I have posted on this a zillion times over here, and most of you are up to speed on this, but I posted this for my Coyote Blog readers and thought it would be good to repost over here.
Take all the psuedo-quasi-scientific stuff you read in the media about global warming. Of all that mess, it turns out there is really only one scientific question that really matters on the topic of man-made global warming: Feedback.
While the climate models are complex, and the actual climate even, err, complexer, we can shortcut the reaction of global temperatures to CO2 to a single figure called climate sensitivity. How many degrees of warming should the world expect for each doubling of CO2 concentrations (the relationship is logarithmic, so that is why sensitivity is based on doublings, rather than absolute increases — an increase of CO2 from 280 to 290 ppm should have a higher impact on temperatures than the increase from, say, 380 to 390 ppm).
The IPCC reached a climate sensitivity to CO2 of about 3C per doubling. More popular (at least in the media) catastrophic forecasts range from 5C on up to about any number you can imagine, way past any range one might consider reasonable.
But here is the key fact — Most folks, including the IPCC, believe the warming sensitivity from CO2 alone (before feedbacks) is around 1C or a bit higher (arch-alarmist Michael Mann did the research the IPCC relied on for this figure). All the rest of the sensitivity between this 1C and 3C or 5C or whatever the forecast is comes from feedbacks (e.g. hotter weather melts ice, which causes less sunlight to be reflected, which warms the world more). Feedbacks, by the way can be negative as well, acting to reduce the warming effect. In fact, most feedbacks in our physical world are negative, but alarmist climate scientists tend to assume very high positive feedbacks.
What this means is that 70-80% or more of the warming in catastrophic warming forecasts comes from feedback, not CO2 acting alone. If it turns out that feedbacks are not wildly positive, or even are negative, then the climate sensitivity is 1C or less, and we likely will see little warming over the next century due to man.
This means that the only really important question in the manmade global warming debate is the sign and magnitude of feedbacks. And how much of this have you seen in the media? About zero? Nearly 100% of what you see in the media is not only so much bullshit (like whether global warming is causing the cold weather this year) but it is also irrelevant. Entirely tangential to the core question. Its all so much magician handwaving trying to hide what is going on, or in this case not going on, with the other hand.
To this end, Dr. Roy Spencer has a nice update. Parts are a bit dense, but the first half explains this feedback question in layman’s terms. The second half shows some attempts to quantify feedback. His message is basically that no one knows even the sign and much less the magnitude of feedback, but the empirical data we are starting to see (which has admitted flaws) points to negative rather than positive feedback, at least in the short term. His analysis looks at the change in radiative heat transfer in and out of the earth as measured by satellites around transient peaks in ocean temperatures (oceans are the world’s temperature flywheel — most of the Earth’s surface heat content is in the oceans).
Read it all, but this is an interesting note:
In fact, NO ONE HAS YET FOUND A WAY WITH OBSERVATIONAL DATA TO TEST CLIMATE MODEL SENSITIVITY. This means we have no idea which of the climate models projections are more likely to come true.
This dirty little secret of the climate modeling community is seldom mentioned outside the community. Don’t tell anyone I told you.
This is why climate researchers talk about probable ranges of climate sensitivity. Whatever that means!…there is no statistical probability involved with one-of-a-kind events like global warming!
There is HUGE uncertainty on this issue. And I will continue to contend that this uncertainty is a DIRECT RESULT of researchers not distinguishing between cause and effect when analyzing data.
If you find this topic interesting, I recommend my video and/or powerpoint presentation to you.
Here’s the problem: Can you actually test this prediction? The answer is no. Second, this highlights how changing a few parameters in a model is not an experiment. And experiment would give real data that you know is relevant to the real world. Here you’ve only shown what would happen inside your model, not on planet Earth. Sure, losing these noncondensable GHGs would probably be catastrophic, but:
A) No shit; who cares?
B) Would it actually look anything like the model predictions? Would happen faster even? Maybe more slowly? There is no way to test that with a REAL experiment.
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What is certain about this computer run is the earth will cool without the GHG’s. That is the certainty. So another discusion is what will happen with more co2. Which is what the feedback discussion is about. CO2 is 80% of the GHG’s radiative forcing and this stimulates the H2O evaporation which is even stronger than co2. The computer models are close enough to know what in general will happen.
Ok kid gloves….
“If you choose to read this, the sun has slightly decreased in the last 30 years. It strengthens the hand of the AGW argument.”
This completely incorrect. Solar activity oscillates on 11 and 22 year cycles, along with other more long term cycles. The only way a cyclical process of those kinds of peroids decreases over 30 years is if you’re cherry picking end ponts to fit your pet hypothesis. You’re also continuing to fall into this trap of argument from ignorance. Basically, you’re telling me, look the sun went down, but temps didn’t so it must be CO2….logic fail, kiddy gloves.
But to get to it, the problem here is LAG and DEPENDENCE. While the peak temps reached at 1998 did not co-inside with highest solar output of the last 30 years, our Earth’s climate takes time to respond to impulses. Think about a pot on a stove. If you apply a lot of heat to cold pot of water for a short time, take its temperature, then turn the heat down slightly and take its temperature again after another shot peroid of time (assuming you never reach boiling of course), the second time point is going to give you higher temperature despite the lower amount of heat being applied. Same kind of issue here. You’re dealing with a spacial and temporal series. Thus, the initial conditions matter. So things that may have happened decades, centuries, even millenia ago may be effecting the impact of solar activity today.
