The Uncertain Inn, Uncertain TX. Image from Travelpod - click
Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
You readers here at Watts Up With That have been very kind to me during my guest-blogging stint here, and I’d like to express my thanks for the cordial reception I have found, especially since I’m well aware that my views are not really congruent with those of many viewers. You all are certainly more open-minded and accommodating than the audience at many other internet locations. (Okay, enough sucking up–get on with it!)
However, one commenter on my last post had the audacity–the sheer audacity–to criticize my writing because this is a science blog after all, and my guest posts have not been about the science. Well, touche and all that, my dear sir, but well, I’m not a scientist.
We are not really at the point where only scientists can say intelligent things about climate change.
Two reasons: First, the basics are pretty well understood. CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere. (If it doesn’t, it’s because other forces are counteracting it, not that it doesn’t exist.) This really is not very controversial at all.
Second, the controversial part of the discussion is not going to be settled any time soon. We really do not know the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. We are not likely to know for at least 30 years–and that’s if we’re lucky, according to Judith Curry.
To offer the extreme and absurdist example, as Roger Pielke Jr. points out on his weblog, we could achieve our emission reduction goals overnight, by switching from BP’s estimate of our 2009 emissions of CO2 to the IEA’S estimates of the same. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty out there.
So, despite their protestations, climate scientists at this point have about as much ‘clout’ in deciding what we should do as anybody else. So your comments and my guest posts here are not automatically dismissable as coming from the rabble. What we write on this weblog and others should be evaluated on the merits of what we say. Of course, people who have been studying the biology, chemistry, geology and ecological interactions of this planet should be treated with quite a bit more respect, and many climate scientists got their start in one of those fields–by no means am I trying to exclude them from the conversation, just because they can’t point at a red dot on a thermometer and say ‘that’s where we’ll be in 90 years.’
It is my own belief that other things we do here on this Earth have an impact on this planet, and that we should be aware of the impacts and in some cases work to lessen them. It is a happy coincidence that lessening these other impacts may also serve to reduce the impacts of whatever climate change we may be causing with CO2.
In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate. It has changed the albedo of the land and it has changed the level and movement of moisture over (and around) the cultivated areas. The vertical columns of air that shape what we perceive as weather are hugely affected by this. As they are by creation of manmade reservoirs behind the 850,000 dams we have built.
We have cut down forests, and not only for agriculture. They’re recovering in the developed world, but not in the emerging nations that still need the wood for fuel and the land for space. And again, this has affected the entire ecology and that does include climate.
(Digression–with the increasing urbanisation of this planet, some of these effects will lessen. More of us will live in cities, occupying a smaller space. Technology will reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture, despite our growing population. Some things will get better–maybe a lot of things, if we work for them.)
I could go on, but the point is clear enough for you to either agree or disagree. We are changing our planet, and one poorly understood change is the composition of the atmosphere.
Had the IPCC and others been savvy enough to look at all the changes we are making instead of just focusing on the ‘flavor of the month,’ I think the science–and our options–would have been more clearly expressed and more believable.
Instead, they focused on CO2 and treated all who disagreed as the rabble I mentioned before. What they wanted was a rabble alarmed. What they got was a rabble in arms.
We Talk About Politics Because The Science Is Uncertain
You readers here at Watt’s Up With That have been very kind to me during my guest-blogging stint here, and I’d like to express my thanks for the cordial reception I have found, especially since I’m well aware that my views are not really congruent with those of many viewers. You all are certainly more open-minded and accommodating than the audience at many other internet locations. (Okay, enough sucking up–get on with it!)
However, one commenter on my last post had the audacity–the sheer audacity–to criticize my writing because this is a science blog after all, and my guest posts have not been about the science. Well, touche and all that, my dear sir, but well, I’m not a scientist.
We are not really at the point where only scientists can say intelligent things about climate change.
Two reasons: First, the basics are pretty well understood. CO2 should cause about a 1.5 to 2.1 degree Celsius rise in temperatures if we double its concentration in our atmosphere. (If it doesn’t, it’s because other forces are counteracting it, not that it doesn’t exist.) This really is not very controversial at all.
Second, the controversial part of the discussion is not going to be settled any time soon. We really do not know the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2 concentrations. We are not likely to know for at least 30 years–and that’s if we’re lucky, according to Judith Curry.
To offer the extreme and absurdist example, as Roger Pielke Jr. points out on his weblog, we could achieve our emission reduction goals overnight, by switching from BP’s estimate of our 2009 emissions of CO2 to the IEA’S estimates of the same. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty out there.
