Global warming

[mhaze]

As pedantic as the blog entry is, I suggest the criticisms to be evaluated on its own merits, instead of the attitude of the blogger. I have seem too much of this from the AGW'rs to begin doing the same to them.

Why not wait until he publishes his criticisms in a peer reviewed journal?

Or is it because he is pro-AGW that his mere blog entries have credence?:D

[CapelDodger]

Ah yes, that troubling seemingly insignificant word "uncertainty" in science. If only it didn't exist.

Science wouldn't work without it. People can do without it, as can religion ideologies and other cults. No theory is proven, at best it's not yet been disproved or improved. Just as I'm immortal.

Uncertainty is almost everywhere in real life, but when certainty gets above 90% it takes some tenacity to grip onto the shrinking hope that maybe the horrible truth ain't so. Maybe it'll all go away - and maybe it will. The thing is, that position was represented twenty years ago and that maybe has been operating all the time. Yet events have unfolded just as predicted by AGW. Coincidence for one decade maybe, but two?

In the meantime, your side has yet to offer one specific paper explaining the AGW claim, using the scientific method, that CO2 is the responsible mechanism for driving temperature.

This refuge of yours is perfectly secure since the scientific method has nothing to do with explaining things to people who don't understand them. The scientific method does apply to research, which is what papers are produced from, but papers are not teaching aids.

There are many textbooks which can explain greenhouse warming. Given that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, varying its atmospheric concentration will alter the climate. Ergo, AGW if A bumps up the CO2.

There are many papers involved with measurement of CO2's greenhouse properties, including the work done in Angstrom's lab back in the 20's. The pace has picked up more recently, for obvious reasons - what was once an intellectual exercise has taken on practical significance.

All you've really got is climate models, appeal to Authority and unsubstantiated assumptions, isn't that what it boils down to?

No. There's well-established science, in inter-locking fields. If AGW is wrong the whole structure of science (and technology) is thrown into turmoil. If you take out the quantum physics in AGW, for instance, you take out quantum physics. You can't adjust that specific aspect while leaving everything else intact. Even as a hypothetical possibility the idea's laughable.

[mhaze]

In the meantime, your side has yet to offer one specific paper explaining the AGW claim, using the scientific method, that CO2 is the responsible mechanism for driving temperature.

This refuge of yours is perfectly secure since the scientific method has nothing to do with explaining things to people who don't understand them. The scientific method does apply to research, which is what papers are produced from, but papers are not teaching aids.

There are many textbooks which can explain greenhouse warming. Given that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, varying its atmospheric concentration will alter the climate. Ergo, AGW if A bumps up the CO2.

There are many papers involved with measurement of CO2's greenhouse properties, including the work done in Angstrom's lab back in the 20's. The pace has picked up more recently, for obvious reasons - what was once an intellectual exercise has taken on practical significance.

No refuge, it is a simple request for the scientific papers.

Those that support the view that you support.

No teaching aids are required.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Because that's exactly what AGWrs do with blogs like climateaudit. Looking at the blog, I see one claim, wich can be true or not, and this conclusion:
Changing Schwartz' 5y time scale into a more representative 15y would put his results slap bang in the middle of the IPCC range, and confirm the well-known fact that the 20th century warming does not by itself provide a very tight constraint on climate sensitivity wich is quite a confession.



Why not wait until he publishes his criticisms in a peer reviewed journal?

Or is it because he is pro-AGW that his mere blog entries have credence?:D

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

No. There's well-established science, in inter-locking fields. If AGW is wrong the whole structure of science (and technology) is thrown into turmoil. If you take out the quantum physics in AGW, for instance, you take out quantum physics. You can't adjust that specific aspect while leaving everything else intact. Even as a hypothetical possibility the idea's laughable.

Wow! That's quite a Claim. Left aside errors in datasets, errors in models, varianles not considered in models and so on, the idea that If AGW is wrong the whole structure of science (and technology) is thrown into turmoil is certainly laughable.

[CapelDodger]

Post 402 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2875995&postcount=402) in this thread. It's a pretty good article, he describes why he feels being an alarmist is a valid position. And laments that not many others seem to share his views.

He rhetorically laments (borderline redundancy there) that few others voice his views, not that they don't share them. As you say, an interesting article. Nowhere in it does he describe himself as an alarmist. The one occurrence of "alarm" is in


I suspect it is because of what I call the "John Mercer effect". In 1978, when global warming was beginning to get attention from government agencies, Mercer suggested that global warming could lead to disastrous disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet. Although it was not obvious who was right on the science, I noticed that researchers who suggested that his paper was alarmist were regarded as more authoritative.


Hansen also says

Caveats are essential to science. They are born in scepticism, and scepticism is at the heart of the scientific method and discovery. However, in a case such as ice sheet instability and sea level rise, excessive caution also holds dangers. "Scientific reticence" can hinder communication with the public about the dangers of global warming. We may rue reticence if it means no action is taken until it is too late to prevent future disasters.

Is that what you're referring to? Is anybody that raises the alarm in any siuation an alarmist? If you only apply it to false alarms, Hansen's alarm has not yet proved unfounded. Your relaxed attitude has similarly not yet proved unfounded. Let's wait and see, shall we?

Remember, if you can keep your head when all around are losing theirs, it could be that you haven't grasped the seriousness of the situation.

I'm not saying it alarmism is not a valid belief, mind you; neither do I argue with my fundamentalist religious co-workers about religion.

Surely alarmism is a behaviour, not a belief?

But it is improper for the head of NASA climate science to be bend that far in a single direction; we pay him to get things right. So he should quit NASA and just be a full time climate alarmist, obviously.

Hansen and the team he heads up have been getting things right, and there's no reason to think they won't continue to do so. Science isn't about beliefs. Hansen isn't intercepting the incoming data or stalking around looking over people's shoulders and telling them to change this and that. Consider what happened when political appointees tried to influence NASA research and spin the results, there was quite a furore. Hansen would fare no better.

Hansen's convinced and says so, as a human being. Perhaps he has children and grandchildren, perhaps to him a century is a palpable timeframe. The outcome over the next century is going to be strongly influenced by what happens in the next decade, actions taken or not taken. Which is what Hansen's saying. As for myself, I agree with him.

Imagine yourself as an old man saying "Yes, he was right, but he didn't know he was right!" and the bitch-slapping you'd get for it. That exercise explains why I'm so seldom unequivocal. On AGW I'm prepared to be.

[CapelDodger]

Wow! That's quite a Claim. Left aside errors in datasets, errors in models, varianles not considered in models and so on, the idea that If AGW is wrong the whole structure of science (and technology) is thrown into turmoil is certainly laughable.

Quantum physics was developed to explain observed data that were entirely unconnected with climate, and has proven not only to be robust but to be applicable in many other fields. Nuclear physics, astrophysics, electronics, and so on. Also the greenhouse effect on climate, which had previously been detected but not adequately explained. Quantum physics helped round off the explanation.

How, then, can quantum physics be extracted from its greenhouse significance without being completely reassessed? The theory will have to be modified to cope with that "observed fact" while leaving every other field of application unaffected, which ain't gonna happen, let's face it. Or the whole of quantum theory is called into question, resulting in turmoil.

None of this depends on the measurements and models you bring up. The biggest and best analogue model does not raise any challenges to quantum physics, or to AGW as a whole.

[CapelDodger]

No refuge, it is a simple request for the scientific papers.

No it isn't, look at the words :


In the meantime, your side has yet to offer one specific paper explaining the AGW claim, using the scientific method, that CO2 is the responsible mechanism for driving temperature.


He demands a specific paper that explains AGW using the scientific method. As I tried to explain, papers do not explain, they report and sometimes hypothesise. The scientific method does not apply to explanation. I often try to explain things and not by scientific method. So this guy's asking for a purple unicorn before he'll stir from his fortress.


Those that support the view that you support.

I do not believe in purple unicorns, but it's just a gut-feeling, I've no cites to back it up.

No teaching aids are required.

I'm prepared to dispute that if you're keen.

[CapelDodger]

Because that's exactly what AGWrs do with blogs like climateaudit. Looking at the blog, I see one claim, wich can be true or not, and this conclusion:
Changing Schwartz' 5y time scale into a more representative 15y would put his results slap bang in the middle of the IPCC range, and confirm the well-known fact that the 20th century warming does not by itself provide a very tight constraint on climate sensitivity wich is quite a confession.

The introverted nature of the anti-AGW arena is surely reaching a tipping-point.

The 20thCE warming is disregarded as a constraint on climate sensitivity because so much was going on. CO2 this, sulphate emissions that, brown clouds there, it's a bad data point.

Climate sensitivity is best estimated from simpler times, and centres around 2C for a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels.

[a_unique_person]

Post 402 (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2875995&postcount=402) in this thread. It's a pretty good article, he describes why he feels being an alarmist is a valid position. And laments that not many others seem to share his views.

I'm not saying it alarmism is not a valid belief, mind you; neither do I argue with my fundamentalist religious co-workers about religion.

But it is improper for the head of NASA climate science to be bend that far in a single direction; we pay him to get things right. So he should quit NASA and just be a full time climate alarmist, obviously.

As far as he's concerned, he's right.

[a_unique_person]

Wow! That's quite a Claim. Left aside errors in datasets, errors in models, varianles not considered in models and so on, the idea that If AGW is wrong the whole structure of science (and technology) is thrown into turmoil is certainly laughable.

The history of science is about getting things wrong, then getting them more right. Einstein was wrong, Galileo was wrong, Newton was wrong. Science marches on and get's it that bit more right with each increment.

[mhaze]

Quantum physics was developed to explain observed data that were entirely unconnected with climate, and has proven not only to be robust but to be applicable in many other fields. Nuclear physics, astrophysics, electronics, and so on. Also the greenhouse effect on climate, which had previously been detected but not adequately explained. Quantum physics helped round off the explanation.

How, then, can quantum physics be extracted from its greenhouse significance without being completely reassessed? The theory will have to be modified to cope with that "observed fact" while leaving every other field of application unaffected, which ain't gonna happen, let's face it. Or the whole of quantum theory is called into question, resulting in turmoil.


Muon production from the interaction of cosmic rays and the solar wind, how this may cause clouds to form is also quantum physics.

[mhaze]

As far as he's concerned, he's right.

No question. Good article.

[mhaze]

The introverted nature of the anti-AGW arena is surely reaching a tipping-point.

The 20thCE warming is disregarded as a constraint on climate sensitivity because so much was going on. CO2 this, sulphate emissions that, brown clouds there, it's a bad data point.

Climate sensitivity is best estimated from simpler times, and centres around 2C for a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels.

I guess 0.5-1.0c, you're got 2c.

Not too far apart there are we?;)

[a_unique_person]

Let's suppose what you say is true (but I didn't know that MIT - Where Linzend works- was a Right wing propaganda think tank) . How does it change the way "consensus" is made?

I guess you missed some examples:

Skeptical State Climatologist in Oregon has title threatened by Governor
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_020607_news_taylor_title.59f5d04a.html
(February 8, 2007)
Excerpt: “[State Climatologist George Taylor] does not believe human activities are the main cause of global climate change…So the [Oregon] governor wants to take that title from Taylor and make it a position that he would appoint. In an exclusive interview with KGW-TV, Governor Ted Kulongoski confirmed he wants to take that title from Taylor.

Skeptical State Climatologist in Delaware silenced by Governor
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0705/02/gb.01.html
(May 2, 2007)
Excerpt: Legates is a state climatologist in Delaware, and he teaches at the university. He`s not part of the mythical climate consensus. In fact, Legates believes that we oversimplify climate by just blaming greenhouse gases. One day he received a letter from the governor, saying his views do not concur with those of the administration, so if he wants to speak out, it must be as an individual, not as a state climatologist. So essentially, you can have the title of state climatologist unless he`s talking about his views on climate?


Weather Channel Climate Expert Calls for Decertifying Global Warming Skeptics
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=32ABC0B0-802A-23AD-440A-88824BB8E528
(January 17, 2007)
Excerpt: The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to "Holocaust Deniers" and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists.


Have you read Lindzen's article?
In Europe, Henk Tennekes was dismissed as research director of the Royal Dutch Meteorological Society after questioning the scientific underpinnings of global warming. Aksel Winn-Nielsen, former director of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization, was tarred by Bert Bolin, first head of the IPCC, as a tool of the coal industry for questioning climate alarmism. Respected Italian professors Alfonso Sutera and Antonio Speranza disappeared from the debate in 1991, apparently losing climate-research funding for raising questions.

Apparently, those "right wing think tanks" are everywhere......

"State Climatologist" was a great scam, while it lasted. The organisation was moribund, many seats were not occupied. Along they came and *hey presto* instant credibility. Looks like the party is over.

[mhaze]

Looks like the party is over.

And political correctness is science is again safe?

[mhaze]

Hansen and the team he heads up have been getting things right, and there's no reason to think they won't continue to do so. Science isn't about beliefs. Hansen isn't intercepting the incoming data or stalking around looking over people's shoulders and telling them to change this and that. Consider what happened when political appointees tried to influence NASA research and spin the results, there was quite a furore.

Yes, Hansen should be advised that science isn't about beliefs.

Basically that's ask politely for resignation time.

You could say Hansen has reached a tipping point in positive feedbacks.

But not a forcing.

[a_unique_person]

And political correctness is science is again safe?

A small group of deniers attempt a tacky flanking manoeuvre to give themselves an air of authority they otherwise lacked. I don't know where the 'political correctness' bitching comes into it?

[mhaze]

GW = Global Political Correctness?

[mhaze]

Not a normal day, but a weather 'event'. The prediction is that such events will become more frequent. The proof will be in the record of statistics.

In our local case, believe me it is normal.

Jumping to conclusions that GW is the cause of a weather event is normal today, instead of the reverse. Here is a good example of the proof being in the record of statistics.

Bruce Sterling, a writer and futurist whom I generally have had a high degree of respect for, recently wrote this in Wired. (http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2007/08/climate-crisis-.html)

Sterling asserts the cause of the recent tragedy in which 180 Chinese miners drowned to ...

You guessed it...Global Warming. Quoting the final sentence -
There's not a coal mine in the world that could avert nine inches of sudden Greenhouse rain. Those miners were digging their own graves.
Facts don't matter. For example, the fact that no one turned the pumps on. Or the fact that the dike broke. Or the fact that there is such a thing as a rainy season.

In this article, Sterling brings up a good point regarding the "Wexelblat disaster syndrome" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wexelblat_disaster) and this is quite intriguing.

However he extends it without any scientific rationale to attribute the cause to global warming.

Facts.

Checking the China news story.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3497515 (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=3497515)

"The miners have been trapped since Friday afternoon when a dike on the Wen river burst, sending water rushing into the Huayuan Mining Co. mine, stranding 172 miners. Nine more miners were trapped in a nearby mine shaft. Both are about 370 miles southeast of Beijing."

A comment from a local villager.

"Li and others gathered under a billboard explaining Huayuan's "safety ideals". She said every year during the rainy season there is flooding in the mine, and officials did not seem to be prepared this year."

After writing a letter to the Wired editor complaining about this and receiving no response, I'm posting it here. It's quite disingenous and intellectually dishonest to assert that the known problems with the death rates in Chinese mines are attributable, not to Chinese flagrant disrespect for human rights and safety, but to a problem caused by the western world, increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

According to Sterling, to put it bluntly, you and I are responsible for the Chinese miners deaths.

The comment blog on this article at Wired was closed right away.

I think I know why.

Background.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wexelblat_disaster

http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2007/08/climate-crisis-.html (http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2007/08/climate-crisis-.html)

Beijing is a couple hundred miles from Xintai, and here is rainfall and temperatures by month - obviously, July and August have a lot of rain.

http://www.world66.com/asia/northeastasia/china/beijing/lib/climate (http://www.world66.com/asia/northeastasia/china/beijing/lib/climate)

[plumjam]

I never questioned the coming Global Warming, you know, the one that is a fact, no doubt about it, it has been proven beyond all doubt, everybody agrees with, that Global Warming.

I never even thought about questioning it, looking into it, until I saw the religious like attacks on anyone who did question it. That got my attention. Why would anyone with a brain be so emotional, so irrational, so petty as to personally attack somebody for asking questions, or having a different view about Global Warming?

I'm funny that way, but when I see dumb behavior, stuff that makes no sense, I start wondering why. Why is questioning something viewed as heresy? How did a scientific Theory become the same as Church Doctrine? What the hell is going on when skeptics, logical, scientific people, start sounding like the faithful?

good point, there's a load of that on this forum.. yet the ones who indulge in it don't appear to detect the irony

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

You made my day as usual.
You confuse so many things (specially equating greenhouse effect with AGW) that your post has no sense at all.
Repeat after me: Greenhouse effect is not AGW.


Quantum physics was developed to explain observed data that were entirely unconnected with climate, and has proven not only to be robust but to be applicable in many other fields. Nuclear physics, astrophysics, electronics, and so on. Also the greenhouse effect on climate, which had previously been detected but not adequately explained. Quantum physics helped round off the explanation.

How, then, can quantum physics be extracted from its greenhouse significance without being completely reassessed? The theory will have to be modified to cope with that "observed fact" while leaving every other field of application unaffected, which ain't gonna happen, let's face it. Or the whole of quantum theory is called into question, resulting in turmoil.

None of this depends on the measurements and models you bring up. The biggest and best analogue model does not raise any challenges to quantum physics, or to AGW as a whole.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Or you can admint than you have no basis for estimate model variables.

Wich it's exactly what is happenning.


The introverted nature of the anti-AGW arena is surely reaching a tipping-point.

The 20thCE warming is disregarded as a constraint on climate sensitivity because so much was going on. CO2 this, sulphate emissions that, brown clouds there, it's a bad data point.

Climate sensitivity is best estimated from simpler times, and centres around 2C for a doubling of CO2 from pre-industrial levels.

[plumjam]

When did ad hom and "everybody knows it" become a substitute for "here is the peer reviewed articles showing why it is the current theory."?

If I hear one more idiot declare "you are a denialist" instead of debating the evidence, I think I am going to start hitting the report post button.

Calling someone a name, and apparently a name that has some sort of insulting meaning, (I never heard the word denialist until I read these forums), is not civil or intelligent. It is dumb.

And denialist isn't even a word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=denialist&go=Go

I know, I know, you Woos think that making up a word that a "cool in group considers a real word", you think that makes it a word. Maybe to you it does, but the majority of intelligent thinkers in the world would consider you dumb.

And insulting. If all you got is calling someone a made up word, you got nothing.


I generally heartily agree with your post.
However, before coming onto this forum I'd never heard the word "woo", so your use of it is pretty much the same as those using "denialist"

[CapelDodger]

You made my day as usual.
You confuse so many things (specially equating greenhouse effect with AGW) that your post has no sense at all.
Repeat after me: Greenhouse effect is not AGW.

AGW by the injection of CO2 into the atmosphere follows directly from the greenhouse effect at any CO2 level below saturation - and CO2 concentrations are still well below saturation level. So there's no confusion. If AGW isn't true, greenhouse theory is wrong; if greenhouse theory is wrong, quantum physics is thrown into serious question.

Since warming has indeed occurred with the increase of atmospheric CO2 by a third, greenhouse theory is not thrown into question and nor is quantum physics.

[mhaze]

AGW by the injection of CO2 into the atmosphere follows directly from the greenhouse effect at any CO2 level below saturation - and CO2 concentrations are still well below saturation level. So there's no confusion. If AGW isn't true, greenhouse theory is wrong; if greenhouse theory is wrong, quantum physics is thrown into serious question.

Since warming has indeed occurred with the increase of atmospheric CO2 by a third, greenhouse theory is not thrown into question and nor is quantum physics.

No, no, and no. But I'm only going to crack the QM part -

from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect) (bold is mine) -
Most of the infrared absorption in the atmosphere can be thought of as occurring while two molecules are colliding. The absorption due to a photon interacting with a lone molecule is relatively small. This three-body aspect of the problem, one photon and two molecules, makes direct quantum mechanical computation for molecules of interest more challenging. Careful laboratory spectroscopic measurements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy), rather than ab initio quantum mechanical computations, provide the basis for most of the radiative transfer calculations used in studies of the atmosphere.

Note: wikipedia's article on this subject is not one of the better ones.

[mhaze]

good point, there's a load of that on this forum.. yet the ones who indulge in it don't appear to detect the irony

What, a skeptic?

[ConspiRaider]

Exxon is the good guys. Get over it. $100,000,000 by Exxon to Stanford.
Ah! There's a thought! Exxon is the good guys! If one lives long enough, one eventually hears it all.

So you are from TEXAS, eh? Well! George Bush's territory. You voted for oil baron George Bush, didn't you. That's a statement - not a question. Lemme guess: You still support him.

So you therefore supported his administration's suppression of data concerning global warming, right? Scientific data? His lying-about-his-degree campaign worker punk 24-year-old kid who got installed at NASA to ride roughshod over scientists? You like that, do you? How about that attorney who, without any scientific basis, directly altered reports on global warming? Then when he got caught, went to work for Exxon? How about the decades-long assault launched by oil companies to suppress or minimize anything coming out of the scientific community concerning AGW? Make you feel good?

Don't you know that isotope analysis tagged excess CO2 to human activity - more specifically the burning of fossil fuels? How come you don't know that?

Don't you know that soot from coal burning in the USA / Canada being deposited on the polar ice cap is making it absorb, rather than reflect, sunlight? Speeding the melting? Shouldn't you be on top of this stuff?

Don't you have even a clue that rainforest destruction is a giant contributor to global warming? And that we do that - we humans? Do you know what's going on down in Brazil right now? Did you know that the Brazilian government is giving land directly to people so that they can contract directly with loggers for the destruction of the forest on their property?

Don't you even know that methane is 23 times more efficient than CO2 at re-radiating the infrared heat, and that its presence in the atmosphere has more than doubled over the last couple hundred years? Because of industrialization? Did you know exposed coal mines emit methane? Rice paddies?

Get busy. Do some analysis and studying and then come back here and attempt to argue that AGW is all a myth. If you ACTUALLY study what's going on - you will be unable to refute AGW.

Want to do something for Texas? Lobby, protest, whatever, to disallow SMU to host The Idiot's presidential library. Make this Idiot move his presidential library to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Have him follow Halliburton. Texas will thank you for it later.

[David Rodale]

Ah! There's a thought! Exxon is the good guys! If one lives long enough, one eventually hears it all.

So you are from TEXAS, eh? Well! George Bush's territory. You voted for oil baron George Bush, didn't you. That's a statement - not a question. Lemme guess: You still support him.

So you therefore supported his administration's suppression of data concerning global warming, right? Scientific data? His lying-about-his-degree campaign worker punk 24-year-old kid who got installed at NASA to ride roughshod over scientists? You like that, do you? How about that attorney who, without any scientific basis, directly altered reports on global warming? Then when he got caught, went to work for Exxon? How about the decades-long assault launched by oil companies to suppress or minimize anything coming out of the scientific community concerning AGW? Make you feel good?

Don't you know that isotope analysis tagged excess CO2 to human activity - more specifically the burning of fossil fuels? How come you don't know that?

Don't you know that soot from coal burning in the USA / Canada being deposited on the polar ice cap is making it absorb, rather than reflect, sunlight? Speeding the melting? Shouldn't you be on top of this stuff?

Don't you have even a clue that rainforest destruction is a giant contributor to global warming? And that we do that - we humans? Do you know what's going on down in Brazil right now? Did you know that the Brazilian government is giving land directly to people so that they can contract directly with loggers for the destruction of the forest on their property?

Don't you even know that methane is 23 times more efficient than CO2 at re-radiating the infrared heat, and that its presence in the atmosphere has more than doubled over the last couple hundred years? Because of industrialization? Did you know exposed coal mines emit methane? Rice paddies?

Get busy. Do some analysis and studying and then come back here and attempt to argue that AGW is all a myth. If you ACTUALLY study what's going on - you will be unable to refute AGW.

Want to do something for Texas? Lobby, protest, whatever, to disallow SMU to host The Idiot's presidential library. Make this Idiot move his presidential library to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates. Have him follow Halliburton. Texas will thank you for it later.


That is commonly known as arm waiving i.e. reasoning without benefit of empirical data, or mathematical or logical formalism; one of the finest examples in some time. Join in, the water's warm, but control your emotions and use some logical reasoning. It wouldn't hurt to provide topic related evidence as well, particularly on CO2.

Would that outburst be best described as trolling, lurking or simply a long Jeremiad?

[ConspiRaider]

That is commonly known as arm waiving i.e. reasoning without benefit of empirical data, or mathematical or logical formalism; one of the finest examples in some time. Join in, the water's warm, but control your emotions and use some logical reasoning. It wouldn't hurt to provide topic related evidence as well, particularly on CO2.

Would that outburst be best described as trolling, lurking or simply a long Jeremiad?
You misused the word "waiving".

Don't tell me to join in. I joined JREF 10 years ago. And have been following the world of science a helluva lot longer than have you.

YOU do the work if you actually care about understanding just how we humans have been fouling our own nest concerning this particular issue of accelerated warming of the planet due to our activities. I've already done it. And I wouldn't even presume to point you to links, because how you conduct your research to discover the truth about AGW is your affair.

Okay I'll do this: There's a magazine called Scientific American, ever heard of it? Get the August 2007 issue. Go to page 64. Read that 10-page article entitled:

The Physical Science Behind Climate Change: Why are climatologists so highly confident that human activities are dangerously warming the Earth?

Wanna guess why I'm passionate about this? Why a sample of righteous indignation at deliberate ignorance is just exactly what is called for? Give up? A huge reason is my 7 nieces and nephews. Now I actually care a great deal about the preservation of humanity, collectively, but sometimes that's not quite personal enough. Kin - that's personal. My nieces and nephews (and if I ever do have kiddies of my own) are going to see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in the summertime, by about 2040 or 2050. And maybe sooner. That will speed the warming. They are going to see the scramble for freshwater. They are going to see the havoc wreaked by extremes of weather. They are going to see the disruption in the world of agriculture, a tenuous food supply. They're going to see the leading edge of coastal cities being affected by a rising ocean level. They'll see diseases that used to be isolated in the deep tropics move across the planet, infecting millions.

[mhaze]

You misused the word "waiving".

Don't tell me to join in. I joined JREF 10 years ago. And have been following the world of science a helluva lot longer than have you.

YOU do the work if you actually care about understanding just how we humans have been fouling our own nest concerning this particular issue of accelerated warming of the planet due to our activities. I've already done it. And I wouldn't even presume to point you to links, because how you conduct your research to discover the truth about AGW is your affair.

Okay I'll do this: There's a magazine called Scientific American, ever heard of it? Get the August 2007 issue. Go to page 64. Read that 10-page article entitled:

The Physical Science Behind Climate Change: Why are climatologists so highly confident that human activities are dangerously warming the Earth?

Wanna guess why I'm passionate about this? Why a sample of righteous indignation at deliberate ignorance is just exactly what is called for? Give up? A huge reason is my 7 nieces and nephews. Now I actually care a great deal about the preservation of humanity, collectively, but sometimes that's not quite personal enough. Kin - that's personal. My nieces and nephews (and if I ever do have kiddies of my own) are going to see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in the summertime, by about 2040 or 2050. And maybe sooner. That will speed the warming. They are going to see the scramble for freshwater. They are going to see the havoc wreaked by extremes of weather. They are going to see the disruption in the world of agriculture, a tenuous food supply. They're going to see the leading edge of coastal cities being affected by a rising ocean level. They'll see diseases that used to be isolated in the deep tropics move across the planet, infecting millions.

Interesting points of view.

Did you just want to state these opinions or discuss some part of it or what?

If so, what parts?

By the way, we got Bush out of Texas, (he is allowed to come back to visit for limited times).:D

[CapelDodger]

No, no, and no. But I'm only going to crack the QM part -

You're gonna try, but ...




from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect) (bold is mine) - Most of the infrared absorption in the atmosphere can be thought of as occurring while two molecules are colliding. The absorption due to a photon interacting with a lone molecule is relatively small. This three-body aspect of the problem, one photon and two molecules, makes direct quantum mechanical computation for molecules of interest more challenging. Careful laboratory spectroscopic measurements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy), rather than ab initio quantum mechanical computations, provide the basis for most of the radiative transfer calculations used in studies of the atmosphere.Note: wikipedia's article on this subject is not one of the better ones.


This does not say that quantum mechanics are not involved in the greenhouse effect, it simply says that direct ab ovo quantum mechanical computation is very challenging. Which I never doubted. Instead they're done from spectroscopic measurements - spectroscopy being another field in which quantum physics features, so messing with that to make AGW go away also messes with quantum physics.

Only connect ...

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

It's interesting.....you know, Intelligent Desing also relies in natural selection for development of most characteristics of specia. And it will be hard to sell that negating ID will mess natural selection.
You, on the other hand..............

[ConspiRaider]

Interesting points of view.

Did you just want to state these opinions or discuss some part of it or what?

If so, what parts?

By the way, we got Bush out of Texas, (he is allowed to come back to visit for limited times).:D
As far as I'm concerned, mhaze, the time for discussing IF the phenomenon known as AGW is credible - is now past. In my view - there is no debate. AGW is credible, is undeniable.

