Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[Trakar]

Then you position and theirs is to be considered fringe far outside the consensus and dismissed from the scientific debate. As another user just replied the scientific position is that 15% (or more) of the current warming can be blamed on solar variation.

I mean, shouldn't you be asserting this to Trakar who said:

My statements and understandings are not contradicted by, or in disagreement with lomiller's, pixel's or capel's.

lomiller speaks of solar cycle (sunspot activity) and there not being any compelling evidence supporting that such correlates (yet alone causes) climatic temperature change on the Earth.

I spoke of insolation (total solar energy impingement upon upper atmosphere) variations that currently account for about 15% of climate change forcing.

These are two very different statements talking about completely different aspects of climate and climate assessment.

 

[Trakar]

65 million years ago, CO2 was 3,000 parts per million compared to the present 375. Temperatures were much warmer, which made rainfall (and fresh water) more plentiful. Since there was more atmospheric CO2, plants also required less water. The climate was not hostile at all to macro-scale life, as this is the period of meter-long dragonflies and very large animals such as dinosaurs.

Patrick Moore, cofounder of greenpeace, says global warming increases the availability of arable land as well as bio-fertility.

The IPCC claims that CO2 levels even slightly above what we are at now will acidify the ocean to the point that it will have very damaging ecological consequences, but they were wrong:

http://www.co2science.org/articles/V14/N18/B3.php

Bottom line: we're not in any imminent danger as a result of a climate shift; natural or man made.

The use of political advocacy pseudoscience sites does not compelling support your assertions which are contradicted by established and well-evidenced legitimate scientific understandings and findings.

 

[lomiller]

Then you position and theirs is to be considered fringe far outside the consensus and dismissed from the scientific debate. As another user just replied the scientific position is that 15% (or more) of the current warming can be blamed on solar variation.

The issue seems to be that you don’t understand the difference be cycle and variation.

Not all variation is cyclical and the Suns cyclical variation associated with sunspot cycles have no measurable effect of global temperatures (but a few recent papers have suggested some other interesting correlations)

It’s the non-cyclic variations in solar output that could have some temperature impact but no such variation has ever been directly measured and are only inferred from the change in solar output during the sunspot cycle. (I think there is another proxy as well, but I can’t recall if/what)

 

[Lennart Hyland]

So any thoughts on this one?
"Global warming caused by chlorofluorocarbons, not carbon dioxide, new study says"
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-global-chlorofluorocarbons-carbon-dioxide.html

 

[Reality Check]

Patrick Moore, cofounder of greenpeace, says global warming increases the availability of arable land as well as bio-fertility.

Patrick Moore was an amateur astronomer so what do actual climate scientists say, ArmoredDragon?

Common sense would tell you that global warming decreases the availability of arable land as warming pushes the arable land toward the poles.
What is north of Indian arable lands? The Himalayas !
What is north of the Russian farmlands? Siberian tundra !
What is north of the Great Plains? The relatively infertile Canadian Shield !
What is south of South America? Less land !
What is south of Central Africa? Less land (but not by much until you run out land altogether) !
What is north of Central Africa? The Sahara Desert !

The IPCC claims that CO2 levels even slightly above what we are at now will acidify the ocean to the point that it will have very damaging ecological consequences based on many scientific papers rather than a single paper on a web site.

Bottom line: we're not in any imminent danger (on a time scale of days, weeks, months or even a few years) as a result of a climate shift; natural or man made
Actual bottom line: Within the next few decades the consequences of global warming will put us "in danger"
Positives and negatives of global warming

The consequences of climate change become increasingly bad after each additional degree of warming, with the consequences of 2°C being quite damaging and the consequences of 4°C being potentially catastrophic.

 

[CapelDodger]

So any thoughts on this one?
"Global warming caused by chlorofluorocarbons, not carbon dioxide, new study says"
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-global-chlorofluorocarbons-carbon-dioxide.html

Oh dear.

' "Most conventional theories expect that global temperatures will continue to increase as CO2 levels continue to rise, as they have done since 1850. What's striking is that since 2002, global temperatures have actually declined – matching a decline in CFCs in the atmosphere," Professor Lu said. "My calculations of CFC greenhouse effect show that there was global warming by about 0.6 °C from 1950 to 2002, but the earth has actually cooled since 2002. The cooling trend is set to continue for the next 50-70 years as the amount of CFCs in the atmosphere continues to decline." '

An error in fact (global warming hasn't stopped since 2002, of course) and a prediction which will soon see this little gem forgotten. In the meantime I don't doubt many people think the science is now settled - after all, not-CO₂, no need to deny the greenhouse effect (a contentious issue best avoided), and cosmic rays (easily linked with the Sun if that's one's particular bonnet-bee). Could not ask for better.

