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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 9201 to 9250:

  1. There is no consensus

    ERRATA @830,

    A quick response to your specific enquiry regarding our global carbon emissions. You suggest that I talk of "almost no progress in cutting down emissions."

    With or without AGW, the emissions from our use of fossil fuel is ever being lessened by the pursuit of fuel efficiency measures. There is also the drive towards renewable power sources which is obviously driven by a desire to combat AGW. Folk can point to the UK where we have reduced our carbon emissions to well below the 1990 levels (I hear the denialists talk of UK carbon emissions being the lowest since the 1890s.) Yet this was achieved very much by exporting those emissions to China and adopting gas rather than coal with fuel efficiency playing a minor role.

    It is the global emissions that are important. Sadly these continue to grow. In successive 5-year periods since 1985 (with 2015-17 extrapolated to a 5-year period) the global growth in carbon emissions (GCP data) has been 6%, 6%, 10%, 18%, 13%, 6%. Until those figures become negative, there is every reason to, well, to be pessimistic or to take the argument to the public/government or to jump up and down and scream at politicians for being useless or to superglue yourself to an underground train to get your message onto the evening news.

    I have not been apart of the direct-action campaigns but have for a quarter of a century been apart of the other three.

  2. There is no consensus

    Errata @830 ,

    no, those "500 scientists" are not fully 100%  wrong.  But if they were an aeroplane . . . then they'd be so far from flightworthy, that no engineer would let them out of the hangar ~ for fear that they'd crash just moving along the taxiing strip.

    In less humorous terms: the "500" letter is so error riddled, that it would take a large number of paragraphs to detail it all.  Not just errors, but deceptive rhetoric.

    Politics :- as of those extremists who think that all the world's scientists are in a century-long plot/conspiracy to impose a communist world government, and are faking all the data to that end.

    Religion :- as of those extremists who think that the Christian Deity is/will step in to correct any significant global warming.   And Prof Lindzen who takes an [Old Testament] view that Jehovah won't allow more than slight warming (at least, that was his view during a 2006? interview with a sympathetic interviewer ~ and I haven't detected any change since.)

    All these guys are intelligent (though the vast majority do not research or publish in the climate field) and all are so strongly influenced by Motivated Reasoning (political/religious) that they end up producing nonsense.

    Errata, if you are not inclined to some hours of heavy reading at websites like NASA, AAAS, U.K. Royal Society, etc . . . . then you might enjoy some youtube videos by Potholer54 (science journalist) on climate matters.  He debunks a lot of the common myths which have been circulating.

    Potholer54 is polite & amusing [ how refreshing ! ].

    You will be especially amused by his 5 short videos exposing the "Monckton Bunkum" mendacities of Lord Monckton (who is a sort of pop star among denialists . . . denialists who fawn on him, especially at WattsUpWithThat website.)

    The partisan "Green New Deal" is just local American politics, and is not a consequence (or reflection) of genuine climate science.  Best to first understand real climate science: and only then give thought to remediation of the AGW situation.

  3. Postma disproved the greenhouse effect

    Brian Hughes - Your description of "induced emission" matches the textbook definition of "stimulated emission"; I think you have two terms for the same phenomena. 

    Stimulated emission (to be of any significance) requires several things: You need a population inversion, with more molecules at higher energies than statistically normal when undisturbed - this requires additional energy pumped in. The emission will quickly die off without an optical resonating cavity, as photons leave the pumped site. And to make use of that energy, one end of the resonating cavity should be 'leaky'. The result is a projection of coherent light powered by the 'pumping'. Without these supports any stimulated emission results in just one (fairly infrequent) photon exchange. 

    In short, you need a laser. Or for microwave frequencies, a maser. 

    Stimulated emission just isn't a factor in GHG energy exchanges. Spontaneous emission over a molecularly associated characteristic spectra, on the other hand, is.

  4. There is no consensus

    Hi again and thanks a lot for all the answers and links, I extremely appreciate it!
    Unfortunately, I didn't go through all the links and I didn't read a lot since it's a bit late and I'm dead tired and have to wake up early for work. I definitely will read it as soon as I catch some time, but I'll take some time to at least put my thoughts here, hope that you'll feed me with more material so I won't have a chance to be bored tomorrow :)