The debate part is what to do? How? When? How do you stop rainforest destruction? I can't stop it personally - but I can contribute regularly to Greenpeace because they are on the front lines of the issue. I can't make an automobile that has zero emissions and zero CO2 production - but I can vote for monies to be aimed at such research. I cannot shut down the 1000-plus coal power plants in the USA - but I can vote for those who will insist on better regulation of smokestack emissions and for those who will vigorously pursue the funding and research of non-polluting production of electrical power.

One thing I can do is open my big fat mouth, and as you see I'm certainly not shy about that! :)

Good news about Bush and Texas. Put a big fence around Crawford, give him a platinum sickle and tell him to go to work! :D

[CapelDodger]

Wanna guess why I'm passionate about this? Why a sample of righteous indignation at deliberate ignorance is just exactly what is called for? Give up? A huge reason is my 7 nieces and nephews. Now I actually care a great deal about the preservation of humanity, collectively, but sometimes that's not quite personal enough. Kin - that's personal.

I empathise with that. I have six nepots; four live in East Anglia (or the Archipelago as I refer to it), and two in Gloucester (at high flood risk, as recently demonstrated, and it might not be over yet). I care deeply about them - they're my parents' grandchildren, after all. I've never had dynastic inclinations myself, but they did, and I share their pride in their achievement.

To my mind, the best we can do for them is help prepare them for what's coming, intellectually and practically. It won't be as easy a ride as I've had - a boomer, '54 vintage - but it wasn't for my parents or grandparents either. Or the great-uncles that sailed in one Atlantic convoy too many. We boomers have been particularly blessed, but I can't help thinking we'll be roundly cursed in the future.

I try not to be part of the problem, despite carrying massive carbon credits from not breeding :) .

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

I'll help yor grandchildren in the coming apocalypse:
Get this
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070604222124.htm
and forget about the inminent water wars.

[ConspiRaider]

I'll help yor grandchildren in the coming apocalypse:
Get this
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070604222124.htm
and forget about the inminent water wars.
There will come a day - I have to believe - when you'll remove those items from your signature line. You'll be red-faced about it - and then you'll turn Green. And we'll welcome you, because the world needs as many folks who care about the future of humankind as we can get. The door is always open, you just c'mon in.

In the meantime get to it and read that August 2007 issue of Scientific American, the 10-page article starting on page 64. Promise? It's a start, and you've got a lot of work to do...

[mhaze]

As far as I'm concerned, mhaze, the time for discussing IF the phenomenon known as AGW is credible - is now past. In my view - there is no debate. AGW is credible, is undeniable.

The debate part is what to do? How? When? How do you stop rainforest destruction? I can't stop it personally - but I can contribute regularly to Greenpeace because they are on the front lines of the issue. I can't make an automobile that has zero emissions and zero CO2 production - but I can vote for monies to be aimed at such research. I cannot shut down the 1000-plus coal power plants in the USA - but I can vote for those who will insist on better regulation of smokestack emissions and for those who will vigorously pursue the funding and research of non-polluting production of electrical power.

One thing I can do is open my big fat mouth, and as you see I'm certainly not shy about that! :)

Good news about Bush and Texas. Put a big fence around Crawford, give him a platinum sickle and tell him to go to work! :D

Obviously, the thread is not about politics, and even if it were I am not sure I see obvious connections. Moreover, GW is a world-thing, not a US thing, right? China has already overtaken the US on GHG emissions, not even counting their one coal plant going into service every four days; Jakarta has (if I recall the number right) GHG emissions from all the 2 cycle motorbikes equal to 6 billion SUVS; etc.

For some rather technical reasons I agree with you about the rain forest issues. The best evidence I have seen indicates that forests are worthless for sinking carbon; the exception is tropical forests (actually there is a latitude band for this) and these sink about 3x what they source.

The reason Exxon was being discussed was because there was apparently an organized media campaign -

216 "regular starburst media campaign, eh?" (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=216)
221 "Why exxon may have been anti-Kyoto" (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=221)
228 "why Exxon is the good guys" (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=228)
353 "Newsweek editor apology" (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=353)

that brought back up the "Exxon funding anti-AGW conspiracy theory" as first promulgated by Greenpeace/Exxonsecrets.org, later by UCS. This campaign emerged right before the disclosure of the data errors in the NASA climate numbers by Steve McIntyre on 8-10-07.

It was the same old conspiracy theory that had already been discredited. And Exxon had given $100M to Stanford for climate research. So they were not the bad guys they had been depicted.

Post 353, the Newsweek editor concurred. I'm open to change my opinion on Exxon if you have any actual new evidence to consider. Otherwise, I consider this a closed issue. To me Exxon is just a company traded on the stock exchange and a gas station down the street.

Also please note that if carbon sequestreration plants are needed in the future, it will be a small group of heavy industry companies that build them. Basically, those will be built by the same companies that build powerplants. Not necessarily Exxon, but cohorts of them; and yes, Exxon could easily be involved. Same logic applies for nuclear powerplants - same heavy industry companies.

It's those heavy industry companies that can build the equipment that is a technological way out of any AGW problem that may be believed to be critical enough to require actions.

By contrast simple calculations shows that "behavior change", and "carbon neutral footprints" make negligible differences. I'm not convinced there is or will be a significant AGW impact, but that's another issue entirely.

There seem to be a lot of people who think GW, and AGW particularly, is a crisis that will flood New York, Florida, etc., within a few decades. This is misinformation. It's pretty easy to back up this up with facts.

That has been also discussed at length here, there are various opinions on it of course. I'm defining "alarmism" as say, someone who takes the worst case scenario computed by the IPCC in their computer models for a 1000 year time frame and who asserts that that will happen within a few decades, not the 1000 year timeframe, and who conveniently forgets to mention that it was the computation of the "worst case scenario".

Don't you think that people should be informed of the facts?

[CapelDodger]

Yes, Hansen should be advised that science isn't about beliefs.

Hansen knows this perfectly well, you're the one who seems to have trouble with the concept. Hansen is very well-placed to understand AGW and its implications. He has been convinced by the underlying science and by observation that AGW is happening and it has serious implications. He didn't suddenly "believe" in AGW one day, any more than I did; he's been convinced of it as the new science and observations have come in, as have I.

Basically that's ask politely for resignation time.

He was appointed to his job on merit. If it gives him status, that's because he's earned it. His conclusions on AGW do not diminish him as a scientist, despite the fact that you find them uncomfortable. If you think that anybody with a high-status position, in public or private institutions, who voices their opinions as a private citizen on contentious matters should resign ... well, that's just crazy talk.

You could say Hansen has reached a tipping point in positive feedbacks.

But not a forcing.

Do what now :confused: ?

There is a forcing involved, I suppose, in the form of events and observations. The glacial retreat, season-change, northward (and upward) migration of species, oceanic and atmospheric temperatures, all the actual stuff that's going on. Which is seeping through to the general population like melt-water infiltrating an ice-mass. Most people experience climate to some extent and they've noticed that it's changing.

Truth will out, and the truth is we're screwed. On average.

[ConspiRaider]

I empathise with that. I have six nepots; four live in East Anglia (or the Archipelago as I refer to it), and two in Gloucester (at high flood risk, as recently demonstrated, and it might not be over yet). I care deeply about them - they're my parents' grandchildren, after all. I've never had dynastic inclinations myself, but they did, and I share their pride in their achievement.

To my mind, the best we can do for them is help prepare them for what's coming, intellectually and practically. It won't be as easy a ride as I've had - a boomer, '54 vintage - but it wasn't for my parents or grandparents either. Or the great-uncles that sailed in one Atlantic convoy too many. We boomers have been particularly blessed, but I can't help thinking we'll be roundly cursed in the future.

I try not to be part of the problem, despite carrying massive carbon credits from not breeding :) .
Excellent stuff, CD. I'm a boomer myself, '57. And I've had no kiddies but won't say that I never will. Probably won't. If I meet that right woman? Who can say. But I do have the offspring of my brothers and sisters and I absolutely don't want them to suffer. We were discussing AGW when I visited them and the 10-year-old girl said: "Why? Why are they doing that?". I really had no good answer. How do you tell a 10-year-old that things may get worse for her because of greed, power, deception?

Kin just personalizes it. In reality - I don't want anybody to lose because of this. Not a single person - or animal or plant, for that matter.

What's more alarming is this: Big time social upheavals are coming because of AGW. At best, you want the world's people to be getting along with each other famously, because tensions will be increased. And look at the state of the world. We've got a lunatic president, BushCheney, trying to figure out how to justify attacking the country of Iran. That's their priority! Not this. Invasion. That's what they dream about...

[mhaze]

There will come a day - I have to believe - when you'll remove those items from your signature line. You'll be red-faced about it - and then you'll turn Green. And we'll welcome you, because the world needs as many folks who care about the future of humankind as we can get. The door is always open, you just c'mon in.

In the meantime get to it and read that August 2007 issue of Scientific American, the 10-page article starting on page 64. Promise? It's a start, and you've got a lot of work to do...

I'll be happy to read anything that you can link to on the web or as a pdf, but I'm not going to specially go out and get the issue to read the article. We've got thousands of articles on line, and commonly link to them and download them, etc.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

You may not believe this (since it seem that you haven't followed this thread) but I do support whatever it takes to reduce fossil fuel emissions. But that's due to their polluting effect on human beings and the benfic effects it would have reducing dependency on hostile regimens, not fear about an inminent disaster.
What you advocated (more nuclear plans, research of alternatives to oil and so on) are OK for me. What's not ok is the science you call settled. It's not settled AFAICS, as seem in many Peer reviewed studies I posted in eralier pages here.

[CapelDodger]

It's interesting.....you know, Intelligent Desing also relies in natural selection for development of most characteristics of specia. And it will be hard to sell that negating ID will mess natural selection.
You, on the other hand..............

You seem to have the thing entirely upside-down. And/or possibly sideways. Hard to tell. I'm kinda thrown by the introduction of ID.

ID has nothing to do with natural selection, it just concedes it as an extra. Natural selection would sail blithely on if ID fell under a bus tomorrow. Yeah, I can mix metaphor with the best of them. And I'm mustard at analogy, which you ain't.

Your contribution is specious. If AGW falls, greenhouse theory falls; if greenhouse theory falls, so does quantum physics and spectroscopy (thank you, mhaze). As to astrophysics, best not go there,eh?

[BeAChooser]

On October 12, 2006, Peiser admitted that only one of the research papers he used in his study refuted the scientific consensus on climate change, and that study was NOT peer-reviewed and was published by American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Well it does look like Peiser has revised his views, although I still see some significance to the fact that just 13 abstracts (less than 2%) *explicitly* endorsed what Oreskes said was the 'consensus view.' The vast majority of abstracts do not deal with or mention anthropogenic global warming at all.

And what about Dennis Bray's internet study? Nothing to say about that at all? You have to admit that direct polling of climatologists is more interesting than just sampling papers.

And what about reports like these:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/20/opinion/edjacoby.php "August 20, 2007 ... snip ... Scientists and other "serious people" who question the global warming disaster narrative are not hard to find. Last year 60 of them sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, urging him to undertake "a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science" and disputing the contention that "a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause." The letter cautioned that "observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models" and warned that since the study of climate change is relatively new, "it may be many years yet before we properly understand the earth's climate system." Among those signing the letter to Harper were Fred Singer, the former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service; Ian Clark, hydrogeology and paleoclimatology specialist at the University of Ottawa; Hendrik Tennekes, the former director of research at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; physicist Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton; the University of Alabama's Roy Spencer, formerly senior scientist in climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, plus 55 other specialists in climate science and related disciplines."

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4 "June 20, 2007 ... snip ... It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. ... snip ... R. Timothy Patterson is professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University.

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA177.html "Another survey, conducted by American Viewpoint for Citizens for a Sound Economy, found that, by a margin of 44% to 17%, state climatologists believe that global warming is largely a natural phenomenon. The survey further found that 58% of the climatologists disagreed with President Clinton's assertion that "the overwhelming balance of evidence and scientific opinion is that it is no longer a theory, but now fact, that global warming is for real," while only 36% agreed with the assertion. Thirty-six of the nation's 48 official state climatologists participated in the survey."

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/consensus_what_consensus_among_climate_scientists_ the_debate_is_not_over.html " “Consensus”? What “Consensus”?Among Climate Scientists, The Debate Is Not Over, Written by Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Thursday, 19 July 2007"

I still find the complete dismissal of the dissenting opinion troubling and indicative of an agenda driven group (at least, no less an agenda than the petroleum industry). Let me see what you have to say about the questions I asked earlier:

How serious can it be if over the 20,000 years prior to today, the average loss in ice mass in Antarctica was equivalent to a 0.5 mm increase in the sea level each year ... more than the 0.4 mm increase claimed using the GRACE data? How serious could the loss of ice be if it's going to take 750 years to raise the sea level one foot.

And what about the huge uncertainty in that estimate? There are uncertainties in that estimate because to make it they had to make assumptions. Will you acknowledge those uncertainties?

A second even more recent study that I referenced claims satellite data shows an overall loss of ice so small that it would take 3800 years to raise the sea level even one foot. If true, is that something to get excited about and pass draconian tax legislation crippling our economy RIGHT NOW???

And finally, will you apologize for Al Gore and the global walarmists who had claimed antarctic ice was decreasing even at a time when study after study said the opposite?

[mhaze]

Your contribution is specious. If AGW falls, greenhouse theory falls; if greenhouse theory falls, so does quantum physics and spectroscopy (thank you, mhaze). As to astrophysics, best not go there,eh?

Okay, if AGW falls, the entire world comes tumbling down.

But that's okay because then it's a nice world with no AGW!:)

[mhaze]

You may not believe this (since it seem that you haven't followed this thread) but I do support whatever it takes to reduce fossil fuel emissions. But that's due to their polluting effect on human beings and the benfic effects it would have reducing dependency on hostile regimens, not fear about an inminent disaster.
What you advocated (more nuclear plans, research of alternatives to oil and so on) are OK for me. What's not ok is the science you call settled. It's not settled AFAICS, as seem in many Peer reviewed studies I posted in eralier pages here.

LR, I assume your post was in response to Conspir, but let me second all that.

Conspir, being a Greenpeace contributer, will probably be utterly opposed to the nukes of course.

[mhaze]

you've got a lot of work to do...

Come to think of it...

would you like your reading list now, later or bit by bit?:jaw-dropp

[ConspiRaider]

Obviously, the thread is not about politics, and even if it were I am not sure I see obvious connections. Moreover, GW is a world-thing, not a US thing, right? China has already overtaken the US on GHG emissions, not even counting their one coal plant going into service every four days; Jakarta has (if I recall the number right) GHG emissions from all the 2 cycle motorbikes equal to 6 billion SUVS; etc.

For some rather technical reasons I agree with you about the rain forest issues. The best evidence I have seen indicates that forests are worthless for sinking carbon; the exception is tropical forests (actually there is a latitude band for this) and these sink about 3x what they source.

The reason Exxon was being discussed was because there was apparently an organized media campaign -

216 "regular starburst media campaign, eh?" (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=216)
221 "Why exxon may have been anti-Kyoto" (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=221)
228 "why Exxon is the good guys" (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=228)
353 "Newsweek editor apology" (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=353)

that brought back up the "Exxon funding anti-AGW conspiracy theory" as first promulgated by Greenpeace/Exxonsecrets.org, later by UCS. This campaign emerged right before the disclosure of the data errors in the NASA climate numbers by Steve McIntyre on 8-10-07.

It was the same old conspiracy theory that had already been discredited. And Exxon had given $100M to Stanford for climate research. So they were not the bad guys they had been depicted.

Post 353, the Newsweek editor concurred. I'm open to change my opinion on Exxon if you have any actual new evidence to consider. Otherwise, I consider this a closed issue. To me Exxon is just a company traded on the stock exchange and a gas station down the street.

Also please note that if carbon sequestreration plants are needed in the future, it will be a small group of heavy industry companies that build them. Basically, those will be built by the same companies that build powerplants. Not necessarily Exxon, but cohorts of them; and yes, Exxon could easily be involved. Same logic applies for nuclear powerplants - same heavy industry companies.

It's those heavy industry companies that can build the equipment that is a technological way out of any AGW problem that may be believed to be critical enough to require actions.

By contrast simple calculations shows that "behavior change", and "carbon neutral footprints" make negligible differences. I'm not convinced there is or will be a significant AGW impact, but that's another issue entirely.

There seem to be a lot of people who think GW, and AGW particularly, is a crisis that will flood New York, Florida, etc., within a few decades. This is misinformation. It's pretty easy to back up this up with facts.

That has been also discussed at length here, there are various opinions on it of course. I'm defining "alarmism" as say, someone who takes the worst case scenario computed by the IPCC in their computer models for a 1000 year time frame and who asserts that that will happen within a few decades, not the 1000 year timeframe, and who conveniently forgets to mention that it was the computation of the "worst case scenario".

Don't you think that people should be informed of the facts?
Hi mhaze -

Just a few things because I've been up and down on this global warming issue ad nauseum. If not in this thread - many others. If not in this forum - others. And that's just the Internet.

This is a piece that caught my eye several weeks ago:
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=284392

And IF ExxonMobil is now bending to pressure and backing off on denial - good. I'm for that. They've got a lot to answer for, and reversing course is quite effective.

Yes, people should be informed of the facts, as best we know them. No alarmism that is off the charts. No need. We're really talking about point of view of the observer here. How far back should we step? If NYC, for example, will be underwater in 1000 years, should we worry about it today? I think we should, but others may not. I'm less concerned about that scenario because there is so much to be concerned about this century, with AGW and its effects. The effects the young ones will see.

This is extremely tough to sell. I know that. How do you sell people on the notion of what MIGHT happen? And if our actions do head off bad effects of AGW, how do you prove that? Tough. You'll always have people saying that things would have worked themselves out anyway. This is projection science, partly. We can see some concrete effects, but many projected effects are shrouded in uncertainty. It's like betting on whether you should leave town, or not, with a hurricane coming to visit. It's like building an asteroid-deflection system - but then no asteroid comes to threaten the Earth. Would it be wasted effort to build the deflector? In my view - NOPE. Therefore I say we proceed as if AGW will negatively affect us, generally, if allowed to continue unchecked. That's what the preponderance of our current science tells us. Let's go with it.

[David Rodale]

You misused the word "waiving".

Don't tell me to join in. I joined JREF 10 years ago. And have been following the world of science a helluva lot longer than have you.

YOU do the work if you actually care about understanding just how we humans have been fouling our own nest concerning this particular issue of accelerated warming of the planet due to our activities. I've already done it. And I wouldn't even presume to point you to links, because how you conduct your research to discover the truth about AGW is your affair.

Okay I'll do this: There's a magazine called Scientific American, ever heard of it? Get the August 2007 issue. Go to page 64. Read that 10-page article entitled:

The Physical Science Behind Climate Change: Why are climatologists so highly confident that human activities are dangerously warming the Earth?

Wanna guess why I'm passionate about this? Why a sample of righteous indignation at deliberate ignorance is just exactly what is called for? Give up? A huge reason is my 7 nieces and nephews. Now I actually care a great deal about the preservation of humanity, collectively, but sometimes that's not quite personal enough. Kin - that's personal. My nieces and nephews (and if I ever do have kiddies of my own) are going to see an ice-free Arctic Ocean in the summertime, by about 2040 or 2050. And maybe sooner. That will speed the warming. They are going to see the scramble for freshwater. They are going to see the havoc wreaked by extremes of weather. They are going to see the disruption in the world of agriculture, a tenuous food supply. They're going to see the leading edge of coastal cities being affected by a rising ocean level. They'll see diseases that used to be isolated in the deep tropics move across the planet, infecting millions.

You've been following science longer than me? Hmm, an interesting statement. Where were you in 1970?

It's the same meaningless garble. Long speeches, no substantiating evidence along with the predictable political haranguing, logical fallacies and prophetic utterances.

I am not interested in magazine articles or opinions of scientists. We've been hearing over and over of the mountains of evidence supporting the CO2 hypothesis, yet the science behind it has yet to cited.

If you've done this before it shouldn't be a problem and if it's undeniable, certainly if CO2 is the main driver of climate, you can point us to the specific evidence supporting that hypothesis.

Melting ice, warming of earth, rising sea levels, all of which are well within natural variation, are not evidence for AGW. Appeal to Authority, news headlines, polar bears, inventing new terminology, ignoring contrary research, ad hom attacks, cutting trees down, and climate models using preconceived conclusions and fitting/manipulating data to those conclusions are not evidence for AGW either.

That models (i.e. IPCC) exclude several factors (e.g. cloud cover, precipitation, solar) in their conclusions whether purposely, the inability due to complexity or for lack of knowledge, climate models (the Holy Writ of AGW) are in essence the numerical expression of the opinions of the programmer are they not? And since observational evidence does not support climate models, hence the AGW hypothesis, what basis do you have to make such statements?

Is it your position climate models are indeed reliable? Provide the evidence.

If you can provide direct evidence explaining how CO2 drives climate, feel free to do so.

[ConspiRaider]

Come to think of it...

would you like your reading list now, later or bit by bit?:jaw-dropp
Hey mhaze -

You'll hate me because I'm a member of Greenpeace, but here goes:
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/

And I typically make at least one daily visit to this site:
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/

I regularly visit the Scientific American page, but also get the mag:
http://www.sciam.com/

I've been a subscriber to essentially every science type magazine at one time or another, and have found, over the years, Scientific American to be the best of the lot. Lots of honing, believe me.

I'm a subscriber to Skeptics magazine, and visit their site:
http://www.skeptics.com/

I joined JREF just as soon as I found out that J. Randi had established it. Had to wait, actually wanted it to happen sooner than 1996.

Science is my thing. Well, one of them. I have many things. I've been heavily into it for more than 25 years. But I am NOT a scientist, and apparently won't be. No time for the schooling...

[mhaze]

Hi mhaze -

Just a few things because I've been up and down on this global warming issue ad nauseum. If not in this thread - many others. If not in this forum - others. And that's just the Internet.

This is a piece that caught my eye several weeks ago:
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=284392

And IF ExxonMobil is now bending to pressure and backing off on denial - good. I'm for that. They've got a lot to answer for, and reversing course is quite effective.

Yes, that was one of the ones in the media blitz I mentioned.


Yes, people should be informed of the facts, as best we know them. No alarmism that is off the charts. No need. We're really talking about point of view of the observer here. How far back should we step? If NYC, for example, will be underwater in 1000 years, should we worry about it today? I think we should, but others may not. I'm less concerned about that scenario because there is so much to be concerned about this century, with AGW and its effects. The effects the young ones will see.

This is extremely tough to sell. I know that. How do you sell people on the notion of what MIGHT happen? And if our actions do head off bad effects of AGW, how do you prove that? Tough. You'll always have people saying that things would have worked themselves out anyway. This is projection science, partly. We can see some concrete effects, but many projected effects are shrouded in uncertainty. It's like betting on whether you should leave town, or not, with a hurricane coming to visit. It's like building an asteroid-deflection system - but then no asteroid comes to threaten the Earth. Would it be wasted effort to build the deflector? In my view - NOPE. Therefore I say we proceed as if AGW will negatively affect us, generally, if allowed to continue unchecked. That's what the preponderance of our current science tells us. Let's go with it.

Sounds like we are pretty much in agreement on the risk analysis. Post 333 Armstrong (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=333)'s analysis and 411 Nordhaus (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=411) are relevant to risk analysis of future scenarios.

I would be curious as to your opinion of these articles. The basic documents referenced would be IPCC Chapter 8 and the Summary for Policymakers.

[ConspiRaider]

If you can provide direct evidence explaining how CO2 drives climate, feel free to do so.
Psst. Hey guess what.

The planet Venus (Earth's "twin") has an atmosphere that is about 95% CO2.

Estimates are that the surface temperature on Venus is about 900 degrees Fahrenheit, thereabouts.

Estimates are that atmospheric pressure is 90 times greater than Earth's. So that would be roughly like me lying on my side, and then somebody very gently places a 16-ton weight on the side of my head.

Would you say that CO2 drives climate?

[CapelDodger]

Excellent stuff, CD. I'm a boomer myself, '57. And I've had no kiddies but won't say that I never will. Probably won't. If I meet that right woman? Who can say.

If I breed, there's a clinic on Goodge Street that's gonna get sued witless. Trust me on that, I know some lawyers socially and the paperwork's been peer-reviewed.

But I do have the offspring of my brothers and sisters and I absolutely don't want them to suffer. We were discussing AGW when I visited them and the 10-year-old girl said: "Why? Why are they doing that?". I really had no good answer. How do you tell a 10-year-old that things may get worse for her because of greed, power, deception?

At our age, there's the offspring of old friends to care about as well.

My mother was ten in 1939, my father nine; how did their elders explain what "a State of War with Germany" meant? Just putting things in perspective here :) .

To my mind, there's nothing wrong with promoting cynicism in the young, judiciously. They get the point very quickly, at any age. It's a tricky path; you don't want to take the magic and idealism away, but you want them to be wary at all times.

Kin just personalizes it. In reality - I don't want anybody to lose because of this. Not a single person - or animal or plant, for that matter.

Me neither, but waddaya gonna do? The best for your kith and kin, because that's the best you can do in reality. It angers me, at a deep level, that there will be no justice involved in what happens. But I'm into both history and science, so I've become inured to injustice. I just try not to be part of the problem. Pity the young whipper-snapper that blames me for not being part of the solution.

[CapelDodger]

If you can provide direct evidence explaining how CO2 drives climate, feel free to do so.

Evidence does not explain anything. Evidence either supports or does not support a hypothesis, aka an explanation.

Is English your second language?

[CapelDodger]

You've been following science longer than me? Hmm, an interesting statement. Where were you in 1970?

Having more fun than you, I'll warrant.

[CapelDodger]

Sounds like we are pretty much in agreement on the risk analysis. Post 333 Armstrong (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=333)'s analysis and 411 Nordhaus (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=411) are relevant to risk analysis of future scenarios.

Would that Churchill had access to such enlightenment in the 30's. He might have avoided being branded "Wild Man" for his alarmism. He'd never have been so aroused in the first place.

[ConspiRaider]

Yes, that was one of the ones in the media blitz I mentioned.

Sounds like we are pretty much in agreement on the risk analysis. Post 333 Armstrong (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=333)'s analysis and 411 Nordhaus (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2890007&postcount=411) are relevant to risk analysis of future scenarios.

I would be curious as to your opinion of these articles. The basic documents referenced would be IPCC Chapter 8 and the Summary for Policymakers.
Hi mhaze -

You'll notice that I tend to speak of this issue more in concept, than point for point. My preference is to cast a wide net, gather info, analyze, gather info, think, adjust, cast another net, analyze and so forth. It's why I don't do a lot of links. Screw links. I show you my link that backs up a particular point, you show me one backing up yours. It becomes tedious. I've been following global warming for years, before the Internet, and it's the main reason for my deep disappointment at Gore not getting the Prez Job in 2000. I knew we needed someone dialed into this stuff. But what I wanted, and what happened, were chasms apart. And we've lost about 8 years trying to get ahold of this thing.

I just wrote a Western screenplay. But I first purchased 8 books on various aspects of the Old West. I did go to some Internet links. Then I went out west, visited, interviewed, took pictures. Basically I cast a very wide net on this subject and pulled everything in. At some point, I was ready to write and it took me only 3 weeks to complete the actual writing of the script. It almost wrote itself. It's how I do things. Next screenplay, same routine. I'm in the info gathering and analysis phase and will be for quite some time. I'll get everything I can, from different angles. That's how I like to do science too. My conclusions about AGW are not haphazard.

[mhaze]

Hi mhaze -

You'll notice that I tend to speak of this issue more in concept, than point for point. My preference is to cast a wide net, gather info, analyze, gather info, think, adjust, cast another net, analyze and so forth. It's why I don't do a lot

My conclusions about AGW are not haphazard.

Fine. let me guess.

2035 The Northwest Passage
Standoff Between Finland and Canada Could Escalate
My conclusions about it not happening are not haphazard.
But it's a good plot basis.

[mhaze]

I've been following global warming for years, before the Internet, and it's the main reason for my deep disappointment at Gore not getting the Prez Job in 2000. I knew we needed someone dialed into this stuff. But what I wanted, and what happened, were chasms apart. And we've lost about 8 years trying to get ahold of this thing.

And here he is in all his glory! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E42mIvjzRw)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E42mIvjzRw

An alarmist.

[bobdroege7]

Psst. Hey guess what.

The planet Venus (Earth's "twin") has an atmosphere that is about 95% CO2.

Estimates are that the surface temperature on Venus is about 900 degrees Fahrenheit, thereabouts.

Estimates are that atmospheric pressure is 90 times greater than Earth's. So that would be roughly like me lying on my side, and then somebody very gently places a 16-ton weight on the side of my head.

Would you say that CO2 drives climate?

Nice point!

Whaaaw Whaaan, I want a cite for the science behind CO2 causing climate change.

Hey, any freshman astronomy text that discusses planetary weather of the solar system will do.

Get thee to your local library, we are not here to spoon feed you.

You must feed your head!

Only the first comment was for you craider!

[David Rodale]

Evidence does not explain anything. Evidence either supports or does not support a hypothesis, aka an explanation.

