Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[quarky]

There may be some self-regulating mechanisms in all of this.
It is true that plants are able to exploit higher CO2 levels.
However, we seldom allow the sequestration that they might accomplish.
Slash and burn is still common in the Amazon.
Fossil fuels are oxidized to permit mass quantities of corn. Very little carbon is sequestered in the scenario.

Which is why I've wondered about the role of the formation of new limestone in the oceans.
I've brought up this matter previously here, but I'm not sure what the jury said.

Still, there are issues that seem hard to dodge...like the lost reflectivity in the polar ice melting; the release of methane from perma-frosted zones thawing, and more.

My angle on climate change, and the problems associated with it, come from an innate repulsion for doing things in a stupid way.

 

[Pixel42]

Is there any one site that actually concentrates on just the science of the subject of AGW and does away with the politics, and alarmism?

The best summary of the science that I know of is the one produced by The Royal Society. You can download it here:

http://royalsociety.org/policy/publications/2010/climate-change-summary-science/

 

[lomiller]

Is there any one site that actually concentrates on just the science of the subject of AGW and does away with the politics, and alarmism? Most of the ones I have seen seem to be very polarized one way or the the other

Your best bet is www.realclimate.org. It’s got a dozen or so contributors who are actively publishing climate scientists. That said, the science itself is alarming and conflicts with political agenda’s so it’s basically impossible for any site discussing the actual science not to be the target of politically based mudslinging.

Based on the little I have read so far it seems that there is more than a little room for doubt.

There is little debate or doubt in the literature on the core issues. The “doubt” being spread on the internet does not in any way reflect the ongoing debates in the literature. There are several sites that report on new scientific publications. If you watch these for a while you will quickly realiz that there are basically no current papers questioning things like the earth is warming due to human CO2.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/earth_climate/

I thought that plants would just take in the CO2 and make more Oxygen and the whole thing was self regulating.

When the plant dies and is eaten or decays this CO2 gets released back into the atmosphere. In the absence of new CO2 this is self regulating as almost all plants end up being broken down and released as CO2. Releasing fossil CO2 is over and above this and it can take upwards of 100 000 years for this extra CO2 to be locked up again.

 

[jimbob]

There is always the potential for an event, whether it be from the sun or from volcanoes, that we will be glad and lucky that we heated up the place.

That doesn't negate the effect of massive quantities of hydrocarbons being oxidized; like never before.

We're bringing to the surface, ages of stored solar energy; all in a hurry, at least compared to the time involved in their sequestration.

Why would be expecting anything else?

The stored chemical energy is only a localised effect at the moment* It is dwarfed by the insulation effect of re-releasing the CO₂ into the atmosphere - the Sun is getting hotter on a scale of millions of years, and the locking up of carbon in the form of fossil fuels has been acting to reduce this effect.


*I have seen a physicist blog that if the energy usage for the US keeps growing exponentially at the same rate as it has since the 18th Century, then it would be only 400 years before the Earth's surface would be at boiling point due to the heat released...

There may be some self-regulating mechanisms in all of this.
It is true that plants are able to exploit higher CO2 levels.
However, we seldom allow the sequestration that they might accomplish.
Slash and burn is still common in the Amazon.
Fossil fuels are oxidized to permit mass quantities of corn. Very little carbon is sequestered in the scenario.

Which is why I've wondered about the role of the formation of new limestone in the oceans.
I've brought up this matter previously here, but I'm not sure what the jury said.

Still, there are issues that seem hard to dodge...like the lost reflectivity in the polar ice melting; the release of methane from perma-frosted zones thawing, and more.

My angle on climate change, and the problems associated with it, come from an innate repulsion for doing things in a stupid way.

Ocean acidification (due to dissolved CO₂) actually means that limestone is less likely to be laid down now than in the past.

 

[macdoc]

*I have seen a physicist blog that if the energy usage for the US keeps growing exponentially at the same rate as it has since the 18th Century, then it would be only 400 years before the Earth's surface would be at boiling point due to the heat released...

