Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
It is not often that I get called a ‘denialist’ and a ‘troll’ for the dark forces of Al Gore on the same day, but it does happen.
It’s because I am a ‘lukewarmer,’ one who believes that the physics of climate change are not by theselves controversial, but who believes that the sensitivity of the earth’s atmosphere to a doubling of concentrations of CO2 is not yet known, but is likely to be lower than activists have claimed.
I suppose it should bother me that I am getting slammed at activist websites such as Only In It For the Gold, Deltoid and ThingsBreak because they think I don’t go far enough, and slammed again here and at The Air Vent because I go too far. Although I want to be liked as much as the next fellow, it doesn’t, because the reasons given for slamming me never seem to match up to the reality of what I write.
Critics here have focused on a lack of substance, so I’ll try and address that in this post. I’m a bit amused at one commenter who yesterday said I understood nothing of energy. (Shh! Don’t tell my clients–I just delivered a 400-page report on alternative energy, and they’ll be ticked off…)
And I’m equally amused that I have to acknowledge that Michael Tobis (at last) got one thing right in a comment yesterday, when he wrote that the real problem we face is coal–and Chinese coal at that. (More on that in a minute.)
The LukeWarmer’s Way
The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics. The calculations that show a temperature rise of between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius if concentrations double is also widely accepted, including by all skeptic scientists without (AFAIK) exception.
We don’t know the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2, so the effects of feedbacks are not know. Activists think it is 3 degrees or higher. Contrarians think it is very low–1, maybe 2, tops, some thinking it is even lower.
If activists are right we have a very big problem on our hands. If contrarians are right we don’t. If both are wrong, there is a lukewarmer’s way.
If you believe that about 2 degrees of warming is headed our way this century, it will be a problem–probably not for those reading this, because of our fortunate geography, but for those in the developing world, who will have to add droughts, floods and heatwaves to their current long list of miseries. And it’s not really the size of the temperature rise that worries me, although having a 2 degree average means it will be greater in some places, and again, probably in the least fortunate locales. But it’s really the speed of change that will make it tough to adapt to.
So as a lukewarmer I believe that if there are ‘no regrets’ options, by which I mean things that make sense for us to do no matter what happens to the climate, that we should move quickly to do them in hopes that it will a) help prepare for whatever temperature rise comes our way and b) may serve in some small way to lessen the total temperature rise and its impacts.
The devil is in the details, obviously, and a bigger devil lies in who should decide and how much authority we give them. And we probably don’t get to pick and choose at the right level of detail.
For example, I have no problem with the EPA actively encouraging power plants to shift from old coal configurations to combined cycle natural gas. It’s not a permanent solution but it’s a quick win. But I do have a problem with them classing a school with 3 buses as a major emitter of CO2 and getting them involved in the bureaucratic nightmare of emission control.
I do not want Maurice Strong to control our approach to the world’s environmental issues. I’m reading his book right now (‘Where On Earth Are We Going?, with a foreward by Kofi Annan), and it is horribly bad, and horribly wrong. I’ll give it a full review later, but suffice it to say that I wouldn’t trust him with any responsibility at all.
But there are some in both government and science who I do trust. And I’m willing to work towards helping them get to where we need to go. If a panel composed of both Pielkes, Judith Curry, Mike Kelly, John Christy, Richard Lindzen and a few others were to work on proposed solution, I’d be pretty happy. I might be alone in my joy, I realize.
Another no regrets option I’d like to see is a review of building planning, permitting and insurance in areas that are already vulnerable to tropical storms and floods. We are in the silly situation right now where middle class workers in the Midwest are subsidizing rich people who rebuild ruined but rich second homes in Florida or Malibu Canyon.
We could also allow planes to use modern technology to choose the most fuel efficient routes, descend directly rather than in stages and unblock no-fly spaces left over from the Cold War.
I’d like to see greater use of X prizes to stimulate innovation, as it did with private spacecraft. I’d love to see prizes for utility level storage or better use of composites for distribution, or improvements to HVDC transmission. Prizes almost always work.
I’d like to see more base research done on superconductors, for example, and other technologies that are threatened with being trapped in the Valley of Investment Death.
And I don’t think that list of no regrets options is too controversial, either here or with the activists. (I’m sure I’ll hear about it if it is.)
But the real problem is counting to 3,000. Because a straight line extension of energy consumption gets us to 3,000 quads (quadrillion BTUs) by 2075, with 9.1 billion people developing at present trends and GDP growing at 3% per year.