Is English your second language?

First, statistics isn't science, now evidence can't explain things.

Evidence can explain many things, no? If I had stated "provide evidence to explain the hypothesis" your parsing would hold true. However, the request was for evidence to explain how CO2 drives climate. Of course, as should be expected, yet another scripted response using Venus ensued. Even RealClimate doesn't stoop to that level of silliness.

evidence
noun
1. That which confirms: attestation, authentication, confirmation, corroboration, demonstration, proof, substantiation, testament, testimonial, testimony, validation, verification, warrant. See true
2. Something visible or evident that gives grounds for believing in the existence or presence of something else: badge, index, indication, indicator, manifestation, mark, note, sign, signification, stamp, symptom, token, witness. See show

verb
1. To make manifest or apparent: demonstrate, display, evince, exhibit, manifest, proclaim, reveal, show. See show
2. To establish as true or genuine: authenticate, bear out, confirm, corroborate, demonstrate, endorse, establish, prove, show, substantiate, validate, verify. See show, support
3. To assure the certainty or validity of: attest, authenticate, back (up), bear out, confirm, corroborate, justify, substantiate, testify (to), validate, verify, warrant. See support, true
--------------------------------------------
explain

verb
1. To make understandable: construe, decipher, explicate, expound, interpret, spell out. Archaic: enucleate. Idiom: put into plain English. See explain
2. To find a solution for: clear up, decipher, resolve, solve, unravel. Informal: dope out, figure out. Idiom: get to the bottom of. See ask, reason
3. To offer reasons for or a cause of: account for, justify, rationalize.
---------------------------------------------
We'll assume you know the definition of 'how'.
Examples:
The evidence explains how CO2 cannot drive climate.
The evidence explains how the thief entered the home.
This evidence explains why the red hair person carries the Arg151Cys mutation.

Would it make you happy if it were changed to "....provide attestation explicating how CO2 drives climate"?


AGW by the injection of CO2 into the atmosphere follows directly from the greenhouse effect at any CO2 level below saturation - and CO2 concentrations are still well below saturation level. So there's no confusion. If AGW isn't true, greenhouse theory is wrong; if greenhouse theory is wrong, quantum physics is thrown into serious question.

Since warming has indeed occurred with the increase of atmospheric CO2 by a third, greenhouse theory is not thrown into question and nor is quantum physics.
Should this be dubbed the 'Gut Feeling Axiom'?

After all that, and still no attestation.

[a_unique_person]

Well it does look like Peiser has revised his views, although I still see some significance to the fact that just 13 abstracts (less than 2%) *explicitly* endorsed what Oreskes said was the 'consensus view.' The vast majority of abstracts do not deal with or mention anthropogenic global warming at all.

And what about Dennis Bray's internet study? Nothing to say about that at all? You have to admit that direct polling of climatologists is more interesting than just sampling papers.

And what about reports like these:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/20/opinion/edjacoby.php "August 20, 2007 ... snip ... Scientists and other "serious people" who question the global warming disaster narrative are not hard to find. Last year 60 of them sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, urging him to undertake "a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science" and disputing the contention that "a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause." The letter cautioned that "observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models" and warned that since the study of climate change is relatively new, "it may be many years yet before we properly understand the earth's climate system." Among those signing the letter to Harper were Fred Singer, the former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service; Ian Clark, hydrogeology and paleoclimatology specialist at the University of Ottawa; Hendrik Tennekes, the former director of research at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; physicist Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton; the University of Alabama's Roy Spencer, formerly senior scientist in climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, plus 55 other specialists in climate science and related disciplines."

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/comment/story.html?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4 "June 20, 2007 ... snip ... It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. ... snip ... R. Timothy Patterson is professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University.

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA177.html "Another survey, conducted by American Viewpoint for Citizens for a Sound Economy, found that, by a margin of 44% to 17%, state climatologists believe that global warming is largely a natural phenomenon. The survey further found that 58% of the climatologists disagreed with President Clinton's assertion that "the overwhelming balance of evidence and scientific opinion is that it is no longer a theory, but now fact, that global warming is for real," while only 36% agreed with the assertion. Thirty-six of the nation's 48 official state climatologists participated in the survey."

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/consensus_what_consensus_among_climate_scientists_ the_debate_is_not_over.html " “Consensus”? What “Consensus”?Among Climate Scientists, The Debate Is Not Over, Written by Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Thursday, 19 July 2007"

I still find the complete dismissal of the dissenting opinion troubling and indicative of an agenda driven group (at least, no less an agenda than the petroleum industry). Let me see what you have to say about the questions I asked earlier:

How serious can it be if over the 20,000 years prior to today, the average loss in ice mass in Antarctica was equivalent to a 0.5 mm increase in the sea level each year ... more than the 0.4 mm increase claimed using the GRACE data? How serious could the loss of ice be if it's going to take 750 years to raise the sea level one foot.

And what about the huge uncertainty in that estimate? There are uncertainties in that estimate because to make it they had to make assumptions. Will you acknowledge those uncertainties?

A second even more recent study that I referenced claims satellite data shows an overall loss of ice so small that it would take 3800 years to raise the sea level even one foot. If true, is that something to get excited about and pass draconian tax legislation crippling our economy RIGHT NOW???

And finally, will you apologize for Al Gore and the global walarmists who had claimed antarctic ice was decreasing even at a time when study after study said the opposite?

I can find quite a few scientists who don't believe in evolution , too, there are plenty of scientists who believe in god. But what are the scientific products that demonstrate if AGW is true or not? It appears to me that they support AGW.

[mhaze]

He rhetorically laments (borderline redundancy there) that few others voice his views, not that they don't share them.

Is anybody that raises the alarm in any siuation an alarmist? If you only apply it to false alarms, Hansen's alarm has not yet proved unfounded.

Remember, if you can keep your head when all around are losing theirs, it could be that you haven't grasped the seriousness of the situation.


It could also mean that my battle axe was sharper. But it seems to only be slicing through smoke and fog of confusion.


Surely alarmism is a behaviour, not a belief?

Hansen and the team he heads up have been getting things right, and there's no reason to think they won't continue to do so. Science isn't about beliefs.

Direct quote from Hansen.

I find it almost inconceivable that "business as usual" climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century. Am I the only scientist who thinks so?


Last year I testified in a case brought by car manufacturers to challenge California's new laws on vehicle emissions. Under questioning from the lawyer, I conceded that I was not a glaciologist. The lawyer then asked me to identify glaciologists who agreed publicly with my assertion that sea level is likely to rise more than a metre this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow: "Name one!"


I could not, at that moment.

[a_unique_person]

Von Braun was able to show in a fairly simple manner that we could send a man to the moon by -
using the multi stage rocket equations
plugging values in that were estimates
on a blackboard
in ten minutesthat it was possible.

Here with AGW, we seem to be all over the map
delta temp with CO2, if any;
essential positive and negative feedbacks.I'm just trying to get to the basics here that might be considered analogues to the moon rocket equations.

With the moon rocket, you did have s simple, elegant proof. With AGW, you don't...

The basic mechanics. The idea that you could get a human being to the moon, alive, and get him back, was a lot more complex, as Apollo 13 demonstrated and Apollo 1.

You want simple and elegant? The Apollo program was not simple and elegant, it was highly complex and dangerous.

String theory is not simple and elegant, for example. Simple and elegant is great, but those days are long gone.

The basic mechanism of AGW has been clearly and simply stated. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, there's no argument about that. (Unless you are a complete idiot). Feedback mechanisms amplify that forcing. They are also explained, and can be observed today.

[mhaze]

Hi mhaze -
You'll notice that I tend to speak of this issue more in concept, than point for point. My preference is to cast a wide net, gather info, analyze, gather info, think, adjust, cast another net, analyze and so forth. It's why I don't do a lot of links. Screw links.

Another guy recently told me he did not need any source for the truth but Bible. "Point by point" is also called by another name "Fact by Fact".

But "screw links".


I'm in the info gathering and analysis phase and will be for quite some time. I'll get everything I can, from different angles. That's how I like to do science too. Here is some info for the gathering and analysis phase.

Futurama. A Terrifying Message from Al Gore. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BjrOi4vF24)

Even the pro-AGW people here are pretty embarrassed by Gore and do not like it when I even mention his name....

Bender has it right, Gore is boring.


This is a piece that caught my eye several weeks ago:
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=284392

And IF ExxonMobil is now bending to pressure and backing off on denial - good. I'm for that. They've got a lot to answer for, and reversing course is quite effective.No, their grant of $100M to Stanford for climate research was a number of years ago. It's time for Greenpeace and various other groups to reverse direction and admit where they were wrong.

Your link was previously discussed in this thread a la posts 216, 221, 228 and was refuted before you posted it. That where "screw links" gets you....

Exxon remains the good guys.

Having settled all that, and having no need to discuss politics in the science forum, and not having to bother with links (having screwed them), why don't we move on to a fun subject like plot scripts on AGW (based on the science, right)?

[mhaze]

The basic mechanics. The idea that you could get a human being to the moon, alive, and get him back, was a lot more complex, as Apollo 13 demonstrated and Apollo 1.

You want simple and elegant? The Apollo program was not simple and elegant, it was highly complex and dangerous.

String theory is not simple and elegant, for example. Simple and elegant is great, but those days are long gone.

The basic mechanism of AGW has been clearly and simply stated. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, there's no argument about that. (Unless you are a complete idiot). Feedback mechanisms amplify that forcing. They are also explained, and can be observed today.

I don't think we are really disagreeing on the analogy.

The scientific basis for the Apollo capability could be expressed, granted by an unusual genius, quite succinctly. The scientific basis for AGW starts with CO2 as a greenhouse gas, basic effect of that disputed or stated within a wide range, and feedbacks, large controversy as to relative effects of positive and negative.

The implementation of the engineering solutions for Apollo was very complex. The implementation of "solutions to AGW" is not just highly complex and controversial but is questionable as to its merits.

Earlier you commented that you would guess at 1 in 10 AGW would get really bad. Not unreasonable. I have a real problem with applying essentially betting percentages to a chaotic system like climate, though, since the system doesn't really work that way.

But it certainly would be nice if we need to get out of the level of guesswork on all this...:)

[mhaze]

Relative postings, Realclimate vs Climateaudit

Finding it impossible to keep up any longer with the messages at Climateaudit (http://www.climateaudit.org) (the website by Steve McIntyre, the guy that found the NASA temperature errors recently), I wondered... why? Simple answer is it's became too popular.

One way to understand that is to compare it with Realclimate (http://www.realclimate.org)(the website by Mann, the Hockeystick Guy).

Big differences in number of postings to the blogs at these sites. Pretty funny that the one that gets traffic at RC is the one about Steve's finding the data error (1934 and all that). Interesting differences in the style and professionalism of the postings, also.


These are blog postings - not total clicks or views.
date thread started - title - number of responses

www.Climateaudit.org (http://www.Climateaudit.org)
8-21 Oldie but goodie 33
8-21 Replication Policy 137
8-20 Hansen and "Destruction" 203
8-17 I quit 120
8-17 Steve interviewed 39
8-17 Detectives in Tucson 84
8-17 NOAA MI3 33
8-17 Brazil 193
8-10 to 8-22 Unthreaded #18 299

www.Realclimate.org (http://www.Realclimate.org)
8-20 Musings 81
8-10 1934 and all that 584
8-10 Artic sea ice 220
8-9 Transparency 77

[CapelDodger]

It could also mean that my battle axe was sharper. But it seems to only be slicing through smoke and fog of confusion.

It's more akin to air-guitar, I think. You ascribe "alarmism", implying false alarmism, to any prediction you're uncomfortable with, as if that makes it false. You're OK with "trillion dollar tax schemes" being bandied about; they're alarming but it's a true alarm. Not a false alarm - and if it doesn't happen, that can be chalked-up to the alarm being raised. Dodged that bullet, then, thanks to good ol' horse-sense.


Direct quote from Hansen.

I find it almost inconceivable that "business as usual" climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century. Am I the only scientist who thinks so?


Last year I testified in a case brought by car manufacturers to challenge California's new laws on vehicle emissions. Under questioning from the lawyer, I conceded that I was not a glaciologist. The lawyer then asked me to identify glaciologists who agreed publicly with my assertion that sea level is likely to rise more than a metre this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow: "Name one!"


I could not, at that moment.


The context of this - the NewScientist article you linked to - is the muted public voice of scientists who are deeply concerned about AGW. Hansen is something of an exception. Considering your calls for his resignation as a result - let alone the *****-storm of opprobrium that's been let loose on him, characterising him as a corrupt incompetent fraud, the sort of stuff you lap up and sick back here - well, you can see one reason why that public voice is muted.

You'll notice that the lawyer's question - "name glaciologists who have publicly agreed with your conclusion" - was not one that Hansen had prepared for. He's a scientist, he was prepared for science questions and, yes, a few lawyer's tricks. Not that one - but then the lawyer is a professional.

It may well be that there are glaciologists who had made the same explicit prediction publicly, but Hansen had never thought about it in those terms exactly. He's not going to go out on a limb, he's a scientist, for one thing, and this is a court of law, for another. Had he simply been asked for the names of glaciologists who make the same prediction he could have rattled off a list. He mixes with these people.

Hansen's point in bringing this up - notice that you're quoting Hansen himself? - is to demonstrate how little public noise is coming from the glaciology world. If there was, he could have answered the lawyer with a name or two off the top of his head. (The follow-up question then is "Are they climatologists?")

You seem to get from all this that there aren't any glaciologists who agree with Hansen's prediction that sea-level will rise by over a metre in the next century unless serious action is initiated within the next decade. You'd be wrong in thinking that. Go back to the anecdote you've quoted and note the word "lawyer" nestling in there. That should always trip an alarm.


The prediction sounds reasonable to me. Since it's implausible that serious action will be initiated within the next decade (imagine getting those trillion-dollar tax-schemes past the electorate and through Congress), judgement can be passed on said prediction in 2107. My money's on the metre and more. Alarming, true, but some things are.

My own prediction, for what it's worth, is that the world in 2017 will have a strong headless-chicken flavour to it. And trillion-dollar taxe schemes, but the dollar will be in the toilet long before then.

[BeAChooser]

I can find quite a few scientists who don't believe in evolution , too, there are plenty of scientists who believe in god.

Well I certainly can't argue with that logic. ;) So why don't you just ATTEMPT to answer these questions instead of ignoring them.

How serious can it be if according to NASA over the 20,000 years prior to today, the average loss in ice mass in Antarctica was equivalent to a 0.5 mm increase in the sea level each year ... more than the 0.4 mm increase claimed using the GRACE data? How serious could the loss of ice be if it's going to take 750 years to raise the sea level one foot.

And what about the huge uncertainty in that estimate? There are uncertainties in that estimate because to make it they had to make assumptions. Will you acknowledge those uncertainties?

A second even more recent study that I referenced claims satellite data shows an overall loss of ice so small that it would take 3800 years to raise the sea level even one foot. If true, is that something to get excited about and pass draconian tax legislation crippling our economy RIGHT NOW???

And finally, will you apologize for Al Gore and the global walarmists who had claimed antarctic ice was decreasing even at a time when study after study said the opposite?

[CapelDodger]

The scientific basis for AGW starts with CO2 as a greenhouse gas, basic effect of that disputed or stated within a wide range, and feedbacks, large controversy as to relative effects of positive and negative.

This is simply not true. There is a very loud controversy because the contrarian fragment is amplified and appeals to the crowd. Of which you, frankly, are one. There, I've said it.

You know next to nothing about science, and have never claimed anything different. Reports of what science is seem to be good enough for you, from the right quarter.

The underlying physics of greenhouse theory is not in dispute or inaccurate. You've sort of been told differently, I'm sure, but it isn't actually so.

The feedbacks are something else entirely, of course. First up is water-vapour, a big greenhouse player and so a positive for any forcing. Traditionally the next feedback is probably the release of CO2 by warming oceans, a positive feedback, but in the current case the oceans are absorbing CO2 so it's a negative feedback. How long that will last is very uncertain.

Next in the warming curve comes the permafrost. During a glaciation the permafrost zone is much farther south than today's and, with the globe being the shape it is, encompassed a much greater area. The impact this time is difficult to estimate, but it will be positive. And there's the methane component, which gives it a kick in the early years.

There's the albedo feedback, always positive.

On paper, it looks like the positives have it, and out on the field - sure enough, it's got warmer.

If you want to know something about science and AGW you could buy Scientific American, available at an outlet near you. Not terribly expensive and a good read. I particularly like the 50, 100, 150 Years Ago page, which reproduces SciAm news of the relevant year. It puts things in perspective.

[mhaze]

This is simply not true. There is a very loud controversy because the contrarian fragment is amplified and appeals to the crowd. Of which you, frankly, are one. There, I've said it.

You know next to nothing about science, and have never claimed anything different.

Right. I very humbly suggest I know very little about science, having forgot more than you ever knew.

But how differs science, and Science, as you would so capitalize?

[CapelDodger]

First, statistics isn't science ...

Where the <rule 8> did that come from?


now evidence can't explain things.

It doesn't.

Evidence can explain many things, no?

No. It can support an explanation, it can even suggest an explanation to a creative mind, but it doesn't explain anything. It's the task of reason to explain the evidence.

If I had stated "provide evidence to explain the hypothesis" ...

... the statement would be identical.

... your parsing would hold true.

See above.

However, the request was for evidence to explain how CO2 drives climate.

Which is exactly what I addressed. You repeat the same error. Evidence does not explain anything, let alone theory; theory explains the evidence so far. If you want AGW explained to you, buy SciAm or a textbook.

Greenhouse theory was born of the evident fact that the world is warmer than thermodynamics alone could explain. What started with an explanation became a prediction, well that's science for you. Subsequent events - aka, more evidence - fit the theory.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

To whoever it may be of interest:

I came to his article:

Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner. Falsification of the atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effects within the frame of physics.

Gerhard Gerlich
Institut fur Mathematische Physik
Technische Universit at Carolo-Wilhelmina
Mendelssohnstra
D-38106 Braunschweig
Federal Republic of Germany
g.gerlich@tu-bs.de
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf

Abstract

The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified


I think I'll need a weekend to read it well.

[mhaze]

If you want AGW explained to you, buy SciAm or a textbook.

That's it? For your suggested reading list, that is.

[mhaze]

To whoever it may be of interest:

I came to his article:

Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner. Falsification of the atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effects within the frame of physics.

Gerhard Gerlich
Institut fur Mathematische Physik
Technische Universit at Carolo-Wilhelmina
Mendelssohnstra
D-38106 Braunschweig
Federal Republic of Germany
g.gerlich@tu-bs.de
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf

Abstract


I think I'll need a weekend to read it well.

Quite interesting.

Also "Radiation Forcing of Climate Change", National Research Council, 2005.

And Nasif's website. (http://www.biocab.org/Index.html)

[mhaze]

Quite interesting.

Also "Radiation Forcing of Climate Change", National Research Council, 2005.

And Nasif's website. (http://www.biocab.org/Index.html)

More fresh meat.:D

Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences has selected for its Fall climate seminar (1 cr, P/F) the topic of the “Hockey” stick and the proxy temperature record for the past 1000 years. The course website is at
http://www.7minds.org/climate/eas8001/
In addition to discussing proxies and statistical analysis methods, the issues of policy, media, dueling blogs, etc will also enter into the discussion. The students will be following discussions on both RC and climateaudit

They should develop quite a bibliography.

[bobdroege7]

From

http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/p...707.1161v2.pdf


"there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects,"

Quoting Mr Obvious in one's thesis statement does not bode well for the widespread aceptance of one's subsequent arguements. Similar claims have been made all over the web.
Sometimes, just because it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, means it is a rare south american parrot.

I'll read the paper and I'm sure I'll have some more criticism.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

If you get some valid points from the paper please let us know too.

[bobdroege7]

If you get some valid points from the paper please let us know too.


about half way through and all I get is one straw man after another.

[mhaze]

about half way through and all I get is one straw man after another.

This paper could be good, if it was subjected to a round of critical review and revised accordingly.

Numerous straw man objections are raised and countered. That's not to say that the straw men raised are not actually used in the AGW camp; yes, they are. But it degrades the merits of the paper to approach the subject in this fashion.

The thermodynamics approach is interesting, although some of the arguments raised are already answered in contemporary literature. I wonder if the recent paper by Schwartz may not have been somewhat drawing on this paper. Some of the yada - yada - "cannot be because it violates the second law of thermodynamics" arguments are interesting but a little thinking causes one to see ways around them.

As just one example of a problem in Gerlich, he criticizes the characterization of the Earth as a black body, and then proceeds to show why a black body does not represent either of a body with an atmosphere, a spinning globe, or a spinning globe on a cant. Good analysis, but what have we proved? That it isn't properly represented by a black body? Okay, we already knew that....

Gerlich might better have argued against it's representation (in simplified analysis) as either a black or grey body.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

If you are talking about pages 38-44 I read it as the author isn't dealing with just one definition of the GH effect, but it takes as many as he can find to disprove them one by one. If the definitions are strawmen so are the representations and descriptions of the GH effect from the sources. This paper seems quite radical in their conclusions, and deals with the issue from the side of physics, wich was the request of beachooser.

[Safe-Keeper]

"there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects,"I don't know if there's supposed to be. Is this just a big strawman, or am I misunderstanding things?

[mhaze]

If you are talking about pages 38-44 I read it as the author isn't dealing with just one definition of the GH effect, but it takes as many as he can find to disprove them one by one. If the definitions are strawmen so are the representations and descriptions of the GH effect from the sources.

Correct. But the right phrase is "Callender Effect" not "greenhouse effect".

And some of his thermo arguments could be considerably expanded.


This paper seems quite radical in their conclusions, and deals with the issue from the side of physics, wich was the request of beachooser.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

I don't know if there's supposed to be. Is this just a big strawman, or am I misunderstanding things?

In context

1. There are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses
and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effect, which explains the relevant physical
phenomena. The terms \greenhouse effect" and \greenhouse gases" are deliberate misnomers.

So is a precaution to the reader about the missuse of the term "greenhouse" as it have something to do with....er... a greenhouse.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

The paper makes interesting claims in those pages:

1. There are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the ctitious atmospheric greenhouse eect, which explains the relevant physical phenomena. The terms \greenhouse eect" and \greenhouse gases" are deliberate misnomers.
2. There are no calculations to determinate an average surface temperature of a planet
-with or without atmosphere,
-with or without rotation,
-with or without infrared light absorbing gases.

The frequently mentioned difference of 33 C for the fictitious greenhouse effect of the atmosphere is therefore a meaningless number.
3. Any radiation balance for the average radiant flux is completely irrelevant for the determination of the ground level air temperatures and thus for the average value as well.
4. Average temperature values cannot be identied with the fourth root of average values of the absolute temperature's fourth power.
5. Radiation and heat flows do not determine the temperature distributions and their average values.
6. Re-emission is not reflection and can in no way heat up the ground-level air against the actual heat flow without mechanical work.
7. The temperature rises in the climate model computations are made plausible by a perpetuum mobile of the second kind. This is possible by setting the thermal conductivity in the atmospheric models to zero, an unphysical assumption. It would be no longer a perpetuum mobile of the second kind, if the \average" fictitious radiation balance, which has no physical justication anyway, was given up.
8. After Schack 1972 water vapor is responsible for most of the absorption of the infrared radiation in the Earth's atmosphere. The wavelength of the part of radiation, which is absorbed by carbon dioxide is only a small part of the full infrared spectrum and does not change considerably by raising its partial pressure.
9. Infrared absorption does not imply \backwarming". Rather it may lead to a drop of the temperature of the illuminated surface.
10. In radiation transport models with the assumption of local thermal equilibrium, it is assumed that the absorbed radiation is transformed into the thermal movement of all gas molecules. There is no increased selective re-emission of infrared radiation at the low temperatures of the Earth's atmosphere.
11. In climate models, planetary or astrophysical mechanisms are not accounted for properly.
The time dependency of the gravity acceleration by the Moon and the Sun (high tide and low tide) and the local geographic situation, which is important for the local climate, cannot be taken into account.
12. Detection and attribution studies, predictions from computer models in chaotic systems, and the concept of scenario analysis lie outside the framework of exact sciences, in particular theoretical physics.
13. The choice of an appropriate discretization method and the denfition of appropriate dynamical constraints (flux control) having become a part of computer modelling is nothing but another form of data curve fitting. The mathematical physicist v. Neumann once said to his young collaborators: \If you allow me four free parameters I can build a mathematical model that describes exactly everything that an elephant can do. If you
allow me a fifth free parameter, the model I build will forecast that the elephant will fly." (cf. Ref. [185].)
14. Higher derivative operators (e.g. the Laplacian) can never be represented on grids with wide meshes. Therefore a description of heat conduction in global computer models is impossible. The heat conduction equation is not and cannot properly be represented on grids with wide meshes.
15. Computer models of higher dimensional chaotic systems, best described by non-linear partial diferential equations (i.e. Navier-Stokes equations), fundamental difer from calculations
where perturbation theory is applicable and successive improvements of the
predictions - by raising the computing power - are possible. At best, these computer models may be regarded as a heuristic game.
16. Climatology misinterprets unpredictability of chaos known as butterfly phenomenon as another threat to the health of the Earth.

[mhaze]

I don't know if there's supposed to be. Is this just a big strawman, or am I misunderstanding things?

Neither and both. There is confusion, outright error and purposeful intellectual dishonesty in the common use of the term "greenhouse effect". So yes, it is a strawman that can be knocked down; yes, it is used all the time to describe the effect of co2 in the atmosphere, yes, it has another meaning relating to actual greenhouses - yada-yada-yada...

Not sure how much this is worth elaborating on, wikipedia section on greenhouse effect if I recall correctly did go into the various use of the phrases.

By way of trying to clarify the subject, here is the very basic illustration used by the IPCC and many others. To the landmass, 492 W/m2 goes in, goes back out and 452 W/m2 is said to recycle in the green loop. Obviously, there is no "greenhouse piece of glass" here.

I'm not saying I agree with this diagram, mind you, just that this is what Gerlich should be arguing against as the greenhouse effect as that term is being used in climate science. I think he does cover several definitions of "greenhouse effect" one after the other (don't have his paper here just going from memory).

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_14224469c2a710577c.png (http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:void%280%29)

Several obvious problems this picture has include it not segregating the functions of CO2 and H20, it being an aggregate of daytime and nightime conditions, an average of effects over all parts of the globe, and an average over the course of a year.

Gerlich argues with the green loop going in the down direction, since heat can't move from a hotter area to a colder area. (AGW has a bunch of arm waving there)

It would be interesting to build an alternative diagram for the transfers as Gerlich proposes them and put it side by side this one.

[mhaze]

Gerlich argues with the green loop going in the down direction, since heat can't move from a hotter area to a colder area. (AGW has a bunch of arm waving there)

As usual I'm backwards - change to heat can't move from a colder area to a hotter area (AGW arm waving more agitatedly)

[BeAChooser]

How serious can it be if according to NASA over the 20,000 years prior to today, the average loss in ice mass in Antarctica was equivalent to a 0.5 mm increase in the sea level each year ... more than the 0.4 mm increase claimed using the GRACE data? How serious could the loss of ice be if it's going to take 750 years to raise the sea level one foot.

And what about the huge uncertainty in that estimate? There are uncertainties in that estimate because to make it they had to make assumptions. Will you acknowledge those uncertainties?

A second even more recent study that I referenced claims satellite data shows an overall loss of ice so small that it would take 3800 years to raise the sea level even one foot. If true, is that something to get excited about and pass draconian tax legislation crippling our economy RIGHT NOW???

And finally, will you apologize for Al Gore and the global walarmists who had claimed antarctic ice was decreasing even at a time when study after study said the opposite?

<crickets> :D

[CapelDodger]

That's it? For your suggested reading list, that is.

It would at least be a start. SciAm costs about £3.50 over here, that's what, ten dollars? Not a lot, surely. And there must be an outlet near you. Or you can order it over the InterNet.

[CapelDodger]

How serious can it be if according to NASA over the 20,000 years prior to today, the average loss in ice mass in Antarctica was equivalent to a 0.5 mm increase in the sea level each year ... more than the 0.4 mm increase claimed using the GRACE data? How serious could the loss of ice be if it's going to take 750 years to raise the sea level one foot.

Twenty thousand years ago was the last glacial maximum. Ice-caps kilometres deep over the Pennines, glaciers in the Pyrenees, Argentina and Oregon under ice. The absolute maximum amount of ice between the interglacials. That's your chosen starting point.

Between then and now came the transition to an inter-glacial. That's your chosen end-point.

There's a big difference between a glacial maximum and an inter-glacial, I'm sure you'll agree. Most of the change in ice-mass takes place over a few thousand years, but that's incidental. All in all, a lot of ice melts between a glacial maximum and in inter-glacial, most of it, this time around, over a few thousand years around the tipping-point.

From this you divide by twenty thousand and get an average, everyday sea-level rise for that period. 0.5mm per annum, that's what to expect. It's statistically accurate. Over the last twenty thousand years. Which is comforting.

