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Comments 94551 to 94600:
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2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel - "Net" == summed, total, the amount actually moving after all elements are considered, etc. I suggest you read Roy Spencers excellent discussion, Yes, Virginia, Cooler Objects Can Make Warmer Objects Even Warmer Still. If you've already read it and disagree, read it again. Repeat until understood. -
Albatross at 05:27 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
Protestant, "So RealClimateScientists know better than statisticians?" Sigh, actually follow the links and read the submissions before commenting. There were 13 or so articles submitted that discuss M&M10, from both paleo climate scientists and statisticians. I happened to give you the RC link for convenience. And I don't trust those affiliated with ClimateAudit-- their modus operandi and objectives were exposed a long time ago. Talking of which, thanks, but I do not go to politically-motivated sites like Climate etc which seem more interested in slandering climate scientists and web traffic than science. Anyhow, that is off topic and irrelevant. Also, as shown by a statistician (Tamino), the PDO, ENSO and AMO do not explain the observed long-term increase in global temperatures. So internal climate modes, while they may have had a role at times during the MWP, cannot explain the duration of the warming. I note that you have not provided a single paper to back up your assertions. Actually ENSO is well understood, and the "delayed oscillator" mechanism explains the formation of El Ninos. To me, the LIA is of more interest as far as inferring climate sensitivity goes, because the cooling was more widespread than during the MWP. We also have a very good idea what caused the LIA, and it was not internal climate variability but mostly by the Maunder minimum and aerosol loading from volcanism. Those factors producing such marked cooling over a prolonged period point to higher climate sensitivity, not lower climate sensitivity. You did not answer my question about climate sensitivity for doubling CO2 (with feedbacks).Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] I know protestant was pushing the boundaries of the comments policy, but please do not follow likewise. Accusations of dishonesty go against the comments policy, and will result in posts being deleted. -
Harry Seaward at 05:27 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
Can the first graph be extended further back in time and keep the same format? -
protestant at 05:26 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
#74. They might know the data, but they do not know the methods. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:14 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
Protestant@69 wrote "So RealClimateScientists know better than statisticians?" Yes, actually they do know the data better than the statisticians; the specialist statisticians know the statistics better. Either working alone is unlikely to do as good a job as both in collaboration. A statistician applying relatively advanced statistical techniques without a good grasp of the nature of the data generating process is more than likely to shoot themselves in the foot. I know this to be true as I am a statistician, and I regularly collaborate with scientists and their input is absolutely vital. -
damorbel at 05:09 AM on 24 February 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re 339 KR this is what your link to SoD's explanation of the 2nd Law actually says:- "In the case of the real “greenhouse” effect and the real 2nd law of thermodynamics, net energy is flowing from the earth to the atmosphere. But this doesn’t mean no energy can flow from the colder atmosphere to the warmer ground." "It simply means more energy flows from the warmer surface to the colder atmosphere than in the reverse direction." I repeat the relevant GHE blind spot; "But this doesn’t mean no energy can flow from the colder atmosphere to the warmer ground". How is it possible to say this and claim 'net flow' in the other direction? Net flow causes temperature change. It is a temperature increase in the cold upper atmosphere that takes place due to net (warm) radiation from the surface, not the surface being warmed by a (net) heat loss from the surface to the upper atmosphere as 'explained' by GHE 'theory'. Without the 'net flow' from the surface the GHGs will lose heat through radiation and cool down catastrophically, GHGs radiate IR as well as absorb it, that is what Tyndall discovered. -
protestant at 05:07 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
Dikran Marsupial, okay, understood. -
protestant at 05:06 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
