Reposted in its entirety from Climate Science
By Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. University of Colorado
There was an interesting news article in the Guardian on December 6 2008 by James Randerson titled Explainer: Coolest year since 2000
The article reads
“This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001-07.
The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing, say climate scientists at the Met Office. “Absolutely not,” said Dr Peter Stott, the manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre. “If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends.”
Prof Myles Allen at Oxford University, who runs the climateprediction.net website, said he feared climate sceptics would overinterpret the figure: “You can bet your life there will be a lot of fuss about what a cold year it is. Actually no, it’s not been that cold a year, but the human memory is not very long. We are used to warm years.”
The Met Office had predicted 2008 would be cooler than recent years due to a La Niña event, characterised by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean – the mirror image of the El Niño climate cycle.
Allen was presenting the data on this year’s global average temperature at the Appleton Space Conference at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Didcot, yesterday. The 14.3C figure is based on data from January to October. When the Met Office makes its formal announcement next week they will incorporate data from November. “[The figure] will differ from it, but it won’t differ massively,” said Stott.
Assuming the final figure is close to 14.3C then 2008 will be the 10th hottest year on record. Hottest was 1998, followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002.
In March a team of climate scientists at Kiel University predicted that natural variation would mask the 0.3C warming predicted by the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change over the next decade.”
Lets do a reality check.
The statement that “The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing” mixes up regional and global temperatures changes. Also, there has been no global warming in the last 4 years (at least; e.g. see). Global warming has stopped for the last few years.
The statement that “In March a team of climate scientists at Kiel University predicted that natural variation would mask the 0.3C warming predicted by the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change over the next decade” is scientifically incorrect. Heating cannot be ”masked”.
As given in the examples below, the news releases provided by the UK Met Office make for interesting reading and show the complexity and difficulty of skillful season climate prediction.
Thus why should there be any confidence in the forecasts regarding climate change in the longer term?
Examples of UK Met Office News releases
1. For example, on April 11 2007, they wrote in a news release “Met Office forecast for Summer 2007″ [to their credit, they do have a readily accessible archive]
“The Met Office forecast of global mean temperature for 2007, issued on 4 January 2007 in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, stated that 2007 is likely to be the warmest ever year on record going back to 1850, beating the current record set in 1998.”
This did not occur.
2. On April 3 2008 they wrote in a news release “A typical British summer”
“The coming summer is expected to be a ‘typical British summer’, according to long-range forecasts issued today. Summer temperatures across the UK are more likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or above average for the three months of summer.”
On August 29 2008 they published a news release titled “Wet summer could end with a bang” where they write
“The return to unsettled weather will mark the end of the meteorological summer which has been one of the wettest on record across the UK.”
I suppose that rainfall “near or above average” fits what actually occurred but this is hardly a particularly precise or useful forecast.
3. On September 25 2008 they wrote in a news release “Trend of mild winters continues”
“The Met Office forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average. It is also likely that the coming winter will be drier than last year.”
They qualified this news release with the article on November 25 2008 titled “A cold start to winter” where they wrote
“The latest update to the Met Office winter forecast suggests that although the coming winter will have temperatures near or above average, it is very likely that December will be colder than normal.”
Now, in addition to a news release on December 9 2008 they published an article ”El Niño gives colder European winters”, which states
Sarah Ineson, climate research scientist at the Met Office says: “We have shown evidence of an active stratospheric role in the transition to cold conditions in northern Europe and mild conditions in southern Europe in late winter during El Niño years”.
The message in th UK Met Office press releases is that, since their is such poor skill with seasonal weather prediction, multi-decadal climate prediction must be a much less precise and accurate science than we have heard promoted by the IPCC and in the climate change press releases given out by the UK Met Office and others.
“Hottest was 1998, followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002.”
What about 1934 ?
The Met Office had predicted 2008 would be cooler than recent years due to a La Niña event, characterised by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean – the mirror image of the El Niño climate cycle.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we cooler…. despite not having a significant La Nina this year?
If the MET cannot get the short term ‘weather’ correct how can the be so sure of the long term climate. Some of the followers here have heard of the PDO and the shortage of sunspots (that have no effect on weather or climate birrr).
Sounds like when Dad was telling me about Santa. I did eventually figure it out.
The Met Office and its offshoots such as the Hadley CRU are politicised organisations (like the BBC) and their products are what their masters in the (green and red) Brown Government want to hear from them. The Met Office no longer has any scientific integrity.
You’ve got Pielke spelled incorrectly on your head. Just a heads up.
Reply: Thanks, fixed. ~dbstealey, mod.
Meanwhile, here in Kalyfornia, the Air Resources Gestapo… I mean board, just passed sweeping new regulations to stop climate change.
“The Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) is the first statewide effort to cap greenhouse gas emissions. It sets a firm cap requiring the state to cut its emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020 (about 30 percent below business as usual).
Been tried – Kyoto – failed. Good luck with that.
My climate change prediction – The economic climate in California will grow extensively worse as businesses and many wealth individuals not tied to the film industry continue to move to more economic friendly states such as Arizona, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Meanwhile, the already struggling independent trucking industry will experience an implosion with more and more indies getting out of the business (and moving into employment by the ever expanding state prison system, and goods will then be hauled around by gross polluting Mexican trucks that drive right through the gaping loopholes of the environmental reg’s, courtesy of NAFTA….
I could go on, but I have work to do.
sonicfrog (07:28:38) :
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t we cooler…. despite not having a significant La Nina this year?
I was thinking the same thing as I read the article. I thought that the “La Nina event” this year was just essentially the tail end of last years La Nina. Correct me if I thought incorrectly.
As Lawrence Buja of NCAR recently pointed out (see icecap.us – Dec 10th in Icing the Hype) – “The skeptics are doing a good job because they are making us present ironclad proof”.
Gotta love that ironclad proof of golbal warming.
Perhaps not entirely on the specific topic of the post, but one word comes to mind when I read Dr. Pielke, Sr’s posts: Integrity. From there, it’s a very short walk to Trust.
The looming tax on Carbon, the basis for all life on the planet Earth.
Obama’s Carbon Busters: A team of Al Gore’s protégés takes over energy policy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122904166229300171.html
Retired Engineer
What about 1934 ?
That is so passe.
Exactly when is that “iron clad proof” going to be showing up?…
Anyone know?
Mary? ;*)
Yeah, I thought that correction of NASA computer programs had established that 1934 was th hottest in the 20th century. Is this still the correct view? It would be helpful to regularly (say monthly) publish a graph of global temperature using all the established corrections (NASA code errors, poorly sited instrumnets, UHI etc etc). Otherwise concerned but non-expert followers of the topic get to doubt what they heard a few months ago is still true.
But there was a moderate La Nina earlier this year, and the hang-over remains in the persistently positive SOI readings for the past three months.
Ed Scott says:
There. Fixed the link for you.
Anyway, this all looks like a standard failed ideology. The screeching becomes ever more strident towards the end as those most invested try to keep the whole mess on the tracks.
Then they run over the cliff.
People usually never forgive them after that.
I expect it will be another twelve months before this mess falls to pieces.
It is interesting that UK Met points to the La Nina as influencing the relatively cold 2008 temperatures.
But they don’t say the relatively high temperatures in 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006 were influenced by El Ninos. They are happy to let global warming take the credit for those years.
Right now, we are in neutral ENSO territory. There is neither a positive or negative influence on temperatures from an El Nino or a La Nina.
Yesterday, the new AMO index figure for November came out and the index has fallen to +0.055C (which according to my other analysis would provide about 0.02C boost to temperatures or, in other words – nothing really).
So, we are right now, experiencing roughly “normal” temperatures without the oceans pushing the figures up or down.
It is not cool, it is not warm, it is normal. (a slightly higher normal than decades ago, but not that much higher).
TFN, to my knowledge 1934 was the hottest year for North America, not the world (according to the oft-adjusted thermometer at NASA GISS)
Temperatures and oceans levels have risen since the last ice age and should continue to as a general trend until the next ice age or little ice age begins. Which could be now.
Mcintyre over at Climate Audit corrected the NASA numbers. He found that in the US (important point, the US only), that a miscalculation showed 1998 to be the warmest, in the US. The correction showed it to be the second warmest, after one year during the 30s.
BTW, 1934 was hottest in U.S., but not (as far as we can trust the climateers) hottest worldwide.
“Manager of understanding and attributing climate change”
Wasn’t this Winston’s boss in Orwell’s 1984?
“Global warming has stopped for the last few years.”
This statement is completely meaningless. Over periods of a few years, weather noise completely dominates the forcing due to CO2. You cannot measure global warming over a ‘few years’, so to claim that it has stopped is ludicrous. It’s like saying an oak tree has stopped growing because you couldn’t measure a change in its height over the course of a week.
“The skeptics are doing a good job because they are making us present ironclad proof.” Talk about cognitive dissonance! The more so-called “ironclad proof” they present, the worse things get for them. The new http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=37283205-c4eb-4523-b1d3-c6e8faf14e84<a href=” U. S. Senate Minority Report:
More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims is out, all 231 pages of it.
Actually, it is the climate Alarmists who are doing a good job. The louder, and more alarmist they become, the more of us Skeptics/Climate Realists there are.
They are their own worst enemies!
Here is a quote from Prof. Myles Allen posted in the Guardian Dec. 5th, 2008 and my subsequent comment.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/05/climate-change-weather
“And 2008 would have been a scorcher in Charles Dickens’s time – without human-induced warming there would have been a one in a hundred chance of getting a year this hot. “For Dickens this would have been an extremely warm year,” he said. On the flip side, in the current climate there is a roughly one in 10chance of having a year this cool.”
How curious Prof Myles Allen would reference Charles Dickens, “For Dickens this would have been an extremely warm year,”. And why is that? Perhaps because Dickens’ lifetime which was from 1812 to 1870, overlaps the period called the “Dalton Minimum”, a period of low solar activity that lasted from approximately 1790 to 1830. (from Wikipedia) “It is named for the English meteorologist John Dalton. Like the Maunder Minimum and Spörer Minimum it coincided with a period of lower than average global temperatures. Low solar activity seems to be strongly correlated with global cooling.” Gee Prof Myles, we are currently experiencing a period of low solar activity AND the temperature is unusually lower. I’m not an actual scientist myself, but maybe someone should see if there’s a correlation.
TerryBixier: “If the MET cannot get the short term ‘weather’ correct how can the be so sure of the long term climate” – that’s a bit like saying, if we can’t predict the arrival time of individual waves on a particular beach, how can we be so sure about the tides?
I think 1934 was supposed to be the hottest year in the United States. The world wasn’t covered with thermometers at that time, so there was plenty of fudge factor available to keep the world as a whole warmer than 1998.
From Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr.’s website: http://climatesci.org/2008/12/12/an-upcoming-talk-by-roy-spencer-global-warming-as-a-response-to-the-pacific-decadal-oscillation/
On December 15, 2008 Noon-1:30pm there will be an interesting and provocative talk titled “Global Warming as a Response to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation” by Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama-Huntsville at the Capitol Hill Club 300 First St., S.E., in Washington, D.C. Reservations are required – RSVP by calling 202/ 296-9655 or email info@marshall.org[mailto:info@marshall.org]
Here is the abstract of the talk
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assumes that there are no long-term natural sources of energy imbalances in the Earth’s radiative budget that would cause natural periods of global warming or global cooling. But recent satellite evidence suggests that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) does indeed change the Earth’s energy balance. When that PDO-related forcing is put into a simple climate model, along with the 100-year history of the PDO, a global temperature history results which is very similar to that observed, including 75% of the centennial temperature trend. This suggests that the IPCC’s claim of high confidence in global warming being manmade is misplaced.”
several: I believe 1934 is still established, by the narrowest of margins, as the warmest for the US. The world is a different matter.
Personally I think world figures before the satellite era are not worth much. There has simply been too much adjustment and selection of data. I do think many records from Europe and North America are good for the last two centuries. But which ones, and what can those local values tell us about global temperatures?
Even the thirty years of satellite data are certainly not perfect or pristine.
More and better satellites are launched every year. And more importantly, they are not all are controlled NASA or any other single source. That data will eventually settle the matter of warming and sea levels, even though it cannot tell us a cause.
Individual scientists who have worked the topic are not to blame for our uncertainties. But it would take a lifetime to figure out what past studies and data are reliable. I haven’t that lifetime. And no entity seems rich enough and sufficiently disinterested to do it.
It looks as if Obama leans toward giving free rein to Gore and his ilk. Probably not a good thing. Yet Obama has chosen a very qualified scientific adviser. We will see if Dr. Chu changes the politicians or they change him.
TFN Johnson et al,
I think the temperatures quoted in the article refer to the maximums in the UK only. All so the high of 1934 refers only to the US, not global.
The idea that (according to the Met Office) this year will be the UK’s 10th “hottest” is just absolutely ridiculous. It shows that something is going on with the temperature recording. Memory is short, that’s true, but we’ve had some rotten, miserable weather with cold temperatures that makes a mockery of what the Met Office says. According to them November was a whole half a degree C warmer ‘than usual’. Tell UK citizens that and they’ll laugh. It simply was not. We also had a rotten July, but they said it was 0.2 degrees warmer than usual! It’s beyond a joke here in England. They get the weather hopelessly wrong very often – so don’t trust a single word on temperatures or future climate!
And I should know by now that “all so” is spelt “also”.
Cheerleader in Chief Al Gore rouses U.N. climate talks to more action
The major benefit from political action:
Absolutely. And 30 years or 100 years, are not long term trends. Long term means millennial scale trends, or better yet, geological time scale…
That’s the spirit! Drive more business out of California and eventually out of the country! Go USA!!
No. In fact, 1934 was already the highest temperature on record by a small margin in the U.S.A. alone. The correction meant that 1934 and 1998 were more obviously split.
However, on a global scale the adjustment had negligible effect and made no difference to 1998’s title. 1934 is well behind the most recent years in the global data set.
Hmmmmm, bathing suit or parka ( Winter Jacket)? I hate to use the precautionary principal, but I think I will opt for the winter jacket. If it happens to get warmer, I can always strip down to my skivvies (do not attempt to visualize this) !! Just purchasing the bathing suit seems to not be adequate to prepare for any contingency. ;^ )
Dr. Pielke is one of the most respected and level headed climatologist. He hit the nail right on the head when he listed the failures of the UK Met Office (aka Hadley) to predict the climate correctly. The sun is still very quiet… I still want Santa to bring us a Dalton Minimum… then see what excuses the UK Met Office makes.
As a UK citizen, I am seriously concerned about how the Met Office here records temperatures.
Two years ago we had a blazing hot summer, it was really great.
This year, it was wet and cold. I dont even record one warm day, not one, and that has never happened before. And then I look at the record for August 2008, and I find out that it was warmer than average! I know that they acknowledge that it was the warm nights that made up for the cool days, but even so I just dont believe this.
And now we are clearly having a very cold end to the Autumn here. It is rare for it to stay below freezing all day in the UK before January, but we have had days like this here now.
This has not been a warm year at all. Please bring back global warming, it was nice while it lasted.
On the last thread, I believe codetech mentioned a phenomenon in southern Alberta, Canada called a “Chinook”. The Chinook is a weather event caused by wind coming down off the mountains where it compresses and gains heat as it speeds down the mountain face (extremely simplified description of event). Interestingly, the translation to english of Chinook is ” snow eater “. I love little weather tidbits like that !!! Hope you all do as well, …..
1934 was the warmest year for the UNITED STATES, NOT the world!
It amazes me that people still don’t understand this.
sonicfrog (07:52:45) :
“The economic climate in California will grow extensively worse as businesses and many wealth individuals not tied to the film industry continue to move to more economic friendly states such as Arizona, Mississippi, and Tennessee.”
But, don’t you see? The effect will be to lower Caly emissions, helping them towards their goal.
The El Nino began in September 07 and ended in June 08.
TFN Johnson et al,
I apologise; the article is about global temps and not just the UK’s temps as I had first thought. However the 1934 temperature record was only related to the US and not global.
This forecasting racket looks like it’s something one can make money off of. Here’s my three and six month forecast:
Temperatures are likely to be markedly lower over the period than during the preceding three months. There’s a significant possibility of freezing precipitation during the period, especially in the Great Lakes region where snowfall is most likely to occur in areas east of each of the Great Lakes. The possibility of significant snow in these areas will lessen toward the end of the period as the lakes will increasingly become frozen over with ice. In southern regions of the country there’s a possibility they may experience sleet or freezing rain event(s), depending on the timing of an influx of especially cold air. Along the West coast, there’s a fairly good possibility of significant snow events at high elevations as Pacific-bred storms slam ashore.
Over the longer term, in approximately six months, we can expect to experience the reassertion of global warming as temperatures soar to levels not seen since the June-August period this year.
As for today’s local forecast for Western NY, the models had been calling for sunny periods today; however, they did not anticipate the disturbance in the atmosphere that introduced clouds. Now that it’s snowing here at noon we’re confident enough in what the models now project for today to change our forecast to periods of light snow with the possibility the sun may make a brief appearance, depending on your location. Later this evening, after the sun sets, we can expect a protracted period of darkness. Right now it looks like we will experience temperatures in the 20 to 30 degree range.
What kind of a job description goes with that title:
“The manager of understanding and attributing climate change”
Manager of Understanding ?!?!
Well, he is British, and so was George Orwell…
I’ve often heard/read: “We can’t always accurately predict the short term weather, but we can certainly predict the long term climate”.
Huh? That doesn’t follow. I can build model rockets, but can I put a man on the moon? No.
If the models are so accurate, shouldn’t they have predicted the 8 year cool phase? It seems to have come as a surprise to the modelers, and now they have to come up with excuses like “natural variation masked the warming” and “there will be a 10 year pause in warming” . All this after they have already claimed that man made CO2 has taken us past a tipping point where natural climate cycles cannot undo AGW! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. He’s there for your benefit.
Last night on BBC’s “Question Time” they ended with environmental issues and expressing her views was a tv presenter called Esther Ransen who drives a hybrid car and was talking about C02 tipping points and being too late.
This woman has just flown back from Aussie where she picked up circa £70k ror appearing in ITV’s series “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here” – its a sort of Big Brother in the jungle.
No mention of her carbon footprint for this trip!!!!!!
I then turned over barely able to keep my temper…hurling all sots of expletives at the hypocritical bitch…only to end up laughing my head off.
It was the BBC’s Ski Report.
Bloody good skiing just about everywhere, with the possible exception of Northern California…….this could have been made up for by the snow in Houston, Texas but they ain’t got mountains in Texas.
Seasons Greetings.
Hahahahahahah
HadCRUT: 2008/11 0.387
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
John M Reynolds
Chris V. (09:41:06) :
Me too.
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/File/Commdocs/hearings/2007/energy/21mar/gore_testimony.pdf
1934 was the warmets for the US, not for the planet.
Once again we hear of “the tenth hottest year ever registered”. Let us asume that the present nadir of the Western World continues another ten years. In other words no increase in the GNP. In 2018 we will then be able to say “this is the tenth most affluent year ever registered”. Everybody will be exuberant! Or will they?
What about Santa?
Compare and contrast – taken from the paper published in late 2007, judging by the references in it, entitled Climate research at the Met Office Hadley Centre: informing Government policy into the future http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures/clim_res_had_fut_pol.pdf which stated
The Met Office Hadley Centre has pioneered a new system to predict the climate a decade ahead. The system simulates both the human driven climate change and the evolution of slow natural variations already locked into the system.
This is possible because the climate takes a long time to respond to some variations. In particular, the state of the ocean has an impact on climate for months and years into the future. In part, this is because it takes a long time for the ocean to heat up and cool down.
Unfortunately global temperatures are currently heading outside the 90% confidence band as shown in the graphic taken from the paper
http://www.holtlane.plus.com/images/hadleygraph.jpg
Sounds like someone in England needs to do some digging in their temperature records as well.
Ok, this is OT, but I’ve got to ask…were the 70’s and 80’s that much colder and snowier? Specifically in the midwest and northeast. I keep hearing this, but when I check the last 5 years of snowfall, it’s been spot on the average.
As for temperatures, how much colder could they have been? I understand they were probably more consistantly cold. Maybe this is why people perceive now a days as less snowy…because it all melts in between snowfalls, but were they really that much colder?
Anyways, just would like some people to weigh in on this.
The recent La Nina event ended earlier this year – April 2008. It actually took hold about May 2007. If anyone remembers, the Met Office predicted record temps for 2007 based primairily upon a continuation of warm Central Pacific SSTs. Hansen was even a strong El Nino. Niether NOAA or Hadley expected the moderate 2007 La Nina event.
Preceeding the 2007 La Nina was a weak short lived El Nino is 2006, which was believed to supress Atlanitc TC activity. We really haven’t had a strong El Nino since 1997-1998.
In the context of the 1998 El Nino event, global temperatures remained steady to slightly dropping a bit. However, global CO2 concentrations have increased from 370ppm to 385ppm. I would think the IPCC would be interested in this divergence. Listening to the talk from Poznan it appears they are too busy planning the next round of Kyoto mandates.
I’ll repeat my observation since it seems to have not been recognised by the UK Met Office.
“It is fairly common to have the highest values of anything tend to cluster around a maximum.”
It is also reported that some of the highest altitudes on planet earth tend to be found up in the mountains.
I now return control of your screen to you !
The new Hadcrut3 November anomaly is out at 0.387C (down from 0.440C in October.)
When I put the new AMO index number for November into my Hadcrut3 climate reconstruction, the model predicted 0.376C so being off by just 0.011C continues my faith in this method of adjusting temperatures for the ENSO, the AMO and other ocean influences. I would consider 0.38C to be the “normal” temperature.
The ytd Hadcrut3 temperature is only 0.321C which would make 2008 the coldest year since 2000 and 0.225C lower than 1998, still the record warmest year.
RW (08:49:07) :
TerryBixier: “If the MET cannot get the short term ‘weather’ correct how can the be so sure of the long term climate” – that’s a bit like saying, if we can’t predict the arrival time of individual waves on a particular beach, how can we be so sure about the tides?.
The waves and the tides are wrong analogies to weather and climate . That is because the tides are due to a different source( gravitational force) than the wind induced waves.
Climate is supposed to be the long term averaging of weather: all forces that create climate are present in weather too. There is nothing extra at least the way the AGW models are made.
Of course if we talk ice ages and Mi…. cycles and possible sun cycle effects from cosmic rays, then yes, climate is driven by different forces than weather. But this is not in the GCmodels that both weather and climate predictions rely on.
So the analogy stands on the skeptics side.
Retired Engineer (07:23:41) :
“Hottest was 1998, followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002.”
What about 1934 ?
1934 was a fleeting usurper. It appeared when the Y2K bug was corrected, then Hansen managed to find away to rub it out again, so I believe I am correct in saying that 1934 was the hottest year in 2007.
What is this year’s October temperature in December? This appears to change monthly.
TerryBixler (07:29:29) :
The UK Met office’s standard short term weather report is “Sunny Periods With Scattered Showers”
In the UK, you are always going to be correct at some point in the day with this forecast.
RW; I’m sorry but your “It’s a bit like saying” analogies are way off the mark. I’m afraid you’ll have to do better in refuting peoples comments. Maybe by showing how Co2 drives climate without using climate models, or hockey sticks. Perhaps you have a theory that more accurately describes the observed data. Maybe you can tell me what the other planets in the solar system are doing and what may be causing that. Better yet, get Mr. Hansen to reveal his methodology. Show the accuracy of data collection, or more to the point, the inaccuracy. Specious comments about oak trees and tides do little to help your position. Maybe Chris V can help you with that stuff !! He at least makes an effort and I respect that!! I have to go buy a parka now, …
RW
Do you suggest that CO2 and the Moon are related? I guess that I missed that one and I will forward said position to the MET to include in models calculation, might help.
RW (08:49:07) :
Does RW stand for Rhetorical Wrongs?
TerryBixier: “If the MET cannot get the short term ‘weather’ correct how can the be so sure of the long term climate” – that’s a bit like saying, if we can’t predict the arrival time of individual waves on a particular beach, how can we be so sure about the tides?
RW you deliberately confuse two different physical phenonema. Apples; oranges; your convenience.
In an earlier post, you employed the “cherry picking” fallacy stating that 10 years was too short a period to detect a climate trend. However, it appears that 150 years is the optimum period over which to detect a trend.
But why not 1000 years? Could it be because no trend would become apparent then? Your cherry picking reveals the idiocy of even attempting to detect climate trends when they obviously vary in all dircetions all the time.
David Ball: A Johnny Chinook legend, from southern Alberta
Johnny Chinook looks west, and sees a Chinook arch forming over the mountains. He immediately starts nailing wheels to the back of his dog sled.
His buddies all laugh at him, wondering what the heck is he doing.
He starts heading east. Soon, the Chinook wind catches up with him.
Shortly after, still heading east, his dogs are kicking up snow; the runners on the sled are kicking up water; and the wheels are kicking up dust.