If those 3,000 quads are supplied by burning coal, we’ll choke on the fumes, no matter what it does to temperatures. China has doubled its energy use since 2000, it may do so again by 2020, and 70% of their energy is provided by coal. The massive traffic jam into Beijing a couple of weeks ago, 90 miles long and lasting three or four days, was composed primarily of small trucks bringing coal into China’s capital. And the pollution and soot that is caused by China’s coal travels–to the Arctic, hastening ice melt and over the rest of the world, as small particulates and just general haze.
So I also advocate pushing for renewable and nuclear energy. I think we’ll need them both. Nuclear is ready to roll right now, but it’s expensive and time consuming to put up as many plants as we’re going to need. Solar is on the verge, and I’d like to give it an extra push. Natural gas is a temporary solution in terms of emissions, but at current prices we can’t ignore its advantages.
We also need to push piecemeal solutions that will not solve our problems by themselves, but are important contributors at a local level, such as geothermal power, or small hydroelectric and run-of-river installations.
No matter what you or I believe about climate change, we face an energy issue that we need to address today. Our coal plants are dramatically cleaner than they used to be. China’s are not. If we don’t want the air we breathe to taste of China’s coal, we need to work on better solutions.
And the worst of all possible worlds is where we don’t do the right thing on energy because we are at war with each other about climate change.
I’m a firm believer in markets, and I like free markets better than the other sort. I also think they work better with light regulation. I think it’s legitimate to nudge the energy market in the direction we want it to go, without giving the reins and the saddle to government bureaucracy. And I do think it can and probably will work.
So I’m not a ‘denialist.’ I’m not a ‘skeptic.’ I’m a lukewarmer–and I’m right.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
Thomas Fuller
There would be no global warming without new technology. And that’s not because new technology uses so much energy.
It’s because new technology has allowed us to measure new phenomena, and old phenomena with radically more powerful tools.
Mike Smith gives us an example in his book ‘Warnings’, a great story about how technology addressed the warning system for U.S. tornadoes (and which is advertised here on the right hand column). He notes that many tornadoes that are called in to reporting centers today would never have been noticed before, thanks to a growing American population and the ubiquity of mobile telephones.
The same is more or less true of hurricanes. Before satellite coverage began in 1969, we really didn’t know exactly how many hurricanes actually happened in a given year, nor how strong they were. If they didn’t make landfall, they would only be catalogued if planes noticed and reported them, and they would only be measured if specially equipped planes basically flew through them and charted their strength.
It’s certainly also true of measurements of ice extent, volume and area, which would not be possible without satellite imagery.
New technology has had a radical effect on the time series of measurements made for extended periods before the technology was adopted. Sailors used to measure sea surface temperatures using a thermometer in a bucket lowered into the sea. When Argos buoys began providing a network of more accurate measurements, there was a break in the timeline. When surface stations converted to electronic thermocouples on a short leash, the adjustments required caused another break in the data series. (I guess readers here might know something about that already.) Scientists have worked hard to make adjustments to correct for the new sources of data, but the breaks are still pretty noticeable.
The sensible thing would be to give the new technologies time to develop an audited series of measurements long enough to determine trends, rather than grafting new data on top of older, less reliable series. But there are two objections to this: First, who’s to say another new measurement technology won’t come along and replace our brand new toys and resetting the clock to zero? Second, and of more concern, there is a whole scientific establishment out there saying we don’t have time to wait for a pristine data set. Some say we’ve already waited too long, others say that if we start today (and they really mean today), we just might avoid climate disaster.
And if you start to muse on the remarkable coincidence that warming apparently started at the same time as we got all this new-fangled technology, why that makes you a flat-earth denialist. Or something.
As it happens, while serving in the U.S. Navy I took sea surface temperatures with a thermometer in a bucket. There were not many detailed instructions involved. Should I have done it on the sunny side or the shady side? Nearer the pointy end of the ship (that’s technical talk) or the flat back end? How long was I supposed to leave the thermometer in the water?
I wouldn’t want to make momentous decisions based on the quality of data I retrieved from that thermometer, which wasn’t calibrated–I think the U.S.N. stock number was like 22, or some other low number indicating great antiquity. I much prefer what comes out of Argos.
But there are times I wish all those fancy instruments on the satellites were pointing at another planet.
Thomas Fuller href=”http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
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You have an opinion and regardless of whether we agree or disagree with you we are better off for it.
