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Comments 8601 to 8650:
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I had an intense conversation at work today.
barryn56 - See this discussion on attribution; there are numerous papers referenced that demonstrate we're responsible for current warming.
For an earlier reference specifically about the effects of CO2 increases, see Arrhenius 1896 - "On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground". His initial estimate of temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 was high, perhaps 6C, but he revised it a few years later upon reviewing the standard samples he got from Prof. Langley of the Smithsonian (properly compensating for mutual displacement of CO2 and water vapor in the samples) to ~4.3C per doubling - which is within the current 1.5-4.5 range estimated by the IPCC.
It's basic science, and we've known about it for quite a while. Increasing CO2 warms the planet in a way that matches theory and observations; nothing else can account for it.
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MA Rodger at 20:26 PM on 16 January 2020CO2 effect is saturated
Sgt_Wookie92 @574,
You present a 1,000-word denialist essay on why an increase in atmospheric CO2 will not reduce IR out into space. It is an interesting polemic as it does quite a good job of addressing to some extent all the various descriptions of the GHG mechanisms, descriptions both actual and through analogy. It is however, as described by Eclectic @575, a pack of nonsense.
I could go through paragraph by paragraph if you wish. A blow-by-blow account would be required as the central misconception the denialist employs isn't presented entirely within any single paragraph. Perhaps it would be easier to describe the GHG mechanism and allow to pick out the crazy talk for yourself.
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The planet surface emits IR in the waveband roughly 5μ to 50μ with the peak at 15μ. The profile is dependent on temperature. If there were no GHGs, all that IR would shoot off into space. But the GHGs actually capture pretty-much all of this surface-emitted IR, the energy converted into waggles in GHGs and almost all of those waggles, through collisions, are converted into thermal energy.
But GHGs also go waggly because of those numerous collisions and that ensures the GHGs will effectively emit just as much IR as it is receives. CO2 absorbs/emits at 2.9μ, 4.3μ and 15μ but only the 15μ operates as the atmosphere/planet is too cold for the shorter wavebands.
And at 15μ, CO2 is the only GHG operating so all the IR at 15μ that reaches space will all be emitted by CO2. The amount of 15μ IR is now depentent on the temperature of the CO2 emitting it out into space. For that the CO2 needs a clear shot at space, high enough so the CO2 above it is no longer a complete blanket. Presently that altitude-with-a-clear-shot-to-space is up in the cold upper troposphere. The graphic below shows that CO2 temperature is far lower than the surface temperature. (The black trace is measured, the red is modelled by MODTRAN, an on-line model from UoC.)
If more CO2 is added to the atmosphere, that altitude-with-a-clear-shot-to-space will get higher (CO2 is well-mixed up to 50km, well up into the stratosphere) and, while that altitude remains below the tropopause, the clear-shot temperature will get colder so less IR will be emitted into space. (The very central part of the 15μ waveband does have a higher clear-shot altitude above the tropopause and is seen in the graphic as a little spike. That spike will grow with additional CO2 while the size of the surrounding dip(s) will continue to increase. See Zhong & Haig 2013).
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Most of the nonsense set out within the denialist polemic should be understandable given this description (although I'd happily expand on individual points, perhaps some brickbats to lob back at the denialist). I'd just add here that some may not be acquainted with Feldman et al (2015) which is the paper that measured CO2's IR on the "Great Plains and North Slope of Alaska."
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Doug_C at 18:56 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
barryn56 @35
As per this article
Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world
Perceptions versus reality?
Last year we set a record for wildfire activity in this province BC, the year before that was the third worse on record and 2009 one of the worst.
2018 was also California's worst wildfire season on record.
We are seeing the same pattern in Siberia and also in Australia where as michael sweet comments they are seeing wildfires in places where they have never been encountered before.
The same trend in Europe and the Amazon was on fire last year, a rainforest where wildfires are typically not of that extent.
This all in the context of most of the highest global average temperatures being in this century just 20 years old.
Climate change science is based on observation and theory that dates back centuries, are you asking that we discount the role that carbon dioxide plays in moderating the Earth's heat budget. Something that was well established over a century ago, this is hardly new science that needs to be deciphered.
If as you claim you have a genuine desire to learn the full extent of this subject then take the time to learn it to the depth necessary. Spend a few days or if you have the time a few weeks going through this and other resources.
James Balog has been traveling the world documenting on film and video the rapid retreat of the cryosphere, if you want a visual representation if the ability of carbon dioxide to trap heat then view his work at;
Or the works of James Hansen at Columbia and GISS
Or the IPCC 2017 Report
Or many other resources that others here can fill you in on.
If you are presenting a viewpoint that runs counter to what almost all the evidence is telling us then in the end that comes down to you chosing those resources that are presenting a contrary position.
And while you can ask for assistence in determing the most likely explanation, you simply can't demand that anyone "prove" to your satisfaction this isn't happening or that it can't be carbon dioxide responsible.
In the end that is an impossible task with those who refuse to accept any case that this is so no matter how strong the theoretical and practical observational evidence that supports this.
The simple fact is, carbon dioxide is the most important persistent gas in the atmosphere for moderating the heat budget for the Earth's surface. This was recognized in the 1850s and quantified in the 1890s.
The case for this has only grown stronger in the century that followed as theory and experimental equipment has evolved to provide a very clear picture of this subject.
We know the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by over 120ppm in the last century and we also know that the Earth's average temperature has increased as well as EM radiation in the spectrum absorbed and re-emitted by CO2 has increased at the Earth's surface consistent with far more of it being intercepted by all the extra CO2 we have emitted.
At about 100 times the rate of natural tectonic activity.
Are Volcanoes or Humans Harder on the Atmosphere?
You need to look at the entire picture to get an understanding of the scope and impacts of climate change and the still massive output of human generated CO2 every year.
