NASA’s Dr. James Hansen once again goes over the top. See his most recent article in the UK Guardian. Some excerpts:
“The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.”
And this:
Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more.
Only one problem there Jimbo, CO2 has been a lot higher in the past. Like 10 times higher.
From JS on June 21, 2005:
One point apparently causing confusion among our readers is the relative abundance of CO2 in the atmosphere today as compared with Earth’s historical levels. Most people seem surprised when we say current levels are relatively low, at least from a long-term perspective – understandable considering the constant media/activist bleat about current levels being allegedly “catastrophically high.” Even more express surprise that Earth is currently suffering one of its chilliest episodes in about six hundred million (600,000,000) years.
Given that the late Ordovician suffered an ice age (with associated mass extinction) while atmospheric CO2 levels were more than 4,000ppm higher than those of today (yes, that’s a full order of magnitude higher), levels at which current ‘guesstimations’ of climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 suggest every last skerrick of ice should have been melted off the planet, we admit significant scepticism over simplistic claims of small increment in atmospheric CO2 equating to toasted planet. Granted, continental configuration now is nothing like it was then, Sol’s irradiance differs, as do orbits, obliquity, etc., etc. but there is no obvious correlation between atmospheric CO2 and planetary temperature over the last 600 million years, so why would such relatively tiny amounts suddenly become a critical factor now?
Adjacent graphic ‘Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time’ from Climate and the Carboniferous Period (Monte Hieb, with paleomaps by Christopher R. Scotese). Why not drop by and have a look around?
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37C? Oh my, we have entered the realm of fantasy. That wonderland where empirical observation is trumped by modelmania. Foinavon, look again at Bills figures for observed co2 sensetivity. ~1.62C/doubling. This is consistent with an extra 9C for 8000ppm as the graph at the top shows.
Get real
tallbloke (10:48:14)
Not really tallbloke. Mr Illis’s analysis is incorrect again. In much the same way that earlier on the thread Bill messed up his analysis of the Pangani data by plotting completely inappropriate data that have no particular causal relationship at all (one of his data set was a control series for local temperature!) [see foinavon (16.02.09; 09:28:27) , so he has plotted inappropriate series in his “analysis” of temperature in relation to CO2-induced warming under specified climate sensitivities.
In a nutshell, Bill has plotted a theoretical data set that defines an equilibrium temperature response to raised CO2 against the real world transient data.
That’s fine for blogs of course! But in the real world scientists and well-informed policymakers are not going to choose to be taken in by knowingly incorrect analyses. If we want to engage with the science productively, then we really should address the science properly. Otherwise we’re going to be increasingly out of kilter with informed understanding of these issues!
nvw (13:06:57) :
Yes, I do believe the papers cited nvw. At least I find the multitude of evidence for a relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and earth temperature in the deep past pretty convincing. My point is that one can only really assess this relationship by analysis of contemporaneous proxyCO2 and proxytemp data. Where this is available, there seems a pretty clear relationship (high CO2 = warm/hot; low CO2 = cool/cold) and a justifiable interpretation of higher CO2 thresholds for glaciations as a result of a reduced solar constant progressively into the past.
The main point, ‘though, is that the sketch in the top post bears little relationship to our understanding of paleoCO2 and paleotemp. You can be sure scientists and policymakers (and their scientific advisors) don’t base their understanding of these issues on crude sketches that are obviously fallacious…we shouldn’t either.
I don’t think I’m using a dangerous line of reasoning, since I don’t really have an interest in pursuing any particular position! If the closest proxy to the late Ordovician is 1.5-2 million years before the onset of glaciation, it doesn’t seem unreasonable that CO2 levels might drop below the glaciation threshold (which is considered to be very high – perhaps as high as 3,500 ppm or more -for that period) during that time, without postulating uncharacterized mechanisms. But we simply don’t know what the CO2 levels during the late-Ordovician glacial period were since we don’t have a contemporaneous CO2 proxy for that event. I don’t think we need to get worried about that, or attempt to force an interpretation that accords with a particular view. When we know, we’ll know! If one considers the entire Phanerozoic period there is a pretty good relationship between Earth temperature and CO2. The late-Ordovician might accord with the better characterised data during the rest of the last 500 million years…or it might not…we’ll see..
