Merged Global Warming Discussion II: Heated Conversation

[aleCcowaN]

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Because I am the savior of the planet

Well, certainly, judging from your prose, that looks like something you could easily believe.

But I wouldn't like you to go away without having posted a scientific and informed reasoning.

 

[Trakar]

I think ideogram is referring to what Terry Pratchett calls "lies to children": giving a simple, but not entirely accurate, explanation at first and, when that has been grasped, gradually expanding and correcting it to explain the more complex ramifications. Like describing the atom to children as electrons going around the nucleus the way that planets go round the sun and, only when they have acquired the maths to support a better understanding, admitting that there's actually a bit more to it than that ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children

I would not consider the act of using an overly simplistic model to demonstrate basic concepts and then following up with more accurate explanations as knowledge and understanding increased to be "lying," at the least not in the sense that ideogram is discussing in his posts:

...Lying and emotional manipulation work. That is why politicians do it. Unfortunately these are anathema to science. Politics is the art of getting people to do what you want...

 

[Arnold Martin]

I expect a lot of people will take exception to my retoric so using my original post you can modify it as follows.

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My preferred remedy would involve a carbon tax on all fossil fuels. I am talking worldwide.

It would amount to trillions of dollars

I want the money sent to me the UN.

Because I am the IPCC is the savior of the planet

Is that OK now ?

Same thing , just change a few words

Thanks

 

[Trakar]

That is my point exactly , we are having a normal cold winter .... which is completely different than what the warmists predicted .... they said most of the ice would be melted by now.

You are arguing that weather has trumped climate. This demonstrates a lack of understanding of the terms and processes. Weather is an event, climate is the trend of such events over extended periods of time.

 

[Trakar]

Darn straight. Thanks for posting.

Ya' know, the story the Global Warming Alarmists tell sound a lot like the New Testament description of Hell. I mean, if mankind denies Global Warming and thus keeps offending the Earth Goddess, then he is condemned to everlasting Heat (i.e., Fire) and Flooding. Which, I got to admit that the Global Warming version of everlasting punishment is even better than the Bibles - for it combines Hell and the Great Flood in one.

Welll..."Hah hah" on you Global Warming Alamists....we don't believe your fairy tales.

Believing that others are making up stories to fit their beliefs, because that is the way you operate, could be called a form of false equivalency - http://www.skepticalraptor.com/logicalfallacy_files/False_Equivalence.html

False equivalence is a logical fallacy where there appears to be a logical equivalence between two opposing arguments, but when in fact there is none. Journalists use a form of this logical fallacy when comparing two sides of a scientific debate in an attempt to provide a balance between a scientific and denialist point of view. However, there is no equivalence between the two sides, when one is supported by evidence, and the other side with little or no evidence, of which most is of low quality. In other words, in false equivalence, someone will state that the opposing arguments have a passing similarity in support, when, on close examination, there is large difference between the quality of evidence

 

[Trakar]

There is a very easy solution to global warming.

All we have to do is cut fossil fuel consumption in half

All we have to do is make it illegal for half the population to use fossil fuels.

I propose all the Global Warming activists , scientists , politicians , & students should be the ones denied the use of fossil fuels.

Problem solved.

This is a policy suggestion having nothing to do with the science of climate change. A policy suggestion that is based upon flawed and largely fictitious fragmentary understandings of relevant climate science, is without merit and unrealistic in any expectation of resolving the focal issue of science-based policy decisions about climate change issues of concern.

 

[Arnold Martin]

Well, certainly, judging from your prose, that looks like something you could easily believe.

But I wouldn't like you to go away without having posted a scientific and informed reasoning.

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Here is what you do not understand (about folks like me)

--everybody knows the climate is always changing. This is elementary knowledge. Scientific prose is not required. A scientific treatise is not required.

We have had cooling periods and recently we see a warming trend.

Deniers like me do not deny those facts. We never have.

What we are unsure about is whether burning fossil fuel is the cause of all of it


.... there are indications that increased CO2 may increase temperatures a small amount .... but no explanation is ever given for the warming trends of history past when we were still sitting in caves cooking over dung fires.

I am not convinced that eating takeout while sitting in my Hummer is the sole cause of the recent warming trend.

And I certainly do not believe that sending carbon credits to third world dictators will lower earth's temperature.

 

[Trakar]

...BTW stopping using fossil fuel cold turkey will not stop AGW - it will just mitigate it. You can look up the word if it's beyond your Grade 9 education.
Gonna take a few decades to reach a new radiative balance.

