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Haze at 10:18 AM on 17 April 2017New study shows worrisome signs for Greenland ice
I agree that my comment does not relate directly to Greenland and as such is, strictly speaking, off topic. However I am not trying to create a haze but to generate discussion and perhaps through that gain a greater understanding of why Greenland and the Antarctic Penisular react differently to global warming. If this discussion is not relevant then no doubt the moderator will heed the exhortation of PluvIAL at 5 to remove my comment. I would note however that the dscussions at Skeptical Science are becoming increasingly constrained, and thus decreasingly informative, due to the current relative paucity of comments on most topics
Moderator Response:[DB] Continued off-topic snipped.
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chriskoz at 09:36 AM on 17 April 2017From the eMail Bag: A Deep Dive Into Polar Ice Cores
David@3,
Thanks for your pointers to the rellevant articles. Icidentally (or maybe not) Buizert 2015 is precisely about WDC (WAIS ice core), that I used as an example in my question, so I found it useful. Looks as they estimate Δ-age just on what you've said in the OP: firn densification modeling and ice-flow modeling. The age of ice is synchronized to the
layer-counted Greenland Ice Core Chronology (I did not know that counting of some ice core layers like this one in Greenland was possible like in dendrology). Another variable they used was a data set of δ15N-N2, which is a proxy for past firn column thickness. -
chriskoz at 09:10 AM on 17 April 2017Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
broadbarrel,
Looks like readers and mods are ignoring your series of requests and I think rightly so.
Because you advocate to engage with current POTUS and his staff about climate science at the level this site represents. Such engagement is simply impossible. To engage with current POTUS about anything (not just climate science) is like descending to a mudpool to resttle with a pig. No one wants to engage in such a dirty fight. Certainly you want to raise the alarm in media when pig's ravagings are becoming dangerous/destructive (and that's how recent political articles on SkS do comment on some POTUS actions) but a sane person must just stop there. It would be more productive to engage in a clean, positive way. Following my analogy, even a pig can do noble things, e.g. help to plough a field in search for truffles. The equivalent of truffles for current POTUS would be money and fame and unlimitted dating of young girls. Again, that's the only level you could engage on, and this site should not be interested in such engagement.
If this post is frowned upon by mods because it goes way too derogatory on my POTUS (I'm US citizen voting in WA state). Even though First Amendment allows me to freely express my opinion hereabove, I still would be liable for defamation if I tried to e.g. say publicly similar thing about an MP in my country. I can't help it, because saying anything non derogatory on my POTUS would be hypocritical for me.
Moderator Response:[DB] Manpower is the sole limiting factor in keeping lists such as the Politicians List updated.
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curiousd at 08:34 AM on 17 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Here is a general description of my knowledge of Atmospheric Physics and how I got where I am with such projects as trying to make sure I have applications of the Schwarzchild Equation correct. I was a condensed matter experimentalist with perhaps 75 publications in refereed journals. I also taugnt Freshman Physics of the Environment for many years. Upon retiring I decided to try and learn how to really calculate quantities such as the CO2 no feedback climate sensitiviy and therefore:
I bought large numbers of Atmospheric Physics books and tried to teach myself; my home institution has no one working there who knows the first thing about Atmospheric Physics, so this project has been attempted without human input or correction. Many hours a day were spent on this project and now three years have elapsed. My Rosetta Stone has been the text by Grant Hill, and I think now I have a decent general idea for a one dimensional version of these things.
But it is my opinion that even though Atmospheric Science is certainly correct, it is explained rather poorly to scientists not in the field and for one reason above all: There is a dearth of numerically worked examples for the most important things. Symbolic explanations alone are insufficient.
How could there be, for example, no worked numerical example for the solution to the Schwarzchild Equation for an atmosphere with 400 ppm CO2 to give the upward flux as a function of altitude? Regular Physics is not like this. The students start out learning F=Ma and then M = F/A. In a more advanced class the solutions to the one dimensional Schroedinger Eq. is worked out for any number of potential well problems. E&M is replete with boundary problems involving Gauss' Law.
I think that not having a worked example for the solution to Schwarzchild Equation, given the transmittance values one now has worked out for the user by SpectralCal, is like having no worked examples of the work energy theorem or momentum conservation.
My mistaken derivation of an emissivity of 0.92 for MILA was one of many stumbles that I have had to deal with. If there were merely a statement on the user output page of MILA that (1) an emissivity of 0.98 is assumed that would be agood thing. And if the statement were made that (2) the wavenumber band the computer uses is limited 100 wn to 1500 wn which can introduce errors so the user should be cautious would also be a good thing.
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curiousd at 07:53 AM on 17 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Regarding "It is also unclear why this would indicate an Emissivity of 0.92."
Here is how you get the emissivity of 0.92.
(a) You know nothing about the limited wavelengh range.
(b) You wish to compare the OLR output of MILA with your efforts as someone who is trying to learn how to use the Schwarzchild Equation.
(c) You therefore determine what the MILA emissivity is (with no knowlege of the cut offs or of the actual 0.98 emissivity)
(d) You therefore go to the U.S. Standard atmosphere and learn that the upward OLR from Modtran looking down from zero altitude, is 360.472 W/m sqd.
(e) You use the Stefan Boltzmann law with emissivity one and T = 288.2 degrees K. You get 391.164 K.
(f) You divide 360.472 by 391.164. Your answer is 0.92
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nigelj at 06:43 AM on 17 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #15
Joe @5, you have a few reefs in Indonesia bleaching, due to a local fall in sea level. Most reefs globally, including the GBR, are bleaching due to global warming. You are not fully reading the articles you list, and you are missing the big picture. You did the same thing on the legal persons issue.
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joe - at 05:39 AM on 17 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #15
John A) As the article explains, and which you acknowlege, the bleaching and mortaility of the reefs is due to the falling sea level, an event unrelated to and contrary to AGW theory with rising sea levels
B) the Second two articles you cite/link are advocacy / opinion pieces.
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John Hartz at 04:30 AM on 17 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #15
Joe: Also see:
The big lie propagated by government and big business is that it is possible to turn things around for the reef without tackling global warming
Australia's politicians have betrayed the Great Barrier Reef and only the people can save it, Opinion by David Ritter, Guardian, Apr 9, 2017
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John Hartz at 04:23 AM on 17 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #15
Joe: The answer to your question can be found in:
Why dead coral reefs could mark the beginning of ‘dangerous’ climate change by Chelsea Harvey, Energy & Environment, Washington Post, Apr 12, 2016
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John Hartz at 03:55 AM on 17 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
Joe: On the other hand, Citizens United opened the floodgates for corporations to influence elections and the public policy decisions through the expenditure of unlimited amounts of money. The federal government of the US has effectively become a government of big business, by big business, and for big business.