First thing about Met Office in UK:
They fiddle weather forecasts to make UK citizens book weekend trips in UK. Amazing how several summers running forecasts were great on Tuesday and horrible on Thursday. Strange that!
Second: they are fully signed up members of the AGW club. David King, who was the Govt’s chief Scientific Advisor for many years, was in the Al Gore league of scaremongering.
The thing is: UK scientific officers have a long and dishonorable track record of lying.
1. Haemophiliacs who got AIDS from transfusions: denial, denial, denial. Then they died and we got the truth. Sick huh?
2. ‘No Gulf War syndrome.’ You guys in US finally proved it. We’ve known it for years, but the Govt doesn’t want to pay out. ‘Go and fight, get poisoned, then treated like shit for years’. Good recruiting byline, huh?
3. BSE was going to lead to millions of cases of Kreuzfeldt-Jacob syndrome. It didn’t. Another cock up.
4. I won’t bother mentioning MMR – that’s controversial, but bottom line was: give option for three single jabs to those dissenting and make them pay the difference in cost. They wouldn’t, so we killed some people through measles. Typical.
5. Now it’s the climate change scam from the Hadley Centre and elsewhere. You’ll see them change their tune. They’re circus acts. They sing for their supper. Change the script and they’ll sing along. Never fails…….
Are you beginning to get the impression that it’s no surprise that the numher of Nobel Prizes in UK has gone down as the amount of Govt lying has gone up? Well: you might be right.
No data of course. But strikingly anecdotal.
[snip] early snow in the Alps since 1996. Why? Sunspot minimum. But the sun DOESN’T AFFECT OUR CLIMATE!
Bollocks!!!!!!!!!
“The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing, . . . “If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends.”
If this were true or relevant, why didn’t they say this back in the 90s: The relatively warm temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global cooling is slowing. If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends.”
Latest from the Met Office:
“Temperatures from the Met Office have revealed that the UK has had the coldest start to winter in over 30 years. The UK average temperature for the first third of December has been only 1.7 °C compared to the long-term average of 4.7 °C.
The cold temperatures are in stark contrast to the recent run of very mild winters that have been dominant across the UK. The last time the UK average temperatures gave such a cold start to December was in 1976 when the average temperature was a chilly 0.8 °C.
The Met Office seasonal forecast predicted the cold start to the winter season with milder conditions expected during January and February – although still with the chance of cold weather at times.
The colder weather is set to continue into next week. Chief Forecaster at the Met Office Nick Grahame said: “The start of the weekend will bring a spell of wet and windy weather as milder Atlantic air attempts to push across the country. However, colder air looks set to win the battle again which means that frost and ice will become hazards with the risk of snow in places”.”
The Met Office also says “Long-term average is for 1971-2000”
I hope they’re right about January and February. Oops, I forgot – the Met Office is always right. Silly me.
See http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20081212.html
Conforming events == proof of AGW
Disproving events == outliers, weather not climate, anecdote, etc.
Sorry to be so terse but we are bracing here “locally” for an “outlying event” that may freeze all your winter strawberries (Ventura County).
I was just reading an article on how roughly a million people are without power right now in New England and I was wondering, how do “green” energy sources react to inclement weather and just how reliable are they when the weather hits the fan?
How effective is solar on a cloudy day?
How effective is wind in blizzard and freezing conditions or when there is no wind?
I don’t think that the general population of the world has that much “science” sense which is one of the reasons I think the wool has been pulled over our eyes so easily when it comes to AGW. When I hear people talk about green energy it is almost with a “star trek-esque” gleam in their eye, as if solar, wind and other green energies are part of some utopian energy supply. As our governments sign these nonsensical treaties or come up with foolish policies (CARB anyone?) what is the impact really going to be?
Half the time I drive through Indio, the wind farms aren’t turning and its the windiest place I know. Just how much of the desert are we going to have to impact to get a reasonable draw?
Steve Berry
The Uks 10th warmest Novembers are
1994 1816 1939 1938 1743 1730 1817 1881 1822 1899
At an average of 7.0 2008 ranks way way down the list
July was also not in the top 30 warmest.
As for giving house space to global temperatures… surely we have learnt by now there is no such thing as they are so inconsistent as to be completely meaningless.
TonyB
K
“Yet Obama has chosen a very qualified scientific adviser. We will see if Dr. Chu changes the politicians or they change him.”
Chu, a Chinese-American who currently is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, has in recent years campaigned to bring together a cross-section of scientific disciplines to find ways to counter climate change.
If action is not taken now to stop global warming, it may be too late, he argues.
Schneider said Chu will push hard within the Obama administration for reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
It sounds to me that Dr. Chu’s agenda fits very nicely with the Algore/UN/IPCC/Obama agenda. You can “hope” for “change” but don’t expect it.
This is a graph showing Hadley Cet back to 1660 and cumulative human co2 emissions since 1750 from Cdiac/IPCC (its the tiny blue line at the bottom)
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_hadley.jpg
Human emissions are 5% of all natural enissions but it was impossible to produce a meaningful graph showing all co2 emissions against all green house gases as the line would be invisible.
The green dots are co2 records from 1820 onwards as recorded at the time-this was an exercise to check out Ernst Becks assertions that past co2 records show levels are as high as todays-which they do.
Tony B
anna v: and indeed, whether it is cold in the UK this year or not has a different cause (internal unforced variation) to the ongoing rise in global temperatures (external forcing). The analogy is perfectly applicable. I am sure you agree that you can very easily predict that it will be hotter in summer than winter, and hotter in the middle of the day than the middle of the night. Temperature variations are highly predictable on some time scales and highly unpredictable on others.
[snip]
TerryBixer: not sure what you’re reading but it’s not what I wrote.
English temperatures can be obtained from the HadCET dataset, here: http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
Taking the annual average for each year, finding mean and standard deviation, the values fit a Normal distribution and the temperature for 2008 so far (about 10.54 C) is on the 2-sigma boundary. That means it is a roughly 1 in 20 ‘extreme’ value, which is not really so extreme after all.
The only unusual aspect to the current warm spell is that there has been a longer run of consecutive warm years than is usual. The oddity (if it is one) is that they occur all together, not that it is outrageously hot. And since the weather is expected to be autocorrelated (and since this data is probably UHI polluted, and perhaps manipulated in other ways), that sort of thing is not unexpected.
What does look quite significant is the disappearance of very cold years over the past century. Since 1891, they have always been warmer than the -1.2 sigma level. But of course, you can’t scare people by telling them that.
(And something like it happened to a lesser degree in the 18th century, too.)
An interesting comparison can be made with past warming trends. For example, from 1695 to 1733, the average temperature rose steadily from 7.25C to 10.47C (-3 sigma to 1.9 sigma). If you plot just this 40 years, and compare it to the last 40 years, say, the trend is much clearer in the old (and unarguably natural) warming than the modern (and supposedly unnatural) rise. You can even plot the segments on the same graph, to make the point even clearer. It is an interesting challenge to pose – what statistical test on the data can you suggest that will identify one as natural background variation and the other as an outstanding, unprecedented signal.
UAH contour map for Nov is out.
http://climate.uah.edu/
“Ok, this is OT, but I’ve got to ask…were the 70’s and 80’s that much colder and snowier? Specifically in the midwest and northeast. I keep hearing this, but when I check the last 5 years of snowfall, it’s been spot on the average”.
The 60s were colder than the 70s, but many people who live east of the Mississippi remember the 1975-1978 Winters as some of the coldest and snowiest in memory. The years 1983-1985 had some very cold winters, but many blame those years on volcanic events.
The great Pacific Climate Shift occured in 1976; it was in 1976 that oceanographers noted a general warming of the Pacific which stretched off the coast of California. This occured during a major El Nino event.
All of my German friends also said the the 1970s had cold winters.
There were also quite a few famous droughts and heat waves in th 70s and 80s.
The idea that (according to the Met Office) this year will be the UK’s 10th “hottest” is just absolutely ridiculous.
The 10th hottest refers to the global temperatures – not the UK.
For long term estimate of sunspot activity see http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/AmEn.gif
On a purely anecdotal level, summer 2008 in the UK was the first summer I can remember when I didn’t change my duvet from a winter strength one to a summer one. It certainly seemed colder……..
People, when someone says, “we must stop climate change”, does that sound similar to you to something like, “we must stop plate tectonics”, or, “we must stop the tide from going out”? I don’t know why, perhaps I’m autistic or mentally defective in some way, but I just don’t get it.
I wonder if Gatwick Airport is so confident of global warming that weather forcasts no longer apply.
[url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3710027/Snows-shuts-airport-which-dropped-Met-Office-forecast.html][b]Snow shuts airport which dropped Met Office forecast[/b][/url]
“Gatwick Airport was closed for several ours due to snow, as it was disclosed it has opted out of a £1,000 a month weather forecasting service from the Met Office.”.
By David Millward, Transport Editor
Last Updated: 6:38PM GMT 12 Dec 2008
Chris V
1934 was the warmest year in the US recorded in a now questionable and always changing data set. Soon 1934 will no longer even be above average regardless of what actually happens to the temperature.
1998 is perhaps the warmest year since 1978. As for the rest of the century before that, we know far less than we thought we did, thanks to the rediculous mishandling and “corrections” to the data without explanation or documentation. The warmest since 1978 even if true is not very dramatic but it is all we’ve got.
UK news, coldest November for 30 years.
John M (10:13:08) :
Chris V. (09:41:06) :
1934 was the warmest year for the UNITED STATES, NOT the world!
It amazes me that people still don’t understand this.
I don’t believe this for one second–the fact is surface stations are crap. The stations in the US have been surveyed to be total crap. Who knows how bad the surface stations were in the 30’s and 40’s before and after WWII? Anyone who tries to state with certainty that the warming of the 30’s was just the US is just fooling themselves and perpetuating a non-science view.
I only trust data from the past 30yrs and almost 1/3 of that data set shows a cooling trend.
Oh dear oh dear .. still the same orthodox views that global warming can’t be anything to do with humans on this site (or it isn’t happening due to fossile fuels). There is so obviously a self appointed group who wants to dominate this forum with a form of anti-MMGW propoganda that is breath taking in its view. I see the same irrelevant arguments on this and other web sites .
Key techniques used in these arguments are
(a) inserting influencer words and phrases are used to bolster statements like alarmist , Al Gore , economic ruin , conspiracy , …
(b) Raising non sequitur arguments like global poverty , human progress , changes in past epochs , politicians/media making nonsense announcements ,… .
(c) Dodgy/misleading psuedo scientific arguments like record ice increase , glaciers advancing , failure to understand the meaning of hottest
All across the world there is evidence that it is GLOBALLY getting warmer .
( that also includes areas outside of North America)
For those who think MMGW is happening — keep refuting the outrageous claims on here but don’t expect to really make progress with most of those who comment here. They have a specific agenda of avoidance of facing the reality of what is happening .
Nature is a great indicator of what is happening — look at the tree line and advance of species towards the poles . The trend is very clear ….
And there is an incredibly naive assumption that showing CO2 doesn’t effect global temperaturse is the only problem . There are many other possible effects from increasing the level of atmospheric CO2 (effect on oceans , unknown effect on bio-organisms , etc)
And for those worried about econnomic impacts .. what is so awful about a world where the air is clean , our energy comes from renewable sources and we hand a planet in good order to the next generation . We should harness the industry and creativity of man and show we can be good stewards of our inheritance ( a planet that support a richness and diveristy of life including humans )
If the jet stream remains where it is and high pressure blocks in mid-Atlantic stay, then Western Europe will have a cold winter. Anecdotal evidence shows that the Alpes are having early significant snowfall. Guess it’s all down to global warming!!
The massive computers at the Met’ Office means more reliance upon modular predictions of weather, It would be interesting to able compare the (using Royal Navy figures against the Mets) weather records and forecasts of the first 75years of the C20th with the final quarter bet they were better (more accurate).
Madness
Is there really any discernible global warming, or is it all hot air in the cities.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/co2andtreerings.jpg
http://akoutavasresearch.googlepages.com/mediterraneantreerings
PeterM
1. Name 1 place in the world where the treeline has moved appreciably above the 500 year mean.
2. Name 1 terrestrial species with a clearly identified shift in migration patterns or habitat patterns poleward (catching a fish caught in an errant ocean current does not count).
3. What does clean air have to do with C02 mitigation? And you accuse others of non sequiters?
PeteM–they just uncovered a treeline in Greenland that was thousands of years old cpvered by ice. The recent warming is very slight and is no concern. Now the trend for the last 7-10yrs shows cooling.
Thomas and Jeez
Thank you for your quick response .
Thomas –
I don’t expect anyone to be able to predict a specific short term weather event ( ie snow on the Alps) any more that I can predict which part of a pan of water on a stove will boil first . The issue of global warming is the average effect over a reasonable point time .
Jeez –
(a) Check North America , Norther Europe and Siberia (and known damage from insects that have moved North)
(b) Check sharks in Wester Europe , check butterflys in Eiurope and Norht America ,
(c) CO2 is released by burning of fossil fuels from amongst othjer power stations and cars . Combustion of these fuels are know to increase incidence of lung relasted diseased like asthma . Cleaner air is a by product of not burning fossile fuels so this is not a non-sequitur .
PeteM,
No it`s nothing to do with the very positive PDO for the last 30 years, nothing to do with the most active sun for 1500 years and nothing to do with the urban heat island effect that has skewed ground based temperatures up by 50%. I live in the UK, for 40 years I have been going abroad to get some sun, i`m still going abroad. warming what warming, 0.4 degrees C feel the difference.
PeteM (13:18:13)
A couple of questions: How are views that are opposite the “scientific consensus” orthodox? How does a group self appoint?
Bob B
If things were different in the past … this is not a proof an anything about human effects.
According to your logic … just because people die naturally we should never worry about the possibility that deaths may occur due to crime
Nice non-sequitur.
PeteM
You haven’t identified a specific regional treeline anywhere, just handwaving about generalities.
You still haven’t haven’t identified a terrestrial species and a current and former habitat region, just handwaving about butterflies in general, and sharks, which are specifically precluded from my question.
With current scrubber and emission technology, the air is quite clean these days in countries with the wealth to employ them. I remember LA in the 60’s. What is was like is no longer the case. Despite speculative extrapolation of insignificant hypothetical risks, air pollution no longer contributes to health problems in the US in a appreciable way.
We seek facts here, not generalities and handwaving.
It is time to tell the truth:
The Med office, NOAA, KNMI, NASA, GISS, Meteo France, DEUTSCHE WETTERDIENST and all other weather services that are bought by the Climate Fraud Coalition,
a whole bunch of Universities, Broadcasting companies like BBC, CNN, CNBC
the UN, UN IPCC, Green Peace, WWF, MoveOn, Friends of the Earth, The Club of Rome, The EU, Politicians like Al Gore, John Kerry, the Clinton’s and President Elect Barack Obama, Businessmen like George Soros, Royal Dutch shell showing affiliation with Dr. R. K. Pachauri and whose CEO tells the world we are out of oil, (see CNN) and all other companies that believe the “Green Deal” will be profitable and thousands of nitwits that dress up like Polar Bears or Penguins, who climb mountains and visit the North Pole by Kayak to proof Global Warming is real…
They are all part of the Global Warming Conspiracy.
There are no words for the methods and the scale of the betrayal of public trust.
Despite their efforts, the majority of people still do not believe Global Warming is a problem.
What has the AGW conspiracy achieved so far?:
1. The EU today closed a new climate deal
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7778787.stm
2. The US will follow with a much harsher climate deal
3. The public that recently has lost all trust in:
A. Wall Street
B. The Banking System
C. Government and the Political System (Political decisions taken without public consent cause loss of trust)
E. The UN
D. The Media
E. The Scientific World
Conclusion:
Total loss of Public Trust is the prelude of chaos and despair.
The current financial crises already has brought the world’s economies on the brink of collapse.
The announced measures to curb the non existing problem of AGW will damage the economies, cause further mass unemployment, energy poverty and effect personal freedom and liberties.
The poor countries will be confronted with increased famine and mass starvation because the climate measures will involve agriculture and the production bio fuels which will keep food prices up.
Welcome to the age of Eco Communism.
Rob and Dave
Thank you for your comments.
Rob
O.4 degrees in a system as large as the Earth . Try lifting Mount Everest by 0.4 inch/centimeters … and you’ll get the idea.
Do you know the increase in temperature that makes crops like wheat reduce yield ?
Dave
Have you ever walked into a room where people only want to hear one point of view and will argue against anything which doesn’t match their expectation . It happens in many instances with human groups and has been widely studied.
Sales and marketing exploit this human characteristic …
“average effect over a reasonable point time ”
There is that license to cherry pick term “reasonable”, the word with no actual scientificly falsifiable definition.
“Nature is a great indicator of what is happening — look at the tree line and advance of species towards the poles . The trend is very clear ….”
Couldn’t these be due to a rebound from the Little Ace Age?
“what is so awful about a world where the air is clean , our energy comes from renewable sources ….”
Tell it to the Chinese, Indians, etc. What we do in the West will have little effect on the world’s air quality.
PeterM–your response is a non-sequitur and contains no facts worth replying to.
Jeez
Thank you for your response
This is not hand waving ( – see my earlier about ‘influencer’ words used by the anti MMGW propoganda ) .
Anyone can do Google serach on ‘Tundra Treeline’ and look for the word Spruce.
Regarding scrubber technology – a lot of coutries don’t deploy them and vehicles still emit a lot of particles . Also , I’m pleased to hear LA may have improved … what does this have to do with a planet that extends much further than California. Most of the population and land mass of this planet isn’t in the USA.
Moptop and Roger Knights
Thank you for your comments
Moptop
‘Reasonable time’ is not a cherry picking term ( see point (a) of my comment about the techniques used in this web site to support anti -MMQW propaganda) . Basically it is a commonly accepted idea in averages and statistics that you should not really chose a very limited set of evidence to support a particular conclusion ( unless you accept the associated uncertainty of such a choice) .
How long do we need to know if human activity is influencing climate change .. I’d suggest more than 1 years weather predictions …
Roger Knights
Were you around during the Little Ice Age to know its causes ? You seem very keen to suggest this is something that happened across the whole world . I believe the term is Man Made Global Warming which is based on the Greenhouse effect which is an average across the whole planet .
On air quality … you can influence this . Perhaps we should only buy products/services from companies that implement the highest level of environmental concern in China and India .
Pete —
Insects have not moved north. Forest insects in particular are in every forest as they are totally dependent on the trees for sustenance. And no forests are insect-free. The ranges map each other exactly. There is no evidence that treelines are moving upslope. In contrast, at the extreme northern edge of the boreal forest there is ample evidence that paludification (muskeg replacing forests, aka neo-glaciation) has been going on for ~9,000 years.
Warmer temps are better for crops. Wheat fields, corn fields, etc. are more productive with higher temps, longer growing seasons, more rain etc. The hottest place in the US, the Imperial Valley, is also the most productive agriculturally. Forests and food crops grow better with higher concentrations of CO2.
Warmer is Better. Fight the Ice.
PS — the Himalayas are currently rising by about 5 mm per year due to India-Asia plate convergence thrust, and just like global climate change, it has absolutely nothing to do with humanity.
Bob B
A treeline in Greenland shows that there were trees in Greenland once thousands of year ago . All you have suggested is that there can be natural changes which a scientific method would expect to have some cause .
Err …. why does this not mean that we have nothing to worry about with regards to MMGW .
You made the comment that the change in temperature is slight (hah…) and we don’t have anything to worry about – I’m suggesting is an attitude which would not be tolerated in other circumstances. b
PeteM:
And you are not self-appointed?
I’m not trying to pile on, but it needs to be pointed out that you and any other believers in AGW, runaway global warming, etc., are free to comment here without being censored. No one ‘dominates.’ And if you think this is ‘propoganda’ [sic], then you try your hand at being the skeptic, and show us the propaganda. If you can prove it, you’ll change some minds.
Also, compare this site’s policy of encouraging different points of view, with sites like RealClimate, Rabetts Run, Tamino’s site, etc., where reasonable comments questioning AGW are routinely deleted.
I would like to hear a justification of why censoring skeptical comments is acceptable, rather than reading your complaint above, which appears to be a complaint that you are simply out of step with the general consensus.
PeteM,
Interesting post. Is it possible you wasn’t aware that sceptics are routinely argued with by believers and are well aware of the arguments?
I note the following “influencer words and phrases” in your comment:
self-appointed
dominate
propaganda (note spelling)
breath-taking
irrelevant
bolster
non sequitur
dodgy
misleading
pseudo scientific
failure to understand
outrageous claims
agenda
avoidance of facing the reality
incredibly naive
Now, for your actual points.
The temperature across the world varies from about +60C in the deserts of Africa to -90C in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. At any one place, it varies seasonally and day-to-day randomly over a 10-20C range. The whole world warms every summer and cools every winter by huge amounts. If you average this globally, then over a period of decades a slight trend of a fraction of a degree per century is detectable. However, it is not detectable over the background on smaller scales or shorter time intervals (as we are constantly told by the “consensus” whenever anecdotes of local cold weather are mentioned, but as they forget to do whenever warm weather is cited) and we have no data to say it doesn’t do that all the time naturally.
All the claims of moving habitats are cherry-picked from noise. Species move around and increase or decrease in population all the time. But whenever it vaguely fits the global warming thesis, it gets reported on in the media as “evidence”. Especially if it’s a scary-sounding species like an invasion by vampire moths.
We know what the effects of CO2 on organisms are, and they are mainly good. We routinely pump greenhouses full of CO2 to boost productivity. And there are volcanic vents in the sea bed spewing out pure CO2 that give us a very good idea of its effect on ocean life. Life flourishes, as it did in past ages when CO2 was higher than today.
Clean air is good, but CO2 is not a pollutant. It’s a generally beneficial part of the natural world, more like Oxygen, that we add to. The pollutants that are related to conditions like asthma are the unburnt particulates – soot and smoke essentially – not CO2. (Reducing those is a worthy aim, but they’re not an unavoidable consequence of burning, and wealth has enabled measures against them.) The concentrations of CO2 you breath out as the result of respiration are far higher.
As an AGW sceptic, of course I have walked into rooms where people only want to hear one point of view, and will argue against anyone like me who doesn’t agree. What sort of question is that?
I don’t really mind when believers intimate that I’m an idiot for believing as I do, but I think you should note that it doesn’t look good if you’re not yourself sufficiently expert to avoid these unscientific and non-sequitur arguments picked up from the media. It’s not polite, it doesn’t persuade, and it discredits the pro-AGW side of the debate generally. Saying you disagree (and why you do so) should be sufficient.
China welcomes EU climate deal, says US must do more
1 hour ago
POZNAN, Poland (AFP) — China’s top negotiator at the UN climate talks welcomed the climate pact adopted by EU leaders on Friday as a “positive step,” but criticised carbon reduction goals set by US president-elect Barack Obama as too weak.
PeteM wrote: “Have you ever walked into a room where people only want to hear one point of view and will argue against anything which doesn’t match their expectation . It happens in many instances with human groups and has been widely studied.”
PeteM, the same applies to the eco-activists, the skeptics, and any and all scientists everywhere. It is precisely the reason why “consensus” carries no weight as regards credibility. The question is, how do you know that you yourself are not operating with filters and biases and hidden shadow issues?
Whether global warming is driven by man made CO2 is not a question that can be solved with a simple classic empirical experiment. There is data, sure, but how to interpret it?? A typical example is the recent report that whilst the world has not warmed for 10 years, scientists warn that skeptics will tend to “over-interpret” this fact. Oh really? Over-interpret? What objective criteria can distinguish between interpreting and over-interpreting?? The fact that climate is defined as 30 years? Who decided 30 years was the right way to define it? Who came up with the interpretation that climate data takes 30 years to show a trend? Why 30? Why not 300? Why not 3? Does 30 years even relate to anything in the real world?
The space for bias and projection is staggeringly vast in a complex system with inadequate data. And you tell us that we don’t realise we are operating with biases? The only staggering thing is that climate activists seem to act as if they have no biases. As if their vision is highly refined and lucid. The chances are that they are no less biased than anyone else, especially when dealing with a a highly emotive issue involving values and human morality.
PeteM:
Oh dear oh dear .. still the same orthodox views that global warming can’t be anything to do with humans on this site (or it isn’t happening due to fossile fuels). There is so obviously a self appointed group who wants to dominate this forum with a form of anti-MMGW propoganda that is breath taking in its view. I see the same irrelevant arguments on this and other web sites .
Pete, we breathlessly await your proof of manmade global warming. I’ll save you some time, and let you know that we are all in favor of a clean environment, energy efficiency, and energy independence in the U.S..
Start with your proof that C02 is a major climate driver. Take your time. Good science must not be rushed.
PeteM
Do you still drive that old firebird with the decal on the hood? Is your favorite radio station the one playing hits from the 70’s and 80’s? Do you like to describe a sinusoid as a series of linear trends? If you have answered yes to any of the above, I suggest reading more than you type. Anecdotal information is just that. Treelines…jeez.
Steven Hill said:
Hmmm, I suspect that you are thinking what I am thinking.
