Global Warming

[carlosMM]

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.

uh, gene, are you really doubting this?

then scroll back a few pages and check the graphs.......


I mean, basically, you do AGAIN what I so detest about the 'adamant deniers': you discuss and discuss, seemingly accept facts - and whenever you get hit with a good argument you suddenly drop back to starting point and deny facts there. So, round we go again, and you get to repeat your same arguments......







Please, do answer my posts and do tell us:

have you read the Ruddiman (2003) paper?
have you read the following references (cited in it):

Blunier, T., Chappellaz, J., Schwander, J., Stauffer, J., and Raynaud, D.: 1995, ‘Variations in Atmospheric Methane Concentration during the Holocene Epoch’, Nature 374, 46.
Brook, E. J., Harder, S., Severinghaus, J., Steig, E., and Sucker, C. M.: 2000, ‘On the Origin and Timing of Rapid Changes in Atmospheric Methane during the Last Glacial Period’, Global Biogeochem. Cycles 14, 559.
Chappellaz, J., Barnola, J.-M., Raynaud, D., Korotkevitch, Y. S., and Lorius, C.: 1990, ‘Atmospheric CH4 Record over the Last Climatic Cycle Revealed by the Vostok Ice Core’, Nature 345, 127.
Crutzen, P. I. and Stoermer, E. F.: 2000, ‘The “Anthropocene” ’, IGBP Newsletter 41, 12.
Etheridge, D. M., Steele, I. P., Langenfields, R. L., Francey, R. J., Barnola, J.-M., and Morgan, V. I.: 1996, ‘Natural and Anthropogenic Changes in Atmospheric CO2 over the Last 1000 Years from Air in Antarctic Ice and Firn’, J. Geophys. Res. 101, 4115.
Imbrie, J. et al.: 1984, ‘The Orbital Theory of Pleistocene Climate: Support from a Revised Chronology of the Marine δ18O Record’, in Berger, A. L. et al. (eds.), Milankovitch and Climate, Part I, D. Reidel Publ., 269 pp.
Kutzbach, J. E.: 1981, ‘Monsoon Climate of the Early Holocene: Climate Experiment with Earth’s Orbital Parameters for 9000 Years Ago’, Science 214, 59.
Milankovitch, M. M.: 1941, Canon of Insolation and the Ice-Age Problem, Beograd: Koniglich Serbische Akademie. [English translation by the Israel program for Scientific Translations]. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, and National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Ruddiman, W. F.: 2003, ‘Insolation, Ice Sheets and Greenhouse Gases’, Quat. Sci. Rev. 22, 1597.
Ruddiman, W. F. and Raymo, M. E.: 2003, ‘A Methane-Based Time Scale for Vostok Ice: Climatic Implications’, Quat. Sci. Rev. 22, 141.
Zolitschka, B., Behre, K.-E., and Schneider, J.: 2003, ‘Humans and Climatic Impact on the Environment as Derived from Colluvial, Fluvial, and Lacustrine Archives – Examples from the BronzeAge to the Migration Period, Germany’, Quat. Sci. Rev. 22, 81.


These are but a handful of papers which you SHOULD check out before you come telling us that in essence you doubt it is getting warmer and CO2 levels are up. Again, you ignore methane, and instead of trying to check the very basic facts (get a few ice-core papers and check the graphs) about CO2 levels and (get a few paper about oxygen isotopy and check them out) about temps you wave your hand now and simply demand we do YOUR job!




we provided the sources, though, knowing your field of study, I'd say you should actually be able to find them yourself. Go check them instead of relying on conspiracy nut stuff like 'there is reason to remain anonymous' and blantantly denying everything just out of spite!

 

[carlosMM]

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.

semantics!

Nobody has in any way been able to explain the recent warming without human influence. Care to prove this wrong?

 

[carlosMM]

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?

no, @ you!

You post graphs but fail to even look up what's going on!

Hello? One the one hand you say you doubt all the research, on the other hand you try to use said research to disprove part of it, but fail to give sources.....

past temp spikes are usually easily explained, by models, too. If you want to show that todays spike is SIMILAR, then do so: read up on the past mechanisms and explain how they cause this spike today.

otherwise don't bring past spikes up - there pure EXISTENCE doesn#t prove anything you are implying!

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.

Well, buddy, it looks DIFFERENT - e.g. by totally going AGAINST the Milakovic cycles. Oops!



