I received this presentation of the “Bjerknes Lecture” that Dr. James Hansen gave at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union on December 17th. There are the usual things one might expect in the presentation, such as this slide which shows 2008 on the left with the anomalously warm Siberia and the Antarctic peninsula:
Source: James Hansen, GISS
Off topic but relevant, NASA has recently “disappeared”updated this oft cited map showing warming on the Antarctic peninsula and cooling of the interior:
There is also some new information in Hansen’s presentation, including a claim about CO2 sensitivity and coal causing a “runaway greenhouse effect”.
Hansen makes a bold statement that he has empirically derived CO2 sensitivity of our global climate system. I had to chuckle though, about the claim “Paleo yields precise result”. Apparently Jim hasn’t quite got the message yet that Michael Mann’s paleo results are, well, dubious, or that trees are better indicators of precipitation than temperature.
In fact in the later slide text he claims he’s “nailed” it:
He adds some caveats for the 2xCO2 claim:
Notes:
(1)
It is unwise to attempt to treat glacial-interglacial aerosol changes as a specified boundary condition (as per Hansen et al. 1984), because aerosols are inhomogeneously distributed, and their forcing depends strongly on aerosol altitude and aerosol absorbtivity, all poorly known. But why even attempt that? Human-made aerosol changes are a forcing, but aerosol changes in response to climate change are a fast feedback.
(2)
The accuracy of our knowledge of climate sensitivity is set by our best source of information, not by bad sources. Estimates of climate sensitivity based on the last 100 years of climate change are practically worthless, because we do not know the net climate forcing. Also, transient change is much less sensitive than the equilibrium response and the transient response is affected by uncertainty in ocean mixing.
(3)
Although, in general, climate sensitivity is a function of the climate state, the fast feedback sensitivity is just as great going toward warmer climate as it is going toward colder climate. Slow feedbacks (ice sheet changes, greenhouse gas changes) are more sensitive to the climate state.
Hansen is also talking about the “runaway” greenhouse effect, citing that old standby Venus in part of his presentation. He claims that coal and tar sands will be our undoing:
Hansen writes:
In my opinion, if we burn all the coal, there is a good chance that we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale (a.k.a. oil shale), I think it is a dead certainty.
That would be the ultimate Faustian bargain. Mephistopheles would carry off shrieking not only the robber barons, but, unfortunately and permanently, all life on the planet.
I have to wonder though, if he really believes what he is saying. Perhaps he’s never seen this graph for CO2 from Bill Illis and the response it gives to IR radiation (and thus temperature) as it increases:
It’s commonly known that CO2’s radiative return response is logarithmic with increasing concentration, so I don’t understand how Hansen thinks that it will be the cause of a runaway effect. The physics dictate that the temperature response curve of the atmosphere will be getting flatter as CO2 increases. Earth has also had much higher concentrations of CO2 in past history, and we didn’t go into runaway then:
Late Carboniferous to Early Permian time (315 mya — 270 mya) is the only time period in the last 600 million years when both atmospheric CO2 and temperatures were as low as they are today (Quaternary Period ).
There’s lots more in this paper to behold in wonderment, and I haven’t the time today to comment on all of it, so I’ll just leave it up to the readers of this forum to bring out the relevant issues for discussion.
I’m sure Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit will have some comments on it, even though his name is not mentioned in the presentation. My name was mentioned several times though. 😉
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foinavon
December 21, 2008 6:16 pm
Smokey, you seem to be linking to stuff that you haven’t really thought about.
The “Scotese” graph is nonsense. I hope you can see what’s horribly wrong with it. Anyway, you’ve linked to this without apparently looking at the paper by Pagani that’s cited there. That paper addresses some of the issues you request guidance on. For example, it highlights the essential link between atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperaure, in this case the slow reduction in atmospheric Co2 (through weathering most likely) that, according to Pagani “likely allowed for a critical expansion of ice sheets on Antarctica”:
Pagani M (2005) “Marked decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations during the Paleogene” Science 309, 600-603
Abstract: The relation between the partial pressure of atmospheric carbon dioxide (pCO(2)) and Paleogene climate is poorly resolved. We used stable carbon isotopic values of di-unsaturated alkenones extracted from deep sea cores to reconstruct pCO(2) from the middle Eocene to the late Oligocene (similar to 45 to 25 million years ago). Our results demonstrate that pCO(2) ranged between 1000 to 1500 parts per million by volume in the middle to late Eocene, then decreased in several steps during the Oligocene, and reached modern levels by the latest Oligocene. The fall in pCO(2) likely allowed for a critical expansion of ice sheets on Antarctica and promoted conditions that forced the onset of terrestrial C-4 photosynthesis.
