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rjs at 16:35 PM on 23 February 2015Breathing contributes to CO2 buildup
I wonder if the treatment of human respiration here has ignored a couple of points. Two things to think about:
1) Our collective breathing is a year-round phenomenon that is localized to inhabitted areas, whereas plant conversion of CO2 from the atmosphere to organic matter is seasonal and localized to less densly inhabited areas; the locales and anual timing of our breathing are different to the locales and seasonal resperation of growing plants. So that could mean an uneven distribution of atmospheric CO2, even if it is relatively transient due to weather patterns. Is the warming effect of such transient areas of higher CO2 concentration more signficant than the assumed warming effect of plantery average CO2 concentration?
2) Imagine a sealed, underinflated balloon containing water and air. If we heat the ballon up, the same amount of water still exists within it, but now more of the water is in the form of water vapour, not liquid water. There is still a steady state exchange of water vapour to liquid water and back, but more of that water is in vapour form when it is heated up compared to the oringinal underinflated balloon. Similarly, as breathing organisms, we have increased the volume of atmospheric CO2 because there are more of us breathing now than 200 years ago. If 5 or 6 billion of us stopped breathing permanently, then yes, plants would relatively quickly collect the atmospheric CO2 and return it to the soil as humus or store it in woody material. But as long as we keep breathing, we are like the heated balloon - more C is in gaseous form (CO2), and less is stored as organic matter. And it may not be correct to state that our bodies compensate by sequestering CO2 in our own organic flesh and blood because we ourselves are not static - we grow and then we die, so in addition to the billions of us living, there are also billions of us decomposing, and as cemetary availability decreases, we will increasingly shoose cremation which releases our stored carbon instantaneously.
So overall, I think the question of whether our breathing contributes to GW is still open. I'm more inclined to think that it does contribute directly, and that contribution is not insignificant, yet other factors such as lifestyle are greater contributors.
Perhaps someone can do some numbers just for fun. Assume: 1) all the current atmospheric CO2 due to human breathing can be approximated by five years of human exhalation - this is based on the arbitrary idea that over 5 years, global plant communities could convert our hot air to organic matter; and 2) all that human-respiration CO2 captured by plants would be held indefinitely out of the atmosphere due to the undisturbed process of plant growth and soil growth that would take place if we all stopped breathing. With these assumptions, how much atmospheric CO2 do 7 billion humans generate over a period of 5 years, and how does that amount compare to the current total atmospheric CO2 quantity?
Note: just a quick point on food production techniques. Soil degradation and subsurface compaction result in less organic matter (humus) in the soil, thus C that was previously stored in the soil has been and continues to be released as a consquence of our agricultural methods.
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Stephen Baines at 15:27 PM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
I will say that I am appalled that the Smithsonian has Soon on their books. It's a big ungainly place, for sure, but that august insitution should have standards. (I was going to say higher standards, but Soon's arguments don't credit that much. ) The idea that thoe standards may be for sale is sickening to me.
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Stephen Baines at 15:24 PM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
I agree with TC on this. There is not enough information to prove that Willie Soon is selling his science to fossil fuel companies, as opposed to the fossil fuel companies seeking out someone of the "right" opinion. He may have strongly held beliefs that align with the fossil fuel industry for a number of reasons — he really likes the sun, he really hates the CO2 crowd, he is politically motivated, he thinks his garden will grow better.
It also doesn't really help to simply discredit his science simply because it is associated with the FF industry, because that makes it OK (in the minds of the antigovernment black helicopter brigade) to discredit mainstream climate because it is funded by agencies trying to justify their own existence. Arguments by association are only convincing to those already aligned on either side, and will generally do little to convince those on the fence.
What we should note is that Soon is just flat out wrong on the science of climate change. There really is no other way to put it, and there is no way to look at the data without realizing it. The money he receives completely distorts the process of science, keeping alive his groundless ideas in the public sphere like a voodoo doctor animates zombies. Plus, he is dissembling, breaking conflict of interest disclosure rules common to journals. That is the truly destructive thing at the core of this debacle.
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John Hartz at 14:33 PM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
Another take on the recent revelations about Willie Soon...
Willie Soon, a prominent global warming skeptic, says “no amount of money can influence what I say or do or research or write.” If recently released documents are accurate, he is a liar.
Contrarian Scientist Who Says Sun is Responsible for Global Warming is Accused of Taking Corporate Cash for Science by Tom Yulsman, Discovery, Feb 21, 2015
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wili at 14:14 PM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
Full disclosure: I am not, nor have I ever been, nor am I soon to be, Willie Soon. (Just plain old wili.) '-)
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jja at 13:46 PM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
Tom,
thanks, at this point I am highly skeptical of the integrity of Harvard-Smithsonian and Dr. Soon. If they want any maintain any sustained credibility they should release all communication between Dr. Soon and SCS and Exxon over the last 8 years. If his final report is only produced as a deliverable to the company for a "courtesy" then that is fine, however previous year's asked for mid-term reports (2008) So I think that the possiblity is there for client intrusion into the process. After, Dr. Soon is not contractually obligated to maintain a firewall between his work and his client's wishes.
