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JMurphy at 02:17 AM on 9 June 2010Species extinctions happening before our eyes
Ned wrote : If the "95.2" is in degrees celsius like the ".7-1C" range is, I think it's pretty clear why the lizards went extinct. Ah, well spotted. Over to you, nofreewind... -
hank at 01:50 AM on 9 June 2010Common graphical tricks and the Medieval Warm Period
Just as an aside --- the Hockey Stick is the Maginot Line of climate science. Those attacking it and those defending it are both wasting their attention. It's the last war, folks. It's over. It's long ago. Look at what's really happening now in the real world. The people interested in wasting your time are very happy to sit on their assets in the dark typing madly into their computers refuting and rebutting and rebaloneying. Because why? Because they want you sitting at your computers replying to them. It's crap. It's nonsense. The world's changing fast outside. They don't want you to do anything. They want you to sit at your computer typing. Can you tell I'm about to go do fieldwork? Got a little soil restoration project I bought more than 20 years ago, that needs about 200 years of attention to put the skin back on the mountainside (loggers, goats, fires, loggers, fires, motorcycles, offroad 4wders -- everything people do strips soil off the mountains). Patience helps it grow back. Humble suggestion: go compost something and dig it into the yard. Look around. They don't want you to leave your computer. -
Ned at 01:45 AM on 9 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Er, before changing the topic, though, I just want to add -- Since gallopingcamel was so polite yesterday, I'd like to return the favor and thank GC for the link to Barry Brook's site ... which does have a lot to say about topics at the intersection of climate change & nuclear power. Any website that GC and I can both endorse has got to be good, right? -
Ned at 01:39 AM on 9 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
All of us (Doug, BP, gallopingcamel, and I) are offenders in this, but we should probably try not to wander any further afield here. A lot of this has gone off-topic and if we start getting into discussions of the Iraq war things could get ugly. -
Ned at 01:25 AM on 9 June 2010Species extinctions happening before our eyes
JMurphy writes: Where do you get your ".7-1C degree change in temperature, which is probably about .4C in the past 35 years" from ? [...] Where did you get the assertion of a "daytime temperature average going from 94.5 to 95.2" from ? If the "95.2" is in degrees celsius like the ".7-1C" range is, I think it's pretty clear why the lizards went extinct. :-) -
Berényi Péter at 00:59 AM on 9 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Just for reference. Annex to the Hague Convention of 1907 Section III : Military authority over the territory of the hostile state Art 43. The authority of the legitimate power having in fact passed into the hands of the occupant, the latter shall take all the measures in his power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety, while respecting, unless absolutely prevented, the laws in force in the country. BTW, Iraq does have a site with a half finished then severely damaged nuclear plant, some cleanup job still to be done. -
Martin Hedberg at 00:56 AM on 9 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
When we burn carbon, the CO2 ends up, or is moved around, in roughly three reservoirs: The atmosphere, the sea water and the biosphere. Two of them we don’t want to have any extra carbon in. In the third, the biosphere, it might be acceptable. But on the other hand we have deforestation, so how much of the carbon will actually stay in the forest for long time? The sea water have since the beginning of anthropogenic CO2-emissions (both from biomass and fossil reservoirs) been hiding about half of our emission from increasing the level of atmospheric CO2. That was a good thing from the perspective of keeping CO2-levels not so high in the atmosphere. But on the other hand, when carbon is stored in water, the water gets more acidic. And above that, the dissolution of carbon dioxide in sea water had the side effect of delaying the insight of problems connected to emissions of carbon. And meanwhile we humans got more dependent upon the very same energy. If, as the sea water gets warmer, carbon is released, then it will further increase the CO2-level in the atmosphere. If not it will stay in the sea water, keeping an unwanted acidification. The carbon in the sea water will eventually be mixed to the deep sea water, but the turnover time of the oceans is measured in hundred to thousands of years, so it will take some time before it has any effect. We have a problem, or we have a problem. Actually we have them both. And no way around it. (Well, we can always deny it?) Whatever somebody bring up from the ground will eventually end up moving around in the carbon cycle. Most decision makers don’t realize the implications of this. /Martin Hedberg -
gallopingcamel at 00:55 AM on 9 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
