While the official number for June 2008 global temperature anomaly from UAH is not out yet, Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit reports it to be -0.114 for the global number.
Click for a larger image
A number of commenters there are puzzled as to how Steve might have this “inside information” when it has not yet been published. Normally you’d find that data here
Steve left a clue in comments at CA when Lucia asked:
Did you get Roy Spencer to email you the data? I cleared cache and I don’t see June.
Steve: No.
Knowing Steve, I’m guessing he wrote a script to scrape data from this page http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/ (or a page like it) and then calculated the June global UAH numbers from it. Steve McIntyre is careful and cautious about such things, so I would trust his number even though UAH has not officially released it yet.
Congratulations to Steve on getting the “scoop”!
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
They also now call teachers “Educators”.
They used to do that. (Nowadays, not so much.)
The comments by Ophi and SwampWoman on the cause of increased oil prices were both accurate and incomplete.
The incompetent Congress could decrease oil prices by opening up oil reserves in Alaska, California and Florida.
Ophi was correct that there has been an increase in global demand and fixed supply. Many of them poor folk in China and India are coming into wealth and can now afford to buy cars but OPEC is unwilling to increase production.
But what neither Ophi nor SwampWoman mentioned were investor nerves or a weakening US dollar. Every time George Bush has a saber rattling session with the Iranians over nuclear power plants, investors get nervous and the price of oil goes up. Likewise, every time Hugo Chavez has an adolescent tantrum and threatens to cut off oil to the US, investors get nervous and oil prices go up. As for the dollar, when it weakens in comparison to other countries, the price of oil goes up due to the fact that most of our oil comes from other countries.
As for feed prices, it is true that feed prices are going up because of demand from the bio fuels market and because transportation costs are up. But what I do not see discussed is that supply has been affected by the ongoing global cold snap. This year’s cold snap is creating a shorter growing season and causing crop failures all over the world. We cannot control the weather but if the worlds leading climate scientists would stop making the world believe that the world would be warmer and warmer, then the world’s farmers and agricultural policy makers would be better prepared for such years, particularly in terms of maintaining larger feed reserves. 3 million people starved this year; many others froze to death while others had limbs amputated due to frost bite. Give that some thought and you will understand the damage and massive human suffering caused by the worlds leading climate scientists.
The point here is that Hansen is/was wrong. He made environmental prophecies in 1988 based on flawed computer models that have turned out to be erroneous. How much has that cost us? If he were the CEO of a fortune 500 company he would have been canned long ago. As it is, he is an appointed government official and is immune from performance based employment evaluation and unaccountable. For all of his hand wringing and arm waving, the weather……errr “Climate” temperature is where it was in 1988. He would have had as good a chance gazing into a crystal ball or tossing a coin. His ranting and grandstanding about his personal environmental religious convictions have impacted us all.
I for one am happy to rub his and the rest of the eco-chondriacs noses in it.
Ophiuchus,
My suggestion to you is that if you feel that burning fossil fuels effect the planet’s atmosphere, don’t burn them.
Don’t tell me how to live; I’ll make up my own mind. We don’t need the Orwellian carbon accountants sniffing my tailpipe and taking food from my family’s table; the 20 year temperature record has shown us that this entire exercise has been a ruse.
The Anthrophomorphic Global Warming “initiative” is a Con.
Yet the centerpiece of this article is a graph showing that temperatures in the last two years appear to have fallen.
Plummeted would be a better word.
So why bother even discussing a point that you purportedly accept?
We (the majority) of us accept that temperatures are up over the last century and are up over the last 30 years.
What is at issue is the cause(s) and the degree. McKitrick and Michaels (2008), and LaDochy et al (Dec. 2007) strongly indicate the degree of temperature rise has been exaggerated by about a factor of two. This is supported by the findings of Yilmaz et al (2008 ) and LeRoy (1999, which is used as a basis for the NOAA/CRN handbook).
We also have to consider that the Little Ice Age ended arounf 1840 and there has been a period of natural recovery. The Medieval Warm Period is believed to have been warmer than (or at least as warm as) today. And the Roman Warm Period to be warmer still (though it’s hard to tell).
CO2 is a greenhouse gas. But itd direct effect has to be magnified from 5 to 20 times by positive feedback loops resulting from increased high-level water vapor and decreased albedo. Neither of those things are happening. Instead, negative feedback has taken over (high altitude dessication and low-level cloud cover resulting in increased albedo, all leading to homeostasis).
