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.
Gnomish
September 4, 2010 at 9:37 am
I’m pleased that you used some basic classical thermo to demonstrate that the global phase changes of our vast amount of water is our thermostat that controls climate within a range that sustains life. CO2 is a minor constituant that is going along with these changes. Because it is now being accurately measured and is globally consistant, it’s natural background levels are probably our best “lagging” indicator of global climate change. I think we are measuring atmospheric CO2 in a rising portion of a 308 year cycle that will max out at around 500 ppmv some where between 2080 and 2100. Few of us will be around to see it, but we can watch the slope decrease while the slope for emissions continues to increase. Then watch for short sales in carbon trading.
Gail Combs
September 4, 2010 12:18 pm
Joel Shore says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:38 am
Gail Combs says:
Orthodox climate scientists assume “early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started… That was a quote from the peer reviewed paper not me.
The biggest problem with CAGW theory, is it assumes no changes in the energy from the sun as received by the earth.
Joel Shore says:
No. It doesn’t assume that….
_____________________________________________________________
The assumption per Lief and the IPCC was the sun’s variability is tiny. However that is not what others have said. “Geophysicists in Finland and Germany have calculated that the Sun is more magnetically active now than it has been for over a 1000 years…. – is the first direct quantitative reconstruction of solar activity based on physical, rather than statistical, models …
Sunspots are produced by magnetic activity inside the Sun. The more active the Sun is, the more spots are produced….
Now, Usoskin and co-workers have used the concentration of beryllium-10 in polar ice as a proxy for historic levels of solar activity. Beryllium-10 is produced when cosmic rays interact with particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. The radioisotope then falls to the ground where it is stored in layers of ice. The Sun’s magnetic field can deflect cosmic rays away from the Earth, so a stronger field should lead to less beryllium-10 being produced, and vice versa.
Using modelling techniques, the Finnish team was able to extend data on solar activity back to 850 AD. The researchers found that there has been a sharp increase in the number of sunspots since the beginning of the 20th century. They calculated that the average number was about 30 per year between 850 and 1900, and then increased to 60 between 1900 and 1944, and is now at its highest ever value of 76.
“We need to understand this unprecedented level of activity,” Usoskin told PhysicsWeb. “Is it is a rare event that happens once a millennium – which means that the Sun will return to normal – or is it a new dynamic state that will keep solar activity levels high?” The Finnish-German team also speculates that increased solar activity may be having an effect on the Earth’s climate, but more work is needed to clarify this.” Solar activity reaches new high, December 2003
As far as a mechanism goes, I agree with several others here that the oceans are a big player and act as a capacitor with the energy, especially the high energy wavelengths being absorbed down to 100meters in depth.
You can couple this with what NASA found. “”The problem is, human eyes are tuned to the wrong wavelength,” explains Tom Woods, a solar physicist at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “If you want to get a good look at solar activity, you need to look in the EUV.”
When the sun is active, solar EUV emissions can rise and fall by factors of hundreds to thousands in just a matter of minutes. These surges heat Earth’s upper atmosphere, puffing it up and increasing the air friction, or “drag,” on satellites. EUV photons also break apart atoms and molecules, creating a layer of ions in the upper atmosphere that can severely disturb radio signals.
… “All stars are variable at some level, and the sun is no exception. We want to compare the sun’s brightness now to its brightness during previous minima and ask: is the sun getting brighter or dimmer?”
The answer seems to be dimmer. Measurements by a variety of spacecraft indicate a 12-year lessening of the sun’s “irradiance” by about 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at EUV wavelengths. “Measuring the Sun’s Hidden Variability September 2009
That is just the ocean/sun there is also the Sun/Cosmic ray/ cloud hypothesis: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/13/spencer-clouds-dominate-co2-as-a-climate-driver-since-2000/ Automated Observations of the Earthshine “…..The earthshine observations reveal a large decadal variability in the Earth’s reflectance [7], which is yet not fully understood, but which is in line with other satellite and ground-based global radiation data…”
HMMmmm Sunspots/cosmic rays vary on a decadal (9-11 yr) cycle too.
A question
What happens to the climate if there is no sun?
What happens to the climate if there are no oceans/water vapor?
And then what happens if you remove CO2 from the atmosphere?
Sorry the sun/water combo are the ones who have a whopping big effect on climate compared to CO2.
Djozar
September 4, 2010 12:25 pm
All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.