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John Hartz at 03:47 AM on 17 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #15
Joe: Here's the Abstract of the paper you have provided a link to:
Abstract. The 2015–2016 El-Niño and related ocean warming has generated significant coral bleaching and mortality worldwide. In Indonesia, the first signs of bleaching were reported in April 2016. However, this El Niño has impacted Indonesian coral reefs since 2015 through a different process than temperature-induced bleaching. In September 2015, altimetry data show that sea level was at its lowest in the past 12 years, affecting corals living in the bathymetric range exposed to unusual emersion. In March 2016, Bunaken Island (North Sulawesi) displayed up to 85 % mortality on reef flats dominated by Porites, Heliopora and Goniastrea corals with differential mortality rates by coral genus. Almost all reef flats showed evidence of mortality, representing 30 % of Bunaken reefs. For reef flat communities which were living at a depth close to the pre-El Niño mean low sea level, the fall induced substantial mortality likely by higher daily aerial exposure, at least during low tide periods. Altimetry data were used to map sea level fall throughout Indonesia, suggesting that similar mortality could be widespread for shallow reef flat communities, which accounts for a vast percent of the total extent of coral reefs in Indonesia. The altimetry historical records also suggest that such an event was not unique in the past two decades, therefore rapid sea level fall could be more important in the dynamics and resilience of Indonesian reef flat communities than previously thought. The clear link between mortality and sea level fall also calls for a refinement of the hierarchy of El Niño impacts and their consequences on coral reefs.
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Tom Curtis at 03:22 AM on 17 April 2017New study shows worrisome signs for Greenland ice
PluviAL @5, still futher off topic, but the relocation of water from ice sheets near the poles to oceanic water near the equator will also change the duration of the Earth's day. The change in angular momentum involved will not be uniformly transferred to the interior, providing another trigger for earthquakes, and potentially vulcanism. Whether that mechanism, or the two you mention will raise either earthquake or volcanic frequency appreciably above background rates, however, is SFAIK, unknown.
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PluviAL at 02:50 AM on 17 April 2017New study shows worrisome signs for Greenland ice
Tom at 3: Thanks for that excellent summary of Antarctica dynamics, I enjoyed it and learned a lot. However, Haze is off topic and, frankly, seems to just be trying to create haze, not to provide a valid comment on Greenland's potential catastrophe. His comment should simply be removed, in my opinion.
I am of the, admittedly badly informed, opinion that Greenlanders will be fine, and benefit once they adapt. The rest of us would not be so lucky.
I fear the isostatic adjustment is much more serious than we realize; volcanism throughout the world may be its dichotomous side-effect, especially if at the same time East Antarctica rocks the continent as mass shifts from West to East. Volcanic and tectonic pressure points in other parts of the geode may slip catastrophically adding to CO2 loads, while reducing uptake, from temporary sudden cooling from vocanism.
The fear is a major motivation for me.
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joe - at 02:12 AM on 17 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming Digest #15
Ruins, Not Reefs: How Climate Change Is Fast-Forwarding Coral Science
Great Barrier Reef Bleached Staghorn Coral
A bleached coral near the Great Barrier Reef on March 16, 2017
The first article listed in the "stories of the week" discuss the coral bleaching. It should be noted that the GBR along with numerous reefs around indonesia are suffering coral bleaching due to a drop in sea level. Is it possible that other factors unrelated to AGW is causing the bleaching.
http://www.biogeosciences.net/14/817/2017/
Moderator Response:[Rob P] Coral die-offs from temporary falls in sea level are a natural phenomenon. The Samoans call it Taimasa - meaning foul-smelling (low) tides. This has to do with the shift in water mass in the Indo-Pacific region associated with ENSO. See the SkS post: What's happening to Tuvalu sea level?
As common sense would indicate, this only affects coral near the surface, especially those exposed at low tide. On the Great Barrier Reef, bleaching extends from the surface to 30-40 depths in some areas and it is from water that is too warm (coral bleaching being a breakdown of the symbiotic relationship between polyp and photosynthetic algae).
Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef saw catastrophic levels of bleaching in summer 2016, and yet look at the sea surface height variations for that area. The lowest monthly anomaly in recent times occurred in 2015 - well before bleaching was observed. Moreover, how do such small fluctuations cause bleaching in coral tens of metres deep?
So we can dismiss the sea level aspect as some silly climate change denier contrivance. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a whole bunch of information on coral bleaching (Coral Reef Watch) if you're truly interested in understanding this. They even have a coral bleaching outlook, a climate model-based projection which utilizes sea surface temperature anomalies to forecast bleaching events.
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joe - at 23:20 PM on 16 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
In the USA, corporations of various legal feathers are routinely granted personhood. The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 (Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission) that as legal persons, corporations have the same first Amendment rights as natural persons,
JW - FYI the SC did not grant personhood or anything resembling personhood in CU.
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JWRebel at 23:03 PM on 16 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
@Joe: In the USA, corporations of various legal feathers are routinely granted personhood. The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 (Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission) that as legal persons, corporations have the same first Amendment rights as natural persons, and are therefore entitled to make political expenditures. Many see this as the final nail in American democracy, officially institutionalizing the rule of money.
Almost all large corporate persons have been found guilty of felonies multiple times, but when it comes to jail time, bankruptcy, and the other normal responsibilities of natural persons, it turns out that fictional legal persons have more rights but less responsibilities.
If we can enable faceless psychopathically inclined pools of capital to reap the rewards of actual personhood, without the concomitant obligations, there should be no reason why we cannot grant forests, wetlands, or rivers personhood.
[psychopathic is used here as a diagnostic, not a derogatory term: most corporations manifest all the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy] -
curiousd at 22:26 PM on 16 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Correction: The equilibrium temp is close to 255 K in the above, not 239.7 K. I was confusing the temperature with the flux in this sentence. It has been a long night.
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curiousd at 22:20 PM on 16 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Lets deal with correction number one first. Of course I set all GHG equal to zero. Basic texts on environmental physicssuch as the one by David Archer or the one by Wolfson, consider the case where the cloud albedo is kept, but the GHG effect is "turned off". The equilibrium temperature of such an earth, given an emissivity of one, is 239.7 degrees K. For Modtran Chicago, U.S. Standard atmosphere, and 255 degrees K, no GHG, the OLR is 225.07 W/msqd. If I add my corrections to Modtran for 0.98 emissivity I get not 225.07 W/meter sqd but 233 watts per meter sqd. There is no curvature of the Earth effect because if I look at the output from Modtran with zero GHG then the OLR is stays essentially constant but shows some small scatter all the way from altitude zero to altitude 70 km.
The tenberth reference is to show that the most modern satellite result is 239 watts/per meter squared at the assumed emissivity of 1.0.