doug_bostrom (#80), The fission technology we have today was born out of the "Cold War". The Uranium cycle fission was chosen precisely because it produced substantial quantities of Pu239 for bombs. If political realities had been different 60 years ago Thorium cycle fission would dominate today. Thorium fission creates only tiny quantities of Plutonium and the fissile material it does produce is U233, completely useless for bomb production because it emits gamma rays that are easy to detect and capable of destroying nearby electronics. What is being done with Thorium technology today? Not much! India is building a fairly primitive reactor; Oak Ridge National Laboratories is trying to drum up political support and projects are on the table in several countries. Here are a couple of links that will give you a glimpse of the advantages of Thorium: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHs2Ugxo7-8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten_salt_reactor If you want to dig a little deeper I can highly recommend Barry Brook's "Brave New Climate" web site: http://bravenewclimate.com/integral-fast-reactor-ifr-nuclear-power/ -
JMurphy at 00:46 AM on 9 June 2010Species extinctions happening before our eyes
nofreewind, your comment is very simplistic, so perhaps you could expand on it a little by answering a few questions. Where do you get your ".7-1C degree change in temperature, which is probably about .4C in the past 35 years" from ? Where did you get your idea about lizards basking in the sun "all day" ? Do you know that the acquisition of vitamin D is as important in that respect and that lizards can overheat, as mentioned in the article above ? Where did you get the assertion of a "daytime temperature average going from 94.5 to 95.2" from ? It can't simply be a figure you've plucked out of thin air and added .7 to, can it ? Do you believe that temperatures all over the world will increase at the same rate ? What makes you think that the authors of the study didn't give any "consideration to ANY other factors" ? How do you know that scientists are "so obviously wrong" ? What evidence do you base that on ? Finally, the piece from Audubon magazine that I read online says "...there is a report from Hudson Bay of starving polar bears, stranded on shore and unable to hunt seals from the ice pack, resorting to cannibalism.". Why don't you believe that and which scientist do you believe actually said that ? -
Berényi Péter at 00:21 AM on 9 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
#80 doug_bostrom at 16:53 PM on 8 June, 2010 I don't know of a single fission technology now available that would be reasonably safe to deploy in other than highly stable countries. There are reasonably safe and sustainable designs. F O R U M O N P H Y S I C S & S O C I E T Y of The American Physical Society April 2002 Advanced Fast Reactor: A Next-Generation Nuclear Energy Concept Yoon I. Chang Associate Laboratory Director for Engineering Research Argonne National Laboratory Argonne, IL 60439 Adapted from a talk delivered at Argonne National Laboratory on September 28, 2001 For instance, imagine if the Americans had decapitated Iraq and instead of fossil thermal generation plants the country had been equipped w/boiling water reactors? In cases like this of course the occupying power should take responsibility. See: The U.S. as Occupying Power Over Portions of Iraq and Relevant Responsibilities Under the Laws of War Jordan J. Paust Law Foundation Professor, University of Houston April 2003 -
Jim Powell at 23:07 PM on 8 June 2010Radio interview with Skeptically Speaking
It is heartening to know that a program like Skeptically Speaking exists in the first place. You did an excellent job, John, especially of sticking with science instead of being drawn into "teaching the controversy." -
Ned at 23:00 PM on 8 June 2010Species extinctions happening before our eyes
nofreewind, argument from incredulity is a logical fallacy. It's far better to either point out an error in the paper or to suggest a specific alternative explanation that you think is better (which is what the post over at WUWT does ... it seems to suggest that poaching lizards for sale as pets is a more likely explanation for the observed local extinctions.) As noted above, the study involved developing a predictive model based on sites in Mexico, using the model to make predictions about lizard extinctions in other parts of the world, and then testing those predictions. This is how science is done. If Anthony Watts thinks that substituting "poaching" for "climate change" as an explanation would lead to better predictions (or to equally good predictions with a simpler model) then he should demonstrate that. He could well be right. But when the person you're criticizing has done a quantitative test of their predictions, and all you've done is handwaving ... -
nofreewind at 22:23 PM on 8 June 2010Species extinctions happening before our eyes
Seriously, lots of smart balanced people on this forum, but I would be embarrassed at myself If I was most of you. I know that Watts isn't held in high regard around here. But what makes more "common sense", that a .7-1C degree change in temperature, which is probably about .4C the past 35 years, has caused lizard extinction, OR that overzealous illegal collection of the lizards for the pet trade and lizard skin trade has decimated their population. We are talking lizards here, you know, those heat loving creatures that bask in the sun all day. You folks really "believe" that that the daytime temperature average going from 94.5 to 95.2 is wiping this lizards out? You never even gave any consideration to ANY other factors. Seriously, if I was a scientist and took this position, I would be embarrassed for being so easily deceived! How can we possibly trust you, when you are obviously wrong on such a simple matter. Do you also believe that polar bears are now practicing cannibalism, as I just read in my Audubon magazine. (note: a scientist said so!!) -
Ned at 22:18 PM on 8 June 2010Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?