“If you choose to read the article, you can see what is known about computer modeling to predict with and without co2.”
So, you’re reduced to copy pasting from a blog that passes on information in levels consisting of Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. Kid gloves indeed, Renewable. I’d be happy to have a conversation with you about modeling and just what it can and can’t do, but until you venture pasted the old copy-paste, I’m not going to waste my time, as it is unlikely you’ll either listen or understand.
“What is certain about this computer run is the earth will cool without the GHG’s. That is the certainty.”
I can only laugh. I mean really, no GHGs and the Earth will cool. Give the man a Nobel Prize, we’ll call it the Renewable Guy Theorem.
“CO2 is 80% of the GHG’s radiative forcing and this stimulates the H2O evaporation which is even stronger than co2. The computer models are close enough to know what in general will happen.”
Again with the gross simplifications. The devil is in the details Guy. Here’s thought experiment for you: If all you can seem to think of is this possitive feedback loop of some initial heating, aerosolizing more CO2, CO2 causing more warming, warming causing H20 evaporation, repeat, what stops the warming? Why doesn’t any one initial warming kick send us off the cliff of our unstable equalibrum into run-away warming? Why didn’t we have disastorous run-away warming when the Earth’s atmosphere contain almost 5 times the current CO2 levels? Why did the Earth in fact cool from those levels and hasn’t returned for millions of years?
Your “kid glove” argument is completely full of holes. Maybe, if you’d actually like to try to convince me, you better take those kid gloves off. Cuz they aren’t getting the job done.
Wally says: 1% ‘CO2 would be about a 25 fold increase in from normal atmospheric concentrations today. And that only leads to drowsiness?’
Yeah, I failed to clarify that the percentages paragraph was just about Co2 toxicity in general and not referring to the atmosphere.
Wally says: ‘Litterally, every possible molecular compound. And if that’s the case, what meaning does this word really have anymore, if it can’t discriminate between ANYTHING?’
I would suggest the key distinction is when that substance (or energy) becomes harmful. You seem to be hung up on the fact that anything could be called a pollutant. Why? This kind of situation happens throughout language. Harm is subjective, so what is deemed a pollutant is not derived from the substance in itself but rather the harmful effects it has. So maybe to those Aliens in the Mel Gibson movie water would be a pollutant. Similarly, what is defined a weed in a garden is the gardener’s wanted vs unwanted plants.
Renewable Guy the video you showed, was obviously the person just cherry picking evidence to get the result she wanted.
Renewable Guy the work of over 900 scientists from hundreds of scientific institutions and doxens of countires have shown that the medieval warm period was real, global and warmer than today.
The list of papers supporting the existence of a MWP are here
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
Renewable Guy it is very unusual for certain parts of the world to be really really warm over several hundred years (e.g. vikings in Greenland, grapes in Engand) and the rest of the world to be not as warm. Renewable Guy all of the available evidence suggest that the mwp was in fact a global phenomenon.
“If you choose to read this, the sun has slightly decreased in the last 30 years. It strengthens the hand of the AGW argument.”
Renewable Guy you really are very gulliable. You see how SkS cherry picks their datasets. They choose the Pmod data rather than the ACRIM data. Renewable guy, the ACRIM data did indeed measure an INCREASE in solar activity over the past 30 years.
Read this paper
‘ACRIM-gap and TSI trend issue resolved using a surface magnetic flux TSI proxy model’ by Nicola Scafetta and Richard Wilson published in ‘Geophysical Research Letters (2009)
http://www.fel.duke.edu/%7Escafetta/pdf/2008GL036307.pdf
The conclusion
“This finding has evident repercussions for climate
change and solar physics. Increasing TSI between 1980 and
2000 could have contributed significantly to global warm-
ing during the last three decades [Scafetta and West, 2007,
2008]. Current climate models [Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, 2007] have assumed that the TSI did not
vary significantly during the last 30 years and have there-
fore underestimated the solar contribution and overesti-
mated the anthropogenic contribution to global warming.”
Renewable Guy the majoritty of the warming throughout the 20th century can indeed be explained by changes in the sun.
Read these paper
‘Phenomenological reconstructions of the solar signature in the Northern Hemisphere surface temperature records since 1600’
http://www.fel.duke.edu/%7Escafetta/pdf/2007JD008437.pdf
‘Is Climate sensitive to Solar variability’
http://www.fel.duke.edu/%7Escafetta/pdf/opinion0308.pdf
‘Empirical analysis of the solar contribution to global mean air surface temperature change’
http://www.fel.duke.edu/%7Escafetta/pdf/Scafetta-JASP_1_2009.pdf
More in this paper about how the sun could have contributed to post 1970 warming:
“Finally, Scafetta and
Willson (2009) showed that the agreement between PMOD and
the proxy reconstruction about the absence of a trend between
the TSI minima in 1986 and 1996 is coincidental because a careful
comparison between the proxy model and the unquestioned
satellite data before and after the ACRIM-gap proves that the TSI
proxy model by Krivova et al. (2007) is missing an upward trend.
