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scaddenp at 18:19 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
Well peer-review has to be the starting point. It doesnt make it right, but compared to a blog post? The most important bit though is that does create an audit trial. If the community likes it, builds on it, then it gets cited. If something doesnt gel with current theory, then you can follow the trail back and re-examine the paper and its methods. By contrast, if its not peer reviewed, and not in a field where you have enough domain knowledge to evaluate yourself, then you are always asking what would real peer's make of it. -
adelady at 18:19 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
Kevin, I see peer review as a gate-keeping exercise. The term I think you're looking for is "peer response". After all a bare handful of people, highly qualified though they may be, is all that's required for peer review. Good peer response - which usually means lots of citations as well as further work on the topic - is what leads to scientific consensus. A bad peer response, or if the paper in question is simply ignored and never cited, does not mean that the initial gate-keeping exercise failed (usually). It just means that more people, perhaps more highly qualified, can find errors of fact or reasoning in a paper which looked OK to start with. -
les at 18:12 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
In a way Kevin C is right and wrong in any case. If you look at the background history of the vast majority of quotidian papers published, there are many levels of peer-reviews. On average the academics in most universities will have been recruited, will apply for grants, will present material at seminars, conferences and workshops, will have discussed results with collaborators and students and so on. Often a journal editor will take a pro-active role in the paper as well as the reviewers... The implicit objective of all this is not to get consensus but robustness. IMHO problems come in two places. First, with results which are not controversial; as people tend not to question them as much. With controversial results, folks tend to look for higher levels of robust argumentation. Second with publishers who are outside the establishment... not because mavericks are bad, not because The Establishment should be preserved or what ever - but because they are not subject to all the other peer-review events that occur way before a paper is actually submitted. Sure, it works sometimes - but that can be a selection bias; it really really doesn't work 99% of the time - but then, very few people get to see the vast swathes of rubbish that is rejected from journals except for bits here and there which end up as blogs or in 4th rate publications. -
idunno at 17:42 PM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
Hi Rob, An excellent article, but I would criticise the repeated use of "CO2" in the first few paragraphs. As you go on to state later on, it is very possible/quite probable that the PETM was caused by methane (CH4), not CO2. Looking at the records of atmospheric composition, it would seem that CO2 has tended to undulate up and down, whereas the level of CH4 looks like a saw blade, with sudden spikes which then gradually fall back towards normal. I would speculate that this is an indication that, on many separate occasions, events such as the Storegga landslide of c.6100 BCE have occured; i.e. a submerged gasfield has collapsed and vented directly into the atmosphere. Methane in the atmosphere acting as a greenhouse gas, this should cause further warming, destabilising the methane clathrate layer, and causing further warming from this. Furthermore, the methane clathrate layer is solid; as it decomposes, it will liquefy, and possibly allow the uncapping of further gaseous deposits of methane. Unless we can find evidence that the dinosaur car use was about 10% of current human car use, I'm not sure we have any other good explanation of the CO2 spike at the PETM. In conclusion, I stongly suspect that the CO2 spike is actually decayed methane. I should round off though, by saying that this is largely based on a layman's (my own) imperfect understanding. This may well be quite wrong; but if it is right then your first several paragraphs make too many references to CO2, IMO. -
Kevin C at 17:19 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
I'm wary of idolising peer-review as the metric of truth. After all, many peer-reviewed papers are wrong. The papers which open up new areas of research are frequently both ground-breaking and largely wrong. And taking this approach is just setting ourselves up for a fall whenever a wrong paper, especially a paper which is wrong on climate, makes it into the peer-reviewed literature. The real test of a theory is its reception in the wider community over years and decades. I would like to broaden the term 'peer-review' to mean this, but it is not the common usage. 'Scientific consensus' fills roughly the right role, but creates problems for the public who see opposing talking heads in the media and conclude that no consensus (in the common rather than scientific usage) exists. There are interesting developments in evolutionary psychology (beware - not consensus) on why individual and small group reasoning is necessarily suspect, with the implication that science must by necessity rely on something like 'consensus'. See: http://sites.google.com/site/hugomercier/theargumentativetheoryofreasoning http://www.dan.sperber.fr/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/MercierSperberWhydohumansreason.pdf -