Having said that then how do you factor in the immediate future (next 2-3 decades) where we have a cold PDO, more prevalent La Ninas, dropping SSTs and a quiet sun. How much cold do you think there will be and when it is the cold that kills why should we sacrifice this generation to a guestimated warmth of the future (remembering the warm periods are the golden eras of earth’s history).
If both extremes are criticising you, you’re probably doing something right.
But I’m wondering if there’s any hard numbers to back up the “Chinese coal is going to choke us” claim?
The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics.
Greenhouses work by preventing convective air currents. CO2 is not a greenhouse gas!!!
Moreover, CO2 is also a cooling gas – it bats both ways, if it is cooler it absorbs radiation from the surface, if it is warmer than the prevailing environment (like space) it helps to emit IR.
Amost everything in that sentence is wrong except “CO2 is … a gas”.
Why do I always smile when people claim that there will only by some 9.1 million people because for some magical reasoning at about 2040 world population will start a downwards trend (That would be the UN medium trend).
In 1980 we were about 4.5 billion, today we’re about 6.9 billion, that’s 2.4 billion in 30 years. In 1950 we were about 2.5 billion per estimate. It wouldn’t be unprecedented so to speak if we became 3 billion more people in the next 30 years if the actual trend holds. And the only thing that seem to keep population down is economic progress. War and what not actually only seem to accelerate population growth.
Mmm I think you mean “dissociative identity disorder” and not “schizophrenia”.
I’ll give you at least some benefit of the doubt for your co-authorship of “The Crutape Letters”, which is great.
Can agree with a fair bit of what you say (and like apple pie and support motherhood, too).
Yes, nuclear is fairly expensive. Not as expensive as laughably inefficient BigWind (which, very curiously indeed, you don’t discuss). Not as expensive as BigSolar, especially for people who live where the sun doesn’t much shine.
But modern technology can burn coal efficiently and cleanly. And gas is extremely plentiful and also reasonably priced.
There are far more risks involved in hugely expanding fuel poverty and by effectively throttling development and alleviating grinding poverty in the third world than there are in risking a fractional increase in “global temperature” (mainly at high latitude in winter) which might be caused by an essential trace gas.
And, if you are happy that the ‘consensus’ view should be taken seriously, how come they feel the need to tell so many bare faced porky pies?
You must have learnt something from the CRU emails? No?
“So I’m not a ‘denialist.’ I’m not a ‘skeptic.’ I’m a lukewarmer–and I’m right.”
Even if you were right, that would be a grotesquely smug line. But you’re wrong.
“We don’t know the sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2, so the effects of feedbacks are not know. Activists think it is 3 degrees or higher. Contrarians think it is very low–1, maybe 2, tops, some thinking it is even lower.”
You have made a catastrophic error here. You have ignored what climate scientists say about climate sensitivity. They say this: we cannot constrain the climate sensitivity terribly well but we know that the greatest probability is that doubling CO2 would raise global temperatures by somewhere between 1.5 and 4.5°C. Values lower and higher than this are unlikely, but lower values are more unlikely than higher. No-one has ever produced a model with a sensitivity of 1°C or less that can reproduce the recent rise in global temperatures as well as reproducing historical and geological temperatures to a tolerable accuracy.
Who cares what activists and contrarians think? Their opinions are not relevant to what the climate sensitivity is. If you ignore what scientists say, you’ll get the science wrong, as you have done in this post and others.
Population
There is no population growth in the west and the rate of growth elsewhere is slowing. This is according to the UN. As the world gets richer and poorer women get educated, less children are born. Of course if the greens get their way, the death rate in the third world will go up for want of electricity.
As to TF’s assertion
“The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics. The calculations that show a temperature rise of between 1 and 2 degrees Celsius if concentrations double is also widely accepted, including by all skeptic scientists without (AFAIK) exception.”
Wrong, this is the IPCC’s assertion unsupported by evidence. We know that CO2 absorbs and emits in the IR spectrum although there are enough sceptics who doubt even this effect (although not Jeff Id and a number of regular commenters here). What no one has been able to do is separate this effect from all the other factors that govern weather and climate.
Cheers Paul
Thomas Fuller, you say : “I am a ‘lukewarmer,’ one who believes that the physics of climate change are not by theselves controversial, but who believes that the sensitivity of the earth’s atmosphere to a doubling of concentrations of CO2 is not yet known, but is likely to be lower than activists have claimed.“.