If I pare my correction down to this statement are you good with this? -
william5331 at 18:48 PM on 16 April 2017New study shows worrisome signs for Greenland ice
It is unlikely that Greenland itself will suffer from sea level rise. In addition to the hydrostatic rebound, both instantaneous and long term, as the ice decreases, it's gravitational pull which pulls the surrounding water toward it like hitching up a skirt, will decrease. Incidentally, this release of the skirt of water will raise sea level even more in other locations than just due to the flow of Greenland glacial water into the ocean.
On a different topic there should be a dynamic process increasing the melt of the ice sheets where they are grounded below sea level. As the ever warming ocean water melts the ice front, the water in contact with the ice becomes less salty and hence lighter. This water should flow up under the ice ceiling, pulling in more warm ocean water along the sea bottom. The deeper the grounding line the greater this effect should be so the process should accelerate where the sea bottom is on a retrograde slope.
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Tom Curtis at 16:08 PM on 16 April 2017New study shows worrisome signs for Greenland ice
Haze @2:
1) The OP is about Greenland, not Antarctica, so discussion of the Antarctic Peninsula is technically of topic.
2) This is Figure 1 from the first paper you reference with regard to Antartic Peninsular temperatures (Oliva et al):
You will firstly note that 7 out of 10 temperature records are from the northern tip of the Peninsula, or islands lying still further north; and that consequently a simple mean of the temperature records does not show temperature trends over the peninsular as a whole due to spatial bias. Second, you will note that since 1998 temperature trends for the northern 7 stations and the 3 stations representing the bulk of areal extent of the peninsula have had opposite signs. That means (at best) of three regions of approximately equal area (northern, south west, and south east), we have one region warming, one cooling, and no data for the third. On that data, claims of cooling for the entire peninsular go far in excess of what is supported by the data. We can reasonably claim the pensinsula as a whole warmed from the 1950s to about 2000 as all records, and the records for the two regions with data showed that trend (and the trends in the cryosphere in the third supported it); but cannot make a claim to peninsula wide cooling since then if we are guided by the data.
3) Here is Figure 5 from Schmithusen et al:
You will note in particular that even with 4 x CO2, there is a positive change in regional forcing over the entire Arctic (though weakest over Greenland). You will further note that the regions of a negative change in the regional greenhouse effect are strictly limited to parts of East Antarctica, far from the sea. If you compare this with Fig 4 you will see that (approximately) Greenland forcing increases from a current mean value of about 5 W/m^2, as also does the West Antarctic Peninsula. East Antarctica, in constrast gets a stronger negative greenhouse effect relative to that which already exists there (on annual averages).
Further, despite the current negative regional forcing in central East Antarctica, temperatures there are still well above that which would be expected from insolation alone. That is because warm air comes in from the north. With ongoing warming in the north, the temperature gradient between maritime air above the circumpolar waters and that in the interior of Antarctica will increase, resulting in a stronger heat transfer between the two. Over the areas with an increase in radiative forcing (such as the Antarctic Peninsula), that will result in more warming than expected from regional changes in radiative forcing alone.
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broadbarrel at 14:22 PM on 16 April 2017Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Please be aware that President Donald Trump is an avid and blatant rejector of nearly all concerns for the ecology, enviroment, sustainable society and climate change.
Refer to url: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/trump-cabinet-climate-change-20920 Refer to url: https://www.ioes.ucla.edu/article/environmental-future-trump-administration/
Earch url has been archived at url: https://web.archive.org/ This is so recorded substantiation of their positions may not inadvertently "evaporate" and thereby become deniable.
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broadbarrel at 13:58 PM on 16 April 2017Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Skeptical Science Please add Scott Pruit to the politicians list. Pruitt was quoted as saying: “The American people are tired of seeing billions of dollars drained from our economy due to unnecessary EPA regulations, and I intend to run this agency in a way that fosters both responsible protection of the environment and freedom for American businesses.” Quote is from url: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/07/trump-names-scott-pruitt-oklahoma-attorney-general-suing-epa-on-climate-change-to-head-the-epa/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.254fc501733e
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broadbarrel at 13:56 PM on 16 April 2017Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
Skeptical Science, Please at President Donald Trump to the list of politicians. “For too long, the Environmental Protection Agency has spent taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control anti-energy agenda that has destroyed millions of jobs, while also undermining our incredible farmers and many other businesses and industries at every turn,” This has been quoted from url: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/07/trump-names-scott-pruitt-oklahoma-attorney-general-suing-epa-on-climate-change-to-head-the-epa/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.254fc501733e
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Haze at 10:47 AM on 16 April 2017New study shows worrisome signs for Greenland ice
This piece commences "As humans put more heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, like carbon dioxide, ice around the planet melts. This melting can be a problem, particularly if the melting ice starts its life on land." In view of this it is surprising that a recently published paper claims the Antarctic Peninsula is cooling. This paper (Oliva, M., et al., Recent regional climate cooling on the Antarctic Peninsula and associated impacts on the cryosphere, Sci Total Environ (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.12.030) states "from 1998 onward, a turning point has been observed in the evolution of mean annual air temperatures across the Antarctic Peninsula region, changing from a warming to a cooling trend,". This is not an isolated observation as others (Carrasco, J.F. 2013. Decadal changes in the near-surface air temperature in the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula. Atmospheric and Climate Sciences 3: 275-281). and Turner, J., et al 2016. Absence of 21st century warming on Antarctic Peninsula consistent with natural variability. Nature 535: 18645.} have also shown a decline in Antarctic Peninsula temperatures. Warming in the Antarctic has been claimed to be due to atmospheric C02 but it now seems that CO2 may in fact cause cooling in the Antarctic Peninsula (Holger Schmithusen, Justus Notholt, Gerd Konig-Langlo, Peter Lemke, Thomas Jung. How increasing CO2 leads to an increased negative greenhouse effect in Antarctica. Geophysical Research Letters, in press, 2015. doi: 10.1002/2015GL066749.)
Moderator Response:[DB] Please keep your comments on-topic to the OP of the thread.
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chriskoz at 07:58 AM on 16 April 2017New study shows worrisome signs for Greenland ice
Anyone studied the flood frequency in Greenland? The 2012 one in Kanger was well publicised but I think we are dealing with substantial increase here rather thana one in a century event like 2012 with unprecedented surface melt.
I think all infrastructure there maybe at risk of distuction by exponentially increasing flood frequency. So to those silly statements claiming some parts of the world would benefit from warming, in particular "Greenland will become greener" I would say: ain't necessarily so. "Greening" will not happen when country is about to be ravaged by serious floods. But I don't have any data confirming my fears over future of Greenland population. Obviously their culture - the disappearance of glaciers they admire and worship - is undisputable here. But on top of that their very existence maybe at stake. Will they adapt to more frequent flooding?
