Scientists wrong on global warming

[a_unique_person]

Damn those models, they got it wrong again. And those scientists for erring on the side of caution. The arctic is melting much faster than predicted.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Arctic-ice-melting-faster-than-expected/2007/05/02/1177788174493.html



Scambos and co-authors of the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, used satellite data and visual confirmation of Arctic ice to reach their conclusions, a far different picture from that obtained from computer models used by the scientists of the intergovernmental panel.
"The IPCC report was very careful, very thorough and cautious, so they erred on the side of what would certainly occur as opposed to what might occur," Scambos said.
The wide possibility of what might occur included a much later melt up north, or a much earlier one, Scambos said.
"It appears we're on pace about 30 years earlier than expected to reach a state where we don't have sea ice or at least not very much in late summer in the Arctic Ocean," he said.
He discounted the notion that the sharp warming trend in the Arctic might be due to natural climate cycles. "There aren't many periods in history that are this dramatic in terms of natural variability," Scambos said.
He said he had no doubt that this was caused in large part by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which he said was the only thing capable of changing Earth on such a large scale over so many latitudes.




That's downside of assuming the models will only overestimate global warming.

[joe1347]

Stupid Computer Models.

Looks like the Geophysical Research Letters needs a political appointee from the Bush Admin to do a little fine tuning of the 'facts'. Don't they (the Geophysical Research Letters) know that Global Warming is still an unproven theory and is disputed by many notable scientists.

[corplinx]

Let's take off the troll hats for a minute. I read the link, read more links, more links, and a few more. Apparently, a heavily weighted factor was the observation of glaciers moving faster after the Larsen B shelf broke off?

Am I reading this right?

[Schneibster]

OK, no troll hat.

I read the report itself, and my take is, we just found out that the Arctic ice is melting far faster than we thought. The data is satellite pictures of the Arctic, and visual confirmation of the satellite data (by aircraft and ships, and from land). No models; this is pure data, from pictures. It says that the models are wrong, far too conservative, and the ice will all be gone 20-30 years before the models said it would. Because that ice keeps the Arctic Ocean cool, by reflecting sunlight, and because open water will absorb heat much faster than ice, this means that the models will all have to be adjusted. We will most likely be in very, very serious trouble by the last quarter to third of this century as a result.

I didn't see anything about the Larsen B ice shelf, which is in Antarctica, at the other end of the Earth; that is, around the South Pole, not the North Pole, which is what this report is talking about. Nor anything else about the Antarctic either. That's a completely separate subject.

[corplinx]

OK, no troll hat.

I read the report itself, and my take is, we just found out that the Arctic ice is melting far faster than we thought. The data is satellite pictures of the Arctic, and visual confirmation of the satellite data (by aircraft and ships, and from land). No models; this is pure data, from pictures. It says that the models are wrong, far too conservative, and the ice will all be gone 20-30 years before the models said it would. Because that ice keeps the Arctic Ocean cool, by reflecting sunlight, and because open water will absorb heat much faster than ice, this means that the models will all have to be adjusted. We will most likely be in very, very serious trouble by the last quarter to third of this century as a result.

I didn't see anything about the Larsen B ice shelf, which is in Antarctica, at the other end of the Earth; that is, around the South Pole, not the North Pole, which is what this report is talking about. Nor anything else about the Antarctic either. That's a completely separate subject.

I was googling for the research that was part of this and was reading and someone got onto a BBC article that I thought was also related talking how they did visual verification by measuring increased glacier speed in Antartica. It must have been a seperate study.

Does anyone have more links to the actual study behind this article?

[Schneibster]

In other words, we are totally, utterly f**ked.

China and our wonderful idiot frat-boi pResident are arguing over the IPCC report right now. They keep whining about models. This ain't models. This is pictures. There's nowhere to hide. We are utterly, totally screwed. In 2040, there will be no polar bears except in zoos. There will be no arctic seals, except in zoos. If we are not very, very lucky, there will be no grey whales, because the Arctic Ocean will get warm enough for bacteria to bloom and consume all the nutrients. Do you like halibut? How about snow crab? Better get it now; in 2040, there won't be any.

Remember all those nasty predictions for 2150? Move them back to 2080. That's less than 70 years from now. And what I'm talking about is less than 20 years off. We will live to see this.

[a_unique_person]

Let's take off the troll hats for a minute. I read the link, read more links, more links, and a few more. Apparently, a heavily weighted factor was the observation of glaciers moving faster after the Larsen B shelf broke off?

Am I reading this right?

Larsen B was in the Antarctic. The article was about the Arctic.

[Schneibster]

I was googling for the research that was part of this and was reading and someone got onto a BBC article that I thought was also related talking how they did visual verification by measuring increased glacier speed in Antartica. It must have been a seperate study. It was, and I was deliberately not nasty because it's an easy mistake for anyone to make who isn't familiar with the subject matter. No blame here; let there be no stress there. ;)

Does anyone have more links to the actual study behind this article?The article itself is in a paid subscription (and it's VERY expensive) scientific journal. You can get a bit more here (http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2007/seaice.shtml), including a pretty good graph; that's the popular science version by the media coordinators of the organization that the principle investigator (lead scientist on the project, and first name on the list of authors) works for. National Geographic, that hotbed of liberalism, has an article here (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/05/070501-arctic-ice.html). (Sorry, I can't help myself. I'm really, really pissed about this. Clinton and Gore tried to do something about this in 1993, but the Republican Congress spent all the time we had to do something about this on investigating blowjobs, and then we got idiot frat-boi. Please don't take it personally, it's not more than marginally your fault.) ABC (the Australia one, not the US one) has what's probably a reprint, but possibly more complete, of the Reuters article here (http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1912202.htm?enviro).

Yes, this is really quite serious, and very scary. It's thirty years too soon. There were hints in a couple of BBC articles over the last year or two, but no hard data. This is the hard data. We are hosed.

[corplinx]

Do you like halibut?

I don't eat fish caught in the wild by a commercial vessel. I eat farm raised or fresh caught by non-commercial fishers.

[peptoabysmal]

Kyoto is NOT the solution:


...
Two studies by impartial third parties show why: The Energy Information Administration, the official forecasting arm of the Energy Department, found that meeting the Kyoto greenhouse gas limits would increase gasoline prices by 52 percent and electricity prices by 86 percent, and decrease our national gross domestic product (GDP) by 4.2 percent.

A study by Dr. Stephen Brown, Senior Economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Texas, found that under a best case scenario, reducing CO2 emissions seven percent below 1990 levels - as required under the Kyoto accord - would represent a loss of between three percent to 4.3 percent of U.S. GDP. That comes out to $921 to $1,320 per person and $3,684 to $5,280 for a family of four. Under a worst-case scenario, meeting the Kyoto mandate could cost the average family of four $6,400 a year.
...
Enron and the Environmental Movement:
Global Warming Politics Makes for Strange Bedfellows (http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA384.html)


Kyoto doesn't help the environment nearly as much as it hurts the US, which I suspect is it's real purpose.

[a_unique_person]

Kyoto is NOT the solution:



Kyoto doesn't help the environment nearly as much as it hurts the US, which I suspect is it's real purpose.

Can't you get over it? The cost has small compared to the cost of not complying, and for a country as wealthy as the US, comparatively small. The idea is not to make America poor, and, as the recent massive hike in fuel prices showed quite clearly, the US already had the ability, and more, to cope with such energy price rises.

[merentha]

Kyoto is NOT the solution:



Kyoto doesn't help the environment nearly as much as it hurts the US, which I suspect is it's real purpose.

Wow! A worst-case scenario of $3.60 per person per day, as opposed to a global catastrophe within 20 years. How much is the war costing the US?

[The Painter]

Asked what could fix the problem - the topic of a new report by the intergovernmental panel to be released on Friday in Bangkok - Scambos said a large volcanic eruption might hold Arctic ice melting at bay for a few years.


So I guess we should hope for a huge volcano. Maybe we could be lucky and have 5 or 6 erupt at the same time. Don’t volcanoes put CO2 (green house gas) into the atmosphere? Is this like the lime in the coconut cure?

[Beerina]

It says that the models are wrong, far too conservative, and the ice will all be gone 20-30 years before the models said it would.

Which will be when?

[Beerina]

I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.

Seriously.

[a_unique_person]

I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.

Seriously.

Trantor was a fantasy, and a pretty good idea it couldn't work. We have nothing like the technology required on hand to even start it.

[andyandy]

Kyoto is NOT the solution:

Quote:
...
Two studies by impartial third parties show why: The Energy Information Administration, the official forecasting arm of the Energy Department, found that meeting the Kyoto greenhouse gas limits would increase gasoline prices by 52 percent and electricity prices by 86 percent, and decrease our national gross domestic product (GDP) by 4.2 percent.

A study by Dr. Stephen Brown, Senior Economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Texas, found that under a best case scenario, reducing CO2 emissions seven percent below 1990 levels - as required under the Kyoto accord - would represent a loss of between three percent to 4.3 percent of U.S. GDP. That comes out to $921 to $1,320 per person and $3,684 to $5,280 for a family of four. Under a worst-case scenario, meeting the Kyoto mandate could cost the average family of four $6,400 a year.
...

Kyoto doesn't help the environment nearly as much as it hurts the US, which I suspect is it's real purpose.

food for thought - for climate stabilisation it's predicted that we need an 80%reduction on 1990 levels.

The Stern report puts the figure at 1% of GDP in order to limit the temperature change to just 2degrees.

[strathmeyer]

Wow! A worst-case scenario of $3.60 per person per day, as opposed to a global catastrophe within 20 years. How much is the war costing the US?

Oh, is that the other option? Call me in twenty years and see if I'm still laughing.

[FarmallMTA]

Can't you get over it? The cost has small compared to the cost of not complying, and for a country as wealthy as the US, comparatively small. The idea is not to make America poor, and, as the recent massive hike in fuel prices showed quite clearly, the US already had the ability, and more, to cope with such energy price rises.

I suggest we raise energy prices on those who believe that Global Warming is man made.

They can then put their money where their mouths are. Fair is fair

[Schneibster]

Which will be when?So, obviously you didn't read the articles.

[Solitaire]

So, obviously you didn't read the articles.

It's rare that they do. Even material in the quote boxes gets ingored.

Anyhow, should I move north to avoid the heat or south to avoid the advancing glaciers? :boggled:

[Darat]

It's rare that they do. Even material in the quote boxes gets ingored.

Anyhow, should I move north to avoid the heat or south to avoid the advancing glaciers? :boggled:

Where ever you do better make sure it's high ground. :(

[Cuddles]

It's rare that they do. Even material in the quote boxes gets ingored.

Anyhow, should I move north to avoid the heat or south to avoid the advancing glaciers? :boggled:

Compromise. Go east or west instead.

[jdhammer]

Oh, is that the other option? Call me in twenty years and see if I'm still laughing.

Irony: In 13-23 years, it is predicted that there will be no arctic ice cap in the summer-time.

Disaster? I think so.

[Ziggurat]

OK, so the arctic ice cap is melting, and faster than expected. Now, why is this a disaster? Why does this mean we're all screwed? There's a step or two missing here.

[kalen]

Let me know when the models are better so I can find some good investment properties.

[lauraPSLI]

Wow, that's bad news. I am working through the report link now but even just reading these posts, it doesn't look good. I am curious though. What is everyone's thoughts on the feasibility of stopping / reversing the damage in order to prevent the total loss of the ice caps? Do you think it is technically possible or not? I'm talking hypothetically if everyone devoted their energy to this regardless of politics and governments...is it technically possible or is it just too late?

[andyandy]

OK, so the arctic ice cap is melting, and faster than expected. Now, why is this a disaster? Why does this mean we're all screwed? There's a step or two missing here.

depends in what timeframe you're talking, and where you live.... - we're probably not screwed.....


There is medium confidence that both ice sheets would be committed to partial deglaciation for a global average temperature increase greater than 1-2C, causing sea level rise of 4-6m over centuries to millennia." Medium confidence means about a five in 10 chance.


Such melting would raise sea levels by four to six metres, the scientists say. It would cause "major changes in coastline and inundation of low-lying areas" and require "costly and challenging" efforts to move millions of people and infrastructure from vulnerable areas. The previous official line, issued in 2001, was that the chance of such an event was "not well known, but probably very low".

and we're almost certainly locked into a minimum of a 2degrees rise.


The timeframe of the melting is a little more vague....


Jonathan Overpeck, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona, said the key question was not whether the ice sheets would break up, but how quickly. Some models suggest rapid melting that would bring sea level rises of more than a metre per century. "That would be much harder for us to cope with," he says.

The IPCC science report predicted sea level rises of up to 0.59m by the end of the century. But that does not include the possible contribution from ice sheets, because the experts judged it too unpredictable to forecast over short timescales.http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2016243,00.html

[CapelDodger]

That's downside of assuming the models will only overestimate global warming.

It should be noted that the inaccuracy is not so much in climate models as in ice-dynamics models. Which seem to have underestimated the rate of ice-loss for both ocean- and land-ice. Obviously with much new data and lots more attention these models will be improving.

The effect on climate models is towards underestimating warming, since they assume albedo reduction according to the ice-dynamics models.

With more accurate ice-dynamics models come more accurate climate models. By the time this whole episode has played out there will be one heck of an accurate explanation of how and why it happened - in physical terms. How and why it happened in political terms will be for anthropology to explain :) .

[CapelDodger]

depends in what timeframe you're talking, and where you live.... - we're probably not screwed.....

Speak for yourself. You live up a tree; check out my location. The tidal surge that causes the Severn Bore passes not terribly far from my front-door; put a storm-surge on top of that and my whole day could be spoiled.

[CapelDodger]

What is everyone's thoughts on the feasibility of stopping / reversing the damage in order to prevent the total loss of the ice caps? Do you think it is technically possible or not?

This a ride we can't get off. I'm pretty sure it's technically possible but implementation would require a global command-economy dedicated to the task. Which is about as far from defining the human society we do have as I can easily imagine.

Buy the ticket, take the ride, as we used to say back in the day.

[JoeTheJuggler]

It should be noted that the inaccuracy is not so much in climate models as in ice-dynamics models. Which seem to have underestimated the rate of ice-loss for both ocean- and land-ice. Obviously with much new data and lots more attention these models will be improving.


Does anyone know what the sea level effects will be from the projected ice-loss in the next 20 years? It sounds like most of the loss is sea ice which has little or no effect on sea levels. Though I have to assume this means a similar loss in land ice, which does cause sea level rise.

I have to agree with the "we're screwed" assessment. Before long, everyone will have to face up to the fact that we're all in this together.

[CapelDodger]

Let me know when the models are better so I can find some good investment properties.

Siberian land is just going to take off; it's already heading up and it's still as cheap as cheese. I know this guy can get you in on the bottom rung; he's done very well by me. It's not about the hydrocarbons, it's about the 21stCE grain-belt. When a section doesn't pan out for hydrocarbons you can pick it up for pennies, then flip it to Chinese investors at 500%. And you can leverage your capital through Tokyo for almost nothing. I'm telling you, this is sweet.

If anybody out there is interested - and you should be - you can just PM me with the amount you want to invest and your bank-details and I'll get things rolling for you.

[CapelDodger]

Does anyone know what the sea level effects will be from the projected ice-loss in the next 20 years? It sounds like most of the loss is sea ice which has little or no effect on sea levels. Though I have to assume this means a similar loss in land ice, which does cause sea level rise.

Loss of ocean-ice, such as in the Arctic, won't affect sea-level. That much we know. Displacement, yadda yadda ... Zero is zero, whatever trend you impose on it.

You can't assume a "similar loss in land ice" for a variety of reasons. For instance, the volume of land-ice is enormously greater than the volume of ocean-ice. Ocean-ice is created by different processes - in fact, most ocean-ice was land-ice in its earlier career. Ocean-ice melting is dominated by phase-dynamics (liquid/solid) within the oceans; land-ice melting is dominated by insolation and reactions with the (gaseous phase) atmosphere.

Land-ice melting isn't even equivalent to land-ice loss, which includes ice that's dumped into the ocean.

Upshot is, nobody knows. Nobody knew 20 years ago how things would turn out now; they had models and estimates but no outcomes to compare them with. Now they do, and the models will have benefited. But we're still in uncharted territory.

I have to agree with the "we're screwed" assessment. Before long, everyone will have to face up to the fact that we're all in this together.

They'll realise that we're all in it. How much togetherness that will engender is debatable.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Loss of ocean-ice, such as in the Arctic, won't affect sea-level. That much we know. Displacement, yadda yadda ... Zero is zero, whatever trend you impose on it.
Does an ice shelf count as ocean ice? I thought an ice shelf was at least partially cantilevered off of land (and not floating ice).

You can't assume a "similar loss in land ice" for a variety of reasons. For instance, the volume of land-ice is enormously greater than the volume of ocean-ice. Ocean-ice is created by different processes - in fact, most ocean-ice was land-ice in its earlier career. Ocean-ice melting is dominated by phase-dynamics (liquid/solid) within the oceans; land-ice melting is dominated by insolation and reactions with the (gaseous phase) atmosphere.

Land-ice melting isn't even equivalent to land-ice loss, which includes ice that's dumped into the ocean.


Oh yes--I was using "loss" and "melting" interchangeably, which they're not. D'oh!


Upshot is, nobody knows. Nobody knew 20 years ago how things would turn out now; they had models and estimates but no outcomes to compare them with. Now they do, and the models will have benefited. But we're still in uncharted territory.

So the sea level question (even 10 or 20 years out) is still beyond reliable forecasting?


They'll realise that we're all in it. How much togetherness that will engender is debatable.
Yeah--I was thinking it'll be massive revolutions that might lead to that realization. It'd be nice if it were otherwise.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Kyoto is NOT the solution:

The Kyoto Protocol was never meant to be "the solution" but merely a first step towards the objective of stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

In time, the costs you cite may seem like a bargain compared to the costs of ignoring the issue.

[CapelDodger]

Does an ice shelf count as ocean ice? I thought an ice shelf was at least partially cantilevered off of land (and not floating ice).

I'm glad you brought that up.

Where ice is grounded below sea-level displacement is already maximised, however much ice sits on top. It's a transitional zone, which just complicates matters further. Worse than that, it introduces a whole new interaction zone - where ground, ice, and liquid ocean meet.

So the sea level question (even 10 or 20 years out) is still beyond reliable forecasting?

The error-bars are a lot tighter, but that's about it.


Yeah--I was thinking it'll be massive revolutions that might lead to that realization. It'd be nice if it were otherwise.

It might be that the stable society that emerges at the other end of this ride will have a greater sense of universal togetherness. It's made more likely because cultural diversity is going the same way as bio-diversity.

[Schneibster]

I don't eat fish caught in the wild by a commercial vessel. I eat farm raised or fresh caught by non-commercial fishers.You know, you can actually go find out what fish is good to eat and not, if you're concerned about the environment, here (http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp). I am a member and get a card every time I go to refer to in restaurants and supermarkets.

[Schneibster]

OK, so the arctic ice cap is melting, and faster than expected. Now, why is this a disaster? Because once the ice cap is gone in summer, the rate at which the ocean heats up accelerates very quickly. All that ice reflects a lot of light, and when it's not there any more, all that light penetrates the ocean and gets absorbed. Do the math.

Why does this mean we're all screwed? There's a step or two missing here.It means we have thirty years less to react to this than we thought.

[Schneibster]

Wow, that's bad news. I am working through the report link now but even just reading these posts, it doesn't look good. I am curious though. What is everyone's thoughts on the feasibility of stopping / reversing the damage in order to prevent the total loss of the ice caps? Do you think it is technically possible or not? I'm talking hypothetically if everyone devoted their energy to this regardless of politics and governments...is it technically possible or is it just too late?If we let 2 billion people starve to death, we just might stop the Arctic ice cap from melting totally in the summer in 10 years. Not just a real great solution. We are screwed. We should have been doing something about this when Clinton and Gore tried to get something going in 1993.

Yet another Bush screwup.

[articulett]

Yep. Earth has a cancer diagnosis--delaying treatment can be fatal. Obfuscating the treatment options means dallying..and dallying makes slowing of the inevitable increasingly unlikely--and escalating disaster increasingly imminent.

[knot]

I hope the people on mars reduce their CO2 emission. Their polar caps are melting as well.

I propose a limitation be put on how many sqares of toilet paper can be used in any one sitting. - Sheryl Crow (http://www.sherylcrow.com/news.aspx?nid=7786)

[mhaze]

funny how apocalyptic prophesy has a continuing appeal to some fraction of people.

This just has the guise of science.

[a_unique_person]

funny how apocalyptic prophesy has a continuing appeal to some fraction of people.

This just has the guise of science.

In what sense does scientists measuring polar ice melting fit that guise?

[mhaze]

we can save the planet!

loss of the reflections from the ice cop must be countered by huge Man Made smog clouds over all major cities.

UN inspectors would Validate Required Smog levels!

[a_unique_person]

I hope the people on mars reduce their CO2 emission. Their polar caps are melting as well.

Only mars? Then it can't be something that affects the solar system then.

[mhaze]

I sincerely do hope our little finds of polar moon ice do not also melt away.

[Schneibster]

funny how apocalyptic prophesy has a continuing appeal to some fraction of people.

This just has the guise of science.Lots of people ignore cancer diagnoses, or heart attacks, until the damage is so major it kills them. Thanks for helping to do the same for the human race. You'll pardon me if I note that it seems pretty stupid to me to pretend something doesn't exist because you're afraid of it.

[mhaze]

You'll pardon me if I note that it seems pretty stupid to me to pretend something doesn't exist because you're afraid of it.

I thought it was the other way, those who bought into GW were driven by the fear factors. But that's a general observation about a cultural attitude of a group, and I would not stoop to asserting that was a motivator for you.

Insult away, if you like. Let's just go ad hominem.

[Ceritus]

Honestly why do we care so much about polar bears? How will it effect my chain of food?

I hope all this happens sooner so we can just get it over and done with. Then the next fear will be the refreezing of the icecaps when we have everything finally set up for the exceptionally warm earth. All in all if it is going to be so horrible and devastating to our species in the near future I should have a ton more children to try and ensure my genes survive.

[Ceritus]

Lots of people ignore cancer diagnoses, or heart attacks, until the damage is so major it kills them. Thanks for helping to do the same for the human race. You'll pardon me if I note that it seems pretty stupid to me to pretend something doesn't exist because you're afraid of it.

I don't doubt that is happening anymore, infact I am excited about it. It means I should make more babies to keep my gene line strong!

[a_unique_person]

Honestly why do we care so much about polar bears? How will it effect my chain of food?

I hope all this happens sooner so we can just get it over and done with. Then the next fear will be the refreezing of the icecaps when we have everything finally set up for the exceptionally warm earth. All in all if it is going to be so horrible and devastating to our species in the near future I should have a ton more children to try and ensure my genes survive.

It's that easy, is it? A few polar bears and it's all over :rolleyes:.

[Belz...]

Yep. Earth has a cancer diagnosis--delaying treatment can be fatal.

Nonsense. Bacteria will survive, and give them a few billion years, then BOOM!

Oh, that's right... no more sun! Never mind.

[Ceritus]

It's that easy, is it? A few polar bears and it's all over :rolleyes:.

Who knows it just might be! Besides I hate polar bears for no better reason than that they are bears and I hate bears. I had bears go in and out of my campsites when I was a boyscout and they would try to get into the food and scare the living crap out of us. Death to all bears if you ask me, and raccoons oh and mosquitos. Hell penguins suck too because they can't fly and they are birds! I mean atleast we eat chickens I wonder what penguin would taste like if it is delicious than perhaps we should keep em around if not, no big loss. Their males are so p***ywhipped anyways, standing around in the snow with the eggs while their mates get to go have a blast fishing.

[Par]

I hope the people on mars reduce their CO2 emission. Their polar caps are melting as well.


Imagine you go to see a doctor because you’re experiencing weight-loss. The doctor examines you and runs test after test. He then refers you to a specialist who runs yet more tests. Finally, he sits you down and says “I’m very sorry, but all our tests indicate your weight-loss is due to testicular cancer. But it’s not all bad news, if you undertake a course of therapy right away, there’s a good chance you’ll survive.”

Then imagine that you reflect on this diagnosis thusly: “But my friend Jane is loosing weight too and, given her lack of testicles, she definitely hasn’t got testicular cancer. So it can’t be testicular cancer that’s causing my weight loss!” You then carry on with you life as normal and never undergo any treatment.

[Ziggurat]

Because once the ice cap is gone in summer, the rate at which the ocean heats up accelerates very quickly. All that ice reflects a lot of light, and when it's not there any more, all that light penetrates the ocean and gets absorbed. Do the math.

Which means the arctic will heat up quite a bit. I'm still not seeing why that means we're all screwed.

It means we have thirty years less to react to this than we thought.

Well, no, it doesn't necessarily mean that. Our understanding of how arctic climate couples to global climate is evidently wrong: that's why this melting is happening faster than expected. Until we understand WHY we got it wrong (and there's no indication that we do), we cannot make any reliable claim that faster-than-expected arctic melting means global warming as a whole is going any faster than previously expected.

[Belz...]

Imagine you go to see a doctor because you’re experiencing weight-loss. The doctor examines you and runs test after test. He then refers you to a specialist who runs yet more tests. Finally, he sits you down and says “I’m very sorry, but all our tests indicate your weight-loss is due to testicular cancer. But it’s not all bad news, if you undertake a course of therapy right away, there’s a good chance you’ll survive.”

Then imagine that you reflect on this diagnosis thusly: “But my friend Jane is loosing weight too and, given her lack of testicles, she definitely hasn’t got testicular cancer. So it can’t be testicular cancer that’s causing my weight loss!” You then carry on with you life as normal and never undergo any treatment.

I like that analogy!

[Cuddles]

Which means the arctic will heat up quite a bit. I'm still not seeing why that means we're all screwed.

The Earth is not made up of independent parts. Change the climate of one place and you change the rest. Make a large part of the ocean heat up significantly and you change the rest of the world quite a lot.

