Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[bit_pattern]

Talking of totally debunking the greenhouse effect ... has anyone know of any good rebuttals to this? ... Venus: No Greenhouse Effect "There is no greenhouse effect on Venus with 96.5% carbon dioxide, and none on the Earth with just a trace of carbon dioxide" HARRY DALE HUFFMAN Independent research physical scientist http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html

I believe this covers most of this argument:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Planetary_Greenhouse.html

 

[fuelair]

fuelair teaches science - and although he is bored by environmental science as she is (must be) taught in high school where he be teaching it last year - he has taught weather/climate and the relations of one to the other for a number of years and known it far longer. He just reacts nastily to the ignorance of the antiAGWers/AGWdeniers.

 

[a_unique_person]

As the climatologists say, "weather is not climate."

However, there is a prediction for more extreme events, depending the type of event, of course. There have been studies of extreme floods and droughts that link them to AGW. There are also more high temperature records than low temperature records.

 

[DC]

fuelair teaches science - and although he is bored by environmental science as she is (must be) taught in high school where he be teaching it last year - he has taught weather/climate and the relations of one to the other for a number of years and known it far longer. He just reacts nastily to the ignorance of the antiAGWers/AGWdeniers.

he im pretty much anti AGW, you also should but not a science denier

 

[a_unique_person]

People don't understand what is going on. A 1 degree average increase, say, means a 70 degree day is now 71. An 80 degree day is now 81.

You might have a small amount of increased storms, but not some kind of holy hellmouth releasing all over the Earth.

That 1 degree average increase is felt by the biological systems more than people realise. It is also composed of record highs. One day of 47C can do a lot of damage, yet not add much to the average for a year.

 

[Haig]

Out of interest, where did you hear about him? Was it Judith Curry's site? She does go for this kind of thing.

No, it wasn't on her site. Last year, I was thinking about how Venus is held up as a warning for Earth and the runaway greenhouse effect and had a look on various search engines for recent stuff. His blog came up on the lists and since then I've watched how he deals with his opponents ... so sure of himself and quite nippy!

I believe this covers most of this argument:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Planetary_Greenhouse.html

Thanks for this link, it's something I haven't come across before.

 

[lomiller]

People don't understand what is going on. A 1 degree average increase, say, means a 70 degree day is now 71. An 80 degree day is now 81.

First of all the changes being talked about are deg C not deg F. You had better hope there isn't a 70 deg C day any time soon...

More importantly, global warming does not mean any given day is 1 or 2 degrees warmer During the last glaciation, when the northern US was covered by a mile of ice temperatures were ~6 deg cooler than they were in 1950. But hey, going from 26 deg day to a 20 deg day doesn't sound that bad, in fact it sounds downright comfortable right.

You might have a small amount of increased storms, but not some kind of holy hellmouth releasing all over the Earth.

With the warming we've already had 1000 year weather events can now be expected every few decades. This isn't small by any means, especially when it's your livelihood begin wiped out by extreme drought or flooding.

 

[Trakar]

No, it wasn't on her site. Last year, I was thinking about how Venus is held up as a warning for Earth and the runaway greenhouse effect and had a look on various search engines for recent stuff. His blog came up on the lists and since then I've watched how he deals with his opponents ... so sure of himself and quite nippy!

Until the Sun warms up qute a bit, there's no danger of the Earth turning into Venus, but it only takes ten or so degrees to make our planet largely uninhabitable by our species, and only a few degrees to cost our economy tens/hundreds of trillions of dollars and a lot of death and misery to adapt and adjust to. The issue is, do we as a society pay to correct the problems that have arisen by not making obscenely profittable corporations pay for the consequences directly connected to their profit generating or do we wait and pay higher future rates of dealing with the consequences as they unfold?

 

[Trakar]

People don't understand what is going on. A 1 degree average increase, say, means a 70 degree day is now 71. An 80 degree day is now 81.

Not quite how overall climate temperature averaging is done. An increase of 1 degree on a climate average basis generally translates into some areas that change little or none and other areas that change a lot. It may even involve some areas being cooler than previously, especially in the near term, as weather patterns and systems change to accomodate the increased energy the system has to deal with.

While some people seem to see rhetorical advantage in minimizing the difference a 1 degree average temperature increase makes, it is a lot easier to understand if you look at the difference in energy required to raise the mass of the biosphere by 1 degree.