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Tom Curtis at 12:34 PM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
jja @13, you say the contract "...stipulated Dr. Soon provide a pre-published copy of his paper to Southern (his client) for "review and input"". That clause relates to "publicity", and it is not evident that it applies to the scientific papers coming from the research. It would be interesting, I suppose, to have FOI documents relating to that point. That is, it is reasonable to ask, but not to prejudge, whether or not Willi Soon provided draft copies of his papers to Southern prior to submission, and whether he amended those papers prior to submission at Southern's request. Absent specific evidence to that point, however, we must assume that the clause relates to publicity (ie press releases, and talks given by Willi Soon) rather than the peer reviewed research itself.
Further, it is not justified on this evidence to assume that Soon had his opinion up for sale. More likely, he had an opinion and found cash from a person who wanted that opinion propogated. That in itself is an issue. If funding for science is on a model where expected outcomes of research are the basis of receiving funding, that is likely to bias science by, first, providing a financial motive making it difficult for the scientist to accept results contrary to expectation; and second, by preferentially funding scientists of a particular opinion.
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jimlj at 10:31 AM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
M Sweet @11
It's not even necessary for Soon to be disciplined. Breitbart already has a headline, 'NYT SMEARS SCIENTIST WILLIE SOON FOR TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT ‘GLOBAL WARMING’ . In Denialistan, smear=telling the truth about a 'no global warming' 'expert', while fair comment=lying about a climate scientist.
Moderator Response:[JH] The Breitbart article has gone viral in the right wing-nut blogosphere.
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jja at 09:21 AM on 23 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
Kevin C,
Those are the annual averages, do you have the DJF extractions that you can post? Both 2013 and 2014 summers were below the average. -
jja at 09:17 AM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
Regarding the Soon controversy, I find it a bit incredulous that the Smithsonian PR rep stated that there would not be an investigation into the clause of the contracts that stipulated Dr. Soon provide a pre-published copy of his paper to Southern (his client) for "review and input", since his client did not have the contractual ability to force a change or block publication. This is a falsehood on its face and reeks of coverup.
Since Dr. Soon has an ongoing financial stake in maintaining his client's satisfaction with his work, as any consultant does, the only purpose of providing a pre-published copy is to allow editiorial capacity to fit the economic and political interests of his client.
There is likely a significant amount of exchange and back and forth with Soon's employers regarding the wording of his scientific papers. There may even be back and forth regarding the performance of the base research and even material or financial support for even that level of work.
To not provide, or even investigate these email exchanges shows an incredible amount of complicity to the pseudoscience that is, apparently, the norm at the Harvard-Smithsonian. -
wili at 05:59 AM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
JH asked: "To whom is your question addressed?"
wili replies: To all of us. -
michael sweet at 02:18 AM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
Tom,
I doubt that Soon's supervisors look beyond the amount of the check. The system functions on trust. In order for someone to get called out for not claiming conflict of interest an outside group, as in this case, generally must take action. It is entirely possible that Soon's supervisors have not even read his papers, much less looked at the fine print to see his conflict of interests.
The question is what happens now that it has been brought to their attention. It is likely to be a slow response, no matter what the final judgement. It will also be interesting to see what the journals do.
If Soon is disciplined you can be sure that the Deniers will claim it is payback for his opinions and not for his leaving off his conflict of interests.
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John Hartz at 01:25 AM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
Shedding more light on the Soon-Smithsonian-fossil fuel industry relationship...
David H. Koch's deep philanthropic pockets will benefit dinosaurs.
The executive vice president of Koch Industries has donated $35 million to the National Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Institution announced Thursday.
The gift will go to the 30-year-old dinosaur hall, which museum officials say has long been in need of renovations.
Koch, a member of the museum’s advisory board, previously gave $15 million to the museum’s David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins. Thursday's gift marks the largest single donation to the Natural History Museum — perhaps because fossils have long piqued Koch's interests.
“It goes way back,” Koch told the Washington Post. “I went to my first dinosaur hall with my father and twin brother. We went to the American Museum of Natural History, and I was blown away by the dinosaurs.”
Billionaire David Koch gives $35 million to Natural History Museum by Jamie Wetherbe, Los Angeles Times, May 4, 2012
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John Hartz at 01:13 AM on 23 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
More details about Soon's employer...
The documents reviewed by Markey’s staff were obtained by Greenpeace, the environmental group, through the Freedom of Information Act. They show a relationship between Dr. Willie Soon, a solar researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and several fossil fuel companies who’ve funded his research on climate change. The Cambridge-based center is a joint project of Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution, though Soon is employed by the Smithsonian side. The center has previously said that Soon’s views are his alone and not reflective of the institution.