#70. "Oscillations average to 0." Source? That claim is unfounded and bizarre. Why do both, AMO and PDO STRONLGY correlate with temperatures? And why do models not reproduce the strong warming from 1910-1940 and the cooling since 1940-1970 (aerosols do not explain the blip as we can see from the model outputs)? Show me the evidence, that a change in ocean circulations cant result in a temporal change in surface temperatures? Read: http://hsu.as.ntu.edu.tw/pdf/18.pdf You should propably look what a Norvegian ocean modeler thinks about AMO: http://www.bccr.no/acdc/filer/242.i3yGAl.pdf Also read the blog entry I linked above to Curry's. -
JMurphy at 05:05 AM on 24 February 2011Smoking, cancer and global warming
Chemist1, could you provide the proof that smoking actually kills ? While you are gathering that information, perhaps you should read what others (shall we call them 'smoking kills' deniers) have to say : "...the world data contradicting the notion that smoking kills, and that smokers statistically belong to the lower classes, thus are at higher risk of disease and early death by the myriad of factors in their life - stress, poor diet, poor healthcare etc, plus the fact that smokers are less likely to take as much interest in their health as non-smokers - after all, if they smoke believing it will kill them, why would they be otherwise healthy?" Plenty more 'proof' here. (I really hope those 'rel="nofollow"' values actually work !) Just how do you begin to attempt to convince those who refuse to accept reality ? -
invicta at 05:04 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
dana @ 68 thank you, sometimes I find the message is lost in the argument -
protestant at 05:01 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
#65. Read my last comment. Only a change in the THC or gulf-stream can have a drastic impact on the temperatures of NH. #67. No I am not. Besides, no computer model can replicate MWP, nor speaking about RWP or the Holocene climate optimum. They are completely dependant on the "Hockey stick". Unless you prove me no chance will occur without a change in external forcings (then again, you would need to explain the EXTERNAL forcing behind AMO, PDO and ENSO, which you cant since they are largely being interpretated as 'internal variability'). -
muoncounter at 05:00 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
protestant: "where is it proven, that climate changes ONLY due to external forcings?" Perhaps you have some other model in mind? Internal forcings? Volcanoes? Little green men? Or do you propose that climate changes entirely by itself? "temperatures can oscillate not in only 30 year periods but also in multicentennial periods" Oscillations average to 0. -
protestant at 04:56 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
#63: So RealClimateScientists know better than statisticians? If they do not agree, then I think they should publish their comments in the appropriate journal. But for the record, I dont trust RC:s honesty partly because of the moderation policy (ciritsism they cant answer they delete). I dont have anything against the observations of the last few decades. The cause for them is another topic. And as I said before, warmer MWP does NOT mean higher sensitivity. It would, if the basic tenet that surface temperature doesn't change without external forcings to be proven, and also you would need to prove that it was the GHG's or the sun which were the cause (neither wasn't I bet ya). Yet we have phenomenoms like ENSO, PDO, NPGO, and AMO which remain unexplained (I would call them internal variability = weather). Tell me what's the forcing behind those things and what is the maximum timescale where events like that could occur? I could bet 1000 dollars you (or anyone here) doesn't have an answer. I would suggest it is just chaotic variability in the heat transfer between air and the ocean. As I understand, the THC (Thermohaline Circulation) and the Gulf-stream is poorly understood (and as we can see MWP was pronounced in Greenland, which is near Atlantic...). You should be also reading this article carefully and with thought (and the following discussion): http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/10/spatio-temporal-chaos/ You should also know that heat is different than temperature. Heat can be transferred from oceans to the atmosphere and vice versa. Therefore surface temperatures may vary a lot without a big difference in total heat in the system.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial]Accusations of dishonesty are a contravention of the comments policy here and your opening statement is sailing mightly close to the wind. I haven't deleted it in this case, as it might be taken as an indication that you had made a point that coulnd't be countered. Any repetition of that sort of comment will result in your post being deleted. -
dana1981 at 04:53 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
invicta:Is this thread basically saying if the MWP was warmer than today this is not a good sign for our future and if today we are warmer than the MWP this is not a good sign for our future?
No. The article says that if the MWP was warmer than today - which it was not - it's a (relatively) good sign for our future because it means climate sensitivity is (relatively) low. -
dana1981 at 04:49 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
protestant #62:Looks like nothing like yours.