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joe - at 04:07 AM on 16 April 20172017 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #15
Just weeks after a high court in the Indian state of Uttarakhand granted legal personhood to the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.
An Indian court says glaciers and rivers are 'living entities.' Could the same approach work in the US?
Could this same approach work in the United States - such a holding in a US court would be in direct conflict in Roe V Wade where a personhood doesnt exist until emergence from the womb.
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MA Rodger at 22:00 PM on 15 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
curiousd @24,
To recap my postion on your "Correction Number One" which concerns an underestimation by UoC MODTRAN model (aka MILA) of TOA IR flux due to the limits of the wavelength used in the UoC model.
@7 you calculated a potential value of this correction as 9W/sq m, roughly 3.6% of the UoC calculated average global value.
@18 I argue that this value is too high, presenting two reasons for my lower estimate of roughly 2% or 5W/sq m.
@24 you are now calculating the value for this "Correction Number One" as if the extented spectrum (beyond that used in the UoC calculation) has zero GHG acting in it. The value you calculate 14W/sq m is thus a maximum value for "Correction Number One" which would be valid only for a zero or very small GHG effect in the wavelenghts being considered. As the graph I linked @18 shows, there is a large GHG effect in these wavelengths and the large correction you suggest @24 is unjustified.
curiousd @26,
You state that your "Correction Number Two" has been discussed with me up-thread. My position concerning the existence of your "Correction Number Two" remains as stated @18 - "This I cannot believe. And I fail to grasp the logic of your correction." Our discussion has not developed beyond that point (other than sorting out some references).
Concerning your "Correction Number Three," I fail to see the origins of the "One km" IR Radiance values in the graph linked @25. The "Surface" values are evidently blackbody calculations which are thus much dependent on emissivity. Indicative of the emissivity value (E) is the Peak Spectral Radiance (PSR) which for a blackbody temperature of 288.2K would be:-
E/PSR, 0.92/0.125, 0.94/0.128, 0.96/0.131, 098/0.133, 1.00/0.136.
Examination of the UoC output file for 1976 US Std Atmosphere (288.2K) yields a maximum PSR of 0.133 W/sqm/sr/cm^-1 which indicates Emissivity = 0.98. The Band Radiance from the UoC calculations (43.589 W/sqm/sr for 500-800cm^-1) also suggests Emissivity = 0.98.
It is unclear to me how you are calculating the 1km Band Radiance values. (You give the Emissivity = 0.98 value for 1km as 42.7272 W/sqm/sr which I note is very similar to the UoC value for Band Radiance 490-860cm^-1 42.756.) It is also unclear why this would indicate an Emissivity of 0.92.
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curiousd at 18:53 PM on 15 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Also, regarding to explaining correction three, the following comparison might be useful.
Modtran Light in the Atm SpectralCalc Modtran6
PRICE free $ $$$$
dist resolution 1 km 1 km < 1 meter
maximum alt up to 70 km error message if TOA
>"1 million point error" exceeded
if too much band width
or altitude. Therefore simulating a 54 degree angled path by multiplying the input concentration can be possible whilst extending path length not so much
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curiousd at 08:51 AM on 15 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
Refer to the image you get from post 25 above. For a CO2 only GHG atmosphere these are plots of the in band outgoing radiance, in w/meter sqd steradian, for wave number range 500 wn to 850 wn CO2 bending mode, versus Earth Surface thermal IR emissivity looking down from zero km and from 1 km. I use a 680 ppm CO2 concentration because this is the present day concentration of 400 ppm multiplied by 1/cos 54 degrees, and 1/cos 54 degrees is 1.7 . Therefore a vertical path with 680 ppm has the same optical length as 400 ppm at a 54 degrees angle relative to Nadir. Therefore I can use this application of the "diffusivity approximation" as a decent substitute for actually integrating over all angles when I multiply by pi streadians to obtain out going flux in W/meter squared. This has been discussed previously by myself and M.A. Rodger here. See posts above 9 and 24.
Of interest here is the sign of the difference between the 0 km and 1 km output. This difference is, for the MILA emissivity of 0.98, given in post 9 and is for the OLR where multiplication by pi steradians has been carried out, equal to 360.2 w/meter square minus 357.5 w/meter squared. Then the OLR at 1 km is about 2.7 watts per meter squared less than at zero km.
In the figure for the URL given above, the multiplication by pi steradians has not yet been carried out and for emissivity of 0.98, the surface upward in band radiance exceeds that of the same quantity at 1 km by 43.5764 minus 42.7272 or 0.8492 watts /meter squared steradian. Multiply this quantity by pi steradians to obtain a result which is 0.8492 times pi and rounds off to 2.7 watts per meter squared, in agreement with post 9 above.
However, note in my figure you can see at the URL I refer to above, the value of the one km in band radiance decreases at a rate less than that of the zero km in band radiance as the emissivity is decreased. In fact, for surface emissivities of 0.93 or less the upward in band radiance at 1 km is greater than the upward in band radiance from the surface.
I was surprised at this result, but it has to do with Correction Three since the sign of the difference between OLR surface and OLR 1 km changes sign between emissivity of 0.98 and 0.92.
The "apparent " emissivity of MILA obtained just by looking at the output without knowing the settings of the underlying program or knowing about the 100 wn to1500wn truncation, is not 0.98 but 0.92.
This can lead astray anyone wishing to check if they are using Schwarzchild's equation correctly to compute the CO2 outgoing flux, by usig MILA. And where else can the user find a set of OLR values such a at MILA to test if she/he is doing things correctly?
I will let this post "subilate" a bit before proceeding. The finding that one can have OLR at 1 km greater than at zero km seems surprising, and my only justification so far is that: 1. I use a procedure with SpectralCalc that give good agreemen with MILA and gives an expected CO2 climate sensitivity of ~ 4 watts/meter squared. 2. That applying that procedure to low emissivities of 0.93,0.92,0.91, 0.9, and 0.89, gived me the result that the OLR from 1 km exceeds that from the surface.
I believe that desert aras have such low emissivities.
Of course an emissivity in the thermal IR less than one implies some scattering or reflection, so that likely must be considered. BTW SpectralCalc gives the caveat that they do not deal with scattering in any way; just absorption and emission.
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Philippe Chantreau at 08:11 AM on 15 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
I understand the idea Tom. You expand quite well on what I described a little too quick as "shuffling carbon around." My opinion is that the kind of biomass change that would be required to explain the past 100 years increase in atmospheric carbon is so immense as to preclude a major role in this change, especially while the oceans are still acting as a sink. The idea that all of the increase could be due to biomass changes is simply not believable.