……
If the TSI composite [A] is used,
the sun would have caused a significant warming. Thus, on
average it is not unlikely that the sun has induced a significant
warming since 1980 as it was inferred by Scafetta and Willson
(2009).
……
A comprehensive interpretation
of multiple scientific findings indicates that the contribution of
solar variability to climate change is significant and that the
temperature trend since 1980 can be large and upward. However,
to correctly quantify the solar contribution to the recent global
warming it is necessary to determine the correct TSI behavior
since 1980. Unfortunately, this cannot be done with certainty yet.
The PMOD TSI composite, which has been used by the IPCC and
most climate modelers, has been found to be based on arbitrary
and questionable assumptions (Scafetta and Willson, 2009). Thus,
it cannot be excluded that TSI increased from 1980 to 2000 as
claimed by the ACRIM scientific team.”
And Renewable Guy could you please stop giving links to Skeptical Science; because the more you do it, the less credibility you have.
Adam said:
http://www.fel.duke.edu/%7Escafetta/pdf/2008GL036307.pdf
The conclusion
“This finding has evident repercussions for climate
change and solar physics. Increasing TSI between 1980 and
2000 could have contributed significantly to global warm-
ing during the last three decades [Scafetta and West, 2007,
2008]. Current climate models [Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, 2007] have assumed that the TSI did not
vary significantly during the last 30 years and have there-
fore underestimated the solar contribution and overesti-
mated the anthropogenic contribution to global warming.”
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This is one paper. And yet there are papers showing a slight decrease.
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http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming-intermediate.htm
Other studies on solar influence on climate
This conclusion is confirmed by many studies finding that while the sun contributed to warming in the early 20th Century, it has had little contribution (most likely negative) in the last few decades:
•Erlykin 2009: “We deduce that the maximum recent increase in the mean surface temperature of the Earth which can be ascribed to solar activity is 14% of the observed global warming.”
•Benestad 2009: “Our analysis shows that the most likely contribution from solar forcing a global warming is 7 ± 1% for the 20th century and is negligible for warming since 1980.”
•Lockwood 2008: “It is shown that the contribution of solar variability to the temperature trend since 1987 is small and downward; the best estimate is -1.3% and the 2? confidence level sets the uncertainty range of -0.7 to -1.9%.”
•Lean 2008: “According to this analysis, solar forcing contributed negligible long-term warming in the past 25 years and 10% of the warming in the past 100 years…”
•Lockwood 2008: “The conclusions of our previous paper, that solar forcing has declined over the past 20 years while surface air temperatures have continued to rise, are shown to apply for the full range of potential time constants for the climate response to the variations in the solar forcings.”
•Ammann 2007: “Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of the last century.”
•Lockwood 2007: “The observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanism is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.”
•Foukal 2006 concludes “The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years.”
•Scafetta 2006 says “since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be reasonably expected from the sun alone.”
•Usoskin 2005 conclude “during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.”
•Solanki 2004 reconstructs 11,400 years of sunspot numbers using radiocarbon concentrations, finding “solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades”.
•Haigh 2003 says “Observational data suggest that the Sun has influenced temperatures on decadal, centennial and millennial time-scales, but radiative forcing considerations and the results of energy-balance models and general circulation models suggest that the warming during the latter part of the 20th century cannot be ascribed entirely to solar effects.”
•Stott 2003 increased climate model sensitivity to solar forcing and still found “most warming over the last 50 yr is likely to have been caused by increases in greenhouse gases.”
•Solanki 2003 concludes “the Sun has contributed less than 30% of the global warming since 1970.”
•Lean 1999 concludes “it is unlikely that Sun–climate relationships can account for much of the warming since 1970.”
•Waple 1999 finds “little evidence to suggest that changes in irradiance are having a large impact on the current warming trend.”
•Frolich 1998 concludes “solar radiative output trends contributed little of the 0.2°C increase in the global mean surface temperature in the past decade.”
Adam:
And Renewable Guy could you please stop giving links to Skeptical Science; because the more you do it, the less credibility you have.
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He collects information and processes it. Its a high quality information site.
Renewable Guy, maybe you should actually read that paper that I gave you.
RG papers like Erlykin 2009 and Lean 2008 are ridiculous. As shown by the papers I gave you, changes in solar activity can very easily explain the changes in the 20th century warming. Scafetta also clearly mentions Lean’s paper in his 2009 paper.
And Benestadd and Schmidt’s paper has been rebutted
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=3813
All of the other papers which Cook references claim that solar activity cannot explain warming after 1970.
All of those papers either use the PMOD solar data ot the solar proxy data. Most of them don’t use the ACRIM data.
Scafetta and Wilson analysed both satellite solar data and found that the ACRIM data showed an increase over the past 30 years. They found PMOD’s data to be flawed. This finding was only found out recently, so Cook’s papers are flawed.
I also suggest you watch this video, in which Scafetta explains the findings of his paper with Wilson
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKOvszg8PXc
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp0Bjxensd0&feature=related
“He collects information and processes it. Its a high quality information site.”