    First, about the "500 scientist" paper. To be honest, I didn't recognize a single name from people signed there, I'm still fairly new in this whole topic, and I recognize just some names from IPCC, however, before sharing links with you here, I did a bit of a homework and tried to look up names from "500 scientist" letter and the very first name on the list (Professor Guus Berkhout) already did arise some suspicion ((...) once worked in the oil and gas industry and became a respected professor after that. Berkhout started his career working for Shell. — Wikipedia). But digging deeper and deeper, I came across the thing which I really don't like (from any side) - articles which "prove" that some of the conclusions of non-deniers (how do we call them anyways?) were driven by money, greed, political or personal agenda. I don't have links now, but I'll give my best to share them eventually with you. This I find extremely disturbing, because whenever I come across such article/statement, my personal conclusions just fall apart and divert me from logical thinking (I suppose that's the whole point of those in the end). I simply cannot believe that people who we call "scientist" are able to degrade them to such a low level to try to discredit others by silencing them or by using silly "arguments" like pointing out their work history. Both of you (MA Rodger and Eclectic) concluded your comments by completely discrediting their letter. This is exactly what I tried to point out in my previous comment — there is no "questioning" whatsoever. How so? Are you saying that everything stated there is 100% incorrect (well, some of the statements sounds dumb even to me tbh)?
    I tried to look up a bit about Lord Mockton and GWPF, but I'm really tired now and will try to continue with that tomorrow. What I found interesting in that letter what the sentence in the first paragraph on second page - Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. It really might be just a propaganda trick, but that sounds honest to me in some way, and I don't understand why non-deniers sit with them and give them a chance to talk (or did this happen already in the past)?

    About Myles Allen's message... I didn't even notice the comment section, might go through it tomorrow a bit, although I tend to avoid such things just because of mentioned "opinion-fest". But his article somewhat triggered my skepticism again. The first time, it was this particular article which I still cannot explain to myself whether is it true or not?
    (Just a quick digression, while searching for this one, I came across this link in comments section. Is this really true?)

    Anyways, to cut my story short and get to some direct questions, looking forward for your answers!

    @MA Rodger:
    I might be wrong, but you sound a bit more pessimistic than others? Are you saying that in last couple of years there is almost no progress in cutting down emissions, because I personally believe that western world is really giving its best (well, to some extent) to do so.

    To any of you:
    As I said, you discredited completely the "500 scientists" letter with labelling it "unscientific nonsense", "extremist political/religious positions", stating that "they still don't have any actual evidence", "unsupported assertions, none of which stand up to scrutiny", etc. Now, pardon my ignorance, but I personally didn't get and impression that this is politically/religiously motivated and also that there might be "scrutiny material" there (e.g. "Warming is far slower than predicted" or "Climate policy relies on inadequate models"). On the other hand, current "solutions" to climate change problem (e.g. "Green New Deal" or "Climate Strike") have hidden political agendas all over the place (even SR15 report, which I didn't read yet, has a part "efforts to eradicate poverty" in the title description. I still cannot understand what "getting rid of poverty" or has to do with climate change, this sounds very political to me).

    And finally, maybe a bit off topic here, but the thing which is bothering me for some time now is, how comes that no one in this climate change topic is mentioning SOx or NOx emissions? To my understanding (again, pardon my ignorance), those are directly contributing to GHG chemical reactions and we don't have enough knowledge of direct impact on climate, however, they are massively emitted from cargo ships which still make more than 90% of world's transport.

    Thanks again for your time and effort, apologies for any errors/typos and general stupidity, it's getting pretty late now, I should avoid commenting at this hour :)

  5. Postma disproved the greenhouse effect

    Brian Hughes @93,

    I'm not familiar with "induced emission" but...

    "Spontaneous emission" is the mechanism where an excited molecule drops to a lower energy state and doing so emits a photon. The direction is any-which-way because the reason for the excited state is almost always due to collision with fellow gas molecules. These collisions happen in micro-seconds so an excited molecule (be it by the absorption of a photon or by collision) will have very little chance to undergo spontaneous emission which on average takes tenths-of-a-second but there are a great number of molecules entering that excited state due overwhelmingly to collision.

    "Stimulated emission" is when a passing photon 'drags' a photon out of an excited mollecule and this will be in the same direction as the passing photon. This will occur within the GH-effect but as photons have a comparatively short path-length, they are themselves going any-which-way and thus these extra "stimulated emissions" will not constitute some extra directional flux of energy.

    I am no expert but I have a feeling that "induced emission" is just another name for "stimulated emission."

  6. There is no consensus

    My apologies to MA Rodger.  I was overly brief in my comment above ~ I meant that the sort of "discussions" usually following on the tail of the "12 years" statement (wherever it gains headlines) . . . are discussions/posts which turn into an opinion-fest.

    The statements by author Myles Allen were very calm and reasonably objective, and illustrate how very little time we have to get things on the right path.  The exact amount of time & tonnage of burnt carbon we can "afford" is, of course, rather fuzzy ~ as is the 1.5C figure itself.  It's a reasonable best estimate . . . and we shouldn't let rhetoric (by denialist propagandists) conceal the unpleasant reality of it all.

