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JasonB at 21:22 PM on 14 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Earthling,
how much warming is human emission of GHGs responsible for?
Officially, it's very likely that human emissions of GHGs are responsible for most of the warming over the past 50 years. Unofficially, I think you'll find that human emissions of GHGs are responsible for over 100% of the warming that actually occurred (i.e. the temperature would have actually declined without human GHG emissions).
"Nobody knows."
97% of scientists with relevant expertise would disagree. Perhaps it's better not to assume that just because you don't know something then that must mean that nobody else does, either.
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CBDunkerson at 21:20 PM on 14 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
Ray, do you know of any?
There are several articles here identifying IPCC predictions (search on IPCC) which are likely to be incorrect (e.g. sea level rise is clearly going to be higher than past projections, arctic sea ice will certainly melt out far sooner than predicted, Antarctic ice mass loss will be much more rapid than predicted, et cetera), but I'm not sure that any of these qualify as already having "not come to pass".
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chriskoz at 21:14 PM on 14 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
Tom@7,
Your consideration of CO2 as equilibrium temperature proxy (that I assume you've calculated using Charney sensitivity) during interglacials is very moot when talking about tipping points.
You know that tipping points are defined as threasholds during the dynamic changes in forcings, that trigger positive feedbacks in Earth system (icesheets, permafrost, clathrates) leading to hyperthermal events such as PETM. Therefore, the delta forcings over time (currently the rate of CO2 change) should be your primary consideration.
In all likelyhood, the PETM event was caused by the coincident maximum of Milankovic cycles, see for example (Lourens 2005). The trigger released ~2exagrams of C into the athmosphere but the realease lasted for millennia. In contrast, the current release of just half that amount: 1exagram of C from fossil fuels (the agreed limit the humanity may stiill overshoot) is happening in just a century or two - at least ten times faster.
Even if you assume that ocean be the net C sink for the forseable future, e.g. according to (Archer 2008) model, arround 20% of that C will stay in the atmosphere for 2-3ky, see Fig.1 therein, I don't know how to paste it here. That's 200petagC; at 1 ppm = 2.12 Gt C, that is equivalent to ~100ppm. That number is higher than your moot 40ppm. This number, over the preindustrial 280ppm constitutes 5.35*ln(380ppm/280ppm) = 1.6Wm-2 forcing. Coincidentaly, that forcing is identical to the best estimate of current total forcing since preinductrial, according to IPCC.
Can such forcing, if applied for 2-3ky according to (Archer 2008) trigger the Earth system response such as complete icesheet melt or clathrate release in the amount of several exagram C, leading to PETM like event? Uncertainties are large, but my answer is: it certainly can! We are already witnessing the arctic ice melt in our 70-90y lifetimes that is the begining of albedo change which will amplify other systems. Therefore, the threat of tipping points as defined above is very real.
On top of that, the diturbance of the CC due to FF burning is far greater than the PETM disturbance: back then just the several ky old permafrost was released, now the 300-400Ma fossil fuels are released, with greater unknown (=fear for bigger impact) associated.
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Ray at 21:05 PM on 14 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
An interesting article. In the interests of equity can you find and post an article showing how many predictions made by the IPCC have not come to pass?
Moderator Response:[DB] In the interests of equity, you are welcome to post such a link to a reputable source where this is discussed, provided it is evidenced-based and references the primary literature.
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Earthling at 19:38 PM on 14 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
The vast majority of interested parties are aware that humans are responsible for 'some' warming, but the $64 billion question is, how much warming is human emission of GHGs responsible for?
The short answer:
"Nobody knows."
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Daniel Bailey at 15:12 PM on 14 July 2013There is no consensus
Agreed. Yet another Galileo wanna-be, ignoring his own physical society's position on AGW, as well as every other scientific body the world over. To wit:
The IPCC’s conclusion that most of the warming since 1950 is very likely due to human emissions of greenhouse gases and has been endorsed by this great cloud of witnesses:
the National Academy of Sciences,
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration,
the National Center for Atmospheric Research,
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
the American Geophysical Union,
the American Institute of Physics,
the American Physical Society,
the American Meteorological Society,
the American Statistical Association,
the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
the Federation of American Scientists,
the American Quaternary Association,
the American Society of Agronomy,
the Crop Science Society of America,
the Soil Science Society of America,
the American Astronomical Society,
the American Chemical Society,
the Geological Society of America,
the American Institute of Biological Sciences,
the American Society for Microbiology,
the Society of American Foresters,
the Australian Institute of Physics,
the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society,
the Australian Bureau of Meteorology and the CSIRO,
the Geological Society of Australia,
the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies,
the Australian Coral Reef Society,
the Royal Meteorological Society,
the Geological Society of London,
the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences,
the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society,
the Royal Society of New Zealand,
the Polish Academy of Sciences,
the European Science Foundation,
the European Geosciences Union,
the European Physical Society,
the European Federation of Geologists,
the Network of African Science Academies,
the International Union for Quaternary Research,
the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics,
the Wildlife Society (International),
and the World Meteorological Organization.
There aren’t any national or international scientific societies disputing the conclusion that most of the warming since 1950 is very likely to be due to human emissions of greenhouse gases, though a few are non-committal.
The last organization to oppose this conclusion was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). They changed their position statement in 2007 to a non-committal position because they recognized that AAPG doesn’t have experience or credibility in the field of climate change and wisely said “… as a group we have no particular claim to knowledge of global atmospheric geophysics through either our education or our daily professional work.”
Archive of position statements
Those like old sage would have science re-prove the existance of the atom in every study, mayhap...or republish the above list daily, it would see.(-inflammatory self snipped-)
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citizenschallenge at 14:06 PM on 14 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
This is too timely and too good not to share.
Thanks.
Patrick Michaels - renowned AGW contrarian - a closer look
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2013/07/patrick-michaels-renowned-agw.html
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:08 AM on 14 July 2013There is no consensus
I have to say, I always find it fascinating when someone like "old sage" comes here to cast off an entire body of scientific research, without even so much as referencing even one piece of research.
He states that he's taking a "physicist's look" as if the 30,000+ actively publishing researchers working in this area have no background in physics.
"Oh Deary" is right.
Be realistic, Old Sage. How would you respond if some climate scientist came to you and told you the physics of cryostats was all a bunch of bunkum?
