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CBDunkerson at 21:03 PM on 21 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Eric, as I have explained before, and KR and johnd both just did again, the REASON there is more precipitation in a warmer world is that there is more water vapor in the air to precipitate out... because more heat causes more evaporation which puts that water vapor into the air. As you seem to insist on adhering to beliefs which are clearly false without making any effort to examine the proof to the contrary presented to you I don't see much point in continuing this. You should head to Miami and enjoy the ultra low humidity your logic indicates exists there. -
MichaelM at 21:02 PM on 21 August 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
The slope doesn't flatten out as the slope changes with the height of the sun in the sky i.e. the amount of energy a plate on the lunar surface receives is directly proportional to the angle of the sun. The graph in fig 2 is that dome shape, with the initial near-infinite slope, because it is at the equator. As you move north or south the shape changes away from a dome towards a flatter sine wave as the sun rises more gently above the horizon. This image shows the paths of the sun at a latitude of roughly 50deg north (actually from Bristol in the UK) over a period of months. The closer to the poles the flatter the slopes, the limit being the axis not being perpendicular to the sun. -
scaddenp at 20:56 PM on 21 August 2010Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
Poptech - what impact indices measure is the no. of times papers are cited by other journals, not just the E&E echo chamber. While E&E is not about tobacco (hence the quote marks) it certainly appears to be used by those following tobacco industry tactics. I would say the impact of papers in E&E to science is approximately zero and nothing you claim can change that. On the whole, scientists dont share the denialist problems in discerning good from bad. -
Berényi Péter at 20:52 PM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
"How many cats' tails would it take to reach the sky?" "Just one if it's long enough!" -
scaddenp at 20:45 PM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
Michael, well please do work on the matter provided. Disbelieving something because it is inconvenient might be human nature but not rational, and in this case downright dangerous. Reality is not necessarily arranged for our benefit and the laws of physics do not bend to our wishes. That said, I think you are way too pessimistic and falling for disinformation spread by those who most certainly would be adversely affected. Try having a look at MacKay's Sustainable Energy without the hot air. He doesnt pull too many punches about the problems (often criticised as being pro-nuclear but MacKay counters that he is pro-arithmetic) but hardly condemns the world to energy-poverty either. Regards, Phil -
RSVP at 19:16 PM on 21 August 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
MichaelIM 234 You are correct, "Hours" in the caption refers to Moon hours which means 29.5 hours per notch. Things dont warm so fast apparently so it looks like I am wrong. In any event, Fig 2 is still very intersting as it shows heating has a nearly infinite slope coming out of the Lunar "night", without the presence of GHGs. :) Obviously on an expanded time scale, it would be seen to leaning, but it is intersting to see this is no sine wave and that it can only get so cold. (cold enough for me) Is there an explanation for why the high doesnt flatten out like the low on both Mercury and the Moon? As a hard core skeptic, its hard to believe the rotational cycle just happens to coincide to give perfect dome shaped profiles. Dont worry, if you arent sure, I will read the article in my spare time. -
John Russell at 18:05 PM on 21 August 2010Dust-Up On Mars: Should Martians Be Sceptical of Global Warming?