Dikran Marsupial at 17:14 PM on 17 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
Charlie A Yes, I expect it is, in the sense that the slope of the OLS trend is statistically significant. There may be other, perhaps better, tests of statistical significance where perhaps it isn't. There is scope for arguing that the headline is wrong, but if you are going to be as critical of Jones as you possibly can, you need to ask yourself why you are not being even more critical of Linzen and Motl, whos errors have been far more egregious. The point is that statistical tests over such a short time scale have little statistical power, and hence the probability of a false-negative (not being able to reject the null hypothesis when it is false) is high, so it doesn't mean much if the slope is not significant (even without the cherry picking). It is also worth noting that Prof. Jones is not making a big deal out of the trend going from insignificant to significant. He is still saying that longer timescale trends (e.g. 30 years) are what we need to look at. -
adelady at 17:14 PM on 17 June 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
"... the survey confirms my experiences: meteorologists are quite resistant to the idea of AGW. I can't explain why this is so. " Two reasons I suspect. Firstly, meteorology training doesn't have the same emphasis on basic physics as climate researchers do. And this exacerbates the main reason ... Secondly, meteorologists know very well that weather can't be predicted more than a few days out. Because it's just not possible to enter, let alone compute, all the possibly relevant information hour by hour, day by day. Most meteorologists work in a framework limited, almost entirely, by initial conditions. They have to abandon and invert that thinking to deal with climate, which is all about boundaries and limits - regardless of initial conditions. And they need to pick up on some physics and more statistics into the bargain. Most could do it. The real problem arises with those who don't try and don't want to try. -
Rob Painting at 17:04 PM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
The glacial-interglacial shifts are caused by Milankovitch Cycles which isn't the case with the PETM. Nor were there any major ice sheets back then. What exactly are you proposing? -
okatiniko at 15:58 PM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
". She was referring to permaculture when she pointed out that we have all the atoms/molecules we will ever have.' That's an important point. The real wealth is not the number of atoms, but the way they can be used. What we need is concentrated sources of energy, in other words, negentropy. Concentrated minerals and fossil fuels are huge sources of negentropy. But they are finite, and decreasing. The only renewable source of negentropy on the Earth is solar radiation, converted in chemical negentropy by natural photosynthesis. This was the "natural" source of negentropy used by traditional civilizations. Ours is quite different - and probably with a small life expectancy given the rate at which it burns its sources of negentropy. -
PT_Goodman at 15:56 PM on 17 June 2011Infographic: 97 out of 100 climate experts think humans are causing global warming
Tom Curtis @23 I share Harry Seaward's concern over what boils down to a climate relevant sample size of 79. I discuss AGW with deniers all the time, and they will simply dismiss me if I tell them that the sample size from which the 97% figure was derived was a mere 79 people. I'm getting up in years, and have no children. Maybe I should be content with letting inmates now running the asylum roll the dice--after all, it is only them and their descendants who will suffer the consequences. In at least one other respect, the survey confirms my experiences: meteorologists are quite resistant to the idea of AGW. I can't explain why this is so. -
okatiniko at 15:29 PM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
when you say "The rapid pulse of PETM CO2 followed by rapid warming (figure 2e) indicates high climate sensitivity. ", what is the delay between CO2 and temperature ? I thought that more recent glacial-interglacial transitions showed that CO2 lagged the temperature variations. Can it not be explained the other way round? -
sgmuller at 15:19 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
I'd suspect its just economic rationalism. Maintaining and monitoring a ground based weather station in remote country is labour intensive work. -