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citizenschallenge at 10:34 AM on 14 July 2013Charles Krauthammer's flat-earther global warming folly
Upon reflection I found my lead-in lacking. Here's the revised:
================
"There is simply no keeping up with the manmade - global warming disinformation campaign that steadfastly flies in the face of all objective appraisals of the evidence -
Why, in light of all this evidence, does the Republican power-politic global warming denial machine keep churning out distortions, lies and plain old crazy making?
By Republican power-politic global warming denial machine I'm referring to the likes of the Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, SPPI, Murdoch media machine, Morano, Watts, McIntyre, et al. Peddlers of transparent science fiction.
What I find most disheartening is that at the heart of this endless flow of calculatedly deceptive stories is the fact that this is exactly what the Republican general public and politicians expect to hear. {...}"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I've also hot links names and claims to further information.
;- }
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DSL at 07:16 AM on 14 July 2013There is no consensus
Tom, time flies. Old Sage's argument is 49 years out of date.
Old Sage, I encourage you to continue your discussion here on the appropriate thread, but you might--if you want to do the math--go to SoD. Questions are encouraged here as they are there. You might also note that downwelling longwave radiation has been measured against modeled projections. Studies such as this one might help you check your own work.
If you're confident enough ("oh deary") in your conclusion that the greenhouse effect is insignificant with regards to climate system energy storage, you might want to publish your work. The editors of Science and Nature would probably Sumo wrestle for the right to publish the work, and the Nobel committee would obviously be on your doorstep. Also, given the money being pushed around to address AGW, I'd think you'd have a moral imperative to publicize your work at the highest levels.
Finally, I'm curious. Total insolation has been flat or falling for fifty years, and before 1960 solar tracked surface temp fairly well. Yet system energy continues to accumulate quite rapidly. What's the mechanism if not the enhanced greenhouse effect?Please respond on the appropriate threads. There are plenty to choose from, and the regular posters watch the aggregate comment stream for new comments, so your responses won't be missed.
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william5331 at 06:51 AM on 14 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
The mechanisms for the reversal of the carbon absorption ability of the oceans are many. 1) we have made considerable areas of the oceans anaerobic, mainly where polluted rivers enter the sea. Anaerobic parts of the ocean absorb no Carbon dioxide but instead give it out 2) We are fast approaching temperatures and acidity in the tropical oceans which will stop the growth of corals and we are polluting and mechanically destroying coral. The skeletons of Coral and all other shell secreting organisms are 60.6 pecent Carbon dioxide. 3) We have destroyed the Whale pump which potentially could restore primary production in the oceans and absorb huge amounts of Carbon dioxide. 4) We have destroyed whole fisheries such as the Dogger Banks, the Grand Banks and the Tuna fisheries of the world -another place where carbon was once stored. The list goes on and on. The hope is that if we restored these systems, a great deal of carbon could be sucked out of the atmosphere.
http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2011/09/whale-poo.html
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Joel_Huberman at 05:53 AM on 14 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
Great article, but I think that the second sentence of the sixth paragraph should end with "Into the atmosphere" rather than "from the atmosphere".
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Tom Curtis at 05:12 AM on 14 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
Professor Tomkiewicz, I do not understand the basis for predicting a reversal in the oceanic carbon sink. With increased temperature, it is predicted that the Amazon may reduce from tropical rainforest to open woodland, or even savannah, which would account for the reversal of the land sink. It is not so obvious in the oceanic case, however.
Granted that increasing temperature reduces the ability of water to hold CO2. Based on the CO2 difference between LGM and current, however, that reduction increases atmospheric CO2 in the order of 20 ppmv per degree C. Allowing a 2 C increase by 2050, that still only represents a 40 ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2 ignoring human emissions.
Human emissions represent the other half of the equation. Surely with increased emissions, and hence increased CO2 concentration the equilibrium pCO2 in the ocean will increase. Does that not, therefore, mean that the partial absorption of excess CO2 by the ocean will continue into the future, albeit at a reduced rate?
What am I missing here?
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PluviAL at 04:03 AM on 14 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
Susinct speech and thought are such a high art, achieved only with the greatest diligence and honesty. This simple argument is so powerful, yet it had never occurred to me before with such clarity.
It is from such simple clarity that solutions to civilization's energy dilema will arise. It should not anger us when the answer springs from such simplicity. We must find an answer. When we do we must embrace it with open minds.
Pluvinergy
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Tom Curtis at 03:34 AM on 14 July 2013There is no consensus
Old Sage @552:
1) Your description of how the atmospheric greenhouse effect works is inaccurate; and the inaccuracy means your argument against it is a strawman.
2) Heat transfer by convection is taken into account in models of the greenhouse effect, and have been since 1964. They work out numerically the actual effect of convective heat transfer on surface tempertures, wereas your "calculation" consists of mere handwaving. Your criticism is therefore (at best) 39 years out of date.
3) The impact of CO2 on Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) has been predicted by Line by Line Radiation models with extraordinary accuraccy and observed from space. That CO2 reduces the OLR in the frequencies at which it absorbs is, therefore, beyond doubt. On pain of violating the first law of thermodynamics, it follows that at other frequencies the OLR must be increased to compensate, and the only way to do that is to have a higher surface temperature.
These points are discusses in some detail here (complete with car radiator analogy). If you are serious about discussing this topic, go there - read and respond there where the discussion is on topic and where readers can easilly sea the counter argument to your position. Of course, I suspect that like most deniers you will prefer to violate the comments policy by continuing the discussion here where it will derail the thread, and were casual readers will not only see your arguments, but the counter arguments. (I think the intellectual cowardice implicit in the latter is why so few deniers trotting out their arguments on this site actually post on threads where their comments are on topic.)
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citizenschallenge at 02:47 AM on 14 July 2013Charles Krauthammer's flat-earther global warming folly
Thanks SkS for your Reposting policy - thanks Dana, another great article -
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://whatsupwiththatwatts.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-about-enablers-of-denial-machine.html
my intro:
What about the enablers of the denial machine?
There is simply no keeping up with the nonsense the Republican power-politic global warming denial machine keeps churning out. But, what I find most disheartening is that the endless flow of calculatedly deceptive stories are exactly what the Republican general public and politicians demand to hear.
These are the enablers and they countenance no objectivity or doubt. The Republican and Tea Party public expect to be assured that the 1950s haven't ended... they reject introspection, and serious scientific investigation, while refusing to face real world challenges barreling down on us - rejecting tons worth of legitimate information with a passionate anger.
