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chris1204 at 23:18 PM on 12 April 2010Arctic Sea Ice (Part 1): Is the Arctic Sea Ice recovering? A reality check
If 2007 was the lowest sea ice on record, I would expect ice coverage in 2008, 2009, and 2010 to consist of a considerably larger proportion of 'new ice' and for total volumes of Arctic Sea ice through 2008 and 2009 to still be among the the lowest on record. What is more interesting is that for whatever reason new ice is still forming. The post argues that the 2007 decline was an anomalous increase in an inexorable downward trend. However, given the physically impossibility for newly formed ice suddenly to turn into multi-year ice, we can't exclude the possibility that ice coverage may indeed be showing signs of recovery. New ice by its nature will be thin and fragile. Of course, we won't know for sure for another five or ten years (unless the present seeming recovery proves illusory over the next one or two years). -
aj1983 at 22:14 PM on 12 April 2010It's land use
This topic has been a bit weak of a defence for the allegations that the trends above land (and global trends) are significantly influenced by UHI AND other non greenhouse gas influences. I think it would be nice for the climate science community to look into this more seriously, because there is an increasing amount of literature pointing into the opposite direction. -
ProfMandia at 21:45 PM on 12 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
This is OT but I wish to offer KUDOS to John Cook because at a recent Brookhaven National Lab hosted event titled Alan Alda Brings Passion for Communicating Science to Brookhaven Lab, John Cook was hailed as somebody who was doing science messaging the right way!Response: Thanks for the kind words in your blog post, Scott. -
Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 21:33 PM on 12 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
@19 - Happy to note the volume and page number. Would you like the bookmarked pdf files? (It will take a while to go through them all.)Response: Whatever is easiest - just posting comments with missing arguments as you go is fine. I downloaded all the PDFs (but not with your bookmarks, of course). -
scepticmike at 20:11 PM on 12 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
Damn I missed out a "not" after "work" of course! -
scepticmike at 20:09 PM on 12 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
Why has this huge amount of useful work had a lot more publicity instead of the storm in a tea cup that was so-called "Climategate" Very good to see it being brought to our attention. -
Miriam O'Brien (Sou) at 17:49 PM on 12 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
I've been going through the EPA's responses to the comments and they are excellent. I've been adding bookmarks in the pdf files so as to easily refer back to specific points. Most of the issues raised are fairly standard and already covered on SkepticalScience, but if I come across any that aren't I'll add them to your list.Response: When you add them, could you also post a comment here mentioning the argument (perhaps also including the volume and page #)? Would save me a little time in tracking it down in the EPA reports. Many thanks! :-) -
Riccardo at 16:17 PM on 12 April 2010Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
nocompromise, yes, G (Giga) is a prefix. There are many more indeed. -
Bern at 13:40 PM on 12 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
RE #17: You're absolutely right, nature is not a static phenomenon. And the best climate models attempt to account for and reproduce the responses of the earth's climate to the varying influences over time, and, IMHO, do a pretty remarkably good job of it. Which is exactly why a "no disruptions" economic model is suspect, because, as the events of the past 2 years demonstrate, the global economy is also very far from a static system, and is, in fact, far more volatile than the earth's climate. (I'd hate to think what kind of climate change would be equivalent to the 1929 crash or the GFC - perhaps some of those mass extinctions from ancient prehistory?) In any event, I suspect I'll be losing a few evenings to perusing the EPA responses... the ones I've looked at so far are quite well written! -
nocompromise at 08:38 AM on 12 April 2010Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
It appears that 'billion tonnes' and GTons are interchangeable? -
Doug Bostrom at 06:28 AM on 12 April 2010Glaciers are growing
Another collective datapoint: Almost 90 percent of Austrian glaciers shrank in 2009, some by as much as 46 metres (150 feet), the Austrian Alpine Association (OeAV) said Friday. In a report, the OeAV said 85 out of 96 glaciers had shrunk over the past year. The biggest changes were seen in the Oetz valley in western Tyrol province, where three glaciers retreated by over 40 metres, and eight by over 20 metres. "The ice is very thin over large areas, so the glaciers are retreating very quickly," noted Andrea Fischer of the University of Innsbruck, who conducted the measurements for the alpine club. One glacier bucked the trend and expanded, but only by a few dozen centimetres. Temperatures were higher than average by about 0.2 degrees Celsius in the winter of 2008-2009 and by 2.1 degrees last summer, the OeAV noted. More: Almost all Austrian glaciers shrank in 2009
