Global warming: Our best guess is likely wrong
No one knows exactly how much Earth’s climate will warm due to carbon emissions, but a new study this week suggests scientists’ best predictions about global warming might be incorrect. The study, which appears in Nature Geoscience, found that climate models explain only about half of the heating that occurred during a well-documented period of rapid global warming in Earth’s ancient past. The study, which was published online today, contains an analysis of published records from a period of rapid climatic warming about 55 million years ago known as the Palaeocene-Eocene thermal maximum, or PETM.
“In a nutshell, theoretical models cannot explain what we observe in the geological record,” said oceanographer Gerald Dickens, a co-author of the study and professor of Earth science at Rice University. “There appears to be something fundamentally wrong with the way temperature and carbon are linked in climate models.”
During the PETM, for reasons that are still unknown, the amount of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere rose rapidly. For this reason, the PETM, which has been identified in hundreds of sediment core samples worldwide, is probably the best ancient climate analogue for present-day Earth.
In addition to rapidly rising levels of atmospheric carbon, global surface temperatures rose dramatically during the PETM. Average temperatures worldwide rose by about 7 degrees Celsius — about 13 degrees Fahrenheit — in the relatively short geological span of about 10,000 years.
Many of the findings come from studies of core samples drilled from the deep seafloor over the past two decades. When oceanographers study these samples, they can see changes in the carbon cycle during the PETM.
“You go along a core and everything’s the same, the same, the same, and then suddenly you pass this time line and the carbon chemistry is completely different,” Dickens said. “This has been documented time and again at sites all over the world.”
Based on findings related to oceanic acidity levels during the PETM and on calculations about the cycling of carbon among the oceans, air, plants and soil, Dickens and co-authors Richard Zeebe of the University of Hawaii and James Zachos of the University of California-Santa Cruz determined that the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by about 70 percent during the PETM.
That’s significant because it does not represent a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Since the start of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels are believed to have risen by about one-third, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels. If present rates of fossil-fuel consumption continue, the doubling of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels will occur sometime within the next century or two.
Doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide is an oft-talked-about threshold, and today’s climate models include accepted values for the climate’s sensitivity to doubling. Using these accepted values and the PETM carbon data, the researchers found that the models could only explain about half of the warming that Earth experienced 55 million years ago.
The conclusion, Dickens said, is that something other than carbon dioxide caused much of the heating during the PETM. “Some feedback loop or other processes that aren’t accounted for in these models — the same ones used by the IPCC for current best estimates of 21st Century warming — caused a substantial portion of the warming that occurred during the PETM.”
Source: Rice University
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In the founding work of atmospheric radiation, there was NEVER any physics or the use of any of the radiation equations that suggested CO2 could control the radiative emission from the earths surface.
It has been known for years that only water vapor and clouds have the radiating ability as “greenhouse” constituents to do this.
What has happened is that modelers have incompletley and incorrectly supplanted the founding physics with unworkable and unsolvable solutions that project an incorrect cause and effect relationship to CO2 and temperature in a water vapor and cloud mix. There is no excuse for the bad applications. The hype and gross exaggerations have enriched these selfish few at the expense of the masses. If these sorts of mistakes were happening in a private setting, those responsible would be fired. Many in government and academia seem to have insulated themselves from such retributions.
I just read that GISS has a huge June anomaly of 0.63 Celsius !!!
Global warming is really getting bad now!!
I find all of this very disturbing. In a hilarious way.
Because Jane Lubchenco, head of NOAA, says the climate models are robust enough to predict wind patterns 100 years into the future and that will help cities know where to locate wind farms.
Honestly , we’re witnessing the revenge of the nitwits.
They’ve taken over so many things at so many levels that stupidity is now an admirable trait.
“The Eocene global climate was perhaps the most homogeneous of the Cenozoic; the temperature gradient from equator to pole was only half that of today’s, and deep ocean currents were exceptionally warm. The polar regions were much warmer than today, perhaps as mild as the modern-day Pacific Northwest; temperate forests extended right to the poles, while rainy tropical climates extended as far north as 45°. The difference was greatest in the temperate latitudes; the climate in the tropics however, was probably similar to today’s.”
Stanley, Steven M. Earth System History. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1999. ISBN 0-7167-2882-6.
“There is no estimate, even probabilistically, as to the likelihood of any emissions scenario and no best guess. … Even if there were, the projections are based on model results that provide differences of the future climate relative to that today. None of the models used by IPCC are initialized to the observed state and none of the climate states in the models correspond even remotely to the current observed climate. In particular, the state of the oceans, sea ice, and soil causing it.”
Dr. Kevin Trenberth, IPCC Global Modeller, Nature Blog, June 2007.
From the article: “During the PETM, for reasons that are still unknown, the amount of carbon in Earth’s atmosphere rose rapidly.”