Senator Markey questions climate studies by Sylvan Lane, Boston Globe, Feb 22, 2015
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michael sweet at 22:49 PM on 22 February 2015It's not bad
Hoges,
When you are stuck in the bottom of a hole the first rule is always to Stop Digging. There is nothing we can do about pollution already released. If we reduce what we currently produce the final temperature will be lower than if we dig up as much carbon as possible. The stronger the steps we take now, the smaller the final problem we will have to deal with. Scieentists believe that if we stop polluting now the problem will not be too bad, we have to work on the presumption that they are correct.
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Tom Curtis at 22:28 PM on 22 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
chriskoz @7, in an Australian context, I would be astonished if the contract were between the researcher and the funder rather than between the researcher's institution and the funder. The former arrangement would leave to much opportunity for dubious practises, and for funding for outcomes rather than quality of research - ie, of buying an convenient scientific opinion. As it happens, at least one of the contracts was with the Smithonian. Specifically, the sole document of those obtained by Greenpeace that was by the Times shows a contract between Southern Company Services and the Smithonian, initially signed for the Smithonian by William J Ford (p 19), with an ammendment signed for the Smithonian by Brian Baldwin (p 21). The contract is explicitly for "... 4 months of [Wili Soon's] salary and benefits, as well as minor costs for salary and benefits for administrative and clerical work specific to this research effort" (p 27). The costs are itemized on page 28, and show over $37,000 of the initial $60,000 grant, and presumably an equivalent amount of the $60,000 additional grant signed for in the ammendment. (Presumably Willie Soon benefited at similar rates for the entire $1.2 million contracted from all sources revealed by the FOI request, or by approx $750,000 over a decade from contracts that more or less tell the results that will be obtained before the putative research is conducted, and which lists talks at the Marshall Institute among its "deliverables".
The upshot is that the Smithonian certainly new about the sources of the funding, presumably read Soon's papers and should have noted failure to list funders as ethically required, yet took no disciplinary actionk, action to get Soon to list his funding sources publicly until it became a news story. That represents a serious failing of governance by the Smithonian.
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Hoges at 20:44 PM on 22 February 2015It's not bad
What if a reduction in CO2 emissions doesn't prevent further global warming?
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chriskoz at 20:14 PM on 22 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
Tom@3,
Indeed, Willi Soon was the main contrarian author involved in a famous "pal review" scandal at Climate Research between 1997 and 2003 that led to the resignation of five of the journal's editors, including editor-in-chief Hans von Storch.
It's strange that after such affair, Smithsonian apparently did not look at Soon's connections but let him publish. The only explanation is they did not know what was going on behind "pal review", or they did not want to know, assuming what happened in Climate Research is irrelevant to Soon's reputation as an author - a generous assumption.
As for your bold speculation that Soon received money rather indirectly through the Smithsonian, wouldn't the FOI request by Greenpeace have revealed that detail?
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Kevin C at 18:25 PM on 22 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
To get back to the subject, I've now added a time series and map series for the Gleisner et al temperature reconstruction, as well as code for you to produce it for yourself. It's at the bottom of this page, accompanied by appropriate health warnings:
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~kdc3/papers/coverage2013/series.html
The Gleisner reconstruction shows faster warming over the hiatus period than NASA, NOAA or Hadley, and the rate of Arctic warming agrees well with us, Berkeley and the reanalyses:
So it captures the Arctic warming quite well. The poor performance in validation arises because it is not doing a very good job of capturing the impact of coverage over the rest of the planet.
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wili at 18:23 PM on 22 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
Not exactly news, but there's a new video of a Kevin Anderson lecture at Exeter U on how to have a 50% chance of staying below 2 C: 40% emissions reductions by 2018 from the global wealthy, 70% by 2024, over 90% by 2030. (These numbers are at about minute 28.)
If you make much more than about $30,000 a year, you are the global wealthy.
What is your plan?
Moderator Response:[JH] To whom is your question addressed?
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uncletimrob at 17:27 PM on 22 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
@ "fox news has no shame" Interesting read but relly no surprise. Owner - Murdoch, enough said.
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One Planet Only Forever at 16:14 PM on 22 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
John Hartz,
I understand that the NY Times article was only posted after you posted your summary. I just thought it was a good one to add to this thread.
Tom Curtis,
I am sure that full disclosure would expose a collective incestuous corruption of "certain", not all: elected officials, leaders of industry, global financial leaders, creators of misleading or deceptive reports, employers of the creators of such reports, and media that amplify such reports. That full disclosure is unlikely to happen because that group are collectively well aware of how damaging full public awareness would be to "their interests". Hopefully, the growing number of cases of "seems to have happened" will be enough to change the minds of many people who have been giving that group of trouble-makers the benefit of the doubt they do not deserve.
Moderator Response:[JH] No problem. Today's Weekly Digest will contain a Breaking News section on this matter.