In a way, that puts you in a similar category to just about everyone here (if by “the physics of climate change” you mean the fact that atmospheric CO2 does indeed have some warming effect. But what you simply haven’t cottoned onto yet is that the people here have been through the science exhaustively over a long time, and whereas you “believe” the sensitivity “is likely to be lower”, people here know that there is no scientific evidence that it is as high as the IPCC claims, and there is plenty of evidence that it is lower. You want to challenge “no evidence”? Easy. Go through the IPCC Report and find where they present any evidence that clouds provide a positive “feedback” – and not only a positive feedback, but one that is greater than the forcing delivered by CO2 in the first place. (That bit is in the IPCC Report AR4 at 8.6.2.3 on page 633)
I’ll give you a hint – they don’t. They even say they aren’t sure what sign the feedback has.
And clouds isn’t everything, by the way, just one killer.
And don’t try to tell me something like : there is a lot of other information in the IPCC Report, and clouds are only one issue of many, and you prefer to follow all the other information. Read 8.6.2.3 again. Without clouds they cannot get ECS up to their stated 3.2. Without clouds they can’t even get it to 2. Without clouds their case is DOA. If you don’t believe me, be scientific : tell me how to get an ECS above 2 without clouds.
Now, if you can’t get ECS above 2, tell me what good it could possibly do for all the countries in the world except China and India to reduce CO2 emissions by a possible amount. Say 5%. Now for a bit of pure fantasy : what good would it do even if China and India joined in.
PS. On your way through the IPCC Report, make a note of everything they have to say about clouds. It makes for a very revealing read. If you don’t have time, don’t worry, I have already done it myself, and the result is here:
http://members.westnet.com.au/jonas1/IPCCOnClouds.pdf
[Note : I have in fact left out a small number of inconsequential references. You are welcome to check.]
Claims that the physics of the atmosphere are known is the same as saying that the science is fixed and we are causing climate change. Atmospheric physics are the very things that we are arguing about. There is no consensus about them by any means. Claims that CO2 store heat to re-radiate it at a later time actually violates the laws of thermodynamics and it is this ‘small’ fact that separates the alarmists from the realists.
It also flies in the face of the facts to claim that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 levels will lead to a tipping point from which climate would never recover. Past atmospheric CO2 levels were many times higher than today’s and no tipping point was reached.
Climate change is caused by natural inputs and events and not by some trace gas.
Tom Fuller, on what basis do you anticipate 2C as the likely climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2?
“The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics. ”
I truly belive that you should take some time to evaluate the physics behind the greenhouse effect and effect of CO2 in the atmosphere.
First the greenhouse effect is just partly a radiation balance effect. Not 100% as in common scientific simplified explanations.
Most of the effect is due to the fact the atmosphere is a gas.
A gas that is heated and cooled from below, the earth surface, will be average warmer than the surface that heat and cool it.
Try to cool a water storage tank from the bottom . Impossible because hot fluid raise.
But to heat the kettle from below is much easier.
That explain most the greenhouse effect! Not radiative transfer inside the atmosphere.
In part I agree with the above post.
Climate changes, it always has it always will, and it has a direct influence on the inhabitants of the planet, migrations of animals, including humans, is well noted historically.
We may well be influencing climate in some small way but our risk assesments should be looking at the broader picture including how to adapt to a cooling climate. My overall feeling is that we should never try to influence future climate but extend the ability to adapt to change.
Humans are always going to need energy sources, we as a species have evolved to a state that as a population of 6.5 billion it would be extremely detrimental to our species if we did not have major sources of energy and in part that is where the problem lies.
The future of energy generation has to be for a more localised and portable source based on the needs of community requirements rather than nationally. Unfortunately nothing fits this bill currently.
In the future we need the ability to say that because of whatever environmental impact this town, village, community needs to be moved from it’s current location and resited to another location and have the ability to up stakes and take the entire infrastucture including it’s energy source to a new location much in the way that our hunter gatherer ancesters used to do.
To develop our technology to this level is what we should be aiming for now, eventually leading to the ability to relocate an entire city.
Have I got news for you:
– CO2 is 0,0385% of our atmosphere. It’s a trace gas;
– Watervapor is the most important ‘greenhouse gas’;
– Feedback of clouds is negative;
– CO2-levels follow warming; CO2 doesn’t cause warming;
– There is no such thing as a tipping point. Earth’s history shows that;
– CO2 is plantfood, not a pollutant;
– The sun and cosmic rays determine cloud cover;
and this list goes on and on and on.
In my view, lukewarmers have a problem to accept that warming of the earth is a natural phenomenom. Man MUST have influence. That is the legacy of the green movement in their minds. It’s a religous way of thinking: blame and punishment.
