Bad scientists: you have given bad info on global warming

[Ayatollah So]

There is no greenhouse effect on Mars (technically there is, but it's barely noticable) because the atmosphere on the planet is so thin.

A quick google gives this link saying

the martian atmosphere results in only a weak greenhouse effect that raises the surface temperature by about 5°C over what it would be without any atmosphere at all.

And while 5C doesn't look like much compared to earth's 33, it's a lot better (if you're a Martian colonist ) than nothing.

You've got a point there about the thin atmosphere, though: in two words, pressure broadening. The effective width of a spectral absorption/emission line grows with greater gas pressure.

 

[Arwon]

Quick question here without reading this whole thread, but is the reality of global warming ever in any doubt outside of the US? It's only ever American people I hear vehemently denying it and trying to turn it into some political argument rather than a scientific one. Seems a bit strange to me.

You get a bit of confused denialism in Australia among the ignorant on talkback radio and the comment section of News Limited newspaper websites, but in political terms it is mostly dressed up in other arguments about policy responses and how only China needs to do anything and how Teh Left are apparently Communists who want to destroy your family.

 

[Dragonlord]

In Germany and, I believe, in most of Europe, there is a broad consensus that global warming is happening and that it is predominantly caused by human-caused emissions. The discussion nowadays is centered on what we should do about it, not whether it is happening.

Oh, and BTW, Germany is among the world leaders in reducing emissions - and our economy is flourishing and unemployment is way down. Just a little food for thought for those who like to portray ecology as being opposed to economy...

 

[El_Machinae]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/02/22/pol-lunn-climate-survey.html

Far more Canadians than Americans believe climate change is real, according to a report produced by U.S. and Canadian think tanks.
...
In Canada, 80 per cent believe the science behind climate change, compared with 58 per cent in the United States, based on answers to the surveys' question:
...
Just 43 per cent of Americans believe their national government has a great deal of responsibility to address climate change. In Canada, 65 per cent of respondents believe the government has a role to play.

In fact, the poll suggests Canadians want to see all levels of government —from Parliament Hill to provincial capitals to city hall — do something about climate change.

Click the link for more information, or to see the whole story, or to let CBC know you're interested in AGW stories.
So, it's not just greed. Canada is much more dependent upon fossil fuels, and we're still concerned about it.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

That's where you and Arwon and Ziggy and others are going wrong: the part I underlined last paragraph is not equivalent to "global warming is definitely not happening". You've all gotten stuck in this black-vs-white mindset, and you need to get unstuck. Disproving "global warming is definitely real" is not the same as saying "global warming is bullcrap".

I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from putting my name in when I didn't argue this with you. The argument you and I had was not about what position you take, but about some missleading post of yours. To reiterate, in this thread you and I discussed:

- The amount of CO2 a vulcano puts out compared to anthropomorphic emissions.
- Global temperature during the medieval ages.

Kindly refrain from doing so in the future, or actually do what you accuse others of not doing and actually read my posts.

Thanks.

 

[Abegweit]

I don't see how you could possibly know any of this. In order to even bring this forward, you'd have to have read the works of people buying the propaganda put forward by statist government scientist slugs who are peddling their purchased lies because they drink the kool aid.

In other words, you're putting forward scientific information without first completely discounting them with an ad hominem. I'm pretty sure that all the people who originally found any modern information regarding Mars are using the same scientific tools and process we use to discuss AGW.

And, obviously, reality is more complicated than people assume. It's fundamentally impossible to mentally model reality with greater (or equal) accuracy than actual reality. Your summary comparison of Mars to Earth is flawed, by the way. Warming on Earth is caused by the increase in CO2. If we were to increase the CO2 on Mars, we'd expect warming there, too. Heck, any insulative barrier coupled with an external radiative source will increase temperature. This is why your car is hotter in the summer if you seal the windows.

Since you seem to know something about Mars, how do you find out any scientific information? If you've completely discounted any scientific information regarding AGW, how would you find out the truth?

The state shills only very rarely make up data. They abuse it, they twist it, they hide it, they turn it upside down, but they almost never fabricate it. If it doesn't suit their ends, they simply ignore it. And the sycophants in mainstream press follow every turn without hesitation.

I first learned this back in the Iraq invasion. I fully expected the government to find weapons of mass destruction. Not because they existed (any sane person knew that they didn't) but because the Bush administration would fabricate the evidence. Much to my surprise, it didn't. Instead Bush played a revolting game out in front of the National Press Gallery where he pretended to look for WMDs under chairs and whatever. The sycophants just sucked it up. Funny. Funny. Now no one ever talks about WMDs in Iraq. The reasons for the invasion and the mass murder have changed. It's now about democracy or finding Al Qaeda under a rock. Or something.

