Global Warming

[carlosMM]

EDIT: What about the historical record of global warming that predates industry?

grrrrrrrrr, I wish Prof. Mosbrugger had more time now - please DO remind me to find that paper where anthropogenetic climate change from the time of the neolithic revolution on is proven.

Yes, you read correct: the advent of agriculture and spread of it (especially rice paddies) had a pronounced influence on global climate, essentially warming by 1° on average!

The trouble is that this is not my field of study and so I can't even access the databases in which to searhc for it I posted a link and the full citation here on CFC a while ago, like 5 months, but as search is off.....

 

[BasketCase]

Humans evidently are causing an increase in the greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. Fundamental physical relations give directly that this must trap more energy inside Earth and therefore give climate changes. This phenomenon is plain physics and leaves no room for interpretation. It simply must happen.

Eminently true. BUT--how much additional energy is being trapped by 100 additional parts per million of CO2, how much will the planet warm up as a result, and how long is the waiting time for that trapped energy to warm up the planet?

A more specific case: if 10 more parts per million of CO2 is added to Earth's atmosphere (all other factors remaining unchanged), how much warmer will the planet get? And how soon will that happen? I'll bet you can't find the answer anywhere on the web. I can't. I did a lot of surfing for infrared absorption properties of CO2 in the last few days, and I only found that CO2 is a fairly strong absorber in four infrared frequency bands--fairly narrow ones. CO2 actually doesn't absorb a lot of infrared, most frequencies pass right through without being touched.

Since the planet hasn't seen a huge temperature spike consistent with the charts (100 more ppm of CO2 must cause an increase of 4-6 degrees C for the graphs to correlate!), we must conclude that either CO2 has a long wait time before producing an increase, or the increase it produces will be miniscule.

 

[carlosMM]

Since the planet hasn't seen a huge temperature spike consistent with the charts (100 more ppm of CO2 must cause an increase of 4-6 degrees C for the graphs to correlate!), we must conclude that either CO2 has a long wait time before producing an increase, or the increase it produces will be miniscule.

False - as usual you present only those possible solutions that fit your adenga. As sual, you leave out all others, however much more probable they are.

Let me give you just one:

Different conditions with regard to OTHER factors.


Now, I am getting a bit tired of your constant reduction of climate influencing factors to CO2 alone - especially as this thread has proven a trillion times that this is untrue. It'd be great if you'd finally acknowledge that there are other factors, not just say so then rush off ignoring them again.

 

[Dragonlord]

And I feel that it is irresponsible to damage the economy with restrictions based upon the concept that humans may or may not be influencing climate change, especially when those changes are probably going to happen anyway.

This is the point where your otherwise well-reasoned objections break down. You decry the media, which admittedly often sensationalize environmental concerns, but swallow uncritically the point of view (I'm tempted to say propaganda) of the other side.

You are obviously quite well-informed on the scientific side of the controversy (though Gothmog has the upper hand IMHO , but less so on the economic issues.

As an economist myself, I can assert with some confidence that it is not necessarily so, that reducing emissions must damage the economy. There is no necessity of reducing our standard of living drastically, unemployment going up and whatever other economic horror scenarios are routinely bruited about by opponents of the Kyoto accord.

There are many ways of reducing emissions, ranging from increasing regenerative energy production capacities to increasing efficiency in energy use and modernizing existing energy production facilities.

It needs some rearranging of priorities and economic incentives, yes, but this doesn't necessarily mean a reduction in living standards. In fact, many, even most, of the possible measures make good economic sense as well as ecological sense: an inefficient power plant, for instance, is not only emitting too much, it's also wasting fuel. Same for a gas-guzzling car,BTW.

Also, when you invest in energy-efficient technologies, you remain at the forefront of technology and remain globally competitive.

It's all in HOW you reduce emissions - there are great potentials WITHOUT ruining the economy or lowering your standard of living.

 

[bigfatron]

But it is bad for the economy. To try to impose economic restrictions like Kyoto based on flimsy evidence is reckless and irresponsible.

You keep saying this, ignoring my previous comment in this thread - provide some evidence that energy efficeincy/emission reduction is bad for the economy.

