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Daniel J. Andrews at 02:39 AM on 7 August 2011Climate Denial Video #2: Failed at Science? Attack the Scientists
John has a great voice for this so let the background music be a bit more background. It is a bit overpowering. Otherwise, looking forward to many more of these. --dan -
John Hartz at 02:32 AM on 7 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
For old farts like me who have diminished hearing, the background music is way too loud. Also. if Hugh Laurie can master an American accent in oder to play the title role in the TV series House, why can't John Cook do the same? -
Rob Honeycutt at 02:00 AM on 7 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
Pirate @ 54... I'm very curious, what makes you think that climate scientists have not considered the CO2 lag? Again, you have to understand that one of the best understood aspects of global warming is the radiative effects of CO2. It seems to me that you are not clear on why CO2 acts as a feedback relative to natural releases of CO2, but also acts as a forcing when we add CO2 to the atmosphere. -
Eric the Red at 01:33 AM on 7 August 2011More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
Neil, Be careful with your argument. Much of the world's plant life is location in regions were the average temperature is well below 76F. Therefore, a temperature increase would move plant life closer to its optimal temperature for photosynthesis. Your water analysis is true wherever water is the limiting factor to plant growth. Other factors may be the limiter; temperature, sunlight, nutrients, even CO2. In areas where water is the limiting factor and evaporation outpaces precipitation photosynthesis will decrease. -
neilrieck at 01:12 AM on 7 August 2011More Carbon Dioxide is not necessarily good for plants.
To add insult to injury, many people walk around reciting this grade-school explanation of photosynthesis: "CO2 is converted into O2". A college-level explanation of molecular biology tells us that "all the O2" liberated by plants comes from the photolysis of water (this was proved by radioactive tagging). In this model, hydrogen liberated by the photolysis of water is combined with CO2 to produce glucose. O2 is discarded as waste. Why should anyone care about this detail? Answer: Higher CO2 levels will drive up atmospheric temperature which will increase evaporation. This will cause less H2O to be available for photosynthesis, and it is H2O which will be the limiting factor, not CO2. Less photosynthesis will reduce our food supply while allowing CO2 levels to rise higher. Speculation: to avoid a CO2 run-away effect, humanity may need to engage in a world-wide terraforming of Earth just to get the CO2 problem under control. -
Doug Mackie at 15:27 PM on 6 August 2011OA not OK part 13: Polymorphs - the son of Poseidon
mea culpa on that one. Keith pointed that out that in the proofing rounds several weeks ago. I thought I had fixed it. Recapitulated etchings here. -
pbjamm at 13:54 PM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
apiratelooksat50 @54 (haha) Seriously, this is not Rocket Surgery. CO2 levels increase following temperature increases. By your previous comments you accept this as true. Physics tells us that increasing CO2 levels will cause more heat to be trapped creating a feed back loop. Currently CO2 is LEADING temperature which is, according to data presented by you, unprecedented in the records. Put these facts together and you have temperature increasing due to CO2 levels which will cause CO2 levels to rise even more as it is released from whatever sinks it was trapped in in the previous cycles. Not too complicated even for a simpleton like myself. -
muoncounter at 13:20 PM on 6 August 2011The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
Eric#99: "I would say 91.5 is the new 90" Well, that's something of a start. "The current 100's are mostly weather" OK, so I'll quote the rest of Tobis' posting: Climate change is always in the future. What we are seeing is merely weather. It is in the nature of Climate change that you can never observe it because only weather is observable. So everything is fine, Austin will never have a string of days over 110 F, and even when we do it will be a coincidence... That guy's a hoot. -
Eric (skeptic) at 12:20 PM on 6 August 2011The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
"100 is the new 90". Being generous (since lows warm more than highs) I would say 91.5 is the new 90 (at least in the US http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110629_newnormals.html The current 100's are mostly weather, helped along to some extent by AGW. The blocking high phenomenon behind the current extremes can be discussed on another thread, perhaps AGW-related but certainly debatable and too soon to see a trend. -
Keith Hunter at 12:08 PM on 6 August 2011OA not OK part 13: Polymorphs - the son of Poseidon
Small correction: radiolaria are Protozoa, i.e. animals (in fact the smallest of all animals), unlike diatoms which are photosynthetic. -
