Strong Negative Feedback Found in Radiation Budget

The nasty part of chaos theory that does apply to climate is sudden change in stability - ie tipping points.
It's not random in trendlines...but specific outcomes of any given input - as with hurricanes - is unpredictable and with more energy in the system the band of extreme event potential opens up which increases areas at risk.
For instance the first recorded S Atlantic hurricane.

Something people don't seem to get...it won't move forward in small incremental steps...it takes only ONE hot weather stretch longer than the norm to kill the farming season.
One extreme rainfall or hail event.
Even if averages remain more or less the same - extreme event envelopes widen and higher risk to civilization results.
Just ask the insurance companies.
 
mhaze said:
You are dealing with hypotheticals here, not reality.

You are using one set of guesses about the ice ages, then trying to use that set as predictors of good and bad modern day science. I didn't suggest that was completely ridiculous, just that it was extremely weak.
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Interglacials are not hypothetical, nor are the transitions between glaciations (which are also not hypothetical) and interglacials. Modern science isn't going to change that, however desperately Spencer works at it.

Spencer doesn't actually work at explaining such transitions, he simply ignores them. After all, they happened more than six thousand years ago, which isn't Biblical.

Weak enough to not really be worth discussing.
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It is worth pointing out that Spencer's hypothetical negative feedback (which he only finds in the data he chooses to manipulate, but doesn't in any way explain by physical processes) is inconsistent with transition between inter-glacials and glaciations. Such transitions are very well-established as facts, and were one of the early discoveries of geology. I'm not familiar with Spencer's arguments against such transitions, but you probably know his body of work better than I do. Do you know where I could find them?
 
At In To said:
There is no us versus them, that is projection on your part. There is what works, and what doesn't.
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I guess what works for mhaze and Spencer isn't what works for us. So to that extent there's an "us and them". :)

I have no problem with what Tsonis and colleagues have worked out, but your understanding of it is way off the chart. As for Spencer's work, it's like I said much earlier, he needs to apply this method to other forms of data.
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Tsonis made clear long ago that the likes of mhaze have been abusing his work, but he's not made himself a public figure by pursuing the matter. He clearly prefers to concentrate on his real work, which nobody decries. Spencer has a different attitude, of course. Never shy of the public eye in support of a failing cause, and not one to ever give any of them up.
 
CapelDodger said:
Chaos Theory does not explain high variability in a system with low sensitivity. It was developed to examine systems with high sensitivity to conditions at any point in time. Turbulent systems, for instance, such as weather.

By definition climate defines the bounds within which weather can occur, and varies much more gradually than the weather itself. It varies due to changes in the system itself.

Climate is not chaotic. Weather is. Just as one roll of a fair dice is chaotic and unpredictable but the result of many rolls is not, even though it is made up of many individually unpredictable units.

Chaos theory is an interesting subject, you should look into it. It isn't a catch-all get-out from things you would rather weren't so.
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lol, you should probably read up on chaos theory and how it applies to both weather AND climate models.

Yes, it came about as a result of high sensitivity. But not to 1 outcome, to numerous outcomes. Numerous outcomes can be considered varialbility. See how we can apply critical thinking?

I never said climate was choatic and yet you've tried to imply I did. In fact I made it clear it wasn't. Perhaps you just misread. No harm there, just try harder next time.

It isn't a catch all by any means. What it is is an interesting consideration in light of all the examples of weather we see bantered about in these threads.
 
macdoc said:
The nasty part of chaos theory that does apply to climate is sudden change in stability - ie tipping points.
It's not random in trendlines...but specific outcomes of any given input - as with hurricanes - is unpredictable and with more energy in the system the band of extreme event potential opens up which increases areas at risk.
For instance the first recorded S Atlantic hurricane.

Something people don't seem to get...it won't move forward in small incremental steps...it takes only ONE hot weather stretch longer than the norm to kill the farming season.
One extreme rainfall or hail event.
Even if averages remain more or less the same - extreme event envelopes widen and higher risk to civilization results.
Just ask the insurance companies.
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This isn't without merit. It's possible extreme events could lead to greater risk to civilization. It's something that needs to be monitored closely in the coming years, then reported on not as localized weahter events but in terms of climate change.
 
macdoc said:
The oracle speaks :rolleyes: ....it IS being monitored and IS being looked at in terms of climate change...

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/extreme.html

See: floods, ( notably mid west US and Britain ), droughts ( notably China, Australia and SW US and Spain ) and wild fires. ( Australia/US SW ).
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Exactly. And with improving models this data will be invaluable over the next 30 years. Hopefully our efforts to reduce emissions will also have a measurable effect in that time as well.
 
3bodyproblem said:
Exactly. And with improving models this data will be invaluable over the next 30 years. Hopefully our efforts to reduce emissions will also have a measurable effect in that time as well.
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In 30 years time there won't be any point in trying, there will be so much CO2 already up there, the warming will be 'committed' for the rest of the century.
 
a_unique_person said:
In 30 years time there won't be any point in trying, there will be so much CO2 already up there, the warming will be 'committed' for the rest of the century.
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I'm not sure if you have evidence of this or if you just mean because of how long CO2 remains in the environment. Most likely the latter.

