The Scientific Global Warming Debate.

[skadistic]

Climate change deniers are denying climate change when when pointing out the climate changes to colder. So how does that work exactly? If some one points out that the climate is changing back to colder how is that denying climate change? Wouldn't a climate change denier be the one who says the climate isn't changing? Isn't dishonest to call one who says the climate is changing a climate change denier.

 

[ainwood]

No, You post a half truth about a scientific process you clearly do not understand and act like it implies a lack of scientific understanding of the issue.

Half truth? I posted a fact. It was you who drew the inference and claimed that it didn't mean what you perceived that I was implying by it.

And how do you know that I "clearly don't understand"? Please don't confuse "don't agree with" with "don't understand". I fully understand what the model assumptions are, I just don't think that the data supports the model. The model predicts warming in the continent, which isn't present in actual measurements. And if the data doesn't support the model, then perhaps, just perhaps the scientific understanding is lacking.

Put it this way: If the science was completely understood, would anyone still have to research it?

I respond with a full description of all the processes involved, clearly indicating that climatologists have a far fuller grasp of the situation than you and are better aware of the issues involved, up to and including the 'problem' with the theory you suggested. And climatologists overwhelmingly are concerned about Global Warming.

Yes, climatologists do have a far fuller grasp of the situation than me, but they also have a far fuller grasp than you, so don't be hypocritical about it.
I did not suggest a theory, so I'm not sure what 'problem' with the theory that you feel you have addressed.

Temperatures are dropping somewhat at the moment because we are in a La Nina oscillation of oceanic waters. It is noticeable that climate change deniers are taking the last years measurements as some kind of refutation of climate change when the mechanism explaining the current situation is known and understood. The deniers are being unscientific (giving preferential status to data points that appear to support their position) and dishonest (using a counter-intuitive but known and understood phenomenon to claim that the science is not understood).

Yes, la nina provides some cooling. How much of the 'hottest decade ever' rhetoric acknowledged that El Nino had an impact?

And besides, this is of little relevance to the point I made re the interior of the antarctic continent.

 

[brennan]

Half truth? I posted a fact. It was you who drew the inference and claimed that it didn't mean what you perceived that I was implying by it.

Is it a fact? Is it a fact attributable to La nina? Is it attributable to increased winds in the region? Is it not also a fact that the peripheral ice shelves are disappearing fast? It was you that posted one single fact as though it refuted the entire consensus on Global Warming. How about you tell us what significance you think it has.

To the extent that any controversy exists it is confined to the popular press and blogs. There is no similar controversy within the scientific community, as the small observed changes in Antarctica are consistent with the small changes predicted by climate models. Various global warming skeptics, most notably novelist Michael Crichton[4], have asserted that the Antarctic data contradict global warming. The few scientists who have commented on the supposed controversy state that there is no contradiction,[5] while the author of the paper whose work inspire Crichton's remarks has said that Crichton "misused" his results.[6]

Antarctica cooling controversy

Yes, la nina provides some cooling. How much of the 'hottest decade ever' rhetoric acknowledged that El Nino had an impact?

El nino is an oscillation that lasts a lot less than 10 years. You cannot seriously use it to explain a decade of temperatures. In fact there have been 4 El'nino's in that period. Conversely we are currently experiencing the third La nina in that time.

 

[ainwood]

Is it not also a fact that the peripheral ice shelves are disappearing fast?

 

[brennan]

Those are very pretty graphs. Tell us what you think they mean.

 

[skadistic]

The second one clearly shows that every year the sea ice shelf expands and contracts to roughly the same size every year for the last 30 years. The graph makes it look like the sea ice is going through its yearly seasonal ebb and flow with little impact on it from " global warming". Looks like 2 years ago was worse then this year and the smallest its been in that graph was in 1993. The first one is simply an zoom of this last season. And that up swing at the end shows that its not disappearing fast but actually getting bigger. Something I assume typically happens when the summer is over in the SH. Just like it has year after year after year. Up and down, Summer and winter. More ice and less ice. Cyclical.

 

[brennan]

Well I would say that if you analyse the trend in temperatures there's a slight warming, most pronounced over the Antarctic Penninsula, which is totally in line with the predictions of current modelling. Which is why the amount of Sea Ice (glaciers etc) is increasing slightly.

