Moderated Global Warming Discussion

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Eh? It was really a pretty simple physics question.

How much energy it takes to melt a Km^2 of ice straightforward to calculate, so multiple that by the ice lost each year which is documented well enough for a rough answer at least. Likewise how much extra energy the earth is retaining is fairly straightforward to calculate, simple take the documented radiative forcing and multiply it by the surface area of the earth.

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that should be Km^3

If it is simple why are you asking instead of doing it yourself?

Other than a few rules of thumb you will find the only solid data is the heat involved in freezing/thawing water. I tried to give you feel for the complexity of the problem. What you assume is available such as solar energy is far from settled.

Keep in mind 1 degree C is proportional to a 1/3rd of 1% difference in heat content. Year to year annual averages in specific locations and regional averages and for the world are greater than that 1°C or 1/3 of 1%.
 
What we would wish for is just one scientific paper that conclusively disproves AGW. Unfortunately it ain't going to happen. The papers may refine our understanding of it, but the chance of them disproving it is vanishingly small. But this is OT, the discussion thread is thatta way --------------->

In matters of science there is no proof or disproof of anything. Proof is a concept that exists only in math and logic. Science attempts to explain data. The best theory is the best explanation for the data, nothing more.

The issue in this mess has always been terms like "disaster" which non-scientific and cannot be the consequence of a scientific theory.

The simplest example is the assertion that in fact the world temperature has risen. I have also noted the ultimate disaster has been ten years in the future for the last twenty years. The point of no return, the point where no matter what we do we cannot stop disaster was first reached around 1997. Convenient for the public hysteria the disaster point has remained ten years in the future. EVERY year it is still ten years in the future.

Scare mongers like donkeys are willing to follow a carrot that is always ten years in the future.

We have an absolute right to demand an explanation of why their predictions have been wrong since 1987.

We have an equal right to declare they have shown themselves to wrong in all their predictions since 1997 and after 13 years of being wrong why they expect to suddenly be believed PARTICULARLY when the carrot gets pushed forward a year every year.
 
SciAm had a full article on it in the 50s.

••

Good article here on the convergence of information turning a skeptic to an activist....

snip

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-flipping-point

and that was 4 + years ago....the evidence and the GW have both grown...

Shermer is not a scientist. He has no credentials in science. He has no qualifications to evaluate science. He does not produce a column on science. He has axes to grind which are independent of science rather than science to discuss.

Scientific American does popularized revisions and turned away from a scientific presentation back in the early 90s when it almost went out of business.

When SciAm hired him it was the last straw for the original fans of the magazine. For them it was the belief it can't get any worse and then it did.

Beyond that, I have corresponded with the man. He is an idiot.
 
You'll have a long wait for something like that, nothing like imposing impossible hurdles.

If a theory cannot make correct predictions then it is false. In fact it never reaches the level of a theory as it would be eliminated at the hypothesis stage and would thus never arrive at the level of a theory.

The fanciful predictions they have made have NEVER been correct. Not even a trend suggesting a predictions might be correct.

One has to ask why anyone takes them seriously any more.
 
My second thought about your post is that the proof you are after is not how scientific study is conducted. Supporting studies only contribute to the body of supporting evidence, it cannot 'prove' a theory, only show that it is more likely to be true. It can dis-prove a theory.

An educated guess, aka hypothesis, has to make successful predictions else it is discarded and never rises to the level of a theory. As nothing predicted has occurred there have never been a successful hypothesis much less anything which can be considered a theory.
 
If it is simple why are you asking instead of doing it yourself?

I didn’t ask the question, I answered it, but glad to see you are paying attention

Other than a few rules of thumb you will find the only solid data is the heat involved in freezing/thawing water.
The surface are of the earth is hardly a “rule of thumb” and there is plenty of published data on the earths radiative imbalance and the average annual ice loss for Greenland, Antarctica and other glaciers. The question is neither complicated nor dependant on unknown quantities.

I tried to give you feel for the complexity of the problem.
And I tried to give you a feel for how simple it really is
What you assume is available such as solar energy is far from settled.
Solar radiation is measured quite accurately by satellites, but of course we are not discussing solar radiation we are discussing the heat retained by greenhouse gasses.
Keep in mind 1 degree C is proportional to a 1/3rd of 1% difference in heat content.
Thx for the useless trivia, would you care to tell us what % of arsenic is lethal in the human body?
 
