Global Warming

[Scuffer]

You are forced to accept Audobon's decision, or undermine it with actual evidence. To say that you don't believe Audubon because they like birds too much is a fallacy.

To say that I disbelieve aubudon when I haven't is a fallacy, and indeed a barefaced lie.

But it is a dead issue, I will agree there.

 

[gene90]

And for all you folks joining this debate late and who want a condensed version of this, here is my position.

I don't believe in anthropogenic global warming because the evidence just doesn't support it.

By plotting temperature trends over varying timescales, I can make the climate look like it's doing anything I want it do.

You should note that the current warming is less than the warming at the height of Rome's

power and at the Medieval Climate Optimum.

Here is climate over the last 12,000 years:

And the last 100,000 years:

Which shows that temperature is definately up but that it started thousands of years before there were evil energy companies to cause it.

And, 420,000 years ago:

This latest image shows the obvious cyclicity to global temperature.

It also shows that the current temperature is right about where it 'should' be without human modification.

By the way, it's called the Medieval Climate Optimum because historically, warming periods have been good for societies.

 

[gene90]

More extreme theories include the 'global superstorm', which appears to be possible, though, again, extreme.

I cannot resist this opportunity to take a swipe at 10Seven.

The "global superstorm" he is refering to is portrayed cinematically in The Day After Tomorrow. It violates laws of physics, at least the cinematic version, by ignoring such fundamentals of meteorology as adiabatic heating. (Yeah, those storms drag cold air down from the stratosphere and it doesn't get any warmer by compression!)

It made its first appearance in a book, The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitney Streiber. People who listen to AM radio after about midnight on weekends know who Art Bell is. It was Bell who broke the "story" about the alien craft chasing Hale-Bopp back in 1997. Last night I was listening to his program on the long drive back to school, and it featured John Lear, friend of self-proclaimed Area 51 employee Bob Lazar. Lear believes that the human race was designed to be slaves to aliens, and that our souls are alien property, and that Venus is not an overheated world but actually home to a race of beings that is technologically superior to us. Streiber is also an accomplished author, he made the best seller list with this book:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...2/002-3027226-2366454?_encoding=UTF8&v=glance

It is a "true" story of his recurring alien abduction experiences.

Here is the "Superstorm" Amazon listing.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...002-3027226-2366454?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

So yes, I am committing the "Poisoning the Well" fallacy but we all have to draw the line somewhere, and I draw the line with alien abduction on credibility of sources. (I am waiting with a considerable degree of amusement to see if Scuffer is going to tell me that the Audubon Society is on the same footing as these guys.) The fact that 10Seven even floated this idea is, to me, telling. It means that some people really are True Believers and will let any idea into the fold without necessary critical review.

 

[gene90]

One factor that was not mentioned, however, was to evaporation - as while that quantity of ice might raise to that level, not all of that water would remain as liquid - much to vapour.

Actually, no. If you did melt all the icecaps, you're looking at a 66 meter sealevel rise. Water vapor storage in the atmosphere is very small, to the tune of a hundredth of a percent of the water budget, if memory serves me. There is in fact a meteorological term, the "total precipitable water" in the atmosphere at any given time. A value of a couple of inches is considered a lot.

Also, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere is an equilibrium process. You may get increased storage of water in clouds, but not a significant quantity. Vapor loading, however, will not change, it is limited by temperature.

Of course, we're not necessarily talking about melting the icecaps. That will require that global warming is not only true, but that it is extreme, and will continue over the next thousand years or so, well past the point when fossil fuels will likely have run out or be as obsolete as whale oil. Of course, it is also making certain climatic assumptions: there are areas of the far north where we could have continental glaciations today, if only precipitation were higher. If global warming happens, and disproportionately increases precipitation at higher latitudes, you will not have a rise in sealevel, but a lowering of sealevel, as ocean water is removed by evaporation and put in storage as continental glaciers. The GW proponents say that a rise in sealevel would be overwhelmingly "bad", so does that mean that a fall would be "good". No, it would be a mixed bag, just like a SL rise.

What all this really means is that we know far less about the climate than we think we do. A good Earth Scientist will readily recognize and admit that.

 

[gene90]

vertebrates, but ther were NOT any similar spikes in the past thta did NOT have catastrophic effects. No critic of the theory of GW has borught any evidence for a'harmless' past spike ever.