It's as though they couldn't careless about what scientists are actually learning - all they want is soothing bromides that justify their willful ignorance regarding the state of our one and only home planet. In step the likes of Krauthammer, etc.
For all appearances this public has abandoned critical thinking skills and the pursuit of genuine learning - in favor of Holly-world storytelling where facts are selected and adjusted to the needs of the story teller's plot... in this case, that Reaganomics principles reign supreme over all other considerations and that we can disregard our Earth's processes.
Unfortunately, we live on a real planet, a miraculous planet, like no other. Yes, climate has always changed... we also know our climate has been in a few thousands year old "goldilocks zone" enabling a complex society to thrive.
Why then, can't Republicans realize that means this wonderful rare climatic era is most precious and needs to be protected?
~ ~ ~This bit of venting was prompted by Charles Krauthammer's recent ridiculous commentary. Fortunately, Dana Nuccitelli has written an excellent review which is available for reposting. Thank you Dana and the rest of the SkepticalScience team.
======================
cheers,
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Klaus Flemløse at 02:25 AM on 14 July 2013Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
How is it possible for Mörner to take the "dry land"-picture ?
My guess: at spring tide togehther with strong wind so that the water is blown a way !
Remarks: se post #62
The famous tree is aprox. 4 meter tall.
The oval stone is aprox 3/4 meter
The concrete block i aprox 2 meter - could be in connection with a road to the shore
The famous tree i aprox. 6 meter from the shore
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old sage at 02:18 AM on 14 July 2013There is no consensus
Oh deary me, how can so many be so wrong:
Having taken a physicist's look at the AGW discourse, I couldn't help trying to work out where the flaw lies in the Greenhouse gas theory - I note it has moved on now beyond co2 to virtually every other gas with an ir absorption line! The flaw is that the amount of energy loss by radiation from the earth's surface has been wildly over estimated to a significance it does not have. The reasoning is as follows:
1) Long established by theory and measurement we have values for thermal conductivity of gases at STP. Typical experiment has two horizontal parallel plates too close to allow convection and a temperature gradient. The correction for the contribution from radiation is about 5%. (Physics text books)
2) Natural convection has been well established to obey certain rules for all gases (monatomic, diatomic etc). For air, at 300 deg. K it effectively doubles the conductivity values established in 1 above.
3) Forced convection - the situation at the earth's surface - is where I make an informed guess. My old car boils if left idling for ten minutes with the fan off, at 30 mph, where the engine is dissipating at least ten times the energy, it is as cool as a cucumber. Perhaps the average wind at the earth's surface is less, but to bend over as far backwards as possible in favour of the GG fanatics, lets say it multiplies cooling by a factor of five rather than ten.
That means, as my experience as a designer, builder and operator of cryostats taking temperature down to within a degree of absolute zero tells me, the proportion of heat energy radiating from the earth's surface is one two hundredth of the loss by kinetic transfer into atmospheric gases.
4) Of this small proportion an even smaller proportion of the spectrum will find molecules with which to resonate. Whether the excited molecule simply exchanges energy with the surface or suffers a collision transfering to kinetic energy is neither here nor there, because the upshot is it will make an immaterial difference to the total energy transfer.
5) Contrast this with the situation at the edge of space where very hot molecules become ionised and each and every single one of them that moves then becomes a e/m radiator losing its kinetic energy in the process. This is where the business of transforming kinetic into radiant energy takes place, it is the lower world's ultimate heat sink.
We inhabit the coolant of an enclosed air-cooled machine, the heat source, the sun (and man), the heat sinks comprise moving media - the oceans - the poles and the unlit side of the earth. But, there must be another sink which provides a route out by radiation. Just as the sun's surface temperature determines the solar spectrum, so does the surface skin - the upper atmosphere ionised shell- of the atmosphere.
Given the cornucopia of errors associated with the diminishing returns of surface generated radiation, I'm not sure I trust the 30% of solar energy said to be reflected, it might well be more as the ionic activity seems never to have been worked out and this would affect the calibration. In that case, the proportion participating in the earth's climate system is correspondingly less. That makes man's additional energy input of 5x10^20 joules p.a., and increasing, all the more serious. No wonder there is a push to claw this energy back out by windfarms - I think the real physicists around know that carbon driven AGW is bunkum. The villain is conspicuous energy generation by mankind and who wants to admit that? Lets hope the mechanism radiating from earth doesn't get too far behind events lower down and let atmospheric vigour get too out of hand.
Moderator Response:[TD] As Tom Curtis pointed out, your comment is entirely off topic for this thread. One of the great values of the Skeptical Science site is its division of information into fairly tidy themes so that it is easy for people to find the information they want. For your main argument, it is necessary for you to post your comments on other threads, the best one being the one Tom Curtis pointed you to. Regarding your contention that waste heat is responsible for most of the warming, read and then comment on the post It's Waste Heat.
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Joel-Snape at 00:43 AM on 14 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
That's a nice visual representation of the carbon-cycle, if a tiny bit old. The amount of carbon accumulating in the atmosphere today is actually closer to 4 gigatonnes/year - which works out at about 2ppmv/year. I don't think anyone knows for sure where the tipping-point is - lots of unanswered questions, but of course, the sinks are finite structures themselves and so they can't continue to absorb human CO2 at the current rate forever - something somewhere has to give eventually. Your article says that CO2 stays in the atmosphere for "many years", but of course the residence time for atmospheric CO2 is very short, what matters is the 'lifetime' or 'pertubation time' (the time it takes for atmospheric CO2 to return to its natural level). The Revelle factor, a chemical buffer, is probably one of the biggest factors in contributing to CO2's long lifetime, since it implies that the surface-ocean can only hold 10% of the anthropogenic CO2 that it dissolves (see IPCC's carbon-cycle) meaning that 90% of anthropogenic CO2 is simply swapping places with oceanic CO2, thereby providing a mechanism allowing CO2 to progressively build up in the atmosphere. So, despite CO2's very short residence, the lifetime is long, largely due to the Revelle Factor. I suspect (and it's nothing more than that) the tipping point for the oceans will be when the value of the Revelle Factor goes beyond 10.5. That's my prediction.
