Global warming

[David Rodale]

Evidence does not explain anything. Evidence either supports or does not support a hypothesis, aka an explanation.

Is English your second language?

First, statistics isn't science, now evidence can't explain things.

Evidence can explain many things, no? If I had stated "provide evidence to explain the hypothesis" your parsing would hold true. However, the request was for evidence to explain how CO2 drives climate. Of course, as should be expected, yet another scripted response using Venus ensued. Even RealClimate doesn't stoop to that level of silliness.

evidence
noun
1. That which confirms: attestation, authentication, confirmation, corroboration, demonstration, proof, substantiation, testament, testimonial, testimony, validation, verification, warrant. See true
2. Something visible or evident that gives grounds for believing in the existence or presence of something else: badge, index, indication, indicator, manifestation, mark, note, sign, signification, stamp, symptom, token, witness. See show

verb
1. To make manifest or apparent: demonstrate, display, evince, exhibit, manifest, proclaim, reveal, show. See show
2. To establish as true or genuine: authenticate, bear out, confirm, corroborate, demonstrate, endorse, establish, prove, show, substantiate, validate, verify. See show, support
3. To assure the certainty or validity of: attest, authenticate, back (up), bear out, confirm, corroborate, justify, substantiate, testify (to), validate, verify, warrant. See support, true
--------------------------------------------
explain

verb
1. To make understandable: construe, decipher, explicate, expound, interpret, spell out. Archaic: enucleate. Idiom: put into plain English. See explain
2. To find a solution for: clear up, decipher, resolve, solve, unravel. Informal: dope out, figure out. Idiom: get to the bottom of. See ask, reason
3. To offer reasons for or a cause of: account for, justify, rationalize.
---------------------------------------------
We'll assume you know the definition of 'how'.
Examples:
The evidence explains how CO2 cannot drive climate.
The evidence explains how the thief entered the home.
This evidence explains why the red hair person carries the Arg151Cys mutation.

Would it make you happy if it were changed to "....provide attestation explicating how CO2 drives climate"?

AGW by the injection of CO2 into the atmosphere follows directly from the greenhouse effect at any CO2 level below saturation - and CO2 concentrations are still well below saturation level. So there's no confusion. If AGW isn't true, greenhouse theory is wrong; if greenhouse theory is wrong, quantum physics is thrown into serious question.

Since warming has indeed occurred with the increase of atmospheric CO2 by a third, greenhouse theory is not thrown into question and nor is quantum physics.

Should this be dubbed the 'Gut Feeling Axiom'?

After all that, and still no attestation.

 

[a_unique_person]

Well it does look like Peiser has revised his views, although I still see some significance to the fact that just 13 abstracts (less than 2%) *explicitly* endorsed what Oreskes said was the 'consensus view.' The vast majority of abstracts do not deal with or mention anthropogenic global warming at all.

And what about Dennis Bray's internet study? Nothing to say about that at all? You have to admit that direct polling of climatologists is more interesting than just sampling papers.

And what about reports like these:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/20/opinion/edjacoby.php "August 20, 2007 ... snip ... Scientists and other "serious people" who question the global warming disaster narrative are not hard to find. Last year 60 of them sent a letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, urging him to undertake "a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science" and disputing the contention that "a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause." The letter cautioned that "observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models" and warned that since the study of climate change is relatively new, "it may be many years yet before we properly understand the earth's climate system." Among those signing the letter to Harper were Fred Singer, the former director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service; Ian Clark, hydrogeology and paleoclimatology specialist at the University of Ottawa; Hendrik Tennekes, the former director of research at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; physicist Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton; the University of Alabama's Roy Spencer, formerly senior scientist in climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, plus 55 other specialists in climate science and related disciplines."

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/...l?id=597d0677-2a05-47b4-b34f-b84068db11f4&p=4 "June 20, 2007 ... snip ... It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. ... snip ... R. Timothy Patterson is professor and director of the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, Carleton University.

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA177.html "Another survey, conducted by American Viewpoint for Citizens for a Sound Economy, found that, by a margin of 44% to 17%, state climatologists believe that global warming is largely a natural phenomenon. The survey further found that 58% of the climatologists disagreed with President Clinton's assertion that "the overwhelming balance of evidence and scientific opinion is that it is no longer a theory, but now fact, that global warming is for real," while only 36% agreed with the assertion. Thirty-six of the nation's 48 official state climatologists participated in the survey."

http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/m...limate_scientists_the_debate_is_not_over.html " “Consensus”? What “Consensus”?Among Climate Scientists, The Debate Is Not Over, Written by Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, Thursday, 19 July 2007"

I still find the complete dismissal of the dissenting opinion troubling and indicative of an agenda driven group (at least, no less an agenda than the petroleum industry). Let me see what you have to say about the questions I asked earlier:

How serious can it be if over the 20,000 years prior to today, the average loss in ice mass in Antarctica was equivalent to a 0.5 mm increase in the sea level each year ... more than the 0.4 mm increase claimed using the GRACE data? How serious could the loss of ice be if it's going to take 750 years to raise the sea level one foot.