Renewable Guy, I really suggest you read Lubos’ piece.
His website is full of cherry picking and straw man arguments, simple as that.
And perhaps you might be interested in reading this fact about John Cook
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/27/skeptical-science-john-cook-embarrassing-himself/#comment-493050
Shills,
That’s nice and all regarding the semantics of “harm”, but we’ve now completely diverged on red herring. As Renewable is so wisely pointing CO2 is a critical component of our atmosphere, and having too little of it, and risking severe cooling would be a far greater danger to life on this planet than probably anything less than a 5 fold increase in CO2 concentration. But if you want to say “harm” is an extra degree C and maybe the sea levels rising a few feet over 100s of years, I guess I can’t stop you. You’re completely right that “harm” is a totally subjective word, you can do what ever you want with it. However, the rest of life on Earth would probably benefit from an extra degree or so. Which has still left us with this word “pollutant” having no real meaning. Instead we might as well just use more accurate language to describe just what kinds of effects we might see, and then from there we can try to determine harm. But blindly calling this thing a pollutant, quite obviously got us no where.
Renewable,
Nice to see that you’re going to fight for your cause no matter what. That kind of dedication should be…..oh nevermind.
Anyway, when you have conflicting information, you can’t just add up papers siding with one or the other. Second, if the ACRIM data only came out in 2009, why are you posting papers from 2003 and the like? What we need is honest, non-biased review of each data set and method of analysis (meaning no RealClimate or SkepticalScience which clearly have an aggenda). We probably also need simple replication. Two groups publishing conflicting data simply gets us no where.
And the fact that one set of data is used more often (for reasons that include that it was available earlier) does not mean that their analysis on the larger process using only one type of data is more correct.
Obvioously this is just Scafetta. There are the other scientists also. This is the work of “Did the sun contribute more or less to the TSI of the earth”
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•Scafetta 2006 says “since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be reasonably expected from the sun alone.”
Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900–2000 global surface warming
Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900–2000 global surface warming
N. Scafetta
Physics Department, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
B. J. West
Physics Department, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA
Mathematical and Information Science Directorate, U.S. Army Research Office, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA
We study the role of solar forcing on global surface temperature during four periods of the industrial era (1900–2000, 1900–1950, 1950–2000 and 1980–2000) by using a sun-climate coupling model based on four scale-dependent empirical climate sensitive parameters to solar variations. We use two alternative total solar irradiance satellite composites, ACRIM and PMOD, and a total solar irradiance proxy reconstruction.
We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming.
These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century,
((((((((also suggest that the solar impact on climate change during the same period is significantly stronger than what some theoretical models have predicted.))))))))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar-cycle-data.png
In the 11 year cycle of TSI we tied for a global average temperature. We are at solar minima and yet set a near temperature record.
What do you think will happen with the solar maxima?
Are you still expecting global cooling?
Adam:
“He collects information and processes it. Its a high quality information site.”
Renewable Guy, I really suggest you read Lubos’ piece.
His website is full of cherry picking and straw man arguments, simple as that.
And perhaps you might be interested in reading this fact about John Cook
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/27/skeptical-science-john-cook-embarrassing-himself/#comment-493050
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I’m not too worried about Anthony being sensitive to the term denier.
•Ammann 2007: “Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years,
(((((((((((((((((((the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of the last century))))))))))))))))))
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http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Roger_Pielke_Jr.
Some of Dr. Pielke’s comments and work have proven to be controversial. Critics note that his work has been frequently cited by “global warming skeptics,”[4] Dr. Pielke and his allies have praised his independence and called his critics “climate McCarthyists.”[5] (For more information on who the “skeptics” are and which corporations fund skeptics, SourceWatch has created a global warming skeptic clearinghouse.)
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Dr. Pielke seems to like to play both sides of the game. It would take some time to tease apart all that going on in that disagreement.
That said there is a large body of science on Total Solar Irradiance.
Renewable,
“In the 11 year cycle of TSI we tied for a global average temperature. We are at solar minima and yet set a near temperature record.
What do you think will happen with the solar maxima?
Are you still expecting global cooling?”
Look at the graph of temps vs. solar activity again. You don’t see a clear correlation. Not that solar irradiation doesn’t have anything to do with it, its just that the changes in solar activity are not immediately seen in temperature changes. Look, for example, at how solar activity increased rapidly from 1940-1960 (faster than it is decreasing now), but temperatures declined!
This is a very complex process, and we have no idea what percent of the whole process we really understand. Thus, these little reductive arguments you make (sun activity is down, but we havne’t cooled much, so we’ll heat up more when solar activity increases again) just don’t hold. If we assume everything else is equal, sure solar activity up, means warming on Earth, but that is very, very stupid assumption to make in such a dynamic and convoluted process as climate.
“In the 11 year cycle of TSI we tied for a global average temperature. We are at solar minima and yet set a near temperature record.
What do you think will happen with the solar maxima?
Are you still expecting global cooling?”
RG from 2001 to 2009 temperatures decreased. Simple as that.
2010 was simply a strong el nino.
Now the el nino is over and we are entering a la nina, so yes it is plausible to think that the planet is about to head into a cooling cycle due to changes in the sun.