... And we know it is impossible for two different molecules to have the same number of the same atoms.

...

That's utterly wrong. MANY MANY molecules have the same count of atoms yet are structurally different.

Otherwise Di-methyl Ether and Ethanol would be the same chemical.

And this is about as informed as the rest of the argument you are making here.
 
An educated guess, aka hypothesis, has to make successful predictions else it is discarded and never rises to the level of a theory. As nothing predicted has occurred there have never been a successful hypothesis much less anything which can be considered a theory.
Care to give an example to illustrate the part I have highlighted?
 
And thus Lamarck correctly described the method of passing on traits to future generations. And we know it is impossible for two different molecules to have the same number of the same atoms.

Actually Lamarck was quite wrong (and not above falisfying data), and as to the latter I don't know who held to that idea for long. However that may be, you declared that most of the ideas held in the 19thCE were wrong, and plucking out a well-known example or two doesn't back that up. Kepler wasn't always right either, but he often was.

It continued into the 20th c. where it was clear the center of the sun was not hot enough for fusion to occur. But later it was shown that the statistical distribution of temperatures caused a small fraction of protons to be hot enough.

Not one I'm familiar with, but there was a problem with the then-current state of knowledge, prompting further work which resuted in a solution. This is how science progresses.

Speaking of stars the discovery of galaxies and that we are in only one of them was in the early 20th c. -- meaning one should not quote 19th c. astronomers about those patches light might be.

That rather depends on which nebulae you're interested in. They weren't all galaxies.

Just this week the estimated amount of stars in the universe at least tripled which means the universe is only about half dark matter rather than some 80% of it or maybe it was the low estimate a light matter than leads to the foolish idea of dark matter.

You assume that all stars are the same mass and that all visible matter (that is, detectable by radiation) is contained in stars. Trebling the number of red dwarf stars (there's a clue in "dwarf") does not treble the amount of mass contained in stars. Such thinking is definitely not the way that science progresses.

Are you quite convinced that dark matter is a foolish idea?

But the 19th c. has spoken and science is never wrong so stones really do not fall from the sky.

Science is often right. Hoping that, since some science is wrong, any science you don't like might be wrong and can be ignored is foolish, in my opinion

It is false to cherry pick ideas from the old days without verifying they are still considered correct today.

And equally false to cherry-pick some well-known errors and use them to characterise 19thCE science.

There is an embarrassingly huge number of one time truths once held by scientists which are simply not true. The good news is these misinterpretations are commonly corrected by the person who first promoted the misinterpretation.

That's good science. Science isn't embarrassed at all by errors.

You have named some from the 19th c.

Have I? I don't recall that, but no doubt you have evidence.

This just in, completely melting the Greenland glaciers will result in the level of the sea around Greenland falling.

Where did you get that from? It sounds pretty unlikely to me, but give me your source and I'm open to persuasion.

You may be mis-remembering a report that loss of the Antarctic ice-cap would result in a re-distribution of water in the oceans, since its mass currently draws ocean water towards it. The science behind that seems sound, but it's hardly an urgent matter.

Gotta love how the real world doesn't respond by supporting political sound agendas.

Do try to keep politics out of it. That's what led some Marxists to cling to Lamarckianism (it suited their political agenda), and leads some to deny AGW now.You don't want to end up looking as foolish as them, do you?

Just whose political agenda revolves around Greenland's shores is a mystery to me, and I'm quite comfortable having it remain so.
 
As I reminded the group, the raw data is often "massaged," that is changed, for various reasons. When that is done statistics can no longer be applied. As humans have changed the input data the only possible thing to attribute a deviation from the proper distribution is the human changes to the data.

In the case of, for instance, satellite observations adjustments are made to the raw data to take account of instrument changes so that sense can be made out of the data. In the case of economics, adjustments are made for such things as inflation, again so that like is being compared to like as nearly as possible.

Someone may choose to attribute all the information in the data to human intervention, but in fact the warming shown by satellite data (and glacial reatreat, Arctic sea-ice retreat, pine forest destruction, ice-cap mass and so on) is a real phaenomenon. You can even see it in the UAH results, where the adjustments are made (nobody knows exactly how) by Spencer and Christy. You've yet to make clear who "the warmists" are but I'm thinking Spencer and Christy aren't among them.