Berényi Péter, you may already have seen this, but Science of Doom has a couple of recent posts on the radiative balance of the Moon and what the Earth's temperature would be in the absence of a greenhouse effect. * Lunar Madness and Physics Basics * The Hoover Incident And in light of the overall topic of this thread, there are a whole series of recent posts about Gerlich and Tscheuschner (2009) and the "question" of whether the existence of the greenhouse effect has been falsified. Plus, our host has nice things to say about Science of Doom, too. Check it out if you haven't already done so. -
Ned at 21:50 PM on 8 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Doug writes: The fact is, if we really want to transcend caveman combustion we're going to need a plethora of technologies. Didn't realize that we had started burning cavemen. Perhaps that's a branch of the mummy-fuel industry? More seriously, on the topic of subsidies for different fuel systems, the Financial Times has a story about a new IEA analysis that the world spends US$550 billion/year on subsidies for fossil fuels. Given all the many reasons we should be moving away from fossil fuels (not just climate change) surely we can all agree that subsidizing oil and coal is not what we should be doing? -
Ned at 21:19 PM on 8 June 2010It hasn't warmed since 1998
suibhne writes: "A number of people make comments about the Earth heating up without considering the massive thermal capacity of the Earth. [...] I have used a very simple model of the Earth made of uniform material with reasonable conductivity If the Earth absorbed all the Suns radiation that landed on it and absolutely no heat ever escaped. How long would it take for the temperature to rise by 1 degree centigrade." Aha! Perhaps this explains why you've found the concept of AGW so difficult to accept. If you were under the misapprehension that the entire mass of the earth had to change temperature at a uniform rate, then of course it would be impossible for humans to raise the planet's temperature by 2-6 degrees C. Of course, in that model, the glacial/interglacial cycles, and shorter-term temperature fluctuations like the Younger Dryas, MWP, and LIA would never have happened, either. The earth's temperature would have to be effectively constant over time. So that's an indication that you might be misunderstanding something, right? So, here's a question for you, suibhne: where do you think the error is in your assumptions? You might also want to think about what happens when you cook a turkey in your oven. Does it cook at a uniform rate all the way through, or does it cook more rapidly on the outside and more slowly on the inside? -
Ned at 21:07 PM on 8 June 2010It hasn't warmed since 1998
amymarshall95 asks "how many degrees has the ocean's surface temperature risen by since 1950? " The US agency NOAA has data on sea surface temperatures here. For the most recent 12 months (May 2009-April 2010) they averaged 0.54 C above normal. For the 12 months of 1950, they averaged -0.09 C below normal. So SST has risen by about 0.6 C since 1950. Kelly O'Day has a very nice website with R scripts for analyzing climate data. Here's Kelly's example of a script for plotting historical SST data:
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David Horton at 20:54 PM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
#15 Stephen - It's worth adding that while people tend to mainly (for good reasons) think about coral being affected by acidification it's worth noting that there would be very few marine organisms which would be unaffected both by effects on calcification of skeletons (exo and endo) - molluscs, crustaceans, echinoderms, etc - and also on the effects on ion exchange for soft-bodied animals. It is also worth noting that apart from the direct effects on individual species, a deleterious effect on population numbers of one species will set in train all kind of unpredictable ecological effects. -
amymarshall95 at 20:52 PM on 8 June 2010It hasn't warmed since 1998
how many degrees has the ocean's surface temperature risen by since 1950? -
Doug Bostrom at 16:53 PM on 8 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Further to GC and Ned's remarks, some generation systems just are not suitable for certain contexts. I don't know of a single fission technology now available that would be reasonably safe to deploy in other than highly stable countries. For instance, imagine if the Americans had decapitated Iraq and instead of fossil thermal generation plants the country had been equipped w/boiling water reactors? Big mess; the generation plans were swiftly abandoned by their operators, damaging to a combustion plant but potentially catastrophic in the case of a fission generation system. Then imagine those plants being looted. Ouch. There is a depressing tendency toward monomania by various factions w/regard to energy liberation and capture systems. The fact is, if we really want to transcend caveman combustion we're going to need a plethora of technologies. Too much squabbling means too little progress. -