So, despite their protestations, climate scientists at this point have about as much ‘clout’ in deciding what we should do as anybody else. So your comments and my guest posts here are not automatically dismissable as coming from the rabble. What we write on this weblog and others should be evaluated on the merits of what we say. Of course, people who have been studying the biology, chemistry, geology and ecological interactions of this planet should be treated with quite a bit more respect, and many climate scientists got their start in one of those fields–by no means am I trying to exclude them from the conversation, just because they can’t point at a red dot on a thermometer and say ‘that’s where we’ll be in 90 years.’
It is my own belief that other things we do here on this Earth have an impact on this planet, and that we should be aware of the impacts and in some cases work to lessen them. It is a happy coincidence that lessening these other impacts may also serve to reduce the impacts of whatever climate change we may be causing with CO2.
In the past century we have gone from cultivating about 3% of the world’s land for agriculture to about 33%. And of course this has had an effect on the planet, and of course that includes this planet’s climate. It has changed the albedo of the land and it has changed the level and movement of moisture over (and around) the cultivated areas. The vertical columns of air that shape what we perceive as weather are hugely affected by this. As they are by creation of manmade reservoirs behind the 850,000 dams we have built.
We have cut down forests, and not only for agriculture. They’re recovering in the developed world, but not in the emerging nations that still need the wood for fuel and the land for space. And again, this has affected the entire ecology and that does include climate.
(Digression–with the increasing urbanisation of this planet, some of these effects will lessen. More of us will live in cities, occupying a smaller space. Technology will reduce the amount of land needed for agriculture, despite our growing population. Some things will get better–maybe a lot of things, if we work for them.)
I could go on, but the point is clear enough for you to either agree or disagree. We are changing our planet, and one poorly understood change is the composition of the atmosphere.
Had the IPCC and others been savvy enough to look at all the changes we are making instead of just focusing on the ‘flavor of the month,’ I think the science–and our options–would have been more clearly expressed and more believable.
Instead, they focused on CO2 and treated all who disagreed as the rabble I mentioned before. What they wanted was a rabble alarmed. What they got was a rabble in arms.
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
211 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Joel Shore
September 4, 2010 9:59 am
tarpon says:
BTW, isn’t the heat trapping ability of CO2 logarithmic? And somewhere around 400 ppm we reach the point where CO2 has absorbed all the suns energy it can absorb, since there really no more sunlight available in the CO2 absorption bands? The old painting a window with successive coats of white paint to make the room darker experiment.
What we don’t know about climate, you can fill a library of gigantic sic, but we really don’t know how big.
I think that statement is true if by “we”, you mean yourself…which means it is worth learning about climate science of the last 50 years rather than repeating discredited arguments. Not to say that there are not legitimate sources of uncertainty, but that does not mean that there are lots of things that are known and quite settled science.
Evan Jones
Editor
September 4, 2010 9:59 am
To the author: My beef would be that a resort to politics is unjustified precisely because the science is uncertain. (I basically agree with your point.)
A question for GM, Joel and others:
There’s a bottom-line problem going on that you need to address. I shall lay it out.
— CO2 has increased by 40% in the last century.
— CO2 creates a raw increase of c. 1.2C per doubling. (I think the author has this a bit too high. But using his 1.5C to 2C figure would strengthen my argument, as you will see.)
— The IPCC says positive feedback loops will make this +3.2C in its mainstream scenario.
— GISS and HadCRUt show a rise of c. 0.7C. There’s a lot of argument that this is exaggerated by around a factor of two. But we’ll stipulate it for argument’s sake.
— There are other positive forcing than CO2, including but not restricted to land use, “dirty snow”, some natural warming post-LIA (obviously).
— Glaciers, etc. have been receding for far longer than the last century: therefore feedbacks from this (such as methane, etc.), are not a novel factor.
That is the bottom line. Can you explain why temperature increase could be as low as 0.7C if the forcing equation is correct and positive feedback is an issue? It simply does not add up.
A PhD in climatology may not shed much light on all this. 4th-grade arithmetic skills, however, are required. (Maybe 8th-grade if one wants to do the doubling log. But that is not really necessary.)
Vince Causey
September 4, 2010 10:05 am
gm
“Unfortunately, the inescapable conclusion is that there isn’t much difference between the motivations and intelligence level of flat-earthers on one side and the majority of the crowd around here on the other.”
Whats the matter GM – been looking in the mirror again?
latitude
September 4, 2010 10:08 am
Mike Patrick says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:40 am
I am confused. First, the world’s temperature changes due to unpredictable chaotic climate change. Then, after an appreciable time lag (500 to 800 years), the atmospheric CO2 starts to fluctuate up or down to follow the climatic temperature change. CO2 causes increased growth in plants when it goes up. Doing all we can to reduce CO2 serves what positive purpose?
=========================================
Mike, it gives some glorified weathermen the opportunity to call themselves climate scientists, the illusion that their work is more important and credible because of the name change, and, of course, the opportunity to make more money.