And what about the huge uncertainty in that estimate? There are uncertainties in that estimate because to make it they had to make assumptions. Will you acknowledge those uncertainties?

A second even more recent study that I referenced claims satellite data shows an overall loss of ice so small that it would take 3800 years to raise the sea level even one foot. If true, is that something to get excited about and pass draconian tax legislation crippling our economy RIGHT NOW???

And finally, will you apologize for Al Gore and the global walarmists who had claimed antarctic ice was decreasing even at a time when study after study said the opposite?

I can find quite a few scientists who don't believe in evolution , too, there are plenty of scientists who believe in god. But what are the scientific products that demonstrate if AGW is true or not? It appears to me that they support AGW.

 

[mhaze]

He rhetorically laments (borderline redundancy there) that few others voice his views, not that they don't share them.

Is anybody that raises the alarm in any siuation an alarmist? If you only apply it to false alarms, Hansen's alarm has not yet proved unfounded.

Remember, if you can keep your head when all around are losing theirs, it could be that you haven't grasped the seriousness of the situation.

It could also mean that my battle axe was sharper. But it seems to only be slicing through smoke and fog of confusion.

Surely alarmism is a behaviour, not a belief?

Hansen and the team he heads up have been getting things right, and there's no reason to think they won't continue to do so. Science isn't about beliefs.

Direct quote from Hansen.

I find it almost inconceivable that "business as usual" climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century. Am I the only scientist who thinks so?


Last year I testified in a case brought by car manufacturers to challenge California's new laws on vehicle emissions. Under questioning from the lawyer, I conceded that I was not a glaciologist. The lawyer then asked me to identify glaciologists who agreed publicly with my assertion that sea level is likely to rise more than a metre this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow: "Name one!"


I could not, at that moment.

 

[a_unique_person]

Von Braun was able to show in a fairly simple manner that we could send a man to the moon by -

• using the multi stage rocket equations
• plugging values in that were estimates
• on a blackboard
• in ten minutes

that it was possible.

Here with AGW, we seem to be all over the map

• delta temp with CO2, if any;
• essential positive and negative feedbacks.

I'm just trying to get to the basics here that might be considered analogues to the moon rocket equations.

With the moon rocket, you did have s simple, elegant proof. With AGW, you don't...

The basic mechanics. The idea that you could get a human being to the moon, alive, and get him back, was a lot more complex, as Apollo 13 demonstrated and Apollo 1.

You want simple and elegant? The Apollo program was not simple and elegant, it was highly complex and dangerous.

String theory is not simple and elegant, for example. Simple and elegant is great, but those days are long gone.

The basic mechanism of AGW has been clearly and simply stated. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, there's no argument about that. (Unless you are a complete idiot). Feedback mechanisms amplify that forcing. They are also explained, and can be observed today.

 

[mhaze]

Hi mhaze -
You'll notice that I tend to speak of this issue more in concept, than point for point. My preference is to cast a wide net, gather info, analyze, gather info, think, adjust, cast another net, analyze and so forth. It's why I don't do a lot of links. Screw links.

Another guy recently told me he did not need any source for the truth but Bible. "Point by point" is also called by another name "Fact by Fact".

But "screw links".

I'm in the info gathering and analysis phase and will be for quite some time. I'll get everything I can, from different angles. That's how I like to do science too.

Here is some info for the gathering and analysis phase.

Futurama. A Terrifying Message from Al Gore.

Even the pro-AGW people here are pretty embarrassed by Gore and do not like it when I even mention his name....

Bender has it right, Gore is boring.

This is a piece that caught my eye several weeks ago:
http://bulletin.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=284392

And IF ExxonMobil is now bending to pressure and backing off on denial - good. I'm for that. They've got a lot to answer for, and reversing course is quite effective.

No, their grant of $100M to Stanford for climate research was a number of years ago. It's time for Greenpeace and various other groups to reverse direction and admit where they were wrong.

Your link was previously discussed in this thread a la posts 216, 221, 228 and was refuted before you posted it. That where "screw links" gets you....