SEAN O at 11:56 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
DB, I was refeering to the first one, the second is new to me, but it explains all. -
SEAN O at 11:46 AM on 6 August 2011Just Put the Model Down, Roy
This thread jogged my memory and I found this at Arthur Smith's site: "Roy Spencer's six trillion degree warming" It builds on Barry Btickmore's early debunking. Key takeway from Dr. Smith: "It turns out you need to set the starting temperature to negative six trillion degrees in 993, in order to match Spencer's model for the 20th century. 6 trillion degrees. Wow. Now that's global warming!" url: http://arthur.shumwaysmith.com/life/content/roy_spencers_six_trillion_degree_warming -
SEAN O at 10:51 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
@54 Moderator (DB) Tamino described the missing factor as the Atlanti Multidecadal Lebrechaun Oscillation (ALMO)Response:[DB] Do you mean like this one:
Or this one:
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muoncounter at 10:01 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
pirate#55: "the lag must be considered. " It was. Note the key comment: Does temperature rise cause CO2 rise or the other way around? A common misconception is that you can only have one or the other. In actuality, the answer is both. Note the other key comment: Also, gotta love this quote from Deltoid in answer to the CO2 lag argument: See also my forthcoming paper: "Chickens do not lay eggs, because they have been observed to hatch from them". -
apiratelooksat50 at 09:16 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
Honeycutt and DB @ 52 I never made a comment about the current CO2 levels other than to say that they are historical highs. And, yes there is a relationship between CO2 and temperature, but since CO2 lags the temperature changes it is likely that another factor is influencing both. That is not to say that CO2 does not have an effect on temperature, but the lag must be considered.Response:[DB] "it is likely that another factor is influencing both"
And what, prey tell, is this semi-mythical "another factor"? Physics, after all, must explain it, just as physics explains the feedback/forcing effects of CO2.
CO2 lags temps in the historical/paleo record for known, quantifiable reasons. None of which explain the recent rise in CO2 nor the recent rise in temps in the notable absence of other forcings.
The only thing you have going for you in your mission is wish-fulfillment.
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scaddenp at 08:52 AM on 6 August 2011Rising Oceans - Too Late to Turn the Tide?
I fail to see the relevance of this. The natural forcing causing that past climate change is well known. The milankovitch forcings are entirely predictable, very slow compared to anthropogenic forcings, and from the published paper, not about to produce any changes, any time soon. Looking at past ice-ages cycles we can indeed see that the periods when an ice age ends is subject to wild variation in climate (YD, Heinrich events etc), but these appear to be related to ice sheet collapse and we lack evidence of such wild extremes in interglacials (like now). Furthermore, the milankovich cycles were still going on in pre-Pleistocene climates but didnt cause ice-ages. Best guess as to why? CO2 level too high to produce glaciation. -
muoncounter at 08:33 AM on 6 August 2011The human fingerprint in the daily cycle
Nice new graphic from NOAA, comparing daytime temp records to nighttime temp records. Of course, its only one month. Almost 9,000 daily records were broken or tied last month, including 2,755 highest maximum temperatures and 6,171 highest minimum temperatures (i.e., nighttime records). ... The statistics reported here only include weather stations with real-time electronic reporting, which accounts for about two-thirds of the locations. Final numbers should be available later in August. The ever insightful Michael Tobis has an interesting perspective: As I saw somewhere today "100 is the new 90". -
Glenn Tamblyn at 08:25 AM on 6 August 2011OA not OK part 13: Polymorphs - the son of Poseidon
Andy Naming rights: William Lawrence Bragg 1890-1971 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lawrence_Bragg. He and his father were pioneers in X-Ray Diffraction and X-Ray Crystallography, he was the youngest ever Nobel prize winner at 25 What he might have thought of Billy Bragg and his music, dunno? Doug's reference to Billy is certainly cryptic. -
muoncounter at 07:46 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Dale#73: Defend your ideas; on this thread, the topic is CO2 causing warming. Other topics = other threads. -
Patrick 027 at 07:29 AM on 6 August 2011OA not OK part 13: Polymorphs - the son of Poseidon
Sorry. -
Dale at 07:29 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Mods, I can't defend myself now?Response:There are threads to discuss denialism vs skepticism, but this thread is not one. If that is your wish, then please use the Search function to find one & place those comments there.