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Tom Curtis at 13:24 PM on 22 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
OPOF @2, very interesting, but for me it raises a question. The Smithsonian acknowledges that an ethical breach has occurred, with Willi Soon not disclosing the sources of his funding for published papers, as required by the journals in which he published. They are talking about behind closed doors disciplinary action. Surely, however, they have a record of Willi Soon's publication history, and of his funding history. They, therefore, should have been aware of the situation already and taken disciplinary action already before it became a public embarassment for them. The only way they could not have that record is if the money was paid directly to Soon himself, rather indirectly through the Smithsonian. Is that the case? If so, that represents a situation open to obvious abuse - as seems to have happened.
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:43 PM on 22 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
In the NY Times today is another good one:
"Deeper Ties to Corporate Cash for Doubtful Climate Researcher"
Moderator Response:[JH] The article you cite and others like it were posted after I had frinalized the OP.
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Timothy Chase at 10:06 AM on 22 February 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B
The hyperlink "Global warming is going to hammer New York: New study reveals a future of heat waves, downpours, rising seas" returns a 404 Not Found.
I believe the hyperlinks should be going to:
Global warming is going to hammer New York: New study reveals a future of heat waves, downpours, rising seas
A new report calls for urgent action to boost New York's resiliency
Lindsay Abrams, Salon, 2015-02-17Also, the ad for Free Course/April 2015/Making sense of climate science denial" ends with the line "ENROL NOW!" I believe that should be "enroll".
Moderator Response:[TD] Apparently there is some sort of world outside the USA. I don't really know, because I've always lived in the USA. Anyhoo, the rumor (not "rumour," damnit) is going 'round that in that hypothetical non-USA geography the word often is spelled "enrol" because, well, Eddie Izzard explained it.
[JH] Links fixed. Thanks for bringing this glitch to our attention.
[RH] Shortened link.
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Midmiocene at 09:46 AM on 22 February 2015Why the Miocene Matters (and doesn’t) Today
The author mentions: "but generally life did well from the experience - including re-greening of some arid areas, and species diversification in marine mammals, mollusks, and rodents."
Actually, pretty much everything flourished (I wrote a novel about it). The Clarendonian Chronofauna was a Midmiocene originated event. See https://midmiocene.wordpress.com/the-middle-miocene-a-time-for-diversity/
Lest we are lulled into a dangerous sense of complacency, though, howardlee does a good job of showing why we can't think that anything like the MMCO would be good for biodiversity today. In every other way, today's earth is a different world. Just the opposite. And I think I'll quote his comments about that on my blog, if that's okay.
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wili at 07:01 AM on 22 February 2015LBJ's climate warning 50 years ago - do we have your attention yet?
Speaking of presidents and climate, CC has a nice interactive chart on that theme here.
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Tom Curtis at 05:20 AM on 22 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
PS inline @25, I take it you objected to my quotation of a term from the video to which I linked. If you watch the video (unfortunately of poor quality), you will see that term in context is not offensive, and explains the problem also exhibited by drebich's three questions in very simple terms. I could, of course, have used the more conventional term for that type of question, calling it a "trick question". That, however, would imply that trickery was involved - something of which I am not yet convinced. As a side note, I highly recommend you take the opportunity to watch the movie from which the video came ("My cousin Vinny") should it present itself. Very entertaining.
On a side note, and related to to drebich's questions, I suggest he read David Brin's essay, "Defining Climate "Deniers" and "Skeptics"", available on his blog. I remain hopefull that he is an ill-informed skeptic. Reading Brin's essay will make it clear to him why he is so easilly taken for a denier instead.
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Tom Curtis at 05:08 AM on 22 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
wili @31, good comment.
On topic: yes but not relatively.
Specifically, the first factor is that the September loss is a seasonal loss. All the energy used in the ice melt is given back when the ice refreezes. Therefore the relevant factor is the loss in ice at the winter maximum. Based on the Piomas trend, that means we have lost around 9.72 thousand km^3 in the 36 years from 1979 (or 10,000 km^3 if you just take the difference between the end points). Further, this has been partly countered by the growth in sea ice in the Antarctic, although no direct comparison is possible as we lack reliable volume estimates for the Antarctic.
Secondly, taking just the Arctic values, the approx 10 trillion cubic meters of ice lost requires 334 x 10^15 Joules to melt, which is a lot. However, over 36 years, that represents only 3 x 10^8 Watts, and just 5.9*10^-7 Watts per meter squared averaged over the Earth's surface. Relative to other places the heat is going, that is inconsequential. The melting of glaciers and ice sheets has a far larger impact, but still small relative to the increase in Ocean Heat Content.
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wili at 04:33 AM on 22 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
RH wrote: "Climate science is a very complex subject..." Very true if one is talking about the whole thing with all the details. But the essential elements are fairly straight forward (though I'd be more than happy to be corrected on any of them if I get something wrong):
1) CO2 is a greenhouse gas--it acts as a kind of blanket keeping heat from escaping into space; established some 150 years ago; very basic science.
