Global warming

[David Rodale]

The history of the greenhouse effect.

CO2 is going to do exactly what is does in the lab that it does in the atmosphere. It can't suddenly decide to not absorb radiation of a particular frequency. We know the earth will heat up, the heat cannot just suddenly disappear down a black hole. This is where the models come in. Since we know the earth will rise, to what extent will it rise, and what will the effects be around the world. That is a lot more difficult to do with models, but we do get a better idea of what the effect will be than to just say it can't be done.

Wrong, they do. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=170

It is interesting that the denialists condemn the AGW research for being a gravy train that has been created purely for greedy scientists, then demand even more money be spent on very expensive research.

Your claims of AGW being the cause of Katrina is not worth responding to.


With respect to RealClimate, you are referring to the CCSP “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”.


Dr. Roger Pielke addresses this in great detail on his weblog, of which I contributed (guess which one) since he was a lead author prior to resigning. The CCSP was structured the same as IPCC: Committees formed with conflicts of interest, authors in groups reviewing their own work, agenda driven.....essentially lapdogs for IPCC 2007.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/05/02/ccsp-report-published/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006...or-understanding-and-reconciling-differences/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/03/17/ccsp-advocacy-report-appears/

To briefly illustrate this conflict of interest, I will use two topics from the CCSP Report. First, Tom Karl (Chairman), Tom Peterson and Russ Voss are from the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), and are vested in the surface temperature record set created by NCDC. (Tom Karl is also Director of NCDC). Other surface temperature experts on the Committee such as Chris Folland and David Parker of the United Kingdom (UK) Met Office also have a vested interest in the existing surface temperature trend data. When the first National Research Council (NRC) Committee reviewed the report, Phil Jones of University of East Anglia in England, also with a vested interest in the existing surface temperature data set, represented that community. Thus, the same community who has invested significantly in creating the global surface temperature record is assessing its value. It does not matter that these scientists have contributed significantly in the peer reviewed literature and are well-respected; they have a conflict of interest (e.g. see

Peterson, T. C., D. R. Easterling, T. R. Karl, P. Ya. Groisman, N. Nicholls, N. Plummer, S. Torok, I. Auer, R. Boehm, D. Gullett, L. Vincent, R. Heino, H. Tuomenvirta, O. Mestre, T. Szentimre, J. Salinger, E. Førland, I. Hanssen-Bauer, H. Alexandersson, P. Jones, D. Parker, 1998: Homogeneity adjustments of in situ atmospheric climate data: A review. International Journal of Climatology, 18, 1493-1517.

and

Peterson, Thomas C. and Russell S. Vose, 1997: An overview of the Global Historical Climatology Network temperature data base. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 78, 2837-2849,

where 4 of the authors are on the CCSP Committee, and one was the surface temperature expert on the 2005 NRC Committee that reviewed the first draft of the CCSP Report).

These scientists have a clear systemic conflict of interest in the results of the CCSP Assessment of “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”.

A similar situation exists with the modelers on the Committee. The Convening Lead Author of Chapter 5 of the CCSP report was Ben Santer of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Tom Wigley, of National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was Convening Lead Author of the Executive Summary. Both scientists are working and publishing results from the models, including the NCAR Parallel Climate Model (PCM), that are assessed in the CCSP Report. As with the surface temperature assessment, these scientists have published papers on the application of these models; this includes the 2005 Science paper with authorship:

Amplification of Surface Temperature Trends and Variability in the Tropical Atmosphere
B. D. Santer, T. M. L. Wigley, C. Mears, F. J. Wentz, S. A. Klein, D. J. Seidel, K. E. Taylor, P. W. Thorne, M. F. Wehner, P. J. Gleckler, J. S. Boyle, W. D. Collins, K. W. Dixon, C. Doutriaux, M. Free, Q. Fu, J. E. Hansen, G. S. Jones, R. Ruedy, T. R. Karl, J. R. Lanzante, G. A. Meehl, V. Ramaswamy, G. Russell, and G. A. Schmidt
Science 2 September 2005 309: 1551-1556; published online 11 August 2005 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1114867] .

