Meanwhile today while CO2 is increasing, the Antarctic ice cap is also increasing.
Bill Illis writes about it:
Ice sheets formed in Antarctica about 35 million years ago when CO2 was about 1,200 ppm. Ice sheets also formed in Antarctica about 350 to 290 million years ago when CO2 was about 350 ppm. Ice sheets also formed in Antarctica about 450 to 430 million years ago when CO2 was about 4,500 ppm. The more common denominator is when continental drift places Antarctica at the south pole.
Below, Antarctica today.
New data illuminates Antarctic ice cap formation
From a Bristol University Press release issued 13 September 2009
A paper published in Nature
New carbon dioxide data confirm that formation of the Antarctic ice-cap some 33.5 million years ago was due to declining carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
A team of scientists from Bristol, Cardiff and Texas A&M universities braved the lions and hyenas of a small East African village to extract microfossils from rocks which have revealed the level of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere at the time of the formation of the ice-cap.
Geologists have long speculated that the formation of the Antarctic ice-cap was caused by a gradually diminishing natural greenhouse effect. The study’s findings, published in Nature online, confirm that atmospheric CO2 started to decline about 34 million years ago, during the period known to geologists as the Eocene – Oligocene climate transition, and that the ice sheet began to form about 33.5 million years ago when CO2 in the atmosphere reached a tipping point of around 760 parts per million (by volume).
The new findings will add to the debate around rising CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere as the world’s attention turns to the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen which opens later this year.
Dr Gavin Foster from the University of Bristol and a co-author on the paper said: “By using a rather unique set of samples from Tanzania and a new analytical technique that I developed, we have, for the first time, been able to reconstruct the concentration of CO2 across the Eocene-Oligocene boundary – the time period about 33.5 million years ago when ice sheets first started to grow on Eastern Antarctica. “
Professor Paul Pearson from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, who led the mission to the remote East Africa village of Stakishari said: “About 34 million years ago the Earth experienced a mysterious cooling trend. Glaciers and small ice sheets developed in Antarctica, sea levels fell and temperate forests began to displace tropical-type vegetation in many areas.
“The period culminated in the rapid development of a continental-scale ice sheet on Antarctica, which has been there ever since. We therefore set out to establish whether there was a substantial decline in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels as the Antarctic ice sheet began to grow.”
Co-author Dr Bridget Wade from Texas A&M University Department of Geology and Geophysics added: “This was the biggest climate switch since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
“Our study is the first to provide a direct link between the establishment of an ice sheet on Antarctica and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and therefore confirms the relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and global climate.”
The team mapped large expanses of bush and wilderness and pieced together the underlying local rock formations using occasional outcrops of rocks and stream beds. Eventually they discovered sediments of the right age near a traditional African village called Stakishari. By assembling a drilling rig and extracting hundreds of meters of samples from under the ground they were able to obtain exactly the piece of Earth’s history they had been searching for.
Further information:
The paper:Atmospheric carbon dioxide through the Eocene–Oligocene climate transition. Paul N. Pearson, Gavin L. Foster & Bridget S. Wade. Nature online, Sunday 13th September.
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Scroll down to page 344. The circumpolar current, which if allowed to circumvent, keeps Antarctica separate from warmer currents. But this current was not always engaged. It was blocked (more than once?) by uplift, subduction, and sea level changes. The research really should be looking at this area and taking core samples. But that research is far more expensive than drilling in a dry village. It is a stretch to connect CO2 in a hot, dry village with what happens to ice in Antarctica. This is the same type of argument one sees with “Gee the minutely changing Sun way up there is probably causing these changes, not the highly variable oceans next door to us.”
http://books.google.com/books?id=fRJtB2MNdJMC&pg=PA344&lpg=PA344&dq=CO2+in+antarctica&source=bl&ots=dkgRZtgJKp&sig=M61bkeU6TZDSjCbSkTjUuu9JgTY&hl=en&ei=QfGvSuuLOY2cMf-BqfIN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7#v=onepage&q=CO2%20in%20antarctica&f=false
TonyB,
“We can agree to disagree about the merits of a global temperature in the first place, let alone one selected and sustained from such small numbers of historic stations that then changed so much in number and location.”
