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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. -
JMurphy at 08:47 AM on 21 August 2010Climate's changed before
cruzn246 wrote : "Here is the page for the solar activities" As well as looking at the picture, how about reading the relevant WIKIPEDIA page for context : The scientific consensus is that solar variations do not play a major role in determining present-day observed climate change. Also, the increase of temperature is a little more than you suggest : The updated 100-year linear trend (1906 to 2005) of 0.74°C [0.56°C to 0.92°C] is therefore larger than the corresponding trend for 1901 to 2000 given in the TAR of 0.6°C [0.4°C to 0.8°C]. The linear warming trend over the last 50 years (0.13°C [0.10°C to 0.16°C] per decade) is nearly twice that for the last 100 years. The total temperature increase from 1850–1899 to 2001–2005 is 0.76°C [0.57°C to 0.95°C]. Summary for Policymakers Finally, this picture (also from WIKIPEDIA) seems to disagree with your assertion about temperatures since we "snapped out of our last ice age" :
Holocene Temperature Variations
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TOP at 08:32 AM on 21 August 2010The Strange Case of Albert Gore, Inconvenient Truths and a Man in a Powdered Wig
Dave Horton Actually the denier movement is more religious. This is because of certain presuppositions that differ on either side of the argument. Phil Political agendas translate into laws and court decisions. In the early 60's psychiatric opinion was that the bible and prayer in schools was harmful to some student's psyches. The Supreme Court used that "science" to overturn 150 years of precedent and history. The Scopes trial got evolution pretty close to being the codified into law in many places. At least you can't teach or even discuss opposing viewpoints. Interestingly in this example the science has changed so much from what Darwin wrote that he would be laughed out of any current discussion on the topic. Generally in these kinds of arguments if you don't get down to the presuppositions and how either side is attempting to change them you can't really see what is at stake. -
nigelj at 08:30 AM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
Theendisfar What basic thermodynamic problems? Exactly and precisely? What data has been missrepresented? What conjecture has been presented as evidence? One example will do. Im intrigued. -
CBDunkerson at 08:23 AM on 21 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Eric, no. None of that makes ANY sense. Dry ice: Presumably here you are talking about cloud seeding... though you didn't mention any clouds to be seeded (water vapor is not synonymous with clouds). If you drop dry ice into clouds the chances of precipitation increase. That precipitation would then cause a temporary local cooling effect. No 'extra forcing' is then required to raise the temperature again... water vapor will naturally return to the atmosphere in very short order provided there is a water source nearby (such as the recently fallen rain or the surrounding air for instance). So no... the air does not remain dry after rainfall. All of which is completely irrelevant because you are talking about a short term localized process rather than long term global averages. So one city gets rained on and cools slightly during part of one day.... this is MEANINGLESS on a global scale. Look at it this way. New York City and Miami are both right on the Atlantic ocean. So why is the absolute humidity of Miami on average alot higher than that of New York? Because Miami is closer to the equator and thus on average warmer... which allows more water vapor into the air on more days. If the entire planet gets warmer then that same effect takes place worldwide. How is this not obvious? The connection between temperature increase and atmospheric water vapor which you wrongly state does not exist is known as the Clausius-Clapeyron relation... which has been around since the 1830s. -
theendisfar at 07:46 AM on 21 August 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To whom it may concern, Well put, thank you :) -
theendisfar at 07:41 AM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
KR, I wasn't accusing you of anything Sorry, I wasn't clear. I claim to be able to refute AGW as to having repeatable tests, was just asking that you provide links to it (you did, thanks:) rather than rely on credibility. All to often, we skeptics get 'credibility' tests that are truly moot IMHO, I claim no credibility save what may rise from this exercise. I did, however, ask if you thought the majority of climate scientists are lying, yes or no - you didn't answer that question. :) Calling someone a liar could be considered ad hominem, so you got a carefully crafted answer :) Sorry about that. Without going into motivation, 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. Most climate scientists, IMHO, cannot see the forest for the trees and truly misunderstand thermodynamics, or at least are not properly representing/considering Convection and Evaporation in their studies/calculations, especially models. Whether these folks are lying or not makes little difference as to whether they are providing valuable arguments/tests that result in validating conclusions. I believe I can show that they are not. Empirical evidence that we're causing global warming is right on topic, so I'll begin there if you have no objections. The video you linked is on topic for the above link so I think it should be okay to discuss there. 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 :) Pick this up this weekend in the other thread, it's 5:30 here and time for a beer.Moderator Response: Thank you for recognizing the relevance of other threads, and for promising to read them and watch their video before commenting more. Also thank you for your civil tone even when making strong claims. (I want commenters to know that it is indeed possible to do those things, and that everyone appreciates effort to follow the rules.) -