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chriskoz at 22:43 PM on 13 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
The link to Micha's book appears broken, pointing back to some unrelated ClimateChangeFork page. This is the correct link.
ClimateChangeFork has lots of interesting articles dating back to April 2012. Well written in a very clear and simple language. I like that blog as the basic climate science teaching tool, worth following. E.g. the CC pictures above are brilliantly simple, down to the essence required.
Response:[JC] Fixed, thanks for the heads up.
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Tom Curtis at 22:09 PM on 13 July 2013Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
The following is my description of the composite picture shown by Klause:
"The main picture is the Google Earth picture from 5/3/2005. I have circled in red the probable former location of Morner's Tree. I say former because the tree is clearly no longer in that location. Further, it is clearly not one of the nearby trees, none of which would allow the view north north-east from that point to the ferry terminal as shown in the picture Morner sent you (picture A). Pictures B and C are screenshots from the video, showing respectively the view to the south east and the view of Male to the east.
The remaining three photos were uploaded to Google Earth (photographer and date shown on photos). Photo D shows the view from Villingili Beach back to the point on which the tree was located. Photo E shows the view from the beach to Male at low tide. Photo F shows an arial view north west towards Villingili."
Pictures A to C strongly restrict the possible locations of the tree. If the tree had been located significantly far from the red circle, it would not have been possible to establish the sight lines shown. That is particularly the case for picture A.
Picture D is also very interesting. It is the view back from the beach, and while it might be possible to miss a scrubby tree from the arial photos due to a grainy image, from ground level looking back an isolated tree would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Clearly the tree has now been washed away.
Also of interest is the following earlier arial photograph showing Villingili prior to the development of the modern port, and redevelopment of the ferry port and terminal. It shows the ferry terminal with a red roof, just as it has in picture A. That suggest that the development occurred after 2003 when Morner took picture A, but prior to February 2005, when it shows up clearly and complete on Google Earth.
We now have several genuinely authentic picture of the tree, and one photoshopped picture. Given the location of the tree in the genuine pictures, I am frankly puzzled by the photoshopping. Certainly little was gained by it. We also have definitive evidence that a tree, isolated in the intertidal zone in 2003 had washed away by 2005. That it was in the intertidal zone to begin with strongly suggests it was a survivor from a period of significant erosion, and that it was washed away at last demolishes it as evidence that the sea levels were not rising. So in the end, all Morner has is evidence that if you are selective about timing with regards to tides, and angles of shots, you can make a tree look further from, or closer to sea level. And that gullible people will accept this as evidence uncritically.
Other than that, the tree merely stands (pun intended) as proof that Morner is not to be trusted to deal honestly with the evidence.
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revolution at 21:07 PM on 13 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
An interesting article about climate modeling from nature.com
http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-forecast-for-2018-is-cloudy-with-record-heat-1.13344
short link http://bit.ly/10Owcrq
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Klaus Flemløse at 19:43 PM on 13 July 2013Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
Here is the Google Earth of Viligili Island west of Malé. The location of the tree is at the south east corner of the island. By comparing the picture and using Google Earth I think it is the only possible place for the famous tree.
In addition to this, Malé can be seen through the tree in Doomeday Called Off at 7 minutes and 42 seconds.
Thanks to Tom Curtis for these pictures.
There is a stone reef along the east cost of Viligili Island. This reef at low tide is probably used by Mörner as the "dry land"-picture shown earlier !!!
I have tried to find the tree, the oval stone and the concrete block close to the tree, but I can find them. Please try to find them by your self on Google Earth.
The pictures and Doomsday Called off are take on different dates. I can't identify the dates. The pictures in Doomsday Called Off is probably taken in North-South direction. Hint: look at the tree and the oval stone.
If I am correct about the location in addition to photo shopping, it is also a case of photo manipulation not telling the location og dates.
In a scientific field study I think location, map and date for pictures must present.
Lars Oxfelt Mortensen - the producer of Doomday Called of - is in respect of the Maldivian tree almost clean. He has shut the sequence about the tree. Since the film is a documentary date, time and location ought to be on the fil.
I would be pleased if my findings can be veryfied.
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Rob Honeycutt at 15:57 PM on 13 July 2013Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
This double exposure claim is the funniest thing I think I've read in a long time. It was ridiculous enough already to try to pass of such a poor Photoshop job as the real thing. It's freaking hilarious to try to claim that it was a double exposure.
Morner's work is providing great momentum to my investments in head vice manufacturing companies.
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Tom Dayton at 13:03 PM on 13 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Yeah, Rob, I noticed other oddities about Videre's writing. Sort of an inconsistent hybrid of a young teenager, a wide-eyed adult, and a denier. For example, there are the failures to understand or even notice the most obvious and straightforward concepts in the posts and in our responses, yet detailed attention to and calculations of forcings. But I decided to take him/her at face value, because I don't want to act like a Wattsian, and because lurkers might learn from my responses. Nonetheless, I'm about out of patience....
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bill4344 at 12:30 PM on 13 July 2013Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
'Double exposure'!? Give me a break! As a semi-pro I'm backing what Phil and Tom are saying.Also, I'm confused. Surely, Klaus at #62, that cannot be the 'original' photo? Just try matching the composition, shadows, lighting and clouds. (Well, you won't! That's the point.) It may be the 'original' tree...And you really have to wonder at the competence of people who'd uproot a tree to 'demolish evidence' and then leave it lying around to be restored - remarkably restored, in fact - don't you? -
Rob Honeycutt at 10:44 AM on 13 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre made this passing statement: "...and wasn’t a peer reviewed paper so I looked at the IPCC last out report, I think its called AR4, which came out in 2007,.."
Given the level of detail in each of his questions, to claim that he "thinks" 2007 IPCC report is called "AR4" strikes me as a huge red flag.
I would put forth that Videre is not someone who is at all curious or skeptical. He's another fake skeptic thinking he can come to SkS to poke holes in the science, which he clearly does not understand.
Videre, you need to come clean here. Everyone here are more than willing to discuss the science with you but you need to be honest in your discussion. No one here wants to talk to someone who is feigning curiousity.
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Tom Curtis at 09:59 AM on 13 July 2013Nils-Axel Mörner is Wrong About Sea Level Rise
A minor note - Klause Flemlosse has been following up on this issue, and located the probable location of the tree. Comparison of arial photos of the area shows the Morner's tree to have been washed away by 2005. I guess that would be due to the lack of erosion due to the falling sea levels Morner has discovered /sarc.