The same thing is true of the Warmists. They talk about millions of tonnes of CO2, icebergs the size of Rhode Island and enough water to serve England for three years. The purpose is scaremongering and the press just laps it up. No one ever mentions just how tiny these figures are on a global scale.

Micheal Mann did not fabricate data when he published his infamous Hockey Stick. Instead he took one invalid measurement of temperature and, when it didn't fit the conclusion wanted in the late twentieth century, he cut it off and plugged another invalid measurement on top of it.

But no one ever fabricated anything. They just made pretty graphs to hide the decline. And the press just ignores what they did.

What the liars do fabricate is theories and computer models which reflect them. We could talk about the Keynesian nonsense that C + I + G = GDP. However, the topic is climate. So....

In nature there are no positive feedback loops. If they actually existed, we wouldn't. However the liars invent positive feedback loops through "simplifying assumptions" and predict disaster based on the models they create to reflect their nonsense theories.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Isn't Venus widely regarded as a positive feedback loop (oceans boiled off, atmosphere became dense, runaway climate change, hot enough to melt lead and crush submarines on the surface)?

 

[Abegweit]

Isn't Venus widely regarded as a positive feedback loop (oceans boiled off, atmosphere became dense, runaway climate change, hot enough to melt lead and crush submarines on the surface)?

Indeed it is. I've never seen any actual theories to substantiate this idea, however. Could it be that the main difference between there and here is the distance to the Sun? OTOH, maybe it is possible that positive feedback loops led to the current Venusian environment.

Back home on Earth, there is life. Which is proof that, whatever the explanation about Venus, we quite clearly followed a different a history. One in which negative feedback loops were dominant. After all, there were many times in the past when CO2 levels were far higher than they are today. Yet we have survived.

 

[choxorn]

The state shills only very rarely make up data. They abuse it, they twist it, they hide it, they turn it upside down, but they almost never fabricate it. If it doesn't suit their ends, they simply ignore it. And the sycophants in mainstream press follow every turn without hesitation.

You know that plenty of scientists don't work for the government, right?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

In nature there are no positive feedback loops.

One in which negative feedback loops were dominant.

These are two different claims. The second implies positive feedback loops exists, but are rare, the first says they do not exist.

So which of these two are you actually claiming?

The same thing is true of the Warmists. They talk about millions of tonnes of CO2, icebergs the size of Rhode Island and enough water to serve England for three years. The purpose is scaremongering and the press just laps it up. No one ever mentions just how tiny these figures are on a global scale.

The figures as they are presented (by warmists scientists) are: Nature produces around 700 Gt of CO2 per year. Human emissions are: Industrial: 26.4 Gt per year, and as a result of deforestation and agriculture: 5.9 Gt per year.

Is this what you consider to be tiny on a global scale? Do you conclude based on these numbers that Human Emissions do not matter?

Back home on Earth, there is life. Which is proof that, whatever the explanation about Venus, we quite clearly followed a different a history. One in which negative feedback loops were dominant. After all, there were many times in the past when CO2 levels were far higher than they are today. Yet we have survived.

"Yet we have survived". Survival of the species is not at stake here. We will survive even when CO2 levels go higher. The danger of Global Warming is not human extinction. Anyone who has even just briefly studied the problem knows this.

 

[El_Machinae]

??? The positive feedback loops don't just 'runaway forever'. Who's suggesting that? The concern is that the equilibrium would shift. Now, there are positive feedback loops, obviously, in the AGW concern. The CO2 causes increased heat that causes evaporation that then stores more heat. But it's not a Venus-like scenario (btw: you'll see that Venus has its own equilibrium, not perpetual runaway), it's a simple doubling of the forcings. Every degree added by CO2 is then doubled by water vapor. The wild-card remains cloud albedo, but (at the primary level) indicators lean towards suggesting that albedo will not be a negative feedback effect greater than vapor's addition.

 

[Abegweit]

These are two different claims. The second implies positive feedback loops exists, but are rare, the first says they do not exist.

So which of these two are you actually claiming?

That's an awfully fine hair you're trying to split. The point is simple. Positive feedback loops cannot exist on Earth to any significant degree or we wouldn't exist. PS brought up Venus. I doubt they exist there either but the facts are far less clear so I was willing to concede him the benefit of the doubt in that case.

The figures as they are presented (by warmists scientists) are: Nature produces around 700 Gt of CO2 per year. Human emissions are: Industrial: 26.4 Gt per year, and as a result of deforestation and agriculture: 5.9 Gt per year.