In those cases where it has been tried there has been little or no identifiable impact on economic growth - I've cited the case of one major industrialised nation to make it easy for you to start your analysis - so it is incumbent on you to demonstrate this rather than just asserting it.

 

[Pikachu]

Possibly. I'd like to look up the earlier papers that originally detailed the greenhouse effect. Maybe you can help by giving cites?

If you are interested in the earliest papers on the greenhouse effect you could look up a paper called “On Radiation Through the Earth's Atmosphere” by John Tyndall. It was published in 1863 in The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science number 4 page 200-207. This paper does not consider human contributions though. The first paper that claimed that human activities will increase the greenhouse effect was "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air Upon the Temperature of the Ground" by Svante Arrhenius. It was published in 1896 in The London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science number 5 page 237-276. I know that P.C. Chamberlain did the same claim about the same time, but I have not been able to identify his publication.

No, no, not necessarily. I mean to imply that we don't know.

Are you saying that since we cannot know for sure that something does not cancels out the changes we are making, we should simply ignore the possibility that our changes will not be cancelled out?

It's not good to dump billions of tons of CO2 into the environment without knowing the results. I don't want to imply that it is. But that is what drives our way of life. And it's not good to sign multi-billion-dollar international treaties based upon shaky science either. If you want to do that, I would expect you to know exactly what is happening.

Why do you keep using the cost of correcting the problem as an argument? I think the discussion about how real the problem is should be independent from how much it would cost to fix it. I find it strange that you accuse the vast majority of the scientists in the field of being biased while you yourself use the cost of fixing the problem as an argument to why the problem doesn’t exist.

Of course, climate changes are inevitable regardless of whether or not there were people here.

Would the feedback that is supposed to cancel out the human interruption happen even if there were no people here? In that case the human interruption will make a difference compared to if it had not occurred, right? Could you please make up your mind? I can only see two scenarios here: Either the human interruption will cause a change directly, or it will cause a change in some feedback mechanisms that cancels out the effect. If the feedback mechanisms themselves are climate changes, then human activities will cause climate change in both scenarios, or am I misunderstanding something?

The graph from Science shows a direct correlation between solar output and temperature increase, which leaves little room for anthropogenic CO2.

Yeah right!

Our climate is not that simple! Many factors affect the climate. Sometimes different effects cancel out each other. This could make it appear that one factor alone directly controls the climate. At other times it could be some other factors that cancel out each other so the climate appears to be directly controlled by a different factor. It is obviously room for many different factors to have a huge effect on our climate. Not all the factors will always draw in the same direction, though.

 

[Shaihulud]

I knew someone would use the sun to account for the greenhouse warming. Introducing additional input into the system will generate disorder. I know that we don't know all the parameters and loops(sryy this argument is above my head ) that influences global temperatures. What I do know is that throwing in additional input into the system like CO2 generates disorder, chaos, unpredictability. gene90 has already admitted this is bad but unworthy of the economic fallout generated.

 

[Gothmog]

gene90 wrote

I disagree with you on the science, but admit that it isn't cut-and-dry.

Again I ask, what part of the science do you disagree with?
Are you disputing that humans have significantly changed the energy balance of the earth system? That we have significantly changed the aerosol loading and distribution?
Are you just quibbling about the details? What?

Gerhard, Lee. Climate Change: Conflict of Observational Science, Theory, and Politics. AAPG Bulletin. Volume 88. Number 9. September, 2004. pp. 1121-1220.

In the above, the case is explicitly made for current warming to be due to solar forcing. See figure 3 on page 1216.

This is not a peer reviewed journal, as such it must be looked at as basically a magazine (i.e. it reflects the opinions of the editor). Also, as such, it is not archived in scientific databases so I cannot access it.

If you looked at the references I provided you will note that the influence of the sun is explicitly examined. These were peer reviewed journals, and ones with high ISI rankings. The sun is a forcing, and its variance must be included in long term climate models, but it just has not changed enough lately to be a major factor in recent climate. We have satellites that measure solar output in various bands, there are also various paleoclimatological databases.