This would explain why the temperatures have not increased in the last decade in spite of a 4% increase in CO2.
Yes, land use and industrial particulates have caused a modest rise in temperatures, but they are a lot easier to clean up than it is to eliminate CO2 (which even the IPCC admits has a very modest direct [sic] effect).
OK, first, kman, I’m not sure I understand your question. You seem to be suggesting that it just doesn’t matter because it could go either way. But the hypothesis says that it’s not going either way, that it’s definitely going towards higher temperatures, and that this will cause change costing lots of money.
David writes,
it was indeed politics that stopped the development of oil, nuclear energy, and hydroelectric resources, which if we had developed we could be 100% independent of middle east oil.
Oil: this is primarily an economic issue. Most of the oil resources on American soil are only worthwhile at prices exceeding $100/bbl. Now that this condition obtains, we can afford to extract them — and much of this activity is getting started. It takes years to develop oil shale and deep undersea oil fields, but what held us back was mostly economics, not politics. And hydro has been pretty much tapped out in the USA; there’s still a few gigawatts lying around in lots of little sites, but not enough to change our basic situation.
I agree with you that nuclear has been stymied by political considerations, and I for one would like to see a standardized design and lots of construction of that standard design.
David also mentions the benefits of CO2. These benefits are selective. Yes, they improve foliage, but they also increase acidification of bodies of water, which in turn can have negative consequences for fisheries.
This raises one of the nastiest problems of AGW: the politics of unequal effects. Let’s suppose that the USA continues its obstructionist approach and becomes strongly identified as the primary political force behind the lack of response to AGW (Even though China is now emitting more CO2 than the USA). Suppose further than some countries suffer as a consequence. Let’s say that Iceland’s fisheries are negatively impacted. So what happens when Iceland demands payment for its losses? The USA will of course say “We’ve got nukes, you don’t, go jump in the lake.” But every country that suffers negative consequences will blame (however unfairly) the USA for its problems. What geopolitical consequences do you think that will have? Sometimes the costs of AGW can be more than just environmental; they can be political.
MikeC writes,
Believers in Anthropogenic Global Warming, such as Ophiuchus, will highlight that the globe is, on average, warmer in the last half of the satellite record than in the first half of the satellite record.
Well, gee, since we’re playing that game, how about this response:
Guys like MikeC are actually industry shills who are out to confuse innocent citizens with lies
Pretty unfair, isn’t it? I suggest that you stop imagining what I’m writing and start responding to what I actually write, OK?
MikeC goes on:
I suggest that Ophiuchus lay out all of the facts when presenting climate data or face the question: Who is the denier now?
Inasmuch as “all the facts” constitute many terabytes of data, it might be a little difficult fitting them into this blog. We should consider all the facts but demanding that I lay them out is a bit unrealistic.
MikeC then writes,
About Hansen taking money, would the 250,000 bucks from John Kerry’s wife or 720,000 bucks in PR support from George Sorros suffice?
Perhaps a bit more specificity would clarify this issue. Mr. Hansen was awarded the Heinz Award, which is given to “outstanding individuals for their contributions in the areas of: Arts and Humanities, the Environment, the Human Condition, Public Policy, and Technology, the Economy and Employment. ” Furthermore, “Award recipients receive a medallion and an unrestricted cash prize of up to $250,000.” Note that it says “unrestricted”. There are no conditions attached to the prize. Mr. Hansen can reverse his position overnight and still have the money. Thus, there is no requirement that Mr. Hansen produce results for or against the AGW hypothesis. He was given the award for merit. Thus, there is absolutely no basis for suggesting that his statements are affected by financial considerations.
Your claim regarding Mr. Soros and Mr. Hansen is false. The evidence shows that Mr. Soros provided legal assistance to Mr. Hansen and supported an effort to counter the NASA media policy. The $720,000 figure that you cite is a budget item for all expenditures related to “politicization of science”. We have no idea how much of this money was allocated for Mr. Hansen’s case. And we have absolutely no evidence indicating that a penny of this money ever went into Mr. Hansen’s pockets. Thus, there is again no basis for suggesting that his statements are affected by financial considerations.