(the energy difference between what it takes to maintain a temperature one degree higher than our current average for one second is on the order of a million times higher than all the energy humanity produces in a year, at least according to my admittedly crude BotE calc)

You might have a small amount of increased storms, but not some kind of holy hellmouth releasing all over the Earth.

If the energy were magically and instantly evenly transferred to each molecule of the atmosphere you migh have a point of consideration worth exploring, but science isn't magic, and this energy is distributed unevenly due to the physical properties of our planet's atmosphere, surface and oceans, as well as the fact that our planet rotates. As this increased energy spreads distributes itself throughout our planet's atmosphere and oceans it generates what we tend to call weather. More energy, more energetic responses. Probably not more storms, but the storms that do occur will generally be stronger than the same storms that would have formed in lower energy circumstances.

Our planet still hasn't equilibrated to the ~1 degree of warming we've experienced over the last century. We can look back 6-8ky and see what it would look like if it were fully equilibrated. Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming and Oklahoma mostly desert. In fact about a third of the planet's land surface suffered a serious lack of fresh water and drastically reduced precipitation (great flooding occurred in many northern watersheds). Reduction of mountain snow packs means water reservoirs become depleted, reduced and early melts mean that more of the summer heat goes straight into the rocks and atmosphere instead of being consumed melting snow and ice. but we won't get the chance to see the conditions gradually equilibrate and adapt to them slowly, by 2100, we will have pumped up the average temp an additional 3-5 degrees, into ranges not seen on our planet for tens of millions of years before our species ever evolved.

 

[Trakar]

It's my hope fuelair was being tongue in cheek. AGW is not linked to annual events but annual trends instead

Indeed, statistically, it is. We have enough modern data to begin demonstrating linkage. We still can't say that any particular weather system is primarily the way it is because of AGW, but we can say seasonal averages are being impacted by these climate trends.

Dr. Wallace at UW made a similar point in an EOS article back in March, "Weather- and climate-related extreme events: teachable moments."

It does get somewhat conflated by the general media and thus the populace but I'm not sure what can be done to keep this from happening when there is personal, political and ideological gain from the deliberate conflation.

 

[Mikemcc]

First of all the changes being talked about are deg C not deg F. You had better hope there isn't a 70 deg C day any time soon...

More importantly, global warming does not mean any given day is 1 or 2 degrees warmer During the last glaciation, when the northern US was covered by a mile of ice temperatures were ~6 deg cooler than they were in 1950. But hey, going from 26 deg day to a 20 deg day doesn't sound that bad, in fact it sounds downright comfortable right.

With the warming we've already had 1000 year weather events can now be expected every few decades. This isn't small by any means, especially when it's your livelihood begin wiped out by extreme drought or flooding.

or your insurance premiums being driven up, the insurance companies have seen this coming for years.

In 2008, Ernst & Young – not known for having to peel bark from their sweater vests after intensive treehugging sessions – named climate change the number one risk to the insurance industry. In a 2009 report, Lloyd's of London warned of climate change contributing to "resource-driven conflicts; economic damage and risk to coastal cities and infrastructure; loss of territory and resultant border disputes; environmentally induced migration; government fragility; political radicalisation; tensions over energy supplies and pressures on international governance"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentis...n/28/climate-change-climate-change-scepticism

http://www.genevaassociation.org/PDF/General_Information/Developing_World_Statement.pdf

 

[Mikemcc]

You "physicist" is picking a number that gives him the answer he want s but doesn't have any particular physical meaning. The greenhouse effect controls surface temperature not the temperature profile of an atmosphere. The correct counter to that is that there is an observable measurable greenhouse effect on both planets.

Without a greenhouse effect a planets surface temperature would approximate it's black-body temperature for the radiation it receives from the Sun. After albedo is accounted for both the Earth and Venus receive the same density of energy from the Sun. Without a greenhouse effect that would not sufficient to get either planet above 0 deg C. In fact the earth without a greenhouse effect would be ~33 deg C colder while Venus would be ~570 deg C cooler.