So a thousand years ago sea-level was half a metre lower than today, and two thousand years ago the Romans would have been building harbours according to a sea-level one metre lower, four thousand years ago the Minoans would have lived with a two metre deficit. If their own experience didn't bear this out, that's probably because they didn't understand statistics.

Do the same thing with the current sea-level rise of about 0.3mm per annum and the results are just as silly. You've smoothed off twenty thousand years, during most of which agriculture hadn't been invented, to compare with the last few decades. AGW is what's happening now, it's a new phaenomenon, it is significant, and there is no refuge in the past.

And what about the huge uncertainty in that estimate? There are uncertainties in that estimate because to make it they had to make assumptions. Will you acknowledge those uncertainties?

I could reduce my 0.3mm per annum estimate to 0.25 and it would still be significant as an average over recorded history. No such significance is evident.

A second even more recent study that I referenced claims satellite data shows an overall loss of ice so small that it would take 3800 years to raise the sea level even one foot. If true, is that something to get excited about and pass draconian tax legislation crippling our economy RIGHT NOW???

I'd drop the capitals if I were you, it smacks of alarmism.

And finally, will you apologize for Al Gore and the global walarmists who had claimed antarctic ice was decreasing even at a time when study after study said the opposite?

Well, we had to finish with Al Gore and the invented word to make you feel "cool" with the "in-group". (Courtesy of robinson, IIRC.)

[CapelDodger]

I don't know if there's supposed to be. Is this just a big strawman, or am I misunderstanding things?

No misunderstanding at all. The misuse - probably by a journalist - of "greenhouse effect" a century or more ago is now being argued in some quarters as undermining AGW. Sad, but true.

[mhaze]

AGW is what's happening now, it's a new phaenomenon, it is significant, and there is no refuge in the past.


Alternately in my view, there is refuge in the future where there will be no sea level rise because there is no substantial AGW, no heavy positive feedbacks, and no tipping points, and Alarmist views have long since been discredited.

what's your prediction for sea level say 25 and 50 years?

[mhaze]

The paper makes interesting claims in those pages:

Another, very good paper.

http://www.biocab.org/Heat_Stored.html

Another paper on thermo that is limited in scope.
A lot of math but simple stuff.

carbon dioxide is not able to cause the temperature anomalies that have been observed on Earth.

[bobdroege7]

Gerlich argues with the green loop going in the down direction, since heat can't move from a hotter area to a colder area. (AGW has a bunch of arm waving there)

As usual I'm backwards - change to heat can't move from a colder area to a hotter area (AGW arm waving more agitatedly)

http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter1/vert_temp_all.html

But heat can move from a hotter area to a colder area, check the link, the upper atmosphere is warmer than the lower atmosphere.

[a_unique_person]

Another guy recently told me he did not need any source for the truth but Bible. "Point by point" is also called by another name "Fact by Fact".

But "screw links".

Here is some info for the gathering and analysis phase.

Futurama. A Terrifying Message from Al Gore. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BjrOi4vF24)

Even the pro-AGW people here are pretty embarrassed by Gore and do not like it when I even mention his name....

WTF???? I think most people see Gore as irrelevant to the science. He appears to be some kind of fetish object for the Deniers, however.

[a_unique_person]

Another, very good paper.

http://www.biocab.org/Heat_Stored.html

Another paper on thermo that is limited in scope.
A lot of math but simple stuff.
carbon dioxide is not able to cause the temperature anomalies that have been observed on Earth.



:rolleyes:

Which is why for the past 20 years, the science has been about the 'enhanced greenhouse effect", that is, feedback effects, such as change to albedo. Get with the program. I really can't understand why the same old myths are continually recycled when they are completely irrelevant.

[a_unique_person]

The paper makes interesting claims in those pages:

1. There are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the ctitious atmospheric greenhouse eect, which explains the relevant physical phenomena. The terms \greenhouse eect" and \greenhouse gases" are deliberate misnomers.


Good grief, are you serious. It's called that because even though the physics does not work exactly the same way as a greenhouse does, it has a similar effect, that of trapping heat.

Students around the world are taught, (deliberately, I hear), in science classes that atoms can be thought of as coloured balls. Of the outrage, will no one think of the children?

It's called making a model, which is what a lot of science consists of. Since the actual physics is way beyond the capabilities of the average punter, a simplified model is used to explain it to them, that they can understand.

[mhaze]

:rolleyes:

Which is why for the past 20 years, the science has been about the 'enhanced greenhouse effect", that is, feedback effects, such as change to albedo. Get with the program. I really can't understand why the same old myths are continually recycled when they are completely irrelevant.

No, with all due respect. the myths are recycled by Pro AGW who want Kyoto and to tax and penalize C02. I don't hear any talk about taxng Albedo. Neither do I hear a word about how we must change our land use or sea labels will rise and Florida will be flooded.

Gore must be some kind of fetish object not for Deniers but for AGW since his "documentary" is shown in science classes in public school here in the US.

[mhaze]

Well it does look like Peiser has revised his views, although I still see some significance to the fact that just 13 abstracts (less than 2%) *explicitly* endorsed what Oreskes said was the 'consensus view.' The vast majority of abstracts do not deal with or mention anthropogenic global warming at all.

Maybe Peiser got leaned on.

You had it right. (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/consensus_what_consensus_among_climate_scientists_ the_debate_is_not_over.html)

This settles the issue of whether or not there is or was a consensus.

No consensus.

We can move on from that.

Quoting from the article submitted for publication(Schulte 2007),
Though Oreskes said that 75% of the papers in her sample endorsed the consensus, fewer than half now endorse it. Only 7% do so explicitly. Only one paper refers to “catastrophic” climate change, but without offering evidence.
More. Bringing the analysis of “consensus” up to date
Oreskes’ essay is now outdated. Since it was published, more than 8,000 further papers on climate change have been published in the learned journals. In these papers, there is a discernible and accelerating trend away from unanimity even on her limited definition of “consensus”.


Schulte (2007: submitted) has brought Oreskes’ essay up to date by examining the 539 abstracts found using her search phrase “global climate change” between 2004 (her search had ended in 2003) and mid-February 2007. Even if Oreskes’ commentary in Science were true, the “consensus” has moved very considerably away from the unanimity she says she found.


Dr. Schulte’s results show that about 1.5% of the papers (just 9 out of 539) explicitly endorse the “consensus”, even in the limited sense defined by Oreskes. Though Oreskes found that 75% of the papers she reviewed explicitly or implicitly endorsed the “consensus”, Dr. Schulte’s review of subsequent papers shows that fewer than half now give some degree of endorsement to the “consensus”. The abstract of his paper is worth quoting in full:


“Fear of anthropogenic ‘global warming’ can adversely affect patients’ well-being. Accordingly, the state of the scientific consensus about climate change was studied by a review of the 539 papers on “global climate change” found on the Web of Science database from January 2004 to mid-February 2007, updating research by Oreskes (2004), who had reported that between 1993 and 2003 none of 928 scientific papers on “global climate change” had rejected the consensus that more than half of the warming of the past 50 years was likely to have been anthropogenic. In the present review, 32 papers (6% of the sample) explicitly or implicitly reject the consensus. Though Oreskes said that 75% of the papers in her sample endorsed the consensus, fewer than half now endorse it. Only 7% do so explicitly. Only one paper refers to “catastrophic” climate change, but without offering evidence. There appears to be little evidence in the learned journals to justify the climate-change alarm that now harms patients.”

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

That would be devastating among the honest warmers.
Other will just say that :

a) More scientists are being paid by Exxon
or
b) You can't trust the study because is being paid by Exxon.

[mhaze]

That would be devastating among the honest warmers.
Other will just say that :

a) More scientists are being paid by Exxon
or
b) You can't trust the study because is being paid by Exxon.

You would have a point but we have already debunked the "Exxon conspiracy theory", noted that they have put $100M into climate research via Stanford (to use with as it wishes), noted that they had a right to lobby anti-Kyoto as anyone with a brain would have and still should; in summary, "Exxon was and is the good guys".

If you still have a point and we have to deal with (a) or (b) it's about time to call those believers, maybe "AGW truthers":rolleyes:

[BeAChooser]

Most of the change in ice-mass takes place over a few thousand years

Are you sure? This link has a animated videoclip prepared by NASA of the retreat of the ice in Antarctica over the last 20,000 years. It doesn't seem to show what you claim, assuming the time scale is evenly distributed throughout the video clip.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9902/03/antarctic.ice.sheet/

Here's something else of interest from NASA:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast27dec_1.htm "Recent work, however, leads Bindschadler to conclude that the ice sheet experienced a rapid retreat phase some 7,000 years ago that was preceded and followed by a slower retreat that continues today."

Was mankind responsible for that rapid retreat 7,000 years ago? And it certainly didn't happen at the glacial maximum. So who or what was responsible?

That last link also has a curve of sea level rise at Battery TIde Gauge in New York since 1920. The odd thing is that sea level has been rising quite steadily since 1920. Surely man's activities weren't yet causing global warming back in 1930 - 1940? And notice how straight the line is fit to the data. Are you sure CO2 is responsible?

I could reduce my 0.3mm per annum estimate to 0.25

But that's not representative of the actual uncertainty in the mean. Try a 2-sigma delta and tell us it's insignificant.

Quote:
A second even more recent study that I referenced claims satellite data shows an overall loss of ice so small that it would take 3800 years to raise the sea level even one foot. If true, is that something to get excited about and pass draconian tax legislation crippling our economy RIGHT NOW???

I'd drop the capitals if I were you, it smacks of alarmism.

Actually, demanding "right now", as Gore and walarmists insist, is what's really alarmist. And I noticed you didn't address the point I was making. A second study shows the rise in sea level due to antarctica ice mass loss will be so slow that it would take 3800 years to rise one foot? Are you really worried about that sort of change in the near term?

Quote:
And finally, will you apologize for Al Gore and the global walarmists who had claimed antarctic ice was decreasing even at a time when study after study said the opposite?

Well, we had to finish with Al Gore and the invented word to make you feel "cool" with the "in-group".

I take it you're not going to apologize? :D

[BeAChooser]

I think most people see Gore as irrelevant to the science.

But he is not irrelevant to most people's perception of the science. And that makes him relevant to what public action will be taken in response to the science.

I haven't seen scientists on the global warming side of the issue make any attempt to correct the misinformation Gore has been promoting to the public. And he has been misrepresenting the facts for some time.

And I also notice you didn't even attempt to address the questions I asked you about why there is such urgency in dealing with the problem ... a perception Gore has given the public. Why not?

[mhaze]

But he is not irrelevant to most people's perception of the science. And that makes him relevant to what public action will be taken in response to the science.

I haven't seen scientists on the global warming side of the issue make any attempt to correct the misinformation Gore has been promoting to the public. And he has been misrepresenting the facts for some time.

And I also notice you didn't even attempt to address the questions I asked you about why there is such urgency in dealing with the problem ... a perception Gore has given the public. Why not?

Yes, indeed. Why not? As far as I am concerned, you are either with Gore or against him, and if you are harboring him and not denying him, you are with him.

Leaving aside the fact that Gore is viewed skeptically mostly only in the USA; in other parts of the world everything he says is believed as fact. Hundreds if not thousands of popular media pieces trot his line, here is just one.

Yes, this is the kind of drivel that's being pumped into magazines for popular consumption. And until honest scientists and people are not cowed by the likes of Gore and other shills for Big Money Ecology Lobbies, this is not going to stop.

Global Warming Could Spell Disaster for Blacks (http://www.bet.com/News/global_warming_blacks.htm)

Quoting from the article at BET.COM -

If you thought Hurricane Katrina was a once-in-a-lifetime fluke, think again. Concerned environmentalists say that unless the United States gets real about the threat of global warming...



African Americans and other people of color can expect a repeat of disasters like Katrina.

"it's undisputable that the sea levels are rising"

"You're going to have intense flooding like we have never seen before"

"By mid-century, we're looking at the entire Antarctic ice shelf melting,"
Just a few points the writer makes -
If global warming gets worse, many African-American communities will be more vulnerable to breathing ailments, insect-carried diseases and heat-related illness and death.
Relatively, Blacks are environmental Good Samaritans. Per capita, we emit approximately 20 percent less carbon dioxide than Whites – well below 2020 targets set by the U.S. Climate Stewardship Act. Not only do we use more energy-conserving public transportation, we spend considerably less per capita on energy-intensive material goods. (translation by mhaze....he is actually saying being poor is good??)This priceless exercise in racial baiting through logical fallacies is outwitted by the outraged reader comments. Just a few...
you sir are an idiot. you quote false facts. question is, are there no white people in metropolitan areas?
i am from new orleans and i am mixed. i suffered the same fate as many of all colors. just to read the topic of this spells ignorance.
are white people and people of asian decent not effected by global warming? is there skin not dark enough to absorb the warmth?
blacks create less co2? and how could global warming be worse for "blacks and other people of color" than whites?
its one thing to have an axe to grind against whites, but to manufacture a story about global warming having different effects for blacks is just irresponsible journalism.
hurricane katrina is an equal oppotunity destroyer !!!!!

[bonkey]

Leaving aside the fact that Gore is viewed skeptically mostly only in the USA; in other parts of the world everything he says is believed as fact. Hundreds if not thousands of popular media pieces trot his line, here is just one.


Ummm...forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but bet.com (the source you link to) is American. USAian, if you will.

How does providing a link to an American site show anything about how Gore is viewed outside the US?

If anything, you're showing how he's not viewed skeptically by certain segments of the US, but you're not offering anything about how us non-USAians are viewing what he says at all.

[mhaze]

Ummm...forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but bet.com (the source you link to) is American. USAian, if you will.

How does providing a link to an American site show anything about how Gore is viewed outside the US?

If anything, you're showing how he's not viewed skeptically by certain segments of the US, but you're not offering anything about how us non-USAians are viewing what he says at all.

You are correct. I should have made clearly that two different subjects or two different posts.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Even the most extreme environmentalists don't know what to think about Al Gore...
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press1426.htm

We would like to think that Al Gore has not been informed of how his visit to Chile is being financed. We trust enough in him to think that he would not willingly lend his participation in this image-laundering operation, appearing on behalf of a corporation such as Barrick Gold.

[a_unique_person]

No, with all due respect. the myths are recycled by Pro AGW who want Kyoto and to tax and penalize C02. I don't hear any talk about taxng Albedo. Neither do I hear a word about how we must change our land use or sea labels will rise and Florida will be flooded.

Gore must be some kind of fetish object not for Deniers but for AGW since his "documentary" is shown in science classes in public school here in the US.


:rolleyes: Because Albedo is a feedback, of course.

[a_unique_person]

Even the most extreme environmentalists don't know what to think about Al Gore...
http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Action/press1426.htm

I don't care what anyone thinks of Al Gore. It's like asking what people think of Newton. He was in many ways a complete nutter. It's interesting from a historical/political perspective, but is completely irrelevant to the science.

[a_unique_person]

But he is not irrelevant to most people's perception of the science. And that makes him relevant to what public action will be taken in response to the science.

I haven't seen scientists on the global warming side of the issue make any attempt to correct the misinformation Gore has been promoting to the public. And he has been misrepresenting the facts for some time.

And I also notice you didn't even attempt to address the questions I asked you about why there is such urgency in dealing with the problem ... a perception Gore has given the public. Why not?

Gore is a politician and publicist. What he is saying is based on possibilities, (which is what we have to deal with). When you are into risk management (as I am), you have to say "what if". What if the Data Centre burnt down? It probably won't. In fact, I am 99.9% sure it won't. But we still have to act as if it will, and we spend a lot of money accordingly. That's the nature of risk management. Gore is telling people what is possible, even if it won't necessarily happen, and he is doing it in a way that is no different to the 'WOT' or 'WOD'. That's the level of public debate, unfortunately.

Now, if you want to discuss if everything he says will happen, I doubt it will. If you want to say everything he says it won't happen, I can't say it won't, and that we would be mad to act as if it won't. That is too big a risk for something that will affect us globally. Will AGW affect the world to a significant effect, I have no doubt it will. The rising water levels, for example, will affect all ports, globally, at the same time, for example, causing a massive disruption to trade. The modern economy couldn't exist without trade. What is the cost of that? We recently had a massive economic shake up with the Asian melt down, but the rest of the world was stable and things were OK. We had 9/11, which caused massive disruption, but the rest of the world went on, and things were OK. We have massive disruption globally at the same time, things are going to be very risky. If you ignore that risk, you are being stupid.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

I couldn't agree more.

I don't care what anyone thinks of Al Gore. It's like asking what people think of Newton. He was in many ways a complete nutter. It's interesting from a historical/political perspective, but is completely irrelevant to the science.

[mhaze]

I don't care what anyone thinks of Al Gore. It's like asking what people think of Newton. He was in many ways a complete nutter. It's interesting from a historical/political perspective, but is completely irrelevant to the science.

No, this is not comparable.

The issue is the representation of science by Gore, and Newton's book on calculus is brilliant. I have read most of it, and I have read Gore's books.

We need not state the differences. Gore has chosen to personify a fringe alarmist view. The documentary was basically Hansen spin, but it became Gore's religion; objectivity was lost, and there has been a disturbing inability to adapt or change on his part.

Personality or political afiliation etc is not relevant.

[a_unique_person]

Are you sure? This link has a animated videoclip prepared by NASA of the retreat of the ice in Antarctica over the last 20,000 years. It doesn't seem to show what you claim, assuming the time scale is evenly distributed throughout the video clip.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9902/03/antarctic.ice.sheet/


The clip doesn't show the rapid changes in the past few years, and the projected complete disappearance in the next 20/30 years. That clip covers 20,000 years. For it to disappear in the time span it is projected to, would see the changes in the recent record appear to be as if someone had just lifted the ice out of the water in a flash. That is, and always has been, the issue, and why scientists are acting the way they are. In geological terms, we are causing change at what is normally an unheard of rate. Rapid change = massive disorganisation.

[a_unique_person]

Here is an animation of existing records and projections.

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2006/arctic.shtml

In geological terms, this will happen in the blink of an eye.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

And what about this?



4. Conclusions
We show that 72% of the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining 27http://public.metapress.com/clients/roysoc/html/entlib/plus/special/plusmn/black/med/base/glyph.gif29Gtyr-1, a sink of ocean mass sufficient to lower global sea levels by 0.08mmyr-1. The IPCC third assessment (Church & Gregory 2001 (http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/38315t2244r5w3m4/fulltext.html#bib3)) partially offset an ongoing sea-level rise due to Antarctic retreat since the last glacial maximum (0.0-0.5mmyr-1) with a twentieth century fall due to increased snowfall (-0.2-0.0mmyr-1). But that assessment relied solely on models that neither captured ice streams nor the Peninsula warming, and the data show both have dominated at least the late twentieth century ice sheet. Even allowing a http://public.metapress.com/clients/roysoc/html/entlib/plus/special/plusmn/black/med/base/glyph.gif30Gtyr-1 fluctuation in unsurveyed areas, they provide a range of -35-+115Gtyr-1. This range equates to a sea level contribution of -0.3-+0.1mmyr-1 and so Antarctica has provided, at most, a negligible component of observed sea-level rise. In consequence, the data places a further burden on accounting (Munk 2003 (http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/38315t2244r5w3m4/fulltext.html#bib6)) for the twentieth century rise of 1.5-2mmyr-1. What is clear, from the data, is that fluctuations in some coastal regions reflect long-term losses of ice mass, whereas fluctuations elsewhere appear to be short-term changes in snowfall. While the latter are bound to fluctuate about the long-term MAR, the former are not, and so the contribution of retreating glaciers will govern the twenty-first century mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet.



How does it reconcile with the "animation"?

[BeAChooser]

Gore is a politician and publicist. What he is saying is based on possibilities, (which is what we have to deal with).

What Gore has been doing is misrepresenting the facts. But you are correct, he is politician and the reason he has been misrepresenting the facts is political in nature.

When you are into risk management (as I am), you have to say "what if". What if the Data Centre burnt down? It probably won't. In fact, I am 99.9% sure it won't. But we still have to act as if it will, and we spend a lot of money accordingly.

But you still consider the economics in what you do and you don't do things that could easily make the situation much worse. That is the problem with the Walarmists. They insist we must act NOW and disregard all possible negative effects of their proposed actions. World society is a highly complicated beast (perhaps more complicated than the climate) and what they are doing is suggesting we throw sand in the mechanism without understanding what the consequences of doing so would be. But then economics and the effects of economic decisions on society has always been the weak point in liberal (walarmist) thinking.

That is too big a risk for something that will affect us globally.

Lots of things will affect us globally. A 50 cent tax on gas in the US will have global consequences. Destroy America's economy and lots of people around the world will suffer. And the timescale over which those effects will occur matters. A 50 cent tax on gas will have impacts now. Ice melting in antarctica at current rates will take 100's of years to matter significantly. So caution is advised to avoid overreacting.

The rising water levels, for example, will affect all ports, globally, at the same time, for example, causing a massive disruption to trade.

No it won't. The timescale for changes in water level are so slow that ports will just adapt to those changes. But if you destroy the economy through foolish measures you really will disrupt trade.

If you ignore that risk, you are being stupid.

If you overreact and pour money into things that are not the real cause, you are being stupid too.

[BeAChooser]

In geological terms, we are causing change at what is normally an unheard of rate.

That's not true. As has been pointed out, most of the change in ice mass occurred in a few thousand years at a time when humans were certainly not responsible. And again 7000 years ago saw dramatic changes when man was not responsible. And sea level has been rising steadily (i.e., linearly) since 1920 which again suggest the mechanism you folks point to for rising sea levels is bogus. I linked you to a recent study which indicates a change in sea levels do to melting antarctic ice that is so slow it would take 3800 years to raise sea levels one foot. The reality is we still do not understand what is causing most of the change well enough to be remotely certain it is human intervention. We certainly don't understand it well enough nor is the rate of change so urgent that we need to dive headfirst into the sort of economic folly that Gore and his crowd advocate.

[a_unique_person]

What Gore has been doing is misrepresenting the facts. But you are correct, he is politician and the reason he has been misrepresenting the facts is political in nature.



No, he presenting the possibilities. That the THC could stop or not is very unlikely, so I see him as wrong on that. Most of what he says is correct.




But you still consider the economics in what you do and you don't do things that could easily make the situation much worse. That is the problem with the Walarmists. They insist we must act NOW and disregard all possible negative effects of their proposed actions. World society is a highly complicated beast (perhaps more complicated than the climate) and what they are doing is suggesting we throw sand in the mechanism without understanding what the consequences of doing so would be. But then economics and the effects of economic decisions on society has always been the weak point in liberal (walarmist) thinking.



We have to act now to change hyrdocarbon usage. It's use is so widespread, it's going to be like turning an aircraft carrier around. We have to act now since it is going to take us 20 or 30 years to get some real changes made. Already we have lost 20 years.



Lots of things will affect us globally. A 50 cent tax on gas in the US will have global consequences. Destroy America's economy and lots of people around the world will suffer. And the timescale over which those effects will occur matters. A 50 cent tax on gas will have impacts now. Ice melting in antarctica at current rates will take 100's of years to matter significantly. So caution is advised to avoid overreacting.



People said we could never survive a moderate rise in taxes to fund the use of alternate fuels, yet fuel prices have pretty well doubled over the past four years, and the world's economies have barely blinked.

The situation in Antarctica could change well before expected time, just as the Arctic has. Risk management. I don't expect the Data Centre to burn down, but if I don't ensure the company could survive such an event, it's my responsibility.



No it won't. The timescale for changes in water level are so slow that ports will just adapt to those changes. But if you destroy the economy through foolish measures you really will disrupt trade.



Risk management. And when it does happen, it will happen to all ports at the same time.

[Pipirr]

{snip}But then economics and the effects of economic decisions on society has always been the weak point in liberal (walarmist) thinking.


god, this is tedious. I trust you aren't implying that AGW is a liberals-only position.

It ain't.

[articulett]

god, this is tedious. I trust you aren't implying that AGW is a liberals-only position.

It ain't.

To deniers it is. No evidence will convince them otherwise. They are on par with creationists. They pat themselves on the back while pretending to have a clue. It's embarrassing. The U.S. has a swath of embarrassment running through it it red states. And it shows.

http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

Note the most religious states are the most dysfunctional...they are also red (conservative) states... scientific ignorance breeds delusion. It isn't amenable to reason...

[a_unique_person]

god, this is tedious. I trust you aren't implying that AGW is a liberals-only position.

It ain't.

The funny thing is, by making such accusations, it says much more about why they take their attitude than anything else they say.

[Locri]

To deniers it is. No evidence will convince them otherwise. They are on par with creationists. They pat themselves on the back while pretending to have a clue. It's embarrassing. The U.S. has a swath of embarrassment running through it it red states. And it shows.

-URL deleted due to posting rules, see original post-

Note the most religious states are the most dysfunctional...they are also red (conservative) states... scientific ignorance breeds delusion. It isn't amenable to reason...

So in discussing what is admittedly a incorrect accusation (that all AGW people are liberals) you infer that all creationists are conservative and therefore making red states? How hypocritical.

I still really think that "deniers" is a horrible word to use for someone who doesn't believe in AGW because it automatically implies that something is true and we are denying the truth rather than just being skeptical about something which we see as not having enough solid evidence.

And as I've said before, the comparison to evolution vs. creationism is silly, let's not go back on that train of discussion because it just leads nowhere.

P.S. Sorry for no responses lately... time has been very tight this week :(

[mhaze]

The clip doesn't show the rapid changes in the past few years, and the projected complete disappearance in the next 20/30 years. That clip covers 20,000 years. For it to disappear in the time span it is projected to, would see the changes in the recent record appear to be as if someone had just lifted the ice out of the water in a flash. That is, and always has been, the issue, and why scientists are acting the way they are. In geological terms, we are causing change at what is normally an unheard of rate. Rapid change = massive disorganisation.

Except that melting sea ice won't raise sea level...

Pipirr, I think he meant liberal Alarmist, which would imply say a rosy outlook on a big government "solution". That does not mean that AGW is a liberal agenda item, but that certain "solutions" are. A conservative might say Kyoto was a boondoggle, the facts are in on that, lets move on.

Its disturbing when the same people who want that "solution" are not inclined to consider negative evidence as to its feasibility or cost effectiveness, offhand the published work of Armstrong and Nordhaus come to mind. Or when people ignore the failure of "mini" Kyoto and want "maxi" Kyoto.

Then there are ignored alternative evidence and explanations...Huge haze clouds over the Indian Ocean (http://www.adb.org/vehicle-emissions/General/Environment-cloud.asp) contribute as much to atmospheric warming in Asia as greenhouse gases and play a significant role in the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, according to a study published Thursday.

Unmanned measuring devices were sent into the haze pollution, known as Atmospheric Brown Clouds, over the Indian Ocean in March 2006 near the island of Hanimadhoo to measure aerosol concentrations, soot levels and solar radiation.

Researchers concluded that the pollution — mostly caused by the burning of wood and plant matter for cooking in India and other South Asian countries — enhanced heating of the atmosphere by around 50 percent and contributed to about half of the temperature increases blamed in recent decades for the glacial retreat.

What if big, world wide government programs solved the wrong problem, one that was not even a problem? Want a history of such things having occurred?

Articulett, you have to knocked down the Denier strawman, but left the AGW Truther careening forward in a frenzy, shrieking never ending repeated
apocalyptic calls of the Sliding Ten Year Forecast of Doom.

Surely misinformation does not move the state of scientific understanding forward.

Look at a few comments - sincere but misinformed and misguided - from Realclimate.
the world needs to stop all car and plane transport right NOW, for a one year test run. To see if we can survive without these co2 machines……the UN should declare a global emergency NOW and ask all member nations to stop all vehicular and plane traffic NOW.
closer to home, you will see a permanent dustbowel begin to form in the US Southwest - and another begin to form in the US Southeast.
Several meters by the end of the century seems quite possible, given the various feedbacks. Five meters isn’t entirely out of the question - either in terms of the dynamics (e.g., positive feedback between Greenland and the West Antarctic Peninsula) or the paleoclimate record.
Massive uncontrollable forest fires might be another consequence in places like Colorado.
Turning to James Hansen’s latest pieces (the technical piece, and the non technical piece in New Scientist) 40% or more of Florida could be under water by 2100,
The world is warming - is there any room left to dispute that? The warming is causing mega-changes in climate and weather patterns - can this, either, be disputed?
the cover page of the Newsweek article on oil, coal, gas and transportation industry funding of deniers and the responses to it are amusing and indicative of what is going on politically and why.

[a_unique_person]

Except that melting sea ice won't raise sea level...

Pipirr, I think he meant liberal Alarmist, which would imply say a rosy outlook on a big government "solution". That does not mean that AGW is a liberal agenda item, but that certain "solutions" are. A conservative might say Kyoto was a boondoggle, the facts are in on that, lets move on.



Rubbish it was a boondoggle. Kyoto was about preparing for a global solution by setting up a prototype with the Western nations, who create most of the anthropogenic CO2. The next stage was supposed to be happening soon, when the mechanism would be humming along and we could get real changes made. That whole idea was neatly sabotaged.



Its disturbing when the same people who want that "solution" are not inclined to consider negative evidence as to its feasibility or cost effectiveness, offhand the published work of Armstrong and Nordhaus come to mind. Or when people ignore the failure of "mini" Kyoto and want "maxi" Kyoto.