paminator
December 21, 2008 6:20 pm
Venus has an atmospheric pressure of 92 bar at the surface consisting of 96% CO2. Compare to Earth at 1 bar and 0.039%. The lapse rates on the two planets are similar. Venus receives almost 4 times higher solar insolation due to its closer proximity to the sun, but its Albedo is also higher than Earth (0.65 versus 0.3 for Earth). Venus has much more atmospheric mass, a higher tropopause, and like Earth the atmosphere is a good absorber of infrared emission from the surface. There is no runaway effect required to explain the higher temperatures on Venus. It is all controlled by atmospheric pressure of an IR absorbing atmosphere, and solar insolation.
Robert Wood
December 21, 2008 6:22 pm
Hansen has done no empirical work whatsoever. And, if he wants to deny that statement, he can call me for the coordinates of my lawyers.
Hansen, you have no credibility. Come on; take me to court… if you can? I will defend; I have the money to do so. You, sir, are a charletan.
Graeme Rodaughan
December 21, 2008 6:28 pm
Robert Wood –
I’m in your corner – I can at least Cheer you on.
kuhnkat
December 21, 2008 6:33 pm
Foinavon,
you and other warmers appear to be getting pretty desperate in your level reasoned discourse. Of course, you are also becoming DENIERS!!!
Would you please post the data and models that differ from the IPCC who presented graphs, argument, data, and models showing the infamous HOT SPOT in conjunction with tropospheric cooling and tropopause heightening as the ID of Anthropogenic Global Warming through Greenhouse Gasses??
AR7 is what you must deal with to DENY the hotspot.
I assume you do not agree with the games with models and wind speed measurements to tell us that we can’t EXCLUDE THE POSSIBILITY OF A HOT SPOT??
Personally I am just fine with the IPCC science. They tell us that GG warming will cause the three mentioned data points. We do not have those data points. Therefore we either do not have GG warming (or ANY warming with no hot spot) or they are wrong.
Since we apparently agree that they are wrong, I again urge you to post your theory and data!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
foinavon
December 21, 2008 6:35 pm
Nasif, it’s not obvious that the term “natural standard” has any real meaning with respect to CO2 levels.
Clearly eons of contingent earth’s history has left a particular amount of accessible carbon in the short/medium term carbon cycle which equilibrates between the atmosphere, the land and the oceans. For the last 10 million years this has been near 280-300 ppm of atmospheric CO2 [*]. During ice age cycles this value drops to 180 (glacials) and then returns to around 280 ppm (interglacial). One might take that as the “natural” CO2 concentration. Obviously in the deeper past the “natural level” was often considerably higher.
What’s “natural” at any one time is what the biosphere has accomodated itself to! There’s plenty of evidence from the deep past that rapid large changes are not good…
[*]e.g. PN Pearson and MR Palmer (2000) Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 60 million years. Nature 406, 695-699.
crosspatch
December 21, 2008 6:38 pm
“And even then – this may all morph into ‘Man Made Emissions of CO2 cause Global Cooling.'”
Actually, that is where Hansen got his start. His first climate models were used (by Rasool, 1971) to show that burning fossil fuel would plunge us into an ice age. Then when temperatures go the other way, his models show it will boil us alive.
foinavon
December 21, 2008 6:40 pm
That can’t be right crosspatch. if the earth’s global temperature anomaly is 0.5-0.6 oC above the levels of the 1950’s-60s, then we’ve clearly had a lot more warming than cooling!
crosspatch
December 21, 2008 6:45 pm
And note that even in 1971 Rasool noted that:
the rate of temperature increase diminishes with increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
So even then they knew the response wasn’t linear. If you increase CO2 by 100ppm you might get some rise. You get less rise when you add another 100ppm and even less rise when you add another. So if we have added, say, 200ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere, adding another 200ppm will have less impact than we have already had. In other words, for a linear increase in CO2, you get a non-linear increase in temperature with a large initial rise that trails off as CO2 increases.