Peter declares that it will cost us trillions to reduce CO2 levels by some unspecified amount. This seems a rather open-ended comment. The response curve for CO2 reductions as a function of economic cost will surely be a conventional diminishing returns curve, which means that small reductions will cost less per ton CO2 than big reductions. It behooves us to get an approximate idea of the shape of that curve — but that will take a lot of effort. The absence of data characterizing that curve does not mean that we are justified in inaction. Currently, the evidence suggests that support for efforts to move away from fossil fuels will probably be very cost-effective. The British fellow who carried out the first economic study based his conclusions on the catastrophe scenario — I’m not sure that’s a strong line of reasoning, but there is a decent case for it.
Let me summarize this point so we can avoid confusion:
1. reducing CO2 emissions will cost money.
2. global climate change will cost money.
3. We don’t have good figures for the cost/benefit analysis.
4. The extremely rough estimates that we now possess suggest that
a. moderate efforts to move away from fossil fuels are probably cost-effective
b. dramatic reductions in fossil fuel use will probably not be cost-effective.
5. We really need to get better numbers for the cost/benefit analysis so that we can more precisely calibrate our policy response.
Great Moments In Alarmism
http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2008/06/gret-moments-in.html
So much misunderstanding, so little time…
Ophiuchus wrote: “The ideal climate is the one we have right now. That’s because we have trillions of dollars of infrastructure investment that assumes the current climate and sea level.”
Interesting point, and one I haven’t seen before. On reflection, however,
(1) It’s not necessarily true.
(2) It’s irrelevant.
Irrelevant because the Earth’s climate(s) is changing, always has, and always will; our “infrastructure” is always “behind” to some extent.
Not necessarily true because a “different” climate may be a “better” climate that makes adaptation worthwhile. I’m sure European infrastructure in the depths of the Little Ice Age was well adapted to the climate, but the benefits of warming since then (up until about 2000, anyway) have far outweighed the costs.
“But this does not in any way challenge the well-established physical fact that increased CO2 increases temperature in simple thermodynamic systems.”
The earth is not a “simple thermodynamic system”. When Ophiucus has accurately described the earth’s climate system starting from first principles, I volunteer to award him his Nobel Prize.
“Ever heard of Le Chatlier’s Principle?”
The IPCC’s climate models assume positive feedback that actually amplifies whatever effect carbon dioxide has on climate. Ophiucus’ quarrel is with the IPCC, not Anthony.
In my little corner of the world where a hot summer can fry crops or a late frost can kill the little plants outright, warming and cooling trends can send a farmer back to school to learn another trade. Especially if the government doesn’t allow us farmers to trust our own instincts. Last year everyone here saw early signs of dry conditions because of hot, dry temperatures, leading to very little pasture growth for the summer season. Yet the government didn’t allow grazing on CRP land till there was nothing but duff left of the grass that could have been used if we were allowed to graze earlier. This year our growing season came WAY late due to cold temperatures, resulting in, again, extended use of baled hay inventory till pastures were ready. Worse, this year we will not be getting 3rd cuttings from hay fields. Because the growing season started late, fall cold air will prevent a 3rd cutting. Farmers will not be able to replenish the now non-existent inventory of baled hay. To cap this story, beef prices are plummeting because farmers are reducing their herd size so that they can afford to winter feed.
Weather is not anecdotal to farmers like it is to city dwellers. It tells us whether or not to make hay while the sun shines.
Ohpi,
So Sorros didn’t pay 720,000 for Hansen’s PR, he paid for Hansen’s lawyers? I don’t suppose Sorros got anything in return? And Kerry’s wife gave 250k to Hansen rather than any of the other scientists around the world who contributed to such important causes as curing forms of cancer? Sounds a little fishy to me. Read Hansen’s 2007 testimony to Congress and see how Hansen worked with Kerry and Gore to create that little photo op in Al Gore’s movie. It is clear that he is an important part of a political machine.
And yes it is unfair to call me a shill but it’s expected because it is how one side avoids debate. I’m retired military and so broke I can’t change my mind. Hansen, on the other hand, is documented to have taken nearly a million dollars from these two political sources. He does not discuss all of the facts, only the ones that provide for his political friends who coincidently generously provide for him in return. Then, when people ask about the money from Sorros, they all clam up like the 720k worth of lawyers tell them to.
If Hansen were an honest man, he would have responded to the y2k step problem or the problems with the temperature stations differently than he did (unsufruct gorilla and etc). Face it, the man is bought off, the best paid chicken little with a science degree.