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Icarus at 09:10 AM on 13 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
I recall reading that the terrestrial carbon sink will fail (i.e. instead become a source) by 2050, and the ocean carbon sink by 2100 (presumably under a 'business as usual' scenario). Also there was a study which concluded that 2013 is the last year in which we have any realistic chance of starting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to avert a self-sustaining permafrost carbon feedback. With decades of warming in the pipeline even from today's anthropogenic climate forcing, and CO2 emissions rising faster than ever, it seems to me that there's no chance of avoiding a 'tipping point' without geo-engineering.
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Tom Curtis at 06:14 AM on 13 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre @71, an important trick in science is knowing how to test a theory.
Take special relativity as an example, it has an effect at all velocities, so in principle you could measure the time distortion of two trains passing each other in opposite directions with a relative velocity of 33.33 m/s (100 Km/hour). Even with the most accurate atomic clocks, however, your margin of error would be large. In fact, an equivalent experiment using aircraft only measured time dilation to an accuracy of about 10%, although later repetitions showed an accuracy to within 1.6%.
Alternatively, you could use an Ives-Stilwell experiment, which constrains the error to one millionth of 1%.
A critique of special relativity (and they do exist) who argued that special relativity had been poorly confirmed based on the 10% error margin of the first experiment, while ignoring the existence of the second would not be taken seriously. Yet that is the equivalent to what you have done.
You argue that the rise in CO2 could have a natural source, quoting the large error in measurements of natural fluxes. In doing so, however, you ignore the 2% error in measurement of C14 levels, which show categorically that ocean outgassing or decline in vegetation are not the source of the recent growth in CO2; or the 1.5% error in measurements of C13, which show categorically that volcanoes are not the source. Combined, with an error of around 2%, all natural sources are exlcuded by these two sets of observations - but that, apparently is irrelevant to you.
As to being offended, I am not offended but tired. Tired of the continuous misrepresentation of science by so-called "skeptics"; and tired of purported honest enquirers who show by their actions that they are anything but.
If you are an honest enquirer, you will take a step by step approach to gaining knowledge. You will start with something very basic and ask specific questions about parts of the evidence or argument you do no understand - not in great screeds of text which are likely (designed?) to discourage response, and raising so many issues that many are likely to be ignored - but by short simple questions. One question at a time.
And while you are working through the examples, you are not so arrogant as to believe that issues you can think of in a few seconds with a very limited knowledge of the subject have escaped the attention of the thousands of climate scientists who have spent lifetimes studying the issue in a profession in which careers are made by pointing out the errors of others. Instead you have the humility to realize that if the issue has occurred to you, it has probably been raised and answered before, and you are simply not aware of that fact. And given that humility, you give the climate scientists, rather than bloggers like A Watts (who, lets face it, are in the same position as you in respect to climate science), the benefit of the doubt until you have studied the issue in sufficient detail that you know not only the popular explanation of the issue, but also the historical and current scientific discussion of it.
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KK Tung at 06:10 AM on 13 July 2013The anthropogenic global warming rate: Is it steady for the last 100 years? Part 2.
Thank you, MA Rodger, for your additional comments. I will take a look at this thread more carefully this weekend before replying.
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Tom Dayton at 06:09 AM on 13 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre, in your point #2 you wrote "And I guess if the greenhouse effect traps the energy, while it might not go runaway, if it was high in the millions of years past and still the temperature went down and up and down then is there something else going on too that either gets rid of heat and traps it? Its just weird that if the greenhouse effect traps energy that it wouldn’t just keep trapping energy in the past."
The amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere varies as a consequence of variations in the natural sources and sinks of greenhouse gases. An example is the increase in CO2 that is a consequence of Milankovich orbital cycles; when the amount of CO2 increases, the greenhouse effect is strengthened. But there are natural sinks of CO2, which means there are natural mechanisms for removing CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) from the atmosphere. If the amount of CO2 removed by the sinks is greater than the amount added by the sources, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere decreases, which weakens the greenhouse effect. An example is that a major cause of glacial periods ("ice ages") is the Milankovich orbital cycles going the other way than they do when they end a glacial period. As the Sun's rays become less perpendicular to the Northern Hemisphere's surface, the amount of the Sun's energy hitting the ground decreases, which allows ice and snow to remain on the ground longer and to cover more area, which reflects more sunlight, which allows even more ice and snow to exist, which causes cooling of the land, air, and oceans. Cooler oceans can contain more CO2, so the oceans become less of a source of CO2 for the atmosphere, and eventually become cool enough to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, which weakens the greenhouse effect.
But even more important for you to understand is that CO2 is not the only driver of temperature. If you have questions about that, it is important that you comment on that thread, not this one.
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Tom Dayton at 05:36 AM on 13 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre, I responded on the more appropriate thread (CO2 lags temperature) to your point #2 from one of your comments on this thread.
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Tom Dayton at 05:31 AM on 13 July 2013CO2 lags temperature
Videre, you stated on a different thread in your point #2: "the lag problem crops up again because if CO2 lags temperature then it just seems something else traps energy too to start the temperature going up." No, that is not necessary, as you would know if you actually read this post on the lag so you understand the mechanism, instead of just glancing at the post. The Milankovich orbital forcing of warming causes more energy to enter the Northern Hemisphere (while reducing the energy entering the Southern Hemisphere) because the Sun's rays enter closer to perpendicular to the Earth's surface in the Northern Hemisphere. That causes melting of ice and snow, which by leaving bare ground more of the time causes more energy to be absorbed by the ground ("trapped" in a different way than CO2 "traps" energy). But that's not sufficient to tip the whole system into serious warming. The main mechanism is explained in this post, which you should read carefully. Note that there are both a Basic tabbed pane and an Intermediate tabbed pane. Details are in another post on Shakun et al.'s work.
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keithpickering at 05:10 AM on 13 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
It has also recently been reported (Ramirez et. al. 2013) that the inner edge of the habitable zone for Earth is only about 0.99 AU, or just 99% of our current orbital distance. Any closer, and water begins to disassociate in the stratosphere, leading to hydrogen loss and eventual drying of the oceans.
We're already close to the edge.