gallopingcamel at 15:57 PM on 8 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
I'm done with being disagreeable at least for this week so it gives me great pleasure to applaud Ned (#71) even though he is "Off Subject". As he points out, it makes no sense to prescribe a mix of power generating technologies. Each jurisdiction needs to figure out what works best in their situation. The trouble is that governments tend to pre-judge the issue and follow up by providing incentives for one technology over another. This "Soft Lysenkoism" is much more dangerous than the hard kind that Stalin supported. The trend toward ever larger power plants eventually becomes counter productive as gains in efficiency are offset by distribution losses. Whether it be via wind, solar, fuel cells or tiny nukes, distributed solutions have advantages. -
sailrick at 15:53 PM on 8 June 2010Radio interview with Skeptically Speaking
I know you were looking for SkepticalScience posts on the Oregon Petition, but these might be useful. Scrutinizing the 31,000 scientists in the OISM Petition Project http://www.skepticalscience.com/scrutinising-31000-scientists-in-the-OISM-Petition-Project.html http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/denier-vs-skeptic/denier-myths-debunked/the-oregon-petition/ http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/11/so-thats-wherethe-junk-mail-came-from.html http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine -
Stephen Baines at 15:42 PM on 8 June 2010Radio interview with Skeptically Speaking
Good Job John! These kinds of things scare the bejeebus out of me, like that sink hole in Guatemala... an endless pit of despair! I'm sure I would trail off into an trail of mindless factoids that would fly right over people's sleeping heads. You kept focus well. I wonder about that weather vs climate metaphor, though. You nailed the sense that weather is random, and that we'll feel the changing climate mostly in the extremes. But that dice analogy doesn't really accomodate a superimposed trend. Not sure I have a better option. Thought of hiring a rapper to do a jingle? I mean, if they can get em in Alberta, why not Queensland.Response: Re the dice analogy, the superimposed trend comes from the weighting of the dice so that it rolls a 6 more often. Maybe I didn't explain that bit clearly enough. -
Stephen Baines at 15:01 PM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
No, it's not an easy question. CO2 is one of those variables that has very wide ranging effects that can cascade through aquatic ecosystems in unpredictable ways. First there is the effect on acidity, which influences a myriad of chemical equilibria including carbonate chemistry and metal ion speciation. Then there are the effects on photosynthesis, which can be limited by supply of CO2. The composition of plant matter, the balance between photosynthesis and nutrient uptake, the growth of organisms that feed upon plants and the formation of sinking particles can all vary in response to CO2. Roger Revelle notwithstanding, oceanographers (and limnologists) have spent the better part of a century thinking about CO2 as a constant, not a variable. That has left us ill prepared for this event! I think the task will force a better integration across wide ranging fields, including chemistry, climate science, physical oceanography, ecology and evolutionary biology. I should note that despite the complexities, there are some things that are abundantly clear. For example, the formation of carbonaceous, and particularly aragonite, skeletons is almost always negatively affected by decreasing pH. It's not clear evolution can keep up with the rate of change in pH -- maybe because the options available to organisms are constrained by chemistry. Also, the depth at which net carbonate accumulation within sediments occurs will get shallower as the ocean acidifies. Both factors affect the LONG TERM ability of the ocean to sequester CO2. -
scaddenp at 14:58 PM on 8 June 2010Robust warming of the global upper ocean
But this paper hasnt actually been published yet has it? It looks rather like it needs some reviewing (unless of course it is for E&E). -
Doug Bostrom at 14:33 PM on 8 June 2010Robust warming of the global upper ocean
Delving into Scafetta's latest paper, we immediately find a dubious assertion: The existence of a 60-year natural cycle in the climate system, which is clearly proven in multiple studies and herein in Figures 2, 6, 10 and 12, indicates that the AGWT promoted by the IPCC [2007], which claims that 100% of the global warming observed since 1970 is anthropogenic, is erroneous. Does the IPCC claim that 100% of warming observed since 1970 is anthropogenic? Here's what the IPCC 2007 report actually says: Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic GHG concentrations. 