Basketcase wrote

Eminently true. BUT--how much additional energy is being trapped by 100 additional parts per million of CO2, how much will the planet warm up as a result, and how long is the waiting time for that trapped energy to warm up the planet?

Now you are getting to the important questions. We know how much additional energy is being trapped, but only with respect to an unchanging atmosphere. It is on the order of a percent.

How much will the planet warm? This is somewhat unclear, it depends on the time scale you refer to and what feedbacks you admit. Best current models suggest that a level of 400 ppm will lead to about 2 degrees (C) warming. This amount of warming is expected to have large effects on natural ecosystems, and lead to the break up of the West Antartic ice sheet. At 550 ppm, about 3 degrees warming is expected, and a high probability of disruption of the oceanic thermohaline circulation.

How long? Again, depends on feedbacks, but best estimates suggest about 70 years for the affects to be fully realized. I saw a talk on this topic recently, and there will be some publications coming out during 2005. But it isn't really that important, what is more important is what the additional energy does to the earth system. As in my examples above of ice sheets and thermohaline circulation. This is where the greatest uncertainty exists.

One interesting thing is that we are entering a level of tropospheric opacity never seen in paleoclimatological records, never. Also, because we are already in a warm period (for the last half million years anyway), another few degrees warming and we are again in uncharted territory.

 

[BasketCase]

Actually, Goth, science is vague to the point where they have no idea:

We're Gonna Get Cooked!!!

WASHINGTON, DC, January 28, 2005 (ENS) - Human emissions of greenhouse gases could cause global
temperatures to rise some 11 degrees Celsius (20 degrees Fahrenheit) by century's end, according to results
from the world's largest climate prediction experiment.

The range of temperature increase spanned two to 11 degrees Celsius (3.6 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit)

Plus ya got that chart by gene90 that shows way back in Earth's early history, when CO2 concentration was at THOUSANDS of parts per million, global average temperature was unaffected.

 

[carlosMM]

Actually, Goth, science is vague to the point where they have no idea:

We're Gonna Get Cooked!!!



Plus ya got that chart by gene90 that shows way back in Earth's early history, when CO2 concentration was at THOUSANDS of parts per million, global average temperature was unaffected.

I am by now tempted to leave it at that, but for the benefit of all who come to the thread now I will repeat an earlier post of mine:

False - as usual you present only those possible solutions that fit your adenga. As sual, you leave out all others, however much more probable they are.

Let me give you just one:

Different conditions with regard to OTHER factors.
Now, I am getting a bit tired of your constant reduction of climate influencing factors to CO2 alone - especially as this thread has proven a trillion times that this is untrue. It'd be great if you'd finally acknowledge that there are other factors, not just say so then rush off ignoring them again.

@ Basket again - your style of debate is a bit immature: Repeating a position that has been shown wrong repeatedly and thinking you'll get by with it!

 

[Gothmog]

Actually, Goth, science is vague to the point where they have no idea:

[sarcasm] Yeah, no idea. That's exactly what the article you linked to said. [/sarcasm]

The range of values is linked exactly to the different factors that I mention in my post. What feedbacks and at what timescales are included (they tested a number), also what cloud model they are using. The work sited ran simulations for a wide range of different CO2 increases, and rates thereof, as well as methane and N2O. Finally, while they did run a huge number of different simulations their model is not the best. That's one of the trade offs this project had to make.

Paleoclimatological records from hundreds of millions of years ago are still quite controversial. That's a whole other debate. I was referring to time scales where we do have reasonably good data, for multiple parameters, as well as independent ways of obtaining them. That is about the last half million years.

I don't know of anyone claiming to have enough data about hundreds of millions of years ago to try and run a climate simulation on that time period. The earth was very different then, in ways that we don't understand. It does seem that CO2 levels were very high about a hundred million years ago, but what do we know about the biosphere? weathering? ocean circulation? aerosols? even atmospheric circulation and vertical stratification? The answer: very little.

Again, I can't tell what your argument is.

You don't seem to dispute any of the core science involved; you don't seem to be saying that there won’t be a climate response to anthropogenic forcings. But then you say that climate science is 'full of holes' without giving any reasons why, or explaining what these holes might be.

