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Climate change a different take on what to do about it.

#421 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2012-April-20, 05:33

Lets look at some of the information that Al is providing. For example, the following chart

Posted Image

If we google "Statewide Record High Temperature by Decade" and look at "images" we see this same chart in position #2.

https://www.google.c...jC47H6AGq9NS5BA

If we follow the link at on this page, we learn that this chart was created in 2007, using data collected in 2003.

The methodology seems badly flawed if your goal is presenting information about cumulative sum...

Of course, the real problem with the chart is the assumption that an increase in temperature necessarily corresponds to an increase in the number of record high temperatures.

Consider the following:

I have a time series which consists of repeated draws from a Gaussian distribution.
It should be clear that the frequency of a record setting temperature is inversely correlated with time.
(Each time I set a record high temperature, it becomes that much more difficult to set a new record temperature)

Now, lets add a linear trend to that time series.

It's definitely possible to chose a sufficiently steep slope such that the positive bias from the trend dominates the negative bias from the noise component.
At the same time, its also very easy to specify a noisy time series with a statistically significant positive trend that exhibits a decreasing number of record high temperatures.
Alderaan delenda est
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#422 User is offline   PassedOut 

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Posted 2012-April-26, 10:48

Antarctic ice melting from below, reveals satellite

Quote

Most of the melting ice shelves are located in west Antarctica, where the flow of inland glaciers to the sea has also been accelerating — an effect that can be compounded by thinning ice shelves which, when grounded to the offshore seabed, serve as dams to hold glaciers back.

Melting of ice by ocean currents can occur even when air temperature remains cold, maintaining a steady process of ice loss — and eventually increased sea level rise.

The Frozen Planet TV series has a good description of this. And the series has hours of spectacular film of both the arctic and antarctic.
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#423 User is offline   luke warm 

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Posted 2012-April-26, 15:37

next thing you know, the ocean temp will start dropping and the current will change and massive low pressure systems will form and flags will freeze in mid-wave and the prez will set up camp in mexico
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#424 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2012-April-27, 10:57

Or perhaps he will just declare that the rest of the antarctic sea ice is increasing and the net effect is a big plus...big enough to overcome the losses of sea ice in the arctic... B-)

Maybe that is where all of the "missing" heat is going? <_<

At least Dr. Trenberth is missing it, because without it there can be no catastrophic global warming.Try as they might to invoke wind shear readings, none of the thousands of ARGO buoys or temperature radiosondes or even satellite readings can find it. :blink:

Perhaps we could use the side of a milk carton? :lol:
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#425 User is offline   Daniel1960 

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Posted 2012-May-02, 06:48

Antarctic sea ice has been increasing for years. Globally, there is significantly more ice at the Arctic (largely water), than the Antarctic (largely land), such that the global changes are dominated by the changes in Arctic sea ice. During the last few years, the Arctic has experienced wider annual swings in sea ice, such that the graph of global sea ice bottoms out in the northern hemisphere summer, and returns to average during the winter.
http://arctic.atmos....y.antarctic.png

Much speculation has propped up recently as whether the summer melting may have a similar mechanism as early 20th century Arctic sea ice decrease, namely an influx of warm Atlantic water.

http://www.nerc-essc...APERS/len19.pdf
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#426 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2012-May-03, 14:23

Yet more warmist "consensus"...

An additional source or irritation are all those claims of consensus and unanimity amongst specialists about the effects of CAGW viz:

6:31 AM, MARCH 25, 2012
DennisA said...
I notice Ed Maibach is mentioned. Find out more about him here:
http://sppiblog.org/...he-public-purse

"In fall 2007, after joining Mason’s Department of Communication, Maibach founded the Center for Climate Change Communication and became its director.

The center is the first behavioral science research center in the United States dedicated solely to improving climate change public engagement methods.

Starting with the community he knew best, Maibach planned his first study, which was conducted in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund, to be a national survey of public health department directors.

"The research team was surprised to find that nearly 60 percent of local public health department directors nationwide reported that they were already seeing harmful health effects of climate change in their jurisdictions, yet few felt they had the capacity to respond."

So what happened?