The quote you use starts; "We have virtually no historical data about the climate of Mars prior to the 1970s..." (my emphasis). So it is true. And 4.5 years is not long enough to gather any meaningful data about climate on Mars (particularly as I assume you mean Earth years). But thanks for the interesting info about HiRISE. -
RSVP at 17:11 PM on 21 August 2010What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
Marcus 27 You got me very wrong including my insertion there about hubris. We could turn the whole thing around however and perhaps even veer towards the correct "topic". That would be a question like, "could man provoke an ice age?". Supposely all those sulfur based aerosols helped cooling, not to mention what all that nuclear testing did. All these questions seem very difficult and who knows, maybe we were going into an ice age until we "fixed" one problem to only get another. I have a hard time not seeing hubris as a big stumbing block, but I think you did not understand the remark. It is not to say we cant mess up the entire planet, we can, and we are doing this just fine. The hubris has to do with wanting to believe we have all the answers, when in reality the problem is much more complex than we think. -
Doug Bostrom at 16:35 PM on 21 August 2010NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
"AGW proponents." Comical. Some remarks about Pakistan by Dr. Ricky Rood here. -
RSVP at 15:55 PM on 21 August 2010What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
JMurphy 22 There is no such thing as "the science", however it is good to be aware that some people think that way. Thanks for the warning. -
johnd at 15:55 PM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
adelady at 14:24 PM, there is almost always a drought somewhere in Australia. With various indicators such as the IOD and IPO seemingly taking 6 or 7 decades to cycle through both phases, it is impossible to determine any trends before any cycle has completed fully. The Queensland National Resources and Mines put out a chart depicting the rainfall across all of Australia for each year beginning 1890. Such a chart makes it easy to see the "flow" as the dry and wet years are cycled through and as the distribution varies across the regions, something that is not always evident looking at graphs. -
The Skeptical Chymist at 15:53 PM on 21 August 20101934: the 47th hottest year on record
As far as I can tell 2007 is the hottest year in the NCDC global land record. Given that ocean covers most of the worlds' surface using the land-ocean record would be better, which would give 2005 as the hottest year (as noted by other posters). -
johnd at 15:42 PM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
Marcus at 13:58 PM, SST is a primary influence over the El-Nino, La-Nina cycles. Apart from the heat already in circulation within the oceans, the most obvious means by which SST may vary is solar radiation. However the solar radiation that reaches the surface is dependent on cloud cover and this varies considerably, not only seasonal, but over longer cycles as this diagram indicates, as well as geographic distribution.
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How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
johnd - what goes out (storms) must come in (latent heat via evaporation). First law of thermodynamics... -
johnd at 15:14 PM on 21 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
KR at 14:15 PM, whilst extreme precipitation indicates that a large amount of rain is concentrated on a small area, it doesn't necessarily mean that a large amount of moisture was evaporated from a similarly small area. Certainly in tropical storms that is what drives the storm with the moisture being picked up and then dumped rather quickly over a relatively small area. However at other times it all depends on the circulation patterns with small amounts of moisture being picked up traveling over a vast distance until the system happens to collide with another system that creates the conditions that triggers the rain event. This is what often happens when moisture that is picked up in the Indian Ocean under the normal course of events is transported across Australia to the SE corner where it is released. However there are also times when the remnants of tropical storms that also originated in the Indian Ocean to the NW of Australia also cross to the SE corner where it is released. Whether the rain is released over a wide area or dumped over a smaller area is really dependent on what conditions the rain bearing system collides with. -
papertiger at 14:39 PM on 21 August 2010Dust-Up On Mars: Should Martians Be Sceptical of Global Warming?
We have virtually no historical data about the climate of Mars prior to the 1970s, except for drawings (and latterly, photographs) that reveal changes in gross surface features (i.e. features that can be seen from Earth through telescopes). Not true. We have detailed geographic evidence of changes in the climate on Mars. How? I couldn't tell it nearly as well as J Kelly Beatty of SkyandTelescope, so in his words; "NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has been circling the Red Planet since March 2006, for some 4 1/2 years.Yet it's the Mars mission that hardly anybody knows about. As of June 18th, MRO'sprimary camera -- the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE -- had made 16,077 observations and returned 13.4 trillion pixels of digital imagery. Picture yourself viewing the Red Planet through an exquisite 20-inch (0.5 -meter) f/24 telescope without Earth's atmosphere to contend with. Naturally, you'd expect a great view. Now imagine goosing your magnification up another 20,000x by moving that scope to a vantage just 190 miles (300 km) above the Red Planet, and then throw in a camera able to capture long ribbons of terrain more than 20,000 pixels wide and as long as will fit on a 16-gigabyte memory card. This is the reality of HiRISE, which boasts the largest scope ever floan to another planet. With it Geologists once content to decipher Martian geology fron a patch-work of vague features a mile or so across are now able to follow the tracks of boulders that have rolled down from a crater's rim, or to count thin sedimentary layers in an ancient lakebed." Ain't it a beautiful thing? I'd love to continue, but Jack Horkheimer, my ambassador to the stars has died today at the age of 72, so I'll be in mourning the rest of the evening. Probably in front of an eyepiece. Keep looking up. See the Sep 2010 issue of Sky and Telescope, the one off -
Daniel Bailey at 14:28 PM on 21 August 2010Dust-Up On Mars: Should Martians Be Sceptical of Global Warming?