I would want to see that as
a) there is always a rebalancing of radiation
b) energy use is a tiny factor compared to the enhanced GHG effect

So I suspect that there were other factors involved and in addition we would run out of fossil fuels very quickly as an energy source under exponential growth.

•••

r-j - on his own dime...actually thought it would need to be paid to put forth such foolish arguments in a science forum....bit of masochism there I guess. Maybe some do like to be chew toys.....fills their inner Karl Rove.

 

[jimbob]

I would want to see that as
a) there is always a rebalancing of radiation
b) energy use is a tiny factor compared to the enhanced GHG effect

So I suspect that there were other factors involved and in addition we would run out of fossil fuels very quickly as an energy source under exponential growth.

Google is my friend

It was in the context of a physicist meeting an "infinite growth economist"

The sort who imagine that technical ingenuity can infinitely solve problems, so the assumption was that there would be a magic supply of energy - otherwise the growth couldn't continue at that rate.

Physicist: Before we tackle that, we’re too close to an astounding point for me to leave it unspoken. At that 2.3% growth rate, we would be using energy at a rate corresponding to the total solar input striking Earth in a little over 400 years. We would consume something comparable to the entire sun in 1400 years from now. By 2500 years, we would use energy at the rate of the entire Milky Way galaxy—100 billion stars! I think you can see the absurdity of continued energy growth. 2500 years is not that long, from a historical perspective. We know what we were doing 2500 years ago. I think I know what we’re not going to be doing 2500 years hence.

 

[macdoc]

One important thing I learned from this thread, concerning the trends and the global climate data. They "adjust" the data to get rid of things like the PDO, pollutants, clouds and other random elements that influence the temperatures of the planet.

Your grasp of climate forcing is nonexistent. There are very few things that actually alter the temperature of the planet...they are called forcings.
PDO is not one of them.
It's a localized phenomena that is "inside the box" and is regional....

You are just vomiting crap now and exposing your horribly poor grasp of how your planet works.
Chew toy is getting very ragged and boring now.

 

[aleCcowaN]

Continuation of post # 8308

Last night it was the turn or La Plata, a city with 850,000 inhabitants located 65 Km south-east of Buenos Aires. In three hours the rainfall made 311 mm (a foot is 305.4 mm), an absolute record, I wouldn't be surprised if it is a record for the whole Southern Cone (all South America south of the Tropic of Capricorn, that is, an area similar to that of the States from the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico to the Rockies and the Canadian border; or Europe, excluding the former USSR.).

In 12 hours the rainfall totalled 16 inches and some districts were totalled too. The death toll is by now 46 and counting as the city was cut off during hours and local rescue services collapsed. The Hospital de Niños was flooded.

A few visual testimonies:

NOTE: There are no hurricanes, and rarely tropical cyclones in the Southern Atlantic nor in the Southern Pacific near South America. It's simply too cold for that.

Going back to the subject of extreme events and record breaking, the Servicio Meteorológico Nacional (Argentine Bureau of Meteorology) has adopted the use of informing each month about records breaking values of the last 50 years. During last February, 5 record highs, 1 record low; January, 4 record high, 2 record lows; December 2012, 2 record highs, no record lows; November 2012, no records; etc. It is consistent with the worldwide pattern of record highs exceeding record lows in a proportion a little less than 4 to 1.

 

[Mikemcc]

The best summary of the science that I know of is the one produced by The Royal Society. You can download it here:

http://royalsociety.org/policy/publications/2010/climate-change-summary-science/

There's also AGW Observer.

http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/

 

[aleCcowaN]

On the plus side, the generation of that CO2 has allowed for human population to explode to over 7,000,000,000 during the industrial age. Accompanying the population growth has been a general (but clearly not uniformly distributed) trend towards greater life expectancy and I would argue "human happiness" (more leisure time, smaller family size, etc, etc ...). A far larger issue than naval gazing about temperature trends, IMHO, is how do we provide for continued growth and accommodate each individual's desire to improve their lot in life, while mitigating and managing the impacts of AGW.

