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Comments 92201 to 92250:

92201. dana1981 at 03:32 AM on 18 March 2011
       Republicans to Repeal Laws of Physics
       Nature has just published an editorial which is consistent with my article:

       "...That [the EPA endangerment] finding is scientifically sound had no bearing on the decision to push the legislation, and Republicans on the House of Representatives’ energy and commerce committee have made clear their disdain for climate science. At a subcommittee hearing on 14 March, anger and distrust were directed at scientists and respected scientific societies. Misinformation was presented as fact, truth was twisted and nobody showed any inclination to listen to scientists, let alone learn from them. It has been an embarrassing display, not just for the Republican Party but also for Congress and the US citizens it represents...the legislation is fundamentally anti-science, just as the rhetoric that supports it is grounded in wilful ignorance."

92202. dana1981 at 03:18 AM on 18 March 2011
       Republicans to Repeal Laws of Physics
       Gilles -

       "there is absolutely no room for any creationism or astrology in the known science. Defending these ideas is, in fact, attacking the whole construction of modern science"

       That's not true. If for example there were an all-powerful deity which created the Earth 6,000 years ago and put all the pieces in place to make us think the planet is 4.5 billion years old, that wouldn't contradict modern science. What we know, for example, is that species evolve through natural selection. We've observed this. We also know that the planet is warming, we know how the greenhouse effect works, etc. There are observations and then there are theories and predictions based on those observations.

       "there is nothing contradicting the laws of physics if there were natural cycles explaining the medieval optimum"