2) We have dumped and we continue to dump lots of extra CO2 into the atmosphere, mostly from burning fossil fuels--coal, oil and methane. (Are we up to 38 billion tons CO2 a year now?)
3) Not surprisingly, given #2, concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere have risen by about 40% since pre-industrial times: from about 280 parts per million to about 400 ppm now--we are making the
'blanket' much thicker.4) Also not surprising, given #s 1,2 and 3, global temperatures have increased by over .8 degrees C (about 1.5 F).
Those are the basics. And every step is (or should be) completely un-controversial and well established. Everything else is complications that those who don't understand the science should trust that scientists actually do know something about them. And they have pretty much all come to the same conclusion.
I think the mods got it right that 'Daniel' was trolling here, so he is not likely to be persuaded by anything anyone says. I don't know how one persuades people who are not really interested in being persuaded. But I think it is useful to lay out the bare essentials of the situation (as others also tried to do), since those are fairly straight forward.
But getting back to the Arctic and the 'pause'--We've lost something over 10,000 cubic kilometers of Arctic sea ice, most of it in the last 20 years. Wouldn't that change of state suck a lot of energy out of the system?
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:56 AM on 22 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
Daniel... And really, do watch the Richard Alley video I posted earlier. You'll get a sense of both how complex the subject is and why scientists understand what they understand.
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Rob Honeycutt at 02:51 AM on 22 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
Daniel... I have no way to determine your intent with these questions, but if you're going to come here with genuine questions about climate science, you can't take a stance of "scientist have to..."
There's a well understood aspect of science: It's true whether or not anyone likes the results.
Tom and Michael actually did a very good job of explaining the science, regardless of whether you appreciated their tone. They showed you very clearly what the research shows us. It's not required that you understand it, nor even that you read it, for it to be correct.
The reason I suggested that you go back and read some of the basic materials here on SkS is because you're asking very very elemental and antagonistic questions. You need to fully inform yourself first, before you have cause to state what scientists need to do.
Climate science is a very complex subject backed by 150 years of research consisting of well over 100,000 research papers, produced by over 30,000 scientists. When you come upon some aspect of the science you don't understand, look it up. Find out why scientists are saying what they're saying. And if you still don't understand, ask questions. SkS is a great place to find answers. But you don't even have to trust us. If you still don't understand something, see if you can find one of the actual climate researchers. Send them a polite email with your question. I've found they're usually eager to explain their field of research with those who are willing to listen.
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DSL at 01:41 AM on 22 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
Daniel, just read one thing--one little piece: paleoclimatology. Understand that many of the same people who are supporting your claim of 4.5 billion years are also people working on climate. The information they produce is integrated into the overall understanding of Earth's climate. It seems ridiculous that you would assume 4.5 billion years and then claim that paleoclimatology has not informed study of the present day climate. It seems that way because to everyone posting here it is obvious that paleoclimatology is an integral part of the study of climate.
Also, if you want the science communicated to the general public more effectively (I assume you do, else why come here?), could you say a bit more about how you came to your current understanding of the study of climate, please? -
michael sweet at 22:53 PM on 21 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
Daniel,
I simply pointed out the inconsistancy in your questions. If you find that rude, condescending, and insulting perhaps you need to ask better questions. When your posts are rude, condescending, and insulting people tend to reply in the same way. If you are polite you get polite answers.
For complete information to everyone reading, Daniels original post was deleted by a moderator for sloganeering. He reposted it and the new moderator has let it stand. If your posts are deleted that means you are not polite enough for this venue.
Moderator Response:[JH] I deleted Daniel's (posting as drebich) intital post because it was "off-topic sloganeering." If I had seen his repost of it before other commenters had responded to it, I would have deleted it again for the same reason. Concern trolls such as Daniel/drebich need to know that conformance with the SkS Comments Policy is not optional.
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Kevin C at 19:35 PM on 21 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
Dear Daniel,
Let me try and explain the response to your question.
When my daughter was 3, she found an illustration of Isaac Newton sitting under and apple tree. "What's he doing?" she asked.
I replied "He's sitting under an apple tree. An apple has just fallen on his head. He says 'Why did that happen?'".
My daughter immediately answered "Because it was ready to eat!".
In a sense, she was right. The apple fell because it was ready to eat. But at the same time, she had completely missed the scientific point of the question. Why did the apple accelerate downwards at approximately 10m/s2?
When we try to talk about science in natural language, or worse, to think about science in social and ethical terms, we completely miss the point. And trying to do science in these terms leads to nonsense conclusions - a classic example would be the work of Gerald of Wales.
Similarly, when you ask 'what should the temperature be?', your language is a strange conflation of scientific and ethical concepts. Temperature is completely uninfluenced by moral imperatives. There is no 'should'. The fact that you can construct a grammatically valid question, does not mean that that question makes any sense.