Actually, full equilibrium is probably more on the order of centuries or more:

Assuming an equilibrium climate sensitivity of 3°C from doubling atmospheric CO2, and 90% of the equilibrium warming at the time of the CO2 peak from the Climber model, and also neglecting other anthropogenic greenhouse gases, it would take an atmospheric pCO2 of about 490 ppm to keep the global warming below the 2°C danger limit. This corresponds to about 400 Gton C of anthropogenic carbon in the atmosphere. If we divide 400 Gton C by a maximum airborne fraction of 55%, we calculate a maximum allowable total emission of about 700 Gton C, of which 300 Gton C has already been released, if we are to avoid dangerous climate change at any time in the future.
This is a more restrictive estimate than we would get if we limited our scope to the year 2100 and earlier, because the Earth takes several centuries to warm. As CO2 rises, the warming lags behind, largely because of the thermal inertia of the ocean. The warming we have experienced so far today is only about 60% of the equilibrium warming expected at today’s atmospheric CO2 value (Hansen et al. 2005). A 40% warming lag will also exist in the year 2100. Limiting our concern to what happens between now and the year 2100, neglecting what comes after, results in a substantial increase of the calculated allowable emissions, to about 1,050 Gton C. This calculation seems rather callous, given the inevitability of the eventual warming once the CO2 is released, but it is the perhaps unintended consequence of limiting the scope of consideration to the year 2100.

http://melts.uchicago.edu/~archer/reprints/archer.2008.tail_implications.pdf

 

[aleCcowaN]

Is that OK now ?

Same thing , just change a few words

Thanks

You seem to ignore how legislative procedures work in your country, other countries and in international institutions.

Besides, it looks every advocacy has a figure to demonize. Third World lefties will bark the IMF as they sell -and have bought- the image that the IMF is a bank trust formed by someone called Rockefeller and the international financial synarchism -which is represented as a bunch of evil Jewish bankers-, and this trust has the sole purpose of depriving the poor people worldwide of their food money.

In the same way, your advocacy, AGW-denialism, have conferred the IPCC evil powers and ambitions. The problem is the IPCC being the one telling there's an AGW and propose possible lines to cope with it, so you hate them, we can understand it. Does it make something in favour of your argument? No, in fact your last posts show us all you got on the subject.

You're a very prototypical AGW-denialist, I like you. You will help us to teach people the risks of galloping their epistemological hedonism.

 

[Arnold Martin]

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There is another solution .... how about we seize the Alberta Oil Sands , shut it down , seize their assets , throw all the executives in jail.

Then do the same with all the big oil companies . Shut the whole works down. Have we not been told they are the enemy ?? At least the rhetoric sure sounds like it to me.

Not only will things cool down , billions of people will freeze and starve ... wouldn't that be cool !!!!

It would also drastically reduce earths population .... lots of folks want that too.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

RBF - you quoted some information in your initial post here without any sort of assessment which just appears then out of context.
Alec afaik is on about you overstating the importance of land use.
Make a case with supporting references and not speculative over statement.



That is an overstatement.

It will take a million small Manhattan Projects to mitigate AGW. This MAY be one of them but you will have to do a better job of explaining beyond generalities.
The one paper you link to is specific to Manitoba. I'd say if you want a land use thread - then open one up as it would be a chaotic conversation here and Alec is dubious ...I'm more neutral as to the scale of import to climate.

A dedicated thread on land use ( which I certainly am interested in as a factor in climate change and would participate in ) would allow a more coherent conversation.

This particular thread is wide encompassing as to main stream climate science - land use is only loosely related tho would have to draw on the scienc.- and by that loose association may fragment any case you are trying to make.

OK then lets start from the beginning again. It would have been easier to simply read and understand, but I can spell it out for anyone not quite getting it.
1) The grassland biome actually sequesters carbon long term as opposed to the relatively short almost neutral carbon cycle found in forests.