CO2 levels seem to have been pretty steady-ish for the last 20 million years (i.e. likely below around 400 ppm) and that’s what the biosphere is adapted to. It’s not obvious to me how the atmosphere can be considered deficient in CO2. And yes, there’s no doubt that CO2 has been sequestered in carbonates and fossil fuels over many hundreds of millions of years. To some extent that highlights a long term “homeostatis” by which the effects of a progressively increasing solar constant is balanced by a decreasing greenhouse forcing.
Loss of the Greenland ice sheet gives us around 7 metres of sea level rise eventually). That’s very bad news for many reasons. 450-500 ppm is around the level of greenhouse gases below which long-term stability of the ice sheet can be secured.
I didn’t calculate thresholds. A number of scientists have made the relatively simple calculation of radiative forcings arising from atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and the solar irradiation resulting from the pretty well characterised value of the solar constant at particular periods in the past. I don’t think I said that “2,000 ppm CO2 in the Ordovician is equivalent to some value of CO2 today that marks the tipping point between an ice-house/hot-house climate”. The point is that at a sufficient forcing resulting from a combination of the solar constant and greenhouse gas concentration (and taking into account the positions of continents and so on), significant glacial ice doesn’t build up on Earth. So one can consider that there are thresholds for significant glaciation which can be both calculated and determined from an analysis of proxy CO2/proxytemp data. There certainly isn’t a “tipping point” that defines a transition between an “ice house/hot-house climate” (unless something very unpleasant happens!). As CO2 levels drop over many 100’s of 1,000’s of years due to slow weathering in advance of CO2 release from tectonics, one expects transitions from hot-house conditions (very high forcing resulting from high CO2) to somewhat cooler temperatures, to colder temperatures, to a level of greenhouse gases that take the forcing significantly below the threshold that allows significant build up of glacial ice. That’s what the evidence indicates…
foinavon (11:38:29) :
“Loss of the Greenland ice sheet gives us around 7 metres of sea level rise eventually). That’s very bad news for many reasons. 450-500 ppm is around the level of greenhouse gases below which long-term stability of the ice sheet can be secured.”
Foinavon,
Your dogmatic approach on this subject is a bit tiresome.
I follow your postings for a long time now and your message of stashing one assumption on the other without a single bit of proof has turned into an old scratched record playing the same old tune. Very very boring.
Your only keeping up a hazy curtain of deceit, fraud and semi science initiated by a beyond corrupt UN.
You will never live to see the day when we will lose the Greenland Icecap.
It simply will not happen.
Why? Because CO2 levels have no, I repeat no significant influence on earth temperature at all.
Please spare us your attempts to revive a dead horse. Dead is dead.
Ron de Haan:
Well, not much of an effect after the first 40ppm and about 50 metres off the surface anyway.
Foinavon:
Bill’s method might not be perfect, but it’s providing a better estimate of co2 to temperature level than the models are.
You’ve hung around this site long enough to see how much more heat is stored and shifted through the oceans than atmosphere, so why do you still think co2 ‘forces’ anything, given the obvious disconnect between co2 levels and temperature that has been going on for some years now? The oceanic variations are clearly stronger ‘drivers’ of climate than this trace gas is, if they can so easily overcome it’s putative effect. So isn’t it time the modelers revisited the sensitivity issue and stopped giving an outsize negative value to aerosols to balance an overblown co2 sensitivity value?
Ron de Haan (12:31:57) :
I’m following the science Ron, which is why I tend to cite the science when discussing specific subjects. I haven’t noticed you citing anything in support of your views which I have to say seem rather “political” rather than scientific!
You should certainly know that it wasn’t “the UN” that initiated the science in this area. That’s just silly (but fine for a blog!). The UN didn’t even initate the IPCC. That was initiated by governments so that there would be some semblance of a body of analysis that was relatively independent of politics. It worked pretty well.