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Jacob Bock Axelsen at 06:01 AM on 12 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
Berényi Péter ... pH during an El Niño event gets higher. The problem is not too much CO2, just the opposite. In fact in 1998 NTCO2 (Salinity-Normalized Total Inorganic Carbon) in eastern parts of the Pacific got extremely low, which implies higher than normal pH. Nice graph. However, coral bleaching is when the corals are vacated of algae, the socalled Zooxanthellae, due to the fact that either photosynthetic pigment is lost or cellular adhesion is disrupted altogether mostly due to Heat Shock. pH drops only exacerbates this or may act alone. In your example, pH elevations under rising temperatures apparently do not alleviate this - which seems rather logical. -
Doug Bostrom at 04:24 AM on 12 April 2010The human fingerprint in global warming
philc, put a transparent cap on the paint can and the same thing will happen; the effect does not depend on evaporation. Or can you describe why it won't? Insulating the can reduces not only convection but also causes backscattering of energy radiating from the can. Or can you explain how it does not? I'm not concerned with illustrating this situation for you, specifically, but instead for others who may be reading comments on this thread. You of course are free to believe whatever you wish, just as my cat is free to gag up the pills I give him for the hyperthyroid condition that will kill him if it goes untreated, heh! -
Steve L at 04:00 AM on 12 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
I mentioned @59 that carbonate availability was the main negative impact of ocean acidification. I just came across this about kelp and this about promotion of bacteria at the EPOCA blog. I guess this is a rapidly growing field and we'll be learning a lot about other impacts in the future. PS. I remember something called ATOC that was going to measure global warming in the oceans and I also remember reading somewhere that ocean acidification was going to make the ocean louder (with consequent effects on cetaceans). Ah, the EPOCA site again. Anybody else 'hear' of other potential impacts? -
Steve L at 03:16 AM on 12 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
guinganbresil @62: I was wondering about that too (@23), so thanks for the map. Of course, circulation patterns are affected by AGW and coastal areas often receive excess nutrient input. It may be hard to distinguish direct acidification from CO2 emissions from indirect via changes in ocean currents from other anthropogenic sources through decomposition. But we know how much CO2 is getting dumped into the atmosphere, and we know pretty well how much of this is absorbed by the ocean, and therefore some attribution of pH change to various causes should be possible. -
philc at 03:11 AM on 12 April 2010The human fingerprint in global warming
Please read the argument again: "A comparison between satellite data from 1970 to 1996 found that less energy is escaping to space at the wavelengths that greenhouse gases absorb energy (Harries 2001)." The fact that GHG absorb some specific frequencies of outgoing radiation is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether or not the TOTAL TOA radiation is in balance or not. The example in #81 is a flawed analogy. An open paint can will evaporate water, carrying away energy. Very, very little of the earth's water is evaporated into space. Insulating the can simply turns the apparatus into a version of a plain old greenhouse and doesn't speak to any of the mechanisms that slow the rate of energy flow in the climate system. -
Steve L at 03:01 AM on 12 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
BP @63 -- Didn't you have anything to say about my previous comment? You're at it again, saying: 1. El Niño is associated with higher pH, and 2. El Niño is bad for Galapagos corals, therefore 3. Higher pH is bad for Galapagos corals. This is a fallacious argument, because you're not accounting for impacts other than pH that are associated with El Niño (e.g., increased temperature associated with bleaching). Somewhat aside from this problem with logic, there is another specific issue here, within point 1: you say total inorganic carbon is low and "implies higher than normal pH". In my previous comment I tried to point out that the negative effects of low pH are exerted largely through making carbonate unavailable to shell-building creatures. Carbonate ion is inorganic, so low total inorganic carbon may imply carbonate undersaturation as much as it implies low pH. -
Berényi Péter at 02:28 AM on 12 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
#61 Jacob Bock Axelsen at 21:51 PM on 11 April, 2010 There was indeed large mortality of coral reefs at Galapagos during El Niño 1998 Yes. But as I've already mentioned, pH during an El Niño event gets higher. The problem is not too much CO2, just the opposite. In fact in 1998 NTCO2 (Salinity-Normalized Total Inorganic Carbon) in eastern parts of the Pacific got extremely low, which implies higher than normal pH.