Mini Kyoto did not fail because of Kyoto, it failed because of short sighted self interest.



Then there are ignored alternative evidence and explanations...Huge haze clouds over the Indian Ocean (http://www.adb.org/vehicle-emissions/General/Environment-cloud.asp) contribute as much to atmospheric warming in Asia as greenhouse gases and play a significant role in the melting of the Himalayan glaciers, according to a study published Thursday.

Unmanned measuring devices were sent into the haze pollution, known as Atmospheric Brown Clouds, over the Indian Ocean in March 2006 near the island of Hanimadhoo to measure aerosol concentrations, soot levels and solar radiation.

Researchers concluded that the pollution — mostly caused by the burning of wood and plant matter for cooking in India and other South Asian countries — enhanced heating of the atmosphere by around 50 percent and contributed to about half of the temperature increases blamed in recent decades for the glacial retreat.

If you read the summary, it says.



Effects



significant reduction of solar radiation to the surface by as much as 15%
altered regional monsoon patterns (less sea evaporation from sunlight means less rain)
less rain in northwest India, Pakistan, Afganistan, and western PRC by as much as 40%
more rain and flooding in other areas
reduction of photosythesis (drop in agricultural productivity)
acid deposition and plant damage
respiratory ailments
I don't know where you get the idea it causes warming. I was over in Thailand recently, and at midday the sun is a cool, red orb. That haze is causing cooling, as the quote says. It is also causing unusual extra rainfall in the North West of Australia.


What if big, world wide government programs solved the wrong problem, one that was not even a problem? Want a history of such things having occurred?

What if the science is correct? Risk management. What are the odds the scientists are completely wrong?


Articulett, you have to knocked down the Denier strawman, but left the AGW Truther careening forward in a frenzy, shrieking never ending repeated
apocalyptic calls of the Sliding Ten Year Forecast of Doom.

Surely misinformation does not move the state of scientific understanding forward.

Look at a few comments - sincere but misinformed and misguided - from Realclimate.
the world needs to stop all car and plane transport right NOW, for a one year test run. To see if we can survive without these co2 machines……the UN should declare a global emergency NOW and ask all member nations to stop all vehicular and plane traffic NOW.
closer to home, you will see a permanent dustbowel begin to form in the US Southwest - and another begin to form in the US Southeast.
Several meters by the end of the century seems quite possible, given the various feedbacks. Five meters isn’t entirely out of the question - either in terms of the dynamics (e.g., positive feedback between Greenland and the West Antarctic Peninsula) or the paleoclimate record.
Massive uncontrollable forest fires might be another consequence in places like Colorado.
Turning to James Hansen’s latest pieces (the technical piece, and the non technical piece in New Scientist) 40% or more of Florida could be under water by 2100,
The world is warming - is there any room left to dispute that? The warming is causing mega-changes in climate and weather patterns - can this, either, be disputed?
the cover page of the Newsweek article on oil, coal, gas and transportation industry funding of deniers and the responses to it are amusing and indicative of what is going on politically and why.
You want to take the risks? Do you feel lucky, punk?

[a_unique_person]

No, this is not comparable.

The issue is the representation of science by Gore, and Newton's book on calculus is brilliant. I have read most of it, and I have read Gore's books.

We need not state the differences. Gore has chosen to personify a fringe alarmist view. The documentary was basically Hansen spin, but it became Gore's religion; objectivity was lost, and there has been a disturbing inability to adapt or change on his part.

Personality or political afiliation etc is not relevant.

Newton as a genius, and he also believed the most weird religious mumbo jumbo. A very interesting man. His work on science and mathematics, however, was brilliant.

It is not a fringe alarmist view, and he didn't choose to personify it. He just happened to have the means and will to do so.

It's not spin, it's possibilities, and I would be surprised if all the worst case scenariors happened, or if things even turned out worse. It's a matter of risk management.

[mhaze]

Rubbish it was a boondoggle. Kyoto was about preparing for a global solution by setting up a prototype with the Western nations, who create most of the anthropogenic CO2. The next stage was supposed to be happening soon, when the mechanism would be humming along and we could get real changes made. That whole idea was neatly sabotaged.

Mini Kyoto did not fail because of Kyoto, it failed because of short sighted self interest.


Self interest? Let's see ... New Zealand going Kyoto, thinking they would be the beneficiary of carbon transfer dollars, then finding out that it would cost them? Want to discuss Canada? Europe? Finland? China? Indonesia?

How about Australia? How are you guys doing a la Kyoto? Just state the numbers, please. Any plans to sequester carbon from your famous coal powerplants? Any plans of substance to comply with Kyoto down under, or just rhetoric? Nuclear plants? Any substantial projects at all? Please provide projected numbers in terms of how your country forecasts reaching any reduction in CO2 emissions.

Self interest? A lot of the signers to Kyoto were to get to suck on that big cash cow of transfer dollars in carbon credits from developed nations. So your agreement - Kyoto - was voted and passed on based on self interest of the nations.

And you argue that it failed due to self interest? :D


What if the science is correct? Risk management. What are the odds the scientists are completely wrong? You want to take the risks?

Do you feel lucky, punk?Translation - Ignore scientific evidence, actual risk analysis, published studies on the economic impacts by economists, and reduce to a emotional appeals and insults.

[mhaze]

Newton as a genius, and he also believed the most weird religious mumbo jumbo. A very interesting man. His work on science and mathematics, however, was brilliant.

It is not a fringe alarmist view, and he didn't choose to personify it. He just happened to have the means and will to do so.

It's not spin, it's possibilities, and I would be surprised if all the worst case scenariors happened, or if things even turned out worse. It's a matter of risk management.

Newton wrote in 1704 (in an attempt to extract scientific information from the Bible) that his estimate was the world would end no earlier than 2060 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2060).

In predicting this he said,"This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton%27s_occult_studies#_note-0)

Let's agree to stop "the rash conjectures of fanciful men" today, who in frequently predicting or agreeing with AGW Truthers Ten Year Sliding Forecast of Doom, discredit otherwise reputable science and scientists.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

You are absolutely right. For AGW'rs "denier" is no name calling, but they make a loud noise about "walarmist".
They tend to believe that they are right on science, but ignore completely studies who cast doubts about their beliefs, and no one commented the recent study showing there is no consensus (http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/consensus_what_consensus_among_climate_scientists_ the_debate_is_not_over.html)

They also ignore completely other peer reviewed studies posted here before. The only comment you can get is "the russians benefit from carbon".

They have elevated the "paid by Exxon" to the category of definitive counter argument to end any discussion.

They have made the "precautionary principle" (now called "risk management" :d) the central argument to end any dicussion related to Kyoto (wich they admit won't do anything to solve the alleged problem) and converting it to a sort of religion wich should be followed at all costs. Read the "Do you feel lucky, punk?" message and compare to Pascal's wager......





So in discussing what is admittedly a incorrect accusation (that all AGW people are liberals) you infer that all creationists are conservative and therefore making red states? How hypocritical.

I still really think that "deniers" is a horrible word to use for someone who doesn't believe in AGW because it automatically implies that something is true and we are denying the truth rather than just being skeptical about something which we see as not having enough solid evidence.

And as I've said before, the comparison to evolution vs. creationism is silly, let's not go back on that train of discussion because it just leads nowhere.

P.S. Sorry for no responses lately... time has been very tight this week :(

[mhaze]

I don't know where you get the idea it causes warming. I was over in Thailand recently, and at midday the sun is a cool, red orb. That haze is causing cooling, as the quote says. It is also causing unusual extra rainfall in the North West of Australia.

You want to take the risks? Do you feel lucky, punk?

Yep, and I hear that if you fly into major cities in China, the first time you see the sun is when you land on your return.

here we go (http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/08/14/asian-brown-clouds-amplify-global-warming-put-drinking-water-of-billions-in-danger/) - Scientists have concluded that the global warming trend caused by the buildup of greenhouse gases is a major contributor to the melting of Himalayan and other tropical glaciers. Now, a new analysis of pollution-filled “brown clouds” over south Asia by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla (http://sio.ucsd.edu/), Calif., offers hope that the region may be able to arrest some of the alarming retreat of such glaciers by reducing its air pollution.
More on how the did this actual atmospheric experiment (http://www.physorg.com/news105192948.html) (no arm waving about how CO2 does a fancy dance up in the atmosphere, just actual atmospheric experiments - the way science is actually done)The Maldives Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle Campaign (MAC) took place during the region's dry season when polluted air masses travel south from the continent to the Indian Ocean. The air typically contains particles released from industrial and vehicle emissions, and through biomass burning.

Such polluted air has a dual effect of warming the atmosphere as particles absorb sunlight, and of cooling Earth's surface as the particles reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground.

The aircraft, flying in stacked formations, made nearly simultaneous measurements of brown clouds from different altitudes, creating a profile of soot concentrations and light absorption that was unprecedented in its level of vertical detail.
Why not go to Fox News and Junkscience (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291906,00.html), and check if the often maligned Steve Millroy has slanted or misrepresented the facts? NO?

[Safe-Keeper]

god, this is tedious. I trust you aren't implying that AGW is a liberals-only position.Sadly, there are loads of people who shun AGW environmentalism like the plague because they've identified it as a 'liberal agenda'. It's akin to how deniers are working to brand AGW environmentalism a (rival) religion so that Good Christians™ will stay away from it.

I still really think that "deniers" is a horrible word to use for someone who doesn't believe in AGW because it automatically implies that something is true and we are denying the truth rather than just being skeptical about something which we see as not having enough solid evidence.An AGW sceptic and an AGW denier are two different things. A sceptic is a person who brings an open mind to the table and is willing to take either side. A denier, on the other hand, is a person who's made up his mind that AGW is nonsense and is determined not to be convinced otherwise.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

LOL you made my day.....AGW cultists are feeling desperated lately.....

Sadly, there are loads of people who shun AGW environmentalism like the plague because they've identified it as a 'liberal agenda'. It's akin to how deniers are working to brand AGW environmentalism a (rival) religion so that Good Christians™ will stay away from it.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

So An AGW sceptic is one who agrees with AGW and an AGW denier is one who disagrees. Nice strawman....what¡s the name of the AGWr who's made up his mind that not AGW is nonsense and is determined not to be convinced otherwise.?


An AGW sceptic and an AGW denier are two different things. A sceptic is a person who brings an open mind to the table and is willing to take either side. A denier, on the other hand, is a person who's made up his mind that AGW is nonsense and is determined not to be convinced otherwise.

[mhaze]

So An AGW sceptic is one who agrees with AGW and an AGW denier is one who disagrees. Nice strawman....what¡s the name of the AGWr who's made up his mind that not AGW is nonsense and is determined not to be convinced otherwise.?

AGW Truther? :D

[mhaze]

They have elevated the "paid by Exxon" to the category of definitive counter argument to end any discussion.

They have made the "precautionary principle" (now called "risk management" :d) the central argument to end any dicussion related to Kyoto (wich they admit won't do anything to solve the alleged problem) and converting it to a sort of religion wich should be followed at all costs.

Say we agree to this "don't take the risk" argument and sign off on the Maxi Kyoto coming down the road. We sink into it the 17 trillion dollars that they say they need (probably winds up being triple but that's another subject). Later, one of the following is established -

GW is not caused by man
GW is found to not exist
GW fixes itself
or Maxi Kyoto does not do a thing to change CO2 levelsWe get back our 17 Trillion dollars with interest, right?

No? Then who keeps it?

The same guys responsible for the errors in judgement, misrepresentation of the science, and political scheming to take the money? Buddies and friends of the United Nations?

[CapelDodger]

Are you sure? This link has a animated videoclip prepared by NASA of the retreat of the ice in Antarctica over the last 20,000 years. It doesn't seem to show what you claim, assuming the time scale is evenly distributed throughout the video clip.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/science/9902/03/antarctic.ice.sheet/

Antarctica is not the whole world, nor does it contain all of its ice. The Antarctic ice-cap is very stable, due its height (in altitude and latitude). The Grampian ice-cap, on the other hand, was kilometres thick twenty thousand years ago and has now entirely vanished. As have the ice sheets that covered Northern Europe, much of Central Asia, North China and great swathes of North America. Antarctica is by no means a representative example of anything.

And yet you bring it up.

It's surely not in doubt that there was a cataclysmic loss of ice-mass and increase in sea-levels over the few thousand years that ushered in the current interglacial. That was recognised in the early 18thCE as the only viable interpretation of geological observations (the Great Flood having been dismissed).

Here's something else of interest from NASA:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast27dec_1.htm "Recent work, however, leads Bindschadler to conclude that the ice sheet experienced a rapid retreat phase some 7,000 years ago that was preceded and followed by a slower retreat that continues today."

Dating back to 2000, and concerned only with the West Antarctic ice-sheet, not the total ice-balance. Things have changed since 2000.

A quote from your cite :
Bindschadler points to the geologic record of dated stages in the retreat of the ice sheet's continental base as evidence that it has shrunk in fits and starts. Such episodic retreats may be controlled more by the varying depth of the underlying surface and water than by the changing climate.

Not representative of global climate due to specific local circumstances, in other words.

Was mankind responsible for that rapid retreat 7,000 years ago? And it certainly didn't happen at the glacial maximum. So who or what was responsible?

I don't know, I wasn't there. I didn't kill JFK. If I kill Bush, can I bring that up in my defence? Can't see it working without a damn' good lawyer.

That last link also has a curve of sea level rise at Battery TIde Gauge in New York since 1920. The odd thing is that sea level has been rising quite steadily since 1920. Surely man's activities weren't yet causing global warming back in 1930 - 1940? And notice how straight the line is fit to the data. Are you sure CO2 is responsible?

The climate has been warming since about 1880 for a variety of reasons : increased solar output, less volcanic activity than in the 19thCE, land-use and urbanisation, and increased CO2-load (perhaps others). Solar output plateaued around 1950, and the CO2 influence only really took off with Henry Ford. There will have been a CO2-influence back in those halcyon days between the Wars (they were years of glorious summers and fruitful bountiness, outside the Dust Bowl) but insignificant. It's much more significant these days.

Warming leads to sea-level rise through thermal expansion of the oceans.

I'm ignorant of the local New York geology : how's the land-level behaving there? That's not something that can be taken for granted.


But that's not representative of the actual uncertainty in the mean. Try a 2-sigma delta and tell us it's insignificant.

Do what now?

You've produced a figure of 0.5mm as the typical annual sea-level rise over the last twenty thousand years, and compared it to the 0.4mm recorded recently. If the 0.5mm figure is typical, sea-levels were half a metre lower a thousand years ago, a metre 2000kya, two metres 4000kya. During all this time people have been digging harbours and generally living along coastlines. They would have noticed the difference. Inexorable sea-level rise would be ingrained in human culture, but it's not. So 0.5mm pa sea-level rise is not typical.

Try some common sense. Take 100 annual measurements; 99 of them are 1, one is 1001. Add, divide, and a typical measurement is 11. It's meaningless, isn't it?

You've taken twenty thousand years where seventeen thousand saw little or no sea-level rise and three thousand saw the results of a catastrophyic collapse of ice-mass along with thermal expansion of the oceans. Add, divide, and out comes a meaningless number.

Actually, demanding "right now", as Gore and walarmists insist, is what's really alarmist.

Alarmism is only a bad thing when it's a false alarm. Are you sure it is?

And I noticed you didn't address the point I was making. A second study shows the rise in sea level due to antarctica ice mass loss will be so slow that it would take 3800 years to rise one foot? Are you really worried about that sort of change in the near term?

Again with the Antarctic.

Central Antarctica is stable, and most of Antarctica's ice is stored up there. Much the same applies to Greenland, in the mountains and the north. There's a lot more ice out there, in the Himalayas, the Andes, Patagonia, the Alps. Survivors of the last glacial retreat. That's all on its way to the sea in the not-to-distant future, certainly the next century. A good chunk of Antarctic and Greenland ice will go the same way, around the coasts and in the glacial regions. That's worth a metre or two of anybody's money.

I take it you're not going to apologize? :D

I take it you're not going to drop your obsession with Al Gore? This is, after all, the Science Forum.

[BeAChooser]

No, he presenting the possibilities.

False. What he's doing is lying to the public.

**********

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/450392,CST-EDT-REF30b.article

Gore claims that Himalayan glaciers are shrinking and global warming is to blame. Yet the September 2006 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate reported, "Glaciers are growing in the Himalayan Mountains, confounding global warming alarmists who recently claimed the glaciers were shrinking and that global warming was to blame."

Gore claims the snowcap atop Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro is shrinking and that global warming is to blame. Yet according to the November 23, 2003, issue of Nature magazine, "Although it's tempting to blame the ice loss on global warming, researchers think that deforestation of the mountain's foothills is the more likely culprit. ... snip ...

Gore claims global warming is causing more tornadoes. Yet the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in February that there has been no scientific link established between global warming and tornadoes.

Gore claims global warming is causing more frequent and severe hurricanes. However, hurricane expert Chris Landsea published a study on May 1 documenting that hurricane activity is no higher now than in decades past. Hurricane expert William Gray reported just a few days earlier, on April 27, that the number of major hurricanes making landfall on the U.S. Atlantic coast has declined in the past 40 years. ... snip ...

Gore claims global warming is causing an expansion of African deserts. However, the Sept. 16, 2002, issue of New Scientist reports, "Africa's deserts are in 'spectacular' retreat . . . making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa."

Gore argues Greenland is in rapid meltdown, and that this threatens to raise sea levels by 20 feet. But according to a 2005 study in the Journal of Glaciology, "the Greenland ice sheet is thinning at the margins and growing inland, with a small overall mass gain." In late 2006, researchers at the Danish Meteorological Institute reported that the past two decades were the coldest for Greenland since the 1910s.

Gore claims the Antarctic ice sheet is melting because of global warming. Yet the Jan. 14, 2002, issue of Nature magazine reported Antarctica as a whole has been dramatically cooling for decades. More recently, scientists reported in the September 2006 issue of the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Series A: Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences, that satellite measurements of the Antarctic ice sheet showed significant growth between 1992 and 2003. "

************

Most of what he says is correct.

Really? See the above.

We have to act now to change hyrdocarbon usage.

What's the urgency to act *right now* if the latest estimates show any changes will occur gradually (i.e., take hundreds of years) and we don't really know that CO2 is the culprit Gore claims?

Here's are more examples of Gore's lies:

**********

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm

"Professor Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia gives what, for many Canadians, is a surprising assessment: "Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic. It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention."

... snip ...

Appearing before the Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development last year, Carleton University paleoclimatologist Professor Tim Patterson testified, "There is no meaningful correlation between CO2 levels and Earth's temperature over this [geologic] time frame. In fact, when CO2 levels were over ten times higher than they are now, about 450 million years ago, the planet was in the depths of the absolute coldest period in the last half billion years."

... snip ...

Gore tells us in the film, "Starting in 1970, there was a precipitous drop-off in the amount and extent and thickness of the Arctic ice cap." This is misleading, according to Ball: "The survey that Gore cites was a single transect across one part of the Arctic basin in the month of October during the 1960s when we were in the middle of the cooling period. The 1990 runs were done in the warmer month of September, using a wholly different technology."

... snip ...

Dr. Dick Morgan, former advisor to the World Meteorological Organization and climatology researcher at University of Exeter, U.K. gives the details, "There has been some decrease in ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic over the past 30 years but no melt down. The Canadian Ice Service records show that from 1971-1981 there was average, to above average, ice thickness. From 1981-1982 there was a sharp decrease of 15% but there was a quick recovery to average, to slightly above average, values from 1983-1995. A sharp drop of 30% occurred again 1996-1998 and since then there has been a steady increase to reach near normal conditions since 2001."

... snip ...

Gore's point that 200 cities and towns in the American West set all time high temperature records is also misleading according to Dr. Roy Spencer, Principal Research Scientist at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. "It is not unusual for some locations, out of the thousands of cities and towns in the U.S., to set all-time records," he says. "The actual data shows that overall, recent temperatures in the U.S. were not unusual."

************


People said we could never survive a moderate rise in taxes to fund the use of alternate fuels

Gore has called for an immediate freeze on greenhouse-gas emissions and a 90 percent cut in those emissions by 2050. Now since Gore didn't say exactly how that could be done, would you tell us? Specifically? The ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, said a freeze, if taken literally, would mean no new businesses, no economic growth and no more people. I fear he might be right. Especially when you lump it on top of all the other taxes democRATS like Gore are eager to get in place once they have the Whitehouse, with control of Congress.

The situation in Antarctica could change well before expected time, just as the Arctic has.

You really do risk management? ROTFLOL!

[BeAChooser]

That does not mean that AGW is a liberal agenda item, but that certain "solutions" are.

Exactly.:D

[BeAChooser]

You want to take the risks? Do you feel lucky, punk?

So your solution is to stop all car and plane transport right NOW?:jaw-dropp

[Safe-Keeper]

LOL you made my day.....AGW cultists are feeling desperate lately.....Maturity. I'm impressed.

So An AGW sceptic is one who agrees with AGW and an AGW denier is one who disagrees.First your flame, then a blatant strawman.

A sceptic is sceptical to the reality of anthropogenic global warming. As in, unsure, undecided, uncertain, insert synonyms here.
A denier is a person who denies that anthropogenic global warming is real. As in, a person who's made up his mind it's not real.

.what¡s the name of the AGWr who's made up his mind that not AGW is nonsense and is determined not to be convinced otherwise.?I'd call such a person close-minded.

Now since Gore didn't say exactly how that could be done, would you tell us?I'm not sure what you mean when you say he didn't say exactly what could be done. He explained what could be done in his documentary, and his web site has further details. Do you mean that those two are not precise enough?

[CapelDodger]

You would have a point but we have already debunked the "Exxon conspiracy theory", noted that they have put $100M into climate research via Stanford (to use with as it wishes) ...

I didn't realise the money was specifically for climate research. But it's a very hands-off approach.

noted that they had a right to lobby anti-Kyoto as anyone with a brain would have and still should...

I appreciate that Kyoto looms large in your world-view, but this is the Science Forum.

...in summary, "Exxon was and is the good guys".

They subsidise (for a few million a year) people to undermine and decry the results of any climate research, be it by Stanford or anybody else. They will continue to promote uncertainty. That has no impact in the scientific world, but it works wonders amongst the proles. Given universal suffrage (an abomination, IMO) that has major political leverage, apart from its immediate economic impact.

If you still have a point and we have to deal with (a) or (b) it's about time to call those believers, maybe "AGW truthers":rolleyes:

That would confirm who's cool with the in-crowd. Aka the crowd that doesn't get out much to experience what's actually going on. Spending so much time in a controlled environment that the real climate becomes a matter of philosophical debate.

[BeAChooser]

There will have been a CO2-influence back in those halcyon days between the Wars (they were years of glorious summers and fruitful bountiness, outside the Dust Bowl) but insignificant. It's much more significant these days.

Yet the curve shows an almost the linear rise in sea level from 1920 to 2000? How can that be if the effect is much more significant now than in 1930 or 1940?

I'm ignorant of the local New York geology : how's the land-level behaving there? That's not something that can be taken for granted.

I think we can discount that as the reason for the increase in the level at the location I cited. Here's data from 23 gauges.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png

Notice the linear increase from 1920 to 2000?

Here's the rise in sea level over the last 20,000 years or so:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png

As you can see, sea levels rose a 100 meters in a relatively linear fashion over a 10,000 year period (that's 10 mm per year) without any input from man. Yet all of a sudden, we are DEFINITELY the culprit for a rise of 0.4mm per year the last 5 years? (sarcasm)

If the 0.5mm figure is typical, sea-levels were half a metre lower a thousand years ago, a metre 2000kya, two metres 4000kya. During all this time people have been digging harbours and generally living along coastlines. They would have noticed the difference. Inexorable sea-level rise would be ingrained in human culture, but it's not.

Here is the sea level rise over the last 8000 years:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1e/Holocene_Sea_Level.png

Notice that between 7,000 and 4,000 years ago, when man wasn't producing much CO2, sea levels rose about 2.5 meters in a linear fashion ... that's an average of about 0.8mm per year. Notice that from 3,000 years ago to 2,000 years ago, sea level rose a meter ... 1.0mm per year. Yet Henry Ford wasn't to be born for another 2000 years. So why are you sure we are the culprit for a 0.4mm rise per year over a time span of only the last 5 years?

Try some common sense.

When your models don't take the sun into account and you are ready to jump off an economic cliff based on 5 years of data suggesting a 0.4mm per year rise in sea level when for the last 20,000 years, most of the time the sea levels were rising much faster than that, I wonder about your common sense.

You've taken twenty thousand years where seventeen thousand saw little or no sea-level rise

Was that your credibility I just saw flying out the window? :D

[mhaze]

I didn't realise the money was specifically for climate research. But it's a very hands-off approach.



I appreciate that Kyoto looms large in your world-view, but this is the Science Forum.



They subsidise (for a few million a year) people to undermine and decry the results of any climate research, be it by Stanford or anybody else. They will continue to promote uncertainty. That has no impact in the scientific world, but it works wonders amongst the proles.

An assertion that the "Science Forum" is not the right place to discuss the application of science and engineering engineer the climate of the planet could be appropriate only if we all agreed that the intent and method of Kyoto was not science and engineering, but something else, say just theft, corruption and poltical scheming, in the name of planetary engineering.

Ain't going down that road.

Discussion about cost benefit of schemes is economics, which is a science. As is statistics.

It's okay with me if you want to hate Big Oil or believe there is a Exxon anti Climate conspiracy. I've looked into it and reported what I found, which is contrary to that any bit of the Exxon anti climate conspiracy. There isn't even a thin reed to stand on there.

CP, what exactly is a prole? Is that short for proletariat?

[CapelDodger]

So your solution is to stop all car and plane transport right NOW?:jaw-dropp

That's your train of logic - that this is the only way to mitigate the effects of climate change. Alarmism, if I may make so bold. It's a pretty common theme amongst AGW contrarians that the only options available if it's true are so horrible that it can't be true.

AGW is happening and isn't going to stop. Where it levels out is another matter. The sooner the better seems, at first sight, to limit the extent and associated damage. Reducing - not banishing - driving and flying, which few of us find enjoyable for it's own sake, is not that alarming. The Commuting Culture is in its death-throes anyway, leaving aside Peak Oil, AGW, and the resurgence of the gated community.

[CapelDodger]

An assertion that the "Science Forum" is not the right place to discuss the application of science and engineering engineer the climate of the planet could be appropriate only if we all agreed that the intent and method of Kyoto was not science and engineering, but something else, say just theft, corruption and poltical scheming ...

The shorthand for that is "diplomacy". The Politics Forum is the appropriate arena. Kyoto was a diplomatic response to the science, and crassly inadequate hardly needs saying, but it says nothing about the science. Kyoto is as irrelevant as Al Gore.

... in the name of planetary engineering.

Isn't that a step up from mindless planetary vandalism? We're already affecting the climate, is it "planatery engineering" to get some kind of handle on that effect?

Ain't going down that road.[quote]

Don't bring up Kyoto then.

[quote]Discussion about cost benefit of schemes is economics, which is a science.

Bollocks. Have you checked out how dependent on models and historical reconstructions "scientific economics" is? Economics is not a science by the wildest stretch of the imagination.

As is statistics.

Statistics is a branch of mathematics. It's scientific, but not a science.

It's okay with me if you want to hate Big Oil or believe there is a Exxon anti Climate conspiracy. I've looked into it and reported what I found, which is contrary to that any bit of the Exxon anti climate conspiracy. There isn't even a thin reed to stand on there.

I don't want to hate Big Oil. I did well out of them from back before all this AGW sprange up. Slow payers, which can be annoying, but when you factor in the Treasury operations you get a sense of persepctive.

There's no Exxon conspiracy, it's far too open for that. And of course it's not just Exxon, there's the coal interest to take into account. Exxon's just the poster-boy.

Was that $100m to Stanford specifically for climate research?

CP, what exactly is a prole? Is that short for proletariat?

It's the Roman term for "masses" or "mob". I suffer from a classical education.

[a_unique_person]

You really do risk management? ROTFLOL!

When 9/11 happened, you had all the accountants asking for desks at the emergency data centres. Risk management is about the possibility of the disastrous actually happening. We have been warned there is probably one on the way, and, yes, unfortunately it will cost money to deal with it. What is the worst that will happen? We will have a reduction in reliance on fossil fuels. Given the Western worlds history of disasters because of it's reliance on these, it won't be at all a bad thing.

[a_unique_person]

So your solution is to stop all car and plane transport right NOW?:jaw-dropp

Where did I ever say that?

[David Rodale]

Bollocks. Have you checked out how dependent on models and historical reconstructions "scientific economics" is? Economics is not a science by the wildest stretch of the imagination.

Statistics is a branch of mathematics. It's scientific, but not a science.

.
Really?
any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.

Not to turn this into argument of semantics, but it was you that asked me if English was my second language.

First you said evidence can't explain things, I said it can explain many things; you'd better inform the other idiots out there who think it can too:
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&hl=en&newwindow=1&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=4GS&num=10&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=evidence+explains&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images

Now you're saying Economics and Statistics are not science? Again, you need to straighten out Encyclopedia Britannica and edit Wikipedia to fit your definition:
Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation or explanation, and presentation of data. It is applicable to a wide variety of academic disciplines, from the physical and social sciences to the humanities. Statistics are also used for making informed decisions.