Perhaps Dr Bill is trying to make the argument that the biomass contribution is underestimated, although the bulk of what he said was innuendo on IPCC intentionally skewing the issue, which was unwarranted, as you showed. My understanding is that there is quite a bit of litterature on the subject and that the range of possible contribution of biomass changes is fairly well constrained. I don't see at first glance that Dr Bill has anything revolutionary to overturn the current state of knowledge on the subject.
www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data
Intesresting discussion here:
www.newscientist.com/article/dn11638-climate-myths-human-co2-emissions-are-too-tiny-to-matter/
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curiousd at 07:48 AM on 15 April 2017Science of Climate Change online class starting next week on Coursera
http://IMGUR.com/a/UMUR1
Please highlight, right click,and go to the URL. I could not get the image to load directly. Sorry.
This image has to do with the last correction,"Correction Three" to MILA
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Rob Honeycutt at 04:52 AM on 15 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Here's a video from NASA on this topic.
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David Kirtley at 11:24 AM on 14 April 2017From the eMail Bag: A Deep Dive Into Polar Ice Cores
Great questions, chriskoz. I'll have to try to dig up some answers. I skimmed the paper which had the Delta-ages graph: WAIS Divide Project Members (2015) as well as Bender et al. (2006) but I need to read them more closely. Another paper I found and skimmed also looks promising: Buizert et al (2015) The WAIS Divide deep ice core WD2014 chronology
Sorry to just throw papers at you but at the moment, and for the next 3-4 days, I won't have any time to dig any further. But I wanted to give you something in case you want to do some digging yourself.
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Tom Curtis at 10:41 AM on 14 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Imagine a model system in which plants are grown in a sealed, airtight compartment. Suppose conditions are such that the growth of the plants is limited only by energy input (ie, sunlight). As the plants grow we feed in CO2 until the plants are mature. We then seal the system so that any further growth of plants can only be achieved by reducing CO2 concentration within the model system. After a period of time an equilibrium concentration of CO2 will be achieved. Plant growth will be CO2 limited, in that addition of further CO2 to the system would allow an increase in plant biomass within the system, but as CO2 was fed in until the plants were near maturity, the CO2 limit on further growth will not be much below the energy limit on further growth.
What happens when we introduce a small population of herbivores, predators, and such other organisms so as to allow a stable ecology in to the system?
The obvious first effect is that plant biomass will be reduced, and replaced by animal biomass.
However, there will not be a one-for-one replacement of animal biomass for plant biomass. That is because of the energy pyramid. As you proceed up the trophic levels, from plant to herbivore, from herbivore to carnivore etc, each level converts energy to biomass with an efficiency of about 10%. As an example, suppose in our model system, equilibrium is reached when the herbivores reduce total plant biomass by 10%. Then of the energy stored in that plant biomass, only about 10% will be converted to herbivore biomass. Similarly, only about 10% of the energy storage of herbivore biomass consumed will be turned into carnivore biomass. Consequently the total biomass in the model system will be reduced.
The difference between the carbon content of the original plant only biomass and the plant plus animal biomass will by stored in other carbon reservoirs. That may be as soil carbon, but due to the processes of animal respiration and decay, some of it will be as an increased CO2 concentration.
This is the mechanism explicitly mentioned by Grumpymel @93, and possibly is the mechanism discussed by DrBill @95. To the extent that it is the mechanism envisioned by DrBill, his claim that increased animal biomass will result in increased atmospheric CO2 is correct, although his calculation of the effect is not necessarilly valid.
Ignoring for simplicity the potential increase in Soil Organic Carbon, and any uptake by standing water, and other carbon compounds, the increase in atmospheric CO2 in our model system will be:
(((Final plant biomass - initial plant biomass) x % of carbon by weight in plant biomass) - ((final animal biomass - initial animal biomass) x % of carbon in animal biomass)) x 44/12
The final factor can be ommitted if you measure the CO2 concentration by mass in units of GtC rather than Gt-CO2.
With regard to the IPCC's treatment of this, the first thing to note is that they do report on the change of Carbon due to the change in plant biomass. Specifically, in IPCC AR5 they report that plant biomass has decreased by 30 +/- 45 GtC. That means that, unless animal biomass has decreased, they have over estimated the total change in biological carbon reservoirs (ignoring the controversial issue of SOC). Further, the total change in animal biomass, which has increased; represents a further reduction in CO2 available for other reservoirs including the atmosphere.
So, if this is what DrBill is drawing attention to, he is right that the mechanism can increase total atmospheric CO2 (by reducing plant biomass); but wrong in assuming it is neglected by the IPCC, who do their best to quantify the positive side of the equation (ie, the loss of plant biomass) even if they neglect the much smaller (by an order of magnitude) negative side from the increase in animal biomass.
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Philippe Chantreau at 09:19 AM on 14 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Dr Bill, I don't see any clarification with this addition of words. The issue is the physically nonsensical argument that the CO2 from respiration is of a same non-polluting nature as that which is produced by oxydation of fossil fuels previously sequestered in the crust. The implication of Plimer's quote is that some of the atmospheric CO2 we are experiencing is due to animal respiration. You seem to concur with that, without clearly stating it, so far as I can recall.
I see nothing in your contribution here that would actually support this argument. I see no explanation of how animal respiration can cause a net increase in atmospheric CO2, which is the real problem, as I have stated above. I see no possible source for animal generated carbon other than the atmosphere itself, you offer no alternative.
You stated yourself at #100 earlier that "No one said it was a net addition to the carbon budget."
This suggests that you are trying to hypothesize that the atmosphere can go from 300 to 400 ppm in a very short time without a net addition, only by shuffling carbon around (possibly by way of animals) and loosing sinks, while the ocean is still absorbing enormous amounts of it. If so, you must come up with a loss of sink so gigantic that no geological event in the relevant past could foot the bill, certainly not the known land use changes, subject of abundant litterature.
Meanwhile of course, the oxydation of fossil fuels is real and ongoing, regardless of any other hypothesis, as are the isotopic signature changes in the atmosphere and multiple other elements consistent with the net addition of fossil carbon.
I am not thus far enclined to spend any time on your YouTube vids.
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Tom Curtis at 09:05 AM on 14 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Dr Bill Hoffman @100:
"[T]he equation I showed, Tom, was directly copied from their 2005 Report that I used ..."
