Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Megalodon]

Can you guess what happens to the CO2 when it gets "stored" in the ocean?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

At Malcolm Kirkpatrick's request, I summarized the basic physics, concluding with this sentence:

Most of the confusion that pervades discussion of this subject has come from the promotion of political views at the expense of science.

The very next post:

If you wish to take advantage of the E in JREF, you should be open to learning from them, even if what they are telling you goes against your political beliefs..

Be careful about those assumptions of political orientation. It's true the relation between political orientation and acceptance or skepticism of the AGW theory means trouble. AGW should be a matter of fact (one way or the other), perhaps difficult to ascertain but not a matter of politics. The theory seems to have political implications, one way or another. AGW advocacy supports socialists in their reach for control. AGW skepticism supports free marketeers in their rejection of control. The close relation between AGW and political orientation (the reliability with which you can predict someone's policy preference on, say, progressive income taxes, from his position on AGW) suggests that politics determines a scientific belief. On both sides. I suspect you would not get this kind of alignment if the consensus position of the world's astronomers was that a 1 km asteroid was going to impact Earth in ten years. The difference is that celestial mechanics is pretty well worked out. And cliques of astronomers don't lobby to get editors of professional journals fired for publishing papers critical of the clique. I hope, anyway.

I thank Malcolm Kirkpatrick for exemplifying my point.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...The dynamic equilibria that determine the temperature of the earth's surface have been understood in rough form for many years. The role played by carbon dioxide (among other atmospheric gases) is part of that well-established climate science. The anthropogenic increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (from 315 ppm in 1958 to over 390 today) is indisputable. (If you don't believe me, ask Freeman Dyson.) The basic science, which has been known for more than a century, tells us that increasing levels of carbon dioxide (while holding everything else constant) will warm the planet.

There is no genuine dispute about what I wrote in the paragraph above. When people deny those basic facts, you may assume they are uninformed, lying, or too scared to acknowledge what they know.

I am aware that Freeman Dyson expects some warming from human CO2 contributions to the atmosphere.

Models that are sensitive to (and depend on) feedback and are "understood in rough form" are not understood. If droughts and floods, snowless winters and blizzards are consistent with AGW, then the theory does not make precise predictions. I wouldn't call that "understood".

 

[lomiller]

I tried. Are you?

There was no physics in that post.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Can you guess what happens to the CO2 when it gets "stored" in the ocean?

Foraminifera incorporate it into calcium carbonate and it precipitates and forms chalk.

 

[Mikemcc]

Just before this thread got derailed by the Dyson/Motl discussion, I posted a link to a very interesting analysis (by Canadian blogger Deep Climate) of the archived McIntyre code and data that was involved in the production of the Wegman Report:

Replication and due diligence, Wegman style

I'd really like to know what people think about that (including Malcolm), because every time I post that link all I get is *crickets* (most notably from the McIntyre sycophants)

M&Ms principal error seems to be cherry-picking data. They deliberately chose 100 series with the most pronounced HSI.

Tamino did a fairly comprehensive rebuttal here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delusion/

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...The hard part is calculating how fast and how much the planet will warm up. That involves taking the very general differential equations given to us by the science of thermodynamics, specializing them to the specific circumstances of our planet, and solving those equations. That process is known as modelling. Planetary climate is extremely complicated, with lots of feedback between different subsystems, so modelling is hard. Reasonable people can argue about the accuracy of our models.
(Thanks for that).
We can, of course, compare the results of our modelling to the observed evolution of our planet's climate. That has been done. It looks as though our best models are pretty good. Those models are broadly consistent with the many scientific observations that have been discussed at length in this and other threads.

That is why anthropogenic warming is now accepted as probable by almost all scientists...

Okay. I didn't balk until "It looks as though our best models are pretty good. Those models are broadly consistent with the many scientific observations...". The failure to share raw data (ongoing, despite claims here) and the upward "adjustment" of raw temperature data makes the reported agreement between "observation" and models suspect.

