a big guy so if I am incorrect in this analysis please don’t hesitate to point out my errors.

You are incapable of debate. You assert falsely that Hansen’s Scenario A involved a 1.5% annual increase in concentrations. You have the paper at your disposal. You have the internet at your disposal. Yet you persist in maintaining the charade that Warren’s analysis is flawed because the scenario he describes doesn’t match the scenario fantasy that you attempt to portray it as.

You are wrong about Scenario A. If you were to apologize to Warren and the readership here then I may be convinced that you are indeed a sincere but incompetent individual trying to have reasoned debate. Absent that I remain convinced that you are a pretender with an agenda using every bit of misinformation and deception at your disposal to stroke your fragile ego and discredit the host of this site at every opportunity.

If you are unhappy that I have failed to guess what things you wish to see evidence for and what things you already know are true, just make a list of what you want to see. And unless you consider yourself exempt from needing to produce evidence to back claims, then you might want to give some links to back what you’ve said – you have conspicuously failed to offer any evidence whatsoever to support your assertions so far.

I agree with you re: Hansen. His prediction can’t be shown to be ‘wrong’ because it was a ‘scenario’ and not a prediction, and since it’s impossible to know in advance the future mix of trace gases in the atmosphere, anything he claims can never be disproven. But if we grant him that, then it seems to me that if his scenarios are fundamentally unfalsifable he is not doing science. Social and political ‘engineering’ perhaps, but not science. And therefore his ‘scenarios’ should not be given the weight they currently receive.

I suspect we both have similar concerns regarding the environment and humanity in general. But we have to be guided by the best science we have and not ideology. Should we spend a trillion dollars on carbon sequestration when we could for the same money get unlimited clean power on-line in the form of workable fission reactors? Should we be spending millions of dollars trying to discern the AGW signal from ‘weather noise’ when we spend about zilch on monitoring asteroid collisions? (We’ve already been hit several times this century by asteroids that fortunately did not strike populated areas–had they, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, would have been killed.) We have to separate plausible threats to the environment from those that are, based on our best knowledge, more implausible, even if they have captured the public imagination for a time.