A challenge from Dr. Roy Spencer

Anything can be shown, either warming or cooling. Both sides cherry pick. But just looking out the window at the climate and temperatures it’s pretty obvious that theres no runaway anything happening. Mom Gaia doesn’t have a fever so why should I be worried?

KR says:
February 7, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Thank you, now I can formulate a response to your issues.
I hope so.
Myrrh said: “Prove that there is this mechanism ‘feedback’ by CO2 which has driven temperature changes in the past through all our global glacials and interglacials for hundreds of thousands of years in our Ice Age.”
Strawman argument – I very clearly did not say that. As I have stated repeatedly, CO2 did not drive the glacial cycles, but simply amplified them.
So you don’t know what you’re saying? Or are you being deliberately disingenuous? “Forcing” and “Amplifying” isn’t ‘driving’? ‘Driving’ is certainly used by AGW to describe this.
You said in an earlier post: “If you think it’s a natural cycle, rather than the (well understood) CO2 forcing, then find the cycle and identify it!
The identity of which is exactly what all those replying to you here have been pointing out. The natural cycles are conveniently as depicted on the Vostok graph. You’re looking at them every time you look at the graph. CO2 doesn’t play any part in amplifying or forcing or driving in them.
Your “well understood” CO2 forcing is simply non-existent, because you continue to fail to explain what CO2 had to do with the temperature changes during all these cycles. Your “amplified” is not explained. All you do here is your best to avoid explaining it.
Or perhaps you’re merely putting off seeing that the emperor is naked because you can’t explain it. Claiming that CO2 has amplified temperatures is no substitute for proving, showing, explaining, how when where it has amplified them during all these cyclical changes.
Explain your “well understood CO2 forcing”. Show us how CO2 “amplified temperatures” through all the changes in the natural cycles as depicted in the Vostok data, because until you can show that you have no base for your “well understood CO2 forcing” now. Stop avoiding giving an answer.
And, until you can satisfactorily prove that CO2 has actually amplified/forced/played any part in driving the great temperature rises as we come out of our Ice Age and into interglacials, temperatures higher than we have now even during interglacials, your panic over the ‘extra’ CO2 level is quite misplaced. Because you’re worrying over a figment of the imagination.
Myrrh said: “Prove that the causes of all these changes, both gradual and dramatic, have stopped, and that CO2 is now the only driver.”
As I have stated repeatedly, CO2 did not drive the glacial cycles, but simply amplified them. A bit ‘o warming occured, oceans gave up some CO2 (500 year delay, as stated), water vapor, albedo, cloud feedback occur, some more warming occurred, some more CO2, albedo, water vapor, until the positive feedback damped out. When insolation decreased, CO2, water vapor, albedo also changed, amplifying the 3.4 W/m^2 insolation change.
I have asked you several times now to prove that CO2 amplified temperatures during these cycles.
You are here, again, merely giving an imaginary ‘scenario’ for which you offer no proof that that this is what actually happens in the natural cycle of glacial and interglacials during all these hundreds of thousands of years, you haven’t shown that they’re at all significant in what really are dramatic changes from ice to global warming. You say “500 years”, the spread is generally, from much research, noted as from around 500-1,000 years, so, “around 800 years” as I’ve been using it is par for our current understanding and also, since we’re using the example here, relates to the Vostok data.
Again, “amplified” is forcing, is driving. This isn’t some subtle theological argument where we have to delve in obtuse nuances, this is supposed to be science where we deal with the natural world in separating fact from fiction. I don’t care how you pronounce tomato. PROVE that CO2 AMPLIFIED temperatures during the great global warmings of our interglacials. PROVE it is DRIVING/FORCING our temperature now.
Until you Can Prove It, you should think twice before worrying others about what remains a figment of your imagination with a magic CO2 satanic tool which is going to destroy us, by making us all toasty and warm and by feeding the plant life into more abundance in turn feeding us, the rest of the Carbon life which evolved from CO2.
Myrrh said: “Prove that the causes of all these changes, both gradual and dramatic, have stopped, and that CO2 is now the only driver.” –
Another strawman. Take a look at IPCCAR4 Section 2.1 (http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en//faq-2-1.html), or a good overview here (http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate-intermediate.htm), and a good set of graphs here (http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/).