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guinganbresil at 02:11 AM on 12 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
I have seen a fair amount of discussion on the effect of atmospheric CO2 on ocean surface pH. Unfortunately there has been a confounding between deep ocean upwelling and acidification from atmospheric sources. The ocean pH decreases with depth, with a minimum of around pH 7.6 at a depth of about 800 meters. When this deep water upwells to the surface it mixes and reduces surface pH. Areas that are subject to upwelling are a function of the thermohaline circulation and wind conditions near coastal regions:
Here is an example of a commonly referenced research of ocean surface pH drops attributed to atmospheric CO2 in a region subject to upwelling - Wootton (2008)
It is vitally important for the cause of sound science to look at all causes for ocean pH changes and accurately represent their relative impacts. Otherwise, this "advocacy science" will cast doubt on the whole community.
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Riccardo at 01:14 AM on 12 April 2010Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
nocompromise, not sure what numbers you're looking at. The data you link are fossil fuel carbon emissions which correspond to the data shown in fig.2 here. Where is the orders of magnitude difference? If instead you need to reconcile fig. 1 (29 GTons) and 2 (8 GTons), it's due to the diffent mass of C and CO2, a factor of 3.6. -
Ned at 01:08 AM on 12 April 2010CO2 lags temperature
Okay, last in a series of three comments, and sorry about being so verbose. So, what's the relevance of the time-lag in ice cores to our current situation? Not much. In the Pleistocene, CO2 was a feedback amplifying warming/cooling caused by the Milankovich cycle. Like many feedbacks, it took a while to kick in, so there was a time lag. Today, in contrast, we're directly adding CO2 to the atmosphere. It's a forcing in its own right, not just a feedback (though there are additional CO2 feedbacks). So the time lag in the ice cores is irrelevant to the current situation. Likewise, the fact that temperature stopped increasing during previous interglacials doesn't mean that temperature won't keep rising if we keep burning fossil fuels today. It stopped rising then because the M. cycle changed. But the M. cycle doesn't have any effect on the decade-to-century time scale we're dealing with now. Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion. -
Ned at 01:00 AM on 12 April 2010CO2 lags temperature
With that out of the way, let's talk about the lag itself. nhthinker writes: If you want to argue that the temperature requires CO2 to elevate which causes further temperature rise and that solar changes are NOT the primary cause of temperature changes, then you really need to explain convincingly what causes the temperature and CO2 levels to STOP their rises at the entry of interglacial periods. During the Pleistocene glacial/interglacial cycles, the primary forcing of temperature changes was variations in the seasonal and latitudinal distribution of insolation caused by variations in the Earth's orbital geometry (Milankovich cycles). Everyone here knows this. Without these spatial-temporal variations in insolation, there wouldn't have been swings in temperature. However, those changes in temperature were amplified by various positive feedbacks (e.g., water vapor, CO2, and ice albedo). Without those feedbacks, the magnitude of the temperature swings would have been much smaller. One could logically ask, if there are such positive feedbacks in the climate system, why did the temperature stop rising (or falling)? (This is the meaning of your "STOP" sentence, I believe.) There are at least two answers: (1) A positive feedback does not imply unlimited increase, as long as the feedback coefficient is between 0 and 1. Many people (on both sides of this argument) don't understand this point, and assume that a positive feedback in the climate system has to lead to either runaway warming (like on Venus) or to a frozen snowball Earth. That's incorrect, though. (2) Most importantly, the Milankovich cycles are cyclical. They alternately provide a warming forcing followed by a cooling. As soon as the direction of this forcing reversed (say, from warming to cooling), the CO2 and other feedbacks would likewise reverse (with the usual time lag, of course). So there's nothing that needs to be explained about the fact that the temperature stopped rising during the interglacials (or why it stopped falling during the glacials, for that matter). How is this relevant to the current situation? See the next comment ... -
Ned at 00:47 AM on 12 April 2010CO2 lags temperature