       Of course not. Natural forcings do explain the MWP! That's a rather silly example. The bottom line is that the scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports both the evolutionary and AGW theories. But they are still both theories, and there are people who will always attack those theories. But Creationists really are not fundamentally different from global warming "skeptics". You may personally be more convinced by "skeptic" arguments than you are with Creationist arguments, but that doesn't mean they're any more or less scientifically valid.
92203. Chris G at 03:00 AM on 18 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       FWIW, I was thinking of a response to Rob's comment on the planet-dying phrase, but I see that Alan's reply #14 matches my original interpretation of his words. On the pedantic side of language, andthorne's comment does indeed parse, but the tokens do not create a well-formed expression. :P Regarding Ken and CB, I'd be interested in seeing some math to support either position. It's conceivable that the upwelling of the deep ocean will, or is, providing something of a buffer, but it is not clear whether that is enough to prevent a large enough change in pH to dramatically change the nature of life in the oceans. Current trends indicate it is not. However, Ken's use of "if" is a bit off-putting. What do you mean "if"? Measuring pH is not difficult, and there exist records. We have measurements and basic chemistry that both tell us that the ocean is and should be becoming more acidic. It smacks of an attempt to cast doubt where there really isn't any. More acidic/less alkaline, they mean the same thing; let's not get hung up on the name. The general population believes that acids dissolve things, and that is what is happening. If you say the oceans are becoming less alkaline, it does not convey the meaning of what is really happening. Well, if does to those with a solid foundation in chemistry, but that isn't the majority of the audience. So, we have to deal with some backlash with the Dunning-Krugers when they learn that the actual pH is still technically on the alkaline side before they learn that alkaline water does in fact still dissolve the shell material, and that it dissolves it a lot more at 8.1 than it does at 8.2. A pH of 7.8 is downright frightening from an ocean food web perspective.
92204. Charlie A at 02:58 AM on 18 March 2011
       Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
       Shoyemore, #46 says "There is a useful model that if the records are random in a period of static temperature, the probability of a record in the nth datum (i.e. that is is greater or less than all previous data) is 1/n." There are two problems with the above statement. 1. "in a period of static temperature" .... most records indicate that the global temperature has been generally increasing since around 1800, or perhaps 1750. Your analysis assumes that there is not underlying trend to global temperatures. Over a wide ranges of averaging periods, that is clearly NOT true. Once you have made this erroneous assumption, the remainder of your analysis is faulty. 2. "probability of a record in the nth datum (i.e. that is is greater or less than all previous data) is 1/n." .... even for stationary processes this is not true. For a process with zero autocorrelation the probability is proportional to log(n). This is pretty much irrelevant, though, because 1) the temperature record has a trend, thereby invalidating your analysis, and 2) there is a high degree of autocorrelation in the temperature record, whether one looks over a period of months, years, decades. ------------------------- In response to my request that you apply your analysis to the earlier period, you use the interesting argument that "The conventional wisdom is that (human induced) CO2 warming did not set in on a large scale until the 1970s, whereas warming earlier in the century was due to other (natural) variations. There is nothing explicit in the chart to upset that view." The price of tea in China also does nothing to upset that view. Is there anything in your analysis that explicitly supports that supports that view? As a Skeptical Scientist you approach to proposing and supporting a hypothesis is rather strange. My point in asking you to apply your analysis to the earlier period is to see if there was something in your calculations that would give indication that some increases in temperature are abnormal and unnatural, and that some are merely natural variations.
92205. dana1981 at 02:48 AM on 18 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Gilles keeps making this argument that if we're forced to reduce global fossil fuel use, poor countries will remain poor. Reality is that as DSL notes in #8, energy use increases with wealth, but there's no particular reason fossil fuels must be the source of that energy. It's just been the case so far because fossil fuels have been (artificially) cheap and plentiful. That doesn't mean economic growth and increased energy consumption in developing nations can't come from another energy source if we want it to. Gilles is stuck in the past, unfortunately.
92206. Albatross at 02:34 AM on 18 March 2011
       What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
       TTT @73, "Ignoring feedbacks doesn't make the answer wrong..." Interesting contorting, but Lindzen's answer remains wrong, and it is troubling that you are willing to bend over backwards to dismiss that fact and defend yet another of Lindzen's monumental faux pas. The biosphere is a fully coupled and interactive system, you cannot ignore feedbacks. Well, you could but your answers/science would be wrong as demonstrated here. Your argument is ironic, given that Lindzen and Spencer insist that climate scientists are ignoring their hypothesized strong negative feedback. Yet here you seem to be arguing that "ignoring feedbacks does not make the answer wrong". No. Yet more inconsistencies and contradictions by 'skeptics'.