You’re not off the hook so easily – this is a question of science, not personal preference! Firstly, contrary to the repeated ramblings of E. M. Smith, who really needs to study Nyquist’s theorem a little more, there is a clear definition of what we mean by a global average and accepted ways of measuring it, within a certain error margin. I don’t know of a single climate scientist, Roy Spencer, John Christy or James Hansen included, who would argue otherwise.
The variation in global temperature averages derived from the microwave measurements of satellites of the troposphere and the averages calulated from direct measurements from ground stations agree to within a fraction of a degree. This gives us good confidence that such measurements can be reliably made.
These averages pick up such global phenomena as cooling from volcanic eruptions and El Niño events, so certainly have merit in measuring a range of processes. Despite all of this you appear to think that what such global temperatures cannot be relied upon to measure a warming signal.
Why, given their undoubted success in helping us understand the thermal behaviour of the world in other ways, do you think that globally averaged temperatures have this particular blind spot?
Jeff Green,
“If ice sheets across all of Antarctica were to completely melt then sea level rise would be something like 70 m, . . .You can find the numbers from wikipedia and calculate them yourself. I have already done that. Its a very simple eercise.”
It’s not your calculations I take issue with Jeff, it’s the assertion that the Antarctic is going to melt. Even IPCC models only indicate sea level rise of maximum 80cm by 2100. But then I guess they’ll have to be updated for AR5.
Tom P:
There is an excellent long discussion of global temperatures that accepts the figures you are using, but derives a non-AGW conclusion. It also includes little-known long-term temperature record proxies from Asia (e.g., the date of ice break-ups on certain lakes). See Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu’s paper, “Two Natural Components of Recent Climate Change,” here (as a 50-Mb PDF):
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/little_ice_age.php
=========
When I get up the energy, I want to write a long proposal on a satisfactory solution to the betting problem. I’ve got bits and pieces done already, but it may take me a week or two. Please click on the “Notify me” check-box below the comment box here, so you’ll get it when I post it here (in the “Research Claim: dropping co2 …” thread.) I may also post it in the Tips thread.
Roger Knights,
“There is an excellent long discussion of global temperatures that accepts the figures you are using, but derives a non-AGW conclusion.”
Here’s a quicker download of the most relevant plot:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg
Akasofu is right that the data shows two important components, one cyclic and one increasing. But he has to ignore any data in this plot before 1880 in order not to contradict the linear trend which he attributes to recovery from the Little Ice Age. That is because before 1880 the temperature is seen to start flattening:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/1994/glaciervsinstrumental.png
Rather than recovery from the LIA, there is another explanation with a much better correlated variation:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/graphics/lawdome.gif
“When I get up the energy, I want to write a long proposal on a satisfactory solution to the betting problem.”
The problem as far as I can see is that although many posters state with great certainty their beliefs as to how the climate will change, they are curiously reluctant to then wager that they are indeed correct.
But I’ll look out for your proposal.
Joel Shore (09:22:39)
yes this is so. The earth is not a mechanical equation in the climatologist’s handbook that conforms to the laws of input and output. Most heat is absorbed by landmass and oceans, and clouds, where the 2nd law of thermodynamics then enters the equationThe amount of solar energy received at the earth isn’t constant, and relies on many factors. The 2nd law can be demonstrated by a poker in ahot fire. Take it out and the poker is hot, and excited the atoms in the air around it, heating them. After a while the poker cools to the ambient temperature of the air, and “equilibrium” is restored
evanmJones says:
No they don’t. If they did, we’d just need to measure the temperature at two places: the coldest and the warmest. (I am talking about spatial averages not daily temporal averages.)
TonyB says:
And yet, we know for a fact that since the 1950s when Keeling’s measurements began, the CO2 increase (besides a seasonal cycle that varies with location) is indeed slow and steady, indicating that the natural fluxes do maintain a good balance. Why do you believe that things were so different when Keeling wasn’t looking? Or do you doubt the modern CO2 measurements?