Um yeah actually looks almost identical to mine (actually Robert Way created it). The only difference is that we extended the HadCRUT data through the current decade, which Ljungqvist did not (his stops at 1990-1999). Ours is virtually identical, but up-to-date (and lacking error bars). Albatross has already addressed the other points I was going to cover. The divergence between instrumental temperatures and proxies over the past decade or two is likely due to the lack of proxy coverage, as I have already said twice. And you are still scoring an own goal by arguing that the MWP was hot, and thus that climate sensitivity is high. -
Albatross at 04:48 AM on 24 February 2011Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
Thank you for your response @65 Dr. Verheggen. -
invicta at 04:44 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
invicta as a non scientist who normally only observes can I just clarify. Is this thread basically saying if the MWP was warmer than today this is not a good sign for our future and if today we are warmer than the MWP this is not a good sign for our future? protestant@57 temperatures can oscillate not in only 30 year periods but also in multicentennial periods, without having an actual external forcing. can someone explain how this would work? it sounds more like alchemy than science -
Albatross at 04:38 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
protestant @61, "And one of the basic principles in statistics is not to combine two series which have been measured differently, and this point is being completely ignored over and over again (here and elsewhere)." Now please do look at the graph and read the caption of the graph from Ljungqvist (2010) that you posted @62. You are contradicting yourself. -
Albatross at 04:36 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
Protestant @62, "Looks like nothing like yours." This is going to be fun. And note Protestant, that despite your protestations, Ljungqvist also spliced the CRU data to his reconstruction (as you showed @62). You do not like the observed marked warming in recent decades one bit, it is clearly very inconvenient for you and Idso et al., so I guess it now has to be "attacked". Be mad at Idso et al. for scoring such a spectacular own goal, not us. A likely reason for the proxies underestimating the amount of warming at the end of the record (again referring to the original figure) is that for the last decade, as pointed out by Dana on this thread, there were very few proxies used in the reconstruction. You are now spamming this site with many allegations and much arm-waving. For the record, McShane and Wyner might be statisticians but their ignorance and their inexperience in working worth paleo data was all too obvious in their paper. Regardless, you know what? They ended up with a HS, although their shaft was rather oddly rotated. The many criticisms of McShane and Wyner can be found here, also follow embedded links. Finally, you seem to be arguing for a warmer MWP. So as Dana and others have pointed out you are arguing against low climate sensitivity. What do you understand climate sensitivity for doubling CO2 (with feedbacks) to be protestant? -
Bob Lacatena at 04:27 AM on 24 February 2011Smoking, cancer and global warming
Chemist1,I am not so sure that we can lay the same robust claim for C02 as of yet.
Spoken like a true 1960s tobacco lobbyist. I am very certain we can lay that same robust claim for CO2, and have been able to do so for quite some time. The science is pretty voluminous and convincing, just as it was in the seventies for tobacco. But the tobacco industry, and people themselves, found it very easy to close their eyes to the truth for very many decades. I'd like to say that they only hurt themselves in doing so, although I think my own health insurance premiums say otherwise (being far higher than necessary, to pay for past smokers' heart and lung disease and lingering deaths). But not so with climate change. You don't get a free pass on this one, and we don't get to say (with detached sympathy) "poor guy, what a way to go, if only he'd listened to the science." Your "not so sure" had better be accompanied by some very careful, intense, open-minded and educated scrutiny, because if not your hesitance and inability to make a decision is going to contribute to causing a lot of suffering. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:26 AM on 24 February 2011Smoking, cancer and global warming
Chemist1... I believe the point that gets continually made is that we are rolling the dice. Based on the broad scientific research it's very likely that doubling CO2 will raise global temperature by about 3C. Regardless of whether you agree with that position, that is the current consensus of the published literature. So, there are unknowns. The effect might be less that 3C. They might be more. They could be a good bit more but it's unlikely to be a good bit less. We are rolling the dice none-the-less. We do not know what number the dice will land on. But we do have a choice about what numbers the dice will NOT land on. Same with smoking. I could smoke a pack a day for the rest of my life and never get cancer. You can never smoke a cigarette in your life and still get cancer. It's a roll of the dice, but one that you can influence where the dice may land. -
DSL at 04:20 AM on 24 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Poptech: "My position on citations (the are a measure of popularity not scientific validity) has not changed." 'Popular' in science means 'useful' and 'accurate'. People don't cite the work of others because they like it. They cite the work of others because they find it useful and, yes, valid. Why build your own work on the flawed work of others? The development of modern science is based on this very principle. You're utterly wrong on this, Poptech, and your misunderstanding suggests that you're purely in the rhetoric business. You are a politician, in the sense that you attempt to manage the politics of the reader. Politicians will cite anything they think is useful for this management. You built a list of instruments--850--that you hoped would serve to manipulate the beliefs of your trusting readers, but you don't have enough scientific understanding to recognize garbage in the presence of those whose business it is to recognize garbage. You should never have come here, Pop. I know the slight sense of self-respect you have drove you to do it, but now the fine details of your misunderstanding are a matter of public record. I suggest that we end this thread. It's like arguing with a smoker about the physical and psychological effects of smoking. In other words, it's like shooting fish in a barrel, except that the dead fish have no actual value: Poptech is not here to argue and learn, as some "skeptics" are. He's here to simulate an argument. He's not invested in the ongoing outcomes of the argument (so he thinks; perhaps he doesn't have children, either); he's invested in the process of argumentation itself. Keep in mind that these assessments of your ability to critically think are not ad hominem attacks. They are observations based on the evidence (the written expression of your thought process, or the thought process of your Poptech persona) given on this 700+ post thread. -
Chemist1 at 04:19 AM on 24 February 2011Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
Ari 64: To simply give some foreshadowing of where I am headed. Each piece, as you will soon see, is connected the previous piece. I will though make no more claims until these are discussed in the appropriate threads with the links as the mod suggested here, later today. -
Chemist1 at 04:15 AM on 24 February 2011Smoking, cancer and global warming
Cigarette smoke is very dangerous, especially over the long term. With over 4000 chemicals, many of the effects are now shown in causal linkages. True, no one can be said to have died 100% from smoking alone, but it is pretty clear that cigarettes cause cancer, strokes and heart attacks. The human system, as complex as it is, and variable, for that matter, smoking really does kill.I am not so sure that we can lay the same robust claim for C02 as of yet. -
Ian Forrester at 04:03 AM on 24 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Bigcitylib gives a good example of how a paper by Oliver "Iron Sun" Manuel goes through "peer review" and eventual publication by E & E.Moderator Response: [DB] Thanks for the link, Ian! -
protestant at 03:50 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
In short: what you could have done is that you had displayed the original reconstrucion from the paper. No own versions with own smoothings are needed. There was a similar post like this one by "Ned" few months ago, with similars problems and with similar ignorance on what is said in the original paper, and which were clearly pointed out. Original version by the author:
Looks like nothing like yours.
Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Please avoid injecting your personal judgments; no one who has been around SkS for any length of time would use 'ignorance' and 'Ned' in the same paragraph, let alone sentence. Further ad hominem comments will be deleted. -
protestant at 03:45 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
And how is the HadCRUT3 being smoothed? The incline from mid 1900's in your graph seems to be from 0,1C to 0,8C = 0,7C when the properly smoothed data shows only less than 0,45C. Minimum Roughness being used? And you didn't address what Ljungqvist actually said in his paper (see citation at #57) and neither did you address the proplem of comparability between proxies and temperature records. As I said before proxies are not as accurate, and if they do not follow temperatures as closely in the 1900's it also means they propably do not reproduce the temperatures of the MWP as accurately either. Therefore you can not do such a comparison, period. This has also been discussed in McShane & Wyner (and those guys are statisticians as you might now). And one of the basic principles in statistics is not to combine two series which have been measured differently, and this point is being completely ignored over and over again (here and elsewhere). -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel - I would suggest looking at SoD's excellent Imaginary Second Law of Thermodynamics. Use the search function on his website - as I recall he has multiple pages on the subject. Gerlich et al 2009 is a horrible paper - there are plenty of discussions across the web discussing them in detail, which are quite easy to find. I personally regret the time I spent reading it, as I will never recover those wasted hours - the more advanced version of this page covers it pretty well, but SoD digs in to much greater depth. Arthur Smith is worth reading on it as well, as is the excellent peer-reviewed Halpern et al 2010 reply. The other major point of my post was in regards to blocked band widening and deepening due to increased GHG's and increasing altitude of effective emission, seen in the graphs here. Reduced emissivity to space means reduced power to space - an energy imbalance; the temperature will change until said imbalance is zeroed out again. -
dana1981 at 03:36 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
protestant #57 - I already discussed this in the second comment. Ljungqvist has very poor proxy coverage over the end of the 20th century (33–50% of his proxies). Moreover, there is little difference between Ljungqvist's proxies and the instrumental temperature data, until those last few decades.