nhthinker, it's still not clear to me why or how you think that Barton is being misrepresented in the quote at the top of this thread. John quoted two sentences where Barton is discussing the lag between temperature and CO2 in the ice core records. Barton suggests that the existence of this lag shows that CO2 did not cause the glacial/interglacial changes in temperature ("a rise in carbon dioxide levels could not have caused a rise in temperature if it followed the temperature"). The article at the top of this thread rightly explains that Barton's point is misleading, because in the period Barton is referring to CO2 functioned as a feedback whereas now it's acting as a forcing (more on this in the next comment). You suggested that there was some context being left out, specifically the following: * A preceding sentence and footnote (iv) discussing higher CO2 levels in the Eocene and Oligocene. This is tens of millions of years ago, i.e. two orders of magnitude further back in time than the glacial/interglacial cycles that are the subject of this thread. There are no ice cores that go back that far, and no evidence for any lag. Higher levels of CO2 in the Eocene and Oligocene don't somehow change the wrongness of Barton's discussion of a lag in Pleistocene ice core data. It's a completely different subject. * A footnote (v) to a paper about the lag in the ice cores, and a concluding sentence with an appeal to authority (citing somebody from NAS who Barton says mentioned the lag in congressional testimony). These, likewise, are completely irrelevant -- all they do is provide support for Barton's claim that there was a lag in the ice core records. But nobody thinks that there wasn't a lag in the ice core records. If anybody is making a straw-man argument here, it's Barton himself! So no, I don't see anything in the extended version of the Barton quote that even remotely suggests he is being misrepresented. You will need to be much more specific if you still think there's a problem somewhere there. -
nocompromise at 00:42 AM on 12 April 2010Human CO2 is a tiny % of CO2 emissions
I'm having trouble reconciling the values presented in this article vs the CO2 amount measured in: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/graphics/global.total.gif and http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/emis/tre_glob.html (cited by the CO2 article in wikipedia) They are orders of magnitude different! Am I missing something here?Response: What I'm displaying in my carbon cycle graph is the flux of carbon dioxide. What you're looking at in the CDIAC graph is the flux of carbon. To convert carbon to carbon dioxide, you multiply by 3.66 (I explain the process in more detail here - and actually use the CDIAC data from your link). So for example, the CDIAC graph finds that our current rate of CO2 emissions is around 8000 million metric tons of carbon. This is around 8 gigatonnes of carbon which equates to 29 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.
I opted to use units of carbon dioxide in my carbon cycle graph because I thought it would be less confusing - people relate to carbon dioxide emissions, not the carbon element of the carbon dioxide molecule. I've regretted it ever since because the convention is to use carbon and hence much confusion has ensued. I will update my carbon cycle graphs with units of carbon sometime down the track (when I get the time). -
Jacob Bock Axelsen at 21:51 PM on 11 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
Berényi Péter (...) Galapagos coral reefs are still well and alive. With emphasis on 'still', I suppose. There was indeed large mortality of coral reefs at Galapagos during El Niño 1998. During large extinction events corals are the ones who suffers the most as in e.g. the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event. Just because corals did not become extinct as a class so far in no way precludes that we can not drive them to extinction. -
Alexandre at 21:51 PM on 11 April 2010The human fingerprint in global warming
Is Chen 2007 peer-reviewed? In which journal? -
Berényi Péter at 20:27 PM on 11 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
I'd recommend reading Biogeosciences (An Interactive Open Access Journal of the European Geosciences Union). It has a nice Public Peer-Review & Interactive Public Discussion process and the papers are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, both Discussion Papers (BGD) & Final Revised Papers (BG). In most cases there is also some Supplement. This is how all scientific publication should look like. -
James Wight at 17:03 PM on 11 April 2010Are we too stupid?
This to me goes to show that websites like this one are doing their bit by working on requirement b) “the population is sufficiently enlightened about the facts”. -
James Wight at 16:53 PM on 11 April 2010Every skeptic argument ever used
John, I have some more suggestions about your list of arguments. I realize the list is not entirely your own anymore, so some of the things I point out may be other people’s additions that have slipped under the radar. (That’s the danger of allowing anybody to contribute!) In particular, somebody has added an argument with the rather unwieldy title “CO2 emissions/absortion rates from nature are largely unprecise. More unprecise than accounted emissions by humans. We can't be sure if it is all an accounting error.” Maybe this should be shortened to a single sentence like the other arguments? Also, “absortion” should be spelled “absorption” and “unprecise” should be “imprecise”. “Kilimanjaro snow does not melt because of warming” is also a bit unclear. Does it mean that Kilimanjaro snow *isn’t* melting because of warming (an argument that would belong under “Mt Kilimanjaro’s ice loss is due to land use”), or Kilimanjaro snow *wouldn’t* melt if it was warming (which would belong under “It’s not bad”)? Come to think of it, “Glacier melt is natural” itself doesn’t really