92207. JMurphy at 02:29 AM on 18 March 2011
       We're heading into cooling
       Henry justice, firstly, see muoncounter's reply to you (if you have missed it) over on "Does CO2 always correlate with temperature (and if not, why not?)" Next, your gish-gallop list of the usual so-called skeptical arguments are easily dealt with on these threads : Climategate and the peer-review process Is there a scientific consensus on global warming? Taking the Money for Grant(ed) – Part I Taking the Money for Grant(ed) – Part II (The latter two are from Global Warming : Man or Myth ?. In fact, you would probably get a lot from just starting at this thread : Newcomers, Start Here Finally, your use of a site which contains the following - "intelligentsia ranks of leftists/liberals progressives and socialists", "the 'elites'", "left-liberal climate science", "the left-biased MSM", "the elites' science of stupidity", "liberals-progressives-socialists" - betrays an obvious need for political bias and opinion rather than facts : a sad state of affairs for anyone claiming to be a scientist.
92208. Albatross at 02:19 AM on 18 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Well, Gilles was wanting attention and he sure has received it. I for one would ignore his pontificating until he posts something substantial and that is backed by the science and related literature. otherwise the thread just gets hopelessly off topic and derailed-- the intention perhaps?
92209. Yvan Dutil at 02:09 AM on 18 March 2011
       And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually
       Time to by future beach from properties en Bâton Rouge.
92210. ClimateWatcher at 01:56 AM on 18 March 2011
       One of the best climate change ads I've seen
       "Limited time offer, order now." "Hurry, supply is limited" "So you don't forget, order before midnight tonight". Things which have to be sold rely on hard sell and time limits. Climate armageddon follows suit.
92211. Dikran Marsupial at 01:55 AM on 18 March 2011
       Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
       alecpiper@2 Here is a hint, you are likely to be taken more seriously if you are able to accept when you are incorrect, for instance the assertion that there is no correllation bewtween temperature and CO2. You are also shifting the goalposts from 10,000 years (i.e. the current interglacial) to the last 25,000 years. Of course there has been significant warming since the height of the last ice age, and of course it was non-anthropogenic. However that does not mean that changes in carbon dioxide were not implicated in the warming. Of course recent temperature changes are small compared to the difference between glacial and interglacial conditions, but they don't have to be that large to cause significant hardship, so that is a silly argument. Mentioning Easterbrook's WUWT article suggests you didn't read the article to which you were responding. You do know that it is Easterbrooks work that is the subject of the article?
92212. CBDunkerson at 01:49 AM on 18 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       Ken Lambert #16 - You assume that heat and carbonic acid disperse through seawater at identical rates?
92213. the fritz at 01:49 AM on 18 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       World ocean PH in 1875 ? It looks like Beck's curves for atmospheric CO2 !
92214. les at 01:48 AM on 18 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Tom@617 ... absolutely, hence the "for fun" remark - it was only that, sometimes, one good model deserves another. as for the heat capacity - I hesitated long and... then well, didn't have time to think that one out. Indeed the heat capacity would determine how long it would take to "heat up until" - and an infinite heat capacity would result in it taking an infinite time to heat up. Boundary conditions, hu? always a good way of doing a sanity check on a model - which is the point of your model; so back to that.
92215. alecpiper at 01:46 AM on 18 March 2011
       Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
       You guys still miss the basic point. Over the past 25,000 years there have been major changes in temperature (up to 14 deg C) over 40 years without any anthropogenic influence. Recent temperature changes pale into insignificance when compared to the past. Studies also show a close correlation between GISP2 (Greenland Ice Core project) and other glaciers. Samples from GICP are representative of world changes. See Dr Easterbrooks readable paper. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/24/easterbrook-on-the-magnitude-of-greenland-gisp2-ice-core-data/
       Moderator Response: No, you are missing that basic point. For education, see "Climate’s changed before," "It’s only a few degrees," and "It’s not bad," and if you want to argue, do so on those relevant threads, not this one.
92216. Yvan Dutil at 01:34 AM on 18 March 2011
       And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually
       I would like to add a warning on the utilization of those map. Sea rise is not uniform around the globe. In many place isostatic rebound is of the same order of magnitude as the sea rise rate. This means that some place will not see any increase, some will see decrease and some will see much larger increase. For example, New Orleans is expected to drop by 5 m before then end of century. In addition, if atmospheric or oceanic circulation is somewhat modified, rapid change in see level can be expected. Recently, there was also a suggestion that modification in weight distribution of ice could also leads to large scale sea level modification.
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] That just guarantees that this will happen, then (red is 1 meter SLR, tan is the next 5):