 

[uke2se]

Okay. I didn't balk until "It looks as though our best models are pretty good. Those models are broadly consistent with the many scientific observations...". The failure to share raw data (ongoing, despite claims here) and the upward adjustment of raw temperature data makes the reported agreement between "observation" and models suspect.

 

[Megalodon]

Foraminifera incorporate it into calcium carbonate and it precipitates and forms chalk.

Wrong, but thanks for playing. Your answer is close to the canard of "it's food for plants". Phytoplankton is limited by nutrients, not carbonates.

It actually forms carbonic acid, changing the carbonate chemistry of the water and lowering the pH.

With enough CO2 absorbed by the upper layers of the ocean, all sort of fun things start to happen, like disruptions in the growth and reproduction of organisms.

Additionally, increased CO2 levels affect the production of marine snow, and increase the time needed for that marine snow to reach the deep-sea, and thus lowers its nutritional quality by the end of the descent.

It's noteworthy that marine snow is the only energy source in vast areas of the deep-sea, so disruption of those ecosystems is inevitable

But the other fun news is that, since less carbon is exported to the deep, the CO2 partial pressure increases, limiting the absorption of atmospheric CO2, that was already limited by the increase in temperature.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Models that are sensitive to (and depend on) feedback and are "understood in rough form" are not understood.

I said the dynamic equilibria have been understood in rough form for many years. I was thinking in terms of a century ago. Our understanding of those equilibria has improved in recent years.

Our understanding of complex scientific subjects will never be complete. Pretending that the inherent incompleteness of scientific knowledge renders it useless is a well-known fallacy (the call for perfection) that's often employed as a rhetorical device by those who care more about talking points than science.

If droughts and floods, snowless winters and blizzards are consistent with AGW,

And they are.

Any theory that's inconsistent with droughts and floods, snowless winters and blizzards would be inconsistent with what we observe. Scientists reject such theories.

then the theory does not make precise predictions. I wouldn't call that "understood".

So you won't be happy until someone gives you a theory that predicts no variation in the weather.

Most people would reject a theory that so obviously contradicts experience.

 

[Mikemcc]

"Play" is unfair. I did not introduce the terms "fundamental".I did not introduce "basic" (Iirc).Now we have three meanings of "basic physics", seems to me: 1) the conceptually minimal axiomatization, 2) 19th century classical mechanics and thermodynamics, and 3) whatever supports the larger theory (the basic assumptions of that larger theory). Dyson and Motl certainly understand #1, 2. I don't have a clue about quantum mechanics or operator theory. #3 is pretty close to a requirement that skeptics accept your premises.

There's a fair bit of word spagetti there!

1. By 'minimal axiomatization' I assume that you mean that there are a few basic theories that underpin the rest of the study of climate (in which case way not say that?), amoungst these are the Tyndall Effect, thermodynamics, the study of atmospherics (composition and mechanics) and the carbon cycle.

2. These are components of 1.

3. That's everything else... Nothing needs to be 'accepted', it needs to be analysed, critiqued if necessary and reviewed in the continuing drive to refine the understanding of the systems.

Dunno 'bout "understand", but I observe that the overnight low temperature at sea level iin Hilo is a lot higher than the overnight low on the summit of Mauna Loa. There's permanent ice in cracks in the wall of Mokuauweoweo caldera at 13,000 feet that wouldn't last at sea level. Yes. the atmosphere traps heat. Midday temperature is higher at sea level than at the summit (although you can get a sunburn much faster on the summit).

Summit temperature drops are more to do with orographic effects (higher windspeeds, changes in humidity, etc) than effects of 'trapped heat' at different altitudes.

I'm not sure about "equilibrium" here. Is that an assumption or an observation? Does it have to be one equilibrium or can Earth slide from one equilibrium (say, heating the ocean) to another (storing energy as biomass)?