7 It is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent (except Antarctica) (Figure SPM.4). {2.4} Not even close to a flat 100%, not by the most liberal interpretation. So either Scafetta can't read, has not read the IPCC material he references, or is resorting to rhetorical hyperbole, something unwelcome in a scientific paper. No matter as long as we don't care what's true or false, Scafetta has a hypothesis. Or does he? The planets, in particular Jupiter and Saturn, with their movement around the Sun give origin to large gravitational and magnetic oscillations that cause the solar system to vibrate. These vibrations have the same frequencies of the planetary orbits. The vibrations of the solar system can be directly or indirectly felt by the climate system and can cause it to oscillate with those same frequencies. More specific physical mechanisms involved in the process include gravitational tidal forces, spin orbit transfer phenomena and magnetic perturbations (the jovian planets have large magnetic fields that interact with the solar plasma and with the magnetic field of the Earth). These gravitational and magnetic forces act as external forcings of the solar dynamo, of the solar wind and of the Earth-Moon system and may modulate both solar dynamics and, directly or indirectly, through the Sun, the climate of the Earth. So what's the mechanism? Later: In conclusion, data analysis indicates that current general circulation climate models are missing fundamental mechanisms that have their physical origin and ultimate justification in astronomical phenomena, and in interplanetary and solar-planetary interaction physics. In sum, we're asked to accept as certainty an indication of a previously unknown cyclical mechanism influencing climate, this cyclic process being derived from a fairly scanty physical record and an elaborate compound astronomical process. More, despite there being no known actual physical process describing how this mechanism may function, this mystery is "fundamental" and should be included in GCM's or they're incomplete. All this coming from somebody who for whatever reason was unable to accurately describe what the IPCC actually has said regarding the behavior of the climate. What would happen if the IPCC included work of this sort in WG1? Would anybody complain? Nah, surely not.Moderator Response: Better topic thread for discussion of this is Models are unreliable -
Doug Bostrom at 13:48 PM on 8 June 2010Robust warming of the global upper ocean
PhilC, to my untrained eye Scafetta appears to be throwing things against the wall, hoping something will stick. Previously Scafetta has said We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming. These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century, also suggest that the solar impact on climate change during the same period is significantly stronger than what some theoretical models have predicted. Problems with this assertion were discussed at Real Climate. In another paper, Scafetta says We find good correspondence between global temperature and solar induced temperature curves during the pre-industrial period such as the cooling periods occurring during the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715) and the Dalton Minimum (1795–1825). The sun might have contributed approximately 50% of the observed global warming since 1900 This paper was also critiqued at Real Climate At least those two papers had something in common. Now Scafetta is trying something else entirely? But what about the previous research? Is it inoperative now? Is there something new under the Sun? -
Joe Blog at 13:11 PM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
Stephen Baines Thank you, an interesting read. Exactly what i was looking for. And raises the questions i was thinking myself. Ocean acidification/effects, is not an easy question. Something i will have follow more closely. -
Stephen Baines at 12:51 PM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
@Joe Blog "... has anyone done an experiment. Just run two big tanks in controlled atmospheres running sedimentary bio filters" People have and are doing a large number of studies involving mesocosms that range in "naturalness" if you will. Below is a references to a Norwegian/German team has been doing a series of such experiments, for example. It's tricky technically to pull off at a large scale. It helps if you're in a protected site like a fjord. Pelagic Ecosystem CO2 Enrichment Overview -
philc at 12:31 PM on 8 June 2010Robust warming of the global upper ocean