The IPCC had only two reports in 2005, that on Carbon Capture and Storage and that on Safeguarding the Ozone Layer. I have skimmed the first of these and found nothing resembling your formula. Nor, obviously is there anything resembling it in the relevant chapter of the 2001 report (the current assessment report in 2005). The formula doesn't appear in the 1995 assessment report (SAR) either, although Table 2 (page 17) could be interpreted as supporting such a formula, however Table 2 is explicitly labeled as "...the anthropogenic carbon budget...", and makes no claim to be a complete carbon budget. With regard to that, it says:
"The estimate of the 1980s' carbon budget (Table 2) remains essentially unchanged from IPCC (1994). While recent data on anthropogenic emissions are available, there are insufficient analyses of the other fluxes to allow an update of this decadal budget to include the early years of the 1990s."
Looking to figure 4 (page 21) of the 1994 report (Radiative forcing of climate change) clearly shows the other fluxes to include global net primary production and respiration. These are also discussed in the First Assessment Report (1990), as can be seen in Figure 1.1 (Page 8).
In short, the formula is not justified by any IPCC report prior to 2006, and certainly in none after it. If you wish to maintain the contrary, you will need a precise citation, ie, the report by full title, together with the page number at which the formula appears.
"I said 40% more, and you want to argue 33%...tomayto tomahto...they found industrial CO2 and stopped accounting"
First, you claimed 50% in the video, not 40%. In otherwords, even at face value you exagerated the effect by 50%. If you think pointing out a 50% exageration is mere quibbling, you are no scientist.
Second, as clearly shown by my review of their literature above, the IPCC since day 1 (First Assessment Report 1990), have included "respiration" which includes respiration by animals and plants, along with the emission of CO2 by decay of organic matter and by fires. Since the fourth assessment report (2007), they have also included volcanic emissions.
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nigelj at 06:33 AM on 14 April 2017Scientists can be advocates and maintain scientific credibility
I think this depends exactly what sort of advocacy you mean. Let's say scientists make impassioned speeches in the media advocating renewable energy. As a lay person I would be comfortable with this to a point. I would expect climate scientists to support renewable energy, it would be very odd if they didn't, so it's probably not going to be a problem if they "ocasionally" advocate this. But too much of this might attract accusations of scientists not doing their main job. It's like anything, a question of balance
It will also work best if it comes from a scientist with a generalist physics degree, who therefore has credibility to talk about energy. It might not work so well coming from a geologist, with all due respect.
If you are talking about advocating for the science, then yes I think absolutely the more of this we see in the media the better. Every climate scientist I have seen doing this advocay in public has impressed me, although of course some are more natural at it than others.
I expect people to stick up for their beliefs and interests. I suspect experts have more credibility with the public, than politicians or lawyers trying to advocate for the science.
I think generally keep advocacy dialogue rational and measured, and don't get bogged down in detail. Having said this, there are times as a lay person I wish climate scientists would just occasionally show a bit of very public anger, at the nonsense we get from the denialists. If this is sparingly done, it has enormous impact.
If you are talking about the anti - science issue dominating America, then I think scientists are absolutely entitled to march in the streets and strongly defend their position. Remember nice, quiet guys get walked over. I think you will get a lot of sympathy from the public. Of course none of us want to waste time marching in the streets, or in public relations, but sometimes it just has to be done.
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DrBill at 06:18 AM on 14 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
RedBaron Sorry, I never made a transcript. I had notes, but never typed them up. I am quite familiar with the summary data of Mauna Loa, thanks.
That said, it is not the summary data that matters in my analysis, and I suspect others have something of that confusion when they "do not understand what point [I'm] trying to make" {Phillippe}. The summary data collects all the CO2 from industry and breathing and all sources, less that which returns to biomass, terrestrial and aquatic, or to the oceans directly. It has many issues of validity, but that's not for here and now.
What is for here and now is that Mauna Loa is like the old flip-chart 'digital' clock, that flipped over once a minute. Real CO2 is the sweep hand of a better clock, counting continuously. The sun does not wait for the report from Mauna Loa, if it does anything, CO2s effect is there all seasons, all times, neither just when the sun's out, nor only when it's summer, nor only when industry is running. It's not that hard to see: the addition of CO2 by vastly accelerated conversion (as fossil fuel) or much slower accelerated conversion (as digestion/respiration) or still slower conversion (simple rot), leads to some measureable level of CO2 on a moment by moment basis, an increase, by the explanation I've given, that seems to cause much consternation. Any decrease, by plant growth or subduction in the sea around Antarctic would do something that made the final totals at monitoring sites change, but until such decrease took place, the CO2 from all sources I've mentioned is still in the air and still doing what CO2 does.
Moreover, it does not matter which process is faster and which slower, since the production rate is the sum of both industrial production and digestion/exhalation, like the sweep second hand (or if the circularity of the sweep overwhelms is graphic value of smooth and unrelenting, consider a pail with a hole in it, being dripped into by two sources (I actually might like that one better myself). At the moment we are not concerned by the drip, or even how full the pail might get, but only in the amount of something inherent in the water that might be able to do some harm. Would it serve to say we've identified the problem because we found a leaking faucet over the pail, while ignoring a smaller leaking faucet? Since the drip keeps the pail from filling up quickly, are we being good pail-monitors to just evaluate the level monthly and deny the smaller faucet?
As an OT, on this thread, I would enjoy finding a thread that addresses the process I have heard called "positive feedback loop". Where might I find it most discussed in terms of its physics? TIA
Moderator Response:[DB] "I would enjoy finding a thread that addresses the process I have heard called "positive feedback loop""
Unlike the simple example of positive feedback we learned in high school, the increase from every round of feedback gets smaller and smaller, in the case of the enhanced greenhouse effect. It is a significant factor in the overall warming, but it does NOT lead to a "runaway" trajectory for temperature.
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Philippe Chantreau at 04:21 AM on 14 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
I still do not understand what point you're trying to make. The net addition of carbon to the atmosphere is the problem, the only problem.
The net increase is the only thing that matters; it is not, and can not physically be caused by animals breathing. They get their carbon from the atmosphere, through organisms that have the ability to absorb it and integrate it in their structure. The bulk of these organisms is made of plants. How is the animal activity going to change the balance? Animals just shift the carbon around in short term small cycles. They do not add carbon to the atmosphere that wasn't taken out of it in the first place, so why does that matter when considering the bigger picture?
Moderator Response:[RH] Go to the link for Bill's video lecture and start about at minute 12:00. In a nutshell, he's attempting to say (not joking here) that the change in atmospheric CO2 levels is due to the increase in human population.
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RedBaron at 04:09 AM on 14 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
@Dr Bill,
Could you please link to a written transcript? The computer I currently have access has no sound. I do like a good lecture, probably more than most, but unfortunately can't currently follow your points until I get to a computer with speakers. I would love to see what this fuss is actually all about.
Regarding your comment above, "if for no other reason than to modify any so-called "forcing" effect, which if it operates at all, does not do so only in response to industrial CO2."
That seems to be stating the obvious but in a way that is an attempt to obfuscate.