This warming was, of course, predicted by mainstream scientific theory. Enhancing greenhouse gases will warm the planet, says the theory, and sure enough it has. A warmer world will see more extreme precipitation and expansion of the tropics (says the theory), and sure enough it is. The earliest visible impact will be in the Arctic (that theory again) and there it is, very clear to see.

I'm sticking with the mainstream theory myself. It hasn't steered me wrong so far.


It's a shame you ran out of steam there, I did make a number of other points. What's most disappointing is that you still haven't provided any sources for the claims you've made. (I had to point you to Angstrom myself, and on that one you were well adrift of the facts.) I'm particularly interested in the "group of journalists" because their conspiracy is failing big-time and I always enjoy a laugh at someone else's expense.
 
What the world needs is many, many more papers, and much, much more *research* to confirm what every Global Warmist claims is absolutely factual.

And the world will get it. That's the upside of the "more research is needed" policy : it provides funding that otherwise wouldn't be there. Oceanography in particular has had a huge boost in recent times, which is good given that we know the surface of Mars better than we do that vital component of the biosphere.

(Glaciology has been given a boost as well, but that's not really of long-term significance. Well maybe in the very long-term, when we get to a planet which still has glaciers.)

Meanwhile, thousands of Global Warmists are dining at taxpayers' expense in Cancun, Mexico.

Most of them are diplomats and bag-carriers. The only "-ist" that applies to diplomats is careerist. OK, sometimes bigamist.

No need to videoconference and practice what you preach when you can fly and dine on the public dime.

Yeah right, like diplomats are gonna put up with that.

Punchbowl full of hypocrisy, anyone?

One way of describing a diplomatic gathering. Hypocrisy is a requirement for diplomats. "Sent abroad to lie for their country".

Politicians are steering well clear this time, apart from some with small, low-lying countries to worry about. It does a diplomat no harm to be associated with failure (most negotiating sessions fail, after all) but failure can tarnish a politician.

Here is a list of more Global Warming Conferences for Hypocrites.
Be sure you attend every single one, while the hypocrites themselves call for anthropogenic carbon dioxide reductions of 80%.

How they will continue to fly and dine on the public dime while cutting their own footprint 80% has yet to be explained. Nor will it ever be.

http://www.conferencealerts.com/environment.htm

Do let us know how much public money is spent on each of these, and just how much extra flying they lead to. Figures like "$200m a day" and "33%" would be newsworthy.

"Search and Research Youth Congress" - sounds subversive. I must look into that.
 
I am waiting for something that conclusively proves the Dangerous AGW hypothesis.

Given the record rainfall and the droughts predicted by AGW science and already happening, what are you waiting for that you do regard as dangerous? Forest fires? Rising food-prices? Countries banning food exports because of concerns for domestic supply? Flag-waving in the Arctic?

(The more common term used these days is "catastrophic climate change", because "catastrophic" can be redefined upwards far more than "dangerous".)

The hypothesis must be able to validate itself surely, tested on its ability to make accurate prediction (not simply to make prediction).

It's not all about predictions anymore, because stuff is already happening. And said stuff is entirely in line with predictions.

Skeptics tend to note that no matter what the observable data and whatever the prior predictions, everything is classed as "consistent with" the hypothesis.

Predict an increase in hurricane numbers and force; witness no trend; conclusion - consistent with.

AGW does not predict much at all about hurricanes, which are a localised phaenomenon (of peculiar interest to Americans and Caribbeans).

Predict an acceleration in sea level rise; witness no accelration or even decelration; conclusion - consistent with.

There has been an acceleration.

Predict declining Southern Hempisphere sea ice; witness no change or even increase in SH sea ice; conclusion - consistent with.

AGW makes no predictions about Antarctic sea-ice. It's a regional phaenomenon (of peculiar interest to people who are trying not to look at the Arctic, where AGW does have something to say). That said, large-scale loss of sea-ice on the Antarctic Peninsula (which has happened) was cited long-ago as an early sign to watch for. Who knows what this summer will bring?