“As a scientist and lifelong liberal Democrat, I find the constant regurgitation of the anecdotal, fear-mongering clap-trap about human-caused global warming to be a disservice to science,” Hertzberg wrote in Sept. 26’s USA Today. “From the El Niño year of 1998 until January 2007, the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere near its surface decreased some 0.25 C (0.45 F). From January 2007 until the spring of 2008, it dropped a whopping 0.75 C (1.35 F).”
So “fighting” global warming might be rather silly considering there is no “global warming” to fight and hasn’t been since 1998. What I find so amazing is that Mann could take an El Niño temperature rise and project it continuing non-stop into the future and get away with it for this long.
AnonyMoose
December 21, 2008 7:05 pm
Looking for that missing image, I noticed there’s a copy in Wikipedia. The Talk page points out a discussion at “Satellite_pic” on an article about an “Antarctica cooling controversy” which now only shows the newest pic. So in an article about a controversy they dare not show images which are part of the controversy.
And as for persons who must not be named, I prefer to not name Beetlejuice.
Graeme Rodaughan
December 21, 2008 7:08 pm
Hansen and the rest… I concerned by the core of Fascism that haunts the AGW Meme like a cancer. After all, anything is justified if you are saving the planet.
Some more pseudo-entertainment from my CO2 fevered imagination – story seems the appropriate vehicle for expressing my concerns with the AGW movement. When Green Chickens Come Home To Roost.
Somewhere in the USA, Sometime in 2018…
FADE IN.
OUTSIDE: EARLY EVENING – NOVEMBER.
– A weary group of men and women, chained into a gang, trudge along a city road. Their guards carry rifles, and short whips. A light dusting of snow is falling.
– They pass a Primary (Elementary) school where the teachers and students have assembled to watch them pass. The Principle of the school turns and faces the assembled children and staff and raises her arms.
Principle: (Stern Encouragement) “Now children all as one – Sceptics are Septics”.
Assembled Children and Staff: (Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”
– Some of the chained people steal glances at the children.
Guard: “Eyes Front!”
– The guard smashes his whip across the face of one of the chained men and bright blood splashes onto the snow.
– One of the schoolchildren breaks ranks and staggers forward through the snow.
Schoolboy: (Falteringly Disbelief) “That’s my Dad!?”
– The principle turns abruptly towards the boy and signals to green frocked School Proctors, who leap forward and grab the boy before he can reach the road.
– The struck man slumps to the ground, barely conscious, the man chained next to him, takes his arm and drags him to his feet.
Principle: (Outraged) “Shocking behaviour. Samuel Taylor – A months detention. Proctors remove him to the holding room.”
– The proctors drag the boy away.
Assembled Children and Staff: (Continue Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”
– Two school cleaners stand quietly to the side of the assembly, not being teaching staff or students they are not required to join in. They talk quietly together.
Cleaner One: “So the Higgs Boson has been found at CERN?”
Cleaner Two: “Yes, the Paper by Peebles gives an excellent demonstration of the existence of the Higgs Boson.”
Cleaner One: “Do you miss the research at MIT?”
Cleaner Two: “Of course – but at least I’m able to feed my little girl. – and what choice did I have, Particle Physics isn’t Environmental Science is it.”
Cleaner One: “Same with Nuclear Engineering – now that all the reactors have been shut down – there’s just no more work for a PHD in Engineering in my field.”
– Cleaner Two nods towards the steadily moving chain gang.
Cleaner Two: “Still it’s better than what that lot are facing.”
Cleaner One: “Which is?”
Cleaner Two: “5 Years Hard Labour in the Pig Methane Plant.”
Cleaner One: “Shovel Pig manure for 18 hours a day and get fed…”
Cleaner Two: “Which would you prefer – that – or the alternative?”
– Cleaner one shivered from more than the cold, and drew his coat more tightly around his thin frame.
Cleaner One: “The fertiliser plant – but that’s just for capital crimes isn’t it?”
Cleaner Two: “Apparently “Carbon Denial” is set to become a capital crime – rumour has it, that it’s to be the next Presidential Emergency Directive.”
Cleaner One: (Quietly) “Oh my god… what have we become?”
– Cleaner Two nods silently in agreement.
– The Principle signals a halt to her students and staff.
Principle: (Smug) “Now everyone – we have todays new mantra, lets chant it together for the benefit of these poor deluded people.”
All: (Chanting in practised unison) “Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling…”
FADE OUT.
J.Hansford.
December 21, 2008 7:15 pm
Hanson has taken a lot of taxpayers money as pay and grants… Can he be made to give it back if he is wrong?