Well, no, it doesn't necessarily mean that. Our understanding of how arctic climate couples to global climate is evidently wrong: that's why this melting is happening faster than expected. Until we understand WHY we got it wrong (and there's no indication that we do), we cannot make any reliable claim that faster-than-expected arctic melting means global warming as a whole is going any faster than previously expected.

Not necessarily. As Capeldodger pointed out, ice-dynamics models are not climate models. It is entirely possible that our climate models are fine but they had some wrong inputs because we got the ice wrong. There may be errors in the climate models as well, but that is irrelevant. Those errors can be discussed on their own merits, if you have evidence for them. As it stands, knowing we got the input for a model wrong does not invalidate the model. All it means is that the original answer is wrong, and in this case it means that the original answer was too optimistic.

[CapelDodger]

I hope the people on mars reduce their CO2 emission. Their polar caps are melting as well.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/10/global-warming-on-mars/


Thus inferring global warming from a 3 Martian year regional trend is unwarranted. The observed regional changes in south polar ice cover are almost certainly due to a regional climate transition, not a global phenomenon, and are demonstrably unrelated to external forcing. There is a slight irony in people rushing to claim that the glacier changes on Mars are a sure sign of global warming, while not being swayed by the much more persuasive analogous phenomena (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=129) here on Earth...

[CapelDodger]

Kyoto doesn't help the environment nearly as much as it hurts the US, which I suspect is it's real purpose.


Well, it must all be about the US, mustn't it? Will the obsessive persecution never end?

[FenrisWolf]

So, the idea is, the arctic ice melts, then the ocean heats up due to less reflected light, and then.... what?

Some species go extinct (polar bears), which is too bad for them. But all this talk of calamity and disaster isn't motivated by concern for polar bears.

Could someone sum up in a less hysterical tone what exactly is the concern with a hotter planet?

[Cuddles]

Could someone sum up in a less hysterical tone what exactly is the concern with a hotter planet?

We are adapted to live in the current climate. If the climate changes, we have problems. Since there are far more people living on the planet than there ever have been, even a small disruption to food, water, living space, etc. can have a massive impact. For example, if the US cornfields dry out it is not just a few local tribes that will be affected, but everyone who buys US corn. Which is an awful lot of people. Essentially the problem is globalisation. Since we can get resources from anywhere, we do. Unfortunately this means we now rely on resources from elsewhere and many, if not most, places are no longer self-sufficient.

Another problem is just space. If the sea level rises by a significant amount, even just a couple of metres, there will be a lot less land. In the past this was not much of a problem since small tribes could simply move out of the way. However, we now cover most of the easily habitable land, at least on many continents. There is simply nowhere for many people to move to. Here in the UK it might just mean some bigger sea walls and a few coastal towns being evacuated. Somewhere like Bangladesh it means a whole country with hundreds of millions of people ending up under water.

It is essentially a case of better safe than sorry. We know something is going to happen. Melting lots of ice and heating up the Earth is going to have some kind of effect on the environment, and therefore on us. It is far better to work out what could happen and be prepared than just to sit around shouting at the sea to go away because we don't believe it will move.

[Ziggurat]

The Earth is not made up of independent parts. Change the climate of one place and you change the rest.

Well sure, things are going to change. But again, why does that mean we're all screwed?

As it stands, knowing we got the input for a model wrong does not invalidate the model.

We don't KNOW what we got wrong in the models, whether you're talking about ice dynamics models or global climate models. And forcing changes to the models just to make them match past behavior doesn't actually fix them, either. Just like with the stock market, matching past behavior doesn't mean you can predict the future.

All it means is that the original answer is wrong, and in this case it means that the original answer was too optimistic.

Too optimistic about arctic ice melting, yes. But as you suggest, all it means for sure is the original answer for artic ice melting was wrong: we do not know what it means for global climate change.

[mhaze]

Too optimistic about arctic ice melting, yes. But as you suggest, all it means for sure is the original answer for artic ice melting was wrong: we do not know what it means for global climate change.

That's a pretty realistic answer. We don't know what it means that some ice is melting. It's really interesting though that some people assert that they do know what it means, or that there is some consensus on that subject.

By the way, don't believe anyone that tries to tell you about the elaborate and sophisticated supercomputer modeling of weather, and how it shows blah blah blah. That modeling uses the Navier Stokes equations, and those have been used to compute aerodynamics for decades. And any CFM modeler will tell you he can get the machine to say anything he wants by juggling the input parameters and the methods of computation.

Here's the way to understand our comprehension of weather modeling.

1. Plan an outdoors activity five days in the future.
2. Actually do that activity according to the plan. In other words, if you scheduled mowing the lawn because the weather man said it was not going to rain, mow the lawn even if it rains.
3. That's only 5 days. Now mull over the basic believability of people who are all so sure about the trend of weather decades in the future.

[FenrisWolf]

Thanks for the summary, Cuddles. It seems there are two main areas of concern, then:

1) Change in temperature may have negative effects on farming in some areas.
2) Change in sea levels may render some low-lying areas of high population uninhabitable.

Would you say that's accurate? Is anything missing from this list?

There must be many possible approaches for dealing with these problems. Perhaps certain crops could be genetically engineered to thrive in hotter temperatures, or maybe areas previously too cold for extensive farming will become viable as the climate warms. Relocating large numbers of relatively poor people will be a big challenge, to be sure. That seems to be a more difficult problem to solve.

But I guess I don't think shouting "We're all screwed!" is very productive, nor very accurate. It's important to study these problems in detail and start putting into motion some viable solutions, but too often I see these kind of discussions focus on doom-and-gloom worst-case scenarios that don't seem to help anything.

[varwoche]

We don't know what it means that some ice is melting. Some ice? Taken literally, you are correct seeing as most falls within the bounds of some.

Greenland (http://www.kxan.com/Global/story.asp?S=5270377&nav=0s3d)
Antarctica (http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2006/mar/HQ_06085_arctic_ice.html)
China (http://www.scidev.net/News/index.cfm?fuseaction=readNews&itemid=2814&language=1)
Central Asia (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2003/2003GL017233.shtml)
Kilimanjaro (http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/scndkili.htm)
Indonesia / New Zealand (http://pubs.usgs.gov/prof/p1386h/indonesia/indonesia.html)
Patagonia (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3662975.stm)
Andes (http://unisci.com/stories/20011/0117013.htm)
Italy (http://www.disat.unimib.it/comiglacio/glaciologicalcommittee.htm)
Switzerland (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11254319/)
Iceland (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=4794)
Arctic Permafrost (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060615-global-warming.html)
Rocky Mountains (http://www.nrmsc.usgs.gov/research/glaciers.htm)
Cascades (http://www.nichols.edu/departments/glacier/north%20cascade%20glacier%20retreat.htm) (WA state)
Glorious Republic of Kazakhstan (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3077422.stm)

[Par]

By the way, don't believe anyone that tries to tell you about the elaborate and sophisticated supercomputer modeling of weather, and how it shows blah blah blah. That modeling uses the Navier Stokes equations, and those have been used to compute aerodynamics for decades. And any CFM modeler will tell you he can get the machine to say anything he wants by juggling the input parameters and the methods of computation.

Here's the way to understand our comprehension of weather modeling.

1. Plan an outdoors activity five days in the future.
2. Actually do that activity according to the plan. In other words, if you scheduled mowing the lawn because the weather man said it was not going to rain, mow the lawn even if it rains.
3. That's only 5 days. Now mull over the basic believability of people who are all so sure about the trend of weather decades in the future.

Yes, but this is for weather, isn’t it? As opposed to global climate, I mean.

[Ziggurat]

Yes, but this is for weather, isn’t it? As opposed to global climate, I mean.

Climate is just long-term weather trends. If you can do long-term weather calculations, you can do climate calculations. But we can't do long-term weather calculations: the problem is simply too hard, and will remain so for as far as we can see.

Our inability to predict the weather does not in itself prove that we cannot predict climate, you're correct about that. But it does give some flavor for the complexity involved. We actually understand the weather well enough that we can include pretty much all the relevant parameters correctly, but we still can't do long-term forcasting because it's a chaotic system. Climate doesn't look as chaotic as weather, but on the other hand we don't know if we've got a good handle on all the relevant parameters, and we probably don't.

Now, maybe it's possible that there are simplifications we can use in modelling climate which will give us the correct answer, even though no such simplifications are possible with weather. But the fact is, we don't know if climate simulations are reliable. We have no real track record of successful future predictions using climate modelling. And we can't even predict past behavior without using inputs from that same past behavior in creating our models. But just because you managed to get the model to fit past behavior by adjusting fudge factors until it matches, that doesn't mean that your model is correct, or that it can successfully predict future behavior.

[Par]

Climate is just long-term weather trends. If you can do long-term weather calculations, you can do climate calculations. But we can't do long-term weather calculations: the problem is simply too hard, and will remain so for as far as we can see.

Does this not deny the antecedent? (If LTWC then CC. Not LTWC. Therefore, not CC.)

Our inability to predict the weather does not in itself prove that we cannot predict climate, you're correct about that. But it does give some flavor for the complexity involved. We actually understand the weather well enough that we can include pretty much all the relevant parameters correctly, but we still can't do long-term forcasting because it's a chaotic system. Climate doesn't look as chaotic as weather, but on the other hand we don't know if we've got a good handle on all the relevant parameters, and we probably don't.

Now, maybe it's possible that there are simplifications we can use in modelling climate which will give us the correct answer, even though no such simplifications are possible with weather. But the fact is, we don't know if climate simulations are reliable. We have no real track record of successful future predictions using climate modelling. And we can't even predict past behavior without using inputs from that same past behavior in creating our models. But just because you managed to get the model to fit past behavior by adjusting fudge factors until it matches, that doesn't mean that your model is correct, or that it can successfully predict future behavior.

Well, if I toss a coin one hundred times, I can by no means predict whether the fifth toss will be a tail or the fifty-eighth, fifty-ninth and sixtieth tosses will all be heads, but I can say “you’ll get roughly fifty heads and fifty tails,” if you see what I mean. The analogy might well be inappropriate though. This isn’t something I’m greatly knowledgeable on!

I take your point about the models.

[Gurdur]

Loss of ocean-ice, such as in the Arctic, won't affect sea-level. That much we know. Displacement, yadda yadda ... Zero is zero, whatever trend you impose on it.
Actually, this is wrong.

Sorry, Carpel Dodger, since I've agreed with practically everything else you said here, but AFAIK large masses of melting sea-ice do affect salinity of the oceans, and thus affect thermal and other properties, affecting in turn density properties, and do in fact thus mean a rise in sea level. I'll look up the scientific papers if you are really interested, or if I have stated the causal chain wrongly.

[CapelDodger]

Actually, this is wrong.

Sorry, Carpel Dodger, since I've agreed with practically everything else you said here, but AFAIK large masses of melting sea-ice do affect salinity of the oceans, and thus affect thermal and other properties, affecting in turn density properties, and do in fact thus mean a rise in sea level. I'll look up the scientific papers if you are really interested, or if I have stated the causal chain wrongly.

I didn't realise salinity would have an effect. I was just going by what I was taught at school - not always the best policy, I know, but it did seem to make sense. Thanks for the correction :) .

[Gurdur]

I didn't realise salinity would have an effect. I was just going by what I was taught at school - not always the best policy, I know, but it did seem to make sense. Thanks for the correction :) .
It has an effect on thermal expansion. The overall effect is small but there. Mind you, I am too bloody lazy (and have too many jobs to do) to look up the scientific papers on that, so let's not go overboard. Really, I should have dug up the references before you thank me. My apologies that time does not permit me to do so right now.

You can simply say the effect on sea-level from melting sea-ice is negligable, which is probably safe enough to say.

[Solitaire]

Let me rephrase my question in a slightly less concise form.

We know that carbon dioxide warms the atmosphere and that the Arctic ocean will melt because of this. It might also mean that the Arctic melt water will push the global conveyer south, notably the Gulf Stream part, thus making the continents of Eurasia and North America colder year round. As water evaporates from the Arctic ocean and a falls out as snow on the continents, it will reflect more sunlight into space cooling the continents even further collecting snow and eventually resulting in glaciers.

Does this scenario of advancing the ice age by thousands of years ahead of schedule through raising carbon dioxide levels ring true?
Or has humanity blown the curve entirely and the continents have now become too hot for winter snows to accumulate?

[CapelDodger]

Thanks for the summary, Cuddles. It seems there are two main areas of concern, then:

1) Change in temperature may have negative effects on farming in some areas.
2) Change in sea levels may render some low-lying areas of high population uninhabitable.

Would you say that's accurate? Is anything missing from this list?

There's also concern about disease-carrying nasties such as ticks and mosquitos spreading into new territory.

But I guess I don't think shouting "We're all screwed!" is very productive, nor very accurate. It's important to study these problems in detail and start putting into motion some viable solutions, but too often I see these kind of discussions focus on doom-and-gloom worst-case scenarios that don't seem to help anything.

I don't doubt it's important to find and implement viable solutions, but it's not being done nor is there any prospect of it. Which is why we're mostly screwed.

I'm sure there will be localised responses to local problems, but no coordinated global strategy. Global society's not ready for that yet.

[Gurdur]

There's also concern about disease-carrying nasties such as ticks and mosquitos spreading into new territory.
Bingo bingo bingo.

The First & Second World and the pharmaceutical industry will be forced to take malaria seriously at long last. And leischmanisis

And I will be laughing my guts out.

[mhaze]

Solitaire, those are questions worth answering, leaving aside the issue of whether humanity has blown the curve and such. My take on it is like this: Less snow, less reflection, hotter planet, more evaporation, more clouds, more reflection..... See the cycle?

By the way the thermal expansion of the oceans is very slight.

All the yak-yak-yak about CO2 and supposed greenhouse gases, and the water balance (solid/liquid/vapor) is hardly mentioned in the IPCC reports or elsewheres. I find it disturbing that so many of the "temperature proxies" referenced by IPCC, Mann et. al., etc. are really precipitation indicators and we are supposed to just believe that high CO2 --> higher precipitation ==== higher temperatures.

There are so many stretches of logic in GW it's like walking on rubber bands. But it is worth noting that the IPCC report is not as inflammatory as Boring Al Gore, or any of the true believers.

[Ziggurat]

The First & Second World and the pharmaceutical industry will be forced to take malaria seriously at long last.

It's not the pharmaceutical industry which is to blame for the lack of progress against malaria in Africa. The environmentalists have a whole lot more to do with that sad tale, including the obstruction of the best defense against it: DDT.

Edit to add: and by the way, malaria was at one point in time a serious threat in large portions of the US. It's currently a 3rd world disease and not a 1st world disease as well because we DID take it seriously here.

[CapelDodger]

You can simply say the effect on sea-level from melting sea-ice is negligable, which is probably safe enough to say.

That works for me. Almost every statement should contain a degree of equivocation. (Or "wriggle-room", in the colloquial :) .)

[Gurdur]

It's not the pharmaceutical industry which is to blame for the lack of progress against malaria in Africa.
Total bollocks.
Robert S. Desowitz and other epidemologists specialising in that area just so disagree with you (http://www.amazon.com/Malaria-Capers-Parasites-Research-Reality/dp/0393310086/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-6009897-8132860?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178312365&sr=8-1), and ya know, they back it up with all the stats, knowledge and experience too, so ya know, I'll just go with them on this issue.
The environmentalists have a whole lot more to do with that sad tale, including the obstruction of the best defense against it: DDT.
First part mostly wrong, second part partly true, but only partly.

The story on DDT is long and complex, and Desowitz et al have a lot to say about that (http://www.amazon.com/Federal-Bodysnatchers-New-Guinea-Virus/dp/0393325466/ref=sr_1_3/002-6009897-8132860?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178312689&sr=1-3)too. Desowitz also, like others, has a go at the enviromentalists too -- and FYI, he also takes the pharma & pesticide industries heavily to task for cynically using the anti-DDT campaign to advance their own interests and profits.

Mind you, this is a nuanced view. That may not fit in well here.

[Gurdur]

Edit to add: and by the way, malaria was at one point in time a serious threat in large portions of the US. It's currently a 3rd world disease and not a 1st world disease as well because we DID take it seriously here.
No, really?
Big government projects, Tennessee Valley Authority, that did it, didn't it? Ya hear what I'm saying underneath?
:)

But you're wrong about the causality. Malaria was largely eliminated in the southern USA because geography allowed it to be with large-scale water-draining and control. Not too many problems in doing so.

However, with rising world temperatures, the whole task becomes a hell of a lot less easy, and malaria, just like other supposedly tropical diseases, will be able to extend much more north (like New York), and be much more resistant to eradication.

Trust me, if temperatures rise enough, endemic malaria will become a problem in much of the USA.

[CapelDodger]

It's not the pharmaceutical industry which is to blame for the lack of progress against malaria in Africa. The environmentalists have a whole lot more to do with that sad tale, including the obstruction of the best defense against it: DDT.

DDT has never been banned from use against disease-vectors (such as the mosquito). DDT use started declining long before Silent Spring, because of the emergence of DDT-resistance. DDT is still used for health reasons, but sparingly, so as not to encourage resistance.

The lack of progress on African malaria has an obvious explanation - endemic warfare, which makes eradication programs unsustainable. Pinning it on DDT serves the purposes of some anti-regulation ideologues, but it's simply not the case.

It should also be noted that Africa is where malaria - plasmodium fulciparum - evolved over many millions of years to fit the environment and the hosts. In every other location its hold is necessarily more tenuous. You can drain the Pontine Marshes; you can't drain the Congo Basin.

[knot]

Imagine you go to see a doctor because you’re experiencing weight-loss. The doctor examines you and runs test after test. He then refers you to a specialist who runs yet more tests. Finally, he sits you down and says “I’m very sorry, but all our tests indicate your weight-loss is due to testicular cancer. But it’s not all bad news, if you undertake a course of therapy right away, there’s a good chance you’ll survive.”

Then imagine that you reflect on this diagnosis thusly: “But my friend Jane is loosing weight too and, given her lack of testicles, she definitely hasn’t got testicular cancer. So it can’t be testicular cancer that’s causing my weight loss!” You then carry on with you life as normal and never undergo any treatment.

Sorry, that analogy does not work for me.

[Gurdur]

D....The lack of progress on African malaria has an obvious explanation - endemic warfare, which makes eradication programs unsustainable.
To make my own previous posts (which you may not have read, since they appear just before your own post) clearer, I am primarily referring to the treatment and prophylaxis against malaria, not elimination of disease vectors (otherwise I wouldn't be talking about the pharma industry.
Pinning it on DDT serves the purposes of some anti-regulation ideologues, but it's simply not the case.
Well-put. But to refer back to my own previous post, don't forget the TVA. I like mentioning the TVA. It throws rather a large wrench into such politically-biased arguments.
It should also be noted that Africa is where malaria - plasmodium fulciparum - evolved over many millions of years to fit the environment and the hosts. In every other location its hold is necessarily more tenuous. You can drain the Pontine Marshes; you can't drain the Congo Basin.
Good point.

Mind you, the Pontine Marshes were largely cleared of malaria NOT by draining them, but by pollution. Anopheles just really hates pollution. Once pollution levels started decreasing, Anopheles and malaria actually returned in a small way to central Italy.

Pardon me; it's just a favourite subject of mine. Rarely comes up, either.

[Par]

Sorry, that analogy does not work for me.

Well, in that case, I’ll just tell you the fallacy you’re falling foul of: You’re conflating uncommon causes.

[CapelDodger]

All the yak-yak-yak about CO2 and supposed greenhouse gases, and the water balance (solid/liquid/vapor) is hardly mentioned in the IPCC reports or elsewheres.

:confused:

CO2 and other greenhouse gases are pretty central to the IPCC's raison d'etre so they do feature quite a lot. The liquid-vapor balance of H2O - water evaporating and condensing - is also well-addressed, being a critical element of the climate system. The solid-liquid balance is less well-addressed (as is acknowledged) because it's a less important element which can be approximated by the output of ice-dynamics models.

Understanding and modelling the behaviour of large ice-masses is, IMO, a harder problem than understanding and modelling climate. That's relatively simple; people started doing it back in the later 19thCE. Thermodynamics is the backbone, and was firmly in place by then. Arrhenius formalised the greenhouse effect and things were good to go.

With ice-masses you have a mix of laminar and non-laminar flow (a nightmare in itself), fracture-theory (which is admittedly very well-developed), phase-changes and interfaces, pressure-melting, underlying geology ... I wouldn't go near it at knife-point.

[andyandy]

The lack of progress on African malaria has an obvious explanation - endemic warfare, which makes eradication programs unsustainable. Pinning it on DDT serves the purposes of some anti-regulation ideologues, but it's simply not the case.

Whilst there are some countries within Africa in which there is and has been prolonged periods of conflict, it's not a sufficient reason for the persistance of malaria. Insufficent infrastructure, corrupt/unstable political systems and low GNP negatively impact upon the capability of indidividual states to address malaria, and negatively impact upon the feasibility of NGO action. Added to that is of course the environmental and social realities of the region as a whole - large mosquito population, more time spent outdoors etc.
and added to that I think it is correct to say that environmentalist ideology as expounded through some western NGOs skews the focus to some extent away from humanism in some cases....

i think there's enough qualifiers in that :)

[JoeTheJuggler]

So, the idea is, the arctic ice melts, then the ocean heats up due to less reflected light, and then.... what?

Some species go extinct (polar bears), which is too bad for them. But all this talk of calamity and disaster isn't motivated by concern for polar bears.

Could someone sum up in a less hysterical tone what exactly is the concern with a hotter planet?

In January of 1998, I flew into and out of the airport in Guayaquil, Ecuador. It was the height of an especially bad El Niño (ocean warming across the Pacific equator). For a full 30 minutes of flying time, all the land I could see was flooded. Coastal flooding was horrible. Add to that devastating mudslides (entire villages were wiped out). As the waters went down, there was an increase in malaria (in a region where malaria is already epidemic).

It was quite a disaster.

I'm not suggesting that this is related to global warming--probably not, in fact. I'm just showing what happens when the ocean heats up a bit.

[CapelDodger]

... I am primarily referring to the treatment and prophylaxis against malaria, not elimination of disease vectors (otherwise I wouldn't be talking about the pharma industry.

Quite. Ziggurat tried to shift the ground, and found me on it :) .

Well-put. But to refer back to my own previous post, don't forget the TVA. I like mentioning the TVA. It throws rather a large wrench into such politically-biased arguments.

They often come across as saying things "got sorted" before so we don't need to do anything about [new thing] because it'll "get sorted" again.

Good point.

Mind you, the Pontine Marshes were largely cleared of malaria NOT by draining them, but by pollution. Anopheles just really hates pollution. Once pollution levels started decreasing, Anopheles and malaria actually returned in a small way to central Italy.

That's where you're wrong :) . The Pontine Marshes have been drained more than once. They were drained by the Claudian Emperors, and malaria pretty much vanished. In the late 3rd and 4thCE the drainage was neglected and malaria came back. Historical factoid : Aleric the Goth besieged Rome three times, and died shortly (weeks) after the third apparently of malaria. Perhaps nearby malarial swamps that you're innured to are Weapons of Mass Defence?

Pardon me; it's just a favourite subject of mine. Rarely comes up, either.

I take it you've read The Miraculous Fever-Tree by Fiammetta Rocco? A lovely book about quinine that takes the sort of slanting trajectory through history that I find illuminating. And very enjoyable.

[knot]

Well, in that case, I’ll just tell you the fallacy you’re falling foul of: You’re conflating uncommon causes.

Well then I'll be honest with you. Your analogy was just plain.................stupid.

The sun IS more active than it's been in the last 1000 years and my statement was a joke.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Imagine you go to see a doctor because you’re experiencing weight-loss. The doctor examines you and runs test after test. He then refers you to a specialist who runs yet more tests. Finally, he sits you down and says “I’m very sorry, but all our tests indicate your weight-loss is due to testicular cancer. But it’s not all bad news, if you undertake a course of therapy right away, there’s a good chance you’ll survive.”

Then imagine that you reflect on this diagnosis thusly: “But my friend Jane is loosing weight too and, given her lack of testicles, she definitely hasn’t got testicular cancer. So it can’t be testicular cancer that’s causing my weight loss!” You then carry on with you life as normal and never undergo any treatment.

Excellent! Nominated!

Knot: if you want to state your argument in more direct terms (rather than in sarcasm), we can easily show you where you're wrong.

By the way, the Martian ice-caps are frozen C02 and not water ice. There is a dramatic seasonal waxing and waning of polar dry-ice caps. The case for climate change on Mars is far from proven. Even if it is happening, there's no reason to think it's the same as what's happening on Earth.

[Gurdur]

Quite. Ziggurat tried to shift the ground, and found me on it :) .
Well, yes. Swampy ground too. Bad for ill-considered shifting and invasions. :)
That's where you're wrong :) . The Pontine Marshes have been drained more than once. They were drained by the Claudian Emperors, and malaria pretty much vanished. In the late 3rd and 4thCE the drainage was neglected and malaria came back. Historical factoid : Aleric the Goth besieged Rome three times, and died shortly (weeks) after the third apparently of malaria.
Hmmm, hmmm, you certainly know more than me off-hand on that, yet I venture to disagree in part. Malaria did come back in that area in the very late 20th century, AFAIK not as a result of re-swamping, but as a result of cleaner air and water. This does not contradict what you are saying, but is throwing in another factor.
I take it you've read The Miraculous Fever-Tree by Fiammetta Rocco? A lovely book about quinine that takes the sort of slanting trajectory through history that I find illuminating. And very enjoyable.
Never read that book, thank-you for the recommendation, I will buy it when I can.

Coincidentally, I am really pissed off that the moment since I have just in the last 2 days learnt that the USA FDA has classified quinine as ONLY for the treatment of malaria, and it's bloody hard to get, too. Quinine has tons of valuble medical usages, many not well-understood to date but effective. Meh.

[CapelDodger]

Whilst there are some countries within Africa in which there is and has been prolonged periods of conflict, it's not a sufficient reason for the persistance of malaria. Insufficent infrastructure, corrupt/unstable political systems and low GNP negatively impact upon the capability of indidividual states to address malaria, and negatively impact upon the feasibility of NGO action.

A lot more infrastructure has been put in than has survived the warfare. A lot more. Corrupt and unstable political systems are cause and effect of strife. Low GNP follows from endemic warfare.