       
92217. Pete Dunkelberg at 01:01 AM on 18 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       "I know your words are English but collectively they do not parse." Bot or human?
       Moderator Response:

       [DB] Me or commentator #3? ;)

       #3 has posted similar comments here in the past; I've also seen comments of that ilk likewise posted on other climate sites as well. Infrequent, but there.

       My guess: Human

       .
92218. Tom Curtis at 00:56 AM on 18 March 2011
       Republicans to Repeal Laws of Physics
       Gilles @176, the difference between science and pseudo-science is not a difference in subject matter, but in how the "scientist" responds to falsification of their claims. In essence, a scientist will always attempt to maximize the empirical content of their theory; while a pseudo-scientist will minimize it. Pseudo-scientists will do this by: 1) Holding dogmatically to already falsified positions; 2) Attempting to place the burden of proof entirely on the opposing theory; 3) Using conventionalizing strategies that attempt to make their theory true by definition; 4) Using vague theories, and not spelling out the empirical predictions of their theories; and 5) Misrepresenting facts, including quoting sources out of context, and incorrectly describing the content of sources (ie, quote mining). They will also use tribalism to ensure that they do not have defectors, including abusing, vilifying and in general dehumanizing their opponents; and reserving criticism for their opponents, even when they clearly disagree with their friends. These are not exhaustive lists, but the crucial point is that all of these behaviours are common place in denier circles. Some more so than others. Plimmer, for example, and Monckton, appear to use the list of pseudo-science traits as a play book. IN fact, my overwehlming impression of Plimmer's Heaven and Earth was that he had taken his earlier "Telling Lies for God" as a tactics manual. Now granted there is a scale here, and not all deniers are as bad as each other; but not a single leading denier does not exhibit a large number of these traits. And amongst leading deniers, not a single one makes a practice of acknowledging the instances where they have been rebutted, and attempting to correct their theories accordingly. There are some minor players on the denier side who are much better in this regard, including IMO Ferdinand Engelbeen and Leonard Weinstein. But despite these rare examples, much that passes for criticism in denier circles is plainly pseudo-science; and the little that rises above that level does not support their case. Therefore the comparison with creationists is apt. Frankly, it is about time the serious deniers started recognizing this fact. So long as denier "science" is dominated by the Moncktons and the Plimmers, and the Watts; or even by the McIntyres of their movement, mainstream scientists are entirely correct to dismiss them as pseudo-scientists. The one thing a genuine scientist never lacks is fruitful lines of inquiry. Given that, and limited time, simple practicality dictates that they ignore the pseudo-scientists. There are to many probably fruitful lines of inquiry to waste time on the almost certainly fruitless. If you think there is more to that from the denier side; something mainstream scientists really need to pay attention to; then have enough faith in the idea to stop hiding it behind the great wall of nonsense which is so typical of denier websites and books. Clean out the charlatans from the denier house, and then it will be worthwhile for mainstream scientists to listen to the surviving denier ideas, ... if any.
92219. DSL at 00:52 AM on 18 March 2011
       We're heading into cooling
       Justice: "The peer review process is lacking substantial articles favoring the opposite view and therefore, is not balanced, and maybe not credible at all. " You're absolutely right, Henry. It's not balanced. There's a reason for that. You might check out the journal Energy & Environment, a journal which is desperately seeking that opposing view you mentioned. Why such a hard time finding it, I wonder . . .
92220. DSL at 00:47 AM on 18 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Gilles: "the fact that countries that emit the most CO2 are the most resilient does prove per se that use of FF increases the wealth and the capacity of mankind to resist natural cataclysms." That is a ridiculous idea, Gilles. Undoubtedly, cheap energy does create more wealth. It allows people to more cheaply produce, distribute, and consume food, water, shelter, and other types of goods and services. It does not increase the capacity of mankind to resist natural cataclysms. Only the ability to predict and the willingness to do something about the cataclysms will protect humanity from these cataclysms. True, the predictive ability is enhanced indirectly through cheap energy: more people can do science. Indeed, wealth may make people more susceptible to cataclysms--or, rather, it may make more people susceptible. Take the claim (I believe it was on SkS a couple of days ago) that Japan was saved by their wealth--saved relative to Haiti. Japan's infrastructure allows 30 million people to live in Tokyo. That infrastructure is based on cheap energy--energy to heat, to cool, to import food, and to provide jobs. What is Tokyo suddenly without cheap energy? A death trap. Without cheap energy, Haiti looks like . . . Haiti. The destruction in Haiti was the result of the quake's epicenter being 15 miles away from the capital city and the relatively unexpected nature of the event. If that 9.0 hits 15 miles away from Tokyo . . . at least twice the number of people that died in Haiti. Just because we have cheap energy, should we use it in an unrestrained manner? Should a species of animal populate an area to the extent of that area's available energy--when it knows that the energy source will diminish and a significant portion of the population will necessarily die? Should that same intelligent species use an economic mode that places productive people in harm's way for the sake of unrestrained growth (precisely what this article is about)?