Ed Scott
December 21, 2008 7:21 pm
For those of you who believe that Algore/UN/IPCC/Pachauri are dangerous, I hope are now watching 60 Minutes and listening to the most scientifically ignorant governor ever to be wrongly elected to public office. It is clear that Californians will be lucky to survive this moron.
Greg
December 21, 2008 7:22 pm
Peter provides an interesting idea for an energy factory. Build a huge glass green house, fill it with CO2 and let the sun heat it up. Theory states that it should produce lots of heat. You’ve now got a steam generator, and you’ve used industrial waste to do it. REPLY: CO2 has no effect inside a greenhouse (except to hasten plant growth). Warming of a greenhouse is all about the structure and convection. The gas inside is a minimal component to the equation. – Anthony
Richard Sharpe
December 21, 2008 7:34 pm
Steven Goddard says:
Another very troublesome NASA “correction” article came out a few weeks ago. http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/
What could have motivated a bizarre “science” story like that? I’ve never seen anything like that before.
That certainly doesn’t look like science.
Richard Sharpe
December 21, 2008 7:38 pm
Crosspatch says:
In other words, for a linear increase in CO2, you get a non-linear increase in temperature with a large initial rise that trails off as CO2 increases.
We know that, and that is why they quote the climate sensitivity as the temperature increase for each doubling of CO2.
I think you would be better off pointing out that with CO2 levels increasing at what looks like a linear rate (or the human contribution being linear), the time it takes for each doubling grows longer and longer.
However, I also think that the increase in H2O in the atmosphere with temp increases causing an increased albedo (via clouds) is important as well.
ccpo
December 21, 2008 8:41 pm
I’ve googled bill illis and all I can find is his posts on the various denialist sites. Any credentials? Expertise? Why is there no professional information on Illis?
Cheers REPLY: On the flip side – Why is there no professional information or even a name for “Tamino”? Why is there no name or professional information from you?
If Bill wants to respond I’m sure he’ll do so.
Duhhhhh, read all the comments, and the thing that jumped out at me is that Mars atmosphere is +90% CO2, yet it’s colder than Hades, Venus atmosphere is sulphuric acid and hot, hot, hot. The difference between the two is distance from the sun. I keep reading that the only reason life exists on earth is because the orbit is at the exact correct distance from the sun to sustain the temperature range needed for life to survive. This leads me to believe that the distance from the sun is the thing controlling temperature, not CO2. Why is Mars not hotter with a whole helluva lot more CO2 than in earth’s atmosphere? I thought Mars was the planet most similar in size to earth than any of the other planets? Could it be it’s greater distance from the sun? Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles . Doesn’t this confirm that distance from the sun is the determining factor in the occurrence of ice ages? Duhhhhhh, I’m just sayin’. I guess the truth is just too obvious and the explanation too simple to be acceptable to highly-paid government climate scientists. They have to do something to justify all that high-powered training and education and research they did to get where they are, and to keep the grant money flowing. We are paying for this folly, folks, and the economy is tanking. What are you gonna do about it?
Retired Engineer
December 21, 2008 8:50 pm
Another problem with ‘doubling’ is saturation. A graph appeared many threads back that showed the diminishing return of absorbtion. (can’t remember the name, couldn’t find it) With CO2 somewhere above 97% of everything it can absorb, a doubling might get to 98.5%.
That won’t have much effect. The real question is what level of that nasty stuff hit 95%? Or any arbitrary point. We just can’t get many more degrees C from any additional CO2.
Barking up the wrong tree.
ccpo
December 21, 2008 8:50 pm
apparently Jim hasn’t quite got the message yet that Michael Mann’s paleo results are, well, dubious
How so? I know of no peer review that says so. Link?
perhaps he’s never seen this graph for CO2 from Bill Illis and the response it gives to IR radiation (and thus temperature) as it increases
It seems Illis is a garage scientist (Links to prof. qualifications appreciated.), so you are probably right. it is so easy to cook a graph, or just get it wrong, or, in the case of the denier folks, get what you are looking for instead of what is. This is why rigorous science is called for: while not perfect, since people aren’t, at least scientific method and review give some chance of objectivity. Denialism is just one big MAAS, unfortunately. Note: skepticism should be driven by generic desire for accuracy, not by ideology.