Thank you. I have now spent several years going through such and these are of the same ilk with nothing new; in other words I know what AGW claims. Please concentrate on my points until such time as you understand what I’m asking. Then give me your answers.
We know (within some limits) what forcings drove the last few glacial cycles, and we know where those forcing are now – we should be slowly cooling based upon the natural forcings. CO2 is a large, but by no means the only, driver of climate now. It just happens to be the largest warming influence at the moment due to the 29GT of CO2 we pump out each year.
We’re certainly getting a much clearer picture now of what causes the changes in our cycle: http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/confirmed-orbital-cycles-control-ice-ages And CO2 is irrelevant in these except to those who give it magic powers.
I wonder if you actually appreciate the shear scale of these changes? I think you don’t because you’ve several times downplayed these – taking your cue from AGM I suppose, which has to downplay these and pretend we’re in a dangerous ‘unprecedented’ warming to sell its new religious dogma. The Hockey Stick of course the classic con here. (*)
If you look at Vostok objectively, (go to the Jo Nova site to see the graph expanded), you’ll see temps have been decreasing throughout our present Holocene. The rises and falls into hotter and colder are of the same kind of blips as previous interglacials, as our temperature drops back into the Ice Age. Our current warming blip is natural out of our LIA, (and it’s not necessary for my points to argue whether this has now stopped or remained pretty much insignificant in the last century or so or has continued warming), but the end result will be likewise as shown in our Ice Age Cycle repeatedly. We’re headed back into our Ice Age and the change is due from any time now. And CO2, no matter how much is in the atmosphere, is not able to stop that happening. Just as it has shown no ability to do this at the end of any of our interglacials.
But, in case you think I’m copping out here, and for the benefit of anyone else interested. Not everyone agrees with you that we are in a warm phase and not in the cool you state we should be in:
“Thus, over the past half-million years, and within the context of the most recent five full interglacials, it is clear that the average near-surface air temperature of the earth during the 1990’s was not unusually warm, but unusually cool.” http://www.co2science.org/subject/c/summaries/glacialcycles.php
And a reminder that there’s a discussion on temps and ice ages on WUWT from a couple of years ago, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co-2-temperatures-and-ice-ages
KR says: CO2 isn’t “unchanged” – it’s 100 ppm above where it’s been for the last half million years, over 1/3 higher. Now it’s a forcing, not a feedback, because of us. 29GT of CO2/year is_not_chump_change.
So? Unless and until you can give me the proof I’ve been asking you for, to show me that CO2 is actually amplifying/forcing/driving at any time at all during not only the last half million years but for the hundreds of thousands of years longer we have data, all that shows is CO2 amount irrelevant. That it doesn’t make any difference how much is in the atmosphere. Temperatures continue to rise and fall, sometimes slowly and sometimes dramatically quickly, and CO2 has no affect whatsover on these changes.
And these changes have not stopped. We are still going through them. And CO2 continues to have no affect of any significance even in the variations in climate in these changes. (See above)
(*)I have, as I’ve said, spent several years going through the AGW arguments, and giving them a lot of thought. It was when I came across information about it as for example in link following, in dribs and drabs when I first began exploring this so it took me a while to put the pieces of the zigsaw together, that I became thoroughly convinced that there was no scientific reality behind the AGW claims. REAL Scientists lose all credibility the moment they are discovered to cheat and lie and fake data to promote their ‘hypothesis’, and worse even, this had become a deliberately organised con. It was actually a very sad moment for me, I thought the argument was between real scientists and I was keen to see the research backing up the different views.
http://www.amlibpub.com/essays/ipcc-global-warming-report.html
So please KR, return the favour. I’ve spent a good deal of time reading and thinking about the AGWScience, I even began a bit ‘biased’ in its favour because I had no reason to doubt it. At least read the links in this post and give them as much serious consideration as you’re able. And, re-read the replies you’ve had from others here, I think you’ve been missing their points as you’ve clearly been missing those I’ve been trying to make. Slow down..