    The comments following the Myles Allen OP were fairly civil, but slid off into an opinion-fest.  But it was extraordinary to see that the comments were not bombarded by avalanches of bots & intellectually-insane trolls & rabid political extremists & CO2-physics-denying crackpots.  It's almost as though a sensible moderation policy was in full effect !

    OTOH, there's no getting away from the conclusion that "the 500 scientists" was an example of scientific nonsense & false/misleading propaganda . . . so typical of anything involving the hand of "the error-prone Lord Monckton".  Or anything involving the hand of the Heartand Institute or the GWPF or their ilk.  Nothing new, there.

  7. Postma disproved the greenhouse effect

    I'm asking here because I can't see a better place.

    Einstein (1917) "A Quantum Theory of Radiation" described 3 types of emission; spontaneous emission, induced emission, and stimulated emission.

    For an induced emission of a photon, the emission of an identical photon is simultaneous and in the same direction as the incident adsorbed photon due to the conservation of momentum, no matter how small. Same for stimulated emission (?).

    Pierrehumbert (2011) says the momentum goes into changing the internal energy of the molecule which then undergoes spontaneous emission at some random time in some random direction and thereby he seems to be saying there can be no induced emission. At least that is my understanding of the two papers. (Given the usual boundary conditions, i.e. ideal gas, thermodynamic equilibrium, etc.)

    My confusion is why is there no induced emission when a GHG molecule adsorbs an incident photon and conservation of momentum can be ignored like Pierrehumbert says. Also, wouldn't there be some stimulated emissions from an excited GHG molecule from the passing of a photon of the required frequency?

  8. There is no consensus

    ERRATA @826,

    I would disagree with Eclectis @827 in that the Myles Allen OP is correctly explaining why the simplistic message “the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says we have 12 years” is being used unscientifically.

    However I would entirely agree with Eclectic @827 that the letter from  "500 prominent scientists" is entirely non-scientific nonsense.

     

    The message from Myles Allen is that this 12 years concerns the time it takes before potentially we hit the +1.5°C of global warming. The adoption of +1.5°C at the COP21 meeting in Paris in 2018 was a wake-up call to global governments from science and it does show that we were potentially 12 years away from breaching that limit although a more likely timing would have been 22 years. Yet the significance of the SR15 report failed to spur governments globally into appropriate action. The wake-up call was given but the world hit the snooze button, again.

    Mind I was using a 12 year message even before SR15. My own version of a 12 year message would be that, at current levels of emissions, we had 12 years' worth of CO2 emissions to play with. That was emissions limits set out against a +1.5°C limit within  the 2013 IPCC AR5 Synthesis Report. (The limit of 550Gt(CO2) from 2011 is buried away in Table 2.2 which represents 14 years of CO2 emissions from 2011.) And note we are now halfway through that 12 years' worth of emissions.

    The IPCC message has always relied on politicians picking up on the dry scientific message that we are stuffing the planet's climate. Emissions targets are watered down and hidden away in documents because many politicians are unable to cope with that reality. Although the messages of the Climate Emergency movements are often less than scientific, if they convinces the world that we do have an emergency on our hands, I for one am not bothered that there is a scientific problem with the message.

     

    And then there is the letter from the usual set of denialists.

    They misrepresent thmselves. They are not "a global network of more than 500 knowledgeable and experienced scientists and professionals in climate and related fields." (At least, when they were 400  "independent Climate Scientists and Professionals" almost all were not "knowledgeable and experienced scientists and professionals in climate and related fields.") They make six unsupported assertions, none of which stand up to scrutiny. If you feel any of their bold claims deserve more than this summary dismissal, do say.

  9. There is no consensus

    Errata @826 [perhaps you will later change name to Corrigenda?  ;-)   ]

    the SkepticalScience website is primarily about the science, not "opinion".

    Science is advanced by research - and is published in reputable peer-reviewed journals.  Not every such scientific article is perfect; but en masse and over time the published science has a very good track record (in the "hard sciences" that is ~ not so much in the "medical" or "psychological sciences".)

    That is why opinion is next to worthless ~ except where it is based on real science.

    And that is why opinion-fests such as the ones you mention ~ '12-years-to-climate breakdown' ; and '500-scientists-no-climate-emergency' ~ have little or no relevance to the important questions regarding the recent rapid warming of the physical world.