Cenozoic Expansion of Grasslands and Climatic Cooling

Grasslands have long been considered products
of the coevolution of grasses and grazers

Grasslands and their soils can be considered sinks for atmospheric CO2, CH4, and water vapor, and their Cenozoic evolution a contribution to long-term global climatic cooling. Grassland soils are richer in organic matter than are woodland and desert soils of comparable climates, and when eroded, their crumb clods form sediment unusually rich in organic matter

Grasses create Mollisols, unique soils with fine crumb clods rich in organic matter

Grasslands can be considered fertilizer ecosystems because of their capacity to rapidly fix P and N in plant tissue that is entirely herbaceous and more easily decayed than woody plant tissues

Grasses mobilize nutrients more quickly than other plants

An appropriate modern comparison is between grassland and woodland vegetation of similar climatic belts. Grasslands have only about one sixth the biomass of woodlands, but the biomass is dwarfed by an order of magnitude more C in grassland soils. Globally averaged, tall grasslands store 16.0 kg C m2 organic matter underground and 0.7 kg C m2 aboveground, compared with 11.1 kg C m2 underground and 4.5 kg C m2 aboveground for dry woodlands, for a net C storage of 16.7 kg C m2 for tall grasslands compared with 15.6 kg C m2 for woodlands.

Coevolution of grasses and grazers created grasslands as a biological force that was to be exceeded only by later evolution of grass-based human agroecosystems.

So that's the basics, it is not overstated or exaggerated. Grasslands made the climate we have now and did that by pulling Carbon out of the atmosphere and sequestering it in the soil. This process is what created the fertile mollisols of the world. This "mollic machine" that manufactured our cropland soils and changed the climate can be used as a model to help mitigate AGW and create fertile mollic soil for improving agriculture. But before anyone can even begin to understand how that could be possible, they first have to understand the grassland biome can function this way. So I am going to stop here and let you catch up on the actual science behind what I was saying. Feel free to ask any questions. Then I'll try to compare that with what humans can do or have done, both positive and/or negative in our agroecosystems.

 

[aleCcowaN]

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.... there are indications that increased CO2 may increase temperatures a small amount .... but no explanation is ever given for the warming trends of history past when we were still sitting in caves cooking over dung fires.

Obviously you don't know the physical mechanisms. The "may" and the "small" are just a fantasy of your kin.

Let's do this: we propose you short texts explaining how grenhouse gases work and you read them and ask about what you don't understand. We will reach our hands and you will take them or spit them. Let the public see what you do and if you are a denier or a denialist.

 

[Arnold Martin]

(snip)Here is more information you need to arrive to the answer. Worldwide temperatures that very December 21st:

I have no problem with your worldwide temperature data for Dec 21st

But scientists like me would require a comparison to all the other December 21st's during the past 500 years. That way we would have a true scientific model.

 

[macdoc]

Here is what you do not understand (about folks like me)

you mean willful ignorance? - yeah kinda hard to understand these days but I suppose leaving school at Grade 9 was your choice.

--everybody knows the climate is always changing. This is elementary knowledge. Scientific prose is not required. A scientific treatise is not required.

The climate changes for physics reasons which you choose not to understand and until the last few centuries those drivers were orbital with C02 as a magnifier IN BOTH DIRECTIONS....lower C02 accelerates the climate trend.

We have had cooling periods and recently we see a warming trend.

Yes the orbital changes were drifting us towards the next ice age - we cancelled that with our emissions of fossil C02

Deniers like me do not deny those facts. We never have.

What we are unsure about is whether burning fossil fuel is the cause of all of it

Well even Exxon is sure ofi it so we'll let you deal with your ignorance in your own good time...meanwhile the world is moving on.

.... there are indications that increased CO2 may increase temperatures a small amount .... but no explanation is ever given for the warming trends of history past when we were still sitting in caves cooking over dung fires.

Just because you don't understand means squat - just demonstrates your ignorance of climate processes....that's willful.

I am not convinced that eating takeout while sitting in my Hummer is the sole cause of the recent warming trend.

No it's not it's contributory and typical of your trolling hyperbole.

And I certainly do not believe that sending carbon credits to third world dictators will lower earth's temperature.

That is policy and nothing to do with this science forum.
Take your rubbish to the correct forum where uninformed opinon is common fare.
This one should do you just fine
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=64

•••
AM claimed

But scientists like me

oh??? grade 9 education and a scientist?? which one are you lying about?

 

[Trakar]

I prefer to be compared with a lager, as I am blonde...

Looks more red to me, but that would still generally be an amber/red lager!

Guess I need a topical tie-in here, how about this:

News media report:

The price of beer is likely to rise in coming decades because climate change will hamper the production of a key grain needed for the brew - especially in Australia, a scientist warned Tuesday.

Jim Salinger, a climate scientist at New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said climate change likely will cause a decline in the production of malting barley in parts of New Zealand and Australia. Malting barley is a key ingedient of beer.