I still find it unbelievable that you haven't asked me to mail you the Ruddiman PDF! Or that you post that you have DLed it or found a hard copy @ the lib and READ it!

 

[carlosMM]

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



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.

Consipracy nuts @ work! let me quote Prof. Mosbrugger (head of the DFG-sponsored special research area 'Klimagekoppelte Prozesse' SFB 251 (IIRC)) to you:

'If you can prove it wrong, do so!
Otherwise stop whining and get down to research!'


Everyone would be quite happy if fast cars and warm heating do NOT cause a rapid climate change. Most of all the big oil-dependent companies. They'd (and have) pay heavily for proof. So this 'fighting against the tide' stuff is nonsense!

 

[Pikachu]

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?

You don’t have to explain anything, but if you want to play scientist, linking cause and effect is what science is about. Until you indicate what caused the historical events, you have not scientifically explained anything at all.

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.

Huh? That seems like a big leap in logic. Looks is not everything! Or maybe it is?

What if the past changes were caused by major natural releases of greenhouse gasses? We know that the current GHG releases are not natural! I am not saying that natural GHG releases were the cause of the past warmings, but your logic is flawed unless you can rule out that possibility.

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.

Maybe you should take a look at which way the experts use to produce their results then?

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.

If the earth is the center of our solar system or not is only a matter of definition. The geocentric view is no more wrong than the heliocentric view. All the equations to describe it with the sun in the center can easily be converted into a coordinate system where the Earth is in the center.

Of course the Ptolemaic model was mostly based on observations instead of the underlying physical phenomena, so it wasn’t as useful as the modern model, but that weakness had very little to do with their choice of coordinate system.

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

Why do you refuse to incorporate a few other important factors into the statistical test?

You can make statistical analyses between only CO2 and global temperature and find a correlation, but the correlation will not be very strong unless you also take a few other parameters into consideration.

 

[Gothmog]

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.

OK, playing dumb again I see and using strawmen as well. So now that we’ve removed much of the handwaving (though I expect you to return to it), you agree that the insulation has increased significantly due to anthropogenic activities – primarily greenhouse gasses. I’m sure you took Chem and Phys in college. What happens to a gas when it absorbs more radiation?

I’ve shown you the most recent work on the forcings currently driving climate. That is the satellite data presented in a way that people can understand – graphically. There’s satellites looking at the sun and at the earth in various wavelengths. Some tell us about clouds and their properties. There are ground based devices measuring incoming radiation, etc. etc. This is the data . It shows that greenhouse gasses have increased the amount of energy retained by the earth system.

Climate models take these forcings and try to predict how the earth system will respond at various time scales.

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.

Please, you obviously haven’t though very much about this sort of thing, so don’t tell me what I am trying to say. Truth is irrelevant to science, science is about predictive models. Start another thread if you want to discuss metaphysics. I suggest you think a bit first, and maybe read a book or two.

To do science you need a hypothesis that makes testable predictions, you have not presented one. Nor have you disproved the current hypothesis (that anthropogenically produced greenhouse gasses have significantly increased the amount of energy retained by the earth system AKA global warming)

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

Now you’re just being obstinate. I’ve given you many ways of testing and measuring it in the real world. You refuse to discuss them, or you just agree with them and then conveniently forget the meaning behind them.

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

??? are you saying that we don’t ???

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.

Do you really think this is how science works?

Why do you think this has anything to do with blaming anything on anyone?

Do you really think that there is no incentive for scientists to try and disprove the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis? If so then you have really brought your argument into the realm of a ‘conspiracy theory’.

I thought you wanted to discuss the science, but I guess not. The only scientific hypothesis you brought to the table (solar forcing) was quickly discarded and you are now left with nothing but rhetoric.

 

[gene90]

You don’t have to explain anything, but if you want to play scientist, linking cause and effect is what science is about. Until you indicate what caused the historical events, you have not scientifically explained anything at all.

And what you don't understand Pikachu, is that the cause of previous fluctuations in climate is irrelevant. What is relevant is what the cause wasn't: industrial CO2 emissions. What natural climate variability (or land use changes) actually caused the pre-industrial swings is irrelevant, and a red herring. And no, I'm not interested in speculating about what it was. It is a waste of my time and has no bearing on the actual argument. The argument being that climate has been warming along the same orders of magnitude before there was industrial CO2 emission. Therefore, there is no reason to automatically assume that the current warming is the result of CO2 emission.

