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villabolo at 19:12 PM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Fred Staples @49: "Even if you accept, 47, the AGW theory, you must accept that not much happened while CO2 increased from 280 to 350ppm." Fred, you are not taking into consideration the time delay between the intial release of CO2 and the full temperature rise. There is also the issue of aerosols diminishing somewhat in our atmosphere at about that time period. -
Rob Painting at 19:11 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
Climate watcher -Cold fronts can change temperatures by 20 C in a few hours.
You must find it truly bewildering that the Earth's glaciers and ice sheets are disappearing, if that's the extent of your watching. Remember we are concerned about climate - the weather averaged over longer time frames. It can cause changes in environmental conditions which are essentially permanent relative to the lifetimes of many species. Not just the lifetimes of bacteria.Were species actually to be so sensitive, one would ask the obvious question, why didn't they all go extinct at the end of the last ice age? or at the Holocene optimum?
Why would you expect them to all go extinct?. Seems like a strawman argument to me. Regardless many species did go extinct during the ice ages . Seen any woolly mammoths walking around lately?. The problem with the Anthropocene extinction is that we have fundamentally altered so many natural systems. Chopped down many of the world's forests and converted them into grassland., thereby removing a large chunk of natures natural sediment filter. On top of that, to feed humanity's rapacious appetite, much of the land has been converted to grow monoculture, or farmland to feed grazing animals used for food. In order to achieve high productivity we have used fossil fuels to manufacture artificial fertilizers. These artificial fertilizers, which boost plant growth, contain high levels of nitrogen & phosphate which leaches readily into rivers and streams (remember we've crippled nature's natural filter). The excess nitrogen and phosphate boosts algal growth in waterways, because algae are essentially water-living plants. This causes eutrophication, i.e. we get algal blooms, which chew up oxygen in the water, when the algae die (they have short lifetimes) bacteria break down the algal remains and in the process further deplete oxygen in the water. It just so happens to be inconvenient to many species to not have any oxygen - if they can't escape they die. This is also happening in coastal waters because ultimately the nitrogen and phosphate run-off ends up in the ocean. Guess what?, the coastal seas are becoming eutrophied as well, and there's the additional impact of those land use changes letting more sediment reach the coast, it blankets and chokes marine life in near-coastal waters in extreme cases (I've witnessed it for myself over the last 3 decades where I live). This is a world-wide problem. Harmful algal blooms are increasing, hypoxic and anoxic zones in the ocean are increasing (although not solely because of eutrophication) And that's just one consideration. What about land use changes impeding species migration?. Toxic man-made chemicals in the environment?. Groundwater extraction?. Introduction of invasive species on a worldwide scale?, ocean acidification? (not a problem during the last few million years - no industrial civilization back then), the speed of warming? (much higher than the glacial/interglacial rate) The speed of change and the numbers of changes we have made to natural systems should be of concern, but that's a value judgement I guess. These changes are well outside the conditions experienced on Earth for millions of years. Your frenetic hand-waving changes none of this. When you start to understand how things operate in the natural world. It's hard not to worry. And personally I don't find this study wholly convincing, but hey, that's just one take. -
Paul D at 19:09 PM on 9 March 2011Interactive animation of the climate change impact on agriculture
johnd: "What percentage of trees in what percentage of sites worldwide have been able to provide suitable trees?" Please refer back to an earlier comment, where I suggested wider reading. It is a suggestion to broaden the reading material. The original commenter that I responded to suggested that all research pointed to only positive outcomes as a result of increased CO2. That is incorrect. Skeptics spend plenty of time saying the climate system is to complicated to understand. Yet instantly put forward statements that contradict that philosophy. -
Gilles at 18:56 PM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
agnostic : look at that : http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-june-16-2010/an-energy-independent-future -
Gilles at 18:53 PM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Moderator : "I hope that peak oil will wake us up, but I fear the response is more likely to be burning tar sands and/or liquefying coal" I would stress again that known facts do not support this fear. Tar sands will never exceed a few Mbl/d and are quite unable to compensate for losses of a few Mbl/d every year that should follow conventional peal oil (remember that N years of reserves really means 1/N loss in production each year after the peak). Concerning CTL, there hasn't been any massive CTL plant built during the 2008 burst of oil price, for a simple reason : coal has also spiked, and so have all commodities. CTL is not cheap, and won't be cheaper than oil, because oil prices impact all industrial processes (including extraction of oil itself). That's why peak oil occurs, despite high prices make unconventional resources more profitable : because this is offset by the increase of extraction costs and because demand is also lower. Nobody will ever build expensive plants for an expensive fuel that nobody will buy. "BAU" is just a silly idea, "B" will never be "AU" after the peak of conventional resources.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] italics fixed -