There is one equilibrium, the one that exists in the big analogue model, the earth. It doesn't tend to flip from one state to another (at least in the timescales that we are discussing here - glacials and interglacials aside). Arctic sea ice seems to be an exception to this though, we appear to have reached a tipping point and it is disappearing far more rapidly than anyone foresaw.

The equilibrium is changing though - temperatures are rising, sea ice is disappearing, the oceans are becoming more acidic, high temperature extremes are becoming more prevalent, precipitation patterns are changing, pests are moving into areas where they were previously unable to inhabit, more wildfires, changes to flowering times, etc.

 

[Dancing David]

Some of the solar energy that went into evaporation (and wind) reappears when water condenses. "Alpine" implies "above sea level". This energy reappears as erosion (friction) or light generated by hydroelectric dams. An ice cold gallon bottle of kerosene contanis a lot of (biologically) stored solar energy.

And the potential energy of water in the mountains has what to do with the theory of AGW, exactly, you brought it up, why is it relevant?

What fraction of heat/energy (instead of radiated away from the earth) retained by the green house gases is tranformed into potential energy?

 

[Dancing David]

There are apparently different conceptions of "basic". If Lubos Motl and Freeman Dyson qualify as "certified competent" in "basic physics", then either (a) that "basic physics" does not imply what AGW theorists claim, or (b) Dyson and Motl are lying.

Exactly quote Dyson before you bring them up, where and what is the citation, exactly?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Can you guess what happens to the CO2 when it gets "stored" in the ocean?

Foraminifera incorporate it into calcium carbonate and it precipitates and forms chalk.

Wrong, but thanks for playing. Your answer is close to the canard of "it's food for plants". Phytoplankton is limited by nutrients, not carbonates.

You mean those chalk beds, like the coal deposits, have lain there since Creation?
Did Adam have a navel?
Did the trees in the Garden have annual rings?

 

[Dancing David]

I am aware that Freeman Dyson expects some warming from human CO2 contributions to the atmosphere.

Models that are sensitive to (and depend on) feedback and are "understood in rough form" are not understood. If droughts and floods, snowless winters and blizzards are consistent with AGW, then the theory does not make precise predictions. I wouldn't call that "understood".

So what exactly was it that Dyson said?

Rough understanding of nuclear physics was enough to make the a-bomb.

 

[uke2se]

I'm also still interested in what Dyson has published that challenge the physics underpinning AGW theory.

Malcolm?

 

[lomiller]

Models that are sensitive to (and depend on) feedback and are "understood in rough form" are not understood.

Every control system ever devised depends on feedback. Without understanding feedback airplanes to not fly, inferential combustion engines do not run, electricity can’t be transmitted to your home or business. The entirely of the modern world depends on understanding the effects of feedback, so you had better rethink your view that any system that contains feedback are not understood.

If droughts and floods, snowless winters and blizzards are consistent with AGW, then the theory does not make precise predictions. I wouldn't call that "understood".

Incorrect. It makes specific predictions about the frequency of these events. Specifically it says that the frequency of these types of event will increase.

 

[Megalodon]

You mean those chalk beds, like the coal deposits, have lain there since Creation?
Did Adam have a navel?
Did the trees in the Garden have annual rings?

Your inability to read your own language is noted.

The chalk beds were laid in shallow seas under vastly different conditions from the present. I didn't ask you what happened to the CO2 absorbed by the ocean in the Cretaceous, I asked you what happens to it now.

You obviously didn't know what happens, so I tried to educate you. Like so many before in this thread, I appear to have failed.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...The chalk beds were laid in shallow seas under vastly different conditions from the present. I didn't ask you what happened to the CO2 absorbed by the ocean in the Cretaceous, I asked you what happens to it now.

You mean, where marine organisms once made shells from calcium carbonate, they now use titanium?

You obviously didn't know what happens, so I tried to educate you. Like so many before in this thread, I appear to have failed.[/QUOTE]

 

[Dancing David]

I'm also still interested in what Dyson has published that challenge the physics underpinning AGW theory.

Malcolm?

Malcolm?