Regarding modelling temperatures in the atmosphere, re: "#54 kdkd at 16:59 PM on 26 May, 2010 HumanityRules #52 ......Given that we can't model the observed 20th and 21st century warming without using CO2 as a parameter, it seems extremely likely that large scale observations of warming are also due to the same CO2 parameter........" Apparently not all the available data has been incorporated into the paradigm. This paper by Dr. Nicholas Scafetta (at http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.4639) takes a further look at variabilities in the climate caused by various resonances between the orbits of the planets, the sun, and the moon. Abstract: We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 degC and 0.25 deg$, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon’s orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21st century. It is found that at least 60% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate oscillations. The artial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030-2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators." All of these astronomical resonances have effects akin to the tides caused by the sun and the moon and can cause changes in the transfer of radiation from the sun. Given that the temperature reconstruction gives a pretty remarkable fit to the measured variations in the temperature record, something no GHG climate model does, the results show me that at the very least all of the mainstream forecasts of temperature and CO2 are missing a major portion of the climate equation -
Ned at 10:45 AM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
One of the reasons it's important to keep ocean acidification in mind is that it wouldn't be ameliorated by many of the "geoengineering" solutions that have been proposed to counteract global warming. (That is, geoengineering approaches that actually sequester carbon would help with OA, but approaches that merely reduce solar irradiance wouldn't affect this ... and could in fact make OA much worse if people felt they could now burn lots of coal without any warming.) -
Joe Blog at 10:42 AM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
By raised ph... i mean raised acidity... lowered Ph! -
Ned at 10:33 AM on 8 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Berényi Péter writes: On the other hand a judge becomes a non-judge as soon as summoned as a witness to a trial. His role is different. Actually, I disagree. He doesn't become a non-judge. That's his occupation. He may temporarily be playing a different role than he does in the courtroom, or in the office, or when giving a talk about the legal system to primary-school students. Scientists too have many different roles to play, which may include doing research, writing manuscripts and proposals, reviewing others' manuscripts or proposals, supervising students and postdocs, managing a lab or field station, teaching both formally and informally, and communicating the important parts of their expertise to the general public and/or other audiences outside the field. If a scientist I knew were called upon by a Congressional committee to answer questions in her area of expertise, I would encourage her to do so as clearly, objectively, and straightforwardly as possible. With all due respect, it seems to me that you're straining to find something to criticize Dr Ramanathan for. Surely there are more significant things we can disagree about? Or perhaps I'm mistaken and you've come around on everything else? :-) -
Doug Bostrom at 10:30 AM on 8 June 2010Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
DrTom you should prioritize friendship. Ned mentions laughter and as an MD your friend ought to know laughter is indeed sometimes the best medicine. Try steering him to DenialDepot which may actually succeed in provoking some thought on the whole matter. -
Joe Blog at 10:18 AM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
I do have to ask, ive done a bit o work in the aqua culture area, and certainly have noticed a few interesting phenomenon with different gas saturation levels... But out o curiosity, has anyone done an experiment. Just run two big tanks in controlled atmospheres running sedimentary bio filters... i would think you would get fairly conclusive evidence one way or the other that way, with atmospheric effects on coastal waters anyway. I suppose it depends on the species... but certainly in my observations, slightly super saturated water results in faster growth rates in the species ive observed... obviously although this results in raised Ph it also has higher O2 saturation, so doesn't necessarily have any bearing on ocean acidification. But is contrary to what theoretically should happen(i should mention though, at 120% or so.... fish get the benz) -
Ned at 10:15 AM on 8 June 2010Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
DrTom, I like Carl Sagan's response to crackpots (of whatever viewpoint) who think that because the rest of the scientific world doesn't agree with them, they must be another Galileo: They laughed at Galileo. They laughed at Newton. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. I don't intend this as an ad-hominem attack on your friend (whom I've presumably never met), just a general observation. The odds are that anyone who thinks they're a second Galileo is probably suffering from an extreme case of Dunning-Kruger. -
DrTom at 10:06 AM on 8 June 2010Over 31,000 scientists signed the OISM Petition Project
There are people to whom no amount of reason will change their minds. My MD friend just replied to this with the following argument which he considers rational: Scientific concensus of the day on sun around earth: 99% Galileo: . 00001% earth around sun truth matters Censorship and manipulation of data and careers does too. But here it's way more than 1, it's 10's of thousands of rational educated professionals in opposition as the (correct) minority. -