Perhaps we could compromise on "gangsterism" instead of warfare? To my mind they're both on the same spectrum.

[CapelDodger]

Hmmm, hmmm, you certainly know more than me off-hand on that, yet I venture to disagree in part. Malaria did come back in that area in the very late 20th century, AFAIK not as a result of re-swamping, but as a result of cleaner air and water. This does not contradict what you are saying, but is throwing in another factor.

I'm not at all surprised that pollution probably did for the Pontine mosquitos in modern times. After all, a principle tactic in Panama was spraying kerosene on the entire landscape, which is just cutting out the middle man.

Coincidentally, I am really pissed off that the moment since I have just in the last 2 days learnt that the USA FDA has classified quinine as ONLY for the treatment of malaria, and it's bloody hard to get, too. Quinine has tons of valuble medical usages, many not well-understood to date but effective. Meh.

The history of quinine goes on. I will have to look into what's behind this. There was a time when quinine was a strategic resource, but what's its significance these days?

[knot]

Joe, I'll state whatever the hell I want, the alarmists do so why can't I? How about that. I already know the ice caps are dry ice.

[CapelDodger]

Joe, I'll state whatever the hell I want, the alarmists do. How about that. I already know the ice caps are dry ice.
What you don't seem to know is that they aren't melting.

[Gurdur]

The history of quinine goes on. I will have to look into what's behind this. There was a time when quinine was a strategic resource, but what's its significance these days?
As a general anti-inflammatory* and/or anti-febrile medication, often useful in the most surprising of cases.

Also good for nocturnal foot cramps in the over-40's (a common problem), though it has now been replaced by specifics for that purpose. AFAIK, no-one knows why it was good for that, but it was.
__________

* IIRC, for example in some autoimmune disease management, for example. Mind you, I may be getting confused.

[knot]

What you don't seem to know is that they aren't melting.

There's plenty of news to stay informed. But like an alarmist and a liberal, I thought I would just say anything or make something up. Did you guys actually think that I thought there were people on mars?

http://news.google.com/news?q=mars%20polar%20ice%20caps&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&aq=t&rls=

[andyandy]

Perhaps we could compromise on "gangsterism" instead of warfare? To my mind they're both on the same spectrum.

i think for the purposes of preventing a rather tangential derail we could agree that it's certainly a significant factor across the region as a whole :)

the latest IPCC report has been released and can be read here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/04_05_07_ipcc_report.pdf)

p22 is a table of predicted scenarios - both A and AB already look pretty unlikely - given the substancial carbon cuts required by 2050. I'd say in all reality we're looking at B as a best case - and even that crosses the 3degrees threshold...

from stern....

Temp. rise/ Impacts 1 DEGREE

* Shrinking glaciers threaten water for 50 million people

* Modest increases in cereal yields in temperate regions

* At least 300,000 people each year die from malaria, malnutrition and other climate-related diseases

* Reduction in winter mortality in higher latitudes

* 80 percent bleaching of coral reefs, e.g. Great Barrier Reef


2 DEGREES

* 5 - 10 percent decline in crop yield in tropical Africa

* 40 - 60 million more people exposed to malaria in Africa

* Up to 10 million more people affected by coastal flooding

* 15 - 40 percent of species face extinction (one estimate)

* High risk of extinction of Arctic species, e.g. polar bear

* Potential for Greenland ice sheet to start to melt irreversibly, committing world to 7 metre sea level rise


3 DEGREES

* In Southern Europe, serious droughts once every 10 years

* 1 - 4 billion more people suffer water shortages

* Some 150 - 550 additional millions at risk of hunger

* 1 - 3 million more people die from malnutrition

* Onset of Amazon forest collapse (some models only)

* Rising risk of collapse of West Antarctic Ice Sheet

* Rising risk of collapse of Atlantic Conveyor of warm water

* Rising risk of abrupt changes to the monsoon


4 DEGREES

* Agricultural yields decline by 15 - 35 percent in Africa

* Up to 80 million more people exposed to malaria in Africa

* Loss of around half Arctic tundra


5 DEGREES

* Possible disappearance of large glaciers in Himalayas, affecting one-quarter of China's population, many in India

* Continued increase in ocean acidity seriously disrupting marine ecosystems and possibly fish stocks

* Sea level rise threatens small islands, coastal areas such as Florida and major cities such as New York, London, and Tokyo

and the projections for 3degrees is where it really starts to bite....

[Ziggurat]

I've seen a number of factors listed as being more important than DDT availability for why malaria persists in Africa (with political instability topping the list, and I'd agree). What I'm not seeing is much of an argument for why any of that means that global warming will produce a malaria resurgence in places like the US, and no connection at all for why faster-than-expected melting arctic ice (the original topic of the thread) would mean we're facing an onslaught of tropical diseases.

[Pipirr]

What you don't seem to know is that they aren't melting.

Are they ablating?

[JoeTheJuggler]

There's plenty of news to stay informed. But like an alarmist and a liberal, I thought I would just say anything or make something up. Did you guys actually think that I thought there were people on mars?


Not at all. If I may unfold the sarcasm (since you won't), I think what you were saying was this:

There's global warming (or melting ice caps) on Mars. Since there are no people on Mars, then we know climate change there isn't caused by human-caused C02 emissions. Since climate change on Mars isn't caused by human activity, climate change on Earth can't be caused by human activity.

All of the statements might be true (climate change on Mars isn't certain yet) except for the leap to the conclusion. That's the fallacy Par pointed out.

If you were trying to say something else, please clarify.

Yes, you can say whatever the hell you want. I was assuming that you were posting your "whatever the hell" to a forum because you wanted to engage in discussion.

Was my assumption wrong?

Now the argument you seem to be making is that all statements about global warning/climate change and links to human activity (in particular putting carbon into the atmosphere) are not worth replying to because they are made by "alarmist liberals". Even the current thread topic which points out that actual observations are worse than the "alarmist liberal" scientists predicted with climate change models.

[Gurdur]

..... What I'm not seeing is much of an argument for why any of that means that global warming will produce a malaria resurgence in places like the US
Anopheles. It likes a nice warm temperature, the warmer the better. Anything that helps warmweather-mosquito expansion of range tends to help expansion of diseases of supposedly tropical range only; West Nile virus in Flushing, remember? 1999? Also see proceedings of the workshop "Contextual Determinants of Malaria", Lausanne, 2000.
And see:
Climate Change And Mosquito-Borne Disease
Enviromental Health Perspectives
March 2001, 109:141-161
and no connection at all for why faster-than-expected melting arctic ice (the original topic of the thread) would mean we're facing an onslaught of tropical diseases.
*sigh*
Global warming. Hello? I thought that was the obvious connection. Mind you, fine, I can see you might not have gotten that, since expansion of mosquito range is not commonly discussed on bulletin boards, so maybe I was unfair.

But welcome to the new world of dengue fever, malaria, and "exotic" viruses. Get used to them, because you will. Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever too, spread by tick range spread, again because of warming. Welcome to the new, globalised and hotter world. Better get yourself familiar with prophylaxis and treatment, and learn just how the pharma industry has been shortchanging sufferers.

[knot]

LOL whatever Joe. I find it impossible to have a decent debate with the left so I really don't care to anymore.

Message of this story: Global warming is happening but it may not be attributed to human activity.

[Skeptic Guy]

LOL whatever Joe. I find it impossible to have a decent debate with the left so I really don't care to anymore.

Knot, it might help to attempt a "decent debate" before stomping off in a huff.

[JoeTheJuggler]

LOL whatever Joe. I find it impossible to have a decent debate with the left so I really don't care to anymore.

Must be those alarmist liberal leftist satellites that collected the ice melt data.

[Earthborn]

There's global warming (or melting ice caps) on Mars. Since there are no people on Mars, then we know climate change there isn't caused by human-caused C02 emissions. Since climate change on Mars isn't caused by human activity, climate change on Earth can't be caused by human activity.Actually, the people who point to climate change on Mars (as well as Jupiter and Pluto) like to think that this lends credence to the hypothesis that it is the sun's activity that is causing climate change. Unfortunately for them, scientists have modelled the Mars climate change (http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070407/fob7.asp) and it appears that the sun is not (significantly) responsible for it. It is caused by changes on the planet itself. The climate skeptics can of course try to dispute those models as well.

climate change on Mars isn't certain yetIt now appears fairly certain.

[knot]

Knot, it might help to attempt a "decent debate" before stomping off in a huff.

Been there, done that hundreds of times - which is why I agree with title of Michael Savage's book. (even though I'm more of a centrist)

[Corsair 115]

LOL whatever Joe. I find it impossible to have a decent debate with the left so I really don't care to anymore.

Message of this story: Global warming is happening but it may not be attributed to human activity.Uh, so the hundreds of climate scientists from around the world who've studied the issue, collected and analyzed evidence, and have come to the conclusion that, yes, human activity is having some measure of impact on climate change, are simply to be dismissed as "the left"?

Gee, and I thought the proper reaction would have been to examine the presented evidence to see if it actually supports what the scientists have claimed.

I guess politics does indeed trump all other considerations...

[JoeTheJuggler]

Been there, done that hundreds of times - which is why I agree with title of Michael Savage's book. (even though I'm more of a centrist)

So why bother posting here?

[Schneibster]

Which means the arctic will heat up quite a bit. I'm still not seeing why that means we're all screwed.So I guess the connections of the Arctic Ocean to the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans is all a lie by the environmentalists? Or maybe the water comes to the barrier and just goes, "Nope, I'm Arctic water, I can't go there." You know enough physics to understand this stuff; you're just being a contrarian. This is really, really obvious.

Well, no, it doesn't necessarily mean that. Our understanding of how arctic climate couples to global climate is evidently wrong: that's why this melting is happening faster than expected. That would be, ummmm, because the warmer water from the Pacific and Atlantic are carrying more heat in there, you mean? Indicating that there's a lot more water exchanged between the Pacific and Atlantic than we thought, and when the Arctic starts absorbing more heat, it will be carried more quickly than we thought to the rest of the oceans? Yeah, I guess you're right about that- of course, it also means you're probably right when you say we won't have thirty less years to react than we did. It's probably more like forty less years to react, which means we can expect to see some of the things we didn't expect to until after the middle of this century in the next decade.

Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.

Until we understand WHY we got it wrong (and there's no indication that we do), So basically you're saying that you didn't read the article, because if you had, you'd know that the reason proposed for this is because of the greater mixing than was thought between the Atlantic and Pacific, and the Arctic. So much for what we know and don't know. Basically, you don't know because you didn't actually read it because you don't like what it says.

we cannot make any reliable claim that faster-than-expected arctic melting means global warming as a whole is going any faster than previously expected.This is the second-most ridiculous thing I've read this week. Excuse me, did you just say that we can't make a reliable claim that global warming will go faster because the ice in the Arctic is all melting faster? Would you care to re-parse that statement and reconsider?

C'mon, there's nowhere to hide here. THINK ABOUT IT.

[Schneibster]

So, the idea is, the arctic ice melts, then the ocean heats up due to less reflected light, and then.... what?

Some species go extinct (polar bears), which is too bad for them. But all this talk of calamity and disaster isn't motivated by concern for polar bears.

Could someone sum up in a less hysterical tone what exactly is the concern with a hotter planet?Sure.

1. Hotter water is bigger. That means the oceans will rise.
2. A lot of ice is on land; Antarctica is an entire continent covered with it. That means the oceans will rise more.
3. Many of our most profitable cities are close to the sea. If it rises, those cities will go away.
4. If the temperate zone moves toward the poles, it will be over less land. That means there will be less places to grow food.
5. If the tropics are hard to live in now, they'll be harder to live in if they're hotter.
6. Normally, these kinds of changes happen over tens of thousands to millions of years. We're talking about them happening in decades or centuries. This means life won't have as much time to adjust, which means a lot more species than we've killed off so far are going to die, very quickly in geological terms.

So we'll have less land, less food, and less money, and more species will be going extinct. Sounds great, doesn't it?

[Solitaire]

The sun IS more active than it's been in the last 1000 years and my statement was a joke.


Ah. :)
Do you think the sun was more active during the day or during the night?
Being active during the day is okay; but at night, that's not such a good thing.

What do you mean by more active?
How exactly does one go about measuring that?
:confused:

[mhaze]

As I recall, the IPCC report indicated a sea level rise of anywhere from a few inches to 2.5 feet by 2100, depending on the scenario chosen. I don't see even the 2.5 foot sea level change causing most coastal cities to "go away". A few simple examples are Holland, Venice, and New Orleans.

Even if you buy into the overall concepts of GW and irregardless of whether you ascribe human as cause, the validity and effects of the predictions can be met by hysteria or optimism.

[CapelDodger]

There's plenty of news to stay informed. But like an alarmist and a liberal, I thought I would just say anything or make something up. Did you guys actually think that I thought there were people on mars?


The dry-ice-caps still aren't melting. And I didn't make that up.

[varwoche]

http://news.google.com/news?q=mars%20polar%20ice%20caps&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&aq=t&rls=
Whatever point it is you're trying to make is going to require something a tad bit more specific than this vague cite to TheInternets.

[andyandy]

Even if you buy into the overall concepts of GW and irregardless of whether you ascribe human as cause, the validity and effects of the predictions can be met by hysteria or optimism.

Do you think that a 2degrees stabilisation will be achieved?

one could just as well set a "realism or delusion" dichtomy....why choose "hysteria or optimism"?

[CapelDodger]

Are they ablating?
I assume the summer-side one is, unless it's disappeared already. The winter-end one is presumably expanding.

As I'm sure you're aware, dry-ice doesn't melt, it sublimates :) .

[Pipirr]

Sublimates.

That's the word I was looking for....

Thx ;)

[mhaze]

http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2576814#post2576814)
Even if you buy into the overall concepts of GW and irregardless of whether you ascribe human as cause, the validity and effects of the predictions can be met by hysteria or optimism.
Do you think that a 2degrees stabilisation will be achieved?

I do not think that any actions by humans of the sort typically discussed such as reducing CO2 emissions will have any stabilizing effect, although it is certain that any natural or capricious lowering of average temperatures on a regional basis would be ascribed to such cause.

The very concept of a "global temperature" is problematic and imprecise enough to make measurement or even understanding of the facts extremely difficult. Regional measurements or averages of them do make sense.

[andyandy]

[/I]I do not think that any actions by humans of the sort typically discussed such as reducing CO2 emissions will have any stabilizing effect

in that case, upon what do you base your optimism? That the models are wholly wrong?

[Dymanic]

Even if you buy into the overall concepts of GW and irregardless of whether you ascribe human as cause, the validity and effects of the predictions can be met by hysteria or optimism.
Hysteria is seldom very productive. Risk communicators talk about "adjustment reaction", similar in concept to "stages of grief". For many, hysteria seems to be an unavoidable -- perhaps even necessary -- part of the process of coming to terms with something difficult. One of the things Gore talked about in his documentary was how people often go directly from denial to despair.

In this context, "optimism" too often means simply waving off the concerns as greatly overblown, if not completely unfounded. There's a difference between hoping to find solutions and hoping the problem will just go away, or that it doesn't exist.

[andyandy]

The very concept of a "global temperature" is problematic and imprecise enough to make measurement or even understanding of the facts extremely difficult. Regional measurements or averages of them do make sense.

This is somewhat disingeneous - whilst it's true that there is no method to produce an absolute value for a global temperature - dependant as it is upon how you choose to measure it - this is not sufficient to dismiss the use of a global average temperature as a measuring gauge for future projections. A 2 degrees rise in the global average temperature does of course not require that every point on the earth sees its average temperature rise by 2degrees - simply that the chosen measured average will rise by such an amount.

[CapelDodger]

That would be, ummmm, because the warmer water from the Pacific and Atlantic are carrying more heat in there, you mean? Indicating that there's a lot more water exchanged between the Pacific and Atlantic than we thought, and when the Arctic starts absorbing more heat, it will be carried more quickly than we thought to the rest of the oceans?

A chilling thought. So to speak.

A potential feedback that strikes me involves the permafrost, which is all in that part of the world. Presumably permafrost melt enhances the local methane concentration; it may have a negligible effect, I don't know. But a warmer Arctic is surely going to accelerate permafrost melting, and the emissions will quickly become well-mixed in the atmosphere. Spreading the load.

[mhaze]

This is somewhat disingeneous - whilst it's true that there is no method to produce an absolute value for a global temperature - dependant as it is upon how you choose to measure it - this is not sufficient to dismiss the use of a global average temperature as a measuring gauge for future projections. A 2 degrees rise in the global average temperature does of course not require that every point on the earth sees its average temperature rise by 2degrees - simply that the chosen measured average will rise by such an amount.

I think it is important to note the problem with "global temperature" vis a vis how researchers report their results, otherwise it is they and not I who may be disingenuous. How is one sure that apples are being compared to apples? Who substantiates exactly what a 1 degree rise in "global temperature" means?

Example. You get temp values from cities and rural areas in the USA and from China, and run some numbers on them. But "rural" does not mean the same thing in China as the US, and in many places over the time frames involved "rural" will become developed. So someone has to go through this data and based on some scheme, delete data streams or add others in. Such judgement calls various research groups may differ on. "Global temperature" would appear a blurred and imprecise value given such possible variations, and those variations through human input could match or exceed the statististical noise, which whether inadvertent or intentional makes the entire data stream averaging process bogus.

I like it simple. Regional! Regional!

[CapelDodger]

I do not think that any actions by humans of the sort typically discussed such as reducing CO2 emissions will have any stabilizing effect ...

Reducing carbon emissions from fossil-fuels would obviously have a stabilising effect. Reducing them to the extent that the combined increase in atmospheric and oceanic CO2-load was reduced to zero would have a major stabilising effect, reduction below that even more so.

... although it is certain that any natural or capricious lowering of average temperatures on a regional basis would be ascribed to such cause.

That's a prediction. Increases in average temperature on a global basis have been (and still are) certainly attributed to capricious "natural variation" as they happen. Despite the fact that they were predicted by mainstream science. That's observable.

Your prediction is unobservable - the circumstances won't arise - but I'd bet against it, given the hypothetical. Mainstream science certainly wouldn't predict any cooling effect of reducing CO2 emissions, nor would a propagandist claim a regional cooling as justification for it. Reduction of emissions will limit the total warming; more is already in the pipeline. Unavoidable. Greenhouse warming acts by trapping energy, and the trap we've already built is not yet full.

The very concept of a "global temperature" is problematic and imprecise enough to make measurement or even understanding of the facts extremely difficult. Regional measurements or averages of them do make sense.

When the average temperatures across the vast majority of the globe's surface rise consistently for decades, global warming's going on. Forget about the detail. Look at the big picture.

[mhaze]

Reducing carbon emissions from fossil-fuels would obviously have a stabilising effect. Reducing them to the extent that the combined increase in atmospheric and oceanic CO2-load was reduced to zero would have a major stabilising effect, reduction below that even more so.


My pessimism on this subject is mirrored in the IPCC report, so although I disagree with their opinions on GW, I do agree with them on the intractability of getting significant behavior changes across a large enough base to have any serious effect. This is like discussing Kyoto.....

BTW I was mulling over yanking the catalytic converter off my cars so as to increase sulfate emissions which is good, right?

[Gurdur]

..... "Global temperature" would appear a blurred and imprecise value given such possible variations, and those variations through human input could match or exceed the statististical noise, which whether inadvertent or intentional makes the entire data stream averaging process bogus.
You are completely and utterly wrong. Global average temperature is actually FAR easier to predict, and far more robust in prediction, than is regional average temperature.
I like it simple.
No.
It appears you like it "ideologically-based", which is of course very far from being "simple".

Also, you are not a climatologist, nor a meteorologist. Do you have any physics qualifications at all?

___________
___________

Meh. No more malaria? Not a bit more of dengue? No more West Nile Valley? No more quinine?

* loses all interest in thread *

[CapelDodger]

I think it is important to note the problem with "global temperature" vis a vis how researchers report their results, otherwise it is they and not I who may be disingenuous.

No doubt you do think it's important, but it actually isn't a problem. All that's required is a well-defined standard, something which science has been well-aware of for several centuries. When you have a standard you can compare measurements meaningfully.

How is one sure that apples are being compared to apples?

By having a standard.

Who substantiates exactly what a 1 degree rise in "global temperature" means?

The scientific community as a gestalt. Not, you'll be glad to hear, Al Gore fnord. The degree is normally Celsius.

Example. You get temp values from cities and rural areas in the USA and from China, and run some numbers on them. But "rural" does not mean the same thing in China as the US ...

Sampling stations are not codified by anything so crude as "rural" and "urban", their actual environments and capabilities are established. That's what you do when you have standards.

...and in many places over the time frames involved "rural" will become developed. So someone has to go through this data and based on some scheme, delete data streams or add others in.

Adjustments are made according to changes in circumstance. You surely can't think that you've thought of these problems and the scientists whose day-job involves getting the best possible comparable measurements haven't.

Such judgement calls various research groups may differ on.

You don't really get schisms in science. Has any research group differed wildly from the 0.6C this century consenus?

"Global temperature" would appear a blurred and imprecise value given such possible variations ...

It is potentially imprecise, but given a standard definition it is precise, and given a sensible definition it can be useful in discerning trends. The trend is a warming one - but that's hardly surprising, given the 380ppmCO2-load and rising.

... and those variations through human input ...

Having a standard eliminates the human input.

I like it simple. Regional! Regional!

So why get involved in a global-warming debate? Don't you have a regional-warming debate you can get stuck into?

[mhaze]

Umm, I can see you like standards as much as I do, but for a discussion of rural versus urban and some of the issues, you might check this out -

http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/90lettnat.htm

Which is a critique of some work done by Jones et. al. at East Anglia and published in 1990 or so. Just quickly reviewing that work, I did see problems with urban versus rural classifications. I don't see any standard like you suggest that has been uniformly applied and quite frankly do not think such a thing is helpful in this discussion. Obviously you do so we can disagree on that. But I do suggest you at least briefly review the reference.

[mhaze]

in that case, upon what do you base your optimism? That the models are wholly wrong?

That is a pretty good question.... Since two people can in fact look at the same circumstances and one see dire straits, the other a challenge and or opportunity.

I'm optimistic that advances in science and technology will help in many of the human problems that might be considered unfortunate side effects of any GW that may occur for whatever reason. We may well be growing meat in the lab shortly and spare organs human organs in livestock. If say hypothetically the available land for agriculture was reduced, I believe we would find better ways to produce what was needed.

I'm also optimistic that within say 20 years (not 5 or 10) we may have models of climate that incorporate to some reasonable extent the effect of particulate matter and the cycles of water, such that some real interesting modeling may be possible which is not possible now. Note these areas of inaccuracy and imprecision are also mentioned in the IPCC reports.

I'm not at all optimistic about the responses of governments and institutions to any local or regional issues relating to GW. An example would be a large movement of people from a coastal area moving inland across a national boundary. That could result in very bad things. But that's a human problem, and it's the kind of thing that goes on now which we can't seem to fix.

[a_unique_person]

I'm optimistic that advances in science and technology will help in many of the human problems that might be considered unfortunate side effects of any GW that may occur for whatever reason. We may well be growing meat in the lab shortly and spare organs human organs in livestock. If say hypothetically the available land for agriculture was reduced, I believe we would find better ways to produce what was needed.


The scientists have already looked into that, they said they aren't likely to be inventing anything soon to cure the AGW side effects.

What might these inventions be, and who is working on them now?

This type of attitude reminds me of cargo cults.

[mhaze]

Really? Some scientists have looked into that, and you are happy with their projection of dismal outcomes? And cargo cults?

Let's see....billions of people thinking about creative and practical solutions and communicating/collaborating via the internet...

[andyandy]

Really? Some scientists have looked into that, and you are happy with their projection of dismal outcomes? And cargo cults?

Let's see....billions of people thinking about creative and practical solutions and communicating/collaborating via the internet...

models already build into them predictions for technological advancements.
the stern report review here (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/B71/79/paper_c.pdf) is worth reading - if you're genuinly interested in the topic.

[articulett]

If you don't trust the scientists...how about insurance companies? http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/seaeagle/2007/04/09/insurance-companies-planning-for-climate-change/

What evidence is enough to make a AGW denier stop obfuscating and start educating? I suspect that it's a faith based belief and no amount of science will be enough. We all really are in this together. At what exact point do deniers think we should stop talking and start acting has a team? What way should the message be delivered so that it doesn't come across as alarmist--especially when scientists ARE alarmed. Is it really prudent to optimistically hope some scientist (that is continually bashed by global warming deniers) is going to come up with some salvation that allows us to continue fossil consumption at ever increasing rates?

Maybe Jesus will fly down and save us all too.

Ugh. I dislike the dishonesty of AGW deniers in the same way I dislike the dishonesty of the intelligent design crowd. But the former is far more dangerous.

Do tell us AGW deniers, what sort of evidence would you need to change your point of view--to conclude that humans must do something urgent now? Or is your belief one of those faith based notions that is not amenable to things like facts, models, and evidence--especially when your faith in humanity makes you certain that someone will pull a magic solution out of the air in time to slow the upheaval. We cannot predict which life forms might find change groovy and something they can readily adapt to--but chances are, it's not going to be the stuff we're most fond of. We are tampering with eons of evolution and ecosystems that evolved to fit niches that are rapidly changing.

[articulett]

Been there, done that hundreds of times - which is why I agree with title of Michael Savage's book. (even though I'm more of a centrist)

Does anyone other than you confirm your view of yourself? Does anyone else think you are a centrist or reasonable debater? Just curious. Maybe you'd prefer lobbing your opinions (which you seem to express as facts) on forums of people who see you the way you see yourself.

[Schneibster]

The comparison between AGW deniers and creationists is apt. No evidence is ever enough. There's always something they can find to quibble with; and they think it's their job to defend their increasingly untenable position. If not with facts, then with faith and insult; a highly revealing mixture.

I love being called "hysterical." We're screwed, get it? Because of people like you. Thanks. Now go live in some lowlands, near the sea, far from food. Least you deserve considering.