Of course it matters little the source of the CO2 as to the relative forcing. The source matters when calculating the relative net increase in atmospheric CO2. All fossil fuel CO2 is old carbon added to a roughly balanced system. So even though the biosphere is a self adjusting complex biological system, the quantity of old CO2 being released is greater than the biosphere's capability to adjust currently. The net CO2 concentrations rise. Higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations mean increase solar heat retained in the system. The “greenhouse” effect. The IPCC assessment may not be perfect, but that part they got roughly correct. Rapidly cycling CO2 in the biosphere does not have the same net effect on atmospheric CO2 concentration as slower old cycle carbon that has been out of the system for millions of years.
When it comes to respiration, that only results in a net increase in CO2 levels when the other side of the carbon cycle (photosynthesis) is simultaneously reduced as respiration increases. As long as we are careful not to reduce photosynthesis by destroying ecosystem function, then respiration can’t cause a net increase in atmospheric CO2 levels beyond a very short term peak usually disappearing in a matter of months. It is self limiting. This is what gives the graph a saw tooth pattern.
What gives the graph the smoothed out steady increase is a combination of fossil fuel use and ecosystem degradation, mostly due to agriculture.
If there is a blind spot in the IPCC assessment, it could be in underestimating the impact of agriculture in degrading ecosystem function. This is a case I have made elsewhere on this forum. However, the assessment is certainly correct in ignoring for the most part the short term biosphere cycle of photosynthesis and respiration as roughly canceling each other. There is no net increase in CO2 due to animals breathing. That’s just the natural carbon cycle signal, nothing to do with AGW. -
DrBill at 02:31 AM on 14 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Philippe Chantreau " I am not sure what you are trying to say. CO2 exhaled by animals is not, and can not be, a net addition to the carbon budget."
No one said it was a net addition to the carbon budget. And your clarification of what does add to the carbon budget actually helps identify my challenge to IPCC and their inadequate accounting/summarizing. [FWIW, the equation I showed, Tom, was directly copied from their 2005 Report that I used, and their dismissal of any CO2 but industrial has been shown multiple times in many forums, and informed my angry analysis.]
In any given year, CO2 comes into the atmosphere from industry, transportation and respiration. Its presence is all it takes to have any putative effect, not where it came from or what source. If the atmosphere reacts to the presence of CO2, it does so without regard for its history. The emphasis on its history is the bias in IPCCs conclusions.
While I'm at it, Tom, your analysis of what I said does little to change my point, as expressed in the paragraph just above. I said 40% more, and you want to argue 33%...tomayto tomahto...they found industrial CO2 and stopped accounting. On the other detail (D), I used UN herd records for my animal calculations, added to it some lesser quality estimates of insect population (rounded down not to be too shocking), and worked with the same kind of growth curve you posted earlier in Fig 5.
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Tom Curtis at 16:50 PM on 13 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Dr Bill Hoffman @95:
A) You say:
"As we breathe in 400 ppm CO2, we do not exhale "about ten times that amount", so the premise is incorrect. We exhale some 100 times that amount, about 40,000 ppm (4% CO2)."
That is correct, but it is not a claim made in the Original Post. Rather, it is an error by the AGW denier, "Ian Plimer" which was merely neglected as being trivial relative to the gross error rebutted in the OP, and which you appear to repeat.
B) You further say the IPCC is "...they focused entirely on industrial production...", but that is simply false as shown by the IPCC's summary diagram of the carbon cycle shown below:
Note that the non industrial elements are determined by in-situ surveys, satellite observations, changes in isotope ratios, all of which are used to validate models. For example, here is a paper analysing measurements of Dissolved Inorganic Carbon and comparing the result to earlier estimates. And here is a review of data relating to anthropogenic emissions from LUC. Your assertion in your video that "LUC" represents simply "a factor to allow adjusting" (8:44), ie, is merely used to balance the books is simply false. At best it represents an overwhelming ignorance of the topic on which you chose to lecture. The equation shown at that point in the video is also entirely of your own manufacture, so far as I can tell. The IPCC TAR (2001), for example, shows the following elements in the carbon cycle:
(For clear image of each panel, go here.)
As the IPCC TAR was the report immediately preceding your presentation, your employment of a truncated equation of the carbon cycle that does not even include vulcanism shows you to be, at best, completely ignorant of what the IPCC claims. Never-the-less, you feel qualified to make repeated false claims about what the IPCC purports to understand, and how they arrived at those conclusions.
C) Your model as shown on the video purports to show 100 Gt-CO2/yr (27.3 GtC/yr) emissions from respiration in 2004 (13:35). You then show an estimate of the increase in CO2 emissions by animals of about 10 Gt-CO2/yr (2.7 GtC/yr) by 2004 relative to 1900(?) (14:36), which you claim (15:54) to be about 50% of anthropogenic industrial emissions. Anthropogenic industrial emissions in 2004, however, were 7.78 GtC/yr. Your "accelerated conversion" was, therefore, just over a third of industrial emissions, and less than a third of industrial emissions plus LUC.
D) Whether or not that represents a genuine increase in emissions depends on what you calculated, which is very far from clear. To avoid excess length, I will discuss it in a following post.
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Philippe Chantreau at 11:58 AM on 13 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
Yes it is just you. "Ad hominem" means that an argument is attacked on the basis of the character of the one who makes it. An example would consist of saying that someone is a sleaze ball and therefore what they say is wrong or invalid. That is a logical fallacy, as the character of an individual has no bearing on the validity of the argument, which is to be judged on its own merit. I am surpised that a "serious scientist" could be confused on that point. If an argument is indeed removed from rational thought, it has no merit.
As to the rest of the post above, I am not sure what you are trying to say. CO2 exhaled by animals is not, and can not be, a net addition to the carbon budget. The only way atmospheric carbon can see a net increase is by injecting some that was taken from an otherwise stable reservoir that kept it away from the atmosphere, such as the crust. Animals do not create CO2, nor do they have the possibility of fetching it in such reservoir, only humans have the power to do that. Furthermore, the majority of animals now existing on Earth are dmoestic animals, i.e. the result of human activity, many of them indeed the result of industrial agriculture. Industrial.
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Eclectic at 11:54 AM on 13 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
DrBill, I watched the first half of your 30 minute Youtube presentation (from 2006).
Frankly, the arguments put forward were appallingly poor. So appallingly poor, that it woud be impossible for the second half of the talk to redeem the whole 30 minute venture and pull the fat out of the fire. The arguments put forward were so fundamentally wrong in science, as to make your presentation a nonsense. So much so, that it would be tiresome to enumerate & discuss all the errors.
You said you presented your ideas to Science magazine — and were rejected (as being "not of general interest"). DrBill, the Science editors were being polite to you. They should simply have posted your submission back to you, marked with a one-word red-pencil comment: "Nonsense".