Eric (skeptic) at 07:38 AM on 21 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
CB, for the first question let me give a simpler example. Take an area with high temperature and humidity (e.g. 80 and 75%) and drop tiny grains of dry ice uniformly over it. The moisture will precipitate out and the temperature will drop. Apply forcing to warm the area back to 85. At that point it will be warm and dry perhaps 30-40% RH. Or warm to 85 without precipitating and the RH will be approx 65%. The only difference in the two scenarios is weather, but one has much lower RH and the rest of the water is in the river (where it flows away without evaporating). There is no physical law of any sort that favors one scenario over the other, or any law that requires balancing scenarios (more evaporation to balance more condensation). Weather simply doesn't balance. So as the world warms, there is no reason that the RH would stay constant unless the weather stayed precisely the same on a globally averaged basis. The problem with the simple math is that there is no physical reality to base it on. There is no global physical mechanism that results in a particular percentage increase in WV for an increase in temperature. It mostly depends on weather as in the above scenarios. Even though there will be more evaporation, it is unevenly distributed and unevenly condensed and precipitated giving an unknowable relationship between the global average temperature and total amount of water in the atmosphere. In the extreme case I merely need to add more dry ice and more forcing to keep the temperature higher with lower RH. -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Regarding molecular collisions and heat distributions: At surface temps and pressure each air molecule (CO2, O2, N2, argon, etc.) collides with another molecule roughly one billion times per second (thanks, Ned). The relaxation time for an energized CO2 molecule is 100ns or more, depending on the vibrational state. That means that an IR energized CO2 molecule has on average a minimum of 100 collisions with other molecules before it has a chance to emit IR. CO2 _will_ maintain thermal equilibrium with the rest of the air mass, whether the air mass as a whole is cooling or heating by IR. (Or conduction, convection, latent heat changes, etc.) -
nigelj at 07:32 AM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
Isnt catsotrophic heating a bit loaded? Or a straw man? It paints a picture of the imminent destruction of every lifeform on earth and nobody is predicting that. If the petition had asked do you agree we are causing climate change that could cause serious problems for many countries would 32,000 have said no? Not likely now is it. And thanks to skepticalscience for a great site. -
The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
BP, DappledWater - fair enough, I appear to have been quite incorrect about the temperature distributions. However: What I'm reading on the Holocene temperature distributions is that the Northern Hemisphere was much warmer, while the Southern Hemisphere was considerably colder. What I've found here (Vinther et al 2009) and here (Kelly 2009?) seem to indicate that the Greenland ice sheet receded 10's of kilometers during the Holocene, with associated thinning and mass loss. Sea levels rose considerably over the Holocene, but only to present values - perhaps the remainder remained locked up in the (much colder) Antarctic? The paleo data on Greenland ice recession certainly indicates some sensitivity to temperature. -
The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
theendisfar - I wasn't accusing you of anything, if you read my post; I was pointing out that many organizations promoting doubt in climate change have financial incentives to, well, make stuff up. As to those in charge of various gov't agencies, well, yes, sometimes they do modify the message for political goals. The last Bush administration was notorious for that - political appointees rewrote major portions of scientific reports to dilute the data regarding climate change. The scientists who wrote it, however, objected quite loudly. A number resigned in a very public fashion. I did, however, ask if you thought the majority of climate scientists are lying, yes or no - you didn't answer that question. As to repeatable methods and conclusions? Global warming is still happening Emperical evidence that we're causing global warming CO2 emissions CO2 effects (evidence disproving 'saturation') Greenhouse effect (lots of references) Greenland/Antarctic ice loss Sea level rise Consensus and paper counts, AGW and counter-AGW Tons of other evidence, with links to the various references I believe that provides a cross section of ~60 papers total, which various folks indicate are representative. If you want to invalidate all of those (the vast majority of climate science, in fact), be my guest. It might take a while, though. I would actually suggest you start with the last link, the video, and look up the web page he provides at the end with all the references he used. It's a good review of the various lines of evidence in the field. -