Your unsupported assertion that “CO2 levels have no, I repeat no significant influence on earth temperature at all” just doesn’t accord with the evidence. We’d be extraordinarily foolish to avoid the evidence on these important issues.
Note: it’s not about proof; It’s about evidence
I’ m pleased to hear that you’ve been following my postings for some time, but disappointed that you find them “tiresome”!
tallbloke (12:54:04) :
So far, the “analyses” of Mr Illis are clearly and demonstrably wrong [see foinavon (11:21:26) , and foinavon (16.02.09; 09:28:27)]. In what worldview is it appropriate to ignore the science and put our faith in knowingly fallacious analyses?
The difference between Bill Illis and foinavon is that Illis actually does serious analysis, while foinavon links to lots of abstracts and summaries without understanding the underlying work; he writes reams of prose around his links without really getting anywhere.
Too many times we’ve seen foinavon caught out by others for not understanding what he was linking to, because he had apparently only read the abstract while the body of the paper contradicted him.
Bill Illis, on the other hand, actually does real work and posts the resulting charts here, which he has constructed himself, for everyone to consider. They may not always be 100% perfect — but Illis walks the walk, while foinavon just talks the talk.
Bill, your last name in print looks like the graph on my cell phone when I am right next to a tower. It reminds me of the town of Illihee near north central Oregon. The white block print on the green DOT road sign looks like this: lllihee.
Hotrod: “That is because it is not a quote of Stephen Schneider…if you are not familiar with the coding commonly used here —…I thought it was ironic that at the time he made those comments, He was the skeptic…”
No confusion over the block quote. I was referring to your use of quotation marks in your own comments immediately following the Schneider quote and seeming to refer to that quote.
And you also place quotation marks around the phrase “recent research”. The phrase doesn’t appear in the Schneider quote and is not obviously ironic, but it suggests a commentary on the Schneider quote.
However, I take your intention re irony, despite its obscurity.
“It is interesting that his skeptical alternate view of the data is accepted as perfectly normal and reasonable scientific behavior.”
As it should be. The differences between the 1970s and now is that back then the evidence was more equivocal, and importantly, the issue had not yet become as ideologically charged — over and above the normal small ‘p’ politics of any issue — as it is today,.
The term ‘sceptic’ is nowadays often understood as a synonym for ‘AGW sceptic’, so it connotes a good deal more than simply doubting a claim to knowledge, either in the universal or the particular sense.
The connotation of the term ‘sceptic’ nowadays includes the political and ideological worldview that opposes AGW. So while one might deplore the existence of this connotation, nevertheless I don’t think there’s much question that it does exist.
The connotation of the term ’sceptic’ nowadays includes the political and ideological worldview that opposes AGW
Or at least, it does in the minds of AGW proponents, who fall back on trying to vilify and character assassinate their opponents. They do this because this draws attention away from the unsupportable assertions they make about a link between temperature changes and co2 and enables them to sidestep the incisive questions about the basics they never reply to.
Witness foinavon et al ignoring questions about the forcing attributed by modelers to volcanism and aerosols, and the lag of co2 behind temperature.
A skeptic is a sceptic is a skeptic, and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Skepticism in science is essential to getting to the truth. That’s why AGW alarmists hate skeptics. The truth defenestrates the AGW/CO2 hypothesis.
tallbloke (00:12:07)
I addressed the CO2/temperature lag question here:
[foinavon 19.02.2009 – (08:50:24) ]
I don’t remember being asked a question about volcanism/aerosols/modelling. Can you point out the post where I was asked about this?
tallbloke (00:12:07)
Smokey (03:40:04) and (20:42:55)
A point about “skepticism”. Skepticism is very important in science. However skepticism only has meaning in relation to a reasonably well-informed and honest relationship with the science. Otherwise it isn’t skepticism at all, but something else.
there are a number of examples on this thread. One that addresses your point Smokey is Bill Illis’ misanalysis of proxyCO2 data in the period 45-5 MYA published by Pangani et al. One might well be skeptical about a putative relationship between CO2 levels and Earth temperature and the thresholds for glaciation. However it is not “skepticism” to attempt to trash the paper by plotting completely inappropriate data sets downloaded from a website [see foinavon (16.02.09; 09:28:27)]. One needs to understand the science before one can assess it and come to a conclusion that might be broadly in agreement with the work or one that remains skeptical.