What can I say, other that in being a "newbie" to this site, I am highly disappointed by the low level of comprehension a lot of you have of the argument...

What if the past changes were caused by major natural releases of greenhouse gasses?

Then it would have to be CH4 instead of CO2. And regulating CH4 emission is a completely different ballgame from regulating CO2!!

A few of our sources of methane are:

Hydroelectric power plants
Ruminating animals
Rice agriculture

International treaties to regulate CH4 would probably be hardest on second and third world nations in Asia instead of the US, and could cause us to give up hydroelectric power. Since hydro is something like 8% of the American power supply, this will require more coal or nuclear plants. In nations like Norway, which if memory serves me, get 25% of their power from hydro, the shift will be significantly harder. Also hit hard will be Brazil and China, homes of some of the largest hydro dams in the world. The Western US won't appreciate the dismantlement of dams like Hoover either, which is an essentially part of the power and water supply for cities like Las Vegas.

Of course, there is probably no need to regulate CH4 either. And if you look at the Vostok cores, you will see that temperature, CO2, and CH4 all tend to vary together. That would require that if CO2 and CH4 (both GHGs) are controlling temperature, there has to be some link between both gases so that they vary together in addition to controlling temperature. However, if temperature controls both CO2 and CH4, then only need one connection, giving this hypothesis greater parsimony than than the standard GW canon.
It also is more in line with the observations that CO2 lags behind temperature.

We know that the current GHG releases are not natural! I am not saying that natural GHG releases were the cause of the past warmings, but your logic is flawed unless you can rule out that possibility.

Actually, the paleoclimatological evidence is not that GHGs cause warming, but that warming causes increased GHG emission from natural sources. (For example, by decreasing the solubility of CO2 in the oceans).

Besides, you should know as well as anyone that CO2 concentrations are up past 300 ppm, and that this hasn't happened in the last 10,000 years. Therefore, logic would dictate that we should be much warmer than any previous time in the last 10,000 years, assuming GHGs cause global warming. In fact, the current time period is not particularly remarkable in terms of positive temperature anomaly. Which is, of course, more evidence against Global Warming.

If the earth is the center of our solar system or not is only a matter of definition.

Uh huh...

The geocentric view is no more wrong than the heliocentric view.

Uh huh...

All the equations to describe it with the sun in the center can easily be converted into a coordinate system where the Earth is in the center.

No, no, no!

Again you are confusing models with the real world! The geocentric view is invalid because we have direct observational evidence that the Sun is the center of the Solar System! And we have had this evidence for 400 years.

Just because you can force a geocentric model to work mathematically does not mean a geocentric model is 'equally correct' with the heliocentric model. The problem with the geocentric model is that it directly contradicts observational evidence (the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the phases of Venus).

Likewise, just because some of your GW models can produce output similar to historical climate trends does not automatically mean that the models make the correct assumptions. It just means that they have found one of a very large number of different ways to generate one result. That does not mean that climate in the real world got there the same way.

Why do you refuse to incorporate a few other important factors into the statistical test?

Because those "other factors" are poorly constrained. But go ahead and try if you like. You just need to admit that there are a lot of other variables that could mitigate, even cancel out, global warming.

but the correlation will not be very strong unless you also take a few other parameters into consideration.

That means that the CO2 imprint on the climate is not very significant.

 

[thestonesfan]

So, you guys got everything hashed out yet?

It really doesn't matter. We're due for another Ice Age relatively soon. Ice Ages go in 10-15,000 year spurts. It's been about 11,000 since the last one. The more global warming we cause, the longer we have until glaciers move down Times Square.

 

[gene90]

Hey Gothmog,

You can cut down on the arrogance. I can't swing a dead cat in the adjacent hallway without hitting a physicist. There are plenty of geologists and climate people upstairs. I'm not particularly impressed by, or interested in, your opinion on the philosophy of science.

If you want continued correspondence with me, you will behave.

And I have removed references to the 1991 paper, but I still am not convinced by your discrediting of it.

 

[carlosMM]

So, you guys got everything hashed out yet?

It really doesn't matter. We're due for another Ice Age relatively soon. Ice Ages go in 10-15,000 year spurts. It's been about 11,000 since the last one. The more global warming we cause, the longer we have until glaciers move down Times Square.

how about I send you the Ruddiman (2003) paper as a PDF - this would hsow you that we should already be in an ice age - but aren't! Actually, we are driving eath out of the cycle.....

