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Peter Hogarth at 07:08 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
mistermack at 06:53 AM on 25 October 2010 Please read Lean 2010, and look at figure 6. -
Tom Dayton at 07:07 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
mistermack, what is the basis for your claim that ten thousand years would be an incredibly sudden period for CO2 feedback to dwindle? -
mistermack at 07:05 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
This timescale argument is a bit silly. This IS the climate timescale. When I write sudden, I mean sudden in climate terms. Surely that's obvious? What's sudden to the climate of the earth is not sudden to a kitten. When you talk about the CO2 supply in the ocean dwindling, and turning off a feedback loop, ten thousand year would be incredibly sudden. -
archiesteel at 07:00 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
@mistermack: Climate Sensitivity is estimated at between 2.5C and 4C. If you have evidence to the contrary, by all means present it. So far you have failed to do so. As for the NASA page, it clearly shows the current level of CO2, and we know CO2 "greenhouse gas" properties will increase temperatures. We also know this extra CO2 is from anthropogenic sources. Therefore, it is very likely humans are responsible for the current warming. Again, you have failed to produce a single piece of evidence that disputes this. The burden of proof is on you - better start working on that thesis! At least you agree it's warming, even if you're ready to gamble civilization's future just because you disagree (without evidence) about climate sensitivity. -
Klaus Flemløse at 06:57 AM on 25 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
Peter Hogarth at 06:30 AM on 25 October, 2010 Thank you Peter Hogarth This is what I whant to see. Looking forward to read the excel sheet with DMI data. Regards Klaus Flemløse -
mistermack at 06:53 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Archie, your page from the "know nothings at NASA" showed evidence of warming. We all know we've had warming. What's not there is good evidence for the title "anthropogenic". That's what's always missing. -
mistermack at 06:45 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Archie, your link, "evidence is there" just illustrates my point perfectly. The relevant question is the sensitivity of the climate to CO2. Will increased CO2 cause a big enough rise in temperature to cause problems. That's the one bit of evidence missing. The relevant bit. The rest is just window dressing. I didn't say there is no evidence about anything. I'm saying that you need evidence for the central tenet. Link me that, if you like.Moderator Response: Climate sensitivity is low and It’s not bad -
Tom Dayton at 06:42 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
mistermack, you continue to refuse to acknowledge the importance of the time scales of the graphs. Try mentally zooming in on Figure 1 at the top of this post until its x axis had the same time scale as the graph of temperature response to cessation of human emissions. The "sudden" drops would not seem so sudden. Or zoom out of the the graph of temperature response to cessation of human emissions until its timescale matches that of Figure 1. Then the "gradual" drop would seem just as sudden as Figure 1's drops. What seems to you personally to be unrealistic and unreasonable rates of decrease when you look at a graph zoomed out so far, in fact are completely reasonable when the actual times involved are recognized. -
archiesteel at 06:40 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
@mistermack: again, you are misled by the time scale used in the graphs. The changes seem sudden to you because the scale is in hundreds of thousands of years. If you were to see these changes happen on a much smaller scale, they wouldn't look so sudden, and would be consistent with the feedback loops ending. Also, Tom has not claimed that a drop in CO2 is what drove the climate down. Instead, CO2 is a *feedback* mechanism in those cases. You won't learn much (and you clearly have much to learn still) by refusing to listen to rebuttals to your erroneous claims. -
archiesteel at 06:36 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
@mistermack: Here some more evidence of anthropogenic global warming, from those know-nothings at NASA... -
Peter Hogarth at 06:30 AM on 25 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
Klaus Flemløse at 05:18 AM on 25 October 2010 Thanks. I will post the Excel values in a few days if I have somewhere to post them here! I will be out of e-mail range over next week. Anyway, whilst seeing if there was a nice publicly available version of DMI I have found a website called Climate Sanity which has also created yet another “pixel counting” numerical version of DMI (through some of 2009), along with a relevant article (I will not pass judgement on the overall site!). I have also checked this data and was interested to see how good a match it is to DMI. The overall averages and trends seem very well matched. My own attempt at "pixel counting" gave errors quite similar to Franks (but in different places). I have calculated the above zero degrees average for all three data sets using Franks table. The overall trend of the difference between the Lansner and DMI values is -0.02 degrees C/decade. Whilst this is not really significant, we can see below that most of the significant errors seem to be in recent years.