Riduna at 18:27 PM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Canadian oil sands may well be exploited initially and sell where there is no alternative. But who will buy their product at >$5/litre ($20/gallon), a price dictated by increasing demand for a decreasing product when electricity will be available to provide the same energy at a price equivalent of $2-$3/litre? We tend to judge the future on the basis of what exists at present, assuming technology remains unchanged but it changes all the time. Five years ago, who would have imagined the use of energy efficient LED’s? Daniel @ 56 In 5 years time the big revolution may have developed – production of relatively cheap, light, high density batteries able to recharge rapidly many thousands of times and hold sufficient energy to meet household and our transport needs. We may well have developed super-efficient photovoltaics which can be sprayed on surfaces, generating all the energy needs of buildings, even entire cities. The impact of such developments would make use of fossil fuels archaic globally. It is not beyond the wit of humans to make such break-throughs. The problem is our ability to do so in time to avoid the worst of global warming but it is said that desperation is the mother of invention. -
Mike Palin at 18:05 PM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
Miller, G. H., J. Brigham-Grette, R. B. Alley, L. Anderson, H. A. Bauch, M. S. V. Douglas, M. E. Edwards, S. A. Elias, B. P. Finney, J. J. Fitzpatrick, S. V. Funder, T. D. Herbert, L. D. Hinzman, D. S. Kaufman, G. M. MacDonald, L. Polyak, A. Robock, M. C. Serreze, J. P. Smol, R. Spielhagen, J. W. C. White, A. P. Wolfe, and E. W. Wolff. 2010. Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic. Quaternary Science Reviews 29(15-16): 1,679-1,715, doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.03.001. 6.5 Mb download available from: http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock/MillerArctic.pdfModerator Response: [DB] Hot-linked URL. -
From Peru at 17:32 PM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
The "Miller 2010" link doesn't work. It leads instead to the following message: "Sorry, your request could not be processed because the format of the URL was incorrect. Contact the Help Desk if the problem persists. [SD-001]" What is the TITLE of the Miller's article to search it on google? (searching just the author's name is useless in google)Moderator Response: [DB] Fixed links in post. The title is Temperature and precipitation history of the Arctic. -
dana1981 at 17:05 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
ClimateWatcher:But there's not much evidence that the current extinction rate is anything other than the background rate.
Let me guess - you didn't bother to actually read the article you're commenting on? -
ClimateWatcher at 16:55 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
ClimateWatcher - you seem to be missing the point that these species are already going extinct. It's an observational reality. And climate change isn't the only anthropogenic factor behind the accelerated rate of extinctions, as the article notes Species are always going extinct at the background extinction rate. Do consider that extinction is part of evolution. (traits that are liabilities are extinguished only by the extinction of those bearing the genes for those traits). But there's not much evidence that the current extinction rate is anything other than the background rate. And evidently, the revival rate seems to be increasing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_taxon -
Albatross at 16:54 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
ClimateWatcher @10, Please tell me that post was in jest? If not, you are missing the point (and the science, and what 2-4 K warming of global temperatures translates into) by galactic proportions. Feel free to write a rebuttal to Nature refuting Barnosky et al. -
Mike Palin at 16:47 PM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
Carter has excellent credentials in sedimentology and paleo-oceanography, but multi-disciplinary quantitative climate science is clearly beyond him. That's OK, we can't all be experts in everything. Unfortunately, he apparently thinks he has a place at the table to comment when he simply doesn't have the goods. This is probably a source of frustration that drives him to more and more extreme contrarian rants - a vicious downward cycle. The good news for science is that it moves forward in spite of the best or worst efforts of individual scientists. Carter's activities may be distressing and sad, but ultimately they are unimportant. Although the meme of the individual genius having brilliant insights that move science in great leaps forward is popular, it is an illusion. Science moves forward only when the community of scientists is prepared to accept and apply new knowledge. To paraphrase the bard, "Genius, is not in our stars, But in our ourselves, that we are underlings." -
ClimateWatcher at 16:44 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
adaptation/migration are slow processes. What matters is rate of change. Cold fronts can change temperatures by 20 C in a few hours. Sunshine can warm by 20 C from morning to afternoon. Seasons change temperatures by 40 C in half a year. The 1 to 2 C change over a century is just not that significant, particularly when life forms have already evolved to endure much larger changes. -
gallopingcamel at 16:41 PM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
