Anthopogenic Global Warming Myth or Real ?

[TrueSceptic]

If you recall, we have already been over the fact that 0.05% decrease in solar activity isn’t enough to show up over the thermal inertia of the earths oceans. For the solar changes mhaze brings up to have a noticeable effect on the earths climate you need to throw in a lot of positive feedback and wait century or so.

Whatever “conditions” they are talking about it doesn’t seem likely that they mean global temperatures.

Which is why I'm interested in what NASA have to say.

Conflicts like the earth needing a high climate sensitivity with lots of positive feedback to explain the effects of solar activity and Milankovitch cycles causing stadials / interstadials. At the same time they need a really low climate sensitivity to say “it isn’t CO2” so they endlessly run back and forth trying to hide the fact their position is completely untenable.

So they like purely speculative ideas like the cosmic ray/clouds one.

 

[mhaze]

Originally Posted by mhaze
What is the right climate?
​

I'd say the sort of one we've enjoyed (on and off) for the last several hundred years. Adaptation is a pain in the butt, especially when we have to worry about entire populations getting displaced. If the current rate of warming carries on (which it almost certainly will), we'll be headed into uncharted territory which is probably best avoided if we can.

I'd say one could pick an average of the current and last three warm periods as a "best" climate, for numerous historical reasons.

Your pick seems to include the Little Ice Age, so you have perhaps 1C more negative variation than I would choose.

Adaptation is a pain in the butt, especially when we have to worry about entire populations getting displaced.

Warmers typically ignore the serious negatives of widespread, persistant cold. The planet's population would have problems coping with another LIA, yet those temperatures were part of the natural trend.

 

[Spud1k]

I'd say one could pick an average of the current and last three warm periods as a "best" climate, for numerous historical reasons.

Your pick seems to include the Little Ice Age, so you have perhaps 1C more negative variation than I would choose.

Adaptation is a pain in the butt, especially when we have to worry about entire populations getting displaced.

Warmers typically ignore the serious negatives of widespread, persistant cold. The planet's population would have problems coping with another LIA, yet those temperatures were part of the natural trend.

We've not experienced warming like we've currently got going on in recorded history. I'd be slightly concerned because there is no precedent on what we should expect, beyond fossil records.

And as for the cold, there's always the possibility we could suddenly get another LIA (or even a BIA?) and this would also probably be A Bad Thing. But the question is is there any actual evidence to indicate this is about to happen? Based on the best estimates science has to offer, it's warming we should be bracing ourselves for. I defy you to produce evidence to the contrary.

 

[a_unique_person]

http://www.google.com/search?q=CO2+...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
What is the right climate?

You've been told this a hundred times already. The notion is wrong headed. What climate are we adapted to is a better question. The answer, of course, is the current one, within a reasonable boundary of variation.

 

[MCH]

Well "we" have adapted to a variety of climates. A little bit of warming could well have a net benefit (so might a little bit of cooling). What are your 'reasonable bounds'?

In fact of course, if we're going to deliberately affect the climate, we should do so differently across the globe, and we'd want to modify rainfall too. Shouldn't be too hard, pass me those tins of black and white paint.

 

[CapelDodger]

Whatever “conditions” they are talking about it doesn’t seem likely that they mean global temperatures.

If they did mean that, presumably that's what they'd say. Global temperatures are quite a talking point at the moment, after all.

Conflicts like the earth needing a high climate sensitivity with lots of positive feedback to explain the effects of solar activity and Milankovitch cycles causing stadials / interstadials. At the same time they need a really low climate sensitivity to say “it isn’t CO2” so they endlessly run back and forth trying to hide the fact their position is completely untenable.

I'm reminded of Lindzen's Iris Theory, which unwittingly did away with interglacials completely and was still all the rage for a while.

 

[TrueSceptic]

I'd say one could pick an average of the current and last three warm periods as a "best" climate, for numerous historical reasons.

Your pick seems to include the Little Ice Age, so you have perhaps 1C more negative variation than I would choose.

Adaptation is a pain in the butt, especially when we have to worry about entire populations getting displaced.

Warmers typically ignore the serious negatives of widespread, persistant cold. The planet's population would have problems coping with another LIA, yet those temperatures were part of the natural trend.

No, not ignore, but we seem to be in a situation of a rising trend in temperature that is projected to continue for some decades. Any LIA-like drop would be against a higher background.