JMHO
David Ball
September 4, 2010 10:18 am
Joel Shore has apparently not viewed “an inconvenient truth”. C’mon Joel, that was pretty weak.
jmbnf
September 4, 2010 10:22 am
To add to Dirk H’s comments about arable land. The land mass of the world is near 150 million sq kilo’s. When you consider that half of this land is either too cold ( tundra / Antarctica) or two dry (desert) than you are left with a lot of tropical forest, Boreal forest and Savanna. http://classic.globe.gov/fsl/html/templ.cgi?biome_desc
Modern societies could easily convert whatever swath of the above 3 to arable land. Should they: NO! Do they need to? NOT EVEN CLOSE!
When you hear stats about Arable land from environmentalist you can always safely assume that they are using an outdated and perverted statistics. We learn from the IPCC, the belief comes first and statistics, facts, and science are secondary.
From the same world CIA Fact Book:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2097.html
In a recent discussion with an environmentalist with a masters degree is was common knowledge the world was at a agriculture breaking point citing food riots in Haiti etc. Yet Haiti only uses half it’s arable land for permanent crops
Haiti
arable land: 28.11%
permanent crops: 11.53%
other: 60.36% (2005)
Why? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Haiti
What about those poorest of all poster children of poverty, Ethiopia?
Ethiopia
arable land: 10.01%
permanent crops: 0.65%
other: 89.34% (2005)
What about India, surely with a billion people they are all starving to death?
India
arable land: 48.83%
permanent crops: 2.8%
other: 48.37% (2005)
In fact Agriculture Exports from India nearly double imports. (398 billion Rupees vs 220 billion Rupees source: http://india.gov.in/outerwin.php?id=http://www.iasri.res.in/agridata/06data/chapter8/db2006tb8_1.htm) i.e. They are a huge food exporter despite not always using the cutting edge agricultural techniques and using a fraction of arable land.
To be clear for the population-bombers, if the population grows to 10 billion before leveling off then there is already so much food availability that the only epidemic one needs worry about is an epidemic of obesity.
Sadly, talking about food and starvation with regard to climate change is as scientifically rigorous as Malari and Climate Change. If you want to talk about or effectively tackle either than you need to discuss poverty, access to helathcare, human rights, property rights, civil strive, etc.etc.
Considering how many people are sick and starving, it is shameful that environmentalist push this meme.
David Ball
September 4, 2010 10:23 am
One other item I would like to address. I have been accused of wanting to maintain the “status quo” with regards to fossil fuels . In fact the opposite is true. We need energy (abundant and reliable energy) to develop new and more efficient ways to produce cleaner less polluting energy. This is not “maintaining the status quo”. It is moving forward.
Jim
September 4, 2010 10:26 am
I submit that the idea that mankind should live on the planet in such a way as to not change it at all is just plain stupid.
Tom Fuller,
Perhaps following will help you with historical background on your next middle-of-the-road climate post. JW’s History of the Study of Climate Science In-One-Lesson:
Period ~renaisance to ~1970 was the period dominated by the science of NatCycloClimology
Period ~1970 to ~1980 was the period dominated by the science of neoLIAology
Period ~1980 to ~2009 was predominately focused on the study of etamilcology (backwards climate)
Current Period – transition period from etamilcology to a period of using established physical sciences to just do openly shared studies of the earth system w/o any political/environmental pressure group influences.
: )
John
Dennis Cooper
September 4, 2010 10:29 am
People! I sure hope we are headed to warmer weather. My own short life experience tells me it is the opposite. Very accurate temperatures have been recorded since 1940 and they are going down by -0.03 deg F per year since then. Check this out: http://www.wolframalpha.com
Type in search box: Average Temp Marion Ohio
click current week and click all. A chart from 1940 to 2010 shows a falling temp of -0.03 deg. F per year. The same is true for Kenton and Lima and a lot of other towns that did not put there thermometer on the cement in a parking lot, or on the roof like Columbus.(I guess that makes it man made.) I’m an old fart that remembers orange groves at the Florida, Georgia border. They were started in St. Augustine.
If we were in global warming all temperatures would be going up. This sample is every where.
Billy Liar
September 4, 2010 10:31 am
paulw says (on another thread):
September 3, 2010 at 5:34 pm …Apparently, this figure is not ’0.4%’ (who first said that?) but 20%.
Source: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=sc05400j
If you have a comment on this, please substantiate it. I really do not want to hear comments such as rejecting the author for some conspiracy theory. If you do that, I’ll leave this website.
I did reject the author and you’re still here.
Empty threats?
Dennis Cooper
September 4, 2010 10:33 am
Science Fact?? Didn’t we used to think that radio carbon dating was constant?