You (Smokey) suggested:
Smokey: Could you please provide me with an example where you have displayed actual ***skepticism*** rather than just not believing anything that supports AGW and believing just about everything that argues against it, no matter how incorrect? Because you may call yourself a “skeptic” but I see absolutely no evidence whatsoever that you are one in any reasonable sense of the word.
And, in case you are thinking of that question for me in reverse, I will give you a concrete example: I have noted that I am currently skeptical of Hansen’s recent talk of the possibility of a true “runaway” effect if we burn all our conventional fossil fuel sources (or even the likelihood of such an effect if we go on to also burn unconventional sources).
I am also at least somewhat skeptical of the link the between hurricane intensity and AGW. I.e., I think that the evidence on that is truly mixed right now.
Joel Shore,
My skepticism regarding the AGW/CO2 hypothesis is the same as Dr. Roy Spencer’s skepticism:
It isn’t the job of skeptics to show that AGW/CO2 is a crock. The burden is on the promoters of that repeatedly falsified hypothesis to show that it explains reality better than natural climate variability does. They have failed.
Greenpeace sent me an email letter about the March 2 Day of Civil Disobedience talking about the people who died in Hurricane Katrina and in Australia. I wrote them back saying if the EPA had not prevented the damn in Lake Pontchartrain, the people who died in new Orleans would have lived. Also if the greenie policies had not prevented people from clearing and burning the bush, they would not have died.
Their answer:
Hi Eve,
Thank you for your message. We are astonished that people continue to build homes in environmentally unstable areas which inevitably result in damage. The answer is not to damn the rivers and destroy the bush but rather to not defy the rules of nature and build in environmentally unstable areas.
For a green and peaceful future,
Rick
Greenpeace
702 H Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20001
Re ‘skepticism’:
It is the defining and desirable attitude of the scientist, to any claim, hypothesis, proposition, theory or purported ‘fact’.
Unfortunately, the appellation ‘Skeptic’ in the ‘global warming’ debate has been turned into a term of opprobrium by the AGW theocracy, nearly equivalent to ‘heretic’.
For that reason, I suggest that in the context of AGW and ‘climate change’, that the proponents of rational science versus deceitful Alarmism be called REALISTS.
/Mr Lynn
The Guardian has put up a counter viewpoint to Hansen’s commentary in today’s paper, by Robert Bryce. Available here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/feb/18/james-hansen-coal-power-plants
I don’t think this is the best possible rebuttal; Robert makes a few errors, for example I don’t think he realises Hansen accepts nuclear as an alternative to coal. (Begrudgingly, I think, but he does accept it).
He makes a few good points though, particularly regarding developing countries, and asking what the cost of Hansen being wrong in his predictions might be.
Mr Lynn: I disagree. I think the problem with the word “skeptic” in the context of the AGW debate is that it has been appropriated by people who are not actually being skeptical at all. Rather, they have a certain pre-disposition against AGW that makes them question any evidence for it but all too easy be duped by the flimsiest and most misleading evidence against it or for some alternative hypothesis.
I don’t think the “skepticism” is bad at all. I just think that many of those who have applied the label to themselves are not applying it correctly.
Smokey says:
That is not an answer to my question. What I asked is for you to show that you actually are showing skepticism toward supposed evidence that agrees with your biases. Anyone can be “skeptical” of evidence that they don’t want to believe anyway!
REPLY: “I just think that many of those who have applied the label to themselves are not applying it correctly.”
Joel you have no idea what you are talking about. I used to be pro AGW hook line and sinker, even going so far in 1990 (in response to James Hansens’ speech before congress) to work with the National Arbor Day Foundation and TV meteorologists around the USA to get tress planted to offset CO2. 174 stations participated, 250,000 blue spruce seedlings were ordered and presumably planted. And then I started looking at the science more closely. In about two years time I was no longer a believer in CO2 being the major climate driver, but a minor one. How many have gone through this sort of transformation? You don’t even ask, you make a broad assumption.