[CapelDodger]

Umm, I can see you like standards as much as I do, but for a discussion of rural versus urban and some of the issues, you might check this out -

http://www.warwickhughes.com/papers/90lettnat.htm

Which is a critique of some work done by Jones et. al. at East Anglia and published in 1990 or so. Just quickly reviewing that work, I did see problems with urban versus rural classifications. I don't see any standard like you suggest that has been uniformly applied and quite frankly do not think such a thing is helpful in this discussion. Obviously you do so we can disagree on that. But I do suggest you at least briefly review the reference.

I have. It's an interpretation by Warwick Hughes. Oddly, what appear to be links to actual papers turn out to be links to other Warwick Hughes interpretations. Then there's a reference to a John Daly site, at which point all credibility is blown. The substance is that there was "ongoing criticism that trends in Jones’ 1986 gridded data had a significant UHI component unrelated to greenhouse warming". Evolution is subject to ongoing criticism. The Lone Gunman theory is subject to ongoing criticism. We have freedom of speech, after all.

The whole point of the original exercise - measuring the urban heat island effect - was to improve standardisation of measurements so that meaningful comparisons can be made with greater confidence. You won't find that pointed out by Warwick Hughes because it doesn't serve his purpose - which is to provide a comfort zone for people like yourself who aren't complete boneheads but still know what they want to hear, and aren't hearing it from the mainstream. It's dressed up as science, but if you analyse it you'll find it isn't the real thing.

Notice that Hughes's piece stems from a publication of 1986 - two decades ago. You'll find that a lot in denialist sites; the last twenty years have not turned out well for them. Which is why they're still fighting old battles. Some might rationally have seemed winnable back in the day, but invoking the UHI to explain the melting of Andean glaciers and Siberian permafrost is is just heartless. It smacks of the Polish Cavalry in 1939.

[CapelDodger]

I love being called "hysterical." We're screwed, get it? Because of people like you. Thanks. Now go live in some lowlands, near the sea, far from food. Least you deserve considering.

"When in Danger,
When in Doubt,
Run in Circles,
Scream, and Shout".

I picked up that gem in my first workplace, and have subsequently spread it to many others. Quoted at the right time it can have a cathartic effect, grounding an incipient hysteria. It might only be local, but the local is often crucial. Forget all the flapping that's going on around you, take the phone of the hook, lock the door, focus on the job in hand.

You've taken practical steps to distance yourself from a fragile support-network that most people don't even notice. That's very far from a hysterical response. And very far from a mystical response, but there are many spectra :) .

[CapelDodger]

I suspect that [AGW denial is] a faith based belief ...

There is a denialist cult, just as there is a Truther cult, a UFO cult, a crop-circle cult, a Velikovsky (?) world-collision cult. And so on. Diamond, sorely missed, is a cultist. Too deeply invested to ever stop struggling. Faith-based

There's also ideological denialism. Faith-based again, at second-hand.

Then there's professional, materially self-interested denialism. No faith there.

Our recent AGW-sceptic visitors are not really AGW denialists, they represent the audience of the denialists. They are of the great mass (whatever the issue), the wishful-thinkers.

[a_unique_person]

Really? Some scientists have looked into that, and you are happy with their projection of dismal outcomes? And cargo cults?

Let's see....billions of people thinking about creative and practical solutions and communicating/collaborating via the internet...

I am curious, still. Just what might these inventions be that will mean we don't have to worry about AGW? And, if they work, what will they cost, since the principle objection to doing anything about AGW is the cost of doing it.

[mhaze]

I am curious, still. Just what might these inventions be that will mean we don't have to worry about AGW? And, if they work, what will they cost, since the principle objection to doing anything about AGW is the cost of doing it.

Good question. I also would like to know what tommorrow's inventions would be. I would then invest in the correct companies today. Duhhh....

But your question is imprecise and as stated, cannot be answered. You've asked what the inventions would be that mean "we don't have to worry about AGW". What scenario exactly are you seeking to plan for? If you would like to plan for the absolute worst case, then we need to get some humans settlements off this planet. There is no need to discuss that further.

Another poster here has projected 2 billion dead as a AGW result. Is that what you would like to plan for? How about planning a little bit for every possible outcome?

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, there has been a steady increase in wealth per capita. There might be disagreement as to whether that would continue unabated or be restricted by effective or ineffective measures taken politically implemented as GW countermeasures. I assert these economic benefits of technology continue unabated in most future scenarios of GW, and continue to spread on a world wide basis.

Potentially good side effects to the current GW debate include such things as encouragement of nuclear power plans and abandoning ridiculous anti-genetic engineered crop arguments (the latter being taken seriously in Africa).

[andyandy]

[/I]Good question. I also would like to know what tommorrow's inventions would be. I would then invest in the correct companies today. Duhhh....

But your question is imprecise and as stated, cannot be answered. You've asked what the inventions would be that mean "we don't have to worry about AGW".

snip

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, there has been a steady increase in wealth per capita. There might be disagreement as to whether that would continue unabated or be restricted by effective or ineffective measures taken politically implemented as GW countermeasures. I assert these economic benefits of technology continue unabated in most future scenarios of GW, and continue to spread on a world wide basis.



how about actually taking 5 minutes to read some of the sources provided (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/B71/79/paper_c.pdf)? It's rather ignorant to make a case with no evidence to support your assertions beyond "let's be optimistic." Perhaps someone tomorrow will invent magic water which is incredibly cheap to manufacture, requiring low technological input, is completely transferable to all existing oil based machinery and production, has zero carbon output, and in solid form provides a carbon neutral fuel which can be burnt in current coal power stations......well it may happen - you don't think it will? You just need to be a bit more optimistic. :)

If someone was to say

"I'm optimistic i'll win the lottery next year so i'll sell my house, blow my life savings and live in oppulent luxury for the next 12 months"

it would be worth asking upon what they based their optimism, beyond some nebulous, ill-defined notion of "because i think i will, alright?"

[dogbite666]

I am yet to see anyone on this thread, or any place else for that matter, post solid evidence to show that AGW is a real phenomena.

In order to prove AGW skeptics, like myself wrong then someone must show firstly that the rise in CO2 preceeds, and is directly responsible for the rise in temperature. Secondly they must show that the amount of CO2 produced by humans must be significantly greater than the amount released into the atmosphere by natural processes or that the rise in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is that which is produced by humans.

So far I have seen nothing of the sort, even the Carbon Trust can't confirm that the rise in CO2 preceeds the rise in temperature over the last 500,000 years. The only thing I hear from AGW band wagon riders is that 'the relationship between temperature and CO2 is complex'!

[mhaze]

Your link to sources does not work any better than the magic water. Your arguments are amusing -but do not address my note that historically since the beginning of the industrial revolution, per capita wealth has increased. Or do you assume a relationship between power station fuel methods and per capita wealth? Please clarify.

[mhaze]

I am yet to see anyone on this thread, or any place else for that matter, post solid evidence to show that AGW is a real phenomena.

Right. Even the IPCC report uses phrases such as "likely" or "very likely" in some cases. But there are some people here who are are way on the green side of IPCC, it seems. And the IPCC notes that we don't understand the effects of water balance and man made aerosol additions to the atmosphere.

I personally am ready to accept AGW when shown computational models that actually incorporate water balance and aerosol contributions with the correct grid size, and when these models with their presumptions and constants are open to independent and public review.

[varwoche]

I am yet to see anyone on this thread, or any place else for that matter, post solid evidence to show that AGW is a real phenomena. Here ya go (http://gwstudies.blogspot.com/search/label/AGW). This is a tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

In order to prove AGW skeptics, like myself wrong then someone must show firstly that... Sorry, that's not how it works when you are arguing against the widely accepted scientific body of knowledge, backed by countless peer-reviewed studies conducted by topic experts. Along the same lines, nobody is obligated to show that the face on Mars is a natural geographic feature when pseudo-skeptics fail to provide convincing contrary evidence that it's the handywork of space aliens.

[andyandy]

Your link to sources does not work any better than the magic water. Your arguments are amusing -but do not address my note that historically since the beginning of the industrial revolution, per capita wealth has increased. Or do you assume a relationship between power station fuel methods and per capita wealth? Please clarify.

The link works - you just need a pdf reader [and to have an inclination to learn about a topic rather than just speculate ignorantly on it]

the government website from which it's taken is here (http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk./independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/sternreview_index.cfm). you can find a great deal of information on the topic - as well as a link to Adobe if you need it.

your note that since the industrial revolution, per capita wealth has increased is utterly irrelevant. If you took time to make even a cursory look at the global warming models you will see that future per capita wealth increase is accounted for. Nevertheless, to engage in this cul-de-sac discussion, yes power station fuel methods do of course have an impact on the economy - and hence on per capita income. If Britain was to switch its coal/gas power stations to wood burning ones, then that would vastly increase the energy price in the country, which would be detrimental to to the british economy and would lead to lower per-capita income.

[mhaze]

For whatever, reason, the first link did not work. The second one did.

of the docs on the page, I assume you were suggesting I read the Stern report. I have got to say first of all that this is by far the longest, most convoluted set of legalistic disclaimers I have ran across in some time. Out of 50 pages of the "Part A" there is perhaps 10-15 actual pages of content and that is double spaced, the rest is all muddled double talk about why they chose this presumption or that one, and how the results could be different if they had used differing premises. Reading these estimated 35-40 pages is not exactly a learning process.

Now I could comment on the modeling, which I see no reason to agree with personally. Others, with better credentials, have criticized this report. However I am not certain whether your intent was to engage in any such discussion or just slam a denier.

Is there a reason that Britian should not use this as an opportunity to go to nuclear power?

Can you point to an economic model done in or around 1900 that came close to an accurate 100 year forecast? If so please provide me a reference.

[andyandy]

For whatever, reason, the first link did not work. The second one did.

of the docs on the page, I assume you were suggesting I read the Stern report. I have got to say first of all that this is by far the longest, most convoluted set of legalistic disclaimers I have ran across in some time. Out of 50 pages of the "Part A" there is perhaps 10-15 actual pages of content and that is double spaced, the rest is all muddled double talk about why they chose this presumption or that one, and how the results could be different if they had used differing premises. Reading these estimated 35-40 pages is not exactly a learning process.

Now I could comment on the modeling, which I see no reason to agree with personally. Others, with better credentials, have criticized this report. However I am not certain whether your intent was to engage in any such discussion or just slam a denier.

Is there a reason that Britian should not use this as an opportunity to go to nuclear power?

Can you point to an economic model done in or around 1900 that came close to an accurate 100 year forecast? If so please provide me a reference.

The part most appropriate to a discussion on the international response to climate change, taking into account technological considerations etc. is part
C "Building an effective international response to climate change." This is the pdf I initially linked to.

Here is a basic overview of the economics - with links to some sources worth reading.


the recently published EU impact assesment looks at the stabalisation of climate change to 2degrees C above baseline level [pre ind] by 2050.

Now it is currently predicted that we require a stabilisation to around 450ppmv for CO2e to give us a 50% chance of obtaining a 2degrees C change. Current levels are at around 430ppmv and increasing at 2ppmv per year. And it is likely that in order to stabilise at 450 we would first overshoot towards 500ppmv - before looking to bring it back down. This overshooting model requires that global emissions peak 2015-2020.

So under an "Emissions reduction scenario" by 2020 developed countries have an 18% reduction from 1990 levels, 32% by 2030, and 60-80% by 2050 and developing countries need to peak at 2020-25.
Ultimately we need an 80% drop on 1990 levels before we can affect a stablisation of the global climate.....

Unfortunately stablisation at 450ppmv marks very much the lower bound - retrenchment to that or below would be extremely costly
Unless there is urgent climate action within the next 10-15years, then stablisation at 550ppmv also slips out of reach. [550ppmv represents a 50% chance of temperatures exceeding 3degrees C]...

The Stern report also estimates a 1% of GDP expenditure for every nation on an annual basis would be sufficient to meet the 2degrees stablisation model - being as the global domestic product combined for the globe is $65 trillion [PPP] this represents an annual [and then ammended] global $650 billion investment.

So that's broadly where we're at....urgent global actions are required this decade to even give us a 50% chance of avoiding the catastrophic climate change associated with levels above 5050ppmv.

and as a guide, US emissions have risen 18% since 1990
In the EU-15, countries which have been very vocal in global warming policy, emissions have dropped 0.8%
and emissions in China have increased by 47% and in India by 55%....

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/B71/79/paper_c.pdf p11
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/B6F/58/paper_a.pdf

The abridged, abridged version of the Stern Report http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/30_10_06_exec_sum.pdf

A bbc guide to the stern report http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6098362.stm
__________________

as for the rest, yes britain already uses nuclear power. A question about the predictive models available in 1900 has little relevance when addressing the predictive models available a century later - unless you wish to make an argument for total ignorance - ie. we can't know, so we can't model any future scenarios.

[CapelDodger]

Can you point to an economic model done in or around 1900 that came close to an accurate 100 year forecast? If so please provide me a reference.

Why would anybody but a science-fiction writer have done that?

In 1900 people of foresight were (privately and governmentally) piling into oil as the future, and they were right about that for a century and more. Oil was the cheap energy source of the era, and all eras of rapid growth are defined by a cheap energy source. All such eras are terminated by a period of turmoil (the "crisis") when the cheap energy runs out or hits a ceiling.

We're into crisis phase already, IMO. The sort of interesting times the Chinese wish on you as a curse.

[CapelDodger]

I am yet to see anyone on this thread, or any place else for that matter, post solid evidence to show that AGW is a real phenomena.

The physics of greenhouse warming was established by Arrhenius et al in the late 19thCE, and no AGW sceptic has ever come up with a refutation of the work. Quantum physics explained it more fundamentally. That hasn't been refuted either. In fact, it's surely beholden on denialists to explain why AGW isn't happening. Maybe you should ask one?

There were even, back in the day, suggestions that burning fossil-fuels could lead to global warming. They weren' taken at all seriously because the intellectual climate was very inhospitable to such ideas. Geology and palaeontology had established the primacy of gradualism over catastrophism - the latter becoming more-or-less identified with superstition. Darwin reinforced that trend, adding a powerful argument that humanity should get over itself. The idea that one species could, over a few centuries, disturb this humungous environment by an iota was regarded as narcissism.

That's why the scientific world has got to where it is quite reluctantly. Catastrophism and human potency are back in the tent because the evidence demands it.

[mhaze]

I do not think that accurately describes Arrhenius, so I quote from our friend Wikipedia. If we describe him in the context of current day, we may as well discuss the mystery of the coal furnace of the sun, a subject from his day. You would argue that Arrhenius would support the current AGW models, but he isn't around to answer that personally.

Bringing Arrhenius in obfuscates the question raised of chicken or egg vis a vis co2, water balance and climate.



Arrhenius used the infrared observations of the moon by Frank Washington Very (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Washington_Very) and Samuel Pierpont Langley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Pierpont_Langley) at the Allegheny Observatory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegheny_Observatory) in Pittsburgh to calculate the absorption of CO2 and water vapour. Arrhenius' painstaking calculations were later shown to be erroneous. Using 'Stefan's law' (better known as the Stefan Boltzmann law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan-Boltzmann_law)), he formulated his greenhouse law. In its original form, Arrhenius' greenhouse law reads as follows: if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of the temperature will increase nearly in arithmetic progression. Which is still valid in the simplified expression by Myhre et al. (1998).
ΔF = αln(C/C0) Arrhenius' high absorption values for CO2, however, met criticism by Knut Ångström (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut_%C3%85ngstr%C3%B6m) in 1900, who published the first modern infrared spectrum of CO2 with two absorption bands. Arrhenius replied strongly in 1901 (Annalen der Physik), dismissing the critique altogether. He touched the subject briefly in a technical book titled Lehrbuch der kosmischen Physik (1903). He later wrote Världarnas utveckling (1906), German translation: Das Werden der Welten (1907), English translation: Worlds in the Making (1908) directed at a general audience, where he suggested that the human emission of CO2Milutin Milankovitch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milutin_Milankovitch) had presented a mechanism using orbital changes of the earth (Milankovitch cycles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles)), which has proven to be a powerful predictor of most of the millions of past climate changes. Nowadays, the accepted explanation is that orbital forcing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing) sets the timing for ice ages with CO2 acting as an essential amplifying feedback (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback). would be strong enough to prevent the world from entering a new ice age, and that a warmer earth would be needed to feed the rapidly increasing population. Arrhenius clearly believed that a warmer world would be a positive change. From that, the hot-house theory gained more attention. Nevertheless, until about 1960, most scientists dismissed the hot-house / greenhouse effect as implausible for the cause of ice ages as

[CapelDodger]

The Stern report also estimates a 1% of GDP expenditure for every nation on an annual basis would be sufficient to meet the 2degrees stablisation model - being as the global domestic product combined for the globe is $65 trillion [PPP] this represents an annual [and then ammended] global $650 billion investment.

Military expenditure - which is by definition waste - is a few more percents than that, and is clearly acceptable to society. I kid you not, nothing serious will get done before there's a well-promoted War On Warming. It's the human condition.

So that's broadly where we're at....urgent global actions are required this decade to even give us a 50% chance of avoiding the catastrophic climate change associated with levels above 5050ppmv.

and as a guide, US emissions have risen 18% since 1990
In the EU-15, countries which have been very vocal in global warming policy, emissions have dropped 0.8%
and emissions in China have increased by 47% and in India by 55%....

Stern's 1% assumes pretty prompt implementation, and it's in no way imminent. China still has mountains of coal and they're going up the chimney, just like the Appalachian mountains before them. Much of which is still up there ...

China's actually quite well-placed to prosper in a warming world. It's a large part of it, and it has centralism deeply embedded in the culture. Predict, plan, implement. The Middle Kingdom will emerge from all this, with restored status, but the US won't even emerge.

The momentum is enormous, and the snail-like pace of policy-making let alone policy-implentation means that 2C will be, like, "you wish!".

[Drysdale]

China's actually quite well-placed to prosper in a warming world. It's a large part of it, and it has centralism deeply embedded in the culture. Predict, plan, implement. The Middle Kingdom will emerge from all this, with restored status, but the US won't even emerge.



Wow, you can see the future that well? Sylvia would be envious I think.

Perhaps you should take the challenge.

[articulett]

I am yet to see anyone on this thread, or any place else for that matter, post solid evidence to show that AGW is a real phenomena.

In order to prove AGW skeptics, like myself wrong then someone must show firstly that the rise in CO2 preceeds, and is directly responsible for the rise in temperature. Secondly they must show that the amount of CO2 produced by humans must be significantly greater than the amount released into the atmosphere by natural processes or that the rise in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is that which is produced by humans.

So far I have seen nothing of the sort, even the Carbon Trust can't confirm that the rise in CO2 preceeds the rise in temperature over the last 500,000 years. The only thing I hear from AGW band wagon riders is that 'the relationship between temperature and CO2 is complex'!

What exactly would you consider "solid evidence". People much smarter than you seem to think the evidence is solid enough to beg nations to get their leaders on board--to educate people-- no evidence is enough for the AGW denier. What do you imagine the world would look like if it was actually as important and imminent as the vast majority of scientists--particularly climatologists say it is? Do you read anything or look at anything except that which confirms your bias?

[CapelDodger]

I do not think that accurately describes Arrhenius, so I quote from our friend Wikipedia. If we describe him in the context of current day, we may as well discuss the mystery of the coal furnace of the sun, a subject from his day. You would argue that Arrhenius would support the current AGW models, but he isn't around to answer that personally.

Exactly what did I get wrong about Arrhenius? You follow this up with a whole screed. Where's the problem in there? Is the physics of the greenhouse effect challenged in any way? Are you drawing my attention to the "Which is still valid in the simplified expression ... ". Or the thing about Angstrom in 1900?

I'm used to denialists referring to 1990 data for fear of the present day, but 1900? Isn't that a little ultra-conservative?


Bringing Arrhenius in obfuscates the question raised of chicken or egg vis a vis co2, water balance and climate.

I wasn't responding to that. That's why I didn't quote it. The physics of greenhouse warming - Arrhenius is a luminary in other subjects, I was introduced to him via explosives - is very well established. As I mentioned before, quantum physics has merely refined it. It does lead to the conclusion that a world with this much CO2 in its atmosphere - 380ppm, unprecedented in at least 600,000 years - will, in inequilibrium, be warmer than it is. And warmer is the way it's going. Meanwhile the CO2-load scampers on ahead.

The challenge to the denialists is to explain why the physics of greenhouse warming are wrong, or to explain why there is some compensating effect. The next challenge would be to explain why, entirely coincidentally, the world has got warmer all the same.

[CapelDodger]

Wow, you can see the future that well? Sylvia would be envious I think.

Perhaps you should take the challenge.

I only make unequivocal predictions when they'll pan out long after I'm dead; the challenge would be to prove I admitted errancy from beyond the grave. In which situation I'd probably have more pressing matters to concentrate on.

I think I'm right. You think I'm arrogant. We're both right.

[Drysdale]

I only make unequivocal predictions when they'll pan out long after I'm dead; the challenge would be to prove I admiied errancy from beyond the grave. In which situation I'd probably have more pressing matters to concentrate on.

I think I'm right. You think I'm arrogant. We're both right.

:) touche

[mhaze]

Is the physics of the greenhouse effect challenged in any way

Oh, so you just were saying he came up with the greenhouse effect.

[a_unique_person]

I am curious, still. Just what might these inventions be that will mean we don't have to worry about AGW? And, if they work, what will they cost, since the principle objection to doing anything about AGW is the cost of doing it.

Good question. I also would like to know what tommorrow's inventions would be. I would then invest in the correct companies today. Duhhh....



But you are prepared to gamble it all on something you have no idea will ever exist. I think I'll trust the scientists who have put a lot of work into what does exist, and can work. Optimism is not a recognised risk management strategy.

[Davo]

Anyones help on a response to these 2 comments on why humans are not adding to Global warming.My original question to the responder was ,what evidence would be required to show that man made global warming existed?

A clear rebuttal of the argument that the increase in CO2 follows the rise in temperature not vice versa would be a good beginning.

Then demonstrate why the charts showing how solar activity correlates very well with the rise and fall in global temperatures are wrong. You do not need to be a scientist to read a chart.

[Schneibster]

A clear rebuttal of the argument that the increase in CO2 follows the rise in temperature not vice versa would be a good beginning. CO2 has a spectrum. Infrared radiation is strongly absorbed in that spectrum. The particular wavelength of infrared absorbed by CO2 happens to correlate relatively closely to the peak of the black body radiation of the Earth. This peak is where it is because of the temperature of the surface of the Earth.

When radiation is not absorbed, it travels in a straight line. Most straight lines from the surface of the Earth lead into space. But when radiation is absorbed by a molecule, although it is re-emitted, it is re-emitted in a random direction. From the point of view of a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere, only approximately half of all directions go to space; the other half go back to the surface of the Earth. Thus, in the absence of CO2, the Earth radiates the heat in this particular "window" in the atmosphere back into space; but in its presence, some of the heat in this "window" doesn't escape, and the more CO2 in the atmosphere, the less heat escapes.

This particular window in the atmosphere does not correspond to the absorption spectrum of any other common greenhouse gas, such as methane or water; it is essentially unique to CO2. And it is very close to the radiation peak of the black body radiation of the Earth at the average temperature of the Earth; and that temperature could rise or fall by as much as ten Kelvin without that becoming untrue.

When heat does not escape from a system, that system stays hot (if there's no more incoming heat) or gets hotter (if there is more incoming heat). You might have heard of this before; evul sciencetis call this "insulation." Yes, that's what that pink stuff up in the attic that makes you itch is for: to keep your house warm.

An equilibrium is always reached where the amount of heat leaving just balances the amount coming in. If there is less heat going out, then the temperature will increase until the amount going out balances the amount coming in. If there's more CO2 in the atmosphere, then, it will get hotter.

This argument is based entirely on physics. It is a sufficient rebuttal to the claim.

However, the really telling argument is that in the geological record, some events have been observed when CO2 went up somewhat following a glaciation (most proponents of this idea have little idea what the difference is between an ice age and a glaciation, but there you have it). The fact of the matter is, after a glaciation, land is opened up where plants can grow where they could not before; they spread into this land as plants do; and animals follow them there. In addition, more plants can thrive in places where they were already growing, further fueling a growth in animal life. This results in more CO2; that would be because, gee, you know, it seems real mysterious but most animals seem to somehow breathe out CO2. Since the animals can move faster than the plants, and breed faster too, somehow, mysteriously and unaccountably, more CO2 gets made by the animals than gets consumed by the plants.

If that seems a bit sarcastic, that might just be because these arguments have been presented in threads exactly the same as this one, gee, let's see now, fifteen times in the last two years? Thanks for making us type it all again instead of doing competent research to find out for yourself. Thanks also for claiming that such arguments had not been made, over and over and over and over and over again, ad nauseum. I'm sure we all really appreciate it. If you're not convinced by now, basically, you are far enough out of touch with reality that it looks as if there isn't a great deal of point responding further.

Then demonstrate why the charts showing how solar activity correlates very well with the rise and fall in global temperatures are wrong. You do not need to be a scientist to read a chart.What charts? You mean the lies they put in that video they showed on Channel 4 in Britain? The one that the producers got chastised by the government for making and having the unmitigated gall to claim was balanced coverage? The one that one of the scientists interviewed claims took so much of what he said out of context that he's suing and apparently may win by summary judgment? Those supposedly factual charts have been debunked to such an extent that I am frankly surprised that you haven't heard about it; the conclusion that you don't pay attention to things you don't like is obvious. And this of course makes it extremely likely that you are incapable of accepting that which you do not like.

Considering your choice of avatar, I really don't think there's much else to be said. And if there were, I'm relatively certain it's not worth saying.

[Schneibster]

I am yet to see anyone on this thread, or any place else for that matter, post solid evidence to show that AGW is a real phenomena.Apparently, proper use of English among the skeptoid crowd (which is pretty much all that's left, as far as I can tell) would be a real phenomenon, if it were ever to happen. Add that to the realization that you have to be smart enough to be capable of installing a free Adobe Acrobat reader, after being prompted fifteen million times to click here to install it, into your browser in order to read documents with the extension ".pdf," would be another phenomenon, and together those would be phenomena. Very unlikely phenomena, apparently.