It’s commonly known that CO2’s radiative return response is logarithmic with increasing concentration, so I don’t understand how Hansen thinks that it will be the cause of a runaway effect. The physics dictate that the temperature response curve of the atmosphere will be getting flatter as CO2 increases. Earth has also had much higher concentrations of CO2 in past history, and we didn’t go into runaway then:
Why pretend CO2 is the only input? Methane? Clathrates? Etc.? Are these not part of the issue?
Out-of-context nitpicking just makes the nitpicker look petty.
Cheers REPLY: “ccpo” That’s quite a bit of lecturing and put down from a person who demands credentials from somebody that puts their name to their work (Bill Illis) while at the same time denigrating them as a “garage scientist”, yet doesn’t have the courage nor the integrity to even use thier own name in a post.
If you want to continue to hurl insults at Mr. Illis while demanding his information, use your own real name, otherwise you don’t get to exist here. I have a low tolerance level for such cowardly arrogance.
– Anthony Watts
crosspatch
December 21, 2008 8:52 pm
“, I also think that the increase in H2O in the atmosphere with temp increases causing an increased albedo (via clouds) is important as well.”
Well, the bottom line is that there currently is no “global warming” and while we did get a period of about 22-23 years of warming that coincides with a positive PDO, the rest of the period since 1933 have been cooling years.
There just isn’t any “global warming” to relate rising global CO2 levels to. I don’t doubt that CO2 is rising, you can clearly see that from the data. I don’t doubt that climate warmed from about 1976 to 1998, that is also clear from the data. What isn’t shown at all by the data is any relationship between that 22 year rise and CO2 rise when the 30 years prior and 10 years since directly contradict that hypothesis. 40+ years of declining temperatures and 22 years of increasing temperatures with CO2 climbing in a nearly linear fashion over the entire time does not exactly cause me to jump to any cause/effect conclusions.
No David you don’t actually need to state the starting concentration of CO2 [in order to have a 3C. temperature increase for each CO2 doubling]./foinavon
Of course you do. Or are you arguing that doubling CO2’s concentration from 1ppm CO2 up to whatever levels we have now would have induced a 3C. degree response each time? In addition, you are ignoring the [relatively small] amount of long wave radiation reflected from the Earth’s surface which is available to be captured only by virtue of CO2’s absorption characteristics – which isn’t very much in comparison to water vapor’s, and, of course the climatic mechanisms which dissipate heat energy, the same ones which have also already kept water vapor from performing at its untethered theoretical maximum here in the real world.
Smokey, you seem to be linking to stuff that you haven’t really thought about.
The “Scotese” graph is nonsense. I hope you can see what’s horribly wrong with it. Anyway, you’ve linked to this without apparently looking at the paper by Pagani that’s cited there. That paper addresses some of the issues you request guidance on. For example, it highlights the essential link between atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperaure, in this case the slow reduction in atmospheric Co2 (through weathering most likely) that, according to Pagani “likely allowed for a critical expansion of ice sheets on Antarctica”:
Pagani M (2005) “Marked decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations during the Paleogene” Science 309, 600-603
Abstract: The relation between the partial pressure of atmospheric carbon dioxide (pCO(2)) and Paleogene climate is poorly resolved. We used stable carbon isotopic values of di-unsaturated alkenones extracted from deep sea cores to reconstruct pCO(2) from the middle Eocene to the late Oligocene (similar to 45 to 25 million years ago). Our results demonstrate that pCO(2) ranged between 1000 to 1500 parts per million by volume in the middle to late Eocene, then decreased in several steps during the Oligocene, and reached modern levels by the latest Oligocene. The fall in pCO(2) likely allowed for a critical expansion of ice sheets on Antarctica and promoted conditions that forced the onset of terrestrial C-4 photosynthesis.
Venus has an atmospheric pressure of 92 bar at the surface consisting of 96% CO2. Compare to Earth at 1 bar and 0.039%. The lapse rates on the two planets are similar. Venus receives almost 4 times higher solar insolation due to its closer proximity to the sun, but its Albedo is also higher than Earth (0.65 versus 0.3 for Earth). Venus has much more atmospheric mass, a higher tropopause, and like Earth the atmosphere is a good absorber of infrared emission from the surface. There is no runaway effect required to explain the higher temperatures on Venus. It is all controlled by atmospheric pressure of an IR absorbing atmosphere, and solar insolation.
Hansen has done no empirical work whatsoever. And, if he wants to deny that statement, he can call me for the coordinates of my lawyers.