Finally, look at what you wrote in any of the posts above. You only give one side, much like Hansen, Mann, Gore (although to your credit I didn’t see you say that the debate is over). Where did you write that the globe was cooler or warmer due to natural cause? I would expect that a fair person making an honest effort to understand the cause of recent warming (which is now recent cooling) would make that effort. It seems like the only time I ever saw Hansen talk about natural causes of temperature change was to explain the cooling in late 2007/ early 2008. There are plenty of natural causes for the warming from 1998 – 2006, but he never mentions them. Now that I think of it, neither did you. And it has nothing to do with providing terrabytes of info, that excuse doesn’t work with me. If you would like to prove me wrong, please lend your knowledge of the contribution of natural causes of climate change of the last 30 years… you dont have to provide terrabytes, perhaps as much typing as you have lent to the other discussions.
A hypothesis that has not been observationally or experimentally validated, and actually refuted on several points, therefore it should be thrown out.
Problems:
1. No evidence that such a thing is even necessary.
2. Global Climate Change is a crock. It’s GOING to change regardless of what we do or don’t do. If you can’t understand or refuse to accept that then YOU are the denier.
3+ The rest are moot without a valid reason for #1.
Ophi:
“…but they also increase acidification of bodies of water, which in turn can have negative consequences for fisheries.”
er, the oceans are supposed to be warming – at least, according to the AGW’ers. And warmer water holds less CO2.
“The response curve for CO2 reductions as a function of economic cost will surely be a conventional diminishing returns curve, which means that small reductions will cost less per ton CO 2 than big reductions.”
The cost of fully implementing Kyoto has been variously estimated at between $30 trillion and $70 trillion. And, according to those in the know, Kyoto is ineffectual and we’re going to have to reduce our emissions by 60-80%!
“The British fellow who carried out the first economic study based his conclusions on the catastrophe scenario ”
That was the Stern report. Here in Britain we’re already paying more than ten times in fuel tax what he reckons we should be paying for our ‘carbon footprint’.
At this point I must declare an interest – it’s no exaggeration to say that spiraling fuel, energy and food costs are pushing me to the brink of bankruptcy, and I’m just one of a great many. The question is, once my house has been repossessed, should I build a shack on the beach or in the mountains? In the tropics or in the north? Science simply ain’t telling me.
Another thing – the day when the AGW’ers make all of their data, methodologies, formulae, source code etc etc etc freely available to the public for independent scrutiny, is the day that I’ll accept that they’re at least talking science.
You raise excellent points, Evan Jones, and I agree with most of them. However, I do want to point out something about this statement:
We also have to consider that the Little Ice Age ended arounf 1840 and there has been a period of natural recovery.
Why should there be a “natural recovery”? Are you suggesting that the earth has some “natural temperature” and that, after the Little Ice Age, various forces went to work to return the earth to that natural temperature? Do you have an explanation for the end of the Little Ice Age? Why could the temperature increases since then NOT be due to CO2?
Gary Hladik argues that a different climate might be better than the one we now have. It’s true that some areas might benefit from climate change, but it is irrefutable that some areas would suffer from increased temperatures. Your argument seems to be that it’s six of one and a half dozen of the other, but that ignores the fact that all of our infrastructure everywhere is built around the current climate. The amount of infrastructure we’re talking about is staggeringly large. Consider just water management. We have thousands of dams all over the world. Each dam is designed to operate under the range of conditions currently found. If one area receives diminished precipitation, then the dam’s electric output will fall and require replacement, and its reservoir will no longer provide water in sufficient amounts for local farmers. Even if there’s no change in net precip, there can still be serious problems. For example, in California, they’re predicting that warmer temperatures will mean that the snowpack will release its water earlier in the season, and the dam system doesn’t have the capacity to hold all the water through the summer. Accordingly, they’ll end up cutting water supplies to farmers, reducing agricultural output.
Then there’s the problem of dealing with flooding, something people in the Mississippi valley can appreciate. Some areas will receive increased amounts of precip, and their current flood control systems will be inadequate to the task, requiring additional spending on flood control.
And all this covers just water control systems. Now let’s talk port facilities, canals, home construction, building HV/AC, agricultural infrastructure, industrial use of river water, and so on and the costs really mount. We don’t know how big they are, but they easily come into the trillions of dollars.