belong under “Climate’s changed before” either. It seems to me that “Gulf Stream is stable” and “Conveyor belt won’t stop” are essentially the same argument – unless one is meant to refer to ocean conveyor belts generally and the other to the North Atlantic specifically, but that isn’t clear from the articles submitted. Also, I’m not sure what the difference is between “CO2 effect is saturated” and “Saturated Greenhouse Effect”. Does the latter mean that all greenhouse gases are saturated, not just CO2? I think “Freedom of Information requests were ignored” belongs under “Climategate”. And maybe “Corals survived during past periods of high CO2” should go under “It’s not bad”. (Incidentally, do you realise the “It’s not bad” link on the taxonomy page goes to an error message?) I also noticed you’ve separated the last category of arguments into two topics, “It’s too late” and “It’s too hard”. I suggest that “CO2 limits will hurt the poor”, “Famine and disease are a higher priority”, and “CO2 limits take money away from real threats” all belong in the “It’s too hard” category.Response: The list of skeptic arguments that I originally set up is like a complex garden that constantly needs pruning and maintenance to keep in order. Then I let everyone else add to it which means it now needs constant weeding also! So I appreciate your periodic proofreading of the skeptic list, helps keep it relatively under control. I've just made the following changes:- Shortened the "CO2 emissions/absortion rates from nature are largely unprecise..." argument to "Carbon cycle uncertainty is high"
- Merged the two Kiliminjaro arguments into one
- Merged "gulf stream is stable" and "conveyor belt won't stop"
- Merged "co2 is saturated" and "greenhouse is saturated"
- Recategorised "FOI requests were ignored" under climategate
- Recategorised coral reef arguments under "it's not bad"
- Fixed the broken link to the "It's not bad" page
- BTW, while I was there shuffling things around, I swapped the ordering around so "It's too hard" comes before "It's too late". If you consider the arguments as stages of denial, it makes more chronological sense.
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Jacob Bock Axelsen at 06:43 AM on 11 April 2010Are we too stupid?
embb Geo-engineering is sure to go wrong - and any social engineering is sure to have no negative impact, as if the precautionary principle could only be applied very very selectively. According to the Milinski papers all it takes is letting people discriminate against the ones who defies scientific evidence - much like discrimination against criminals. That can hardly be considered social engineering from a historical perspective. If one finds the consequences of global warming exaggerated, then being in favour of geo-engineering would constitute a contradiction. If one does not accept climate science, the consequences of geo-engineering cannot currently be scientifically calculated. If climate science is correct and the consequences are perceived as dire, then there is no good reason to significantly increase the risks by attempting geo-engineering on top of the problems. That is, unless in an emergency where CO2 reductions alone would not suffice. -
Steve L at 04:17 AM on 11 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
BP, I'd like to take issue with your comment @50. Unfortunately I don't have time to do a good job of it, so I'll limit myself to two points. First, this form of argument -- "there's low pH at location or time X and species Y is doing okay there/then" -- is interesting but not convincing. Biochemically harsh environments like tide pools and thermal vents have species that do well in them, too, and there are shellfish in fresh water (pH below 7). One cannot conclude that critters in other environments will be unaffected by changes to pH that are within the range of "location X". For example, the shellfish doing well in fresh water (and low pH) should give us very little comfort that shellfish in the ocean are going to do fine as pH declines. Further, your suggestion that low pH is good because bleaching occurs during El Nino ignores interrelated factors that are important (eg. temperature!). The full suite of environmental parameters and ecological context (including species composition) matters. That brings me to my second point, and I repeat to some extent Riccardo's comment earlier @18. The reduction of pH is a problem because it increases the solubility of carbonate such that it forms bicarbonate which isn't very available to creatures to make their shells. My understanding is that the aragonite (a more highly soluble form of carbonate used in many invertebrate shells) saturation horizon will become shallower in the high latitudes before it changes much in the tropics (despite pH being generally lower in the tropics, in absolute terms). By 2100, the aragonite saturation horizon is projected to go from 120m (current) to 0m in the high North Pacific or Bering Sea, from 730m (current) to 0m in parts of the Southern Ocean, and 2600m (current) to 115m in the North Atlantic. For these kinds of contextual reasons, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (for example) is worried about their production of pink salmon (who feed on pteropods, who make shells of aragonite). What happens in specific coral reef locations may depend greatly on the saturation states of carbonate there, and although pH influences these states, the relationship is not so simple that the other parameters can be ignored. In summary, I think you raise interesting questions, but I don't think you can assume that corals persisting in low pH conditions in "location X" mean that corals in "location Y" will be fine when exposed to similar pH levels. You may also want to check on whether or not your beloved Galapagos corals are expected to be exposed to further decreases in pH. -