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Videre at 04:57 AM on 13 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Thanks that helps a lot. I guess quantum field theory is pretty complicated and probably people pretty much agree lots of it isn’t established for sure. I guess that’s a case where the science isn’t settled. I guess maybe they can test hypotheses for simple stuff like electrons moving fast around atoms and all and even way down to parts per billion, no factors or two or anything. But like in relativity guys have this hypothesis that the end result of something happening is completely predictable by a forcing function, like the mass or the velocity. Or the acceleration. Then they do an experiment like flying something fast like a particle or a clock and then measure the result and it just confirms the whole hypothesis within parts per billion, again no factors of two running around. I guess that’s what I meant. I think in relativity there is a whole lot of stuff going on where people think maybe there’s dark matter and that cosmological constant is either there or not, and I know they can guess some things happen in certain ways, but sometimes they don’t so I guess that part isn’t settled science. The part where they have some effects they think cause things but they can’t do experiments for sure so its not settled. In the evolution thing too it helps that the experiments on whole systems of organisms like E. Coli and be put into a controlled stress situation and observed over lots of generations and sure enough the hypothesis that gene frequencies change over time due to stress works out. That way like for all these other theories I guess they don’t deny or not deny anything they just make a hypothesis then do controlled observations and measure the results, and see if the hypothesis tests okay.
So I was just trying to compare the hypothesis that human production of CO2 forces temperatures up in the same way, like in this thread. You know, getting some kind of result that is the same as the other ones in settled science, where the confidence limits are really strong, for the whole end to end thing, and everything is connected by this really ironclad hypothesis. Like if you increase CO2 exactly by some amount and hold everything else constant, then the temperature goes up just the amount you predict just like you think. Prediction seems pretty important too. It’s pretty hard, I think, especially about the future. I just thought that was how it worked for the other theories in science.
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JasonB at 03:06 AM on 13 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre,
Quantum field theory is responsible for "the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics" by predicting a value for the cosmological constant that is over 100 orders of magnitude larger than that which is actually observed.
To put that into context, there are some 1080 electrons in the universe, from memory.
Compared to that, a factor of two "running around" is absolutely fantastic.
Evolution is actually very similar to AGW in terms of how it has been established as scientific fact. Hint: it's not by watching E. Coli or even birds evolve. And another: it's not surprising that many of the people who deny one also deny the other.
But I think you misunderstand why those factors of two exist. If you're talking about overall climate sensitivity (and not something quite well known, like the factor of two that the water vapour feedback has on CO2, which comes from those same physical thories and measurements), it's because we're dealing with a very noisy system where it's hard to make accurate measurements; in recent times, when we have accurate instruments, the signal is still small, whereas over longer periods of time, when the signal is large, we don't have access to accurate measurements. (Nevertheless, the tightest constraints on climate sensitivity remain those comparing glacials with interglacials because the signal is so large it doesn't matter so much.)
On top of that, it's likely that with all the complex interactions of the different parts of the system, the actual figure changes all the time.
But this doesn't mean that we haven't established the figure accurately enough to take action.
Consider you are driving at high speed towards a brick wall. You're not sure if you're going to hit it in five seconds or ten. Do you lament how difficult it is to judge distances accurately when travelling at high speed, or do you brake?
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Videre at 01:51 AM on 13 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Thanks that helps. Just trying to understand the science is all. Like Rob said above the standard is evolution and relativity and germ theory. I guess germs they observe all the time in controlled experiments and measure growth and infection rates to better than a percent and evolution I think people observed directly in germs like E. Coli and even saw birds or something evolving in a few years. And relativity, I think they tested relativity in experiments with clocks and lasers and its been tested to precisions like a part in a billion or better. And that means the theory checks out. If I look at the data and then links on here it just looks like the accuracies of the science for CO2 forcing has factors of two running all around which doesn’t seem to be the same as for evolution, relativity and germ theory. But I don’t know for sure.
But thanks for the help really. Sorry if anybody got offended ok. I think everybody here is just great help.
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wild monkeys at 00:39 AM on 13 July 2013Charles Krauthammer's flat-earther global warming folly
The page needs a mysterious plugin to display the video.
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Joel-Snape at 00:36 AM on 13 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
This is a nice and simple explanation of the greenhouse effect in action. The effective blackbody temperature of Earth when applying the Stefan-Boltzmann law is -18 or 255K and its observed temperature is 15C or 288K representing a temperature-disparity of 33K. This amounts to a huge 'radiative forcing' by the atmospheric greenhouse. in fact it amounts to 150.35W/sq.m. The idea that CO2's forcing is "small" I guess depends on your definition of `small'. Doubling atmospheric CO2 is enough to produce a radiative forcing of 3.7W/sq. thanks to thousands of line-by-line spectural computations by HITRAN, which even prominent climate skeptics such as Lindzen and Spence acknowledge is true and wholly. 3.7Wsq.m would result in an atmospheric warming of about 1.2C, with the rest accounted for by positive feedbacks inherent in the climate-system. This imples that CO2's direct warming would only need to be amplified by a mere 0.8C by feedbacks to take us to 2C, which is apparently dangerous territory for some scientists. I think skeptics such as the Sky Dragon Slayers could learn thing or two about the greenhouse with the Moon/Earth comparison. Spencer's illuminating saucepan anology and cooked chicken as a way of conceptually proving the existence of the radiative greenhouse effect is probably one of the best I've come across. You guys should do a similar thing.
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Tom Curtis at 22:00 PM on 12 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre @66:
1) To a first approximation, all energy on Earth comes from the Sun. That energy is then reradiated to space as thermal radiation (IR). The surface temperature required to balance the incoming energy depends on:
a) The amount of energy from the sun which is reflected (albedo);
b) The level in the atmosphere from which energy is radiated to space (the greenhouse effect); and
c) The distribution of heat on the Earth's surface.
The albedo is controlled by the presence and latitudes of snow and ice, the prevalence of clouds and by the prevalence of different types of vegetation. The natural greenhouse effect is controlled by the four major naturally occuring greenhouse gases, ie, H2O, CO2, O3 and CH4. The distribution of heat is controlled by the arrangement of the continents and milankovitch cycles. Variation of any of these factors can result in a change in the Top Of Atmosphere (TOA) energy balance, and hence of the surface temperature. In the face of that, saying that "its just weird that more energy was getting into the atmosphere at various times in the past even before the CO2 levels rose" is, quite frankly, silly.