Paul Magnus at 15:02 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
Hear hear. It's time jokers get taken for what they are. -
Stevo at 14:48 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
Comments to this article on The Conversation are going quite well at the moment. Those opposed to the peer review process are not aquitting themselves well. Makes for a pleasant change. -
Tom Curtis at 14:42 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
One nice thing about the peer review system is that in, in order to be published you just have to convince three to five people who have the knowledge and skills to assess your argument that your argument is worth considering. You don't have to convince them that you are right; only that the case you make is cogent enough to be worth further thought. A second nice thing is that if you can't convince the first group, you can always try again at another journal. Or improve your argument and/or evidence and try again at the same journal. That means that if your argument really is worth considering, it is highly unlikely to not be published. Conversely, if you can't get your paper through the peer review system, that means from a wide selection of people well informed enough, and skilled enough to understand your argument, you can't even get a few to agree that your argument is even worth considering. Worth thinking about. -
Paul Magnus at 14:40 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
Mags like Forbes need an ass kicking... http://blogs.forbes.com/patrickmichaels/2011/06/16/peer-review-and-pal-review-in-climate-science/ -
BillyJoe at 14:22 PM on 17 June 2011Who's your expert? The difference between peer review and rhetoric
Sorry, this is off-topic, but... Can anyone link me to an article that discusses why ground based temperature measuring stations have been disappearing. (-Snip-) -
Patrick 027 at 13:42 PM on 17 June 2011The Planetary Greenhouse Engine Revisited
Re 11 Michele - part of the problem, I think, is that you are using imprecise concepts, or at least imprecise language, which may lead you to confusion. First, the emission from the surface is not changed (in any simple direct way) by atmospheric radiation. What is changed is the amount of that radiation which reaches space, and the amount and distribution of absorption of that radiation by the atmosphere, and the amount of radiation from the atmosphere absorbed by the surface. Your first equation, εTs^4 + Tt^4 = Te^4, is simply incorrect. Even as an extreme simplication (of a grey gas isothermal atmosphere at temperature Tt overlaying a blackbody surface), the equation should be εTs^4 + (1-ε)*Tt^4 = Te^4 - but then the meaning of ε is 1 - atmospheric absorptivity, which is equal to atmospheric emissivity (the effective value over all directions, which I think can be used for an isothermal atmosphere). Really it would make more sense to use an ε for the atmosphere, and then you get (1-ε)*Ts^4 + ε*Tt^4 = Te^4. This is correct for this very simple case. But the atmosphere is not a single isothermal layer. It is helpful to consider emission weighting functions. You described the tropopause and mesopause as if they are surfaces that collect heat from the rest of the atmosphere and radiate to space. This is only partially true in a sense. The colder **layers** and surfaces (applicable to low-level inversions) will emit less than they absorb from warmer **layers** and surfaces. But depending on optical properties, the entire atmosphere can be emmitting radiation to space; it happens that, assuming well-mixed gases and setting aside pressure and doppler broadennning and temperature-dependent line strength, the fraction of radiation emitted upward that escapes to space increases going upward, toward 100 % at the top of the atmosphere. Rather than going over the details of fluxes that you find at any level, consider emission weighting functions (EWF for short here). For a radiation of a given direction, polarization, and frequency, the distribution of where that radiation is absorbed is equal to the EWF for radiation of the same type coming back from that direction at the same point. EWF is a density distribution over space, and taking the product of that with the Planck function at each location and integrating over volume (well, over a line if there's no scattering), gives the intensity of the radiation coming from a given direction; the temperature for which the Planck function equals this value is the brightness temperature of that radiation, and if it weren't for the nonlinearity of the Planck function, it would be equal to the EWF-weighted average temperature; if not for the (potential for) nonlinearity in both the Planck function and the temperature profile, it would be the temperature at the centroid of the EWF. Hence the brightness temperature may be equal to the temperature somewhere within the EWF (this must be true if the EWF and temperature vary continuously over space), and the location where this temperature occurs may be thought of as an effective emitting level (note that this varies with direction, so for the whole flux you have to