Soundoff, that's perhaps due to the fact that people have a better view of Mars' polar caps than they do of ours. :) The Yooper -
dhogaza at 14:28 PM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
Thanks for the challenge, many of the arguments are redundant or can be falsified in chunks, but I agree it will take some time, but I'm confident we have plenty of time before climate disaster strikes :)
Oh, this should be fun, black-is-white and up-is-down stuff, and of course all scientists studying such things are wrong because theendisfar is an über genius ... Climate disaster *is* striking, firmly enough that Russia's government, long semi-entrenched in the denialist mode, has talked (at least) about an about-face, and it has nothing to do with international politics (internal political pressure, instead). -
dhogaza at 14:24 PM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
Yes, I think many climate scientists are purposely misrepresenting conjecture as empirical and repeatable evidence quite frequently using subjective terms to provide wiggle room and plugging conjecture into GCM's, passing the predictions off as reliable.
Doug Bostrom's rebuttal is fine, but it's worth noting that this is *exactly* the argument creationists, smoking-is-harmless types, etc use against science. Look, we should I care what the uneducated think, theendisfar? The more you make clear your ignorance, the less I care ... -
adelady at 14:24 PM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
johnd Late 1990s rainfall might have been better than the early 90s. But where did it fall? Scroll down this page to the Murray Darling basin and you'll see that rainfall has dived from 2000 onwards. The previous variability seems to have disappeared. One variable has changed significantly. Between 1960 and 1980 only one year has had over 200mm above average, but since 1980 there are 3 years 200 below average and 2 of those are in the last 10 years. It's not a good look. http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4613.0Chapter55Jan+2010 -
dhogaza at 14:22 PM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
1. The comments policy forbids it, and the terms I've used are already fairly close to crossing that line. Say what you like but AGW Believers get away with far more here than Skeptics.
We also got better grades in science classes when in school, something I'm sure many denialists still resent ...I agree, skeptics have done just as much a terrible job in rebutting AGW as AGW Believers have done in preparing and proving it. Time for someone else to do the job.
Physics actually works for me. CO2 lasers and all that. You're arguing from a position of personal incredulity ... "I don't believe science, therefore it must be wrong!". You're no different than those who believe the earth is 6,000 years old. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:17 PM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
The "skeptic" debate wildcard: Yes, I think many climate scientists are purposely misrepresenting conjecture as empirical and repeatable evidence quite frequently using subjective terms to provide wiggle room and plugging conjecture into GCM's, passing the predictions off as reliable. No point in discussing anything with this fellow, he'll just answer anything and everything with conjecture not related to science when pressed. Facts? Nope, just conjecture, speculation. Thanks for saving my time, "theendisfar." You're a skeptic of the new school, not the old school and thus beyond reason. -
How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Eric - extreme precipitation requires extreme evaporation to provide the WV needed. It ain't gonna rain without sufficient water in the air. So an increase in extreme storms indicates an increase in evaporative generation of water vapor, not a total decrease in relative humidity. That doesn't mean that there might not be changes in RH with temperature - just that you cannot assume drier conditions based on more extreme storms, quite the contrary. -
barry1487 at 14:12 PM on 21 August 20101934: the 47th hottest year on record
"Globally, the ten hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with 2007 as the hottest." It's 2005, not 2007, according to GISS and NCDC. HadCRU, and the two major satellite records have it at 1998. Making these distinctions is not fit for a 'Basic Version' post, I guess, but you should at least change 2007 to 2005.Response: Hottest year has been corrected from 2007 to 2005. Thanks for the feedback. -
SoundOff at 14:12 PM on 21 August 2010Dust-Up On Mars: Should Martians Be Sceptical of Global Warming?
