Mayan ruins in Guatemala.
This is an email I recently received from statistician Dr. Richard Mackey who writes:
The following appeared on Gore’s blog of Nov 19, 2008:
Looking Back to Look Forward November 19, 2008 : 3:04 PM
A new study suggests the Mayan civilization might have collapsed due to environmental disasters:
These models suggest that as ecosystems were destroyed by mismanagement or were transformed by global climatic shifts, the depletion of agricultural and wild foods eventually contributed to the failure of the Maya sociopolitical system,’ writes environmental archaeologist Kitty Emery of the Florida Museum of Natural History in the current Human Ecology journal.
As we move towards solving the climate crisis, we need to remember the consequences to civilizations that refused to take environmental concerns seriously.
If you haven’t read already read it, take a look at Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse.”
This is a most curious reference.
It means that Gore is advocating the abandonment of the IPCC doctrine and barracking for the study and understanding of climate dynamics that ignores totally the IPCC/AWG doctrine and focuses on all the other variables, especially how climate dynamics are driven by atmospheric/oceanic oscillations, the natural internal dynamics of the climate system and the role of the Sun in climate dynamics.
Brian Fagan in Floods, Famines and Emperors El Nino and the fate of civilisations Basic Books 1999, shows that the Maya collapse, whilst having complex political, sociological, technological and ecological factors, was largely driven by the natural atmospheric/oceanic oscillations of ENSO and NAO. The book is one of three by Brian Fagan, Prof of Anthropology UC Santa Barbara, that documents how natural climate variations, ultimately driven by solar activity, have given rise to the catastrophic collapse of civilisations. The book has a chapter on the Mayan civilisation which collapsed around 800 to 900 AD.
Here are some quotes from his book:
“The “Classic Maya collapse” is one of the great controversies of
archaeology, but there is little doubt that droughts, fuelled in part
by El Nino, played an important role.”
“The droughts that afflicted the Maya in the eighth and ninth
centuries resulted from complex, still little understood atmosphere-
ocean interactions, including El Nino events and major decadal shifts
in the North Atlantic Oscillation, as well as two or three decade-long
variations in rainfall over many centuries.”
“Why did the Maya civilisation suddenly come apart? Everyone who
studies the Classic Maya collapse agrees that it was brought on by a
combination of ecological, political, and sociological factors.”
“When the great droughts of the eighth and ninth centuries came, Maya
civilisation everywhere was under increasing stress.”
“The drought was the final straw.”
“The collapse did not come without turmoil and war.”
Brian Fagan describes how the ruling class (the kings had divine powers, they were also shamans and there was a vast aristocracy and their fellow-travellers that the tightly regulated workers toiled to maintain) encouraged population growth beyond what the land could carry; how the rulers enforced rigid farming practices which were supposed to increase food production and the ruler’s incomes but had the effect of undermining farm productivity and diminishing the quality of the poor soils of the area. When there were heavy rains the soil was washed away. In times of drought the soil blew away.
More quotes from Brian Fagan:
“The Maya collapse is a cautionary tale in the dangers of using
technology and people power to expand the carrying capacity of
tropical environments.”
“Atmospheric circulation changes far from the Maya homeland delivered
the coup de grace to rulers no longer able to control their own
destinies because they had exhausted their environmental options in an
endless quest for power and prestige.”
Gore says that we should use our understanding of the Maya collapse help us solve the climate crisis, noting that “we need to remember the consequences to civilizations that refused to take environmental
concerns seriously”.
Given what we know of the Maya collapse, what is Gore really saying?
He is saying that we should take all the IPCC/AWG publications and related papers to the tip and bury them there and put all our efforts into the study and understanding of the reasons for climate dynamics that address every theory except that of IPCC/AWG doctrine.
Specifically, we should understand as well as we can how climate dynamics are driven by atmospheric/oceanic oscillations, the natural internal dynamics of the climate system and the role of the Sun in climate dynamics.