Ten of the authors are on the CCSP Committee.

This paper is quite interesting and was appropriate to be published. However, to have them evaluate their own work in an assessment is a clear conflict of interest.

Public comment by Dr. Roger Pielke:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/NR-143.pdf

I have every confidence you would agree there shouldn't be conflicts of interest, politics or bias in such important issues.

Now, after all these posts in the last several weeks, there still remains my original challenge for AGW proponents to produce direct evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate. Not you or anyone else has supplied this evidence.

If you'd like to have a separate discussion on climates models exclusively, that may of value since you claim they can predict future climate.

Lastly, you do realize what it means when ocean temperatures stall and begin to drop, don't you?

 

[David Rodale]

Link to http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

Link to http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect

I was hoping for the antithesis of these, not a commentary from Spencer Weart, a historian:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/whatisco.ppt
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Your claims of AGW being the cause of Katrina is not worth responding to.

Not so much the cause of hurricane Katrina as a contributor to her strength, by warming the waters she passed over. Hurricanes are not growing more frequent, but the ones that are created are growing more powerful. We admittedly do not know enough to tell if Katrina was fueled by global warming, but there is evidence she was, and it'd not surprise me the least. From the article I just linked to:

“What we found was rather astonishing,” said Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Ga., lead author of the study [on hurricane trends]. “In the 1970’s, there was an average of about 10 Category 4 and 5 hurricanes per year globally. Since 1990, the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled, averaging 18 per year globally.”

In conclusion, it's far from proven that Katrina was fueled by AGW, but to say it's not worth responding to is underestimating the amount of evidence that does exist.

 

[mhaze]

Not so much the cause of hurricane Katrina as a contributor to her strength, by warming the waters she passed over. Hurricanes are not growing more frequent, but the ones that are created are growing more powerful. We admittedly do not know enough to tell if Katrina was fueled by global warming, but there is evidence she was, and it'd not surprise me the least. From the article I just linked to:

In conclusion, it's far from proven that Katrina was fueled by AGW, but to say it's not worth responding to is underestimating the amount of evidence that does exist.

With all due respect, I understand from your header that you are from Norway. I am intimately familiar with New Orleans. Many times I was told by people who lived there, that if a hurricane ever hit them, their city was going to be gone.

AGW has many fair arguments, this is not one of them.

 

[mhaze]

CO2 is going to do exactly what is does in the lab that it does in the atmosphere. It can't suddenly decide to not absorb radiation of a particular frequency. We know the earth will heat up, the heat cannot just suddenly disappear down a black hole. This is where the models come in. Since we know the earth will rise, to what extent will it rise, and what will the effects be around the world. That is a lot more difficult to do with models, but we do get a better idea of what the effect will be than to just say it can't be done.

The models have a huge variation between them, in the order of 400%. That does not constitute precise knowledge, does it? Basically, you are uncertain as to what CO2 does in the atmosphere to any exact degree, if you have knowledge of the current state of science in this area. If you are on the contrary a true believer then you know everything very perfectly. Do you know much more than the Feb 2007 IPCC report? If so,

Then answer DR's simple question.

 

[mhaze]

When things really get bad and we have to take drastic action to counteract our Destructor-behavior - please get thee to a corner and stay there so you don't get underfoot and impede our efforts. You better hope we can come up with something - or things - to effect a semblance of reversal on what we've done to this planet. You'd better hope we're smart enough. Because we have NOT been smart enough on preventive measures.

Your state, California, has passed laws that clearly state that when it's four nuclear reactor power plants licenses expire, they cannot be renewed. Bye bye that nice 16% of your total power for your state. Bye bye for 16% of power with no greenhouse gases.

Is that why CA is negotiating to buy power from the two dirty coal power plants being planned in southern Nevada?

Am I missing something or is your state pedaling backwards?

 

[a_unique_person]

Your claims of AGW being the cause of Katrina is not worth responding to.