Predict 2 degree per century temperature trend; witness no trend or singificantly reduced trend; conclusion - consistent with.

The trend remains the same, about 0.2C per decade.

There is a limitless number of examples.

Got anything from the Arctic? Apart from the Greenland ice-cap, that is. Ice-caps are far too undynamic for a greybeard like me.
 
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/...er-shows-just-how-bad-the-climate-models-are/

New peer reviewed paper shows just how bad the climate models really are

... snip ...

Just have a look at Figure 12 (mean temperature -vs- models for the USA)* from the paper, shown below:

http://www.informaworld.com/ampp/image?path=/911751996/928051726/thsj_a_513518_o_f0012g.jpeg

The graph above shows temperature in the blue lines, and model runs in other colors. Not only are there no curve shape matches, temperature offsets are significant as well. In the study, they also looked at precipitation, which fared even worse in correlation. The bottom line: if the models do a poor job of hindcasting, why would they do any better in forecasting?

Comments?
 
Watt’s is an idiot, assuming stupidity rather then malice is the only thing that prevents me from accusing him of deliberately lying.

Climate models are very good at predicting the global radiative imbalance and pretty good at predicting how much of that heat will end up in the oceans. They requite vastly more computing power and possibly some improved physics to predict how the energy will be distributed in the atmosphere. This means they generally don’t make good predictions on a continental scale. This is already well documented. It’s commented on in the last IPCC report for example, and it’s why the IPCC doesn’t make predictions for specific countries.

Watts is simply posting something already well known by climate scientists and insinuating it has some other significance entirely. As per usual, if you see something on Watts site, just assume it’s wrong or dishonest and you’ll be much farther ahead in your understanding.
 
Given the record rainfall and the droughts predicted by AGW science and already happening, what are you waiting for that you do regard as dangerous? Forest fires? Rising food-prices? Countries banning food exports because of concerns for domestic supply? Flag-waving in the Arctic?

(The more common term used these days is "catastrophic climate change", because "catastrophic" can be redefined upwards far more than "dangerous".)



It's not all about predictions anymore, because stuff is already happening. And said stuff is entirely in line with predictions.



AGW does not predict much at all about hurricanes, which are a localised phaenomenon (of peculiar interest to Americans and Caribbeans).



There has been an acceleration.



AGW makes no predictions about Antarctic sea-ice. It's a regional phaenomenon (of peculiar interest to people who are trying not to look at the Arctic, where AGW does have something to say). That said, large-scale loss of sea-ice on the Antarctic Peninsula (which has happened) was cited long-ago as an early sign to watch for. Who knows what this summer will bring?




The trend remains the same, about 0.2C per decade.



Got anything from the Arctic? Apart from the Greenland ice-cap, that is. Ice-caps are far too undynamic for a greybeard like me.

I have seen nothing that isn't part of natural climate historically.

5 years ago increases in hurricane frequency and number were "proof", recently a lack of them is apparently not the opposite. Paradox.

3 years ago drought in Australia was "proof". End of drought is apparently not the opposite

10 years ago the end rarity of snowfalls was "proof". Now the blizzards in consequtive years are not the opposite.


I see natural climate variation, not trend.


Even the much touted - second or thrid hottest year ever (let's wait and see) - will an El Nino affected year not quite as hot as the last heavily El Nino affected year 12 years ago.

We haven't come far despite this humainity and world threatening process that we need urgent action on.

Sorry, I just can't see it and won't vote for anyone who is pushing it on a policy platform. The midterms indicate I am not alone.
 
Speaking of "proof" whatever that seems to mean in your lexicon- you provide none for these vague contentions...

5 years ago increases in hurricane frequency and number were "proof", recently a lack of them is apparently not the opposite. Paradox.

3 years ago drought in Australia was "proof". End of drought is apparently not the opposite

10 years ago the end rarity of snowfalls was "proof". Now the blizzards in consequtive years are not the opposite.


You lean on hurricanes and I think you will find if you actually look at the literature that is not the case and the recent lack of them seems an odd statement for the one of the busiest hurricane seasons recently .

NOAA’s Prediction for Active Season Realized; Slow Eastern Pacific Season Sets Record
November 29, 2010
According to NOAA the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends tomorrow, was one of the busiest on record. In contrast, the eastern North Pacific season had the fewest storms on record since the satellite era began.