Vincent says:
You are running around in circles, Vincent. My original post that triggered this whole line of discussion was responding to someone who was saying essentially, “Why should we care if CO2 levels of 760ppm cause the Antarctic to melt? We won’t ever get that high anyway.” In response, I pointed out that in fact we could get that high given our coal reserves and, furthermore, that melting of the whole Antarctic is a much more extreme scenario than anyone including Al Gore has ever talked about and would result in about 70m of sea level rise, so lower CO2 levels where only part of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets melts is already a big problem. I noted that if 760ppm of CO2 really causes the whole Antarctic ice cap to melt then in fact the climate sensitivity must be much larger than anyone has imagined. (At the same time, I noted that one reason why 760ppm might not cause the whole Antarctic ice sheet to melt even if dropping below it was sufficient to initiate the ice sheet is that the ice-albedo effect likely introduces hysteresis into the system.)
But just for the record, the IPCC didn’t quite say that the maximum possible sea level rise by 2100 is 80cm. Their estimates of sea level rise basically started with the assumption that there is no dynamic mechanism that leads to increasingly rapid breakup of the ice sheets because they felt the science on that was not advanced enough to make an estimate of how much sea level rise might occur in such a case.
Scott Mandia says:
No problem. There are so few of us to represent this point of view that I figure that we have to help each other out! And, I think you are too modest in your assessment of your presentations … I very much enjoy your posts here.
P Wilson (14:47:29): I lost you. Are you actually proposing that the earth is so far out of equilibrium that the amount of energy it radiates to space differs by a significant fractional amount (say, several percent or more) from the amount that it receives from the sun?!? That would certainly be big news! I’m not so worried about the Second Law of Thermodynamics as I am about the First!
I am continually at a loss as to why people here and elsewhere insist on using “wikipedia” as a source for hard facts. How does a hearsay, ad hoc, opinion based encyclopedia qualify as a source of empirical data?
Or am I alone in this concern?
TomP said
“You’re not off the hook so easily – this is a question of science, not personal preference! Firstly, contrary to the repeated ramblings of E. M. Smith, who really needs to study Nyquist’s theorem a little more, there is a clear definition of what we mean by a global average and accepted ways of measuring it, within a certain error margin.”
I am sure a warming or cooling signal of some sort can be picked up, but that it is accurate enough to parse to fractions of a degree back to 1850 is doubtful, especially when all the major datrasets disagree with each others figures;
So, what is a global temperature, how was it created and what is its value?? (as Albert Einstein said “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called
research)
Link 1 Wikipedia’s explanation of global temperature with a colour globe showing location of weather stations world wide.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GHCN_Temperature_Stations.png
Link 2 Even better explanation with graphs
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_Part2_GlobalTempMeasure.htm
Link 3 This piece is taken from link 2 and is a blink chart illustrating station change
http://climate.geog.udel.edu/~climate/html_pages/air_ts2.html
(go to first item- ‘stations locations’ and click) You will get a media player animation illustrating the ever changing location and number of weather stations from 1950. Look for the startling changes since 1990.
Link 4, Over the years four major temperature data sets have evolved, this link shows how each are compiled
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2008/04/common-climate-misconceptions-global-temperature-records/
This next link is from Phil Jones at Cru East Anglia on uncertainties in their data sets back to 1850.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005JD006548.shtml
Link 5 James Hansen was foremost in developing a co2 hypotheses which he combined with his work on calculating global temperatures. He believed this definitively supported his view of a proven link between rising (man made) co2 and rising temperatures over the past 130 years or more. Due to this and various other papers (also cited here) he has become a pivotal figure and is responsible for the temperature data set called Giss. This paper is from Hansen in 2009 which shows how Giss is compiled
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
So I have set out the background of what each data set measures, where the weather stations are located and how they change in location and number from year to year.
Link 6 The link below is Hansen’s original 1987 paper which is still much used by the climate industry as proof of temperature change since 1880.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1987/1987_Hansen_Lebedeff.pdf
It was a good piece of detective work from a highly competent and motivated scientist and the following year he used this document as the basis for his talk to Congress on catastrophic warming linked to rising man made co2 emissions- allegedly after ensuring the air conditioning was turned off to ensure his message had a greater impact.