Actually, Carlos, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was higher than today for most of the Carboniferous, and again in the Cretaceous with no ill effect. The only time I am aware of CO2 being implicated in a mass extinction is the Permian. And even then, it wasn't due so much to global warming, goes the theory I heard at Denver back in November, but because of displacement of oxygen (that's a lot of CO2!!) that preferentially killed animals with smaller nostrils and those that lived at higher elevations. Obviously, that's not what you need, you would need for them to have been killed by an overheating climate. The alleged source of that increase in CO2 was the heat-induced offgasing caused by emplacement of the Siberian traps atop a large exposure of limestones.

http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~ruff/geo105.W98/lect19Feb.html

Also, while not reaching the level of today, there have been numerous natural spikes of CO2 over the last 400,000 years or so (see the Vostok cores) with no ill effects. In fact, everytime earth comes out of a glacial, CO2 goes up. Again, with no known ill effects. In fact, human society has taken root in a high-CO2 interglacial! These are good times for us, and yet we are living in one of these "bad" CO2 spikes!

Also, I believe that BasketCase previously cited one of the sources that found that CO2 concentration lags behind temperature. This, of course, is more evidence against Global Warming.

I'm afraid, Carlos, that your quote above is nothing more than poorly informed reactionary prattle. I think that these 'catastrophic spikes' only exist in your head. The only one you have mentioned was after the K/T event, a mass extinction that you blamed on Global Warming, but the rest of the world blames on the giant asteroid that hit Earth at the same time. Some of us think that the emplacement of the Deccan Traps immediately afterward didn't exactly help either. That you failed to mention the asteroid or the volcanism, but picked GW to be the cause, is, in my opinion, telling.

 

[BasketCase]

Also, I believe that BasketCase previously cited one of the sources that found that CO2 concentration lags behind temperature. This, of course, is more evidence against Global Warming.

There were some points on the graphs where CO2 appears to do exactly that.

While temperature and CO2 seem to track fairly closely much of the time, they wander around and get ahead of and behind each other so often and so erratically that I think both temperature and CO2 concentrations respond to other factors.

The logic behind that: if one controlled the other--say, CO2 had strong control over temperature--then the temperature graph would follow behind the CO2 graph at a fairly constant distance, and do it reliably. Since the graphs don't do that, it means that CO2 has weak or no control over temperature. Since CO2 doesn't follow faithfully behind temperature, it means temperature doesn't control CO2 either.

So temp and CO2 don't react strongly to each other--yet they both follow a very regular long-term pattern (i.e. Ice Ages every 100,000 years or so). So there's some other factor, acting very regularly over the very long term, that's propelling the planetary cycle.

 

[10Seven]

I cannot resist this opportunity to take a swipe at 10Seven... The fact that 10Seven even floated this idea is, to me, telling. It means that some people really are True Believers and will let any idea into the fold without necessary critical review.

Perhaps you could have taken the opportunity to actually read even the very quote you made in which I suggest extremity.

Actually, no. If you did melt all the icecaps, you're looking at a 66 meter sealevel rise. Water vapor storage in the atmosphere is very small, to the tune of a hundredth of a percent of the water budget, if memory serves me. There is in fact a meteorological term, the "total precipitable water" in the atmosphere at any given time. A value of a couple of inches is considered a lot.

What all this really means is that we know far less about the climate than we think we do. A good Earth Scientist will readily recognize and admit that.

Again, it may have been useful to read my post - particularly as I clearly quoted the article earlier posted - which stated a rise of 7 metres were Greenland's Ice to melt.

Also, that you contradicted yourself with regard to water vapour, and had you noticed I had foolishly neglected to be specific and portentious in my suggestion as to water vapour.

This goes to show the worth of reading posts before reacting to them at which I have embaressed myself a number of times.

 

[10Seven]

I found the graphs interesting - though felt some comment should be made as to accuracy - though I won't try to draw any conclusions from that.

To my understanding such tracking of temperatures during earlier periods can be generally accurate, but their range in time is relatively huge. It may be possible, for instance, to estimate a temperature of x at the 100,000BC mark, but this must be something like +/-10-20,000 years.

By contrast, tracking during the last hundred years becomes accurate to the second, and with markedly more samples taken.

Also I would not that some of the conclusions suggested in the post including those graphs appear incorrect - such as that of current and Rome temperature, where the current increase in temperature appears, to my sources, significantly greater than that.