Statistical methods can be used to summarize or describe a collection of data; this is called descriptive statistics. In addition, patterns in the data may be modeled in a way that accounts for randomness and uncertainty in the observations, and then used to draw inferences about the process or population being studied; this is called inferential statistics. Both descriptive and inferential statistics comprise applied statistics. There is also a discipline called mathematical statistics, which is concerned with the theoretical basis of the subject.

The word statistics is also the plural of statistic (singular), which refers to the result of applying a statistical algorithm to a set of data, as in economic statistics, crime statistics, etc.


Economics:
Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Greek for oikos (house) and nomos (custom or law), hence "rules of the house(hold)."

A definition that captures much of modern economics is that of Lionel Robbins in a 1932 essay: "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." Scarcity means that available resources are insufficient to satisfy all wants and needs. Absent scarcity and alternative uses of available resources, there is no economic problem. The subject thus defined involves the study of choices as they are affected by incentives and resources.

Considering AGW hypotheses is almost exclusively based on climate models and proxies, how does that square with being a "science"? And since climate science relies heavily on statistics, is it really a science either?

Maybe the King's English just ain't what it used to be.

[BeAChooser]

That's your train of logic

No, that appears to be a_unique_person's train of logic. That became clear when he responded to a post deriding a web site that claims "the world needs to stop all car and plane transport right NOW" by posting "You want to take the risks? Do you feel lucky, punk?"

By the way, I can't help but notice you just ignored my proving you know next to nothing about the rise in sea level over the last 20,000 years. :D

[David Rodale]

When 9/11 happened, you had all the accountants asking for desks at the emergency data centres. Risk management is about the possibility of the disastrous actually happening. We have been warned there is probably one on the way, and, yes, unfortunately it will cost money to deal with it. What is the worst that will happen? We will have a reduction in reliance on fossil fuels. Given the Western worlds history of disasters because of it's reliance on these, it won't be at all a bad thing.

By dealing with it, do you mean creating an artificial value (carbon credits) for carbon emissions, which in reality has a value of zero?

It seems like more of a phantom; an impossible goal to stop something that cannot be stopped with the only result being more government control of individuals, less economic growth, lower standards of living, higher prices for everything etc., in short less energy, fewer choices, less freedom.

What magical technology exists to eliminate our reliance on oil and coal, other than nuclear of course? Oil is not used only for transportation, but virtually every aspect of modern day society. Is there a segment of society that doesn't rely on oil in one form or another?

We are seeing the results of artificially created markets right now with the ethanol debacle, or as others refer to it as a scam.

[a_unique_person]

By dealing with it, do you mean creating an artificial value (carbon credits) for carbon emissions, which in reality has a value of zero?



All cash has an artificial value, it's essentially just variations in a magnetic field on a round, shiny spinning metal platter in large, dark, air conditioned room, with a very small amount of it represented by tokens.


It seems like more of a phantom; an impossible goal to stop something that cannot be stopped with the only result being more government control of individuals, less economic growth, lower standards of living, higher prices for everything etc., in short less energy, fewer choices, less freedom.



Current economic theory seems to be going through a similar patch of hubris to the one that sparked the idea of invading Iraq. Externalities and the limits of markets. Create enough chaos through rising water levels, changing climate, etc, and market choice is the last thing that will be on many people's minds. Insurance companies are way ahead of you. They are just removing choice, and withdrawing products. Florida has already had to come to grips with market failure in the insurance industry.


What magical technology exists to eliminate our reliance on oil and coal, other than nuclear of course? Oil is not used only for transportation, but virtually every aspect of modern day society. Is there a segment of society that doesn't rely on oil in one form or another?



No magic, we already have many options for reducing reliance on oil and coal. Oil that is not transformed to CO2 is not really a problem.



We are seeing the results of artificially created markets right now with the ethanol debacle, or as others refer to it as a scam.


Ethanol is not an answer, just one more cave in to the farm lobby.

[JoeEllison]

By dealing with it, do you mean creating an artificial value (carbon credits) for carbon emissions, which in reality has a value of zero?

It seems like more of a phantom; an impossible goal to stop something that cannot be stopped with the only result being more government control of individuals, less economic growth, lower standards of living, higher prices for everything etc., in short less energy, fewer choices, less freedom.

What magical technology exists to eliminate our reliance on oil and coal, other than nuclear of course? Oil is not used only for transportation, but virtually every aspect of modern day society. Is there a segment of society that doesn't rely on oil in one form or another?

We are seeing the results of artificially created markets right now with the ethanol debacle, or as others refer to it as a scam.So, global warming is real, caused by human activity... except it can't be, because it would slow down the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Thanks for clarifying.

[David Rodale]

All cash has an artificial value, it's essentially just variations in a magnetic field on a round, shiny spinning metal platter in large, dark, air conditioned room, with a very small amount of it represented by tokens.



Current economic theory seems to be going through a similar patch of hubris to the one that sparked the idea of invading Iraq. Externalities and the limits of markets. Create enough chaos through rising water levels, changing climate, etc, and market choice is the last thing that will be on many people's minds. Insurance companies are way ahead of you. They are just removing choice, and withdrawing products. Florida has already had to come to grips with market failure in the insurance industry.


No magic, we already have many options for reducing reliance on oil and coal. Oil that is not transformed to CO2 is not really a problem.


Ethanol is not an answer, just one more cave in to the farm lobby.


Artificial markets always fail under their own weight, but I don't care to turn this into a monetary discussion or about Iraq.

What are the options, detailed, and energy output of each?

What you are saying then is only centralized government planning can overt catastrophe?

[David Rodale]

So, global warming is real, caused by human activity... except it can't be, because it would slow down the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Thanks for clarifying.

Joe, it's not clear what point you're trying to make, but then it rarely is.

[JoeEllison]

Joe, it's not clear what point you're trying to make, but then it rarely is.

Awww... too used to accepting lies, that you can't handle the truth? Poor you. :(

Whining about the economic effects of the global warming issue doesn't make global warming go away, not worth working against, or not attributable to man-made causes. And, frankly, the solutions to global warming would stimulate the economy, and could and should improve life for everyone... but it might mean that predatory capitalist parasites would get a smaller piece of the pie, which is why the fund the sort of lies you embrace so strongly.

Consider yourself dismissed, BTW... life is too short.

[a_unique_person]

Artificial markets always fail under their own weight, but I don't care to turn this into a monetary discussion or about Iraq.

What are the options, detailed, and energy output of each?

What you are saying then is only centralized government planning can overt catastrophe?

All markets are artificial.

There are some things only a centralized government can manage. Eg, War.

[mhaze]

All markets are artificial.

There are some things only a centralized government can manage. Eg, War.

All markets are artificial, yes, in that they are created by man not nature. We didn't discover markets out on a glacier. That doesn't mean without intrinsic value. Markets preceded money.

There are many things only a centralized government can really screw up big time. Climate control is one such issue.

[a_unique_person]

All markets are artificial, yes, in that they are created by man not nature. We didn't discover markets out on a glacier. That doesn't mean without intrinsic value. Markets preceded money.

There are many things only a centralized government can really screw up big time. Climate control is one such issue.

What is private enterprise going to do about it? So far, Insurance has decided the best option is to just clear out of sensitive areas. That doesn't seem like any sort of an attempt to solve anything.

"climate control" is also a misnomer. We don't "control" climate. What we have happened upon is the law of unintended consequences.

[mhaze]

What is private enterprise going to do about it? So far, Insurance has decided the best option is to just clear out of sensitive areas. That doesn't seem like any sort of an attempt to solve anything.

"climate control" is also a misnomer. We don't "control" climate. What we have happened upon is the law of unintended consequences.

If an effort to create world wide tax, penalty and control system to limit CO2, plus possibly build CO2 sequestration plants, with the expressed goal of lowering the planet's temperature does not define climate control, then what is it, just solely an effort to create world wide tax, penalty and control system?

[HghrSymmetry]

That's a substantial amount of Co2.


Coal-mine fires in China and India could be huge culprits in global warming. In China alone, up to 200 million tons of coal go up in flames each year—which may be equivalent to America’s total carbon-dioxide emissions from gasoline. India’s mine fires waste up to 10 million tons of coal annually. The pollution has made land in both countries uninhabitable. And the problem is expected to worsen.

http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_08-26-2007/Intelligence_Report

[mhaze]

That's a substantial amount of Co2.

http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2007/edition_08-26-2007/Intelligence_Report

It would certainly be nice to attack that problem and solve it instead of listening to carbon neutral babble from AGW Truthers.

But they ignore issues of this sort.

400 Million Tons plus regular old pollution.

[mhaze]

Quarter-Degree Fix Fuels Climate Fight

Balanced review in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/us/26climate.html?ex=1345867200&en=d63dc296096d52d1&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink)Never underestimate the power of the blogosphere and a quarter of a degree to inflame the fight over global warming (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier).

[mhaze]

Quarter-Degree Fix Fuels Climate Fight

Balanced review in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/us/26climate.html?ex=1345867200&en=d63dc296096d52d1&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink)Never underestimate the power of the blogosphere and a quarter of a degree to inflame the fight over global warming (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier).

From coyoteblog.com, a blogger with lots of cool stuff.

An Interesting Source of Man-Made Global Warming (http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/07/an-interesting-.html)
The US Historical Climate Network (USHCN) reports about a 0.6C temperature increase in the lower 48 states since about 1940. There are two steps to reporting these historic temperature numbers. First, actual measurements are taken. Second, adjustments are made after the fact by scientists to the data. Would you like to guess how much of the 0.6C temperature rise is from actual measured temperature increases and how much is due to adjustments of various levels of arbitrariness? Here it is, for the period from 1940 to present in the US:

Actual Measured Temperature Increase: 0.1C Adjustments and Fudge Factors: 0.5C Total Reported Warming: 0.6C Yes, that is correct. Nearly all the reported warming in the USHCN data base, which is used for nearly all global warming studies and models, is from human-added fudge factors, guesstimates, and corrections.

I know what you are thinking - this is some weird skeptic's urban legend. Well, actually it comes right from the NOAA web page (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html) which describes how they maintain the USHCN data set. Below is the key chart from that site showing the sum of all the plug factors and corrections they add to the raw USHCN measurements:
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446d1c990d7248.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7930)

(Mhaze commenting)

Coyote posted this back around June or July - before the NASA temperature corrections. Steve McIntyre's corrections to the NASA data are probably only the first of three or four sets of corrections that are coming.

[a_unique_person]

If an effort to create world wide tax, penalty and control system to limit CO2, plus possibly build CO2 sequestration plants, with the expressed goal of lowering the planet's temperature does not define climate control, then what is it, just solely an effort to create world wide tax, penalty and control system?

We have inadvertently created a situation in which a side effect of burning fossil fuels is that the temperature of the earth is rising. That is not controlling the climate. Many people want to stop that happening. That also is not controlling the climate.

[a_unique_person]

From coyoteblog.com, a blogger with lots of cool stuff.

An Interesting Source of Man-Made Global Warming (http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/07/an-interesting-.html) The US Historical Climate Network (USHCN) reports about a 0.6C temperature increase in the lower 48 states since about 1940. There are two steps to reporting these historic temperature numbers. First, actual measurements are taken. Second, adjustments are made after the fact by scientists to the data. Would you like to guess how much of the 0.6C temperature rise is from actual measured temperature increases and how much is due to adjustments of various levels of arbitrariness? Here it is, for the period from 1940 to present in the US:

Actual Measured Temperature Increase: 0.1C Adjustments and Fudge Factors: 0.5C Total Reported Warming: 0.6C Yes, that is correct. Nearly all the reported warming in the USHCN data base, which is used for nearly all global warming studies and models, is from human-added fudge factors, guesstimates, and corrections.

I know what you are thinking - this is some weird skeptic's urban legend. Well, actually it comes right from the NOAA web page (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html) which describes how they maintain the USHCN data set. Below is the key chart from that site showing the sum of all the plug factors and corrections they add to the raw USHCN measurements:
[/URL][URL]http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446d1c990d7248.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7930)

(Mhaze commenting)

Coyote posted this back around June or July - before the NASA temperature corrections. Steve McIntyre's corrections to the NASA data are probably only the first of three or four sets of corrections that are coming.

:rolleyes:

The major adjustment is due to TOB bias.

Coyote says



Let's take each of these in turn. The time of observation adjustment is defined as follows (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/):
The Time of Observation Bias (TOB) arises when the 24-hour daily summary period at a station begins and ends at an hour other than local midnight. When the summary period ends at an hour other than midnight, monthly mean temperatures exhibit a systematic bias relative to the local midnight standard
0.3C seems absurdly high for this adjustment, but I can't prove it. However, if I understand the problem, a month might be picking up a few extra hours from the next month and losing a few hours to the previous month. How is a few hour time shift really biasing a 720+ hour month by so large a number? I will look to see if I can find a study digging into this.






That's the level of debate, is it?

If you read the explanation from NOAA.



Next, the temperature data are adjusted for the time-of-observation bias (Karl, et al. 1986 (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html#KWYW86)) which occurs when observing times are changed from midnight to some time earlier in the day. The TOB is the first of several adjustments. The ending time of the 24 hour climatological day varies from station to station and/or over a period of years at a given station. The TOB introduces a non climatic bias into the monthly means. The TOB software is an empirical model used to estimate the time of observation biases associated with different observation schedules and the routine computes the TOB with respect to daily readings taken at midnight. Details on the procedure are given in, "A Model to Estimate the Time of Observation Bias Associated with Monthly Mean Maximum, Minimum, and Mean Temperatures." by Karl, Williams, et al.1986, Journal of Climate and Applied Meteorology 15: 145-160



If you change the time of the day that a reading is taken, from midnight to earlier in the day, that would introduce a significant change in temperature.

[Safe-Keeper]

Coal-mine fires in China and India could be huge culprits in global warming. In China alone, up to 200 million tons of coal go up in flames each year—which may be equivalent to America’s total carbon-dioxide emissions from gasoline. India’s mine fires waste up to 10 million tons of coal annually. The pollution has made land in both countries uninhabitable. And the problem is expected to worsen.Is this the good old 'the US shouldn't do anything 'cause China ain't' argument? Perhaps we should stop having costly and time-consuming elections, too, since, after all, China isn't having them? Maybe it's OK for me to stop respecting speed limits, since John Doe isn't?

Look, it doesn't matter what China does or doesn't do. If the US needs to cut emissions, it needs to cut emissions, regardless of what other nations are doing. I also find it quite interesting that if you ask a Chinese if they should cut emissions, they'll answer that nah, I don't see why we should, and too be honest, I don't see why you're picking on us. Look at how much the US emits every year, they have the highest Co2 emissions per capita in the world! Go bother them!

So in essence, you won't improve 'til China does, China won't improve 'til you do. Wow. Wonderful stalemate you've made yourself.

[mhaze]

:rolleyes:

The major adjustment is due to TOB bias.

If you read the explanation from NOAA.

If you change the time of the day that a reading is taken, from midnight to earlier in the day, that would introduce a significant change in temperature.

Of course. Also note criticisms (http://rabett.blogspot.com/) of efforts to find flaws in temperature data at Eli Rabbet's blog.

But in general, I do suspect several more corrections are coming.

[CapelDodger]

Yet the curve shows an almost the linear rise in sea level from 1920 to 2000? How can that be if the effect is much more significant now than in 1930 or 1940?

The CO2 influence is greater now but the solar influence peaked around 1950. The volcanic influence has been pretty much factored in, not having changed much this last century or so. Different influences wax and wane and the thermal inertia of the oceans tends to smooth out the effect.


I think we can discount that as the reason for the increase in the level at the location I cited. Here's data from 23 gauges.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png

Notice the linear increase from 1920 to 2000?

There's a fair bit of noise on that line, don't you think? Plenty of room for the shuffling of un-coordinated influences.

Here's the rise in sea level over the last 20,000 years or so:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png

As you can see, sea levels rose a 100 meters in a relatively linear fashion over a 10,000 year period (that's 10 mm per year) without any input from man. Yet all of a sudden, we are DEFINITELY the culprit for a rise of 0.4mm per year the last 5 years? (sarcasm)

10mm per annum spanning the shift between glaciation and interglaciation - a cataclysmic shift, I'm sure you'll agree - is hardly surprising. It certainly puts 0.4mm pa in the shade, and even the 0.5mm pa contribution from the Antarctic.

Here is the sea level rise over the last 8000 years:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1e/Holocene_Sea_Level.png


I'm glad there are some science-based historical reconstructions that you trust.

Notice that between 7,000 and 4,000 years ago, when man wasn't producing much CO2, sea levels rose about 2.5 meters in a linear fashion ... that's an average of about 0.8mm per year. Notice that from 3,000 years ago to 2,000 years ago, sea level rose a meter ... 1.0mm per year. Yet Henry Ford wasn't to be born for another 2000 years. So why are you sure we are the culprit for a 0.4mm rise per year over a time span of only the last 5 years?

Because I can spot a specious argument when I see one. And because of the science, naturally.

7,000 years ago agriculture was just starting to get into its exponential stride. By 4,000 years ago it was dominant pretty much everywhere. Are you sure that warming wasn't anthropogenic? And if so, why?

The generally used measure of current sea-level rise is the decadal observation, which takes out incidental variation. That's still at about 3mm per decade, I think. The recently measured increase could be a blip.

When your models don't take the sun into account ...

If you're referring to GCM's, they do take the Sun into account. Of course they do; they're designed to model the climate, which is affected by solar variation.

... and you are ready to jump off an economic cliff ...

Standard contrarian alarmism.

... based on 5 years of data suggesting a 0.4mm per year rise in sea level when for the last 20,000 years, most of the time the sea levels were rising much faster than that, I wonder about your common sense.

I wonder about yours when you conjure up a 0.5mm pa contribution from Antarctica in the last twenty thousand years and stand it up against a 0.4mm pa global increase today. What was meant to be your point in the first place?

Was that your credibility I just saw flying out the window?

I don't think so. More likely a pig.

[mhaze]

Is this the good old 'the US shouldn't do anything 'cause China ain't' argument? Perhaps we should stop having costly and time-consuming elections, too, since, after all, China isn't having them? Maybe it's OK for me to stop respecting speed limits, since John Doe isn't?

Look, it doesn't matter what China does or doesn't do. If the US needs to cut emissions, it needs to cut emissions, regardless of what other nations are doing. I also find it quite interesting that if you ask a Chinese if they should cut emissions, they'll answer that nah, I don't see why we should, and too be honest, I don't see why you're picking on us. Look at how much the US emits every year, they have the highest Co2 emissions per capita in the world! Go bother them!

So in essence, you won't improve 'til China does, China won't improve 'til you do. Wow. Wonderful stalemate you've made yourself.

Well, I have not made any stalemate for myself.

There are two issues that I think you may have confused. The post you responded to was concerning - strictly - China coal mine fires that are basically burning out of control underground. I was saying that might be something we could actually go fix, with advanced technology. The guy that posted it was commenting that that one issue alone looked bigger than all our automotive emissions.

So we had not even got to the overall issue of Chinese emissions, which incidentally have already surpassed the USA. That we can go into if you like later, but I got to go now.

[CapelDodger]

Ethanol is not an answer, just one more cave in to the farm lobby.

Not so much a cave-in, more business-as-usual with some greenwash slapped on. The appearance of action while nothing changes. Well, no change there, then :) .

What I find significant is the need for greenwash in the first place. People (potential voters) are noticing stuff going on around them. Younger voters - and there are a lot of them - don't remember how things were back in the last glaciation. (Nor can I, but I blame it on the drugs.) Nor do they care. They're more focused on the present and future. And, increasingly, voters are being persuaded by their own experience that Something Should Be Done. So you have to make like something was done. That's politics. In Australia as it is in the US. Amen.

Don't say I didn't warn you. Old South Wales is the epitome of "medium" under any projection; New South Wales (Australia in general) not so much. Indonesia's hardly the neighbour-of-choice as thigs stand, let alone factoring in climate change. It's time to bug-out. In Old South Wales our neighbours are the English, Irish, Cornish, and way off in the distance the 'Murricans - who are focused on the Pacific. Like the Chinese and Japanese. And whatever develops in South America. The Pacific is where the Great Power game is being played now. Get out from under, is my advice.

[CapelDodger]

Really?

any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.




Economics fails that test.

Not to turn this into argument of semantics, but it was you that asked me if English was my second language.

So I did.

First you said evidence can't explain things ...

Nor can it. Explanations explain evidence.

... I said it can explain many things ...

So you did. I remain unpersuaded.

... you'd better inform the other idiots out there who think it can too:

Better for what? I'm talking to you, not these other guys.

Now you're saying Economics and Statistics are not science? Again, you need to straighten out Encyclopedia Britannica and edit Wikipedia to fit your definition:

I have no such need. I don't give a toss for the Britannica, and less for Wikipedia. Statistics is a branch of Mathematics; Mathematics is a science, it is worthy. Statistics isn't.

Economic "science" has always been biased towards an establishment view or has been so esoteric as to have no application to the real world. Economics is far more dependent on models as a research tool than the AGW argument is.



Considering AGW hypotheses is almost exclusively based on climate models and proxies ...

Almost exclusively. So there's some other stuff.


... how does that square with being a "science"?

I'm sure nobody's ever claimed that there's an "AGW Hypothesis" that is a "science". It seems to be more your end of things that's over-promoting.

And since climate science relies heavily on statistics, is it really a science either?

Climate science doesn't rely heavily on statistics. It's relies on, and emerges from, the science of Physics.

[David Rodale]

Climate science doesn't rely heavily on statistics. It's relies on, and emerges from, the science of Physics.
The very definition of climate is the use of statistics.

[mhaze]

Economics fails that test.

I have no such need. I don't give a toss for the Britannica, and less for Wikipedia. Statistics is a branch of Mathematics; Mathematics is a science, it is worthy. Statistics isn't.

Economic "science" has always been biased towards an establishment view or has been so esoteric as to have no application to the real world. Economics is far more dependent on models as a research tool than the AGW argument is.


Then you, thinking such, must eschew all conclusions favoring AGW based on statistics.

So you have no-

tree rings
ice cores
global temperatures
satellite temperature inferences
hockey stick
ice Mass balance
sea ice calculations

which leaves you with...

[David Rodale]

Then you, thinking such, must eschew all conclusions favoring AGW based on statistics.

So you have no-

tree rings
ice cores
global temperatures
satellite temperature inferences
hockey stick
ice Mass balance
sea ice calculations

which leaves you with...



Climate science doesn't rely heavily on statistics. It's relies on, and emerges from, the science of Physics.
1. Evidence can explain things
2. Statistics is science
3. Economics is science

And lastly, climate science does in fact rely heavily on statistics.

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11175&page=12
Climate is conventionally defined as the long-term statistics of the weather (e.g., temperature, cloudiness, precipitation).

http://geography.uoregon.edu/amarcus/geog620/Guest-Readings/zwiers-IntJClim-2004.pdf
The study of the climate system is, to a large extent, the study of the statistics of weather; so, it is not surprising that statistical reasoning, analysis and modelling are pervasive in the climatological sciences.

pervasive
per•va•sive
adjective
Definition:

present everywhere: spreading widely or present throughout something

Synonyms: all-encompassing, enveloping, invasive, omnipresent

[mhaze]

Is this the good old 'the US shouldn't do anything 'cause China ain't' argument? Perhaps we should stop having costly and time-consuming elections, too, since, after all, China isn't having them? Maybe it's OK for me to stop respecting speed limits, since John Doe isn't?

Look, it doesn't matter what China does or doesn't do. If the US needs to cut emissions, it needs to cut emissions, regardless of what other nations are doing. I also find it quite interesting that if you ask a Chinese if they should cut emissions, they'll answer that nah, I don't see why we should, and too be honest, I don't see why you're picking on us. Look at how much the US emits every year, they have the highest Co2 emissions per capita in the world! Go bother them!

So in essence, you won't improve 'til China does, China won't improve 'til you do. Wow. Wonderful stalemate you've made yourself.

It is meaningfully to carefully look at the actual emissions numbers before making statements of this sort...

US greenhouse gas emissions are about 7 gigaton per year. The (utterly worthless) Kyoto agreement requested a 6% reduction in emissions over the entire term.

6% of 7 gigatons is 420 megatons.
China's emissions from out of control coal fires are 400 megatons.

See?

The poster was asserting people need to be smart, and carefully think this stuff out on a numerical basis. Where that leads isn't where the progagandists a la Gore want to take you....

[lomiller]

From coyoteblog.com, a blogger with lots of cool stuff.

An Interesting Source of Man-Made Global Warming (http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2007/07/an-interesting-.html)
The US Historical Climate Network (USHCN) reports about a 0.6C temperature increase in the lower 48 states since about 1940. There are two steps to reporting these historic temperature numbers. First, actual measurements are taken. Second, adjustments are made after the fact by scientists to the data. Would you like to guess how much of the 0.6C temperature rise is from actual measured temperature increases and how much is due to adjustments of various levels of arbitrariness? Here it is, for the period from 1940 to present in the US:

Actual Measured Temperature Increase: 0.1C Adjustments and Fudge Factors: 0.5C Total Reported Warming: 0.6C Yes, that is correct. Nearly all the reported warming in the USHCN data base, which is used for nearly all global warming studies and models, is from human-added fudge factors, guesstimates, and corrections.

I know what you are thinking - this is some weird skeptic's urban legend. Well, actually it comes right from the NOAA web page (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/ushcn/ushcn.html) which describes how they maintain the USHCN data set. Below is the key chart from that site showing the sum of all the plug factors and corrections they add to the raw USHCN measurements:
http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1422446d1c990d7248.gif (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=7930)

(Mhaze commenting)

Coyote posted this back around June or July - before the NASA temperature corrections. Steve McIntyre's corrections to the NASA data are probably only the first of three or four sets of corrections that are coming.


Older readings were typically measured at noon, newer ones are typically taken in the morning. Are you suggesting this should not be corrected for? What next, take the readings at midnight? I’m sure you could hide at least a couple degrees of warming that way.

[lomiller]

1. Evidence can explain things
2. Statistics is science
3. Economics is science



As previously stated statistics is a branch of mathematics, and while mathematics is used extensively in science it is a decidedly different field. Economics generally doesn’t attempt to apply the scientific method, nor does it attempt to identify underlying physical phenomena so it doesn’t really qualify as a science.



And lastly, climate science does in fact rely heavily on statistics.

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11175&page=12


http://geography.uoregon.edu/amarcus/geog620/Guest-Readings/zwiers-IntJClim-2004.pdf




The use of statistics in climate science has little or nothing in common with the use of statistics in economics. In climate science statistics are used to describe an underlying phenomenon. A climate model doesn’t use statistics to generate it’s results it only uses them to report its results.

In contrast an economic model uses the statistics to find out what happened in the past and extrapolates them forward. This is a notoriously flawed way to use statistics.

[mhaze]

As previously stated statistics is a branch of mathematics, and while mathematics is used extensively in science it is a decidedly different field. Economics generally doesn’t attempt to apply the scientific method, nor does it attempt to identify underlying physical phenomena so it doesn’t really qualify as a science.

The use of statistics in climate science has little or nothing in common with the use of statistics in economics. In climate science statistics are used to describe an underlying phenomenon. A climate model doesn’t use statistics to generate it’s results it only uses them to report its results.

In contrast an economic model uses the statistics to find out what happened in the past and extrapolates them forward. This is a notoriously flawed way to use statistics.

By your reasoning the IPCC projections of scientific and economic consequences of global warming then are notoriously flawed.

[BeAChooser]

10mm per annum spanning the shift between glaciation and interglaciation - a cataclysmic shift

No, 10 mm per year over 10,000 years, instead of a decrease that lasted only a few thousand years at the start of the 20,000 year period like you wanted readers to believe was the case.

Quote:
Notice that between 7,000 and 4,000 years ago, when man wasn't producing much CO2, sea levels rose about 2.5 meters in a linear fashion ... that's an average of about 0.8mm per year. Notice that from 3,000 years ago to 2,000 years ago, sea level rose a meter ... 1.0mm per year. Yet Henry Ford wasn't to be born for another 2000 years. So why are you sure we are the culprit for a 0.4mm rise per year over a time span of only the last 5 years?

Because I can spot a specious argument when I see one.

Yeah, right. (sarcasm)

What is specious is you trying to give readers the impression that the major loss of ice (and therefore rise in sea levels) was over a span of few thousand years at the start of the 20,000 year period. The chart I linked clearly shows that over 65 percent of the last 20,000 year time period, the sea levels have risen many times faster than the rise that you walarmists are excited about happening over only the last 5 years or so. On that basis, you want us to jump off an economic cliff. That's specious.

7,000 years ago agriculture was just starting to get into its exponential stride. By 4,000 years ago it was dominant pretty much everywhere. Are you sure that warming wasn't anthropogenic?

Oh this just gets funnier and funnier. Now the walarmists want us to stop growing food too? ROTFLOL!

The recently measured increase could be a blip.

Yet the walarmists insist we jump off an economic cliff.