Friedrich Nietzsche
L
September 4, 2010 12:27 pm
Tom, sorry for piling on, but I’m a late riser.
The 3%=>33% land use pegged my BS meter. Here common sense suffices, no Almanac, no Wiki, just simple geographic reasoning.
By 1910 (a hundred years ago) most of the land area of the World presently devoted to food production was already under cultivation. Virtually all arable land in Europe, East and South Asia and North America were already in use. Ditto Mexico, Argentina, Egypt, South Africa, Australia, etc.
The only obvious increases were in Central Asia (cotton, wheat), Brazil (sugar). The simple fact is that by 1910 there wasn’t enough arable land left out of cultivation to have permitted even a doubling, much less an 11-fold increase. We may well have seen an 11-fold increase in production, but it wasn’t due to increased land area usage. While irrigation often results in huge productivity gains, it usually doesn’t involve huge areas (think Central California, the Coachella Valley). Without that large area increase, the rest of the alternate theory of warming perishes for lack of evidence.
Finally, during the past Century, large areas of North America and Europe have been removed from production in favor of urbanization (think Southern California, Phoenix, Florida) and it seems far more likely the questionably reported temperature increase is a direct effect of UHI.
Z
September 4, 2010 12:30 pm
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.
It is controversial. So let’s try the basics. A 1.5 to 2.1 C rise where?
Artic? Antartic? New York? Sydney? Equador? Mount Everest? Mariana Trench? Where?
Ken Harvey
September 4, 2010 12:37 pm
33% of the land under crops? We are going to need some crops that grow in granite to achieve that.
melinspain
September 4, 2010 12:38 pm
Gnomish says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:37 am
Great work! Thanks for remembering us some of the many fantastic (almost magical) properties of water.
Alexander K: September 4, 2010 at 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.
It’s all he’s capable of, Alexander. Think of him as a pause punctuated by a fart in a serious conversation…
Gail Combs
September 4, 2010 12:55 pm
jmbnf says:
September 4, 2010 at 10:22 am
….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?
Here is the answer to that question Structural Adjustment Policies are economic policies which countries must follow in order to qualify for new World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and help them make debt repayments on the older debts owed to commercial banks, governments and the World Bank…
SAPs generally require countries to devalue their currencies against the dollar; lift import and export restrictions; balance their budgets and not overspend; and remove price controls and state subsidies.
…As a result, SAPs often result in deep cuts in programmes like education, health and social care, and the removal of subsidies designed to control the price of basics such as food and milk. So SAPs hurt the poor most, because they depend heavily on these services and subsidies. SAPs encourage countries to focus on the production and export of primary commodities such as cocoa and coffee to earn foreign exchange. But these commodities have notoriously erratic prices subject to the whims of global markets which can depress prices just when countries have invested in these so-called ‘cash crops’.
By devaluing the currency and simultaneously removing price controls, the immediate effect of a SAP is generally to hike prices up three or four times, increasing poverty to such an extent that riots are a frequent result.”http://www.whirledbank.org/development/sap.html
The net effect is to bankrupt indigenous farmers so large factory farms run by transnational corporations can move in. The Smithfield farm of “swine flu fame” in Mexico is an example.
lrshultis
September 4, 2010 12:58 pm
Tom Fuller
“Some things will get better–maybe a lot of things, if we work for them.”
Better by what standard? Is there some standard planet with a perfect Utopian society that you have in mind. As wealth is created, it does not occur naturally, and markets are freed up, humans try to no longer live in their own filth. The moral choice you have is whether to use rational persuasion or advocate the arming of some in order to get others to accept your view of a better Earth.
Curiousgeorge
September 4, 2010 1:00 pm
Mr. Fuller,
Nice article. Perhaps I could offer some philosophical sound bites in connection with this at some later date.
Probabilist motto: I used to be certain, but now I’m not so sure.
And;
In the absence of Reality, Probability rules. Which relates to a quote attributed to Bruno De Finetti: “Probabilities do not exist”. http://www.brunodefinetti.it/Bibliografia/definettiwasright.pdf . And if I may expand on that a bit: Else they would be Reality. Conceptually, P=1 is the Realization of a Probability (an Event ), and all other probable outcomes (given the known and unknown conditions) go to zero.
As many of you have pointed out and others inferred, I should have written 33% of arable land is now under the plough, not total. Thanks to all who have noted this.
Gail Combs
September 4, 2010 1:06 pm
Doug S says:
September 4, 2010 at 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….
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.