I agree with a commenter some days ago, who did see that little influence of man is becoming the main stream thought. I prefer to stick to the facts: man has no influence.
Another collectivist stuck out a finger from his hiding place during more rational times
and found the climate suitable to bring his “We-ism” to save the world. Can’t you just let
free people go about their own lives and adapt as necessary, as economically as they will choose to do so. Individuals know far better than you whether to change their lives. People like you have taken over the village of 1700 where I live doing their tree hugging and burying utility lines and urban renewal and neglecting the old water and sewer lines and pot holed streets while placing us in $23 million debt to be repaid by 2023. I am tired of persons with life problems trying to save the world. Get a life Fuller and do something useful and planning other peoples lives is not a useful occupation.
[I suggest you refer to the site POLICY. There is a link up in the menu bar. Specifically make note: Respect is given to those with manners, those without manners that insult others or begin starting flame wars may find their posts deleted. … bl57~mod]
Good post Thomas, I liked it. You obviously think on a clear lateral taking in all considerations like myself. The problem with China’s coal burning is obviously that it’s not clean, but other factors are afoot remembering the pollution from the last Olympics there [kof].
If prevailing winds manage to take China’s particulate pollution into the Arctic, it may well help form water droplets and more snow. However, other countries will suffer from the haze. When I was in Seymour (Australia), a light southerly would blow all of Melbourne’s morning peak hour filth into our town some 100k (60Mi) away. The prevailing winds are usually SW, so towns NE of Melbourne have to deal with it more often.
I remember Melbourne’s air in the 70’s when I was a kid. It was a lot thicker back then, with far less humanity and machinery. It’s become far cleaner since, and still no coal-fired power factory within its boundaries.
Whenever I pass by the power factories in the East, I can’t see any smoke from the stacks. Frosty mornings show a slight tinge of blue and a very light smell of coal which I find pleasant. However we have greenies in this country that want to shut down Hazelwood – one of our main power sources – for nothing more than their own agenda, forgetting the brownout malaise they’ll have to endure with everyone else.
Greenies are the sand in the gears of modern civilisation, and they intend to be. Business can only sell what people want, and the vast majority want clean energy, but understand it’s not yet possible. The greenies would prefer sabotage to get us there, and they’ve proven that many times. They spike the very trees they’re trying to save with long metal rods to blunt chainsaws. Hypocrisy is rife eh? How ’bout I stab a greenie chained to a tree to ensure nobody runs a chainsaw through her? Nice.. Count the rings.
They’re all about wind power, but not in THEIR backyards as turbines appear unsightly, and noisy – god forbid they chop up an endangered orange-bellied parrot, which they sought long and hard to find something endangered to protest against the turbines.
They love the trees, but go to extreme lengths to protect them, naturally forgetting their house is held up by their necessary remnants, their hardwood benchtops, cutting boards and ever so expertly lathed and polished fruit bowls. They drive to their eco-mentalist events – PROBABLY car-pooling. Shouldn’t they walk bare-footed instead?
They’ll cover their houses in solar panels, not knowing heat in an electrical circuit increases resistance, consequently a bright sunny day can reduce solar performance to around 60%.
Society will work it out in the long run, but the AGW beast will be around while there’s still some money in it. We’ve got ads on the radio from heating companies bleating about their product’s low emissions. The mainstream media’s no help either, ignorantly coughing up the same alarmist phlegm in bucketfuls hoping to inspire panic so we can somehow force nature to behave through regulations and taxes, which nature cares nothing about going by lengthy interviews. Interestingly, this seems to be having the reverse effect as millions of viewers tire of this constant barrage, which has subsequently quieted recently – apart from the election campaign.
Meanwhile, the greenies blather on about the POSSIBLE extinction of some lesser-spotted weevil, how destructive modern civilisation is, and enjoy all the comforts of that very same modern life.
There are so many changes going on in the world that I have to say, anybody making plans beyond 2030 is deluding themselves. The world will not be recognisable.
Just make a list of all the scenarios that you can think of. Now imagine that something else happening that wasn’t foreseen by anybody.
We can’t prepare for that kind of unknown. We will simply have to ride it out. The West had hundreds of years of Dark Ages, then bam! The Enlightenment.
Many activist environmentalists talk about averting disasters if just everybody came together and cooperated and put our selfish cravings aside. Well many great leaps in history happened under chaos and confusion and were fuelled by cravings and hungers and created many victims. Even positive change is messy and ugly.
So by all means, do what can be done now, look at a middle way, be a lukewarmer, promote that which makes economic sense. And let’s get the enviros to drop this idea that money is evil. Money is information, money is communication, money tells you what people want and need. Capital is stored imagination and creativity.