Hansen, you have no credibility. Come on; take me to court… if you can? I will defend; I have the money to do so. You, sir, are a charletan.
Robert Wood –
I’m in your corner – I can at least Cheer you on.
Foinavon,
you and other warmers appear to be getting pretty desperate in your level reasoned discourse. Of course, you are also becoming DENIERS!!!
Would you please post the data and models that differ from the IPCC who presented graphs, argument, data, and models showing the infamous HOT SPOT in conjunction with tropospheric cooling and tropopause heightening as the ID of Anthropogenic Global Warming through Greenhouse Gasses??
AR7 is what you must deal with to DENY the hotspot.
I assume you do not agree with the games with models and wind speed measurements to tell us that we can’t EXCLUDE THE POSSIBILITY OF A HOT SPOT??
Personally I am just fine with the IPCC science. They tell us that GG warming will cause the three mentioned data points. We do not have those data points. Therefore we either do not have GG warming (or ANY warming with no hot spot) or they are wrong.
Since we apparently agree that they are wrong, I again urge you to post your theory and data!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Nasif, it’s not obvious that the term “natural standard” has any real meaning with respect to CO2 levels.
Clearly eons of contingent earth’s history has left a particular amount of accessible carbon in the short/medium term carbon cycle which equilibrates between the atmosphere, the land and the oceans. For the last 10 million years this has been near 280-300 ppm of atmospheric CO2 [*]. During ice age cycles this value drops to 180 (glacials) and then returns to around 280 ppm (interglacial). One might take that as the “natural” CO2 concentration. Obviously in the deeper past the “natural level” was often considerably higher.
What’s “natural” at any one time is what the biosphere has accomodated itself to! There’s plenty of evidence from the deep past that rapid large changes are not good…
[*]e.g. PN Pearson and MR Palmer (2000) Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 60 million years. Nature 406, 695-699.
“And even then – this may all morph into ‘Man Made Emissions of CO2 cause Global Cooling.'”
Actually, that is where Hansen got his start. His first climate models were used (by Rasool, 1971) to show that burning fossil fuel would plunge us into an ice age. Then when temperatures go the other way, his models show it will boil us alive.
That can’t be right crosspatch. if the earth’s global temperature anomaly is 0.5-0.6 oC above the levels of the 1950’s-60s, then we’ve clearly had a lot more warming than cooling!
And note that even in 1971 Rasool noted that:
So even then they knew the response wasn’t linear. If you increase CO2 by 100ppm you might get some rise. You get less rise when you add another 100ppm and even less rise when you add another. So if we have added, say, 200ppm of CO2 to the atmosphere, adding another 200ppm will have less impact than we have already had. In other words, for a linear increase in CO2, you get a non-linear increase in temperature with a large initial rise that trails off as CO2 increases.
crosspatch (18:06:10)… Just a small (really infinitesimal) correction. The name of the volcano should be Chichonal, not El Chichon.
And finally:
So “fighting” global warming might be rather silly considering there is no “global warming” to fight and hasn’t been since 1998. What I find so amazing is that Mann could take an El Niño temperature rise and project it continuing non-stop into the future and get away with it for this long.
Looking for that missing image, I noticed there’s a copy in Wikipedia. The Talk page points out a discussion at “Satellite_pic” on an article about an “Antarctica cooling controversy” which now only shows the newest pic. So in an article about a controversy they dare not show images which are part of the controversy.
And as for persons who must not be named, I prefer to not name Beetlejuice.
Hansen and the rest… I concerned by the core of Fascism that haunts the AGW Meme like a cancer. After all, anything is justified if you are saving the planet.
Some more pseudo-entertainment from my CO2 fevered imagination – story seems the appropriate vehicle for expressing my concerns with the AGW movement.
When Green Chickens Come Home To Roost.
Somewhere in the USA, Sometime in 2018…
FADE IN.
OUTSIDE: EARLY EVENING – NOVEMBER.
– A weary group of men and women, chained into a gang, trudge along a city road. Their guards carry rifles, and short whips. A light dusting of snow is falling.
– They pass a Primary (Elementary) school where the teachers and students have assembled to watch them pass. The Principle of the school turns and faces the assembled children and staff and raises her arms.
Principle: (Stern Encouragement) “Now children all as one – Sceptics are Septics”.
Assembled Children and Staff: (Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”
– Some of the chained people steal glances at the children.