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damorbel at 03:17 AM on 24 February 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
KR, I find statements like this "SoD has written far more (and far better) than I on that subject" are not verifiable without a link. Would you care to provide one so we can discover the point you are making? In 329 VeryTallGuy wrote "This is the best simple explanation I've ever seen of it and may clarify for you (thanks to Science of Doom): You are referring no doubt to the diagram in your post I do hope there are better explanations. Your diagram does not show how CO2 or any other GHG has a warming effect; all it shows is the standard averge lapse rate which is known to arise from the increase in pressure on descending through the atmosphere. What it also shows is that, when the Earth gets warmer it... does... indeed... get warmer! What your diagram shows applies equally to the heating effect of the Sun at different latitudes; there are quite different tempertures at different latitudes because of the lower angle of the Sun in the sky; it's called the cosine effect; it is one of the reasons for different climates in the first place! To have a diagram with the tropopause at the same height for different surface temperatures just illustrates how far from observational measurements it is possible to get; changes in the surface temperature are always reflected in the height of the tropopause. The height of the tropopause is governed by a number of factors of which the surface temperature is one. An equally important matter is the Stratosphere where the temperature increases with height, very nearly to the surface temperature, almost reversing all the temperature drop due to the lapse rate. -
Rob Honeycutt at 03:16 AM on 24 February 2011Meet The Denominator
I would have to say that I actually did learn a thing or two about Google Scholar from Poptech in this process. Not an easy pill to swallow but I accept it. But Poptech has yet to learn the lesson that I was teaching in that numbers require context. Poptech's position is somewhat like a guy running down the street screaming, "I've got $850!!" quickly followed but a creditor with a bill for $85,000. -
pbjamm at 03:02 AM on 24 February 2011Meet The Denominator
"You seem confused in that you believe you or anyone else here has any remote ability to teach me anything. I find that humorous." I find it very very sad. By your own admission you are not a climatologist but a computer dork like myself*. There are, at least on occasion, actual climatologists and experts who show up on this site to share their knowledge. If you think they can not teach you anything about this subject then you are deluded. * not exactly like me since I am eager to learn -
protestant at 02:59 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
#15: You are using a 133month smoothing, when one was discussing about about the divergence POST 2000's. So what you just did was that hid the divergence with smoothing. How does it look like when looked more closely, HadCRUT vs GIStemp since 1995:What you also stated that why should "polar amplification be ignored". GISTEMP HAS NO MORE DATA IN THE ARCTIC THAN ANYONE ELSE! They just interpolate it. Interpolating DOES NOT mean they have more data or that it would be more accurate. There is also LESS multidecadal dynamics in GIStemp, clearly visible when comparing detrended data:
(both graphs end in 2003 so the recent decline in HadCRUT isnt shown here)
I wonder if that is because Model E cannot reproduce the 1910-1940 warming and the 1940-1970 decline.
Moderator Response: [DB] Last warning: please refrain from using all-caps. Thanks! -
Tom Curtis at 02:54 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
HR @54, Hegerl 2007 notes that: "Consistent with earlier results (Hegerl et al. 2003), a response to solar forcing cannot be robustly distinguished. This can be due to either the climate response to solar forcing being small, or to low-frequency variations in solar forcing being different from estimates used here. The latter is quite possible given large uncertainties in these reconstructions (Lean et al. 2002)." In fact, Hegerl produces the most coherent results, ie, with climate sensitivity of solar and GHG forcings being the same, if solar forcings are half that of the estimates which he used. With solar forcings only 1/4 of that which he used, the sensitivity of GHG and solar forcings will still be very close, within limits of error. In other words, more recent reconstructions of solar variability make sensitivities fit better with the AGW picture, not worse. Having said that, this is an area with room for substantial refinement as shown by the significant differences in scaling factors for different temperature reconstructions. -
protestant at 02:38 AM on 24 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
This nonsense of "dana1981" is driving me crazy! The Ljungqvist proxy data ends in 1999. So THERE IS almost NO missing incline in the proxy data itself. What you must do is compare proxies of today (or the 90's if you wish) against MWP. Yes, the recent rise in temperatures do not seem as strong as in the temperature records, but HEY ITS PROXY DATA it is LESS accurate. Same "missing inclines" would be in the MWP as well. And according to the proxy-data there is no significant difference between MWP and today. Period. Ljungqvist also states that: ”a very cautious interpretation of the level of warmth since AD 1990 compared to that of the peak warming during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period is strongly suggested.” So what you have done here isnt a "very cautious interpretation". Instead you have used Mannian smoothing techniques on top of the apples-to-oranges comparison. How do I know that? Because your graphs show almost 1degC increase from the mid 1900's when properly smoothed data shows this, less than 0,45degC increase:
The original reconstruction looks like this:
http://i54.tinypic.com/11wd2r5.png
Why dont you respect the author and his data, and instead make your own "versions" of it, without reading the actual paper and without respecting the original author?
And BTW, warmer MWP does NOT mean "higher sensitivity". That is bullshit. Or where is it proven, that climate changes ONLY due to external forcings? What warmer MWP means, is that temperatures can oscillate not in only 30 year periods but also in multicentennial periods, without having an actual external forcing.
Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] Please refrain from the use of all caps; also, please moderate the personal nature of your comments. Focus on the science - not the person. Thanks! -
Dikran Marsupial at 02:28 AM on 24 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Poptech wrote "You seem confused in that you believe you or anyone else here has any remote ability to teach me anything." Poptech, please go and read up on the Dunning-Kruger effect. I would agree that nobody is able to teach you anything, but only because you are apparently unwilling to learn, judging from the comment above, largely becuase you have an unrealistic view of your own ability. I think the above quote is one of the most shocking and absurd things I have seen from a "skeptic" on a climate blog, and a great pity. -
It's not us
Julian Flood - Having read and puzzled over your post, I have a question for you. When you state "No, we cause some of it, that is all the mass balance argument allows you to say", is that because not all of the CO2 molecules come from our emissions? Certainly there is continuing exchange of CO2 with the biosphere, with the ocean, etc. If so, yes - lots of the atmospheric CO2 comes/goes without our interaction, even though that's irrelevant to the current discussion. Or (as we have been emphasizing), are you stating that the atmospheric CO2 would be rising without our (well known) contributions? That would be an error. Without our emissions CO2 levels would be dropping - we are wholly responsible for the current increases in atmospheric CO2 levels, which equal half our emissions. The rest is being absorbed by nature. Without our emissions, which without other sources or sinks would cause a >4ppm/year increase? CO2 levels would drop from current values, as CO2 worth ~2ppm/year of our emissions is currently being absorbed by natural sinks. With our emissions? Rising at >2ppm/year. While we are not responsible for every molecule of CO2 out there, we are completely responsible for the current rise in CO2 levels, the change. It doesn't matter if the sum of sources and sinks is 5x our throughput, 10x, or 100x - we're responsible for the current difference between the source/sink levels. -
Eric (skeptic) at 01:57 AM on 24 February 2011It's not us
Currently all of the annual rise in CO2 is caused by man. Since nature absorbs about 1/2 of our annual emissions, one can stretch the word "cause" to say that the rise is caused by the lack of nature's ability to absorb all of our emissions. Part of the lack is due to warming oceans. But our current CO2 causes that warming (averaged over decades to smooth natural variations). A footnote: natural warming following the LIA is the cause of a small part of the historical rise in CO2 (e.g. from 280 to 285 or something similar). But using the common meaning of "cause", man currently causes all of the annual rise in CO2. -
Meet The Denominator
Poptech - "You seem confused in that you believe you or anyone else here has any remote ability to teach me anything..." This is, perhaps, the saddest statement I have ever read on this website. Personally, it's my aim to be learning until the day I die - from children, from the experienced, from fools, and from geniuses. "Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious." - Ambrose Bierce -
les at 01:30 AM on 24 February 2011Meet The Denominator
709 ... and ... you completely (and not for the first time) missed the point. You say "I am well aware how the process works." but that wasn't the point. I was referring to your 'work', not the papers in your list. You clearly are not working within science bounds nor within the review process. That is what we are trying to teach you; but, as you say, you don't seem to have the ability to learn. 2/10 to they guy who programmed your AI engine. -
les at 01:16 AM on 24 February 2011Meet The Denominator
Poppy... This "You seem confused in that you believe you or anyone else here has any remote ability to teach me anything." is clearly not true! your loss. -
Daniel Bailey at 01:12 AM on 24 February 2011Prudent Path Week
Re: Ann (45) Every now and then I'm struck by an observation one of our commenters makes. With regard to "skeptics", Ann makes this observation:"...if your understanding of the climate is zero."
Obviously Ann is not applying this to everyone posting here. Legitimate seekers of knowledge become obvious in short order; the obverse as well. It should be painfully obvious to readership which parties comes here in good faith to learn...and which do not (have any intentions to learn). Thanks, Ann, for saying something more eloquently than I could. The Yooper -
Ann at 00:59 AM on 24 February 2011Prudent Path Week
I wonder how far AGW proponents should get involved in the whole “unprecedented” discussion. It is a side issue, and while deniers are losing every argument, they are winning the battle, if only by wasting precious time. Even if it can unquestionably proven that current global temperatures are higher than during the MWP, I’m sure they will come up with some other, earlier period in history when the earth used to be warmer. This is a game that can continue forever. The earth is 4,5 billion years old and has had – some pretty extreme climates, to say the least. In the past the earth has been a giant snow ball with an average temperature of -50 degrees. It has also been a molten ball of lava, with a 1200 degrees surface temperature. So no matter how hot it is going to get on earth, it is never going to be “unprecedented”. While your argumentation about the incompatibility of large temperature changes and low climate sensitivity is correct, I don’t think it addresses the underlying assumption of the “unprecedented” argument used by skeptics. What is this “unprecedented” claim really about and why does it appear so often in skeptical arguments ? As far as I can tell, the implied argumentation behind it is: “If I can prove that in the past the earth was warmer than today due to natural causes, the present warming might be due to natural