have a weighted average of EWF's for each direction, etc.) The effective emitting level of radiation reaching space won't necessarily or generally be at the tropopause - even if it were, this is only a representative level - radiation is being emitted to space from a whole layer, potentially extending down to the surface. Regarding why parts of the atmosphere can be colder than Te, consider a case of pure radiative equilibrium with a grey gas. For a sufficiently thin layer at the top of the atmosphere (TOA), the emissivity and absorptivity of that layer can be approximated as zero in their effect on the flux from below, but the layer's temperature is still determined by those vary small quantities. It absorbs some fraction, a, of radiation from below, which must be approximately sigma*Te^4, and in radiative equilibrium, assuming no other heat sources, it must emit a*sigma*Ttoa^4 (Ttoa is the temperature at TOA) both upward and downward. Thus Ttoa^4 must be half of Te^4 (note that if space were radiating downward as if a blackbody at Te^4, then Ttoa = Te. But space's brightness temperature can generally be approximated as zero). This is the temperature of the skin layer. Temperature generally varies continuously through an atmosphere so T must drop below Te at some point below. For atmospheric absorption which is not grey, the formula for Ttoa will be different but at least for well-mixed greenhouse gases, it will still be less than Te. With solar heating, the equilibrium T in the upper atmosphere may be higher than Te, but if solar heating is not sufficient to prevent it, layers colder than Te may still be found as well. The ozone layer is responsible for the temperature maximum at the stratopause, and absorption of higher-frequency solar radiation is responsible for the thermosphere, but in between those regions and between the upper stratosphere and the lower troposphere, T can be below Te because their is sufficient transparency above such that not enough radiation is absorbed from above to prevent it. Convection within the troposphere doesn't all go to the tropopause; going higher up, the convective heat flux from the surface declines. This balances a net radiant cooling (including any direct solar heating of the air). It is theoretically possible to have a troposphere in which some layers have no net radiant cooling, in which the convective heat flux, on average in equilibrium, would be constant. -
jyyh at 12:39 PM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
PETM "explained" at http://erimaassa.blogspot.com/2011/06/already-done.html -
Rob Painting at 12:00 PM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
Jerryd- a hyper-link to the full Dickens focus article is provided under Figure 1. Are you he? -
jerryd at 11:32 AM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
Hej, I guess my first thought is ... wow ... it's great to see people interested in the PETM. It's a truly wonderful topic of current scientific interest, in part because we still cannot explain the event. How can Earth's surface warm and receive massive amounts of carbon in a geological instant 55 million years ago? The event was discovered 20 years ago; a wide array of data across the event shows basic signatures predicted by climate models for our future; it defies a satisfactory explanation within any accepted model for global climate or carbon cycling. Welcome to a really interesting puzzle! Thought might be good to pass along the text to Figure 1 (and the background to the PETM): http://www.cseg.ca/publications/recorder/2009/02feb.cfm Jerry -
Stevo at 11:31 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
scaddenp - As a historian (my qualification rather than my job) I'm on board with the concept of competition for resources being an ultimate cause of conflict. Now I just need to look for some examples of resource crises where there was no neighbouring culture available to sieze those resources from by means of warfare - pre Columbian South America looks like a good place to start. So too do the great migrations that led to the fall of the Roman Empire. Thanks again for your help. -
scaddenp at 11:05 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
Stevo - just look for anytime/where you had a population crash. Some of these will be disease. But others will be either resource-exhaustion or resource change (especially water). Look at ultimate causes, not proximate causes (a favourite denier tactic in many areas). Better technology has given us much improved adaptability but there is no magic in the universe which guarantees every problem is solvable, especially within a specific time frame. -
Tom Curtis at 11:04 AM on 17 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
Ken Lambert @40, an elevated TSI over a specific rate will only result in increasing accumulated energy if there is no elevation of the OLR to compensate. As an increased surface temperature will increase OLR all else being equal, simply integrating albedo adjusted TSI less a constant will not even approximate to the increase in heat energy in the Earth's climate system. That is, it will not do so unless some other factor is decreasing OLR relative to surface temperature at an appropriate rate. Would you care to make a suggestion as to what that other factor might be? -