So when you ask a scientist a question like this, they'll either look at you as though you have a fish in your ear, or assume you are trying to ask a different question, or assume you are playing dishonest word games. Unfortunately in this case there used to be a particularly annoying troll who used to ask the same kind question on every single climate discussion for several years, hence a more negative response than you were expecting.
So what question are you trying to ask? If I were to make a guess, then I'd put it something like this:
- What is our best understanding of the factors that control the temperature of the earth?
- What is the evidence for that understanding? How confident are we with respect to various influences?
- On the basis of that understanding, what do we expect to happen in future, given a particular action on our part?
- How will this affect us? Future generations?
- What should we do about it?
The first three of these are scientific questions. The fourth spans scientific, social and economic spheres. The final is a moral and political question. This website is concerned primarily with the scientific dimension.
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Jim Hunt at 18:53 PM on 21 February 2015A melting Arctic and weird weather: the plot thickens
In surprising news, there was another huge calving of the Jakobshavn glacier in West Greenland, of "Chasing Ice" fame, earlier this week:
Shock News – Massive Calving of Jakobshavn Isbræ
Although this is no longer the case today, the recent storms in the North Atlantic reduced Arctic sea ice extent to an all time record low for the date earlier this week:Shock News – IJIS Arctic Sea Ice Extent Lowest Ever!
Is there a feedback loop here? Less sea ice => more open water => bigger storms => more wind and waves => less sea ice?
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shoyemore at 18:31 PM on 21 February 2015A melting Arctic and weird weather: the plot thickens
arctic-outbreak-shatters-records-in-eastern-u-s-coldest-yet-to-come/
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Tom Curtis at 17:03 PM on 21 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
drebich @24:
1) You accuse me of being "rude, condescending, and insulting" because I correctly noted that your questions were nonsensical. They are nonsensical because you make assumptions in the framing of the questions that are simply false. Thus, you assume that there is a value for sea ice extent such that if sea ice extent is greater than that, that implies we are heading for an ice age, while if lower we have strong anthropogenic. There is no such value. Pointing out that the question is nonsensical is no insult unless your value as a person lies entirely in your possessing, or not possessing, the relevant specialist knowledge. Put simply, you asked "bullshit questions" because you do not know enough on the topic. In that context, the only correct response to to point out that they are bullshit questions, and why (as I have done).
However, as you raise the topic of rudeness, just how polite do you consider these comments:
- "I cannot help the fact that "Man Made" Climate Change Scientists come across (to me) as being quite intellectually arrogant"
- "it just comes across as almost unintelligent to think that man could possibly have any influence at all"?
They strike me as being very rude, and hence your concern about your own percieved slights as more than a little hypocritical.
2) Even more hypocritical is your response to my explaining why your questions are nonsensical. You write:
"The earth is approximately 4.5 Billion years old (and I would have to take an un-educated assumption that it may not be in it's final state), yet you post your charts and graphs and reference the last 10,000 years (or even the last 200 yrs)."
Yet each of your three questions required a single value of a variable assessable now. So a single years data (or at most a decade) according to your questions is all the information you need. But when presented with far more than that - it is not enough because of the tremendously long history of the Earth. From this inconsistency, that only a years data is purportedly enough but much more than a years data is rejected as not enough, it looks very much like your questions are a con. That is, your intent is entirely rhetorical.
Well, I guess we knew that already, given the way you framed your third question.
That impression is further reinforced by your strawman fallacies ("the planet earth is in it's final state"), and your assumptions about what I base my views on (hint, it is not solely the data I considered relevant to your specific questions).
3) Finally, you seem to think the geothermal heat from "the big blob of molten rock that we are floating on" has more impact than CO2. In that you are wrong. That is one of the many factors of climate that climate scientists have analyzed but spend little time talking about because it is inconsequential. Of course, some aspects of the Earth have major consequences for climate. The presence of a land mass over the South Pole, entirely surrounded by water; the existence of extensive continuous land masses in the Northern Hemisphere from 30 - 66 degrees latitude; the lack of a channel between the tropical Pacific and tropical Atlantic, or tropical Atlantic and tropical Indian Oceans; even the rate at which the African continent is moving north - these all have very large effects on the current climate state. Climate scientists, however, spend little time talking about them publicly because in terms of change in climate over a few centuries, they are essentially fixed features and have no effect on that time scale (however large an effect they have over 100 of thousands to millions of years).
Finally, it is a waste of our time to try and answer the questions of a person too ignorant to ask sensible questions, and too arrogant to recognize that is the case. Certainly such a person will never be convinced no matter what our answer.
Moderator Response:[PS] Tom, please stick to answering the science - you are very good at that. This comment is at limit of civility and only stands because I do agree with the sentiment and can only hope drebich will bother to learn enough to ask sensible questions in future.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 16:53 PM on 21 February 2015Models are unreliable
sangfroid
"Most scientists do not understand randomness and the role it plays in all aspects of our lives"
Excuse me while I pick my jaw up of the floor!