Rob Painting at 06:48 AM on 21 August 2010The Past and Future of the Greenland Ice Sheet
KR - It's not often I agree with a skeptic, however BP is correct about the Arctic being warmer during the Holocene Optimum, due to the Earth's axial tilt being greater than now, and it's closest approach to the sun coinciding with the Northern Hemisphere summer. Globally, however it was much cooler than present. I'll track down a paper on it, I've read. -
Anne-Marie Blackburn at 06:30 AM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
Thanks Phil - I will think about rephrasing those sentences, especially the first one. miekol, to add to Phil and scaddenp's points, you might be interested in reading this article which tackles the human fingerprint on climate change. It shows quite clearly why scientists have concluded that greenhouse gases are most likely to blame for the warming observed since the 1970s. -
scaddenp at 06:29 AM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
Miekol - you do proofs in mathematics, not science. Scientific "proof" is a much weaker thing. Maybe tomorrow some new hypothesis will be able to explain all our observations in a completely different way. But thats not the way to bet - at moment I'd say evidence that current model for climate is basically correct is overwhelming. -
theendisfar at 06:25 AM on 21 August 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To whom it may concern, Forgive me, but this post is ripe with errors, from my understanding of physics. Would you prefer I ask questions regarding the supposed errors, or would you prefer I explain my reasoning outright?Moderator Response: Whichever is shorter. -
theendisfar at 06:21 AM on 21 August 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To whom it may concern, "This absorption is due to trace gases which make up only a very small part of the atmosphere." So are you saying that IR from the surface heats the GHG's and then they transfer the energy to the primary gases N2 and O2? If so, how is that transfer made? Conduction from molecules colliding?Moderator Response: Yep. -
theendisfar at 06:19 AM on 21 August 20102nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To whom it may concern, "This is possible only because most of this radiation is absorbed in the atmosphere, and what actually escapes out into space is mostly emitted from colder atmosphere." Are you stating that the primary method of transferring energy from the surface to the Troposphere is via radiation absorption rather than via conduction? When you say 'colder', are you referring to a region or a temperature? -
cruzn246 at 06:18 AM on 21 August 2010Hockey stick is broken
And that makes this time period......the 26th warmest period in the Holocene era. Big deal.Moderator Response: See the Argument "It's Not Bad," also titled "Positives and Negatives of Global Warming." -
CBDunkerson at 06:14 AM on 21 August 2010How climate skeptics misunderstand past climate change
Eric #33: "Where I disagree is that "as global temperature increases the global total amount of water vapor does as well". You are trying to make a global case for a local effect which is not necessarily true and will become false at some level of warming." I'm still not following you. In what way is global warming a "local effect"? If temperatures increase globally then water vapor increases globally... you say you dispute this seemingly obvious fact, but provide no explanation WHY. Also: "what is the physical process that limits the feedback when WV increases warming and warming increases WV" Are you asking why positive water vapor feedback does not cause 'run away' warming all by itself? That was already explained to you in the '0.5 increase' bit. Simple MATH shows why the positive feedback effect is limited. Again, suppose that a global average anomaly of +1 C from CO2 or some other forcing causes a global average water vapor increase sufficient to introduce another 0.5 C of warming from the water vapor... in short, an additional 50%. Well, then 50% of that 0.5 extra is 0.25 and 50% of that is 0.125 and so forth. If you add these fractions up you will see that the result gets closer and closer to 1 C... +0.99999 repeating to infinity. Thus, the limit you are looking for is MATHEMATICS. So long as the water vapor feedback for 1 C of external warming is itself less than 1 C there will always be a finite limit to the feedback warming. As to when weather starts to limit water vapor feedback... NEVER. Yes, rainfall takes water out of the atmosphere... and evaporation puts it back in. In a warmer world both effects are increased, because the total amount of water the atmosphere can hold increases with temperature. Your claim that concentrating water vapor in one hemisphere would somehow cause net global cooling has no basis in science and no explanation that I can see in your post. As you describe it the northern hemisphere, magically devoid of water vapor, would cool drastically... but the southern hemisphere, now holding double the previous global total, would heat up far more than the northern had cooled. Net effect... average global temperatures would increase. -
MichaelM at 06:14 AM on 21 August 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
If you read the last paragraph of section A of the link you posted you will see that figure 2 is in local time and the moon graph represents a lunar diurnal period (lunar day) of 29.5 (earth) days i.e 5 'hours' is just over 6 days. -
cruzn246 at 06:09 AM on 21 August 2010Is the sun causing global warming?