    The thread here about consensus is really just an indirect way of examining the mainstream climate science.  As I mentioned in my post #822 [above] . . . there are hardly any "climate-skeptical" scientists remaining.  Forty years ago, there was space for scientists to be skeptical about AGW ~ but the current state of "overwhelming consilient evidence" is so clear-cut that "contrarians" have nothing left apart from empty rhetoric to support their so-called position/positions.

    How and why . . . can you yourself benefit your scientific understanding, by spending time on the two rather political opinion-fests you cited?   This website [ "SkS" ] does have a weekly events section, where opinions can be expressed on more sociological aspects of AGW, if that's what you're wishing.  (But that's not really related to this thread's consensus topic. )

    And you'll find that the "500" scientists are talking a great deal of unscientific nonsense (their Motivated Reasoning comes from extremist political positions and from extremist religious positions . . . and they still  don't have any actual evidence to back themselves up ! ).

  10. Climate's changed before

    MA Rodger @ 788

    Thank you so much!!!!!

  11. There is no consensus

    Hi all!

    First of all, thanks for this magnificent website, lots of interesting material and comments, but still a lot left to read and learn.

    Please, allow me to quickly introduce myself, I live in a place around 66 degrees north and I'd refer to myself as "sceptic", rather than "denier", although I've been labeled in many different ways just because of a different opinion. I would consider myself as some sort of "environmentalist" since I am aware of the planet I live since my young ages and I took care of my actions to preserve my environment as much as possible. Today, I work for a company closely related to environmentalism and I'm trying to teach my child to be aware of our planet, however, in a very different way than other kids of his age are doing every Friday on the street. I am not a scientist of any sort, but I do consider myself fairly smart, especially because I'm in love with scientific method of "question everything" since the same young age, and this is the reason I consider myself a sceptic nowadays, not only when the issue of climate change is in question.

    The same "question everything" method inspired me to register here and ask few questions. I hope that people here are more reasonable and doesn't look at other people's questions as some kind of trolling tactics, as it is happening more and more often in "social media" places. All my questions will be honest and without no bad intentions. They might be silly and "ignorant", but hey, I joined here to learn something new, so apologies in advance for any stupidity coming from my mouth :) Honestly, I am very confused at this point regarding climate discussion because of constant opposing statements, studies, conclusions, I hope I'll get some clarifications here.

    Now, in past 2-3 days, I'm reading a lot around here, especially "Climate Myths" section and all the comments around. Seems like there's lots of smart people here with lots of knowledge about the topic, but what I didn't see often (actually probably never) is someone who would leave an impression of "questioning everything". Why is that so? Especially if someone presents material from contrarian scientists which is trying to "question" the opposing statements. It looks to me like one side is not quite ready to have a debate, while the other one is desperate for it and to send a message which is constantly being silenced. This kind of behaviour is moving me away more and more from my currently shaky belief in climate change, no matter how crazy that sounds.

    I am very happy that I came across this website because it started to bring back some logical conclusions in my mind, but then, just today, I noticed 2 articles which again started forcing me not to take anything written here for granted.

    To make it more interesting, one of the articles is from Myles Allen himself. It's not that he is denying anything, but he is somewhat confirming that lots of people got some things wrong and jumped to wrong conclusions (https://theconversation.com/why-protesters-should-be-wary-of-12-years-to-climate-breakdown-rhetoric-115489). The other article talks about my other point about the debate, and it really sounds to me like lots of other scientists are silenced and no one cares about their opinion. How in the world is that possible in the "science" in the first place? (https://climatechangedispatch.com/500-scientists-no-climate-emergency/). So, I assume that my other question would be, what are your opinios on those 2 articles?

    Thanks for your time and for all the answers!

  12. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

    Please update the link to the article from Santer 2007 --> https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/104/39/15248.full.pdf

    Moderator Response:

    [PS] Thanks very much for that. I have updated the Held 2000 link in the rebuttal as well.

  13. Climate's changed before

    TVC15 @787,

    800,000 RSL

    This graphic has already appeared up-thread and is snatched from the web but originates from this webpage. (You need to click the top-left icon to get the 800,000 year version.) The underlying study is Spratt & Lisiecki (2015).

    If your denier who is "trying to say that Milankovitch Cycles are irrelevant" actually manages to achieve such an assertion, perhaps he should be asked what would trigger ice ages if not milankovitch cycles?

  14. There is no consensus

    JBeez , please also edit/correct: "exacerbated".  If English is not your first language, then you can make a post in your Mother Tongue — but you may be slow to get replies.  There are a few posters who make their post that way; but they are usually wise enough to make an English subscript, even if it comes across a bit clumsily (still, readers are tolerant enough to make the best of it).