The sad fact is there is going to be plenty more over the next 30 years. Short of changing how the entire civilization conducts itself there's no way to stop it, only slow the rate of increase.

We need to begin sequestering it if you actually believe what you are saying. It's a product of how we live. Time to build toilets instead of telling people to eat less and try to not poop :D
 
I'm not sure if you have evidence of this or if you just mean because of how long CO2 remains in the environment. Most likely the latter.
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You still don't get radiative budget do you?
I notice you did not answer the question regarding back to x
Your two lacunae now overlap. :garfield:
 
a_unique_person said:
In 30 years time there won't be any point in trying, there will be so much CO2 already up there, the warming will be 'committed' for the rest of the century.
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Actually, warming is already committed for the next few centuries, with the CO2 already emitted. If we stop all human influenced CO2 emissions today, the current CO2 ratios will force additional warming for several lifetimes.
 
macdoc said:
You still don't get radiative budget do you?
I notice you did not answer the question regarding back to x
Your two lacunae now overlap. :garfield:
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What are you talking about? What does the radiative budget have to do with "...won't be any point in trying"?

Do you like misrepresenting me that much?

WHAT EXACTLY DID I "GET WRONG" WRONG ABOUT THE RADIATIVE BUDGET IN THAT POST? Please, I'm dying to know.

How are those eigenvalues coming along? That's first year stuff you know...
 
TShaitanaku said:
Actually, warming is already committed for the next few centuries, with the CO2 already emitted. If we stop all human influenced CO2 emissions today, the current CO2 ratios will force additional warming for several lifetimes.
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Yes, and that's all the more reason we need sound models to answer these questions specifically, because it's one thing to say we reduced emissions by 10 000 000 metric tons, and quite another to show what effect it is having on the current and future climate.
 
3bodyproblem said:
I'm not sure if you have evidence of this or if you just mean because of how long CO2 remains in the environment. Most likely the latter.

The sad fact is there is going to be plenty more over the next 30 years. Short of changing how the entire civilization conducts itself there's no way to stop it, only slow the rate of increase.

We need to begin sequestering it if you actually believe what you are saying. It's a product of how we live. Time to build toilets instead of telling people to eat less and try to not poop :D
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Between human nature and concerted propaganda efforts to destroy the Kyoto initiative, not much has happened at all. Collectively, the human race has the intelligence of a newt.
 
a_unique_person said:
Between human nature and concerted propaganda efforts to destroy the Kyoto initiative, not much has happened at all. Collectively, the human race has the intelligence of a newt.
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Finally some agreement. At least when it comes to newts.

Is it propaganda that killed Kyoto or is it not realistic at times? We started talking about how hard it is for some countries to reduce CO2 compared to other countries. The "propaganda" line seems like a cop out.

I'm not sure what Canada can do to meet it's Kyoto goal of reducing co2 by 6%. I doubt if we will. It's too easy to blame the Americans, but they certainly had an effect on us when they dropped out. Thanks Dubyah.

AFAIC Kyoto isn't going to do much. It's a token gesture. It's a start, but what percentage of the global CO2 emissions will be reduced because of it? 5.2% from 1990 levels? What are we really going to see by 2012? 3%? What effect do you think that will have on the climate, and what do you suppose it cost? Canada isn't going to meet out 6% and I think it's already cost us $3 billion. Worldwide what are the costs associated with what we will achieve by 2012?

Somebody is going to have to go up there and suck it out of the stratosphere, that's all there is too it.
 
a_unique_person said:
Between human nature and concerted propaganda efforts to destroy the Kyoto initiative, not much has happened at all. Collectively, the human race has the intelligence of a newt.
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By definition the average human being has an IQ of only 100.

I was in Mensa, and thought myself the least intelligent one there, I absolutely know I'm no genius, so this concept really scares me. I can't even imagine what it would like to have mental function operating at that low level.

But years here have shown me that a lot of people function at even less than average (which makes sense by definition) and wow, that's awful.
 
bit_pattern said:
You mean the troposphere, surely?
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No, the hose won't reach.

And don't call me surely.

All kidding aside I don't think reductions are going to have enough effect. We're going to put a lot more up there before we start to level off let alone stop all together. The carbon is going to have to be sequestered. And yah, wether we do it on the ground or in the sky it's going to take a lot of energy.

On the plus side I have it on good word 10 MW wind turbines are on the horizon. That's a nice jump in the technology, the last I heard they were at 6 MW.
 
3bodyproblem said:
No, the hose won't reach.

And don't call me surely.

All kidding aside I don't think reductions are going to have enough effect. We're going to put a lot more up there before we start to level off let alone stop all together. The carbon is going to have to be sequestered. And yah, wether we do it on the ground or in the sky it's going to take a lot of energy.

On the plus side I have it on good word 10 MW wind turbines are on the horizon. That's a nice jump in the technology, the last I heard they were at 6 MW.
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Do you have any source that would lead you to think reductions aren't going to be enough?

If reductions aren't going to be enough, what would you propose instead?

Do you feel that if we assume that reductions aren't going to be enough and you can't think of anything more we can do, should we instead do nothing because the economic impact might be heavy no matter what we do?
 
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