muoncounter @45, While Tamino can prove almost anything to his own satisfaction there are many who disagree with his analyses. Tamino is very careful to choose 1975 as his start date because things might look a little different if he chose 1957 instead. I believe this is called "cherry picking" when your opponents do it. Here is my first attempt to post an image as a "live link". If it fails you should still be able to see the URL as a text string:
Moderator Response: [DB] Remember to use the img width="450" src= tag when posting images. Also, it is considered "good form" to also provide a link to the source image for those who want to see it larger than can be shown here. Example: Source Image -
ClimateWatcher at 16:20 PM on 9 March 2011The Climate Show Episode 8: Kevin Trenberth
#22 I posted some graphics of the the numbers I was looking at here: http://climatewatcher.blogspot.com/ Click on the images for a better view. Notice for the Solar output numbers vary from 1361 W/m^2 from the latest SORCE measurements to 1367W/m^2 used in the NASA GISS models. It's really only one quarter of this value times albedo that matters so the uncertainty is not so bad for Solar output. But next notice the Albedo values. The range is from ~29% (from the numbers in the Trenberth papers) to more than 33% from the NASA model. Multiply those values by an average Solar load and by one fourth and you get a range of forcing in excess of 8W/m^2. Then reflect that the forcing of CO2 doubling is a little more than 3W/m^2 and you can see that the unknown exceeds the signal we are looking for. And that's just for a current estimate. There is no good way to even begin to estimate what albedo was a hundred years ago and how it may have changed. Lastly notice the outgoing infrared (longwave) radiation. The GISS model indicates a decreasing trend while the NOAA satellite data actually indicate an increasing trend. The values range from about 231 to 239 W/m^2, again about 8W/m^2. Only one of these data sets or values used may be right but it may be that all of them are wrong. The numbers come from: www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/TFK_bams09.pdf http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/10.1175_2008BAMS2634.1.pdf http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/modelE/ http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/index.htm http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_obs.cgi?someone@somewhere -
Rob Honeycutt at 15:24 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
It's important to remember in all this that it doesn't take a large number of individuals to keep a species going. So, when we talk about an extinction event losing 80 or 90% of species, that is likely a much large percentage of the creatures on the planet. That's what gets me about the idea of "adaptation." Yes, humans are quite adaptable and we might very well not be one of the species that goes extinct. But it might very well involve the overall human population rapidly dwindling to a small fraction of the number of people alive today. Frankly, I'm not worried too much about humans going extinct. I'm concerned about the unprecedented misery inflicted upon people, who are yet born, in the transition to a dramatically reduced population. -
Tom Curtis at 14:39 PM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
Jimwit @9, brilliant questions. -
Tom Curtis at 14:38 PM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
I cannot describe accurately, and in detail my opinion of Carter's antics, and ethics, due to the comments policy of this blog. What I can say is that the best definition of an "expert" is somebody who knows all the obvious blunders in their subject, and how to avoid them. Carter, it appears, knows all the obvious blunders in his subject, and uses that knowledge as a play book. He is, therefore, no expert. -
Daniel Bailey at 14:32 PM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
I'm afraid I must agree with James' reply to Agnostic above. When faced with an entire loss of their way of life, people will make choices they believe necessary to ensure that way of life. In a case of art predicting life, Asimov touched on this in Nightfall. Faced with the loss of daylight on a planet with multiple suns, people resorted to burning their entire civilization to avoid facing the dark. Faced with peak oil, mankind now is tasked with finding viable energy alternatives or faces having to retool society at large. At least initially, the tar sands will go into full production. Until enough permafrost melts, initiating the long-feared clathrate release. Then and only then will enough take AGW seriously. Pray that then there will be yet time enough. The Yooper -
Albatross at 14:19 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
Good point logicman....this is not my area of expertise. Are there other examples besides the Inuit? -
muoncounter at 14:19 PM on 9 March 2011Extreme weather isn't caused by global warming
From the disaster of US House of Representatives Climate Science/EPA hearings, some good arose: Francis Zwiers testimony Observational studies show that warm temperature extremes have become hotter since the mid 20th century, cold temperature extremes have moderated, and precipitation extremes have intensified ... ... human influence is now affecting the frequency and intensity of high impact events that put people and their livelihoods at risk. Moreover, studies of two specific events (the European 2003 heat wave, and flooding in the UK in the autumn of 2000) have shown that the odds of those events had been increased substantially relative to the world that would have been in the absence of human induced increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases. Zwiers was invited by the minority members of the committee, who issued their own memo summarizing the "background on the state of understanding of climate change science because the majority hearing memo failed to do so." -