Stevo at 10:50 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
Spherica @14 Nicely put. Thankyou for your help. scaddenp @15 Thanks also. Easter Island is an excellent example. I'll start looking for some more. -
Albatross at 10:32 AM on 17 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
Adelady @38, Thanks for that link. Better, but not persuasive enough IMHO. The comment thread is depressing, D-K and conspiracy central, although some brave souls are standing up for the science. -
Alex C at 10:22 AM on 17 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
Ken Lambert #40, But what would that tell us? The energy available and the energy that actually accumulates are different matters, and if you want to argue that increased solar output is at all responsible for the temperature increase we have seen over the past few decades, then you must show both that the difference between the power-in and power-out curves is increasing with time, and that the power-in curve integrates to be a power above the temperature trend (as a power-out curve that decreases with time will also lead to an increasing integral difference). -
Ken Lambert at 10:11 AM on 17 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
Angliss #29 "Power is energy integrated over time (1 J/s = 1 W)." Sorry Angliss - you have got that back to front. Energy is Power integrated over time. Hence my point that we should look at the ""Excess"" TSI above the baseline of say 1365.5 integrated over time to get the energy available to warm the Earth system. KR #17 Of course we are talking of TSI 'differences' here KR. The outgoing OLR will rise with S-B to restore equilibrium. The point is that a constant elevated TSI above an 'equilibrium' value will equate to a linearly increasing amount of energy as measured by the area under the forcing curve. -
Rob Painting at 10:08 AM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
DB @ 1 - an oversight, now fixed. Thanks. -
scaddenp at 10:07 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
The argument against Malthus also fails to take into account that we have NOT always been able to tech our way of resource limitations and thus have suffered population crashes. (Easter Is immediately springs to mind - no substitute for trees). -
Bob Lacatena at 10:03 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
13, Stevo,The argument against Malthus has been that we have never run out of any resource because technological improvements have reduced the costs of extraction or that alternative technologies have removed the need for certain resources.
This is an interesting observation, but it fails on two counts. The first is the bulk of the world really has not been thoroughly industrialized until well after the Second World War, say for the past 50+ years. That's hardly a long enough time to claim "we've always done it before." Secondly, the world population is growing, and more importantly the percentage of the world population living an "industrialized lifestyle" is growing, even as the resources themselves are shrinking. So the demand pressures are increasing, the resources themselves are dwindling across the board, and the argument that we've always survived before is based on a mere blip in the history of human civilization. If anything, the history of human civilization shows that all civilizations ultimately crumble due to resources constraints, be it food, water, gold or something else. -
DaneelOlivaw at 09:45 AM on 17 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
John, I've made a spanish version of that graph. It may be of use: http://i.imgur.com/bBa4T.jpgResponse: Cool, have updated the post linking to it. Thanks! -
Stevo at 09:42 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
Michael @ 11 I agree that high population requires high resource consumption and that resources are finite. The argument against Malthus has been that we have never run out of any resource because technological improvements have reduced the costs of extraction or that alternative technologies have removed the need for certain resources. (We can economically extract metal from ore bodies today that were deemed uneconomical to mine, say, 60 years ago. We no longer need to send out whaling fleets because whale oil has been replaces by fossil oil.) My question is how much longer will this hold true. The search for oil is taking us to deeper and deeper seabed well sites where extraction costs are very high and at the limits of our technical ability to drill. Last year's oil spill in the Texas Gulf showed us all how difficult and slow a response can be when things go wrong. Technologies have limits and in my work in the mineral extraction industry I'm not seeing any significant improvements in extraction technology. As for replacement technologies, here in Australia at least, there is precious little in the way of encouragement for research and development of sustainable energy. I sympathise with the scientists on this site. The science is sound. We have the knowledge to identify and fix the problems we face but getting the message across to the policy makers at the moment is extremely hard. -