The piece about everyone's desire to improve his or her lot life is key. Fossil fuels provide the greatest thermodynamic "bang for the buck" in terms of energy density and fungibility. To remove FF's from the equation will, in effect kill the shortest and easiest route for a large part of the world's population to improve their lot in life. In other words, it ain't gonna happen.

Now, there is going to a bunch of chatter about solar, wind, etc, etc ... but that way I see it, FF's are going to produced and burned for a long time coming. So we better get good at adapting, managing and mitigating any negative impacts.

So you discovered the Principle of Pleasure, that guides the individual and collective lives, but who told you that to curb AGW it is necessary to abandon FF?

For the "buck in the bang" the solution is more bucks. That's why in my opinion GHG taxes should affect the tariff system. I don't want to pay for making room for the next Usian or Chinese CO2 bucket in my apartment. I want Usian and Chinese business paying for making that room. In my draft for such a system -I'm discussing it in local political mentideros- a Chinese product has to pay an additional 8% GW tariff to enter the local market, a product from the USA, 5%; a German product 0.8%, a Salvadorian product, not a dime. At the same time, Argentine products have to pay 3.1% in every country. This looks like an attack against foreign trade and thus, global prosperity, but it is not so, as there's a lot of dumping -foreign trade and commercial term- in the international markets regarding environmental externalities, and everybody knows that dumping is a disloyal commercial practice.

 

[quarky]

So you discovered the Principle of Pleasure, that guides the individual and collective lives, but who told you that to curb AGW it is necessary to abandon FF?

For the "buck in the bang" the solution is more bucks. That's why in my opinion GHG taxes should affect the tariff system. I don't want to pay for making room for the next Usian or Chinese CO2 bucket in my apartment. I want Usian and Chinese business paying for making that room. In my draft for such a system -I'm discussing it in local political mentideros- a Chinese product has to pay an additional 8% GW tariff to enter the local market, a product from the USA, 5%; a German product 0.8%, a Salvadorian product, not a dime. At the same time, Argentine products have to pay 3.1% in every country. This looks like an attack against foreign trade and thus, global prosperity, but it is not so, as there's a lot of dumping -foreign trade and commercial term- in the international markets regarding environmental externalities, and everybody knows that dumping is a disloyal commercial practice.

Interesting thought.

Taking it further, perhaps:

The currency itself is a reflection of incoming solar radiation.
Tax would be a matter of putting a drag on various efforts that spewed too much waste.

 

[aleCcowaN]

From all the garbage r-j is throwing lately into the thread, the following bits look to have gone uncontested.

But that is hardly likely.

Here is "now"

and here is how it looks as anomalies



We are going to have define "colder" it seems.

This unfortunate cherries seem in r-j mind to substantiate supposed trends to winter cooling in the Bible Belt.

Of course, aware people will instantly detect cherry picking, that is, r-j is playing with dates, discarding each instance that contradicts his/her goals and dumping here those ones that support them. Of course, and after-the-fact theory appears so an appearance is achieved, and appearance that the "examples" are the natural consequences of that said theories.

Using a similar bad faith, one could select a cherry that supports the contrary:

Which show a wintry Bible Belt warmed some 7°F, besides these dates belong to winter, and not like r-j's examples above, some days in early spring.

Of course, if r-j wanted in good faith show winters cooling, well, there's a way to obtain the temperature anomaly for the whole winter season. In this case there's no possible foul play:

Anomalies for last dec-jan-feb:

Composite anomaly for the last 5 winters

Composite anomaly for the last 10 winters

Mean temperatures for the last 10 winters (so you can see that they are indeed winter temperatures in spite of the bogus automatic labelling)

Where the heck is the cooling?

 

[aleCcowaN]

Interesting thought.

Taking it further, perhaps:

The currency itself is a reflection of incoming solar radiation.
Tax would be a matter of putting a drag on various efforts that spewed too much waste.

Did I hit a nerve? Sorry, but otherwise I don't understand what you are saying. May you explain it?