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mistermack at 06:28 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
Tom, if the graphs remotely resembled a process "petering out", I would have to agree. However, as I've pointed out so many times, they don't. Draw your own graph, of a feedback loop "petering out". What does it look like? Does it resemble the ice core records? And why don't the CO2 graphs jump in front of the temperature graphs when that happens? If a drop in CO2 is pulling down temperatures? -
archiesteel at 06:17 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
@mistermack: "Archie, if the evidence was as overwhelming as you say, I wouldn't waste my time looking." The fact you are "still looking" doesn't affect the quality of the evidence in now way. I'll surmise that the reason you are still looking is that you have failed to understand the science, probably because you're too biased towards your preconceived notions to be receptive to it. Again, the evidence is there, and you have yet to present a convincing claim against it. "I know for a fact that the evidence is debateable, because I've done a lot of looking, much more that the average student intake." That's argument by assertion: "I'm right because I say I am." Sorry, but that logical fallacy won't cut it here. "I think I am therefore well justified in my conclusion that most people are initially convinced by the "consensus" rather than evidence." No, you're not. You haven't presented a shred of evidence to support your accusation. Therefore, the only think we can conclude is that you don't seem to know what you're talking about. "You mention doctors, but many doctors are also homeopaths, and many are "experts" in homeopathy." That's an attempt at changing the subject, and in fact *very few* medical doctors are homeopaths. Medical experts, and the current state of medical science, condemns homeopathy as the hoax it is. "The concencus of experts in homeopathy would be overwhelmingly supporting the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies." Homeopathy is not empirical science, and the vast majority of medical experts do not accept homeopahty and its alleged remedies are effective. So your example fails. "Same applies to Chirpractic." Again, that is not a valid examples, because chiropractors are not necessarily experts in medical science (and in fact I suppose very few do). These examples fail to support your anti-intellectual attack on experts. "I'm not saying that climate science is as silly as these," No, but you're certainly implying they are similar. "I'm just pointing out that a consensus is naturally self perpetuating, till it's disproved." Again, there is no indication that people who study climate believe in AGW because of the consensus. Rather, the consensus exists because the evidence (which you *choose* to ignore) indicates AGW is very likely true. "That's why the consensus on AGW is totally valueless, as evidence." Well, that's right in an of itself. Note that the article isn't claiming that the consensus is evidence AGW is true - it doesn't. Rather, it is a rebuttal of the contrarian argument that "there is no consensus," when in fact there is (as you yourself have admitted a few times in this thread already). So, again, the contrarian argument is that there is no consensus (hence such farces as the Oregon petition project), the rebuttal is that there is. You arguing that the consensus is meaningless is off-topic (and wrong in your characterization of the consensus). Please stop insinuating that people who study the climate are motivated by groupthink rather than rational thought. It's insulting, and goes against site policy (as it suggests a conspiration of dunces). "In climate science, you can't even predict next year's trend. But you can grandly predict the trend for the next century." Indeed. "Without the slightest risk of being proved wrong." So far, they haven't as temperatures are quite close to predictions - but I'm sure you'll change the subject and start attacking the quality of temperature records next. Contrarians are *so* predictable... -
Tom Dayton at 06:01 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
mistermack, you are incorrect that runaway warming was happening but something else stopped it. Positive feedbacks that are not of the runaway variety never can run away. They are self-limiting. Each little bout of positive feedback is just that--a little, short-lived bout that inherently, by its fundamental nature, will die out. They do not strain toward running away. They are introspective. Belly button "innies" rather than "outies." In our current era, there is a lot for us to worry about despite the lack of the runaway variety of positive feedback, because we keep adding greenhouse gases; our addition of greenhouse gases is a forcing. The non-runaway positive feedback amplifies the effects of those additions. If we suddenly stopped adding greenhouse gases and all other emissions, temperature would continue to rise for several years due to the Earth working toward equilibrium, but then the temperatures would fall. If we continued to emit but at a constant rate instead of an increasing rate, temperature would continue to rise for longer but then would asymptote. Tying all that back into the topic of this post: Those past CO2 positive feedbacks also were not of the runaway variety. So they, too, inherently would peter out. Unlike the human-caused addition of CO2, there was no forcing by independent addition of CO2. CO2 was instead acting as a non-runaway feedback. Other, forcing and feedback, factors needed to keep stimulating the system and thereby prompting more (non-runaway) positive feedback from CO2. Most prominent among those factors was orbital cycles, but there also were effects of changes in vegetation, dust, snow and ice cover,.... So your question "what made the temperature rise stop" is ill posed. The better question is "what made the temperature continue to rise as long as it did?" -