Utahn at 09:41 AM on 17 June 2011Geologists and climate change denial
Garethman, you may not see this as it seems I'm always too late to "denier" discussions, but I think you have hit on something with this: "So it’s not blind faith, it’s not a religion, but our beliefs in the science and what we do about is are very much coloured by who we are." To me this gets to the heart of the issue of those who deny the science of climate change. To trigger psychological denial, a fact must threaten a core belief or value, in other words, it threatens "who we are". My question is, what are the threatened beliefs that trigger climate change denial? I have some ideas I have expressed, but what do you think? -
adelady at 09:41 AM on 17 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
And on a better note, the BBC has done a well-written, well-balanced piece Good to see. -
adelady at 09:26 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
Michael - demand on resources? Depends on which resources and how you use them. One writer got me thinking. She was referring to permaculture when she pointed out that we have all the atoms/molecules we will ever have. Fertility is not about the total number of certain molecules - it's about how often we use them in any given period of time. This of course was about composting and returning 'wastes', otherwise known as nutrients, to the soil. (And a lot of the usual arguments about letting the nutrients that disappear into the sewage system become pollution rather than useful again.) Got me thinking. Much the same can be said of all resources - and landfills. Which of course finishes right back at the idea of economics and choices. Do we quarry more rock for roadbuilding or do we find a way to reuse suitable materials from building demolition? Landfills should really be run, entirely, as sorting stations once you reframe this way. It will never be perfect. But reorganising on the basis that all materials we grow, mine, quarry or make from our natural resources are intrinsically valuable will get us a lot closer to the right balance. -
Albatross at 09:24 AM on 17 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
Interesting to see how this story is being played out by the denial media spin machine. Apparently Lorne Gunter and Solomon (another denier of AGW) are a duo. Not to be outdone Solomon has written this garbage (note the headline)-- and they get paid to do this folks. Fortunately, Peter Sinclair has this piece. Note what the actual authors of the study say: "...contrary to some media reports, this does not mean a new Ice Age is coming, Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory said in a telephone interview. “We have not predicted a Little Ice Age,” Hill said, speaking from an astronomical meeting in New Mexico. “We have predicted something going on with the Sun.”" Is your head spinning yet? Mine sure is. -
Charlie A at 09:24 AM on 17 June 2011Phil Jones - Warming Since 1995 is now Statistically Significant
#144 Dikran "Yes, fine, the data are autocorrellated and an OLS trend is an optimistic calculation." The head article says "One year later, we can now say that the HadCRUT warming trend since 1995 is statistically significant at the 95% CL, even including the exogenous factors." Is the statement in the head article correct? -
Chris G at 08:46 AM on 17 June 2011The greenhouse effect is real: here's why
Well, I think this isotope subthread is about worn out, but in case anyone else is still interested or comes back to it, bacteria impose their own preferences on the isotope ratio of methane, and that preference can vary under different conditions. There's a pay-wall, but the gist is in the abstract of Carbon and hydrogen isotope systematics of bacterial formation and oxidation of methane which says what scaddenp has said, with a bit more detail as to what conditions give rise to the wide ranges found. -
Michael of Brisbane at 08:22 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
I agree wholeheartedly Adelady. It is our responsibility, and that's what I mean by saying we are unique among all life on earth. We have the responsibility and the ability to fix/manage the resources we have. But surely the more people, the more resources are required don't you think? I mean, the earth's resources are finite in that the population is increasing, as is demand on those resources, faster than the earth can recycle/replenish them. -
John Hartz at 08:16 AM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
Hooray! I finally posted a hyperlink that works! -
JosHagelaars at 08:16 AM on 17 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