Out of 2,296 members of the National Association of County & City Health Officials, they produced a sample size of 217, who were contacted. The responses were:

Take a running jump = 38

Refused to answer calls or e-mails = 46

This left 133, of whom 81, (61%), believed their jurisdiction had seen the effects of climate change in the last 20 years.

So the actual figure of 3.5% of 2,296 local public health department directors becomes “nearly sixty percent of local public health department directors nationwide.”

Funding from the National Science Foundation, your money.

"Numerous organizations — from the local to the global — have sought their guidance, including Virginia state and local governments, environmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, federal agencies and even foreign embassies."
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#427 User is offline   PassedOut 

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Posted 2012-May-03, 20:30

Scientists Race to Save World's Rice Bowl From Climate Change

Quote

Climate change is predicted to cause more intense and frequent floods and droughts in Southeast Asia, threatening the world's rice bowl and millions of people who live there unless preventive actions are taken soon, scientists warn.

At the Climate Smart Agriculture in Asia workshop held in Bangkok, Thailand, last month, climatologists and agricultural researchers discussed farming practices and technologies that could help the region cope with global warming's effects, including rising temperatures, increased salinity, and sporadic rainfall.

The conference was about "bringing all these players together to look at how the research agenda needs to change in the agricultural research world in relation to climate change," said Bruce Campbell of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which helped organize the two-day workshop.

In addition, scientists at the meeting discussed potential ways to use agriculture to mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions such as methane. Agriculture, forestry, and changes in land use account for a third of greenhouse gas emissions, said Campbell, who is the program director of CGIAR's Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

"That's a significant portion," Campbell said, "but we can reduce it."

Sure, let the industrial nations keep warming the earth by pouring billions of tons of heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere -- but let poor farmers bear the brunt of it. For the time being...
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#428 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2012-May-03, 21:09

View PostPassedOut, on 2012-May-03, 20:30, said:

Scientists Race to Save World's Rice Bowl From Climate Change


Sure, let the industrial nations keep warming the earth by pouring billions of tons of heat-trapping gas into the atmosphere -- but let poor farmers bear the brunt of it. For the time being...


Well, if it's a race, how soon will it be too late? As CO2 increases, it helps to increase crop yields. Sporadic rainfall? Rice paddies depend on monsoons and I would be interested to see the studies indicating how monsoons have been affected over the last, say, 75 years of increasing CO2.
Or even temperatures. Warmer and wetter, it seems. But then, that too will be a race. Just a race about getting those temperature values before the warmists get to them and adjust them to show even greater catastrophies on the way.

There is an interesting analysis of the most recent CRUTEM4 database and its "adjustments" relative to CRUTEM3 to be found at WUWT. Don't shoot the messenger or his host but look instead at the types and manner of adjustments made.

http://wattsupwithth...ith/#more-62667

Curiouser and curiouser...

Posted Image


yet another thing that the CRU has in common with GISS (see above for those pesky adjustments...)
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#429 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2012-May-04, 08:40

Nothing yet on those monsoons, but the US seems to demonstrate a terrifying trend as the warming continues unabated (except for the cooling periods, of course)

Posted Image
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#430 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2012-May-09, 15:44

FOIA commissioner has ruled in favor of Steve McIntyre, and the released data not only refutes the hockey-stick warming proffered by the Climategate gang, it puts the lie to the various "Inquiries" that exonerated the UEA CRU of wrong-doing...

Why they left out the "other" trees that were available for study.

Posted Image

so, instead of a hockey stick, it makes their version look more like a hokey-shtick. :P

Posted Image




The synopsis of this sad story is to be found at:
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#431 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2012-May-15, 10:15

The "source" of the Yamal chronologies has provided live tree data as part of the dendroclimatology for the region where the UEA CRU (sounds more like a rap group name but hopefully they will soon be taking the rap...)cherry-picked "convenient data from Yamal to show the hockey stick in a dozen "appropriate" trees. (In a published paper, when you don't include reasons and examples of why certain data are excluded, that is not just cherry-picking, it is the whole pie.)

More to come...

providing this comparison.

