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supak at 08:41 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
@DSL, yeah, the Intrade markets were set up at .45, .55, .65, and .75 markets. I went long on them all, and did well, but I would have raked it in last month because I'd have been increasing bets every month on the higher ends until they paid off. You could get .65s for around a dollar a share usually.
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supak at 08:35 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
I emailed Mr. Michaels, and managed to get him to agree to a bet. But he won't use GISTEMP. He wants to use CRU. Any advice on the bet? I used to win a lot at Intrade on betting GISS and ICE, so I'm hoping to structure an even money bet on a reasonably marker of what he calls ""...a pretty good bet that we are going to go nearly a quarter of a century without warming."
Any suggestions are welcome, in order to help me resume my denier's tax.
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KR at 07:54 AM on 15 July 2013It's waste heat
old sage - "...an informed guess"
Why guess? Trenbert et al 2009 is a fine place to start, to look at actual (measured) numbers for convection, evaporation, radiation, etc.:
I consider this particular diagram a basic starting point for energy balance discussions, regardless of whether or not you agree with all the numbers listed.
Thermals (convection) account for some 17 W/m2 leaving the Earths surface, evaporation/transpiration another 80, and IR radiation the majority at ~396 W/m2. The references on that paper (as well as similar works) lead directly to descriptions of how these quantities were measured.
That heating of the near-surface atmosphere results in an IR emission of ~333 W/m2 back to the Earth (again, a measured quantity). Absorption of IR at GHG frequencies occurs within a few 10's of meters at sea level - the effective radiating altitude (high up, much cooler) where emitted IR can escape to space is where GHG concentrations drop to a density allowing that escape.
Convection indeed has an important role - radiative transfer isn't terribly effective in comparison to convection/evaporation, and the convection in the troposphere allows much more of that near-surface energy to reach effective radiating altitudes - without convection the GHG would make the Earth much much warmer.
On the other hand, without GHGs and near-surface atmospheric radiation, all of the IR radiated from the surface would travel directly to space - 240 W/m2 from the surface, rather than the atmosphere as a whole. And that would correspond to a radiating suface temperature of about -18C, some 33C cooler than present.
"...tell that to the fairies!" - Looking magnitudes, 2.9 W/m2 imbalance from atmospheric change is roughly 100x the 0.031 W/m2 from our energy release. Waste heat is therefore a near-trivial influence on current warming. I would suggest you listen to the measurements rather than your intuition. And note that Arguments from Incredulity are a logical fallacy; the actual data disagrees with your statements.
---
In short: Your estimates are wrong, the numbers show otherwise. Waste heat is a trivial influence with respect to GHG changes, convection is more than 15x smaller than radiation in terms of energy, GHGs don't need to be ionized plasma to radiate, and there is no missing energy sink. There is, in fact, absolutely nothing correct about your last post - all of your (qualitative, I'll note, not numeric) claims are contradicted by the data. I would suggest doing some reading before making additional claims (as you have been) that all of the science is wrong.
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scaddenp at 07:32 AM on 15 July 2013It's waste heat
Old sage, as others have indicated, you are working from an absurdly incorrect understanding of what greenhouse house assets. It has nothing whatsoever to do with conductive properties, and everything to do with radiative properties of the gas. These are lab determined, first observed by Arrhenius. Downwelling radiation is also something that you measure (so you can check observation against theory). Your arguments are a nonsense strawman - a argument about something that science does not claim. You need to read up on what radiative physics actually asserts and how it is experimentally verified before trying to continue a conversation. I would recommend this excellent series for the text book background to the subject.
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gws at 06:18 AM on 15 July 2013IPCC is alarmist
Andrewwii, when studying climate topics and associated facts, try not to view or read individual statements out of the larger context (note also that the video is pasted together from a longer one). It is easy to cherry-pick a single statement taken out of context and get confused by it, or even take it to mean somebody is dishonest or similar.