Is this what you consider to be tiny on a global scale? Do you conclude based on these numbers that Human Emissions do not matter?

My point was that the alarmists throw around big numbers with the purpose of scaring people. As for your question, it is indeed obvious than less than 5% of a gas which is merely .04% of the atmosphere is obviously a tiny amount. Most of the additional gas would simply wind up in the oceans anyway.

Which, by the way, is almost certainly where the recent increase in CO2 levels came from. Atmospheric CO2 started rising in the late nineteenth century. The rise has been consistent and relentless. It is absurd in the extreme to blame this on man-made causes, given that the big rise in industrialization took place long after the rise in CO2 levels started. And, in fact, you can see no sign of human history in CO2. There is no Great Depression, no wars, no industrialism. Nothing. Just a slow increase, year after year. It started before industrialization and was not affected by it.

"Yet we have survived". Survival of the species is not at stake here. We will survive even when CO2 levels go higher. The danger of Global Warming is not human extinction. Anyone who has even just briefly studied the problem knows this.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough but in any case, you missed my point entirely. This is about the past, not the future. If indeed there were positive feedback loops of the type posited by the hacks, then the Earth would long ago have frozen solid or gone Venusian. Consequently, we would not be here at all. CO2 levels have varied enormously in the past and positive feedback loops would have led to disaster in one direction or the other.

Yet, in fact, the global temperature has been remarkably consistent throughout geologic history. Most of the time, the temperature was a balmy 21C. Less often, it was 11C. The difference between the two is not because of CO2 but because of the configuration of the continents. When the Earth's poles are capable of freezing over, it gets cold. Today, with an enclosed sea in the north and a continent in the south, the conditions are right. The cold periods are also characterized by occasional warm spells where the temperature goes up to 15C or so. We are living in the middle of one of them.

As for the future, warming is a good thing. Whatever the cause, it is a benefit. Pure and simple. Longer growing seasons. More rain. Generally more pleasant. Same thing goes for increased CO2 levels. It's plant food, fer gawd's sake. Studies in greenhouses indicate that the optimal level of CO2 for plant growth is about 2-3 times the current level.

This is one of the most astonishing things about state hacks - their endless capacity to pervert benefits into harms. The reason is obvious, of course. Follow the money. This has always been about bureaucratic empire building. Nothing else. And if you don't follow the official line, you don't get grants.

 

[Abegweit]

??? The positive feedback loops don't just 'runaway forever'. Who's suggesting that? The concern is that the equilibrium would shift. Now, there are positive feedback loops, obviously, in the AGW concern. The CO2 causes increased heat that causes evaporation that then stores more heat. But it's not a Venus-like scenario (btw: you'll see that Venus has its own equilibrium, not perpetual runaway), it's a simple doubling of the forcings. Every degree added by CO2 is then doubled by water vapor.

Don't lecture me. Your patronizing tone is offensive. Unlike the general public (who listen to the crap about "runaway greenhouses") I understand that Venus is in equilibrium. What's more, I also understand the crap underlying the hacks' models of the atmosphere. You are quite right; this is what they build into their "models". Yet I have never EVER seen any discussion of this in the mainstream press. Not even in publications like Scientific American, let alone the New York Times. Instead we hear endless refrains about how CO2 is a greenhouse gas and NOTHING about the claimed effect on water vapor. Isn't that remarkable? Why is this? Why is the hack theory hidden? Could it be that the hacks are afraid that people would apply some common sense. That if people actually understood the claim, they would realize exactly what it is?

The wild-card remains cloud albedo, but (at the primary level) indicators lean towards suggesting that albedo will not be a negative feedback effect greater than vapor's addition.

IOW, you have no idea how things really work. Well, neither do I. In that regard, we are the same. The differences between us come from the fact that I use common sense when I attempt evaluate things about which I know little while so-called scientists are puffed up with their own self-worth.

Some common sense observations (you can find longer explanations about some of them in my previous post to ZS:
1. Warming is good. It leads to longer growing seasons, more rain and general all-around pleasantness.
2. CO2 is good. It's plant food.
3. Geologic history indicates that positive feedbacks loops do not exist.
4. There is a lot more than one "wild-card". To start with, there is the equilibrium between the oceans and the air. (Since you lectured me on equilibriums, I thought I should throw this one back ).
5. If indeed there are negative consequences to global warming, then our grandchildren will be better equipped to deal with them if we bequeath them a rich and technologically advanced world instead of one that has been hobbled by socialist schemes.
6. Follow the money. Always follow the money.