Exxon remains the good guys.

Having settled all that, and having no need to discuss politics in the science forum, and not having to bother with links (having screwed them), why don't we move on to a fun subject like plot scripts on AGW (based on the science, right)?

 

[mhaze]

The basic mechanics. The idea that you could get a human being to the moon, alive, and get him back, was a lot more complex, as Apollo 13 demonstrated and Apollo 1.

You want simple and elegant? The Apollo program was not simple and elegant, it was highly complex and dangerous.

String theory is not simple and elegant, for example. Simple and elegant is great, but those days are long gone.

The basic mechanism of AGW has been clearly and simply stated. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, there's no argument about that. (Unless you are a complete idiot). Feedback mechanisms amplify that forcing. They are also explained, and can be observed today.

I don't think we are really disagreeing on the analogy.

The scientific basis for the Apollo capability could be expressed, granted by an unusual genius, quite succinctly. The scientific basis for AGW starts with CO2 as a greenhouse gas, basic effect of that disputed or stated within a wide range, and feedbacks, large controversy as to relative effects of positive and negative.

The implementation of the engineering solutions for Apollo was very complex. The implementation of "solutions to AGW" is not just highly complex and controversial but is questionable as to its merits.

Earlier you commented that you would guess at 1 in 10 AGW would get really bad. Not unreasonable. I have a real problem with applying essentially betting percentages to a chaotic system like climate, though, since the system doesn't really work that way.

But it certainly would be nice if we need to get out of the level of guesswork on all this...

 

[mhaze]

Relative postings, Realclimate vs Climateaudit

Finding it impossible to keep up any longer with the messages at Climateaudit (the website by Steve McIntyre, the guy that found the NASA temperature errors recently), I wondered... why? Simple answer is it's became too popular.

One way to understand that is to compare it with Realclimate(the website by Mann, the Hockeystick Guy).

Big differences in number of postings to the blogs at these sites. Pretty funny that the one that gets traffic at RC is the one about Steve's finding the data error (1934 and all that). Interesting differences in the style and professionalism of the postings, also.


These are blog postings - not total clicks or views.
date thread started - title - number of responses

www.Climateaudit.org
8-21 Oldie but goodie 33
8-21 Replication Policy 137
8-20 Hansen and "Destruction" 203
8-17 I quit 120
8-17 Steve interviewed 39
8-17 Detectives in Tucson 84
8-17 NOAA MI3 33
8-17 Brazil 193
8-10 to 8-22 Unthreaded #18 299

www.Realclimate.org
8-20 Musings 81
8-10 1934 and all that 584
8-10 Artic sea ice 220
8-9 Transparency 77

 

[CapelDodger]

It could also mean that my battle axe was sharper. But it seems to only be slicing through smoke and fog of confusion.

It's more akin to air-guitar, I think. You ascribe "alarmism", implying false alarmism, to any prediction you're uncomfortable with, as if that makes it false. You're OK with "trillion dollar tax schemes" being bandied about; they're alarming but it's a true alarm. Not a false alarm - and if it doesn't happen, that can be chalked-up to the alarm being raised. Dodged that bullet, then, thanks to good ol' horse-sense.

Direct quote from Hansen.

I find it almost inconceivable that "business as usual" climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century. Am I the only scientist who thinks so?


Last year I testified in a case brought by car manufacturers to challenge California's new laws on vehicle emissions. Under questioning from the lawyer, I conceded that I was not a glaciologist. The lawyer then asked me to identify glaciologists who agreed publicly with my assertion that sea level is likely to rise more than a metre this century if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow: "Name one!"


I could not, at that moment.

The context of this - the NewScientist article you linked to - is the muted public voice of scientists who are deeply concerned about AGW. Hansen is something of an exception. Considering your calls for his resignation as a result - let alone the *****-storm of opprobrium that's been let loose on him, characterising him as a corrupt incompetent fraud, the sort of stuff you lap up and sick back here - well, you can see one reason why that public voice is muted.

You'll notice that the lawyer's question - "name glaciologists who have publicly agreed with your conclusion" - was not one that Hansen had prepared for. He's a scientist, he was prepared for science questions and, yes, a few lawyer's tricks. Not that one - but then the lawyer is a professional.

It may well be that there are glaciologists who had made the same explicit prediction publicly, but Hansen had never thought about it in those terms exactly. He's not going to go out on a limb, he's a scientist, for one thing, and this is a court of law, for another. Had he simply been asked for the names of glaciologists who make the same prediction he could have rattled off a list. He mixes with these people.