“I’m not too worried about Anthony being sensitive to the term denier.”
I didn’t mean the article. I mean the comment I linked to.
You know about how John Cook is just a simple cartoonist.
RG, Pielke Jr wasn’t in any of the article or papers I gave you, so why did you give a link to an article about him?
And ‘Sourcewatch’ is hardly, a credible source of information.
Wally:
Shills,
That’s nice and all regarding the semantics of “harm”, but we’ve now completely diverged on red herring. As Renewable is so wisely pointing CO2 is a critical component of our atmosphere, and having too little of it, and risking severe cooling would be a far greater danger to life on this planet than probably anything less than a 5 fold increase in CO2 concentration. But if you want to say “harm” is an extra degree C and maybe the sea levels rising a few feet over 100s of years, I guess I can’t stop you.################################################################################################################
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110109184025.htm
Climate Change to Continue to Year 3000 in Best Case Scenarios, Research Predicts
ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2011) — New research indicates the impact of rising CO2 levels in Earth’s atmosphere will cause unstoppable effects to the climate for at least the next 1000 years, causing researchers to estimate a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet by the year 3000, and an eventual rise in the global sea level of at least four metres.
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13 feet puts Miami and the Washington DC mall under water. This is best case scenario. With the success of the Misinformation Machine, 13 feet will be the optimistic prediction.
Adam:
“I’m not too worried about Anthony being sensitive to the term denier.”
I didn’t mean the article. I mean the comment I linked to.
You know about how John Cook is just a simple cartoonist.
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There is another guy in Austrailia with the same name. I don’t really know what John Cook does for a living.
The other John Cook is a cartoonist.
Adam:
RG, Pielke Jr wasn’t in any of the article or papers I gave you, so why did you give a link to an article about him?
And ‘Sourcewatch’ is hardly, a credible source of information
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As long as its the valid truth. Knowing someone is a fossil fuel lobbyist is an important part of the conversation in determining what is true.
Adam:
“In the 11 year cycle of TSI we tied for a global average temperature. We are at solar minima and yet set a near temperature record.
What do you think will happen with the solar maxima?
Are you still expecting global cooling?”
RG from 2001 to 2009 temperatures decreased. Simple as that.
2010 was simply a strong el nino.
Now the el nino is over and we are entering a la nina, so yes it is plausible to think that the planet is about to head into a cooling cycle due to changes in the sun.
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La Nina and El Nino aren’t the explanations for 3 decades of increasing temperture. The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest in our 150 temperature record.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/10-Indicators-of-a-Human-Fingerprint-on-Climate-Change.html
1.Humans are currently emitting around 30 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year (CDIAC). Of course, it could be coincidence that CO2 levels are rising so sharply at the same time so let’s look at more evidence that we’re responsible for the rise in CO2 levels.
2.When we measure the type of carbon accumulating in the atmosphere, we observe more of the type of carbon that comes from fossil fuels (Manning 2006).
3.This is corroborated by measurements of oxygen in the atmosphere. Oxygen levels are falling in line with the amount of carbon dioxide rising, just as you’d expect from fossil fuel burning which takes oxygen out of the air to create carbon dioxide (Manning 2006).
4.Further independent evidence that humans are raising CO2 levels comes from measurements of carbon found in coral records going back several centuries. These find a recent sharp rise in the type of carbon that comes from fossil fuels (Pelejero 2005).
5.So we know humans are raising CO2 levels. What’s the effect? Satellites measure less heat escaping out to space, at the particular wavelengths that CO2 absorbs heat, thus finding “direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect”. (Harries 2001, Griggs 2004, Chen 2007).
6.If less heat is escaping to space, where is it going? Back to the Earth’s surface. Surface measurements confirm this, observing more downward infrared radiation (Philipona 2004, Wang 2009). A closer look at the downward radiation finds more heat returning at CO2 wavelengths, leading to the conclusion that “this experimental data should effectively end the argument by skeptics that no experimental evidence exists for the connection between greenhouse gas increases in the atmosphere and global warming.” (Evans 2006).
7.If an increased greenhouse effect is causing global warming, we should see certain patterns in the warming. For example, the planet should warm faster at night than during the day. This is indeed being observed (Braganza 2004, Alexander 2006).
8.Another distinctive pattern of greenhouse warming is cooling in the upper atmosphere, otherwise known as the stratosphere. This is exactly what’s happening (Jones 2003).
9.With the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) warming and the upper atmosphere (the stratophere) cooling, another consequence is the boundary between the troposphere and stratophere, otherwise known as the tropopause, should rise as a consequence of greenhouse warming. This has been observed (Santer 2003).
10.An even higher layer of the atmosphere, the ionosphere, is expected to cool and contract in response to greenhouse warming. This has been observed by satellites (Laštovi?ka 2006).
Wally says: ‘That’s nice and all regarding the semantics of “harm”, but we’ve now completely diverged on red herring.’
Lame. Please Wally. For someone who is hung up on the vagueness of a word, you use ‘red herring’ very sloppily. How is the definition of ‘harm’ irrelevant, considering you even used it in your posts? Then prove that I was intentionally diverting the topic.