Ned at 10:06 AM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
Doug Bostrom, thank you for pre-emptively trying to head off a distracting argument over the term "ocean acidification". Also, MattJ asks for materials about ocean acidification that are less technical than the scientific journal articles listed above. Elizabeth Kolbert's 2006 article The Darkening Sea is a real classic, and a very good starting place for the lay reader. Ms Kolbert is one of the best contemporary science writers in the US. -
Doug Bostrom at 10:05 AM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
That's a sweetly succinct but comprehensive explanation, ProfMandia, w/lovely visualizations. Nice job. -
ProfMandia at 09:47 AM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
I just posted a more user-friendly article about ocean acidification titled: The 800 lb. Gorilla in the Ocean. Enjoy. Scott A. Mandia, Professor of Physical Sciences Selden, NY Global Warming: Man or Myth? My Global Warming Blog Twitter @AGW_Prof Global Warming Fact of the Day Facebook Group -
Tony O at 09:46 AM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
I admit I do not understand more than a fraction of what I have read of the linked articles, but they are still scary. Add natural variation to expected changes and we have a major problem within twenty to thirty years. -
deconvoluter at 09:41 AM on 8 June 2010Abraham reply to Monckton
Bern at #2 What was the outcome of his three months searching? This, or something similar, is what he should have found : http://www.docstoc.com/docs/21859176/Schwarzschild-Equation-for-the-transmission-of-radiation-through-an-absorbing-medium Instead he came up with a spread-sheet calculation based on the Stefan Boltzmann equation which is far too simple to model the behaviour of a gas with a highly non-uniform temperature, and a spikey absorption spectrum. There was also no way that it could include the time delay caused by the huge thermal capacity of the oceans. This over-simplified model was triumphantly published by the Sunday Telegraph as a disproof of the scientific consensus. The reason is that it had derived a very low climate sensitivity. -
Doug Bostrom at 08:42 AM on 8 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
Berenyi, is it purely a value judgment that anthropogenic warming is a serious threat or is not? Most scientists practicing in fields connected with matters influenced by climate behavior conclude that costs of a warming climate outweigh benefits by a long measure. A relatively few persons conclude otherwise, many of those quite unqualified to render a useful opinion. It is legitimate for a congressman trying to establish the broad parameters of a threat to ask a researcher whether that threat is significant and equally it is reasonable for that researcher to give an informed response to the question. Your suggestion that scientific testimony is inherently a political act and presumably thus illegitimate is silly. -
Berényi Péter at 08:34 AM on 8 June 2010Irregular Climate: a new climate podcast
#72 Ned at 11:53 AM on 7 June, 2010 A bus driver doesn't suddenly become not-a-bus-driver just because she's been asked to provide testimony to a Congressional committee about mass transit On the other hand a judge becomes a non-judge as soon as summoned as a witness to a trial. His role is different. #73 doug_bostrom at 12:40 PM on 7 June, 2010 Would you suggest he write back to the committee saying that providing requested scientific advice is an "overtly political act" so he must politely decline? No. He could try his best to testify as a scientist by refusing to mix value judgments into his testimony, strictly sticking to the facts, acknowledging uncertainties and revealing inconsistencies. For example he could mention that his findings about black carbon are all but inconsistent with even the low end of "assumed climate sensitivity of 2 to 4 K due to doubling of CO2". It is up to the Committee what they make of a honest testimony. After all they are supposed to be grown up men. If so, what's the point of his work from the funding perspective? Nothing. There is no point of basic research from this perspective whatsoever. The only reason it is done to advance knowledge and understanding. It is an entirely different question that should society decide not to support science, that society is doomed. But it is not the concern of scientists, it is the concern of politicians (and the public). Or as Faraday told Lord Gladstone when asked about the point of his research on electricity "Why, sir, there is every probability that you will soon be able to tax it!" Darn, it happened. Of course we all know the real significance of his work was that it made possible for Maxwell to write down his equations, later discovered by Lorentz to be invariant under a weird transformation which led to the mass-energy equivalence of Einstein. As the constant c2 in that relation is so huge (8.99×1016 m2 s-2), it was only a matter of time to turn it into bombs to end the Japanese war for good, saving one and a half million American lives and seven million japs as an afterthought. You never know the final outcome of research in advance. In fact it is not even your business as a scientist. -