Guard: “Eyes Front!”
– The guard smashes his whip across the face of one of the chained men and bright blood splashes onto the snow.
– One of the schoolchildren breaks ranks and staggers forward through the snow.
Schoolboy: (Falteringly Disbelief) “That’s my Dad!?”
– The principle turns abruptly towards the boy and signals to green frocked School Proctors, who leap forward and grab the boy before he can reach the road.
– The struck man slumps to the ground, barely conscious, the man chained next to him, takes his arm and drags him to his feet.
Principle: (Outraged) “Shocking behaviour. Samuel Taylor – A months detention. Proctors remove him to the holding room.”
– The proctors drag the boy away.
Assembled Children and Staff: (Continue Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”
– Two school cleaners stand quietly to the side of the assembly, not being teaching staff or students they are not required to join in. They talk quietly together.
Cleaner One: “So the Higgs Boson has been found at CERN?”
Cleaner Two: “Yes, the Paper by Peebles gives an excellent demonstration of the existence of the Higgs Boson.”
Cleaner One: “Do you miss the research at MIT?”
Cleaner Two: “Of course – but at least I’m able to feed my little girl. – and what choice did I have, Particle Physics isn’t Environmental Science is it.”
Cleaner One: “Same with Nuclear Engineering – now that all the reactors have been shut down – there’s just no more work for a PHD in Engineering in my field.”
– Cleaner Two nods towards the steadily moving chain gang.
Cleaner Two: “Still it’s better than what that lot are facing.”
Cleaner One: “Which is?”
Cleaner Two: “5 Years Hard Labour in the Pig Methane Plant.”
Cleaner One: “Shovel Pig manure for 18 hours a day and get fed…”
Cleaner Two: “Which would you prefer – that – or the alternative?”
– Cleaner one shivered from more than the cold, and drew his coat more tightly around his thin frame.
Cleaner One: “The fertiliser plant – but that’s just for capital crimes isn’t it?”
Cleaner Two: “Apparently “Carbon Denial” is set to become a capital crime – rumour has it, that it’s to be the next Presidential Emergency Directive.”
Cleaner One: (Quietly) “Oh my god… what have we become?”
– Cleaner Two nods silently in agreement.
– The Principle signals a halt to her students and staff.
Principle: (Smug) “Now everyone – we have todays new mantra, lets chant it together for the benefit of these poor deluded people.”
All: (Chanting in practised unison) “Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling…”
FADE OUT.
Hanson has taken a lot of taxpayers money as pay and grants… Can he be made to give it back if he is wrong?
For those of you who believe that Algore/UN/IPCC/Pachauri are dangerous, I hope are now watching 60 Minutes and listening to the most scientifically ignorant governor ever to be wrongly elected to public office. It is clear that Californians will be lucky to survive this moron.
Peter provides an interesting idea for an energy factory. Build a huge glass green house, fill it with CO2 and let the sun heat it up. Theory states that it should produce lots of heat. You’ve now got a steam generator, and you’ve used industrial waste to do it.
REPLY: CO2 has no effect inside a greenhouse (except to hasten plant growth). Warming of a greenhouse is all about the structure and convection. The gas inside is a minimal component to the equation. – Anthony
Steven Goddard says:
That certainly doesn’t look like science.
Crosspatch says:
We know that, and that is why they quote the climate sensitivity as the temperature increase for each doubling of CO2.
I think you would be better off pointing out that with CO2 levels increasing at what looks like a linear rate (or the human contribution being linear), the time it takes for each doubling grows longer and longer.
However, I also think that the increase in H2O in the atmosphere with temp increases causing an increased albedo (via clouds) is important as well.
I’ve googled bill illis and all I can find is his posts on the various denialist sites. Any credentials? Expertise? Why is there no professional information on Illis?
Cheers
REPLY: On the flip side – Why is there no professional information or even a name for “Tamino”? Why is there no name or professional information from you?
If Bill wants to respond I’m sure he’ll do so.