In an overview of his work Brian Fagan concluded: “The whole course of civilisation … may be seen as a process of trading up on the scale of vulnerability”. (Fagan (2004, page xv)).
We are now, as a global community, very high up on that scale.
Allow me to quote a little from my Rhodes Fairbridge paper because of its relevance to Brian Fagan’s work and what Gore is really trying to say, but can’t quite find the right words.
(My paper is here: http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf ).
“In his many publications (for example, NORTH (2005)), Douglass North stresses that if the issues with which we are concerned, such as global warming and the global commons, belong in a world of continuous change (that is, a non-ergodic world), then we face a set of problems that become exceedingly complex. North stresses that our capacity to deal effectively with uncertainty is essential to our succeeding in a
non-ergodic world. History shows that regional effects of climate change are highly variable and that the pattern of change is highly variable. An extremely cold (or hot) year can be followed by extremely hot (or cold) year. Warming and cooling will be beneficial for some regions and catastrophic for others. Brian Fagan has documented in detail relationships between the large-scale and
generally periodic changes in climate and the rise and fall of civilisations, cultures and societies since the dawn of history. The thesis to which Rhodes Fairbridge devoted much of his life is that the
sun, through its relationships with the solar system, is largely responsible for these changes and that we are now on the cusp of one of the major changes that feature in the planet’s history. As
Douglass North showed, the main responsibility of governments in managing the impact of the potentially catastrophic events that arise in a non-ergodic world is to mange society’s response to them so as to
enable the society to adapt as efficiently as possible to them.
Amongst other things, this would mean being better able to anticipate and manage our response to climate change, to minimise suffering and maximise benefits and the efficiency of our adaptation to a climate that is ever-changing – sometimes catastrophically – but generally predictable within bounds of uncertainty that statisticians can estimate. At the very least, this requires that the scientific community acts on the wise counsel of Rhodes W Fairbridge and presents governments with advice that has regard to the entire field of planetary-lunar-solar dynamics, including gravitational dynamics.
This field has to be understood so that the dynamics of terrestrial climate can be understood.
References:
North, D. C., 2005. Understanding the Process of Economic Change
Princeton University Press.
Fagan, B., 2004. The Long Summer. How Climate Changed Civilization.
Basic Books.”
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Freezing Finn (02:10:01) :
By Jove, I think you’re getting it! (Note to self – leave out references to Jupiter on threads where the word barycenter was uttered.) If the atmosphere were perfectly transparent, sunlight would pass through it with no effect. Light would be absorbed by the ground which would heat the air and convection would tranport the warmed air upwards and heat much of the troposphere.
Ditto with the match flame, except heat due to combustion heats the plume of hot gas and radiation heats the surface area illuminated my the flame.
Now to really twist your mind (and I haven’t twisted my head around this as much as I’d like), if we had color vision in the infrared portion of the spectrum, then all the gasses that absorb part of the the spectrum, I think that’s most of them, would have different colors. When a gas absorbs part of the spectrum, the energy absorbed is either reradiated, turned into heat, or a bit of both.
Right, a real greenhouse works by being the equivalent of heated ground and the glass traps the convection. The glass does absorb some IR, but it radiates quite a bit from the outside surface. There are some high-efficiency glasses with dichroic filters that let sunlight through, but reflect long wavelength IR, but even there the main role is to keep heated air from blowing and floating away.
Phil said:
“Because H2O is not a permanent gas, as the temperature drops the vapor pressure drops, as the vapor pressure drops the GH effect of the water drops etc. Not to mention with the ice age that would engender and the corresponding effect on the albedo. A habitable climate of earth isn’t sustainable without permanent GHG, water vapor can’t do it on it’s own.
So yes water vapor is dependent on the existence of CO2 (and others like CH4).
Leif Svalgaard says:
When the Earth was young and had perhaps a hundred times as much CO2, that CO2 was the dominant GHC and prevented H2O freezing out. But now, that the temperature is high enough to sustain water vapor, the roles are reversed. Why are we discussing this? Isn’t all this clear already? If not, how can one debate AGW at all without having even the basics down?