"It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up," Salinger told the Institute of Brewing and Distilling convention.

Similar effects could be expected worldwide, but Salinger spoke only of the effects on Australia and New Zealand. He said climate change could cause a drop in beer production within 30 years, especially in parts of Australia, as dry areas become drier and water shortages worsen.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4610087

The science:

Research on The Carbon Print of Beer Production Based on Life Circle Assessment

Through totally analyzing carbon emission during beer production, including obtaining of raw materials, fermentation, logistic procedure and waste water treatment,C02 emission of 1 kL 80P finished beer in the form of glass package is 286.88kg;the data is 1858 per bottle of 500mL under the condition of 13213 with 150km logistic length; if C02 emission during glass is considered, the total CO2 emission is 225g per bottle while it is 370g per can of 330mL.

http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-PJKJ201303004.htm

 

[Arnold Martin]

You are arguing that weather has trumped climate. This demonstrates a lack of understanding of the terms and processes. Weather is an event, climate is the trend of such events over extended periods of time.

I understand the process very well (thank you) ... but I also feel the planet is self regulating by design ... extreme heat will cause extreme evaporation, which will cause extreme cloudiness , which could even cause extreme snowfall , which of course reflects the solar rays and brings cooling.

Obviously I am using terminology similar to how I describe it to my children , but it makes my point nevertheless.

It is elementary knowledge that the planet temperatures are self regulating in the short and medium term .... it is the long term that has us scratching our heads. We are still uncertain what caused the earlier ice ages and we certainly do not know what ended them. Mankind's consumption of fossil fuels was not the culprit back then .

Why should we be so insistent it is now ?

 

[aleCcowaN]

Looks more red to me, but that would still generally be an amber/red lager!

As I frequently say, when that photo was taken I was thinner than today. Besides I think is on Kodak and not AGFA.

Guess I need a topical tie-in here, how about this:

News media report:


http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4610087

The science:

http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-PJKJ201303004.htm

I assure you there won't be shortage of beer. As long we get rid of those horrible biofuels made from crops intended for humans.

 

[Trakar]

I understand the process very well (thank you) ...

This assertion is neither apparent, nor compellingly supported by any of your posts to date.

but I also feel the planet is self regulating by design ...

"feelings" are not compelling evidences with regards to science oriented understandings. Who do you attribute such perceived "design" to?

extreme heat will cause extreme evaporation, which will cause extreme cloudiness , which could even cause extreme snowfall , which of course reflects the solar rays and brings cooling.

Obviously I am using terminology similar to how I describe it to my children , but it makes my point nevertheless.

It is elementary knowledge that the planet temperatures are self regulating in the short and medium term .... it is the long term that has us scratching our heads. We are still uncertain what caused the earlier ice ages and we certainly do not know what ended them. Mankind's consumption of fossil fuels was not the culprit back then .

Why should we be so insistent it is now ?

The only thing you are explaining are your own personal confusions and ignorances regarding what the compelling evidences of climate science over the last century and a half or so indicate.

 

[macdoc]

Originally Posted by Arnold Martin
extreme heat will cause extreme evaporation, which will cause extreme cloudiness , which could even cause extreme snowfall , which of course reflects the solar rays and brings cooling.

Obviously I am using terminology similar to how I describe it to my children , but it makes my point nevertheless.
It is elementary knowledge that the planet temperatures are self regulating in the short and medium term .... it is the long term that has us scratching our heads. We are still uncertain what caused the earlier ice ages and we certainly do not know what ended them. Mankind's consumption of fossil fuels was not the culprit back then .

Why should we be so insistent it is now

Grade 9 certainly shows.... poor kids -

Unfortunately for them you are wrong...
Ice ages are a result by Milankovich cycles ) (orbit and tilt ) in combination with the amplifying effect C02 levels in atmosphere ( low in the case of an ice age ) and the C02 uptake by the oceans as they cool which then accelerates the process.

Of course there is more to learn about earth's dynamic climate but the physical processes are only a mystery to you.

Why don't you be a good parent and explain it's getting warmer and we're collectively responsible before they grow upi and you have to look them in the eye and explain why you did nothing......when you could have worked to mitigate the situation.

Grade 9 education will be a pretty lame excuse.

 

[Pixel42]

We are still uncertain what caused the earlier ice ages and we certainly do not know what ended them.

Those of us who have bothered to find out what climatologists have discovered about past climate change have a pretty good idea.