Mr.Hladik also dismisses the point as irrelevant because the climate is always changing. Yes, climate has always changed, but the rate of change in times past has always been very low. We’re talking about the possibility of much higher rates of change here, rates of change so much higher as to pose problems.
He also objects that The earth is not a “simple thermodynamic system”. This is true, but it provides the basis for a second-order approximation. When we analyze complex physical systems, we start off with the first-order approximation, then start adding the various perturbations that constitute second-order, third-order, and so forth.
The IPCC’s climate models assume positive feedback that actually amplifies whatever effect carbon dioxide has on climate.
Indeed so, and I agree that those mechanisms must be well-documented to be taken seriously.
MikeC continues to make meandering points about Mr. Hansen and money. All I can say is, if you have evidence that Mr. Hansen has ever enjoyed financial inducements to falsify his conclusions, I would much like to see it. So far you have presented nothing to substantiate any such suspicions.
MikeC also faults me for not presenting the entire story. He’s right — I have not discussed the effects of supernovae on terrestrial climate, the role played by earthworms, the Poynting-Robertson Effect, and so forth. I beg forgiveness. However, inasmuch as my comments are not intended to constitute a complete treatise on the effects of CO2 on climate, but are instead directed at topics under direct discussion, I think I’m on solid ground.
Jeff Alberts apparently dismisses the basic AGW hypothesis as:
A hypothesis that has not been observationally or experimentally validated, and actually refuted on several points, therefore it should be thrown out.
I disagree. There’s an enormous amount of observational evidence in support of the basic AGW hypothesis, and as yet there is no compelling evidence against it. That is my own opinion. However, it is also the opinion of the National Academy of Sciences. The NAS was created by an act of Congress more than a hundred years ago, with the specific task of advising the government on scientific questions as they affect public policy. The NAS is composed of the elite of American science; membership in the NAS is very prestigious and is awarded only to those scientists who have proven their merit.
We could posit a rough analogy between the NAS (for science) and the Supreme Court (for law). Each institution exists to provide definitive answers to pressing questions. There are a few differences, however:
1. The Supreme Court has only 9 justices. The NAS has hundreds of members.
2. The Supreme Court is required to provide answers to the questions it tackles within a single 9-month session. The NAS takes as long as it feels it needs to tackle a problem, sometimes waiting for years to obtain confidence in its conclusions.
3. The Supreme Court decides matters on a simple majority vote. A 5-4 decision has just as much force as a 9-0 decision. The NAS, however, relies on supermajorities to make its decisions. Although there is no formal criterion, the NAS will not issue a report unless a strong majority of its assigned members endorse that report.
4. The Supreme Court has had plenty of bloopers, decisions that historians regard as grossly mistaken. In the entire history of the NAS, it has not issued a single report that was subsequently shown to be wrong. It has never had to retract a report. In short, it has a perfect batting average.
And if you consult the NAS public brochure on climate change (http://dels.nas.edu/basc/Climate-LOW.pdf), you’ll find that they are definitely of the opinion that human activity in the form of CO2 emissions is causing the temperature of the earth to increase. I strongly urge all readers to examine this document. It’s a summary for non-technical readers; the guts are in the NAS reports that this brochure summarizes.
You folks are welcome to your own opinions on these issues. However, the opinion of the NAS is the gold standard here, and it’s quite clear.
Good luck, Peter. They’re playing Wizard of Oz and keeping their toys to themselves and trying to scare us into believing they are infallible.
Somehow I was sure that Ophi would not accept my invitation to discuss natural changes in climate. One year ago, most climate alarmists pointed to a temperature record and failed to mention that there has been a string of El Nino activity that warmed the globe. They never spoke about the possible consequences of an 11,000 year high in solar activity or about how thermal inertia of the oceans mitigated that activity. Let’s not rehash how the cooling effects of the volcanoes in the early 80’s and 90’s gave the temperature record the appearence of a slow rise in temperature during that time (now think Pacific climate shift). Is this because none of these things are a part of the AGW manual?
Ophi:
“I disagree. There’s an enormous amount of observational evidence in support of the basic AGW hypothesis”
But, earlier on you said:
“There is one useful criterion we can apply in considering the relationship between CO2 and climate: the rates of change of the two should be loosely coupled. In a time period in which CO2 changes by an insignificant amount, we should not be looking for significant changes in climate. This suggests to me that we should be looking for changes in time scale of 50 – 100 years. Of this I am certain: looking at changes on the scale of a decade is a waste of time.”