Quote:
... and you are ready to jump off an economic cliff ...

Standard contrarian alarmism.

Tell us, SPECIFICALLY, what measures will be needed to immediately freeze greenhouse-gas emissions and see a 90 percent cut in those emissions by 2050 as proposed by Gore and his friends. Let's see if my concerns are just alarmism.

[mhaze]

Now the walarmists want us to stop growing food too? ROTFLOL!

Yet the walarmists insist we jump off an economic cliff.

Tell us, SPECIFICALLY, what measures will be needed to immediately freeze greenhouse-gas emissions and see a 90 percent cut in those emissions by 2050 as proposed by Gore and his friends. Let's see if my concerns are just alarmism.

A comparison of specific strategies on the macro scale, eh? Taking into account probable growth patterns of southeast Asia and China?

Easy to do really, but the results do not bode well for alarmists.
Particularly for fundamentalist faith based reasoning by the Gored.

[mhaze]

Older readings were typically measured at noon, newer ones are typically taken in the morning. Are you suggesting this should not be corrected for?

Of course not. But corrections of this sort were devised long ago, back when nobody seriously thought anyone would be hunting for accuracy in the plus or minus a tenth C range. Which by the way is right at the limit of accuracy of the instrument.

So old rules of thumb such as "add 0.3 C" which used to seem basically logical, well, now, a 0.3 C rise is a big deal.

[CapelDodger]

1. Evidence can explain things
2. Statistics is science
3. Economics is science


Evidence explains nothing, it's passive, it just sits there and gets observed. Explanations - hypotheses, theories, the case for the prosecution/defence, whatever - explain evidence.

Statistics is scientific, but not a science. Economics is not scientific, it's more akin to history (which is also not scientific).

And lastly, climate science does in fact rely heavily on statistics.

http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11175&page=12

"Climate is conventionally defined as the long-term statistics of the weather (e.g., temperature, cloudiness, precipitation). "

That's a definition of climate, not of climate science. Climate science is concerned with explaining the observed climate. (More properly, observed climates, since it has other planets to work with.) Those explanations are drawn from, and so are fully integrated with, the wider sphere of science - thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, fluid dynamics, to name but a few.

http://geography.uoregon.edu/amarcus/geog620/Guest-Readings/zwiers-IntJClim-2004.pdf

"The study of the climate system is, to a large extent, the study of the statistics of weather
."

(My emphasis)

Given that climate is conventionally defined as the long-term statistics of weather (see above) this boils down to "the study of climate is the study of climate".


pervasive


per•va•sive
adjective
Definition:

present everywhere: spreading widely or present throughout something

Synonyms: all-encompassing, enveloping, invasive, omnipresent




Arithmetic is pervasive in economics, but economics as a discipline does not rely heavily on arithmetic. Economics is a body of theories that attempt to explain what the arithmetic reveals. These theories draw on a wider sociological discipline (which includes history) concerned with human behaviour.

Climate science is a body of theories that attempt to explain the observed statistics of weather (aka the climate) by reference to established science. Cake science (it exists; cakes and pastries are a massive business) is a body of theories yadda yadda. There's nothing intrinsically special about climate science. Or cake science.

Beer science is another matter entirely, of course.

[CapelDodger]

Then you, thinking such, must eschew all conclusions favoring AGW based on statistics.

Could you run me through the the train of logic that leads you to this conclusion? It may seem obvious to you, but I can't see it.

So you have no-

tree rings
ice cores
global temperatures
satellite temperature inferences
hockey stick
ice Mass balance
sea ice calculations

which leaves you with...

The observable real world and a sound body of science to explain it. I don't really need statistics to see what's going on around me, and in this day and age "around me" is pretty much global. And my observations are not unexpected. Bump up the CO2-load, bump up the temperature. Hey, look what's happening. The tree-line moves northwards and upwards, Alpine glaciers retreat, ticks move into new territory, extreme (from a human perspective) weather events become more frequent.
Despite decades of contrarian knawing at the Hockey-Stick, the blade just keeps getting longer. It must be dispiriting. It probably explains why Diamond thread-hops so compulsively.

There's no refuge in the past, so I don't seek one. Global climate reconstructions are interesting but not terribly relevant. There's no historical equivalent to our current situation.

[mhaze]

Could you run me through the the train of logic that leads you to this conclusion? It may seem obvious to you, but I can't see it.

The observable real world and a sound body of science to explain it.

I don't really need statistics to see what's going on around me, and in this day and age "around me" is pretty much global. And my observations are not unexpected. Bump up the CO2-load, bump up the temperature. Hey, look what's happening. The tree-line moves northwards and upwards, Alpine glaciers retreat, ticks move into new territory, extreme (from a human perspective) weather events become more frequent.
Despite decades of contrarian knawing at the Hockey-Stick, the blade just keeps getting longer. It must be dispiriting. It probably explains why Diamond thread-hops so compulsively.


Why, now that you mention it, a particularly bad type of ant did move up here from the south, Mexico and thereabouts. We call them Fire Ants.

Now I flat out never though to blame that on man made Global Warming!

[CapelDodger]

No, 10 mm per year over 10,000 years, instead of a decrease that lasted only a few thousand years at the start of the 20,000 year period like you wanted readers to believe was the case.

You're using global figures here. You originally referred specifically to Antarctica, which is what I was responding to. Antarctic ice-mass is inherently stable (latitude, altitude, configuration). Last to respond, first to stop responding. A few thousand years, in the middle of the Big Melt that swept Big Ice from the Pennines.

Yeah, right. (sarcasm)

You think I can't spot a specious argument? Try me.

What is specious is you trying to give readers the impression that the major loss of ice (and therefore rise in sea levels) was over a span of few thousand years at the start of the 20,000 year period.

That wouldn't be specious, it would be misleading. Of course I said nothing to suggest that the catastrophic shift from glacial maximum to intergalacial took place at the start of that period. I assumed general knowledge of the last glacial-interglacial phase-shift, which certainly didn't follow right after the glacial maximum.

The chart I linked clearly shows that over 65 percent of the last 20,000 year time period, the sea levels have risen many times faster than the rise that you walarmists are excited about happening over only the last 5 years or so.

The graph shows three very distinct phases : a slow increase in sea-level (and, by proxy, global temperature) followed by a very steep increase giving way to a yet slower increase over a period that includes the discovery of agriculture and politics. And now has a human population of six billion plus.


On that basis, you want us to jump off an economic cliff.

If by "us" you include you, I'm neutral on that. If you want it, do it. All I want is a quiet life.

That's specious.

You came up with it, so nobody's surprised.

Oh this just gets funnier and funnier. Now the walarmists want us to stop growing food too? ROTFLOL!

Could you go into more detail on that rather idiosyncratic exegesis?

At this point you switch focus from me, CapelDodger, to "the walarmists". I find this dehumanisation rather alarming.

Yet the walarmists insist we jump off an economic cliff.

They really want to see you do it on YouTube. That's what I'm picking up from the chatter.

Tell us, SPECIFICALLY, what measures will be needed to immediately freeze greenhouse-gas emissions and see a 90 percent cut in those emissions by 2050 as proposed by Gore and his friends. Let's see if my concerns are just alarmism.

And then you start giving orders. So it seems I wasn't falsely alarmed.

Note the Gore twitch. It does you no favours.

[CapelDodger]

Why, now that you mention it, a particularly bad type of ant did move up here from the south, Mexico and thereabouts. We call them Fire Ants.

Now I flat out never though to blame that on man made Global Warming!

Why would you? They probably got carried across an ecological barrier by modern transport. Hitching a lift, essentially. The fire-ant problem predates AGW.

[David Rodale]

Evidence explains nothing, it's passive, it just sits there and gets observed. Explanations - hypotheses, theories, the case for the prosecution/defence, whatever - explain evidence.

Statistics is scientific, but not a science. Economics is not scientific, it's more akin to history (which is also not scientific).





That's a definition of climate, not of climate science. Climate science is concerned with explaining the observed climate. (More properly, observed climates, since it has other planets to work with.) Those explanations are drawn from, and so are fully integrated with, the wider sphere of science - thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, fluid dynamics, to name but a few.




(My emphasis)

Given that climate is conventionally defined as the long-term statistics of weather (see above) this boils down to "the study of climate is the study of climate".






Arithmetic is pervasive in economics, but economics as a discipline does not rely heavily on arithmetic. Economics is a body of theories that attempt to explain what the arithmetic reveals. These theories draw on a wider sociological discipline (which includes history) concerned with human behaviour.

Climate science is a body of theories that attempt to explain the observed statistics of weather (aka the climate) by reference to established science. Cake science (it exists; cakes and pastries are a massive business) is a body of theories yadda yadda. There's nothing intrinsically special about climate science. Or cake science.



Beer science is another matter entirely, of course.



Many Americans have what some (most?) would consider and odd affection for British humor. Monty Python and the Holy Grail has become a cult classic here. At this point, your arguments remind me of the scene where Arthur wants to cross the bridge, but the Black Knight refuses passage. Who can forget this:
Black Knight: None shall pass.
Arthur: What?
Black Knight: None shall pass.
Arthur: I have no quarrel with you, good Sir Knight, but I must cross this bridge.
Black Knight: Then you shall die.
Arthur: I command you as King of the Britons to stand aside!
Black Knight: I move for no man.
Arthur: So be it!

Arthur cuts off the Black Knight's left arm.

Arthur: Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
Black Knight: 'Tis but a scratch.
Arthur: A scratch? Your arm's off!
Black Knight: No, it isn't.
Arthur: Well, what's that then?
Black Knight: I've had worse.
Arthur: You liar!
Black Knight: Come on you pansy!

Arthur cuts off the Black Knight's right arm.

Arthur: Victory is mine! We thank thee Lord, that in thy mercy...

Black Knight: Come on then.
Arthur: What?
Black Knight: Have at you!
Arthur: You are indeed brave, Sir Knight, but the fight is mine.
Black Knight: Oh, had enough, eh?
Arthur: Look, you stupid bastard, you've got no arms left.
Black Knight: Yes I have.
Arthur: Look!
Black Knight: Just a flesh wound.
Arthur: Look, stop that.
Black Knight: Chicken! Chicken!
Arthur: Look, I'll have your leg. Right!

Arthur cuts off the Black Knight's leg.


Black Knight: Right, I'll do you for that!
Arthur: You'll what?
Black Knight: Come 'ere!
Arthur: What are you going to do, bleed on me?
Black Knight: I'm invincible!
Arthur: You're a loony.
Black Knight: The Black Knight always triumphs! Have at you! Come on then.

Arthur cuts off the Black Knight's other leg.

Black Knight: All right; we'll call it a draw.
Arthur: Come, Patsy.
Black Knight: Oh, oh, I see, running away then. You yellow bastard! Come back here and take what's coming to you. I'll bite your legs off!

Now you are saying
Despite decades of contrarian knawing at the Hockey-Stick, the blade just keeps getting longer.

The problem is, there was no such thing as the "hockey stick" prior to the IPCC 2001 report (actually MBH98/99). Up until then, IPCC used the hundreds of previous studies and historical evidence for MWP, using the correct temperature record. The statistically challenged and systematically erroneous Mann hockey stick is nowhere to be found in 2007, yet like the Black Knight, IPCC refuses to formerly admit defeat.

Since you have no limbs left, I think it unfair to lop off your proverbial head. Have at it, however don't expect a response to yet another convoluted nonsensical speech.

[BeAChooser]

You're using global figures here.

Why not? We're talking about "global" warming. :)

Of course I said nothing to suggest that the catastrophic shift from glacial maximum to intergalacial took place at the start of that period.

Yes you did. That exact reason was given by you as to why most of the ice must have melted in Antartica in the first few thousand years of a 20,000 year period.

giving way to a yet slower increase over a period that includes the discovery of agriculture and politics.

The increase from 3000 to 2000 years was 1 mm per year, faster than the one from 7000 to 4000 years ago, and both were much faster than the one occurring the last 5 years. So jumping off that economic cliff may be a bit premature.

Quote:
Tell us, SPECIFICALLY, what measures will be needed to immediately freeze greenhouse-gas emissions and see a 90 percent cut in those emissions by 2050 as proposed by Gore and his friends. Let's see if my concerns are just alarmism.

And then you start giving orders. So it seems I wasn't falsely alarmed.

Now you've become a comic. Well at least you will do less harm at that than if you push for global walarmist economic suggestions ... that you don't wnat to define. :D

[mhaze]

Why would you? They probably got carried across an ecological barrier by modern transport. Hitching a lift, essentially. The fire-ant problem predates AGW.

I seem to recall it was a gradual invasion in the 1980s, in the northward direction.

[mhaze]

Now you are saying Despite decades of contrarian knawing at the Hockey-Stick, the blade just keeps getting longer.
The problem is, there was no such thing as the "hockey stick" prior to the IPCC 2001 report (actually MBH98/99). Up until then, IPCC used the hundreds of previous studies and historical evidence for MWP, using the correct temperature record. The statistically challenged and systematically erroneous Mann hockey stick is nowhere to be found in 2007, yet like the Black Knight, IPCC refuses to formerly admit defeat.Is there a similarity between that hockey stick blade and Pinocchio's nose?

[mhaze]

Why not? We're talking about "global" warming.

Funny thing happening over at www.climateaudit.org (http://www.climateaudit.org).

"Unthreaded" messages is a general blog, it is now up to section #18 (http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1882#comment-131405), and McIntyre refuses to start #19 unless people stop talking about CO2 and just talk statistics. So the section is up to about 600 messages and gets slower and slower to load. And that is with the new warp speed server.

Starve'em off by slowing access to a crawl, if they want to talk CO2.

Keep the site pure, says Steve.

Stick to statistics and just auditing the numbers.

Well, what do you expect from a math whiz?

But this CO2 chatter won't quit.

Wonder if they are on to something...

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Now they are reviewing Africa datasets and the results looks interesting also. What would be the excuse this time?

[CapelDodger]

I seem to recall it was a gradual invasion in the 1980s, in the northward direction.

It would be gradual either way, but did it pass through all points in-between? If not, global warming is surely not to blame. Even if so, it doesn't finger AGW definitively, since it could be down to changes in land-use (apart from anything else). Irrigation, both agricultural and by suburban sprinklers, might explain it. Make the desert bloom, and look who turns up unexpectedly :) . Or not, whatever, bet your life the explanation conforms to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

[CapelDodger]

Now they are reviewing Africa datasets and the results looks interesting also. What would be the excuse this time?

I suggest you exercise your imagination. Try to put yourself in the position of one of these excuse-givers and, with your knowledge of the interesting results, come up with the retort before they do. It would gain you a big chunk of credibility around here, and even out there. You can pitch as many as you like, they're all good.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

May I wait until they finish the revision of Antarctica?
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1985

[BobK]

Here is a well reasoned article.Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural? (http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp)
IN THE PAST few years there has been increasing concern about global climate change on the part of the media, politicians, and the public. It has been stimulated by the idea that human activities may influence global climate adversely and that therefore corrective action is required on the part of governments. Recent evidence suggests that this concern is misplaced. Human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way. Climate will continue to change, as it always has in the past, warming and cooling on different time scales and for different reasons, regardless of human action. I would also argue that—should it occur—a modest warming would be on the whole beneficial.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Very good article. Thanks BobK.

Here is a well reasoned article.Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural? (http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp)

[mhaze]

It would be gradual either way, but did it pass through all points in-between? If not, global warming is surely not to blame. Even if so, it doesn't finger AGW definitively,

to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

But...

Fire Ants.
Spreading.
World wide.
Hot ants.
AGW
Ant Global Warming.

[CapelDodger]

Why not? We're talking about "global" warming. :)

This exchange started with your introduction of the 0.5mm pa Antarctic contribution. Over twenty thousand years. Which you compared with a 0.4mm pa global sea-level rise today. For no apparent reason. You swing about between "Antarctic" and "global" in a confused and confusing manner. The Antarctic is by no means representative of the globe. Very much the opposite.

Yes you did.

No, I didn't. I am well aware of the difference between a glacial maximum and a tipping-point, as are most people around here. Your own presented sea-level reconstruction shows a slow melting from the glacial maximum - hardly surprising, given that "maximum" vibe - a rapid melting over the glacial-interglacial tipping-point and phase-shift, and not much happening at all afterwards. That's nearly everybody's understanding of the end of the Ice Age.

That exact reason was given by you as to why most of the ice must have melted in Antartica in the first few thousand years of a 20,000 year period.

You're back to Antarctica, but that aside, what was this exact reason I gave? By your comprehension? I try to be precise, but if I'm failing I'd like to know why.



The increase from 3000 to 2000 years was 1 mm per year, faster than the one from 7000 to 4000 years ago, and both were much faster than the one occurring the last 5 years.

Well there's a thing. Those guys coped, why shouldn't we? The world's a bit different now, of course, but in principle it's encouraging. It may not have been painless back then, it won't be painless now. But we'll cope, in a communal sense.

So jumping off that economic cliff may be a bit premature.

I always say, wait until you're pushed, because maybe you won't be. I don't say it often, of course, since it so seldom comes up in conversation.


Now you've become a comic. Well at least you will do less harm at that than if you push for global walarmist economic suggestions ... that you don't wnat to define. :D

You made the word "walarmist" up. Unless you stole it. Now you crave a definition. What's that all about?

I'm here for Science, bud. I don't give a toss about policies. I frankly don't care. It's not as if this sort of thing hasn't happened before in this vast Universe.

If you want to froth about policies there's plenty of room on the Politics forum. Trust me, I've been there, done that. Got the T-shirt and ceremonially burnt it. You'll make new friends, and enemies you can get your teeth into.

I wonder how the debate's getting on over there ...

[CapelDodger]

But...

Fire Ants.
Spreading.
World wide.
Hot ants.
AGW
Ant Global Warming.

A whimsical parody of a strawman with the haiku element. Clever.

(Clever is always good :) .)

[mhaze]

Very good article. Thanks BobK.

Indeed.

[a_unique_person]

Here is a well reasoned article.Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural? (http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis.asp)

Try telling Australians warming will be beneficial. Once again, the rains have failed. We already have less rainfall this year, when La Nina was supposed to bring us extra rain, than last year, which was the end of an El Nino.

[a_unique_person]

Singer refers to the disprepancy between predicted temperatures in the troposphere and the measured temperatures as proof that the warming is not anthropogenic.



The fact that the observed and predicted patterns of warming don’t match indicates that the man-made greenhouse contribution to current temperature change is insignificant. This fact emerges from data and graphs collected in the Climate Change Science Program Report 1.1, published by the federal government in April 2006 (see www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/default.htm (http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/default.htm)). It is remarkable and puzzling that few have noticed this disparity between observed and predicted patterns of warming and drawn the obvious scientific conclusion.



From the report.



Previously reported discrepancies between the amount of warming near the surface and higher in the atmosphere have been used to challenge the reliability of climate models and the reality of humaninduced global warming. Specifically, surface data showed substantial global-average warming, while early versions of satellite and radiosonde data showed little or no warming above the surface. This significant discrepancy no longer exists because errors in the satellite and radiosonde data have been identified and corrected. New data sets have also been developed that do not show such discrepancies.

Did Singer even read this document? I'm failing to see the 'well reasoned' part. Did I miss something?

[a_unique_person]

Singer states



What explains why greenhouse computer models predict temperature trends that are so much larger than those observed? The answer lies in the proper evaluation of feedback within the models. Remember that in addition to carbon dioxide, the real atmosphere contains water vapor, the most powerful greenhouse gas. Every one of the climate models calculates a significant positive feedback from water vapor—i.e., a feedback that amplifies the warming effect of the CO2 increase by an average factor of two or three. But it is quite possible that the water vapor feedback is negative rather than positive and thereby reduces the effect of increased CO2.

There are several ways this might occur. For example, when increased CO2 produces a warming of the ocean, a higher rate of evaporation might lead to more humidity and cloudiness (provided the atmosphere contains a sufficient number of cloud condensation nuclei). These low clouds reflect incoming solar radiation back into space and thereby cool the earth. Climate researchers have discovered other possible feedbacks and are busy evaluating which ones enhance and which diminish the effect of increasing CO2.



That is, he has no evidence that this is true.

[a_unique_person]

He makes an interesting contradiction in the space of just a few paragraphs.



What about the fact that carbon dioxide levels are increasing at the same time temperatures are rising? That’s an interesting correlation; but as every scientist knows, correlation is not causation.





A paper published in Nature in 2001 describes the Oxygen-18 data (reflecting temperature) from a stalagmite in a cave in Oman, covering a period of over 3,000 years. It also shows corresponding Carbon-14 data, which are directly related to the intensity of cosmic rays striking the earth’s atmosphere. One sees there a remarkably detailed correlation, almost on a year-by-year basis. While such research cannot establish the detailed mechanism of climate change, the causal connection is quite clear: Since the stalagmite temperature cannot affect the sun, it is the sun that affects climate.




Once again, am I missing something?

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

I'm not English native speaker, but "this might occur. For example, when increased CO2 produces a warming of the ocean, a higher rate of evaporation might lead to more humidity and cloudiness (provided the atmosphere contains a sufficient number of cloud condensation nuclei)" means to me that he is propossing basis for new models, not stating baseless claims.
And that sound quite reasonable.


Singer states



That is, he has no evidence that this is true.

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

You are being dishonest.
The date of the "correction" to the final report (I hope that "correction" has more "corrections" than cherry picking the data to make it fit the models, as Nasa usually do) is May 2 2006 (look at the date ). Singer was talking about the version available when he made his speech,April 2006.

Singer refers to the disprepancy between predicted temperatures in the troposphere and the measured temperatures as proof that the warming is not anthropogenic.



From the report.

Did Singer even read this document? I'm failing to see the 'well reasoned' part. Did I miss something?

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

You missed this "Since the stalagmite temperature cannot affect the sun, it is the sun that affects climate." and the will to examinate the evidence instead of simply tossing this example as irrelevant.
He makes an interesting contradiction in the space of just a few paragraphs.


[/COLOR][/FONT]



Once again, am I missing something?
[/COLOR][/FONT]

[a_unique_person]

You are being dishonest.
The date of the "correction" to the final report (I hope that "correction" has more "corrections" than cherry picking the data to make it fit the models, as Nasa usually do) is May 2 2006 (look at the date ). Singer was talking about the version available when he made his speech,April 2006.

No



The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on the Hillsdale College campus on June 30, 2007, during a seminar entitled “Economics and the Environment,” sponsored by the Charles R. and Kathleen K. Hoogland Center for Teacher Excellence.



He made the speech this year, and the Web Page was put up August this year.

So I guess we drop that point from his well reasoned article.

[a_unique_person]

I'm not English native speaker, but "this might occur. For example, when increased CO2 produces a warming of the ocean, a higher rate of evaporation might lead to more humidity and cloudiness (provided the atmosphere contains a sufficient number of cloud condensation nuclei)" means to me that he is propossing basis for new models, not stating baseless claims.
And that sound quite reasonable.

I'll just sit back and wait for him to actually research this idea. I won't be holding my breath.

[a_unique_person]

You missed this "Since the stalagmite temperature cannot affect the sun, it is the sun that affects climate." and the will to examinate the evidence instead of simply tossing this example as irrelevant.

I'm just pointing out a discrepancy in his reasoning. He acknowledges CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but does nothing to examine it as a climate driver, instead running down every rabbit hole he can find that isn't CO2.

Of course the sun is the ultimate driver of climate. When it goes out, no amount of CO2 is going to warm the earth. If it goes red giant, it will eat the earth. That's not the point. The point is, what is driving climate now? We have a change in the global temperature, but no change in the sun.

[a_unique_person]

You will note that this has been a rational discussion. We asked the important question of whether there is appreciable man-made warming today. We presented evidence that indicates there is not, thereby suggesting that attempts by governments to control greenhouse-gas emissions are pointless and unwise.



I must have missed that part.

[bobdroege7]

What about the fact that carbon dioxide levels are increasing at the same time temperatures are rising? That’s an interesting correlation; but as every scientist knows, correlation is not causation. During much of the last century the climate was cooling while CO2 levels were rising. And we should note that the climate has not warmed in the past eight years, even though greenhouse gas levels have increased rapidly.

Two errors in the last two sentences.

the world was not cooling for much of the last century

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/new_Fig.A2_lrg.gif

the climate has warmed in the last 8 years.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/GlobalWarmingUpdate/

What's more, he claims that temperature increases on the surface are not matched by high altitude measurements, but that is not what the executive summary of the finding he quoted in his report.

http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap1-1/finalreport/default.htm

I can't post the link to the executive summary because it is a pdf, sorry.

It is remarkable and puzzling that few have noticed this disparity between observed and predicted patterns of warming and drawn the obvious scientific conclusion.


Yes indeed.

[bobdroege7]

Hey, who needs schneibster,

AUP and I will debunk anything you guys come up with.

"sound of pump action shotgun chambering another round"

[a_unique_person]

Hey, who needs schneibster,

AUP and I will debunk anything you guys come up with.

"sound of pump action shotgun chambering another round"

What happened to schneibster? I'm just an amateur, he had a great deal of in depth knowledge. He also made some extremely well reasoned arguments.:p

[Geckko]

Try telling Australians warming will be beneficial. Once again, the rains have failed. We already have less rainfall this year, when La Nina was supposed to bring us extra rain, than last year, which was the end of an El Nino.

I thought there hsd been rain aplenty (albeit a lot more is needed to keep replenishing stores). I went to the Bureau of Meteorology to check and found this:

Rainfall from Feb-July this year compared with historical averages. Doesn't look like it has failed:

ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/rainfall/anomaly/6month/colour/latest.gif

Rainfall deficiency over the same period (I could only find two seperate maps to cover the year to date as best I could:

ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/drought/3month/colour/history/nat/2007020120070430.gif

ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/drought/3month/colour/history/nat/2007050120070731.gif

Where did you get you information on recent rainfall problems?

[a_unique_person]

Woops, had been listening to my wife read out this story, and misunderstood it. Rainfall has been average or below average for much of the state. That is, not what we need to get out of a drought situation.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/water-warning-as-rain-hopes-turn-to-dust/2007/08/25/1187462590525.html?page=2



MELBOURNE'S water storages are now 151 billion litres — or almost 10 per cent below where they were at the end of last winter, and householders should prepare for even tougher restrictions this summer.
With no significant rain predicted across the metropolitan area in the final week of winter, the early promise of winter rains significantly boosting Melbourne's water storages have been dashed.
The National Climate Centre warned earlier this year that Victoria would need two years of above-average rainfall to break the drought, but, with the exception of Gippsland, most of the state was average or below by the last week of winter.
There is also a less than 50 per cent chance most of the state will receive average spring rains, according to the climate centre's long-term forecasts.
"The outlook is on the pessimistic side," centre spokesman Grant Beard said.
"The drought has not ended by any stretch. We have been saying from early on that we would need a couple of years of above average rain (to break the drought)."
Hopes raised earlier this year that a La Nina weather phenomenon — associated with wetter weather — was developing over the Pacific Ocean, have also been downgraded.





There has been significant flooding around Australia, but the SE Queensland has a similar problem. Extreme flooding all around it, but only small falls in catchment areas. Melbourne's water storage has had a slight blip since last year, but is still about 8% less than it was at the same time last year.

Farmers are going to make a fortune on wheat crops this year, if it rains again....

[mhaze]

So I guess we drop that point from his well reasoned article.

In your leap to "debunk" the article and indicate that Singer had not read the source document that largely reconciled troposphere and surface measurements, you left off the first sentence of Singer's comments, in which he restricts his comments to the tropics. You have then proceeded to take the general conclusion of the report as evidence that Singer is wrong, instead of the specific conclusions or lack of in the report regarding the tropics.

I assume this is an honest error on your part. Quoting from Singer, the first sentence is the one you left out - For instance, theoretically, greenhouse warming in the tropics should register at increasingly high rates as one moves from the surface of the earth up into the atmosphere, peaking at about six miles above the earth’s surface. At that point, the level should be greater than at the surface by about a factor of three and quite pronounced, according to all the computer models. In reality, however, there is no increase at all. In fact, the data from balloon-borne radiosondes show the very opposite: a slight decrease in warming over the equator.

The fact that the observed and predicted patterns of warming don’t match indicates that the man-made greenhouse contribution to current temperature change is insignificant.

Regarding Singer's speculation about the predictions from the models showing too much warming, you take exception with his suggestions as to possible causes for that. I don't get it. Surely everyone would want to reconcile the models with reality. What is wrong with making suggestions as to the corrections based on real world evidence?

Singer, in these two comments, (if I understand them right, and if the reporter who wrote this article got them right) indicates that he would like an evidence based calibration of the models and theory. Sounds pretty basic, but you argue against that?

Further, Singer has recently published a book based on ice core data that indicates a natural 1500 year cycle of warming. The stalagmite data is in reference to that.

Bob, since we know that the planet was coming out of a little ice age in the last century, how can you assert that Singer's comment that the planet was cooling for much of the last century to be incorrect (your link goes nowhere). As for Singer's saying the last 8 years showed no significant warming, on this very thread we have seen that opinion and its opposite both displayed, with supporting charts.

So Singer has raised a question worth looking into regarding an anomaly in the tropics troposphere temperature and he as made some reasonable comments as to why models don't match evidence. He has studied stalagmite and ice core data and written a book asserting that we have a 1,500 natural cycle of temperature, and asserts that temperatures today are a result of that.