I may as well suggest some conclusions, or clarify my position.

I have been interested in a number of points raised in conflict to a number of my understandings - for me this changes my thoughts as to global warming unnatural from 'certainty' to 'greater probability'.

I consider a number of my understandings in that current conclusion:

1. That current temperature increases are (I should say appear) to be very much faster than those historic and natural ones.

2. That current temperature increases show direct correlation to increase in global industrialisation and emittion of 'geen-house' gases.

3. Simple chemistry.

4. Ecology, at least on the smaller scale - as many have said as to understanding of global systems - I suggest the greatest difficulty there is in simulation, and the human inability to even consider the billions of variables coherantly severly limited processing.

5. Wider scientific opinion appears to suggest greater agreement as to 'global warming unnatural' than 'natural'. My experience is that those sufficiently educated (not including myself as sufficiently educated) nay-sayers, is of significant conflict of interest.

I have had a greater contact with various members of two national institutions specialising in 'climatology' and those organisations appear to be of the opinion = 'probable unatural cause'.

I also draw attention to the article I posted a copy of, and the opinion quoted therein.

 

[BasketCase]

5. Wider scientific opinion appears to suggest greater agreement as to 'global warming unnatural' than 'natural'.

This section here should be good for illustrating my biggest concern about how the subject is being debated: that people who don't say "global warming is definitely caused by humans" are subjected to a verbal burning-at-the-stake by their colleagues in the field. If you don't believe me, read back through the thread (yep, all 22 previous pages--be sure to eat lots of carbs first, you're gonna need the endurance) and see how the "global warming is caused by humans" camp treat me, gene90, Pikachu for saying we shouldn't do anything about global warming, and anybody else who refuses to take the "correct" position.

There's a strong incentive for people who think "global warming might not be human-caused" or "global warming is definitely not human-caused" to keep their mouths shut.

For a little extra testimony to support this view of the debate, check out that latest thread where some unfortunate scientist published a paper saying Intelligent Design might have been how life on Earth got started. That guy is in danger for his career. That's what happens when you break ranks these days.

 

[Pikachu]

Some people here seems very interested in analyzing historical temperature graphs without any efforts to identify what mechanisms that caused the past temperature changes. Apparently the changes magically just appeared without any reasons. Nature truly works in mysterious ways!

I am pretty sure that specific physical mechanisms caused all those historical changes in global temperature. If we want to make predictions about future climate we need to understand those mechanisms. It isn’t very helpful to point out that the global temperature have periodically changed relatively regularly over a very long period of time unless you can identify what caused the changes.

Of course scientists have identified what caused many of the past changes, and they know a lot about what effects our climate and how. Maybe the skeptics could learn something if they took time to actually look into what the experts is working with? Science is not really about observations, but about understanding the reasons why what we observe happens.


This obsession about analyzing historical temperature graphs reminds me about some mathematicians who analyses stock prize curves. They make predictions for the stock prizes exclusively based on characteristic trends in historical prize curves. This method works surprisingly well, but obviously it would be much better to investigate the underlying reasons for the historical changes instead.

 

[BasketCase]

It isn’t very helpful to point out that the global temperature have periodically changed relatively regularly over a very long period of time unless you can identify what caused the changes.

On the contrary--anything that changes regularly over the long term is caused by something that itself has a regular pattern over the long term.

Here's a global warming pattern that is known to be extremely regular: the seasons! Every part of the entire planet except the poles experiences strong cooling followed by strong warming EVERY year. This is caused by the planet's orbit and its axial tilt.

There are many things geological and even stellar and nature which (might) have a strong influence on our planet's environment.

 

[carlosMM]

On the contrary--anything that changes regularly over the long term is caused by something that itself has a regular pattern over the long term.

Not necessarily - and as climate changed NON-cyclic except for a few known reasons (Milakovic comes to mind), and the recent change is NOT in tune with these cycles, pikachu is correct and it is NOT helpful.

Here's a global warming pattern that is known to be extremely regular: the seasons! Every part of the entire planet except the poles experiences strong cooling followed by strong warming EVERY year. This is caused by the planet's orbit and its axial tilt.

carefull - global warming is NOT the REGIONAL annual temp increase.
Also, this does in NO WAY explaina GLOBAL warming

There are many things geological and even stellar and nature which (might) have a strong influence on our planet's environment.