Hansen's point in bringing this up - notice that you're quoting Hansen himself? - is to demonstrate how little public noise is coming from the glaciology world. If there was, he could have answered the lawyer with a name or two off the top of his head. (The follow-up question then is "Are they climatologists?")

You seem to get from all this that there aren't any glaciologists who agree with Hansen's prediction that sea-level will rise by over a metre in the next century unless serious action is initiated within the next decade. You'd be wrong in thinking that. Go back to the anecdote you've quoted and note the word "lawyer" nestling in there. That should always trip an alarm.


The prediction sounds reasonable to me. Since it's implausible that serious action will be initiated within the next decade (imagine getting those trillion-dollar tax-schemes past the electorate and through Congress), judgement can be passed on said prediction in 2107. My money's on the metre and more. Alarming, true, but some things are.

My own prediction, for what it's worth, is that the world in 2017 will have a strong headless-chicken flavour to it. And trillion-dollar taxe schemes, but the dollar will be in the toilet long before then.

 

[BeAChooser]

I can find quite a few scientists who don't believe in evolution , too, there are plenty of scientists who believe in god.

Well I certainly can't argue with that logic. So why don't you just ATTEMPT to answer these questions instead of ignoring them.

How serious can it be if according to NASA over the 20,000 years prior to today, the average loss in ice mass in Antarctica was equivalent to a 0.5 mm increase in the sea level each year ... more than the 0.4 mm increase claimed using the GRACE data? How serious could the loss of ice be if it's going to take 750 years to raise the sea level one foot.

And what about the huge uncertainty in that estimate? There are uncertainties in that estimate because to make it they had to make assumptions. Will you acknowledge those uncertainties?

A second even more recent study that I referenced claims satellite data shows an overall loss of ice so small that it would take 3800 years to raise the sea level even one foot. If true, is that something to get excited about and pass draconian tax legislation crippling our economy RIGHT NOW???

And finally, will you apologize for Al Gore and the global walarmists who had claimed antarctic ice was decreasing even at a time when study after study said the opposite?

 

[CapelDodger]

The scientific basis for AGW starts with CO2 as a greenhouse gas, basic effect of that disputed or stated within a wide range, and feedbacks, large controversy as to relative effects of positive and negative.

This is simply not true. There is a very loud controversy because the contrarian fragment is amplified and appeals to the crowd. Of which you, frankly, are one. There, I've said it.

You know next to nothing about science, and have never claimed anything different. Reports of what science is seem to be good enough for you, from the right quarter.

The underlying physics of greenhouse theory is not in dispute or inaccurate. You've sort of been told differently, I'm sure, but it isn't actually so.

The feedbacks are something else entirely, of course. First up is water-vapour, a big greenhouse player and so a positive for any forcing. Traditionally the next feedback is probably the release of CO2 by warming oceans, a positive feedback, but in the current case the oceans are absorbing CO2 so it's a negative feedback. How long that will last is very uncertain.

Next in the warming curve comes the permafrost. During a glaciation the permafrost zone is much farther south than today's and, with the globe being the shape it is, encompassed a much greater area. The impact this time is difficult to estimate, but it will be positive. And there's the methane component, which gives it a kick in the early years.

There's the albedo feedback, always positive.

On paper, it looks like the positives have it, and out on the field - sure enough, it's got warmer.

If you want to know something about science and AGW you could buy Scientific American, available at an outlet near you. Not terribly expensive and a good read. I particularly like the 50, 100, 150 Years Ago page, which reproduces SciAm news of the relevant year. It puts things in perspective.

 

[mhaze]

This is simply not true. There is a very loud controversy because the contrarian fragment is amplified and appeals to the crowd. Of which you, frankly, are one. There, I've said it.

You know next to nothing about science, and have never claimed anything different.

Right. I very humbly suggest I know very little about science, having forgot more than you ever knew.

But how differs science, and Science, as you would so capitalize?

 

[CapelDodger]

First, statistics isn't science ...

Where the <rule 8> did that come from?

now evidence can't explain things.

It doesn't.

Evidence can explain many things, no?

No. It can support an explanation, it can even suggest an explanation to a creative mind, but it doesn't explain anything. It's the task of reason to explain the evidence.

If I had stated "provide evidence to explain the hypothesis" ...

... the statement would be identical.

... your parsing would hold true.

See above.

However, the request was for evidence to explain how CO2 drives climate.

Which is exactly what I addressed. You repeat the same error. Evidence does not explain anything, let alone theory; theory explains the evidence so far. If you want AGW explained to you, buy SciAm or a textbook.