Posted Image
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#432 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2012-May-17, 04:05

View PostAl_U_Card, on 2012-May-15, 10:15, said:

The "source" of the Yamal chronologies has provided live tree data as part of the dendroclimatology for the region where the UEA CRU (sounds more like a rap group name but hopefully they will soon be taking the rap...)cherry-picked "convenient data from Yamal to show the hockey stick in a dozen "appropriate" trees. (In a published paper, when you don't include reasons and examples of why certain data are excluded, that is not just cherry-picking, it is the whole pie.)



FWIW, Real Climate has a useful post providing a more balanced description of the Yamal chronologies

http://www.realclima...wns/#more-11699
Alderaan delenda est
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#433 User is offline   kenberg 

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Posted 2012-May-17, 06:27

View Posthrothgar, on 2012-May-17, 04:05, said:

FWIW, Real Climate has a useful post providing a more balanced description of the Yamal chronologies

http://www.realclima...wns/#more-11699


I took a (brief) look at this and while I gather that it is informed I would not use the word balanced to describe it.


Here is a practical problem: You link to this report. He, the author, links to McIntyre and many other places. McIntyre refers back to various interchanges with other people. Al seems to have devoted his life to this, I don't plan to follow suit.

A suggestion: You, Richard, or maybe someone else, could briefly, repeat briefly, summarize the three strongest arguments for the proposition that global warming is sufficiently established that strong action is needed. Al, or someone, could briefly, repeat briefly, summarize the three strongest arguments against this proposition. We could all read these arguments, look into them, and perhaps come away wiser. Preferably these arguments would be presented withou the use of words such as "charlatan", "nut" "evil", etc.

This is an important issue. There are many important issues.. My approach here is to find go with what the National Academey of Science says. It's not that I am under the impression the NAS is infallible, you have to go to the Pope for infallibility, but on any scientific subject where I lack expertise and lack time/interest to develop expertise, I certainly think that the NAS is the place to start.
Ken
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#434 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2012-May-17, 08:47

Well, I have certainly devoted my attention to this subject.

When you consider that it involves taxing us into the stone age with concommitant policies, it is worth the effort.

The jig has been up for the IPCC et al since Nov. 2009 when the climategate e-mails confirmed pretty much everything that the CAGW skeptics were saying. Since then, it has been one revelation after another. You just have to look.

1) Alarmism is based solely on model-generated projections that need water-vapour in a warmer climate to triple the effect of [CO2] on global temperature.

2) The alarmists hide their work and obfuscate all efforts at transparency of analysis and data.

3) The observational data refutes "unprecedented" warming as well as dangerous anthropogenic contributions to it by way of [CO2] additions since the industrial age.

We are seeing and will continue to see this play out as reality overcomes rhetoric. Those who would benefit from continued alarmism will continue to plead for us to panic and trust them.

Science will triumph over consensus, as it eventually does, every time.
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#435 User is offline   kenberg 

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Posted 2012-May-17, 09:44

View PostAl_U_Card, on 2012-May-17, 08:47, said:

Well, I have certainly devoted my attention to this subject.

When you consider that it involves taxing us into the stone age with concommitant policies, it is worth the effort.

The jig has been up for the IPCC et al since Nov. 2009 when the climategate e-mails confirmed pretty much everything that the CAGW skeptics were saying. Since then, it has been one revelation after another. You just have to look.

1) Alarmism is based solely on model-generated projections that need water-vapour in a warmer climate to triple the effect of [CO2] on global temperature.

2) The alarmists hide and obfuscate all efforts at transparency of analysis and data.

3) The actual data refutes "unprecedented" warming as well as dangerous anthropogenic contributions to it by way of [CO2] additions since the industrial age.

We are seeing and will continue to see this play out as reality overcomes rhetoric. Those who would benefit from continued alarmism will continue to plead for us to panic and trust them.

Science will triumph over consensus, as it eventually does, every time.


I was hoping we could move the argument away from the name calling. But let me take the arguments. I wish to encourage a rewrite.