If you look at figure 4 of this paper (after first reading how many times the word ‘estimates’ is used (to excuse the interpolation of data to compensate for the lack of numerical or spatial coverage) you will see that it shows the tiny numbers of stations in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres from which the data was initially derived.
In 1850 in the whole of the NH there were 60 weather stations and in the SH there were 10. Hansen chose to use data from 1880 believing the 1850 compilations were too sparse (although they are still frequently cited)
By about 1900 we theoretically had 50% coverage in the NH (if you accept very large gridded squares of 1200km as ample coverage with which to record inconsistent data) and it took until 1940 for the same coverage in the SH.
The Sea surface temperatures (SST) also cited here has been hotly contested due to the nature of the ships data being used-you might have followed the long debate on Climate Audit about Buckets and water intakes. (As an aside, quite by chance I met someone who served on a ship and took these water temperatures, and the word haphazard is far too kind a word to use)
Following James Hansen’s 1987 paper many people have attempted to deconstruct his global temperatures, describing either the concept of a single global temperature as flawed, or querying the quality of the data- particularly the further back in history the data refers to.
(G S Callendar wrote his influential co2 thesis in 1938 and even then used only a total of 200 stations worldwide, many of which he was not impressed with-the numbers he believed could be relied on for the period in question here -pre 1900- numbered in the few dozens.)
Link 7 This from IPCC reviewer Vincent Gray querying the meaning of global temperatures
http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?Itemid=32&id=26&option=com_content&task=view
Link 8 this rebuttal from Vincent Gray of the nature of Hansen’s data in general
http://www.fcpp.org/pdf/The_Cause_of_Global_Warming_Policy_Series_7.pdf
Link 9 this rebuttal from Ross McKitrick of Hansen’s data
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/jgr07/M&M.JGRDec07.pdf
Link 10 this refers to the fuss about McKitrick’s paper which was hotly refuted by various people as it queried the very core of AGW data.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Talk:Ross_McKitrick
Link 11 this technical interrogation of the calculations from Climate Audit
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2015
So we have several sets of parallel discussions whereby the meaning or worth of a single global temperature is queried in the first place, and the reliability of the information gathered is contested. This revolves mainly around changes in weather station locations, numbers, methodology and general consistency, and therefore the overall reliability of the information derived.
At this stage we can now factor in two additional elements. The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects have been largely minimised by the IPCC. The background is that many previously rural stations have been engulfed by urban development and many were (and still are) on airfields that have developed enormously, all of which impact on the temperatures being recorded. The warmer temperatures often experienced in urban situations are in contrast to those that may have been recorded when the same weather stations were more rural-which were often cooler in nature.
Link 12 The official view that UHI has no real impact on global temperatures is clarified here;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_heat_island
“Peterson (2003) indicates that the effects of the urban heat island may have been overstated, finding that “Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures.” This was done by using satellite-based night-light detection of urban areas, and more thorough homogenisation of the time series (with corrections, for example, for the tendency of surrounding rural stations to be slightly higher, and thus cooler, than urban areas). As the paper says, if its conclusion is accepted, then it is necessary to “unravel the mystery of how a global temperature time series created partly from urban in situ stations could show no contamination from urban warming.” The main conclusion is that micro- and local-scale impacts dominate the meso-scale impact of the urban heat island: many sections of towns may be warmer than rural sites, but meteorological observations are likely to be made in park “cool islands.”