    If you wish to improve your knowledge of the relative efficacies of CO2 and H2O, then please make your post in an appropriate thread [not this thread].

    Look at the upper left corner of this page :- "MOST USED Climate Myths" . . . and (from more than 100 threads) choose the best fit.  You might care to select Myth 30 or Myth 36 , perhaps.  Read the Basic (and more Advanced versions) and also look through the 100's of comments (some trashy, some very informative).

    That will help you in getting up to speed, on the science of Greenhouse.  Starting from your base position, you may well need rather more than that.  But, it will be a good first step in understanding what the scientists are talking about.

  15. There is no consensus

    *their, since i can't edit

  16. There is no consensus

    Unfortunately, CO2's effects on weather are overly exacerbated by scientists who haven't taken the time to study the behavior of matter in depth with respect to radiation. Until they stop talking about CO2 being responsible and move the conversation to H20, they're consensus doesn't mean anything. Study the matter before you make assumptions. CO2 is a miniscule GG compared to H20 and there's not enough of it to make a comparison at this point.

  17. Climate's changed before

    MA Rodger @ 780

    Where can I find easy to understand data that shows that only two of the last 8 eight had sea level rise higher than today?

    Also a denier is trying to say that  Milankovitch Cycles are irrelevant.  Where do they get idea that from I wonder?

  18. CSLDF: Events at NOAA Highlight Strengths and Shortcomings of Agency Scientific Integrity Policies

    More administration interference in good science: Clean-air scientists fired by EPA to reconvene in snub to Trump

  19. CO2 effect is saturated

    What michael sweet said...

    Also, pressure is simply the weight of all overlying gases. If air density were constant, air pressure would drop linearly with height. Air density isn't constant, because pressure drops with height. In the end, air pressure basically decreases logarithmically with height (to a first approximation).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_pressure

    In atmospheric models, they often use pressure as the vertical coordinate. Layers spaced equally in pressure would be roughly equally-spaced on a log(height) scale, or logarithmcially-spaced on a linear height scale.

  20. Using fallacy cartoons in a quiz

    Well-done, as always!

  21. CO2 effect is saturated

    You are progressing a little.

    Concentration is measured as Molarity which is moles per liter.  Ppm is a fraction of particles of dry air and is not concentration . For gases, molarity is directly proportional to pressure.  This varies with height.  Sometime pressure is used for concentration.

    It is a waste of time to attempt to model systems you do not understand.  The system is not saturated.

  22. CO2 effect is saturated

    The model in 542 is wrong I have to admit. It is wrong for two reasons:

    1) My impression was that vibrational energy and the kinetic energy mv2/2 were systems with little interaction. That is not the case. Michael Sweet in post 553 and Bob Loblaw in post 554 correct me here. Here is another reference (which gives a proportion of 10**9 instead of 10**5)
    https://sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/Another_question.html

    So in the new model the photon at a wavelength of 15 μm travels an average of 25 m before being absorbed by a CO2 molecule which goes into a vibrational state, and which then collides (whatever that means (distance between the centers of the molecules less than the minimum of the two radii?)) with a Nitrogen or Oxygen molecule and falls back into the zero vibrational state (why?) and transfers the vibrational energy into kinetic energy over the two molecules. So CO2 transforms the energy of photons of certain wavelengths into kinetic energy of the atmosphere close (around 25 m) to the position where the photon was emitted.

    2) According to Fig 1 in Zhong & Haigh (2013) of the 239 W/m2 outgoing longwave radiation only 22 W/m2 comes directly from the earth. This is from Trenberth & Fasullo (2012). In Tremberth, Fasullo & Kiehl (2009) it is still 40 W/m2.

    Looking down from outer space for each photon leaving the earth system at TOA (which is 100 km above the surface according to Google. Is that correct?) one should be able to specify its wavelength and the level above the earth surface where it originated. Around 9% originate at the surface. It would seem that 90% originates close to the surface, say less than 1 or 2 km, except for the wavelengths around 15 mm, which originate at 10 km. (In figure 4 in Zhong and Haigh (2013) the red line follows the Boltzmann-curve for 290K rather than 260K, see figure 3, the temperature at 5 km).

    The saturation of CO2 for certain wavelengths shown in the black blue and green graphs in Figure 6(c) in Zhong & Haigh (2013) suggest a transmission which decreases like the inverse of the concentration of CO2 as it approaches the limit value. That agrees with the model in post 542 but I do not see how the new model will give this result.