In this particular case, we are talking about a rise from a preindustrial level of 280 ppm to today's 400 ppm in roughly 200 years (average 1.2 ppm per year, accelerating; currently 2 ppm/yr). In that video, Michael Mann refers to the last time the CO2 level was that high (several million years ago) and how much time it took then to change average levels by roughly as much (e.g. by 100 ppm), "10s of millions of years" (long-term average data here). Taking an average slope (ppm CO2 change over time) from that graph over the last 100 million of years gives roughly 10 ppm/million years ((1300-300) / 100), so about a 5th to a 10th of a million times as fast as today. If you take a shorter period, say only the last 30 million years, the slope is less, nearly matching what Mann referred to.
So you see, it is easy to accuse him of saying something wrong. Human nature. It is more difficult though to stand back, look at the bigger picture, ask a clarifying question if possible, and avoid taking things out of context. So thanks for asking.
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old sage at 05:50 AM on 15 July 2013It's waste heat
This thread starts off with the assertion that GHG's warm the earth to the extent of 2.9 w/m2 compared with .031 generated by man. (according to my calculation using 2012 energy output). Quite a straightforward calculation shows that .031 equates to raising the entire mass of the earth's atmosphere by 1/10th deg p.a. So GHG's raise it by 10 degrees p.a. - tell that to the fairies! The amount of energy dissipated by radiation from the earth's surface is a tiny fraction of that by conduction, convection (natural) and forced as the following basic physics illustrates:
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.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.Moderator Response:[TD] At least you are on some other thread than the one you started on. But the bulk of this comment by you belongs not on the waste heat thread, but on the other thread that Tom Curtis pointed you to earlier. Before you comment on that other thread, you really, really should read the orginal post there.
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DSL at 05:49 AM on 15 July 2013IPCC is alarmist
Tough to say, Andrewii. While it's true that CO2 hasn't increased as rapidly as present in at least 300 million years, it would take some selectivity to make the math come out right on "1,000,000 times faster." For example, we could find a period where CO2 advanced 120ppm over the course of 150,000,000 years. Such a period might be found if one used the right analysis (e.g COPSE). Then one could say, "We've put up 120ppm in 150 years, one million times as fast as in period x." Or one could go the other route and find a much shorter period with a much more neutral trend. Without knowing the comparison period, it's hard to say what Mann is referring to.
It's hard to be alarmist with the rate of CO2. As Honisch et al. point out, it's possible there's no precedent for the current rate of increase. -
DSL at 05:29 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
BTW, GISS L-OTI anomaly has been updated: .68. That's the second warmest June in the instrumental period, after 1998 (during the peak of the big 97/98 El Nino). No El Nino to help out. Seven of the eighteen warmest months in the instrumenal period that have exceeded June 2013 occurred in El Nino conditions. The first six months of 2013 have all been above .5. That's happened four other times: 1998 (El Nino), 2005, 2007, and 2010 (El Nino). ENSO MEI for June is neutral at best.
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Daniel Bailey at 04:30 AM on 15 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
@ Earthling:
Huber and Knutti (2011) quantified that human attribution as being 74% and 122% due to humans (with a best estimate of around 100% human attribution). In other words, natural variability is not responsible for the observed warming trend.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n1/abs/ngeo1327.htmlSince then, Gillett et al (2012) also examined the human attribution of the warming trend observed. They found that humans are responsible for 102% of observed warming from 1851 to 2010 and 113% of the observed warming from 1951 to 2000 and 1961 to 2010 (averaged together).
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2011GL050226.shtmlAnd Sedláček & Knutti (2012) examined ocean and atmosphere warming to ascertain whether recent global warming is consistent with natural variability, or with external forcing (i.e unrelated to internal variability of the climate system). They found that both computer simulations and historical observations are incompatible with natural variability as a possible cause of ocean warming. I.e., natural factors/cycles are not the cause of the ongoing warming we can see and measure.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012GL053262/abstractAnd Jones et al (2013) concludes that greenhouse gases have caused between 100% and 200% of the observed global surface warming over the past 60 years, and other human influences (primarily aerosols) have offset a significant percentage of that warming via cooling effects. Natural temperature influences have had a very slight cooling effect, and natural internal variability appears to have had a fairly significant cooling effect over the past decade, but little temperature influence over longer timeframes.