1934 was a banner year for weather weenies, even for those of us who weren’t then a gleam. February of that year saw the most intense cold wave ever to hit the northeastern quadrant of the continental U.S. Most state records for minimum cold in the Great Lakes and the Northeast were set during that outbreak. Central Park, in Manhattan, recorded -15 F; the state record in New Jersey is -34 F, recorded in Riverdale (let me look up the date).
The ‘Dirty thrities’, as Tex Antoine, the drunken New York Met of the 50’s and 60’s, creator of Uncle Weathbee, used to call them.
“the same orthodox views that global warming can’t be anything to do with humans on this site”
You mean that blogging on WUWT causes global warming?
I think this article addresses the crux of the issue.
1. Nobody can show that there actually *IS* any “global warming”.
2. Nobody can show that human produced CO2 has any impact on temperature.
They can tell me what kind of car I can/can’t drive after they have put out the coal seam fires burning around the world that emit more CO2 than all the automotive traffic on the planet.
Smokey – Thank you for your comments
I fully accept the concept that there is no intention to allow a specific view to ‘dominate’ on this web site. My points have been allowed on this website and I hope I have been polite/reasonable when making in making my views known .
You are correct – I am most likely self appointed and I won’t argue against anyone who says I am supporting a particular view . But I ask others to accept that this is not a blind belief – I do have a science background (degree and higher ).
What I wish to draw attention to – the vast majority of comments here are self reinforcing of a particular anti-MMGW view . This is not how many of the people in business , goverment, or maybe as private citizens view the issue. I interact with many people making changes to their life styles or work locations because they are convinced by the information presented to them about the challanges of global warming and environmental damage. This website has been sited in a UK national newspaper as a source of clear and impartial advice which is not what I see.
I am pleased that this web site is not censoring opinions – this has my support and I do not ‘deletion’ activities elsewhere. However we all live under some constraints – some from laws , some from social norms and some from what some call common sense .
I’m not asking for censorship – I’m asking for a balance of articles and a balance of comments . At the moment this site is a repository of anti-MMGW views.
“” PeteM (13:18:13) :
Oh dear oh dear .. still the same orthodox views that global warming can’t be anything to do with humans on this site (or it isn’t happening due to fossile fuels). “”
Well Petem you have at least one convert; you’ve convinced me. I have no doubt now that the humans on this site are primarily responsible for global warming. By the way; I thought that the orthodox view; the “science is settled” view, the IPCC/AlGore/JamesHansen?MichaelMann view, was that man (ie Homo sapiens sapiens) was entirely responsible for 90% of man made global warming.
Maybe that is supposed to be 90% responsible for all of man made global warming ?
I just checked with Werner Heisenberg, and he said that it is impossible for any human being (homo sapiens sapiens) to even observe the climate without changing it in some entirely unpredictable manner; which also makes prediction of any future climate to be entirely futile.
So QED the humans on this site are the cause of man made global warming.
Could you clear up one small point for me that was a bit confusing in your erudite post. Was the cause of man made global warming not happening; “fossil” fuels, or did you mean “fissile” fuels. Those two would presumably give different results.
Just asking.
But thank you for straightening me out; I didn’t realize these churls here were leading me down a garden path.
The paper at http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
is an interesting read. It tends toward “the sun did it” (and even cites Leif!) but has a section on the ocean / air cycles. A nice bibliography as well.
Some quotes:
SVALGAARD, CLIVER, and KAMIDE (2005) theorise that the
solar polar fields will be weak during 2007-2008 and will remain
weak. They have recently reported that the polar fields are the
weakest ever observed.
and
The earth’s atmosphere contains several major oscillating wind
currents that have a key role in the regulation of the earth’s
weather and climate. These wind currents include the El
Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO); Quasi-Biennial Oscillation
(QBO); the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO); the Interdecadal
Pacific Oscillation (IPO); the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO);
the Atlantic Multdecadal Oscillation (AMO); the Indian Ocean
Dipole (IOD); and the Arctic Oscillation (AO); and the northern
and southern polar vortices, which are two permanent cyclones at
the poles. FAGAN (1999), (2000) and (2004) has shown how the
climate changes rendered by these global atmospheric systems
have resulted in major historic changes to cultures and societies
throughout the world since the dawn of history.
LABITZKE et al. (2005), COUGHLIN and KUNG (2004) and
CORDERO and NATHAN (2005) report that the sunspot cycle drives
these large-scale oscillating wind currents. For example, strength
of the QBO circulation and the length of the QBO period varies
directly with the sunspot cycle.
I have no way to evaluate the veracity of all the literature cited or the connections between them that are drawn, but the guy does a good job of packaging many bits in one place as a summary. If the prediction (projection? hand waving?) of cold for 30 or so years is right, the Met office in in for a rough ride.
Off topic but I think its important.
I thought I never would say it but I have a new found respect for our government.
The government of Alberta that is.
On there web page Alberta presents research that refutes the one sided reports we get so often from our media it’s called For the Record.
As with most media outlets environmental organizations publish a report and the media just runs with it without checking, providing balance by offering an opposing view.
http://alberta.ca/home/1021.cfm
George E Smith said:
PeteM wrote:
“I’m not asking for censorship – I’m asking for a balance of articles and a balance of comments . At the moment this site is a repository of anti-MMGW views.”
PeteM, your opening comment was “anti MMGW propaganda”.
Propaganda–misleading information–is a core concern here. I for one want to know the truth of the matter. I used to think AGW was true. Then I listened more and more to what AGW scientists were themselves saying, and I started to wonder that it didn’t add up. So I looked more and came to see that the case for AGW is vastly overblown. Is this propaganda? It is simply my experience. You will have reasons for thinking that AGW is true. Perhaps if you had thought all the things that I have thought, and read what was said by AGW proponents, you too would come to the conclusion that so far, the case is very weak. Perhaps you simply think that reducing pollution is good in principle, but then perhaps you have not had the same experiences that I have, observing poverty in third world economies and the primary need for development and material progress. Perhaps you have not thought about these things as I have and so a view like mine appears so wrong that it must be propaganda and unbalanced. Actually I strive to find a balanced viewpoint. I strive to correct myself. I strive to question my thoughts. I strive to find my shadowy biases and blinkered assumptions. I strive to change them when possible when new and better ideas and information come along. What do you do?
Just to be clear, you’re using MMGA (Man Made Global Warming) which is the same as AGW (Anthropogenic global warming).
Several
Thank you for your comments
Things change … sometime things change because of human activities.
Now why are you free to quote that natural changes have consequeneces ( like mountain ranges rising or treeline changing ) but then suspend the same logic that changing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere won’t have any impact .
I’m also fed up of hearing the point about life existing on this planet in a variety of previous conditions . Humans couldn’t have survived in most of those scenarios .
I’m not an eco-communist , left-winger , radical-agitator or any other from of extremist. I’m just a normal individual . The difference is that I ( like a lot of other people) am prepared to agree with a view that pumping large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere ( and then the oceans) is a daft idea given we know the greenhouse effect influences the climate on this planet .
RW (08:44:26) :
“Global warming has stopped for the last few years.”
This statement is completely meaningless. Over periods of a few years, weather noise completely dominates the forcing due to CO2. You cannot measure global warming over a ‘few years’, so to claim that it has stopped is ludicrous.
By the same token it is ludicrous to say that the globe is warming based on a few hundred years temperature data. To whit: Please Explain Bond Events.
Catching the end of a 1500 year natural cycle, then ignoring it and attributing to something else is just as wrong…
The Met Office’s Hadley Centre is located at the University of East Anglia in Norwich
…where you will also find the Tyndall Cente.
The University itself offers an MSc in Climate Change, (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/env/msc/m535.shtml) with Tim Osborn and Keith Briffa. Course tutor is one Saffron O’Neill. At the link below, you can see her with David Ockwell of the Tyndall Centre at “Future Ethics”, a workshop series on ‘climate change, political action and the future of the human’. Listen to what they say and see if you can spot any science.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rJM–b2qfII
Incidentally, the workshop was also attended by Leo Murray of Plane Stupid, the idiots who invaded Stansted this past week.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3t8Zv2oXY18&feature=related
Watch these and be worried, slightly amused, but mainly very worried.
Bob B (13:17) states:
I only trust data from the past 30yrs and almost 1/3 of that data set shows a cooling trend.
Having researched loads of climatic data from the 30’s including going through microfiche records at the local library I have no doubt that the historical temperatures of the period were as accurate or more so than current records. In central Maine the period remains the warmest of the past century. All time record highs were recorded both in Maine and adjacent Canada. The newspaper accounts of weekly drownings from people trying to escape the heat (no AC homes or cars), was quite revealing. The only thing I would believe today is the current rural readings, the new CRN network data and the satellite records. Anything associated with Dr. Hansen should be suspect. GISS is a hoot and HADCRU is (insert derogatory adjective)!
Steffan 15:37 and 15:40
Thank you for your comments
I agree that the case for AGW or MMGW is not water tight but neither is that case for the opposite In fact I don’t expect complex systems to ever have this level of absoluteness – and its unscientific and naive to assume so . However that doesn’t mean no predictions or estimates are possible.
The predictions is … more CO2 means higher temperatures which means more trouble ( not more benefit)
George E Smith
I really don’t understand your point — or am I suffering from the Pauli Exclustion principle .
PeterM said:
Hmmm, you sound very like another person who made similar claims on this site.
In any event, you are wrong. Humans have proven to be capable of surviving in very wide-ranging conditions across this planet.
Of course, perhaps the people living in London or NY would not be capable of surviving in those conditions, but there are plenty who could …
PeteM,
Try posting a skeptical AGW post at ‘real climate’ or any other of the large number of AGW promotion sites and see watts up with waling into a room where only one opinion is welcome.
AGW skeptics are regularly attacked and vilified personally. I had a client pull his business over my view of AGW. And my business has nothing to do directly with AGW.
AGW shows itself to be a social movement in the way its credibility sustains in the face of its failing predictions. It is really quite hard to shake the faith of a self-regulating group as AGW beleivers have become. Afterall, they are saving the planet.
RW: “…to claim that [global warming] has stopped is ludicrous.”
Aah, there’s that wonderful word again – “ludicrous”. 😉
Anyway – someone mentioned “Kalyfornia” and how they’re about to destroy their economy with all the ecofascist regulating.
Now, IMO they’re doing it on purpose and it’s exactly what the Governator was (s)elected for – that is to terminate the State of “Kalifornia”.
According to http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/12/worlds-8th-biggest-economy-is-in.html California may well be finished already:
“The world’s 8th biggest economy is in trouble:
Governor Schwarzenegger declared an emergency and says that California is near “fiscal Armageddon”
* The state budget gap could reach $41.8 billion by 2010
* Standard & Poors has downgraded California’s bonds again
* Wall Street giants are URGING investors to bet that California will go bankrupt…”
Now, (thanks to LPAC) I’ve been aware that California has been in major trouble at least since December last year – and along with some 40+ other US States – but considering what Maurice Strong has said:
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring about?”
“KALIfornia” would be a “good” place to start this collapse – or destruction – not?
“KALI… a Hindu goddess associated with death and destruction… Despite her negative connotations, she is today considered the goddess of time and change.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali
PeteM,
“I hope I have been polite/reasonable when making in making my views known .”
You have. Just as much as we have.
“But I ask others to accept that this is not a blind belief – I do have a science background (degree and higher ).”
Likewise.
“What I wish to draw attention to – the vast majority of comments here are self reinforcing of a particular anti-MMGW view .”
Yes, the division is not generally pro- and anti- on any one internet site, but an overall balance is achieved by some sites being pro- and other sites being anti-. This site is, as you correctly identify, populated mainly by the anti-AGW group. It’s a place for sceptics to come where they’re not going to get constantly shouted down. However, it does at the same time try to be reasonable about it, and exercise some quality control, which is why a newspaper might have recommended it. You can hear the pro-AGW side of the debate in many outlets – the BBC, the UN, CNN, governments, environmentalist lobby groups, and so on. If you want to hear the anti-AGW side of the debate too (as any scientist should) then here is one of the better places to do so.
On your additional points.
“but then suspend the same logic that changing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere won’t have any impact .”
The changing CO2 level has a calculable effect, which is about 1C per doubling of CO2. Since the level is going up at a rate of about 40% per century, that’s about half a degree per century. The effect exists, but is not significant compared to background variation. The dispute is not about the effect of CO2, it is about the claim that this rise is tripled or more by various time-delayed feedbacks, which are much more poorly understood, and for which the evidence is very weak.
We constantly get accused of denying this basic science. It is unfortunate that it’s mostly by people who have got their understanding from the media, and who therefore don’t understand what the actual science says, or why it is disputed.
“I’m also fed up of hearing the point about life existing on this planet in a variety of previous conditions . Humans couldn’t have survived in most of those scenarios .”
On the contrary. Humans can survive over one of the widest ranges of climates of any animal on Earth. We survive from desert to pole. If a range of over 50C can’t stop us, why do you think 3C will?
There’s a graph here (part way down) of the climate over the past 600 million years.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
It plots both CO2 level and temperature. During virtually all of that history, life has flourished, including many of the species that survive to this day.
The last interglacial – the Eemian, was warmer than today, and at only 125,000 years ago is well within mankind’s evolutionary history. (The polar bear’s too.)
The IPCC-predicted 3C would make a significant change, but there’s no reason to think it would be a fatal one.
sonicfrog (07:52:45) :
Meanwhile, here in Kalyfornia, the Air Resources Gestapo… I mean board, just passed sweeping new regulations to stop climate change.
[…]
Been tried – Kyoto – failed. Good luck with that.
I don’t think it will hard at all. We will get our electricity from Arizona, and all the industry that has not already moved to Texas and Nevada will move, so we won’t have all the commute traffic. No time flat California will have a zero carbon footprint. We just have to get the money from the Feds to let us continue to build our (no longer working) workers paradise.
It doesn’t take much carbon to sit on the porch and eat magic brownies… (can’t light up since that would release CO2 😉
So common folks, you need to support the cause and call Obama and tell him to send us some money. Now. Or we’re gonna wash your windshield …
(do I really need to add a /sarc ?)
On a somber note: Driving through what used to be the dynamic center of tech growth and innovation and looking at all the empty buildings with ‘for lease at any price’ signs is depressing.
If I were starting another company, I’d put it outside the U.S. if possible and outside California at a minimum. Brazil and China will be the winners here.
I fear that the state will need to finish collapsing before it gets it’s head straight. I only hope that the rest of the nation can avoid the contagion. Quarantine Pelosi if you can…
On a weather note: The impending 3 decade drought will really cut back on farm CO2 production too…
Someone may already have said this but, cooler temperatures are evidence of global cooling, despite what the AGW alarmists may say, but not proof that global warming has stopped. But when the evidence keeps piling up, we will cross that burden of proof sooner or later.
Snow in New Orleans – wow that is some evidence. Not sure what the latitude is but coming from Australia that would be like snow in Brisbane. Never happens.
PeteM,
To hear an AGW beliver calling for ‘balance’ in a site which, unlike basically 100% of pro-AGW sites, does not censor, is laughable.
Perhaps your impression that ‘most’ people agree with you is because it is in fact the AGW promotion industry that is self-selected and self-reinforcing?
As to your rather predictable justification that skeptics need to be silent and let those who really care and understand how GHG’s work, I would submit that the science clearly shows that the understanding claimed by Hansen &co. is a false claim. From the waste of billions in pursuing CO2, instead of cleaning up soot, to the food disruptions caused by food-for-ethanol, to the crazy idea that undependable wind generators can sustain prosperous lifestyles, a huge amount of time ahs been wasted and environmental and economic damage created, by AGW activists and policies.
Off topic … but I heard that there is now evidence that the volume of CO2 in the atmosphere has not actually increased since pre-industrial days. Does anyone have any more information on that?
PeteM (15:41:10) :
I’m not an eco-communist , left-winger , radical-agitator or any other from of extremist. I’m just a normal individual . The difference is that I ( like a lot of other people) am prepared to agree with a view that pumping large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere ( and then the oceans) is a daft idea given we know the greenhouse effect influences the climate on this planet .
Where is the science you base that last sentence on? Don’t just take things for granted or “be prepared to agree”. Check it. Tell us what you found.
In my opinon, this site is so popular because ut is science based and providing real information. There are debates here. It is the scientific method at work.
PeteM:
Where did you get this wild supposition? “I’m also fed up of hearing the point about life existing on this planet in a variety of previous conditions . Humans couldn’t have survived in most of those scenarios.” I don’t recall anyone on this forum posting such a belief.
PeteM wrote: “However that doesn’t mean no predictions or estimates are possible.”
PeteM, thanks for your reply and, I believe, your good natured participation here. Whilst anyone can make predictions, we truly need to know whether those predictions are reliable. There is a small academic field, I believe they are called the Institute of Forecasters. They research the things that tend to lead to good forecasts (all sorts of forecasts), and the things that tend to lead to wrong forecasts, based on experience. One of their somewhat surprising rules of thumb is that one of the things which tends to lead to a forecast being wrong is that the forecast was made by experts.
See, we can make predictions, but we can’t predict very well which predictions will tend to be right. It is the inherent unpredictability of the future. Now if from experience we discover that Mr. X’s secret formula has proven to be right 75% of the time, then we can indeed trust Mr. X’s predictions. But we have to wait until the predictions are borne out, tested in the real world, over and over again, before we know whether they can be trusted.
Now you may have a simple theoretical rule about increasing CO2 driving climate change. But have your actual predictions been borne out in the real world? This is where AGW theory falls down. Remember we’re supposed to wait 30+ years to observe a trend, and the outcome of today’s models. It may indeed turn out to be true in 2050, but we don’t know that it is true before we know that it is true, for practical purposes. AGW scientists are asking the world to take a huge gamble–act now or it will be too late!!–and at this point we have to ask about real world issues, such as the more pressing and here today problems the world is facing, including nuclear proliferation, AIDS, despotic regimes, ethnic cleansing, trade wars, inner city slums, water resources, etc.
H,
A guy called Beck has been saying that for years, I think Tim Ball mentioned it recently. It’s extremely dubious.
It’s based on the history of CO2 measurements which up until the 1950s were widely scattered and generally high. One side says the experimental procedure was faulty and the measurement errors large, the other side says it’s evidence it’s always been variable and the modern readings are censored – readings that don’t fit expectations are assumed to be in error and are thrown away.
On this one, I’m inclined towards the experimental error explanation, but I don’t have enough information about the details of modern CO2 measurement to be certain. A lot of AGW-sceptic scientists dismiss Beck’s claims too.
PeteM (15:41:10)
I don’t believe the argument states unequivocally that CO2 levels have “no” impact. It’s more a case of “insignificant” impact vs. catastrophic (mess-in- your-pants) impact.
What medical info do you have that implies that man couldn’t survive in a climate that was a few degrees warmer with 10X the current CO2 levels? My God, we occupy just about every nook and cranny on the planet from Greenland Ranch in Death Valley to Grise Fjord, Nunavut, Canada. Nothing wrong with keeping our house clean but losing our heads over a cobweb is extreme.
“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method. … On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. … To avert the risk (of potentially disastrous climate change) we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public imagination. That of course means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up some scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements and little mention of any doubts one might have. …Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective, and being honest.”
–Stephen H. Schneider, author of the book Global Warming (Sierra Club), in an interview in Discover
Magazine, October 1989.
When it can be shown by direct evidence that CO2 plays anything but a minor if not immeasurable role in temperature, I will be more persuaded. Thus far it is largely based on GCM outputs which are little more than numerical expressions of the programmer’s assumptions. And no, GCM’s do not contain all the correct physics by IPCC’s own admission.
It’s amusing to see those that are so readily to accept computer model outputs as evidence and fact. meanwhile, the very “data” they point to in an attempt to prove their point is wrought with manipulation (also known as “homogenization” or “adjustments”) and error as Anthony has so adequately pointed out at surfacestations.org.
PeteM, welcome to one of the best moderated blogs you will ever encounter. As you see your opinion is allowed here unlike many other AGW sites who censor. You will find that there is a broad discussion of many different possibilities for a slight increase in “average global temperaure”. As a member of the so called peanut gallery, those of us without significant scientific training or background, I simply ask these questions of you:
Does “average global temperature” really mean anythng? (Is there even one?)
What should the “average global temperature” be? (what is was 10 years ago? or 20, or 50, or 100 or 1000 or maybe last year?)
Who gets to decide what the “average global temperature” should be? (I vote for 85 degrees year round with SSTs at 84)
Finally, you said:
“The predictions is … more CO2 means higher temperatures which means more trouble ( not more benefit)”
Even I know that is not accurate.
hunter 16:00
Obviously I do not believe people should be penalized for their personnal views – and I don’t wish that you should have been impacted simply for have certain thoughts.
I do understand when one company asks another company supplying products/services to comply with some standard. If the company is not able to meet those standards then it cannot continue to offer business.
hunter 16:09
I am concerned about CO2 in the atmoshpere on many points – immediate global warming , long term effecdt on the oceans , acidification of rivers , unknown impacts on the biosphere . It’s like changing the background level of radiation an not expecting any consequences – it’s not a matter of simply using the word ‘pollution’.
Stevo 16:04
I mainly agree with your comments – although maybe there is a reason why the anti – AGW/MMGW has lost its voice in some media organisations ( its case was not strong .. and the AGW./MMGW is stronger …) .
I don’t want to get into a debate about human adaption … but we’re talking about a planet that currently has 6+ billiom people versus scenarios where the human population was maybe a few hundred thousand . The transition from the former to latter is not something I would want to accept when we could have done something about it . We probably need a certain number of people before civilisation (as opposed to survival) is possible .
H 16:11
CO2 levels not increasing is absurd even for the most keen of anti-MMGW supporters.
Pete M:
Thank you for responding to everyone’s comments. I enjoy reading debate. But seeing tempertures chopped, diced, smothered, cooked and flat out changed to meet their agenda has made me a skeptic. I’m not a scientist, physicist or any other label that qualifies me as a smart person.
But I do have common sense.
Until the AGW gets rid of people like Hansen, most arguements with CO2 and global warming in the same sentence will fall on my deaf ears.
Carsten – Norway 16:14
We know CO2 influences the climate of this planet . Exactly what temperature do you think Earth would be at without some greenhouse effect ? Just do the maths about the incident energy from the sun ….
If you think CO2 doesn’t effect the climate of this planet then I’m not sure how to answer you point about this site being popular becuase of its ‘science content’.
Richard de Souse
There have been several comments ( not articles) on this forum from people happy to suggest people are very adaptable to all sorts of environments .
Read the answers when folks like me post something here .
Humans couldn’t have survived in most of those scenarios.
I’ve lived in Iran, at plus 50 deg C. I’ve worked in the high Arctic, at minus 60 deg C.
that falsifies that statement, of petem’s.
On a personal note, I much preferred plus 50, to minus 60.
PeteM
I did a google search, on scholar.google.com for the terms you specifically outlined “Tundra treeline spruce”. Guess what, the peer reviewed papers do not show treeline advancement. Here is a typical quote:
http://md1.csa.com/partners/viewrecord.php?requester=gs&collection=ENV&recid=3845783&q=tundra+treeline+spruce&uid=&setcookie=yes
This hardly seems like a ringing endorsement of your position.
Care to comment?
I ( like a lot of other people) am prepared to agree with a view that pumping large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere ( and then the oceans) is a daft idea given we know the greenhouse effect influences the climate on this planet .
Pete, no one says there is no such thing as the greenhouse effect. So again, please present your proof of manmade global warming. Remember, we are all in favor of a clean environment, energy efficiency, and energy independence in the U.S..
Start with your proof that C02 is a major climate driver.
RW
Temperature variations are highly predictable on some time scales and highly unpredictable on others
What a lot of bollocks, as an Englishman might say.
Let’s suppose that temperatures are not predictable at 10 years scales, but are at 150 year time scales. I don’t think you would disagree with this supposition. But let’s just call it a supposition; we could employ any two different time periods.
So, I can’t predict global temperatures (for that is what we are talking of) ten years hence. So, why not go back 140 years and make that reliable 150 year prediction?
A similar argument applies to predicting the temperature 160 years in the future. We will know what it will be in 150 years, but, we cannot predict from there to 160 years.
Listen up! You are Keanu Reeves from Real Climate, aren’t you? I understand computer mathematics and the build up of errror over time, Runge-Kutta, etc. I also know that initial conditions are not precisely known, and cannot be represented in a practical number system. I know that thermodynamics is not a precise science. You take us folk here for fools.
I will waste no more time on your casuistry .
RW writes:
“It’s like saying an oak tree has stopped growing because you couldn’t measure a change in its height over the course of a week.
No, saying that that a positive growth rate is immeasurable is much different from pointing out that measurements over a shortened interval show a negative or zero trend. The statement that global warming has stopped over the last four years seems to be accurate on its face. Now if you want to show that, if not for industrial CO2 emissions, the temperature trend over the last four years would have been even more negative, that’s fine, but there’s really no way to prove it, any more than you can prove the statement that “If linebacker X weren’t injured in the first quarter, team Y would have won the game instead of lost it.”