Right. Even the IPCC report uses phrases such as "likely" or "very likely" in some cases. I certainly hope you don't pretend to understand what a scientist means when "likely" or "very likely" are used; in legal terminology, those represent levels of certainty equivalent to "substantial and credible evidence" sufficient to support an indictment and formal charges followed by a trial, and "clear and convincing evidence," sufficient to allow a jury to make a finding in a civil case, or for a judge to remove a child from the custody of its parents, respectively.

Of course, someone incapable of properly operating a browser is probably incapable of following a link, so I'll just note that the name of the paper is "Can There Be Science-Base Precaution?" and let it go at that; perhaps you can operate the google better than your browser.

But there are some people here who are are way on the green side of IPCC, it seems. And the IPCC notes that we don't understand the effects of water balance and man made aerosol additions to the atmosphere. Oh, how conveniently you left out the fact that the estimates presented overwhelmingly show that their contributions will make the problem worse, and they were simply left out because we don't precisely know how MUCH worse they will make the predictions.

See, this is just the kind of stuff I always see from the skeptoids. They quote from something like they actually read it, but if you read it too, all you see is them cherry-picking arguments out of it, and leaving out all the caveats. Nice job; as I often say in such cases, what do you do for an encore, gargle peanut butter?

I personally am ready to accept AGW when shown computational models that actually incorporate water balance and aerosol contributions with the correct grid size, and when these models with their presumptions and constants are open to independent and public review.Wow, managed to fit two lies into that one:
1. The grid size makes all the difference, and the contributions of aerosols and water vapor are likely to be negative to the temperature; and
2. the models in use are not open to public scrutiny.

Try again.

If you found this insulting, here is the world's smallest record player playing "My Heart Bleeds for You." I found your presumption that you could lie with impunity, cherry picking and misrepresenting the contents of papers you obviously have not read, when you are incapable of properly operating a piece of software that just about everyone on the planet manages to use without a problem, rather insulting myself. Perhaps you should strive for a better quality of argument and evidence; unfortunately, if you do so, you will wind up sharing my opinion, so I guess that's probably not an option for you.

[mod=jmercer]
Please keep in mind that your membership agreement calls for civility; don't personalize arguments by adding insults - instead, attack the argument, not the person. Schneibster, there had to be dozens of different ways to present this without the personal insults - please don't do this in the future.
[mod=jmercer]

[Mr Clingford]

Schneibster and Capeldodger - I think you guys are doing a great job.

[mhaze]

I personally am ready to accept AGW when shown computational models that actually incorporate water balance and aerosol contributions with the correct grid size, and when these models with their presumptions and constants are open to independent and public review.
Wow, managed to fit two lies into that one:
1. The grid size makes all the difference, and the contributions of aerosols and water vapor are likely to be negative to the temperature; and
2. the models in use are not open to public scrutiny.

Try again.

If you found this insulting, here is the world's smallest record player playing "My Heart Bleeds for You." I found your presumption that you could lie with impunity

Scneib, are you just email flame baiting here?

Or trying to perfect ad hominem attacks?

[Cuddles]

To come back to this point:

Thanks for the summary, Cuddles. It seems there are two main areas of concern, then:

1) Change in temperature may have negative effects on farming in some areas.
2) Change in sea levels may render some low-lying areas of high population uninhabitable.

Would you say that's accurate? Is anything missing from this list?

It's a bit simplistic, but yes, that and disease that others have mentioned. The problems are apparent when you realise the actual meaning of "some". "Some" low-lying areas are places like Bangladesh that are home to hundreds of millions of people. Where will they go? We are already incapable of helping just hundreds of thousands of refugees, how will we cope with millions?

There must be many possible approaches for dealing with these problems. Perhaps certain crops could be genetically engineered to thrive in hotter temperatures, or maybe areas previously too cold for extensive farming will become viable as the climate warms. Relocating large numbers of relatively poor people will be a big challenge, to be sure. That seems to be a more difficult problem to solve.

Must be? Why must there be ways of dealing with these problems? That is exactly why they are problems. Because we don't know how to deal with them. Genetic engineering has potential, yes. But what if it doesn't work, or just isn't enough? Do we really want to wait until it is too late or should we be thinking about these things now? Maybe some places will get better for farming, yes. On the other hand, maybe they won't.

I guess I don't think shouting "We're all screwed!" is very productive, nor very accurate. It's important to study these problems in detail and start putting into motion some viable solutions, but too often I see these kind of discussions focus on doom-and-gloom worst-case scenarios that don't seem to help anything.

It depends what you mean by "productive". No, proclaiming the end of the world won't help prevent climate change. However, denying it is happening won't either. The trouble is, we are well past simple models and simulations. We can actually see things happening. The ice is melting, the sea is rising, the climate is changing. Unfortunately, it seems the only way to get people's attention is to tell them that they are all going to die. Once we have their attention hopefully we can ignore the doom-mongering and concentrate on what we can do about it, but at the moment there are still far too many people, including may in power, that don't seem to have grasped the message yet, and so the cries of "We're all screwed" will continue until they do.

[mhaze]

Unfortunately, it seems the only way to get people's attention is to tell them that they are all going to die. Once we have their attention hopefully we can ignore the doom-mongering and concentrate on what we can do about it, but at the moment there are still far too many people, including may in power, that don't seem to have grasped the message yet, and so the cries of "We're all screwed" will continue until they do.

A good summary of currently used tactics. But one that's been used before countless time by various sociopaths in religions and governments at all levels, and one that many reasonable people would meet with skepticism. I might add, the history of apocalyptic religions, for example the early Christian sects (and using the view that Jesus was an end - of times is nigh apocalytic preacher), does not exactly show that the doom mongering stops after the 30 years to the end of the world has come and gone. Those who have gained and concentrated power by the process continue on and so do a large percentage of the true believers.

[dogbite666]

Here ya go (http://gwstudies.blogspot.com/search/label/AGW). This is a tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

Sorry, that's not how it works when you are arguing against the widely accepted scientific body of knowledge, backed by countless peer-reviewed studies conducted by topic experts. Along the same lines, nobody is obligated to show that the face on Mars is a natural geographic feature when pseudo-skeptics fail to provide convincing contrary evidence that it's the handywork of space aliens.

Well, like most people who class themselves as skeptics, I don't accept anything until I've seen the evidence. Your link contains NOTHING which answers the questions I asked in my earlier post. Once again, have you any evidence to show that the rise in temperature in recent, (last 100 or so), is preceded by a rise in CO2?

The articles on the linked page you quote show evidence that global warming is happening, but nothing to show AGW.

[dogbite666]

The physics of greenhouse warming was established by Arrhenius et al in the late 19thCE, and no AGW sceptic has ever come up with a refutation of the work. Quantum physics explained it more fundamentally. That hasn't been refuted either. In fact, it's surely beholden on denialists to explain why AGW isn't happening. Maybe you should ask one?

There were even, back in the day, suggestions that burning fossil-fuels could lead to global warming. They weren' taken at all seriously because the intellectual climate was very inhospitable to such ideas. Geology and palaeontology had established the primacy of gradualism over catastrophism - the latter becoming more-or-less identified with superstition. Darwin reinforced that trend, adding a powerful argument that humanity should get over itself. The idea that one species could, over a few centuries, disturb this humungous environment by an iota was regarded as narcissism.

That's why the scientific world has got to where it is quite reluctantly. Catastrophism and human potency are back in the tent because the evidence demands it.

Arrhenius does not answer the quetion I asked in my ealier post. is the rise in temperature preceeded by a rise in CO2? Orbital theory and positive feedback, when accounted with human emissions of CO2 do not account for the 'hockey stick' rise in temperature and CO2.

Surely, if AGW is so acute, it would be easy to lay out a graph showing clearly that rise in temperature is preceeded by a rise in CO2, or is amplified by positive feed back from an increase in human emissions and that the increase in CO2 is that of human emission.

Amplifications in temperature by CO2 concentrations, as outlined by Arrhenius do not account for human CO2 emissions. The latest amplification would have to have seen a massive increase in CO2 about 800 yrs ago, was there one? Even if there was does that mean our emissions of CO" now, caused by our love of fossil fuel, is to blame for the current rise in temperature? The Carbon Trust seem to think so, but Arrhenius does not!

I'm not asking for much here, just the basic core evidence of AGW.

[mhaze]

It seems there are two main areas of concern, then:

1) Change in temperature may have negative effects on farming in some areas.
2) Change in sea levels may render some low-lying areas of high population uninhabitable.

Would you say that's accurate? Is anything missing from this list?

It's a bit simplistic, but yes, that and disease that others have mentioned. The problems are apparent when you realise the actual meaning of "some". "Some" low-lying areas are places like Bangladesh that are home to hundreds of millions of people. Where will they go? We are already incapable of helping just hundreds of thousands of refugees, how will we cope with millions?

In the "How will we cope with millions?" who exactly is the "we"? I am not trying to be nit picky. The "we" is definitely not some bunch of people on the other side of the planet from where a disaster is happening watching events on a TV or net and perhaps making a small donation to a cause.

The "we" would instead seem to be those people in a given immediate area considering or not considering the life that their future generations might have or not have and where that might be, and making choices. My ancestors are from Ireland and I am in the USA. Now, why is that? During the potato famine something between 500K and 2M died in Ireland and over 1 million emigrated.

How exactly is this sort of dilemma new?

[dogbite666]

In fact, it's surely beholden on denialists to explain why AGW isn't happening. Maybe you should ask one?

Yes, maybe James Randi should give Uri Geller the million dollars first, then set about proving him wrong in order to claim it back!

Show us the raw, solid, undeniable evidence that AGW is fact.

[dogbite666]

Originally Posted by mhaze View Post
I am yet to see anyone on this thread, or any place else for that matter, post solid evidence to show that AGW is a real phenomena.
Apparently, proper use of English among the skeptoid crowd (which is pretty much all that's left, as far as I can tell) would be a real phenomenon....

Proper use of the forum quote tag, by band wagon alarmists, would be an even greater phenomenon!

I know, it's a cheap shot, but I just couldn't resist!

[varwoche]

Show us the raw, solid, undeniable evidence that AGW is fact. [/URL]I await your citations to peer-reviewed studies conducted by topic experts that indicate that AGW is bogus. The onus is on you.

I suspect that Tim Barnett, research marine physicist at Scripps, never participated on forums on the internets when [URL="http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=666"]he said (http://gwstudies.blogspot.com/search/label/AGW): This is perhaps the most compelling evidence yet that global warming is happening right now ... The statistical significance of these results is far too strong to be merely dismissed and should wipe out much of the uncertainty about the reality of global warming.

[Davo]

Cheers Shniebster for your detailed response, apologies if this had already been discussed in other threads.

I`m entirely in agreement with you as to mans contribution to global warming so don`t stress.The 2 questions were not from myself but another poster on another forum.

You made the claim, that I claimed such arguments had not been made before, I hope you realise that was untrue.

My post originated from some of the points on the BBC website. HYS section. I was trying to come up with a decent response to some of the points raised there.Usually the BBC site has some intelligent input, but not in this case in the global warming forum, especially when you look at the recommended posts.

Lastly, please don`t judge a poster by his avatar.

[mhaze]

I await your citations to peer-reviewed studies conducted by topic experts that indicate that AGW is bogus. The onus is on you.

I suspect that Tim Barnett, research marine physicist at Scripps, never participated on forums on the internets when he said (http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=666):

I am ready to believe in Tim's work. He needs to run the model again and predict the temperatures and dissolved gas concentrations as of 2012 within a reasonable confidence level to get me too on the bandwagon. He's predicted the past....

I can horde up some food and wait out the five years. Plus I've got a "altoids tin survival kit" that I found on the internet and bought off ebay. Been thinking about selling them wholesale, it should be a growth market...

[CapelDodger]

Arrhenius does not answer the quetion I asked in my ealier post. is the rise in temperature preceeded by a rise in CO2? Orbital theory and positive feedback, when accounted with human emissions of CO2 do not account for the 'hockey stick' rise in temperature and CO2.

Of course orbital variation has nothing to do with it. That only features over much longer timescales. Milankovich is the name most associated with that phaenomenon.

I mention Arrhenius to emphasise the long-established nature of the physics involved. It's been confirmed and refined constantly by mainstream science, it has not been plucked out the ether by some wild-haired mad genius.

Surely, if AGW is so acute, it would be easy to lay out a graph showing clearly that rise in temperature is preceeded by a rise in CO2, or is amplified by positive feed back from an increase in human emissions and that the increase in CO2 is that of human emission.

CO2 started rising in the 19thCE - this was observed at the end of the century. A clear upward trend in temperature post-dated that. The data is noisy since there are other influences on temperature, volcanoes for instance. Sulphate plumes caused cooling from the 40's, but it's very difficult to quantify. By the time we got good satellite coverage the world was cleaning up its act.

Amplifications in temperature by CO2 concentrations, as outlined by Arrhenius do not account for human CO2 emissions.

Well, no. Burning fossil fuels accounts for that.

The latest amplification would have to have seen a massive increase in CO2 about 800 yrs ago, was there one?

I think you've got yourself in a muddle here. You must be referring to the end of the last glaciation, when CO2 increase lagged the early temperature increase by about 800 years. Temperature first (Milankovich cycle), CO2 later.

Even if there was does that mean our emissions of CO" now, caused by our love of fossil fuel, is to blame for the current rise in temperature? The Carbon Trust seem to think so, but Arrhenius does not!

Arrhenius is dead, but he would certainly agree that 380ppmCO2 is to blame for the ongoing warming. It's right there in the science he produced.

I'm not asking for much here, just the basic core evidence of AGW.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gases warm the planet. We know why and so can calculate their effect accurately. CO2 load has risen from 280ppm to 380ppm in the last century and a half. (Isotope analysis shows that the increase in CO2 is from the burning of fossil fuels.) At that concentration we can calculate that the planet will be warmer than it currently is. The planet has warmed in the last century and a half, and continues to warm towards the predicted temperature.

That's not so much evidence as case proven.

[dogbite666]

[/URL]I await your citations to peer-reviewed studies conducted by topic experts that indicate that AGW is bogus. The onus is on you.

I suspect that Tim Barnett, research marine physicist at Scripps, never participated on forums on the internets when [URL="http://scrippsnews.ucsd.edu/Releases/?releaseID=666"]he said (http://gwstudies.blogspot.com/search/label/AGW):

Again the link contains so substance! No solid evidence, just a quote. I could find you many similar links to pages which so 'evidence' for homeopathy, for prayer, or for the spoon bending ability of Uri Gellar!

Come on, this is potentially the biggest human catastrophy in history, surely you can do better?

[CapelDodger]

Plus I've got a "altoids tin survival kit" that I found on the internet and bought off ebay. Been thinking about selling them wholesale, it should be a growth market...

That's sound thinking. Global warming isn't going to go away, and unfocused concern about it will continue to grow. A marketing opportunity if ever I've seen one. Hard-core sceptic that I am, I'm also a hard-core cynic and respect the art of snake-oil salesmanship.

In this case you're thinking and planning ahead, about a matter you understand. Fads and fashions come and go, the game remains the same and the world keeps turning, unconcerned.

[dogbite666]

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and greenhouse gases warm the planet. We know why and so can calculate their effect accurately. CO2 load has risen from 280ppm to 380ppm in the last century and a half. (Isotope analysis shows that the increase in CO2 is from the burning of fossil fuels.) At that concentration we can calculate that the planet will be warmer than it currently is. The planet has warmed in the last century and a half, and continues to warm towards the predicted temperature.

That's not so much evidence as case proven..

x+y=z therfore a+b=c ? No...........?

try this:

Uri Gellar says he can bend spoons, He rubs a spoon it is seen to bend, serveral prominent scientist can varify it. Warming of a spoon can lead to bending

Therefore Uri gellar can bend spoons just by rubbing them! Case proven!

Human emissions of CO2 have risen, temperature has risen and CO2 exhibits greenhouse effects.

Therefore human CO2 is directly responsible for the rise in temperature?


If we could calculate the effects so accurately why I'am I constantly being told the likes of 'Ice caps melting at greater rate than fist thought'? or 'global temperature has risen above predicted figures'?

[CapelDodger]

.. please don`t judge a poster by his avatar.

You're all free to judge me by mine. In truth, I ain't nearly so pretty.

[dogbite666]

Quote:
Amplifications in temperature by CO2 concentrations, as outlined by Arrhenius do not account for human CO2 emissions.
Well, no. Burning fossil fuels accounts for that..

It does nothing of the sort!

[CapelDodger]

Schneibster and Capeldodger - I think you guys are doing a great job.

Well, we don't lack for practice. It's pretty much the same-old same-old, which we've honed our responses to. It gets easier as time goes by - quite unlike the denialist and sceptoid experience.

Thanks anyway :) .

[CapelDodger]

It does nothing of the sort!
What else accounts for human emissions of CO2?

[dogbite666]

What else accounts for human emissions of CO2?

The rise in temperature preceededs the rise in CO2, human CO2 or otherwise has nothing to account for!

[andyandy]

Again the link contains so substance! No solid evidence, just a quote. I could find you many similar links to pages which so 'evidence' for homeopathy, for prayer, or for the spoon bending ability of Uri Gellar!

Come on, this is potentially the biggest human catastrophy in history, surely you can do better?

Do you accept the IPCC conclusions? Or do you know something that they don't?

IT TOOK three years to write and contains six years' worth of research. The full report, to be published later this year, will contain 11 chapters. One chapter alone, seen by New Scientist, runs to 150 pages and includes more than 850 references. The authors say it will resolve many critical questions about climate change and support the unequivocal language of the summary published last week.

Warming is now an "incontrovertible" fact for two reasons, the scientists say. First, because doubts raised by satellite data - which suggested that recent warming has been far less than surface thermometers indicate - have now been resolved. In short, the thermometers have been shown to be right (New Scientist, 20 August 2005, p 10). In any case, nothing else but global warming can explain the rapid melting of ice round the world.

The declaration that warming is "very likely" to be due to human activity is justified by an increasing agreement between measurements from the real world and the detailed predictions of statistical models of warming. "It is a very rigorous statistical analysis, comparing measurements and models in space and time in a more detailed way than ever before," says Susan Solomon, head of the US group that led the assessment. Key to this has been the observed greater warming over land masses compared with the oceans, and the combination of warming in the lower atmosphere with cooling in the stratosphere.

Researchers also claim to have a better idea of how much warming from greenhouse gases is being masked by dust and smoke aerosols put into the air by human activity. This again improves the match between models and the real world.

The team is also much more confident now about the unique nature of recent warming. The IPCC's 2001 summary report was heavily criticised for including a graph - known as the "hockey stick" - which purported to show that the world is now warmer than for at least the past 1000 years. The claim was based on sporadic proxy data such as tree rings, and was widely attacked. Now a huge amount of extra data collected since 2001 "all supports the interpretation that warming in the past half-century is unusual in at least the last 1300 years", the summary says.

Where does this leave the prognosis for the planet? The report sets the likely range of average temperature changes for a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations - expected around the end of the century - at between 2 and 4.5 °C. This is roughly in line with previous reports, though this time it adds, with a nod to possible positive feedbacks, "values substantially higher than 4.5 °C cannot be excluded".

This amount of warming will likely deliver an ice-free Arctic and a 30 per cent drop in rainfall in many subtropical regions, including a huge area from the Mediterranean and North Africa through the Middle East to central Asia, and another across southern Africa. Meanwhile, higher latitudes will get wetter as the air warms and storm tracks move, and hurricanes will become more intense.

"This amount of warming will likely deliver an ice-free Arctic and a 30 per cent drop in rainfall in subtropical regions"
Global warming, the report says, contains a deadly time lag. That's because 80 per cent of the extra heat currently being trapped by man-made greenhouse gases is being drawn into the oceans. As the oceans warm, more of that heat will remain in the air. Even if emissions of greenhouse gases were sharply reduced, the world would continue to warm by 0.1 °C per decade for some time.http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/mg19325903.900;jsessionid=CIPNLLEAJPAI

The 2001 IPCC report [the conclusions of which have been strengthened subsequently] is available to read online here (http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/index.htm)

In particular chapter 12 (http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/TAR-12.PDF) is worth reading - if you are genuinly interested in the topic.

[CapelDodger]

If we could calculate the effects so accurately why I'am I constantly being told the likes of 'Ice caps melting at greater rate than fist thought'? or 'global temperature has risen above predicted figures'?

Global temperature has not risen above predicted figures. It continues to rise towards predicted figures. If we stopped burning fossil fuels today, temperatures would continue to rise.

The response of ice-masses to higher air and ocean temperatures is a complicated question in itself. It involves the atmosphere/ice interface, the ocean/ice interface, and materials science (ice is a complicated substance, just as glass is; it can flow and it can fracture). Ice-masses can be entirely isolated from the ocean (ice-caps), mostly isolated from the oceans (glaciers), somewhat isolated from the ocean (ice-sheets), or not at all isolated (Arctic sea-ice).

Going right back to the genesis of this thread, the models of ice-dynamics predict the melt-rate for any given climate, and those models have underestimated the rate of melting in all cases. A culprit well in the frame is the materials theory. Fracturing has not been well-modelled, which means infiltration of surface melt-water into the bulk of the ice-mass has been under-estimated.

Whatever, it has nothing to do with greenhouse warming. That's been predicted and has occurred; it shows no sign of stopping.

[dogbite666]

Look,

if AGW is fact someone must ba able to show that CO2 rise preceeds temperature rise, or if not, show that the oscillations are such that the amount of CO2 emitted by humans over last few hundred years is responsible for the sudden rise in temperature. Arrhenius does not show this to be the case, and it is pretty clear the rise in CO2 follows the rise in temperature, not the other way round.

I am ready to accept AGW if I can find clear concise evidence, I have done pleanty of digging but yet to find anything of the sort.

[CapelDodger]

The 2001 IPCC report [the conclusions of which have been strengthened subsequently] ...

It should be stressed that the predictions of mainstream science regarding climate change have been borne out for several decades by actual outcomes - entirely unlike the denialist position which has been in constant retreat. That's why denialists take such comfort in the past; the present is so consistently unkind to them.

[andyandy]

Look,

if AGW is fact someone must ba able to show that CO2 rise preceeds temperature rise, or if not, show that the oscillations are such that the amount of CO2 emitted by humans over last few hundred years is responsible for the sudden rise in temperature. Arrhenius does not show this to be the case, and it is pretty clear the rise in CO2 follows the rise in temperature, not the other way round.

I am ready to accept AGW if I can find clear concise evidence, I have done pleanty of digging but yet to find anything of the sort.

look - from the working group report that's going to form the IPCC's 2007 report.

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/Report/AR4WG1_Ch09.pdf

p22 onwards for a discussion on temperature.

[CapelDodger]

Look,

if AGW is fact someone must ba able to show that CO2 rise preceeds temperature rise, or if not, show that the oscillations are such that the amount of CO2 emitted by humans over last few hundred years is responsible for the sudden rise in temperature.

:confused:

As I have just pointed out, CO2 increase started in the mid 19thCE and temperature increase started afterwards.

Arrhenius does not show this to be the case ...

:confused:

... and it is pretty clear the rise in CO2 follows the rise in temperature, not the other way round.

A statement. Why is it pretty clear? Why is it clear that the CO2 concentration of both atmosphere and oceans has increased because of the increase in temperature? Where's all this extra CO2 clearly coming from?

I am ready to accept AGW if I can find clear concise evidence, I have done pleanty of digging but yet to find anything of the sort.

:confused:

[CapelDodger]

look - from the working group report that's going to form the IPCC's 2007 report.

Look - that's not what db66 wants, OK? :rolleyes: What db666 refers to as "concise evidence" we would call a "sound-bite". It's pearls before swine a lot of the time, but what the hey. Beats shouting at the television, anyway :) .

[a_unique_person]

CO2 has a spectrum. Infrared radiation is strongly absorbed in that spectrum. The particular wavelength of infrared absorbed by CO2 happens to correlate relatively closely to the peak of the black body radiation of the Earth. This peak is where it is because of the temperature of the surface of the Earth.
....

Great post. I just hope some people take the time to read and understand it :(.

[CapelDodger]

Great post. I just hope some people take the time to read and understand it :(.

Seconded. The usual suspects are probably lost causes, but more people read the Forums than participate in them. And some do so in the quest for knowledge and understanding.

[Schneibster]

Proper use of the forum quote tag, by band wagon alarmists, would be an even greater phenomenon!

I know, it's a cheap shot, but I just couldn't resist!Perhaps you failed to note that it was the original quoter of you who seemed to have a little problem with the quote tags. Sorry, I couldn't be bothered to fix his error. Not my problem, sport. I got better things to do with my time.

[Pipirr]

.....but more people read the Forums than participate in them. And some do so in the quest for knowledge and understanding.

Well yes. Yes, we do.

Back to the popcorn....

[Schneibster]

Scneib, are you just email flame baiting here?

Or trying to perfect ad hominem attacks?Maybe you'd like to consider the fact that so far, you've made at least eight claims for which you have presented essentially zero evidence, and dismissed the bulk of the well-supported data in the field, and now been shown not to have actually read something you claimed to have read. Perhaps if you'd ask honest questions, instead of ones that are premised upon lies, you might get honest answers and more polite treatment. As it is, you look like about a thousand other skeptoids that have posted supposedly scathing reviews of the evidence for AGW on various boards based on incorrect information, much of which is nothing but outright lies. If you're going to talk about it, perhaps you might care to do some actual research and take a realistic look at the science that's being done in the field.

To top all of this off, you have presented not one single solitary piece of peer-reviewed solid evidence against the article this thread was originally based on, nor as far as I can tell have you even read it. If you think I'm going to treat you with anything but scorn under those circumstances, think again. If you want serious conversation, be serious. So far, you're not.

I don't say that you're not just unaware that you're repeating lies- but having been told they're lies now about fifteen times, and had that backed up with solid, peer-reviewed evidence, without having presented a single bit of such evidence yourself, it seems to me that anyone who has any sort of honest claim to be a skeptic would have actually gone and looked, and I know what you'll find because I've been there.

[Schneibster]

Cheers Shniebster for your detailed response, apologies if this had already been discussed in other threads.