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dana1981 at 06:00 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
It's kind of astonishing that anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of basic climate science - let alone a climate scientist like Curry - wouldn't immediately see the many obvious flaws in Salby's argument (let alone advertising his talk as some sort of major revelation). -
Doug Mackie at 05:53 AM on 6 August 2011OA not OK part 13: Polymorphs - the son of Poseidon
Patrick, you are not adding anything. Please keep on topic. I will not have this thread derailed. -
Patrick 027 at 05:19 AM on 6 August 2011OA not OK part 13: Polymorphs - the son of Poseidon
lattice vs crystal - yes, but if if all these spheres are identical then the fig 8 top will form (if the third square layer is aligned with the first) an FCC structure with all spheres at lattice points (the lattice cell top and bottom faces are at 45 degrees to the box; the rest of the faces stand 'vertical' (assuming a downward view); if the third layer added in the bottom of fig 8 is aligned with neither the first nor second but the fourth layer is aligned with the first, you get the same FCC structure, but rotated so that it is a cube standing on a corner. Both FCC and HCC have coordination number of 12 and have the same density (because HCC would just have the third layer added to the bottom of fig 8 be aligned with the first - it would be at the same height above the first layer; all the hexagonal layers in either FCC (which I think has hexagonal layers in four different directions, each being a diagonal running between opposite corners of the FCC cube) and in HCC have the same packing density within themselves and the same spacing between layers); the number of spheres per layer shown in the figure doesn't indicate the density because they don't fully fill the box. I think the coordination number (for spheres of equal size centered on lattice points) in BCC is 8, and none of the spheres in a layer touch each other (if we're looking at layers parallel to the faces of the cubes); they only contact spheres in the layers above and below.Moderator Response: Patrick, please stay on topic. Future posts by you that are off-topic or irrelevant will be deleted. Thanks for your cooperation. -
Daniel Bailey at 05:17 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
John N-G just posted this over at RC on Salby:"I was lucky enough to attend Murray Salby’s talk at the IUGG conference in Melbourne. The thesis is not quite so simple as a correlation between CO2 rise and short-term temperature variations, because he found corroborating evidence in the change of CO2 slope over time. This made the argument not so easy to dismiss out of hand, although Salby was extremely careful not to draw any conclusions in his public presentation. It was quite good sport to play “spot the flaw” in real time. Fortunately, the talk was the last of the session, and both Alan Plumb and myself chatted with him right afterwards. Aside from whether a statistical argument makes physical sense, it also must hold water statistically by being applicable beyond the time frame of model development. In discussing what his model would mean for past variations of temperature and CO2, it eventually became clear that he believed all paleoclimate data that supported his statistical analysis and disregarded all paleoclimate data that countered his statistical analysis, even though the latter collection was much larger than the former. Eventually I realized that if 0.8 C of warming is sufficient to produce an increase of 120ppb CO2, as Salby asserted, then the converse would also have to be true. During the last glacial maximum, when global temperatures were indisputably several degrees cooler than today, the atmospheric CO2 concentration must have been negative. That was enough for me."