“Over periods of a few years, weather noise completely dominates the forcing due to CO2. You cannot measure global warming over a ‘few years’, so to claim that it has stopped is ludicrous.”
Why can’t global warming be measured over any arbitrary interval? It appears that that you are making assumptions about what the influence of CO2 is, and on that basis, trying to conclude what interval would be needed to reliably discern that warming. But that’s the entire issue, now, isn’t it? I think everyone will agree that over three or four years, chaotic weather fluctuations have an amplitude that dwarfs that of any warming due to CO2. The opinion of a lot of people on this board, however, is that chaotic weather fluctuations (as well as long term, natural climate variability) also dwarf CO2 warming on the longer time scale of several decades, because CO2 warming is insignificant.
How you can possibly determine the time scale at which CO2 warming definitively evidences itself over natural variability without first making a bald assumption of what that CO2 warming rate happens to be? If the assumption is that both CO2 and natural climate variability contribute to temperature trends, how does the bare measurement of the temperature trend help in distinguishing a CO2 signal from a natural signal? Given the presence of some CO2 signal (with an undetermined significance) how do you measurably verify a time period over which there is no expected climate variability so as to infer what the CO2 signal is? Global warming advocates (wrong word, I know, but I can’t think of anything better) try to answer these questions by either looking at temperature reconstructions (which can’t be verified) or by incorporating assumptions into computer models and then “verifying” the computer models using, in part, the same assumptions that went into the model, e.g. assumed CO2 “fingerprints” (how’s that for circular logic), or even more perversely, by comparing model runs of past climate to reconstructed climate records (where the model was constructed in the first place using reconstructed climate trends).
Another way of stating this is that it is pointless for a theory or model of how a system works to be more detailed than the level at which the system can be physically measured. If you can’t use an instrument to measure the contribution of CO2 to today’s temperature, separate from other factors, don’t bother trying to model it because you will never be able to verify the model. Without verifying the model, the theory is nothing more than speculation. It may be educated speculation in the sense that there are rational reasons behind the calculations, but it is still just speculation.
Incidentally, I’m not suggesting that you can’t experimentally determine the contribution of added CO2 to temperature trends by a statistical or mathematical analysis, but there are two important caveats. One is that the time period over which this analysis is conducted would be extremely long. If, as you suggest, a CO2 signal can’t be distinguished from weather in several years, it’s going to take many decades, if not centuries, to establish confidence in any results using such a method. More importantly, you’re going to have to somehow obtain the ability to start controlling the rate of CO2 emissions and varying them up and down at different rates as a precursor to measuring the climate sensitivity to CO2. Engineers will be familiar with this type of “Black Box” analysis where you simply measure the inputs and outputs to determine the relationship between them. But again, because you either don’t know what other variables there are and/or can’t control for them, you have to randomize them out by extending the time period of the measurement interval.
“This statement is completely meaningless. Over periods of a few years, weather noise completely dominates the forcing due to CO2. You cannot measure global warming over a ‘few years’, so to claim that it has stopped is ludicrous. It’s like saying an oak tree has stopped growing because you couldn’t measure a change in its height over the course of a week.”
So ok, lets measure over 30 years. No wait, lets measure over 200 years, or 500 years, or 1,000 years or, lets say for the sake of argument, 4.6b years. What do you see?
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/temperature/4600Myr.jpg
I don’t know, but something isn’t right! It seems to be very cold. Whoops.
“given we know the greenhouse effect influences the climate on this planet”
PeteM:
Exactly what do “we” (i.e. you) KNOW about how how CO2 (most of greenhouse effect is water vapor) influences the climate on this planet? Please elucidate…
Humans can live anywhere, including underwater and on the Moon for short periods of time. Yet a 1 degree change in average temperature is supposed to cause the total collapse of civilization and extinction of Mankind!
Now that’s a daft idea, as well as a-historical and irrationally paranoid. The fact is that there is nothing troubling about global warming, if it were happening, although it isn’t. And that fact really needs more discussion.
The average Alarmist believes crops will fail and Humanity will starve to death if global temperatures rise. That is completely daft, too. Food crops are grown from the Equator to Siberia and everywhere in between, across truly significant climatic zones. We would have vast crop surpluses on this planet except for the truth that farmers do not get paid for food nobody wants, and so they only grow as much as is desired (as in paid for) by the market.
The average Alarmist believes that sea levels will rise and drown entire cities, although sea level rise has been a few inches per century, and has all but stopped since 2005, and cities, indeed all our entire built environments, are far more dynamic than that.
And on and on. There is not one substantial argument presented that cooler is better than warmer, at least not one that cannot be easily refuted.
The panic is a chimera. There is nothing to panic about. The Alarmist rant is paranoia for paranoia’s sake. It is not so much a religion as an indulgence in hysteria, a predilection for shock, like a fondness for horror movies.
Time to turn that movie off, get out of the theater of smoke and mirrors, depart the Fun House, and sober up. Warmer IS better.
PeteM (13:18:13) :
Oh dear oh dear .. still the same orthodox views that global warming can’t be anything to do with humans on this site (or it isn’t happening due to fossile fuels).
Why is it that the global warmers always use the cheapest of rhetorical devices? Paint the views espoused here as “orthodox” to suggest that the The Orthodox Church of Global Warming is somehow “unorthodox”; therefore appealing to the younger, more impressionable power-station wreckers and Greenpeace canon fodder.
I suggest, Petem, crawl back to Poznan. You clearly don’t like it here.
Let’s narrow it down. How about if we start with an engineering-quality explanation of the relationship between CO2 and increased temperature, such as the IPCC “doubling of CO2 = 2.5C global temperature increase”.
Petem
Nature is a great indicator of what is happening — look at the tree line and advance of species towards the poles . The trend is very clear ….
So, the tree line is advancing AGAIN, maybe it will get back to where it should be. Maybe Canada will be able to produce two crops of wheat a year. That will feed billions.
Thing is, Petem, no-one here denies the planet may have gotten a little warmer since the Little Ice Age; and jolly good job too. CO2 is not pollution; it is plant food. The more the merrier.
A warm planet is a happy planet!
Now, back to your potato juice.
PeteM said: Quote,
“I agree that the case for AGW or MMGW is not water tight but neither is that case for the opposite In fact I don’t expect complex systems to ever have this level of absoluteness – and its unscientific and naive to assume so . However that doesn’t mean no predictions or estimates are possible.
The predictions is … more CO2 means higher temperatures which means more trouble ( not more benefit)” end of Quote.
Response:
1. There is NO evidence, I repeat NO evidence that CO2 means higher temperatures.
This despite 100 billion of good American Dollars spend to get the proof on the table.
2. There is a “Peer Reviewed” scientific report published which really makes sense:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/12/03/rethinking-observed-warming/
3. Predictions? We still have to acquire the ability to produce a correct weather forecast for a period of one week.
The respected representatives of the UN IPCC have been playing with computer models and came up with a climate forecast predicting dangerous Global Warming, melting ice caps and rising sea levels and the message that humanity must act quickly otherwise it will be to late!!!!!!
Maybe you could consider the idea that the people who came up with this horrifying scenario have a different agenda? Maybe they have a political agenda?
This fact alone is a reason to be a skeptical!
Until today ZERO and I repeat ZERO of the IPCC predictions have been accurate.
1. There is NO proof of rising temps as CO2 rises.
The truth is that despite rising CO2 levels temperature is decreasing!
2. There is no proof that the ice caps are melting on such a scale that it causes a rise of sea levels!
The last five years show that the sea level is decreasing! see graph at: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/09/21-spotless-days-and-solar-magnetic-field-still-in-a-funk/
So you tell me why?
Why should humanity be forced to shut down it’s energy infra strucure?
Why should we double or even triple the price of energy because we are forced to use silly windmills that still are in need of conventional back up?
Why should we be forced to invest billions of dollars to solve a non existing problem?
Why should we accept further government regulations that limit our mobility and freedom?
Why should we accept that our food chain is taxed and food is used to produce bio fuels while we know this will cause misery and starvation on the African Continent?
Do you know that in Haiti people are selling “mud cakes” because they can not afford to buy basic food rations anymore because an extremely bright light got the idea to convert corn into car fuel?
If you ask for a balanced opinion on AGW, deliver us with the hard evidence that makes it necessary to close down our economies and return to the dark ages.
PK, Here in Ottawa, Capital iof Canada, it’s going to be -20C entigrade tonight,… and it’s not even winter. Most of December has been cold; we are taunted with a “forecast” of an above zero Monday … and rain!
I’ve been here 26 years and this is the coldest December I can Remember. But, hey, that’s just ione data point.
“” Richard Sharpe (15:35:16) :
George E Smith said:
By the way; I thought that the orthodox view; the “science is settled” view, the IPCC/AlGore/JamesHansen?MichaelMann view, was that man (ie Homo sapiens sapiens) was entirely responsible for 90% of man made global warming.
Maybe that is supposed to be 90% responsible for all of man made global warming?
</blockquote?
I think they say that they are 90% certain that human activity (production of CO2 and other “greenhouse” gases, along with land-use etc) is responsible for global warming.
“”
Richard; I could cite you instances; well at least one, where credible scientists were more than “90% cer”tain” that a particular science thesis was correct; yet it turned out to be as phony as a three dollar bill. I probably did cite one already somewhere on this site)
The data was considerably better than 90%; much better even than 99.9% certain, yet is was still wrong. Well actually the theoretical prediction agreed with the best measured experimental data to better than one part in 10^8. Is that close enough to absolute certainty for you? And yes the theory was quite wrong; completely false.
To me “90% certain” means uncertain. To be certain, you need to have more than a correlation coefficient better than 0.5. It would actually help if you have a cause and effect physical relationship between the correlated data sets.
After all it is not out of reason to have two phenomena, which are independently caused by a third. It would be unusual to not have any correlation between the first two phenomena; even an extremely high correlation coefficient, and yet absolutely no causative relationship whatsoever.
And for anyone who thinks our climate condition on this planet is precarious, the extremes of surface temperature present simultaneously on any northern midummer day, could be as high as 150 degrees C from coldest to hottest (and maybe more). And we have actual physical official weather station temperature records to support that claim; well they run from about -128F to +136F official, with anecdotal claims outside that range. And no, those two records did not occur on the same day; but they very well could have.
And based on a clever argument by Galileo, in his “Dialog on The Two World Systems.” Every possible temperature between those extremes would exist somewhere on the planet simultaneously. And nearly all of those places actually have people living there. So spare me the 1-3 deg C scare mongering; it doesn’t mean a darn thing in the general scheme of things.
And if your Playstation video game models could get rid of that 3:1 fudge factor that is always present in MMGW GCM models, I would be slightly more impressed. I’d be even more impressed, if they actually modelled any real planet that is of great interest to us.
And I don’t use big words like AGW when little words will do.
And as for CO2 and other GHGs being hazardous to humans; well the missing GHG called H2O is infinitely more hazardous to humans that all of those others put together. I don’t recommend living on the slopes of active volcanoes though.
H
Here is a CO2 article from Tim Ball based on Jaworowski’s and Beck’s papers.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6855
But we trust Mr. Chu already knows that the Bush Administration has devoted some $43.3 billion to climate-specific science
perhaps the climate army might enjoy some biological funding too?
There has been some discussion here about ironclad proof about things.
For example, ironclad proof of AGW.
Can I suggest a more modest goal?
How about ironclad proof of past temperature measures?
For example, just how cold, or warm, was 1934?
It appears some have been running around adjusting all the temperatures of the past. How do they do that? How do they know the temperatures need to be adjusted? And if the corrections are more correct than the actual thermometers doing the measures, why not do away entirely with the thermometers?
I would like some corrections of data in other realms, now that we are on the subject.
For example, I would like the prices of my investments to be adjusted sharply upward. After all, if there is anything that needs to be ‘corrected’ it is the dismal state of my investments.
Can’t someone in the government make those simple adjustments? They’re adjusting the temperatures of the past, why not my investments?
I don’t want to be selfish. Why not adjust everyone’s portfolio? Wouldn’t that solve the current economic crisis? Everyone would feel richer and start spending.
Pete M
please look up the heat capacity ( at constant pressure and at constant volume, if you wish) for the following gases
nitrogen, oxygen, co2.
then multiply by the mole fraction in the atmosphere.
afterward come back and tell me what you have learned about co2 relative to nitrogen and oxygen.
And by the way after you read some feedback papers, please show me a laboratory which has substantiated the equations
Off Topic:
ICE STORM
http://www.seablogger.com/?p=12405
Pete M:
“I agree that the case for AGW or MMGW is not water tight but neither is that case for the opposite In fact I don’t expect complex systems to ever have this level of absoluteness – and its unscientific and naive to assume so . However that doesn’t mean no predictions or estimates are possible.
The predictions is … more CO2 means higher temperatures which means more trouble (not more benefit).”
I concur with the first paragraph, but take the principle a bit further. I disagree with the second statement as far as the consequences of warming. Starting with the latter, there is utterly no evidence that a warmer climate will be, on balance, more detrimental than either the present climate or a cooler climate. As an example, consider the oft-cited warning of increased hurricane intensity from a warmer climate. Most of this nonsense is based on the premise that warmer ocean temperatures feed hurricanes. This is only partially true, however. What feeds hurricanes is the temperature differential between the sea surface and the air above the hurricane. This should be intuitive – think of it as voltage or pressure differentials that cause energy transfers, i.e. each must be measured by reference another pressure, temperature, etc. Because a hurricane is essentially a heat engine that feeds on a vertical temperature gradient, an excellent case could be made that CO2 warming would decrease hurricane activity because temperatures aloft should increase more than sea temperatures, if global warming theory is correct. (I know that measurements show more surface temperature warming than troposphere warming, but to me that seems to indicate that CO2 is not what is warming the surface). As another example, it’s conceivable that a warmer average climate could ameliorate the incidence of droughts rather than make them more severe, because of a faster hydrological cycle due to the air being able to hold more water.
To my mind (except for sea level increases), every dire projection of an evil consequence of global warming has a counterbalancing good consequence of global CO2 warming, and even with sea level increases, we don’t know the rate of increase and the ability to adapt to it. This is because there is no empirical way of measuring the relative probability of consequence X vs the corresponding worse benefit Y to any assumed increase in average temperature. All the “bad consequences” are simply the results of simulated computer runs (and don’t think that it escapes notice that every one of these projections is something awful, which to me suggests that the outcome is rigged). A computer does nothing more than what it is told to do. If a computer “projects” or “predicts” more droughts from global warming, that says nothing more than that it was programmed to show that result. Until you rigorously test those projections (not possible) the computer simulations should be given no weight – particularly when the simulation is of something so immensely complex as the Earth’s climate.
Now let’s deal with your first assertion. I think that, not only is there substantial uncertainty in the existing global warning forecasts (both of warming and consequences) but that there is utterly no hope of reducing that uncertainty. If, for example, we find that a decade from now, temperatures are warmer, you still won’t have any real evidence that those temperatures weren’t primarily a result of a natural trend towards an interglatial maximum, and you won’t be able to quantify the contribution of CO2. This is because there is no way of collecting the necessary evidence. It’s conceivable that you could then find out whether the increased temperatures are better or worse, drought or hurricane-wise, etc. But again, you won’t know whether to blame CO2.
Here’s a hypothetical. Would you pay, say $100 for a lottery in which, if you win, some undetermined positive or negative event will be changed in your life, but you will never know for sure whether or not you’d won, what event had been changed, and whether it had been for the better or worse. I think you would be a fool to pay even $1 for that. The whole premise of acting rationally in the face of uncertain knowledge presupposes not only that you can quantify relative risks entering into the decision, but that at some future time you will have an indication of whether or not your choice was correct. If neither of these things are present, you should never give up anything tangible.
PeteM
I’m not asking for censorship – I’m asking for a balance of articles and a balance of comments . At the moment this site is a repository of anti-MMGW views.
In that case, I would suggest you start your own blog and then you could have just what you want on it – whether you have any readers is another matter though. For the rest of us, I think we can say we are quite happy with the variety of subject matter that Anthony puts forward on this site.
PeteM (13:18:13) :
(b) Raising non sequitur arguments like global poverty , human progress , changes in past epochs
Hmmm. Bringing poverty to the globe via carbon restriction is a non-sequitur? Don’t worry about the fact that every scrap of steel made on the planet depends on coal / coke… Don’t worry about the fact that 1/2 the electricity comes from coal. Go buy a bike and become a vegetarian. (Oops. The bike takes aluminum that takes electricity from coal and the veggies need nitrogen fertilizers made from natural gas…)
And changes in past epochs don’t matter? Please explain: a) Bond Events. b) Why they don’t matter any more. Can’t? I thought so.
Side Bar: My paranoid moment centers on the notion that we might be entering a Bond Event. We are within the window and no sun spots is worrying..
(c) Dodgy/misleading psuedo scientific arguments like record ice increase , glaciers advancing , failure to understand the meaning of hottest
So record ice increase and glaciers advancing are pseudo science? Amazing. So if we enter a new little ice age (as the sun seems to be hinting) the record ice and glaciers will not matter? And ‘hottest’ would be very easy to understand if GISS would publish the raw data and not some processed temperature fantasy.
All across the world there is evidence that it is GLOBALLY getting warmer . ( that also includes areas outside of North America)
Uh huh… More coolaid? It is very clear that we’ve rolled over an inflection point into cooling. Watch the snows this year. Next year will be worse. Globally.
They have a specific agenda of avoidance of facing the reality of what is happening .
This is just precious. Look out the window! If anyone is avoiding reality its the AGW folks who have trouble with the idea that record snows and cold are not important.
Nature is a great indicator of what is happening — look at the tree line and advance of species towards the poles . The trend is very clear ….
And look at the Ice Man and other human artifacts from under the melted glaciers. It was WARMER in the past, or those folks and their kit could not have gotten under the ice. Nothing is out of the normal band. There is a 1500 year climate cycle that you are ignoring, among others. Explain: Medieval Optimum, Roman Optimum, Holocene Optimum, …
There are many other possible effects from increasing the level of atmospheric CO2 (effect on oceans , unknown effect on bio-organisms , etc)
Possible? All those paranoid fantasies just itching for a place to land… The biosphere has had much higher levels of CO2 in the past, inside the evolutionary time of most genera on the planet, and everything did just fine. It’s common for folks to work in 1000 ppm CO2 in greenhouses and nobody even notices (except the plants that grow better). Please, keep the paranoid fantasies and ‘possibilities’ out of it.
And for those worried about econnomic impacts .. what is so awful about a world where[…]
the poor of the world are kept in poverty, the economic prosperity of the 1st world countries is destroyed, and we devolve into tribal warfare and the destruction of the remaining wild spaces in a futile bid for survival.
Look, it’s pretty clear that modernity and an advanced technological lifestyle are the keys to reduced population growth, preservation of wild spaces, and reduced pollution. The idea that living some green back to the earth fantasy is better is just that, a fantasy.
THE thing that lets the world advance is energy consumption, largely from fossil fuels. Shut that down and you shut down the economy. Shut down the economy and the third world dies. Horridly.
Don’t think so? Look at the resource wars throughout history. We can feed, clothe, and entertain everyone thanks to lots of fossil fuels. It would take decades to change that. Get back to me in 20 years…
K says:
I agree with your assessment of Chu (although technically he was chosen for Secretary of Energy, not science advisor, but the energy department does oversee a fairly healthy chunk of the federal science spending).
However, as Ed Scott pointed out, there is every reason to believe that Dr. Chu, like most scientists, is concerned about AGW. In fact, he is one of the councillors of the Copenhagen Climate Council. You may want to believe that AGW is being pushed by politicians and that most scientists don’t believe it … But, in fact, I think the so-called “skeptics” are less prominent in the scientific community than they are in the political realm.
jeez (13:32:46) :
Can I play too? All my answers have New Hampshire dependencies.
1) No answer, just comments.
It’s tough to move a treeline up, as something needs to make new soil first. Fires that burned so hot a century ago that soil micro life got fried are still treeless (e.g. Monadnock, Cardigan [we bought property on its flank], Firescrew [next to Cardigan, so named for the flames coming off the mountaintop]). I don’t know of any examples of the conifer/deciduous line moving uphill either, but history is less than 500 years here.
2) A couple (you wanted one, so I lose?)
Opossums (America’s only marsupial) have spread their range northward, so we now have some around Concord NH. I’m not aware of specific counts.
Cardinals (very pretty bright red (male) bird) have also moved north, or so I’ve heard. The Audubon society might have records of that. A pair of Cardinals hang around my home, I haven’t seen any further north, but Cardinals like open space and there are lots of woods up north.
And a negative example: There are three hills or mountains named Rattlesnake, at least one has documented records of Timber Rattlesnakes on it, but the more recent report is many decades ago. In general, New Hampshire sucks when it comes to snakes. Northeast Ohio was much better. We had many Cardinals an possums in Ohio, so maybe we’ll have a home for Timber rattlers during the next positive PDO.
3) There’s lots of room in clean air for CO2. Less room for NOx, SO2, etc.
Stevo, can you show what the C02 concentration was then? Back up what you say. It has been claimed “dubious” by those with an agenda. There is a lot of evidence that clearly shows Co2 levels throughout history, which, at times, was far higher than today. Evidence without smear, please and thank you.
“I think they say that they [IPCC scientists] are 90% certain that human activity (production of CO2 and other “greenhouse” gases, along with land-use etc) is responsible for global warming.”
This assertion always kills me every time it’s brought up. It actually refers to the statement in the IPCC Summary for Policy Makers, which attributes a 90% confidence level to the statement that CO2 is responsible for “most” of the measured warming. What isn’t stated is the decidedly unscientific basis for the 90% figure, which is the result of basically an opinion poll of the few scientists that contributed to the relevant sections of the IPCC report.
The quantitative contribution of CO2 to temperature is one of the few critical questions pertaining to the global warming issue. Yet, that question can only be answered via an entirely subjective opinion of scientists. None of these scientists have objectively demonstrated any particular skill in eyeballing temperature trends and correctly associating causation to those trends. They’re not to be faulted for this, it’s just that there is no way of indepedently verifying any quantitative attributions of causation. James Hansen, for example, can’t say “I attributed, as an expert, the downwards temperature trend from 1955 – 1979 to diminished solar radiation amplified by the following feedback factors, and sure enough, measurements we took in 1983 confirmed that this attribution was correct.”
What they are to be faulted for is thinking that their subjective opinions are relevant. This is what vexes me about all this “science is settled” garbage. It’s easy to make bold statements about your confidence in a particular result when you know that there will never come a day of reckoning when you will be proven right or wrong. These statements are just thrown out to be absorbed by the uncritical.
I’ll say one more thing that gets me riled up. I have read various articles quoting scientists (PhD’s no less) making extrordinary flaws in logic. One PhD said that the advancing glaciers on Shasta was evidence of global warming, on the basis that climate models predicted local areas of increased precipitation. This is utterly non-sensical. If there was no warming, or even cooling for that matter, would this PhD expect that the glaciers on Shasta would not then advance? I could understand it if he cautioned that the advance shouldn’t be interpreted as evidence refuting global warming – but the guy actually said that it was “evidence of” global warming.
More common is the assertion (paraphrased) that “our knowledge of this climate system has improved dramatically over the last 10 years, therefore, we are highly confident in our predictions of x temperature rise and/or our attribution of the measured climate change to variable y.” In fact, I think that there was a question and answer session with a scientist posted on this site a while back with an Arctic researcher who basically made this statement in response to a question about how you could attribute Arctic climate change to global changes rather than local factors.
This reasoning, however, is backwards. Human understanding of nature and of physical laws can only be objectively measured by the practical accomplishments to which that knowledge has been applied. Ask how well we understand electromagnetics, and you can’t really quantitatively answer it because you don’t know how much there is yet to be discovered, or what all the limitations of your knowledge are. You can, however, say that we understand it well enough to design and build transmission grids spanning the entire country, or to make reliable EM circuits, etc. Similarly, you express your understanding of weather by saying , we understand it well enough to reliably predict temperature and precipitation three to five days in advance, but not well enough to predict it 10 days in advance. In other words, it’s what you do with your knowledge that is the objective benchmark of your understanding. You never assume your level of understanding so as to infer the reliabilty of an application of that knowledge.
PeteM (13:44:16) :
I don’t expect anyone to be able to predict a specific short term weather event ( ie snow on the Alps) any more that I can predict which part of a pan of water on a stove will boil first .
Um, it’s the bottom that boils first. No problem…
The issue of global warming is the average effect over a reasonable point time .
One is tempted to pick up the thread that it’s the integral, not the average… but I won’t 😉
The “reasonable period of time” is about 3000 years, not 200. Again: How is this time any different in climate from: The Medieval Optimum, the Roman Optimum, the Holocene Optimum, … Answer: It’s slightly cooler now…
(c) CO2 is released by burning of fossil fuels from amongst othjer power stations and cars . Combustion of these fuels are know to increase incidence of lung relasted diseased like asthma . Cleaner air is a by product of not burning fossile fuels so this is not a non-sequitur .