Shame about the prediction of cooling, though. Such hostages to fortune never get a happy ending. But what the heck, it can be edited out in future.

 

[Trakar]

So any thoughts on this one?
"Global warming caused by chlorofluorocarbons, not carbon dioxide, new study says"
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-global-chlorofluorocarbons-carbon-dioxide.html

Unsure if he's added anything new to this paper, but at first glance it looks like the same trope he's trotted out about once a year since 2008, without gaining much traction, support or recognition, but I'll go over it in a little more detail and comment if I see anything of particular interest. In previous papers the sole basis of his connection of climate warming to CFCs is that the curve of CFC percentage of the atmosphere better matched the curve of temperature change better than the curve of CO2 concentration. Unfortunately, spectroscopic analyses of atmospheric gases indicate that CFCs only contribute 13-14% of warming whereas CO2 is responsible for ~70% of warming. Let me see if he's added any new twists or supportive evidences then I can start comparing it to his previous papers

 

[lomiller]

So any thoughts on this one?
"Global warming caused by chlorofluorocarbons, not carbon dioxide, new study says"
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-global-chlorofluorocarbons-carbon-dioxide.html

It seems a case of mistaking correlation for causation. CFC emissions grew more or less along with industrialization, just as CO2 emissions did. Since both have the same underlying cause both would have similar correlation to warming. His hypothesis also claims that warming has now stopped, something there is no statistically significant evidence to support.

 

[Reality Check]

So any thoughts on this one?
"Global warming caused by chlorofluorocarbons, not carbon dioxide, new study says"
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-global-chlorofluorocarbons-carbon-dioxide.html

It seems to be a bit of biased reasoning. Professor Lu notes that global temperatures have decreased since 2002 and ascribes this to CFCs because that is the area that he is researching.

The problems look like

1. 11 years are not significant in terms of climate. Global temperatures have increased over the last 30 or even 20 years.
2. Professor Lu ignores the preponderance of la Nina events in the last 13 years which have a cooling effect on global temperatures : ENSO Temperature Trends
3. The existing literature shows that CFCs have a smaller effect that CO2.

It's CFCs

Models and direct observations find that CFCs only contribute a fraction of the warming supplied by other greenhouse gases.
...
The proportion of CFC forcing compared to total greenhouse forcing is still around 14%, a close match to the IPCC estimate of 13%.

Small nitpick - single author paper !
It is fairly rare that a paper overthrowing decades of results by hundreds of scientists is authored by one person.

Lu's previous papers on his CRE theory have been described as interesting but then he went wrong, e.g. RealClimate's article Lu: from ‘interesting but incorrect’ to just wrong describes the response to what looks like the germination of his theory in 2010.

 

[Megalodon]

So any thoughts on this one?
"Global warming caused by chlorofluorocarbons, not carbon dioxide, new study says"
http://phys.org/news/2013-05-global-chlorofluorocarbons-carbon-dioxide.html

Alarm bells ring when such a groundbreaking concept is published in a relatively obscure journal of an unrelated field. Will read the paper later, but going from the linked article there seems to be some problems, like:

- He uses the canard that temperatures have declined since 2002, which is very problematic since it's supposed to be mainly a statistical paper;
- an unsupported extrapolation from regional effects in an area where CFCs are known to accumulate to global effects;
- no explanation as to why the known physics of CFC has been so underestimated until now, and why it works so differently in the atmosphere from the laboratory;
- no explanation as to why the known physics of CO2 has been so overestimated until now, and why it works so differently in the atmosphere from the laboratory.

This is a major problem of concurrent hypothesis: we know the physical properties of the molecules, and a mechanism must be offered that explains why both of them work so differently from the expected, and in opposite directions.

But it would be extremely good if he was right. We would have to worry only about ocean acidification. I'm not throwing a party yet, though...

 

[Megalodon]

Scratch that, I'm not going to read it since the journal doesn't show up in sciencedirect, and I'm not shelling 20GBP for it.

 

[Pixel42]

So any thoughts on this one?

My first thought is "correlation does not equal causation". CFC emissions and CO2 emissions are both correlated with increasing industrialisation, so I'd expect a correlation between CFC emissions and warming even if the warming is entirely due to CO2 emissions. Having said that CFCs are greenhouse gases, so they would certainly make a contribution to AGW. I'd need more evidence than is provided in this paper to convince me that that contribution is greater than that of CO2.