Well, no kidding, Jack: ‘For reasons that are still unknown.’ But everyone knows with certainty the culprits 100% responsible for causing the current CO2 rise. #1 culprit: the evil, CO2-spewing COAL! Just hearing the word coal sets an enviro’s pulse racing. King Coal must be destroyed!
Coal, which supplies half of our national energy consumption, is extremely inexpensive. But when coal companies are hounded out like the purveyors of tobacco, be prepared to pay a lot more for your power. And everything else.
No pay raise, though. Deflation and all. Sorry. But you can be proud to be so green with your new taxes. You’re very patriotic!
[OK, got carried away there…]
Anyway, the article conjectures that the planet might warm by 7° C — in ten thousand years! Think you can handle it? Or is this just more climate alarmism?
Leif Svalgaard (19:14:39) :
Or, one could assume a much more active solar forcing. Or one could assume that CO2 and temperature do not have the ‘understood’ relationship they do now. Or one could assume that we should be much colder than we are now, and that the only thing preventing an advance in glacial coverage is AGW.
This 7ºC warming over 10,000 years also yields an impressive .007ºC/decade trend. Scary stuff.
rbateman (19:38:14) :
“the_Butcher (19:20:40) :
Ask not for whom the Carbon Meteorites fall, they fall for you.
Ideas for Gore? No, but if it’s true, I have some advice for Gore: Dump the luxurious mansion and get a cave.”
Hmmm….. as I have wondered before. Why exactly were they in caves?
Didn’t know how to make huts? I doubt it.
Only hermits and monks live in caves.
Nobody lives in caves. So what were they doing in there?
Ha
http://www.images.com/image/439680/north-africa-tunisia-matmata-a-troglodyte-underground-dwelling/?&results_per_page=1&detail=TRUE&page=49
Caves are cool in hot climates? underground it is 18 degrees up it is 45?
In addition for the same reasons they protect from cold. That 18 degrees is great when all winter is below 0. In Finland they have a whole conference and museum center underground.
Our ancestors were conservationists :).
My direct ancestry comes from Kappadocia in what is now Turkey, where there are villages that can be visited, all underground, down to seven levels. It is a plateau at 2000m bitterly cold in the winter.
This provides further proof of my non-scientific and yet common-sensical view that an increase in a trace gas in the atmosphere cannot drastically or even moderately alter the climatological equilibrium of the earth.
I’m not a scientist. I’ve studied history and literature. It just seems outlandish to suppose that miniscule changes in the gaseous content of the atmosphere can produce cataclysmic results in the earth’s climate.
David (21:46:15) :
the only thing preventing an advance in glacial coverage is AGW.
Hey, let’s have some more of it. Warm is better than cold…
http://www.turizm.net/cities/cappadocia/underground.htm
The first mention of these subterranean sites occurs in the works of Xenophon written around 400 BC. Xenophon was a Greek mercenary who took charge of the Ten Thousand after the death of Cyrus, marching across Cappadocia with them:
The houses were built underground; the entrances were like wells but they broadened out lower down. There were tunnels dug in the ground for the animals wkile the men went down by ladder. Inside the houses there were goats, sheep, cows and poultry with their young […]
There was also wheat, beans, and barley wine in great bowls […] When one was thirsty, one was meant to take a reed and suck the wine into one’s mouth. This barley wine is exceedingly strong and is best mixed with water; but any man who is accustomed to it and drinks it undiluted enjoys its flavor to the full.
In my father’s time, before the 1922 exchange of populations, there were second level basements connecting all houses to the church with underground tunnels and hence to an old higher mountain village site , again through tunnels. They were a defense against the arab invasions in the 1o0th century. These tunnels by my father’s time were in disuse and disrepair.
Leif Svalgaard (22:19:23) :
“Hey, let’s have some more of it. Warm is better than cold…”
Agreed! You work for NASA, so have them shoot off another satellite. Wait until fall, so we can get those GHGs during the winter time, when we need them most. Ohio gets cold in the winter. Not as cold as MA, where I used to live, but cold enough.
Louis Hissink (18:48:10) :
Is there any observational evidence that temperature lags CO2 at any scale?
***************************
Bravo Louis – That is the Question!
And I’ll bet the answer is NO – CO2 lages temperature at all measured time scales..
” 10,000 years to rise 7C? Linearly? ”
which is only 0.07C per century!
and we’ve done 1.0C in the last century! 14x as much!
OMG, the warmists will kill us with this information. It’s a good thing you never forget how to ride a bike, because that will be the only transport left to us (as long as we don’t fart).
i am curriously,,, how is the earth we living,,,,,, on 10 years next
You know, the answer I always get when criticizing model sensitivities is “GEOLOGY DENIER! What are you some kind of young Earth Creationist? The Paleo-record SUPPORTS our models FLAT EARTH HOLOCAUST DENYING POOPYHEAD!”