Doug S
September 4, 2010 10:34 am
R. de Haan says:
September 4, 2010 at 4:47 am
I think R. de Haan has touched on the root of the issue. This fight is about freedom. Freedom for individuals to live their lives free of oppressive taxes imposed by an over zealous world government. All people of good conscience who want to weigh in can contribute in meaningful ways. In fact, the scientific aspects of the discussion are less important to me than the social and political analysis.
Can you imagine, after all the sacrifices that free men and women have made in the fight to be free from an elite ruling class, that we would now surrender to the likes of Al Gore and the clowns at the UN. A surrender that would enable the elites to become rich by trading carbon credits and subjecting the working class to higher and higher taxes? Not possible.
Larry
September 4, 2010 10:45 am
While nobody could argue that humanity does not have a negative impact on the environment but by blatantly overstating their case all of the organisations that you would normally rely on have lost credibility. Somehow there has to be a purge of advocates and a replacement with rational people, and some form of oversight. I am sure I am not alone in having got involved in this argument because of the bizarre claims being made and the vast finance being moved on the back of it. A decade ago I would have naturally supported protecting the environments – assuming it was done by people able to appropriately balance the requirements of humanity and the environment – but by default now would question the motives of those advancing either the problem or the solution. That credibility and trust will be very difficult to reclaim, and the longer this continues the more people will have a similar viewpoint.
DirkH
September 4, 2010 10:46 am
Joel Shore says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:59 am
“[…]As for your saturation argument, you are showing that you are up to the point where the understanding of the scientific community was about 50 years ago or so. ”
You can’t make a fog brighter by making it thicker.
Gail Combs
September 4, 2010 10:47 am
#
#
DaveF says:
September 4, 2010 at 6:13 am
Smokey, 5:16am:
“….because taxing water vapor is next to impossible.”
Don’t give them ideas, Smokey!
________________________________________
Yes, do not give them ideas. There are towns in Massachusetts that are putting water meters on privately owned wells and making the owners pay for their water. I also so a town water meter on a private well in Orange county NC.
Joel Shore
September 4, 2010 10:52 am
evanmjones says:
That is the bottom line. Can you explain why temperature increase could be as low as 0.7C if the forcing equation is correct and positive feedback is an issue? It simply does not add up.
One thing you are neglecting is the difference between equilibrium climate sensitivity and transient climate response. The oceans create a large lag time in the climate system so that the system has not yet equilibrated with the current greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.
For this and other reasons, the unfortunate fact is that the 20th century climate record does not provide a very tight constraint on climate sensitivity. Within the errors that we know the total forcings, with the intrinsic climate variability, and with the lag time for the climate system to equilibrate, the empirical data for the 20th century is compatible with quite a broad range of climate sensitivities that includes the IPCC range and then some on either side. Better constraints are obtained by combining this with other empirical data. Perhaps the best constraints are from the ice age – interglacial cycles, for which the forcings and temperature change are reasonably well-understood and the time scales are long enough that you see the “equilibrium” change. Others data is provided,for example, by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. All these data taken together agree well with the likely range for climate sensitivity given by the IPCC.
Coalsoffire says:
Thanks for this interesting defence of the climate models. How do the models deal with C02? I seem to recall an article by Lintzen or someone that showed the models introducing a significant positive effect of increasing C02. Every model used a slightly different figure for it… I think that was one of his complaints, but they all ratcheted up the future temperature by that process. Isn’t that all it takes to effect a “conspiracy” or at least a consensus?
You are touching on a real issue here, which is that the effect of aerosols still has considerable uncertainty. So, within the uncertainties of the temperature data, it is possible for two different climate models to get similar good agreement over the 20th century but with different climate sensitivities and different estimates of the aerosol forcing that partly cancel out.
Since this thread is all about coming together and finding a middle ground, I’ll admit that this is a legitimate source of uncertainty. However, it is also one that is already taken into account in the range of climate sensitivity given by the IPCC. It is just an explanation of why there is still a considerable spread in the model projections for the 21st century (even if you restrict yourself to just one emissions scenario…since some of the spread is due to uncertainty in future emissions). And, it does not nullify the fact that nobody has shown that they can use a climate model and reproduce the temperature record without including the forcing due to greenhouse gases.
latitude
September 4, 2010 10:55 am
Dennis Cooper says:
September 4, 2010 at 10:29 am
================================
Dennis, do the same thing and enter “center of the state of Florida”
Since 1995 the temps have dropped a lot.
According to this, temperatures in central Florida are going down, and down fast.