    I think concentration (ppm) is the variable of interest, not density (parts per m3). The twenty layers of my original model each contain the same amount of matter. Their height may vary. The effective CO2 concentration at 10 or 20 km is the same as at sea level. See for instance Aoki et al. (2003) Carbon dioxide variations in the stratosphere over Japan, Scandinavia and Antarctica. Tellus (2003) 55B, 178--186. CO2 is 50% heavier than oxygen or nitrogen, so one would expect it to settle down at the bottom. If it did it would form a layer of pure CO2 more than three meters high. A hundred years ago that was only a bit more than two meters!

  23. Climate's changed before

    I have to agree with TVC.  The exchanges between the experts and the well informed and the deniers has given me a more detailed look at the different aspects of AGW.  

    I've been here lurkinga couple times a day since the inception of this blog site.  I read most of the articles and love going to the commets where things get fleshed out. 

      

  24. Climate's changed before

    MA Rodger @780 

    Thank you so much. I learn so much from you all when I post the denialist blather that deniers challenge me with.

    Thanks for the link to the Rohling paper.

  25. CO2 effect is saturated

    " What would you say is happening going from 285ppm to 400ppm to 500ppm?"

    Well simply that theory predicts that globally averaged irradiation of the surface will increase by 3.7W/m2 for every doubling of CO2; and that measurements OLR and DLR confirm these calculations.

  26. Using fallacy cartoons in a quiz

    Where's the fallacy cartoon about Mont Blanc?

  27. CO2 effect is saturated

    qball17, science has always been political: thats exactly how your mates got rich and powerful in the first place and why you are defending their right to remain so....

  28. CO2 effect is saturated

    Thr insulation argument is nonsence!

  29. CSLDF: Events at NOAA Highlight Strengths and Shortcomings of Agency Scientific Integrity Policies

    Indeed JWRebel, in an administration that has moved the Bureau of Land Management headquarters to share a builidng with Chevron Oil  the Sharpie mark seems relatively trivial. But it's still worth considering the chilling effect overall when the twitstorm has passed on, leaving behind threats of retaliation against NOAA employees for telling the truth. Next time,they'll think of this and have to run an equation of "mortgage payment, or truth?"

    Further to your point and CSLDF's and for detailed damage reports don't miss the link to the Silencing Science Tracker embedded above. 

  30. CO2 effect is saturated

    "How do you feel about that the whole tread starts of with using an analogy of a water tank."

    There are three level of explanation on this topic. Basic, Intermediate, Advanced. The Basic version starts with an analogy because it is trying to help someone new to the topic, without technical background, understand the issue.

    You appear to be trying to disprove established science. Nothing wrong with that - science makes progress that way - but you cannot do that through pushing an analogy. Most break down at some point. You need to start with the Advanced and then move to a textbook on radiative physics if you have a  strong reason to believe CO2 is saturated, but I dont think you have grasped the importance of the temperature profile.

    Just remember, observations win in science. What we observe matches the theory.

  31. CO2 effect is saturated

    PringlesX - CO2 is not saturated where it matters, at the TOA where emission to space occurs. And we have direct evidence of that, for example Harries et al 2001, which demonstrates that there is decreasing energy leaving the TOA at greenhouse gas absorption frequencies between 1970-1997, creating an energy imbalance between incoming and outgoing radiation that can only result in the entire atmosphere warming.

    As to analogies - you can draw parallels between aspects of known and unknown systems with an analogy for instructive purposes, but the analogy isn't the real thing. You cannot disprove with analogies, only with the real science and system in question. In logic this is referred to as the False Analogy fallacy - easy to fall into, but best avoided.

  32. CSLDF: Events at NOAA Highlight Strengths and Shortcomings of Agency Scientific Integrity Policies

    I don't think this Dorian gaffe is a strong example, perhaps the weakest of the many serious instances in which this Administration has been trying to alter/silence/stop scientific voices, albeit probably the most well-known. The black cone was obviously a home-made extension of the official cone in the direction the hurricane seemed to be going, and not a "doctored" or "counterfeit" version, and Alabama was simply an amateuristic but not crazy or malign extrapolation. NOAA should have stuck to their forecasts without correcting Trump or entering into a dialogue with his Tweets. An official agency should simply ignore what other people are saying, especially if there might be a political angle to it. If reporters ask, just tell them: "No, not Alabama" without implying "There you have the dufus president going off like a loose cannon again", despite the latter also being a true statement (but not a meterological fact).

  33. CO2 effect is saturated

    PringlesX @563,

    The usual 'adding layers of insulation' analogy only works so far. It is the reduced temperature at the altitude where the IR emits into space that sits at the heart of the AGW mechanism. This is thus not akin to an extra insulating layer which maintains the outside layer temperature and boosts the inner layer temperature with more layers. Your idea of leaky outer insulation @549, or perhaps a space blanked backed by insulation layers, may be a way to a better physical representation in the analogy, but I'm not entirely sure it would greatly assist understanding.