[Emphasis added] Good enough for me, too. -
Robert Murphy at 04:51 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
"Spells? Sounds a bit like witchcraft to me." Or a touch of the vapors. -
Albatross at 04:48 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Muoncounter @67 and EtR @68, You know, Judith should really just step away form her keyboard-- she is continuing to make an utter fool of herself. These "huge increases in CO2 concentrations" that Curry is so excited about are a) transient and b> < 2 ppmv. -
Eric the Red at 04:18 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Stephen, It is not an issue of conservation of mass. Atmospheric CO2 is part of a complex equilibrium system. The CO2 that we are emitting does not remain in the atmosphere, but reacts according to the many natural chemical equations on this planet. If the amount we were adding was insignificant, then the environmental equations involving CO2 would use up the excess CO2 and form more products, keeping the atmospheric concentration relatively constant. Salby's own numbers indicate that nature is only using 45% of the excess CO2, with 55% remaining in the atmosphere. His assertion that CO2 is simply reacting to increasing temperatures would be more believable if it followed the recent temperature profile. However, temperatures have oscillated significantly during the past 130 years, while CO2 emissions have consistently increased.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Atmospheric CO2 is part of a complex equilibrium system, however it is a closed system and so must obey conservation of mass. Becuase of conservation of mass, the fact that annual rise in atmospheric CO2 being always smaller than anthropogenic emissions establishes beyond reasonable doubt that the natural environment is a net carbon sink and hence is opposing the rise in atmospheric concentrations, not causing it. Unless Salby et al can refute that argument, the paper shouldn't pass review. -
muoncounter at 04:07 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
from jcurry's commentary: "huge increases in carbon dioxide concentrations caused by such things as spells of warming and El Ninos, which cause concentration levels to increase independently of human emissions." I wonder how these 'spells of warming' manage to both increase and decrease CO2 in sync with human economic activity, even down to as fine a scale as the day/night differences associated with weekday traffic (also here). And I can only marvel at how these 'warming spells' know to take the weekends off. Spells? Sounds a bit like witchcraft to me. -
Albatross at 03:57 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #2: Failed at Science? Attack the Scientists
I highly recommend that everyone read Dr. Mashey's essay (here it is) which just appeared in "The Chronicle for Higher Education", it is relevant to this post. Some pertinent quotes from Mashey's piece: "People should be free to express their opinions, but not all opinions are equal, especially about science. Is it acceptable in CHE to state as fact that cigarettes cause no disease? Can one claim that the chemistry behind ozone depletion is a fraud? Can one state that the moon is made of green cheese? Can one say that astronauts lied about landing there and should be put in prison? Might Rush Limbaugh comment here, repeating his opinion that scientists should be “named and fired, drawn and quartered”? “Public flogging” was enough for Marc Morano of CFACT..." "Is there a dividing line between legitimate academic controversy and libel? If so, where is that line and who draws it? Academic controversy is not characterized by use of Nazi labels or exhortations that scientists be physically harmed. It is not characterized by baseless, wacky conspiracy theories about worldwide plots by mainstream science. Academic discussions involve data, facts, and justifiable, soundly crafted theories." "Some climate scientists have faced this politically based assault for years. Anti-science echo-chamber blogs amplify anger, yielding nothing like legitimate scientific discussion, and as a likely result scientists get death threats and dead rats left on doorsteps." We'll be very fortunate to get through this "debate" without losing a legitimate climate scientist to an untimely and unnecessary death at the hands of someone "inspired" by the rhetoric of Limbaugh, Monckton, Morano etc. -
Andy Skuce at 03:56 AM on 6 August 2011OA not OK part 13: Polymorphs - the son of Poseidon
This is a great series, thanks, Doug. I'm learning lots. PS: If anyone figures out the significance of the last link in your post, can they claim bragging rights? -
Climate Denial Video #2: Failed at Science? Attack the Scientists
I cannot hear portions of the voiceover - the music is entirely too loud. -
dhogaza at 03:16 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
"If you are really interested in two competing sites, read realclimate and Roger Pielke, they often present opposite sides to the same story" Yes, it's imperative that one support ones denialism by giving equal credibility to a site run by professional climate scientists, and one run by a *political scientist* whose grasp of climate science, to be polite, appears to fall so short of the mark that one might, if one were the suspicious type, suspect that he's not entirely honest.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] He may have meant Pielke snr (who is a professional climate scientist) -
Byron Smith at 02:55 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #2: Failed at Science? Attack the Scientists
@#3 +1 -
Albatross at 02:39 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
