Global Warming and all that stuff.

[H3LL]

Maybe you need to do some more research into the issue. There are several points you make that are not correct or strawmen.

You could be right. Which are incorrect and/or strawmen?


(Got the date wrong...Corrected)
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[Dave1001]

What I understand to be so, based on reasonable evidence (from memory):

The climate is warming.

The periods between ice ages are either cooling or warming.

Mt. St. Helens eruption (1980) produced more greenhouse gases than the entire USA industrial and exhaust polution from several decades.

Warming (or cooling) is a natural cycle.

Human contribution is insignificant.

If we stopped producing greenhouse gases completely today, the climate would still be getting warmer (or cooler).

The climate getting warmer (or cooler) is going to cause significant change.

Enviromental scientists think a warming climate is BAD.

Enviromental scientists think a cooling climate is BAD.

There is no evidence that the climate has been stable since ice ages began and no evidence that anything we do can prevent warming or cooling.

I like it warmish.

I don't like smog.

Reduce polution so that I cough a little less and stop pretending it's part of "making a difference" to GW.



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Where did you get these points from? It sounds like you got them from Michael Crichton's book "State of Fear". Among points that I think are at least contestible is that human contribution to global warming is insignificant and that humans aren't pushing the planet out of its normal warming and cooling cycles (in which we evolved and adapted to live over millions of years) with our current activity. I think rigorous scrutiny, examination, and policy analysis is needed on this topic, not a kind of oversimplified "the planet warms, the planet cools, ce la vie" approach to the matter.

Big things are regularly slamming into the Earth too, so no need for a Near Earth Object cataloging and anti-collision program?

 

[BobK]

BobK, here is an amazing example of one of the pundits you have quoted, Jennifer Marohasey, on Polar Bears.




http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/001816.html

Logic like that is so amazingly bad, I just don't know how to unboggle my mind and address it. Polar bears can live in captivity in a Queensland theme park, therefore Polar Bears will adapt to disappearing sea ice.

I don't know how to unboggle your mind either. IIRC I have never quoted Jennifer Marohasy. If you have proof you'll show it. If you don't, it's just another example of you disingenuously misrepresenting others.

Nice to see you're browsing her blog occasionally. Maybe there's still some hope for you.

A 5-fold increase in bear population since 1970 seems pretty substantial to me. If you think warming has had a negative impact on them, I would have to say your mind is probably unboggleable.(note to self: copyright new word)

Although I don't put much stock in the models, you apparently do. Since your country's CSIRO climate model has shown your drought conditions to be natural variation, you might want to stop building up your post count by using it as an example of AGW. It make you look more foolish each time you do it.

 

[a_unique_person]

Search is not working at the moment, but it was in reference to the Australian drought. The reason for the rebound in the polar bear population was the reduction in hunting. The disappearence of sea ice will stil be the end of them. Her 'evidence' based approach is an object lesson in stupidity.

 

[Tumbleweed]

At first I didn't believe in man's contribution to global warming due to hydrocarbon conbustion, given the fact that enormous amounts of gases are put into the atmosphere by volcanoes. But then I remembered an old high school chemistry experiment and it dawned on me: It's not that we are causing more CO2 than "nature". It's just that things are in a balance and insignificant amounts can be the straw that broke the camels back
The experiment was dripping one liquid from a vial into another liquid, one drop at a time. Both liquids were crystal clear
At some point, it only took ONE DROP to make the liquid turn pink and STAY pink
So it might take only "one drop" of extra CO2 to permanently change the climate.
A disaster for earth? No way. Its been LOTS warmer in the past
A disaster for man? You betcha! Its nature's way of getting the liquid clear again: eliminate the source of the "extra" CO2
Of course we could make a deal and stop Mother Nature's species cleansing by seeing the error of our ways, and start using water (hydrogen) as a fuel instead! Then she won't have to kill us off en masse

 

[H3LL]

not a kind of oversimplified "the planet warms, the planet cools, ce la vie" approach to the matter.

You misunderstand me. I never meant a "ce la vie approach". Probably my bad. I said:

Reduce pollution so that I cough a little less and stop pretending it's part of "making a difference" to GW.

The evidence is debatable for human pollution and GW and IMHO it has been a poor move to encompass the entire global climate, with its infinite variables and vast scale, in some sort of mis-guided environmental campaign.

A facility dumping hundreds of tonnes of pollutants can, quite rightly, say it is having insignificant effect on GW (or GC) and a similar argument can be made for whole countries (and has).

The shear scale of the GW argument is foolish.

Keep it local, keep it small, keep it meaningful, keep it relevant (city by city perhaps). A clean environment is demonstrably better and pleasanter to live in.

Earth will carry on warming or cooling regardless.

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[varwoche]

But I never, ever see a report that includes the role of Mr. Sun and his solar storms in the equation.