 

[a_unique_person]

Well "we" have adapted to a variety of climates. A little bit of warming could well have a net benefit (so might a little bit of cooling). What are your 'reasonable bounds'?

In fact of course, if we're going to deliberately affect the climate, we should do so differently across the globe, and we'd want to modify rainfall too. Shouldn't be too hard, pass me those tins of black and white paint.

 

[CapelDodger]

Well "we" have adapted to a variety of climates. A little bit of warming could well have a net benefit (so might a little bit of cooling). What are your 'reasonable bounds'?

Reasonable bounds would include a Tibetan icecap. Tibetan glaciers are the source of the Yellow River, Yangtze, Mekong, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra, Ganges and Indus. Mess with all those and there will be an enormous net disbenefit. These are the rivers that have long supported the majority of our species.

Reasonable bounds would also include very little sea-level rise, since so many people live in river deltas.

In fact of course, if we're going to deliberately affect the climate, we should do so differently across the globe, and we'd want to modify rainfall too. Shouldn't be too hard, pass me those tins of black and white paint.

Who's paying for the paint? And as Tonto asked the Lone Ranger, "What do you mean 'we', White Man?".

We're currently affecting global climate accidentally, which is kinda the problem. We've managed that regionally before but not globally. Are we the kick-ass species of all time or what!?

 

[CapelDodger]

That's easy for you to say, it's not your paint that's being requisitioned.

How are things in the Murray-Darling Basin these days? Any sign of a break in the drought?

 

[CapelDodger]

The planet's population would have problems coping with another LIA, yet those temperatures were part of the natural trend.

The human species didn't have much of a problem dealing with the LIA, so why should another one be any different?

 

[MCH]

The human species didn't have much of a problem dealing with the LIA, so why should another one be any different?

? Are you sure? I wasn't there either, but just because the human race survived one doesn't mean another wouldn't be 'much of a problem' to the vast numbers of us there are now.

And my nice painted-white house (I'm doing my bit, see) would be worthless when crushed beneath lots of ice, so I'm not keen. I'd rather spend the cash moving folks away from floodable areas; they're all foreign so their houses aren't as nice.

 

[TrueSceptic]

The human species didn't have much of a problem dealing with the LIA, so why should another one be any different?

Well, it was hard times for some, at least in a small part of the globe. Any such temperature drop would now be from a higher base so it wouldn't be too severe. Perhaps last winter was an example of that?

 

[CapelDodger]

Yes. A nutter is someone who contradicts himself and then expects both statements to be true.

There's also the type that repeats the same action over and over in the expectation of a different outcome.

For example:

And why not?

That's #1

I said http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4056657#post4056657

Climate models don't claim to make specific projections, and Greece is very specific. The Arctic is far less so - the last I heard Greek seasons don't involve the Sun setting for months at a time, and then rising for months at a time.

And you responded http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4056683#post4056683

Yet you're making specific projections based upon them. Gullible?

I asked http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4056760#post4056760

What specific projections?

since you didn't specify any of them. Climate models make general predictions, as do I for the most part. So what are these specific projections of mine to which you refer?

And that's #2. It contradicts #1 but its true as well!

I said http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4056760#post4056760

They [climate models] predicted warming, and it has happened. That's evidence.

Which is general, not specific. No contradiction.

You repeat this behaviour over and over always in the expectation of a different outcome.

Really? That, for example, one coal-fired power station being built in England would cause 400 extinctions? That ISN'T a religious belief?

What scripture is that from? "401 extinctions it shall not cause, nor 399 excepting that it go on to 400 as some other unfortunates snuff it. 402 is right out".

I can predict warming without climate models, just so long as you're prepared to allow the timespan to slip.

Timespan is not always an option you can choose. Lehman Brothers discovered that.

Nope. The NW Passage remained shut. This is 2008 you know.

It opened earlier this year and has stayed open longer.

Besides which the NW passage has opened many times during the last 100 years - this proves what?

The NW Passage was not open since Cabot's days at least, until last year. It was open again this year. It will be open again next year (that's a specific projection I'm making, but it's not based on climate models. They've been left well behind by the actual Arctic).

What has? By collapsing the timescale as you have, you can prove anything. The only warming of note in Antartica has been the volcanically active Antarctic Peninsula which isn't even in the Antarctic Circle.

Volcanically active and just outside the Circle? Take what comfort you can from that.