Considering there is no reference to Katrina in my post

http://c

 

[a_unique_person]

Your claims of AGW being the cause of Katrina is not worth responding to.


With respect to RealClimate, you are referring to the CCSP “Temperature Trends in the Lower Atmosphere: Steps for Understanding and Reconciling Differences”.


Dr. Roger Pielke addresses this in great detail on his weblog, of which I contributed (guess which one) since he was a lead author prior to resigning. The CCSP was structured the same as IPCC: Committees formed with conflicts of interest, authors in groups reviewing their own work, agenda driven.....essentially lapdogs for IPCC 2007.
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/05/02/ccsp-report-published/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006...or-understanding-and-reconciling-differences/
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/03/17/ccsp-advocacy-report-appears/


Public comment by Dr. Roger Pielke:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/NR-143.pdf

I have every confidence you would agree there shouldn't be conflicts of interest, politics or bias in such important issues.

That must be why you keep commenting on the errors discovered in Christies troposphere data.

Now, after all these posts in the last several weeks, there still remains my original challenge for AGW proponents to produce direct evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate. Not you or anyone else has supplied this evidence.

Have you actually read the IPCC report? It's all in there.

 

[Diamond]

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.

Evidence? Once again CapelDodgy produces yet another invented factoid.

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.

Perhaps then you can explain where James Hansen is going to conjure sealevel rise of several meters in the next 100 years?

I'm glad there are some science-based historical reconstructions that you trust.

When they're not produced by Creationists like Hansen, maybe. Or Houghton.

Because I can spot a specious argument when I see one. And because of the science, naturally.

Because of the science? You invent factoids and then defy others to debunk them? This is standard CT behavior.

You have a long history of ignoring facts that don't fit your long standing belief that industrial society of whatever kind MUST be responsible in large part for changes in climate.

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?

Again standard CT behavior. Make ridiculous claim based on no evidence and then try to get others to disprove it.

Produce the evidence that the Holocene maximum was anthropogenic. You know - science. The thing you're ignorant of.

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.

Yes it could. It could also be entirely false, as a sea-level expert explains.

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.

No it isn't. In CapelDodgyWorld, the Sun stopped influencing climate around 1950 (see above)

Standard contrarian alarmism.

There's no alarmism in responding to alarmism. As a long standing climate alarmist since the Ice Age scare of the 1970s you should know all about spinning minor changes in climate into apocalyptic visions of the future.

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?

The point being that the actual contribution of sea-level rise from Antarctica at the moment is negative.

I don't think so. More likely a pig.

Ah! You've spotted your arguments as well.

 

[a_unique_person]

Now, after all these posts in the last several weeks, there still remains my original challenge for AGW proponents to produce direct evidence supporting the hypothesis of CO2 being the main driver of climate. Not you or anyone else has supplied this evidence.

Since no one has ever claimed that, I don't think you'll ever get anyone providing evidence of it.

 

[a_unique_person]

The models have a huge variation between them, in the order of 400%. That does not constitute precise knowledge, does it? Basically, you are uncertain as to what CO2 does in the atmosphere to any exact degree, if you have knowledge of the current state of science in this area. If you are on the contrary a true believer then you know everything very perfectly. Do you know much more than the Feb 2007 IPCC report? If so,

Then answer DR's simple question.

Do you think I am a research scientist? Sorry, I have to inform you I am not. I just have to accept the science as presented, I am not competent enough in this complex area of science to reject the findings of the IPCC.

 

[a_unique_person]

I was hoping for the antithesis of these, not a commentary from Spencer Weart, a historian:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Falsification_of_CO2.pdf
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/whatisco.ppt
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf

Falsification of greenhouse? What a bunch of jerks. The term greenhouse refers to a simplified model to help the average member of the public understand what the scientists are talking about. It is a practice widely used in press reports and education. The greenhouse mechanism from CO2 is not the mechanism a real greenhouse uses to trap heat. That's no big deal. Kids in school all over the world are taught every day that atoms can be thought of as little coloured balls. They aren't, but does that mean you are going to go out and shout from the rooftops "Children, they are lying to you, atoms aren't really like that".