Wally says: ‘However, the rest of life on Earth would probably benefit from an extra degree or so. Which has still left us with this word “pollutant” having no real meaning.’
No. For those subjects who find the Co2 in the environment harmful, it is a pollutant. For those who benefit, it is not a pollutant. Simple. Did you not understand me ‘weed’ example?
wally says: ‘But blindly calling this thing a pollutant, quite obviously got us no where.
Don’t limit yourself. I’d say you’ve learnt a bit more about the word ‘pollution’ and how it can be applied the way Renewable guy did.
Renewable guy,
“13 feet puts Miami and the Washington DC mall under water. This is best case scenario. With the success of the Misinformation Machine, 13 feet will be the optimistic prediction.”
This was over 3000 years? We can adapt and we should understand that we will have to adapt to various changes like this over time.
Renewable,
“Knowing someone is a fossil fuel lobbyist is an important part of the conversation in determining what is true.”
No it isn’t. This is the appeal to motive fallacy. One can have all the money or motivation in the world biasing them towards a particular conclusion but still be right.
Renewable,
“La Nina and El Nino aren’t the explanations for 3 decades of increasing temperture. The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest in our 150 temperature record.”
Wow, move the goal posts much? First you’re talking about a small number of years with the latest cooling cycle, now you’re talking about the entire temp record….
If this is the kind of thing you’re left resorting to, chances are good you’ve lost the argument.
Shills,
Please, don’t flater yourself, you don’t diserve it.
“Lame. Please Wally. For someone who is hung up on the vagueness of a word, you use ‘red herring’ very sloppily.”
Hardly. Its 100% correct usage. We’re left debating the semantics of “pollutant” and “harm”, while this entire time we’ve pretty much completely ignored the larger argument. We’ve diveated onto a tangant, a red herring.
“Then prove that I was intentionally diverting the topic.”
As you say lame. First, a red herring doesn’t have to be intentional, it usually is, but it is not a neccesity. Second, it would be completely impossible for me to “prove” your motivation. How about you prove I’m not God and thus know everything? Third, I never even said YOU commited the red herring, I just said the topic was one. I’ve been just as guilty of perpetuating the red herring as you.
“No. For those subjects who find the Co2 in the environment harmful, it is a pollutant. For those who benefit, it is not a pollutant. Simple. Did you not understand me ‘weed’ example? ”
Show me that data Shills. Which organisms would actually be harmed by say a 3-5 fold increase in CO2 concentration? Can you even prove their are any? Second, LIFE is a much larger concept than any given organism or species. I’m sorry you don’t understand the mean of the word LIFE. So, yeah that weed expample, completely irrelevent to what I’m saying….sorry…. Please go read about the mean of the word LIFE and then reread my post. I think even you can get this one.
“I’d say you’ve learnt a bit more about the word ‘pollution’ and how it can be applied the way Renewable guy did.”
I assure you the only thing I’ve been further educated in is your willingness to pursure the irrelavent minutia and your gross ignorance.
Climate Change to Continue to (((((Year 3000)))) in Best Case Scenarios, Research Predicts.
Gobal warming is not a poof and its over. Its a slow geological event. What we do today effects 50 generations out.
Wally:
Renewable guy,
“13 feet puts Miami and the Washington DC mall under water. This is best case scenario. With the success of the Misinformation Machine, 13 feet will be the optimistic prediction.”
This was over 3000 years? We can adapt and we should understand that we will have to adapt to various changes like this over time.
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You have just accepted this statement as true. IN this scenario, an ounce of prevention is worth 10 pounds of cure. You want your conveniences its time to get out of the carbon lifestyle. Not changing has consequences. Changing now is much cheaper later on.
Wally:
Renewable,
“Knowing someone is a fossil fuel lobbyist is an important part of the conversation in determining what is true.”
No it isn’t. This is the appeal to motive fallacy. One can have all the money or motivation in the world biasing them towards a particular conclusion but still be right.
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Willie Soon, Richard Lindzen, Roy Spencer, Patrick Michaels. I’ve got enough of a background I can tell when they are being lobbyists or telling the truth.
Wally:
Renewable,
“La Nina and El Nino aren’t the explanations for 3 decades of increasing temperture. The first decade of the 21st century was the warmest in our 150 temperature record.”
Wow, move the goal posts much? First you’re talking about a small number of years with the latest cooling cycle, now you’re talking about the entire temp record….
If this is the kind of thing you’re left resorting to, chances are good you’ve lost the argument.
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Global Warming is an explanation in theory with evidence to back it up of the .8oC warming over 150 years. 2010 was predicted to have a strong chance of breaking a record by GISS. Almost was. There was also a strong la Nina. El Nino does not disqualify it from being AGW influenced.
Wally:
Show me that data Shills. Which organisms would actually be harmed by say a 3-5 fold increase in CO2 concentration? Can you even prove their are any? Second, LIFE is a much larger concept than any given organism or species. I’m sorry you don’t understand the mean of the word LIFE. So, yeah that weed expample, completely irrelevent to what I’m saying….sorry…. Please go read about the mean of the word LIFE and then reread my post. I think even you can get this one.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification
Again this is a huge reason to stop CO2 pollution now. It is in the beginning of shifting life in the ocean dramatically.