_____________________________
Oh but Mr deHaan and Mr Doug S.
David Rockefeller has assured us “..the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war, but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in the past centuries.” .
How could you possibly think freedom of the individual is better than Mr. Rockefeller’s benign guidance?
Gail Combs September 4, 2010 at 10:47 am
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.
…
Oh brother; here we go again … an attempt to manage a natural resource during times where there may be droughts is demonized …
Gail apparently is unaware of the term “the commons” – a term referring to resources that are collectively owned or shared between or among the population e.g. ground water.
BTW, a search for something to support her contentions comes up zilch: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&q=massachusetts+%22private+water+wells%22+meters&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
Another ‘old wives tale’ debunked?
.
TFN Johnson
September 4, 2010 1:10 pm
We mustn’t forget that the IPCC was set up to to do what it does, acting on the assumption that manmade CO2 is the only cause of climate change. It can (and should therefore) just ignore any evidence to the contrary. It cannot, by its terms of reference, be an unbiased authority on climate change.
Gail Combs September 4, 2010 at 11:22 am
Re: “The biofuels industry is just plain wrong. It is clear that it does not work and represents a net loss of money and energy”
You forgot the record profits of Monsanto and Cargill in 2008. (Jim you go look up the references this time.)
It’s now 2010 Gail, and we’re almost 3/4 through that … have you kept up with where biofuels/ethanol are regarding costs and subsidies? Have you seen the recent financials on those companies you mention – or might you be stuck in 2008?
.
mariwarcwm
September 4, 2010 1:32 pm
Dear Mr Fuller, Thank you for your thoughts, but I read a comment by Lucy Skywalker above to the effect that she has a site. I looked it up and have just read it all. It is really excellent, and explains everything very clearly. I never knew that it existed. Thank you Lucy Skywalker, I will recommend your site to everyone I meet. We can only hope that eventually people will learn, and governments will stop wasting time and money on reducing CO2, and be grateful that CO2 is indeed increasing because if it had fallen instead of rising since 1850 plants would by now be finding it hard to grow, and that really would be a disaster.
Tom Fuller wrote: “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.”
This estimate only works for a dry atmosphere. You keep missing the point, Tom. Earth climate is not a dry atmosphere. Claiming “other forces” makes it seem like something from the outside must intervene to prevent the 1.5 to 2.1 C increase from happening.
The “other forces,” however, is the climate of Earth itself, with its clouds, its evaporation, its currents, and its condensations. Your “not very controversial at all,” is in fact exactly what is controverted.
The temperature increase you suppose is not at all ‘a foregone conclusion unless something intervenes.’ Any temperature change may be more than that, it may be less. It may be nothing detectable, and it may be negative.
Figure it out, finally: no one understands the climate, or how it will respond. There is no complete theory of climate able to provide any fundamental global conclusions.
How about this: Interview Dick Lindzen. No one’s a better climate physicist than he. Ask him if anyone understands what effect added CO2 will have on climate. Then tell him it’s not controversial that 300 ppmv of extra CO2 will certainly increase global air temperature by 1.5-2.1 C unless an “other forces” miracle happens. See what he says about that.
Then, if you really want good copy, ask him if he has any thoughts on why Kevin Trenberth is so adamant a believer in AGW.
Curiousgeorge
September 4, 2010 2:18 pm
See my previous comment about Probability to Mr. Fuller, in particular the pdf I linked to.
From Pachauri’s lips to our ears: ” They have talked about quantifying uncertainties. To some extent, we are doing that, though not perfectly. But the issue is that in some cases, you really don’t have a quantitative base by which you can attach a probability or a level of uncertainty that defines things in quantitative terms. And there, let’s not take away the importance of expert judgment. And that is something the report has missed or at least not pointed out.”
So if you can’t quantify uncertainties (like is climate sensitivity say 0.5 degrees or 6.5 degrees, and with what probabilities) just go with your best guess, call it expert opinion (especially if you only pick and pay the “right” experts) and say that there is a 90% certainty, even if there are no numbers you can add up to get that. http://joannenova.com.au/2010/09/pachauri-admits-the-ipcc-just-guesses-the-numbers/
Jim
September 4, 2010 2:19 pm
*****
_Jim says:
September 4, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Gail apparently is unaware of the term “the commons” – a term referring to resources that are collectively owned or shared between or among the population e.g. ground water.