92221. adelady at 00:36 AM on 18 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Gilles, that doesn't necessarily follow. If you look at the 'advantages' of wealth and modernity that citizens of places like US and Oz aspire to, we're perfectly capable of increasing our already profligate use of power. And by far more than the kind of modest first steps that previously impoverished people can do. Just look at the shopping centre carparks near my home. Are they teeming with economical consumption vehicles. Not at all. Huge SUVs, people movers and other gas guzzlers abound and seem to increase by the month. One of our new suburbs, touted as 'environmentally friendly' in its early publicity, uses nearly twice the power of other suburbs (the environmental advantage was confined to water use). We now buikd bigger houses than anyone else in the world and they seem to require vast expanses of sun facing, single sheet glass - which requires extraordinary airconditioning efforts to make them livable in our extremely hot summers. (If you need a comparison, our climate is equivalent to some parts of the North African Mediterranean.) We don't even have a legal requirement to have our roof spaces ventilated to speed evening cooling and slow daytime heating. Air conditioning Adelaide during a heatwave is a huge use of power - we do it because we can and we're doing it more and more. If cities like Adelaide and Perth took serious steps to manage power use by negawatts alone (leaving aside renewable power), we could probably power and transport many multiples of the 3 million people currently luxuriating in such extravagant wastefulness. And the same could be said for most Australian and US cities.
92222. michael sweet at 00:25 AM on 18 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Gilles: Please provide links to support your extraordinary assertion that predicted growth is in undeveloped countries. Your assertion that FF consumption directly relates to wealth is also false. See Wikipedia list fo co2 emissions. Provide links that support your claims, not just your poorly informed opinion.
92223. Bern at 00:20 AM on 18 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Gilles, your "FF increases wealth" meme that you're pushing seems like just another variant of the "CO2 limits harm the economy" argument, refuted here. In any event, we have a choice. 1) Provide undeveloped nations with cheap fossil fuels, so they can build the wealth & capacity to attempt to adapt to global warming (although based on some predictions, it seems the entire GDP of the planet would be required, and then some). 2) Provide undeveloped nations with alternate (non-fossil) energy sources, so they can build wealth & capacity to improve their standard of living, without making global warming worse... I don't know about you, but I'd prefer #2 myself. Thing is, it'll end up being a whole lot cheaper for the developed parts of the world, too. I mean, seriously. Predictions of sea level rise suggest that by the end of the century half of Bangladesh might be under water. Where are you going to put those 80 million climate refugees? And how are developed nations going to deal with them while madly trying to move $trillions worth of real estate & infrastructure to higher ground? This paper suggests a cost on the order of a trillion dollars for a 1m sea level rise. That'd buy a whole lotta renewables for developing nations. It also ignores costs due to other potential impacts of global warming (such as heatwaves, decreases in crop yields, droughts & floods due to a more intense hydrological cycle, etc etc etc). Start to factor those in, and you're talking about a serious chunk of change...
92224. Utahn at 00:20 AM on 18 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Gilles:" the fact that countries that emit the most CO2 are the most resilient does prove per se that use of FF increases the wealth and the capacity of mankind to resist natural cataclysms" So correlation is causation, in your view? So all of those Chinese first time car buyers got wealthy from fossil fuel use and *then* bought a car? Or did they make money some other way, use it to buy a car, and thereby increase their fossil fuel consumption? I know which one sounds more plausible to me. Prove the causation, the correlation proves nothing "per se" or otherwise...
92225. Ken Lambert at 00:15 AM on 18 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       Alan Marshall #14 On the positive side, if the oceans are acidifing, then the surface layers (top 700m) are mainly involved. If the deep oceans were involved (700m - 3700m av depth) then the amount of dilution of the man made CO2 dissolved in this vast extra volume, would change the pH by an infinitesimal amount. If that conclusion seems logical, then transport of absorbed CO2 and heat energy to the deep oceans by deep mixing would be very limited and therefore the missing heat supposed to be down below 700m is not there either.
92226. Henry justice at 00:08 AM on 18 March 2011
       We're heading into cooling
       Is the data presented in the referenced NOAA/NCDC site wrong? If so, let me know. I am perfectly capable of drawing my own conclusion about what I see. There is no credible evidence that CO2 is causing unprecedented warming. Likewise, the science presented supporting warming trends are not yet conclusive in light of the real raw data that I have seen and the information, rebuttals, and data showing the cooling trends. The peer review process is lacking substantial articles favoring the opposite view and therefore, is not balanced, and maybe not credible at all. I find substantial flaws in a lot of the warming data presented. Sadly, it's like peeling back a good onion only to find it's rotten inside. I too am a scientist. Any fool can see what that a lot of money has been thrown at the warming game. The temperature rise to date does not support the claims made about CO2.