And we know most - none explians the recent warming

 

[Gothmog]

gene90 wrote

It's obvious that this debate is winding down but you haven't produced any sort of meaningful correlation between CO2 concentration and temperature.

Well if you don’t think that the W/M2 forcings driving climate are meaningful then there isn’t much anyone can do to convince you. That is the science behind climate change, and it is very strong.

Truth is an illusion. If you don’t think so then I don’t know what to say. Science is about predictive models, not the same thing as truth. But that’s philosophy and metaphysics, something that you might investigate. It may come in handy as a professional scientist. May I suggest ‘The logic of scientific discovery’ by Karl R. Popper.

CO2 has significantly increased the energy absorbed and retained by the earth system. That is an experimentally verifiable fact.

If there is no statisical link between temperature and CO2, then there is no reason to believe that CO2 emission will cause a rise in temperature. Therefore, GW is invalid.

Gah, I guess you really aren’t following what I’ve been posting. Don’t want to talk about forcings eh?

I’ve posted many way’s in which the science behind climate change are validated. It is in no way pseudoscience. Oh, and I notice that you’ve thrown your ‘solar’ hypothesis for recent warming by the wayside. Along with your sun spot plot… Good choice.

CO2 concentration lags behind temperature

This is well known, and is well explained by current theories of climate change. CO2 is an amplifier of the well known Milankovitch cycles, and not the only one. This is one way in which ‘feedbacks’ are investigated (and validated) on long time scales.

This is exactly why talking about forcings in energy per unit area is so important. I know it is a bit more technical than waving your hands about and saying ‘the earth has always experienced changes in climate’, but that’s science. Climate is not simple, but neither is it unexplainable.

Edit: Oh, and I read a nice piece of work by the Japanese over the weekend. They have the best climate model in the world, and the fastest dedicated computer to run it on (actually #3 in the world but the fastest on which climate work is done) the Earth Simulator they call it. The model is 10 km resolution and can actually resolve hurricanes, that is a first. This is the progenitor of future weather prediction models (which as gene90 pointed out are basically climate models run at high resolution on short time scales), to do much better than we currently do they will have to be global. Spatial resolution is a big problem in climate models (it's tough when you can't resolve even a large storm much less a cloud).

 

[Pikachu]

Oh, I almost forgot the discussion about power plants and birds!

Hey Pikachu.

All you did in response to my attack on renewable energy was point out that it supposedly doesn't kill quite as many birds as it is reputed to.

So, uh, why does the Audubon Society want a moritorium on all new windfarms in flyways?

Of course the Audubon Society doesn’t want coal plants located in flyways. Coal plants are very dangerous to birds if they are poorly located. It is the job of the Audubon Society to try to make the people who plan to build new coal plants to take such concerns into consideration before they decide where to locate the new coal plants. But that doesn’t mean that the Audubon Society is completely against coal power. I don’t think they have any problems with coal plants that are carefully located to minimize the risk of bird deaths. After all their members need electricity, and like a wise man once said: “When you turn on your lights you kill something, no matter what the source of electricity”

 

[10Seven]

This section here should be good for illustrating my biggest concern about how the subject is being debated...

For a little extra testimony to support this view of the debate, check out that latest thread where some unfortunate scientist published a paper saying Intelligent Design might have been how life on Earth got started. That guy is in danger for his career. That's what happens when you break ranks these days.

This seems a good point, but my impression is that this could failry have said to be the case at the 'beginning' of the global warming argument - only the bias went the other way.

 

[gene90]

Perhaps you could have taken the opportunity to actually read even the very quote you made in which I suggest extremity.

You said "extreme" but "possible". I take exception to it being "possible". I even take exception to it being listed as a global warming model. I don't believe in any of the GW models, but listing that one does the others a disservice, in my opinion. Also, I should point out that I have heard Bell say that in his book, the events are natural. It was the movie version that involved anthropogenic global warming and evil Republican presidents. Bell believes that his 'global superstorms' are a periodic natural occurence, though that doesn't mean he thinks CO2 emission is a good idea. He tries to make the case that they have occured in the past, and uses frozen mammoths (part of the usual pseudoscientific fare at least since Velikovsky).