    Concerning a 'lecture', it depends if you are just describing the actual GHG mechanism (which would on its own take about 3 minutes to fully explain) or an actual 'lecture' which can be usefully stretched to include background stuff like the S-B relationship, Planck spectrum, depth of the atmosphere, IR path-lengths, outward radiation at the TOA, why GHGs are GHGs, why they operate at particular wavelengths, etc; stuff you are probably already familiar with.

  34. CO2 effect is saturated

    Scaddenp:
    Analogies are a tool for promoting understanding by transferring understanding from a known process into a new area where the elements of the analogy are applicable.

    They are especially useful for explaing things to people who lack the technical background to work through real process.

    I agree 100%. So is it possible in this case?  If you were to have a lecture for a room of people with different backgrounds. What would you say is happening going from 285ppm to 400ppm to 500ppm?

    Thanks in advance.

  35. CO2 effect is saturated

    Pringlesx,
    It seems to me that your analogy fails becasue you used way too many sleeping bags. (100 bags with doubling CO2 equal to the hundredth bag).
    A better analogy would be one sleeping bag with doubling CO2 equal to another bag.

    It has been demonstrated that the difference is happening in the TOA. The transmission layer. And the CO2 is saturated in its absorption band. And the athmosphere is not only CO2, GHE is mostly due to water vapour.
    So go from one sleeping bag into two sleeping bags is very off.

  36. CO2 effect is saturated

    What you cannot do is disapprove a theory by inappropriate use of an analogy.

    How do you feel about that the whole tread starts of with using an analogy of a water tank.

    "Lets think about a simple analogy: We have a water tank."

  37. Climate's changed before

    TVC15 @780,

    Sea level during previous intergalacials has been the subject denialist blather preented on this thread before. This version is a little different from that @715 & @780 which asserted that all eight previous interglacials saw sea level metres above today's level. Of course there are only two previous interglacials that saw such sea levels - the Eemian (MIS-5e) and 400,000y bp the MIS-11.

    The Eemian was significantly warmer than today in northern latitudes. The link @780 states the temperature became +8ºC warmer than today in northern Greenland. So if temperatures do rise like that, we should expect significant SLR. The denialist appears to be saying that such temperatures are going to arise naturally. Of course, all interglacials are different. That is why only two of the last eight had sea level higher than today.

    MIS-11 is interesting because it was of longer duration than other interglacials. This resulted from the milankovitch cycle that triggered the interglacial being followed 20,000 years later by a stronger peak in the cycling extending the interglacial accordingly. A comparison of MIS-11 & the present Holocene is provided by Rohling et al (2010). The milankovitch cycles do not provide that extra boost for the Holocene so again there is no reason to have expected 20,000 more years of interglacial with sea level increasing above today's levels - not without AGW.

  38. Climate's changed before

    I meant angle!  

  39. Climate's changed before

    @ 781 scaddenp,

    Yes indeed what the heck! This denier portrays himself as being scintifically literate but he does not have me fooled. He's pompous and always results to insulting anyone's intelligence if they challenge the rubbish he put out.

    That's a great angel you provide in asking does he think the causes of SL rise and ice melt from the past are the result of the forcing's at work today.

  40. Climate's changed before

    What the heck indeed. That they confuse MIS-11 with the Emenian maybe? That they think causes of sealevel rise and ice melt in past are the same as the forcing at work today?

    Or more likely: their beliefs are not based on any rational analysis and that they are making 2+2=5 with motivated reasoning.

  41. Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming

    Depended a bit on your definition of "underdeveloped" for both exporters and importers.

    Export trade accounts for about 10% of meat production. Across all meats, exports (mt) 2017 are: (Source)

    World 32711
    United States 7718
    Brazil 7023
    EU 4983
    Australia 1905
    Canada 1897
    India 1736
    Thailand 1113
    New Zealand 991
    China 590
    Argentina 554

    and top Importers are:

    China 5423
    Japan 3635
    United States 2195
    Mexico 2167
    Viet Nam 1667
    Korea Rep of 1317
    Russian Fed. 1290
    EU 1286
    Saudi Arabia 976
    Canada 762

  42. Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming

    Skeptical Science, you mentioned “... less in developed countries (e.g. 3% in the USA)”. But how much of the meat consumed in developed countries comes from undeveloped countri?

  43. CO2 effect is saturated

    Analogies are a tool for promoting understanding by transferring understanding from a known process into a new area where the elements of the analogy are applicable. They are especially useful for explaing things to people who lack the technical background to work through real process.