That’s the biggest criticism perhaps of the environmentalists. They are doom obsessed, guilty, self-denying, boring, humourless people lacking imagination. But they seem to believe they have a handle on the “reality” of 2050.
If we are lucky the West won’t commit harakiri, only to be replaced by the bio-energy giants of Malaysia. If we are lucky the West will just about survive the world’s advance into new creative leaps.
Mike Haseler: I’m intruiged, please tell me more.
“If a panel composed of both Pielkes, Judith Curry, Mike Kelly, John Christy, Richard Lindzen and a few others were to work on proposed solution, I’d be pretty happy. I might be alone in my joy, I realize.”
This composition suggests to me that lukewarmers are not a genuine
third way movement, but rather a second way movement within
the sceptics. You seem to have excluded all the scientists who actually
contribute to climate science.
“… the physics of climate change are not by themselves controversial, but … the sensitivity of the earth’s atmosphere to a doubling of concentrations of CO2 is not yet known, but is likely to be lower than activists have claimed.”
I get really fed up by all these stupid labels. I’d always thought I was a climate sceptic because I understand the claims of the activists, the Guardian, the Royal Society etc to be unjustified and dishonest. But now it seems the only way to be a true sceptic is to reject the basic physics. And how can I do that? – I’m trained in physics. The basic physics is underpinned by both classical and modern physical theories, as well as numerous real world measurements, and is extremely unlikely to be wrong. And why would anyone need to reject it? This “grain of truth” certainly doesn’t support the activist’s claims – read SoD if you disagree. I’m on your side, Thomas, about this…
“…I believe that if there are ‘no regrets’ options…”
“We also need to push piecemeal solutions…”
“I do not want Maurice Strong to control our approach to the world’s environmental issues.”
“If a panel composed of both Pielkes, Judith Curry, Mike Kelly, John Christy, Richard Lindzen and a few others were to work on proposed solution, I’d be pretty happy. I might be alone in my joy, I realize.”
… and all of this as well. You would not be alone, I promise you.
Mr. Fuller, if I have read your missive correctly you seem to be suggesting that if the alarmists are wrong and the realists are wrong then, by default, you are probably be right.
Sorry but I don’t buy that. Not on your say so and not without a shred of evidence. Opinion isn’t evidence.
You refer to yourself as a ‘luke warmer’ which puts you in the middle of the road.
People who stand in the ‘middle of the road’ are referred to as ‘targets of opportunity.’
It is illogical and a non sequitur to declare that you believe both ways.
Otherwise, I fully concur with Mike Haseler’s posted remark (September 17, 2010 at 12:29 am).
You said:
“The operation of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is one of the least controversial ideas in physics.”
And he replied:
Greenhouses work by preventing convective air currents. CO2 is not a greenhouse gas!!!
Moreover, CO2 is also a cooling gas – it bats both ways, if it is cooler it absorbs radiation from the surface, if it is warmer than the prevailing environment (like space) it helps to emit IR.
Amost everything in that sentence is wrong except “CO2 is … a gas”.
Olaf Koenders says:
September 17, 2010 at 1:41 am
“Whenever I pass by the power factories in the East, I can’t see any smoke from the stacks.”
“Greenies are the sand in the gears of modern civilisation, and they intend to be.”
———————-
Well, looking at the global picture, ‘greenies’ were instrumental
in the developments leading to cleaner water, air and soils in past
decades. You seem to condone these developments now, but
contemporary greenies are always “sand in the gears”, and later
ob you can always be ahistorical and forget their contributions.
I’m getting really fed up of so many ‘tripe’ opinions, it’s absolutely no use whatsoever pontificating over highly disputed theories until we have reliable set of temperature records that are not being “homogenised” every five minutes. I repeat, when we are able to trust the input temperatures we can start to theorise the effects of trace gases.
You said: “those in the developing world, who will have to add droughts, floods and heatwaves to their current long list of miseries” If you believe that weather changes in a warming world, then you believe in negative weather feedback because all of things you describe are globally cooling.
RW, likewise you must believe that weather will NOT change as the world warms with CO2. That is a legitimate position (poles and dry areas warming will allow water vapor to be evenly distributed and cause water vapor warming feedback). If that is indeed your view, then the polar icecaps will melt (Greenland will have substantial melt within a few hundred years).
The models are unequivocal, as storminess increases, the distribution of water vapor becomes more uneven and the world warms less or cools.