I`m entirely in agreement with you as to mans contribution to global warming so don`t stress.The 2 questions were not from myself but another poster on another forum.Then I apologize for treating you scornfully.

You made the claim, that I claimed such arguments had not been made before, I hope you realise that was untrue.The questions you asked took it as given. Really, it's a single search away, and it's in the top right corner of every thread and every forum. Google turns up what is admittedly a dog's breakfast, but then again, since there are people out there trying to make sure it does, I guess that fact kind of speaks for itself.

My post originated from some of the points on the BBC website. HYS section. I was trying to come up with a decent response to some of the points raised there.Usually the BBC site has some intelligent input, but not in this case in the global warming forum, especially when you look at the recommended posts.

Lastly, please don`t judge a poster by his avatar.This subject has been debated here to a fare-thee-well; by and large, the biggest idiots on the subject have been made to appear foolish enough times that they don't bother any more, because every time they come up with some new "evidence" it gets debunked, and not long afterward, it turns out Exxon paid for it, again. Lately it's gotten even more interesting as the Congress investigates it. That turned over some rocks with some interesting and slimy denizens hiding under them.

What I find absolutely amazing is that there are still people who just aren't getting it. Hell, Shrub actually appears to be getting it, not to mention at least half the candidates in the recent Republican debate (of course, whether they'll actually be willing to do anything remains to be seen), and most of them are of approximately the intellectual capacity of a bag of hammers. Given what I've seen on this forum, and elsewhere on the 'Net, however, it appears amazingly that despite the fact that everybody else seems to have figured it out, there are still fools out there who haven't. I ask your pardon for placing you among their number; you have corrected that misapprehension.

As far as your avatar, it's the face you present on the forum. If it contains a picture of a man presenting a well-known sign of disrespect, I suggest that you might find yourself regularly in situations where people believe you are being disrespectful when you are not. Extra care might therefore be necessary to ensure that you present yourself properly; simply taking a couple questions that you saw somewhere on a forum might not necessarily be the best way to proceed, since many will assume they represent your opinion, and if they find that opinion abrasive, your avatar will reinforce that impression.

Given that you were serious, I'll give you the same answer I gave someone else not too long ago: if you have more questions, ask and I'll answer as honestly as I can. I hope that proper apologies will clear any other matters we might have remaining between us.

[Schneibster]

Honestly, I'm not one to obsess about nothing. We are talking here about changes within my lifetime, a brief period at the start of which the situation was essentially indistinguishable from what it had been over the lifetime of our civilization, that have not been seen in the lifetime of that civilization, some 8KY or so. The Arctic Ocean has not been free of ice in a hundred and twenty five thousand years, back during the Eemian interglacial, also known as the Riss-Wurm interglacial, which is most of the entire lifetime of the human race, depending on who you talk to. (The Wurm glaciation began 70KYA or so, and the Eemian began about 131KYA; the beginning of the Eemian also marks the age of the oldest known modern human remains, Homo Sapiens sapiens, found so far).

One of the big problems with this is that we are not entering a very hot time in the Milankovitch cycle. As far as we can tell in the history of the geological record, CO2 levels have never been this high during any previous interglacial. During hot periods of the Milankovitch cycle, yes- and they've been a couple orders of magnitude larger than they are now, or are likely to get anytime soon, at certain periods- but those periods were very much unlike now, both in terms of living species, and in terms of orbital oscillations. This is a fairly normal interglacial, from the standpoint of Milankovitch oscillations. There is no explanation either for how hot it's getting, or for how much CO2 there is in the atmosphere, in the geological record. Similarly, there is no explanation in the Milankovitch cycles. There is an explanation for us being in an interglacial in the Milankovitch cycles, but as such things go, expectations are that this will be a relatively short one, lasting at most only another 30-50KY. It simply shouldn't be this hot, and there simply shouldn't be this much CO2 in the air, judging by the geological and astronomical record.

Similarly, although solar activity increased through the 1990s, it began to fall of at the end of that decade, and in case anyone had failed to notice it, we're nearly through the next one. There is no explanation for how hot it is, or how much CO2 there is, to be found there, either.

We are talking about events over the next few decades after which literally thousands of species will have ceased to exist other than in zoos. Polar bears, arctic seals, arctic foxes, some species of terns, and potentially more than one species of whale, which rely upon the cold water of the arctic to provide a nutrient-rich environment for the growth of the plankton they eat every summer, will likely become extinct in the wild. There is no way we can save them; this is most likely inevitable at this time.

The sea levels during the hottest part of the Eemian were 4-6 meters above current levels. Scandinavia was an island. Northern Europe would be hard hit. The scariest thing about this is that the high temperatures were only 1-2K above current temperatures now, and this was during a far hotter period in the Milankovitch cycle.

It is very important to understand that the situation today represents a climate situation in terms of CO2 concentrations, solar output, Milankovitch oscillation state, and temperature, that has never been seen before. CO2 levels during the hottest part of the Eemian were 300ppm. Temperatures were 1-2K (K degrees are the same size as C) hotter than today. The state of the Milankovitch oscillations was much hotter. Solar output was little different, but the greater eccentricity at that point of the Milankovitch cycle made insolation greater in the Northern summer and less in the winter than it is today. Extensive desertification occurred; quite a bit of it was "cold desert." The Great Plains in the US and Canada were part of this. Northern Europe was sea, and Scandinavia was an island. Bangladesh did not exist.

The fact of the matter is that there simply is no explanation other than AGW for current temperatures. Solar activity is not especially high; neither is the Milankovitch cycle, in fact eccentricity is low, obliquity is high, and precession is low but rising. Eccentricity appears to be the major forcing factor, but its strength is affected by the other two, moreso by obliquity than precession. By all of these measures, it should be colder now than it was in the Eemian, and CO2 should be lower. But it's only barely colder than the Eemian maximum, and CO2 levels are higher than anytime in the Eemian, at 380ppm (the highest in the Eemian is 300ppm). CO2 is the ONLY possible explanation.

We are in real trouble; not from the rising water (although that will take its toll) but from the loss of farmland. 30-40% of the richest farmland in California will be inundated, and underground aquifers already under stress will be contaminated by salt water, denying this rich farmland any source of water. When you consider that 10% of the produce consumed in the US, and in winter as much as 30%, comes from California, you have to ask yourself: what the hell are we going to eat? It's a simple, easy, obvious question.

So when I say we're screwed, it's not hysteria. It's a simple fact. We're going to lose thousands of species, including some of the most well-known and ecologically important ones, we're going to have a lot less land to live in, and some of the richest farmland on the planet is going to stop producing anything. How would you describe that? You think maybe it's GOOD?

[Davo]

Then I apologize for treating you scornfully.

Apologies accepted.


This subject has been debated here to a fare-thee-well; by and large, the biggest idiots on the subject have been made to appear foolish enough times that they don't bother any more, because every time they come up with some new "evidence" it gets debunked, and not long afterward, it turns out Exxon paid for it, again. Lately it's gotten even more interesting as the Congress investigates it. That turned over some rocks with some interesting and slimy denizens hiding under them.

What I find absolutely amazing is that there are still people who just aren't getting it. Hell, Shrub actually appears to be getting it, not to mention at least half the candidates in the recent Republican debate (of course, whether they'll actually be willing to do anything remains to be seen), and most of them are of approximately the intellectual capacity of a bag of hammers. Given what I've seen on this forum, and elsewhere on the 'Net, however, it appears amazingly that despite the fact that everybody else seems to have figured it out, there are still fools out there who haven't. I ask your pardon for placing you among their number; you have corrected that misapprehension.

I think part of the problem with the people that don`t get it, is the belief factor. People don`t want to burden themselves with the thought of there being a major problem and taking any responsibility, its far more comforting to believe there isn`t a problem and latch onto anything which supports that belief. Kind of like a religion. Probably the other group is the completely paranoid, "don`t trust the scientists"group ( but believe everything from governments and corporations whom have an obvious bias). Apparently also GW is a scam to sell global warming products too ( I haven`t figured out what gobal warming products are). I have no idea how to deal with these people, any suggestions ?

As far as your avatar, it's the face you present on the forum. If it contains a picture of a man presenting a well-known sign of disrespect.

Its actually an Alien not a man but I take your point.

Given that you were serious, I'll give you the same answer I gave someone else not too long ago: if you have more questions, ask and I'll answer as honestly as I can. I hope that proper apologies will clear any other matters we might have remaining between us.

Good to see we are on the same wavelength, appreciate your response.

[Corsair 115]

A question about the CO2 content in the atmosphere contributing to global warming:

Which matter more - the amount (i.e. tonnage) of CO2 in the atmosphere, or the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere?

It is possible to have a higher proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere without having a greater amount. If the amount of oxygen or nitrogen in the atmosphere was reduced, then the proportion of CO2 in the air would naturally be higher, even though the amount would still be the same.

[dogbite666]

:confused:

As I have just pointed out, CO2 increase started in the mid 19thCE and temperature increase started afterwards.



:confused:



A statement. Why is it pretty clear? Why is it clear that the CO2 concentration of both atmosphere and oceans has increased because of the increase in temperature? Where's all this extra CO2 clearly coming from?



:confused:



You completely missed the point! I dont know whether intentially or not.

You cannot show that the rise in CO2 in recent years is responsible for the rise in temperature. It is quite clear that the rise in CO2 is an effect of temperature rise because the rise in CO2 trails the rise in temperature and the oscillations don't account for it.

It is the case that increased temperature caused an increase in CO2 so it could quite easily be the case that something is warming the atmosphere which in turn is creating more CO2, as I said before all the human emissions of CO2 do not account for the rise we see today.

[Cuddles]

In the "How will we cope with millions?" who exactly is the "we"? I am not trying to be nit picky. The "we" is definitely not some bunch of people on the other side of the planet from where a disaster is happening watching events on a TV or net and perhaps making a small donation to a cause.

It's not? Who is it then? Global warming is a global phenomenon. While it would be nice for those of us who aren't affected as much as others to just sit back and ignore it, that wouldn't be considered a very friendly response, especially since it is largely our fault in the first place. If millions of people are forced to leave their homes, where will they go? This isn't a case of refugees having their homes wrecked and accepting charity to rebuild them. If the country is underwater there is no rebuilding to be done. The people have to go somewhere, and my point was that the places they may go simply can't cope with millions of refugees.

The "we" would instead seem to be those people in a given immediate area considering or not considering the life that their future generations might have or not have and where that might be, and making choices. My ancestors are from Ireland and I am in the USA. Now, why is that? During the potato famine something between 500K and 2M died in Ireland and over 1 million emigrated.

How exactly is this sort of dilemma new?

There is a very big difference between a million people moving from one country and hundreds of millions moving from lots of countries. There is also a big difference between a world with around 1.5 billion people and a world with 6.5 billion. Which country do you suggest for the entire population of Bangladesh to emigrate to? Bear in mind that most countries will also be experiencing climate change and are likely to have problems with their own food supply, let alone that for refugees.

Incidentally, do you think millions dying and millions emigrating from Ireland was a good thing? Even if the problems we encounter are no different from problems we have had before, don't you think it would be a good idea to try to avoid them? Just because millions have died in the past doesn't mean we should let millions more die, especially since this time we can predict what could happen and try to stop it, or at least cope with it in advance.

[fsol]

You completely missed the point! I dont know whether intentially or not.

You cannot show that the rise in CO2 in recent years is responsible for the rise in temperature. It is quite clear that the rise in CO2 is an effect of temperature rise because the rise in CO2 trails the rise in temperature and the oscillations don't account for it.

It is the case that increased temperature caused an increase in CO2 so it could quite easily be the case that something is warming the atmosphere which in turn is creating more CO2, as I said before all the human emissions of CO2 do not account for the rise we see today.

Did I miss the post where you showed the evidence for this?

[a_unique_person]

You completely missed the point! I dont know whether intentially or not.

You cannot show that the rise in CO2 in recent years is responsible for the rise in temperature. It is quite clear that the rise in CO2 is an effect of temperature rise because the rise in CO2 trails the rise in temperature and the oscillations don't account for it.

It is the case that increased temperature caused an increase in CO2 so it could quite easily be the case that something is warming the atmosphere which in turn is creating more CO2, as I said before all the human emissions of CO2 do not account for the rise we see today.

For some reason, this is a stumbling block for a lot of people. How can CO2 be a forcing, (causing warming), and a feedback (resulting from warming).

It can, because it does.

It can act as a forcing when, all other forcings being stable, it is increased and causes warming using the well understood process that has been described in detail already by Schneibster.

It can also be a feedback. If the earth is in a steady ice age state, and a Milankovich cycle creates warming, allowing the carbon cycle to increase, it will be a response.

It can be both.

In the current state of the earths climate, it is a forcing, and can be demonstrated to be so.

[Ziggurat]

However, the really telling argument is that in the geological record, some events have been observed when CO2 went up somewhat following a glaciation (most proponents of this idea have little idea what the difference is between an ice age and a glaciation, but there you have it). The fact of the matter is, after a glaciation, land is opened up where plants can grow where they could not before; they spread into this land as plants do; and animals follow them there. In addition, more plants can thrive in places where they were already growing, further fueling a growth in animal life. This results in more CO2; that would be because, gee, you know, it seems real mysterious but most animals seem to somehow breathe out CO2. Since the animals can move faster than the plants, and breed faster too, somehow, mysteriously and unaccountably, more CO2 gets made by the animals than gets consumed by the plants.

This argument makes no sense. Yes, animals breed faster than plants. But there's more plants than animals, so that means nothing. The relevant quantity isn't breeding rates, it's biomass. Biomass gets created by plants when they photosynthesize, and it gets destroyed when animals burn carbohydrates. The relevant question, in terms of plant/animal contribution to CO2 content, is what happens to the total biomass? If biomass is increasing, then plants/animals are a CO2 sink, not a CO2 source. And following glacial retreat, we should expect biomass to increase (and that's what you're claiming happened). So there's got to be something other than animals expelling CO2 to explain CO2 rising after glacial retreat. In CANNOT be from animals unless you're going to claim a net loss of vegetation following glacial retreat, and you just said the opposite thing happens. Because it's a physical impossibility for animals to be burning more carbohydrates than plants are producing unless there's such a net loss of vegetation.

[fsol]

This argument makes no sense. Yes, animals breed faster than plants. But there's more plants than animals, so that means nothing. The relevant quantity isn't breeding rates, it's biomass. Biomass gets created by plants when they photosynthesize, and it gets destroyed when animals burn carbohydrates. The relevant question, in terms of plant/animal contribution to CO2 content, is what happens to the total biomass? If biomass is increasing, then plants/animals are a CO2 sink, not a CO2 source. And following glacial retreat, we should expect biomass to increase (and that's what you're claiming happened). So there's got to be something other than animals expelling CO2 to explain CO2 rising after glacial retreat. In CANNOT be from animals unless you're going to claim a net loss of vegetation following glacial retreat, and you just said the opposite thing happens. Because it's a physical impossibility for animals to be burning more carbohydrates than plants are producing unless there's such a net loss of vegetation.

Is it not oceans? I thought that as they warm they release some of the CO2 they store.

[Schneibster]

A question about the CO2 content in the atmosphere contributing to global warming:

Which matter more - the amount (i.e. tonnage) of CO2 in the atmosphere, or the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere?

It is possible to have a higher proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere without having a greater amount. If the amount of oxygen or nitrogen in the atmosphere was reduced, then the proportion of CO2 in the air would naturally be higher, even though the amount would still be the same.The property of CO2 that causes the greenhouse effect is its propensity to absorb infrared photons and re-emit them in a random direction. Therefore, in its path from the Earth's surface to space, the more CO2 molecules a photon could encounter, the more likely it is to be so absorbed and re-emitted. So a higher concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increases the greenhouse effect.

But the sheer amount is also important. Gases are composed of atoms that are not bound together by Van der Waals forces. They are in otherwise empty space, bouncing off one another. Increasing their amount within a limited space, such as our atmosphere, increases how many there are in a given space, an therefore how likely a photon is to encounter one on its path.

So the answer to your question is, both matter, but because the amount of CO2 compared to the amount of atmosphere is so small, we generally speak of it as a concentration rather than as a total quantity.

[Ziggurat]

Which matter more - the amount (i.e. tonnage) of CO2 in the atmosphere, or the proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere?

It is possible to have a higher proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere without having a greater amount. If the amount of oxygen or nitrogen in the atmosphere was reduced, then the proportion of CO2 in the air would naturally be higher, even though the amount would still be the same.

The total amount is the important factor. But the total amount of atmosphere has been close enough to constant over the time periods of interest that concentration is essentially equivalent to total amount. There's a constant O2/CO2 exchange going on, but the amount of O2 is so much higher than CO2 that large relative changes in CO2 are still small relative changes in O2. And there's no mechanism which can provide for significant nitrogen fluctuations.

[FenrisWolf]

I think I've identified why the "We're screwed!" type of hysterical argument is such a massive turn-off to me. It's not because I think global warming isn't happening: I'm sure it is happening and will continue, and I'm sure it's bad.

It's that "We're screwed!" is terribly imprecise, and partially inaccurate. Or to be flip, "How screwed, and who's we?"

First, the matter of precision. A number has been bandied about in this thread: "sea levels will rise 4-6 meters". Well, doesn't the difference between 4 and 6 meters change the scope of the problem by orders of magnitude? Couldn't it be the difference between moving or not (or even death, or not) for millions of people? Also, how fast does this happen? A 6-meter change over 5 years isn't the same scope of problem as a 6 meter change over 50 years, or 100. Cuddles has mentioned "hundreds of millions of refugees" -- over how long? Half a million a year, or 10 million a year, or what? It makes a big difference. "40-60% of California farmland will be flooded" Uhh.... that 20% difference is pretty substantial, and changes what solutions might be workable. And again, how fast is this flooding happening? In a year, you've got no options but instant famine. In 50 years, you've got many potential options.

And so on. Again, how screwed? And what level of confidence do scientists have in these predicted numbers? Is confidence in these numbers (4-6 feet, etc) uniformly as high as the confidence level that global warming is happening at all (ie, fact)? Or is it somewhat less? What other variables aren't being mentioned?

Second, the matter of accuracy: "Who's we?" This is more of a philosophical objection, I suppose. Humanity isn't an homogeneous "we", and most individuals are selfish. They care most about themselves and their immediate kin, and then somewhat less about their nation/tribe, and then somewhat less about people of the same race/religion but from a different nation/tribe, and then somewhat less about everybody else. Observe the international community's apathy toward Overseas Genocide X, where you can substitute in any number of values for X, and you'll see what I mean.

So, picking my own country since I know it better than other countries, I'm guessing relatively few people are screwed in the US. There's a lot of wealth and infrastructure here, to the point where the US can handle a lot of refugees moving from Florida to Kansas, or whatever. Or at least handle it better than Bangladesh, probably. Yes, the government screwed up the Katrina response pretty badly by our standards, but if a similar storm hit other parts of the world, I bet it would have been much worse.

Of course being selfish is bad and nobody should feel this way in a perfect world, etc. But people ARE this way. And so when I hear a statement that seems to have built into it some lack of understanding or recognition of this, like the "we" in "We're screwed!", I immediately feel like the person making the argument has overlooked a pretty basic feature of human nature. Which doesn't inspire confidence in the rest of their argument, either.

If the real goal is to get people in developed countries to be less selfish and care more about people in underdeveloped countries, just say so. I imagine you'll get a better response than when you overstate the danger to the developed world, and then are forced later to admit that the danger is mostly to the underdeveloped world.

I guess I've gotten rather off-topic here, and probably pissed off a bunch of people to boot, so I'll shut up for a bit.

[Schneibster]

This argument makes no sense. This proves I shoulda done my homework. Zig, you're right. But both you and I have missed the most important part of the story.

I went and checked it out, and it turns out that this is a pretty complicated subject. Several factors are involved:

1. The end of a glaciation is caused by the Milankovitch cycles of orbital eccentricity, and axial obliqueness and precession. When the orbit becomes more eccentric, and the axial tilt becomes higher and precesses to turn the right parts toward the Sun in summer, then the glaciers melt.
2. The transition from a glaciation to an interglacial lasts about 5KY.
3. Animals and plants on land are not the only factor. In the sea, plankton near the surface trap CO2 and then die and fall to the depths, carrying carbon with them. This is called the "carbon pump." There is, therefore, a large reservoir of carbon deep in the sea, or has been since life evolved on Earth.
4. Glaciations are associated with cessation of the equator-to-pole currents that carry warm water to the poles; the cessation of these currents also stops the currents that exchange deep ocean water with surface water. When a glacial-to-interglacial transition happens, driven by the Milankovitch cycle, these currents start up again, and deep ocean water is exchanged with surface water. When the ocean currents shut down at the beginning of a glaciation, a bunch of carbon gets trapped down there; and as plankton in the sea surface trap more carbon, die, and fall down there, more gets taken out. This results in a CO2 level below 190ppm during a glaciation.
5. When warm water contains many nutrients, bacteria bloom along with plankton, and in fact in these conditions can outcompete them; when water is cold, the plankton do better because they are better able to retain heat. Unlike plant life, which is what plankton primarily is, which absorbs CO2 and fixes it into carbohydrates, the bacteria consume the carbon-containing nutrients in the water and excrete CO2. This is very well known in several places around the Earth today; for example, the deep canyon in Monterey Bay is a source of upwelling of deep sea water, and this water contains nutrients from the carbon pump; these nutrients, because the water remains cold, are distributed throughout the bay and cause it to be one of the richest marine ecosystems on Earth. Similar effects drive the surprisingly rich ecosystem off the Alaskan coast, both in the Pacific and Arctic oceans. The reason that these nutrients are still present in the water is because it is too cold for bacteria to consume them effectively; if that water is warmed, bacteria bloom and the nutrients are consumed.

So what we're saying here is that CO2 does not initiate warming from a glaciation to an interglacial; the Milankovitch cycle does that. But the Milankovitch warming doesn't account for more than about 1/6 of the observed temperature rise. Now, once the insolation is increased by the Milankovitch cycle, another effect occurs: the ice sheets melt, lowering the Earth's albedo and increasing its heat absorption. But again, that only accounts for about another 1/2 of the total warming from glacial to interglacial. And the problem is made worse by the fact that this ice sheet melting should happen on a timescale of 8-10KY. This not only cannot account for the total warming, it also cannot account for it in the observed timeframe of about 5KY.

So now we have a puzzle: what accounts for the final 1/3, happening in only 5KY? This is not a small fraction; there is no question about it, if we don't account for it, we haven't understood what's going on. It's also happening in about half the time we'd expect if it were only due to the Milankovitch cycle and consequent albedo changes.

The answer is greenhouse gases. And CO2, although it's the most important one, is not the only one. But we know something about CO2 and methane (which is the other major greenhouse gas): they are primarily biogenic, that is, animal life creates them. So here we have a situation where temperature conditions that inhibited bacteria growth change to encourage it; where currents that were not flowing start up and provide the nutrients to support it; and where the surface of the Earth is being uncovered by melting ice sheets. Now, these currents take a couple hundred to several hundred years to exchange the deep water with surface water. So this looks like a pretty good explanation for what we see in a glaciation-to-interglacial transition:

1. The Earth's orbit becomes less eccentric, the axial tilt changes to become more oblique to the plane of the orbit, and the pole precesses to present the ice sheets to more sunlight in the summer.
2. Things start to warm up due to this change. The transition from glaciation to interglacial has begun.
3. The increased insolation starts up currents from the tropics toward the poles.
4. These currents start up exchange of surface water with deep sea water.
5. Several hundred years after the Milankovitch changes, as the ice sheets are melting relatively quickly at their edges due both to the increased insolation and to the effect of the warm water from the tropics, a lot of deep sea water with lots of nutrients becomes available. The 200-800 year timeframe is the time it takes for the exchange of surface and deep ocean water to occur.
6. Bacteria eat the nutrients now available, now that the sea surface is warm enough for them. Note that these bacteria are consuming carbon that was trapped before and during the previous glaciation. This is the answer to Zig's objection, and the important point I missed.
7. Much CO2 is produced. The CO2 level starts to rise in the atmosphere.
8. As the CO2 level is rising, more ice is melting; both of these are contributing, simultaneously, to a strong warming trend. The ice sheet melting is proceeding at a pace governed by the heat available; this is increased by the CO2, and by the tropic-to-arctic currents.
9. After 5KY or so, CO2 levels have risen to interglacial levels, and the ice sheets have mostly melted back to interglacial levels.

So to say that "warming drives CO2" doesn't tell more than 1/6 of the story. 1/2 of the story has little to do with CO2 levels; it's albedo, and it will change over a 10KY span due to the Milankovitch cycle. 1/3 of the story cannot be accounted for unless CO2 is driving the temperature rise. Also, the story is over in only 1/2 the time it would be if we didn't add CO2 forcing to the picture. That's the facts.

Last but not least, this is all about a glaciation-to-interglacial transition. That's not what's happening now. That finished up about 5000 years ago, about 5000 years after the end of the Wurm glaciation. What's happening now can't be accounted for by the Milankovitch cycle; and it can't be accounted for by increased solar activity. There is no increase in insolation. We have astronomical observations that prove it.

There's only one way the temperature can go up if you don't change the heat input; the heat output has to have gone down, and that only happens if you've added an insulator. We have. It's called CO2. We've been mining carbon out of the ground and burning it, and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere that hasn't seen the light of day since the CO2 levels on this planet were orders of magnitude higher than they are today. The change in the C14 count proves it. If our contribution is so small, then how the heck could it change the C14 count? That's a LOT of carbon. And nothing but us mines it from the ground and burns it.

Statements that CO2 lags temperature rise in a glaciation-to-interglacial transition are true, but to try to extrapolate that into the statement that CO2 can't drive temperature rise is profoundly ignorant. It can, it does, and it must, according to physics, paleontology, paleoclimatology, and biology. We have proof that insolation and albedo change alone can't account for how much the temperature goes up, or for how quickly it goes up. The only other mechanism available is CO2, and it doesn't just account for it; it accounts for it to pretty narrow error bars. That's pretty convincing proof, and it's proof that won't fit in a Senatorial sound bite, or apparently into a particular Senator's narrow mind, either. As I've said before, when you find a good theory, it fits in not only where you thought it did, but all over in places you never thought of. This is just one.