You seem to understand that CO2 is not the only factor involved, but then you go ahead and make arguments that assume it is. You seem to be behaving like a bit of a fanatic on this issue.

 

[Erik Mesoy]

What authority do you want on Global Warming?

(offhand: )
Wikipedia?
The Economist?

There's a large majority of serious scientists saying "this is real", just like there is for evolution.

 

[Dragonlord]

Actually, Goth, science is vague to the point where they have no idea:

We're Gonna Get Cooked!!!



Plus ya got that chart by gene90 that shows way back in Earth's early history, when CO2 concentration was at THOUSANDS of parts per million, global average temperature was unaffected.

BasketCase, you're behaving literally like your nick - using that site for a flippant remark like yours is beyond belief! What they are saying is they ran a wide range of different models and the LEAST temperature change was 2 degrees.
Not one single model out of some 200 predicted sinking or stable temperatures, as you are constantly postulating.
Those 2 degrees MINIMUM are also cited as the borderline temperature change before drastic changes set in.
Only a basketcase could find this funny....

 

[BasketCase]

It does seem that CO2 levels were very high about a hundred million years ago, but what do we know about the biosphere? weathering? ocean circulation? aerosols? even atmospheric circulation and vertical stratification? The answer: very little.

Again, I can't tell what your argument is.

You summed it up with that first paragraph above. What do we know about all the "other" factors?? We know very little about how they all interact. WHICH IS WHY SIMULATIONS THAT PRODUCE A VARIATION OF 9 DEGREES C ARE REALLY, REALLY SUSPICIOUS.

That's why I asked what ten additional parts per million of CO2 would do, IF ALL OTHER FACTORS REMAINED EQUAL. The only way you can know what CO2 will do to the planet is if you study it IN ISOLATION so that no other factors mess up your studies. That's why I didn't ask for Gothmog to just grab some stats off a random web site for 400 ppm and 550 ppm; those were just more same old same old. I asked for the specific properties of CO2 by itself.

Here is precisely what must be posted if you want me to believe global warming is a threat: show how much energy CO2 absorbs per unit volume at 1 atmosphere of pressure; show how much of that energy is converted into heat, and show how much the Earth will warm up if that much energy is added to the biosphere.

Until that is posted, I'm not going to believe anything anybody in here types. Right now I'm convinced I'm arguing with a bunch of Global Warming bible thumpers, and if I don't see some real science, I'm staying that way.

Edit: I should probably mention--Carlos, if you're wondering why I haven't answered any of the various retorts which I'm pretty sure you posted recently, it's because you're on my ignore list and you're going to stay there permanently.

 

[Gothmog]

I am not a Global Warming bible thumper, I told you from the very beginning (I believe it was in another thread) that no one knows exactly what will happen to our climate.

Actually, that's a big part of the problem - a few degrees of warming wouldn't necessarily be bad in isolation (the Chinese government made a similar argument in their official statement on the matter a few years ago).

The thing is that the science behind something significant happening is very strong. I'll say it again: we are significantly changing the energy balance of the earth system, and not just with CO2.

I've gone over a lot of the 'real' science.

We do know a lot about the 'other' factors, and are learning more every day. Simulations have improved enormously in the last decade. They will continue to improve. A major hold back is simply computing power, we know a lot about the physics of cloud nucleation for example, but typical climate models cannot even resolve a huge storm, much less an individual cloud.

I did not grab stats off a random web site, I was summarizing current knowledge in the climate community.

I already stated that the additional energy trapped is about 1%. If all other factors remained equal the warming from a 100 ppm increase in CO2 is about 0.25 degrees. That is how much would be expressed as heat. The energy absorbed is tough to answer because we are talking about a dynamic equilibrium (as I described in an earlier post).

As I have said a number of times, no one knows how much the earth will warm up if that much heat energy is added to the biosphere. That is exactly what climate models try to estimate, and again time scales make a big difference.