logicman at 14:01 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
I wasn't going to comment agin for now, but ... #6@Albatross says: " ... humans may not go extinct, but the hurting will start a very long time before event that is on the horizon. " For communities who rely on particular species to support their traditional way of life, climate shift may not eradicate species, but may so modify the environment as to make those species unreachable by traditional means. For many Inuit communities, the hurting started a while back. -
Albatross at 13:50 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
Well, this is depressing. ClimateWatcher seems to think there is only something to worry about if we lose most of the species. Losing 75-95% sounds pretty damn scary to me, and worse yet is preventable to some degree. Also, one of those species may even be Homo Sapiens, but I understand that that possibility is of little concern to someone who will unlikely be around after 2050.....Anyhow I was being facetious, humans may not go extinct, but the hurting will start a very long time before event that is on the horizon. -
logicman at 13:47 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
I have linked to this article in a recent comment on science20.com. I am interested to see what is said about this by people here and at science20.com before I comment further. -
scaddenp at 13:19 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
ClimateWatcher1 - adaptation/migration are slow processes. What matters is rate of change. Current rate is 0.8/century. LGM to HCO is say 6000, 8 degrees of change so only around 0.1/century. -
dana1981 at 13:18 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
ClimateWatcher - you seem to be missing the point that these species are already going extinct. It's an observational reality. And climate change isn't the only anthropogenic factor behind the accelerated rate of extinctions, as the article notes. -
Jimwit at 13:06 PM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
I'm fairly new to the whole AGW topic. I've always wondered, though, when people dismiss AGW because it's been hot before, and there's been a lot of variation in the temperature record, have any gone on record as saying how hot it would have to be to "prove" the anthropogenic part? i.e. by their own criteria (no science, no models, no measurement of forcings, etc) just statistics of past variation, how hot is hot enough? And if they've figured that out, are they willing that humanity should wait until it's that hot? Isn't that a fair set of questions to ask them? -
ClimateWatcher at 13:02 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
.... Were species actually to be so sensitive, one would ask the obvious question, why didn't they all go extinct at the end of the last ice age? or at the Holocene optimum? Since most species present today evolved through numerous glacial/interglacial cycles, it's pretty obvious they have evolved to a higher degree of tolerance of climatic conditions. -
WSteven at 12:27 PM on 9 March 2011The Earth's Sixth Mass Extinction May Be Underway
Read this the other day on Nature. Sobering stuff indeed. -
muoncounter at 12:14 PM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Fred S, That's quite a set of statements. You seem to be denying just about everything. I suggest doing some research on these questions; there's a lot you can learn. If nothing else, it would help you understand what's going on so you could ask better questions. To take just a few points: "The best we can do is to monitor changes at varying points across the globe, at more or less regular times, day and night..." Yes, lots of places; at lots of times, more or less. How, exactly, is that different from determining the global average temperature? "To relate the variations in this data to cause and effect is impossible" In a word, no. Of course, the relevant variations are not the day-to-day changes you may be describing. But cause and effect is clear: the global temperature warms when there is more heat coming in than going out. "I do not know why the medieval warm period happened. I have no idea why the globe then descended into the little ice age... " There are indeed folks who know quite a lot about these things. So the meaning of this statement is unclear. I do not know how (other than in general terms) a nuclear power plant works; does that mean I cannot use the resulting power? "no sign of any relationship to the increase in CO2 until the late 70's, by which time the CO2 concentration had increased from 280 to 350 ppm." CO2 forcing is nonlinear; proportional to the natural log of the ratio of CO2 at any time to the pre-industrial level (280 ppm). Ln(1)=0; at 350ppm, ln(1.25)=0.223. At 380ppm, ln(1.36)=0.305. So in that last 30ppm (its a mere 9% increase from 350 to 380), forcing increases by more than one third. "responsible for monitoring temperature and humidity in a nuclear power plant. The idea that it could be done with any degree of accuracy ... was, believe me, absurd." That is the biggest stunner of them all. Are you telling me that the safety inspectors at nuclear power plants cannot make accurate measurements? I'm choking on my donut, turning off the lights and moving to Shelbyville right now. -
Icarus at 12:05 PM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