mistermack at 05:49 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Doug, that's an incredibly weak argument. Who's going to draw attention to their incorrect predictions? They get conveniently forgotten, and we are left with amazingly accurate forecasts. It's like a bankrupt gambling addict telling you about his big wins. -
ubrew12 at 05:44 AM on 25 October 2010Blaming global warming on the oceans - a basic rebuttal
Gray says global warming is "likely a result of the natural alterations in global ocean currents". Perhaps another argument against this is to examine the wavelengths of known ocean oscillations, like El Nino. These seem to occur in time periods less than 10 years, even less than 3 years, despite being global in extent. This argues that a natural alteration with a multi-decadal wavelength is unlikely. And if it involves salinity, how did that happen, if not through global melting, due to global warming? It seems the simplest explanation is still the best one. -
mistermack at 05:42 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Phil, you can talk up climate science all you like, it involves physics and chemistry, but that's where the similarity ends. You can make predictions in physics and chemistry, and verify them. In climate science, you can't even predict next year's trend. But you can grandly predict the trend for the next century. Without the slightest risk of being proved wrong.Moderator Response: You are solidly in the topic of a different thread now: "Models are Unreliable." Use the Search field at the top left of this page. -
mistermack at 05:36 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Archie, if the evidence was as overwhelming as you say, I wouldn't waste my time looking. I know for a fact that the evidence is debateable, because I've done a lot of looking, much more that the average student intake. I think I am therefore well justified in my conclusion that most people are initially convinced by the "consensus" rather than evidence. You mention doctors, but many doctors are also homeopaths, and many are "experts" in homeopathy. The concencus of experts in homeopathy would be overwhelmingly supporting the effectiveness of homeopathic remedies. Same applies to Chirpractic. I'm not saying that climate science is as silly as these, I'm just pointing out that a consensus is naturally self perpetuating, till it's disproved. That's why the consensus on AGW is totally valueless, as evidence. -
Paul D at 05:28 AM on 25 October 2010Blaming global warming on the oceans - a basic rebuttal
mbayer I think you'll find Dan Pangburn is a contributor to ClimateRealsists.com. Embarrassingly to the engineering profession he says he is a mechanical engineer. -
Klaus Flemløse at 05:18 AM on 25 October 2010DMI and GISS Arctic Temperatures: Hide the Increase?
Peter Hogarth, Thank you for your remarks. Frank Lanser has been so kind as to produce an excel sheet with the data behind his temperature graph. You can find it below: http://hidethedecline.eu/media/BLANDET/DMIIS.xls I understand from your latest remarks that you have access to the corresponding data from DMI. I would be pleased if you could provide Skeptical Science readers with the DMI data in excel format. I am looking forward to doing a reconciliation of the two datasets. Regards Klaus Flemløse -
Doug Bostrom at 05:18 AM on 25 October 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
Speaking of IR antennas or at least something in the same domain of recovering wasted heat energy, thermionic junctions are finally showing some promise for recycling of waste heat on a large scale. More nanotech goodness... -
archiesteel at 05:14 AM on 25 October 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
@RSVP: AWH represents about 1% of AGHW. Therefore, about 1% of the temperature incraease is due to waste heat. Why are you still arguing about this (apart from wasting peopel's time, which I suspect is your true objective here)? -
Doug Bostrom at 05:13 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Actually the first relatively back-of-the-envelope style calculations of the net effects of CO2 forcing were remarkably close to what we're seeing, mistermack. The earlier model predictions also produced results that can be considered reasonably useful in light of how things have since progressed. Early calculations were done some 50 years ago or more, model runs were first being done over 30 years in the past, so this is hardly "brand new." One can of course say, "oh, they were just lucky" but that's really not sufficient. -
Phil at 05:11 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Mistermack @246 most science can be verified by experiment No, science is verified by observation. Experimentation is, of course, just a "fast track" way of making observations. For some sciences, (Astronomy, Ethology, Geology) experimentation is difficult, if not impossible; for others (Economics, Human Development) experimentation can be considered immoral. Climate science is actually largely, if not entirely, the application of physics and a little bit of chemistry to a specific system - the Earth and its atmosphere. Experiments pertaining to climate science, and indeed think about the effects of CO2 on the energy balance have been going on for about 150 years. -
archiesteel at 05:06 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