 

[quarky]

Did I hit a nerve? Sorry, but otherwise I don't understand what you are saying. May you explain it?

No, you didn't hit a nerve. You hit something that may resonate with me.
I was describing a way to take it to the next step...to correlate energy to currency, more directly...and to redefine 'debt' in a rational way, in regards to the eco-sphere that enables life.

It's possible I mis-read your post, and my comments are off the wall.
I would hope not.

 

[aleCcowaN]

No, you didn't hit a nerve. You hit something that may resonate with me.
I was describing a way to take it to the next step...to correlate energy to currency, more directly...and to redefine 'debt' in a rational way, in regards to the eco-sphere that enables life.

It's possible I mis-read your post, and my comments are off the wall.
I would hope not.

I don't quite understand yet, specially to link currency -dollar and its value, not a certain amount in dollars- with energy. Anyway, my only intention was to tell DSo that he was using the status quo to perpetuate the status quo. Such tautology is not the natural state of affairs, and the duh! solution of an international problem that requires a lot of money is attaching that money to the international part of the economy and not to the domestic one.

About those ideas I succinctly drafted, I don't judge these fora to be the place to discuss them; when politics and economics are involved, the number of r-js grows exponentially. Besides, I'm developing and discussing them as the real Alec Cowan. He's a different person of the aleCcowaN that scribbles here. I use my real name, but I am as the real one as the Matt Le Blanc in Episodes or the Bob Saget and Seth Green in Entourage.

 

[batvette]

allow them? you talk as if we had a choice. as if we are in a Position to say to the chinese, stop emitting CO2....

this is so amazingly arrogant.
ist like you are on an Island with very limited Food and 2 people. you eat half the Food and then demand the other Person Shares his half with you. that is pretty insanse. As we created the Problem, we are in no Position to demand anything from the chinese. but anyhow China is already doing a lot. so your Point is extremely weak.

and why do you calim they will nto cut back? their scientists are also in Agreement about AGW. ist not like they think ist not a Problem. they are already working on Solutions just like most others are too. and even more than some industrialized / developed countries. so spare us your red herring.

Superficial observation, you do exhibit the global socialist mindset that is the problem here- your individual philosophy isn't the issue so I only mention this toward noting I don't expect you and I will get anywhere discussing policy.

However on that policy, here is what you and those who share that mindset need to know.
#1 you acknowledge we can't control what China does yet claim they are doing things to cut back. The latter isn't supported by the former. Why would they cut back if they don't have to, and because of your self loathing attitude, don't feel as if they should? No all indications are they only thing they are doing is furnishing lip service to the problem and are following the same model they do for intellectual properties they steal.
#2 People who share your ideology are trying to force legislation in the "have" nations that shoot our economies in the foot by driving capital and industry to nations like China. They will claim it's good for the economy because of "green" industries and technologies but that is largely bull huckey. Companies in the have nations will invent the technology but by the time it comes to mass produce it, surprise surprise, China will have it on the street the next day at half the price.

In essence everything you believe is helping and working not only is not, it's only serving to make the problem worse. You don't care because you're too wrapped up in the ideology to question it. You feel sorry for the poor Chinese, you loathe the environmental damage done by industrial nations, and you feel the wealth that resulted should be taken and given to people who might be affected by carbon generated by those with more.

All this attitude accomplishes if allowed to drive policy, is accelerate the industrialization of billions more people and transfer wealth.

This is the meme: You cannot mitigate a problem caused by human industrialization, with confused policies that are helping to industrialize more humans.

So this really is the rub and while you might like to label anyone who opposes you a "denialist" some of us aren't employed by the oil industry, or against science, and do care about the planet. We don't appreciate seeing our way of life erode while watching the planet get worse, with confused ideologues at the helm.

 

[batvette]

Indeed...


Most crackpots complains that the scientific establishment is blocking the truth. This is an extraordinary claim that requires a lot more proof than “I believe...”