DirkH
September 4, 2010 10:58 am
jmbnf says:
September 4, 2010 at 10:22 am
“[…]Yet Haiti only uses half it’s arable land for permanent crops
Haiti
arable land: 28.11%
permanent crops: 11.53%”
Please don’t misunderstand arable land vs. permanent crops; here’s the definition the World Factbook uses:
“Land use
This entry contains the percentage shares of total land area for three different types of land use: arable land – land cultivated for crops like wheat, maize, and rice that are replanted after each harvest; permanent crops – land cultivated for crops like citrus, coffee, and rubber that are not replanted after each harvest; includes land under flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees, and vines, but excludes land under trees grown for wood or timber; other – any land not arable or under permanent crops; includes permanent meadows and pastures, forests and woodlands, built-on areas, roads, barren land, etc.
”
from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/notesanddefs.html?countryName=World&countryCode=xx®ionCode=oc#L
“Arable” doesn’t mean unused. That being said, you’re right; we’re not short of land. We could, if the need arises, stop feeding pigs and cattle with grain and eat it ourselves. Why don’t we do that already? Market mechanisms. If the demand for simple foods rises astronomically the price will go up and producers won’t be interested in feeding it to animals anymore.
Why is there still hunger? It’s not a shortage of food but poverty and impossibility of distribution under conditions of civil war that causes hunger these days.
Alexander K
September 4, 2010 11:15 am
GM, a verbal attack is not a substitute for laying out a reasoned and carefully-constructed statement that is pertinent to the thread. Nasty, derogatory one-liners belong on other, less sensibly-moderated blogs.
Gail Combs
September 4, 2010 11:22 am
Charles Higley says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:30 am
…The biofuels industry is just plain wrong. It is clear that it does not work and represents a net loss of money and energy by the time the fuel is produced….
_______________________________________
You forgot the record profits of Monsanto and Cargill in 2008. (Jim you go look up the references this time.)
John F. Hultquist
September 4, 2010 11:24 am
Mr. Fuller writes: “However, one commenter on my last post had the audacity–the sheer audacity–to criticize my writing because this is a science blog after all, and my guest posts have not been about the science.”
Say, WUWT?
Mr. Watts has written (at the very top of every page, no less) this: “Commentary on puzzling things in life, . . . ”
You write well of interesting things and spell the words correctly, so what’s to complain about? I agree with Jeff Id @ur momisugly 6:15 am.
Others also comment on the CO2 effect. But my question is “Could humans double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere if they tried?”
Maybe someone can explain how that will be done. Maybe we can double or triple the amount of fossil fuels we are using and double or triple all other contributions we make. When? Next year? By 2025? Beats me? Is all we put there going to stay there? Always? As more is added will the processes of its removal speed up, slow down, stay the same?
Puzzling questions, I think. Keep the information flowing.
Pyromancer76
September 4, 2010 11:34 am
To Anthony and Thomas Fuller: Respectfully, Thomas Fuller does not deserve a guest post on WUWT, not because he is not a scientist, but because a non-scientist should be responsible to a field within which he is not an expert such that he reads (and understands) the variety of views and proofs given. The result: way too many unsubstantiated statements and “way too many” comments by responsible and respectful WUWT-regulars to right the misperceptions and errors. In my personal opinion, a frustrating waste of time. I am trying to be respectful; Thomas Fuller, research more fully before you write. Read the respectful comments here and you will know where to look.
Unfortunately, the politics is not uncertain. Look who is behind the Chicago Climate Index and the one-world, we-know-best totalitarians who are trying to snuff out CO2 — or rather the developed world so they can control the rest of it. I think we might as well go back to James Bond for a primer.
Djozar
September 4, 2010 11:36 am
Mr. Fuller,
Looking at the theme of your writing rather than the details, great post. There should be no derision of those who question, but only exclusion of those who insult and troll.
Ben
September 4, 2010 11:54 am
The sad thing is, that the “you understand the climate from 50 years ago” comment might actually be relevant. If we lose all of the bad science that is “buddy” reviewed over the last 30 years which is bound to happen, everyone is going to be transported to virtually the same state of understanding on the climate that we were 50 years ago. Its a sad fact when the scientific process is hijacked by politics and philosophy that the eventual progression is that we have to go backwards.
We take 1 step forward, but 3 steps back. All that wasted money…and what to show of it? Statistics 101 examples of how NOT to model, that is what….
Now don’t get me wrong, there are things we have learned in the last 30 years that are not shams, but overall our progress is like I said, we took 1 step forward on some things, but the overall picture is 2 steps back.
tarpon says:
See my post above http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/04/we-talk-about-politics-because-the-science-is-uncertain/#comment-474959 about what logarithmic means. As for your saturation argument, you are showing that you are up to the point where the understanding of the scientific community was about 50 years ago or so. You may want to read here to understand how to advance beyond that: http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm#theory (read both above and below this).