Phildot & Leif, that’s speculation, although perhaps a reasonable first-assumption. No one yet knows for sure what the climate of a hypothetical earth w/o any non-water-vapor GHGs would be, especially w/the complications regarding ice and clouds. You can plug varying CO2, CH4 & H2O values into HITRAN & get results, but that’s a model, not reality.
Leif Svalgaard (21:59:30) :
For the same reasons as for the Sun, I’d say the answer is no. In a sense, it is the other way around: the climate influences the Earth’s rotational speed. Warmer air expands and the atmosphere swells and, as an ice skater outstretching her arms, the Earth slows down.
Would this be negligible? How would this affect rotational speed as compared to land positions, tectonic motion, thermal expansions of the ocean (another climate influence), planetary and lunar gravity influence? My instincs tell me that the distribution of mass in the atmosphere will not appreciably affect the angular inertia of the Earth, but I have never thought through the calculations.
Leif Svalgaard
When the Earth was young and had perhaps a hundred times as much CO2, that CO2 was the dominant GHC and prevented H2O freezing out. But now, that the temperature is high enough to sustain water vapor, the roles are reversed. Why are we discussing this? Isn’t all this clear already? If not, how can one debate AGW at all without having even the basics down?
When the earth was “young” it was a baking hot blob of magma. Gases didn’t condense because gravity was not powerful enough to allow it. As the earth cooled so condensation could occur. CO2 didn’t stop water from condensing but rather water condensed first.
Not immediately relevant, but…
Some bag-wigged big wig in the U.K. wants an international environmental court.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/3530607/Lawyers-call-for-international-court-for-the-environment.html
‘The court would be led by retired judges, climate change experts and public figures.’
Lets hope they have plenty of Arricept available.
Brian Johnson (00:41:23) :
Barycentric orbits may give a clue……..
For the clueless?
Focusing upon Al Gore is misplaced. He is a paid propagandist, the mouthpiece, for an international cabal.
This cabal is led by George Soros and Maurice Strong, and some other like minded plutocrats, who stand to profit from the total regulation of energy production and utilization. The cabal also includes UN bureaucrats, NGOs like WWF and Greenpeace, and numerous useful idiots in various governments globally. Collaborating scientists and research institutions have been corrupted into willing accomplices of the AGW conspiracy.
World domination of every aspect of human life is their objective. To date they have had enormous success. The scope of the corruption and fraud being used to promote AGW cause is amazing. We are witnesses to evolution of governance into human domination described in 1984, Brave New World and the Animal Farm.
The activities of this and similar blogs are essential to inform the public about the massive fraud that is perpetrated in the name of saving the planet. I applaud Anthony, Steve McIntyre, Roger Pilke Sr and Jr, and the many scientists whose research and publications will educate the public. This process is underway and will end in repudiation of the AGW conspiracy and rejection of those who promote it.
Seems to me there is a lot of confusion of the physics involved.
TD (19:54:24) :
Leif and Ric
When a GHG molecule absorbs an IR photon it is thermalised, raising the temperature of the molecule.
No. It is not “thermalized”, whatever that means. The molecule goes to a higher excited state, i.e. it absorbs the energy and hoards it, like a pitcher catching a baseball and holding it. By conservation of momentum, a bit of the energy is transferred to the motion of the molecule in total, thus widening the energy level of the excited state, but affecting very little the “temperature” of the GHG gas .This excited state is not stable and will decay with an electromagnetic characteristic timing.
There is no measurable “new temperature”. Temperature is a statistical measure of the kinetic energy of the whole molecule, and radiation is not transferred to the kinetic energy of the molecules ( except a bit by conservation of momentum).
When this same molecule then emits IR is this IR emission packing the same punch as it absorbed or is it determined by the new temperature that the molecule has reached?.
It is almost the same punch except diffused by the small kinetic energy transfer due to momentum conservation.
It will emit within the decay width the same energy, again losing a bit because of momentum conservation, so probably thia photon that fits the CO2 spectrum will not be absorbed by a CO2 again from loss of resolution.