Please, I beg of you, successfully refute this statement:

If the consensus of Climate Change Research reversed, and it were asserted the earth was not in danger from AGW, the majority of funding toward Climate Change would quickly end and the researchers would have to find a new line of work.

Show me a field of research where it's been so well funded due to fear and gloom and doom stories- and if the scare ended so does the money.

How does this prove any thing of the sort? Few countries have actually hit their Kyoto targets, and some, like the US, have decided they will not even agree to try and hit them.

It doesn't "prove" anything, but it's common sense business migrates to where it has little regulation. It also doesn't take a deep analysis to see that the Chinese have advanced their industrialization in leaps and bounds. Maybe you can't pin this on Kyoto but this is an indicator of what will happen when you implement regulations on industrialized nations you don't on third world countries.

As for the implied "the US didn't sign on so that's the problem" feast on this:

Why are you suggesting that only certain countries have the right to industrialize? What makes you so special that your country gets to industrialize and decide that other countries should not be so entitled?

Of course EVERYone has a "right" to industrialize.... but the planet has already been damaged to the point of no return by those that are. There is no luxury of allowing MORE to do so and if you say they should then your agenda is more global socialism than saving the planet. Admit it or stop BSing us you care about the planet.

China produces 1/3 the CO2 per person as the US while India produces 1/10, the industrialized countries in Europe produce 1/2. If and when the US gets down to these levels it may be fair to talk about equivalencies but as things are now the equivalency is utterly baseless.

Okay so you just further validated it. Indulging your own self loathing and guilt over being a "have" is more important than stopping global warming.

Be more specific. I see no argument I haven’t seen repeatedly in fact I see no argument that isn’t used by every crackpot who doesn’t like science.

So that's twice now you flamed me, calling me a crackpot. I do believe there are rules against that here, please refer to them if you have not already. It's not necessary if your arguments are sound, and if you're just trying to annoy me you can do so with those arguments. I'm pretty sure I annoyed you quite well by now without a single ad hominem to do so.

 

[Reality Check]

There are numerous examples of claims made about trends, and time periods. Tamino (poor tamino) even had his ten year trends drug into the fray. (wasn't he being deliberately wrong to make a point?)

I think that you are missing the points still, r-g.
For a start the NCDC data and all of the other datasets that have been mentioned - including the ones Tamino used , (smart Tamino) - have enough data to determine statistical significance of trends.
This is because you can work out the statistical significance of a trend from any set of data.

The real points are that the Climate at a Glance tool using the NCDC data does not display the statistical significance of the trend lines and that as soon as you plot more than 20 years of climate data from any climate dataset then the trend is statistically significant.

Tamino was being deliberately correct to make a point. The point was that some datasets have trends that are statistically significant for a time period starting in 2003, i.e. a little over 10 years.

Are you still unable to understand Tamino's blog article, Too Little Time, r-j?

 

[Reality Check]

I mentioned it show a trend towards colder winters.
And there we have it. When I posted the hundred year trend, that also was dismissed.

The problem is that you are claiming the all of the trends from the Climate at a Glance tool using are useless (attributing it falsely to other posters).
Thus the trends that you cherrypick do not exist according to you!
r-j, Cherry picking data about local winters is just wrong !

However the trends from periods of over 20 years are actually significant thus:
r-j: you have just debunked your own claim that winters are getting colder
and
r-j: you have just debunked your own claim that winters are getting colder II

 

[Reality Check]

I didn't even know it was possible to remove "the influence of known extraneous factors" from the global temperature data. This explains why the measurements don't match the graphs sometimes.

You are still fairly wrong. The measurements always match the graphs because the graphs plot the measurements !
The mistake that you made was not correctly identifying the data that was being plotted.

And you thought I wasn't able to learn anything.

And we still have little evidence that you can do so .
You still have not shown that that you have learned about statistical significance.
You still have not shown yet that you have learned about bad practice that is cherry picking data.
You still have not shown yet that you have learned that claiming the winters are getting colder and then giving examples of winters getting warmer means that you have debunked your claim.