Your youtube video is a complete waste of viewers' time.
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Mal Adapted at 10:23 AM on 13 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
fishfear,
Whether you're a professional research scientist or an interested layperson, it's important to know what sources of scientific information are reliable. Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon has spoken and blogged about Scientific Meta-Literacy:
But there’s an important lesson here about how we decide which scientific statements to believe and which ones not to believe. Those of us who are trained scientists but who do not have enough personal literacy to independently evaluate a particular statement do not throw up our hands in despair. Instead, we evaluate the source and the context.
We scientists rely upon a hierarchy of reliability. We know that a talking head is less reliable than a press release. We know that a press release is less reliable than a paper. We know that an ordinary peer-reviewed paper is less reliable than a review article. And so on, all the way up to a National Academy report. If we’re equipped with knowledge of this hierarchy of reliability, we can generally do a good job navigating through an unfamiliar field, even if we have very little prior technical knowledge in that field.
Shortest version: if you get your climate science information from the peer-reviewed reports of working climate scientists, you'll get the closest picture of the truth. For a highly credible review of all the evidence for AGW, however, no source can be considered more trustworthy than the US National Academy of Sciences, founded by Congress in 1862 "to advise the nation on important scientific matters." Since then the NAS has scrupulously resisted all efforts to politicize its advice. New members are elected by the existing membership, and only the most widely- and well-respected candidates are so honored.
Two years ago the NAS and the Royal Society of the UK (chartered by Charles II in 1662) jointly published a 34-page booklet titled Climate Change: Evidence and Causes. It's written for educated non-scientists like yourself, and is free to download at the link. It offers a brief tutorial on climate basics, and addresses 20 questions laypeople often have about anthropogenic climate change. Links to primary sources are provided throughout.
In the Foreword to the booklet, signed by the then-presidents of both societies, the first two sentences are [all-caps in the original]:
CLIMATE CHANGE IS ONE OF THE DEFINING ISSUES OF OUR TIME. It is now more certain than ever, based on many lines of evidence, that humans are changing Earth’s climate.
I have not made an argument from authority, but from scientific meta-literacy. If you don't trust the NAS and the RS, why would you trust anyone else?
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DrBill at 10:11 AM on 13 April 2017Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
+RH It's nice to see the comment has not been removed on the basis that "it clearly puts you outside of any rational scientific debate". Seems to me pretty close to argumentum ad hominem, but maybe that's just me. Frankly I resent the implication that contradiction is "clearly" outside of anything.
First, the level exhaled you led with was completely erroneous, and you did not dispute that, so you make your entire argument that the C was always there and we just recycle it, and disregard your first error.
And I already answered that "recycle" argument. The CO2 exhaled by all animals (and their number is growing, along with their exhalation) is in addition to the CO2 created by industry for any given year, and, while isotope analysis can identify that produced by burning fossil fuels (less and less distinctively as exhalation goes on), any warming effect claimed cannot discriminate between that which has increased due to industry and that which is exhaled by increased population of terrestrial animals.
Thus, it is not enough to conclude that the world's industry it causing anything (the idea of CO2's effect is not for this thread), while any official body (such as IPCC) simply dismisses it, and your counterargument seems to support such dismissal.
I put it to you that if your bank were to say that it paid 0.5% on your average current balance, and then excluded 30% of your balance because it was too recent, you would not bank with them any more.
More significantly, imo, if any bank tried that, you would report them to the state banking commission. IPCC is that bank, and their accounting is that faulty.
RH, I'll ask you to keep the condescension down to a low roar. I am a serious scientist. I hope skeptical science has a few whose skepticism doubts the received wisdom of AGW alarmists and not somehow only that from "deniers". Doubt is the basis for advancement in the sciences. It should not preselect. That's just prejudice, not skepticism.
Moderator Response:[JH] Sloaganeering and moderation complaint deleted.
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
[RH] Bill, while your original post was worthy of a complete deletion, it is sometimes instructive for other readers to leave such egregious examples where people think they know more than the entire rest of the global scientific community. That said, your tone and approach to this conversation are rapidly headed toward you being banned.
We encourage open dialogue here at SkS with caveat that people stick to the science. Drop the aggressive rhetoric and you might have a productive learning experience here.
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chriskoz at 07:23 AM on 13 April 2017From the eMail Bag: A Deep Dive Into Polar Ice Cores
I have a question:
What's the reason Δ-age on Figure 6 varies so much with time? For example WDC core used to have Δ-age ~500 at 19ka and then dropped to 200 at 17ka. How did we find that Δ-age varies so much?
The article explains the Δ-age is the consequence of the surface parameters that dictate the speed of firm to ice transformation. Then it explains the Δ-age distribution. But it does not clearly explain how we know the actual value of Δ-age - or its mean value if we're talking about a statistical variable - as shown on Figure 6. Can the Δ-age be actually measured, e.g. by comparing the isotopic fingerprints of some components of gas boubles and surrounding ice?
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Bob Loblaw at 11:10 AM on 12 April 2017Welcome to Skeptical Science
curiousd:
Images have to be located on a web-accessible server somewhere, not on your local hard drive. Then switch to the Insert tab and click on the picture of the tree (on the left). Enter the URL for the image (hence the web-accessible restriction) and complete the form. Try to make sure the image isn't too wide (500 pixels).
More hints are available on the Comments Policy page (link in red just above the Post a Comment box...)
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ubrew12 at 10:43 AM on 12 April 2017Heartland: What's your story?
fishfear@18 said "I have a BS in Physical Science...[and] a MBA..." The issue here, as the author relates, and as I picked up on earlier, is that our children have neither. They go to elementary school to learn what we, in general, accept (for example: we live in a 'Democracy'). The subtleties must come later, after the BS (well, more like a 'Dollarocracy', but close enough). With the vast expert consensus (and consilience) for anthropogenic global warming, do you really want us to teach our kids that your BS is relevant (I mean, to more than just yourself)? I think, at first blush, most people would think that profoundly egotistical of you. You're not the only person who has studied Science, after all. Go ahead and own your skepticism, just don't tell the rest of us (and especially don't preach to our children) that it 'trumps' the overwhelming scientific consensus on Climate Change by people who have actually competed to make the team of 'experts' on the subject. It's like saying if only you'd been made Quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons, they would have won the last Superbowl.
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curiousd at 10:33 AM on 12 April 2017Welcome to Skeptical Science
Hello All,
I used to know how to post figures and graphs. There was some web site that lets you post small images which have a URL, I think. I may be needing to do this in the section on Modtran Infrared Light in the Atmosphere. Could someone refresh my memory on how to post images in Skeptical Science posts?
Curiousd
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