All of the discussion re the AGW theories misses a couple of crucial points. Even if the warming models are correct (which is under dispute), there are no viable alternate large scale energy sources. Furthwer, unless we get the Chinese, Indians, and everyone else on board, reducing US CO2 emmisions only serves to destroy the US economy and move industry abroad.
Biofuels schemes founder on the fact that there is limited land, and the fuel to plant, harvest, and convert the matererial is almost as much, or more, than the fuel produced. The agricultural economy is disrupted with serious social and economic costs. (Note the ethanol fiasco). Wind and solar are intermittent, and even with the existing power system as free backup, cannot survive without government subsidies. If enough wind/solar were built such that dedicated backup must be built, it becomes an economic disaster. Nuclear is the only viable alternative, but cannot supply transportation fuel at a bearable cost. Thus, we are pushing to destroy our existing system before we have a viable alternative.
The Indians have made it clear that they will not stop their industrialization plans and mire themselves in perpetual poverty. The Chinese show no sign of doing otherwise.
Unless we have viable alternative energy schemes clearly proven (and there are none in sight) and everyone else is on board, it is a better idea to move north if it gets warm rather than destroy ourselves. Canada and Siberia would bloom. Whether the AGW theory is correct or not is immaterial until those two things are accomplished.
Ted Rado:
The consequences of waiting put us into the tipping points of the climate. The warming takes off on its own and we can’t stop it. Which applys to the subject of this article. There is a really serious consequence.
Renewable energy sources are solvable by today’s technology now. Utility scale energy storage. Batteries for cars, utilities and homes. CAES compressed air energy storage. Smart meters controlling the load for about 20% efficiency imporvement in generating electricity.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_point_(climatology)
Tipping point (climatology)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
For other uses, see Tipping point (disambiguation).
A climate tipping point is a point when global climate changes from one stable state to another stable state, in a similar manner to a wine glass tipping over. After the tipping point has been passed, a transition to a new state occurs. The tipping event may be irreversible, comparable to wine spilling from the glass—standing up the glass will not put the wine back.
Global warming proceeds by changing the composition of gases in the Earth’s atmosphere by the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane. As warming proceeds it brings about changes to the natural environment which may result in other changes. For example, warming may begin to melt the Greenland ice sheet. At some level of temperature rise, the melt of the entire ice sheet will become inevitable, even though complete melting may not occur for millennia. Thus a tipping point may be passed without any immediately obvious consequences. Nor does the use of tipping point imply any acceleration of the warming process.
Wally says: ‘Hardly. Its 100% correct usage. We’re left debating the semantics of “pollutant” and “harm”, while this entire time we’ve pretty much completely ignored the larger argument.’
Are you saying that the discussion between you and Renewable is the larger argument that is being diverged from with this discussion of the def. of pollution? Umm ok. Fair enough. If you are not interested in arguing about the use of ‘pollution’ than I can’t make you.
Wally says: ‘Which organisms would actually be harmed by say a 3-5 fold increase in CO2 concentration? Can you even prove their are any?’
If your only quarrel with the use of ‘pollution’ by Renewable is because you believe there is no evidence for harm to arise –and not because it is a naturally occurring and beneficial substance in some quantities– than fine. I don’t care to discuss that now because it is a huge topic central to the AGW debate (with the mainstream science saying it will be harmful). My only argument was that just because Co2 is natural and beneficial in some quantities does not mean it can’t be termed a pollutant.
If the latest scientific research is correct, discussion of feedbacks and greenhouse gases may be irrelevant.
The latest is that what affects weather is climate, and what affects climate is the sun’s magnetosphere and its electromagnetic interaction with a planet’s own magnetic field.
When the field shifts, when it fluctuates, when it goes into flux and begins to become unstable anything can happen. And what normally happens is that all hell breaks loose.
Magnetic polar shifts have occurred many times in Earth’s history. It’s happening again now to every planet in the solar system including Earth.
The magnetic field drives weather to a significant degree and when that field starts migrating superstorms start erupting.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/february042011/global-superstorms-ta.php
I wonder what others think about this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm
A connection wasn’t mentioned here to all hell breaking loose.
Renewable guy:
Have you run calcs on the size of batteries needed for large scale energy storage (not to mention cost!)? How about the size and cost of compressed air storage? All schemes seem reasonable until you run the numbers. I have not been able to find any alternative energy scheme that stands the test of number crunching (I am an engineer). Any serious proposals should be accompanied by a energy and material balance and cost estimates. For example, it is theoretically possible to make gasoline out of H2 and CO2 via nuclear energy (this has been seriously proposed). The thermodynamic efficiency is about 1% as compared to using the nuclear energy directly at 35% efficiency. Thus, it is nonsense. Do the numbers!
You didn’t comment on the fact that everyone must get on board to make CO2 reduction work. Also, what about fuel for autos and airplanes? One needs to have a complete plan with all T’s crossed and I’s dotted before charging off and messing up the economy. Such a plan does not exist.