Um, yes, it is a non-sequitur . Modern coal plant scrubs the particulates out. Similarly, modern Diesel engines trap the particulate matter and reacts it away. Nothing about a modern, technological, burning of fossil fuels causes asthma. Now open burning of wood in 3rd world kitchens DOES cause asthma and blindness. Maybe we can get them nice clean natural gas stoves or nuclear powered electric ovens so they can keep their eyesight… The CO2 does nothing to health.
Ron de Haan (17:56:19) :
> Off Topic:
> ICE STORM
> http://www.seablogger.com/?p=12405
No offense meant, but that’s gotta be the lamest excuse of a site covering the Great Ice Storm of 2008. 19 years before I was in the Great Ice Storm of 1998 (hey, that one was in January). Try boston.com, wmur.com, or Google News.
Ice storms are really lousy things to try to relate to climate. The really bad ones depend on a set of conditions that are fairly difficult to achieve, but conditions that aren’t influenced by climate.
Basically you need a blocking high over the region, preferably one with cold air draining into the region from further north. Next you need a stationary front that allows gulf air to be forced up and over the cold air. That produces rain, the cold air converts it to supercooled rain and/or sleet, and if the water feed can bring a couple inches of rain, enough will freeze in part of the area to make a royal mess. There are some very strange effects due to how the cold air flows around valleys or is blocked by ridges.
I lucked out in 2008 (but got clobbered in 1998 when I lived north and 500′ above Plymouth NH). This storm has knocked out power for half of NH’s population, and I think damage was as bad in interior Massachusetts and mid-Maine. It’ll be really cold tomorrow night, but a warm up begins Sunday which will help work crews.
My power was off from 0015 to 1050, and cable internet down until 1730 or so. No damage to the house or power lines, insignificant damage to trees.
RW
“Temperature variations are highly predictable on some time scales and highly unpredictable on others.”
As I think you mean this, it’s an unsubstantiated conculsion. Temperature variations a few days in advance may well be highly predictable. The weatherman, for example, probably knows what the temperatures are going to look like for the next 72-96 hours. After that, predictions of temperature are not accurate at all.
This isn’t what you probably meant, however. If you meant that average annual local or global temperatures, measured over a very long interval for example, get back into the highly predictable range, I’d ask that you put forth the proof of this. Show where someone has made a prediction of future temperatures over that specified time scale and that the prediction subsequently turned out to be accurate.
Some great reading tonight !! Beats the (snip) out of television any day!!! Thanks to all, and especially to Mr. Watt’s and the moderators. Thanks also to Les Johnson who has related a Chinookism that I have not heard, but will certainly re-tell !! PeteM , you have helped me to reaffirm my position, even thought that was probably not your intention, …….
Well after doing a quick google search, according to this site:
http://www.inspect-ny.com/hazmat/CO2gashaz.htm
We’d start getting drowsy at a CO2 concentration of 1% (10,000 ppm) if we were trapped in an unventilated room. The gas is toxic at levels greater than 5% (50,000 ppm). That’s about 130 times greater than the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere – and (using one of those nifty linear extrapolations like the pro-AGW crowd adores so much) it would take something like 30,000 years for the current level to reach toxicity.
Now if we pull out that handy graph again of global temperature and atmospheric CO2 over geologic time, the greatest concentration recorded was only 7000 ppm back in the Cambrian – in other words, not toxic at all.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html
Hmm. I’m not spotting the impending apocalypse. It seems to me that humans could survive quite nicely on this planet at anytime during the past 600 million years and we’ll continue to adapt in the future. And right now my future is snow shovelling…
PeteM (13:58:57) :
Do you know the increase in temperature that makes crops like wheat reduce yield ?
Nope. What is it? (It’s at least in the 105F+ range in my experience… summer wheat in California central valley.)
http://www.usask.ca/agriculture/plantsci/winter_cereals/Winter_wheat/CHAPT10/cvchpt10.php
Gives no upper bound for heat or temperature. It does give a hard bottom at 0C. If we drop below freezing, wheat does not grow. Think about it… (Bold added by me.)
Heat Units
The thermal time required for crop production is determined by adding the daily heat units together for the period between planting and harvest. When the centigrade temperature scale is used, the heat units generated each day is determined by adding the minimum and maximum daily temperatures together and dividing by two. For example, a day with minimum and maximum temperatures of 10 and 20°C respectively, would generate 15 heat units [(20 + 10) / 2 = 15]. Days with average daily temperatures below 0°C do not contribute to the heat unit total.
Thermal Time Requirements For Wheat Production
The heat unit requirements to produce a mature crop are approximately 1550 for spring and 2200 for winter wheat. Translated into calendar days, this means that it would take 103 (103 x 15 = 1545) days to produce a spring and 147 (147 x 15 = 2205) days to produce a winter wheat crop if the average daily temperature was a constant 15°
And my favorite:
The 1988 growing season was much warmer with the result that the thermal time requirements to produce a mature Norstar crop were met five weeks earlier in 1988 than in 1993.
So, please tell me how you get warming as a problem out of this? Warmer weather means more crop sooner. More CO2 along with warmer means lots more crop sooner. Less CO2 and colder means you starve.
That’s why greenhouses are kept hot and often CO2 enriched.
My background? Grew up in farm country with a Dad who insisted that we have a garden all the time (he grew up on a farm in Iowa) and we had about 5 head of cattle and rabbits most of the time. Attended an Ag school… Took Viticulture and Enology among other courses at university. Picked more peaches and walnuts than anyone ever ought to…
The only place that my Sunset Garden Book shows with an upper heat limit for most plants is the desert southwest, like around Phoenix. My read on it is that we’ve got about 15F before anybody else has to worry about a “summer pause”. BTW, that “summer pause” would come along with expanded early spring and late fall growing seasons. That’s why so much production comes from Arizona…
You are barking up the wrong tree with this notion that more heat means less crop.
PeteM (14:13:16) :
Regarding scrubber technology – a lot of coutries don’t deploy them and vehicles still emit a lot of particles . Also , I’m pleased to hear LA may have improved … what does this have to do with a planet that extends much further than California.
Modern smog limits are so tight that you can’t find the particulates. Even Diesels must have particulate traps / catalytic reactors.
L.A. matters because it is an example of what happens when people advance to modernity and prosperity. They demand clean air and a good quality of life. It is in those places with poverty that scrubbers et. al. are not in place. As they advance to prosperity, they too will clean up. And golly, guess who gets a pass in the whole AGW rant? Why, just those places who don’t use scrubbers et. al.
All that the AGW agenda will do is move the economic production from the good stewards of the air to the places with no limits. Hardly and improvement…
BTW, that you say “LA may have improved” flags an astounding naivete. In the late 1950s when you topped the grapevine segment and looked down on LA it was a giant brown soup bowl. Now you can see the city. In Anaheim one summer I remember that the end of the block was fuzzy like summer fog and 2 blocks away was almost not visible. The air now is so much cleaner. It’s called PROGRESS and it comes from using more, not less, energy. All that smog gear that cleans up the air takes more fuel, not less.
Petem, if you have the time, could you do a little experiment for me? Go over to RealClimate and post a skeptical point of view under a different name (so you can still visit the site afterwards, if you choose). Let us know what happens to your post. I think the result will be very telling.
To see Dr. Stephen Chu fearmongering with the best of them, take a peek at this video:
http://www.webtvhub.com/national-clean-energy-summit-video-dr-steven-chu-barack-obamas-chosen-energy-secretary/
He appears to have drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid.
🙁
Richard Sharpe (15:00:23) :
Steven Hill said:
POZNAN, Poland (AFP) — China’s top negotiator at the UN climate talks welcomed the climate pact adopted by EU leaders on Friday as a “positive step,” but criticised carbon reduction goals set by US president-elect Barack Obama as too weak.
Hmmm, I suspect that you are thinking what I am thinking.
I’m thinking I need to check the chart on FXI and see if it’s time to buy into China again. You?
Hang on a sec… price cross over 25, 50, & 75 day moving averages… failure to advance to the downside (higher lows) … MACD positive and pointed up, DMI+ on top, ADX low (not much trend, i.e. prior downtrend broken, new uptrend not established yet)… big jump at the start of the week (about when Poznan started?) momentum positive, volume good… Yup, China is a buy again…
I’ll watch for a better entry next week, and maybe look at the individual china stocks, but the FXI is saying China is a winner in all of this. Hmm and the $ has rolled over relative to the Yen FXY, Yuan CYB, and Euro FXE.. and the Aussy FXA and Brazilian Real BZF too! But not against the British pound FXB. Guess we know who are the pigeons at this poker game…
Time to invest in Brazil EWZ and China FXI and run away from the U.S. $$ now that the hedge fund dollar repatriation / liquidation is over…
And who ever said that the AGW con game wasn’t good for anything 😉
I like this… “In March a team of climate scientists at Kiel University predicted that natural variation would mask the 0.3C warming predicted by the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change over the next decade.” So a colder temperature ‘masks’ a warmer temperature, does it? Perhaps it really is the other way about. Maybe some of the warmer temperatures of past years were actually masking colder temperatures after all. And there never was any problem in the first place. There are certainly some great twists to this life!
It’s not because the case was not strong, it’s because of emotion. How can you compete with “saving the planet”? The message has become “If you don’t believe in global warming, you’re a planet hater.” When in reality, many of those who use AGW to promote their message are actually human haters. And no that’s not just rhetoric, the verified quotes are out there by most of the green leadership. They don’t want to “fix global warming” or “solve the climate crisis”, they want the de-industrialization of the world, and they want to prevent third world countries from developing and becoming prosperous.
Stevo (16:04:42) :
“I’m also fed up of hearing the point about life existing on this planet in a variety of previous conditions . Humans couldn’t have survived in most of those scenarios .”
On the contrary. Humans can survive over one of the widest ranges of climates of any animal on Earth. We survive from desert to pole. If a range of over 50C can’t stop us, why do you think 3C will?
Um, given that we have Eskimo’s and Saharans ought that not to be more like “over 100C”?
BTW, given that Homo Sapiens along with their precursors have lived through prior (warmer!) interglacials and prior colder ice ages I think there is ample reason to bring up previous conditions.
Also given that AGW advocates regularly say (long list of species) will die from the warming, when we know that they evolved long enough ago to have come through warmer and higher CO2 periods in the past makes those prior times very pertinent. It’s called an existence proof that falsifies the catastrophe theory.
Stevo (16:26:10) :
H,
A guy called Beck has been saying that for years, I think Tim Ball mentioned it recently. It’s extremely dubious.
Here’s a write up, FWIW:
http://petesplace-peter.blogspot.com/2008/12/have-we-been-misled-about-past-carbon.html
Not endorsing, just pointing…
PeteM (16:54:37) :
We know CO2 influences the climate of this planet . Exactly what temperature do you think Earth would be at without some greenhouse effect ? Just do the maths about the incident energy from the sun ….
Love to ‘do the maths’. Just give me the formula. Fully account for all interactions of air, water, clouds, ice, land, biosphere, cosmic ray cloud interactions, solar magnetosphere / earth interactions, and anything else of importance when you put the formula together. I’ll wait….
Now there’s the rub… if you can’t show all those things then you can’t say what will happen. You are just guessing in a very precise way with a mathematical language… I don’t feel like betting my future on such guesses.
RW (12:33:13) :
anna v: and indeed, whether it is cold in the UK this year or not has a different cause (internal unforced variation) to the ongoing rise in global temperatures (external forcing). The analogy is perfectly applicable .
Wrong again. There is nothing external to CO2 production , whether naturally or by humans. It is continuously happening, even as we sit and breath at the keyboards. The “climate forcing” assumption is just an integration of the momentary breathing in and out of the earth, by all means, including humans burning stuff outside their body than inside their body. Weather is an integration over a few hours and days. Climate over a period of N years, where N depends on the brains of the speakers.
I am sure you agree that you can very easily predict that it will be hotter in summer than winter, and hotter in the middle of the day than the middle of the night. Temperature variations are highly predictable on some time scales and highly unpredictable on others.
So?
Robert Wood (17:05:55) :
Listen up! You are Keanu Reeves from Real Climate, aren’t you?
I found the use of “do the maths” diagnostic of this but not definitive, so said nothing… since I don’t know what culture results in that usage.
casuistry .
Had to look that one up. Good word!
In the UK, today’s Telegraph (the one serious paper in Britain that isn’t afraid to publish the odd anti-warmist article) points out that the beginning of winter here has been the coldest for more than 30 years. However, there isn’t a mention of anything AGW-related in the short article. You can bet that if the past 30 days had been the warmest in 30 years, though, that…well you know what would have been said.
Christian Bultmann (17:47:13) :
Here is a CO2 article from Tim Ball based on Jaworowski’s and Beck’s papers.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/6855
I got half way through this then was going to bail… scrolled down and ran into a very nice little graph with historic temps & CO2 levels for geologic time. The caption makes the point that the only time both CO2 and temp have been as low as today is a short period at the end of the carboniferous.
What struck me was the steady downward trend from 7000 ppm to today punctuated by that one dip and with most of all history above 1000 ppm .
I knew CO2 was a plant nutrient, but what this chart said, indirectly, is that almost all plants on this planet are starving for the stuff and never evolved to deal with this kind of CO2 vacuum. That the plants are under CO2 deficiency stress and THAT is why they grow so much better with such a small addition. Evolutionary biology would argue for 1000 ppm as much more ideal for life on this planet. I’d seen people post that but just figured it was hyperbole. It isn’t.
This also puts the lie to the notion that a few ppm more will lead to all sorts of acidification ills for the ocean. They have been there and done that for most of all geologic time. No problem.
Thanks for the link!
Ric Werme (18:41:44) :
2) A couple (you wanted one, so I lose?)
Opossums (America’s only marsupial) have spread their range northward, so we now have some around Concord NH. I’m not aware of specific counts.
I’m not sure ‘possums count. They are a recent entrant to N. America from S. America and have had a very long slow waddle from S to N since Panama formed. Maybe they do count, but it could just as easily be their slow pace of radiation or their slow adaptation to new places, foods, temps, etc.
We have some living under the shed (a new litter every year for several years now! They like cat food & chili beans…). They were imported to California in 1895 by folks fond of ‘possum hunt’n.
http://www.natureali.org/opossum.htm
Ch. 5 Eye Witless News is reporting snow expected down to 1500 ft. in San Francisco… and significant cold front headed our way. Snow? In San Francisco? Rare, but sometimes… Must be Global War( SLAP ), er normal.
Also news program about CARB hitting trucks with a $15,000 mandatory smog retrofit per truck. Scene of truckers picketing and planing to leave the state.
Yup, everything is normal on the Loony Left Coast…
More Anecdotal evidence
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3724518/Weather-Coldest-start-to-winter-since-1976.html
Assuming the final figure is close to 14.3C then 2008 will be the 10th hottest year on record. Hottest was 1998, followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3724518/Weather-Coldest-start-to-winter-since-1976.html
If the winter in the UK ends up being as cold as it looks like being, how can 2008 still end up being the 10th hottest after such a dismal summer? I remember the summer of 76 in the UK and it was really hot with a drought and water rationing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/southtoday/content/articles/2008/10/06/telltom_76weather_feature.shtml
I live in Australia now and this December has been really cold continuing from November, with below average temperatures in Melbourne so far. We’ve got the heating on again today watching the rain tip down, when we should be outside in our shorts. I wouldn’t be surprised if it snows on Christmas day this year.
What’s going on with the ice storm in the US?
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/us-ice-storm-knocks-out-power/10545
Richard Sharpe (08:24:35) :
Get your 2009 calender and write…. TimL ..on it for June 14th,
we shall see
Stevie B (10:24:35) :
Blizzard of ’78 comes to mind and ’81? here it snowed every day a little bit. EVERYDAY! dec,jan,feb, LOL
George E. Smith (10:27:03) sarc on Your wrong! the moon is the highest alt. in the earth system!!!! sarc of f Leif is this done correctly?
( Robert Coté (11:54:48) :
Conforming events == proof of AGW
Disproving events == outliers, weather not climate, anecdote, etc.
Sorry to be so terse but we are bracing here “locally” for an “outlying event” That may freeze all your winter strawberries (Ventura County). )
How will they explain food shortages?
Robinson (12:57:44) : do what i do .. breath deeply .. good air in.. bad air out.. please do not fear for your CO2 pollution, a pine tree near by will help you.
PeteM (13:18:13 what data? every data set I have reviewed shows a downward trend. ( cooling)
such a good read! pete YOU PROVE WWGW -AGW IS A HOAX, thank you tim
“Do the maths” is certainly a British expression, as opposed to “Do the math” – shortened form of mathematics. This probably pegs RW as a Brit (the science is not settled and no concensus has been reached as yet).
Anecdotal evidence of diesel exhaust emissions: I remember cycling to school in the seventies following diesel vehicles that pumped visible clouds of soot from their exhausts. You could see the particulates, and certainly did not want to breathe them. I have been asthmatic from birth and the cloud of smuts inhaled would often bring me to a halt, unable to breathe. This would often completely wreck the school day for me as the asthma was not really controlled by the drugs available at the time.
Today it seems every other vehicle on the road in the UK is diesel powered, but emission control means no particulates in sight, and I can wander about the countryside close to busy roads without worrying about breathing problems.
I’m thinking of moving north to Scotland and setting up a vinyard and producing some fine wines as the world is so much warmer than in the MWP. Just looking for financial backers for the first Scottish wine producing company. Anyone?
The Ministry of Defence “own” Hadley Met, CRU et al. Do you expect the truth from that quarter? Climate crisis/green energy is being pushed as the saviour of western economics. The next bubble. Do not expect it to go away any time soon. Sorry.
Only slightly OT From Wunderground –
“A rare early December heavy snowstorm hit Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi yesterday, setting several records. It was the earliest measurable snowfall in recorded history at Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Lake Charles. Also, this snow event set the all time record snowfall amounts for the month of December at Beaumont, Port Arthur, Lake Charles, Lafayette, and New Iberia, and was the first measurable snowfall in recorded history for the month of December at Lafayette.”
PeteM.
CO2 is rising, but global temperatures are not rising. Indeed, they are falling because our sun is failing us. It’s not sending us as much heat as it used to do. Is there anything you can suggest that will turn up the sun’s wick a little so we can be warm again? I don’t like being cold, because cold will kill me quicker than a warm summer will.
Please help me by advising how to get the climate warmer. Should I burn more wood and coal to keep warm this winter in England or should I not. I want to be warm and cosy and live to see the spring and summer months next year. Producing more CO2 is supposed the make our planet warmer, but it doesn’t seem to be working. The planet is getting colder and that is in spite of India and China doing all they can to make me warmer by burning lots and lots of coal. I think you are lying to me about CO2 making the planet warmer . If CO2 makes the planet warmer, why is it so cold here in England. Please confirm that CO2 is going to make me much warmer than the sun can, because at the present moment I’m like a little brass monkey, looking for a blacksmith.
Your advice will be gratefully accepted and thankfully applied.
Thanks to all who corrected me on 1934. No thanks to those who moaned that they thought “everyone understood that”. My point was that we in the sceptics’ corner need a transparent data set to quote from easily. So perhaps this website could refocus, and publish only (mainly?) considered resumes. Very few of us have time to put all the published stuff in perspective.
For instance this morning I just gave up 20% through the comments on this one item: just no time. They were, inevitably, repetitive and many were just jibes or counter-jibes.
Quote PeterM (My emphasis):
I don’t want to get into a debate about human adaption … but we’re talking about a planet that currently has 6+ billiom people versus scenarios where the human population was maybe a few hundred thousand. The transition from the former to latter is not something I would want to accept when we could have done something about it . We probably need a certain number of people before civilisation (as opposed to survival) is possible .
Erm… I would dearly love to know where you get the idea that a couple of degrees rise in temperature is going to cull the human race by 99.9%
I mean, we’ve all seen The Day After Tomorrow, but it wasn’t a documentary.
PeteM,
Please help soonest. I have cold feet. I hope you don’t!
Stevo and E M Smith
” A guy called Beck has been saying that for years, I think Tim Ball mentioned it recently. It’s extremely dubious.”
Repeat of my earlier post on this subject;
“This is a graph showing Hadley Cet back to 1660 and cumulative human co2 emissions since 1750 from Cdiac/IPCC (its the tiny blue line at the bottom)
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_hadley.jpg
Human emissions are 5% of all natural enissions but it was impossible to produce a meaningful graph showing all co2 emissions against all green house gases as the line would be invisible.
The green dots are co2 records from 1820 onwards as recorded at the time-this was an exercise to check out Ernst Becks assertions that past co2 records show levels are as high as todays-which they do.”
Please tell me on what basis this information that Beck produces is dubious?
Tony B
Good to see a reasoned debate, with little in the way of insults, be they allegations of either a communist plot to reduce the West to penuary or it’s all “Big Oil” driving the entite world to destruction.
The hard facts?
The increased human population in the world has increased its output of Carbon Dioxide and reduced the amount of forested areas greatly.
Carbon Dioxide is a “greenhouse” gas
There are other “greenhouse” gases in the atmosphere.
The soft facts.
Carbon Dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased over the past few centuries. (I believe that there is debate as to the accuracy of measurements relying on ice-core data.)
Global mean temperatures appear to have risen over a similar period (I say appear, because the methods used to measure them, at certain periods in the past, are open to, err, shall we say “debate”)
There is a time-lag between temperature rise and Carbon Dioxide rising.
The debate.
Are the alledgedly rising temperatures due to human activities, to what degree is this the case, is it “harmful” to life on Earth, if it is harmful, what can we do about it and what is the cost of doing nothing/doing something effective.
The answer?
David Ball,
(And apologies to everyone else for going off-topic. I’m not going to pursue this one any further after this comment.)
“Stevo, can you show what the C02 concentration was then?”
No. My suspicion would be that nobody can, because the evidence doesn’t exist. It’s the same argument as with tree ring temperature reconstructions, where pointing out flaws leads them to ask the sceptics to provide one better.
“Back up what you say. It has been claimed “dubious” by those with an agenda.”
Everybody has an agenda. It is because I know I have a bias towards contra-AGW results that I take especial care to apply even more scepticism to results I happen to like. Science is about putting every effort into pulling apart your own ideas, considering every way you might be fooling yourself. And then enlisting others (especially those whose biases go the other way) to help you.
And besides the scientific purity, there is a strategic reason too. Investing credibility in results that later turn out to be wrong gives the other side a handy weapon to hit you with. Like the IPCC being repeatedly beaten with the Hockeystick.
“There is a lot of evidence that clearly shows Co2 levels throughout history, which, at times, was far higher than today. Evidence without smear, please and thank you.”
OK. First, the default position should always assume experimental error; the burden of proof is to show it has been eliminated. Any physicist knows that it is very difficult to do precision experiments without systematic errors creeping in. Ways to do that include consistency, repeatability, observing predicted changes in the outputs, and publishing a list of the possible/likely biases you’ve eliminated. Explanations for any discrepancies with known physics ought to be offered. There are plenty more.
My main reasons are the difficulty in performing the experiment without contamination by the experimenter’s breath or local industry, the broad random-looking scatter in the Early results, the absence of any seasonal signal, the difficulty of explaining where the CO2 is going to or coming from, and the fact that CO2 is nowadays measured at more places and by more people than just the Mauna Loa facility, including some nifty satellite maps of how it varies globally.
I just think systematic experimental error is still the most plausible explanation. I haven’t seen sufficient evidence to show it isn’t plausible.
Here’s another sceptic scientist who looked at the question.
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/beck_data.html
I’d like to make it clear – I don’t dismiss Beck’s claims absolutely. I don’t know exactly how the measurements are taken, I do know it’s a lot more complicated to do than is commonly portrayed, and this sort of systematic problem has happened before. I’m not saying all Beck’s claims have been proved wrong.
But I think it is an unsafe set of results to be using in the debate. There are far too many questions that still need answering. By all means, pursue the question amongst ourselves and see if there’s anything in it. Certainly, the consensus version of the Carbon budget has some unexplained quirks left in it, too. But it’s not ready for primetime yet.
And anyway, we don’t need it. There are plenty of far less assailable reasons to doubt AGW without it.
The Hadley Centre predictions for the yearly global T anomaly have been always over in recent years. Is it only a chance? This should suggest them that some predictors could be a little bit wrong.
Perry Debell says:
PeteM,
Please help soonest. I have cold feet. I hope you don’t!
TonyB (03:50:34) :
The graph you post shows CO2 levels varying by over 100 ppm over a couple of years. Nothing remotely close to this variability has been observed during the time (since the 1950’s) that we have regular systematic measurements of CO2 levels.
What physical mechanism caused CO2 levels to vary so much in the recent past, and why did that mechanism suddenly stop just when we started the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements?
The graph you posted is garbage.
Completely off topic. “Green IT Reaches Tipping Point”
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/emea/corporate/pressoffice/2008/uk/en/2008_11_20_brk_000?c=uk&l=en&s=corp
Kinda rings true with Terry Wards quote:
Terry Ward (01:47:07) : Climate crisis/green energy is being pushed as the saviour of western economics. The next bubble.