92227. K T at 00:05 AM on 18 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Clearly if there's a God, he's not known for being fair in meting out punishments.
       Moderator Response: [DB] Not all are meted out in this lifetime. All will be meted out, eventually.
92228. Gilles at 23:54 PM on 17 March 2011
       Republicans to Repeal Laws of Physics
       OK for the argument of websites - this is a minor point. And I'm not saying that all arguments of climato-skeptics are true. But i think there is a fundamental difference; there is absolutely no room for any creationism or astrology in the known science. Defending these ideas is, in fact, attacking the whole construction of modern science, which has proved to be incredibly efficient - after all if our laws were wrong, it would be a miracle that TV, satellites, or computers work perfectly. On the other hand , there is nothing contradicting the laws of physics if there were natural cycles explaining the medieval optimum, if the retroaction of water wouldn't be so strong after all, if the ultimate amount of FF would be below 1000 Gtoe, or if mankind would adapt satisfactorily to a change of a few degrees. This wouldn't be at all contradictory with the fact that TV, satellites, or computers do work - actually this wouldn't be contradictory with anything. So I keep thinking that the comparison with creationism is disingenuous.
       Moderator Response: [Muoncounter] Odd you would find it disingenuous, as you brought it up. Yet another example of the power of fact-based argument over your 'I think' and 'its clear to me'. Please try harder to substantiate your ideas; refuting mere opinion is tedious.
92229. Gilles at 23:41 PM on 17 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       First : the map is the map of CURRENT emissions. What about the map of PREDICTED emissions in a "BAU" scenario? if CO2 emissions increase, it can only be through the growth of consumption in poor countries ! Second : the fact that countries that emit the most CO2 are the most resilient does prove per se that use of FF increases the wealth and the capacity of mankind to resist natural cataclysms. This is true also without GW - of course there will always be hurricanes, earthquakes, and droughts, in any case. So one should carefully balance the fact that limiting the use of FF would automatically limit the capacities to resist natural hazards - even without warming.
       Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] When you make statements of this nature, please support your assertions with links to credible sources. As it stands, your comment in its entirety amounts to trolling. Be advised.
92230. CBDunkerson at 23:13 PM on 17 March 2011
       Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
       Also note that if the emissions map were as detailed as the impact map (rather than averaging at the country level) the inverse correlation would continue to hold in many cases. For instance, the U.S. northeast has the highest 'emissions density' in the world, but will show little impact... while the U.S. southwest will have some impact despite having relatively low emissions. That said, there are some areas where the reverse correlation does not hold. Most notably... Saudi Arabia.
92231. CBDunkerson at 23:05 PM on 17 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       Alan, I think the problem with the phrase 'the planet is dying' is that, while it is a reasonable way of describing the degree of biodiversity loss we are facing, it implies the end result of continuing down this path would be 'the planet is dead'... and that isn't going to happen. The changes we are making would result in a massive decline of human population, down to a level where we would no longer be making those changes, long before it would wipe out ALL life on the planet. Not an issue of disagreement on what is going to happen, but rather the implications of the particular turn of phrase. The planet is 'wilting', 'being poisoned', possibly 'decimated'... but not going to die and ergo not in the process of 'dying'.
92232. Dikran Marsupial at 22:43 PM on 17 March 2011
       Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
       alecpiper@2 1. Richard Alley does not dispute that it has been significantly warmer in the past. Of course in the past the warming wasn't due to AGW (because the was no A to cause the GW), but that doesn't mean the temperature changes were not due to changes in CO2. The greenhouse effect is the same regardles of the source of the CO2. 2. Easterbrook does not "simply illustrate that the Earth has been warmer in the past", he attempts to show that the Earth has been warmer in the past 10,000 years, which is unlikely to be true and is not supported by the evidence. Dr Easterbrook's research cannot prove that there is no correllation between temperature and CO2 levels, simply because it isn't true, you only need to look at e.g. the Vostok ice core data to see that It is well known that CO2 generally lags CO2, but that does not mean that CO2 didn't cause most of the warming as it has generally been a feedback mechanism rather than a forcing. However, there have been occasions where CO2 has been a forcing rather than a feedback, for instance the emergence from the snowball Earth conditions of the late Ordovician. However more appropriate places for discussion of the relationship between CO2 and temperature would be CO2 lags temperature or Does CO2 always correlate with temperature or CO2 was higher in the Ordovician. I'd be happy to discuss these issues with you on a more appropriate thread.
92233. TimTheToolMan at 22:20 PM on 17 March 2011
       What would a CO2-free atmosphere look like?
       The whole idea of arbitrarily removing all the CO2 from the atmosphere and contemplating the resulting temperature is contrived and is no more useful than contemplating the temperature while ignoring (unknown) feedbacks. Ignoring feedbacks doesn't make the answer wrong, it is still correct and just as useless in any practical sense. Its far less OMG though, isn't it.