Oops, so much for that…
anna v (22:20:59) :
It’s not the modern civilization that I wonder about. I know what they are doing with underground dwellings (escaping heat & cold, making wine and cheeses, etc.).
It’s the prehistoric hunter/gatherers.
You can’t take a cave with you to follow the herds.
Living permanently in a cave says affluent.
They were either doing really well, or were seeking shelter from somthing.
But, it was only a thought.
Call me a simpleton, but:
Freshman chemistry shows that increasing the temperature of carbonated water will cause an outgassing of CO2. In an open system, reducing the atmospheric pressure will have the same effect. On this, all will agree?
For the AGW folks, increasing atmospheric CO2 will increase temperature, which (presumably) wll cause more outgassing of CO2.
If both these theorems are true, is seems the Earth would long ago have assumed room temperature- the room temperature of Venus.
This hasn’t happened, so it follows logically that both cannot be true. The AGW folks want their premise to be true, no matter how self-evident the alternate explanation may be. Does it follow that if the first is true (and it undoubtedly is), the second cannot also be true? Just asking.
Bill Illis’s chart (18:20) showing newer research re CO2 levels versus temperature definitely does not suggest any correlation between CO2 and temperature. However, there is an interesting CO2 spike (up to ~1700 ppm) sometime around 54 Ma. In looking for volcanic eruptions for that time I found an article by Hans Egger and Ewald Brucki (2006) on the North Atlantic Igneous Province. “The most powerful single eruption of this series took place at 54.0 million years ago (Ma) and ejected ca. 1,200 km [cubed] of ash material, which makes it one of the largest basaltic pyroclastic eruptions in geological history.”
In a little further reading the NAIP eruption seems to have released a large amount of seafloor methane hydrate which apparently oxidizes into CO2 (non-scientist writing). Don’t know what to make of it, although spikes are always interesting. This province was erupting from 62-58 Ma (phase 1) when the temperature was cooling and again from 56-54 Ma (phase 2) when the temperature began its “steady rise” to the Eocene Thermal Maximum.
Hi L.
Key point. If the climate is sensitive to CO2, why haven’t we had runaway global warming in the past 500 million years…
Yeah it never get’s answered by the AGW Alarmists.
If CO2 lags temperature in all measured time scales…then CO2 is not a driver of temperature, but a lag indicator of temperature.
C02 changes because temperature changes and not the other way around.
About an EARLIER paper by the same authors (2008):
A particular concern over the long run is the potential for positive feedback that could amplify the initial warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions. For example, one possible cause of the PETM is the decomposition of methane deposits on the sea floor, which could have been triggered by an initial warming. Methane hydrates are frozen deposits found in the deep ocean near continental margins. Methane released from the deposits would react with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. Both compounds are potent greenhouse gases.
“We have some new evidence that there was a lag between the initial warming and the main carbon excursion of the PETM…It’s consistent with the notion of a positive feedback, with an initial warming causing the hydrates to decompose,” he said.
However, methane hydrates are not specifically mentioned in the current paper’s Abstract:
…We conclude that in addition to direct CO2 forcing, other processes and/or feedbacks that are hitherto unknown must have caused a substantial portion of the warming during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. Once these processes have been identified, their potential effect on future climate change needs to be taken into account.
What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
Jane Austen (1775-1817) English novelist, author of “Sense and Sensibility
One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-Swiss-U.S. scientist.
When will the madness end?
morganovich (18:23:28) :
The heating came about 3,000 years before the CO2 rise during the PETM. See here for example:
http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2006-0906-200913/index.htm
Bill Illis (18:20:27) :
You are conflating two different processes, the long-term paleocene/eocene climate warming and the short-term PETM excursions. The interesting thing is that after the PETM temperatures went back to where they started, and the long-term rise went on just as before, suggesting that two independent mechanisms were involved. Incidentally there is evidence that PETM and a couple of similar though smaller eocene temperature excursions are related to orbital cycles which suggests that insolation chanes arte somehow involved (surprise!).
rbateman (23:02:07) :
anna v (22:20:59) :
It’s not the modern civilization that I wonder about. I know what they are doing with underground dwellings (escaping heat & cold, making wine and cheeses, etc.).
It’s the prehistoric hunter/gatherers.
You can’t take a cave with you to follow the herds.
Fair enough, but you are thinking of the prehistoric as a modern. They would not be able to follow herds in the cold of winter. They would need a winter village and a nomadic tent herd following village during the temperate times. Shepherd clans still do that in Greece and I am sure the rest of the Balkans, a permanent base for winter and nomadic life with their herds in the summer.
To go back to the thread I would agree that the gradual rising of temperature/CO2 shown in this study, would be easy for humans to adapt to any time with caves in the picture or not.