****
Apparently you, Jim, are unfamiliar with the term “water rights.” It’ s a big deal. That means the person who owns them owns the water under the land. I’m not too hot on this idea of “commons.” Sounds a bit too socialistic to me.
D. King
September 4, 2010 2:33 pm
_Jim says:
September 4, 2010 at 1:07 pm
“Gail apparently is unaware of the term “the commons” – a term referring to resources that are collectively owned or shared between or among the population e.g. ground water.”
Yes, and living on the water planet, if we only knew how to desalinate.
We could co-locate nuclear power plants and desalinization plants on
the coast. And if there were only ancient civilizations, from which we
could have learned how this new clean water could be shifted around,
we’d be set. But alas, we’re stuck with “the commons”, and no water. http://tinyurl.com/237ass8
Dr. Dave
September 4, 2010 2:34 pm
_Jim says:
September 4, 2010 at 1:07 pm
“Another ‘old wives tale’ debunked?”
The issue of water rights vary widely across the country. In much of the midwest if you own the property you own everything beneath it. This is not the case in many western states. Where I live in NM a lot of the property is sold in pieces (i.e. land use rights, water rights and mineral rights). The original owner can essentially sell the same property several times. Often ranchers buy up land just for grazing cattle. The water rights and mineral rights are not included so you see cattle grazing among pump jacks.
I live in a development of about 2,700 homes. The older homes (built in the early 70s) usually have their own well. The rest of us are served by a privately owned “water district” that depends on a couple dozen wells. A few years back we had a couple of years of drought. Water rates went up significantly to encourage conservation (I pay a little over $0.01 per gallon). Since then the mountains have had good snow pack and we have enjoyed generous monsoon seasons. The wells recharged to capacity in under a year. The rates never went down. Because rain has been plentiful folks are using less municipal water and many more are employing rainwater harvesting for landscaping. So the water company keeps the rates high because they’re selling less water (and making as much, or more money).
Theoretically I could drill my own well on my own property. These days that’s a pretty expensive venture (like electricity, it’s more cost-effective to buy it than pump or generate my own). Further, because of where I live and the availability of municipal water service, the county would probably never issue me a permit to dig a well. This is not because my well for my home would significantly deplete ground water but because I would be competing against the best interests of “the collective”.
I could easily envision the tyrannical socialist eco-geeks that run local government placing a water meter on the old widow’s well next door and make her pay for what she pumps from her own well on her own land. Just substitute the word “collective” for “commons” and you’ll be well on your way to understanding. Governments are clamoring to “control” water even when it’s not scarce or threatened. The EPA lusts for federal jurisdiction over ALL surface water instead of just navigable waterways and they want jurisdiction over ground water, too. It’s just too convenient…control food, control water and control energy…control people.
I used to have a big house and about 7 acres of property outside Amarillo in a canyon community of several hundred homes. Every house had its own well (best water I’ve ever tasted, 350′ down to the Ogallalla aquifer). A creek flowed through the canyon. Some years the creek would flood, some years it would completely dry up in summer. It made for a great hiking path. But NOBODY ever had a lack of well water. Metering private wells is not protecting the “commons”, it’s extorting money from private owners.
Milwaukee Bob
September 4, 2010 2:43 pm
Gnomish says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:37 am
Thank you! And Amen.
AND in that complexity rest the reason why and how, “scientists” were able to “make” CO2 into a criminal that might cause a catastrophic problem if left uncheck. Of course, that problem at first was that it was going to bring on a new ice age, but when the cooling of the late 60’s and early 70’s stopped, they had to “adjust” their models. Once other scientists realized (nobody ever said they were stupid) how massively complicated the weather system of the planet is and how much taxpayer money could be gleaned from government coffers for “research” into what to do about this horrible CO2 and it’s effect on the even more complicated and almost mystical thing called – CLIMATE, it was clear they could put bread & butter on the table (and who can find fault with that?) and keep pre-docs and post-docs flowing through their departments (and who can’t find fault with that?) on infinitum. “They” have just had to fudge a few things (about weather) along the way. Of course the “corrupt” politicians of the world also quickly caught-on to the whole ruse. “Never let a crises go to waste.” Billions, and billions, and billions of dollars later, that could have been spent on saving millions, and millions, and millions of lives – NOT ONE THING HAS CHANGED, NOT ONE SUPPOSED PROBLEM HAS BEEN FIXED. Thousands of studies and we’re still disagreeing about the basics AND still studying. And still adjusting the models pretending we can “model” what the entire global system will look like 50 years from now, when we can’t even accurately model what it will look like outside my window 48 hrs from now.
