Global warming discussion III

[Haig]

There's already a new line in "no warming", without any announcement. The original claim was based on surface temperatures but now they're based on RSS satellite data for the Lower Troposphere. That's a crap measure for all sorts of reasons but it's the only one which still works for deniers - even UAH has gone off-script.

We'll keep hearing "No warming for 15/16/18 years" for years whatever happens. Just as we keep hearing "it's all based on models" and "the Hockey Stick is broken". And that hoary old chestnut "We only use 10% of our brains".

What will make people take notice is, for instance, another two years of drought in California. Or the disintegration of Sao Paolo.

The climate models are useless and alarmist. CO2 being good for the biosphere is the actual settled science.

Will Happer, Princeton's Galileo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCDOf8Khiko

C(lie)mate Update - August 2014
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xfi940PyCo&index=8&list=PLHSoxioQtwZcqdt3LK6d66tMreI4gqIC-

 

[bit_pattern]

Cool YouTube video, brah - that'll show those stupid scientists with their stupid peer review system

 

[macdoc]

another two years of drought in California

So we save California with a montrous El Nino and create havoc elswhere....the wonders of the Anthropocene.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

The climate models are useless and alarmist. CO2 being good for the biosphere is the actual settled science.

That only works for a fully functioning healthy biosphere, something we demonstrably and unequivocally do NOT have.

One of the most important ecosystem services is carbon sequestration via the photosynthesis pathway. Another related regulatory ecosystem service is climate regulation. So your deniers got that part semi-correct. The problem is about 1/2 the planet's land ecosystems have been harmed to some degree or another by agriculture. [1] (ETA Keep in mind that 1/2 is the "good land" as most of the rest is mountains, deserts, and such that have low potential for CO2->plants->soil via photosynthesis)

The regulatory ecosystem services the biosphere should provide is not functioning anywhere near full efficiency. They are no longer capable of meeting the requirements necessary for the amount of fossil fuel CO2 currently released. This can be easily measured as well and has nothing to do with models. Hard data on the skyrocketing CO2 in the atmosphere and acidification of the oceans is available to prove it beyond a doubt. Thus your sources are in complete denial of the problem. But being in denial of a problem won't magically make it go away. That isn't skepticism on your part either. It's just wishful thinking.

 

[bit_pattern]

That only works for a fully functioning healthy biosphere, something we demonstrably and unequivocally do NOT have.

Even then it's a load of twaddle and tosh. Higher CO2 is great in laboratory conditions, where the rate of CO2 doesn't impact on amount of other food plants are receiving. But when CO2 levels determine the amount of water a plant receives, or the rate at which in can absorb nitrogen, then it's actually a very different story. Unsurprisingly, out there in the big, bad world, the biosphere doesn't respond to change in the same way a laboratory test does.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Even then it's a load of twaddle and tosh. Higher CO2 is great in laboratory conditions, where the rate of CO2 doesn't impact on amount of other food plants are receiving. But when CO2 levels determine the amount of water a plant receives, or the rate at which in can absorb nitrogen, then it's actually a very different story. Unsurprisingly, out there in the big, bad world, the biosphere doesn't respond to change in the same way a laboratory test does.

True enough. And another problem is that we have no hard data on what level of emissions a healthy biosphere COULD potentially handle either. All we can be certain of, with hard data, is that our current NOT healthy biosphere is NOT capable of keeping up with our current emissions. It is sadly insufficient for the task.

 

[bit_pattern]

True enough. And another problem is that we have no hard data on what level of emissions a healthy biosphere COULD potentially handle either. All we can be certain of, with hard data, is that our current NOT healthy biosphere is NOT capable of keeping up with our current emissions. It is sadly insufficient for the task.

Ah, I think I'm getting a better sense of the original point you were making. It's my understanding that the biosphere in its current state absorbs roughly half of what we emit - so, yeah, if it wasn't so utterly ********** it would be a lot more resilient to what we are currently throwing at it.

 

[Trakar]

Ah, I think I'm getting a better sense of the original point you were making. It's my understanding that the biosphere in its current state absorbs roughly half of what we emit - so, yeah, if it wasn't so utterly ********** it would be a lot more resilient to what we are currently throwing at it.

Even then, it would merely be an issue of time. We are overwhelming and degrading the planet's natural buffer systems. But even with vigorous systems, our rates are so high that it would only have taken marginally longer to have the same impact.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Even then, it would merely be an issue of time. We are overwhelming and degrading the planet's natural buffer systems. But even with vigorous systems, our rates are so high that it would only have taken marginally longer to have the same impact.

That may or may not be true. There is no hard data on that. There are unsubstantiated claims, there are even educated guesses, but no hard evidence. Biomes are self regulating complex systems, they are not zero sum systems. No one really knows if a healthy biosphere could handle our current emissions rate. All we know for sure is that in its current degraded state it is insufficient to handle our current emissions rate.

So best bet is to both lower emissions and improve the biosphere ecosystem services function best we can and hope we meet in the middle before we hit some irreversible tipping point of positive feedback forcing. (catastrophic runaway greenhouse effect)

 

[macdoc]

Originally Posted by Haig View Post
The climate models are useless and alarmist. CO2 being good for the biosphere is the actual settled science.

Typcial Haig ....stupidly arrogant proclamation with not shred of support.