I think that statement is true if by “we”, you mean yourself…which means it is worth learning about climate science of the last 50 years rather than repeating discredited arguments. Not to say that there are not legitimate sources of uncertainty, but that does not mean that there are lots of things that are known and quite settled science.
To the author: My beef would be that a resort to politics is unjustified precisely because the science is uncertain. (I basically agree with your point.)
A question for GM, Joel and others:
There’s a bottom-line problem going on that you need to address. I shall lay it out.
— CO2 has increased by 40% in the last century.
— CO2 creates a raw increase of c. 1.2C per doubling. (I think the author has this a bit too high. But using his 1.5C to 2C figure would strengthen my argument, as you will see.)
— The IPCC says positive feedback loops will make this +3.2C in its mainstream scenario.
— GISS and HadCRUt show a rise of c. 0.7C. There’s a lot of argument that this is exaggerated by around a factor of two. But we’ll stipulate it for argument’s sake.
— There are other positive forcing than CO2, including but not restricted to land use, “dirty snow”, some natural warming post-LIA (obviously).
— Glaciers, etc. have been receding for far longer than the last century: therefore feedbacks from this (such as methane, etc.), are not a novel factor.
That is the bottom line. Can you explain why temperature increase could be as low as 0.7C if the forcing equation is correct and positive feedback is an issue? It simply does not add up.
A PhD in climatology may not shed much light on all this. 4th-grade arithmetic skills, however, are required. (Maybe 8th-grade if one wants to do the doubling log. But that is not really necessary.)
gm
“Unfortunately, the inescapable conclusion is that there isn’t much difference between the motivations and intelligence level of flat-earthers on one side and the majority of the crowd around here on the other.”
Whats the matter GM – been looking in the mirror again?
Mike Patrick says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:40 am
I am confused. First, the world’s temperature changes due to unpredictable chaotic climate change. Then, after an appreciable time lag (500 to 800 years), the atmospheric CO2 starts to fluctuate up or down to follow the climatic temperature change. CO2 causes increased growth in plants when it goes up. Doing all we can to reduce CO2 serves what positive purpose?
=========================================
Mike, it gives some glorified weathermen the opportunity to call themselves climate scientists, the illusion that their work is more important and credible because of the name change, and, of course, the opportunity to make more money.
JMHO
Joel Shore has apparently not viewed “an inconvenient truth”. C’mon Joel, that was pretty weak.
To add to Dirk H’s comments about arable land. The land mass of the world is near 150 million sq kilo’s. When you consider that half of this land is either too cold ( tundra / Antarctica) or two dry (desert) than you are left with a lot of tropical forest, Boreal forest and Savanna.
http://classic.globe.gov/fsl/html/templ.cgi?biome_desc
Modern societies could easily convert whatever swath of the above 3 to arable land. Should they: NO! Do they need to? NOT EVEN CLOSE!
When you hear stats about Arable land from environmentalist you can always safely assume that they are using an outdated and perverted statistics. We learn from the IPCC, the belief comes first and statistics, facts, and science are secondary.
From the same world CIA Fact Book:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2097.html
In a recent discussion with an environmentalist with a masters degree is was common knowledge the world was at a agriculture breaking point citing food riots in Haiti etc. Yet Haiti only uses half it’s arable land for permanent crops
Haiti
arable land: 28.11%
permanent crops: 11.53%
other: 60.36% (2005)
Why?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Haiti
What about those poorest of all poster children of poverty, Ethiopia?
Ethiopia
arable land: 10.01%
permanent crops: 0.65%
other: 89.34% (2005)
What about India, surely with a billion people they are all starving to death?
India
arable land: 48.83%
permanent crops: 2.8%
other: 48.37% (2005)
In fact Agriculture Exports from India nearly double imports. (398 billion Rupees vs 220 billion Rupees source: http://india.gov.in/outerwin.php?id=http://www.iasri.res.in/agridata/06data/chapter8/db2006tb8_1.htm) i.e. They are a huge food exporter despite not always using the cutting edge agricultural techniques and using a fraction of arable land.
To be clear for the population-bombers, if the population grows to 10 billion before leveling off then there is already so much food availability that the only epidemic one needs worry about is an epidemic of obesity.
Sadly, talking about food and starvation with regard to climate change is as scientifically rigorous as Malari and Climate Change. If you want to talk about or effectively tackle either than you need to discuss poverty, access to helathcare, human rights, property rights, civil strive, etc.etc.
Considering how many people are sick and starving, it is shameful that environmentalist push this meme.
One other item I would like to address. I have been accused of wanting to maintain the “status quo” with regards to fossil fuels . In fact the opposite is true. We need energy (abundant and reliable energy) to develop new and more efficient ways to produce cleaner less polluting energy. This is not “maintaining the status quo”. It is moving forward.