If anything, your statement illustrates your own bias. – Anthony
foinavon (04:18:47) :
tallbloke (00:12:07)
Smokey (03:40:04) and (20:42:55)
A point about “skepticism”. Skepticism is very important in science. However skepticism only has meaning in relation to a reasonably well-informed and honest relationship with the science. Otherwise it isn’t skepticism at all, but something else.
Hey foinavon,
I’ll have you know I’m not just a sceptic, I’m a trained sceptic.
I don’t need lectures from you, I got plenty of them when I did my degree in the History and Philosophy of science.
Please try to rein in your superior attitude. It’s making the site harder to read.
Joel Shore:
Hey, I’m skeptical of astrology, too, in addition to the claim that AGW is a problem. I don’t believe either one. But if you showed me convincing evidence backed up by double-blind studies done by reputable researchers and universities, showing that the position of the Sun, the Moon, and the planets’ positions at birth have a predictable effect on a person’s personality, I would accept that at face value, absent an equally credible rebuttal [don’t hold your breath for proof of astrology like that, though].
The problem with your comment is first, skeptics have nothing to prove; they’re skeptical, see? You need to provide convincing evidence to us of the AGW/CO2 tipping point global warming hypothesis. So far there has only been speculation based on computer models.
And second, most of the key players promoting their AGW claims don’t publicly archive their raw data and methodologies. That makes their results questionable, since the same data and methodologies are needed for those studies to be replicable.
To be skeptical simply means to be questioning. I find it hard to understand how someone could not be skeptical when transparency is missing and we’re being told, in effect, “Trust us.”
tallbloke (11:07:11) :
Hey foinavon,
Please try to rein in your superior attitude. It’s making the site harder to read.”
Hear, hear
Pontificating is the word that comes to mind
Smokey:
We don’t need to do anything. The scientific community has made up its mind. The reputable scientific authorities have spoken. We could just ignore you…and perhaps the only reason I don’t do so is some combination of obsessiveness (a la this cartoon: http://xkcd.com/386/ ) and some vague hope that at least a few of the commenters here will listen.
This is a bogus claim. In fact, the data and code are way more publicly available than is the case in the fields of science that I work in. And, to the extent that the “skeptics” have played a part in making it this way, I applaud you (or, at least, those of you who are responsible for that).
Transparency is, as I noted, better than in the areas of science that I have worked in. However, I do think that modern science does involve either a certain amount of trust of scientific authorities or else A LOT of very hard work to acquire the necessary background and skills to evaluate the science yourself. Unfortunately, many people seem to want neither to trust nor to truly invest the necessary time to evaluate the science themselves, preferring instead to do a cursory job of evaluating the science and then believing that their conclusion is somehow more worthy than that of the scientific community.
As for the questioning, as I noted in my previous posts, your questioning extends in only one direction. You seem to blindly accept blatant garbage…and in fact regularly link to it here…when it supports your position. (Questioning also entails actually listening to the answers and endeavoring to understand them, another place where I am afraid you fall short.)
Tallbloke: “…who fall back on trying to vilify and character assassinate their opponents.”
I was talking about the meanings of words, not moral condemnation. That aside, in a roundabout way you appear to be challenging my claim that the connotation of the term ‘sceptic’ includes the political and ideological worldview that opposes AGW.
You offer no evidence in rebuttal. The connotation I was thinking of includes such characteristics as economic conservatism (whether in its traditional conservative form or neo-liberalism), a preference for private enterprise, a distrust of government activism, opposition to radical change, a regional/local focus, a preference for data over theory, ‘professionals’ over ‘experts’.
I’m not condemning these characteristics, merely claiming that they exist.
As for vilification, try these: “…Orwell… intellectual insanity… authoritarian collectivist… pseudoscience… rising inanity… declining mental state… Dr. Menken [Mengele?] of climatology… Enviro-wacko’s… weirdos… wimpy… scam… AGW true believers… cult… deceit, fraud and semi science…a deceitful and devious fraud [as opposed to open and honest fraud?]…”