Still, I am glad you used that "paper" as something you think is reliable science, I can now see where you are coming from.

 

[David Rodale]

Since no one has ever claimed that, I don't think you'll ever get anyone providing evidence of it.

CO2 goes up, temperature follows. Do you disagree with that?

 

[Pipirr]

CO2 goes up, temperature follows. Do you disagree with that?

I don't speak for AUP, but my contention is with your statement "CO2 being the main driver of climate".

All other things being equal (including the sun), then increasing levels of CO2 can be a main driver of "climate change".

It is the change in the Earth's climate that is at issue here, is it not?

 

[mhaze]

The models have a huge variation between them, in the order of 400%. That does not constitute precise knowledge, does it? Basically, you are uncertain as to what CO2 does in the atmosphere to any exact degree, if you have knowledge of the current state of science in this area. If you are on the contrary a true believer then you know everything very perfectly. Do you know much more than the Feb 2007 IPCC report? If so,

Then answer DR's simple question.
​

Do you think I am a research scientist? Sorry, I have to inform you I am not. I just have to accept the science as presented, I am not competent enough in this complex area of science to reject the findings of the IPCC.

We may be getting somewhere.

Have you actually read the IPCC report? It's all in there.

It is not in the IPCC report.

CO2 is going to do exactly what is does in the lab that it does in the atmosphere.

No scientist would say something like that, and engineers scoff at being asked to rely on building anything on flimsy evidence with 400% uncertainty.

"Here is your new tire design." says the engineer.
"How fast will it safely go?" says the customer.
"Somewhere between 30 mph and 120 mph. We're got this great lab model" says the engineer.
​

who just got fired?

Trillions of dollars of taxes and urgent action now based on that level of level of understanding of real world atmospheric physics?

 

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by David Rodale

I was hoping for the antithesis of these, not a commentary from Spencer Weart, a historian:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Fals...ion_of_CO2.pdf
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/p...707.1161v2.pdf
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/whatisco.ppt
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf
​

Falsification of greenhouse? What a bunch of jerks. The term greenhouse refers to a simplified model to help the average member of the public understand what the scientists are talking about. It is a practice widely used in press reports and education. The greenhouse mechanism from CO2 is not the mechanism a real greenhouse uses to trap heat. That's no big deal. Kids in school all over the world are taught every day that atoms can be thought of as little coloured balls. They aren't, but does that mean you are going to go out and shout from the rooftops "Children, they are lying to you, atoms aren't really like that".

Still, I am glad you used that "paper" as something you think is reliable science, I can now see where you are coming from.

Spencer Weart, a historian is the jerk. You are the one quoting and referencing inaccuracies. Weart struggles to explain things that he clearly does not understand, which should be just expressed as say, a partial differential. Weart is no Stephen Hawkings.

Since Weart still clings to the fraud of the hockey stick, his writings can be summarily dismissed.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

There's no alarmism in responding to alarmism. As a long standing climate alarmist since the Ice Age scare of the 1970s you should know all about spinning minor changes in climate into apocalyptic visions of the future.

Why do deniers keep bringing up the Ice Age scare of the seventies? Especially when I, for one, addressed it several times in this thread alone.

Apples and oranges, buddy. The cooling of the seventies did no damage I'm aware of. Unlike AGW. It was not heavily researched. Unlike AGW. And it was easily alleviated by reducing aerosol emissions. Unlike AGW. The only thing they had in common was that they scared people - hardly enough to start comparing the two more than you can compare a fire drill to a real blaze raging over three floors.

No it isn't. In CapelDodgyWorld, the Sun stopped influencing climate around 1950 (see above)

I believe the sun question, too, has been addressed in this thread. Time for an image from a certain Meehl:

If it's the Sun or volcanoes, why does the temperature go up when volcanic activity goes down and the Sun remains mostly stable?