In the comments Leif Svalgaard (#2, #13) and GCR are mentioned a couple of times (#6, #27). I came across some interesting remarks of Svalsgaard regarding the GCR theory. He does not seem to have a high opinion of this theory. http://tinyurl.com/3ss3ux2 : "Cosmic rays have not changed their trend since at least 1952 while temperatures have. The albedo [clouds] the past 10 years has not varied with the comic ray flux. So, in general, it looks to me that there is little support for the theory." On http://tinyurl.com/44bhy7z : " So, for me, there is precious little observational evidence for the GCR theory." -
John Hartz at 08:14 AM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
Serendipity at work! The July issue of Scientific America features an article by Lee R Krump... "The Last Great Global Warming" Surprising new evidence suggests the pace of the earth's most abrupt prehistoric warm-up paled in comparison to what we face today. The episode has lessons for our future. -
newcrusader at 08:10 AM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
It is very frightening, I wonder why the American media ignores this kind of information, but gladly posts the information about a possible sunspot disappearance. When one thinks we could inject the atmosphere with as much C02 and Ch4 in 100 years, as was done 56 million years ago in 20,000 years, it makes me realize how truly bankrupt this consumption driven capitalist society has become, when no one seems to see the dire situation we are in. -
adelady at 08:06 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
Michael of Brisbane "I mean, obviously the cause, to put it simply, is overpopulation" I'm not so sure about that. Looking at that comment from The Economist, and at a Google Earth view of one island -Haiti/Dominican Republic - you can easily see that it's just as much about (ir)responsible stewardship of the land we happen to be on. In some places people have clearfelled then absolutely trashed the land they have. Others have ensured that the soil, water and trees in their area are healthy and the waste from their activities is properly used to improve the health of their surroundings rather than turn it into a festering open sewer or landfill. A smaller total population is desirable for a better balance in the biosphere generally. But we shouldn't pretend that we can't do better because of large numbers. -
Michael of Brisbane at 07:32 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
I thoroughly enjoyed this article. Well written, informative, and a little, actually, a lot (!) worrysome! But if it's not just our emissions of C02 that's influencing the earth, then what's the solution? I mean, obviously the cause, to put it simply, is overpopulation, acheived by intelligence and, at least in part, greed. Humans have thrived since the "beginning" on the Nile delta, and especially since the industrial revolution. We are different to every other form of life on the earth, in that we have the ability to "fix" what we've done. But should we be actively reducing our population? It's a tough reality to address, but I think this whole debate comes down to just that: overpopulation. -
Anne-Marie Blackburn at 07:27 AM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
Great read, Rob. And good link, Daniel. All pretty worrying, to put it mildly. -
Andy Skuce at 07:07 AM on 17 June 2011Our effect on the earth is real: how we’re geo-engineering the planet
Thanks for that post. It was very well written. There was an article recently in the Economist on the Anthropocene that made a similar point about the magnitude of earth moved by miners and rivers:A single engineering project, the Syncrude mine in the Athabasca tar sands, involves moving 30 billion tonnes of earth—twice the amount of sediment that flows down all the rivers in the world in a year. That sediment flow itself, meanwhile, is shrinking; almost 50,000 large dams have over the past half- century cut the flow by nearly a fifth. That is one reason why the Earth’s deltas, home to hundreds of millions of people, are eroding away faster than they can be replenished.
The Economist later added this comment about a reader's letter on the article:We were also pulled up over our calculation that if you divide the Earth up “evenly among its 7 billion inhabitants, they would get almost 1 trillion tonnes each”. Marek Zreda, a resident of Tucson, believes this is misleading, because “Humans inhabit the surface only. Dividing the land area (149 million square km) by the number of people (7 billion) gives about 2 hectares for each person. Take away wasteland, which amounts to roughly half of the land area, gives approximately 1 hectare per person”. Mr Zreda can easily imagine “trashing my hectare. Give me shoes, I can do it in a decade; give me a shovel, it will take a year. And give me a tractor, I will do it in a day.”
So much for us being too puny to trash the planet. -
Bob Lacatena at 07:06 AM on 17 June 2011How would a Solar Grand Minimum affect global warming?
[Oops, the denial thermometer is at the top left of every Sks page] -
Paul Magnus at 06:56 AM on 17 June 2011CO2 Currently Rising Faster Than The PETM Extinction Event
lovely! Just lovely.
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