Obviously any additional tropospheric heat will be partially absorbed by the ocean. The amount depending sensitively on oceanic circulation (for which there are various important time scales). Additional oceanic heat will necessarily be expressed as additional evaporation (again depending on circulation). There is no way to 'isolate' the question as you would like.

But still you ignore the basic form of my question. You say climate science is 'full of holes' but seem totally unwilling to back that statement up with anything more than handwaving arguments about paleoclimatological data.

 

[BasketCase]

The reason I'm being so obstinate about proving the case on CO2 is this: every time I go "look at this here chart, see? CO2 and temperature don't match up", some other guy goes "yeah, that's because there are other factors involved". Well, then, how do you know CO2 is cooking the planet? You don't. The same factors that mess up the temperature/CO2 charts are gonna mess up the measurements of what effect CO2 is having.

At this point, somebody always goes "look, we know CO2 absorbs heat, so how much is unimportant--we know CO2 is warming the planet". Not good enough. We need to know which greenhouse gases are the BIG players, and a big chunk of the anti-global-warming scientific community says CO2 is a small-time operator. The consensus Gothmog and others point out is a chimera. It is not real. There is no solid consensus in the scientific community about what will happen.

@Gothmog: for an answer to that last question, read back through the thread. I've posted a lot more than handwaving blabbity blah in here.

 

[Pikachu]

There is no solid consensus in the scientific community about what will happen.

That is true! Nobody really have a clue about what will happen. There is however a complete consensus in the scientific community that something will change. We just have to hope that the inevitable change will not be disastrous, I guess.

 

[BasketCase]

It might be disastrous. Or it might not even be noticeable.

Remember gene90's chart showing way back when the planet's atmosphere was 5000 parts per million of CO2, instead of 380 today? Remember my charts for the last half a million years, where CO2 levels and temperature levels went their own separate ways in so many different places?

If CO2 is a major player in the environmental ball game, then temperature must at least turn and take notice whenever CO2 has a spike or a dip.

What actually happened in this thread was this: whenever I pointed out a place where the two didn't match up, somebody said "various other factors" blabbity blah. Mysteriously, every single time CO2 and temperature fail to correlate, it's seems to be for this reason (although I must point out that nobody knows what those other factors are.....) If those "various other factors" are keeping temperature spikes in check so often.....then a pattern begins to emerge.....

So, in my list of questions that need to be answered on the subject, I left one out: if "other factors" do NOT remain equal and high CO2 levels introduce extra heat to Earth's environmental system, how will the system respond as a whole? Nature may counterbalance human meddling so effectively that we see no appreciable increase in temperatures at all.

In the end, unless the planet's temerature jumps by at least another 3 degrees C or so (something the planet has never done on its own, and would therefore be almost certainly human-caused), we will never know if the vagaries of the environment were caused by humans or just by nature itself.

 

[Pikachu]

It might be disastrous. Or it might not even be noticeable.

Yes, it's an interesting gamble! Let’s cross our fingers and hope for the best

 

[carlosMM]

The reason I'm being so obstinate about proving the case on CO2 is this: every time I go "look at this here chart, see? CO2 and temperature don't match up", some other guy goes "yeah, that's because there are other factors involved". Well, then, how do you know CO2 is cooking the planet? You don't. The same factors that mess up the temperature/CO2 charts are gonna mess up the measurements of what effect CO2 is having.

well, then your logic is just as flawed as that of the scumbag 'experts' who go into courts and say 'not all smokers get lung cancer so there's no reason to sa smoking causes lung cancer'.

We know that CO2 has a massive influnece, warming the athmosphere. Many of the cases where other factors are involved to a signoificant extent are all well explained. Iin each of these, more CO2 means more heat in the athmosphere.
Also, for many of the other factors (i.e. methane, sea/land distribution etc.) we can tell very well that they will not have a significant influence this time.

So what remains?

We massively influence several factors, CO2 being one, methane another (and if you check the beginning of the thread it wasn't CO2 alone we discussed). All factors we can influence we influence in the same direction. Many of the meditatiing factors are not active (where are the big CO2-sink forests in swamps like in the Mississippian?).

And still you say 'ah, heck, we don't know exatcly so we shouldn't worry'?????