A study by David Parker published in Nature in November 2004 and in Journal of Climate in 2006 attempts to test the urban heat island theory, by comparing temperature readings taken on calm nights with those taken on windy nights. If the urban heat island theory is correct then instruments should have recorded a bigger temperature rise for calm nights than for windy ones, because wind blows excess heat away from cities and away from the measuring instruments. There was no difference between the calm and windy nights, and the author says: we show that, globally, temperatures over land have risen as much on windy nights as on calm nights, indicating that the observed overall warming is not a consequence of urban development.[14][15]
Link 13 The IPCC Physical Basis report http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html makes the following statements:
• “Urban heat islands result partly from the physical properties of the urban landscape and partly from the release of heat into the environment by the use of energy for human activities such as heating buildings and powering appliances and vehicles (‘human energy production’). The global total heat flux from this is estimated as 0.03 W m–2 (Nakicenovic, 1998). If this energy release were concentrated in cities, which are estimated to cover 0.046% of the Earth’s surface (Loveland et al., 2000) the mean local heat flux in a city would be 65 W m–2. Daytime values in central Tokyo typically exceed 400 W m–2 with a maximum of 1,590 W m–2 in winter (Ichinose et al., 1999). Although human energy production is a small influence at the global scale, it may be very important for climate changes in cities” [emphasis added]
• “Over the conterminous USA, after adjustment for time-of-observation bias and other changes, rural station trends were almost indistinguishable from series including urban sites” [emphasis added]
The data don’t support these IPCC statements as shown below using examples from around the world.
“Since most of the long-term temperature stations are in cities, this is more significant than implied by the IPCC, because that’s where the data is recorded. While reading this document comparing the effects of urbanization on temperature trends, keep in mind the IPCC’s position that ): “Urbanisation impacts on global and hemispheric temperature trends have been found to be small. Furthermore, once the landscape around a station becomes urbanized, long-term trends for that station are consistent with nearby rural stations” (AR4, Chapter 3, 2007).
The Surface Stations web site http://www.surfacestations.org/ is accumulating physical site data for the temperature measurement stations (including photographs) and identifying problem stations -there are a significant number of stations with improper site characteristics.” (Also see link 15 for results on this project)
Link 14 A new study illustrates that our personal observations that it is often hotter in urban than rural areas -particularly at night- appears more correct than the previous scientific studies mentioned above that were claimed to disprove this apparent observed UHI effect.
The amount of adjustment to take into account this UHI factor is often limited (to all practical purposes) and the apparent impact on temperatures will consequently be larger than had previously been factored in if this new study is accepted.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6256520.ece
Link 15 In addition to the uhi effect there is a problem with general siting of a significant number of the stations in the US used to collect temperature data. (Which may amplify the UHI effects or be a separate issue to the effect noted) That is the prime focus of Anthony Watts’s site surfacestations.org. Below is a copy of Anthony Watts report, just out, on the poor quality of a significant number of US surface stations.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/surfacestationsreport_spring09.pdf
Our own observations in other countries will illustrate poor examples of temperature recording.
Link 16 When looking at Hansen’s Reconstructed global temperatures to 1880 described in link 6, it is also useful to read his paper here;
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html
When he confirms the global temperatures have an inaccuracy factor of 2 Degrees F. This appears to be a margin of error that is twice that being cited for proof of warming (0.6C since mid 19th Century.)
It is worth considering all this string of papers together:
*Combine the dubious concept of a single global temperature (Hansen and IPCC) potentially poor data from a tiny number of inconsistent stations since 1880 (Hansen) with;
*the report on the temperature increase caused by UHI (Sunday Times) and * the unreliability of US weather stations (Anthony Watts)
*the margin of error in global temperatures (Hansen) and it is difficult to understand how such credence can be placed on the temperature data in general, and long term global ones in particular, especially when parsed to fractions of a degree in order to link it to a hotly contested co2 hypothesis.
The end result is that we have very heated discussions (and political action) centred around environmental ideologies based on what appears to be contentious data-temperatures and co2- that are linked and cited with absolute certainty as definitive proof of man made warming.
As for verifying EM Smiths ‘repeated ramblings’ I suggest you take a visit over to his excellent ‘chiefio’ site and read some of his comments on GISS when you are feeling in a more objective frame of mind.
tonyb
Joel: The earth is never in Equilibrium, which is why we have a changing climate and weather. The amount of sun reacing the earth is quite tiny, and even when it does, it becomes converted to one form or another. Its not like heat is a fixed isolated factor that can’t change. The earth received very little solar energy, but that what happens to it in the atmosphere is the salient characteristic. Solar waves carry very little heat. It is what happens to them when they hit the earth’s atmospheric matter that produces energy. Even then, it matters what angle solar waves hit the earth, how much is diffused, how much is impeded or blocked by clouds and ozone, and how much bounces back.