Cherry picking extremely isolated subtopics and trying to conflate that into real doubt about what is one of the most solidly grounded topics in science today simply isn't genuine in any sense.
Look at the entire forest - to see that much of it is on fire - instead of picking an isolated tree that happens to be in a region that hasn't been impacted yet and claim that is indicative of the real picture.
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JohnSeers at 18:27 PM on 16 January 2020There's no empirical evidence
@ClimateBuddha 402
Look up "Trenberth Energy Budget". There are many images of this on the internet showing the longwave nature of infrared. You should be able to find more information quite easily.
I did not touch on the downward radiation effect but MA Rodger covered this at 401.
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Doug_C at 18:17 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
barryn56 @42
If you are genuine in your pursuit of a clearer understanding of this issue then use this very expansive resource, there is very little around climate change and the role that carbon dioxide plays in moderating the Earth's heat budget that hasn't been covered here repeatedly.
If you're posting unsupported claims that are consistent with a decades long pattern of denial of the best evidence then you are probably going to be moderated for it.
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Eclectic at 18:03 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Barryn56 , if you want information on "Attribution of the present-day total greenhouse effect", then you should go to the top left of the page, to the Search box and type in attribution. That will give you a choice of posts to read.
Alternatively, you could (again, top of page) select from the list of "Most Used Climate Myths". Scroll down until you see a likely candidate. For your case it will be Myth 188 "IPCC human-caused global warming attribution is unfounded". Here you will get the OP discussion plus the comments column discussions. Various references to scientific papers are to be found in the OP and often in the subsequent comments.
For reasons of economy & common sense, commenters who state that the Earth is round ~ are (usually) not required to provide supportive peer-reviewed scientific papers from respected journals. And likewise with other well-established facts.
For those (such as yourself) who wish to make novel or extraordinary claims, then you are asked (as seems reasonable) to supply some published research on which you base your claims. If it weren't for this requirement, then the comments columns would fill up with all sorts of bizarre & crackpot ideas.
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barryn56 at 17:00 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Can the posters here produce any papers covering the claims? My posts have been moderated (rightly so) because I didn't put paper references. I object to the denier refence, I am trying to be objective and question the research on CO2 (e.g. Attribution of the present‐day total greenhouse effect
Gavin A. Schmidt,1 Reto A. Ruedy,1 Ron L. Miller,1 and Andy A. Lacis1) one of the models estimating the effects of doubling CO2 and the resultant forcing. -
Doug_C at 13:50 PM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
nigelj
I've watched it happen. In 2018 we had a wet spring and early summer with plenty of growth. Then about three weeks of hot dry weather that dried everything out. Then the first thunderstorm came through with a tiny bit of rain but a great deal of lightening. About 15 minutes later as I was walking into the nearby town there was a small peak to the south that was already fully engulfed in flame and smoke and a couple of kilometers to the north there was smoke from a fire that eventually burned over 4,000 hectares, homes and shut down the main highway for days. Directly across a large lake to the east a fire started from the same storm that eventually burned over 100,000 hectares. Later that week a thunder storm system started over 600 fires across the province in a day, there is simply no way to even fight most of these fires with limited resources.
The year before my brother and his family were down here for a month because the 20,000 population city where they lived was evacuated due to the massive fires in central BC.
My parents who live just across the border in Washington state were on evacuation notice for over a month in 2015 as there were huge wildfires in all directions, they weren't sure how they would have escaped if they had received an evacution order.
And with these fires comes the smoke, two summers in a row with most days sunless due to the dense smoke which was so intense at times that people with asthma - like me - had to find refuge in buildings with filtration systems or wear masks.
The smoke was so bad in 2018 from the fires here that they were issuing air quality alerts in Winnipeg Manitoba 1,500 kilometers away.
Manitoba affected by BC wildfire smoke, special air quality alert in effect
We've all here been watching fo decades as the pine beetle population which is controlled by prolonged bitter cold has exploded because we no longer get prolonged cold spells of under of -30 C for a couple of weeks at a time. This alone has wiped out about 18 million hectares of forest and fundamentally changed the region.
With everythting that is happening I simply don't understand how anyone is still able to deny the existence of this growing catastrophe.
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Eclectic at 12:20 PM on 16 January 2020CO2 effect is saturated
Sgt_Wookie , your friend's comments are an interesting mixture of truths, half-truths, and plain falsehoods.
Somehow, for whatever reason [probably Motivated Reasoning] he has gotten himself into a tangled jungle of confusion. Perhaps he is arguing in bad faith (and is trying to mislead himself and/or his readers) ~ or perhaps it's worse than that, for in places he is bordering on a "word salad" of scientific terms.
He needs to go back to the basic textbooks, and start from scratch. Though I suspect he has too much hubris to accept that the expert scientists have knowledge that he himself lacks. If he were more reasonable, he could start by reading the OP of this thread, and the 500-ish comments thereafter (which also contain some pearls of explanation). But he has closed his mind to the mainstream science (science, easily found via SkS).
Best if you find some indirect way of exposing him. You would waste too much time in correcting him point by point, for he seems the tiresome argumentative sort of fellow who would spend hours in a rearguard battle as he retreats.
(BTW, I love his comment: "[SkS] has been repeatedly known to provide false information and is deceitful." What a laugh! And another strong sign of the Dunning-Kruger Syndrome.)
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nigelj at 10:21 AM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Doug C @38
Fyi: Lightning is Sparking More Boreal Forest Fires in Far North America
Wildfires in the boreal forests of northern Canada and Alaska have been increasing in frequency and the amount of area burned, and the drivers of large fire years are still poorly understood. But recent NASA-funded research offers at least one possible cause: more lightning. As global warming continues, lightning storms and warmer conditions are expected to spread farther north, meaning fire could significantly alter the landscape over time.