1. Led me check: You are saying that if I look through the literature on global warming I will find that all papers on the subject which argue that global warming is occurring will be using a computer model, that every one of these computer models will have the same assumption about water vapour, and that this assumption is false. Is that right? There are no opther arguments, just this one, and if we can see that this compuational model fails then there have been no other arguments put forth so we are done? I am guessing that not all eggs are in this one basket and there are further arguments as well. But if this is the really the only argument that has ever been presented it will greatly simplify the discussion. It seems to easy. I doubt that the debate would last three weeks if that's all there is.

2. This seems to go nowhere. "You hide and obfuscate". "No, you hide and obfuscate" "You do" "No, you do" "What you say is what you are" "Your mama..."


3. This seems promising, although I imagine even precedented warming, or whatever the negation of unprecedented warming is, could still be a problem.


I more had in mind three arguments that would go along the lines of "The following scientific investigation, reported at ...., is strong evidence that ....". We coould look it up, read the critiques, decide who we believe.
Ken
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#436 User is offline   Al_U_Card 

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Posted 2012-May-17, 10:13

Knock yourself out.

The skeptical position has always been for alarmists to "show their work" such that it might be analyzed and criticized objectively and rationally instead of being accepted "on faith" of good intentions. The inner workings of "pal review" are presented in several good works on the subject.

"The delinquent teenager who was mistaken for the world's top climate expert" by Donna Laframboise is an interesting exposé on the methods used by the IPCC to further their agenda.

Take a look through the above posts to see where data is adjusted to increase warming trends. Quality control is all about removing errors that, generally, result in no net change to the overall data....except in recent climate science.

All of the FOIA requests and their refusals are a litany of Phil Jones' classic "Why should we give you the data when you will only use it to find something wrong with our work?...."

Finally, just use google to find references to just how expensive climate "control" would be, EVEN USING THE IPCC's own INFLATED-EFFECT NUMBERS. Can we control the climate? Just that proposition is absurd enough in and of itself. Mitigation against heat and/or cold where and as needed would be much more sensible, less expensive and less invasive.

Either way, the massive use of media to instill guilt is gradually subsiding as both the science and the actual climate put the lie to the anthropogenic climate alarmism. I guess we just luck out this time, for a change. :P
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#437 User is offline   hrothgar 

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Posted 2012-May-17, 10:31

Here are the three key points that I would cite to try to convince people that anthropogenic climate change is taking place.

1. The relationship between carbon dioxide and heat retention by the atmosphere is a well understood phenomena. Carbon dioxide is relatively transparent to visible light. It is relatively opaque to infrared radiation. This relationship has been well understood for since the 19th century. Scientists have been predicting that burning large amounts of fossil fuels would heat the atmosphere since Arrhenius.

2. Observed data is consistent with this theory. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a nice summary report describing why it accepts athropogenic climate change. http://www1.ncdc.noa...hure-lo-rez.pdf
At a more basic level, take a look at changes in plant hardiness zones in the Northern hemisphere. http://www.arborday..../mapchanges.cfm or just look at changes in growing seasons, distributions of bird ranges, etc.

3. There is “scientific consensus” regarding the existence of anthropogenic climate change. Quoting wikipedia “No scientific body of national or international standing has maintained a dissenting opinion; the last was the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, which in 2007 updated its 1999 statement rejecting the likelihood of human influence on recent climate with its current non-committal position.”
Alderaan delenda est
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#438 User is offline   Daniel1960 

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Posted 2012-May-17, 12:04

Ken,

You may which to check on the recent RC thread concerning climate models.
http://www.realclima...aks/#more-11491
There seems to be quite a wide range of results when it somes to modelling the ocean-atmosphere water cycle. Also presented is this recent paper dealing with the difficults models had just hindcasting temperatures.
http://curryja.files...al-2012_grl.pdf
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#439 User is offline   phil_20686 

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Posted 2012-May-17, 12:19

View Postkenberg, on 2012-May-17, 06:27, said:

This is an important issue. There are many important issues.


Ok, so three arguments for global warming: I like this challenge.