       Moderator Response: (DB) Your opinion is noted; however the excellent post by Chris still stands. The fact that others have found this thread intensely interesting & informative still stands, as well.
92234. JMurphy at 22:17 PM on 17 March 2011
       Republicans to Repeal Laws of Physics
       In addition to Tom Curtis's good examples, I would like to add Richard Dawkins and his Foundation for Reason and Science - he has wasted much of his time battling against Creationist beliefs. Also see his book The Blind Watchmaker. Also see : Science Museums Adapt in Struggle against Creationist Revisionism All part of what Creationists would call an ongoing debate, in just the same way as the so-called skeptics would say with regard to AGW. As Tom also noted, the tactics are pretty much the same and involve some scientists who both believe in Creationism (i.e. they are anti-science) and doubt AGW (ditto). Anyway, this is all pretty much off-topic by now but I think it has been shown that a debate involving non-experts is not the same as scientific arguments which are the normal state of play within good science.
92235. alan_marshall at 22:00 PM on 17 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       gattuso @ 10 (and Rob Painting @ 13) Thanks for the link. It looks like a good site. I checked the latest article title "Ocean Acidifciation: The Acid Sea" published 16 March 2011, and I quote: Will organisms be able to adapt to the new ocean chemistry? The evidence from Castello Aragonese is not encouraging. The volcanic vents have been pouring CO2 into the water for at least a thousand years, Hall-Spencer told me when I visited. But the area where the pH is 7.8—the level that may be reached oceanwide by the end of the century—is missing nearly a third of the species that live nearby, outside the vent system. Those species have had "generations on generations to adapt to these conditions," Hall-Spencer said, "yet they're not there. So your own site suggests that conditions expected by the end of century will cause one third of species to disappear! I also refer you to the article “The Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction May be Underway”, posted on this site on 9 March, with which I agree. I have been careful with my language, but I don’t regret using the words “the planet is dying”. Obviously I am not saying that all life is under threat. What I am saying is that with the climate projected to warm by 4 degrees C, and ocean surface pH projected to fall to 7.8 by the end of the century, many species are threatened with extinction due to human negligence, threatening the capacity of the Earth to support its present population. In my article I included Dr Will Howard’s photos showing damage to Globigerina bulloides. This damage did not occur in simulated conditions, but in 2007 in ordinary Southern Ocean seawater. It doesn’t look very encouraging, does it?. I know many scientists, and some of my colleagues on this site, dislike emotive language. But I think it is rational to use language proportionate to the threat, and the threat we face is unprecedented in history.
92236. alecpiper at 21:59 PM on 17 March 2011
       Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
       1. The "last word" from Richard Alley is truly pathetic. It is indisputable that in the past the earth has been significantly hotter than it is today. In those hotter periods there nwas no AGW. I agree that there are "finger prints" in the present but that is irrelevant to the basic that it was warmer in the past. 2. Dr Easterbrook simply illustrates that the earth has been warmer. That is not disputed.My understanding of Dr Easterbrooks research is that he "proves" there is no correlation between between temperature and CO2 levels.
92237. Tom Curtis at 21:52 PM on 17 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       les @616, with some minor amendments, and one major one, your variant box would much better model the greenhouse effect. However, it is not clear that it raises any issues of thermodynamics not raised with my simpler box. So, unless it is clear that we cannot get agreement that no additional thermodynamic arise in the simple model, than I would rather stick with that. If it becomes clear that we cannot get that agreement, we should introduce one variation at a time until we can isolate the actual issue in dispute. The one major disagreement, by the way is the infinite heat capacity. An infinite heat capacity would imply the walls of the box would neither heat nor cool, no matter who much radiation they absorbed or emitted, which would itself violate the laws of thermodynamics (I think) and certainly not accurately model any real physical process.
92238. Rob Painting at 21:36 PM on 17 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       Hey Alan, Jean-Pierre Gattuso commented on your article. I've read a lot of his work in the scientific literature. I think he has a point, the planet won't die. Humans and many other species may, but not the planet.
92239. alan_marshall at 21:19 PM on 17 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       WheelsOC @ 9
       Yes, there are skeptics who think that the term ocean acidification is a misnomer. They argue that while the pH of the ocean remains above 7.0, the ocean is alkaline, and so it is. But as the references in my article explain, and as my above post (11) demonstrates, the ocean chemistry that supports marine life is compromised when conditions become less alkaline through rising emissions of CO2. It does not require blue litmus paper to turn red for biodiversity to be lost. I am happy to use the term "ocean acidification" as I am in the business of climate communication and this is the name by which the phenomenon is best known. In so far as dissolved CO2 increases the supply of H+ ions (see equation 1 in the main article), it moves the chemical balance further towards the acid end of the pH scale.