In the Atlantic Basin a total of 19 named storms formed – tied with 1887 and 1995 for third highest on record. Of those, 12 became hurricanes – tied with 1969 for second highest on record. Five of those reached major hurricane status of Category 3 or higher.
These totals are within the ranges predicted in NOAA’s seasonal outlooks issued on May 27 (14-23 named storms; 8-14 hurricanes; 3-7 major hurricanes) and August 5 (14-20 named storms; 8-12 hurricanes; 4-6 major hurricanes).

Hurricanes are complex and while there is clear trend to more powerful storms frequency is controlled by a different set of factors...

AGW is charted in trend lines and there is consensus on that from climate scientists...

It's getting warmer

We're responsible...

Vague unsupported comments in a science forum will not change that reality and if you want to chat politics there is thread for that.

There is also a thread for those that deny evolution as well...
 
I have seen nothing that isn't part of natural climate historically.

Then show us natural unforced variability where the Earths temperatures went up 1 deg C in a century.

BTW your argument here is remarkably similar to the cigarette companies claims that because people die of cancer all the time it’s impossible to show that any deaths result from smoking. Both arguments are absurd, of course.

5 years ago increases in hurricane frequency and number were "proof", recently a lack of them is apparently not the opposite.

Already dealt with. Refuting claims that were never made only makes you look dishonest.

Once again you are “refuting” claims no one has made. Events like the drought in Australia or last years heat wave in Russia would be highly unusual but not impossible if the world were not warming. Of course we know the earth *is* warming .
I
3 years ago drought in Australia was "proof". End of drought is apparently not the opposite

WTF? When you make up “claims” at least try to make them sound real. Climate scientists have long predicted and increase in rain and snow for much of the earth.

10 years ago the end rarity of snowfalls was "proof". Now the blizzards in consequtive years are not the opposite..

I see natural climate variation, not trend.
Even the much touted - second or thrid hottest year ever (let's wait and see) - will an El Nino affected year not quite as hot as the last heavily El Nino affected year 12 years ago.

Please stop and think for a min on what you just said. First, we are currently in a La Nina that started around the middle of the year. La Nina is one of the strongest of the “cooling” natural variations. Nonetheless NASA says are on track for the warmest year on record though Sep.
 
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What the world needs is many, many more papers, and much, much more *research* to confirm what every Global Warmist claims is absolutely factual.


Really? *Every* claim has to be demosntrated to be *absolutely* factual? Not , say, 80% probable? 90%? Not good enough for you?


Do you require *absolute facthood* for every facet of every scientific model before you accept it?


Science deals in probabilities, you know....every scientific 'fact' is a statement of probability at its core. And they're all open to being downgraded to 'error' too, if the evidence warrants. That's what makes it science.
 
I have seen nothing that isn't part of natural climate historically.

The data say otherwise, if by 'historically' you mean a rise in global temps and its indicators, in a 30 years span, without a plausible natural forcing.

We haven't seen that before in recorded human history.




5 years ago increases in hurricane frequency and number were "proof", recently a lack of them is apparently not the opposite. Paradox.

3 years ago drought in Australia was "proof". End of drought is apparently not the opposite

10 years ago the end rarity of snowfalls was "proof". Now the blizzards in consequtive years are not the opposite.


You are confusing 'being consistent with' with 'proof'. Scientists themselves don't make that error.

More severe precipitation (rain or snow) is consistent with global warming.



I see natural climate variation, not trend.


That's because you don't know what you're looking at.


Even the much touted - second or thrid hottest year ever (let's wait and see) - will an El Nino affected year not quite as hot as the last heavily El Nino affected year 12 years ago.

So, every year should be warmer than the next? There should be no natural variability left? Scientists aren't saying that -- never have. Every graph shows considerable short-term variability. That's to be expected. If we didn't see that, we'd be in extremely hot water indeed. But unfortunately the long term trend is up.



We haven't come far despite this humainity and world threatening process that we need urgent action on.

Sorry, I just can't see it and won't vote for anyone who is pushing it on a policy platform. The midterms indicate I am not alone.


Yes, ignorance of science is rampant in this country, as is despicable undermining of it by the usual suspects. We know. It's s shame.
 
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