 

[choxorn]

3. Geologic history indicates that positive feedbacks loops do not exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth

 

[Tee Kay]

Blah, it's just a hypothesis. Nothing but statist lies, etc.

 

[Arwon]

RARR! Statists!

Next you'll be telling me man really walked on the moon!

 

[choxorn]

And that JFK wasn't assassinated by Elvis.

 

[El_Machinae]

Why is the hack theory hidden?

Wait, the 'hack theory' is that CO2 will increase warming (because it's a GHG). This warming will cause increased evaporation (because it's warmer). And the water vapor will also increase warming (because it's a GHG). That is a hack theory? Or is the hack theory that this feedback cycle effectively doubles the forcing of the CO2 contribution (and doesn't create a runaway feedback system).

It's not 'hidden'. It's commonly discussed in the primary literature. The fact that your reading of the news misses it is a problem with the scientific consumer, not of the scientific data.

IOW, you have no idea how things really work.

No, it's not 'no idea'. It's 'some idea, some better than others'. If someone mentions uncertainty regarding clouds, then their skepticism is appropriate. There're a handful of decent studies on the feedback effect of clouds, but none of them give hope that their albedo contribution will outpace the forcings contribution of CO2. They trend towards being a positive feedback on the effect, but the uncertainty is still too high.

There're lots of people with 'no idea'. But it's not the people who're following the cloud story.

1. Warming is good. It leads to longer growing seasons, more rain and general all-around pleasantness.

Yes. This looks true. If it wasn't for the shifting of climate patterns while there was warming, this would be obviously correct. There's going to be effects upon biodiversity and upon climactic borders in the process of 'warming'.

2. CO2 is good. It's plant food.

You still haven't looked at C4 & C3 concerns. The increase in CO2 is not 'good news' for our crops. CO2 is also 'not good', because it's a water acidifier.

3. Geologic history indicates that positive feedbacks loops do not exist.

This is entirely incorrect. You must be completely misunderstanding the concern. Of course positive feedback loops occur. They lead to S-curve effects. We see them all the time. You must be imagining that the concern is that we'll forever increase in temperature, or something. No, the 'positive feedback' effects are much simpler than that, like my water vapor example. One thing leads to another. Forcings compound positively or negatively, and then we see their sum.

4. There is a lot more than one "wild-card". To start with, there is the equilibrium between the oceans and the air. (Since you lectured me on equilibriums, I thought I should throw this one back).

Yes, we're aware of the ocean, thank you very much. There're tons known about its effect/contribution to the issue.

5. If indeed there are negative consequences to global warming, then our grandchildren will be better equipped to deal with them if we bequeath them a rich and technologically advanced world instead of one that has been hobbled by socialist schemes.

Yes, many trends indicate that future generations will be more equipped to deal with the negative consequences. I intend to be there, since I'll likely live well-past the 2050 date that people like to plan around. I'm going to have a large portfolio of capital investment at that time. Don't think that I'm not quite worried about maximizing my future wealth.

Yes, it's possible to hobble society with socialism. I don't disagree. However, it's also possible to unfairly hurt others and future generations with improper management of the free market. The idea of limiting or reparating ecological harms is certainly not socialist. It's within the very definition of capitalism. In addition, it's part of monitoring one of the known market failures of capitalism. It's entirely inappropriate to call AGW concerns 'socialist'. It's just sloppy thinking. Socialism denies the price of goods, which is the very opposite of what I''m doing.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

My point was that the alarmists throw around big numbers with the purpose of scaring people. As for your question, it is indeed obvious than less than 5% of a gas which is merely .04% of the atmosphere is obviously a tiny amount. Most of the additional gas would simply wind up in the oceans anyway.

I take it by your response you accept my tiny numbers. Good. However, you ignored the key question: "Do you conclude based on these numbers that Human Emissions do not matter?"

If, of the 30 something extra Gigaton per year produced, only about 15 Gigaton can be absorbed by natural processes. Add to that the projection that the emissions will rise. Would it still not matter?

Not most. but about half of that additional gas ends up in oceans.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Which, by the way, is almost certainly where the recent increase in CO2 levels came from. Atmospheric CO2 started rising in the late nineteenth century. The rise has been consistent and relentless. It is absurd in the extreme to blame this on man-made causes, given that the big rise in industrialization took place long after the rise in CO2 levels started. And, in fact, you can see no sign of human history in CO2. There is no Great Depression, no wars, no industrialism. Nothing. Just a slow increase, year after year. It started before industrialization and was not affected by it.

Question at everyone: Is the CO2-rise really as steady as this paragraph assumes?