Does a GHG molecule always emit after it absorbs or is some shared with the surrounding non GHG molecules?.
The state is unstable and it will always emit within 10 to the minus sixteen seconds ( characteristic electromagnetic time). Other molecules, H2O particularly, which have wide absorption bands might reabsorbe something a CO2 spewed, etc. This does not change the temperature of the gases ( except minimally due to momentum conservation and subsequent deterioration of energy level widths).
What does all this lingo mean?
Take a quiet windless cloudless night, and let us use water, H2O to illustrate the “greenhouse” misnamed effect. If the humidity is low by two in the morning there may even be a frost. That is why deserts are so cold at night. If the humidity is high, the night is pleasant and warm ( depending on the latitude, at least warmer than it would have been without the humidity). This is because in the first case the ground radiates heat ( infrared ) at a brisk rate, while in the presence of high humidity the rate is delayed by the ping pong played with the infrared radiation and the dispersed H2O molecules. That is why if you take the average temperature for this day you will find it higher if there is humidity and lower if there is not.
It is not a blanket, it is a matter of tackling the photons. GHG are efficient it delaying and lengthening their path for the infrared photons thus delaying the cooling of the air and ground.
Now CO2 and other green house gases can add to this effect by the percentage of extra possibility of capture and radiation as the photons try to squirm their way into space. Their percentage is small, maybe 3 or 5 % of the effect. If you look at the absorption spectra you get a feel for this. Anthropogenic CO2 is another 3% down, i.e. 0.05*0.03=0.0015 of the effect.
These are the numbers we are asked to believe will create runaway warming.
Now why, if such a feedback were possible, we are not already boiling because of the increase in humidity every day over the oceans when the sun shines, is a mystery.
Old Coach (06:31:25) :
My instincs tell me that the distribution of mass in the atmosphere will not appreciably affect the angular inertia of the Earth
Not only the distribution of mass with altitude, but also that due to winds and circulations. There is a clear annual cycle in the length of the day of about a millisecond:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/ReleaseImages/20030305/AngularMomentum.jpg
beng (06:16:36) :
Phildot & Leif, that’s speculation, although perhaps a reasonable first-assumption.
The Sun was 35% dimmer back then and there were no life to help sequester the CO2 in limestone and chalk, so we may be allowed to make educated guessed.
MartinGAtkins (06:45:16) :
When the earth was “young” it was a baking hot blob of magma. Gases didn’t condense because gravity was not powerful enough to allow it. As the earth cooled so condensation could occur. CO2 didn’t stop water from condensing but rather water condensed first.
Your physics is a bit muddled here [‘beng’ may have something to say about your speculation here…]. The critical issue is what the relative ‘mixing ratios’ [i.e. atmospheric concentration] of the two gases ended up being, say, a billion years after the formation of the Earth, when it was still young but no longer a molten blob.
On one of the threads here this past week, the Climate Prediction Center’s December outlook was cited. Remember how warm it was biased (it is, after all, a probability scheme and not a forecast)? Take a gander at the Revised Version.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/30day/
This is not a revision; this is from scratch!
Isn’t there a global warming algorithm built into most models that would tend to bias the model toward a warm solution? Then when reality is no longer co-operating: AO and NAO tanking like the S&P 500, PNA positive, QBO westerly(or is it easterly?) etc.etc., attention must be paid and it’s back to the drawing board.
CO2 didn’t stop water from condensing but rather water condensed first.
CO2, of course, does not condense, if ‘condensation’ is the phase change from gas to liquid; rather it passes directly from gas to solid (dry ice) and vice-versa.
‘My instincs tell me that the distribution of mass in the atmosphere will not appreciably affect the angular inertia of the Earth.’
Atmospheric Angular Momentum.
I love rolling those syllables on my tongue.
Leif–
Speaking of instincts, mine whisper to me that when the AAM is easterly, i.e. exerting a force counter to the rotation of the earth, especially at the equator, it would slow down the velocity of rotation. Then, by the law of conservation of momentum, there would be an effect in the atmosphere itself.