If we disregard the backgrounds of the authors, the biggest problem I have with The Day After Tomorrow (the movie) version is that the storms are actually impossible. As I said before, you cannot just drag cold air down from the stratosphere without warming it. So, I hold that the 'superstorm' is 'not possible' in addition to 'extreme'.

 

[gene90]

gene90 wrote Well if you don’t think that the W/M2 forcings driving climate are meaningful then there isn’t much anyone can do to convince you. That is the science behind climate change, and it is very strong.

That's great and all, Gothmog, but it doesn't actually mean anything until you can prove statistically that (1) Earth is getting warmer and (2) CO2 concentration is going up. You are always talking about models, which are great as far as models go, but until you can make that connection with the real world, GW is going to be unsubstantiated. By the way "Global Warming" means that the Earth's average temperature is getting warmer, as a consequence of greenhouse gas emission. Evidence of increased insolation is a step in the right direction, but not warming.

Now, I have asked Scuffer to show us a statistical correlation, and Scuffer said that that is impossible, because of solar variability, volcanism, etc. Do you realize the implications of this? If greenhouse warming is so weak that you can't statistically detect it, then this is evidence that we shouldn't be so concerned about it in the future.

And, incidentally, if it's significant enough to detect via satellite, I'm having some serious difficulty believing that you don't have the data to prove the correlation.

Truth is an illusion. If you don’t think so then I don’t know what to say. Science is about predictive models, not the same thing as truth.

No, what you are trying to say is that scientific knowledge is tentative and subject to future revision. This is not the same as saying that 'truth is an illusion'. Either the climate is warming or not. If it is, then either it is because of greenhouse gas emission, or it isn't. If there is no truth, all of science is irrelevant.

I’ve posted many way’s in which the science behind climate change are validated. It is in no way pseudoscience.

It is if you can't test it in the real world. And guess what?

The model is 10 km resolution and can actually resolve hurricanes, that is a first.

Which would be useful if we had global network of mesoscale observations.

Spatial resolution is a big problem in climate models (it's tough when you can't resolve even a large storm much less a cloud).

Darn right it is.

 

[gene90]

And we know most - none explians the recent warming

No, what you really mean is that your models don't simulate global warming without anthropogenic input. This is not the same as stating that the recent warming is unexplainable. And, once again, this current warming looks a lot like those of the past.

 

[gene90]

Some people here seems very interested in analyzing historical temperature graphs without any efforts to identify what mechanisms that caused the past temperature changes. Apparently the changes magically just appeared without any reasons. Nature truly works in mysterious ways!

I'm not sure what to think about the above. It doesn't make much sense. I posted graphs that show similar warmings to those of today. Now, I have to explain all of them?

It isn’t very helpful to point out that the global temperature have periodically changed relatively regularly over a very long period of time unless you can identify what caused the changes.

But it is relevant to the debate. If the current warming looks like those of the past, then there is no reason to be alarmed about GW or blame it on industry.

Of course scientists have identified what caused many of the past changes

No, they have gotten similar results in their models. This is not the same as saying that the cause of the changes have been identified. For the models to be correct, it is true that they must be consistent with historical climate change, but simularity to historical climate change is not in itself proof of a model. There are many different ways to produce one result.

As I said before, the Ptolemaic (Geocentric) view of the Solar System produced useful predictions of planetary position, to within one degree of accuracy. But the fact that it made true predictions and modeled historical data does not mean that the Earth is the center of the Solar System! And it is disturbing to me that there are good scientists who are apparently confused by this concept! Carlos, especially, does not understand the difference.

Science is not really about observations, but about understanding the reasons why what we observe happens.

Unfortunately, we are talking about "science" WITHOUT observations...why the refusal for my statistical tests?


I predict that, sooner or later, observation is going to catch up with the models, and heads will roll.

 

[gene90]

There's a strong incentive for people who think "global warming might not be human-caused" or "global warming is definitely not human-caused" to keep their mouths shut.

There is a reason why I try to maintain a certain degree of anonymity on this board.

For a little extra testimony to support this view of the debate, check out that latest thread where some unfortunate scientist published a paper saying Intelligent Design might have been how life on Earth got started. That guy is in danger for his career. That's what happens when you break ranks these days.

I'm not a big fan of ID as a scientific theory (I have no problem with it is a belief) but the fallout from that paper was nothing for science to be proud of. Personally, if I were to write a GW paper, I would most likely be very subtle in the way I treated the theory. Not openly as I am here.