Those two statements contradict each other, unless I’m missing something.
Ophi,
You wrote: “There’s an enormous amount of observational evidence in support of the basic AGW hypothesis, and as yet there is no compelling evidence against it.”
Let’s play tit for tat. You tell me one example of observational evidence in support of the basic AGW hypothesis (qualified here to mean from CO2, not land use cover changes, or other regional evidence of human impact on climate), and I’ll match it with compelling evidence against it.
Basil, he needs to adjust for natural variations in the temperature record before he can extract the impact of increased CO2, but I doubt he knows how to do that. I doubt any of them do.
I think you are all wasting your time with Opi. It would be more likely to convince the Pope to become Muslim then to show Opi the error of his/her ways.
Appy the 80/20 rule to this… 20% of the people have already formed an opinion and nothing will change it. Focus on the 80% who still have an open mind about it.
Just my $0.02
Peter writes:
er, the oceans are supposed to be warming – at least, according to the AGW’ers. And warmer water holds less CO2
No, warmer water has a lower saturation point for CO2. Ocean water is not at saturation point for CO2 — it’s well below that, which is a good thing for us, because the oceans are absorbing something like half of the CO2 that we pump into the atmosphere. If they were at saturation, then increases in atmospheric CO2 would cause increases in global temperature, raising ocean temperatures, causing the oceans to release CO2 — and we’d have a positive feedback of enormous magnitude. More like a runaway phenomenon.
Peter writes,
The cost of fully implementing Kyoto has been variously estimated at between $30 trillion and $70 trillion.
I note with interest the use of passive voice here. I suspect that you are not using active voice because it would reveal that the sources of those estimates are not exactly what would be called objective analysts.
Peter writes,
Another thing – the day when the AGW’ers make all of their data, methodologies, formulae, source code etc etc etc freely available to the public for independent scrutiny, is the day that I’ll accept that they’re at least talking science.
Have you read all of the material that IS publicly available? I find that hard to believe — the amount of information being released each week is enormous. I suspect you’re simply setting an impossible standard.
MikeC writes Somehow I was sure that Ophi would not accept my invitation to discuss natural changes in climate.
I’m happy to discuss them, but you were vague in your request. Sure, there are plenty of forcing agents for climate. Did you have something specific you wanted to say or ask?
Peter provides two quotes from me and declares that they contradict each other. I don’t see the contradiction. I request that you be more explicit in explaining what you regard to be the contradiction.
Basil presents me with this challenge: You tell me one example of observational evidence in support of the basic AGW hypothesis (qualified here to mean from CO2, not land use cover changes, or other regional evidence of human impact on climate), and I’ll match it with compelling evidence against it.
This appears to be a trick question, but I’ll first offer the direct answer: how about Figure 3.1 in IPCC AR4WG1, Chapter 3, page 8? Looks like pretty solid observational evidence to me.
But you embedded a qualification: you want data from CO2, not other factors. And I’ll tell you that it is impossible to present observational evidence of the warming effects of CO2 because there are many other factors mixed into the signal. You can perform calculations based on the observational data that will demonstrate the impact of CO2, but then you’re not dealing with observational data, you’re dealing with the results of observational data.
Lastly, MikeC weighs in with a snide comment: Basil, he needs to adjust for natural variations in the temperature record before he can extract the impact of increased CO2, but I doubt he knows how to do that. I doubt any of them do. I think the simplest response is to request the MikeC articulate his adjustment in scientific terminology. Since you’re so smart, I’m sure that you can give us a formal statement of the calculation you require to be done. You may present it in either mathematical form or in any computer pseudolanguage. If you know what you’re talking about, you should be able to express what you know.
Opi – “…it is irrefutable that some areas would suffer from increased temperatures.”
So? In fact warming since the Little Ice Age has been practically unmitigated “good”. The massive disruptions Ophiucus worries about are speculative at best. How disruptive has the past century of warming been? Why would the next century be worse?
Opi – “We’re talking about the possibility of much higher rates of change here, rates of change so much higher as to pose problems.”
“Possibility” being the key word. There’s also the “possibility” of slow change, no change (for awhile), or change in the “opposite” direction. Who knows? Not Hansen, not the IPCC, not anybody.