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Sgt_Wookie92 at 10:19 AM on 16 January 2020CO2 effect is saturated
Hello,
Most denier arguments i receive i can answer & understand thanks to studies in mechanical engineering and having a decent grasp on the science behind what im reading. But this one has me stumped as its not an area im well versed in, and im wondering if anyone can afford the time to help me understand if what he is saying is correct/incorrect, and why:
___________________You are linking to Skeptical Science which is under the control of cartoonist John Cook and his friends. This website has been repeatedly known to provide false information and is deceitful. But I will address the issues raised here in the claim that the effect is not saturated.
There is a limited amount of IR emitted from the Earth at each frequency.
At the center of the 15 micron band ALL of the IR is captured by CO2. There can be no more captured. This is not up for debate in any way shape or form.
The method by which IR is captured by CO2 depends upon the ability of the CO2 molecule to match the IR being emitted in both frequency and in orientation of the charge formed by the atoms. The frequency of IR has to match the frequency of the CO2 molecules. It also has to match the orientation in space of the charge of the molecule.
The CO2 molecule vibrates at a certain frequency determined by the atomic weights and charges of the Oxygen and Carbon Atoms. This frequency has a minor variation from the center frequency as one travels outward from the center of the 15 micron band.
SO as more CO2 molecules are added to the atmosphere we see absorption increase at the center of the 15 micron band so that total absorption of all the IR is accomplished closer to the ground. No additional IR becomes absorbed. The Center becomes saturated with respect to its ability to absorb IR. No more IR is absorbed in the center.
Will some CO2 molecules added capture a few additional IR photons further from the center. Yes, But the numbers will be constantly declining in a logarithmic fashion because the CO2 is not vibrating at the correct frequency. This declining logarithmic function is well known because the frequency distribution of the CO2 molecule causes it to not absorb IR at the edges of the 15 micron band. This gives rise to the requirement of a doubling of CO2 per unit increase of temperature. So if for example there is a 1 degree increase for a doubling of CO2 then for the next degree of increase you need 4 times as much CO2 added.
The function of the ability of CO2 to absorb IR follows a bell as it drops off. Only at the Center of the 15 micron band can any absorption of note take place.
The analogy of restricted flow given in the website is totally wrong. You are not adding water which is restricted by the diameter of an outflow pipe. You are adding heat to the atmosphere which has several methods for releasing it from the Earth, As CO2 populations are added there are more molecules in the stratosphere and above to release the energy to space. CO2 does not just stratify near the ground. Further CO2 does not act as a reservoir for IR energy. The energy is spread over all the atmospheric particles s kinetic energy. Oxygen, Nitrogen, H2O are all absorbing the kinetic energy and being transported vertically and toward the poles throughout the atmosphere.
CO2 molecules become re-excited at every level of the atmosphere via collision. 1.4 % in the 15 micron band frequencies. Throughout the atmosphere below the Stratosphere, The re-excitation of these molecules is a net reduction in atmospheric temperature. Eventually there are feedbacks that serve to increase emission to space such as convection, transfer via circulation of Hadley Cells to the poles and the fact that at the poles emission to space takes place at a lower height. If these feedback mechanisms were not present the Earth would have burned to a cinder long ago. But in the lower atmosphere the excited molecules are quenched again and again by collision they cannot add to the temperature because they subtracted from it to become excited once more.
So why is there this idea that CO2 can absorb outside its natural frequency range floating about on Skeptical Science? Because there are experiments performed with CO2 laser systems where the populations within the laser are manipulated artificially and you CAN cause an expansion of the absorption range by applying charges. It does not occur naturally. But you are considered a know nothing by SS and they have no objection to misleading you. within the laser. this does not occur in the natural world.
The explanation of IR escaping from higher colder regions therefore less IR can escape because it is not energetic enough? Well Electromagnetic radiation energy levels are not determined by temperature. They are determined by frequency. Every electronic technician will tell you that a received signal strength depends on frequency. For example to transmit a VHF TV signal requires substantially less current draw than to transmit a UHF TV signal. That is why Channel 6 in Philadelphia refuses to switch to a UHF channel. The range of the signal is lower but it costs OH so much less. If a 15 micron band photon escapes then a 15 micron band photon escapes and the energy levels are the same.
The idea of IR re-radiation is a false one. Because the collisions in the lower atmosphere constantly are quenching an excited CO2 molecule before it can re-emit. The timing constants are on the order of a billion collisions to one re-emission governed by the Einstein A co-efficient. Only in the upper atmosphere where the molecules are far enough apart to allow for there to be no quenching by collision is there any significant re-emission. This is how the Earth loses energy.
The AERI instruments at the Great Plains and North Slope of Alaska detect IR directly. They are designed to detect a range of frequencies and CO2 is one of them.They are unable to detect incoming CO2 IR without manipulating the received signal against a model frequency. The signal is so small that it can be dismissed as an artifact of generating the simulated signal.
The concept of IR scattering is a false one. The photon either passes through the atmosphere or it is absorbed. At the edges of the absorption curve some IR photons radiate directly to space at 186000 miles per second and some is absorbed and converted directly to heat. It depends on whether or not the CO2 molecule is resonant with the photon frequency.
___________________
any assistance is greatly appreciated, just looking to further understand the issues and evidence/counterevidence i may come across
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Doug_C at 09:15 AM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
"mostly due to the introduction of hundreds of billions of (tons) of additional carbon dioxide."
Important word left out from above.