But the Antarctic has not warmed. It has cooled. And you ignore it because it doesn't fit your strange religious beliefs about how the world works.

The Antarctic has not cooled, and you clearly don't understand how the Antarctic works. Most of it is extremely high and far from the ocean, which means it never approaches 0C even in high summer. It is effectively isolated from global climate change. The Antarctic Peninsula isn't isolated, and look what's happened there. Those volcanoes aren't a new feature.

You appear to be obsessed with these things. Does Greece mean nothing to you but olives and goats? Do you get out much?

Does Greece mean anything more to you than a deep source of experience in climate-adaptation? The evidence is that the Greek answer has always been olive-trees and goats, and given the longevity of their culture with that one simple answer climate-change has not been a big issue in Greece.

Its a shame therefore that you discount Greek scientists when they're telling you something that you don't want to hear.

I don't doubt that Prof K is doing fine hydrological work for the benefit of his country. The problem he's got with global climate models is that they're not much use to him. What Prof K needs to know is what will happen to precipitation and evaporation in Greece in a warming world. For that he needs a regional model, which I doubt Greece has the resources to create. A modelling project funded by the entire Mediterranean community would be good, and Athens is as a better place than most to base it in.

 

[a_unique_person]

? Are you sure? I wasn't there either, but just because the human race survived one doesn't mean another wouldn't be 'much of a problem' to the vast numbers of us there are now.

And my nice painted-white house (I'm doing my bit, see) would be worthless when crushed beneath lots of ice, so I'm not keen. I'd rather spend the cash moving folks away from floodable areas; they're all foreign so their houses aren't as nice.

 

[CapelDodger]

Well, it was hard times for some, at least in a small part of the globe. Any such temperature drop would now be from a higher base so it wouldn't be too severe. Perhaps last winter was an example of that?

It messed up the Chinese New Year, with the transport chaos, but that snow was gone in a fortnight.

If we take the LIA to be the 16th and 17thCE it is very hard to pick out climate-induced hard times from all the other stuff that was going on, even in Europe where it bit hardest. Dynastic and religous wars, technological and economic change, enviromental degradation, they all played their part. In a stable political environment a few bad harvests in a row is manageable, and that's how the LIA manifested itself. Not two hundred bad harvests in a row, but occasional extra stresses on an already stressed situation.

The real climate buggerance for European harvests isn't a cold summer, it's a wet summer. In the LIA that also meant rivers in flood and roads in mud, so the transport network was knackered at the same time. Add in armies marching back and forth requisitioning what they could use and destroying what they couldn't and you have a recipe for disaster, and for a cultural memory.

 

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by Truesceptic:

right now some GWSceptics are warning about global cooling or even an LIA because the sun is unusually quiet
​

NASA holds live media teleconference on the sun Tuesday.

From the press release.

The sun’s current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=12391http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_14224483df590a3d0d.png
​

I don't get your point. If the sun changes, our climate changes. That goes without saying.

 

[CapelDodger]

? Are you sure? I wasn't there either, but just because the human race survived one doesn't mean another wouldn't be 'much of a problem' to the vast numbers of us there are now.

History is my thing, it's my way of understanding "being here" by "being there". It's a two-way exchange : the "here and now" mutually informs the "there and then".

The vast majority of our species didn't even notice the LIA. Said vast majority has long been associated with the rivers that flow from Tibet, and cooling is no threat to that.

And my nice painted-white house (I'm doing my bit, see) would be worthless when crushed beneath lots of ice, so I'm not keen. I'd rather spend the cash moving folks away from floodable areas; they're all foreign so their houses aren't as nice.

Try selling that policy to folk in Gloucestershire . Better bring your own paint, because they're not in a generous mood.

 

[David Rodale]

The human species didn't have much of a problem dealing with the LIA, so why should another one be any different?

Is anyone willing to defend that curious unsupported statement from Capeldodger?

 

[David Rodale]

History is my thing, it's my way of understanding "being here" by "being there". It's a two-way exchange : the "here and now" mutually informs the "there and then".

The vast majority of our species didn't even notice the LIA. Said vast majority has long been associated with the rivers that flow from Tibet, and cooling is no threat to that.



Try selling that policy to folk in Gloucestershire . Better bring your own paint, because they're not in a generous mood.

More lectures, no data. Are you now going to rewrite history?