Chris V. (06:20:42) :
TonyB (03:50:34) :
The graph you post shows CO2 levels varying by over 100 ppm over a couple of years. Nothing remotely close to this variability has been observed during the time (since the 1950’s) that we have regular systematic measurements of CO2levels.
Have you noticed that all the systematic measurements of CO2 that you, and everybody, are relying on, depend on two people ( and a son)? Did you notice the cherry picking of the early data to make a base for low CO2?
I remind everybody of the GISS saga. CO2 has been much less scrutinized and really the sources much less under examination than temperatures, and we are willing to ignore many measurements by eminent scientists of their time just like that?:
What physical mechanism caused CO2 levels to vary so much in the recent past, and why did that mechanism suddenly stop just when we started the Mauna Loa CO2 measurements?
Have you looked at the AIRS plots? http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/
CO2 is not constant over the world.
In addition. I have seen claims of enormous production of CO2 from volcanoes that I would like checked and documented instead of being swept under the rug.
The graph you posted is garbage.
I think that this is not an acceptable statement. The plot shows measurements, accurate for their time. It may be that they are too close to sources of CO2, but many of them are not if you read the Beck paper. It may be true that one has to be critical of the content, that error bars are large, etc. after reading up , but garbage it is not.
This is an interesting article from the results of Poznan:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7781022.stm
The UN climate summit has ended with delegates taking very different views on how much it has achieved.
Western delegates said progress here had been encouraging, but environment groups said rich countries had not shown enough ambition.
Developing nations were angry that more money was not put forward to protect against climate impacts.
The developed nations fluffed through it, and hopefully the gods will take pity on us and keep on the cooling phase before the politicians destroy whatever is left of the economy in the name of nonexistent threats. I hear that bookmakers in London are taking bets that the Thames will freeze over?
Stevo, well stated response !! Might I suggest you examine something from the geologic record called stomata. It is an indicator of Co2 levels of the past and is thoroughly documented. Check it out. It is something that many AGW proponents don’t want people knowing. Same as MWP, LIA, etc. BTW, keep posting as debate is probably the best exercise for the brain. Good for all !! -Chris V, could it be because the guy who has a monopoly on the C02 data is one of the authors of the IPCC report? Agenda? Funding? Just saying there is motive and opportunity, ……
Paul Shanahan said:
The article you linked to said something very interesting: some two thirds of organizations with Green IT Initiatives do not see any payback in a year or more.
If that is true, I suggest that it will become just another passing fad, since in this next twelve months industries worldwide will have more pressing issues, and governments will see large reductions in revenues as well.
Stevo
and the fact that CO2 is nowadays measured at more places and by more people than just the Mauna Loa facility, including some nifty satellite maps of how it varies globally.
I tried to see the papers of CO2 from other places than Mauna Loa. Those are on an arc starting from there anyway, and the papers all have the same author with a second author different for each location, which I assume is the graduate student doing the measurements.
Auditing is a necessity in such a case.
Maybe Anthony should sell a CO2 measuring gimmick in his offers. It seems there are small portable ones now. Then we could all go out and start measuring, the way we measure temperatures.
Somebody said that the Mauna Loa measurements are taken on a specific hour of the day. That by itself is funny if true ( and implies a much faster assimilation of CO2 from sinks than is being assumed).
TonyB,
The graph doesn’t say anything at all about the reliability of the measurements. I’m not sure if temperature is plotted to demonstrate a correlation, but one isn’t obvious (or expected), and it wouldn’t prove anything if it was.
And I’m pretty sure the cumulative emissions line is wrong – have you maybe mixed up MtC and GtC? Cumulative anthropogenic Carbon is about 270 GtC since 1800, which on its own would have increased the concentration from 280ppm to 415ppm. Only 160 GtC has accumulated in the atmosphere, and 110 GtC of the excess appears to have been absorbed by the environment. That doesn’t mean the natural emissions haven’t changed as well, and there is some freedom in balancing the equation. Man could have added 270, Nature another 100 to its usual emissions, and Nature could have increased the absorption rate to remove another 210. Or the other way round. (Although quite what could double the rate of natural emission/absorption without anyone noticing would be a mystery. I’d expect the true number to be somewhat smaller.)
The natural emissions are large, but so is the natural absorption. It’s the difference between the two, and in particular how it changes as atmospheric CO2 concentration and other factors change, that you have to compare with human emissions.
That older measurements have given high readings compared to today is noted, but it is at least possible this has something to do with the sample being taken next to a scientist breathing out 3000ppm CO2, amongst other things. You have to say why this is less likely than whatever the alternative hypothesis you’re proposing is.
You’re graph seems to show a sudden drop of about 100ppm at about 1950. Why don’t you go through that event slowly for me. How fast do you think the actual CO2 level changed, what could cause it, and why it is a better explanation.
David Ball (19:56:47) :
Petem, if you have the time, could you do a little experiment for me? Go over to RealClimate and post a skeptical point of view under a different name (so you can still visit the site afterwards, if you choose). Let us know what happens to your post. I think the result will be very telling.
David, an additional test for PeteM: Post a contrarian view on the website http://blog.rkpachauri.org/ where nefarious skeptics are shunned.
anna v,
“Have you noticed that all the systematic measurements of CO2 that you, and everybody, are relying on, depend on two people ( and a son)?”
There are others. Everybody uses Mauna Loa because it’s the longest running and they’re all roughly the same, but it’s not the only one.
“Have you looked at the AIRS plots? http://airs.jpl.nasa.gov/
CO2 is not constant over the world.”
Yes, I’ve seen it. If you look at the scale, you’ll see it’s within about 5ppm of the same value, roughly 1%. It’s not quite constant, but it’s close enough for most calculations.
It doesn’t show the same magnitude of variations appearing in Beck’s graphs.
anna v (08:15:28) and David Ball (08:34:00) :
Mauna Loa has the longest continuous CO2 record, but there are several other long-term CO2 monitoring stations. One at the south pole actually started before Mauna Loa, but there are some years when it wasn’t operated, so it’s record is not continuous. Other monitoring stations where set up in the 70’s. All show the same CO2 levels and trends.
Do you think that people at multiple monitoring stations around the world have been systematically fudging the data since the early 1950’s? That’s a very patient and far-reaching conspiracy.
Do you even know who performed the CO2 measurements in Beck’s graph, how, and where? The data from Mauna Loa and the other CO2 monitoring stations are much better documented than any of the earlier data, yet you accept the earlier data without question, and accuse Mauna Loa and the others of fudging!
Why don’t we see that level of variability in the 50 years of continuous CO2 measurements we have? (The AIRs data shows CO2 levels around the world varying by only a few percent).
Could it be that the methods used to measure CO2 in the 1800’s and early 1900’s were less accurate and reliable than the modern methods?
That graph is worthless.
Anna v,
“Auditing is a necessity in such a case.”
Agreed. It’s a topic I suspect is worth looking into.
“Somebody said that the Mauna Loa measurements are taken on a specific hour of the day. That by itself is funny if true ( and implies a much faster assimilation of CO2 from sinks than is being assumed).”
I guess its an attempt to standardise on things like temperature and air currents. Is the air headed up the mountain or down it, that sort of thing. But it would be interesting to know if they do get different readings depending on the time of day.
For those interested in Beck’s paper: click
Beck deconstructs the NOAA’s Arctic temperature record: click
There may be some problems with Beck’s analysis because many of the CO2 measurements were taken in cities. But many other measurements were taken in sparsely populated areas and on ships in mid-ocean, as can be seen here.
It is interesting to note that the record collated by Beck, et. al., shows higher CO2 levels even in isolated areas.
I am an admirer of Ferdinand Englebeen’s posts. He acknowledges that the CO2 readings taken were accurate, IIRC, to +/- 3%. But his critique of Beck doesn’t take into account the isolated rural and mid-ocean readings.
Even if the highest 90% of Beck’s CO2 record are thrown out, it appears that atmospheric CO2 concentrations beginning around 1800 were significantly higher than the UN/IPCC admits.
Chris V
Sorry, you obviously didn’t see my original post which would have explained the background much better. I took a complete data set as a first pass and inserted them on the graph. I then looked at each record individually from within the group.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_hadley.xls contains
the information in an active excel spread sheet-hover your mouse pointer over a figure to read its values.
The measurements come from a variety of sources and a number were discounted at the time and are a matter of historical record only (for example only one measurement taken, equipment uncalibrated, taken over the water etc.)
Also a number of measurements were deliberately taken in known ‘co2 hot spots’-hospitals, mines and factories, for monitoring purposes and would be expected to be higher than those in free atmosphere.
I examined in considerable depth some 12 free atmosphere measurements with regards to the scientist, methodology, weather conditions at the time etc, and have no reason to believe they weren’t accurate.
Virtualy all the co2 ‘action’ seems to take place around 280ppm (very cold period ) to 380ppm (around as warm as today) and the difference is from 600gt to 800gt- Cdiac say that 1ppm equals 2.13 gt.
According to Endersbee, the following scale of outgassing is possible;
“Ocean area is 360,000,000 sq km = 360 x 10^12 sq metres
Mass: 1 gigatonne (Gt) = 10^9 tonnes = 10^12 kg = 10^12 m^3 water
Volume of oceans to 3m depth = 360 x 3 x 10^12 m^3 ie approx. 10^15 m^3
Mass of oceans to 3m depth = 10^15 / 10^9 Gt = 10^6 Gt
CO2 dissolved to 3m at 15ºC = 10^6 x 0.2/100 Gt = 2,000 Gt
CO2 outgassed for 0.1ºC temp rise = 2,000 x 0.3/100 Gt = 6 Gt ie one year’s emissions
CO2 outgassed from 30m depth for 1ºC global temp rise = 600 Gt ie near-total atmospheric content.”
So if temperatures fluctuate considerably from one year to the next-as happens frequently as can be seen in the chart-then a substantial movement in co2 levels appears possible.
Perfectly reliable figures were recorded in the warm 1940s of around 380ppm, Keeling took a first measurement of 315ppm in the relatively cooler 1950’s-see below;
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Did-global-warming-stop-in-1998.html
Since then the temperature has climbed steadily and we are (were!)as warm again as the 1930/40’s and the co2 levels have returned to the levels of that time-surely this is to be expected if the co2 levels are a reasonable
indicator of temperatures?
Now the main conundrum is we don’t know if the reliable free atmosphere records in the group are responding to contemporary temperatures, or those from many years ago -some people say temperatures rise first then co2 follows up to 800 years later.
Personally I think the cause and effect is much quicker than that, but whether that is a few months or a couple of decades I dont know. IF response time is quick and IF global temperatures are dropping notably, we should expect to see a stumble in the co2 figures from Mauna Loa as oceans take up co2 at levels far greater than humans emit them-but whether that will be next year or much later I don’t know.
I would also point out that mixing is not as comprehensive as many think; cdiacs and Noaa’s own maps show a differential of up to 20ppm at any time, so that could acount for a substantial proportion of any unexpectedly large co2 differential between one year and the next.
I think it is important also to recognise that co2 levels are an indicator of temperatures but are not a thermometer-so correlation is unlikely to be exact.
To see for yourself a very small part of the co2 science available over the last century and a half take a read of ‘Air and water’ by renowned chemist R Smith (who discovered acid rain). This book was written in 1872 and demonstrates the high quality of the science available at the time and the meticulous manner of the often world famous scientists who took readings.
http://www.archive.org/stream/airrainbeginning00smitiala
Numerous other documents by other famous scientists are available that illustrate they knew what they were doing. The report from Mr Giles Slocum of the US Weather bureau in 1955 is particularly interesting as it directly contradict GS Callendars 1938 assertions that 1900AD co2 levels were some 295ppm-from which pre industrial 280ppm was extrapolated and which Charles Keeling joined up to his own 315ppm in 1958 to demonstrate the ‘Keeling curve’.
Further reading on the reliability of records can be seen here -this refers to a British parliamentary report around 1890 on the monitoring of Cotton factories, who had been set emission levels of 900ppm in 1889
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=7GHLv-rLifgC&pg=PA154&lpg=PA154&dq=prosecution+co2+cotton+factory+1889+factories+act&source=web&ots=rPD5OFQUIG&sig=3wPlj-HR9A-B2aEr0H1yk9xXJQM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA154,M1
Perhaps you can resolve one thing that is puzzling me. According to ice cores the pre industrial co2 levels were at a constant 280ppm-which obviously contradicts this data completely and supports GS Callendars selected data.
However, if that is so why did the temperatures vary so much in the past-surely if co2 if a good indicator the temperatures should also be fairly constant throughout the last tens of thousands of years?
TonyB
Indeed. On a broader theme, it is very commonplace that people take a position, point of view, and stick to it no matter what. For example, many people think that ALL religion is bad, and should preferably be abolished. Their view is very strong and they simply won’t accept any notion that in some ways it may be beneficial for some people. Now the point isn’t to debate this, it is just to point to these unequivocal views and how they simply won’t budge. If Aunt Mary has a wonderful time with her friends baking cakes for children at the local church on a Sunday, nope, that is irrelevant! It’s all evil and should be abolished right now! or so goes the thinking. (I’m not religious, I’m just saying).
Likewise, there are people who have come to think that the one single most important thing in the whole world is the biosphere. It is simply beyond question–the biosphere is the one true ultimate concern. Why? Well because if the biosphere dies, we die. If we die, the biosphere survives–klaatu barada igonnathrowuppa!
Sure the biosphere is important, but the reasoning has to be a little more sophisticated! We are as much Nature as any other species. We are the smartest and most complex creatures–Nature dominates the planet as us.
As E.M.Smith rightly points out, our technical progress permits our numbers to increase and our health to increase, and the environment to become cleaner. Our Nature-given intellect affords us technological progress which permits us to grow in numbers and increase in health and prosperity. All this is natural! And the more we can progress, the more our species can acquire more energy and live more cleanly. The biosphere is important, but we are that biosphere and Nature is “trying” (as it were) desperately to progress as us, in the form of our desperate drive to survive and progress, as any species evolves and expands and tries to survive. If we have to cut back on our own progress, then Nature’s experiment in us will have failed. The reservation of Nature is the preservation of the dominance of humans, using any and all resources that we can to continue our progress, for that is Nature itself progressing.
This is probably OT, but I believe it is relevant (and besides, it’s bugging me).
There is a graph of temperature and atmospheric CO2 for our planet for the last 600 million years (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html) that has been referenced several times in this thread (Stevo 16:04:42, Deb 19:18:16, E.M.Smith 22:20:40) that I find fascinating. It seems to display our planet’s temperature “topping out”, or reaching a plateau at 25C several times in geologic history. Is that our planets “maximum temperature”? Why would that be? Why, or how, could our planet even have a “maximum temperature”? Can anyone explain this?
I thought that perhaps this was just an artifact of the methodology that was used, except for one thing. There is one small, short spike above 25C that occurs at the Permian/Triassic boundary (and incidentally, in Scotese’s original temperature graph (http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm) there is a second spike in the early Eolian or so) which would seem to indicate (at least to me) that the “maximum temperature” plateaus are real. What could have caused those two small spikes in temperature above what appears to have been the maximum temperature over a very long period of time? Can anyone help me with this (it’s really bugging me)?
Chris V, how can you state a ” that graph is worthless” when you admit you don’t know how the measurements were done? Because it was done in an earlier century? Did I misinterpret what you said? Don’t we see that kind of variability in the data or has it been “smoothed”? Let us not hyper-focus. Let us re-examine our basic assumptions before we move further. I still need to know how Co2 drives climate before the Co2 measurement becomes an issue, especially when Co2 is much lower than it has been throughout the earth’s history. What other monitoring stations? You mention the South Pole, but it is not continuous. Please know that I respect your opinion and thoroughly enjoy the debate !! I have 2 little ones to look after, so it is sometimes a little while before I am able to respond. I am sorry for this, as it makes the discourse painfully slow. It is helpful that others follow and pipe in !! Hope you are enjoying this as much as I am.
Chris V
I would appreciate it if you gave me references/links to publications from the other stations you are stating. The ones I found all have Keeling as the first author.
The AIRS color scale has 20ppm width and all colors appear on the maps.
Also I have not found any maps that could differentiate with height in the atmosphere. [begin tongue in cheek]It is funny to say that CO2 is on top of the atmosphere, whereas we know plants who feed on CO2 are at the bottom . Maybe the legend of Jack and the beanstalk has some validity.[ end tongue in cheek]
I am not assuming that the measurements discussed by TonyB and given by Beck are a bible truth. I am saying that they should be examined and their error bars estimated and discussed, not swept under the rug and the 3 authors of all the IPCC CO2 measurement publications put on a pedestal. After the hockey stick I am suspicious. It is so easy to get calibrations wrong/fiddled.
Every body: I saw a plot recently that showed a very good correlation of the rate of CO2 change with temperatures, with five month delay, but cannot locate the link. I would be grateful if somebody has it handy.
Stevo
“…it would be interesting to know if they do get different readings depending on the time of day.”
I believe the CO2 venting by Kilauea and other vents on the Big Island of Hawaii vent on a 24-hour basis.
By the way, the Mauna Loa monitor is located at an elevation of approximately 11,000 above sea level and shows a concentration of 385 ppm of atmospheric CO2. A monitor near Mt. Etna is located 45 meters above sea level and shows an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 381 ppm.
No data on any difference between the sea levels at the two sites.
Stevo, I think we agree on many subjects. I am always re-examining my basic assumptions. I used to teach guitar and teaching a beginner was very often eye opening, as I found new approaches after going back to the very basic foundation of the instrument and music. It is arrogance beyond belief to assume I know all there is to know. Funny thing about getting older is that you learn how little we really know about any subject. If irrefutable proof comes to light that I am wrong, I have the nads to say “I was wrong” !! My fondest wish is that this site will be up and running when and if that comes to pass, one way or the other.
Sorry everyone, in the time I took to reply and post my reply to Chris V many others have commented-hope I have covered your points.
Anna
Keelings organisation has the virtual monopoly on calibration and of reference gases-I am not a supporter of conspiracy theories so that may or may not be of any significance. I have posted a little in my reply to Chris about the selective data that G S Callendar used. On Charles Keelings admittance in his autobigraphy, Callendar influenced his early work and he accepted the figures of 280ppm pre industrial and 295ppm in 1900. This was contrary to other published information which consistently showed much more variable figures
Chris V
Yes you can ascertain exactly who the scentists were and the circumstances in which they took their readings-they are either in my data or in the material posted about Becks website referenced earlier. Unlike some other people Beck actually details his sources and puts them online without someone needing to file a freedom of information notice to obtain the information.
If you want a bibliography of the other suppliers of measurements, Beck has included them. I suggest the comprehensive papers from Benedict and the 1917 paper would make as illuminating reading as ‘Air and Water’ that I referenced in my last post. Taking co2 measurements was common and reliable from around 1820 when Saussure took a long series by Lake Geneva in Switzerland.
The measurements weren’t being taken out of context by third rate practitioners using primitive equipment but by noted people as part of the scientifc and social life of the age. We even have pictures and adverts for the equipment!
If you are really interested in how embedded co2 readings were in everyday life I can cite a variety of documents.
I am sure Beck can be selective-as we all are to prove our point-however there are far too many readings by far too many good scientists who really knew what they were doing, to be able to turn round and say ‘it is garbage.’
The real story revolves round the highly selective measurements taken to prove his AGW theory by GS Callendar, and Charles Keelings endorsement of them in 1956 because he was a young man, in a new job, who knew nothing of climate science or co2 measurements and accepted what he was told by a respected meteorologist. This is not an AD Hom attack-Keeling seemed a genuinely nice man and Callendar was a very interesting and extremely worthy person in his professional life. However he was an amateur meteorologist -I suggest you go over to Real Climate tell them you’re an amateur with a new theory and see how long they take to rip you to pieces!
TonyB
A few charts to help with this discussion.
First, the CO2 growth rate does vary directly with temperature. Oceans and plants are currently absorbing about half of our emissions and it seems a cooler ocean absorbs a little more, a warmer ocean a little less. CO2 growth rate lags the temperature changes by about 5 months. During the little ice age when ocean temps were cooler, I imagine there could have been lower CO2 than the 280 ppm imagined. Maybe CO2 was higher during the MWP as well but the 1800s were cold so CO2 levels of 350 and higher couldn’t be explained by this.
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/879/co2lagkz2.png
Second, even though CO2 growth does vary with temperatures, it is still going higher and higher. Going back to 1850, using ice core data and then the global CO2 measurements starting in 1958, we are on a slightly exponential growth rate for CO2 and we will likely reach the CO2 doubling level of 560 ppm by 2070.
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/1071/co2forecastwz0.png
Third, if you use a lower CO2 sensitivity figure of 1.5C per doubling (2.34 ln(CO2)), rather than the global warming model’s estimate of 3.25C per doubling, you’ll find the lower sensitivity CO2 number of 1.5C per doubling provides a pretty good match to the temperature and CO2 estimates over the geologic time over the past 500 million years.
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/3291/co2tempgeotnc8.png
Once again, the models are wrong.
Bill
you said;
“I imagine there could have been lower CO2 than the 280 ppm imagined. Maybe CO2 was higher during the MWP as well but the 1800s were cold so CO2 levels of 350 and higher couldn’t be explained by this.”
Using the real world rather than manufactured global temperatures it can be seen that the 1800’s were an extremely variable century with great warmth and great cold-so co2 levels would fluctuate considerably
This graph from Hadley back to 1660 covers the 1800’s which confirms the warmth almost equal to todays at times (two out of the Uks top three warmest winters ever occured in the 1800’s)
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/mencken_hobgoblin.xls
This one covers Switzerland from 1850 and again shows considerable warmth.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_zurich_uhi.jpg
According to the highly variable temperatures shown we could have expected co2 readings exactly in the range that have been measured
TonyB
anna v @ 11:30:08 :
Is this the chart you’re looking for?
David, TonyB, and others:
Here are a few reasons why I don’t take that graph too seriously:
1) The temperature it uses are the Hadley CET- that’s Central England Temperature. Hadley’s global temperature goes back to 1850; that’s almost as far back as the CO2 measurements. Why not use the global temps?
2) It doesn’t include any post-1950 data (Mauna Loa, South Pole, etc.) It would be very worthwhile to show the different variabilities and trends pre- and post-1950.
3) The line labelled “Total Cumulative Manmade Emissions” is incorrect. It shows ANNUAL, not CUMULATIVE emissions (thanks for the link to the original spreadsheet, Tony). That blue line at the bottom would look very different if it were actually cumulative emissions; it would bring the last data point up to over 320,000 MMT of CO2 (and actually, the entire graph has plotted the mass of Carbon, not the mass of CO2).
It looks like whoever made that graph needs to go back and do it right; then we would have something to discuss.
anna v (11:30:08) :
This link provides some info on the other CO2 monitoring stations:
http://www.climate.noaa.gov/index.jsp?pg=./about_climate/about_index.jsp&about=physical
It ain’t just Mauna Loa…
Can you provide anything similar for the pre-1950 data Becks graph uses?
Bill Illis (12:08:28) :
The oft-cited 3 degrees +/- for CO2 doubling comes from multiple sources- paleoclimate, modern observations, as well as models.
David Ball (11:35:19) :
Stevo, I think we agree on many subjects. I am always re-examining my basic assumptions. I used to teach guitar and teaching a beginner was very often eye opening, as I found new approaches after going back to the very basic foundation of the instrument and music. It is arrogance beyond belief to assume I know all there is to know. Funny thing about getting older is that you learn how little we really know about any subject. If irrefutable proof comes to light that I am wrong, I have the nads to say “I was wrong” !! My fondest wish is that this site will be up and running when and if that comes to pass, one way or the other.
David, you have described the profound weakness of the Algore/UN/IPCC/Pachauri cabal. They are not teaching and learning, they are dictatorial.
TonyB,
You said:
“CO2 outgassed for 0.1ºC temp rise = 2,000 x 0.3/100 Gt = 6 Gt ie one year’s emissions
CO2 outgassed from 30m depth for 1ºC global temp rise = 600 Gt ie near-total atmospheric content.”
Do you think you could clarify the physics behind that a bit?
Because my thinking would be that the atmosphere isn’t generally in equilibrium with the oceans because the ocean temperature varies from equator to poles. You’ll get outgassing in the tropics at one partial pressure, and absorption near the poles at a much lower partial pressure, with the atmosphere settling at a partial pressure somewhere in between. If 1C changes solubility by 3%, that will change the partial pressures about 3% (Henry’s law), and hence the average partial pressure that the atmospheric level tends towards by about 3%.
The oceanographers say the total transfer is about 90GtC each way at present, so I’d expect a 3% change to result in an 18GtC transfer, or about 9ppm. And if the temperature changed 10C, like it is said to have done for the ice ages, then the CO2 level would change by about 90ppm, which is about what the Vostok ice core said.
Can you say where that goes wrong, or which numbers are wrong, and perhaps expand on the principles by which Endersbee’s calculation works?
Thanks.