 

[ainwood]

Well, as those links I provided before show, the temperature is NOT 'slightly warming', except over the peninsula; over the rest ot the continent, it is getting colder.

You were initially telling us that the models predict sea ice to decrease, now you're saying that actually no, global warming causes sea ice to increase. Well, which is it?

And sea ice != glaciers.

 

[brennan]

And this is a problem why? It is, is it not, completely in line with what models predict? Models that predict a drastic warming over the whole continent in the next century?

When did I say sea ice was decreasing?

 

[ainwood]

When did I say sea ice was decreasing?

I really don't remember.

maybe I was mistaken?

Is it not also a fact that the peripheral ice shelves are disappearing fast?

I do not want to see the havoc caused by rising sea levels should the main Antarctic Ice Mass be threatened

satellite data from 1979-1999 has shown that areas of Antarctica where ice is increasing outnumbers areas of decreasing ice roughly 2:1.
More recent satellite data suggests that the total amount of ice in Antarctica has begun decreasing in the past few years
IOW both the gains and losses to the Antarctic Ice Mass increase. What's the net result? Currently the Ice Mass is thought to be decreasing.

 

[brennan]

Ainwood, if you don't have anything to say why are you here? You post graphs and quotes with no commentary. One might think your position is weak...

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Does this help?

http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11648

It is clear that the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts out from the mainland of Antarctica towards South America, has warmed significantly. The continent’s interior was thought to have warmed too, but in 2002 a new analysis of records from 1966 to 2000 concluded that it has cooled overall.

This study was promptly seized upon as proof that the world is not warming, but a single example of localised cooling proves no such thing, as the lead author of the 2002 study has tried to point out.

Climate models do not predict an evenly spread warming of the whole planet: changes in wind patterns and ocean currents can change the distribution of heat, leading to some parts warming much faster than average, while others cool at first. What matters is the overall picture, and global temperature maps show far more areas are warming than cooling.

 

[r_rolo1]

What I find funny about all of the GW threads I saw until now is that everyone talks about CO2, rarely someone talks about methane ( cows and paddies.... ) , and no one talks about water vapour, that is by far the biggest contribuitor to the GW. Another factor that is dismissed as well is the ammount of energy that goes to space, that is drastically dependant of the cloud cover % and from the type of clouds ( some are virtually IR transparent and some are coal black in therms of IR ). Not to mention the high altitude dust effects ( you know, coal and oil burning plants exausts ... ) ....



If we dismiss most of the things that are involved in the temperature changes on Earth, how the hell are we going to make accurate predictions? Most of the GW proponent models lack one of more crucial parts of the the known weather system ( not to mention some competely "externalities" ,like volcanos, that can easily have more influence than all human actions ( like the Pinatubo eruption showed clearly... and it was not a big one ,like Santorini or Tambore ) )and are only directed to a half dozen centuries at most ( most of them simply stop in 200 years: the computing time is expensive and the data starts to diverge badly due to the chaotic equations ). And all implicetily assume that humankind will be regularly producing CO2 ( maybe methane ) without changes and nothing more ...... like if humans were going to be stalled in time except for CO2 issues.

My conclusion? I simply don't know... data is too sparse and too self contradicting to make a solid statement. As far as I know we may be in the verge of a " A day after tommorow " kind of scenario or a "Venus-like Earth"..... and IMHO who says stronger sentences is lacking with the thruth.

 

[sourboy]

So based on Ainwood's graphs, one might say that the images of crumbling ice cliffs is nothing more than global warming propaganda, as we know that the ice melts, then reforms back to it's original entirety, as the yearly cycles continue, no?

 

[brennan]

What I find funny about all of the GW threads I saw until now is that everyone talks about CO2, rarely someone talks about...If we dismiss most of the things that are involved in the temperature changes on Earth, how the hell are we going to make accurate predictions? Most of the GW proponent models lack one of more crucial parts of the the known weather system ( not to mention some competely "externalities" ,like volcanos,

Actually no. People bring these things up the same way you do, with the same OMG this doesn't get taken into account triumphalism. And it's always flat out wrong.