My review of the first few minutes of that video went like this: Professor Carter gets off to a bad start by asking "is the climate warming?" in the context of the last 16,000 years. No-one is suggesting that anthropogenic global warming was occurring 16,000 years ago, so this is a pointless diversion from the question of whether the planet is warming today, as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions since the start of the industrial revolution, approximately 250 years ago. Then he looks at the last 10,000 years - same problem. Then he looks at the last 2,000 years - same problem again. Then he looks at the last 700 years - same problem again. Finally he looks at the last 100 years and acknowledges that in the only timescale that matters for anthropogenic influences, yes the global climate is warming. Does this sound like an unbiased and honest approach so far? Indeed not. Any reasonable person with a little understanding of climate science would already be suspecting an attempt to deceive the uninitiated. It gets worse. The professor then cites the last 8 years of temperature 'stasis', clearly implying that anthropogenic global warming should be a continuous, monotonic process which erases all natural interannual variability in global temperature, and that any failure of each year to be warmer than the preceding year must be a refutation of anthropogenic global warming. Well, anyone who knows anything about climate knows that the oceans continue to circulate, the sun continues its regular ~11-year cycle of varying irradiance and so on. It's simply a nonsense to imply that these things are going to cease to exist just because human activity is causing long-term global warming, and Professor Carter knows this, so already (only 5 minutes into the first video) we know for certain that his intention is to deceive, not to present an honest assessment of the topic. His next point is to say that 100 years is "too short a period of time over the dataset" to be statistically significant, but this again is nonsense - climate scientists work with 30 years of data on the basis that this is a long enough period for long-term global temperature trends to be distinguishable from natural interannual variability. 100 years is certainly long enough and the professor knows it - again, an attempt to deceive. He continues by pointing out other places in the 2,000-year record where global temperature rise is comparable in rate and magnitude to the rise of the last century. What is the significance of this? No-one is arguing that the climate never changed before as a result of natural forcings, so this has no bearing on whether or not human activity is causing warming now, as a result of greenhouse gas emissions. Another red herring. Nor does the current warming have to exceed previous warmings in either rate or magnitude in order to be anthropogenic. The professor says "Is warming happening? It depends". Well, no, it doesn't depend - warming *is* happening on the only timescale that is significant for the issue of *anthropogenic* influences, i.e. since the start of the industrial revolution. The intention is clearly to mislead the audience. The next illustration displayed by the professor shows the last 5,000 years or so, highlighting previous warm periods. He says "there is nothing unusual about the late 20th Century warm period", as if comparing the rate or magnitude of recent warming to past climate changes is enough to confirm or refute its anthropogenic origin - it isn't. Nothing about past climate changes has any bearing on whether or not we are causing the current warming - it only has relevance for the *consequences* of that warming, how easily we will cope with it and so on. The professor actually claims that "it's not going to get warmer next, it's going to get colder", on the basis that it has been colder in the past (during the several ice ages of the last 400,000 years), but in making this claim he completely ignores the fact that human activity has dramatically increased the atmospheric concentration of global warming gases and that this will inevitably continue for decades to come. I could go on, but really we've seen more than enough already. Professor Carter is clearly only interested in hoodwinking his audience by presenting them with arguments which he knows are misdirections, because he knows that all the palaeoclimate he is presenting has no bearing whatsoever on the issue of recent anthropogenic warming. [Note: I haven't attempted to 'tone down' my review of Carter's shoddy video - I hope it's acceptable here] -
Rob Honeycutt at 12:03 PM on 9 March 2011The Climate Show Episode 8: Kevin Trenberth
ClimateWatcher said... "Right. That means we cannot ascribe the observed warming to anything because the current budget cannot account for where the energy is going." Where do you get that? Have you read Trenberth's papers on this issue? -
Rob Honeycutt at 11:54 AM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
Phillippe... I honestly think this is one of the biggest problems with the climate issue. Nearly everyone with a keyboard and access to the internet is suddenly an "expert." This bit about Carter really irked me. Writing this I really had to tone down my original dismay at the shoddy research coming from him. There are lots of folks out there who are computer programmers who fancy themselves climate scientists, people who have never written a paper on any aspect of physical science. Those guys you can discount as just not knowing what they're doing. But Carter has published before. He knows how to produce work that can get through peer review. But when it comes to this issue he somehow feels justified at not doing any real homework. It's just inexcusable. Heck, and all this just came out of the first 6 mins of a 40 minute lecture. -
Alexandre at 11:39 AM on 9 March 2011The Climate Show Episode 8: Kevin Trenberth