David Ball,
“Funny thing about getting older is that you learn how little we really know about any subject. If irrefutable proof comes to light that I am wrong, I have the nads to say “I was wrong” !!”
I find I’m often wrong. My aim is only to be wrong a bit less often than the other guy! 😉
Finding out that I’m wrong means I’ve learnt something new. I like being wrong if it means I get to find out about an interesting new subject. But at the same time I don’t give in easy.
As far as I’m concerned, science is all about falsifying stuff, so if you’re not proved wrong on a frequent basis, you’re not doing it right. It’s Natural Selection for ideas.
And that’s one reason why all this “scientific consensus” and “peer-reviewed papers” and “2000 climate experts” nonsense, the IPCC Ipse Dixit drive me absolutely wild! That these people have the bald-faced temerity to call that Science!
I’ll ask again. Be it resolved; Co2 does/does not drive climate change.
TonyB,
Sorry, I just realised I need to clarify that a bit.
I said “…and hence the average partial pressure that the atmospheric level tends towards by about 3%.” What I’m thinking is that the rates of diffusion change by 3%, so the weighting between the two that decides the average point shifts by that amount. You can calculate it by considering the amount transferred each way at the given rate.
It’s all a bit off the top of my head. I hope you can figure out what I mean.
Thanks.
Link to Ernst-Georg Beck’s website:-
180 Years of atmospheric CO2 Gas Analysis by Chemical Methods
PeteM:
I had to smile a bit when I read your statement about species moving toward the poles. (On the serious side, yes, I’m confident that we can find species that are extending their range north. Sometimes that may be due to species following flora, and vegetation has become much more vigorous with additional CO2 in the atmosphere.) What made me smile though was thinking of all the turtles who are begining rescued this fall on the Atlantic coast and being brought into shelters because temperatures are too cold for them. Also, polar bears this past year tried to extend their range farther south into Iceland, but Icelanders would have none of that and shot both intruders onto the island.
Smokey,
Yes, thanks. Though Bill Illis also gave another link with the same data.
Chris V (14:10:00) :
anna v (11:30:08) :
This link provides some info on the other CO2 monitoring stations:
http://www.climate.noaa.gov/index.jsp?pg=./about_climate/about_index.jsp&about=physical
I was asking about peer reviewed papers, not PR. The peer reviewed I found are all Keeling + another author. If all these stations send their data to Keeling that is what will appear.
Becks paper has extensive references and I think TonyB gave a link.
If the levels of CO2 do not start at 280ppm, but at a higher level, this reduces the anthropogenic effect, and may reduce it drastically. Nobody is saying we are not burning more carbon into the atmosphere ending up in CO2. The point to ponder is whether the quantity added to the atmosphere has been overestimated, by intent or stupidity.
The CO2 rates of change have fluctuations of 3ppm due to temperature increases as seen in the plots provided above. The yearly increase of Mauna Loa attributed to humans is 2ppm.
Let me state my hypothesis: CO2 varies a lot more than is stated, this would be evident also in the AIRS data, which were so very slow to come out, if they were not so parsimonious in the plottings.( they do need their grants after all).
It is a hypothesis. Until we have access to all the data it will remain a hypothesis.
The alternative is to many of us getting CO2 measuring instruments and testing the hypothesis on the ground the hills and the seas.
The ice core data have been questioned by people as far as absolute calibrations go, and in addition I observe that icebergs form right next to a huge sink of CO2 in the oceans so even if the calibrations are correct, they can only tell us about CO2 in the arctic and antarctic and not the rest of the world, unless we are speaking of iceball earth.
“Hottest was 1998, followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002.”
What about 1934 ?
That was just the US.
Of course if the McKitrick and LaDochy 2007 studies are right, there has been some 20th century warming but it has been highballed by about a factor of two.
Raw temperatures (with only TOBS adjustments) show cooling in the US for the 20th century. (The USHCN v.1 adjusted shows US warming,and USHCN v.2 even more so. But I think their adjustments are for the birds. For them, SHAP is a positive adjustment, which flies in the face of every fact I know.)
TonyB (03:50:34) :
Stevo and E M Smith
” A guy called Beck has been saying that for years, I think Tim Ball mentioned it recently. It’s extremely dubious.”
Please tell me on what basis this information that Beck produces is dubious?
Don’t know why I’m in this challenge. I just posted a link to info with a disclaimer that I was just pointing to it, not endorsing (i.e. taking no advocacy position). Since when does professed neutrality constitute advocacy?
To be clear: I have no idea what the recent history of CO2 levels has been and take no position on who has said what to whom about it. I neither endorse nor decry any position.
The only thing I can say about CO2 at present is that I’ve seen a time series from Mauna Loa? that showed rather large year to year variation. That would leave me to speculate that whatever we do seems to be soaked up rather rapidly by whatever does the soaking up. (How can “it”- quantity or increase- drop a lot in one year if our production is near constant unless the absorption ability exceeds our production?
I’m open to the idea that CO2 baseline might be cooked, but have no basis for one side or the other. (Gee, that sounds like a skeptic 😉
Re: Forecasting
“One of their somewhat surprising rules of thumb is that one of the things which tends to lead to a forecast being wrong is that the forecast was made by experts.”
Another one leading to error was “consensus”. Obvious really. How do you get consensus on a complex issue except by browbeating? So the winners are the best browbeaters. IPCC are clearly good at that. The only time consensus is likely to be the right outcome is when the issue was obvious in the first place, clearly not the case with global warming.
Chris V
You said;
“1) The temperature it uses are the Hadley CET- that’s Central England Temperature. Hadley’s global temperature goes back to 1850; that’s almost as far back as the CO2 measurements. Why not use the global temps?
2) It doesn’t include any post-1950 data (Mauna Loa, South Pole, etc.) It would be very worthwhile to show the different variabilities and trends pre- and post-1950.”
Various charts are produced for various purposes and highlight a particlar aspect of a study. This is probably the one you’re looking for.
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/man_vs_nature.jpg
The man made emissions are shown against total natural co2 emissions. It doesn’t take into account the decomposition of 90% the gas as it is absorbed into sinks over a 50 year or so period. Around half of what man has emitted is no longer in the equation so could you clarify the source for your figure?
As for using Hadley-these are real world figures that date back to 1660. The Zurich ones are real figures dating back to 1850. Bearing in mind the site on which you are posting are you seriously suggesting that global temperatures back to 1850 should be considered some sort of quality benchmark?
The figures are from cdiac-they use information up to the present day.
It took Michael Mann fifteen years to come up with hockey sticks and spaghetti graphs that bear no relation to reality, so I feel I can have a little time (and preferably lots of govt money) to refine my own.
It is a great pity there has not been much more study on this subject and then we would get to the truth more quickly.
TonyB
Chris V
Perhaps you can answer the question I posed earlier.
If co2 has a dramatic effect on temperatures how do constant levels of 280ppm cause the dramatic temperature fluctuations of the past? In the last 5000 years we have had temperatures colder than, the same as, and warmer than, the present, but surely they should have been relatively constant?
TonyB
Chris V – “The oft-cited 3 degrees +/- for CO2 doubling comes from multiple sources- paleoclimate, modern observations, as well as models.”
I just showed you that the 3 degrees does NOT work for either the paleoclimate or the modern observations.
The 3 degrees is off by Half (in both the paleoclimate and the modern obervations.) It only occurs in the models.
TonyB (02:09:13) said:
If co2 has a dramatic effect on temperatures how do constant levels of 280ppm cause the dramatic temperature fluctuations of the past?
CO2 levels are not the only thing that affects climate.
Joseph (11:18:40) :
This is probably OT, but I believe it is relevant (and besides, it’s bugging me).
There is a graph of temperature and atmospheric CO2 for our planet for the last 600 million years (http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html) that has been referenced several times in this thread (Stevo 16:04:42, Deb 19:18:16, E.M.Smith 22:20:40) that I find fascinating. It seems to display our planet’s temperature “topping out”, or reaching a plateau at 25C several times in geologic history. Is that our planets “maximum temperature”? Why would that be? Why, or how, could our planet even have a “maximum temperature”? Can anyone explain this?.
I will try to . We now have a very nice tool in
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst.html
Where you can watch the temperature of the oceans and seas of the world every day.
The reply to your question is : the water, earth is 75% water. If you look at the tropical temperatures they never go over 30 or so degrees celcius. One of the main reasons is that the hotter the water, the higher the humidity and the cooling by evaporation. The higher the humidity, the more clouds, clouds finally cover up the area and the heating is limited.
And this without the grand storage of heat that the whole ocean has with its various currents.
in
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Roy-Spencer-on-global-warming.htm
read “Global Warming and Nature’s Thermostat:
Precipitation Systems” .
So even though the system is not deterministic, i.e. you cannot solve an equation for it, it still has feed backs that limit its cooling and heating.
TonyB (01:40:29) :
Here’s the first Beck graph you posted (that I was commenting on):
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_hadley.jpg
Now here’s the one you just posted:
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_hadley.jpg
Notice the difference?
In the first, the blue line is labeled “cumulative man made emissions”. In the second, the same blue line is labeled “annual man made emissions”.
Beck needs to get it straight as to what he is actually graphing! For the record, the second graph is correctly labeled wrt the blue line. As what the purple line on the second graph (“cumulative carbon”) is, I have no idea.
As to my other criticisms, do you consider central england temperatures to be representative of world temperatures?
Here’s my opinion on what Beck has done:
Beck’s contention is that world temperature is driving CO2 levels, and not the other way around. In order to account for the huge variations in his pre-1950 CO2 measurements, he needs to have a temperature record that also shows a great deal of variability. The world temperatures (HADCRU) don’t show that level of variability, so he cherry-picked a subset of the data that does.
WRT the post 1950 section of his graph, he has left out Mauna Loa, the South Pole, and all the other continuous monitoring stations that have come on line since then. He only plots the single most recent (and correct) measurement for 2005.
Why does he completely ignore these extensive data sets (25% of the time period we have CO2 measurements for)???? I think there are two reasons. The first is that the lack of variability in the post 1950 measurements would raise serious questions about the accuracy of his earlier measurements.
The second reason is that having the post-1950 measurements would make it too easy for someone to fiddle with his spreadsheet (as I did), calculate the total CUMULATIVE man-made CO2 emissions, and compare them to the post-1950 CO2 levels. That comparison would show that man-made emissions are more than enough to account for the post-1950 CO2 levels.
If you don’t believe me, go back to the spreadsheet you linked to and do it yourself.
anna v (21:16:12) :
I was asking about peer reviewed papers, not PR. The peer reviewed I found are all Keeling + another author.
Try google. If you think that Keeling and his many co-authors (along with the technicians, grad students, post-docs, etc.) have been fudging data from all these monitoring sites for 50 years without anybody catching on, or ratting him out, then I can’t help you.
BTW, Becks graph shows the most recent (for his graph) Mauna Loa measurement, so he obviously thinks they are right about the most recent CO2 level.
That’s pretty good fudging on Keelings part! To start creating a curve way back in the 50’s that projects right onto our current CO2 levels. He picked his early trend really well!
I have read reference here asking what years were coldest, etc… I don’t know if anyone can recall, but significant weather event happened in the US during the 1996-97 winter for the people of the plains states. I remember this event very well as I was living in Fargo, North Dakota.
It was one of the worst and coldest winters in North Dakota history (recorded). The upper mid-west (most notably North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota) saw one of the coldest, wettest and stormiest winters in history. In Fargo, we saw record snowfall accumulation of over 130 inches. We also had the longest stretch of below zero temperature on record (never got above zero for like 5 weeks straight .. brrr). In northern Minnesota, an all time low temperature record was set at something like -73F. We had a record number of blizzards as well, seemed like one every Wednesday and usually on the weekends, almost like clockwork (spent a lot of time at the bars that winter).
After an incredibly harsh winter, they claim the likes of which had not been seen in some 500 hundred years, an El Nino followed that spring and lead to the quickest snow melt in regional history. This turned the plains states into the largest and most widespread flood ever recorded in US history (still stands today) (see: Flood of the Millenium or Google it, the Discovery Channel has also aired an hour special about it).
I don’t know about other cold years, but that was certainly cold and harsh for the plains states. I find it rather funny that our second warmest temperatures happend that very next year in 1998 (1934 is still warmest in my book, period). I remember we had one of the most mild winters of all time that year and a warmer than average summer (but not nearly the hottest for the region).
I guess my point here is this, in my modest 46 years on this plant, living in many parts of the country from the west coast to the east coast, I have seen weather come and go. I have seen weather extremes in both directions. I have seen tornados, been in huricanes, walked in blizards with windchills under -130F (you can freeze your skin in seconds). What I find significant these days, is that I cannot recall any time in my life where weather (and climate) did not dominate human activity. Extremes come and go, trends come and go and man has not, and in my estimation, absolutely can not, do a damn thing to it, or about it (except perhaps screw it up).
My advise to all of you, learn to live WITH the planet and prepare yourself for what the planet will do next, as we are all only here for the ride. AGW is bullshit, it is a scam, and it is already costing us far too much and diverting way too much attention away from real problems that need to be attended to. Please let your voices be heard loud and clear! Get rid of this AGW hysteria crap before it gets rid of us!
Just thought I would share…
Thank you…
Bill Illis (07:39:27) :
The graph you posted (the results of a simple mathematical model, BTW, but I won’t hold that against you 🙂 ) misses a couple of points. First, the climate sensitivity for CO2 doubling refers to the EQUILIBRIUM temperature- we are not at temperature equilibrium yet relative to CO2 levels because the oceans take along time to warm.
Secondly, you must be careful looking at climate and CO2 levels when you go WAY back in time, because the layout of the continents was very, very different, and that has a strong effect on climate.
Chris V
I know there are other factors , but according to the IPCC they are a very major factor indeed. Please explain how constant low co2 levels produce fluctuating temperatures as high as todays.
TonyB
TonyB (01:40:29) :
OOPS! I posted the same graph twice!
THIS is the second graph you posted:
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/man_vs_nature.jpg
Chris V tells us:
I find it interesting that while all his fellow AGWers are busy telling us that human produced CO2 is going to destroy life on earth as we know it so we have to tax everyone and cut CO2 and some how come up with non-CO2 producing energy sources that we do not even understand, Chris is also setting us up to be taxed and vilified for other, as yet, unspecified activities.
However, what is even more interesting is how those many fewer humans during the Holocene climate optimum and other times past when temperatures were like they are today and when the Arctic was ice free during summer could have had so much effect on the climate.
Steven Hill (14:44:35) :
I think that China wants the US Car industry relocated to China – after all they need the jobs over there.
Plus as energy prices are artificially increased in the US, and US Manufacturing becomes increasingly uncompetitive, the global capital markets will simply move the capital to China which is “not buying” into CO2 caps for themselves – just for the western world.
Chris V
Perhaps its my fault, but you have jumped to so many wrong conclusions in your earlier post that it’s best to go back to basics.
Firstly the graphs have nothing whatsoever to do with Beck. I created them. They are part of a series of around 10 all showing different things as my line of thought evolved. You have the first and the last one, so there are a lot of things that were on the first graph that didn’t make it on to subsequent ones. This was either because I was subsequently looking at a different part of a study, or there wasn’t room to put on lots of different bits of information, or I already had found the data I wanted so did not feel the need to repeat it .
The very first graph was originally an exercise in showing Hadley temperatures-I use them a lot because I am British, understand their flaws and realise they are the longest and most reliable dataset we have on this planet.
After graphing temperatures I was curious to see the impact of human co2 having just come across the cdiac/ipcc data. They were inserted directly from source and were never intended to be any more than illustrative . The blue line clearly showed 280ppm pre industrial, rising to 295ppm in 1900, 315ppm in 1958 and 385ppm today. Those milestones are also clearly marked in the notes-the other coloured lines show the various forms of human emissions-coal-petrol etc.
What struck me immediately was that for a large part of the graph co2 didn’t seem to have anything to do with temperatures. This struck me as odd-surely we shouldnt have wildly fluctuating temperatures with a constant low co2 level? As a historian I also realise that the instrumental temperatures- if extrapolated backwards- would rise to even higher and lower levels as they travelled through the MWP, Roman warm periods and the Holocene maximums, thereby further deepening the conundrum
Eventually I ended up with the last graph I posted. This shows actual total human emissions of co2 against natural levels. On to this I inserted the Beck information. The human co2 levels were already shown in context on this graph (the line at the bottom) and I already had the ‘large scale’ humans only graph-the first one- which clearly showed rising levels from 1750 to the present day . So there is nothing missing ‘post 1958’ at all in any of the graphs, its just they are to different scales and show different things, and as human emissions are vastly smaller than natural ones this is going to be reflected in the end result.
With regards to using Hadley, the reason is that -like the Zurich ones- they are reliable and real records. Global ones are extremely compromised and smoothed and massaged so much that they are meaningless unless you are an IPCC author trying to prove a point. As an illustration of this, the only time it is possible to draw a ‘keeling curve’ matching sharply rising temperatures to sharply rising co2 levels, is when global data is used. I have graphed this data on to five temperature data sets from five different countries and none of them remotely show the correlation demonstrated by the IPCC. If Co2 is so reliably measured and well mixed it should be possible to replicate the IPCC graph with any reliable temperature data set from any country-but it isn’t.
Now to go back to Beck. As I say, it seemed to me that in order to explain the fluctuating temperatures on the first graph it was badly in need of additional co2 peaks and troughs. It was only then I became aware of Beck.
I was intrigued but rather sceptical (I am sceptical even of sceptics) As a historian I first researched the background to the readings-scientist, methodology, equipment, weather conditions etc. Then I looked at the history of co2 measurements and discovered learned papers by many people, some of whom I have mentioned here.
I was startled to learn the first relatively reliable co2 measurement was made in the 1790’s and by 1820 they were invariably pretty good. Not surprising really when you consider the quality of the scientists and the rapid way in which they developed their knowledge. They were perfectly well aware of the impact of co2 sources (such as gas lamps) on results and took them into account.
I then researched the background of life in the 1800’s to see why such measurements were being taken, and realised they were commonplace because they were used widely in factories and hospitals as well as for scientific advancement. Curiuously they also seemed to be promoted as a form of public entertainment-people were fascinated by the many scientific discoveries of the age and public talks on all sorts of scientific matters attracted big audiences. I think Faraday demonstrated co2 readings (very high) at his annual Christmas lectures before he became more interested in electricity.
Taking the measurements was considered relatively straightforward-much easier than measuring oxygen content. They were accurate to plus or minus 3%.
As far back as 1859 Gaskell was writing about the co2 levels in cotton factories in the book ‘North and South’ and Florence Nightingale was well aware of the efects of too much co2 in enclosed spaces. ( I have an advert for a gas analyser of a type that she probably used) Patents for mechanical ones were being granted over 120 years ago.
In 1889, Britain formally forced factory owners to keep below 900ppm in factories, but measurements here had been commonplace for thirty years prior to that.
The obviously established nature of the science all set me wondering as to why we hadn’t heard about it, and why the IPCC used ice cores as a proxy. Its bizarre to use such a complex proxy when we have actual direct measurements taken at the time by extremely competent practitioners.
I took the trouble and spent money to get hold of biographies of Callendar and Keeling, and also bought Callendars archives- comprising some 6000 records. This was an eye opener. You are right about cherry picking but entirely wrong as to who was doing it!
If Callendar had taken the average of the thousands of reliable records available to him he would have chosen around 320-340ppm for the 19th century. However he had his theory of AGW that he wanted to prove. Charles Keeling didnt know enough in 1956 to recognise he was being fed incomplete information.
Up till that point I had not read Becks extensive back up information on his web site as I did not want to be influenced by his work. However I then subsequently contacted Beck to ask some questions and I found him to be one of the most open players I have come across in the climate science area. I would say he is a litle naive and of the old school, but utterly meticulous and straightforward in his work. He realised he did not present his initial paper last year as well as he could have done, and as a result some tried to discredit him.
After what amounts to weeks of work looking into this, I would say that Beck is right, and there are thousands of reliable records out there taken by highly competent scientists that illustrate that the co2 levels during the 1800’s were highly variable-as indeed was the climate, ranging from extreme heat to extreme cold.
I would respectfully suggest you read the link to ‘Air and Water’ that I posted yesterday which will give you an insight into the established nature of co2 science. I also have lots of other documentation from the time backing up the information-some of which I have already posted here.
I would close with a repeat of my question which you only partly answered yesterday;
“I know there are other factors , but according to the IPCC they are a very major factor indeed. Please explain how constant low co2 levels produce fluctuating temperatures in the past as high as todays.”
TonyB
@PeteM (13:18:13) :
Hi Pete,
A few questions for you, can you please supply definitive physical evidence that determines the following.
1. The proportion of man made emissions of CO2 that comprises the current CO2 (385PPM) in the atmosphere.
2. The proportion of man made emissions of CO2 that comprises the measured yearly increase (2PPM) of CO2 in the atmosphere.
3. The measured impact in forcing for “Warming” that the above proportions will cause.
4. The measured reductions in CO2 growth if the developed world takes on the proposed CAP and Trade systems without the participation of China and India.
I would just like to know in a measured and defined way, what is the evidential basis for assuming that man-made emissions of CO2 will have a warming impact on the climate, and that current popular mitigations (i.e CAP and Trade) will in fact reduce man-made emissions of CO2 and as a consequence impact on global warming.
The reason that I ask is that I find it untenable to propose replacing a cost-effective (fossil fuels) industrial energy base for a more expensive and less reliable (wind, solar, etc) energy base at great cost.
And given that you seem very confident in the AGW position that man made emissions of CO2 are and will cause global (and catastrophic) warming – I am sure that you must have answers to the above questions backed up by solid, verifiable, objective and transparent evidence of them.
Sorry for all the bolding.
Graeme Rodaughan (12:52:03) :
Steven Hill (14:44:35) :
I think that China wants the US Car industry relocated to China – after all they need the jobs over there.
They can buy the whole thing for a few billion. Ford is 7.26 B market cap and GM is 2.41 B market cap. Cerberus would probably give them Chrysler… So for about $10 Billion they can buy the whole thing (or wait a week and get it for $1 Billion 😉
But then they would have the pension and medical obligations…. Buy it, outsource / relocate key parts to chinese companies, sell some brands to Chinese companies, then bankrupt the US parts in 2 years would probably work great for them… They have reserves measured in $Trillion units… $10 Billion is chump change to them and the strategic value would be large.
Plus as energy prices are artificially increased in the US, and US Manufacturing becomes increasingly uncompetitive, the global capital markets will simply move the capital to China which is “not buying” into CO2 caps for themselves – just for the western world.
Um, I am… Most of my money is flowing into Australia (levered to China) and Brazil, but I”m adding some direct China next week. Oh, and a bit of India too. It takes about 30 seconds and a half dozen key clicks to move tens of thousands to tens of millions of capital out of the US and into {country of your choice}. Methinks our politicians don’t understand this…
Much of the manufacturing base of the country has already physically moved to China. Try, just try, to find things not marked ‘made in China’…
Sidebar: Tata Motors (TTM) in India is planning a car (the Nano) that ought to sell for $2k to $3k. That’s less than the “benefits” costs built into a GM car… and don’t get me started on the sales tax (8%+ in California) on a $40,000 Barge Mobile…
The US Auto industry can only survive as a socialist enterprise with government subsidy for the good of the workers (under present conditions).
As Obama and friends further kill the economy with AGW driven actions and carbon taxes it will only get worse. Cap & Tirade will accelerate the movement of money and economic growth to China, India, & Brazil; nothing more.
TonyB (15:50:24)
If Co2 is so reliably measured and well mixed it should be possible to replicate the IPCC graph with any reliable temperature data set from any country-but it isn’t.
Oohh, nicely done.
Hi E.M.Smith.
With the punctuation “tags” once you switch them on in a post – how do you switch them off??
I feel like the sorcerors apprentice.
TonyB (15:50:24) :
Sorry, I didn’t realize you created those graphs. But my criticisms still stand.
I am very confused now- what exactly does your blue line show? It’s labelled as man made CO2 emissions (in million metric tons), and the numbers seem to be right for that. Now are you saying it’s atmospheric CO2 (in ppm)?
You ARE missing post 1950 data! – the continuous Mauna Loa. etc. measurements of CO2 levels in the atmosphere. You might also want to add the Lava Dome ice core CO2 data- they go from pre-industrial up to the time the Mauna Loa measurements start. For both, you will see a smooth curve, with the rate of CO2 growth increasing with time. The Lava Dome and Mauna Loa measurements agree completely where they overlap. There is no sign in them of the HUGE annual variability your pre-1950 CO2 measurements show.
Why don’t the Mauna Loa or Lava Dome CO2 levels show that variability???? Give me some physical mechanism that explains it. Show me some data that indicates it is even physically possible for world-wide CO2 levels to bounce around by over 100 ppm year to year. Then explain why this physical mechanism suddenly stopped exactly when we started making systematic measurements of CO2.
I can think of some reasons for the difference in variability pre- and post- 1950. What do you think the reason is?