It is ironic people rush to claim that a polar cap melting on Mars is a sure sign of global warming there, while they are not persuaded by the same here on Earth. -
Doug Bostrom at 14:11 PM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
Here's another thing to consider, Miekol. Play with the numbers as you please but as a benchmark thought remember, we could for instance this moment increase the incomes of the poorest 40% of the people in the world by roughly an order of magnitude simply by a contribution from the top 20% of earners essentially unnoticeable for many of us, the price of a few deluxe pizzas per year. Let's not make the mistake of believing if we ignore global warming we're going to raise the world's poor into a new level of prosperity. We choose not to do so today, why would we tomorrow? Is something about human nature going to change? How? -
The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
theendisfar - Nope,, this just isn't recreational. This is about our futures, our descendents futures. It's about how well we've taken care of the world we live in. This isn't a joke, this isn't a rhetorical exercise. This is about living well, doing well, or suffering the painful consequences of bad decisions. Not about scoring 'points' with debate tricks. You want to play semantic games? Fine. You tried that a couple months ago on the CO2 is not the only driver of climate thread, and I simply won't play that game. If you have actual issues with the data or the conclusions drawn from them, we can talk about it. But rhetorical games are not worth playing, not with the current stakes. -
Marcus at 13:58 PM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
So John D, what do you think drives the El Ninos & La Ninas? We know that Solar Activity increased quite rapidly throughout the first half of the 20th century, yet solar activity has largely been in decline for the better part of 30 years. So if the sun was the primary driver of the events of the first half of the century, what was driving the events of the 2nd half? -
dsleaton at 13:53 PM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
Theendisfar: yet consensus is what an unskilled public demands in order to perform informed democracy. Because the public is, in general, unable to do the math (due to restraints of time and/or mental faculty), we turn to scientists. We can't trust one scientist. Getting a second opinion is a natural thing to do in such circumstances. We have the opportunity here to get hundreds of second opinions (from the most informed scientists) and see if a consensus exists. Within the scientific community, "consensus" is simply another name for the peer review and publication process: "Here, I tried my best with the math and the lit review, but maybe you'll see something that I missed," which gets answered by a "No, it looks like--to the best of our knowledge--you've done your homework, and the math looks good." Scientists know they're working with an object (the universe) that hasn't yet been fully defined, and no human mind can encompass all the details, so the natural uncertainty that >everyone< must deal with leads to requests (informal or formal) for consensus. Short version: the demand for consensus is for non-experts, and scientists don't do science only for themselves: they do it for us (non-experts and scientists), so it's no surprise when scientists respond to the demand. (oh, except for the Objectivist types, who do all the science from the ground up without relying on any existing research and don't publish because that would be altruistic. They also don't engage in public forums like this either, because that might lead to their pristine individual selves becoming contaminated by the ideas of others, and all of that ungoverned by social contracts.). -
Marcus at 13:50 PM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
#17. At the risk of straying off topic, not even the most ardent Green is calling for an outlawing of coal or oil as an energy source in the short term-simply that we use what we have much, much more efficiently-especially here in The West. That said, though, most alternatives for coal & oil already exceed them for quantity (the amount of energy that the Earth has in terms of Geothermal, Solar, Tides etc are many times more than what humanity currently use, & will never run out within the span of human civilization). They are also rapidly approaching the point of matching coal & oil for availability, continuity & cost (solar panels, for example, have fallen from $25 per Watt to under $4 per Watt in the space of only 25 years, whilst efficiency has improved from barely 5% to more than 20% in the same time). Some sources of energy (such as bio-gas & co-generation) are already there. Meanwhile, the cost, quantity & availability of coal & oil are actually getting worse-which makes the goal of ridding the world of poverty much less achievable if we continue to rely on them into the future. Of course, much of the world's poverty has less to do with access to resources, & more to do with the continued uneven distribution of said resources! -