Doug Bostrom at 03:16 AM on 11 April 2010CO2 lags temperature
Nhthinker, I believe in looking at past events you're failing to recognize or at least keep in mind that what we're doing right now is to inadvertently innovate new processes that we're adding to the normal functioning of the climate. There's a lot to be learned from past events, but trying to strictly analogize between stade-interstade behavior of the climate will necessarily fail to describe what we see happening to the climate today. The researchers who have looked at past behavior of the climate have built a pretty strong case to show how those sequences emerged, how an initial rise in temperature due to solar variations triggered a feedback amplifying that rise. The exact details may still be in play, but at the end of the day it's important to remember, those events happened in the dim past and were triggered and driven by processes different than today. The burp of carbon we're eructating today actually analogizes better with other episodes better characterized as catastrophic in nature, such as periodic eruptions of flood basalt in Eastern Washington. -
nhthinker at 01:11 AM on 11 April 2010CO2 lags temperature
You ASSUME that the first and last sentence are about something else entirely. They are not. The entire paragraph is about temperature and CO2 at a macro level not limited to the last century or two. The point is that warming occurs prior to CO2 being any portion of warming trend. If you want to argue that the temperature requires CO2 to elevate which causes further temperature rise and that solar changes are NOT the primary cause of temperature changes, then you really need to explain convincingly what causes the temperature and CO2 levels to STOP their rises at the entry of interglacial periods. If you claim it is just a minor variation in solar changes, then it detracts from your overall argument for the forcing relationship between CO2 and temperature. If the start of the interglacials show anything, it is that once the CO2 reaches a high enough level that it no longer causes any additional rise in temperature. In fact, it would seem to indicate that once CO2 reaches a certain level it actually helps support the reduction of temperature over time. Low level cloud formation is much more correlated to temperature rises than high level cloud formation. GCR is a much better predictor of low level clouds than CO2 levels are. -
Tarcisio José D at 23:45 PM on 10 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
RE #5: Now, if climate models that can explain the past, the present and the future (with known shortcomings) are under intense scrutiny, why would anyone trust wrong macroeconomic simulations based on "no disruptions"? This statement is very important because nature is not a static phenomenon. There are many factors involved, and any statement should be accompanied by the epilogue "if other factors remain constant." Seizing the opportunity, watch a new argument to the skeptic. termostato.htm.. -
embb at 23:08 PM on 10 April 2010Are we too stupid?
This is a nice summary of the reasoning in Krugmans article: "To the objection that such a policy would be protectionist, a violation of the principles of free trade, one reply is, So? Keeping world markets open is important, but avoiding planetary catastrophe is a lot more important." There is nothing that is more important then avoiding a planetary catastrophe right? You can substitute anything to the phrase "keeping world markets open" and the sentence would be just as right or false. It is also interesting how there is a selective optimism/pessimism bias in all these arguments. Geo-engineering is sure to go wrong - and any social engineering is sure to have no negative impact, as if the precautionary principle could only be applied very very selectively. -
Jacob Bock Axelsen at 20:08 PM on 10 April 2010Are we too stupid?
embb So, basically you say that economic sanctions are the way out of the "tragedy of the commons"? How realistic is that? Any example where sanctions actually worked? Sanctions comes on a scale and they are targeting problems on a scale. 'Oil-for-food' was a clear example of a mismatch between punishment and target. In fact, sanctions probably work more often than not. A counterexample would be something like exposing malpractices in production such as sweatshops or poisonous additives in one country and then sanctions such as taxes or legislation in the country of import were ineffective. As Ned mentions above, China knows very well that such measures works. In fact, I think economic sanctions are working so well that most of the humans in the developing world, particularly the ones with corrupt governments, have been affected unfairly by them. -
Ned at 19:42 PM on 10 April 2010Are we too stupid?