The results of this study are consistent with the wide body of evidence supporting the settled science that human greenhouse gas emissions are the dominant cause of the current global warming.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jgrd.50239/abstractEdit: Please read Dana's summary post for a more in-depth treatment:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/a-comprehensive-review-of-the-causes-of-global-warming.html
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andrewii at 03:59 AM on 15 July 2013IPCC is alarmist
Woops, forgot the link: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/05/michael-mann-hockey-stick-climate-desk-live
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andrewii at 03:58 AM on 15 July 2013IPCC is alarmist
Hi all,
This may be a dumb question, but I'm wondering if someone could clear up my confusion about the rate of change in CO2 concentrations we're seeing today vs. the rate at which they've varied in the past.
In this video, Michael Mann states that the rates today are changing a million times faster than what we've seen in the past, but this article above states that "atmospheric CO2 is increasing ten times faster than any rate detected in ice core data over the last 22,000 years."Thanks for your help,
Andrew
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Tom Curtis at 03:31 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
Ray @9,
1) The Australian newspaper says that Pauchauri agrees there has been no temperature increase over the last few years. That is dubious in that it is not true, and it is not what Pauchauri typically says on the issue. The Australian will not release transricpts of the interview to verify its claim, so it is likely that they have misrepresented some related comment by Pauchauri. The most typical misrepresentation in this sort of case is misrepresenting "the rise in temperature has not been statistically significant" as "there has been no rise in temperature".
2) NOAA claims a sea level rise of 2.9 mm/ year, with the most recent period being greater than that:
NOAA notes that adding the global isostatic adjustment would raise that rate of sea level rise by between 0.2 and 0.5 mm/year.
I note, however, that you are prepared to cherry pick data to create a misleading impression.
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vrooomie at 03:31 AM on 15 July 20132013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #28A
I'd hit the "Like" button, if it were here!
Fracking is also used extensively in my home county, where there over 15 *thousand* oil and gas wells. It's also employed in oils wells, as well as CSG.
Folks around the Marcellus shale--NYC, the biggest population --are also fighting this method of draining every damn drop of oil, and molecule of natural gas.
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rockytom at 03:29 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
Concerning Michaels' claim to be "state climatologist of Virginia" there is no "State Climatologist" of Virginia.
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vrooomie at 03:24 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
Ray, you state, "Several comments from Dr Pauchauri such as that there has been no warming for 17 years..."
Please show the credible source of that alleged remark. I'll wager it doesn't exist. Secondly, sea levels do continue to rise. :Please link to the credible source that supports your assertion that they do not.
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Ray at 03:11 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
Several comments from Dr Pauchauri such as that there has been no warming for 17 years and that discussion of the science is essential suggest that all the forecasts from the IPCC may not be set in stone. For example sea level rises from IPCC are 3.1mm/year; data from NOAA for 2005-2012 is 1.1-1.3 mm/year which is a bit less than half. NOAA values from satellite altimentry and ARGO. Latter values actually about 0.3mm/year but a "correction factor" by NOAA of 0.9mm/year increases ARGO values. With error bars min and max values from NOAA are 0.2 -2.2mm/year quite different from IPCC. Is NOAA wrong? And why, if global temperature is increasing and ice melt is increasing, why are current increases in sea level rises not increasing also?
Moderator Response:[DB] "Several comments from Dr Pauchauri such as that there has been no warming for 17 years"
Please furnish a linked to a reputable source directly quoting Dr Pachauri on this. An approved transcript and/or unedited video will suffice. Until then this claim is unsupported and off-topic in this thread.