 

[polymath]

Gene90 is missing out the evidence for global dimming as well. I won't rehash it here, except to say that for decades the amount of sun reaching the Earth's surface has been steadily decreasing. It's a solid and uncontestable fact. If not for this phenomenon, you'd know what global warming was really doing. Take your heads out of the sand.

http://www.globalissues.org/EnvIssues/GlobalWarming/globaldimming.asp

 

[carlosMM]

Because those "other factors" are poorly constrained. But go ahead and try if you like. You just need to admit that there are a lot of other variables that could mitigate, even cancel out, global warming.

nope, the big ones are all very well constrained.

That means that the CO2 imprint on the climate is not very significant.

untrue.

have you takena few statictis courses? Can you use SPSS or a similar tool? Then you would know what correlation and significance are....

 

[thestonesfan]

It's insignificant related to the tilt of the earth's axis.

 

[carlosMM]

Hey Gothmog,

You can cut down on the arrogance. I can't swing a dead cat in the adjacent hallway without hitting a physicist. There are plenty of geologists and climate people upstairs. I'm not particularly impressed by, or interested in, your opinion on the philosophy of science.

If you want continued correspondence with me, you will behave.

you will also behave if you want to be treated politely - you totally fail to bring sources or sound arguments, but demand you take you seriously - may I laugh?

please do respond to my last posts, asking you about what you have read of our sources provided....

 

[carlosMM]

It's insignificant related to the tilt of the earth's axis.

what is?

IF you would acutally read the paper I suggest you'd see, btw, that the Milankovic cycles are insignificant to the current global warming trend, not the other way round

Bascially: we totally **** the system up, way out of the 'normal' insolation cycles.

 

[gene90]

Gene90 is missing out the evidence for global dimming as well. I won't rehash it here, except to say that for decades the amount of sun reaching the Earth's surface has been steadily decreasing. It's a solid and uncontestable fact. If not for this phenomenon, you'd know what global warming was really doing. Take your heads out of the sand.

So less light is reaching the surface, and it's caused by global warming?

This is a perfect example of my point about how the Earth isn't a lab.

Thank you Polymath, for demonstrating my point.

The other major impact global dimming will have is on the complex computer simulations climate scientists use to understand what is happening now and to predict what will happen in the future. For them, global dimming is a real sticking point. "All of their models, all the physics and mathematics of solar radiation in the Earth's atmosphere can't explain what we're measuring at the Earth's surface," Stanhill says. Farquhar agrees: "This will drive what the modellers have to do now. They're going to have to account for this."

Emphasis mine.

It's also possible that global dimming is not entirely down to air pollution. "I don't think that aerosols by themselves would be able to produce this amount of global dimming," says Farquhar. Global warming itself might also be playing a role, he suggests, by perhaps forcing more water to be evaporated from the oceans and then blown onshore (although the evidence on land suggests otherwise). "If the greenhouse effect causes global dimming then that really changes the perspective," he says. In other words, while it keeps getting warmer it might keep getting darker. "I'm not saying it definitely is that, I'm just raising the question."

And that's exactly what I mean when I say that the Earth isn't a lab. Just because, in a lab, more CO2 means higher temperatures, does not mean that the same thing happens in Earth's climate, because the climate system is immensely more complicated than that.

So let's see. We have:

(1) Embarrassed modelers
(2) An unpredicted reduction in insolation, allegedly caused by "global warming"
(3) Gothmog's satellites apparently missed it.

Wonder what else his satellites missed? Or what he has neglected to mention.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1108853,00.html

The point is, nobody understands the climate. This is a great example.

 

[thetrooper]

@carlosMM: did you read the article I told you about?

 

[gene90]

you totally fail to bring sources or sound arguments

Shifting the burden of proof again, Carlos?

but demand you take you seriously - may I laugh?

Go ahead, I've laughed at you a lot recently, particularly the K/T CO2 spike.

please do respond to my last posts, asking you about what you have read of our sources provided....

I haven't had time to go chasing your sources. Hard as it may be for you to believe, I have certain academic obligations that take priority over arguing with you.

When were you going to do those stats?

 

[thestonesfan]

what is?

IF you would acutally read the paper I suggest you'd see, btw, that the Milankovic cycles are insignificant to the current global warming trend, not the other way round

Bascially: we totally **** the system up, way out of the 'normal' insolation cycles.

I can't be arsed. I'm still American, after all.

 

[thestonesfan]

Maybe I'll take a look at it.