As it happens, climate scientists have a pretty good idea as to what caused increased warming durring glacial epochs (change in the distribution of heat due to milankovitch cycles, which drove changes in albedo and CO2 and CH4 concentrations as a feedback). They also have a good idea of what those factors would be doing now without human intervention. Specifically, the milankovitch cycle would be cooling the Earth, driving an increase in ice and snow, and a reduction in CO2 and CH4 concentration as a feedback.
2) The entire basis of your second point seems to be the assumption that if increased CO2 traps more heat through the greenhouse effect, then it must over ride all other influences on the Earth's temperature so that countervailing factors cannot result in cooling. Or, to take a specific example, the fact that the CO2 forcing was sufficient for a 6.5 C increase in surface temperature 400 million years ago, would mean (by your logic) the fact that the sun was about 10% cooler that could not possible prevent that increase.
3) We do not know that the current CO2 increase is anthropogenic by measuring all natural fluxes and finding a shortfall. Rather, we have measured the human addition ot CO2 in the atmosphere, and found that less is staying in the atmosphere than we put there. It follows that nature is taking the shortfall out of the atmosphere. So, the error bars on our measurement of natural fluxes is irrelevant, because the error bars on our measurement of anthropogenic emissions are sufficiently small as to leave no doubt. IF you wish to learn, you need to stop constructing straw man versions of purported scientific arguments, and address the actual arguments used by scientists.
4) From table 2.12 of IPCC AR4, the sum of all forcings exluding long lived greenhouse gases is -1.24. The forcing from long lived greenhouse gases is 2.63, leaving a net forcing of 1.39 W/m^2 (just slightly greater than that of CO2 alone). CO2 is the largest single forcing, and the only anthropogenic forcing agent with a duration greater than a century. No other single forcing agent has even half the effect of CO2. Consequently your claim that, "it looks like the CO2 forcing is kind of small compared to the other effects" is pure bunkum.
On all four points it strikes me that you are not an earnest seeker after the truth of the matter, but somebody looking for any fact to twist out of context to avoid accepting the science. You are doing this before you even understand the science, and the result merely makes you look foolish.
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chriskoz at 20:17 PM on 12 July 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28A
Depending on your stance on fracking (called Coal Seem Gas down under) you may welcome or dislike this news:
Sydney water catchment fracking ruled out for now
Clearly, people who pushed for creation of new Dharawal National Park had this in mind. Not a word about impact on CO2 pollution though: CSG is better than coal but still bad, IMO.
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Videre at 18:07 PM on 12 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Thanks for the help. I guess I was trying to keep my focus on this thread and just looking at the data.
Scaddenp, I am sorry for coming back to this thread, but it was the moderator who directed me to those other threads as having the answers to my questions about this thread, but when I read the other threads, I just had more questions about this thread so I just posted my observations from those other threads into this thread where it was relevant. I am really trying to get a handle on the maint points of this thread and the information given in this thread.
So if I go down the main points in the summing part at the bottom of the thread with my questions I get something like this:
1. More energy is remaining in the atmosphere. See here when he sent me to the geological pages and the energy balance it looks like more energy has come into the atmosphere lots of times, I think one of the threads says it was astronomical changes like orbits and the sun. So it just looks like there are a lot of things that have and can cause more energy to be in the atmosphere. I mean when he directed me to the CO2 lagging thread, its just weird that more energy was getting into the atmosphere at various times in the past even before the CO2 levels rose.
2. The next is the mechanism by which energy can be trapped in the atmosphere. I guess this makes sense as being a mechanism that can do it, but then the lag problem crops up again because if CO2 lags temperature then it just seems something else traps energy too to start the temperature going up. And I guess if the greenhouse effect traps the energy, while it might not go runaway, if it was high in the millions of years past and still the temperature went down and up and down then is there something else going on too that either gets rid of heat and traps it? Its just weird that if the greenhouse effect traps energy that it wouldn’t just keep trapping energy in the past. The other thing about trapping the energy came up when I looked at the fourth point below.
3. The next one is CO2 increasing 50% in the past 150 years. When the moderator told me to look at the history and I had already looked at the data over millions of years, i think it went back to about 60 Ma, which I thought meant 60 million years, there were a lot of ups and downs, not just going up like doubling like Glenn said. Plus if the ocean temperature is going up and CO2 was going up because of the less solubility of CO2 in water I guess that could explain the CO2 rising now too, like it might have millions of years ago. It made it even worse when I looked at the CO2 balance thread the moderator directed me to where I saw those other ins and outs of CO2 were like about 10 or 20 times as big as the fossil fuel burning and land use. I know scaddemp said those much bigger CO2 sources were more or less balanced, but I thought error bars on measurements in climate science must be like 5 or 10 percent or even larger sometimes and that just a few percent of those big numbers would be a lot larger than the fossil fuel burning contribution to CO2.
4. So the last one I wondered about too, and it is about the energy being trapped in the atmosphere is exactly the energy captured by CO2. So I looked at the link to the conference poster of Evans in 2006 and it had the radiation measurements for all the greenhouse gases but it took out water and wasn’t a peer reviewed paper so I looked at the IPCC last out report, I think its called AR4, which came out in 2007, after the Evans poster. On page 141 in Chapter 2 there’s a Table 2.1 that shows the CO2 radiative forcing in 2005 was 1.66 W/m2 and all the other gases, not CO2, add up to about 0.77 W/m2 so CO2 is about 63% of the total of those gasses. But water still wasn’t in there so I looked on page 204 still in Chapter 2 at the Table 2.12, which gives all the radiative forcings. A lot of them are negative, like ozone and aerosols and all, so if I add up all the negative ones (a big one is the cloud albedo effect) I got negative forcings of -2.1 W/m2 and adding up the total of the positive ones, not CO2, I got a positive 1.35 W/m2. The uncertainties are pretty big on the numbers too so these numbers have intervals around them like a factor of two. So what confused me is that it looks like the CO2 forcing is kind of small compared to the other effects. Just the negative ones look like they can cancel out the CO2 effect. It just seemed weird that so many other effects are going on but somehow it’s for sure that CO2 is the dominant thing.
So anyway, I just wanted to look at the post and the information in it and try to understand the main points, which I thought were all about the empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming by increasing CO2, but wound up having a lot of questions. Sorry if I crossed the threads but I thought they all related to this one, plus I think the moderator pointed some of them out to me as helping understand this thread.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 17:29 PM on 12 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre
I would second Rob Honeycutt's comment.