Sunspots don't tell all. -
theendisfar at 06:09 AM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
KR, I worked for the CDC for a number of years and I can tell you straight forward that many scientists, gov't especially, are paid to deliver a message. Many times it is not the scientists themselves who are lying, but rather those in charge of communications. H1N1 is a perfect example, hundreds of millions of $'s were funneled into it because the 'threat' was completely overstated. I was there. While drug companies gained a great deal, so did the Gov't and it's employees. To be perfectly clear, "I am accusing 97% of Climate Scientists, who support AGW because of the increase of CO2 since the end of the Little Ice Age, of doing less than acceptable science including (but not limited to); research, testing, and/or communication of the results." I have little interest in a scientist's motivation outside the fact that people who cannot defend the AGW argument keep pointing to a lack of financial motivation. Gov't and Grant sponsored scientists have jobs right now, working to falsify the need to have them is the last thing on their minds. Tenure and grant money is a dangerous combination, that is where Peer Review and grant sustainability meet. Consensus is quite valuable here. 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? As to repeatable methods and conclusions, can you link to one so we can discuss there? Forgive my Skepticism, I come Missouri, the 'Show me State' and I claim to be able to critically evaluate them. And don't just call me liar, submit your repeatable evidence and I'll prove whether or not I am myself. -
Phil at 06:03 AM on 21 August 2010What caused early 20th Century warming?
miekol @7 It is not a proven fact that nothing can go faster than the speed of light, or that E = mc**2. But the evidence strongly suggests that these statements are correct. -
cruzn246 at 05:57 AM on 21 August 2010Climate's changed before
Well Christ man it is a continuation of a discussion. Where do I have to go to discuss electromagnetic absorption? I guess you just want to split up everything so there is no real big linking pool of info.Moderator Response: The big list of Arguments is the linking pool of info. There is also a "Newcomers Start Here" page linked in the left side of this page. -
johnd at 05:26 AM on 21 August 2010NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
JMurphy at 05:14 AM, it should be self evident, records are not the norm. Good to stir the emotions, and food for the politicians. -
The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
theendisfar - when I commented in #29 about my brother, he was specifically paid to make stuff up, harp on minor contradictory opinions, overemphasize uncertainty, and in general to lie about what the science and the scientific consensus were. There's a great financial incentive for industry to do so - if they're making $$money$$, they don't want to change gears. Now, if you're accusing the 97% of climate scientists (whose consensus opinion is that AGW is happening, and will have large effects on all of us) of lying, please be clear and say so. I will, however, point out that they really don't have a financial incentive to do so - every academic institution I know of balances pay for PhD's with incoming grant money so that there is no difference in their income. And I don't see many university professors driving new BMW's! As to "repeatable methods and conclusions" - we have them. That's why 97% of people in the field agree on the conclusions of AGW! There are always always a few people with vested interests in other conclusions, not to mention looneytoons who think it's the Little Green Men or something (no insult intended to LGM, mind you!). But the repeatable science has convinced the vast majority of people who are able to critically evaluate it. -
JMurphy at 05:14 AM on 21 August 2010NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
johnd wrote : "However for the greater part of the planets surface there are no means to measure precipitation, nor any population to be effected if an extreme rain event occurs, therefore it requires a big leap of faith to draw overall conclusions based solely on what events make it onto front page news or into the record books." This sounds like another so-called skeptical tactic to wish-away inconvenient facts, the way that satellite temperature readings have suddenly fallen out of favour, due to their inconvenient parity to ground-based readings. However, do you feel there can possibly be any records that can possibly be trusted ? E.G. How can we determine the fastest man over 100m ? Someone running for the bus in South Africa, say, may be able to run faster. What about those rainfall records posted by Argus ? Should we ignore them because there might have been more and heavier/faster downpours over the sea, up a mountain or in a forest - unseen, of course. First man on the moon ? The Chinese may have got there first, on the dark side, but it was a disaster so they are keeping quiet. Can that be denied ? Can we be allowed to have any records for anything, do you think, or should we deny them all ? -
cruzn246 at 05:14 AM on 21 August 2010Climate's changed before
The basic stuff about changing Venus' atmosphere is just common sense stuff I derived from taking meteorology. Yes, I took a class. The 2% worldwide average is from the same place. I know in any spot on earth it ranges from near zero to 4%. I just averaged it. It could be 0.5 either way, but it would still be at least 37 times more by mass than CO2(0.04%) at lowest average values (1.5%). -
cruzn246 at 05:06 AM on 21 August 2010Climate's changed before
Look up the stuff for Venus and the earth yourself. It's easy to find. I derived my temp and sun activity from easy to access sites. Here you go. The temp data was derived from ice cores. I took the temp graph and blew it up to capture the Holocene maximum and other features. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_50k_yrs.html Here is the page for the solar activities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg -
JMurphy at 05:05 AM on 21 August 2010What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s?