theendisfar at 13:28 PM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
KR, No, I will not flat out state it for two reasons. 1. The comments policy forbids it, and the terms I've used are already fairly close to crossing that line. Say what you like but AGW Believers get away with far more here than Skeptics. 2. To state that someone is lying automatically brings motivation into the debate, and I don't give a damn what their motivations are, about consensus, or someone's credibility. It detracts from the debate. Whether it's incompetence or lying, how about you decide? Folks (in general) try to do the best job they can. Let us do the same. You defend AGW, and I, being the skeptic, will attempt to falsify it. No hard/personal feelings, strictly recreational. I cannot imagine a world where the majority are incompetent and the few dissenting voices are on the ball. History is full of examples. Look, I'm not argue this with you. You stated there are lots of repeatable tests, you provided links, and I'm looking them over now. and those with axes to grind against the consensus have entirely failed to come up with consistent alternative hypotheses other than anthropogenic global warming. I agree, skeptics have done just as much a terrible job in rebutting AGW as AGW Believers have done in preparing and proving it. Time for someone else to do the job. I'll make a prediction. By dismissing consensus, motivations, credibility, and any other subjective influence and by strictly following the Scientific Method, we bloggers will either falsify or confirm the AGW Theory on or before August 21, 2011. Anyone else want to help figure out how to put this debate behind us? I've got several ideas and would welcome additional help. Any objections to starting in the Empirical Evidence post noted in #40? -
miekol at 13:27 PM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
:-) many thanks Dappledwater, doug_bostrom and scaddenp. You've provided me with heaps of stuff to ponder on. Thank you. I admit I resist the idea that its man's production of CO2 that is causing the current increasing heat retention. My reason is because just when the the human race is on the threshold of ridding the world of finacial poverty, we are going to condemn the world to greater and even more widespead poverty if we 'outlaw' coal and oil as an energy source. Google "Globalism world of plenty." The alternative sources simply cannot match coal and oil for availability, quantity, continuity, and cost. Thanks again guys for your help. Michael -
Berényi Péter at 13:19 PM on 21 August 2010The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
Sorry, looks like I've mixed up links. This is Stott 2004. The link above is to Conroy 2008, which is about holocene precipitation history of the Eastern Pacific, based on a Galapagos lake sediments. -
Marcus at 13:04 PM on 21 August 2010What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
RSVP, my decision to reduce my CO2 footprint was not ideological. I actually just wanted to save money & reduce my consumption of non-renewable resources. The reduced CO2 footprint is just an added bargain. That I have succeeded in all 3 endeavors actually proves that, once you strip away the ideological arguments of the Fossil Fuel industry & its Cheer-Squad, you see that mitigating our CO2 emissions can be surprisingly easy & painless. However, like a drug addict, our society is addicted to its inefficient, high-consumption life-style even as it steals the hard-earned money from their pocket. Like good drug pushers, the fossil fuel industry is all too happy to keep encouraging this ongoing addiction-no matter what damage it will cause-so long as it puts money in their pockets. You see, unlike you, I have been more than willing to countenance a *NATURAL* cause for recent global warming, but the fact remains that the evidence for a *NATURAL* cause has been sadly lacking from your side of the debate. Instead, your side continues to engage in cheap political stunts & the demonization of the entire scientific community! Its not *hubris* to be concerned about how our alteration of the planet's atmosphere-in a short space of time-will impact on our climate, but it is the height of naivety to keep claiming its natural when you have absolutely *NO EVIDENCE* on which to base such an assertion! -
Berényi Péter at 12:53 PM on 21 August 2010The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
#53 Dappledwater at 09:57 AM on 21 August, 2010 here's that paper Thanks. Section 4 Comparison with proxy data of Renssen 2004 is a good review article in itself (lots of references). Otherwise the paper shows the usual bad habit of identifying computational model runs with experiments so prevalent in climate science. In reality what they've done is a Gedankenexperiment at best, although this kind of computer game lacks the conceptual clarity traditionally associated with the term. Anyway, several thousand years ago the Arctic was considerably warmer indeed than it is today. However, it would be a mistake to assume the Holocene Climatic Optimum was restricted to the Arctic.