Patrick Moore was an amateur astronomer

Wrong Patrick Moore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore_(environmentalist)

 

[Megalodon]

Scratch that scratch, found the preprint: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1210/1210.6844.pdf

 

[Puppycow]

USA Today says global warming could green arid regions?

http://m.usatoday.com/article/news/2377179

Apologies for the mobile link. I'm on a train.

This sort of story would probably make the casual media consumer less concerned.

 

[Reality Check]

Wrong Patrick Moore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore_(environmentalist)

Whoops!
Still not a climate scientist but at least in a related field (ecology). However this is still one person's opinion as stated in news articles - not in scientific journals - and without cited sources. A recent interview (Patrick Moore on the facts and fiction of climate change) contains some climate denier myths such as

• "global average temperature has now been flat for the past 15 years": What has global warming done since 1998?
  

  The planet has continued to accumulate heat since 1998 - global warming is still happening. Nevertheless, surface temperatures show much internal variability due to heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere. 1998 was an unusually hot year due to a strong El Nino.

• "All of the models used by the IPCC that this increase in water vapour will result in a positive feedback".
  Actually all of the physics shows that water vapour has a positive feedback and the models include this physics.
  Explaining how the water vapor greenhouse effect works
  But clouds are different!
  What is the net feedback from clouds?
  

  Although the cloud feedback is one of the largest remaining uncertainties in climate science, evidence is building that the net cloud feedback is likely positive, and unlikely to be strongly negative.

• "One thing is certain, there is no “scientific proof” as the term is generally understood, that human emissions are the main cause of climate change today".
  This is very wrong. There is "scientific proof", e.g. a consensus supported by strong evidence in the published literature. That is what the IPCC report that he goes onto next states - it is very likely (as in > 95% certainty) that human emissions are the main cause of climate change today.
  Is there a scientific consensus on global warming?
  

  Surveys of the peer-reviewed scientific literature and the opinions of experts consistently show a 97–98% consensus that humans are causing global warming.

 

[batvette]

Whoops!
Still not a climate scientist but at least in a related field (ecology). However this is still one person's opinion as stated in news articles - not in scientific journals - and without cited sources.

Is "skepticalscience.com" a "scientific journal"?

In fact it is a site maintained by one man, John Cook, who is also not a climate scientist.

I'm not necessarily challenging the material but I'm curious why the double standard.

 

[jimbob]

Is "skepticalscience.com" a "scientific journal"?

In fact it is a site maintained by one man, John Cook, who is also not a climate scientist.

I'm not necessarily challenging the material but I'm curious why the double standard.

Well it is saying what is very widely accepted by the climate scientists.

An individual blogger might have a good article about evolution and linking to that would be fine. If someone was saying that evolution was wrong in some aspect then they'd better have some pretty high quality evidence to back that claim up - using whale.to would not be good enough.

In other words: one is simply summarising what the experts agree on, whilst the other is making an outrageous claim.

 

[CapelDodger]

Is "skepticalscience.com" a "scientific journal"?

In fact it is a site maintained by one man, John Cook, who is also not a climate scientist.

Who on Earth told you that? More intersteningly, why did you believe them? It's easy enough get acquainted with the real version http://www.skepticalscience.com/

I'm not necessarily challenging the material but I'm curious why the double standard.

Only perhaps regarding your imaginary version of SkS.

 

[CapelDodger]

A recent interview (Patrick Moore on the facts and fiction of climate change) contains some climate denier myths ...

No surprised there, he's off-the-peg. When environmentalism became more mainstream and there was less and less focus on Moore he switched to environmental positions which would guarantee him attention. He has never showed signs of deep thinking, but does appear to be a narcissist.

Of course deniers fete such people because they are prodigals returned, the oracles people such as you and me "used to believe". It would be sad were it not so hilarious to watch.

Moore's droning about new farmland has been going on for at least thirty years : the world has been warming, yet there's no sign yet of any new land being exploited, and I've not even heard of any plans to do so. But the droning will continue, just like droning about the Sun and how SkS is all written and sourced by one man.

 

[Reality Check]

Is "skepticalscience.com" a "scientific journal"?

Why would you think that, batvette?
(And why the quotes - scientific journals actually exist !)

It is obvious that Skeptical Science is a blog (started by John Cook and now maintained by a number of people). There is a commitment to cite real climate science.

Patrick Moore's mistakes are basically climate denier myths that are debunked by the scientific literature cited and explained in the blog entries, e.g.

• What has global warming done since 1998?
• Explaining how the water vapor greenhouse effect works
• What is the net feedback from clouds?
• Is there a scientific consensus on global warming?