How about we listen to what an expert, a real climate scientist, has to say: Comment from Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate: This has nothing whatsoever to do with attribution of the temperature rise. The response of the CC to temperature is a specific thing - and it doesn't matter if it is originally driven by Milankovitch and ice sheets (over the ice age cycle), solar and volcanic activity over the pre-industrial, or by human activity/martian fairies/the PDO or whatever today. ENSO is an internal source of temperature changes on short time scales, and Pinatubo is an external source of temperature change over a short time period - both are included in any modern period regression such as Salby must have used. And the sensitivity of the carbon cycle to such changes is noticeable, but small and nothing like enough to explain the 20th C change. But even without thinking about this that deeply at all, it is obvious that Salby is wrong - we have put more than twice as much CO2 into the air as has actually accumulated over the last 100 years. To posit that the rise is not anthropogenic implies finding sinks that have totally taken up the anthropogenic CO2 *and* new sources that have put half of it back again. Meanwhile, all the actual reservoirs have more carbon than they had previously. Furthermore, the 13C and 14C data (up until the bomb peak) support a predominantly fossil fuel source. And the O2/N2 levels are dropping at the rate expected (given that we are burning C, and taking O2 from the air). The idea that a poorly performed regression undermines all this is ludicrous. - gavin" -
Albatross at 01:57 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
I do not know what is worse, Salby trying to sell this ridiculous notion, or people like Curry uncritically egging him on. It is clear from the Climate Etc. thread that Curry does not know what is going on. And Salby has not published a single paper on the carbon cycle that I am aware of. Really this is just smoke and mirrors and people like Dale lap it up to reinforce their denial. For example, one of the commentators to that advertisement for his talk (50% of which was about him, not the subject he is trying to speaking to) states: "But I thought the science was settled??" Now there is a true "skeptic, not. His mission has been accomplished before the paper has even made it though peer review. This is very, very likely just another Trojan paper to make people think "the science isn't settled so we don;t have to do anything". PS: "Skeptics" claim that temperatures have not warmed since November 1996, if Salby's hypothesis is correct then why have CO2 levels continue to rise, perhaps even accelerate since then? -
Rob Honeycutt at 01:53 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
Pirate@44... I realize that is an EPA chart but it's not a very good one. For one, the CO2 scale is a bit funked out. It suggests CO2 levels have fluctuated between about 130-250ppm and I don't think that's accurate. 190-290 is more likely correct (IIRC). The second thing that is funky with that chart is the relative scales of temp and CO2. My suggestion would be to be more skeptical and see if you can find other sources that either support or disprove the accuracy of the chart. I find it ironical that you're using this chart to try to suggest that climate change is natural and CO2 is not having a strong effect. It's quite literally the relationship between temp and CO2 in the ice core records that help us understand the climate's sensitivity to CO2 forcing. But to understand that you're going to have to dig in and read a few actual research papers. The long and short here is, you're not being skeptical. You're looking for ways to deny what you don't want to believe.Response:[DB] Over the past 800,000 years, CO2 concentrations have never been above 298.7 PPM...until now:
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Alexandre at 01:52 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #2: Failed at Science? Attack the Scientists
The soundtrack is sometimes a bit too loud for John's voice. I would tone it down a bit. -
muoncounter at 01:43 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
EtR, Thanks. We agree on something at last. But Einstein was referring to experiments: No amount of experimentation can prove him correct, a single experiment can prove him wrong. Deeply philosophical; 'prove correct' is not well-defined in terms of scientific theory. We've all seen examples that a single scientist can be innocently wrong; or worse, can be bought, sold or otherwise persuaded to come up with questionable results. The existence of these 'outliers' proves little; it is their work that must stand scrutiny. Or as I frequently remind my students: If you really believe that your results are correct and everyone else is wrong, double check before you buy a ticket to Stockholm. -
Alexandre at 01:41 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
Hi John, Very nice video. It's really pleasant to see and listen to. Congratulations to you, particularly. I remember the time when you said that you were not confortable with hearing your own recorded voice (or something to that effect). Talk about overcoming one's own self-imposed limitations!Response: Thanks Alexandre but I confess, I still find it cringeworthy listening to myself. But sometimes you just have to man up and do what you gotta do. -
Alex C at 01:41 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #2: Failed at Science? Attack the Scientists
Yeah, this problem apparently is with the TreeHugger video system, there's no way to shut off autoplay. Removing the video itself from the home page preview was one attempt to mitigate the problem (imagine several going at once), but unfortunately it still plays automatically once you click forward. -
Composer99 at 01:21 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #2: Failed at Science? Attack the Scientists
I didn't think it worthy to mention on the first thread, but I personally find it a bit annoying that the embedded video begins play immediately upon loading the page. Especially after one has watched it 2-3 times already. -