If we were to believe that heat was a constant isolated factor then the poker experiment would reveal different results. The poker would remain hot and the air around it would heat slightly, bu according the the climatologists theory of heat input, nothing would get cool from the radiation of the poker, and the poker would remain eternally hot. Now we all know that this heat disippates in even a closed system until thermal equilibrium is restored. It doesn’t radiate to other parts of the system waiting to strike at the nearest cool spot.
In fact, Joel, i’m saying that re-radiated heat is quite a tiny fraction. Some 1-3% of the original incoming. Even if c02 had the magical properties that it is reputed to have by those who haven’t studied its properties, this still isn’t enough to generate “global warming”.
as for the 1st law of thermodynamics – the earth is trying hard to conserve heat right now
Joel
The amount of the natural co2 flux depends on a variety of factors in any one year, including volcanos and especially temperature, and so will vary substantially year to year -Richard Courtney says it centres around 200Gt I had thought it to be around 165GT.
I don’t think you will disagree that mans emission is around 3-5% of the natural total (give or take)
To maintain the average quoted, natural emissions may be 90% of its average in any one year, and in another year 110% (give or take)
You say co2 increases are ‘indeed slow and steady, indicating that the natural fluxes do maintain a good balance.’
So, even in a ‘110%’ year i.e. greater than ‘average’ all the ‘extra’ natural co2 is absorbed seamlessly without a hiccup on the graph, even though the ‘extra’ 10% is far greater than mans emissions, which you say aren’t absorbed but instead slowly increase the overall concentrations. That doesn’t appear very logical.
Surely it is more logical that these (considerable) natural variations (with mans tiny emissions on top) would show up as peaks and troughs?
As to why they’re not, I would be speculating if I gave an answer to that. It just seems reasonable to me that the pre 1957 figures are re-examined because they weren’t calculated by idiots, but by serious people who matter of factly took such measurements for a variety of purposes.
tonyb
TonyB,
“I am sure a warming or cooling signal of some sort can be picked up, but that it is accurate enough to parse to fractions of a degree back to 1850 is doubtful, especially when all the major datrasets disagree with each others figures.”
You fell at the first hurdle.
Here are the major datasets plotted together:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/gistemp/plot/uah/plot/rss
That one plot undermines all of your other points concerning the existence, reliability and trend of global average temperatures.
P Wilson says:
Because who needs the First Law of Thermodynamics anyway?
I’ve seen lots of unusual claims made on this website, but this one might take the cake.
Thanks for the reasoned reply Joel. There is nothing unusual about it. Earth isn’t a statistical flow chart like a bookeepers account log. In fact there’s quite a lot of physics about energy conversion
P Wilson: Are you aware that there are people (including Roy Spencer) measuring the earth’s radiation budget by satellite ( http://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/ceres_aqua.html ). I am sure that they will be fascinated by your theory that the heat radiated by the earth back out into space is only 1-3% of the incoming solar energy!
When a part of the ocean evaporates, it sends a lot of heat and water vapour into the atmosphere, which is still a tiny fraction of original solar energy. Note, this is longwave radiation, or else the 4th power energy transfer.
For a long time, NASA have had the 41% re-radiated energy model. It simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. In physics, things only give off as much heat as their temperature, so solid matter doesn’t give off any radiation. Even oceans which have a maximum of 80F, but a much lower average don’t give off much radiation. “Normal temperature” matter (like you patio or green fields) doesn’t give off any radiation.
Its true that a lot of energy is reflected from the earth back into space, and that the atmosphere is the conduit of course.. However, the longwave rwe-radiation doesn’t actually penetrate biomass or oceans, as its energy is too low.
note: carbon dioxide cannot absorb radiation coming from teh sun. It can only absorb radiation coming from earth.
Even thermal imaging camreas don’t detect any significant re-radiation from biomass (from helicopters or aeroplanes), so to say that the earth re-radiates a lot of energy is quite simply an untruth, based on mathematics than evidence. This is done in the same way that Galileo disproved Aristotle’s assertion that an object weighing 10 times as much as another will reach the ground 10 times more quickly from the same height.