I submit that the idea that mankind should live on the planet in such a way as to not change it at all is just plain stupid.
Tom Fuller,
Perhaps following will help you with historical background on your next middle-of-the-road climate post.
JW’s History of the Study of Climate Science In-One-Lesson:
: )
John
People! I sure hope we are headed to warmer weather. My own short life experience tells me it is the opposite. Very accurate temperatures have been recorded since 1940 and they are going down by -0.03 deg F per year since then. Check this out: http://www.wolframalpha.com
Type in search box: Average Temp Marion Ohio
click current week and click all. A chart from 1940 to 2010 shows a falling temp of -0.03 deg. F per year. The same is true for Kenton and Lima and a lot of other towns that did not put there thermometer on the cement in a parking lot, or on the roof like Columbus.(I guess that makes it man made.) I’m an old fart that remembers orange groves at the Florida, Georgia border. They were started in St. Augustine.
If we were in global warming all temperatures would be going up. This sample is every where.
paulw says (on another thread):
September 3, 2010 at 5:34 pm
…Apparently, this figure is not ’0.4%’ (who first said that?) but 20%.
Source: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=sc05400j
If you have a comment on this, please substantiate it. I really do not want to hear comments such as rejecting the author for some conspiracy theory. If you do that, I’ll leave this website.
I did reject the author and you’re still here.
Empty threats?
Science Fact?? Didn’t we used to think that radio carbon dating was constant?
R. de Haan says:
September 4, 2010 at 4:47 am
I think R. de Haan has touched on the root of the issue. This fight is about freedom. Freedom for individuals to live their lives free of oppressive taxes imposed by an over zealous world government. All people of good conscience who want to weigh in can contribute in meaningful ways. In fact, the scientific aspects of the discussion are less important to me than the social and political analysis.
Can you imagine, after all the sacrifices that free men and women have made in the fight to be free from an elite ruling class, that we would now surrender to the likes of Al Gore and the clowns at the UN. A surrender that would enable the elites to become rich by trading carbon credits and subjecting the working class to higher and higher taxes? Not possible.
While nobody could argue that humanity does not have a negative impact on the environment but by blatantly overstating their case all of the organisations that you would normally rely on have lost credibility. Somehow there has to be a purge of advocates and a replacement with rational people, and some form of oversight. I am sure I am not alone in having got involved in this argument because of the bizarre claims being made and the vast finance being moved on the back of it. A decade ago I would have naturally supported protecting the environments – assuming it was done by people able to appropriately balance the requirements of humanity and the environment – but by default now would question the motives of those advancing either the problem or the solution. That credibility and trust will be very difficult to reclaim, and the longer this continues the more people will have a similar viewpoint.
Joel Shore says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:59 am
“[…]As for your saturation argument, you are showing that you are up to the point where the understanding of the scientific community was about 50 years ago or so. ”
You can’t make a fog brighter by making it thicker.
#
#
DaveF says:
September 4, 2010 at 6:13 am
Smokey, 5:16am:
“….because taxing water vapor is next to impossible.”
Don’t give them ideas, Smokey!
________________________________________
Yes, do not give them ideas. There are towns in Massachusetts that are putting water meters on privately owned wells and making the owners pay for their water. I also so a town water meter on a private well in Orange county NC.
evanmjones says:
One thing you are neglecting is the difference between equilibrium climate sensitivity and transient climate response. The oceans create a large lag time in the climate system so that the system has not yet equilibrated with the current greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere.
For this and other reasons, the unfortunate fact is that the 20th century climate record does not provide a very tight constraint on climate sensitivity. Within the errors that we know the total forcings, with the intrinsic climate variability, and with the lag time for the climate system to equilibrate, the empirical data for the 20th century is compatible with quite a broad range of climate sensitivities that includes the IPCC range and then some on either side. Better constraints are obtained by combining this with other empirical data. Perhaps the best constraints are from the ice age – interglacial cycles, for which the forcings and temperature change are reasonably well-understood and the time scales are long enough that you see the “equilibrium” change. Others data is provided,for example, by the Mt. Pinatubo eruption. All these data taken together agree well with the likely range for climate sensitivity given by the IPCC.
Coalsoffire says:
You are touching on a real issue here, which is that the effect of aerosols still has considerable uncertainty. So, within the uncertainties of the temperature data, it is possible for two different climate models to get similar good agreement over the 20th century but with different climate sensitivities and different estimates of the aerosol forcing that partly cancel out.