Stephen Baines at 01:17 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
Dale, for Salby to be correct, conservation of mass has to be wrong. Now if he can come up with an theory that explains why the conservation of mass should not hold, he might have something that really would make him famous. Otherwise, he should be asking, "what could I be doing wrong here?" That's what a true skeptic does when he evaluates all the evidence. Instead, Salby simply ignores one of the most fundamental and easily understood tenets of physics as we experience it here on earth. What is depressing is that Judith Curry apparently didn't see through this immediately and shepherd her flock away fromthe road. It's also depressing (and telling) that this topic still has any legs at all among the larger community of so called "skeptics." -
Eric the Red at 01:06 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
Muon, I have a very difficult believing anyone who claims that the red spike is not due to us. Also, since concentrations have not been at the current level during the past 400k years, the past history may not be the best indicator of the current (or future) situation. Expanding on your final point: we as scientists should examing all the evidence, especially if it is contrary to our beliefs, before coming to conclusions. Paraphrasing Einstein, a hundred scientists will not prove me right, but one scientist can prove me wrong. -
pbjamm at 00:55 AM on 6 August 2011Increasing CO2 has little to no effect
DSL@62 So often those Skeptic Silver Bullets turn out to be chrome plated brass. Yet they keep firing them and the AGW monster keeps coming. -
muoncounter at 00:54 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
pirate#44: "you can understand my skepticism. " The graph you posted shows exactly why there is nothing natural about the current situation: the red spike at the far right (present) never happened in the 400k yrs shown until now. Yet you cling to 'it's not us' or whatever variant that suits the current topic. The point made by this video - and multiple comments on this thread (and many other threads on SkS) - is that clinging to a preconceived notion in spite of all evidence to the contrary is not skepticism. -
pbjamm at 00:45 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
apiratelooksat50 @44 "Pertaining to natural cycles. Looking at the figure from the USEPA website, temperature rises - followed by CO2 and temperature falls - followed by CO2." Yes, historically CO2 levels have risen as a result of increased temperature caused by some other forcing. It was a feedback that made things even warmer. That was then. Now CO2 is rising ahead of the temperature and acting as the forcing as well as a feedback. The previous peaks were not anthropogenic, and no one denies that. This CO2 peak does not follow the previous pattern. That is what makes today different from years (eons) past. That is my understanding of the science anyhow. YMMV -
muoncounter at 00:41 AM on 6 August 2011Animals and plants can adapt
Continuing from here. "the 10k bp mark" From Wikipedia:Identifying the exact origin of agriculture remains problematic... ... grains of rye with domestic traits have been recovered from Epi-Palaeolithic (10,000+ BC) contexts at Abu Hureyra in Syria, but this appears to be a localised phenomenon resulting from cultivation of stands of wild rye, rather than a definitive step towards domestication. ... By 7000 BC, sowing and harvesting reached Mesopotamia, and there, in the fertile soil just north of the Persian Gulf, Sumerians systematized it and scaled it up. By 8000 BC farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile River.
So, yes, the last glacial retreat was a good thing for the development of agriculture. But your contention that this development took place during a time of rapidly rising temperatures and sea levels is not well supported -- and really makes no difference. However, there is a clear difference in conditions described by Bettinger et al 2009:
Ice age climates varied at very short timescales (Richerson, Boyd, and Bettinger 2001). Ice core data show that last glacial climate was highly variable on timescales of centuries to millenia ... In comparison, the Holocene after 11,600 BP has been a period of comparatively very stable climate.
So it appears to have been stability that gave birth to civilization. What we have provoked is rapid change and instability: deeper droughts, worse flooding, wilder extremes from winter to summer. Anecdotally, from a recent trip west: it is clear that the only people who will get a crop this year are those who can afford to buy lots of water. Poor farmers have abandoned their fields; buildings and other infrastructure are in decay. Everywhere you go, creekbeds and streams are dry and people are saying 'it's never been this bad.'
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Eric the Red at 00:37 AM on 6 August 2011Climate Denial Video #1: The Difference between Skepticism and Denial
I think muoncounter said it best, "Anything that supports your position is by definition free from all flaws; anything said by the opposite side is total bunk." This appears to be more true than we would like to believe. A true "skeptic" would be critical of either, and look for the proof in the pudding. Dale, If you are really interested in two competing sites, read realclimate and Roger Pielke, they often present opposite sides to the same story, with references to each other on occasion. Judith Curry's Climate etc. would be better than WUWT. -
muoncounter at 00:26 AM on 6 August 2011Rising Oceans - Too Late to Turn the Tide?
pirate#83: You are basing an awful lot on 'the 10k bp mark' as the exact origin of agriculture. But this is a thread about sea level rise. Continuing here.
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