Here you go:

Sunspots alter the amount of energy Earth gets from the sun, but not enough to impact global climate change, a new study suggests.

I dont believe any of it.

I welcome you to support your position by taking up this challenge that Nails passed on.

Human contribution is insignificant.

Ditto.

 

[Solitaire]

Yep...even after a year and a half, it seems that some things--and people--never change...

I've changed. I used to wonder how a little carbon dioxide could warm the Earth, now I know. Think about a street light a night. Near a street light the ground shines bright and the further away you go from it the dimmer the ground becomes. Now imagine a fog rolls in. Each droplet in the fog bends and redirects the light in different angles. As the fog increases more of the light moves from drop to drop instead of outward. The area around the street light becomes brighter the heavier the fog becomes. A similar phenomena occurs with carbon dioxide. It redirects a smaller portion of the infrared spectrum and as it increases the more infrared energy bounces between carbon dioxide molecules increasing global temperature. You can even test this yourself. Build a small one hundred meter cube chamber put in a heat source at one and and a cold sink at the other end and a bunch of thermometers in between. Start with a ten megapascal atmosphere comprised of twenty one percent oxygen and seventy nine percent nitrogen. Increase the carbon dioxide in the chamber by units of fifty parts per million and decrease the oxygen by the same percentage taking measurements of the temperature in each part of the apparatus. The answers will agree greatly with theory.

 

[a_unique_person]

I don't know how to unboggle your mind either. IIRC I have never quoted Jennifer Marohasy. If you have proof you'll show it. If you don't, it's just another example of you disingenuously misrepresenting others.

Nice to see you're browsing her blog occasionally. Maybe there's still some hope for you.

A 5-fold increase in bear population since 1970 seems pretty substantial to me. If you think warming has had a negative impact on them, I would have to say your mind is probably unboggleable.(note to self: copyright new word)

Although I don't put much stock in the models, you apparently do. Since your country's CSIRO climate model has shown your drought conditions to be natural variation, you might want to stop building up your post count by using it as an example of AGW. It make you look more foolish each time you do it.

Reference to Jennifer Marohasy. http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2082087&postcount=253

The reason for the increase in the bear population was the controls on hunting, which would have wiped them out. They still need sea ice to live. That will have disappeared in about 40 years, according to predictions.

 

[a_unique_person]

What I understand to be so, based on reasonable evidence (from memory):

The periods between ice ages are either cooling or warming.

What is remarkable about the current state of the climate is just how stable it has been. Also, when there is cooling or warming, there is always a reason. At present, the only significant reason is CO2 concentration.

Mt. St. Helens eruption (1980) produced more greenhouse gases than the entire USA industrial and exhaust polution from several decades.

One point that is also worth making is that although volcanoes release some CO2 into the atmosphere, this is completely negligable compared to anthropogenic emissions (about 0.15 Gt/year of carbon, compared to about 7 Gt/year of human related sources) . However, over very long times scales (millions of years), variations in vulcanism are important for the eventual balance of the carbon cycle, and may have helped kick the planet out of a 'Snowball Earth' state in the Neo-proterozoic 750 million years ago.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/05/current-volcanic-activity-and-climate/

Warming (or cooling) is a natural cycle.

So is the static period we have been experiencing. The rise of civilisation has been linked to to remarkable stability of the climate for the past 10,000 years or so.

Human contribution is insignificant.

5GT of CO2 a year that will be increasing is not insignificant. The absence of any other forcings on the atmosphere indicates it is the CO2 that is causing the current temperature rise. Especially since CO2 is a known greenhouse gas.

If we stopped producing greenhouse gases completely today, the climate would still be getting warmer (or cooler).

The rate of increase is very important. Without that, it would not be changing at present.

The climate getting warmer (or cooler) is going to cause significant change.

Enviromental scientists think a warming climate is BAD.

The current rate of change means that many species will be made extinct. This change is extremely rapid in geological terms. Species such as polar bears will suffer.

Enviromental scientists think a cooling climate is BAD.

If we make it happen for no good reason it is, species will not be able to adapt.

There is no evidence that the climate has been stable since ice ages began and no evidence that anything we do can prevent warming or cooling.

There is evidence, although it is disputed.

I like it warmish.

I think that's what it comes down to for many. What does it mean for me, and that's the end of it.

I don't like smog.

Reduce polution so that I cough a little less and stop pretending it's part of "making a difference" to GW.

No one is pretending. This is a matter of science.

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[H3LL]

Thanks.

I see that the volcano comment is wrong with regard to CO2.

Checking several graphs of post ice age temperatures and CO2 I notice there is a consistent peak in temperature around 8000 years ago following a consistent fall in CO2 before and a subsequent further drop (not rise) in CO2 after.

What was the cause?

I guess it wasn't us.

.