Let's take volcanoes as an example. Most years the contribution of Greenhouse gases by volcanoes is trivial compared to the amount humans are now emitting. Strike one. The enormous exeptions? They happen very rarely, and actually, if you average them out, they add less than the regular, ongoing volcanic emissions. Stike two. We discussed this in depth a couple of months back. Stike three. You're out.

So based on Ainwood's graphs, one might say that the images of crumbling ice cliffs is nothing more than global warming propaganda, as we know that the ice melts, then reforms back to it's original entirety, as the yearly cycles continue, no?

Well it's interesting that if you check that site out more fully it's mostly about the fact that the Arctic Ice Cap is dangerously close to disappearing entirely in the summer, a highly salient point that never seems to get mentioned by the deniers.

And no, the Ice does not all grow back annually. And more seems to be going every year. See, for example, the recent loss of the Larsen B Ice shelf (a 12,000 year old feature) and recent events at the Wilkins Ice Shelf.

What Ainwood and his chums never will admit to is that while it seems counter-intuitive to the fact of global warming, events such as cooling in the Antarctic interior are entirely predicted by current climate models; Models that predict drastic warming over the entire continent in the next century. But let's not let proper science get in the way of soundbites eh?

Composite (11-model) GCM-simulations for 1958-2002 with forcing from historic greenhouse gas concentrations show warming patterns and magnitudes quite similar to the corresponding observed trends with localized maximum warming near the Antarctic Peninsula. GCM projections for 2001-2100 using the IPCC-SRESA1B greenhouse gas scenarios do not continue the pattern of strongest warming over the Antarctic Peninsula, but instead show the greatest warming over the Antarctic continent.

Source (it's the same guys Ainwood got his graphs from btw)​

 

[r_rolo1]

I don't want to enter in too much controversies, brennan ( BTW nice sig... ) but if you average volcanos you also have to average human actions.... Simple equipoise. The problem is that atmosphere does not work on averages ( both ways ) but on unstable equilibriums with well defined boudaries from one state to another. A big bump ( like a volcano or China starting to burn extra coal ) can ( or not ) push you to another unstable equilibrium ( read Sagan's theoretical frame on nuclear winter ) and make the world a completely diferent place in some years. And volcanos do not only drop CO2 ,you know... their major effect is the other way around: the high atmosphere dust that blocks sun even before the natural GW starts acting and that affects high altitude troposphere chemistry... Both tend to create cooling and tot warming as you suggested( P.S You're only giving me reason about that: CO2 is not all... )

And thanks for trimming my post.... and choosing a particular spot forgetting the context. Second law of the rethoric ( first one is the repetition )..... Volcanos were a minor part of that... or are you going to say that we understand well the flux of high altitude dust and their effects on weather? Or the diference in cloud types that has been noticed since the start of XX century ? Or that most computer simulations are seriously cutted in terms of variables or time due to the sheer computer power needed to run a decent atmosphere simulation?

I simply stated that facing all of that, I don't know the answer... please don't treat me as I was a GW denialist. I'm just a Biochemist that already worked in recent migration shifts and knows how sometimes people ( including scientists ) are jumpy in conclusions regarding GW.....

 

[brennan]

In my experience claims that things are not taken into account by the models are wrong. The deniers claim that some feature is not explained by the model - current example: Antarctica is cooling down; you investigate this, find out it is a half truth at best - central Antarctica has experienced a very slight cooling, the rest is warming - and that the alleged 'problem with the theory' is in actual fact predicted by the models in use, as sourced above.

And then some <really intelligent contributor> says 'but it's cold here' and shows you a graph of the last 5 minutes in Chicago as refutation for a decade of record highs across the globe.

Really, it get's boring.

I'm sorry if you feel I meant anything by cutting your post there, I *snip* purely for brevity and to give an indication of what I am responding to. Ok, or for a giggle. On occasion.

 

[r_rolo1]

If you meant no harm , who am I to jump on you? But it is only conditioned reflex: like I said I worked in migration shifts of oceanic fish near the Strait of Gibraltar ( tuna decided to go in a less coastal route since the 60's ) and the first idea that people jump on me about that issue is Global warming ( in fact it is the other way around: tuna migrated to warmer areas.... ). I became too much suspicious of that kind of blind faithed GW followers that make everything GW consequence....