@mistermack: "How many new students in the climate science field come into the subject without an opinion on global warming? And what it the overwhelming opinion going to be? Pro, of course." This is irrelevant. Most people believe in AGW because the evidence is there, and the science is convincing. One has to be pretty arrogant to assume that the majority of people going into climate science are led by irrational belief rather than actual scientific knowledge. "If you didn't believe in global warming, you would be crazy to choose climate science as a career." It's not a matter of belief, but of logical reasoning. We accept AGW as very likely true because the evidence clearly suggests it is. "So every new intake is already convinced of AGW, generally because of the concensus." The consensus exists because the science is pretty compelling. The fact the science is so compelling is the reason many contrarians choose not to debate the science, but rather attack the integrity of those who understand it by claiming (without evidence) they are victim of groupthink. This is what you're trying to do now. It's insulting, not to mention factually wrong. "In fact, in any field, most "experts" are understandaby apologists for the concensus." And that means they are wrong? Is a doctor an apologist for treatment because he's an expert in it? Is a general an apologist for good military strategy because he's an expert? Your position seems to be that the more someone knows about something, the less we should trust that person. That's nothing more than ole' fashioned anti-intellectualism. the bane of scientific thought. You assume the experts are wrong simply because you don't agree with the conclusion...that's not a logical position. "There is an incredibly similar situation in the field of Bible study. The huge majority of people entering the profession are already believers." Actually, the situation is very different, because Bible study isn't empirical science. It's simply the study of Christian religious texts. Again, you try to attack the reputation of those you disagree with, this time by likening them to religious people. The sad thing is that, by espousing false ideas not based on logic and trying to discredit honest scientists, *you* are the one acting like the anti-sciece fanatical religious fringe. -
mistermack at 05:01 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Hi Phil, from the little I know, QM and GR contradict each other in places, and both fail when applied to the very beginning of the big bang. However, my real argument would be that most science can be verified by experiment, and maths by proof. Climate science is brand new, with no track record, and has a record of NO correct predictions so far. ( I mean real predictions, not retro ).Moderator Response: You are wrong. In the Search field type "Models are Unreliable." -
Phil at 04:49 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Mistermack @242 says: A concensus IS a feedback loop. Especially if it exists in a scientific community. There is scientific consensus on General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and Darwinian Evolution ... Does that mean they're wrong ? Why should it for climate science ? There is an incredibly similar situation in the field of Bible study. I had a friend that lost her faith studying Theology. Her view was that the lecturers threw every argument against religion at the students to ensure students could overcome any "doubts". For her the doubts got the better of her. She was quite bitter about it :-( -
Phila at 04:38 AM on 25 October 2010Blaming global warming on the oceans - a basic rebuttal
#20 How about we assume that GW is caused partly by ocean surface temperature, partly by CO2 level and partly by sunspots? How about we back up our assumptions with the best available science, instead of relying on dodgy pseudoscientific sites? -
mistermack at 04:36 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Truevoice, firstly, are you saying then that the scientific consensus is never wrong? I'm afraid I have to disagree. And you don't attempt to refute my points, you are simply argueing by assertion yourself. I think you should reread your own link, and look up "irony". -
Trueofvoice at 04:26 AM on 25 October 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
RSVP, All heat imparted from our technology is by definition "waste". All of it. The heat which comes from friction, A/C, factories and electronics is all due to inefficiency. Your assumption that waste heat is enough to warm the planet by 0.1C per year is based on a faulty premise. Nor have you demonstrated the effect of "waste heat" is more than the +0.028 W m−2 identified by Flannery. If you have identified a flaw in his paper, please point it out to us. -
mistermack at 04:24 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
MrResponse, I have read that article about runaway warming, someone already linked it on this thread. But you can't have it both ways. If there is a built-in mechanism that stopped runaway warming, (as seems perfectly clear anyway from the graphs), then there should be little to worry about. And also, what is the mechanism that happens so suddenly (suddenly in climate terms Archie), and sends the whole process into reverse? There is nothing similar to that in the page you linked. If it was the CO2 supply dwindling in the ocean, wouldn't it happen incredibly slowly? How do you think that could happen quickly, and go straight into steep reverse, as I asked? People seem to be dodging the difficult question here. -
Trueofvoice at 04:11 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