2004 Nature, 431, 56-59
DOI: 10.1038/nature02903
Decline of surface temperature and salinity in the western tropical Pacific Ocean in the Holocene epoch
Stott, L., Cannariato, K., Thunell, R., Haug, G. H., Koutavas, A., Lund, S.
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theendisfar at 12:20 PM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
dhogaza, :) This is so frustrating. Who cares if someone is getting paid, is their work worth a hill of beans or not? My point is that once you introduce consensus, credibility, or motivation, you are straying too far from scientific method. I keep hearing about all this supposed evidence, but once you start looking at it, it turns out to be a bunch of 'almost' evidence that is all to often used by other scientists as if it has been validated. Once you start nesting 'almost' you end up with almost almost which is worthless to science. It's great for PR work and building consensus. I'm just one guy, give me a few weeks to work on the items in #40. As I stated there, I'm claiming that I can show that this supposed repeatable evidence is exactly that, supposed. NigelJ, Will discuss in link in #40. -
Marcus at 12:08 PM on 21 August 2010What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
@GC. Yes I am aware where our Oxygen came from. I'm also aware (but you, apparently, are not) aware that this process took HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS TO OCCUR. Similarly, Earth's atmosphere used to contain 10 times as much CO2 as it does today, but that also took HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS TO OCCUR. It also took HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS for prehistoric plant life to remove this CO2 from the atmosphere-to give us our current climate system. By contrast, though, humans have fundamentally altered the chemistry of our atmosphere (not just CO2, but methane, nitrogen dioxide & sulfur dioxide) in the space of less than THREE CENTURIES. Yet you & your mate RSVP still run around claiming that concern about such rapid change amounts to "hubris"?! Give us a break! -
The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
theendisfar - So, you won't flat out state that climate scientists are lying; they may just be incompetent? I don't think that's a reasonable statement at all. Folks (in general) try to do the best job they can. I cannot imagine a world where the majority are incompetent and the few dissenting voices are on the ball. Climate science has been an active and evolving discipline for well over a century - and those with axes to grind against the consensus have entirely failed to come up with consistent alternative hypotheses other than anthropogenic global warming. If the dissenters had solid alternatives, they would be convincing the majority. Facts are unforgiving, and every honest scientist I know follows the facts. -
dhogaza at 11:09 AM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
Should there be any motivation in science other than being able to repeatedly be able to arrive at the same result no matter who pays you?