Dr A Burns
September 4, 2010 2:47 pm
There is no doubt that man has had a devastating effect on the earth. However most of the effects you describe, as well as species loss and deforestation, are either just “too hard” or politically unacceptable. For example, try telling the Japanese they can no longer cut down our Ozzie native hardwoods for tissue paper …
CO2 is perfect for politicians … just add another tax and the masses will be happy.
CO2 is perfect for corporates … for companies like GE it is great for their nuclear power and windmill businesses, while for others placing value on emissions adds to their asset registers.
Well this seems apposite . . .
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/09/pachauri-admits-the-ipcc-just-guesses-the-numbers/
Gnomish
September 4, 2010 at 9:37 am
I’m pleased that you used some basic classical thermo to demonstrate that the global phase changes of our vast amount of water is our thermostat that controls climate within a range that sustains life. CO2 is a minor constituant that is going along with these changes. Because it is now being accurately measured and is globally consistant, it’s natural background levels are probably our best “lagging” indicator of global climate change. I think we are measuring atmospheric CO2 in a rising portion of a 308 year cycle that will max out at around 500 ppmv some where between 2080 and 2100. Few of us will be around to see it, but we can watch the slope decrease while the slope for emissions continues to increase. Then watch for short sales in carbon trading.
Joel Shore says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:38 am
Gail Combs says:
Orthodox climate scientists assume “early anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission prevented the inception of a glacial that would otherwise already have started…
That was a quote from the peer reviewed paper not me.
The biggest problem with CAGW theory, is it assumes no changes in the energy from the sun as received by the earth.
Joel Shore says:
No. It doesn’t assume that….
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The assumption per Lief and the IPCC was the sun’s variability is tiny. However that is not what others have said.
“Geophysicists in Finland and Germany have calculated that the Sun is more magnetically active now than it has been for over a 1000 years…. – is the first direct quantitative reconstruction of solar activity based on physical, rather than statistical, models …
Sunspots are produced by magnetic activity inside the Sun. The more active the Sun is, the more spots are produced….
Now, Usoskin and co-workers have used the concentration of beryllium-10 in polar ice as a proxy for historic levels of solar activity. Beryllium-10 is produced when cosmic rays interact with particles in the Earth’s atmosphere. The radioisotope then falls to the ground where it is stored in layers of ice. The Sun’s magnetic field can deflect cosmic rays away from the Earth, so a stronger field should lead to less beryllium-10 being produced, and vice versa.
Using modelling techniques, the Finnish team was able to extend data on solar activity back to 850 AD. The researchers found that there has been a sharp increase in the number of sunspots since the beginning of the 20th century. They calculated that the average number was about 30 per year between 850 and 1900, and then increased to 60 between 1900 and 1944, and is now at its highest ever value of 76.
“We need to understand this unprecedented level of activity,” Usoskin told PhysicsWeb. “Is it is a rare event that happens once a millennium – which means that the Sun will return to normal – or is it a new dynamic state that will keep solar activity levels high?” The Finnish-German team also speculates that increased solar activity may be having an effect on the Earth’s climate, but more work is needed to clarify this.”
Solar activity reaches new high, December 2003
As far as a mechanism goes, I agree with several others here that the oceans are a big player and act as a capacitor with the energy, especially the high energy wavelengths being absorbed down to 100meters in depth.
You can couple this with what NASA found.
“”The problem is, human eyes are tuned to the wrong wavelength,” explains Tom Woods, a solar physicist at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “If you want to get a good look at solar activity, you need to look in the EUV.”
When the sun is active, solar EUV emissions can rise and fall by factors of hundreds to thousands in just a matter of minutes. These surges heat Earth’s upper atmosphere, puffing it up and increasing the air friction, or “drag,” on satellites. EUV photons also break apart atoms and molecules, creating a layer of ions in the upper atmosphere that can severely disturb radio signals.
… “All stars are variable at some level, and the sun is no exception. We want to compare the sun’s brightness now to its brightness during previous minima and ask: is the sun getting brighter or dimmer?”
The answer seems to be dimmer. Measurements by a variety of spacecraft indicate a 12-year lessening of the sun’s “irradiance” by about 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at EUV wavelengths. “ Measuring the Sun’s Hidden Variability September 2009
That is just the ocean/sun there is also the Sun/Cosmic ray/ cloud hypothesis:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/13/spencer-clouds-dominate-co2-as-a-climate-driver-since-2000/
Automated Observations of the Earthshine
“…..The earthshine observations reveal a large decadal variability in the Earth’s reflectance [7], which is yet not fully understood, but which is in line with other satellite and ground-based global radiation data…”
HMMmmm Sunspots/cosmic rays vary on a decadal (9-11 yr) cycle too.