 

[CapelDodger]

Thanks.

I see that the volcano comment is wrong with regard to CO2.

Checking several graphs of post ice age temperatures and CO2 I notice there is a consistent peak in temperature around 8000 years ago following a consistent fall in CO2 before and a subsequent further drop (not rise) in CO2 after.

What was the cause?

I guess it wasn't us.

.

Did you find the graphs at the same source as the volcano comment? I find the term "consistent peak" hard to fathom. I can generally handle oxymoron, but I'm not at my best today. There was a severe cold snap around 8,000 years ago, the 6,200BC Event, I'm not sure if the cause has been established. Not fossil-fuel use, I'd venture.

 

[CapelDodger]

Not really. We're talking the products of carbon, not carbon itself. The volume of the permafrost is enormous, and biological degradadation is very efficient. It also generates methane, not that little wimpy CO2 that human activity produces.



I'm certainly interested in the short-term, as my life is pretty darned important to me, but most of my comments were focused on the longer term general human situation.

The short-term, on the human-lifetime scale, is what concerns us all most. The melting permafrost will have its major impact on that scale. As you say, CH4 has a ferocious greenhouse effect relative to CO2. Its half-life is much shorter, on the order of a decade, I think, so in a century or so it'll just be a bit more CO2. It's the next half-century that will carry the kick, by increasing the rate of warming.

 

[Dave1001]

The short-term, on the human-lifetime scale, is what concerns us all most. The melting permafrost will have its major impact on that scale. As you say, CH4 has a ferocious greenhouse effect relative to CO2. Its half-life is much shorter, on the order of a decade, I think, so in a century or so it'll just be a bit more CO2. It's the next half-century that will carry the kick, by increasing the rate of warming.

One good thing about life extension, if it becomes a practical reality relatively soon, is that it will vest more people into thinking about longer term periods than 20-50 years on a range of issues from government fiscal responsibility to environmental concerns.

 

[lenny]

. The scientific consensus among climate scientists seems to be that it's AGW. And if you do rudimentary guesswork calculations on the amount of CO2 we have been generating since the start of the industrial revolution, along with a quick look at the volume of the atmosphere you'll find that the numbers make fairly good sense; certainly well within the correct order of magnitude, and depending on how good a job you did, perhaps even within a factor of 2, pretty good for work on a napkin.

you can do a bit better than this, although you do have to worry about the data being in-sample.

for the first order effects of doubling CO2, we have calculations that roughly agree with current day results that are over 100 years old. there is wide concensus (still not unanimity) on the first order effects of doubling CO2.

the questions lurk in second order effects. it is silly to pretend we understand these bettter than we do. just as it is silly to fail to act, given what we know.

 

[lenny]

Here is a newsweek article from 1975:
http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

That's it? "They" were, in fact, Newsweek and Time journalists? That would mean not the scientific bodies featured on Varwoche's List, then.

well the press is sometimes known to exagerate, but only if it is likely to increase their market share. there was an article in Nature two years back that showed a range of climate model sensitivities: a distribution from about 2 degrees to about 12, most of the mass near 3-5 degrees. Newpaper frontpage headlines along the lines of: 11 degrees: that is how much hotter scientists say it will get...

in this case, however, the Newsweek article is clear that "Meterorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as..." And the the words "IF" appear alot in the article, as in "If the cliamte change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear..."

the actual quotes from scientists include "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."

so in this case the article draws a pretty clear difference between suggestions of potential cooling then, and a pretty wide consensus (not unanimity) on warming now.

 

[a_unique_person]

Thanks.

I see that the volcano comment is wrong with regard to CO2.

Checking several graphs of post ice age temperatures and CO2 I notice there is a consistent peak in temperature around 8000 years ago following a consistent fall in CO2 before and a subsequent further drop (not rise) in CO2 after.

What was the cause?

I guess it wasn't us.

.

As Dodger says, where are you getting this from. It's all a bit sketchy at the moment.

 

[CapelDodger]

well the press is sometimes known to exagerate, but only if it is likely to increase their market share. there was an article in Nature two years back that showed a range of climate model sensitivities: a distribution from about 2 degrees to about 12, most of the mass near 3-5 degrees. Newpaper frontpage headlines along the lines of: 11 degrees: that is how much hotter scientists say it will get...

It's a pain, isn't it? For some it's but one step from there to "environmentalists say ..."

in this case, however, the Newsweek article is clear that "Meterorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the cooling trend, as well as..." And the the words "IF" appear alot in the article, as in "If the cliamte change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear..."

the actual quotes from scientists include "Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions."

These articles really don't support the story they're so often meant to, do they?. That doesn't stop the story coming, of course. I did enjoy a recent embellishment I came across that had "environmentalists" demanding that soot be spread over the polar wildernesses. Straight up, guv.

so in this case the article draws a pretty clear difference between suggestions of potential cooling then, and a pretty wide consensus (not unanimity) on warming now.