Mistermack, The difference in religious studies and science is that science is self-correcting, using the most rigorous methodology of discovery humans have ever invented. Providing links to arguments about religious experts tells us absolutely nothing about science or the field of climatology. Your statements regarding a "consensus" are yet another Argument by Assertion, a logical fallacy. I strongly suggest you spend some time at the Fallacy Files before posting here again. You'll be able to make a stronger case for your point of view. -
mbayer at 04:10 AM on 25 October 2010Blaming global warming on the oceans - a basic rebuttal
@Dan: Dude, 'climaterealists.com'? This is a denier website. You were misled by the innocuous URL. -
Peter Hogarth at 03:59 AM on 25 October 2010Explaining Arctic sea ice loss
D Kelly O'Day at 09:40 AM on 19 October, 2010 Sorry about the delay in responding. I fitted a linear trend to the HadCRUT series, then worked out the exact monthly increment for that trend, then generated a monthly cumulative time series and subtracted these values from the corresponding original monthly data values, (then back-checked the result!). This is crude but effective. Hope that makes sense. -
RSVP at 03:50 AM on 25 October 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
muoncounter #319 In your reference "as much as 20 to 50% of the energy consumed is ultimately lost via waste heat " the use of waste heat in this context refers to inefficiencies in systems. It refers to energy expenditure that accomplishes no useful work. My use of the term refers to any and all heat that is imparted on any and all things on this Earth, assuming the first law of thermodynamics holds for fossil fuel consumption, which it does.... (just imagine if it didnt... we'd have a huge class action law suit for that energy weve been charged for!) So all this energy could be the heat produced from friction on tires, air, engine parts. This could be heat that ultimately escapes from homes for heating. This could be heat used to warm water to shower, all of it ultimately ending up in the environment. I assumed the atmosphere just to simplify the problem, and you are right about heat getting into streams, the oceans etc. You can complicate and refine this as much as you want, and of course this was very rough. For instance, I assume the mass of air is constant with altitude, whereas in reality it drops off to about half at 27,000 ft, which when accounted for would make the resulting temperature rise even higher. Someone else will say the atmosphere is higher, so the rise is less, and on and on. I am aware of this, but if you assume the Earth´s temperature will rise 3 degrees in the next 100 years due to GHGs, then each year the change is 0.03 C. Here, the result for "waste heat" could be 0.1 C. So the only way it could be GHG is if all the waste heat magically goes away, which is what the "non contrarians" are going to have to say. -
Dan Pangburn at 03:47 AM on 25 October 2010Blaming global warming on the oceans - a basic rebuttal
How about we assume that GW is caused partly by ocean surface temperature, partly by CO2 level and partly by sunspots? Set up a rational equation incorporating all these with coefficients to determine the influence of each. If you do this you will discover that, since 1895, sunspots caused about 22% of the temperature increase with the rest divided about equally between ocean surface temperature and sunspots. See the equation which calculates average global temperatures since 1895 with an accuracy of 88%, an eye-opening graph of the results, and how they are derived in the pdfs at http://climaterealists.com/index.php?tid=145&linkbox=true -
mistermack at 03:26 AM on 25 October 2010There is no consensus
The AGW arguments rely heavily on feedback loops, and the concensus argument is just about the biggest. A concensus IS a feedback loop. Especially if it exists in a scientific community. How many new students in the climate science field come into the subject without an opinion on global warming? And what it the overwhelming opinion going to be? Pro, of course. If you didn't believe in global warming, you would be crazy to choose climate science as a career. So every new intake is already convinced of AGW, generally because of the concensus. There is your feedback loop, concensus naturally reinforces concensus and actually increases it. In fact, in any field, most "experts" are understandaby apologists for the concensus. There is an incredibly similar situation in the field of Bible study. The huge majority of people entering the profession are already believers. What happens when they study in depth, and maybe experience some doubts? Here's a good article "Biblical Scholars Here's another well written piece on why most "experts" are apologists for the concensus: Most experts are apologists for the concensus . -
Tom Dayton at 03:22 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
mistermack, since you seem frustrated at the answers you are getting here, why don't you post your question about the rapidity of cooling over on this particular post on ice ages at RealClimate? -
archiesteel at 03:12 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
@mistermack: you seems to assume a lot of things wrong. What you says happens "suddenly" in reality takes hundreds, even thousands of years. You also seem to believe only CO2 affects temperature. You've been provided with links explaining why these ain't so. Why not try to study these various mechanisms a bit more instead of taking such an adversarial approach? Did you come here to learn, or to make a point? -
Tom Dayton at 02:47 AM on 25 October 2010Blaming global warming on the oceans - a basic rebuttal
TimTheToolMan, water evaporates all the time, and it precipitates all the time. There are spatial and temporal lumps in the atmosphere's water vapor content, but as barry wrote, the overall average is determined by temperature and pressure of the atmosphere, not by temperature of the water pools. -
TimTheToolMan at 02:27 AM on 25 October 2010Blaming global warming on the oceans - a basic rebuttal
"Evaporation occurs all the time at the surface of the oceans" Are you suggesting a warmer ocean wont affect the moisture levels in the atmosphere? What about convection? -
Tom Dayton at 02:19 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
mistermack, lots of factors influence temperature. Although CO2 is a really important one, it is not the only one. The interplay of those factors is complicated. Our knowledge of that interplay is summarized in causal models. Those models do a good job of hindcasting the changes in temperature in response to changes in those factors. -
Tom Dayton at 02:09 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
mistermack, your incorrect analogy with a moving ball makes me suspect that you are incorrectly thinking of temperature as having inertia. -
TonyWildish at 02:07 AM on 25 October 2010The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
stylo, #38. The incoming solar and outgoing terrestrial radiation spectra are different (different temperatures of sun and earth). GHGs selectively block frequencies nearer the peak of the earth's spectrum, so they stop only a small fraction of the incoming energy but a larger fraction of the outgoing energy. So a portion of the spectrum becomes essentially unavailable for the earth to use to radiate away energy, and it warms up until it emits enough energy at other frequencies to maintain the balance. If it helps, you can think of it as effectively lowering the emissivity of the earth at certain frequencies, by lowering the transparency of the atmosphere to those frequencies. -
mistermack at 01:56 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
In any case, Archie, for that to happen, the CO2 graph would have to get ahead of the temperature graph. -
mistermack at 01:51 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
Archie, that's totally illogical. If you consider the peaks of the graphs, you have a huge steep rise, coming to a sudden stop, followed by a huge steep fall. How on earth does that happen in response to CO2 feedback? Does the ocean suddenly stop outgassing, and suddenly start sucking in CO2? In huge quantities? How would that happen?Moderator Response: Again, you seem to be assuming that putting the label "positive feedback" on any phenomenon necessitates the runaway version of positive feedback. See the Argument "Positive Feedback Means Runaway Warming", and read all three versions--Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. -
barry1487 at 01:44 AM on 25 October 2010Blaming global warming on the oceans - a basic rebuttal
Evaporation occurs all the time at the surface of the oceans, but it is the temperature (and pressure) of the atmosphere that determines how much water vapour accumulates (on average), as per the Clausius–Clapeyron relation. -
archiesteel at 01:44 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
@mistermack: you don't seem to understand that climate feedbacks don't necessarily lead to runaway warming. Did you read the article I linked to earlier? "In climate terms, that would require the CO2 to run out, or the process of outgassing from the ocean to suddenly stop." There is a finite amount of CO2 sequestered in the oceans, so it is possible that the rate of CO2 release from oceans would slow down as that amount decreases. Your analogy is inadequate, and your conclusions are thus erroneous. I suggest reading more from this site before attempting to take down current AGW theory. -
nealjking at 01:24 AM on 25 October 2010The 2nd law of thermodynamics and the greenhouse effect
#39, cont'd: Stylo: So the point is that a little bit from solar input is worth just a little bit from the heat-radiation output: When compared on an apples-to-apples basis, total solar input to the Earth is essentially equal to total Terran heat-radiation output. So the point still stands: Additional water vapor will do much more to reduce the heat loss than it does for blocking incoming solar radiation. -
mistermack at 01:23 AM on 25 October 2010CO2 lags temperature
There seems to be very poor understanding of feedback among posters, so I'll try to give a simplified description. Imagine you have a football, (soccer), and a golfball. Chop the football in half, and lay it on the ground as a bowl. Put the golfball inside. That's negative feedback. If anything disturbs the golfball, it will roll back to the middle. Turn the football over, and put the golf ball on top. A very slight forcing factor ( a breath of wind ) causes it to roll. Once it's on the down slope, gravity, the feedback mechanism, takes over, and the ball runs away. It no longer needs the wind that started it, and wind in the other direction can't blow it back up the football. So those who claim that a reverse in the level of insolation would stop a feedback mechanism are really not understanding what's happening at all. For that to happen, the feedback would have to be incredibly weak, nowhere near what could pull a planet out of an ice-age. In reality, it's removing the feedback power source that stops positive feedback loops, like turning down the volume knob on your guitar amplifier. In climate terms, that would require the CO2 to run out, or the process of outgassing from the ocean to suddenly stop.
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