A question
What happens to the climate if there is no sun?
What happens to the climate if there are no oceans/water vapor?
And then what happens if you remove CO2 from the atmosphere?
Sorry the sun/water combo are the ones who have a whopping big effect on climate compared to CO2.
All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Tom, sorry for piling on, but I’m a late riser.
The 3%=>33% land use pegged my BS meter. Here common sense suffices, no Almanac, no Wiki, just simple geographic reasoning.
By 1910 (a hundred years ago) most of the land area of the World presently devoted to food production was already under cultivation. Virtually all arable land in Europe, East and South Asia and North America were already in use. Ditto Mexico, Argentina, Egypt, South Africa, Australia, etc.
The only obvious increases were in Central Asia (cotton, wheat), Brazil (sugar). The simple fact is that by 1910 there wasn’t enough arable land left out of cultivation to have permitted even a doubling, much less an 11-fold increase. We may well have seen an 11-fold increase in production, but it wasn’t due to increased land area usage. While irrigation often results in huge productivity gains, it usually doesn’t involve huge areas (think Central California, the Coachella Valley). Without that large area increase, the rest of the alternate theory of warming perishes for lack of evidence.
Finally, during the past Century, large areas of North America and Europe have been removed from production in favor of urbanization (think Southern California, Phoenix, Florida) and it seems far more likely the questionably reported temperature increase is a direct effect of UHI.
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.
It is controversial. So let’s try the basics. A 1.5 to 2.1 C rise where?
Artic? Antartic? New York? Sydney? Equador? Mount Everest? Mariana Trench? Where?
33% of the land under crops? We are going to need some crops that grow in granite to achieve that.
Gnomish says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:37 am
Great work! Thanks for remembering us some of the many fantastic (almost magical) properties of water.
Alexander K: September 4, 2010 at 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.
It’s all he’s capable of, Alexander. Think of him as a pause punctuated by a fart in a serious conversation…
jmbnf says:
September 4, 2010 at 10:22 am
….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?
Here is the answer to that question
Structural Adjustment Policies are economic policies which countries must follow in order to qualify for new World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and help them make debt repayments on the older debts owed to commercial banks, governments and the World Bank…
SAPs generally require countries to devalue their currencies against the dollar; lift import and export restrictions; balance their budgets and not overspend; and remove price controls and state subsidies.
…As a result, SAPs often result in deep cuts in programmes like education, health and social care, and the removal of subsidies designed to control the price of basics such as food and milk. So SAPs hurt the poor most, because they depend heavily on these services and subsidies.
SAPs encourage countries to focus on the production and export of primary commodities such as cocoa and coffee to earn foreign exchange. But these commodities have notoriously erratic prices subject to the whims of global markets which can depress prices just when countries have invested in these so-called ‘cash crops’.
By devaluing the currency and simultaneously removing price controls, the immediate effect of a SAP is generally to hike prices up three or four times, increasing poverty to such an extent that riots are a frequent result.” http://www.whirledbank.org/development/sap.html
The net effect is to bankrupt indigenous farmers so large factory farms run by transnational corporations can move in. The Smithfield farm of “swine flu fame” in Mexico is an example.
Tom Fuller
“Some things will get better–maybe a lot of things, if we work for them.”
Better by what standard? Is there some standard planet with a perfect Utopian society that you have in mind. As wealth is created, it does not occur naturally, and markets are freed up, humans try to no longer live in their own filth. The moral choice you have is whether to use rational persuasion or advocate the arming of some in order to get others to accept your view of a better Earth.
Mr. Fuller,
Nice article. Perhaps I could offer some philosophical sound bites in connection with this at some later date.
Probabilist motto: I used to be certain, but now I’m not so sure.
And;
In the absence of Reality, Probability rules. Which relates to a quote attributed to Bruno De Finetti: “Probabilities do not exist”. http://www.brunodefinetti.it/Bibliografia/definettiwasright.pdf . And if I may expand on that a bit: Else they would be Reality. Conceptually, P=1 is the Realization of a Probability (an Event ), and all other probable outcomes (given the known and unknown conditions) go to zero.