There was a burst of silly-season tabloid excitement on the issue (the UK silly-season being around August, for those not in the know; that's when hard news is thin on the ground). That hasn't been promoted to the InterWebNet so it's not available for citation - a shame, really, since it would show the whole claim up as laughable.

As it happens I was at UEA, with its Climate Unit, at the time and knew some of the people involved. They were exasperated and irritated by the journalistic treatment of their work, with good reason. The story was interesting in itself - it was about breakthroughs in palaeoclimatology. But waddya gonna do ...

 

[a_unique_person]

Tim Flannery on Australia's drought.

The severity of the drought is reflected in the economic figures, and so dire is the shortfall of production that soon all Australians will be paying more for their food.
It's not just the lack of rain that's the problem, but the lack of flow in our rivers. The great irrigation areas of the Murray-Darling basin that feed most of our nation, and provide most of our exports, are suffering disproportionately.
And if things continue this way much longer, it's not water for crops that will be insufficient, but water for towns.
Think of the worst drought Australia has faced since record-keeping began, then take away three-quarters of the trickle that flowed in the Murray-Darling back then. That's how much water is flowing through Australia's arterial rivers this year.
Thus, many argue, this drought is four times worse than any experienced in the past 200 years and so it is increasingly referred to as the one-in-1000-years drought. But is it really a drought, or the new climate? Much hinges on this distinction.
The climate of south-eastern Australia changed dramatically in prehistory. In the Mallee, in Victoria's north-west, you can still see the sand dunes - stabilised now - testifying to the fact that this vast region used to be a Sahara of shifting sands. Ten thousand years ago the climate changed, allowing the mallee trees to grow. This tells us that the possibility of a climate shift is real enough.
But let's look at evidence that can tell us whether the one-in-1000-years drought is caused by industrial pollution or natural climate variability.
This year, Australian climatologist Neville Nichols and his colleagues solved one of the great mysteries of climatology - one that bears directly on the nature of Australia's big dry.

I cannot post the whole article, but it is scary stuff. As I said before, because Australia is such a marginal country, it is like the canary in the coal mine. It appears Australia is in serious trouble, and the cost for us will be huge.

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]Dr Paul Fraser [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]is a Chief Research Scientist in the CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research. He has been working on climate change and the role of greenhouse gases for over 30 years. In 1995 he was awarded the Eureka Prize for Environmental Research for his work on ozone depletion and in 2005 he received a CSIRO Lifetime Achievement Award. [/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif]To contact Paul Fraser or for images, ring Simon Torok (03 9239 4645; 0409 844 302, Simon.Torok@csiro.au)[/FONT]
"This work is important because it shows why methane, the second most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, has not increased over the past decade. Given the impact of methane on climate it is critical that we understand what are the sources of methane globally and whether it is likely to increase in the future atmosphere.
What this work demonstrates is that there have been two opposing processes at work that together have resulted in stable methane emissions and no increase in atmospheric concentration over the past 8 years. On the one hand wetlands have been drying up globally and thus emitting less methane. On the other hand, economic growth in the northern hemisphere, especially in China, has generated increasing amounts of methane from the mining (coal) and use of fossil fuels.
Though it is difficult to predict what will happen to wetlands in the future, it is more than likely that overall methane levels in the atmosphere will increase in the future, due to increasing demands for energy.”

The wetlands are drying up globally.

http://www.aussmc.org/Methaneontheincrease.php

 

[CapelDodger]

As Dodger says, where are you getting this from. It's all a bit sketchy at the moment.

From what I recall CO2 levels haven't varied by much more than 10ppm over the last 10ky, not including the post-industrial era. I'd like to see the graphs as I'm interested in their scales and cut-off points, not to mention just about everything else about them.

I don't think CO2 has been the determining factor in climate since things started to settle into a new equilibrium 10-11ky ago. I doubt there's anybody of that opinion, but never say never . I don't know what caused the 6,200BC Event, perhaps some people have a well-founded opinion. I am convinced that if the same thing happened today we would, as a civilisation, notice it happening and make the connection between it and climate change.

The only thing we're actually noticing is CO2-load going up by 1-2ppm per year. Every year, be there a Mt Pinatubo incident or not. And there is a very well-founded connection between CO2-load and the greenhouse effect - if quantum physics isn't a good enough foundation, what the hell is ?

The challenge, as cited way back, to purveyors of alternatives to present their own observations and proposed connections really strikes me as a grand idea. My inner cynic thinks it'll suffer the same fate as the JREF Challenge. The rest of me - my outer cynic - tends to agree. But we shall see.

If we can help it progress I think we should make an effort to. It is an appropriate subject, it concerns the nature of scepticism and the best way to examine a contentious issue.