Real systems can't be described in sound bites. They're complicated, interwoven, formed of feedbacks between various processes, some positive, some negative, some transitioning from positive to negative or vice-versa as different regimes are traversed by the system. Making claims based on sound bites reveals the skeptoid point of view, and the skeptoid methodology. If you want anything even approaching the truth, know always that if someone presents a sound bite, they're nowhere near it.

[Schneibster]

I think I've identified why the "We're screwed!" type of hysterical argument is such a massive turn-off to me. It's not because I think global warming isn't happening: I'm sure it is happening and will continue, and I'm sure it's bad.

It's that "We're screwed!" is terribly imprecise, and partially inaccurate. Or to be flip, "How screwed, and who's we?"Important points, to be sure. Still, the evaluation "we're screwed" is a valid emotional response to the information that it's happening quite a lot faster than we thought. The fact that it's much nearer term means that much more stringent measures will have to be taken, and if folks were unwilling to face somewhat unpleasant measures to fix it, how much less willing will they be in the face of much more draconian ones? Most important, how do the facts that the measures needed now look far more unpleasant, and the problems far more imminent, affect the likelihood that we will find a solution in time? And how, finally, does all of this affect not only the timeline, but the seriousness, of the effects we can expect? A whole bunch of models are going to need to be recalibrated based on this; we won't see the fallout for a year or more, and that's only in the scientific literature; it'll take years for the press to understand the implications, and more for the general public to both understand and accept. But I'll tell you this: it's going to be BAD.

Second, how precisely would you suggest I react emotionally to the information that an entire biome, the size of a continent, containing thousands of species that exist and can exist nowhere else, will disappear in my lifetime? Compared to anything we've seen short of the desertification of North Africa, this beats anything that's happened in the history of the human race. I would advance the proposition that if you aren't reacting this way to this information, either you don't have a proper appreciation of what we're talking about, or you aren't very interested in preserving our biosphere. The first is simply a matter of information, and I choose to assume that's the problem here; the second would be profoundly ignorant, since we have to live in it.

First, the matter of precision. A number has been bandied about in this thread: "sea levels will rise 4-6 meters". Actually, that number is not a prediction; it's an observation of fact. During the Eemian interglacial, that's how much higher the sea rose. Current models have more modest predictions. Pardon me for being pedantic, but if you're going to quote me, quote me, and quote me in full. Sound bites are for losers and liars.

Well, doesn't the difference between 4 and 6 meters change the scope of the problem by orders of magnitude? Couldn't it be the difference between moving or not (or even death, or not) for millions of people? Also, how fast does this happen? A 6-meter change over 5 years isn't the same scope of problem as a 6 meter change over 50 years, or 100. Cuddles has mentioned "hundreds of millions of refugees" -- over how long? Half a million a year, or 10 million a year, or what? It makes a big difference. "40-60% of California farmland will be flooded" Uhh.... that 20% difference is pretty substantial, and changes what solutions might be workable. And again, how fast is this flooding happening? In a year, you've got no options but instant famine. In 50 years, you've got many potential options. The simplest answer is, we don't know yet. This is new data, and the article is in a "letters" journal; these journals exist to publish preliminary results, that is, data whose collection is complete, but whose implications are still being worked out, along with preliminary conclusions. Many models will be modified based on this, of sea currents, of atmospheric changes, of ice behavior and melting, and all of these models' outputs will need to be compared to see where we are. This will take more than a year, and can't really start until the papers with the conclusions from this new data have been published, but at least the new data can be plugged in to get some preliminary model outputs.

But the broad brushstrokes of the situation are clear: we've missed something important, and it's something that makes the problem worse than we thought; right now all we know is it means "faster," we don't know if it means "more intense." Faster is bad enough to have the gut level reaction, "We're screwed."

And so on. Again, how screwed? And what level of confidence do scientists have in these predicted numbers? Is confidence in these numbers (4-6 feet, etc) uniformly as high as the confidence level that global warming is happening at all (ie, fact)? Or is it somewhat less? What other variables aren't being mentioned? Excuse me, have you actually read any of the scientific literature on this matter? It appears not. Here are some facts for you to ponder:

1. Current climate models predicted the level of ice melting we're seeing now in 20 years.
2. The observations that triggered this are facts, not predictions, not extrapolations, not model outputs. These are observations of how much open water there is in the Arctic Ocean, with controls in place to ensure that we don't make mistakes.
3. 4-6m is how much higher the oceans were in the Eemian. That also is a fact, substantiated by multiple data points worldwide. There is no prediction, no interpretation, no extrapolation, no models. Simple observation of the placement of various fossils and types of rock.

Does that put things into perspective for you? Should you have read more carefully, or asked neutral questions before writing this post? I'd say "yes" to the second; the first you must determine for yourself.

Second, the matter of accuracy: "Who's we?" Well, apparently, we won't be growing wheat in the US any more when this is over. That's the current projection, available here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6200114.stm#map). That's from a BBC article from December 2006, well before these latest results were available. Furthermore, the date of 2050 for that may now be 2030, if this latest data affects things that much; that is unclear, but what IS clear is that it will now be sooner than 2050. That's 13 years from RIGHT NOW, at the earliest, probably more like 20 or so. Does that qualify for "we're screwed" status?

And by the way, you DO realize that that region in Canada is all scraped bare of topsoil from the Wurm glaciation, and that the land they're showing there is all rock, right? So, how much wheat can you grow on a rock? And by the way, the same obtains in Siberia, too. So there's no help from Russia. Are we to "we're screwed" yet?

Last but not least, are you aware of how big the exports from the US of wheat are, and how many people worldwide count on that wheat so they have something to eat? So, have we reached "we're screwed" yet?

This is more of a philosophical objection, I suppose. Humanity isn't an homogeneous "we", and most individuals are selfish. They care most about themselves and their immediate kin, and then somewhat less about their nation/tribe, and then somewhat less about people of the same race/religion but from a different nation/tribe, and then somewhat less about everybody else. Observe the international community's apathy toward Overseas Genocide X, where you can substitute in any number of values for X, and you'll see what I mean.

So, picking my own country since I know it better than other countries, I'm guessing relatively few people are screwed in the US. There's a lot of wealth and infrastructure here, to the point where the US can handle a lot of refugees moving from Florida to Kansas, or whatever. Or at least handle it better than Bangladesh, probably. Yes, the government screwed up the Katrina response pretty badly by our standards, but if a similar storm hit other parts of the world, I bet it would have been much worse.

Of course being selfish is bad and nobody should feel this way in a perfect world, etc. But people ARE this way. And so when I hear a statement that seems to have built into it some lack of understanding or recognition of this, like the "we" in "We're screwed!", I immediately feel like the person making the argument has overlooked a pretty basic feature of human nature. Which doesn't inspire confidence in the rest of their argument, either. I'd say you've overlooked something really important in this analysis. When there's no food, you know what people do? They have riots. They generally take the people running things out and string them up or beat them to death. Now, suppose you're one of those people running things, and you have access to an army. Tell me, what do you do? Sit and wait for it to happen? Here's an idea: how about you take your army and take some land to grow some food on, or take someone else's food. How does that grab you?

Now multiply by about 100.

Are we to "we're screwed" yet?

OK, now add nuclear weapons.

The remainder of the arguments, particularly the one about moving folks from Florida to Kansas, completely ignore the fact that you've barely seen the tip of the iceberg over the horizon. There's not going to be any food for them to eat no matter where they live, get it? We could wind up being real glad we've got all those thermonuclear weapons, but who's going to get hosed? 'Cause someone is for sure.

We're screwed.

If the real goal is to get people in developed countries to be less selfish and care more about people in underdeveloped countries, just say so. I imagine you'll get a better response than when you overstate the danger to the developed world, and then are forced later to admit that the danger is mostly to the underdeveloped world.

I guess I've gotten rather off-topic here, and probably pissed off a bunch of people to boot, so I'll shut up for a bit.I think I've disposed of this line of argument pretty decisively.

Now, I've been rather dismissive; on the other hand, you've barely scratched the surface of the information available. So I think there's some information out there for you to dig up and look over. It would be best, I think, if we're going to continue this conversation, if you moderated your attitude a bit, and stopped assuming that dire predictions are inherently irrational. It's looking pretty bad, and worse every time we get more data. There's nothing worse than coming up with a perfect plan and finding out you don't have time to enact it. I'd say "we're screwed" is a perfectly rational sound bite evaluation of the situation; if you'd care to characterize it differently, please do so, but please be prepared to back it up with some facts, rather than speculation.

[Corsair 115]

1. The end of a glaciation is caused by the Milankovitch cycles of orbital eccentricity, and axial obliqueness and precession. When the orbit becomes more eccentric, and the axial tilt becomes higher and precesses to turn the right parts toward the Sun in summer, then the glaciers melt.A clarification request: when you refer to the end of a glaciation period, does that include the global or near-global glaciations often referred to as the "Snowball Earth" episodes? Because my understanding of why those events ended was due primarily to a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions over a period of millions of years.

[CapelDodger]

I'd say you've overlooked something really important in this analysis. When there's no food, you know what people do? They have riots. They generally take the people running things out and string them up or beat them to death. Now, suppose you're one of those people running things, and you have access to an army. Tell me, what do you do? Sit and wait for it to happen? Here's an idea: how about you take your army and take some land to grow some food on, or take someone else's food. How does that grab you?

What I would do is calculate the sustainable population, keep the army at home (well-fed and promptly payed), and give the surplus population pointed sticks and send them off to get their own food. Say it's to do with the War on Terrorism or something. They'll cause enough havoc in neighbouring territories to keep them off my back until I'm well prepared in a sustainable position.

Good old traditional gangsterism is going to do well in the coming turmoil. That's just a given in any period of crisis - the former Yugoslavia is a particularly egregious example. When legitimate social organisation fails, another kind of organisation is right there to serve society. People will put with a lot if they're successfully protected from worse. Successful gangsters have people-skills and they don't sue, capische? (Except the authorities, of course.)

You want people like that running things in an existential crisis.

[mhaze]

Cuddles, let me note first that I appreciate your interest in polite discussion, and do not use various polemic arguments which are a serious hindrance to understanding or reaching of any consensus based on fact, unlike some others in this forum.

I brought up the Irish events because there are similarities between them and the various levels of gloom and doom forecasts. I am certainly not saying they were good events for humankind, if that type of statement has any meaning whatsoever in a historical context. Certainly reading the detailed history of those events - and without trying to ascribe blame, just trying to understand them - will make one pretty uneasy. One could sympathise with a hypothetical prophetic Irishman in 1833 who might have shouted and annoyed people by shouting "We're all screwed" (translate to the language of that time, but you get the message)

But hey, the human race went on. I'm here talking about it, and I am glad that my people did not stay in Ireland. At the same time, none of this was exactly nice, pleasant stuff, was it?

And I think that because we are intelligent and more capable today, with our various tools and accomplishments - that we'll overcome real difficult and threatening obstacles in the future and emerge wiser, humbler, more accomplished , etc. I could ramble on, but hey, as noted previously and as I have been criticized for here, I am an optimist.

Is it possible to crush and break the human spirit to the point where, say, one might not have a reasonable optimism for that particular population or culture? And here one has to answer yes, looking at some past civilizations that were anti technological like the Mayan. We do not seem to be seriously trending in such directions today, if anything our reliance on large government support systems and the like lessens each year.

[FenrisWolf]

(snip a bunch of name-calling, abusive ranting and arrogant hysteria)

Now, I've been rather dismissive; on the other hand, you've barely scratched the surface of the information available. So I think there's some information out there for you to dig up and look over. It would be best, I think, if we're going to continue this conversation, if you moderated your attitude a bit, and stopped assuming that dire predictions are inherently irrational.

Heh. After reading your posts in this thread, you asking me to "moderate my attitude" is irony of the highest order. Which of us two has been warned by a moderator about our attitude in this very thread? I could've sworn it wasn't me. "Rather dismissive" is the understatement of the year.

And being pedantic about how you're quoted, while in the next breath indulging in name-calling, suggests you're not really the type of person I'm interested in talking to in any event. You've cured me of any desire to do any digging for information, or in fact from discussing this with you any further. Your tone and style breeds in me a sullen and childish desire to act in whatever way I think will annoy you most. I think ignoring the issue of global warming altogether will do nicely in this case.

Excuse me, have you actually read any of the scientific literature on this matter? It appears not.

Indeed, not a word of it. A very large number of educated, articulate, and intelligent people manage to not read scientific journals about global warming. I think most of them (all of the ones I know) will react extremely poorly to your choice of "We're screwed" as a sound byte, followed by browbeating them for the temerity of talking about global warming without a PhD in climate science.

Instead, they'll assume you're a nutjob and ignore you, giving you far less attention than I've already done (yet significantly more than I will from now on). I'm assuming that part of your goal is to attract the attention of such people to the problem of global warming? I hope my point is not lost.

[mhaze]

I think I've identified why the "We're screwed!" type of hysterical argument is such a massive turn-off to me. It's not because I think global warming isn't happening: I'm sure it is happening and will continue, and I'm sure it's bad.

It's that "We're screwed!" is terribly imprecise, and partially inaccurate. Or to be flip, "How screwed, and who's we?"

First, the matter of precision. A number has been bandied about in this thread: "sea levels will rise 4-6 meters".
I guess I've gotten rather off-topic here, and probably pissed off a bunch of people to boot, so I'll shut up for a bit.

You didn't piss me off.

The latest IPCC report mentions numbers in the neighborhood of a few inches up to half a meter by 2100, if my memory serves, for a middle of the road estimate. And in that report, they are pretty straightforward that they could be wrong (unlike some of the posters here).

I guess the right way to phrase this kind of stuff would be to say something like "the sea level rise with the A1B2 scenario of the IPCC report " blah blah blah. So I would suggest you read the IPCC report, take it not with a grain of salt but a whole can.

So...yeah.....where does this 4-6 meters come from?

[andyandy]

You didn't piss me off.

The latest IPCC report mentions numbers in the neighborhood of a few inches up to half a meter by 2100, if my memory serves, for a middle of the road estimate. And in that report, they are pretty straightforward that they could be wrong (unlike some of the posters here).

I guess the right way to phrase this kind of stuff would be to say something like "the sea level rise with the A1B2 scenario of the IPCC report " blah blah blah. So I would suggest you read the IPCC report, take it not with a grain of salt but a whole can.

So...yeah.....where does this 4-6 meters come from?

well it's encouraging you've taken the time to read the IPCC report - although you might need to expand a little as to why you are so unimpressed with the content....

the 4-6m figure is from the IPCC report - but such a change is forecast over "centuries to millenia."

Today's report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to be issued in Brussels, is a summary for policy makers. It follows a similar UN summary of the science of global warming, which concluded in February that human activity was "very likely" to blame for recent warming.
A third IPCC summary report, on possible ways to tackle the problem, will be published next month.

A draft of today's final report said there was an 80% chance that human activity had had a "discernible influence on many physical and biological systems".

The worst affected regions will be the Arctic, which will see the biggest and fastest temperature increases, and sub-Saharan Africa, where people are least able to adapt. The draft report added there was a 50% chance that the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets would be "committed to partial deglaciation for a global average temperature increase greater than 1-2C, causing sea level rise of 4-6 metres over centuries to millennia".http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2051610,00.html

[varwoche]

I ... do not use various polemic arguments Tip of the hat to this fine bit of self-effacing humour. Er, right...?

This just has the guise of science.

we can save the planet! loss of the reflections from the ice cop must be countered by huge Man Made smog clouds over all major cities. UN inspectors would Validate Required Smog levels!

We don't know what it means that some [some? (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2574665#post2574665)] ice is melting.
Here's the way to understand our comprehension of weather modeling ... Plan an outdoors activity five days in the future.

[mhaze]

Tip of the hat to this fine bit of self-effacing humour. Er, right...?

:)

I agree 100% with Foucault's ideas on polemics, and as he did, I am ready to change my views when presented with whatever I think is reasonable on the subject. But nobody can tell me what I should think is reasonable... anyway, here is this excellent interview with Foucault in which he talks about it.

http://foucault.info/foucault/interview.html

Getting back to the subject, if I'm interpreting these facts right (and due to a lack of time, not triple checking with other sources) it would appear that doubling the amount of nuclear power available would reduce worldwide CO2 emissions by a whopping 22% per year. If that is correct, then where exactly is the problem with an agenda to reduce greenhouse gases, unless that is actually sort of a combo agenda which also includes various other green concepts.

I'm not trying to change the subject to nuclear pro and con, and would like to see some serious opinions on this question limited to the green house gas issue. In other words, even if you are anti nuclear but we have this "Dire Crisis", then do you not agree we must go nuclear? If not, at what stage of gloom and doom does one make that decision? And remember - it doesn't help if the decision is made too late, for the "Dire Crisis" to be averted, prompt action is required. As a historical analogue, we in the USA hated the Russians but sided with them in WWII...then after winning, went back to the old dynamic. Now I could side with some Greens who decided for the Greater Good to be pro nuclear but are there any at all? If not, then why not.

http://www.uic.com.au/ueg.htm

[CapelDodger]

A clarification request: when you refer to the end of a glaciation period, does that include the global or near-global glaciations often referred to as the "Snowball Earth" episodes? Because my understanding of why those events ended was due primarily to a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions over a period of millions of years.

No, that's way back, 600m years or something. The current ice era dates back about 4m years or so, characterised by ice ages. An ice age involves a single cycle of glacial advance and retreat. Over the last 800ky the cycles have been about 100-110ky long. This is quite explicable by the Milankovich cycles, which involve long-term planetary cycles out in the wider world - the solar system. Earth as a rocky body with tilt, orbit, and attitude. Aspects that we have not yet approached influencing.

That's the sort of glaciation we're referring to, in the very recent geological past. Recent enough that the distribution of continental land-mass has not changed significantly. That has an enormous effect on climate. 600m years ago you would not have recognised the place as home :) . The Sun might even have looked different. And eclipsed more often. This is Deep Time.

Ice eras can't occur when both poles are covered by open ocean. Ice will not form on open ocean, and without polar ice reflecting away the sunlight it never gets cold enough for ice to spread significantly from mountains. Without that feedback the Milankovich cycle is lost way in the background.

What we have now, and for 4m years or so since the situation went critical, is the continent of Antarctica over one pole, and enclosed ocean over the other. (OK, for purists, not fully enclosed ocean, but look at it on a globe, it's pretty damn' enclosed.) So we can get ice-eras, and sure enough we have. The arrangement is such that climate is sensitive to the Milankovich cycles. It's also such that there is usually a period during the cycle when there is a substantial and rapid retreat of the ice - ushering in the inter-glacial, so called because it's by far the minority period.

Anyhoo, this ice-era is where we can try to compare like-with-like, and there's nothing like what's going on now in evidence back then. What's different? We haven't moved continents, we haven't made any serious impression on the rocky body. We do have 380ppmCO2 in the atmosphere, which is very unlike any time in this ice-era; nor has any previous interglacial featured an industrial society burning fossil-fuels. That's got to be a strong hint, IMO.

In short, we're referring to the recent geological past :) .

[Schneibster]

A clarification request: when you refer to the end of a glaciation period, does that include the global or near-global glaciations often referred to as the "Snowball Earth" episodes? Because my understanding of why those events ended was due primarily to a buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions over a period of millions of years.To the best of my knowledge, the last time we had "snowball Earth" was during the Cryogenic, that is, pre-Cambrian, pre-Paleozoic, and pre-Phanerozoic. The hypothesis is rather controversial. I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about, primarily, the last several glaciations and interglacials of the current ice age (for others reading, yes, we are currently in an ice age, there have been several glaciations and interglacials, and we are currently in one of the latter which has lasted for the last 10KY), including the Riss, Eeemian, Wurm, and Holocene.

[Schneibster]

Heh. After reading your posts in this thread, you asking me to "moderate my attitude" is irony of the highest order. Which of us two has been warned by a moderator about our attitude in this very thread? I could've sworn it wasn't me. "Rather dismissive" is the understatement of the year.

And being pedantic about how you're quoted, while in the next breath indulging in name-calling, suggests you're not really the type of person I'm interested in talking to in any event. You've cured me of any desire to do any digging for information, or in fact from discussing this with you any further. Your tone and style breeds in me a sullen and childish desire to act in whatever way I think will annoy you most. I think ignoring the issue of global warming altogether will do nicely in this case. It does not appear that you actually read what I wrote. If you're not going to bother to do that, I see no further reason to respond, or read anything further you have to say. Others can make their own judgments.

[andyandy]

I'm not trying to change the subject to nuclear pro and con, and would like to see some serious opinions on this question limited to the green house gas issue. In other words, even if you are anti nuclear but we have this "Dire Crisis", then do you not agree we must go nuclear? If not, at what stage of gloom and doom does one make that decision?

I think expansion of nuclear power has to play an important role in any meaningful response to carbon reductions....as part of an overall reduction strategy.

these are indeed challenging times for the environmentalist idealist....

pro global warming action, but anti-nuclear, largely hostile to bio-fuel and perversely often anti wind farm development [as it spoils the scenery]

it would be nice to see some unity behind GW - but this i fear may be asking too much :)

[CapelDodger]

.., if I'm interpreting these facts right (and due to a lack of time, not triple checking with other sources) it would appear that doubling the amount of nuclear power available would reduce worldwide CO2 emissions by a whopping 22% per year. If that is correct, then where exactly is the problem with an agenda to reduce greenhouse gases, unless that is actually sort of a combo agenda which also includes various other green concepts.

A program to reduce greenhouse gases would surely be desirable to anyone that cared about climate change. Getting climate change on the agenda of powerful decision-making bodies has been a tough enough job.

Where's the problem in drumming up the money to double the world's nuclear capacity? How much could it be? Compared to the Iraq War it would be peanuts.

I'm not trying to change the subject to nuclear pro and con, and would like to see some serious opinions on this question limited to the green house gas issue.

You bring it up (somewhat inarticulately) and don't want to change the subject. Why bring it up? Why did I bring up the Iraq War? Just to make a point.

In other words, even if you are anti nuclear but we have this "Dire Crisis", then do you not agree we must go nuclear?

When's the new nuclear going to kick in, given that we start tomorrow? The technology of nuclear power-stations has advanced immensely since anybody last built one. I've read about the new designs, these things look great, somebody should probably try one out.

If not, at what stage of gloom and doom does one make that decision?

Let's say the current stage : at what cost, and how long? You don't have a clue, do you?

This thread isn't your playpen. Take your nuclear digression somewhere else. This thread is about climate models and climate science. M'kay?

[mhaze]

well it's encouraging you've taken the time to read the IPCC report - although you might need to expand a little as to why you are so unimpressed with the content....

the 4-6m figure is from the IPCC report - but such a change is forecast over "centuries to millenia."

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,2051610,00.html


Page 11 is as I recalled, a few inches to half a meter for the entire range of scenarios modeled, the estimate being for the year 2099. Here is the report.

http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/docs/WG1AR4_SPM_PlenaryApproved.pdf

Taking such a progression and extending it 1000 years gives the 4-6 meter. So here is where this number comes from - I don't have a page reference and don't care to dig for it, but there was a table with millenia projections.

Simply stated it is the very worse of the scenarios, for the very longest period of time. I think we can all agree on that. Now as for the "we're all screwed" body of thought, well now I can understand that.

If we take the very worse scenario with SARS virus, bird flue, nuclear war, mutated war bugs, aliens invading, or the really scary one, big rocks from space.....yes "we're all screwed".

Aye! Aye! We're doomed!!!!

Doomed, I say!!!!!!!!!

Doomed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CapelDodger]

it would be nice to see some unity behind GW - but this i fear may be asking too much :)

It excites a very disparate bunch. I get involved mostly because this is yet another front where science in principle is under assault. Then there's the conspiracy element, that "Well, they say that because they're in on it" thing always riles me.

We can have unity behind the science. This coming crisis might be good for the rationalist cause; science said it would happen, lobbyists said that was "junk", other types said the Rapture took priority, look what actually happened. Half-built nuclear power stations scattered along receding coastlines, depopulated sites of natural beauty, and surviving self-sufficient communities which took nothing for granted and eschewed wishful thinking.

[mhaze]

A program to reduce greenhouse gases would surely be desirable to anyone that cared about climate change. Getting climate change on the agenda of powerful decision-making bodies has been a tough enough job.

Where's the problem in drumming up the money to double the world's nuclear capacity? How much could it be? Compared to the Iraq War it would be peanuts. M'kay?

Sorry, didn't mean to annoy you. I really was just curious given the range of attitudes and opinions whether this option was largely considered off the agenda for a lot of people. I promise not to mention it again, at least in this thread.

[Schneibster]

I'll say this: this is the first actually reasonable post I've seen you make. What I'm having trouble figuring out is, as it was put on another thread, what precisely you'll accept as evidence if you aren't going to accept the word of the foremost scientists studying the problem, and haven't read what they wrote. I think I'm going to separate the wheat from the chaff here, and ask a question that I think not only you, but everyone here, needs to answer: what will you accept as evidence? And if it's not the several thousand peer-reviewed papers published in the last several decades that make it obvious that the consensus opinion of those with the most information and the most training in interpreting that information, why not?

Read on, because I suspect I'll surprise you in a moment.

Getting back to the subject, if I'm interpreting these facts right (and due to a lack of time, not triple checking with other sources) it would appear that doubling the amount of nuclear power available would reduce worldwide CO2 emissions by a whopping 22% per year. If that is correct, then where exactly is the problem with an agenda to reduce greenhouse gases, unless that is actually sort of a combo agenda which also includes various other green concepts. This is indeed the most likely palliative, and the one most likely to work without crippling our societies. I advocate it actively; to my mind, nuclear is green. I strongly disagree with environmentalists who believe there's something wrong with using nuclear power instead of spewing pollutants out, or something wrong with the way we live and we should all go back to being hunter-gatherers or something like that.

The problem with nuclear is people are afraid of it. And the reason they're afraid of it is because of two facts: first, you can't see radiation, you need special detectors to even know if a piece of material is radioactive. Second, many industries in the past have knowingly or unknowingly but negligently contaminated the environment and caused people disease or death, and not been held to account.