causes as well, and there is nothing to worry about.” This is actually a valid reasoning if your understanding of the climate is zero. When lacking any other information, it is a crude way to determine if the current climate still falls within a range that can be considered as “normal”. So it is a perfectly reasonable thing to do if you don’t have the information, but it is irrational behavior if you do have more detailed information at your disposal, which you choose to ignore. Climate science takes into account all available information to explain all climate changes, past or present, warming or cooling. If we can explain and predict all climate changes of the past and the present, by means of all the known forcings (human and natural) and feedbacks, this means we understand the climate and also have a pretty good idea of how it is going to evolve. Scientists have to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and check if there are any missing pieces, any holes in our understanding (e.g. warming or cooling that cannot be explained by the current theories). And as it appears the puzzle cannot be made complete without taking the role of CO2 into account. No skeptical theory exists that is able to successfully explain and predict past and current climate changes, leaving CO2 out of the equation. I’m sorry if this all sounds too obvious, but I think many people just don’t know these things. -
Dikran Marsupial at 00:37 AM on 24 February 2011It's not us
Julian@43, Can you explain why it would be informative to exclude some natural source and lump the remainder of the natural carbon cycle together with anthropogenic emissions? We all know that some parts of the carbon cycle are sources and some sinks. WHat is important is whether CO2 levels would be rising if not for anthropogenic emissions, and the answer is quite clearly "no, they would be falling" (which we know because the net effect of the natural environment as a whole is to absorb about half our emissions). Given that CO2 levels would now be falling if we were to cut our emissions to zero, it seems odd to suggest we are not 100% responsible for the current rise. Try giving a specific example, giving values for all natural and anthropogenic sources and sinks, where the annual rise is less than anthropogenic emissions and where the natural environment is a net source. You will find that you are unable to do so, but the attempt will probably demonstrate to you why the mass balance argument is correct. "No, we cause some of it, that is all the mass balance argument allows you to say." It should be obvious that you are missing something here, given that we don't actually need the mass balance argument (or the assumption of conservation of mass) to know that we are the cause of at least some of the observed increase; we already know that simply because our emissions vastly exceed our uptake. It should be no surprise then that the addtion of a constraint (conservation of mass) allows us to make a stronger argument. I have repeatedly explained that you don't need to know the value of individual fluxes to know that the natural environment as a whole is a net sink. If you shared a bank account with your partner and always put in $100 a month more than you spent, but observed your monthly balance only increased by $50 a month, you would know your partner was a net sink (to the tune of $50 a month) without needing to know where he/she spent the money, or how much he/she spent in total or how much he/she deposited each month. The mass balance argument is essententially analogeous. -
CBDunkerson at 23:51 PM on 23 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
HumanityRules, in 1998 Mann and company published the first attempt at a multi-proxy paleo-temperature reconstruction. They used new methods of combining proxy data sets and statistical analysis and smoothing in the attempt to develop a coherent picture... and they slathered disclaimers about the uncertainty of the methodology and the limits of the data sets all over it. They put a large error range on the data. In short, they did the best they could with an entirely new process and disclosed such. That's perfectly good science. Yes, the results they said could contain errors in fact did contain errors... but within the bounds of the error bars they estimated. That they (and others) have now produced more detailed results with smaller error bars based on more extensive data and more refined statistical analysis is the natural progression of science. You keep asking if Mann 98 is 'the same' as Mann 2008... apparently not realizing that "yes" is a perfectly defensible answer in the sense that the possible paleo-temperature range shown in the 2008 paper is within the constraints of the possible paleo-temperature range from the 1998 paper. It defines a narrower range and a longer time period, but nothing in the Mann 2008 (or Ljungqvist 2010 for that matter) results contradicts the Mann 1998 results. In short, the latest research from all sides says that the results of Mann 1998 were correct. Your argument is essentially the equivalent of saying that Newton performed 'junk science' because his instrumentation was not precise enough to measure the acceleration due to gravity as accurately as we can now. -
Julian Flood at 23:47 PM on 23 February 2011It's not us