Understanding of 'randomness' is absolutely central to science. I would back 100 scientist's understanding of statistics against 100n people from just about any other background - apart perhaps from pure statisticians.
So your comment "Weather - despite how much we think we understand the interactions of everything that affects weather - is totally random" betrays a deep limitation in your understanding of both weather and statistics.
Weather is an example of bounded randomness. A process that displays degrees of randomness, but within bounds imposed by non-random processes. Primarily the Conservation Laws. Randomness for example could never produce high pressure systems over the entire planet - the Law of Conservation of Energy prohibits that.
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drebich at 16:18 PM on 21 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
Thank you Rob Honeycutt, your reply was very polite and not condescending in any way. I truly appreciate that.
As for Tom Curtis and Michael Sweet, not only were your replies rude, condescending, and insulting, they simply didn't answer any of my questions. The earth is approximately 4.5 Billion years old (and I would have to take an un-educated assumption that it may not be in it's final state), yet you post your charts and graphs and reference the last 10,000 years (or even the last 200 yrs).
As a Scientist, do you actually feel comfortable using such a miniscule segment of time for your conclusion, totally disregarding the immense changes that this planet continues to exibit? Are you telling me that you alone have decided that the planet earth is in it's final state. That the big blob of molten rock that we are floating on has absolutely no impact on climate change, or our CO2 emissions have more affect on the planet than the huge blob of molten rock?
And Michael, I used the term "Man Made Global Warming" in order to distinquish between "Global Warming" which many people do believe is happening.
Guys, I know this is beneath you, but these questions may be very important for you to be able to answer if your goal is to convince an uneducated majority to accept your findings and predictions. I'm not asking these questions to get under your skin, I'm asking them to see if you have answers, none of which either of you have been able to deliver on.
Best Regards,
Daniel
Moderator Response:[PS] Daniel, please, please, please read the actual basics of the science you are questioning. Extremely uninformed questions that attack the science does not help and results in poor responses. Start with the "arguments" link top left and if you have issues with the explanations there, comment in the appropriate place. Simply repeating tired old arguments like "climate has changed before" or "it's geothermal heat" without evidence to support them is sloganeering and will be deleted.
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meher engineer at 15:53 PM on 21 February 2015A melting Arctic and weird weather: the plot thickens
RE Hank # 3, the Laird paper is cited by Cook et al in "Megadroughts in North America: placing IPCC projections of hydroclimatic change in along-term palaeoclimate context" (http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/pub/cook/2009_Cook_IPCC_paleo-drought.pdf.
Global warming will expand the worlds dry lands polewards and make them drier: the IPCC AR4 Report said so and it makes sense.
The Cook paper is mostly about model projections. It didn't say anything about a connection between past Mega droughts and the Jet Stream. Not surprising considering how little we understand the Jet Stream.
It did say that the past megadroughts were connected to changes in solar activity (see this quote from the Conclusions: "There is no question now that profound megadroughts have occurred in North America during the last millennium, principally during MCA times and into the early part of the Little Ice Age. These droughts have occurred without any need
for enhanced radiative forcing due to anthropogenic greenhouse
gas forcing. There are additional model-based results suggesting that the MCA megadroughts were associated with enhanced warming during a time of increased solar irradiance."" Nothing was said about the changes affecting the Jet Stream? -
Tom Dayton at 15:35 PM on 21 February 2015Models are unreliable
Sangfroid, you wrote "Most scientists do not understand randomness and the role it plays in all aspects of our lives. We exist totally due to randomness."
You are wrong on both counts. For example, biological evolution is not "totally random."
Regarding weather versus climate, see the post "The difference between weather and climate." After you read the Basic tabbed pane, click the Intermediate tab.
See also "Chaos theory and global warming: can climate be predicted?" which has Basic and Intermediate tabbed panes. And "The chaos of confusing the concepts."
If after that you still believe most scientists do not understand randomness, read the seven-part series "Natural Variability and Chaos" at ScienceOfDoom.
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Stephen Baines at 15:07 PM on 21 February 2015Models are unreliable
typos!
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Stephen Baines at 15:06 PM on 21 February 2015Models are unreliable
Tom's
That answer is spot on. I have to write that down. I think its worth reemphasizing that the models do not make a sngle set of predictions - for example of global temperature. People who question models often talk as if they do, but in fact these models actually make many different predictions about the atmospheric and climate. Each of these can be compared to observation. the number of different sorts of predictions actually provides a fairly stringent test of the models
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Tom Curtis at 15:06 PM on 21 February 2015Models are unreliable
Sangfroid @791:
"Also, it would be very eye opening to see the source of the actual data, how it is interpreted, and what assumptions are included in their climate models. If we demand openness in government we should also demand it on something as importand as this."