Duhhhhh, read all the comments, and the thing that jumped out at me is that Mars atmosphere is +90% CO2, yet it’s colder than Hades, Venus atmosphere is sulphuric acid and hot, hot, hot. The difference between the two is distance from the sun. I keep reading that the only reason life exists on earth is because the orbit is at the exact correct distance from the sun to sustain the temperature range needed for life to survive. This leads me to believe that the distance from the sun is the thing controlling temperature, not CO2. Why is Mars not hotter with a whole helluva lot more CO2 than in earth’s atmosphere? I thought Mars was the planet most similar in size to earth than any of the other planets? Could it be it’s greater distance from the sun? Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles . Doesn’t this confirm that distance from the sun is the determining factor in the occurrence of ice ages? Duhhhhhh, I’m just sayin’. I guess the truth is just too obvious and the explanation too simple to be acceptable to highly-paid government climate scientists. They have to do something to justify all that high-powered training and education and research they did to get where they are, and to keep the grant money flowing. We are paying for this folly, folks, and the economy is tanking. What are you gonna do about it?
Another problem with ‘doubling’ is saturation. A graph appeared many threads back that showed the diminishing return of absorbtion. (can’t remember the name, couldn’t find it) With CO2 somewhere above 97% of everything it can absorb, a doubling might get to 98.5%.
That won’t have much effect. The real question is what level of that nasty stuff hit 95%? Or any arbitrary point. We just can’t get many more degrees C from any additional CO2.
Barking up the wrong tree.
apparently Jim hasn’t quite got the message yet that Michael Mann’s paleo results are, well, dubious
How so? I know of no peer review that says so. Link?
perhaps he’s never seen this graph for CO2 from Bill Illis and the response it gives to IR radiation (and thus temperature) as it increases
It seems Illis is a garage scientist (Links to prof. qualifications appreciated.), so you are probably right. it is so easy to cook a graph, or just get it wrong, or, in the case of the denier folks, get what you are looking for instead of what is. This is why rigorous science is called for: while not perfect, since people aren’t, at least scientific method and review give some chance of objectivity. Denialism is just one big MAAS, unfortunately. Note: skepticism should be driven by generic desire for accuracy, not by ideology.
It’s commonly known that CO2’s radiative return response is logarithmic with increasing concentration, so I don’t understand how Hansen thinks that it will be the cause of a runaway effect. The physics dictate that the temperature response curve of the atmosphere will be getting flatter as CO2 increases. Earth has also had much higher concentrations of CO2 in past history, and we didn’t go into runaway then:
Why pretend CO2 is the only input? Methane? Clathrates? Etc.? Are these not part of the issue?
Out-of-context nitpicking just makes the nitpicker look petty.
Cheers
REPLY: “ccpo” That’s quite a bit of lecturing and put down from a person who demands credentials from somebody that puts their name to their work (Bill Illis) while at the same time denigrating them as a “garage scientist”, yet doesn’t have the courage nor the integrity to even use thier own name in a post.
If you want to continue to hurl insults at Mr. Illis while demanding his information, use your own real name, otherwise you don’t get to exist here. I have a low tolerance level for such cowardly arrogance.
– Anthony Watts
“, I also think that the increase in H2O in the atmosphere with temp increases causing an increased albedo (via clouds) is important as well.”
Well, the bottom line is that there currently is no “global warming” and while we did get a period of about 22-23 years of warming that coincides with a positive PDO, the rest of the period since 1933 have been cooling years.
There just isn’t any “global warming” to relate rising global CO2 levels to. I don’t doubt that CO2 is rising, you can clearly see that from the data. I don’t doubt that climate warmed from about 1976 to 1998, that is also clear from the data. What isn’t shown at all by the data is any relationship between that 22 year rise and CO2 rise when the 30 years prior and 10 years since directly contradict that hypothesis. 40+ years of declining temperatures and 22 years of increasing temperatures with CO2 climbing in a nearly linear fashion over the entire time does not exactly cause me to jump to any cause/effect conclusions.
CO2 has increased by 13.8% from June 1980 thru June 2008, yet this year will come in, probably, a tad cooler.
Mauna Loa:
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
UAH Global Temp. Anomaly:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/uah_msu_sept2008.png
No David you don’t actually need to state the starting concentration of CO2 [in order to have a 3C. temperature increase for each CO2 doubling]./foinavon
Of course you do. Or are you arguing that doubling CO2’s concentration from 1ppm CO2 up to whatever levels we have now would have induced a 3C. degree response each time? In addition, you are ignoring the [relatively small] amount of long wave radiation reflected from the Earth’s surface which is available to be captured only by virtue of CO2’s absorption characteristics – which isn’t very much in comparison to water vapor’s, and, of course the climatic mechanisms which dissipate heat energy, the same ones which have also already kept water vapor from performing at its untethered theoretical maximum here in the real world.