I believe that covers the issues raised by AUP and Bob. Note the big picture from Singer's concluding paragraphs -

The nations of the world face many difficult problems. Many have societal problems like poverty, disease, lack of sanitation, and shortage of clean water. There are grave security problems arising from global terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Any of these problems are vastly more important than the imaginary problem of man-made global warming. It is a great shame that so many of our resources are being diverted from real problems to this non-problem.

Finally,

"sound of pump action shotgun chambering another round"The sword moves faster than an opponent's reaction time; but in Texas we prefer chain saws.
That arm holding the shotgun, did it used to be part of you?

[mhaze]

In your leap to "debunk" the article and indicate that Singer had not read the source document that largely reconciled troposphere and surface measurements, you left off the first sentence of Singer's comments...

Finally,

"sound of pump action shotgun chambering another round"The sword moves faster than an opponent's reaction time; but in Texas we prefer chain saws.
That arm holding the shotgun, did it used to be part of you?


http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf

This is a link to a summary of Singer's theory (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf) of the 1,500 year climate cycle, excerpted from his book.

If you want to debunk something, here is something that you may click on with your one remaining arm - and read with your two eyes - as long as your head remains attached.

Debunk Singer's core theory, of the 1,500 year climate cycle.

[a_unique_person]

In your leap to "debunk" the article and indicate that Singer had not read the source document that largely reconciled troposphere and surface measurements, you left off the first sentence of Singer's comments, in which he restricts his comments to the tropics. You have then proceeded to take the general conclusion of the report as evidence that Singer is wrong, instead of the specific conclusions or lack of in the report regarding the tropics.

I assume this is an honest error on your part. Quoting from Singer, the first sentence is the one you left out -For instance, theoretically, greenhouse warming in the tropics should register at increasingly high rates as one moves from the surface of the earth up into the atmosphere, peaking at about six miles above the earth’s surface. At that point, the level should be greater than at the surface by about a factor of three and quite pronounced, according to all the computer models. In reality, however, there is no increase at all. In fact, the data from balloon-borne radiosondes show the very opposite: a slight decrease in warming over the equator.

The fact that the observed and predicted patterns of warming don’t match indicates that the man-made greenhouse contribution to current temperature change is insignificant.

Regarding Singer's speculation about the predictions from the models showing too much warming, you take exception with his suggestions as to possible causes for that. I don't get it. Surely everyone would want to reconcile the models with reality. What is wrong with making suggestions as to the corrections based on real world evidence?

Singer, in these two comments, (if I understand them right, and if the reporter who wrote this article got them right) indicates that he would like an evidence based calibration of the models and theory. Sounds pretty basic, but you argue against that?

Further, Singer has recently published a book based on ice core data that indicates a natural 1500 year cycle of warming. The stalagmite data is in reference to that.

Bob, since we know that the planet was coming out of a little ice age in the last century, how can you assert that Singer's comment that the planet was cooling for much of the last century to be incorrect (your link goes nowhere). As for Singer's saying the last 8 years showed no significant warming, on this very thread we have seen that opinion and its opposite both displayed, with supporting charts.

So Singer has raised a question worth looking into regarding an anomaly in the tropics troposphere temperature and he as made some reasonable comments as to why models don't match evidence. He has studied stalagmite and ice core data and written a book asserting that we have a 1,500 natural cycle of temperature, and asserts that temperatures today are a result of that.

I believe that covers the issues raised by AUP and Bob. Note the big picture from Singer's concluding paragraphs - The nations of the world face many difficult problems. Many have societal problems like poverty, disease, lack of sanitation, and shortage of clean water. There are grave security problems arising from global terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Any of these problems are vastly more important than the imaginary problem of man-made global warming. It is a great shame that so many of our resources are being diverted from real problems to this non-problem.
Finally,

"sound of pump action shotgun chambering another round"The sword moves faster than an opponent's reaction time; but in Texas we prefer chain saws.
That arm holding the shotgun, did it used to be part of you?


He conveniently ignores the message of the report, and cherry picks what he wants to hear. The summary makes it perfectly clear what the science has found, and it's not his cherry picking. I know what is 'reasoning' is.

Singer, as is usual for this crowd, publishes a book. He deliberately avoids following the scientific process, while criticising the findings of those following the scientific process.
http://mustelid.blogspot.com/2005/07/more-satellite-stuff-including.html


But in seeking to understand recent warming, we also have to consider the natural factors that have regularly warmed the climate prior to the industrial revolution and, indeed, prior to any human presence on the earth. After all, the geological record shows a persistent 1,500-year cycle of warming and cooling extending back at least one million years.

That's it for his evaluation of the scientific evidence. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but we also have to look at the natural cycles. In other words, he's off down every rabbit burrow but the one he wants to avoid, CO2. Nowhere in his speech does consider the evidence for CO2 beyond acknowledging it is a greenhouse gas.

Where does Singer get his figures from? None other than his friend Christy.



The problem is, what's of interest to everyone is the lower troposphere (e.g. - 1000-800 hPa roughly) and this isn't directly measured by MSU's (it needs to be remembered that these devices, which have been in service since the 70's, were not designed with global warming data gathering in mind). About 15 years ago Spencer and Christy discovered that the side-looking and straight-down views of the MSU sensors across each of its sweeps could be factored and combined in a way that would give a temperature for the lower part of the troposphere. Because it is derived from the MSU Channel 2 data by formula, this was referred to as a "synthetic" channel and designated "2LT". With the latest versions, UAH has begun designating this as "TLT".

So TLT is UAH's lower troposphere temperature product that is derived from the actual MSU Channel 2 measurements. What they designate as "TMT" is their uncorrected Channel 2 product that gives the "middle" troposphere.

The contention over all this due partly to the fact that this TLT derivation process applied to side looking sensor views has a fair amount of sampling noise. The RSS and Prabhakara teams avoided this by simply sticking with the middle troposphere and uncorrected downward looking views. The Fu et al. method applied to Channel 2 measurements corrects these to yield something very similar to the band TLT represents and would provide a more direct TLT comparison. So in summary,

Quick, where is McIntyre. Tell him to start sharpening his pencils. Get the blogosphere out and tell them to look at those satellite temperature records, for they aren't records at all, but derived figures that are a little contentious.
http://www.scottchurchdirect.com/global-warming-troposphere.aspx?D=120&Pg=6


In light of the previous discussions, we can summarize the current state of knowledge regarding surface and tropospheric temperature trends and their relationship to anthropogenic greenhouse gases as follows;
The global surface temperature trend is well characterized by a wide range of in situ and proxy data apart from the tropospheric record (NRC, 2000; IPCC, 2001). State-of-the-art AOGCM’s can comfortably reproduce this trend, but also predict a similar long-term trend for the upper atmosphere. The apparent disagreement between the surface and upper air records hinges on these AOGCM predictions, and the belief that the two should be well coupled (NRC, 2000; IPCC, 2001). Over the longer period for which upper air data is available (1958 to the present), the two are in excellent agreement as expected. But short-term trends have shown much variation indicating that the troposphere and surface interact in more complex ways than previously thought. There is evidence that for certain regions of the globe (particularly the tropics), the surface and troposphere may well be decoupled to some extent so that short-term differences in trend are to be expected (Trenberth and Stepaniak, 2003). Because of this, the last 25 years are highly unlikely to be representative of long-term trends in the surface-troposphere temperature differences (NRC, 2000). Because of this, short-term upper air trends cannot be considered to be an indicator of surface global warming or an anthropogenic global warming fingerprint.
The disagreement between the tropospheric trends of the RSS and UAH teams is likely related to how each team handled the merging of intersatellite datasets and the derivation of hot target factors—particularly the NOAA-9 target factor and the shorter overlaps (e.g. NOAA-9/NOAA-10). The UAH derived value for the NOAA-9 target factor appears to be an outlier compared not only with the RSS value, but with all other RSS and UAH target factors. This anomalous factor appears to be related to UAH’s choice of a “backbone” method of merging that neglects shorter overlaps. The RSS analysis which uses all overlaps appears to result in a set of target factors and trend residuals for the merged time series, resulting in less trend error and a more consistent set of target factors. The difference between these two methods accounts for at least 65 percent of the difference between the trends of each team (Mears et al., 2003; Christy et al., 2003; Santer et al., 2003).
Though many uncertainties still remain, the best current estimates of troposphere temperature trends for the 850-300 hPa approach the RSS team value of 0.10 deg. C/decade uncorrected for spurious stratospheric cooling, and corrected trends approach 0.18 deg. K/decade (Mears et al., 2003; Fu et al., 2004).UAH MSU2LT and MSUTLT products are more strongly influenced by surface radiation emissions than the MSU Channel 2 products of all teams. As such, they will be much more strongly influenced by annual and inter-annual Arctic and Antarctic sea-ice and melt pool areas, particularly the latter. These impart a distinct cooling trend to high southern latitudes (above 60 deg. S) and as such are likely to contribute to the lower trends observed by these products in the southern oceans.
Vinnikov and Grody have independently shown tropospheric warming rates that agree with expectations, but have not been corrected for differences between land and ocean diurnal cycles or instrument body effect. If corrected for these effects, their trends appear to be more likely to approach those of the RSS team rather than the UAH team (Vinnikov and Grody, 2004).
Radiosonde analyses are in reasonable agreement with both RSS and UAH trends for most regions where the three overlap. But the noise inherent in these datasets is large enough that they cannot be reliably used to discriminate between RSS and UAH products. In regions where the RSS and UAH products diverge (e.g. the tropical Pacific and northern Africa) radiosonde coverage is too sparse and poorly characterized to be useful. This situation has not changed appreciably in the 4 years since the National Research Council released their year 2000 report on satellite derived troposphere temperatures and global change.
Tropospheric trends corrected for a spurious stratospheric cooling signal are within the range of what can be comfortably reproduced by the best extant general circulation models with the appropriate natural and anthropogenic forcings (Fu et al., 4004; 2004b; Fu and Johanson, 2004). These models not only capture the signal of the observed troposphere warming, they also capture natural climate variations related to ENSO, PDO, and volcanic eruptions such as those of Mt. Pinatubo and El Chicon. The remaining discrepancies between models and observation can be explained by various mechanisms of poleward energy transport in the tropics and extra-tropics that decouple the troposphere from the surface (Trenberth and Stepaniak, 2003a,b; Santer et al., 2003).
Many issues still remain regarding troposphere and surface temperature trends and their relationship to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and land use activities. More work needs to be done to improve the data quality, particularly that from radiosondes. The ongoing development of the GUAN and RATPAC radiosonde products are a very positive step in this direction as is the ongoing work of the UAH and RSS teams to better characterize and expand their own datasets. But the greatest mysteries surrounding the apparent disagreement between surface and troposphere temperature trends during the last 25 years have largely been resolved. There is no longer any valid reason to dispute global warming at the earth’s surface based on tropospheric temperature trends.So Singer is well reasoned, but light on the actual complexity of on which he bases his well reasoned conclusions, though you would never think that from his essay. First he cherry picks the tropics, then it turns out the data for the tropics is problematic for several reasons. Singer and Christy never actually say that, though.

I'll sit and wait for McIntyre to explore the validity of the data. I won't be holding my breath, though.

[a_unique_person]

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf

This is a link to a summary of Singer's theory (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf) of the 1,500 year climate cycle, excerpted from his book.

If you want to debunk something, here is something that you may click on with your one remaining arm - and read with your two eyes - as long as your head remains attached.

Debunk Singer's core theory, of the 1,500 year climate cycle.

Debunk what? A novel? Come on...

[mhaze]

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf

This is a link to a summary of Singer's theory (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf) of the 1,500 year climate cycle, excerpted from his book.

If you want to debunk something, here is something that you may click on with your one remaining arm - and read with your two eyes - as long as your head remains attached.

Debunk Singer's core theory, of the 1,500 year climate cycle.

Here is a bit of help.

How to sound dumb and debate a skeptic (http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics) from Gristmill

Or go to Losers (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/) in the Hockey Stick Game at Realclimate.

But why not just read the actual science? It ain't gonna bite ya.

[mhaze]

He conveniently ignores the message of the report, and cherry picks what he wants to hear. The summary makes it perfectly clear what the science has found, and it's not his cherry picking. I know what is 'reasoning' is..

Either you have not even read the report, or you are doing the cherry picking.

"Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere - Understanding and Reconciling Differences". You will find in bold in page 11 the following -

"A potentially serious inconsistency has been identified in the tropics. The favored explanation for this is residual error in the observations, but the issue is still open".

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

Wow, you are seriously lowering your standards. Any help is welcome?



http://www.scottchurchdirect.com/global-warming-troposphere.aspx?D=120&Pg=6


Scott Church Direct
Welcome to Scott Church Direct, the information and commentary site of Seattle-based landscape photographer Scott Church. This site was created to raise awareness of environmental and social issues from a Christian perspective and provide a scientific, theological, and ethical alternative to fundamentalism.

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by mhaze http://forums.randi.org/helloworld2/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2914476#post2914476)
http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf

This is a link to a summary of Singer's theory (http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st/st279/st279.pdf) of the 1,500 year climate cycle, excerpted from his book.

If you want to debunk something, here is something that you may click on with your one remaining arm - and read with your two eyes - as long as your head remains attached.
Debunk Singer's core theory, of the 1,500 year climate cycle.

Debunk what? A novel? Come on...

I've invited you to debunk or otherwise refute Singer's main hypthesis. Since it refutes AGW, if it is unrefuted, AGW falls. You've shrugged it off as a novel, which is not a refutation.

AGW just fell.

[Geckko]

Rainfall has been average or below average for much of the state.

I still don't understand. The first chart I posted a link to shows that Victoria (I assume that is the state you mean) had above average rainfall over pretty much all of the state.

[lomiller]

Or go to Losers (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/) in the Hockey Stick Game at Realclimate.


Sorry but realclimate *clearly* won that debate on a scientific front. The deniers may try to claim victory for political purposes but they really did get hammered thanks to their typical approach of avoiding peer review. The real telling thing is that even if you cede the entire argument and ignore Mann altogether, there are a dozen different reconstructions using different methods that show exactly the same results.




But why not just read the actual science? It ain't gonna bite ya.

This is an odd statment comming from someone who wants to believe the politically driven, non peer reviewed Wegman report rather then the peer review articles discussing the “hockey stick” .

I sense a trend emerging with your posts. Your all for reading the science, just not the stuff published in major peer reviewed journals like “Science” and “Nature”. The science that appears in energy company sponsored blogs is apparently perfectly acceptable however.

Given your choices over what to call science and what to ignore I am afraid that you will never convince me that your opinions are in any way based on the science. Rather it seems to me you are attempting to cherry pick sources that support a predetermined opinion and pass them off as science. Meanwhile, nearly half the permanent sea ice in the arctic is gone.

[lomiller]

I've invited you to debunk or otherwise refute Singer's main hypthesis. Since it refutes AGW, if it is unrefuted, AGW falls. You've shrugged it off as a novel, which is not a refutation.

AGW just fell.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=S._Fred_Singer

I’d be very reluctant to trust the work on a former tobacco industry “consultant” like Fred Singer. While that doesn’t necessarily negate what he has to say, it’s certainly going overboard to demand people go out and read an entire non peer reviewed book he wrote.

IMO you are clearly attempting a derail by citing vague and volumes references from questionable sources that supposedly support your position in the hopes that sooner or later you will arrive at a point that can’t be immediately challenged.





[edit]Tobacco Industry Contractor
In 1994, Singer was Chief Reviewer of the report Science, economics, and environmental policy: a critical examination published by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution (AdTI). This was all part of an attack on EPA regulation on environmental tobacco smoke funded by the Tobacco Institute. [6] At that time, Mr. Singer was a Senior Fellow with AdTI. [7]

"The report's principal reviewer, Dr Fred Singer, was involved with the International Center for a Scientific Ecology, a group that was considered important in Philip Morris' plans to create a group in Europe similar to The Advancement for Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), as discussed by Ong and Glantz. He was also on a tobacco industry list of people who could write op-ed pieces on "junk science," defending the industry's views.39" [8]

In 1995, as President of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (a think tank based in Fairfax, Virginia) S. Fred Singer was involved in launching a publicity campaign about "The Top 5 Environmental Myths of 1995," a list that included the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's conclusion that secondhand tobacco smoke is a human carcinogen. Shandwick, a public relations agency working for British American Tobacco, pitched the "Top 5 Myths" list idea to Singer to minimize the appearance of tobacco industry involvement in orchestrating criticism of the EPA. The "Top 5 Environmental Myths" list packaged EPA's secondhand smoke ruling with other topics like global warming and radon gas, to help minimize the appearance of tobacco industry involvement in the effort. According to a 1996 BAT memo describing the arrangement, Singer agreed to an "aggressive media interview schedule" organized by Shandwick to help publicize his criticism of EPA's conclusions.[9]

[mhaze]

Meanwhile, nearly half the permanent sea ice in the arctic is gone.

Run for that ice!

Here is a repeat -

I've invited you to debunk or otherwise refute Singer's main hypthesis.

Ad hominem attacks cede victory to the opposite side.

[Pipirr]

I've invited you to debunk or otherwise refute Singer's main hypthesis. Since it refutes AGW, if it is unrefuted, AGW falls. You've shrugged it off as a novel, which is not a refutation.

AGW just fell.


No, it really didn't.

Good try though ;)

[mhaze]

Or go to Losers (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/) in the Hockey Stick Game at Realclimate.
Sorry but realclimate *clearly* won that debate on a scientific front. The deniers may try to claim victory for political purposes

Losers (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/) links to RC's discussion of Singer.

That is for people who want quick anti-Singer talking points but who do not care to actually read the science or cannot comprehend it.

We are not discussing the Hockey Stick here.

[mhaze]

While that doesn’t necessarily negate what he has to say, it’s certainly going overboard to demand people go out and read an entire non peer reviewed book he wrote.


The link was a 20 some page pdf of his arguments.

See? I am a reasonable person.

Well, sort of....

[mhaze]

I sense a trend emerging with your posts. Your all for reading the science, just not the stuff published in major peer reviewed journals like “Science” and “Nature”. The science that appears in energy company sponsored blogs is apparently perfectly acceptable however.

Wrong. I'm just not buying articles online. You can buy them so that I can have them, though. And send copies my way, or point to links where they may be viewed.

The simple reason is that the abstract isn't good enough. You can't expect someone to agree to what they cannot read, review and study.

Right?

[CapelDodger]

Many Americans have what some (most?) would consider and odd affection for British humor. Monty Python and the Holy Grail has become a cult classic here. At this point, your arguments remind me of the scene where Arthur wants to cross the bridge, but the Black Knight refuses passage. Who can forget this:

Just as in the US there's a geeks and Star Trek cliche, over here there's a geeks and Monty Python cliche.

If you've nothing to say direct to my post, let's assume I've wrapped it up. Climate science is not based on statistics, it draws on the wider world of science to explain observations of a particular physical system - a very thin fluid skin on the surface of a planet. It would be an esoteric study if we didn't happen to live in one of those thin skins.


The problem is, there was no such thing as the "hockey stick" prior to the IPCC 2001 report (actually MBH98/99).

My bad about the "decades". The gnawing just seems to have gone on for ever.

Up until then, IPCC used the hundreds of previous studies and historical evidence for MWP, using the correct temperature record.

There's a correct temperature record? You're not referring to the Eurocentric schematic curve, are you? As to the historical record, I assume you are referring to the Eurocentric experience.

The statistically challenged and systematically erroneous Mann hockey stick is nowhere to be found in 2007, yet like the Black Knight, IPCC refuses to formerly admit defeat.

Isn't it time to start gnawing on the new Hockey Stick, then? Mann et al is so nineties, after all. A lot of work's been done since then, and of course there's about ten years of extra data to include.

Since you have no limbs left, I think it unfair to lop off your proverbial head. Have at it, however don't expect a response to yet another convoluted nonsensical speech.

I'm not going to talk down to you unless that's what you explicitly want. Probably not even then.

You went looking for back-up to the idea that climate science is mostly statistics, found a definition of climate as statistical, and leapt on it as if "climate" and "climate science" are the same thing. If you curbed your eagerness and put some more time into considering what a source really says you'd ... perhaps stop saying anything.

The background to this exchange is the attempt to divorce climate science from science in general and then destroy it in detail. It's worked with you, obviously, and you're hardly alone. Rather than be a real world problem it becomes an argument about the numbers and their interpretation. Much like politics, really. Which is perhaps why people who gnaw on the statistics tend to bring politics into the issue so much (you'll have noticed that yourself, I'm sure).

[CapelDodger]

No, it really didn't.

Good try though ;)

You're over-generous, I think. mhaze might suspect you're being patronising. There's a fine line to be walked between "encourage" and "patronise". Ask any parent or dog-owner.

[CapelDodger]

The link was a 20 some page pdf of his arguments.

Screw that, I'm on cable fraudband. What stuck in your mind after you read it?

See? I am a reasonable person.

Well, sort of....

Not yet proven entirely unreasonable. Which is the best any of us can say. Which is way better than being demonstrably irrational.

[mhaze]

Screw that, I'm on cable fraudband. What stuck in your mind after you read it?

Ice cores can tell us interesting stories.

[a_unique_person]

I still don't understand. The first chart I posted a link to shows that Victoria (I assume that is the state you mean) had above average rainfall over pretty much all of the state.

That's right, average rainfall is not enough rain to end a drought. That's what living in a country that is mostly desert means. We depend on above average rain to fill the water storage to last till the next above average year. They are getting rarer.

[CapelDodger]

I'll just sit back and wait for him to actually research this idea. I won't be holding my breath.

Actually, this "more evaporation so more clouds and so a negative feeback" hypothesis/hope has been modelled in the big bad analogue one and has yet to kick in. It remains as much a "might" as it was twenty years ago; "hasn't" seems more appropriate given the ocean warming that's taken place.

The physics of the hypothesis is bad to start with. More evaporation doesn't lead to more cloud because the condensed droplets in cloud are as subject to evaporation as any other body of water. And all over. Not just at the top. Condensation nuclei are way above saturation point, so there won't be any more cloud. There might be a more rapid cycling, though, leading to heavier downpours.

Such arguments, like Singer, are rooted in the past, old Before Warming arguments. Back in the "it won't happen" days. We're well into the During Warming days now, of course.

At least Lindzen seems to have dropped his ludicrous Iris Theory. He's been rowing back for years now. Singer, on the other hand, has definitely lost the plot.

[a_unique_person]

Either you have not even read the report, or you are doing the cherry picking.

"Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere - Understanding and Reconciling Differences". You will find in bold in page 11 the following -
"A potentially serious inconsistency has been identified in the tropics. The favored explanation for this is residual error in the observations, but the issue is still open".




Singer is making claims based on data that is stated to be questionable, and when you read how it is derived, needs to be verified before it can be used.

[CapelDodger]

Ice cores can tell us interesting stories.

Hey, this Zen thing can get old pretty damn' quick. Don't milk it, is my advice.

Something ice-cores can't tell us is what happens when we do what we're doing and have done for a while now. Burning fossil-fuel on an industrial scale and raising atmospheric CO2-load to 380ppm - an increase of about a third on pre-industrial levels - while acidifying the oceans at the same time. There's no example back there to take comfort in. This is a unique situation. There's no refuge in the past.

[mhaze]

Singer is making claims based on data that is stated to be questionable, and when you read how it is derived, needs to be verified before it can be used.

Yes. He is trying to understand that riddle. Others may have other interpretations of it.

In the middle of the USA, we have a strong jet stream in the upper tropopshere and stratosphere six to nine months a year. It has distinctive winds, often 150 knots in the center core. This thing is basically, huge, and of course has temperature gradients.

It seems like nonsense to talk about inferring temperatures from satellite data through the jet stream.

So the equatorial regions, which do not have the jet stream currents, would be important for this phenomena.

[mhaze]

Something ice-cores can't tell us is what happens when we do what we're doing and have done for a while now. Burning fossil-fuel on an industrial scale and raising atmospheric CO2-load to 380ppm - an increase of about a third on pre-industrial levels - while acidifying the oceans at the same time.

What about those thousands of gigatons of water we are pulling out of wells and then using? Probably half of it goes into the air. That is also a greenhouse gas. It is called water vapor. We are increasing it's concentration also are we not?

[a_unique_person]

Actually, this "more evaporation so more clouds and so a negative feeback" hypothesis/hope has been modelled in the big bad analogue one and has yet to kick in. It remains as much a "might" as it was twenty years ago; "hasn't" seems more appropriate given the ocean warming that's taken place.

The physics of the hypothesis is bad to start with. More evaporation doesn't lead to more cloud because the condensed droplets in cloud are as subject to evaporation as any other body of water. And all over. Not just at the top. Condensation nuclei are way above saturation point, so there won't be any more cloud. There might be a more rapid cycling, though, leading to heavier downpours.

Such arguments, like Singer, are rooted in the past, old Before Warming arguments. Back in the "it won't happen" days. We're well into the During Warming days now, of course.

At least Lindzen seems to have dropped his ludicrous Iris Theory. He's been rowing back for years now. Singer, on the other hand, has definitely lost the plot.

Shame really, it was so well reasoned.

[a_unique_person]

Yes. He is trying to understand that riddle. Others may have other interpretations of it.

In the middle of the USA, we have a strong jet stream in the upper tropopshere and stratosphere six to nine months a year. It has distinctive winds, often 150 knots in the center core. This thing is basically, huge, and of course has temperature gradients.

It seems like nonsense to talk about inferring temperatures from satellite data through the jet stream.

So the equatorial regions, which do not have the jet stream currents, would be important for this phenomena.

Except that there are reasons why they are highly suspect. There is no direct measurement available for from the satellites for the data, it has to be interpolated. To date, there has been no satisfaction that this has been done correctly by Christie and UHA.

Which is completely at odds with what we are told on TGGWS and other 'scecptical' sources. According to them, the Satellite data is 100% rock solid, it is the ground date that is all suspect.

[CapelDodger]

You missed this "Since the stalagmite temperature cannot affect the sun, it is the sun that affects climate." and the will to examinate the evidence instead of simply tossing this example as irrelevant.

Stalagmite data is notoriously imprecise as a climate indicator because it is so influenced by local precipitation patterns. For obvious reasons.

[a_unique_person]

Losers (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/avery-and-singer-unstoppable-hot-air/) links to RC's discussion of Singer.

That is for people who want quick anti-Singer talking points but who do not care to actually read the science or cannot comprehend it.

We are not discussing the Hockey Stick here.

Singer is not practicing *science*, he is publishing books, giving speeches, but he is not following the scientific method. When he wants to sit down and do actual research, using standard scientific procedures, or refer to scientific papers that prove his points, let me know.

He does make very clever logical errors, that seem to slip past a few people, as I have already stated.

His reference to correlation is not causation, then he does exactly that.

He deliberately misprepresents the findings of a paper into the discrepancies of the troposphere temperature readings.

He does a classic bait and switch. He acknowledges CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but does nothing to look at the research that validates it's role in warming.

[CapelDodger]

What about those thousands of gigatons of water we are pulling out of wells and then using? Probably half of it goes into the air. That is also a greenhouse gas. It is called water vapor. We are increasing it's concentration also are we not?

Only very locally. The atmosphere was hardly starved of water before HomSap flicked it some artesian droplets. Two-thirds of the world is covered in ocean. Get over yourself. Artesian water isn't significant just because we liberated it.

The world hasn't become warmer because the atmosphere is wetter, the atmosphere has become wetter because the world has become warmer. H2O is a feedback, not a forcing. In the current situation, CO2-increase is the dominant forcing. And it's positive.

[mhaze]

Only very locally. The atmosphere was hardly starved of water before HomSap flicked it some artesian droplets. Two-thirds of the world is covered in ocean. Get over yourself. Artesian water isn't significant just because we liberated it.

The world hasn't become warmer because the atmosphere is wetter, the atmosphere has become wetter because the world has become warmer.


Not in your area (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/HadEWP.html)...no increased rain

No AGW hypothesis confirmation on that basis, sorry.

[a_unique_person]

Not in your area (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/HadEWP.html)...no increased rain

No AGW hypothesis confirmation on that basis, sorry.

The amount of water the atmosphere can hold is set on the basis of it's temperature, IIRC.

[CapelDodger]

Yes. He is trying to understand that riddle.

There's no evidence that Singer has ever tried to understand anything, but plenty of evidence that he'll make anything appear a riddle to the uninformed. Singer is a corporate whore and no better than a lawyer.

Others may have other interpretations of it.

That would include all the honest, seeking-truth interpretations. Singer is nobody's go-to guy for that.

In the middle of the USA, we have a strong jet stream in the upper tropopshere and stratosphere six to nine months a year. It has distinctive winds, often 150 knots in the center core. This thing is basically, huge, and of course has temperature gradients.

Big and complicated. Challenging stuff. It's rather too turbulent to have meaningful temperature gradients, but it is driven by temperature gradients.

It seems like nonsense to talk about inferring temperatures from satellite data through the jet stream.

Why? When you see an oncoming vehicle on a narrow road, do you adjust for side-wind velocity? I think not. Wind is transparent.