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Doug Bostrom at 09:14 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
"225 zetajoules is nothing on a 60 years period. The earth receive more than 6K zetajoules a year"
And the central heating system in my house liberates far more energy in a year than does the grease fire on the stove I've just noticed. So I don't need to worry about the grease fire. Let it burn. It's such a relatively small amount of energy, right? :-)
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Doug_C at 09:12 AM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
As far as wildfires go, it's not jsut their extent, but how they start and spread has greatly changed in this region. Our BC summers used to have far more moisture with shorter intervals of hot dry weather. Now we tend to get fairly intense rainfall in early spring and summer then longer period of hot and dry weather as summer progresses. This causes an acceleration of growth in the forests which then dry out and become tinder to start fires.
Then in years like 2017 and 2018, thunder storm systems that can span thousands of square kilometers start hundreds of fires in a very brief period of time. A brother who as a member of the Forest Service here and an expert in fighting wildfires for decades has never seen anything like it. Our father also a forestry expert can attest that even with some of the large wildfires in the 1950s, the situation was never as chaotic and dangerous as it is now.
That's just one tiny window into this critical subject that all the evidence says is about as serious as it gets. When placed in the context of the overall change in climate globally documented on this and many other sites like the Extreme Ice Survey and others plus all the data available from centers of higher learning, GISS, and other research institutes, there's no question that this is happening and almost certainly because we have significantly altered the Earth's radiative balance by changing how the atmosphere exchanges heat with space mostly due to the introduction of hundreds of billions of additional carbon dioxide.
The heat meter constantly running here tells the constant tale and how this become more critical every day.
It can be an intense exchange in trying to explain this to some people. My mother a trained geologist and someone who I usually have a free exchange of ideas with including politics even though we are on different parts of the spectrum, can't talk about climate change because of how emtional she becomes about it.
I've tried to direct her to this site and some others, but I don't she'll ever fully be able to accept the reality of this subject.
The more people who do and who then demand the necessary actions be taken are a benefit to us all. This is a quest anyone who cares about this issue and its implications to life itself on Earth should never give up on.
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Doug Bostrom at 08:55 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
Mathieu, I know you're not calling folks like Gregory Johnson (who runs the American portion of Argo— look him up in Google Scholar, read and understand his papers) liars, so the only remaining plausible (and still charitable) conclusion is that you're suffering from a universal affliction called the Dunning-Kruger effect. That's not a unique and awful reflection on you— it's a fallibility we all share, more or less. Check it out— seconds away on Google.
As to error and confidence interval in the paper's conclusions, now that you've asserted your superior expertise do see Figure 2. It's an open access paper. There's no reason to guess.
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Mathieu18981 at 08:46 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
@doug_bostrom
Anyone using figures like hiroshima bombs and microwaves gibberish is simply trying to confuse the mind of his readers. We have real figures in zetajoules, celsius or farenheit if you are americans. Theses figures everyone understand them and are easily convert to one another.
Everything goes down the drain when you realise the assumption about the margin of error the scientists affirmed they achieve. Its pure madness if you understand statistics requirements.
Finally 225 zetajoules is nothing on a 60 years period. The earth receive more than 6K zetajoules a year meaning with some simple maths : 6K (round up) x 60 = 360 000. Now do a % its 1/1600 of what the earth received in 60 years.
I'm supposed to worry about that? There is many many ways to explain this and remember it is within the margin of error.
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Mathieu18981 at 08:38 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
A study using Zetajoules always make my critical mind goes wild, alarms going on.
99.8% of the globe does not know what is a zetajoules and cannot convert it to a more common metric, the Celsius.
Doing the maths i saw that the ''shocking'' study (from some headlines i saw on MSM) is actually a 0.1 C of increase in the last 60 years. Ok? but it becomes wilder still. The margin of error is 0.003%. I mean come on! Do you really takes us all for retards?
With 4000 buoys from Argo you can't pretend having such a low margin of error. It is a deceptive affirmation, as every buoy needs to mesure the temperature of the sea the size of Portugal AND 2 KMs deep.
Does anyone here believe a reading in Lisbon actually gives the temperatures of Porto, Faro or Lagos? It is ridiculous and does not help the narrative at all.
I'm 100% for waking up people but the data and affirmation needs to be strong and realistic. In the end, anyone with some understanding of margin of error can understand the results of the ''study'' IS within the margin of error and what does this say? Nothing here move along...
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Bob Loblaw at 08:27 AM on 16 January 2020There's no empirical evidence
ClimateBUddha:
As a kid, I was told there was a tooth fairy. This seems to have changed.
Consider three possibilities:
- You are not correctly remembering what you were told as a kid.
- The person who told you that was lying.
- The person who told you that was uninformed.
You'll need to give a much more concrete example of where you "heard that", and under what context. It does not resemble anything I"ve heard in the 40 years I've been studying climatology.
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Eclectic at 08:23 AM on 16 January 2020There's no empirical evidence
ClimateBuddha, your childhood memory sounds a bit dodgy.
What you are asking about, is basic textbook stuff. Time for you to do some self-educating. Start with Wikipedia, and go on from there.
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Eclectic at 08:09 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
Seqenenre :- As Doug says, the amount of extra heat energy involved is enormous in total. As well as producing a sea level rise (with its own major effects on coastal humanity) you find the heat energy "sloshing about" in uneven distributions. Heat coming to the surface to produce El Nino surges of global air temperature. Heat driving the "fewer but stronger storms/ hurricanes". Heat undercutting & melting the Antarctic ice, and increasingly melting the arctic sea-ice. Heat leading to increased flooding & droughts & heat waves.
The surface air temperature (that we live in) is a sort of "tail of the dog" ~ the oceanic dog moves itself slightly . . . and the tail moves a lot.
Even within the ocean, you see important fluctuations as the overall water temperature rises. Vast areas of coral can bleach and die, as shallower water experiences "watery heat waves". Tropical / warm-water fish must move to cooler habitats, further away from the equator. The effects on marine life are much larger than you would intuitively expect.