Sorry for the long pause, I got rather busy and dropped the ball. At one stage I thought the mass balance argument would allow us to say something about changes in sources and sinks, but further thought led to more doubts. quote Do you agree that the mass balance argument demonstrates that the natural environment is a net sink? If not, can you explain why? unquote The mass balance argument demonstrates that sources are greater than sinks. However, because it does not attribute any numbers to any of the many sinks and sources, it is unable to distinguish between a change in either: for example, see my painstaking plod through the equations above. If you take any source X larger than 14 Gt out of the equations and lump all other sources together as 'natural plus human' then the proponents of the mass balance argument say that all the extra CO2 must be caused by X. This seems to be an error. If sources are in balance and then two sources, X and anthropogenic, increase then all you can say is that some of the increase is caused by fossil fuel burning. If you have no size for X then all you can say is that X+anthropogenic is greater than the sinks by at least 14 Gt. The sinks have increased by enough to absorb (X+anthropogenic) - 14Gt. quote If the CO2 increase was larger than our emissions, then there would be plenty room for discussion as to which part of that CO2 rise was due to us. But it's not - it's much less than our emissions. We cause all of the rise in CO2. unquote No, we cause some of it, that is all the mass balance argument allows you to say. quote Julian Flood wrote : "Argument from absence is a new one on me." I haven't come across any papers that demonstrate that the Theory of Evolution is false : is that an "argument from absence" or a demonstration of the facts ? unquote I have seen elsewhere the conflation of those who ask questions about aspects of climate science with those who e.g. deny evolution, tobacco causes cancer, round Earth etc. It has never, in my experience, been helpful That's my best shot -- we are obviously talking past each other and I am missing some hidden subtlety in your posts which makes things clear to others but not to me. I have seen a post by Lubos Motl where he states that he is sure that the CO2 increase is anthropogenic. I think I'll go and ask him. Thank you all for an illuminating discussion. -
Bart Verheggen at 21:12 PM on 23 February 2011Smoking, cancer and global warming
I like your expositions on the logic (and lack thereof) of different lines of argument a lot. They are very helpful tools for laypeople to make sense out of debates on complex issues. -
warm at 20:05 PM on 23 February 2011Hockey Stick Own Goal
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/28/loehle-vindication/#comment-493590 "I have noted in the post that there are a lot of (indirect) references to Mann et al. (1999) – the so-called “Hockey Stick Graph”. It is science history now. Any references to temperature reconstructions by Michael E. Mann should be to his 2008 and 2009 temperature reconstructions. They actually show an even warmer Medieval Warm Period than I do. I don’t think it is fair to refer to an outdated work (from 1999) when we have newer and better. As was shown in an earlier post today, my new reconstruction is practically identical with Mann et al. (2008) after c. AD 900. The same is true with Moberg et al. (2005). My reconstruction is also very similar to Loehle (2007) in shape although his reconstructed amplitude is larger." Fredrik Charpentier Ljungqvist -
les at 20:04 PM on 23 February 2011Meet The Denominator
701 Poppy: Poppy, dearest... Let me educate you. Real science actually involves a lot of review and improvement; clarification, removing week (even if not, provably wrong) data, adding strong data, qualifying data, comparing with sister arguments etc. This is part of the real meaning of peer review. What a lot of people don't understand is that it isn't just that someone has read a paper, maybe corrected some typos and said 'yay' or 'Neigh'. Normally results are discussed with colleagues, at conference, in pre-prints, by email etc. way before publication. At the last hurdle the editor and reviewers will send back comments which may require more work, input, removal of information, consideration of related work and so on... maybe for several iterations before the paper is accepted. By far the majority of good science publications have been through this. Most researchers are masochistic; They repeatedly bare their chest to the slings and arrows of criticism, knowing that this will improve their output... if they take note and improve. And you will notice that the comment policy of this site follows that - discussion should be on the post, in the posts thread etc. People who do sciency work (i.e. the output look similar to real science, but the processes are broken) don't really understand this. Instead, like here, they take every criticism as being something to be shot down rather than learned from. You've been told that often enough and don't seem to understand it... maybe your programmer will get on the case? Shall I rise a trouble-ticket? -
Bart Verheggen at 19:36 PM on 23 February 2011Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
Albatross, The anti-correlation between climate sensitivity and aerosol forcing in climate models, as discussed by e.g. Knutti (2008) is interesting. His argument is that it makes sense to see such a correlation, as the observed temps are a major quantity that the models are supposed to simulate, so naturally, the models are optimized for such a simulation. It relates a bit to the extent which, and how models are "tuned" though. I'm not an expert on climate modeling, and find this a difficult topic to opine about. In the process modeling that I've done it makes sense to try to optimze the simulation within physically realistic boundaries of the tunable parameters. In a physics based model the similation is heavily constrained anyway (at least in my experience). You then chose the set of parameters that gives the best simulation. If different sets of paramaters give equally good results, the uncertainty of which parameter values are best increases. Note though that the indirect effect was missing from most modesl used in this study. An important point (as I also tried to make in this post) is that climate sensitivity is more constrained by other data than by the instrumental temp record, so this correlation is no reason to distrust the climate sensitivity estimates. Within the uncertainties of both cliamte sensitivity and aerosol forcing, the picture together with observed temp increase is coherent (see Dana's "case study" post on Lindzen as linked from this post).
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