(1) The earth's Energy Eco-System


Essentially, the only way that energy can reach or leave the earth is via electromagnetic energy. The energy that reaches the earth from the sun is primarily in the visible spectrum. This is absorbed by the earth, which warms it, and it emits infra red radiation. The atmosphere is fairly opaque to infra red radiation, and the temperature of the earth is essentially determined by how long, on average, it takes this infra red radiation to leave the earth and radiate into space. Suppose that on average, it takes a photon from the sun one minute to reach the earth, be absorbed, re-emitted, scattered multiple times in the earth's atmosphere, and leave. In that case the energy content of the earth's atmosphere is exactly one minute*sun's energy input. (one minute is completely made up btw).

In practice, the only thing that matters for this estimate is the albedo, and the so called "scattering length" for a photon of a given wavelength in the atmosphere. The albedo is important, because some of the sun's light is reflected, and because of the transparency of the atmosphere to visible light, reflected energy leaves the earth immediately. This is pretty easily measured by satellite surveys: we are essentially just measuring how "bright" the earth is.

The scattering length is where all the fun is. Essentially, if we know the composition of the atmosphere, we can measure their scattering cross-sections in the infra red in the lab, and then calculate from this the scattering length. Once we know the scattering length, the light does a random walk in steps of the scattering length. You can work out how long it takes to leave the atmosphere, and hey presto, you now have your answer. Carbon dioxide, among others, has a large scattering crossection for IR light, so adding more shortens the step length, and increases the insulation effect. This is all very well understood physics, and there is essentially no room for debate on any of these effects.

However, the problem arises mainly because the composition of the atmosphere is not fixed. We have pretty good information of the atmospheric composition since about 1960. Before that it is fairly sketchy, but what we do no, about the composition of CO2 H2O CO SO2 CH4 etc, makes it essentially incontrovertible that the earth is warmer now than in 1960. Whatever errors and difficulties exist in the temperature record, are largely irrelevant. If this argument can be summed up in one sentence it is this: If you know the composition of the atmosphere and the global albedo, you know the global temperature.


Sadly, this is not the end of the story. There are large uncertainties in forecasting the future composition of the atmosphere. Mainly to do with feed back in its various forms. Does melting ice caps release significant effects of methane? How will increased demand for meat affect the amount of methane in the atmosphere (cattle are the largest generators of atmospheric methane). How rapidly will deforestation release CO2 into the atmosphere? How much extra water will end up in the atmosphere as a consequence of higher temperatures? This is a particularly non trivial question, as a lot of this depends on the water cycle, which is highly dependent on the quantity of vegetation. Thus if rainfall moves such that more rain falls on land and there is more vegetation, this will both decrease the albedo, and increase the amount of water in the atmosphere. It is these kind of model uncertainties that make climate forecasting hard.

(2) Ensemble Modelling


The purpose of ensemble modelling is to make predictions despite large uncertainties. Essentially, you take every parameter that has some variation, randomly select a configuration, and run your model. Then take another random selection of parameters, and run it again. Take each model and run it against the historical record for the last 40 odd years, and exclude every configuration that diverges wildly from the historical record as an unphysical choice of parameters. Take all those that remain, and run them for 40 odd years into the future, and then you get some predictions. You then to some statistics and end up with some comes, and you say well 80% of the models end up with warming of 2-4 degrees. So that is our most likely scenario. In fact, comparing with the historical record gives us a configuration space that has pretty good clustering for the models. Of course, there is always the danger that the future is wildly different from the past, but this is really the best you can do. Clustering indicates that there are good "rules" about how these parameters relate to each other. The primary danger with ensemble modelling is that the relations between say, temperature and water vapour, that were true in the past, are not true in the future. This is a model risk that you cannot really deal with, the further that the model moves away from the temperatures of the historical record, the greater the chance that there will be a large deviation. Nevertheless, the statement that, if the future is pretty much like the past, then the addition of x amounts of CO2 will lead to y amounts of warming, is already very strong.

Here is a particular plot from an ensemble model. Just off wikipedia, I don't knwo anything abotu the details, so don't boether asking, but it seems representative:
Posted Image


So the model tracks five major components, over the last 100 years of data, and predicts the temperature based on them. The bottom is the individual components to the warming from each individual factor.