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citizenschallenge at 02:52 AM on 15 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
I've been on a roll and should pull back - but this is too good not to share
Reposted at:
Consensus part 2 - The Empirical Evidence
http://citizenschallenge.blogspot.com/2013/07/consensus-part-2-empirical-evidence.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thanks, :-)
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barry1487 at 02:26 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
citizenschallenge,
I'm not aware of any studies of Antarctic sea ice thickness. Latest results on the increase in extent point to changing wind patterns, but no one really knows why it happening.
Also from FAR;
All models produce a warming; of the Earth's surface and troposphere (lower atmospheie) and a cooling of the stratosphere.
Confirmed over the satellite record (from 1979).
You can find other predictions at the source (Chapter 5).
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citizenschallenge at 01:39 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
Oh and about that surface snow/ice increases, doesn't that have a lot to do with more moisture in the air, warmer ocean temps, more snow fall...
and such dynamics that have been directly influenced by global warming?
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kmalpede at 01:36 AM on 15 July 2013Climate Change and the Nature of Science: The Carbon “Tipping Point” is Coming
When Dr. James Hansen spoke after the reading of my play "Extreme Whether" in April, he made a similar point about well-meaning, intellligent people who can't "see" global warming and suggest we wait until we can. Our climate crisis presents a problem with the imagination as much as with conveying the science: how can we imagine the future so we can act in our defense before it is too late. In that regard, the play "Extreme Whether" will have another public reading, September 10 at 2pm at the Cherry Lane Theater in New York City, followed by a talk by Dr. Jennifer Francis--at that point, in Sept., this year's Arctic ice melt should be at its peak.
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citizenschallenge at 01:35 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
Regarding #2 Antarctic sea ice should decline.
"surface area" may be increasing... but just as with the Arctic, the thinning of ice says more than the "extent" of short-term winter ice.
====================================
http://www.scar.org/news/antarctic/ - 28 June 2013
More than half of the melting of Antarctica's ice occurs at just ten small ice shelves.
The results, which appear in Science, suggest that warm ocean currents are melting ice shelves predominantly at certain locations around the continent, to an extent that accounts for 55% of the annual meltwater. The findings will help scientists to tackle larger questions about how the Antarctic ice sheet might change in future and its contribution to global sea-level rise.
For more information, please read the Nature News item or read the full paper:
Rignot, E., Jacobs, S., Mouginot, J. & Scheuchl, B. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1235798 -
old sage at 00:55 AM on 15 July 2013There is no consensus
Sorry folks, only joined this yesterday and not got the hang of it, will try to shift msgs!
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barry1487 at 00:43 AM on 15 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
Ray @ 2,
From the first IPCC report in 1990:
Models predict that surface air will warm faster over land than over oceans, and a minimum of warming will occur around Antarctica and in the northern North Atlantic
region...
Warming has occurred faster over land, with minimal warming in Antarctica.The warming is predicted to be 50-100% greater than the global mean in high northern latitudes in winter...
Warming has been nearly 3 times as much at the north Pole than the global mean.
Precipitation is predicted to increase on average in middle and high latitude continents in winter...
(Don't know if that has occured or not)
Aerosols as a result of volcanic eruptions can lead to a cooling at the surface which may oppose the greenhouse warming for a few years following an eruption...
This occurred a year later with the eruption on Pinatubo, and the influence on short-term temps was well-predicted by Hansen's 1988 model.
Patterns of climate change from models such as the Northern Hemisphere warming faster than the Southern Hemisphere and surlace an warming laster over land than over oceans are not apparent in observations to date...
They are now.
An average late of global mean sea level rise of about 6cm per decade over the next century (with an uncertainty range of 3 - 10cm per decade)...
Current rise is 3cm per decade, and acceleration may have been occurring (the trend for last century is 1.7cm per decade).