embb, Paul Krugman addresses your point nicely in his essay this past week Building a Green Economy. Scroll down to the section heading "The China Syndrome." If a country imposes anti-pollution costs on its own manufacturers, it can charge a tariff on imports from countries that don't internalize those costs, as long as the tariff is comparable to the cost borne by domestic producers (i.e., the tariff must be imposed fairly). This point is discussed in some detail in a recent World Trade Organization report on climate change. From the Executive Summary: These rules permit, under certain conditions, the use of [border tax adjustments] on imported and exported products. Indeed, border adjustments on internal taxes are a commonly used measure with respect to domestic indirect taxes on the sale and consumption of goods, such as cigarettes or alcohol. The objective of a border tax adjustment is to level the playing field between taxed domestic industries and untaxed foreign competition by ensuring that internal taxes on products are trade neutral. [...] The general approach under WTO rules has been to acknowledge that some degree of trade restriction may be necessary to achieve certain policy objectives, as long as a number of carefully crafted conditions are respected. WTO case law has confirmed that WTO rules do not trump environmental requirements. There's more detail in the body of the report. If you google this subject, you'll find the Chinese government has been arguing strenuously against this, and to some extent business media (e.g., the US Wall Street Journal) have tended to reflect this, claiming that tariffs would be "against WTO rules." But the WTO itself says there's no problem as long as foreign imports are just being charged the same cost that is borne by domestic products. -
Ned at 19:19 PM on 10 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
Thanks for posting about this. It's mind-boggling how much work has gone into the EPA's response to the comments. Reading through several of the sections I was surprised how many comments involved quotes from Plimer's book. Then I noticed that they were all from a single individual (11454.1). -
Glenn Tamblyn at 19:06 PM on 10 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
Wow Have a look at the level of detail this report goes into. And look at how often the papers cited are seldom from any of the 'usual suspects' who are attacked over climate change. Its strength seems to be the scale of it. It's weekness is the scale of it. Too many people are going to glaze over at the scale of the work here. Suggestion John (in all that spare time you have). Link many of your sceptic argument rebuttals to corresponding entries in the EPA document. -
embb at 16:40 PM on 10 April 2010Are we too stupid?
Jacob:"you are using coal when producing goods exported to country X, so we will put a tax on imports of goods from your country and convince some of our fellows in the EU, OECD, UN, G8, G20 etc. to do the same." So, basically you say that economic sanctions are the way out of the "tragedy of the commons"? How realistic is that? Any example where sanctions actually worked? Are we talking about a trade war against climate offenders? -
Doug Bostrom at 15:04 PM on 10 April 2010CO2 lags temperature
Further to Ned's remarks, when we wander off into the weeds of metadiscussion, focusing on style points, picayune gripes about the placement of quotation marks, I'm left to conclude there's no actual argument with the science of the matter in play. -
Ned at 09:58 AM on 10 April 2010CO2 lags temperature
I'm not sure why you think this is a straw-man argument, or what difference you think the context makes. The first sentence and reference (iv) are about something else entirely (CO2 levels during the Eocene/Oligocene). That's more or less the argument dealt with on the page Does high levels of CO2 in the past contradict the warming effect of CO2? although it's talking about different times. In any case, that has nothing to do with the Pleistocene glacial/interglacial cycles Barton refers to in the second and third sentences. John quoted those two sentences in their entirety. the only thing missing is the footnote and the reference to testimony by someone from NAS. So what's your complaint? The footnote is just providing evidence that a lag occurred. But everyone agrees that the lag occurred, in fact since the warming/cooling was started by orbital forcing it would be very strange if there wasn't a lag. The problem with Barton's statement is that during the glacial/interglacial cycling CO2 acted as a feedback whereas now we're adding it directly to the atmosphere so it acts as a forcing. What exactly is your complaint? In what way is Barton being misrepresented? Can you be more specific about what you think is the problem? -
nhthinker at 07:49 AM on 10 April 2010CO2 lags temperature
The quote of Barton is taken out of context: the full paragraph was: "Current CO2 levels are around 380 parts per million (ppm); in the past, CO2 levels have exceeded 1,000 ppm [iv]. An article in Science magazine illustrated that a rise in carbon dioxide did not precede a rise in temperatures, but actually lagged behind temperature rises by 200 to 1000 years [v]. A rise in carbon dioxide levels could not have caused a rise in temperature if it followed the temperature. The president of the National Academy of Sciences also testified under oath before the Energy and Commerce Committee on this very issue. " reference [iv]: "Science 22 July 2005: Vol. 309. no. 5734, p. 532 DOI: 10.1126/science.309.5734.532n This Week in Science The Eocene was an extended interval of warm climate that lasted from 55 million years ago (Ma) until 34 Ma, when permanent ice sheets developed in Antarctica. Pagani et al. (p. 600, published online 16 June 2005) present a proxy record of atmospheric CO2 concentration for the middle Eocene to the late Oligocene (~45 to 25 Ma), based on the stable carbon isotopic composition of