"Tiny" changes can sometimes have large effects. We are used to the large swings of temperature with the seasons: typical winter/summer change might be 20 degreesC or more . . . yet (counter-intuitively) a sustained gain of 1 or 2 degrees can build up to a colossal effect on the whole planet. We must look at "small numbers" with a scientific eye, rather than with our usual "everyday eye".
I am always amused by science-deniers such as Lord Monckton ~ how, one day they can be arguing that 0.04% of the atmosphere (as CO2) is such a tiny amount ("and which has only increased by one part in ten thousand, in the past 100 years") and is so tiny as to be entirely unimportant in this world . . . and the next day they argue the 0.04% is so very important because "it sustains all life on earth".
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ClimateBuddha at 06:56 AM on 16 January 2020There's no empirical evidence
got any links for this John Seers?
as a kid I remember being told that co2 would stop heat penetrating as it does leaving.
we were told to expect much colder winters and much hotter summers.
This seems to have changed.
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Doug Bostrom at 06:16 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
Seqenenre, it sounds like a small number but message and effects are notable.
As expressed elsewhere, the energy required to raise the temperature of such a large mass at this rate is "equivalent to every person on the planet running 100 microwave ovens all day and all night." Warming the entire ocean at this rate is a fairly shocking confirmation of the effects of increases in what some dismiss as "only a trace gas." 225 zetajoules is a very large amount of energy.
What looks like a small absolute change in the temperature of the upper ocean results in profound changes in moisture in the atmosphere and hence what we can expect in behavior of rainfall, convective storms, etc.
Thermosteric sea level rise is about 0.7m per degree centigrade warming of the ocean. With an accelerating rate of ocean warming, seemingly small increases in temperature will stack up to become a significant problem.
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michael sweet at 05:13 AM on 16 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
The Australian bushfires are unprecedented. I read The Guardian regularly (an Australian newspaper). In early December when "unprecedented" started to be used to describe this years fires deniers pointed to 1974 as having burned more acres.
Since then The Guardian has had many articles sourced to fire experts that describe the current fires as burning in temperate rainforests that have not burned in hundreds of years. The fires in 1974 were grass fires that burned in the outback. Grass fires often cover much more acreage than forest fires.
The grass fires happen after large winter/spring rains. This causes high growth of grass which dries out in summer. Large fires result that are not controlled. Similar fires happen in Africa, the USA and other places around the globe. They are often (by far) the largest fires by acreage, but do not cause much damage.
The current rainforest fires have no precedent in Australia. They are caused by the three year drought combined with extreme record heat that dries out trees that normally are too wet to burn.
This report from the US National Fire Protection Association describes the difference between grass, brush and forest fires. Comparing acreage of grass and forest fires, as the deniers are doing here, is comparing apples and oranges. They are completely different.
The point that extreme fires are happening around the world is a good reason to be concerned about future fires. That is not what makes the Australian fires unprecedented. The Australian fires are unprecedented because they are burning in areas that have never burned before in human experience.
Comparisons to the deaths 10 years ago in the Victoria fires are also deceptive. The Victoria fires were the first ones where forests burned from climate change in Australia. Many people stayed on their properties to defend the properties from the fires. This was a good strategy in the past when fires were not extreme climate change fires. Many people died defending their properties.
This year everyone is fleeing the fires so few people are being killed. Obviously, people learned 10 years ago that it is a bad idea to defend property from extreme climate change fires. Duh.
The fires in Australia are unprecedented because they are burning in areas that have never burned before. Acreage and death rates are distractions by deniers.
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Seqenenre at 04:55 AM on 16 January 2020Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020
In a CNN article the lead author said the ocean temperature (I am not quite sure what this means) was 0.075 degrees Celsius above the 1981-2010 average in 2019.
That does not look like very a serious problem to me. What am I missing?
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SkepticalBrian at 04:51 AM on 16 January 2020Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
there are a too many comments on here to review, maybe I misse it, but can anyone explain how irrigation is NOT a significant contributor to greenhouse effect? The evaporative cooling is often cited as a climate cooling effect which is incorrect, as the energy used in evaporation is merely transported elsewhere and released during condensation. The albedo of the otherwise arid lands is changed and the re-radiation to space is diminished As heat sinks into the ground more. So the constant irrigation of millions of ha of land worldwide does not constitute a "short lived" WV effect, it is a constant significant factor. Any land that need to be irrigated at all is contributing. Plus, all the hydrocarbons burned created a continuous stream of WV.
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MA Rodger at 23:01 PM on 15 January 2020There's no empirical evidence
ClimateBuddha @399,
Out at the distance of the orbit of the Earth, a heat source as strong as the sun can heat a surface up to a temperature of 394K = +120ºC. The temperatures on the moon's equator at mid-day appraoch this value. The primary reason for the Earth's noon-day tropical temperatures never getting close to matching such high levels is because the moon rotates so slowly. During a moon-day, the surface is subject to heating by sunlight for 29½-times longer than during an Earth-day. And through the long moon-night, equatorial temperatures drop to -180ºC, so the heating required to reach those +100ºC moon temperatures is even more impressive.
The Earth's atmosphere reflects more sunlight than the moon, but this is an average value. On Earth there will be places and times with zero cloud so giving similar reflectiveness to that found on the moon, usually in high desert regions. But with the Earth-day 29½-times shorter than the moon's, there is not the time for the surface to heat up to anything like those +100ºC values. And that's with the Earth's night-time temperatues far higher than those on the moon. The heating through an Earth day, the maximum day-night temperature range is way less than 40ºC compared to the moon's 280ºC.
Greenhouse gases will not prevent high maximum temperatures. Instead, they prevent the temperature from falling down to those freezing night-time temperatures. -
Eclectic at 21:47 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Barryn56 @ #35 , thank you for providing the reference to the "ncbi.nlm.nih.gov" article. (IMO it is not off-topic . . . as this whole thread is rather non-specific in subject.)