I am therefore in favor of controls that will prevent problems like this; not because I think that this kind of contamination has ever happened in this country with nuclear energy, but because if people are going to embrace this solution, they have to have confidence in it. And I think it's obvious that that kind of confidence is lacking, and I think there are good reasons for that; this isn't a political thread, so I won't go there, but let's face it, that's where the rest of that conversation goes.

Now, this is going to happen. There is no other choice, and that's becoming increasingly obvious. There is going to be one hell of a fuss over it, too. You watch: there's gonna be more "nucular" woo floating around than you can shake a stick at. But the simple fact is what I already said: there's no choice.

OK, so why would I say, we're screwed, if that's what I believe? Here's why: ever check out how long it takes to build a nuclear reactor, and how much it costs? I'm not talking about the environmental reports, or the permits, or yadda yadda, I'm talking about setting steel, and pouring concrete, and constructing the containment, and the reactor vessel, and wiring and cabling and piping everything up, and setting up the control and monitoring equipment, and so forth. It takes years. And there's another problem: where are we going to get the nuclear engineers to do all of this? I saw one on another thread on here, a couple months back, pointing out that we aren't training any in the schools, and the ones who are taking degrees in it aren't getting jobs because there aren't any. Now, that's a five-year problem, that we have to fix before we can even start; after all, if you're going to even design one, you gotta have these folks. And a third problem: we have no manufacturing infrastructure to make these things. I'm talking about fuel rods, and containments, and the instrumentation, not just the fuel itself. And that's another five-year problem, and you need nuclear engineers for that, too, so now we're ten years out before we start construction on something that's going to take five to ten years to build. So now we're talking twenty years before this is a realistic solution. When they were talking 2050, that was just about do-able, and we could get rid of the idiot running things right now (sorry, I'm trying to stay away from politics, but it ties in) in time to get started. Now? Hell, we're ten years LATE.

So I react by saying, "we're screwed."

I'm not trying to change the subject to nuclear pro and con, and would like to see some serious opinions on this question limited to the green house gas issue. In other words, even if you are anti nuclear but we have this "Dire Crisis", then do you not agree we must go nuclear? If not, at what stage of gloom and doom does one make that decision? And remember - it doesn't help if the decision is made too late, for the "Dire Crisis" to be averted, prompt action is required. As a historical analogue, we in the USA hated the Russians but sided with them in WWII...then after winning, went back to the old dynamic. Now I could side with some Greens who decided for the Greater Good to be pro nuclear but are there any at all? If not, then why not.

http://www.uic.com.au/ueg.htmWell, first, I'm not anti-nuclear, and second, I agree, and I think it's not merely the best way to go but inevitable at this point. But what I'd like to talk about is, how do we get it moving, given the political climate, and how much difference will it make? How bad is it likely to get before we can implement this solution, and what else can we do in the meantime?

[Schneibster]

Taking such a progression and extending it 1000 years gives the 4-6 meter. So here is where this number comes from - I don't have a page reference and don't care to dig for it, but there was a table with millenia projections.You forgot the fact that this is how much higher it was in the Eemian. It's not a new projection- and the reason it's that far out is because that's how long it takes ice sheets to melt.

Simply stated it is the very worse of the scenarios, for the very longest period of time. I think we can all agree on that. Now as for the "we're all screwed" body of thought, well now I can understand that.Well, hang on here, it's not the very worst, it's what happened before when things were this way. But keep in mind that there's a lot more CO2 in the air than there was then, so things could easily be worse than that. Furthermore, the IPCC is the consensus view- that is, it's the middle ground between the scientists who have the most pessimistic view and those who are more hopeful, and all of them have developed their opinions based on their interpretation of the evidence they have. So no, that's not the worst. Nor is what I'm talking about. It doesn't have to be the worst to say, "we're screwed." It just has to be the middle-ground prediction that most of the scientists who wrote it agreed on, with some pulling for it to be worse, and some for it to be more hopeful.

[CapelDodger]

Sorry, didn't mean to annoy you.

You haven't annoyed me. You irritated me. "Agenda" isn't just a posh word, it means something. Woolly talk is evidence of woolly thinking, and is also an assault on the language I love.

I really was just curious given the range of attitudes and opinions whether this option was largely considered off the agenda for a lot of people. I promise not to mention it again, at least in this thread.

If you care, start a thread. It concentrates the mind wonderfully.

[CapelDodger]

You forgot the fact that this is how much higher it was in the Eemian. It's not a new projection- and the reason it's that far out is because that's how long it takes ice sheets to melt.

In normal circumstances.

It just has to be the middle-ground prediction that most of the scientists who wrote it agreed on, with some pulling for it to be worse, and some for it to be more hopeful.

But nobody suggesting that these are normal circumstances :) .

[Schneibster]

Hey, CD, didn't mean to undercut you on the nuclear thing.

mhaze, there has been a thread on nuclear as an AGW solution in the recent past. I suggest in this case that some necromancy might not be out of place; in case I was too elliptical in my reference, IMO you should probably resurrect that thread, since it's fairly recent, if you want to talk about it.

Meanwhile, CD, yes, absolutely in normal circumstances, which these appear to be a far cry from.

So, lemme ask you, do you think I'm out of line with, "We're screwed?" Is that, in your honest opinion, a pretty fair assessment of the situation? Do you think I'm optimistic or pessimistic or on the money?

[CapelDodger]

So, lemme ask you, do you think I'm out of line with, "We're screwed?" Is that, in your honest opinion, a pretty fair assessment of the situation? Do you think I'm optimistic or pessimistic or on the money?

In times of crisis the definition of "we" is negotiable. Is there a metaphorical train-wreck just getting started? Yes, no sensible doubt about it. Have "we" survived metaphorical train-wrecks before? Yes again. Is this train-wreck essentially different from previous ones? I don't think so. It's just the latest, and the one we're living through. A few centuries down the line and it'll be neither

[Schneibster]

mhaze, here it is (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=77079&highlight=nuclear+global+warming).

[Belz...]

The rise in temperature preceededs the rise in CO2, human CO2 or otherwise has nothing to account for!

I get the distinct impression that you're not working with the same definition of "skeptic" that the rest of us do.

[Cuddles]

It's that "We're screwed!" is terribly imprecise, and partially inaccurate. Or to be flip, "How screwed, and who's we?"

Of course, this is the main issue. We don't know exactly what is going to happen or what we can do about. The trouble is, if people don't acknowledge that something is going to happen then we'll never find out what will happen until it does, and by then it will be too late. Hence the cries of "We're screwed!" now.

And I think that because we are intelligent and more capable today, with our various tools and accomplishments - that we'll overcome real difficult and threatening obstacles in the future and emerge wiser, humbler, more accomplished , etc. I could ramble on, but hey, as noted previously and as I have been criticized for here, I am an optimist.

I think possibly optimism is part of the problem. It's all very well saying that we'll probably cope and develop new technology, but unless people actually work to make this happen, it won't. Technology won't just happen by itself. If we don't acknowledge that global warming could be a problem, then we will never try to do anything about it. Someone said, either in this thread or a different one, that with the numeber of people in the world, someone is bound to come up with a solution. Apart from this being a little too optimistic, the problem is that no-one will come up with a solution if they don't think there is anything to solve.

[mhaze]

mhaze, here it is (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=77079&highlight=nuclear+global+warming).

Schneib, I read that, thanks. Would comment but do not wish to see a divergence in the thread nonetheless I'd like to answer your question regarding is your projected future too dismal.

I'm an optimist. Now when I mentioned that, some intelligent people here commented that there had to be a rational basis for it. So I'll give a very short version of one event that led me to this general point of view.

The year was 1972, the place was the University of Texas at Austin, specifically the basement of the Engineering building. The cold war was in full swing, the media (and scientists) were alternating between hysteria on global cooling and nuclear annihilation, which of course also led to global cooling, so to summarize it all, "we were screwed". And there I was in that basement, when a phrase on a door caught my attention.

Now please understand, saying the basement does not imply the janitor's station out of Office Space. The basement was a good place. The US Patent repository was there. Fallout shelters were, basically, just basements. Etc.

The label on that door was "Joint US Russian Fusion Research Project".

And I was really clueless about what that could be. They had their bombs and missiles pointed to us, and ours at them. What was behind that door?

Well. Some exploring might be in order.

So I just walked in, and wandered until I found a person. And asked what was going on there. And yes, I found myself talking to Russian citizens, working on peaceful ways to develop a fusion process, in the midst of a political and military climate extraordinarily opposed.

Astonishing. And a lesson in how far the human mind can reach beyond the gloom and doom of the apparent conclusions of the moment, and how capable we may really be of solving difficult problems.

Now, today, every time I am met with defeatism or cynicism, I reflect on such things. Or on standing next to the Saturn booster in Houston, and considering what it means that we accomplished that feat in eight or so years.

But how does this relate to optimism on GW? Well, I am very cynical of what might be called "statist solutions". One might say, the IPCC report gives a clear mandate to countries to increase taxes directly or indirectly. And that becomes shrouded in "the Common Good". I'm cynical about such things for a simple reason. A state can take money from the people and then actually build something with it, or it can squander that treasure. The IPCC seem to stress too much behavior change, and too little the use of techology and actual production.

I'm sure you are familiar with Kurzweil's theory of synergytic interaction between biotech/nano and computing, and his various short term timeframes on possible results of that.

So....if we get IPCC ---> politics ----> propaganda, printing of little brochures on saving energy, etc. Well, this is not effective, let's say similar to central controlled Soviet agricultural policy as a crude analogy.
On the contrary, if we have a call to actually build things, and move large segments of techology to a problem, that gets not just interesting, but downright exciting.

[Belz...]

I'm an optimist.

Optimism, like pessimism, has the distinct disadvantage of being divorced from realism.

[CapelDodger]

Optimism, like pessimism, has the distinct disadvantage of being divorced from realism.

Quite. Pragmatism's the only -ism for me :) .

[CapelDodger]

So....if we get IPCC ---> politics ----> propaganda, printing of little brochures on saving energy, etc. Well, this is not effective, let's say similar to central controlled Soviet agricultural policy as a crude analogy.

It's not even crude. Soviet - I suppose you mean Stalinist - agricultural policy was imposed, the propaganda element amounted to killing a few prominent locals and pointing out how easily that could happen to you. We're not talking little brochures there, intended to persuade. We're talking leaflets that list orders, and stipulate penalties. That's implicit in the "central[ly] controlled".

On the contrary, if we have a call to actually build things, and move large segments of techology to a problem, that gets not just interesting, but downright exciting.

I realise that reducing energy-use is unspectacular, and offers limited business opportunities. It's far to diffuse to be sexy, unlike monumental high-tech cost-plus projects, cathedrals of the modern age. (Battersea Power Station was actually called the Cathedral of Power. Those were the days - boundless optimism and enthusiasm for Progress. Like the Sexual Revolution pre-AIDS.) There is already a call to do that - brochures and such - but I appreciate why that doesn't excite you.

There's not much evidence of a call-to-arms against climate change from the world's leading decision-makers. Platitudes and planned conferences and promises to get onto it ASAP - plenty of that. Full-scale mobilisation of societies (as happened in WW2) is nowhere on the horizon. That would be exciting, but it'll only happen as a response to very exciting incidents. Pearl Harbours, so to speak - which Katrina wasn't.

I'm doubtful that climate change is going to feature metaphorical Pearl Harbours on a global scale. I reckon humanity will cut out the excitement and go straight from complacency to panic, region by region.

[CapelDodger]

You completely missed the point! I dont know whether intentially or not.

When I use :confused: it indicates that you're not making your point very clearly. My comprehension skills are better than adequate.

You cannot show that the rise in CO2 in recent years is responsible for the rise in temperature.

I can show that an increase in CO2 would be expected to cause warming. Has anyone given you a reason why it actually hasn't?

It is quite clear that the rise in CO2 is an effect of temperature rise because the rise in CO2 trails the rise in temperature and the oscillations don't account for it.

Foreget the oscillations, the increase in CO2 predates the modern warming trend. That's well-documented history. The modern warming trend dates back to the mid-19thCE. Serious coal-consumption was established decades before, with the steam-engine, and had grown rapidly and consistently. Modern warming has lagged the CO2 increase - which is only to be expected.

It is the case that increased temperature caused an increase in CO2 ...

Not in the modern period it isn't. Burning fossil-fuels has caused that.

... so it could quite easily be the case that something is warming the atmosphere which in turn is creating more CO2 ...

Creation of CO2 requires a source of carbon. It's not from the oceans, because they're actually becoming more carbonated. It's not from the biosphere, which isn't shrinking measurably. (That would be noticed.) Geology's out - far too impassive. What's left for this "something" to be making CO2 from?

... as I said before all the human emissions of CO2 do not account for the rise we see today.

Humans emit 7.5 gigatonnes of CO2 from fossil fuel per year currently, equivalent to an increase of about 3.7ppm in the atmosphere. The actual recent increase is 1.5-2ppm, so human emissions have way more than the capacity to cause the current increase in CO2-load. And to cause the increased acidification of the oceans at the same time. (Which your "something" would also have to explain.)

[Schneibster]

Schneib, I read that, thanks. Would comment but do not wish to see a divergence in the thread nonetheless I'd like to answer your question regarding is your projected future too dismal.

I'm an optimist. Now when I mentioned that, some intelligent people here commented that there had to be a rational basis for it. So I'll give a very short version of one event that led me to this general point of view.I read the anecdote, and I understand the reasons for your optimism. I am also aware of Kurzweil's site, and his opinion. I am not by nature a pessimist; my tendency is to try to handle whatever comes up. I certainly do not advocate throwing up our hands and giving up.

This particular problem is pernicious in a manner that the problem you were talking about was not. EVERYONE recognized the risks of nuclear war; had for decades at that point. Nuclear winter was merely the icing on the cake. Despite a number of rather scary stories in the popular media, the real position of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists at the time on the possibility of global cooling leading to an early onset glaciation, was that a) they put the probability of it relatively low, and b) although there was some instrumental evidence that some cooling had occurred over the previous couple of decades, most atmospheric scientists did not believe that there was sufficient information available to come to any conclusion, and that more data needed to be collected fairly urgently. In short, the media blew it out of proportion. In the current case, it is clear that the majority of scientists in this field have completed gathering that data, have analyzed it, and have come to the conclusion that AGW is a reality.

The problem here is, many people (although the number is steadily falling) do not recognize this problem as being potentially as dangerous as nuclear war, and the class of people who do not is the class of people who, acting individually, can do the most about it. The most effective way that governments can be part of the solution on this is if they tell people this is real and they should do what they can about it. They (governments) can also fund research, and fund alternative energy source research and infrastructure construction; nuclear energy, you and I agree, is probably one of the most urgent such projects. However, it's got a long lead time, as I've pointed out, and as a result the most effective measure at this point is to inform people so that they can take small actions that will add up. If they (governments) do this (inform people), then it is likely that nuclear power and other measures will be in time; if they do not, then it is less likely.

Now, let's be very, very frank: the current US administration is uninterested in science that does not agree with their political stance. In fact, active measures have been taken in the Departments of the Interior, Health and Human Services, the FDA, NASA, NOAA, and many other areas to suppress science that did not agree with these goals, no matter how reliable that science might be. These measures have been widely documented, and are currently under investigation by the Congress. As time goes on, the number of such measures has reached alarming proportions. In addition, a propaganda machine (sorry, but when they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on such an underhanded activity, I don't know of another way to describe it) has been operated to attempt to both convince most citizens, and present spurious claims that nevertheless must be followed up and debunked by the climate science community, funded by Exxon. This also is the subject of extensive documentation, widely available on the 'Net and well documented on many threads on this site. This has had the triple effect of supporting the propaganda efforts of the administration, supporting the propaganda efforts of the machine, and causing many climate scientists to spend a great deal of time responding to these spurious claims instead of doing the work we desperately need them to do. In addition to this, their funding has been threatened, their jobs threatened, and their findings suppressed whenever the administration could find a way to do so. I'm sure that I don't need to tell you my opinion of these activities. I will only say that I hope that when this is all done with, some people go to prison for what they have done.

As a result partly of this activity, and partly of other ideological stances in other countries (China springs immediately to mind), I do not see the kind of flexible response from the governments in question in this respect that is necessary. In addition, now that the waters have been so muddied, I suspect that many people who would otherwise cooperate might resist strongly and for a long time. Therefore, I estimate that serious consequences lie in the future. This is neither optimism nor pessimism; it is, IMO, a realistic assessment of the current situation. If the response changes, so will my assessment.

Now, today, every time I am met with defeatism or cynicism, I reflect on such things. Or on standing next to the Saturn booster in Houston, and considering what it means that we accomplished that feat in eight or so years.

But how does this relate to optimism on GW? Well, I am very cynical of what might be called "statist solutions". One might say, the IPCC report gives a clear mandate to countries to increase taxes directly or indirectly. And that becomes shrouded in "the Common Good". I'm cynical about such things for a simple reason. A state can take money from the people and then actually build something with it, or it can squander that treasure. The IPCC seem to stress too much behavior change, and too little the use of techology and actual production. At this point, since the technology does not exist, or at least the infrastructure to support it is so far out in time, it is at minimum prudent and at maximum essential that this approach be taken. In addition, there are political stances at the UN that do not necessarily favor nuclear energy, as I'm sure you're well aware. I'll point out that the two most likely nations to make a difference by individual action of their citizens, are also the two most likely to develop nuclear energy as quickly as they can. I hope that comes to pass; but I fear that there will be quite a political struggle about it here (and yes, we are one of those two).

I'm sure you are familiar with Kurzweil's theory of synergytic interaction between biotech/nano and computing, and his various short term timeframes on possible results of that.

So....if we get IPCC ---> politics ----> propaganda, printing of little brochures on saving energy, etc. Well, this is not effective, let's say similar to central controlled Soviet agricultural policy as a crude analogy.
On the contrary, if we have a call to actually build things, and move large segments of techology to a problem, that gets not just interesting, but downright exciting.Sure, and that's all fine, but it's a long way out. I don't think you've considered infrastructure. I don't say you're wrong, mind you- just that it would be prudent to pursue all available avenues at this time. If it turns out that we can get the nuclear bread sliced quicker, great. We can cut back on the other efforts. But right now, nobody sees a way to do that, and there's a great deal of resistance to that methodology that must first be overcome.

[Schneibster]

Not in the modern period it isn't. Burning fossil-fuels has caused that.Pardon me for kibitzing: don't forget the C12/C14 isotope ratio.

[mhaze]

I read the anecdote, and I understand the reasons for your optimism. I am also aware of Kurzweil's site, and his opinion. I am not by nature a pessimist; my tendency is to try to handle whatever comes up. I certainly do not advocate throwing up our hands and giving up. I don't think you've considered infrastructure. I don't say you're wrong, mind you- just that it would be prudent to pursue all available avenues at this time. If it turns out that we can get the nuclear bread sliced quicker, great. We can cut back on the other efforts. But right now, nobody sees a way to do that, and there's a great deal of resistance to that methodology that must first be overcome.

Thank you. By the way, I was not bringing up the old story of GC in any sense other than historical; at that time, it was the crisis of the moment, you might say. It would seem that we are somewhat in agreement on 2 central points (1) optimism on the human use of technology (2) pessimism on political outcomes. I may be somewhat more pessimistic on (2) than you are; I do not feel one administration or another makes a lot of difference. And these issues are bigger than one country. You have correctly stated the inertia of the people and the institutions.

But there are significant new dynamics at work today and I would like to try to state them.

First is a very basic issue. That is only by our technology do we have the eyes in the sky and the other sensors, and computational abilities, to perceive of the possible issues of GW. I am saying that if for whatever reason we had stayed at 19th century industrialization, we would be fat, dumb and blissfully happy...... And in the future, as we develop better sensors, computers and so forth, we may perceive of other problems that had been there all along, which were really serious. The obvious and hackneyed one is asteroids, but it's real. Enough said for our sensors.

Now we also have the Internet, but what does that actually mean?

At the edge of a shantytown of perhaps 50,000 in Capetown, South Africa is an two story shack made of old plywood and tin. Most people living there may only be a few years out of the bush. That shack is an Internet cafe, and lined up inside are kids, 10-15 or so, in front of each computer. The price is a few Rand per hour. They can afford a bit of it. They are neat, orderly, and patiently waiting their turn. Much goes through the mind, looking at that.

.... "Nigerian scam emails?"
"Computer gaming, of course"
"Youtube"
"Tommorrow's terrorists"

But one of those kids is tomorrow's Ramamujan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan)

[Schneibster]

Thank you. By the way, I was not bringing up the old story of GC in any sense other than historical; at that time, it was the crisis of the moment, you might say. It would seem that we are somewhat in agreement on 2 central points (1) optimism on the human use of technology (2) pessimism on political outcomes. I may be somewhat more pessimistic on (2) than you are; I do not feel one administration or another makes a lot of difference. And these issues are bigger than one country. You have correctly stated the inertia of the people and the institutions.Heh, what you are is a cynical idealist. Me, I'm an idealistic cynic. That's why we butted heads to start with.

But we disagree on something important: I think the right people running things does make a difference.

We don't, however, disagree that it's a multi-country problem. Nor on the inertia.

But there are significant new dynamics at work today and I would like to try to state them.

First is a very basic issue. That is only by our technology do we have the eyes in the sky and the other sensors, and computational abilities, to perceive of the possible issues of GW. I am saying that if for whatever reason we had stayed at 19th century industrialization, we would be fat, dumb and blissfully happy...... And in the future, as we develop better sensors, computers and so forth, we may perceive of other problems that had been there all along, which were really serious. The obvious and hackneyed one is asteroids, but it's real. Enough said for our sensors.I think this is at odds with what you've written below; small technology grows right along with big. I also think that in the context of the current discussion, what you've ignored is, if we didn't know AGW was a problem, it would still bite us in the a$$ later on. Doesn't matter whether we know about it or not. But given that we do, shouldn't we do something about it?

Now we also have the Internet, but what does that actually mean?

At the edge of a shantytown of perhaps 50,000 in Capetown, South Africa is an two story shack made of old plywood and tin. Most people living there may only be a few years out of the bush. That shack is an Internet cafe, and lined up inside are kids, 10-15 or so, in front of each computer. The price is a few Rand per hour. They can afford a bit of it. They are neat, orderly, and patiently waiting their turn. Much goes through the mind, looking at that.

.... "Nigerian scam emails?"
"Computer gaming, of course"
"Youtube"
"Tommorrow's terrorists"

But one of those kids is tomorrow's Ramamujan. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan)Sure, you bet. But we can't count on that.

[Cuddles]

Sure, you bet. But we can't count on that.

I think this is the most important point. I believe it is possible to do something about global warming, whether that is preventing it or simply coping with it. But we can't count on it. We have to actually do it. We can't just sit around assuming that everything will be all right, we have to actually acknowledge there is a problem before we can solve it.

[mhaze]

Heh, what you are is a cynical idealist. Me, I'm an idealistic cynic. That's why we butted heads to start with.

But we disagree on something important: I think the right people running things does make a difference.

We don't, however, disagree that it's a multi-country problem. Nor on the inertia.

I think this is at odds with what you've written below; small technology grows right along with big. I also think that in the context of the current discussion, what you've ignored is, if we didn't know AGW was a problem, it would still bite us in the a$$ later on. Doesn't matter whether we know about it or not. But given that we do, shouldn't we do something about it?

Sure, you bet. But we can't count on that.

Right, we can't. And we don't even know what we've done.... The next math whiz might get sidetracked into gaming, and the net effects could be negative. But here is what you can bet on. That Internet cafe, and hundreds of thousands like it, are information portals. No longer does the central government control and shape the thinking of the individual, and strong local cultural influences such as religion are somewhat moderated. States worldwide have effectively lost control of the individual, and will never regain them. This is a new thing. So a benefit of this is that a message can actually be sent out to 99% of the people in the world, without it being filtered through the local and regional propaganda, culture, politics and so forth. And this is an emerging standard, instead of being an occasional thing.

While 20 years ago it might have been plausible to conceive of social programs to change peoples behavior, promulgated in a top down manner, today I would assert that is obsolete (I'd argue most social programming attempts didn't work in the past either, but that is a moot point).

But we are in agreement, that "technological builders" are extremely important and that they need the support of popular opinion and political parties. And there you have it. We are back to the old issue of where do the tax dollars go, and whether we fund the circus or build the coliseum with them....

That in my opinion being less important than the average person, carrying around with them, gigabaytes of data storage in their IPOD and worldwide networking on their phone.

[CapelDodger]

Pardon me for kibitzing: don't forget the C12/C14 isotope ratio.

Indeed; the as yet unspecified carbon source will have to have a matching isotope signature. But horse before cart - first we have to find the carbon source :confused: . I'm not unimaginative, but I'm still flummoxed.

[CapelDodger]

I think this is the most important point. I believe it is possible to do something about global warming, whether that is preventing it or simply coping with it. But we can't count on it. We have to actually do it. We can't just sit around assuming that everything will be all right, we have to actually acknowledge there is a problem before we can solve it.

I think we also have to acknowledge that there won't be a coordinated global response to global warming. Nor can we assume that the "invisible hand" of market forces (or technological progress) will sort things out for us in a seamless manner. The concentration will be far more on predicting and coping with AGW as it manifests nationally and regionally.

[CapelDodger]

But here is what you can bet on. That Internet cafe, and hundreds of thousands like it, are information portals.

Cheap paper was once regarded as equally revolutionary. Now we have Murdoch and junk-mail.

No longer does the central government control and shape the thinking of the individual, and strong local cultural influences such as religion are somewhat moderated.

Quite right, now people are exposed to all sorts of woo at practically no cost. And, of course, to spam.

States worldwide have effectively lost control of the individual, and will never regain them.

This is not a good thing.

This is a new thing.

There have been other new things, also regarded as unique and definitive in their day.

So a benefit of this is that a message can actually be sent out to 99% of the people in the world, without it being filtered through the local and regional propaganda, culture, politics and so forth. And this is an emerging standard, instead of being an occasional thing.

The standard is no different from any previous emerging media standards. 99% of what isn't manipulative crap is simply crap.