Opi – “He also objects that The earth is not a ‘simple thermodynamic system’. This is true, but it provides the basis for a second-order approximation.”
To get even a “second-order approximation” of the earth’s climate system, one would need something far more complex than the primitive GCMs the IPCC uses. And policy-wise, why should humanity base multi-trillion dollar decisions on “second-order approximations” even if they were available?
Gary – “The IPCC’s climate models assume positive feedback that actually amplifies whatever effect carbon dioxide has on climate.”
Opi – “Indeed so, and I agree that those mechanisms must be well-documented to be taken seriously.”
In which case the above alarmist points are rendered moot. The whole edifice of catastrophic AGW rests on these unproven feedbacks.
Opi – “There’s an enormous amount of observational evidence in support of the basic AGW hypothesis, and as yet there is no compelling evidence against it.”
Other than the observation that the earth has warmed perhaps 0.3 to 0.7 degrees Celsius over the last century while atmospheric carbon dioxide probably increased about a third, what is the observational evidence for AGW, and especially for catastrophic AGW?
Bear in mind that climate change (e.g. Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, Little Ice Age, etc) has occurred without significant carbon dioxide changes and was therefore caused by “something else”. What is the “observational evidence” that “something else” was not also at work over the last 150 years? Given that “something else” can “irrefutably” produce the same effects as (supposedly) carbon dioxide, what is the proof that carbon dioxide is suddenly a major, let alone dominant, determinant of climate?
Ophiuchus,
Roy Spencer’s work on the emerging relationship between increased C02 levels and water vapour is a really interesting read.
More accurate data on cloud cover and density (especially at high altitude – the potential “greenhouse” vapour) is soon to be available via NASA’s aqua satellite and is already adding to the detail in Roy Spenser’s research.
You’ll find alot of his research at:
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm
Personally I wish our own Prime Minister in Australia, Kevin Rudd, would have a good read of this paper before spending billions on what seems likely to be a huge “white elephant”.
Opi
So what are the CO2 feedback/sensitivity numbers the last 8 years?
Where is that hot spot the model talks about?
How about the heat from the cooling oceans, have you found it yet?
Where are those CO2 produced heat trapping clouds?
Have you incorporated Roy Spencer’s findings into your model yet?
Are you using all the forecasting principles that are in the Principle of Forecasting handbook?
The USA will of course say “We’ve got nukes, you don’t, go jump in the lake.”
Nah, that’s not our style. (We may say, “So sue me,” which is our style.)
er, the oceans are supposed to be warming – at least, according to the AGW’ers. And warmer water holds less CO2.
As we know, they ain’t. At least over the last 5 years. And sea levels have peaked out (after a steady rise) and over the last couple of years are beginning to go down.
Do you have an explanation for the end of the Little Ice Age? Why could the temperature increases since then NOT be due to CO2?
Well, Leif might dispute me here, but it is coincidental with the end of the Dalton Minimum. Temperatures were already on the rise since the early 1700s the Maunder Minimum spun its course. I would therefore expect temperatures to “recover” to Medieval Warm Period levels (or even the Roman Warm Period, believed to have been even warmer).
Yes, this is also coincidental with industrialization, but CO2 did not really begin to take off until WWII and after. And starting in 1951 there was a PDO cooling that lasted until 1977.
BTW, I am not claiming CO2 has no effect. I am saying that, in the absence of positive feedback, it’s effects are relatively minor.
which is a good thing for us, because the oceans are absorbing something like half of the CO2 that we pump into the atmosphere.
However, one must bear in mind that the Ocean carbon sink (Acc. to DoE) is 38,000 Bil. Metr. Toms . We are only adding c. 3 BMTC to the oceans per year. That isn’t going to upset any applecarts. (By comparison, the Atmospheric sink is a mere 750 BMTC.)
BTW, Peter is right about the refusal to release code, algorithms, and even some data. In order to bust the hockey stick, Mac had to pound on the table and threaten a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Sure, there’s tons of stuff released all the time. But for Independent Review, a scientist MUST release what is requested of him; he doesn’t get to pick and choose.
Currently, the major non-satellite surface temperature measurers refuse to release their adjustment codes. That ought to put their adjusted data completely out of any serious scientific consideration. (I harbor a prejudice that the satellite data is going a long way toward keeping recent [sic] surface data more “honest” than it would be otherwise.)