Permit me to make a thumbnail sketch for SkS readers :- The article is fairly general, and discusses data relating to some of the world's wildfire-prone regions. But it is far from exhaustive in scope, and it particularly concentrates on 30 years of records (mostly up to about 2013 in its cited references).
To quote from the article : "The comparatively brief periods of observation discussed here are strongly influenced by regional interannual variability and are too short to be indicative of longer term trends."
To put it another way :- for noisy data such as that of major wildfires / areas burnt / severity of damage / etcetera (and constituted of incomplete world coverage) . . . 30 years or 60 years of data would be insufficient to draw any very useful conclusions.
Even 100 years of better-quality data would be unhelpful, because of the "Moving Target" nature of Climate Change, combined with the Moving Target effect of the major changes such as population increase; fire-fighting technology changes; communications & mass media changes; and so on.
Barryn56, the article could not help being vague & imprecise. So really, for wildfires, we must be guided by basic science and common sense ~ bearing in mind the large differences between monsoonal tropical regions, and colder or hotter "temperate" regions, and differences in vegetation of regions (such as the high-flammability eucalypts of Australia).
All in all, Barry, I would be interested to hear what you made of "your" article, and why you recommended it.
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JohnSeers at 19:58 PM on 15 January 2020There's no empirical evidence
399 ClimateBuddha
Energy comes in from the sun through the atmosphere at high wavelengths. The atmosphere is largely transparent to these wavelengths, including CO2.
This energy heats up the planet. This leads to IR (infra-red) radiation in the low wavelengths being emitted by the planet. CO2 is not transparent to IR radiation.
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barryn56 at 18:28 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874420/">Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world</a>
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barryn56 at 18:26 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Trying again with link:
<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874420/">
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barryn56 at 18:20 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
In answer to wildfire history, this paper:
Global trends in wildfire and its impacts: perceptions versus realities in a changing world:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4874420/
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2016 Jun 5; 371(1696): 20150345.
doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0345
PMCID: PMC4874420
PMID: 27216515 -
Doug Bostrom at 18:13 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Wol, not a quibble on "to" vs. "too." You say the video's explanation of physics passes too quickly to be understood, but it's "genuine."
Forced to put on the semantic hat, the hasty explanation is surely "genuine" in the sense that it exists, but if it's indecipherable as received then one cannot say it's "genuine" in the sense of being true.
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ClimateBuddha at 17:54 PM on 15 January 2020There's no empirical evidence
this article begins with an exam of the moon.
the moon reaches 100 degrees in the day because there are no greenhouse gasses.
if our Co2 is increasing then why is it not blocking the reducing heat in as is claimed.
logically if co2 always stopped the earth heating up like the moon and now stops heat escaping then it why does more co2 not prevent more heat coming in?
please help me understand this.
many thanks in advance.
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BaerbelW at 15:32 PM on 15 January 2020'Cranky Uncle' smart phone game will show you how to disarm climate deniers
@daria_check
Thanks for the offer, Daria! Once the time comes for translations, we'll make sure to ask for help. But it won't happen until later this year as the English version of the app needs to be available first.
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barryn56 at 15:22 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
So let's look at absorption spectra - you can find the Sun's online and look at the regions where different chemicals affect the transmissivity versus frequency of the radiation. You will note that CO2 has a strong absorption, though in a relatively short band, while there is something of a big "hole" in the region 10-20 micrometres and, of course, the visible region. Water vapour has the largest impact but, it too, has low absorption in the same band (10-20 micrometres). So, about the people with dogs...
Those of you who walk your dog in the evening after hot days may have noticed that, despite the same daytime temperatures, the evenings might be cool or hot on different days - why was that?
Might it have something to do with nighttime cloud cover, perhaps? So at might, we can exclude the Sun's influence, and all we have is the radiative cooling of the Earth which, assuming the black body model, emits energy as a function of tempertaure to the 4th power (T(degK)^4). So, if there's a big "hole" in the infra red spectrum where water vapour is, then it must be the CO2 holding back the radiation, right? Hmmm...OK, so what are clouds made of? Well, looking it up, it seems they are made of liquid water droplets or ice particles. So, would the next step be to check what the IR absorption spectrum is of ice/liquid water compared to water vapour? Let me now what you find in that 10-20 micrometer region...
Moderator Response:[DB] As this site is focused on the scientific method and the usage of citations to credible sources to support claims, this is perhaps not the best website for you to participate in. Plenty of electrons exist elsewhere.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
Sloganeering and off-topic snipped. -
barryn56 at 15:05 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Eclectic @ 10. No, not toying. As I mentioned, I'm not going to tell you what to think, nor claim that the earth's temperature or climate is not changing. If you are really concerned about these factors, then the effort should be in understanding the problem before trying "solutions", less you make matters worse, not better.
You can first of all consider that scientists are human; they have the same failings as all of us, myself included. Take, for example, the assertion by scientists that aircraft con trails were a source of atmospheric warming - for the very same reasons the claims for greenhouse" effect. During the moratorium on flights over the US for 3 days, the opposite was found, so why were they wrong?
If you research the physics, the Earth is modelled as a Black Body, so all the energy from the Sun is received and re-emitted (otherwise temperature would continue to rise). The temperature expected is calculated based on the source strength, the reflection (albedo) of the body and the orbital radius. A common theme in researchers is that the difference between the exected temperature (251K) and the "average" temperature (288K) is the warming effect of the "greenhouse" effect of the atmosphere (about 30 degrees C). Well, you can check that theory yourself by checking the BB radiation and surface temperature of a celestial body that is essentially the same distance from the Sun as the Earth, but has no greenhouse gases. You will find its daytime temperature is 400K - about 130degC, while the BB temperature is calculated at 272K - about 0 degC. So does the moon have a 130 degC greenhouse effect? So direct measurement - no theory here - shows a body at our distance from the Sun is much hotter than the estimated BB radiation calculation. Anyone who owns a dog probably has a good idea what controls the temperature on Earth... Next, we can delve into the spectrum and absorption, the basis for the "greenhouse" effect.