Also, to help clarify your thinking, you talk about 'millions of years'. Be clearer in your own mind what time scale you are thinking about because different factors have different significance over scales of millions of years, 10's of millions and 100's of millions.
For example, over very large time scales 10's to 100's of millions of years, one needs to take account of the fact that the Sun wasn't as hot in the past and that higher CO2 concentrations in the past approximately compensate for this. Roughly speaking, every 150-200 million years that we look back in time, CO2 levels need to double, just to compensate for the cooler Sun.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:28 AM on 12 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre... You're asking good questions. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that just because you're coming up with questions that there are no answers.
All too often I've seen folks coming to comment on SkS asking many similar such questions thinking they're somehow figuring out "problems" with climate science. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What they are figuring out is that climate is a very complex area of science. This is also science that dates back to the 1820's and has been very intensely researched for many decades. Greenhouse gas theory is on equal footing with evolution, relativity and germ theory. That we are warming the planet through the combustion of fossil fuels is settled science. As with all theories there are areas we don't yet completely understand. Those areas we don't fully understand are highly unlikely to change the aspects of climate science that have been long settled.
You'd do well to spend some time reading through all the relevant posts here on SkS. And if the posts don't answer your questions fully, feel free to click through to the actual scientific research. Almost every article on this site has direct links to the relevant peer reviewed research.
Remember, most scientific research is being done by people who have dedicated their lives and careers to understanding the areas they're researching. When you come upon something that doesn't make sense to you, that means you're just coming upon something you don't yet understand, and need to understand better.
If you do find things that just aren't making sense to you, as scaddenp said, post a comment in the section of the relevant article. We all keep track of current comments, so your question won't get lost.
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scaddenp at 09:51 AM on 12 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre - it would be better if you put your questions in the relevant thread. Very very briefly (and if you have more then PLEASE respond in the right place):
- natural flows in and out are very large, but also more or less balanced. FF is changing that. If you messed significantly with natural flows, you would be trouble fast.
- CO2 and methane respond to change in temperature regardless of cause of change. They magnify (over very long time scales) any other forcing that changes temperature. Water vapour does same but more or less instantly. However, the feedback is not a runaway (k<<1) so equilibrium is reached. (see here for detail if you dont understand).
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Videre at 09:17 AM on 12 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
That’s great, thanks. I looked at the Global Carbon Cycle link. That’s really great. What I don’t understand is that all the other parts of the carbon cycle, like the vegetation and land and the oceans and rock weathering are more than10 times the size of the fossil fuel and land use source, and I guess if they only changed like 5 or 10% they could either decrease or increase the CO2 as much as the fossil fuel burning. So if its just the fossil fuel that makes all the difference, then do we need to assume that all those other much bigger effects are staying constant within a few percent?
Thanks for the link to the CO2 lag link too, but now I am more confused. It says that the initial rise in temperature was caused by astronomical things and then the ocean temperatures rose and CO2 then rose because it is less soluble in oceans if the temperature is higher. I guess that makes sense. But then does that mean that all those million years ago the same thing was going on? And I guess if the CO2 got released after the temperature went up in those long ago times and then started heating things up, I guess I don’t understand what stopped it. The other thing I guess is if the temperatures started going up and caused the CO2 to go up, how do we know that is not what’s happening now. I mean the ocean temperatures look like they are going up. How do we know, I mean from the data, that the CO2 rise in the atmosphere isn’t being caused by the rise in ocean temperature. I guess the other thing is if CO2 lagged temperatures in the past and then the greenhouse effect kicked things up a notch, so it should just keep going up. But if I look at the upper graph on the link, it looks like the temperature went up and then down a lot of times in the past 400 thousand years. So what I don’t get is, if the greenhouse effect kicks in and heats things up, then more CO2 gets released from the oceans, then more greenhouse effect kicks in, it seems like it should just keep going up and up? Or is there something else going on that is causing the temperatures to go up and down in thos 400 thousand years? And i guess if there was something else going and we dont know what it was, how do we know its not going on now?
Thanks for the info on plant and animal species. I guess I was most curious about the cause effect relation between CO2, temperature, and other climate factors.
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mandas at 08:53 AM on 12 July 2013Charles Krauthammer's flat-earther global warming folly
Chrisoz @9
Thanks for that. I didn't know the best place to post it, and I am happy for the mods to delete it. I just wanted to bring it to John Cook's attention.
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Tom Dayton at 08:39 AM on 12 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Videre, regarding your question #1: No one has claimed that 400 ppm or 1,000 ppm of CO2 are bad for life in general. But all individual species have evolved to thrive in certain environments, including a certain range of CO2 levels. When any aspect of their environment changes "slightly" and/or "slowly," individual animals and plants might be able to cope, and even if individuals cannot cope, their species might be able to evolve to cope. But if some aspects of their environment change "too much" and/or "too fast," individual animals cannot cope well or at all, and species cannot evolve fast enough to avoid extinction. Making the whole thing even more precarious are the interdependencies of plant and animal species. If just one species' numbers fall, or if their characteristics or behavior change, a large number of other species can be affected even to the point of extinction. The big problem for us and all other current life is that CO2 is rising so fast that many species cannot evolve or move or otherwise adapt fast enough to the temperature and other climate changes, or to the ocean chemistry changes. For some examples, see the post It's Not Bad, and be sure to read all three tabbed panes (Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced).
Regarding increased CO2 increasing plant growth and using less water: Yes, there are some benefits at some levels of CO2 increase for some plants. But it is not a uniform benefit across all levels of CO2 or plants. And increased growth of crops often means the extra growth goes into of the parts of the plants that humans don't use, such as woody stalks of plants whose leaves and fruit we eat. More importantly, increased CO2 does not come by itself; it causes climate changes such as increased temperature and changed precipitation patterns, and ocean acidification that detrimentally affects fish, coral, and even vast numbers of microscopic creatures on which other creatures in the food pyramid depend.
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william5331 at 06:39 AM on 12 July 2013Charles Krauthammer's flat-earther global warming folly
Fair enough Mr Kraut-hammer. You don't beleive in climate change so forget climate change. Look at the damage you are doing to your country which has nothing to do with climate change.
http://mtkass.blogspot.co.nz/2010/10/forget-climate-change.html
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