Before anybody misquotes that, an air-less Venus (sans the greenhouse effect would be an almost Mercurian hell hole - think of the Moon with four times the temperature swing, but on a much longer timescale (a Venusian day is 243 Earth days)

 

[CapelDodger]

i dont like this bad weather linking to AGW. in a few decades we can start linking an increased trend if there is one. I don't think that the current amount of evidence is enought o start linking tornadoes etc to AGW.

We've had a few decades already and what we're getting is just as predicted - more drought and deluge, more heatwaves and record high temperatures, more energetic storms. Agriculture is already being affected, which is a great deal more important than tornadoes (about which there's no consensus even as to how they work). AGW was predicted by science and it is here.

 

[Reality Check]

HARRY DALE HUFFMAN Independent research physical scientist http://theendofthemystery.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/venus-no-greenhouse-effect.html

He makes the basic mistake of applying a one layer greenhouse model.
This is one of the mistakes that Joseph E. Postma did when he "disproved" the greenhouse effect. Look at the Venus is More Optically Thick Than a One Layer Model Can Give You section at Skeptical Science.

 

[lomiller]

Before anybody misquotes that, an air-less Venus (sans the greenhouse effect would be an almost Mercurian hell hole - think of the Moon with four times the temperature swing, but on a much longer timescale (a Venusian day is 243 Earth days)

You are correct there would be big temperature swings but the average would be a little below zero deg C. Solar intensity at Venus's distance from the Sun is higher than the Earth, but after you take into account the amount each planet reflects the Earth actually receives slightly more energy per m^2

 

[Furcifer]

Indeed, statistically, it is. We have enough modern data to begin demonstrating linkage. We still can't say that any particular weather system is primarily the way it is because of AGW, but we can say seasonal averages are being impacted by these climate trends.

Dr. Wallace at UW made a similar point in an EOS article back in March, "Weather- and climate-related extreme events: teachable moments."

It does get somewhat conflated by the general media and thus the populace but I'm not sure what can be done to keep this from happening when there is personal, political and ideological gain from the deliberate conflation.

And yet you and a few others have yet to mention albedo

Newsflash people, if you cut down the forest and put up a strip mall, 2 lanes of black top and a concrete urban jungle guess what happens? Extreme weather events known as heat waves. Evapotranspiration, look it up.

The fact the sun has been extremely active recently hasn't helped either, but I digress. How we've shaped the land has and will continue to have a significant effect on extreme weather events like the heat waves we are currently experiencing.

 

[DC]

And yet you and a few others have yet to mention albedo

Newsflash people, if you cut down the forest and put up a strip mall, 2 lanes of black top and a concrete urban jungle guess what happens? Extreme weather events known as heat waves. Evapotranspiration, look it up.

The fact the sun has been extremely active recently hasn't helped either, but I digress. How we've shaped the land has and will continue to have a significant effect on extreme weather events like the heat waves we are currently experiencing.

eerem Forests and Concrete are pretty close to eachother in regard to albedo.

 

[Megalodon]

The fact the sun has been extremely active recently hasn't helped either, but I digress.

Evidence?

 

[Furcifer]

Evidence?

Phones suck for links, but if you go on YouTube and look for time lapse solar activity for 2011 there are some amazing videos from NASA. The last one I saw was from March or April of this year I believe.

 

[Reality Check]

The fact the sun has been extremely active recently hasn't helped either, but I digress. How we've shaped the land has and will continue to have a significant effect on extreme weather events like the heat waves we are currently experiencing.

And I agree with the other posters - we need citations to the evidence, not your unsupported assertions.

Where are the "strip mall, 2 lanes of black top and a concrete urban jungle" in rural Colarado which is causing the heat wave there?

How active has the Sun been over the last 30 years (the usual period for climate) or even 17 years (the minimum period needed according to some papers)?

Let us see what the climate science says:
Solar activity & climate: is the sun causing global warming?

In the last 35 years of global warming, the sun has shown a slight cooling trend. Sun and climate have been going in opposite directions. In the past century, the Sun can explain some of the increase in global temperatures, but a relatively small amount.

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study: “The effect of urban heating on the global trends is nearly negligible”

A paper submitted for peer review by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study (BEST) finds that urban heating has an influence on global temperature trends that is “nearly negligible” and that what effect has been observed is even slightly negative, which is to say that temperature trends in urban areas are actually cooler than the trends measured at rural sites, and that the Earth's land surface has warmed approximately 1°C on average since 1950.