(3) Data

So in the public imagination, the most important thing is the relationship between CO2 and temperature in the past. I hope this post has made it clear that that relationship is not that important. There are vast uncertainties about the composition of the atmosphere in the past. There are almost no uncertainties about the relationship between atmospheric composition and temperature. CO2 estimates from the past are not enough. You also need to know about all the other trace gases if you want to have a robust correlation. Some of these gases, particularly the organic ones like Methane, are very difficult to get accurate data on.
Further, all data has to be interpreted through a model. We cannot directly measure past temperatures, or past atmospheric composition. We always have to measure some proxy, and then use some model to interpret the proxy in terms of the original variables. Each of these models is subject to its own flaws and biases. This makes historical Data a living nightmare. All of this argument about `adjustments' is really arguments about models. To give you a taste of the kind of problems inherent in this, suppose that I take an ice core and look at the composition of the gases, now in order to say that this is the composition of the atmosphere I need to ask: Is the atmosphere at the arctic representative of the whole globe? Particularly when it comes to the amount of water vapour in it, you know that it is not. Some gases can permeate frozen ice. Some can permeate it at some temperatures but not others, and some basically cannot, so there is some kind of relationship between the original composition, the date of that original composition, and the final, measure composition. Was there originally any bacteria in the air? If there was, even a few cells per cubic centimetre could, upon decay, vastly change the amount of organic gases in a sample. Finally, I need to draw a relationship between the depth and the age. Each of these sources of error needs a model, each of these models is based on assumptions about how the world worked in the past, and every such assumption is a possible source of error.

Now, the data does show a decent enough correlation between the CO2 level and the temperature, but it is not nearly as good as the models suggest that it should be. My take is that this tells us that in the past, the world was different in a way not fully accounted for by our models. Maybe it had much more SO2 in the atmosphere than we thought. Maybe the Earths orbit was significantly different. Maybe the measurements of the past are not so accurate as we believe. To me, it is not a great surprise that ensemble models based on forty years of good data do not accurately forecast conditions 5000 thousand years in the past. There are lot of assumptions that could go wrong.


To me, then, historical data is not a good way to investigate this type of forecasting. Its just too messy. I find the arguments that I sketched in parts one and two basically completely convincing, as they are based wholly on things that we understand really very well. It does not make it 100% true, but we should plan based on our most likely forecasts, with some precautions against particularly devastating consequences that are outside the main channel of forecasts, and that means 2-4 degrees of warming in the next forty odd years
The physics is theoretical, but the fun is real. - Sheldon Cooper
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#440 User is offline   Daniel1960 

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Posted 2012-May-17, 12:24

hrothgar,
Commenting on your three points:

1) The opaqueness of CO2 to IR also results in its absorption of incoming solar radiation. There is also a significant overlap in the absorption bands between CO2 and water vapor, with the latter being both more absorbant and abundant. There is the added relationship that when ocean temperatures rise, CO2 is outgassed to the atmosphere, so there is a two-fold relationship here. While the warming ability of CO2 has been known for years, it has only been recently that some have tried to amplify its warming capabilities through various feedbacks, which are much less understood.

2) Do not confuse with correlation with causation. All the effects mentioned will occur regardless of the cause of the warming. Few scientists are disputing the warming of the plant over the past three centuries. While many acknowledge that CO2 has contributed to the warming, its contribution to the observed warming has been widely debated. Several other sources have been cited as contributors to the observed temperature increase, which are now being mentioned as causes of the observed cooling (or lack of warming as referred to be some climatologists).

3) This is false. The "scientific consenses" to which you are referring is simply that the planet has warmed and mankind has contributed. There is no consensus as to the warming attributed to the rise in atmospheric CO2 (see #2). Some people refer to the "IPCC consensus," which was published by the UN in 2007, but this has been challenged repeatedly by other scientists. While many scientists acknowledge that the increased CO2 could lead to large warming, this is generally considered the high end of the probability curve. On the low end of the curve, with equal probability of occurrance, is that warming due to CO2 is insignificant, and the planet will compensate to maintain constant heat flow. Most scientists reside somewhere in between, or simple acknowledge that we do not know enough yet about the interactions of the planet to make a sound scientific guess. Wikipedia is not a good scientific source here, especially with its acknowledged bias towards AGW.
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