    What you cannot do is disapprove a theory by inappropriate use of an analogy.

    If you want to prove some theory is wrong, then you need to show that correct application of the theory results in predictions that are incompatible with observation. Radiative theory so far spectacularly matches observation. You need to focus on understanding rather than looking for some reason to dismiss science.

  44. Was Greenland really green in the past?

    JDG @31 ,

    I certainly agree with your last paragraph.  (But not so much your final sentence ~ "boom and bust" sounds like a business sector.  The Greenland Viking saga was closer to "extinction event". )

    From a climate point of view, it was a rather small decline in temperatures from the Medieval Warm Period . . . and it should not have been enough to extinguish the Viking colonies.

    As you have noted, it was a combination of factors (including a failure of appropriate adaptation) which caused the collapse.  I used the word "geopolitical" as an umbrella term for the various events: an increasing southward push by the Inuit; taxational pressure from Copenhagen; increased competition from Russian suppliers of walrus ivory & renewed elephant ivory supplies from Africa.   Including a societal change in Europe ~ there was a gradual fall-off in demand for ivory as a luxury good.

    Like the average plane crash: a number of adverse circumstances came together.  

    The climate Take-Home Message is that the decline of the MWP was too trivial a matter to finish off the Greenland Vikings.

  45. Climate's changed before

    Thank you both so very much!

    I shared the information that you both offered and a snarky denier came back as spouted off this at me.

    Nothing is unprecedented. Try science.The science is settled:

    Palaeo data suggest that Greenland must have been largely ice free during Marine Isotope Stage 11 (MIS-11). The globally averaged MIS-11 sea level is estimated to have reached between 6–13 m above that of today.

    [emphasis mine]

    https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms16008

    “Even though the warm Eemian period was a period when the oceans were four to eight meters higher than today, the ice sheet in northwest Greenland was only a few hundred meters lower than the current level, which indicates that the contribution from the Greenland ice sheet was less than half the total sea-level rise during that period,” says Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Professor at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, and leader of the NEEM-project.

    [emphasis mine]

    https://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/news/n...e-of-the-past/

    The sea levels are going to rise and you can't stop it, so stop pretending you can.

    What the heck can I make of this denier's snarky reponse?

  46. Climate denier scientists think these 5 arguments will persuade EU and UN leaders

    Impressive letter coming from 500 "scientists"! There are 14 "ambassadors" signing the letter so let's have a look. Richard Lindzen? OK, he's a scientist though of course one that has been wrong repeatedly. Now HERE's a name that stands out; "The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, United Kingdom". Yes indeed, the bug-eyed man who is literally nuts is one of their "ambassadors." That's more than enough for me to dismiss the entire thing without even attempting an analysis.

  47. CO2 effect is saturated

    Pringlesx,

    It seems to me that your analogy fails becasue you used way too many sleeping bags. (100 bags with doubling CO2 equal to the hundredth bag).

    A better analogy would be one sleeping bag with doubling CO2 equal to another bag. 

    You also use a base concentration of CO2 as 400 ppm.  The pre-industrial revolution concentration of CO2 was 270 ppm so it will be doubled at 540 ppm and not 800 ppm as you stated.

  48. CO2 effect is saturated

    It seems like i wasnt alone to make that analogy.
    If possible, please change the scenario in any way you like, that explains what you believe is happening during a CO2 increase.

    https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/a-greenhouse-effect-analogy.html

    https://skepticalscience.com/SkS_Analogy_09_Greenhouse_effect_stack_of_blankets.html

  49. CO2 effect is saturated

    Bob,

    Your link to Eli Rabbit was very informative.  I had not previously seen data on how many collisions are needed to relax a CO2 molecule.  Previous discussions I have seen suggested 5-10 collisions.  Eli Rabbit provided data showing 105 collisions were needed!!  That meant that there are only about 100,000 relaxing collisions before the average time of emission and not many millions as I posted above.  The rate is a little lower at the escape altitude because it is colder and the concentration of molecules is lower.

    The point that most excited CO2 molecules relax and distribute their energy to nearby molecules and do not re-emit the photon still stands.

  50. CO2 effect is saturated

    The hole tread starts with an even simpler analogy of a water tank with pipes used to try to debunk the saturation effect. 

    With little googling, i found my analogy is used elsewhere, so it seems i wasnt that far out anyway.  (see links)

    So i am interested if its possible to debunk the saturation effect by setting up the scenario in the more correct way.



    https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/a-greenhouse-effect-analogy.html

    https://skepticalscience.com/SkS_Analogy_09_Greenhouse_effect_stack_of_blankets.html

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