On the other hand - your settled science is the exact opposite...

Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition : Nature : Nature ...
go.nature.com/6ChIN5
by SS Myers - ‎2014 - ‎Cited by 19 - ‎Related articles
Jun 5, 2014 - Increasing CO2 threatens human nutrition ... these deficiencies1, causing a loss of 63 million life-years annually2, 3. .

Swelling CO2 Cuts Nutrition in Food
Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere equals less vital nutrients in crops like rice and soybeans

May 8, 2014 |By Tiffany Stecker and ClimateWire

Carbon dioxide is known to promote plant growth, but its effects on other aspects of crops are poorly understood. In many cases, the benefits of increased CO2 in the atmosphere will be offset by heat stress, drought and extreme weather tied to climate change.

A carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere could strip important food crops of their nutrients, a new study suggests.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/swelling-co2-cuts-nutrition-in-food/

Got any more tripe for the meat grinder of reality instead of your mythical world.

 

[Corsair 115]

Cool YouTube video, brah - that'll show those stupid scientists with their stupid peer review system [qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif[/qimg]

YouTube: the prime source for giant, worldwide conspiracy revealing since 2005!

 

[Reality Check]

The climate models are useless and alarmist. CO2 being good for the biosphere is the actual settled science.

One bit of what looks like paranoia , Haig: It looks like you are accusing climate scientists of faking the model results to make things warmer.
Climate models do not have opinions and are not "alarmist" !

A couple of climate denier myths there, Haig:
How reliable are climate models?

While there are uncertainties with climate models, they successfully reproduce the past and have made predictions that have been subsequently confirmed by observations

CO2 is plant food

The effects of enhanced CO2 on terrestrial plants are variable and complex and dependent on numerous factors.

(basically the jury is still out on the effects of increasing CO2 on plants)

And the woo of argument by YouTube video is not good !
We have what looks like an advertisement for the not a climate scientist and not a ecologist Will Happer who states opinions about climate science and ecology !

And what looks like a crackpot climate change denial video.

 

[macdoc]

oww

^{Figure 1: a) NOAA Sea Surface Temperature anomaly (with respect to period 1854-2013) averaged over global oceans (red) and over North Pacific (0-60oN, 110oE-100oW) (cyan). September 2014 temperatures broke the record for both global and North Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures. b) Sea Surface Temperature anomaly of September 2014 from NOAA's ERSST dataset.}

"This summer has seen the highest global mean sea surface temperatures ever recorded since their systematic measuring started. Temperatures even exceed those of the record-breaking 1998 El Niño year," says Axel Timmermann, climate scientist and professor, studying variability of the global climate system at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa.

more
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/11/141114090009.htm

 

[Trakar]

That may or may not be true. There is no hard data on that. There are unsubstantiated claims, there are even educated guesses, but no hard evidence. Biomes are self regulating complex systems, they are not zero sum systems. No one really knows if a healthy biosphere could handle our current emissions rate. All we know for sure is that in its current degraded state it is insufficient to handle our current emissions rate.

So best bet is to both lower emissions and improve the biosphere ecosystem services function best we can and hope we meet in the middle before we hit some irreversible tipping point of positive feedback forcing. (catastrophic runaway greenhouse effect)

There is the evidence of what has happened in previous episodes of CO2 forced climate warming. Rates much lower than our own overwhelmed the biome sequestration capability, sans the human degradation of the biomes in their natural state.

 

[bit_pattern]

^^ I wonder what sort of temporal scale those events occurred over?

 

[Trakar]

^^ I wonder what sort of temporal scale those events occurred over?

It depends upon the process looked at. In some cases we are forcing changes over decades that appear to have taken closer to millennia (or even tens of millennia) to occur in orbitally forced (or tectonically driven) situations.

 

[bit_pattern]

The tens of millennia scale was what I'd always assumed. It would be interesting to know at what point (i.e. hundreds, thousands of years) those lower rates subsumed the biome's ability to absorb the excess carbon.

 

[Trakar]

The tens of millennia scale was what I'd always assumed. It would be interesting to know at what point (i.e. hundreds, thousands of years) those lower rates subsumed the biome's ability to absorb the excess carbon.

If you are looking for a specific number, I'm not sure that the question has attracted enough research interest to be so precisely defined, and thinking about the question, it seems that such a number would be highly variable in accord with the specific conditions that one was looking at. It isn't until emissions significantly exceed the global seasonal, annual and decadal variations and rise above the "noise" of such variation that we see accumulations begin which signal the overwhelming of natural sequestration systems.

 

[lomiller]

^^ I wonder what sort of temporal scale those events occurred over?

That would depend on the specific event. We do have good evidence that current climate change is an order of magnitude faster than anything in the last 65 million years.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6145/486

AFAIK “next fastest” isn’t technically CO2 forced, but rather the orbital forced cascades of CO2 warming that occur during de-glaciations. One would think that if ecosystems could deal with anywhere near the CO2 we are emitting they would also suppress the much slower CO2 changes in periods like this, but clearly they do not.

 

[bit_pattern]

This is cool. A model of CO2 emissions mixing through the atmosphere. I'll definitely be pulling it out the next time some numpty brings up the whole "southern hemisphere isn't warming, therefore not global" canard:



http://www.nasa.gov/press/goddard/2...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer