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NewYorkJ at 08:57 AM on 5 October 2010Climate Cherry Pickers: Falling sea levels in 2010
The strategy of the political bunch is to cite short-term events when they favor lower temperatures, flat or dropping sea levels, upward-trending Arctic sea ice, etc., ignore the short-term events that show the opposite (which happen to be more frequent and/or of greater magnitude), ignore the longer term trends, or simply assert the data is unreliable. To me, this sort of thing is extremely transparent, and I don't think one needs to be particularly astute to reach the same conclusion. I'm thinking the people who tend to be mislead by contrarians are those who want to be mislead. So to the question of why raw sea levels dropped this year, it seems to be combination of the seasonal signal (see the seasonal signal removed graph and note the smaller drop), the failure to apply the inverse barometer adjustment, and la Nina developing (not also the 1998 drop), resulting in a short-term downward trend of global average ocean temperatures (thermal expansion component is therefore downward trending). With la Nina firmly in place, expect the "global cooling" meme to return, as 2011 will almost certainly be off record levels. -
ocrow at 08:48 AM on 5 October 2010What constitutes 'safe' global warming?
I keep seeing articles that refer to particular atmospheric CO2 levels corresponding to particular global temperature changes. Is there a graph that shows the relationship between the two? -
Joe Blog at 08:34 AM on 5 October 2010An underwater hockey stick
CBDunkerson at 04:55 You are confusing energy with temperature... The oceans will absorb energy from the atmosphere... but they cannot warm more than the Temperature anomaly(and that would only be at the surface from LW), the heat flow is always going to be from hot to cold. Water holds vastly more energy than air... to quote Science of Dooms examples * if the oceans cooled down by a tiny 0.1°, transferring their heat to the atmosphere, the atmosphere would heat up by 100°C (it wouldn’t happen like this but it gives an idea of the relative energy in both) * "if the atmosphere transferred so much heat to the oceans that the air temperature went from an average of 15°C to a freezing -15°C, the oceans would heat up by a tiny, almost unnoticeable 0.03°C" Science of Doom Now, what you are proposing is happening in these graphs, is impossible, no two ways about it. Liquid water is extremely opaque to LW, and relatively so to SW, thus the reason the oceans are stratified, Warm water is less dense than cold water. There is no way for LW to heat the bottom water more than the surface at a given location. These observed anomalies in the bottom water cannot be the product of greenhouse warming in these area's. Bibliovermis at 05:38 "If the oceans aren't generating energy, then this assertion that the oceans are heating the atmosphere is nothing more than "It's the Sun!" This isnt actually ground breaking stuff... it has been known for a long time that the THC's velocity can have a huge impact on the climate, energy distribution is the difference between a glaciation, and an interglacial. So you pump more energy from the tropics to the higher latitudes, it results in a raised sea temperature, increased evaporation/water vapor in atmosphere, enhanced GHE, and the additional energy. Slow it down, reduced energy, water vapor/GHE and raised albedo. The difference between a hot house(jurassic) or ice house(present) is the way the continents effect ocean circulation, and the transport o energy around the globe. -
svettypoo at 08:32 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Thanks for the speedy response dana1981. Before I make a rebuttal, I want to make sure I have this right. Do you claim that TIS's concern is unwarranted because climate models are NOT in conflict with temperature measurements of the past?Moderator Response: Please see KR's list of suggested appropriate locations for detailed discussion on model performance.
Note, this not to suggest svettypoo intended to continue here but instead is a general request.
As was mentioned earlier, the "Latest Posts" list at left is a convenient way of discovering where the crowd has gone. -
Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
svettypoo - Discussions of climate models should take place on How reliable are climate models, where this is addressed, or perhaps in this case the CO2 was higher in the past thread, where it's clear that solar and CO2 forcings together with other inputs match previous climate behavior (see CO2 is not the only driver of climate). Your claim about model inconsistency is not supportable - and I note that you have presented no evidence in that regard. -
Riccardo at 08:25 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
svettypoo, the problem is when claims are not supported by any known science. For example, your claim "Temperature records of the past are in conflict with what climate models predict" does not seems to have strong bases. And if one such claim is used to disprove one century of science (as TIS did), well, what should one say? -
dana1981 at 08:22 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
svettypoo - generally for a concern to merit a response, it must be substantiated. If TIS says that global warming is caused by unicorn farts, he's probably not going to receive a response for that either. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:06 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
CoalGeologist @39... I have to say, that was very well put. -
JMurphy at 08:03 AM on 5 October 2010An underwater hockey stick
johnd, there's something not quite right with your supposed email from Harry Hendon. You state : "...the following comments he emailed to another researcher, Gary Meyers..." This suggests a personal email (however you managed to get hold of it), but the following from the email suggests otherwise : For those interested, I include a link... This means that it must have been sent to more than one person. Why the difference ? -
DSL at 07:48 AM on 5 October 2010Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
Yeh - I'm not sure why you're pointing out that the science deals in uncertainty. This is a basic assumption of any scientist. That you should mention it suggests that you're trying to point out that no product of science is certain enough to act upon--the old religious "science has no answers!" gag. Of course, you may be reacting to the confidence many posters have here in the physics and evidence that supports AGW. Theory tries to find the explanation that best fits all the data and the physics. The AGW theory is the best fit, and no other comprehensive theory even comes close. Actually, no other comprehensive theory has been offered--even by so-called 'skeptics'. Instead, the AGW theory is attacked relentlessly (some might say 'robotically') by people who think they have the key to disintegrating it. That's all these people seem to be concerned about: disintegration--not alternative explanations. If you're sincere in your doubt about AGW, offer an alternative theory that takes into account as much evidence and physical law as AGW does. As far as the future is concerned, throwing doubt on models and predictions is a safe game, unless the game is being played with live weapons. If you trust your own analysis enough to say that the highest probability outcome for the next fifty years is not relatively rapid warming, then offer an alternative model that takes into account everything that climatologists take into account. If IPCC models were a kicker in a U.S.-style football game, then the IPCC would be up 3 points. Fifteen years ago, maybe not, because they were kicking from the 45 yard line. With the last fifteen years of data, the line of scrimmage has been moved to the 25. It's a game they don't want to win, though. You say "clouds," but it would help if you spread the problem out before using it club-like to attack AGW. Little or no proof or reasoning has been offered to support the idea that significant decreases or increases in cloud cover persisting over the range of climate is in the offing. I've seen a little discussion on albedo vs. insulation, and there doesn't seem to be a consensus as to the more powerful effect. Nothing in the last 30-40 years of warming suggests that a rapid change in cloud response to AGW is happening. Check the publication record. Yao and DelGenio conclude that the net feedback is positive. Indeed, the overall somewhat-less-than-significant-confident consensus is that clouds are a positive feedback. There is nothing in the physics, though, that would suggest a heavy and rapid response one way or the other. In other words, the likelihood that clouds could counter AGW is pretty slim. If they provide a negative feedback, it's probably going to be slight. It's more likely, based on current science, that they'll provide a slight positive feedback, much to our chagrin. -
Doug Bostrom at 07:34 AM on 5 October 2010Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
Not to blow my own horn, but there's a fairly extended (some say positively puffy) article on London and rising sea level here: Grappling With Change: London and the River Thames From all accounts London will cope w/1m, it's the upside of uncertainty in projections that inspires consternation. Other places are a different story w/1m. The common thread is that of getting in line for lots of money, early. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 07:17 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Sigh... So will it be in bad taste to point out that the labeling on the CO2 chart is mis-labeled. The Taylor Dome is the 11 kYear source and the Law dome data is the 1,000 year source. I agree that this is not a big deal, but that is part of what peer review. -
Daniel Bailey at 07:17 AM on 5 October 2010Accelerating ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland
Re: chrisd3 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009... I make that spanning 7 years of data, by my new-mathy (I actually used my fingers) count. Velicogna refers to it as a 7-year period of data. You're right to query that nine-year interval in the topic of this post. Typo, John? The Yooper -
scaddenp at 07:14 AM on 5 October 2010Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
Baz - the only forcings we know of are solar, aerosol, GHG and albedo (though on long time scales, you have to consider plate motion as well). You cant have certainty in science so perhaps there is another cause we dont of but that is not the way to bet. On the other hand, we can consider a model which says climate is always a response to those forcings and compare measured climate to those forcings. And it fits extremely well - no mystery about change 35 years ago, nor mid-century cooling nor early 20th rise. And of course GHG emissions models make all these other predictions like stratospheric cooling, arctic amplification, warmer nights etc. Your alternative mystery cause has to fit all these too. And yes, I think everything in climate from this evenings sea breeze, to long term climate has causes in the realms of physics. -
The Sailer 99 at 07:03 AM on 5 October 2010Sea level rise predictions are exaggerated
I have been looking for more information in this area as most sea level graphs only go back 15,000 years to the end of the last ice age. 125,000 years ago the earth had 300ppm of CO2 and a temperature 5c warmer than now and sea levels rose 6 to 9 meters. We now have CO2 at 390ppm and rising so what can we expect from sea levels? 6 to 9 meters would be very modest. There needs to be more information on this. A sea level rise of one meter wipes out Holland, London, Florida, and many other industrial areas so we need to know how soon. -
scaddenp at 06:59 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
GC - I am very disappointed that you could be cheering for TIS when you must know from many discussions that his/her points are utterly uninformed and bogus, as many have been discussed with you at length. Are you still having issue with role of CO2 in ice ages? Feel free to take conversation to email. -
Albatross at 06:58 AM on 5 October 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
GC @71, The Nissan Leaf sounds just right for you. IMHO, EV's will follow a similar trajectory to hybrids and the Leaf will be to EV's what the Prius was to hybrids. There is also the Volt.... -
Baz at 06:56 AM on 5 October 2010Uncertain Times at the Royal Society?
DSL, Hazlett's profession isn't the point. My point was that it's science's duty to know the 'cause'. Please don't start with the, "You said"!!! I had enough trouble the last time I came here, what's up with people on here, do they read posts too fast? I said, "Given that science is never certain, and climate science falls a long way short of that." Science itself IS never certain. Climate science is the most complex, coupled, non-linear, chaotic system known. So we are indeed a long way short of being certain about it. Clouds have the largest area of uncertainty in climate modelling, and since clouds do have a profound effect then that says a lot about our inability to properly understand the climate system. Science does indeed come to tentative conclusions based on the balance of evidence, but the key word in there is 'evidence'. If your model is set with insufficient knowledge on the effects of something (clouds) that profoundly affects the result, then the 'evidence' is flawed. As I said, climate science falls a long way short of certainty. Unpalletable to some! -
chrisd3 at 06:38 AM on 5 October 2010Accelerating ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland
I'm a little confused about this sentence: "This means that Greenland's mass loss doubled over the 9 year period." The following is from the Velicogna 2009 abstract (the full paper is paywalled): "[Greenland] mass loss increased from 137 Gt/yr in 2002–2003 to 286 Gt/yr in 2007–2009...." Isn't this more like five or six years than nine? -
CoalGeologist at 06:25 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
The Inconvenient Skeptic @#6 & #13, etc.: Thanks (but not really) for providing the summary of unsubstantiated postulates that so-called "skeptics" believe to be true, even in the absence of scientific evidence. You might consider expanding it into a movie script, to be entitled, "The Attack of the Zombie Straw Men" (Tag line: "You can try to destroy them, but they will not die!"). If it weren't for "skeptics" such as yourself, this web site would have no reason to exist... so at some absurd and ironic level, we owe you a debt of gratitude. Your recitative also reminds me of the very first lecture on climate change I ever attended, presented by a "skeptical" geologist colleague who provided a rundown of all the many reasons why he believed AGW to be false. I didn't know enough about climate science at the time to know what specifically was incorrect about his talk.... but I did know that one (and only one) of the following statements was true: a) The entire population of climate scientist (internationally) are utterly incompetent, OR b) This guy was wrong about essentially everything he said. The difference between him and me... and between you and me as well, I would presume, is that the very next day I set about with an open mind to investigate the science behind his claims. Suffice it to say, it was NOT my ultimate conclusion that the entire population of climate scientists are incompetent. If you aspire to skepticism (and it's an admirable pursuit), I recommend you start over from scratch, with no biases this time. And just as a little "heads up", try to bear in mind at all times that there are many factors that influence climate; not just CO2Moderator Response: And comments on that particular topic should be posted in CO2 is not the only driver of climate. -
gallopingcamel at 06:24 AM on 5 October 2010Climate Change: Past, Present, and Future
CBDunkerson (#66), Mostly agree with your points. I just checked the Tesla sticker price; at over US $101,000 it is way too expensive for me but the performance seems pretty nifty! Most of my motoring amounts to under 40 miles a day so plugging into a charger on my garage wall works for me. No need for an extensive charging infra-structure. I wonder if folks like me will constitute a sufficient market to interest an automobile manufacturer. JMurphy (#65), It makes me uncomfortable when people mix religion and science. I wish Steven Hawking would stop talking about "knowing the mind of God". -
archiesteel at 06:23 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
@Phila: excellent points. Let me briefly go off-topic to suggest the site should eventually improve its comment system. I'd love to be able to upvote comments such as #28 and 37. Threaded comments and the ability to flag off-topic posts would also greatly enhance the level of discussion. SkS 2.0, if you will! ;-) -
Vinny Burgoo at 06:21 AM on 5 October 2010It's not bad
JC: 'Where does your figure for NW China come from?' From a very, very rough estimate of the total population of the Tarim oases. -
Phila at 06:13 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#33 See that? The famous Dr. Roy Spencer says that there is "precious little of it [carbon dioxide] in Earth's atmosphere" and that "carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth to exist." And now we are declaring that that life-giving elixir, so precious little of it in the atmosphere, is an air pollutant? OK. I hope you're being ironic. But it's hard to tell sometimes, so let me say again that "a little is good" doesn't mean "a lot is better." Copper is essential to life, but the fact that there's "precious little" of it in our bodies is not actually a bad thing. Spencer's reputation doesn't make his argument more credible. His argument makes him less credible. Also, saying that there's "precious little" CO2, and calling it a "life-giving elixir" is a bit maudlin. We're not in any danger of running out of CO2. Quite the opposite. -
Bibliovermis at 06:11 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Roger, Raising from 39 in 100,000 to 40 in 100,000 is a 2.5% increase. Humanity has already increased the CO2 atmospheric content by 40% over the past 150 years. 2.5% in 5 years 40% in 150 years Playing on the innumeracy of the crowd doesn't change the facts. Phila said it best aboveThe definition of "pollutant" is not "something that's inherently bad in all concentrations and at all times and places." And the fact that CO2 is necessary for life doesn't mean that industries should be allowed to emit as much as they want. "A little is necessary, so a lot is beneficial or harmless" doesn't make any kind of logical sense in the real world.
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scaddenp at 06:10 AM on 5 October 2010An underwater hockey stick
TOP - measurements of deep ocean temperature is from temperature probes profiling of ocean water. Eg. look at recent article on this site but grab the paper and look at the bibliography for pointers to more deep ocean papers. The data is public at NOAA. The heat flux from earth is calculated from temperature profile of wells drilled land and sea. Oil industry cares because to have oil, you need to have heated source rock into the oil window for production to occur while preferably not heating to point that gas is mostly produced. Basin-wide heat flux maps through time are constructed. The very high heat flux of volcanoes is rather local in effect sadly as rocks are poor conductors on this scale. -
Doug Bostrom at 06:04 AM on 5 October 2010What constitutes 'safe' global warming?
Perhaps we've reached a state of post-denial denial, Matt. I've a kid so I've got an incentive to try keeping my innate cynicism (realism) in check, but I find it hard to see how we're going to undo the damage caused by 20 years of concerted waffling. -
CBDunkerson at 06:04 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Roger #33: The precious "life-giving elixir" of CO2 is a deadly poison to humans which our bodies have evolved to get rid of as quickly as possible. If the atmosphere somehow increased to ~10% CO2 (not going to happen any time soon) every human being on the planet would immediately fall over and die. CO2 is a lethal poison that kills human beings all the time. Try asking some coal miners about how wonderful and life-giving it is. Again, things become pollutants when their concentration in a given area is harmful to the environment of that area. CO2 has now risen high enough that it is actually becoming harmful to the environment of the entire planet... it's a pollutant. -
Doug Bostrom at 05:57 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Cruise the web and you'll see a plethora of slick, obviously well-funded sites dedicated to conveying the virtuous nature of C02, Dana. Sunlight! All natural! No way to hurt yourself with a suntan... More charitably, the problem here is that C02 is not acutely toxic at 800ppm, as opposed to C0 with its swiftly acting 25ppm threshold, nor is it like lead in usually being toxic via chronic exposure. At the levels we're speaking of,it's not even a toxicity problem at all. The gulf of understanding here may arise because as it's a chemical, the established regulatory framework offers an existing way of approaching C02 as a pollutant loosely akin in some ways to a chronic exposure problem. In fact we could also think of excess C02 as being more akin to building a faulty dam above a community but since we're paralyzed in terms of creating a policy framework to handle "dangerously defective" on such a huge scale we're stuck w/the EPA et al. -
MattJ at 05:54 AM on 5 October 2010What constitutes 'safe' global warming?
This article strikes me as very odd. First, by proposing that there is such as thing as "safe global warming", secondly, by writing as if it were still possible to keep the rise down to 2 deg. C. I thought it was a foregone conclusion: we are already far too late to keep it down to 2C. Somewhere I remember seeing 4C as being projected as more likely now. 4C will, of course, be ugly. But since we are already over the safe limit of CO2, with no signs of slowing down, 2C just isn't possible anymore. -
Roger A. Wehage at 05:53 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Is someone trying to make a mountain out of a CO2 molehill? I was visiting Dr. Roy Spencer's website the other day, and this is what he had to say about CO2: "It is interesting to note that, even though carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth to exist, there is precious little of it in Earth’s atmosphere. As of 2008, only 39 out of every 100,000 molecules of air were CO2, and it will take mankind’s CO2 emissions 5 more years to increase that number by 1, to 40." See that? The famous Dr. Roy Spencer says that there is "precious little of it [carbon dioxide] in Earth's atmosphere" and that "carbon dioxide is necessary for life on Earth to exist." And now we are declaring that that life-giving elixir, so precious little of it in the atmosphere, is an air pollutant? OK. -
Riccardo at 05:52 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Sorry Dana, I now a switch to serious mode. I strongly agree with your beginning with the legal part of the problem. Indeed, I often see a lot of confusion on this respect. People think that a pollutant is something dirty or something that directly and immediately hurts our health. They tend to see it more like a poison than a pollutant. Clarify on this was a great move. -
Riccardo at 05:44 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Arrhenius in his recent paper no more than a century old, with all of the massive parallel computing power he used, milions of lines of codes, tens of super-specialists working for him, an integrated network of land, ocean and satellite instruments, huge fundings from what we now know as IPCC, got his numbers wrong by a factor of two ... what a shame! John Cook, you should consider a new skeptic argument: Arrhenius was off by a factor of two so AGW is disproved. It's easy, you don't even need a formal rebuttal.Moderator Response: Let's take this conversation to a more appropriate page, please. -
CBDunkerson at 05:42 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
BTW, given that the whole 'skeptic' argument here is that something cannot be a pollutant if it is naturally occurring and/or has some beneficial effect(s) I might suggest the 'Basic' version of this article just list various examples of other substances which meet the same criteria but, like CO2, become pollutants at higher concentrations. -
dana1981 at 05:41 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Good point doug - seeing as how the EPA cannot regulate CO2 if it's not a "pollutant" which endangers public welfare, it's not surprising that this is such a sore subject for those who are 'skeptical' of AGW because they oppose government regulation of CO2. But as I think the article clearly shows, there's really no question that CO2 is a pollutant by whatever definition you want to choose, whether it be legal or encyclopedic. It's certainly not harmless. -
Phila at 05:39 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
#16 CO2 cannot "enter" the air, since "air" takes its definition from its constituents, CO2 being one of them. Air is a mixture of gases by definition. It's not at all clear why this definition should prevent us from speaking of a constituent gas "entering" the air. I'd love to see the logical steps here laid out in a little more detail. The idea that CO2 is pollutant is absurd since according to AGW if it were completely removed from the atmosphere we would all perish. The definition of "pollutant" is not "something that's inherently bad in all concentrations and at all times and places." And the fact that CO2 is necessary for life doesn't mean that industries should be allowed to emit as much as they want. "A little is necessary, so a lot is beneficial or harmless" doesn't make any kind of logical sense in the real world. These really are not difficult concepts. #17 I have a pretty good grasp on what drives the Earth's climate from the view of an engineer. Oddly enough, a lot of us prefer to get our information from climatologists, whose expertise and training tend to be a lot more relevant. Full disclosure: I also take my cat to the veterinarian for check-ups, rather than the mechanic. -
Bibliovermis at 05:38 AM on 5 October 2010An underwater hockey stick
TOP, Please learn what the ad hominem fallacy is before falsely throwing out accusations of such. "It's odd how skeptics say ..." is not an ad hominem. "Skeptics are wrong because of their general political ideology" is. TOP & scaddenp, If the oceans aren't generating energy, then this assertion that the oceans are heating the atmosphere is nothing more than "It's the Sun!" - the most used skeptic argument. Please read that article. -
dana1981 at 05:38 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Speaking of which, whoever is acting as moderator is doing a commendable job referring to the appropriate rebuttals. Nicely done. -
Doug Bostrom at 05:37 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Expect a lot of squealing as the rubber of regulation meets the road. "C02 is a pollutant" goes straight to the gut of the fossil fuels industry, so of course there's been a lot of attention paid to sowing confusion on the issue. -
Alexandre at 05:37 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Inconvenient Skeptic Oh, no... another "skeptic" throwing out claims in a faster rate than he can deal with. "Models are not confirmed by observations", "Arrhenius got it wrong and everyone else just followed it", "period x had low CO2 and high temperatures"... Come on, pick any source you think is reliable for atmospheric physics. Maybe a university's website, some large research institute or just a plain textbook. I'm sure your background as an engineer will be enough to understand it. If you don't have any source in mind, don't hesitate to ask. -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:37 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
gallopingcamel... There is a section on SkS for thathere.Moderator Response: And galloping camel and everyone who wants to reply to him, please comment on that page, not this one. -
dana1981 at 05:35 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Oh boy, this comment thread seems to be de-evolving into a repetition of every long-debunked skeptic myth, from 'models are useless' to 'CO2 is saturated'. I suggest that those making these arguments spend some time perusing Skeptical Science, where these myths are refuted. gallopingcamel - believe it or not, life on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago was slightly different than life on Earth today.Moderator Response: Indeed, we are going to start deleting comments (and even responses to comments, to be fair) that are off the topic of this page. -
CBDunkerson at 05:34 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
RSVP #16: You need to read the definitions of 'pollution' in the article again. MANY pollutants are naturally occurring and/or beneficial in smaller quantities. Ergo, the fact that a certain level of CO2 is needed does not change the fact that CO2 far in excess of that level is pollution. Without light there would be no life on this planet at all... yet "light pollution" is a real problem for cave ecosystems and some cities. TIS #18: "That it exists at high altitudes is irrelevant as it has absorbed those bands long before the higher altitudes is reached." That statement is false. I suggest reading Is the CO2 effect saturated?Response: Not only reading that post, but commenting there, not here. That includes people responding to those comments mis-posted on this page. You are free to post a comment pointing to your response on the appropriate page, though. Reminder to everyone: You can see all recent comments regardless of which page they appear on, by clicking the Recent Comments link in the blue horizontal bar at the top of this page. -
archiesteel at 05:33 AM on 5 October 2010What constitutes 'safe' global warming?
@RSVP: what's a "warmest"? Also, convincing politicians who know nothing about science is actually pretty hard when you have a huge Climate Denial Machine funded by the Koch bros. and their ilk drowning real research with their anti-science propaganda. -
Doug Bostrom at 05:33 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Pardon me for making free with advice but this conversation is rapidly heading in an extremely boring direction, promising all sorts of pointless repetition of shopworn canards. "TIS" (The Inconvenient Skeptic) if you're going to make any serious inroads into thinking around here, you're first going to want to revise the inconvenient embarrassment of the article you wrote and have advertised here, taking into account the corrections already on offer. Blunders like your essay are a solid impediment to your credibility and you'll never be allowed to forget it; getting fundamentals so wrong is an important clue as to how seriously any remarks you make here should be taken. You're using your real name, you should respect its worth because it's the only one you have. Also, your alacrity in citing Judith Curry is a unhelpful clue about your perspective and further saps your credibility. Dr. Curry is of course a handy rhetorical prop these days for self-professed skeptics; among skeptics Curry's seen as some sort of evangelized convert to climate skepticism. While it's true that pickings in that department are precious thin, leaving only one example from which to choose, invoking Dr. Curry immediately casts a political tone over anything else you say, meaning people are made aware you're not really concerned with science but instead political theatrics. Problems with dully redundant regurgitation of tired misdirection can be avoided by circumspection, looking at the complete picture as best we know it today, which of course implies such easily accomplished behaviors as not referring to anachronistic narratives of science as it stood over 100 years ago, politically expedient personalities, etc. -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:31 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
gallopingcamel... There is a section on SkS for that here. -
gallopingcamel at 05:26 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
Inconvenient Skeptic (#6), Thank you for pointing out the absurdity of the idea that rising CO2 levels significantly impacted climate over the last 80 years. Even though the idea does not fly at any time scale the faithful on this site are hard to persuade! Getting back to the idea that CO2 is somehow a "pollutant", it seems that the EPA is running this flag up the pole to see if anyone salutes. Thus far they have have dismally failed with all the scientists I work with. For those of you who see CO2 as a pollutant, can you explain how life flourished during tens of millions of years when the atmospheric concentration of CO2 exceeded 6,000 ppm (15 times higher than today)? -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 05:22 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
CB Dunk, CO2 does in fact have a limited absorption bank limited to 14-16 micron (for purposes of the GH effect). That it exists at high altitudes is irrelevant as it has absorbed those bands long before the higher altitudes is reached. I only point out Arrhenius because he is often cited as the originator of the idea behind global warming. It is worth noting that no "theory" was provable until the 1970's. That is when time series temperature data became readily available. Arrhenius's idea that doubling CO2 levels would increase warming 5-6C is still used by many. Only the explanation of why it happens has changed over the years.Moderator Response: See CO2 effect is saturated. And post any comments about that topic there, not here. -
johnd at 05:16 AM on 5 October 2010An underwater hockey stick
doug_bostrom at 05:05 AM, doug, you've got no choice, the Nichols red herring you dished up has come back to repeat, unable to be digested. -
The Inconvenient Skeptic at 05:13 AM on 5 October 2010Carbon Dioxide - Everyone's Favorite Pollutant
The classification of CO2 as a pollutant is a very serious subject that will have a profound impact in the United States. I have spent a significant period of time studying all aspects of this from original sources. I have a pretty good grasp on what drives the Earth's climate from the view of an engineer. Modeling is not science until the results match the observations. Using them as proof until that is achieved is not science.Moderator Response: See Models are unreliable. And post any comments about that topic on that page, not this one. Off topic comments will be deleted from this page.
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