Sorry for the acidity, was not meant directly to you..... but to those kind of claims.

 

[Simple Simon]

www.realclimate.org

search for water vapor there. Nice test by one of the authors that shows that the effect is well covered.

 

[ainwood]

Ainwood, if you don't have anything to say why are you here? You post graphs and quotes with no commentary. One might think your position is weak...

Sorry - I'll make sure to spell it out in detail for you.

Lets recap on the discussion so far, so you know where I'm at and why I am here.

I mentioned that the antarctic is cooing (admittedly, a fairly general statement).

You responded, rather dismissively here, that it was a "half truth", outlining what a model says about ice mass, and you note that the ice mass decreasing is predicted by a model that requires antarctica to be warming. Hence, you are basically saying that the antartic must getting warmer because, err.... a model says that it needs to get warmer.

I then pointed out that you had not addressed the point about the temperature, and that you were distracting into a discussion about the area of ice. I tried to revert the discussion to temperature, and even posted three links to a study that shows that the interior of the continent is getting colder, although the peninsula is indeed getting warmer.

You again respond very dismissively. You claim that the temperature drop recently is due to la nina, despite the linked studies showing that the temperature drop over antactica is actually a long-term phenomenon.

In my next response, I address little of the issues, except to point out that you are no better than I in your claims that I post 'half truths'. I do point out that whilst the alarmists are claiming 'la nina' to explain away the recent global cooling, they neglect to mention el nino when talking about the 'hottest decade ever'.

You pick up on this point, and post about el nino, and say that it can't be used to explain a whole decade of heating.

At this point, I'll interrupt this little trip down memory lane to address this issue.

You stated that:

El nino is an oscillation that lasts a lot less than 10 years. You cannot seriously use it to explain a decade of temperatures. In fact there have been 4 El'nino's in that period. Conversely we are currently experiencing the third La nina in that time.

Well, sounds reasonable, but it does kind-of suggest / imply that the el nino & la nina weather patterns cancel each other out in intensity - you say we've had 3 in the last decade.

Well, lets look at the ESNO:

The red peaks are El Nino, which results in warming. The blue peaks are la nina, which results in cooling. The very last blue peak is being used by the alarmist to explain the recent global cooling. Lets consider what happened before that:
You will see that up to about 1979, the number & area of blue peaks was dominant over the red. It was about this time that some alarmists where actually worried about an ice age. Then in 1979 we had a flip, and since then, the red el nino events have been dominant, leading to a lot of warming. Any chance that this could have had any impact whatsoever on the "hottest decade ever" claims? Don't know, but I think its fairly reasonable that if alarmists are going to blame la nina for cooling this year, then they should also attribute a 25 year period that has largely been dominated by strong el nino events for at least some warming....

Of course, that's at odds with what you were saying.... But I digress.


Back to the history channel...

You also noted that "Is it not also a fact that the peripheral ice shelves are disappearing fast?"

In response to this, I posted three graphs, which I didn't explain in detail, as I thought they were fairly self-explanatory. skadistic explained them with no trouble, but I'll just point out here, for the record, that the sea ice area oscillates every summer & winter, and has done for a long time. One particular point of interest is that the current sea ice coverage is nearly 1,500,000 km² larger than the 30-year average. To put this into context, this is an area equivalent to about 3.5 times the area of california. If the 'peripheral ice shelves are disappearing fast', as you claimed, I would expect that the sea ice area would be significantly lower than the mean for 1979 - 2008.

You respond back to temperatures - claiming that warming on the antartic peninsula is causing more sea ice. You fail to comment on your complete reversal in your opinion that sea ice is decreasing.

I mention this, and you claim that you never said sea ice was decreasing.

I therefore respond quoting a few of your posts where you said various things about sea ice decreasing.

And that brings us to your post that I quoted where you ask what I am doing here.

Well, given that I provide you evidence which you don't refute, and that you change your position on sea ice a couple of times, and that you are very dismissive and rude in doing so, I do actually wonder what I'm doing here sometimes.

And it most certainly isn't anything to do with me thinking that my position is 'weak'.


Edit:
And here you are again:

And no, the Ice does not all grow back annually. And more seems to be going every year.

Which isn't quite true in the antarctic, is it?