Greenhouse theory was born of the evident fact that the world is warmer than thermodynamics alone could explain. What started with an explanation became a prediction, well that's science for you. Subsequent events - aka, more evidence - fit the theory.

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

To whoever it may be of interest:

I came to his article:

Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner. Falsification of the atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effects within the frame of physics.

Gerhard Gerlich
Institut fur Mathematische Physik
Technische Universit at Carolo-Wilhelmina
Mendelssohnstra
D-38106 Braunschweig
Federal Republic of Germany
g.gerlich@tu-bs.de
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf

Abstract

The atmospheric greenhouse effect, an idea that authors trace back to the traditional works of Fourier 1824, Tyndall 1861, and Arrhenius 1896, and which is still supported in global climatology, essentially describes a fictitious mechanism, in which a planetary atmosphere acts as a heat pump driven by an environment that is radiatively interacting with but radiatively equilibrated to the atmospheric system. According to the second law of thermodynamics such a planetary machine can never exist. Nevertheless, in almost all texts of global climatology and in a widespread secondary literature it is taken for granted that such mechanism is real and stands on a firm scientific foundation. In this paper the popular conjecture is analyzed and the underlying physical principles are clarified. By showing that (a) there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects, (b) there are no calculations to determine an average surface temperature of a planet, (c) the frequently mentioned difference of 33 C is a meaningless number calculated wrongly, (d) the formulas of cavity radiation are used inappropriately, (e) the assumption of a radiative balance is unphysical, (f) thermal conductivity and friction must not be set to zero, the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture is falsified

I think I'll need a weekend to read it well.

 

[mhaze]

If you want AGW explained to you, buy SciAm or a textbook.

That's it? For your suggested reading list, that is.

 

[mhaze]

To whoever it may be of interest:

I came to his article:

Gerhard Gerlich, Ralf D. Tscheuschner. Falsification of the atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effects within the frame of physics.

Gerhard Gerlich
Institut fur Mathematische Physik
Technische Universit at Carolo-Wilhelmina
Mendelssohnstra
D-38106 Braunschweig
Federal Republic of Germany
g.gerlich@tu-bs.de
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v2.pdf

Abstract


I think I'll need a weekend to read it well.

Quite interesting.

Also "Radiation Forcing of Climate Change", National Research Council, 2005.

And Nasif's website.

 

[mhaze]

Quite interesting.

Also "Radiation Forcing of Climate Change", National Research Council, 2005.

And Nasif's website.

More fresh meat.

Georgia Tech’s School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences has selected for its Fall climate seminar (1 cr, P/F) the topic of the “Hockey” stick and the proxy temperature record for the past 1000 years. The course website is at
http://www.7minds.org/climate/eas8001/
In addition to discussing proxies and statistical analysis methods, the issues of policy, media, dueling blogs, etc will also enter into the discussion. The students will be following discussions on both RC and climateaudit

They should develop quite a bibliography.
​

 

[bobdroege7]

From

http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/arxiv/p...707.1161v2.pdf


"there are no common physical laws between the warming phenomenon in glass houses and the fictitious atmospheric greenhouse effects,"

Quoting Mr Obvious in one's thesis statement does not bode well for the widespread aceptance of one's subsequent arguements. Similar claims have been made all over the web.
Sometimes, just because it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, means it is a rare south american parrot.

I'll read the paper and I'm sure I'll have some more criticism.

 

[Lucifuge Rofocale]

If you get some valid points from the paper please let us know too.

 

[bobdroege7]

If you get some valid points from the paper please let us know too.

about half way through and all I get is one straw man after another.

 

[mhaze]

about half way through and all I get is one straw man after another.

This paper could be good, if it was subjected to a round of critical review and revised accordingly.

Numerous straw man objections are raised and countered. That's not to say that the straw men raised are not actually used in the AGW camp; yes, they are. But it degrades the merits of the paper to approach the subject in this fashion.

The thermodynamics approach is interesting, although some of the arguments raised are already answered in contemporary literature. I wonder if the recent paper by Schwartz may not have been somewhat drawing on this paper. Some of the yada - yada - "cannot be because it violates the second law of thermodynamics" arguments are interesting but a little thinking causes one to see ways around them.

As just one example of a problem in Gerlich, he criticizes the characterization of the Earth as a black body, and then proceeds to show why a black body does not represent either of a body with an atmosphere, a spinning globe, or a spinning globe on a cant. Good analysis, but what have we proved? That it isn't properly represented by a black body? Okay, we already knew that....

Gerlich might better have argued against it's representation (in simplified analysis) as either a black or grey body.