 

[mhaze]

Thanks for the answer. For the benefit of the gallery and myself, could you break this down a bit more?

This sounds like it would be fine for determining GW. Measurements of day temperatures showing an increasing trend over time would provide a useful dataset. What’s the problem with (and what do you mean by) a thermometer that shows min and max? Why is the rate of the rise of temperature needed?

Ok, information on temperatures at different atmospheric layers. Why is this needed? Is it to prove GW in some way? I can imagine that it could be useful information to have, but I can also imagine that it would be tricky to obtain. What benefit?

Which trends are these? Why are the tropics the most important area?

This goes back to the temperature data for the atmospheric layers. I’d question the utility of one day of observations, and I’d also want to know how many days of measurements would be needed to get useful data. It sounds like a recipe for a messy dataset, but then I don’t see what it’s needed for or how it would be used. In what way would it advance the discussion, and how would the amount of actual greenhouse effect be calculated?

And one last one, what do you mean by ‘measured hotspot’? Maybe these are sophomore questions, but it would help me get on the same page.

The Sun hits pretty much straight on in the tropics, so there the hotspot is the most pronounced.

Regarding why the rate of rise is required, consider two Chinese food takeout containers, one well insulated, the other not. Ask the question, what is the average thermal content of the container? And obviously, the one that loses heat, has less average thermal content, whether we are looking at watts or BTUs. Suppose you tried to figure this issue out by measuring the temperature of the food inside the container 15 minutes after putting it in there.

There is no any ability to predict the temperature 10 minutes or 20 minutes. Was the decrease weakly exponential? Linear? What is the precision of your prediction if you use presumptions on the nature of the curve?

Now on the contrary presume you continuously measure the temperature. It is a simple matter to then describe the efficiency of insulation of the container.

The measured hotspot is similar to the below (f), from IPCC Chapter 9 page 675 (also check appendix 9C). For details on the calculations Santor 2003
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2003/Santer_etal.html

For a simple non technical explanation of why CO2 is most likely only an insignificant factor in the recent slight global temperature increase check Monckton 2007 "Greenhouse Warming? What Greenhouse Warming?".

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton_papers/greenhouse_warming_what_greenhouse_warming_.html

For discussion pro and con on Monckton's view check

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=923

and other threads on www.climateaudit.org by typing Monckton into the search bar. Note here content is all from the message base, there is little input from McIntyre or the webmaster.




In summary, we have highly imprecise "models" of the effect of CO2 in the atmosphere, on which alarmism is festering, that being egged on by political interests.

As you have noted, the science is really in the early stages of understanding.

There is at this time no reason to take any view other than that man's contribution to global warming due to CO2 is a minor or insignificant issue in global warming. (Alarmists argue the exact opposite).

Actual atmospheric experiments would help in clarifying areas of known uncertainty.

 

[David Rodale]

Why do deniers keep bringing up the Ice Age scare of the seventies? Especially when I, for one, addressed it several times in this thread alone.

Apples and oranges, buddy. The cooling of the seventies did no damage I'm aware of. Unlike AGW. It was not heavily researched. Unlike AGW. And it was easily alleviated by reducing aerosol emissions. Unlike AGW. The only thing they had in common was that they scared people - hardly enough to start comparing the two more than you can compare a fire drill to a real blaze raging over three floors.

We are not experiencing anything outside natural variation.

The cooling of the seventies did no damage I'm aware of. Unlike AGW. It was not heavily researched. Unlike AGW. And it was easily alleviated by reducing aerosol emissions.

Would you care to cite a reference quantifying this?

 

[mhaze]

I believe the sun question, too, has been addressed in this thread. Time for an image from a certain Meehl:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Climate_Change_Attribution.png

If it's the Sun or volcanoes, why does the temperature go up when volcanic activity goes down and the Sun remains mostly stable?

We keep talking about getting around to discussing the sun and all interrelated influences of it, but not so far.

Regarding the Sun vs. volcano.

Which would win that boxing match?