92240. alan_marshall at 21:02 PM on 17 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       Here is another photo showing the damage to marine life we can expect to see if we do not act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As you can see from Fig. 1 in the article, the projected end-of-century pH for all oceans other than the Arctic, under a business-as-usual scenario, is 7.8. In the Arctic along the coast of Siberia it gets down to 7.6. A recent study of the effects of sea water with pH of 7.6 was published on 7 March 2011 by The Age newspaper in Melbourne. As you can see from the photo below, the growth of sea urchin larvae under such conditions is very seriously impeded.

       

92241. les at 20:47 PM on 17 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       615 Tom Curtis I like, understand and agree with your model, but..

       The box is not a model of the greenhouse effect; but it does have the virtue that any thermodynamic issues raised by the greenhouse effect are also raised by this box, but in a simplified form.

       it doesn't do the thermodynamics justice. (For fun) To do that the 'mirrored' walls should be perfectly black, perfectly insulated and with infinite heat capacity; the radiation hitting them would be perfectly converted into heat and the walls would black-body radiate. Then if the half-mirrored front was, instead, transparent at wavelength λ (give or take), and opaque else where: the box would heat up until radiance from the walls reaching the window at λ equaled the radiance coming in... With a little more messing around (2nd window, transparent at a different wavelength, etc.) you'd have a green house 'box'.
92242. shoyemore at 20:41 PM on 17 March 2011
       Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
       Charlie A #44, I am not a climatologist so all I can do is eyeball the charts as if they were an industrial process, say the temperature of an ongoing exothermic reaction in a large vessel. There is a useful model that if the records are random in a period of static temperature, the probability of a record in the nth datum (i.e. that is is greater or less than all previous data) is 1/n. Using that to set an expectation, neither the periods when cold records or hot records predominate in Figure 2 are random outcomes. So they must be due to extrinsic processes. In other words, we must look to processes that warm or cool the globe to explain the excursions in Figures 2 and 3. The conventional wisdom is that (human induced) CO2 warming did not set in on a large scale until the 1970s, whereas warming earlier in the century was due to other (natural) variations. There is nothing explicit in the chart to upset that view.
92243. shoyemore at 20:21 PM on 17 March 2011
       Maximum and minimum monthly records in global temperature databases
       Eric (Skpetic), The average records per station over all of New England in your example is 50/20 = 2.5, in which case neither Boston nor Harford would depart significantly from the norm. More events is usually better in statistics, though Bayesians dissent from that as 0 events can still be used to update a prior distribution.
92244. scaddenp at 18:33 PM on 17 March 2011
       CO2 lags temperature
       Without reading the papers and associated evidence, I cant comment on the reliability of the data. However, as a general rule, anything "paleo" in investigation has to necessarily form an hypothesis based on what we do know and then project back into the past to see if it fits paleo data. A fit gives us confidence that our ideas are not grossly wrong but cant of course "prove" that we are right. Since this is a climate blog concerned with the more immediate future of planet, you also need to recognize the significance (and insignificance) of this work. The geological processes at work here are largely irrelevant to climate of next 100 years. However, the predictions for the next 100 year ARE dependent of a model of drawn from physics (not paleoclimate). If this model of climate is correct, then it must also work (within the uncertainities) for paleoclimate.
92245. Rob Painting at 18:27 PM on 17 March 2011
       Maize harvest to shrink under Global Warming
       John D - Map e) shows what 1° C will do to current areas under a managed rain-fed regime: That is, taking the results from the trial data analysis and applying it to the areas presently under maize cultivation, 65% of areas see a decline. And under drought management (map f) all areas decline, with 75% of areas seeing declines of over 20%. Those are the take-home points. The fact that presently uncultivated areas will be negatively impacted too (seemingly your gripe) simply means that there doesn't seem to be any upside.
92246. gattuso at 18:13 PM on 17 March 2011
       Examining the impacts of ocean acidification
       "Our planet is dying" I believe that this is a very excessive statement that should not be on this otherwise excellent web site. I invite readers to check the EPOCA blog (http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/) for more recent and better documented general articles on ocean acidification and its effects on marine organisms and ecosystems. Note also that the Oceanography special issue referred to at the beginning of this post was published in 2009, not last year. Jean-Pierre Gattuso, coordinator of EPOCA
92247. Tom Curtis at 18:06 PM on 17 March 2011
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       RW1, would you consider the following simple model: The model is a simple box with mirrored back and sides. We will assume the mirrors are 100% efficient, and reflect all light. The box is covered with a material that is completely transparent to all light coming from outside the box. However, it is half mirrored on the inside, reflecting exactly 50% of all light from the inside of the box, and transmitting without loss the remainder. The box is not a model of the greenhouse effect; but it does have the virtue that any thermodynamic issues raised by the greenhouse effect are also raised by this box, but in a simplified form. In this box, we have the following equalities: 1) Incoming light (A) = Outgoing light (C) (by virtue of conservation of energy). 2) Light reflected from the lid (D) = light transmitted by the lid (C) = Outgoing light (by virtue of the defined half mirrored property of the lid). 3) Light reflected from the back = light striking the underside of the lid (B) = light transmitted by the lid (C) plus light reflected by the lid (D) (by virtue of conservation of energy). Therefore 4) Light reflected from the back of the box (B) = light reflected from the back of the lid (D) plus Incoming light (A) = 2 x A (again, by conservation of energy. By simplifying the situation, ie, by getting rid of any concerns about convection and light absorbed by the atmosphere etc, we should be able to raise any issues you have with the consistency of the GHE with the laws of thermodynamics without getting hung up on trivia. Do you agree? Do you also agree with me that this simple model does not violate any laws of thermodynamics?
92248. trunkmonkey at 18:04 PM on 17 March 2011
       CO2 lags temperature
       299.PPS. Berner is alledging here that he has some knowledge that there was a lot of silicate (read rhyolitic and granitic)well drained upland rock for the giant Gymnosperms (tree ferns) to sink their roots into 370 Ma. He goes on to alledge that he has somehow tested this in modern soils. Assuming for the moment he is correct, this might explain the decent into a glacial epoch, but not the climb out.
92249. scaddenp at 17:57 PM on 17 March 2011
       CO2 lags temperature
       I'm unfamiliar with paper you are trying to cite. Thanks to colleague who are interested in PETM and want to use my hydrocarbon maturation model to examine sedimentary basin feedback, I have suddenly had to come to speed on PETM. The models I was referring to are GCM-type models used in PMIP. See Ch 6 of WG1 for access to the enormous literature on this. I would readily agree that the relative contributions of various carbon sources and sinks are still uncertain. However, the climatic response response is well captured. The main takeaways though are: 1/ carbon-cycle feedbacks in the SHORT term (1000's of years) amplify the effects (positive and negative) of other climate forcings. 2/ The CO2/CH4-feedback in the glacial cycle is from ordinary organic carbon. 3/ The CO2 in the atmosphere today is from fossil fuel sources. 2 and 3 are evidenced from carbon isotope data. Carbon-cycle feedbacks are slow. Most AR4 models ignored them as irrelevant for next 100 years. If this is incorrect, then warming would be worse.
92250. ribwoods at 17:43 PM on 17 March 2011
       Positive feedback means runaway warming
       I think the distinction between gain < 1 (no runaway even though feedback is positive) and gain > 1 should be explicitly stated early in the article. Climatology's use of "positive" (gain could be either > 1 or < 1) in regard to feedback is not the same as electronics's use of "positive feedback" (gain strictly > 1), IIUC. _That_ is why "positive feedback" has such a strong connotation of "runaway" for many newcomers to climate science. I think you need to jump on this early and explicitly in any discussion of "runaway", in order to cut down on misunderstandings. Don't bury the significance of _gain_ halfway down the article at the end of a paragraph ("and call the gain factor g").

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