ClimateWatcher #21 You implied something diferent in your question: the measurements of solar, albedo, and output LW are all greater than CO2 forcing Now you say that it's the uncertainty ranges that still leave room for doubt. Please provide the references for those uncertainties (I'm not saying they're not true, I just want to discuss it based on facts). But picking the far end of ranges to construct some doubt is very different from "measurements of solar, albedo and OLR being greater than CO2 forcing". -
adelady at 11:32 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
@49 Fred Staples ".... can only repeat that there is no sign of any relationship to the increase in CO2 until the late 70's, by which time the CO2 concentration had increased from 280 to 350 ppm. (Climate scientists at that time thought we were heading for another ice age)." Any relationship?? The only measure you refer to is average global temperature. There is no logical or physical reason why a system as large and complex as the earth's atmosphere, land and oceans should show signs of a particular trend, first and worst, in the average atmospheric temperature. If you leave average global temperature aside, we could choose an assortment of other indicators. Mass and extent changes in land terminating glaciers, margin of ice around Antarctica, nighttime minimum temperatures, winter minimum temperatures, ocean temperature and several other items. (Sorry - on checking I've done something nasty to my list of references, but there are several on this site anyway.) But in the end that doesn't matter a lot. The evidence linking CO2 emissions and adverse temperature change is already in. Arguing about whether there were unnoticed signs 60 or 80 or 100 years ago is for scientists interested in excruciating detail. For living in the world, we have more than enough evidence to work with. -
Philippe Chantreau at 11:19 AM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
Rob, as for not being a scientist, I have to say that it is by no means regarded as a hurdle by skeptics themselves. There is a large number of skeptic diatribes against argument from authority, what makes one an expert, the lack of necessity of having a degree in a field to reach that status, etc, etc. Considering that Monckton himself is anything but a scientist, Carter or anyone defending the SPPI's campaign could not possibly make such an argument in good faith. -
scaddenp at 11:07 AM on 9 March 2011It's albedo
Continuing from another thread RW1 - I am lost at what you are trying to do here but pretty obviously, you dont lose 48W/m2 for each m2 of cloud! You seem be trying to predict something about change in albedo associated with clouds but what about calculating the +ve change in DLR too? Clouds do both. -
Riduna at 10:58 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Hansen and Sato produced a brilliant Paper of research and scholarship deserving of far greater attention and the jangling of alarm bells. James Wight, through a lot of hard work has produced elegant summaries of that work in easy to understand language which should ensure that the Hansen Paper is more widely read and studied. The James Wight article is presented as a rebuttal of “Its not urgent” and there is no doubt it achieves this with its warnings of the perils associated with BUA, perils which I have warned against for years only to be ridiculed. In my view this article is a sound rebuttal of the linked concepts of “450ppm” and “less than 2C warming”. Politicians may love them but if pursued, they will prove lethal. Our problem is that emitters with vested interests (about 1,000 companies in Australia) will continue to resist moves to reduce carbon emissions, no matter what climate scientists tell us are the consequences. What they tell us is that if CO2 pollution persist at 450ppm or more for a prolonged period, result in melting of the WAIS and GIS with consequential SL rise of >2m by 2100, accelerating thereafter. The article goes further than Hansen and Sato in that it specifies action to reduce emissions. That process will prove very lengthy process because of the residence period of CO2 - unless we develop technology to extract it from the atmosphere and then use it for something useful like making oil for fertilizer and petro-chemical production. However, fossil oil is unlikely to remain a source of vehicle pollution beyond 2050 since Peak Oil was reached ~ 2008. The effect of Peak Oil is that thereafter the amount of oil extracted diminishes while demand for oil based fuels increases. The result: rapidly escalating prices putting the use of those fuels out of reach of ordinary consumers, possibly as soon as 2020 when electric vehicles will be de rigueur. Gas may become more widely used as a transitional fuel but it too is a finite commodity. Now don’t get me wrong. I fully support and in 2008 predicted/called for Australian coal to be phased out by 2030 (http://onlineopinion.com.au/documents/articles/coal.pdf) and I still expect that to happen. Even if other countries emulate our efforts, will that ensure that 450ppm is not exceeded by 2050 and double that by 2100? My critics (I have many) tell me coal is our mainstay, as it is in China, India, the USA and many other countries and there is no choice but to continue its use. My response is that Australia is blessed with the hottest, shallowest and most accessible hot granite in the world. Heat mining is well understood and underway and has proven capacity to meet Australia’s predicted needs for base load power for centuries to come. The world will be spurred to action when the first clear signs of impending catastrophe are so evident that they can not be ignored but not my stupid policies such as those advocated by the Opposition and climate change deniers – or by government targets of reducing emissions by 5% below 2000 levels by 2020.Moderator Response: I hope that peak oil will wake us up, but I fear the response is more likely to be burning tar sands and/or liquefying coal. A good argument has been made (Zero Carbon Australia 2020) that Australia's energy needs can be met by 100% renewable energy; we just need to convince our politicians of that. - James -