Unpaid volunteers are doing their own temperature reconstructions, including an effort by Ron Broberg to put together a usable dataset from the GSOD network, which are stations entirely separate from the GHCN network used to generate GISS, HadCRUT, etc temperature products. Guess what? He gets almost identical results to the GHCN-derived data. Nick Barnes and friends, likewise unpaid volunteers, have recreated GISTemp in Python and have found that GISTemp indeed implements the algorithms defined in the scientific papers, and gets identical output to GISTemp. Anthony Watts's classification of GHCN stations based on his photo project has led to work which shows that even choosing just the best stations by his criteria gives the same temperature rise we see in GISTemp. The first effort to do this was done by a volunteer who goes by the handle JohnV. When Watts denounced his work, JohnV lost all faith in the so-called skeptical community. There are more examples. The fact of the matter is that people who are unpaid are starting to recreate important bits of work. Most telling of all, those who are paid and who would be expected to build a robust argument against the mainstream have failed miserably for three decades now. They've been unable to come up with a theory that accounts for not only observed current warming but past climatic events, the climate of Venus or Mars, etc. Climate science gives us a coherent theory that explains much more than the relatively trivial (in terms of importance to overall science) consequence that adding CO2 to the atmosphere is going to cause warming. If it weren't for the political importance and potential implications for our future, this factoid wouldn't be much more than a footnote in climate science. -
Eric (skeptic) at 10:58 AM on 21 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
CB, Clausius-Clapeyron describes an ideal local effect and can't be used to determine a water vapor number in real-world circumstances (advection, limited water supply, etc). But in looking that up I see where you and KR are coming from, as described here http://www.dgf.uchile.cl/~ronda/GF3004/helandsod00.pdf (Held and Soden 2000), including Moller's fixed RH assumption. I was trying to show above that a C-C relation can't be applied in nonideal circumstances (i.e. anyplace but flat water with no wind, and certainly not in what I described above). Is your argument then that C-C is applicable globally because C-C will apply to the average situation? Perhaps, but that average situation will be quite complex to describe, perhaps it could be a weighted average of several or many typical circumstances. The best answer I have is already above which is that weather will change as the global average temperature rises. On some threads here it is claimed that it already has changed to an increase in extremes. The extremes in precipitation obviously remove water vapor from the air (that should be obvious?) but the amount will depend on how much those extremes have increased on average. The extremes in temperature which may not be CO2 correspond with extremely low RH. Again if those increase globally, then RH decreases by that amount globally. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:31 AM on 21 August 2010Can't We At Least Agree That There Is No Consensus?
What I'd like to know is how many of Poptech's articles have purely to do w/economic or political matters. They've nothing to do w/physical science and thus are really not very informative about the physical matter of AGW. Anybody care to show a theoretical consensus among political scientists or economists having any seriously quantified impact on the real world? -
scaddenp at 10:17 AM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
Miekol, as has been asked before, this belongs in "CO2 is an insignificant gas". Please read and ask questions there. A truly excellent resource for all the gory detail is at science of doom. To help concentrate your thinking, consider the following. 1/ How long would you survive if you replaced each CO2 molecule with one of HCN (cyanide). 2/ Each CO2 molecule absorbs a photon, gains kinetic energy and usually loses that energy by collision with other molecules and then ready to absorb another molecule. How quickly does this happen on average? 3/ What would the temperature of the earth be if you removed all the CO2? And yes, the experiment to measure the greenhouse effect of tiny concentrations was done long ago and repeated many times. Look up Arrhenius ( or Spenser Wearts excellent history of the experimental work.) -
Doug Bostrom at 10:17 AM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
Miekol, see Spencer Weart. And remember, simple doubt is not an argument. You're obviously familiar with how to obtain information, you're here after all. Educate yourself, don't ask other people to stuff facts into your head, against your resistance. -
Rob Painting at 10:17 AM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
Miekol, time for you to keep your word, some empirical evidence -
Rob Painting at 10:11 AM on 21 August 2010What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
GC @ 23 - humans have added an extra 37% of CO2 to the atmosphere alone since the start of the Industrial Revolution, see here. And if stromatolites can so fundamentally alter the Earth's atmosphere, in oxygenating it, doesn't that suggest that human civilization could likewise have a marked effect?. -