Doug Bostrom at 08:31 AM on 8 June 2010Abraham reply to Monckton
Further to Stephen's remarks about Monckton's influence, an example. Here in the U.S. the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is preparing to regulate some types of C02 emissions as a form of pollution, which depending on the source and effect it clearly is under the wording of the agency's mandate. Hearings on EPA's budget were used as an opportunity to delve into legislation proposed by Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, Murkowski's intent being to selectively slice out C02 as a pollutant that EPA may address. Here's Monckton's "expertise" appearing in that discussion: [U.S. Senator] Inhofe, whose leading campaign funder is the oil and gas industry, has been trying for years to back up his claim that climate science is a "hoax". His colleague, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), joined his criticism, drawing from British business and policy consultant Christopher Monckton's science skeptic group, the Science and Public Policy Institute, for his arguments. US Plans for Greenhouse Gas Regulations in 2011, Hopes for CCS Presuming Monckton's input more or less influences the outcome of this matter, Monckton's activities may be said to influence future committed warming. Given a susceptible policy environment pure rhetoric may translate into physical effects. In this situation we see senators from states directly benefiting from fossil fuel extraction leveraging Monckton's claims to change the course of public policy. -
Stephen Baines at 08:09 AM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
MattJ, you could try the Royal Society's statement. A little dated at 5 years old, but it explains the basics in a straightforward manner. It's probably linked elsewhere on the site. Royal Society report on acidification -
Stephen Baines at 08:01 AM on 8 June 2010Abraham reply to Monckton
Let me be more specific, I would "prefer" to ignore his specific claims about climate. I simply don't have the time to waste on them if he is going to be so cavalier with the literature. However, I won't pretend he doesn't have influence. While his rhetorical audacity often makes me chuckle, its not funny when he's playing so loose with science on such important issues in front of people of power. I wonder how many of the scientists that he contacted were even aware that Monckton was using their research to support his own ideas. Scientists often have little to gain professionally from engaging the public. Episodes like this make it clear that they are engaging the public in ways they were not even aware of. Will it make them more receptive to engaging the public and dispelling the myths and oversimplifications when they arise? I sure hope so. -
Climate's changed before
Roger, With all due respect, you demonstrate some profound misunderstandings about the nature of climate science, the IPCC report, and the scientific method in general. It is ill advised to be commenting on the nature of something you clearly haven't read or understood. If you want to argue in good faith, I strongly suggest you spend some time learning what climate scientists actually have to say rather than relying on the strawman depicted by climate denial blogs. A good source would be the IPCC WG1 as linked above, or one of it's summary reports. Another interesting read is the epa response to comments on their findings on greenhouse gasses. This site's own list of skeptic arguments is also a great overview of common skeptic points. The Discovery of Global Warming is great for getting some perspective on the history of climate science, and understanding that AGW did not leap spontaneously from the minds of scientists and some in the blog-o-sphere would have you think. Finally you can find a host of great links here. In any case, if you have any specific questions or points, please place them in the appropriate post, as this post is focused on the significance of past climate change specifically and this discussion has veered off-topic. -
mdenison at 07:06 AM on 8 June 2010Monckton Chronicles Part III – Acid Reflux?
Matt J: You could start with the IPCC IPCC. They provide hundreds of pages material based on the technical papers relating to climate change. It is produced with the express intention of making such material accessible to a wider audience? The AR4 Synthesis Report is a good place to start. -
bpl1960 at 07:03 AM on 8 June 2010Abraham reply to Monckton
J -- thanks, I'll keep that in mind! I'm going to try to email Monckton directly today. Mark Swanson kindly let me know his email address posted at the Heartland Institute.
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