Ted Rado:
Renewable guy:
Have you run calcs on the size of batteries needed for large scale energy storage (not to mention cost!)? How about the size and cost of compressed air storage? All schemes seem reasonable until you run the numbers. I have not been able to find any alternative energy scheme that stands the test of number crunching (I am an engineer). Any serious proposals should be accompanied by a energy and material balance and cost estimates. For example, it is theoretically possible to make gasoline out of H2 and CO2 via nuclear energy (this has been seriously proposed). The thermodynamic efficiency is about 1% as compared to using the nuclear energy directly at 35% efficiency. Thus, it is nonsense. Do the numbers!
You didn’t comment on the fact that everyone must get on board to make CO2 reduction work. Also, what about fuel for autos and airplanes? One needs to have a complete plan with all T’s crossed and I’s dotted before charging off and messing up the economy. Such a plan does not exist.
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http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030
Above is a link on how to do the power generation.
Articles on the future prices of oil can be found at the oil drum along with peak oil articles. There are expected to be recessions because of the price of oil. The price of oil dependency drives up the prices of everything it touches.
Couple that with increasing GHG’s in the atmosphere along with ocean acidification, Renewable Energy is a bargain. In this case an ounce of prevention is worth 10 pounds of cure.
Those expecting “the price of oil” to cause “recessions” display a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of commodity prices in the economy. The fact is there is no such thing as “the price of oil dependency” in any meaningful sense, just as it’s senseless to talk about a ‘price of silicon dependency’ or ‘price of phosphate dependency’ of ‘price’ of the economic decision to employ any particular input to production from among those available. Cross-price elasticities at various marginal optimums, as perceived by the market, ensure that the best possible mix of currently available inputs is selected…in the absence of arbitrary distortions, such as taxing or regulation. This was demonstrated as early as the ‘energy crisis’ caused by ‘peak charcoal’ in 16th Century Europe, as well as in every transition from one to another form of energy input. In fact it may be understood, in very long term sense, that the user of fossil fuels, while cheap, is optimal. As far as the market goes, it’s perfectly clear that so-called ‘renewable’ energy sources, as more of a fetish than legitimate economic alternative under current market conditions, as none of these appears viable without massive infusions of government subsidies, and none appears capable of providing inputs competitive with legacy alternatives to date. In the case of CO2, the issue isn’t “prevention [or] cure”, as no significant negative economic consequences have been observed or seem likely to occur. That makes it only a case of a facade attempting to justify an exchange, kind of like when the curandera promises to keep the devils at bay, for a price!
Shills,
“Are you saying that the discussion between you and Renewable is the larger argument that is being diverged from with this discussion of the def. of pollution?”
Not exactly. It doesn’t have to be between me and Renewable only. But it does have to be about “global warming”. The word pollution came up, and we diverged on that red herring. It might be a worthy topic in its own right, but it is still a red herring to the orginal argument the word came up in. All we really needed to do is clearify the meaning that the poster of the original usage wished to convay and be done with it.
“My only argument was that just because Co2 is natural and beneficial in some quantities does not mean it can’t be termed a pollutant.”
Right, so we can’t prove that something is NOT a pollutant. I also can’t prove there is not a God. Lets get a little more specific shall we. We can’t discuss how something being a pollutant is applicable to the larger AGW debate without understand just how high CO2 has to rise to cause harm. If you can’t convince me CO2 is actually going to cause harm in realisticly achievable concentrations, then you have no point to make what so ever.
Renewable,
“I’ve got enough of a background I can tell when they are being lobbyists or telling the truth.”
That’s great you think that. But it is irrelevent. Just prove what ever they are saying is wrong. Everything else is just mindless distraction.
“You have just accepted this statement as true. IN this scenario, an ounce of prevention is worth 10 pounds of cure. You want your conveniences its time to get out of the carbon lifestyle. Not changing has consequences. Changing now is much cheaper later on.”
Now you’re attacking my motives. This isn’t just about “conveniences”, this about life or death. Large scail reduction of CO2 emitions will kill people NOW. Especially those in developing or poor nations. Depending on just how much we want to reduce them in developed nations, it could kill people here to, by inflicting greater rates of poverty, hunger and starvation. Thus, it is quite important we truly understand the “harm” being done. Over 3000 years Miami, for example, might be underwater (and while I didn’t dispute your claim, I also didn’t accept it, I was mearly playing along taking it as an assumption) but human culture could adapt and relocate in that amount of time with no lives lost or necissarily even significantly, negatively effected. So, we don’t know enough about the possible future negative concequences of our actions (if there even are any) to justify the known negative concequences from hinding our way of life now.
“El Nino does not disqualify it from being AGW influenced.”
Quite right, but you’re again arguing from ignorance. You simply don’t know if the latest El Nino was even in part anthropogenic.
And that ocean acidification thing has been completely debunked. Please, don’t site wikipedia. That is just pathetic for a scientific discussion.
Adiff: Peak oil will create its own demand destruction. But how long will it take to replace it with something else?
Mix this in with tipping points of the climate from GHG’s.
Then also ocean acidification. 1 in 5 people eat from the ocean. We over fish the ocean along with acidification, the food chains will shift due to shell based life being diminished.
There is very little reason to stick with fossil fuels in the long run. With the american conservatives buying into AGW isn’t bad, there will be consequences for the delay that they will bring on.