Rob Painting at 09:57 AM on 21 August 2010The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
KR, here's that paper Simulating the Holocene climate evolution at northern high latitudes using a coupled atmosphere-sea ice-ocean-vegetation model And an older paper dealing with orbital effects Variations in the Earth's Orbit:Pacemaker of the Ice Ages And yes, the Greenland ice sheet is very sensitive to temperature, hence the rapid melt currently occurring at it's margins. -
Doug Bostrom at 09:54 AM on 21 August 2010What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
GC, I'd suggest that you might in turn work on a "big picture" perspective fully articulating how we do not have the capability to alter to the climate. I'll assert that doing so will be problematic because a big picture is made of many little parts. There are a tremendous number of details indicating we may and indeed are changing the climate, few puzzle pieces available to construct an alternative, coherent image. There I go again, with the metaphors. Can't help myself... -
gallopingcamel at 09:47 AM on 21 August 2010What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
The meme in 1970 that the press picked up on was a new "Ice Age". Since 1988 the meme (thank you Michael Mann & the IPCC) has been "Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming". The underlying argument for CAGW is the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The pre-industrial concentration appears to have been ~280 parts per million (ppm) compared to the modern 387 ppm. Thus we may have added ~100 ppm of CO2 to the Earth's atmosphere, or 0.1% by volume. Living organisms created so much oxygen that the iron salts in the oceans were converted to insoluble iron oxides that now appear as ore beds. Eventually, the dissolved iron salts were depleted so free oxygen began to build up in the atmosphere, leading to the modern concentration of >20%. Compare the achievement of ancient life forms to the puny achievements of humans who added ~0.1% to the atmosphere. Personally, I support John Cook and the rest of you who want to reduce CO2 emissions but you need to develop a "big picture" perspective that does not exaggerate human capabilities. -
miekol at 09:20 AM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
#9 Phil, #10 scaddenp, #11 Anne-Marie Blackburn. Phil......Sorry I'm just an average guy. I'm pretty sure that it has been shown empirically that the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second and that the mass–energy equivalence formulae is a fact. I agree its not been proven that there's not something that moves faster than light. But I'm pretty sure that E=MC squared is a correct formulae for mass–energy equivalence. Perhaps someone can give me a link if I'm wrong. scaddenp...........Show me a few experiments whereby adding one CO2 molecule to 850,000 molecules of air increases the greenhouse effect. (don't ridicule my clumsy wording. You know what I mean. I'm willing to be corrected on the proportions.I'm not a scientist.) Anne-Marie I've no arguement with the idea that as you say, "The evidence strongly suggests that current warming is mainly the result of increasing greenhouse gas levels." What frustrates me is that GWers assumed that the one extra molecule of CO2 produced by man in 850,000 is responsible for increasing temperatures. As a lay person, I just cannot accept this. You show me a few emperical experiments that demonstrates it, then I'll support human carbon reduction. -
johnd at 08:51 AM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
During the first half of the 20th century, 10 years were declared as La-Nina years and 13 as El-Nino years. In the second half 12 years were declared La-Nina and 15 as El-Nino. The first half of the century had the longer term IPO predominately in the positive phase which reflects El-Nino conditions whilst during the second half it was predominately in the negative phase which reflects La-Nina conditions. During the first half, on 3 occasions succeeding years were declared El-Nino years whilst La-Nina was declared once for 3 years in succession and once for 2 years also. During the second half, only on one occasion was there succeeding El-Nino years which remained in place for 4 years. On 2 occasions succeeding years were declared La-Nina years, and on one occasion 3 successive years. Interestingly the much discussed 1998 El-Nino event was immediately preceded and immediately succeeded by La-Nina years. Looking at the IOD, during the first half, 8 years were in the negative (wetter) phase and 9 years were in the positive (drier) phase. During the second half there were 8 years each of the IOD being in each phase. All those longer term indications are reflected in the rainfall over all of Australia being generally greater in the second half of the 1900's, with the earlier mentioned 3 successive La-Nina years in the mid 1970's being considered as the wettest period ever since settlement began in the 1700's. Irrespective of what may be considered to being the greater driving influence, it is whether or not the longer term patterns are changing, and if so in which direction that is relevant to what is really the single most important factor, that being mans ability to feed themselves.
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