scaddenp at 10:48 AM on 9 March 2011CO2 lags temperature
This is continuation of argument in another thread. RW1 - Yes, I'm arguing the evidence doesn't support that GHGs (i.e. CO2 levels) are a significant factor in the glacial/interglacial cycle. Firstly, Timothy Chase (and the intermediate version here) challenges the idea evidence doesnt support it. Solar + albedo doesnt produce the same curve shape. Likewise how does NH change alter the SH as well? Second, this is an idea that only works without the maths. Like the idea that sealevel rise is due to more people and that they are obese. The change in DLR for the change in GHG can be calculated and the change in albedo can also be estimated. See the IPCC WG1 Chpt6 for the values of these forcing and source papers. Are you suggesting the albedo forcing is greater or DLR less? What papers support this? Actually the convincing evidence would be a physics-honouring model that can do it without GHGs but noone's been able to do that to date and they have been trying since Milankovitch. -
tjfolkerts at 09:05 AM on 9 March 2011CO2 effect is saturated
I know I am coming to this discussion late, but I wanted to discuss the statement from the advanced tab that states: "We can see that although the absorption dip cannot fall below the 220 K curve, it becomes wider and the absorbed energy increases accordingly." I have an alternate/additional hypothesis that I am trying to explore: * Raising the CO2 concentration should raise the effective altitude of the "last layer", since you need to go higher to get to a place where CO2 is thin enough to "let the IR escape". * Raising the altitude of the new "last layer" take us to a layer with a lower average temperature. * That cooler layer will radiate less energy. * To return to equilibrium, that new "last layer" must warm up, which will in turn warm all the layers below it. This mechanism is in addition to the effects of line broadening that have already been discussed. This fall apart a bit if that "last layer" is already at or above the tropopause. The temperatures in the model suggest that the "last layer" is still a little below the tropopause. Does any one here 1) have any links to the level of the effective "last layer"? 2) comments or corrections to what I am hypothesizing? -
RickG at 08:34 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Fred @ 49 I just can't let that go unchallenged Fred. 1) Measuring temperature in a plant environment and measuring temperature at an official meteorological station are completely different animals, not to mention the satellite data that is available. 2) Understanding cause and effect comes from studying the paleo-record and actual observations over long periods of time. Sure there is plenty we don't know. Conversely there is a lot we do know and we do know what those cause and effects are and every known attribute is taken into account, natural and anthropogenic. 3) The relationship of CO2 has been known since the mid 1800's and the physics is well known. 4) The reason for a slight decline in global average temps from the 1940s to 1970s was due to sulfate aerosols which are extremely short lived in the atmosphere because they are solid particles that get rained out. What changed was the regulation of sulfate emissions during the 70's. If you will look at the at the same temp trend for the southern hemisphere where massive industrialization and sulfate emissions were very low, they did not experience the slight cooling. 5) As for a coming ice age it was a media event. It was no where a consensus in the scientific literature. The over whelming published science was suggesting warming. 6) What do you mean "mid troposphere" where the CO2 is supposed to be? CO2 is an extremely well mixed gas in the atmosphere. Its not all contained in the mid troposphere nor does the UAH satellite measure it. 7) As for the temp difference of the mid troposphere and the surface, that is to be expected. What do you think affects us most, mid troposphere temps or surface temps where we live? -
KR at 08:33 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Fred Staples - "I can only repeat that there is no sign of any relationship to the increase in CO2 until the late 70's, by which time the CO2 concentration had increased from 280 to 350 ppm." Please take a look at CO2 is not the only driver, as well as Temp record is unreliable. You might also want to take a look at one of the UHI threads - use the Search box. CO2 has become the dominant forcing, but is still by no means the only one - nobody claims that except to make a strawman argument. As to the temperature record, we have enough data to make some very accurate measures of the temperature anomalies. And all of the measures (multiple land and satellite) agree to a rather astonishing degree. There's no justification for claiming the temperature record is unreliable. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:15 AM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
Fixed the link. Thanks! -
muoncounter at 08:05 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Harry S, "a basic timeframe on that statement?" Tamino's graph is the satellite temperature period only (since 1979), so it's no surprise it looks linear. Here's the full GISS record (130 years):
On this scale, the concave upwards profile can be seen quite clearly. The blue curves are different 'sensitivities,' although its been a while since I generated that particular graphic. So to answer your question, maybe it's already underway.