Isn’t this related to the Quasi-biennial Oscillation?
Leif Svalgaard (10:30:19) :
Old Coach (06:31:25) :
My instincs tell me that the distribution of mass in the atmosphere will not appreciably affect the angular inertia of the Earth
Not only the distribution of mass with altitude, but also that due to winds and circulations. There is a clear annual cycle in the length of the day of about a millisecond:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NasaNews/ReleaseImages/20030305/AngularMomentum.jpg
OT
Leif, I was not aware of this annual cycle. Do you remember of a recent paper that claimed that the sun cycle was affecting the decay rates of various isotopes? A millisecond is substantial. Maybe that is what they are measuring!!
Leif Svalgaard (10:30:19) :
Old Coach (06:31:25) :
My instincs tell me that the distribution of mass in the atmosphere will not appreciably affect the angular inertia of the Earth
Not only the distribution of mass with altitude, but also that due to winds and circulations. There is a clear annual cycle in the length of the day of about a millisecond:
OT
Leif, I was not aware of this annual cycle. Do you remember of a recent paper that claimed that the sun cycle was affecting the decay rates of various isotopes? A millisecond is substantial. Maybe that is what they are measuring!!
Arthur Glass (11:29:55) :
Isn’t this related to the Quasi-biennial Oscillation?
The QBO does influence the rotation, as do many other things [except planetary tides].
Anna V says at the end of a very fine exposition of what is going on:
As always, the Devil is in the details.
Do you have the skill to create a simulation that shows us the steady state behavior with and with out CO2 and then allows us to perturb the CO2 levels and see what happens?
BTW, what is a good and accessible text that deals with this stuff?
Leif,
The graph you posted looks to be a comparison of the angular momentum of the atmosphere and the variation of angular period. The angular momentum of the air mirrors the angular speed of the Earth. If the atmosphere fluctuations were causing the annual variation in rotational speed, I would expect the angular inertia of the atmosphere to be inversely related to this speed, and the angular momentum of the air to remain constant. If angular momentum of the air is changing with Earth’s speed (which is how I am interpreting the graph), then this would indicate that the change in earth’s speed is dragging the atmosphere with it, and not the other way around.
Thanks Ric (et al.) – baby steps for you folks – big ones for me… 😉
anna v it seems like you’re contributing to the confusion!
Many things in your piece are wrong but this is way out:
The emission characteristic time is way more than you suggest, depending on the state, ~100 microsec. The characteristic collision time is ~0.1 nsec, many times faster so collisional quenching is the dominant mode of de-excitation in the troposphere. These lifetimes have been much studied in connection with the CO2 laser
Old Coach,
You find much the same frequencies in Length of day and PDO/NPI
http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu/~axel/AMO/Mantua.ppt page 13
http://www.inrim.it/luc/cesio/itu/gambis.pdf page 17 (page 8 is also interesting)
Old Coach (12:59:28) :
If angular momentum of the air is changing with Earth’s speed (which is how I am interpreting the graph), then this would indicate that the change in earth’s speed is dragging the atmosphere with it, and not the other way around.
This is actually another can of worms. There is general agreement that the atmosphere is responsible for ~90% of the observed changes of the length of the day [thus not the other way around], but the whole subject is complex [and has its own share of fanciful and pseudo-scientific speculation – including, of course, that AGW ‘is doing it’, http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planetearth/longer_days_020212.html ].
Google ‘angular momentum atmosphere length of day’ to get a load of stuff on this.
Phil says:
It would be much appreciated if you could provide links for these things.
a very impt easily demonstrated effect of co2 and fossil fuel can be determined by plotting IPCC co2 and human carbon emissions from oak ridge. the xls file is here
http://www.box.net/shared/z0vhl74uxy
we would have to at least double the rate of co2 emissions to move global co2 by 60 ppm. NO matter what man does, mother nature will buffer the effect, and already has if you look at the data.