As many of you have pointed out and others inferred, I should have written 33% of arable land is now under the plough, not total. Thanks to all who have noted this.
Doug S says:
September 4, 2010 at 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….
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.
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Oh but Mr deHaan and Mr Doug S.
David Rockefeller has assured us “..the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war, but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in the past centuries.” .
How could you possibly think freedom of the individual is better than Mr. Rockefeller’s benign guidance?
Oh brother; here we go again … an attempt to manage a natural resource during times where there may be droughts is demonized …
Gail apparently is unaware of the term “the commons” – a term referring to resources that are collectively owned or shared between or among the population e.g. ground water.
BTW, a search for something to support her contentions comes up zilch:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=opera&rls=en&q=massachusetts+%22private+water+wells%22+meters&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
Another ‘old wives tale’ debunked?
.
We mustn’t forget that the IPCC was set up to to do what it does, acting on the assumption that manmade CO2 is the only cause of climate change. It can (and should therefore) just ignore any evidence to the contrary. It cannot, by its terms of reference, be an unbiased authority on climate change.
It’s now 2010 Gail, and we’re almost 3/4 through that … have you kept up with where biofuels/ethanol are regarding costs and subsidies? Have you seen the recent financials on those companies you mention – or might you be stuck in 2008?
.
Dear Mr Fuller, Thank you for your thoughts, but I read a comment by Lucy Skywalker above to the effect that she has a site. I looked it up and have just read it all. It is really excellent, and explains everything very clearly. I never knew that it existed. Thank you Lucy Skywalker, I will recommend your site to everyone I meet. We can only hope that eventually people will learn, and governments will stop wasting time and money on reducing CO2, and be grateful that CO2 is indeed increasing because if it had fallen instead of rising since 1850 plants would by now be finding it hard to grow, and that really would be a disaster.
Tom Fuller wrote: “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.”
This estimate only works for a dry atmosphere. You keep missing the point, Tom. Earth climate is not a dry atmosphere. Claiming “other forces” makes it seem like something from the outside must intervene to prevent the 1.5 to 2.1 C increase from happening.
The “other forces,” however, is the climate of Earth itself, with its clouds, its evaporation, its currents, and its condensations. Your “not very controversial at all,” is in fact exactly what is controverted.
The temperature increase you suppose is not at all ‘a foregone conclusion unless something intervenes.’ Any temperature change may be more than that, it may be less. It may be nothing detectable, and it may be negative.
Figure it out, finally: no one understands the climate, or how it will respond. There is no complete theory of climate able to provide any fundamental global conclusions.
How about this: Interview Dick Lindzen. No one’s a better climate physicist than he. Ask him if anyone understands what effect added CO2 will have on climate. Then tell him it’s not controversial that 300 ppmv of extra CO2 will certainly increase global air temperature by 1.5-2.1 C unless an “other forces” miracle happens. See what he says about that.
Then, if you really want good copy, ask him if he has any thoughts on why Kevin Trenberth is so adamant a believer in AGW.
See my previous comment about Probability to Mr. Fuller, in particular the pdf I linked to.
From Pachauri’s lips to our ears: ” They have talked about quantifying uncertainties. To some extent, we are doing that, though not perfectly. But the issue is that in some cases, you really don’t have a quantitative base by which you can attach a probability or a level of uncertainty that defines things in quantitative terms. And there, let’s not take away the importance of expert judgment. And that is something the report has missed or at least not pointed out.”
So if you can’t quantify uncertainties (like is climate sensitivity say 0.5 degrees or 6.5 degrees, and with what probabilities) just go with your best guess, call it expert opinion (especially if you only pick and pay the “right” experts) and say that there is a 90% certainty, even if there are no numbers you can add up to get that.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/09/pachauri-admits-the-ipcc-just-guesses-the-numbers/
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_Jim says:
September 4, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Gail apparently is unaware of the term “the commons” – a term referring to resources that are collectively owned or shared between or among the population e.g. ground water.
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Apparently you, Jim, are unfamiliar with the term “water rights.” It’ s a big deal. That means the person who owns them owns the water under the land. I’m not too hot on this idea of “commons.” Sounds a bit too socialistic to me.
_Jim says:
September 4, 2010 at 1:07 pm
“Gail apparently is unaware of the term “the commons” – a term referring to resources that are collectively owned or shared between or among the population e.g. ground water.”
Yes, and living on the water planet, if we only knew how to desalinate.