This was also demonstrated in one of the Monckton myth threads (linear warming). The lesson there was that even a constant annual increase in CO2 concentration results in a concave up temperature profile - because the forcing just keeps on forcing.
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Fred Staples at 08:04 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Even if you accept, 47, the AGW theory, you must accept that not much happened while CO2 increased from 280 to 350ppm. I was once responsible for monitoring temperature and humidity in a nuclear power plant. The idea that it could be done with any degree of accuracy in one factory across the seasons was, believe me, absurd. So is the idea that you can not only measure but explain changes in the global average temperature (that's the average temperature across all the lands and oceans, across the globe). The best we can do is to monitor changes at varying points across the globe, at more or less regular times, day and night, and make crude corrections for urban heat island effects. To relate the variations in this data to cause and effect is impossible. I do not know why the medieval warm period happened. I have no idea why the globe then descended into the little ice age, or why it emerged during the 19th and 20th centuries. I can only repeat that there is no sign of any relationship to the increase in CO2 until the late 70's, by which time the CO2 concentration had increased from 280 to 350 ppm. (Climate scientists at that time thought we were heading for another ice age). If you are certain that the increase in temperatures over the past 30 years is permanent and not transient, compare the UAH satellite lower troposphere trend with the mid-troposphere trend (where the action from CO2 is supposed to be). Both sets of data are from 1979 to date: Lower troposphere : 1.4 degrees C per century Mid troposphere : 0.5 degrees C per century If you look at both charts you will see that most of their rather feeble increases depend on the 1998 peak and the subsequent 2008 to 2010 peak. On that set of data over the last 12 years depends the whole AGW edifice. I agree that those modest temperature changes happened, 43. I do not know why they happened. They provide little or no support for CO2 induced AGW theories.Moderator Response: Let's say for the sake of argument that the temperature record is rubbish. How do you explain the rising tropopause, cooling stratosphere, rising humidity, increasing intense rainfall and flooding, rising sea level, shrinking ice sheets and glaciers, expanding subtropics, migrating species, melting permafrost, and disappearing Arctic sea ice? And why isn’t the rising carbon dioxide having any effect? -
MattJ at 07:24 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
@JMurphy, #36: What your numbers don't tell us is even more important though: it was China and India who sabotaged the Copanhagen talks, refusing to allow enforceable limits, because their use of coal and oils is also growing. Worse yet, they are unwilling to slow that growth for the sake of future benefits. They would rather destroy the chance for a healthy economy for the whole world than give up on their rapid growth now. -
Mateo Panthera at 07:12 AM on 9 March 2011Crux of a Core, Part 2 - Addressing Dr. Bob Carter
Your Miller 2010 link in the first paragraph is broken -
muoncounter at 06:59 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Fred S "The warming trend overall is just 0.45 degrees C per century, with 95% confidence limits between 0.4 and 0.5 degrees C." A straight line fit over that long a time run may look pretty and sound emotionally satisfying, but it is physically meaningless. You should start by looking at what has changed in the environment over that time period: solar output, aerosols, volcanic events, etc. Try to include all the so-called natural forcings you can find and calculate what they do to temperature. You simply won't be able to recreate the temperature record without adding in anthropogenic CO2 as a positive forcing. That's been demonstrated here time and again; you can find it using Search if you are so inclined. And btw, most graphs show ~0.16C per decade globally.
--from Assessing global surface temperatures
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Harry Seaward at 06:55 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
Muon @ 45, "Of course, that's not going to stay a straight line for long, as continued CO2 radiative forcing will result in concave up (accelerating) temperature change." Do you have a basic timeframe on that statement? -
muoncounter at 06:50 AM on 9 March 2011Climate Emergency: Time to Slam on the Brakes
garyt, "I still see the period of 'flatness' in the last 11 years" It's hard to tell what can be seen in a graph with a linear fit yielding r^2=0.07; eleven years of temperature data just aren't enough. Perhaps you should look at a temperature analysis that takes out short-term bumps:
--from Tamino's Open Mind, 1/20/2011
A quick eyeball straight line gives 0.2degC/decade, which is convenient because you show ~20ppm increase in CO2 over 10 years. That gives 0.2/20 = 0.01 degrees per ppm increase, which is exactly what the graph from Grumbine showed. You'll no doubt see a stronger correlation coefficient as well.
Of course, that's not going to stay a straight line for long, as continued CO2 radiative forcing will result in concave up (accelerating) temperature change.
Moderator Response: [DB] Ah, yes, the next great "skeptic" meme: "I see flatness". We'll have to add that one to the rolls.
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