Since this thread is all about coming together and finding a middle ground, I’ll admit that this is a legitimate source of uncertainty. However, it is also one that is already taken into account in the range of climate sensitivity given by the IPCC. It is just an explanation of why there is still a considerable spread in the model projections for the 21st century (even if you restrict yourself to just one emissions scenario…since some of the spread is due to uncertainty in future emissions). And, it does not nullify the fact that nobody has shown that they can use a climate model and reproduce the temperature record without including the forcing due to greenhouse gases.
Dennis Cooper says:
September 4, 2010 at 10:29 am
================================
Dennis, do the same thing and enter “center of the state of Florida”
Since 1995 the temps have dropped a lot.
According to this, temperatures in central Florida are going down, and down fast.
jmbnf says:
September 4, 2010 at 10:22 am
“[…]Yet Haiti only uses half it’s arable land for permanent crops
Haiti
arable land: 28.11%
permanent crops: 11.53%”
Please don’t misunderstand arable land vs. permanent crops; here’s the definition the World Factbook uses:
“Land use
This entry contains the percentage shares of total land area for three different types of land use: arable land – land cultivated for crops like wheat, maize, and rice that are replanted after each harvest; permanent crops – land cultivated for crops like citrus, coffee, and rubber that are not replanted after each harvest; includes land under flowering shrubs, fruit trees, nut trees, and vines, but excludes land under trees grown for wood or timber; other – any land not arable or under permanent crops; includes permanent meadows and pastures, forests and woodlands, built-on areas, roads, barren land, etc.
”
from
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/notesanddefs.html?countryName=World&countryCode=xx®ionCode=oc#L
“Arable” doesn’t mean unused. That being said, you’re right; we’re not short of land. We could, if the need arises, stop feeding pigs and cattle with grain and eat it ourselves. Why don’t we do that already? Market mechanisms. If the demand for simple foods rises astronomically the price will go up and producers won’t be interested in feeding it to animals anymore.
Why is there still hunger? It’s not a shortage of food but poverty and impossibility of distribution under conditions of civil war that causes hunger these days.
GM, a verbal attack is not a substitute for laying out a reasoned and carefully-constructed statement that is pertinent to the thread. Nasty, derogatory one-liners belong on other, less sensibly-moderated blogs.
Charles Higley says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:30 am
…The biofuels industry is just plain wrong. It is clear that it does not work and represents a net loss of money and energy by the time the fuel is produced….
_______________________________________
You forgot the record profits of Monsanto and Cargill in 2008. (Jim you go look up the references this time.)
Mr. Fuller writes: “However, one commenter on my last post had the audacity–the sheer audacity–to criticize my writing because this is a science blog after all, and my guest posts have not been about the science.”
Say, WUWT?
Mr. Watts has written (at the very top of every page, no less) this: “Commentary on puzzling things in life, . . . ”
You write well of interesting things and spell the words correctly, so what’s to complain about? I agree with Jeff Id @ur momisugly 6:15 am.
Others also comment on the CO2 effect. But my question is “Could humans double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere if they tried?”
Maybe someone can explain how that will be done. Maybe we can double or triple the amount of fossil fuels we are using and double or triple all other contributions we make. When? Next year? By 2025? Beats me? Is all we put there going to stay there? Always? As more is added will the processes of its removal speed up, slow down, stay the same?
Puzzling questions, I think. Keep the information flowing.
To Anthony and Thomas Fuller: Respectfully, Thomas Fuller does not deserve a guest post on WUWT, not because he is not a scientist, but because a non-scientist should be responsible to a field within which he is not an expert such that he reads (and understands) the variety of views and proofs given. The result: way too many unsubstantiated statements and “way too many” comments by responsible and respectful WUWT-regulars to right the misperceptions and errors. In my personal opinion, a frustrating waste of time. I am trying to be respectful; Thomas Fuller, research more fully before you write. Read the respectful comments here and you will know where to look.
Unfortunately, the politics is not uncertain. Look who is behind the Chicago Climate Index and the one-world, we-know-best totalitarians who are trying to snuff out CO2 — or rather the developed world so they can control the rest of it. I think we might as well go back to James Bond for a primer.
Mr. Fuller,
Looking at the theme of your writing rather than the details, great post. There should be no derision of those who question, but only exclusion of those who insult and troll.
The sad thing is, that the “you understand the climate from 50 years ago” comment might actually be relevant. If we lose all of the bad science that is “buddy” reviewed over the last 30 years which is bound to happen, everyone is going to be transported to virtually the same state of understanding on the climate that we were 50 years ago. Its a sad fact when the scientific process is hijacked by politics and philosophy that the eventual progression is that we have to go backwards.
We take 1 step forward, but 3 steps back. All that wasted money…and what to show of it? Statistics 101 examples of how NOT to model, that is what….
Now don’t get me wrong, there are things we have learned in the last 30 years that are not shams, but overall our progress is like I said, we took 1 step forward on some things, but the overall picture is 2 steps back.