The simplest of these feedbacks arises because as the atmosphere warms the amount of water vapour it holds increases Water vapour is an important greenhouse gas and will therefore amplify the warming...
Specific humidity has increased since the 1970s.
The surface warming and its seasonal variation are least in the tropics....
Excepting the South Pole, that is the case, but this report also predicted minimal warming over Antarctica.
[Precipitation] the global average increases (as does that of evaporation)...
Global precipitation has increased over the last century.
The FAR (First Assessment Report) pointed out that there will be significant regional variation for various indices, which has also happened.
I picked the FAR, not just because it was the first report, but also because there was not comprehensive indices at that time for many components of the climate system. In the 22 years since then, much data has been collated, verifying the sign of almost all predicted trends.
There are a few unresolved predictions.
1) Tropical tropospheric temps should warm faster than the rest of the atmsphere.
This is not a GHG prediction, but a prediction that the tropicqal tropospheric temps should warm faster no matter what the cause. Observations are not uniform in confirming this, and it remains a very active area of research.
2) Antarctic sea ice should decline.
Over the periof of satellite measurements, it has increased, but if the record is longer extended, it has declined, with caveats.
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old sage at 23:59 PM on 14 July 2013There is no consensus
If co2 is so important, please tell me where I can look up tables of absorption of characteristic frequency radiation plotted against co2 concentration in air at various pressures and temperatures.
(-snip-)
Moderator Response:[DB] Off-topic and sloganeering snipped. Please review this site's Comments Policy before submitting further comments (link adjacent to the Comment Box).
[TD] Specifically, put this comment on the thread that Tom Curtis pointed you to--not the waste heat one.
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Joel-Snape at 23:13 PM on 14 July 2013Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
Earthling. Actually the warming potential from anthropogenic additions of CO2 are known, sufficiently understood and well-documented in the scientific literature. The standard equation for calculating the radiation-enhancement from CO2 is as follows: RF = ln*5.35(C\C1). The equation in question is derived from HITRAN, which is based on real-world observations (spectrometer/satellite measurements) and determines the radiative forcing characteristics of certain gases in the atmosphere, such as CO2 and CH4. The equation above gives us a radiative forcing of about 3.7W/sq.m for a doubling of CO2 corresponding to a warming of about 1C in the atmosphere. It's also worth pointing out that hardened skeptics such as Lindzen, Spencer, Nova, and many others, all agree with the 3.7W/sq.m of radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2, so it's not really that controversial. So despite claims to the contaray, the warming from human CO2 in the atmosphere is quantifiable and well-accepted - even by skeptics. As Jason pointed out, there's also the small matter that 97% of scientists agree that the planet has warmed since 1860 and that human CO2 has been a significant contributer to that warming.
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michael sweet at 22:20 PM on 14 July 2013Patrick Michaels: Cato's Climate Expert Has History Of Getting It Wrong
As a follow up to CBD's comment, I notice that all the IPCC projections he mentioned are in error on the conservative side. Michaels claims that the IPCC overestimates the problem. Ray should compare when the IPCC overestimates the problem. I also note that the IPCC would be expected to have more missed projections because it has projected many more future issues than MIchaels.
I am not aware of any IPCC projections that are in error and overestimate the problem. If Ray would list several such examples it would be a learning experience.
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JasonB at 22:08 PM on 14 July 2013There is no consensus
BTW, you must have missed this graphic on the page you were already asked to move discussions about waste heat to:
Please follow up there.
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JasonB at 21:53 PM on 14 July 2013There is no consensus
old sage,
How can the greenhouse gas disciples ignore it?
I'm not sure what a word like "disciples" is supposed to mean when you're talking about scientific results that are accepted by every scientific body the world over, but to answer your question:
Because it has been weighed, it has been measured, and it has been found wanting.
In other words, why obsess about the possible impact of a demonstrably small contibutor to global warming while ignoring the elephant in the room who's effect, even without feedbacks, is indisputably orders of magnitude larger?
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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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