RSVP, you're nearly there. Compare the two sentences you part-quoted, with your sentence here : Even the current article explains that thirty years ago, the science indicated we were possibly heading to an ice age Do you see what careful reading can allow you to discover ? To help, it's the difference between 'some scientists' (which is why I highlighted those words previously, in fact) and 'the science'. Yes ? -
JMurphy at 04:59 AM on 21 August 2010Climate's changed before
cruzn246 wrote : "Bottom line. Climate changes and I am not alarmed. Bottom line is assertions and beliefs are worth nothing. If you have any linkable evidence for even half of the figures you posted concerning temperatures, please let us see them. -
johnd at 04:50 AM on 21 August 2010NASA-GISS: July 2010-- What global warming looks like
Argus at 21:12 PM, the perception of whether a natural event is extreme or not appears to be increasingly driven by the emotional impact it has on those who experience it first hand, or those who observe it from a distance. As you noted there are always other contributing factors which need to be taken into account so that the human tragedy and the natural event can each be kept in perspective. The connection that is trying to be made by the AGW proponents is that such disasters are due to global warming. If the total annual global rainfall can be demonstrated to actually increase, or decrease, as global temperatures increase, or decrease, then they may have the statistics needed to draw some such worthwhile conclusions. However trying to make a case for such an argument that is largely driven by the emotional impact of separate events rather than what occurs more broadly is hardly what one would expect from those who are supposedly more interested in the science than the politics. It's much the same with accident statistics, more attention is drawn to an accident that claims three lives than six accidents that each claim one life. At the end of the day, it is those who calmly compile and analyse all the statistics who are able to draw worthwhile conclusions, not those whose conclusions are drawn according to the emotional impact of any single event. The records that you posted certainly indicate just what is possible. It can also be assumed that such events impacted on local populations to varying degrees. However for the greater part of the planets surface there are no means to measure precipitation, nor any population to be effected if an extreme rain event occurs, therefore it requires a big leap of faith to draw overall conclusions based solely on what events make it onto front page news or into the record books. -
cruzn246 at 04:49 AM on 21 August 2010Climate's changed before
OK, I'll make this short and quick. CO2 levels are about 380 per million here. They are about 965,000 per million in the Venetian atmosphere. Ya think that about .04% of the same concentration is going to throw us way out of whack? The big dog, which no one wants to talk about when it comes to greenhouse gases is water vapor. It goes from about nil when we are in the depths of an Ice age to a worldwide average of 2% during recovery and the following times. THAT is our basic greenhouse gas. CO2 is a bit player. You drop CO2 levels to under 1% on Venus and that place would turn into an iceball without water vapor. Yes climate just keeps on changing. We are in a period where the temperature has fluctuated, sometimes rather quickly, within a 4C range over the last 10,000 years. We are near the middle of that range now. Sun activity is relatively high, higher than it has been for the last 2,000 years. The long range trend has been up since about 1500. We have seen temperatures rise about 0.5C since 1900. Yawn, I hate to say it but a rise of about 3C in about 100-200 years was seen about 8,000 years ago. That's a quick warm-up. BTW, it has been warmer than this about half the time since we snapped out of our last ice age. At least 4 times it was 1C warmer than now and once it was 2C warmer. Bottom line. Climate changes and I am not alarmed. -
theendisfar at 04:48 AM on 21 August 2010The Oregon Petition: How Many Scientists Does It Take To Change A Consensus?
Chris G, "Most democratically elected leaders will not do what their voters don't want them to do" This is moot with regards to science as 'want' is moot. Want automatically includes motivation. KR's #29 'Thank you for Smoking' example applies equally to AGW scientists. Scientific 'Authorities' have been proven wrong time and time again throughout history. Piltdown Man is a great example. 'Want' is especially relevant when one has an elected Authority to deal with. Also, changing 'leader' to 'representative' changes the paradigm significantly. Intellectual 'representatives' hold no authority over those they represent. When People instead of Scientific Laws are the source of authority, you not only are subject to motivation, but you are also subject to the fact that People change, Scientific Laws do not. As far as 'most' scientists being convinced, repeatable methods and conclusions send a louder and more importantly a 'clearer' message than "I'm right and your wrong". Both sides are guilty of this. Motivation, credibility, and consensus would all be rendered moot and reduce the questions to a finite and falsifiable set. This is quite valuable as it removes subjection, which is practically infinite. I'm just saying repeatable tests will get us a lot farther a lot quicker, and it is very important for both sides to recognize this. Do you see the value in removing motivation, credibility, and consensus from the debate? Are they important with regards to the people educated enough to make a scientific argument?
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