The assumption here is that the data is not available to the public. That assumption is false. For all climate models, the basic assumptions and fundamental equations are specified in the peer reviewed literature, as for example the GISS Model E. Updates will also result in detailing in the peer reviewed literature, either in seperate papers for major updates, or as part of the paper in which the update is first used for minor updates. Further, for some models (notably the GISS Model E) full code is available for earlier versions, and considerable effort is made to make the code available to the public in a convenient format, as detailed here. Nor is NASA alone in granting this level of access to the code. Indeed, one climate model (CCSM 3.0) was explicitly designed to be available to the public, and is freely downloadable along with all relevant documentation.
So, the problem is not the availability of code and assumptions for analysis. It is that so called "skeptics" do not make use of resources made available to them to run their own climate experiments, or to modify the models according to the principles they think will hold. I presume that is because they are quite aware that the result, if they did, would be a very much poorer fit with the data than is provided by the standard models.
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Tom Curtis at 14:37 PM on 21 February 2015Models are unreliable
Sangfroid @791, there is a major difference between the stockmarket (or currency trading) models and climate models. That is, the stockmarket models are entirely statistical. In contrast, the climate models encode well established physical laws into mathematical representations of the atmosphere. These are laws such as consevation of energy, conservation of energy, radiative transfer physics, boyles law etc. Because we cannot represent the atmosphere molecule by molecule, (or indeed, kilometer by kilometer), some of the laws are approximated based on empirical estimates of the effect of the laws in the real atmosphere. Consequently, when these models retrodict the temperature series, without having been trained on that temperature series, that is a significant prediction.
The achievement is even more impressive in that the models do not predict just a single time series (again unlike stock market models). The predict temperature series for a variety of different altitude and depths of the ocean. The predict major atmospheric and ocean circulations (including ENSO like effects). The predict precipitation changes, and changes in sea and land ice. They are not perfect at any of these - indeed do not always agree among themselves at any of these - but they do so with very far above chance accuracy. This would not be possible if they did not get the fundamental processes right - and if they were not in the right ball park for the subtle effects.
So, quite frankly, I consider your analogy to be on a par with somebody insisting that because a particular sum cannot be calculated in a reasonable time on an abacus, it cannot be calculated in much better time on a Cray xc-40.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:29 PM on 21 February 2015Models are unreliable
Sangfroid... There's a huge difference between financial models and climate models. Climate models are based on physical processes. Financial models are subject to varying human behavior. Gavin Schmidt has a great TED Talk about climate models that you should listen to.
"Weather [...] is totally random."
If weather were totally random then you'd get snow in the summer and sweltering heat waves in the winter. Your statement is patently absurd.
With regards to the rest of your comment, all the information is there. You just have to dig in and start reading. Understand that the body of scientific research is produced by researchers who've dedicated their lives and careers to getting this stuff as accurate as possible.
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Sangfroid at 14:17 PM on 21 February 2015Models are unreliable
When I had taken on the task of learning to trade stocks and currency a few years ago, I was amazed at the number of 'models' that were 'back tested' to be accurate. They tended to be somewhat accurate - until they failed.
Most scientists do not understand randomness and the role it plays in all aspects of our lives. We exist totally due to randomness. Weather - despite how much we think we understand the interactions of everything that affects weather - is totally random. We will never be able to predict, with certainty, the future of weather.
Many, if not all, of the so called solutions to curb CO2 emmisions, or to curb sunlight, or to convert to alternate energy sources, - although they may be necessary - do not address the effects on many people in the middle income brackets and below. Some do not address the potential negative effect on our health.
I would like to see the data that scientists use to predict the negative effects on our environment, animals and humans. Polar bears are often used as an example. Polar bears can survive without the ice covered artic as they do in parts of eastern Canada.
Also, it would be very eye opening to see the source of the actual data, how it is interpreted, and what assumptions are included in their climate models. If we demand openness in government we should also demand it on something as importand as this.
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michael sweet at 11:17 AM on 21 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
Drebich,
When you start your post off with "Please don't think that I am trying to be facetious in anyway" and then say "any higher, Man Made Global Warming, any lower,.....well....Man Made Global Warming" you come across as facetious, rude and disrespectfull. Perhaps you need to check your posts before you post them. If you cannot abide by your own post why don't you just go away?
Moderator Response:[PS] Would anyone else tempted to comment here please note the "no dogpiling" rule in the comments policy. I think Drebich has been given enough to think about already and will hopefully use the resources to become better informed.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:22 AM on 21 February 2015Missing Arctic warming does contribute to the hiatus, but it is only one piece in the puzzle.
drebich... No offense intended here, but each of your questions is about what "should" each of these aspects of the climate system be. That's an irrelevant question. The problem is related to the rate of change that is being caused by human CO2 emissions and how those change will impact natural and human systems.
But, please do take the time to read through the relevant materials to fully inform yourself before coming to a firm conclusion one way or another. The science is there, it's very well established, and scientists have a very high degree of certainty that continuing on the emissions path we're on through the 21st century would bring with it severe consequences.
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