alkenones, a type of molecule produced by certain marine algae. The levels of CO2 during the Eocene ranged from 1000 to 1500 parts per million (ppm), and then rapidly decreased to modern levels of 200 to 300 ppm by the end of the Oligocene. These data have implications for understanding issues such as the expansion of ice sheets and the development of terrestrial C4 photosynthesis." reference [v]: "Science 12 March 1999: Vol. 283. no. 5408, pp. 1712 - 1714 DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5408.1712 Ice Core Records of Atmospheric CO2 Around the Last Three Glacial Terminations Hubertus Fischer, Martin Wahlen, Jesse Smith, Derek Mastroianni, Bruce Deck Air trapped in bubbles in polar ice cores constitutes an archive for the reconstruction of the global carbon cycle and the relation between greenhouse gases and climate in the past. High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 ± 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations. Despite strongly decreasing temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations can be sustained for thousands of years during glaciations; the size of this phase lag is probably connected to the duration of the preceding warm period, which controls the change in land ice coverage and the buildup of the terrestrial biosphere." ---- Barton was correct in the context of his statement. The author of this article produces a strawman based on intentional or accidental overly terse quoting of Barton. It's usually easy to beat up a strawaman. If you have a appropriate quote that indicates a skeptic that claims if a condition was not a cause in some cases that it can't be the cause in any cases, then I would appreciate it if you would provide it. -
GFW at 07:03 AM on 10 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
Doug, I certainly won't dismiss the possibility, but I'd be skeptical of life in a CO2 clathrate because there's no energy for life to extract. (CO2 and H2O being highly stable, it takes photosynthesis or some other energy source to use them.) Of course if there was also other material present, life could work with that. -
Jacob Bock Axelsen at 04:05 AM on 10 April 2010Are we too stupid?
embb The game participants are states, so any factor that will weaken the position of one participant will simply provide an advantage for the other... Correct, because you are proving why the Nash-equilibrium is stable in the Prisoner's Dilemma. This calls for a strategy to maximize cooperation, as Axelrod did. The protracted conflicts around the world, where 'eye-for-an-eye' is used, shows that this is not a good way to handle such dilemmas. Therefore, perhaps indirect reciprocity between states is a solution: "you are using coal when producing goods exported to country X, so we will put a tax on imports of goods from your country and convince some of our fellows in the EU, OECD, UN, G8, G20 etc. to do the same." Wishful pious thinking is easy. All I have done is to outline proven theories and the findings of experiments that I found are quite powerful. I think the best counterargument must be real world examples of where indirect reciprocity did not work for humans or states. -
Doug Bostrom at 03:54 AM on 10 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
BP thanks for that! You are nothing if not a remarkably efficient ferret of fascinating papers. No pools of C02 sloshing about on the ocean floor but imagine that, C02 clathrates. I've seen some sequestration stuff related to manufacturing C02 clathrates but nothing about naturally occurring samples. What I'd like to know is what sort of creatures live in that environment, beneath the seafloor -in- the clathrates. I'd be surprised to learn it was devoid of life. -
monckhausen at 03:49 AM on 10 April 20101934 - hottest year on record
The Germans also appear to keep track of their temperatures well. -
Ned at 01:48 AM on 10 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
Doug Bostrom wrote: where we may read about naturally occurring pools of liquid C02 in the deep ocean? To which Berényi Péter replied: Here: Submarine venting of liquid carbon dioxide on a Mariana Arc volcano Lupton & al. [...] That's a really fascinating paper and I'm very glad you posted the link to it. Thank you. However, in the interest of accuracy, I'm compelled to point out that there's nothing in there about "pools of liquid CO2 in the deep ocean". They found droplets of liquid CO2 venting from a submarine hydrothermal field. They inferred that there was liquid CO2 beneath the seafloor, capped by a layer of clathrates. The authors note that liquid CO2 is less dense than water at this depth, so the droplets would rise buoyantly for a couple of hundred meters and then disperse. Were a "pool of liquid CO2" to somehow appear on the seafloor there, it would float upward and eventually dissolve. So, not really relevant to the claims about CO2 lakes, but fascinating nonetheless. -
michael sweet at 01:32 AM on 10 April 2010Skeptical Science on steroids: the EPA response to 300,000 public comments
There is a lot of time before November and the US electorate changes quickly. If we have a record hot summer and a category 5 hurricane hits the US there will be a lot more concern about global warming than if the summer is cold. I teach High School and I have a lot of students who say "this winter was cold globaly' because here in Florida it was cold. Their notion of "global" means the weather at their house. California is concerned about warming becasue they are already short of water. Less rain is forcast for the future. People will start to care when their life is affected more than it is now. The question is: how much more? -
Riccardo at 01:28 AM on 10 April 2010Ocean acidification: Global warming's evil twin
Berényi Péter, how come that "These creatures are designed to survive El Nino events" but they almost got completely extinct in the last two large El Nino events?
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