We could co-locate nuclear power plants and desalinization plants on
the coast. And if there were only ancient civilizations, from which we
could have learned how this new clean water could be shifted around,
we’d be set. But alas, we’re stuck with “the commons”, and no water.
http://tinyurl.com/237ass8
_Jim says:
September 4, 2010 at 1:07 pm
“Another ‘old wives tale’ debunked?”
The issue of water rights vary widely across the country. In much of the midwest if you own the property you own everything beneath it. This is not the case in many western states. Where I live in NM a lot of the property is sold in pieces (i.e. land use rights, water rights and mineral rights). The original owner can essentially sell the same property several times. Often ranchers buy up land just for grazing cattle. The water rights and mineral rights are not included so you see cattle grazing among pump jacks.
I live in a development of about 2,700 homes. The older homes (built in the early 70s) usually have their own well. The rest of us are served by a privately owned “water district” that depends on a couple dozen wells. A few years back we had a couple of years of drought. Water rates went up significantly to encourage conservation (I pay a little over $0.01 per gallon). Since then the mountains have had good snow pack and we have enjoyed generous monsoon seasons. The wells recharged to capacity in under a year. The rates never went down. Because rain has been plentiful folks are using less municipal water and many more are employing rainwater harvesting for landscaping. So the water company keeps the rates high because they’re selling less water (and making as much, or more money).
Theoretically I could drill my own well on my own property. These days that’s a pretty expensive venture (like electricity, it’s more cost-effective to buy it than pump or generate my own). Further, because of where I live and the availability of municipal water service, the county would probably never issue me a permit to dig a well. This is not because my well for my home would significantly deplete ground water but because I would be competing against the best interests of “the collective”.
I could easily envision the tyrannical socialist eco-geeks that run local government placing a water meter on the old widow’s well next door and make her pay for what she pumps from her own well on her own land. Just substitute the word “collective” for “commons” and you’ll be well on your way to understanding. Governments are clamoring to “control” water even when it’s not scarce or threatened. The EPA lusts for federal jurisdiction over ALL surface water instead of just navigable waterways and they want jurisdiction over ground water, too. It’s just too convenient…control food, control water and control energy…control people.
I used to have a big house and about 7 acres of property outside Amarillo in a canyon community of several hundred homes. Every house had its own well (best water I’ve ever tasted, 350′ down to the Ogallalla aquifer). A creek flowed through the canyon. Some years the creek would flood, some years it would completely dry up in summer. It made for a great hiking path. But NOBODY ever had a lack of well water. Metering private wells is not protecting the “commons”, it’s extorting money from private owners.
Gnomish says:
September 4, 2010 at 9:37 am
Thank you! And Amen.
AND in that complexity rest the reason why and how, “scientists” were able to “make” CO2 into a criminal that might cause a catastrophic problem if left uncheck. Of course, that problem at first was that it was going to bring on a new ice age, but when the cooling of the late 60’s and early 70’s stopped, they had to “adjust” their models. Once other scientists realized (nobody ever said they were stupid) how massively complicated the weather system of the planet is and how much taxpayer money could be gleaned from government coffers for “research” into what to do about this horrible CO2 and it’s effect on the even more complicated and almost mystical thing called – CLIMATE, it was clear they could put bread & butter on the table (and who can find fault with that?) and keep pre-docs and post-docs flowing through their departments (and who can’t find fault with that?) on infinitum. “They” have just had to fudge a few things (about weather) along the way. Of course the “corrupt” politicians of the world also quickly caught-on to the whole ruse. “Never let a crises go to waste.” Billions, and billions, and billions of dollars later, that could have been spent on saving millions, and millions, and millions of lives – NOT ONE THING HAS CHANGED, NOT ONE SUPPOSED PROBLEM HAS BEEN FIXED. Thousands of studies and we’re still disagreeing about the basics AND still studying. And still adjusting the models pretending we can “model” what the entire global system will look like 50 years from now, when we can’t even accurately model what it will look like outside my window 48 hrs from now.
There is no doubt that man has had a devastating effect on the earth. However most of the effects you describe, as well as species loss and deforestation, are either just “too hard” or politically unacceptable. For example, try telling the Japanese they can no longer cut down our Ozzie native hardwoods for tissue paper …
CO2 is perfect for politicians … just add another tax and the masses will be happy.
CO2 is perfect for corporates … for companies like GE it is great for their nuclear power and windmill businesses, while for others placing value on emissions adds to their asset registers.