And your use of Central England Temperatures is still wrong. Why should CO2 levels correspond exactly with the temperature in one tiny region of the earth? I think everbody here knows that there is a great deal of variability in temperature trends around the world. CO2 is effecting (or is effected by, in your view) the temps all over the world, not just the temperature in Central England!
Here is an exercise for you, just for grins- add the Mauna Loa CO2 data, the Hadley global temperatures, and the the CUMULATIVE man-made CO2 emissions. What does that graph show?
As to factors that effect global temperature in addition to CO2: Milankovitch cycles, volcanoes, solar irradiance, other GHGs (methane), PDOs, ENSO’s, the layout of the continents….
TonyB (15:50:24) :
> Firstly the graphs have nothing whatsoever to do with Beck. I created them.
> … [much remarkable information]
What a remarkable about of work. Thank you!
Err, What a remarkable amount of work. Thank you! [You have me tongued tied or finger tied or whatever….]
Graeme Rodaughan (17:21:09) :
Hi E.M.Smith.
With the punctuation “tags” once you switch them on in a post – how do you switch them off??
I feel like the sorcerors apprentice.
Leif enlightened me on this: you should use the end signal in front of the puctuation: / . for example I ended the italics above by putting /i within the angular parenthesis ( > < , sometimes funny things happen when trying to illustrate with these thingies)
Chris V
Ah I know why you think information is missing! The point of the exercise on this second graph was solely to show Beck figures-by green dots- up to 1958 when the continous measurements started. The continous measurements are shown on other graphs and were of no interest to me in this context. The single green dot in 2008 on this graph is merely a reference point so the co2/tempscales can be put in the correct place to ensure they are accurate.
The data is from cdiac and is up to the present day and reflects total atmospheric co2 and uses the IPCC figure that 1ppm equals 2130mmt. The only reason the man made emissions- shown as a blue line- looks so insignificant on this graph is that when compared to total co2 emissions they are.
Following on from this one I also wanted to produce a graph showing co2 emissions as a proportion of greenhouse gases overall, but it would have been impossible to see the human emissions line without the use of a mircroscope.
The human emissions scale and the corresponding blue line looks much more significant on the first graph -only intended to be illustrative- because it was the only co2 measure being shown and therefore appears hugely exaggerated.
Co2 is the same all over the world so why should it matter if it is measured against temperature from one tiny corner of the world? They are real temperature figures measured against real co2 levels -as were Zurich. It is only the global temperatures-as artificial a construct as global sea levels-that show the exaggerated rise that allows it to be linked to the Keeling curve.
You ask why the pre 1958 figures show much more variability over a short time? There are three explanations;
A)) Temperatures have been mostly rising since 1958 and so have co2 levels so there is no variability to show. To reinforce that surmise the Beck figures around 1930 to 1950 also show a continous co2 rise that matched the temperature rise, and there was a similar one from around 1870 to 1900. All the co2 levels fall within the amounts that would be expected for the corresponding temperature at the time.
OR B) there is a time lag between temperature change and a co2 reading-if it was 800 years as some say it wouldnt show up in a 50 year graph would it?
OR
C) 90,000 measurements- some taken by world famous scientists- are ALL wrong!
Sorry, I am not being facetious but as a sceptic I need to look at ALL eventualities. Personally, after having done an exhaustive study (as far as can be done without govt funding) of Becks readings I think he is right in the main thrust of his arguements.
You are very welcome to use the data that was attached to the original graph and do what you want with it to reflect whatever answer you are seeking. The second graph is also available in xls format-I didn’t post it as some people seem to have trouble opening it.
I have taken the time to answer your queries openly and honestly so appreciate the answer you gave to my simple question;
“I know there are other factors , but according to the IPCC they are a very major factor indeed. Please explain how constant low co2 levels produce fluctuating temperatures in the past as high as todays.”
your reply;
“As to factors that effect global temperature in addition to CO2: Milankovitch cycles, volcanoes, solar irradiance, other GHGs (methane), PDOs, ENSO’s, the layout of the continents….”
I don’t think the layout of the continents have changed much within the human time scale I am referring to- say the last 10000 years. So you agree that natural factors can have a much greater affect than the IPCC admit? According to them it is co2 that is the driver-not these others which they are mostly dismissive about. So following on from that if all these factors can change temperatures in the past, using co2 as the culprit this time is based on circumstantial evidence and not observed cause and effect?
TonyB
TonyB
I thank you for the lucid explanation of your graphs.
I think what has been happening with CO2 is similar to the hockey stick graph . Calibrations manipulated. It is not that the rise in CO2 is in doubt, it is the calibration with the past that is in question. If the previous centuries have seen as large a number as the present one, the industrial origin of the rise becomes dubious.
I was interested to find this blog. 20 years ago I had a book published on different economic concepts to point the way to a sustainable world economy. Someone who liked the book contacted me this year to suggest that I update and re-publish it as a blog. She set up the blog, and the book is now complete on the blog in a series of postings. There are now also additional pieces on global warming and other subjects. Here is the link:
http://www.economicsforaroundearth.com
With all good wishes,
Charles Pierce
Anna
It is this strange notion of equilibrium and that our tiny input greatly disturbs the natural order of things that I find strange.
Personally I don’t doubt that we might be causing a very tiny input into overall co2 but believe this is entirely lost in natural movements between sinks and sources. If we look back to the past records and examine our overall impact it can be seen in a better context that there is greater variability than is supposed. This is hidden by the naturally rising temperatures and perhaps the way things are measured. There were many more ad hoc measuring points in the past than official ones today.
If Anthony could sell a $69.95 co2 analyser he would make a fortune!
TonyB
anna v (22:23:17) :
Graeme Rodaughan (17:21:09) :
Hi E.M.Smith.
With the punctuation “tags” once you switch them on in a post – how do you switch them off??
As Anna said, just do whatever tag you did, but with a / after the first angle bracket.
Leif enlightened me on this: you should use the end signal in front of the puctuation: / . for example I ended the italics above by putting /i within the angular parenthesis ( > < , sometimes funny things happen when trying to illustrate with these thingies)
One can either get into a remarkable level of quoting, or swap to a metadescription. So, for example, to bold something you would type
OPEN ANGLE b CLOSE ANGEL something OPEN ANGLE SLASH b CLOSE ANGLE
So it all just comes down to putting that one character, the SLASH, into the close set.
If Anthony could sell a $69.95 co2 analyser he would make a fortune!
TonyB
I agree.
I checked with Yahoo and the cheapest I found was 399$ and only up to 2000ppm and on batteries that would last only 30 hours or so.
I wonder the Chinese have not come up with something much cheaper . One gets these thermometers and humidity counters for very low prices and they just sit there telling you what is happening.
TonyB (23:17:54) :
You still don’t get it. Temperature variability on your graph from 1900 to 1950 is about the same as the temperature variability from 1950 to the present, yet the pre-1950 CO2 measurements show WAY more variability than the post-1950 Mauna Loa CO2 measurements. It is clear from your graph that temperature changes cannot be responsible for the pre-1950 CO2 variability you show. What is casuing that difference????????
I know what the reason is- the pre-1950 measurements were collected at different places, by different people, generally in no systematic way. Many have obviously been contaminated by local CO2 sources.
Go back to the book you linked to (“Air and Water”). Look at the CO2 measurements in the tables. The numbers are all over the place- some are higher than 1000 ppm. You will see instances where the same researcher, at the same place, measuring CO2 levels through time, got differences of hundreds of PPM over just a week!
It is physically impossible for CO2 levels in the atmosphere as a whole to vary that much in such a short period of time- that’s as much CO2 as 100 years of fossil fuel burning!
The only reasonable conclusions are 1) the measuring locations used by most of your researchrs were subject to contamination by local CO2 sources; and 2) perhaps the analyses are not quite as accurate as you think.
I find your refusal to add the Mauna Loa measurements to your graph perplexing. They’re easily available. It’s almost like you’re afraid to plot them.
WRT past temperatures, and the things that cause them, you need to go back and re-read the IPCC reports. They are very clear that CO2 is not the only driver of climate, but it is the most important one NOW (last 50 years or so).
Chris V:
Nothing will change your mind, unfortunately it is closed tight. It is not skeptics who must prove that the climate is within normal historical parameters; it is the climate alarmists who must prove that their AGW/CO2 runaway global warming climate catastrophe hypothesis is true.
They have failed.
And make no mistake: the AGW/climate catastrophe hypothesis is exactly that. Because if increasing CO2 does not cause major problems, but only causes a very minor change that is so small that it is unmeasurable, then the Kyoto Protocol and its equally ridiculous successors are a monumental waste of money and resources. Therefore, the catastrophists must continue to yell ever louder, and pound the table ever harder, in order to distract from the plain fact that AGW is not happening or, if it is, it occurring on a scale that is so tiny that it can be disregarded completely.
For those interested, Beck relates some of the locations at which measurements were taken:
Note the isolated locations: ships crossing the ocean, the sparsely populated Ayrshire coastline, and mountains. [source]
Beck’s extensive compilation brings into question Keeling’s data, not vice versa.
Hi Chris V
I do not understand your repeated assertions that post 1958 co2 readings are not included. They are present on all the graphs I want them to be on, but are irrelevant for the other studies, for example those that are concentrating on pre 1958 figures.
I have the printed book in front of me now-variability depends on location and circumstances. There are readings of over 1000ppm in mines but no one pretends they are in free atmosphere and the circumstances of the measurements are given- such as these .
“Mine; 220 fathoms deep 1 fathom broad and 1 deep- 80 from the nearest winze taken 3 minutes after firing the last of the holes. 6 men with 6 candles present, wind west north west wind, four analyses taken….
You would only expect consistent ‘modern ‘ readings in places where consistent reading were to be expected-in others of course adjustments were subsequently made when they were analysed and the log of the circumstances examined. For example in a factory note was taken of the size and location and intensity of the gas lamps and the location of the brazier. In an outdoor study the altitude, wind direction and strength, moisture, closeness to habitation and likelihood of mixing etc were accounted for.
To see a proper detailed analysis of the data rather than these snap shots taken out of context, please read the various Beck papers available on his site-it is properly tabulated and those readings that are suspect have been noted and don’t appear in his data sets. They do appear in mine because I wanted to examine the good and the bad ones so I could understand the circumstances.
Please also read other documents referenced-particularly Benedict- a very hefty document from a renowned chemist and Slocum, who elegantly dismantles Callendars selective measurements. It is also worth reading the bibliographies of other research done at the time..
Do I believe all 90,000 measurements are accurate? Of course not. Many thousands can and have been discarded for a variety of reasons.
Are there are enough left to pose awkward questions that challenge our current beliefs? Yes.
Did Callendar select unrepresentative figures? Yes
Did Keeling take them also? Yes.
You closed your post with;
‘WRT past temperatures, and the things that cause them, you need to go back and re-read the IPCC reports. They are very clear that CO2 is not the only driver of climate, but it is the most important one NOW (last 50 years or so).”
I have read the assessments-including the fuil report- several times.; Co2 is very firmly fingered as the main culprit and the link to rising global temperastures is made. The conclusions would not be as strong if they used real world temperature readings produced by individual countries.
Do I think temperatures have risen since the 1880’s the end of the little ice age? Yes.
Have they also risen in the past to levels as great or greater than this without the benefit of added human co2? Yes.
Is man the main culprit of most of the warming through his tiny emissions compared to nature, thereby upsetting some sort of ‘natural’ equilibrium? No
If I accept equilbirium for the sake of this discussion it means humans have added 100ppm since 1750-nothing at all to do with nature of course-mans tiny emissions are somehow ‘different’ That is 10 parts in 100,000. The UK has contributed 5% of that 10. So we have contributed half a part per 100,000 in 250 years.
That equates to half a part in a million of GHG ( note change of scale to keep meaningful numbers)
That is some 12/1,000,000,000 or about a one hundred millionth of total air
Do I believe that level contribution is irrelevant to life on this planet? Yes.
Can we seriously produce less than half a part in 250 years as a nation and keep functioing as a modern society? No.
Should we deliberately go around using up our resources without seeking alternatives? No.
Are those alternatives viable as replacements in the next 25 years? No.
I am by no means a religious person, but if humans can only live in an atmospheric soup of such exact amounts as described above without destroying himself and the planet, it suggest that there is some higher authority than even the IPCC that needs to be consulted doesn’t it?
Whilst considering this philosophical scenario please feel free to use my graphs to insert whatever scenario you wish to achieve. If you want graph 2 in xls form you only need to ask and I will post it here.
If required please let us know within 24 hours as I will then be away for five days hoping to participate in the best start to a European ski season for thirty years.
TonyB
Charles Pierce points us at his web site, which says the following in a section on “Is Global Warming Happening”:
This ignores the effect of H2O which has similar properties, absorbs over a larger range of frequencies and makes up more than an order of magnitude more of the atmosphere and CO2 does.
Sigh.
The BBC claimed at the start of the evening weather forecast today that this has been the coldest start to the winter in the UK for 30 years. It certainly feels like it too – but I wonder how the Met Office will spin it.
Anna, and E.M.Smith.
Ahhhhh…. Got it. Thanks.
Much Appreciated. – Now I feel that I can really begin to talk in this forum!
Moooorararararahahahahahahahah……
(Oh my gawd… What has just been released!!!).
G
TonyB (12:30:39) :
I looked at all the graphs (I think) in your file at cadenzapress- can’t find any that show Mauna Loa.
But here is a graph that does, along with the ice core, and pre-1950 “chemical” CO2 measurements:
http://www.biokurs.de/treibhaus/180CO2/bayreuth/bayreuth1e.htm
Can somebody please, please explain to me
1) why the pre-1950 CO2 measurements (labelled “chemical”) are so much higher and more variable than the ice core CO2 measurements?
2) why the Mauna Loa levels show none of the variability that the pre-1950 CO2 measurements show?
These two questions are the essence of the issue. If you cannot answer these questions, and provide some kind of reasonable, testable, and measureable PHYSICAL MECHANISM (asteroid impacts? worldwide forest fires?) that can add or remove TENS OF BILLIONS of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over the course of a year or two, then the only reasonable conclusion is that the pre-1950 measurements are wrong, and the Mauna Loa and ice core data are right.
The rest of your post is really missing the point.
I will try once more, I will give possible answers to your questions, not researched ones, but pointing to gaps in the information flow.
Can somebody please, please explain to me
1) why the pre-1950 CO2 measurements (labelled “chemical”) are so much higher and more variable than the ice core CO2 measurements?
2) why the Mauna Loa levels show none of the variability that the pre-1950 CO2 measurements show?
for 1) There are doubts about how well the ice core measurements are carried out preserving the status quo: ( look for Jarowlski’s talks/research), and also how well the difusion of CO2 in ice is known.
I have also introduced the following question: The ice core measurements are very close to oceans. The colder the oceans the better a sink for CO2 they are, so even if the measurements are accurate, they are good only for the arctic regions. If you look at the arctic regions in the AIRS maps they show at the bottom of the scale of CO2.
for 2) Mauna Loa is at the top of a 3000 meter mountain volcano. The airs maps of the mid troposphere, which is about the height of Mauna Loa shows that the world CO2 is not uniformly distributed even at that height. I would like to see more AIRS maps of lower heights to compare with the chemical measurements. The chemical measurements are measurements mainly at people accessible height , and the AIRS data have shown us that uniformity of CO2 is not so great.
My lat was for Chris V (16:15:15) :
I would add that maybe, if one had chemical measurements from the same spot for a number of years, they would show the Mauna Loa curve just with a different callibration, which is what happens with data from other channels.
The reasons I am more skeptical of the Keeling et all papers is just that, that one person is responsible for the calibration choices, and it is only human nature that he/she will try to make it fit his/her choices. Particularly so after seeing the cherry picking of the low curve from the chemical data. This (human nature) is why experiments have to be repeated by independent experimentalists . Particularly when the world is asked to do economic hara kiri depending on those measurements.
Chris V
The rest of my post- as are the graphs- are trying to put things into an atmospheric and a historic perspective so are very much to the point. Our impact is very small.
As for the chemical measurements, you really need to go to Becks site and see the whole thing in their proper context written up in a logical manner for publication, rather than try to dissect these tiny snapshots.
Temperatures took a dip-according to Callendar- during the 1950’s to the early 60’s after having experienced a rise during the 1930′ and 40’s. The chemical figures exactly pick up the temperatures/co2 relationship during that pre mauna loa period. Post that date temperatures have largely been on a rise, so co2 levels will reflect that. If temperatures fall substantially it would be expected that co2 levels will fall. If they don’t it perhaps demonstrates they are rather immaterial
Now the problem is that I dont know at what temperature co2 will start dropping, how long drops have to be sustained for it to have an effect, and the biggest problem of all are the actual time scale involved.
Current thinking is that temperatures rise first then co2 follows up to 800 years later, so are the Beck figures actually relating to the MWP or are they responding to the temperatures that occurred a few months or a few years earlier?
Clearly temperatures have fluctuated in the past up to and beyond present day levels without any input from man, so it is highly circumstantial that our minute contribution to overall GHG has the drastic effect stated by the IPCC.
The IPCC blame co2 as the main culprit but you seem to be sensibly conceding it is but one of a number, so following this train of thought it is surely logical to suggest that it is circumstantial evidence that co2 has now become the primary climate driver and has superceded the ones driving the climate in the past?
I would be very interested to hear from you as to what you;
a) believe the percentages currently contributed by each of the drivers
b) The time scales involved. Does co2 rise six months after temperatures rise or 600 years? Does it go back down as quickly or slowly, or does it take it longer for their to be an effect?
These climate drivers pre 1900 must be very powerful if they are able to increase temperatures so dramatically from a constant 280ppm to beyond current temperature levels. Surely that alone demonstrates how fundamental they are and that their impact likely swamps the effects of man made co2?
So my last question is;
c) Can you work out the energy factors each climate driver would have needed to increase by in the past in order to overcome the lack of a high co2 base? 100ppm has apparently caused a substantial temperature rise over a 100 years so we need something very dramatic from other sources in order to replace that impact. There must be some mathematical formula out there. Did the sun need to be 80% more powerful? Did the ENSO need to be 47% more active? Your calculations are welcome.
Indeed I invite anyone on this forum to answer those three questions.
Please excuse the lack of response beyond tomorrow morning as I go off to examine the effects of global warming at first hand. Hope I don’t get frost bite on the slopes. It has been an interesting debate helped by lack of acrimony from either side.
TonyB
anna v (23:15:48) :
There are plenty of INDEPENDENT long-term atmospheric measurements that confirm the Keeling curve:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/
Researchers from France, Italy, Hungary, Argentina…all agree, and no sign of annual 100 ppm variability.
There is some geographic and temporal variability in CO2 levels (as the AIRs data shows), but it’s a few percent, NOT remotely close to the variability shown in Beck’s pre-1950 chemical data.
WRT to ice cores, they are not all “close” to the oceans- Vostok is 1000 miles from the ocean, ice cores from central Greenland are 100+ miles from the ocean. If that is “close”, and reason enough to distrust the measurements, then you also should distrust most of the pre-1950 chemical CO2 analyses from Europe, ships at sea, etc.
Yet the ice cores all agree, and agree with the modern measurements (many not involving Keeling!) where they overlap.
As for Jaworski, he is a lone voice- why do you accept his views, which are disputed by all the hundreds of other glacier scientists? And if Jaworski is correct, why do all the ice cores (from different places in the world, with different dust levels, etc.) agree?
And why do you mention diffusion of CO2 out of ice cores?? It is physically impossible for CO2 to have diffused out of the ice cores into the atmosphere IF the chemical CO2 measurements are right, and CO2 levels were actually much higher than the ice core records show. Unless you’ve found a way around those pesky laws of thermodynamics….
Please guys, give it up! There are plenty of more interesting topics to discuss. Becks stuff is crap. Multiple researchers looking at ice cores and the modern CO2 levels all come to the same conclusion. Beck is the only one who thinks the carbon cycle is capable of adding or subtracting 10’s of billions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere over the course of a few years, months, or days.
And everyone is STILL avoiding these questions- what causes the huge variability that Beck shows, and why don’t we see it in the modern measurements???
TonyB (01:10:09) :
I have looked at Becks stuff- my criticisms stand.
As to the rest of your points, I am not going to get into a dialogue about every aspect of climate science (another time, perhaps?). I’ve tried to confine my discussion to whether Becks’ pre-1950 chemical measurements are accurate. The other stuff about whether CO2 leads or follows temperatures (actually, it does both), by how long, mistakes Keeling or Callander might have made 50 years ago… are irrelevant to that discussion.
Unless you can propose some physical mechanism (backed up with real evidence) for the HUGE variability in Beck’s data, and can also explain why that mechanism suddenly stopped operating 50 years ago?
anna v (23:15:48) : […]
2) why the Mauna Loa levels show none of the variability that the pre-1950 CO2 measurements show?
Perhaps because the air has spent several thousand miles getting well mixed as it wanders over the ocean from Asia…
I’m sure that the old measures have good accuracy, by and large, and I’m also sure that it’s from local effects. What this means for AGW I don’t know.
Could it be that CO2 levels over land are different than they are in mid Pacific? I’m sure they are. Its the meaning that’s unclear.
Graeme Rodaughan (14:36:13) :
Much Appreciated. – Now I feel that I can really begin to talk in this forum!
Moooorararararahahahahahahahah……
(Oh my gawd… What has just been released!!!).
Oh No, I’ve created a Moorarahahah… (You’re welcome…)
Chris V (15:59:41) :
anna v (23:15:48) :
There are plenty of INDEPENDENT long-term atmospheric measurements that confirm the Keeling curve:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/
Thank you for the link. I had only found the Keeling references before.
You are correct that the curve is the same. The calibrations different for different locations. I am going through the links and I see that many measurements stop at the middle ’90s. I do not know why. Probablky ran out of grants once the science was supposed to be settled.
I have seen curves with 40ppm differences between minimum and maximum.
One possible explanation then for the Beck collected numbers is that people were taking measurements during the height of CO2 plant production, which already puts them up, or during winter, which puts them down. The sine curve mixed up. So it has not stopped, within 40ppm as in
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/uba-wagr.html for example.
As for CO2 diffusion, I think it meant the diffusion in the process of getting the samples out.
The basic point argued is not that today’s measurements are wrong. It is that measurements of last century are being ignored for convenience of the AGW argument.
p.s to my previous
I just remembered somebody mentioning that a specific time of day is also used to take the daily measurements in current CO2 records. I do not know of any plot that shows the daily variations of CO2. Maybe that would add another 20ppm and would bring consistency between last century and now.
It would mean that the old data would have to be sorted for time and date to see what conclusions can be made.
p.p.s
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html
has a lot of the variations. look at windspeed for example. Would explain a lot.
“The same is true for diurnal variance: at daytime and with high enough wind speed (> 1 m/s), CO2 levels are lower and near background, while at night under the inversion layer, CO2 levels are up to 100 ppmv higher.”
OK, now I can see how to get a consistent picture of old and new measurements.
Maybe a global CO2 measure is as elusive as a global temperatue measure after all.
anna v (01:02:25) :
Maybe a global CO2 measure is as elusive as a global temperatue measure after all.
Trying to fit one measure to a chaotic collection is a basic problem for both CO2 and temperature. It hides more than it reveals. One example? Everyone was sure the U.S. was the Evil One for making all the CO2 we had to be making since we used so much fossil fuel. So they measured CO2 on the west coast were pristine ocean air arrived, then on the east coast after we polluted it with CO2.
One small problem… there was less CO2 on the east coast than on the west. Why? I’d speculate it was all those millions of tons of crops we export to the rest of the world each year and our forests regrowing since we don’t cut them down for energy much anymore. But it’s an open question…
anna v (01:02:25) :
There are clearly temporal and geographic variabilities in modern CO2 concentrations. Some are natural (like seasonal, reflecting more or less photosynthesis), and some are man-made (being downwind from a coal-fired power plant). But you will notice that in all the modern, long-term measurements, the variations are centered on a very consistent long term trend, and those long-term values and trends agree at many different measurement sites.
I have no doubt that many the measurements Beck uses are accurately measuring the CO2 in the air at a certain place and time, but are those measurements representative of the WHOLE atmosphere (as Beck maintains), or do they just represent local variability? Clearly, MOST of them are recording local variability.
I would love to see a plot of all of Beck’s data (he claims 90,000 plus measurements). If that data is representative of the atmosphere as a whole, then we should see a relatively small, but clear, seasonal fluctuation, superimposed onto his red curve (just as we see a clear seasonal fluctuation around the long-term trend in all the modern data).
That wouldn’t prove his case by any means (there is still that pesky mechanism, and the disagreement with the ice cores), but it would make his ideas slightly less ridiculous.
Well, as E.M Smith points out above, maybe nothing is really representative of world CO2 . Keeling et al are careful to go to places they consider stable, but tability is meaningless in a chaotic system.
For temperatures we solve this problem by taking measurements all over the world and taking averages. Maybe we should use the same for CO2. At least we would have a consistent to temperatures measure.
I too would like to see the old CO2 data sorted by time and place.