Moderator Response:[DB] There was found no significant correlation between air travel restrictions post 9/11 and surface temperatures (here and here).
As for the potential impacts of jet travel, per the IPCC AR5, WG1, Chapter 7.2.7.1 Contrails and Contrail-Induced Cirrus, P. 592
"Estimates of the RF from persistent (linear) contrails often correspond to different years and need to be corrected for the continuous increase in air traffic. More recent estimates tend to indicate somewhat smaller RF than assessed in the AR4...we assess the combined contrail and contrail-induced cirrus ERF for the year 2011 to be +0.05 (+0.02 to +0.15) W m–2 to take into uncertainties on spreading rate, optical depth, ice particle shape and radiative transfer and the ongoing increase in air traffic."
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter07_FINAL-1.pdf
And from the IPCC AR5, WG1, Chapter 8.3.4.5 Contrails and Contrail-Induced Cirrus, P.686
"AR4 assessed the RF of contrails (persistent linear contrails) as +0.01 (–0.007 to +0.02) W m–2 and provided no estimate for contrail induced cirrus. In AR5, Chapter 7 gives a best estimate of RF due to contrails of +0.01 (+0.005 to +0.03) W m–2 and an ERF estimate of the combined contrails and contrail-induced cirrus of +0.05 (+0.02 to +0.15) W m–2. Since AR4, the evidence for contrail-induced cirrus has increased because of observational studies (for further details see Section 7.2.7)."
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/Fig8-20-1-820x1024.jpg
Sloganeering snipped. -
Wol at 13:38 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Doug @ 26: No. it doesn't! The "to" is a typo for "too" but the comment refers to the fact that in the video the graphs roll past to quickly for me to follow given that I'm listening to the commentary and in any case they are poor res.
Very good video though!
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Doug_C at 13:28 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Great to see the quality of this sites remains, staffed by volunteers or not, there is noting else like it in the online world today.
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Eclectic at 13:14 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
TomJanson @24 , certainly the worst of the anti-science nonsense is deleted by moderators. But your own comments, being only 90% nonsense, are mostly permitted. Moderators do (I gather from observation) usually give the benefit of the doubt to general commenters, allowing [such as in your own case] for the possibility that probable bad-faith comments may be simply be ill-informed comments (deriving from ignorance or Dunning-Kruger-like over-confidence . . . or from reading little more than the headlines found in the internet's Denialosphere).
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Doug Bostrom at 13:01 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Wol, the sentence
"I can't follow the physics - it passes to quickly - but appears genuine."
doesn't make sense.
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nigelj at 12:59 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
TomJanson @24, the point of the thread is Taminos article at the top which points out how these fires are different from the 1970's and how they are being influenced by warming.
Your comments are disgraceful. People have died, the fires a very much in urban areas, billions of animals have died. People wont forget that in a hurry.
Your claims of temperature adjstments are sloganeering. But for the record the key global adjustments, done for proper reasons, adjust global temperatures down as below. So this doesn't look like much of a conspiracy to exaggerate warming now does it.
www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-data-adjustments-affect-global-temperature-records
As you can see from the graph down the page, most adjustments for the global record are in the early part of last century, and relate to problems with ocean measurements. The difference between raw and adjusted data since the 1980s is insignificant.
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TomJanson at 12:56 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
How's that for science. Deleting anything that detracts from the narrative and which could "undermine faith". Just like Mann taught you all...
Moderator Response:[DB] And you're done. Respondents, this user has self-recused himself from further participation here, finding the burden of compliance with the Comments Policy and using credible evidence for claims too onerous.
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Eclectic at 12:55 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Doug_C @17 , the comment by TomJanson (as he rightly points out) was not simply referring to an isolated "bad year" of Australian wildfires in the end-1974 summer. There were many & extensive fires in other years of the 20th Century ~ yet they don't support the denialist case he is desperate to make.
But hilariously, TomJanson seems to have failed to take a careful look at a map of Australia. Perhaps he is too busy himself "fighting fires" on multiple SkS threads at once? ;-)
#
TomJanson @ 16 /18 , you seem to be basing your opinion on just reading a few headines (WUWT? Murdoch Press with its "183 arsonists" and suchlike flagrant disinformation?)
Yes, the state of NSW is one of the "eastern states" of Australia, and the 1974 summer wildfires did include a section of the well-settled Hunter Valley near the coast. But there were vast areas burnt to the west in NSW ~ which is typical inland terrain, being grasslands / arid lands / unpopulated regions (the "Outback").
The frequency of burning of large areas of "Outback" . . . provides an apples & oranges comparison with the currently famous fires in the populous south-east of Australia. And provides a "statistical camouflage" for desperadoes like Dr Spencer, who really don't wish to properly examine the issues. His is a fine exampe of Motivated Reasoning . . . as is all climate-science denialism.
And I did not say "these fires are completely different". But they are different enough, for it to be wise to learn a lesson from them. For irregular/"noisy" events like major wildfires (in Australia), we have to look at exacerbating factors & underlying causations (of which there are many).
Over the long term, one prominent new factor is Global Warming.
How much can we blame AGW for the extent & ferocity of the fires? At an educated guess, perhaps one-third of it can be blamed on climate change.
# The point is, with the ongoing warming over the next 30 years , it could well be that the AGW factor will grow to become two-thirds contributor to the extent & ferocity of wildfires in the "settled south-east of Australia". (Other regions of the world will have their own problems.)