Logically sound, bu empirically untrue.
Vincent wrote:
[It’s not your calculations I take issue with Jeff, it’s the assertion that the Antarctic is going to melt. Even IPCC models only indicate sea level rise of maximum 80cm by 2100. But then I guess they’ll have to be updated for AR5.]
I haven’t asserted that all of the anartic will melt. But then are you asserting that the temperature will not rise in the antartic futher increasing the melt rate.
The greatest increase in temperature on earth is at the artic now, increasing the melt rate there. Business as usual burning of fossil fuels takes us to about 6 degrees centigrade average increase by 2100. IPCC was quite conservative in their models for consensus reasons. 800 to 1000 ppm puts us in the disastrous zone for our climate.
rbateman (20:23:14) :
AnonyMoose (20:10:23) :
“I don’t recall ever seeing the topography of Antarctica.”
I’ve had these saved for a while, just because they’re interesting:
click1
click2
click3
Solomon Green (12:07:42) : wrote:
I meant to inquire why go to Tanzania to examine rocks that are only 33.5 million years old? The rocks at the bottom of the Maktesh Ramon (500 meters deep) are 200 million old. And, I believe, the wall of the North West face of the crater exposes a ontinuous history of rock starting well over 50 million years ago and ending with the present day. Since the crater is natural, is not volcanic (although the 50 square mile crater does contain an extinct volcano) and it was not formed as a result of a meteor strike, there were, and probably still are, a wealth of fossils from all ages to be found. Does Dr. Gavin Foster need a special type of fossil for his CO2 proxies? And if so, why?
I got the impression that this area had about the best sample to reach in Africa. This can be compared to other samples gaithered in the future to make comparisons and see if similar results come about or something different. That is part of the process of science in seeking what’s true.
Tom P:
“There are not any globally representative temperature records that go back 400 years as far as I know…”
Michael Mann is not going to be happy with you, that’s for sure.
But your refusal to accept that there is a log response to CO2 might redeem you in the bristlecone guy’s eyes: click.
Smokey,
“There are not any globally representative temperature records that go back 400 years as far as I know…”
Records, as in recorded temperature logs from enough sites around the world to construct a global average. The oldest individual record only goes back to the middle of the 17th century, as far as I’m aware, and no global average can be calculated for before the 19th century.
As for derived temperature series, of course these exist. Oerlemans’ glacier-derived temperature series going back to 1600 that I’ve linked to above is just one example. Please keep up.
“Your refusal to accept that there is a log response to CO2…”
Of course there a log response – that’s why all climate scientists measure climate sensitivity in terms of the temperature increase from a CO2 concentration doubling. Could you cite an example where Mann states otherwise?
The plot you link to is in serious error. It claims that the first 20 ppm of CO2 only contributes 1.5 degrees of warming. Strip all the CO2 out of our atmosphere and we would be very much colder.
Nevertheless, this plot demonstrates the important point that between 280 ppm and 380 ppm the 20 ppm increments are only slowly losing their warming contribution . The logarithmic response implies that the warming contribution drops by about 25% over this range. There is therefore not much saturation in the warming seen from CO2 increases over the last 150 years.
Can I take it that you accept there is a log response to CO2, and hence these increases have been warming the Earth?
Jeff Green
Business as usual burning of fossil fuels takes us to about 6 degrees centigrade average increase by 2100. IPCC was quite conservative in their models for consensus reasons. 800 to 1000 ppm puts us in the disastrous zone for our climate.
Jeff, I’m ever searching for truth in this sea of lies and propaganda. If you could just show me where you get these diamonds of scientific wisdom from it would settle my mind. Please don’t tell me it’s those model predictions again?
One theme that I note with AGW is the obsession with the Antarctica melt. As the average temperature of Antarctica is in the range of minus 40 dgrees, any melt and consequent rise in sea level would be the least of our problems. If the temperature in Antarctica rises over 40 degrees, then what is the rise in the rest of the world ?