But the modern wildfires of 2019 are becoming a wake-up call to the local population (and a warning to the rest of the world) . . . and as a consequence to that, the science-denialists are very desperate to propagandize against the obvious AGW connection.
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Doug_C at 12:28 PM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
What happened to the moderation here, comments directly attacking the scientific validity of climate change used to be removed immediately.
Moderator Response:[DB] While this is a moderated forum, all work is donated by volunteers. Rest assured, a moderator will always be available for "cleanup on aisle 3", soon enough.
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Doug_C at 11:45 AM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
TomJanson @18
From geogrpahically isolated droughts and heat waves, my point is this is global in scale and we are seeing the exact same effects across the planet that is entirely consistent with climate change as forced by the massive use of fossil fuels.
Which is also entirely consistent with the scientific evidence that the Earth is fact warming due to all the carbon dioxide we emit and other large scale human changes to the Earth.
10 key climate indicators all point to the same finding: global warming is unmistakable
We already have a perfectily valid explanation for what is happening including the increase in catastrophic extreme weather events like severe droughts and the wildfires that can follow, why look for something much less likely.
Expecially since the time to actually mitigate this unfolding catastrophe is rapidly running out.... if it hasn't already.
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nigelj at 11:42 AM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
TomJanson @16
"There's no scientific basis to the claim that these fires are completely different. The difference is people have climate change on their mind and will see every event thru that lens."
Blatant straw man fallacy. People aren't generally saying they are completely different. They are saying there are some important differences. Tamino discusses one here.
From the Tamino article : "One of the things making wildfire/bushfire worse, contributing to the current conflagration in Australia, is the increase of daily high temperatures. It increases the Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD), the difference between how much water vapor the air can hold and how much it does hold. When VPD is high, it can suck the moisture right out of potential fuels big and small, which increases the frequency and severity of fire dramatically. The data are clear, that for daily high temperature last year (2019) was the hottest on record for Australia:..."
TomJasson @18
"And it wasn't just one wildfire season (the 1974 season was simply the largest one). There were other larger ones than 2019/2020 over the past 100 years. But all that's irrelevant isn't it. Because "global warming". The old ones don't count. Only today's ones do."
We are very early in this fire season, so you cannot compare areas burned now so far, to total areas burned back then for the total fire season. We shall have to wait and see.
You also missed the point. I don't know the data for Australia but studies in other countries here have detected an increase in area burned and longer fire seasons over the modern warming period, and after considering other factors conclude warming is to blame. Australia will follow suit because the physics is the same.
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Wol at 11:39 AM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
Here's a first class argument "against" CO2 causing climate change.
I can't follow the physics - it passes to quickly - but appears genuine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVc-Y-mJ_uY
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TomJanson at 10:31 AM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
"Claiming there was an isolated wildfire season 50 or 70 years in a limited geographical local that was larger in scale"
Those wildfires covered a larger total area and were more widely distributed than the current fires.
And it wasn't just one wildfire season (the 1974 season was simply the largest one). There were other larger ones than 2019/2020 over the past 100 years. But all that's irrelevant isn't it. Because "global warming". The old ones don't count. Only today's ones do.
I look forward to the excuses when we have the next run of calmer fire seasons. No doubt that'll be climate change too. The highly ERRATIC nature of modern climates. Fires one day. Calm the next.
Moderator Response:[DB] Off-topic, sloganeering and inflammatory rhetoric snipped.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can and will be rescinded if the posting individual continues to treat adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Moderating this site is a tiresome chore, particularly when commentators repeatedly submit offensive or off-topic posts. We really appreciate people's cooperation in abiding by the Comments Policy, which is largely responsible for the quality of this site.
Finally, please understand that moderation policies are not open for discussion. If you find yourself incapable of abiding by these common set of rules that everyone else observes, then a change of venues is in the offing.Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
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Doug_C at 10:04 AM on 15 January 2020I had an intense conversation at work today.
We see the current massive wildfire activity as associated with climate change because it is global in scale not local. And repeated.
Claiming there was an isolated wildfire season 50 or 70 years in a limited geographical local that was larger in scale therefore the current spate of massive wildfires is not an indication of a changing climate is rational white noise.
We don't just have the evidence of a changing Earth due to climate change from this global accelerated wildfire activity, we have all the other empirical evidence and all the theory learned over centuries to back it up. You just have to go through the volumous articles on this one site to totally refute claims that this vastly expanded wildfire activity in EurAsia, both Americas, Australia and other locations isn't linked to the very well support fact of how much heat we've added to the Earth mostly from burning fossil fuels.
Just scroll up and check the heat equivalent meter on this page based on solid science and explain how we can have added 2,828,000,000 and counting Hiroshima bomb heat equivalents to the Earth since 1998 alone and not profoundly altered the way that weather and climate operates on Earth. Especially since most of that heat is going into the oceans which are the weather and climate drivers of the planet as they contain most of the heat in the ocean/atmosphere system and move most of it around the planet with ocean currents.
This is happening, it's us and it's already devastating. Anyone living in Australia with the massive and deadly wildfires and a rapidly dying Great Barrier Reef should know this as well or better than anyone on the planet.
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TomJanson at 09:36 AM on 15 January 2020CO2 lags temperature
MARodger 613,
Yes I am talking about the causal relationship. There is far tighter correlation between temperature changes and subsequent CO2 changes than vice versa. And yet people continue to point to the correlation as proof that CO2 is THE driver of temperature.
No-one has managed to explain the fact that the correlation is primarily back to front in terms of causation.
Moderator Response:[DB] Sloganeering snipped. Claims require evidence. Please start using actual citations to credible sources in lieu of unsupported assertions and making things up.
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