Andrew Bolt (via his reader John Coochey) of the Herald Sun notes an astonishing incongruity with expert claims on CO2 warming retention times made about 24 hours apart on radio programs in Australia.
Climate scientist and warmist Andy Pitman on Thursday:
If we could stop emissions tomorrow we would still have 20 to 30 years of warming ahead of us because of inertia of the system.
Climate Commissioner and warmist Tim Flannery on Friday:
If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years
As he titles the post:
Twenty years or 1000? One of these “experts” is hopelessly wrong
Heh, ya think?
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I think all you have to do to become a warming expert is to declare yourself a warming expert. Oh, and forecast doom and gloom for the future if we don’t mend our wicked ways. That way you are guaranteed to be quoted by the tabloid press, the BBC etc. Nobody will ever hold you to account in the mainstream media by looking back at previous crap forecasts. Just keep the doom and gloom coming. Anything out of line is just weather anyway.
I seem to remember reading and watching videos that state that 50% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions are absorbed by the hydro, litho and biosphere. If that were true, wouldn’t that mean a complete stop in CO2 emissions would result in a drop just as fast as it went up?
I.e. If it took us 22 years to get from 350 ppmv to 390ppmv then it would take 22 years to get back there once we completely stopped all emissions.
MrC
Given the impeccable performance of the CAGW predictions, the unimpeachable clarity of their calculations and the unassailable transparency of their model methodology; I would say that given the rather constant / steady rise in CO2 over the last decade along with the concomittant reduction / flattening of global temperatures (;^) that our two entreprenuers have hit it spot-on. Is there a problem? sarc/off
MrCannuckistan says:
March 26, 2011 at 3:40 pm
I seem to remember reading and watching videos that state that 50% of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions are absorbed by the hydro, litho and biosphere. If that were true, wouldn’t that mean a complete stop in CO2 emissions would result in a drop just as fast as it went up?
It is true that about halve of what humans emitted is absorbed in quantity (not the same molecules!) by other reservoirs, but as human have emitted extra CO2 during 160 years (and smalle quantities somewhat longer), the total extra amount residing in the atmosphere now is 210 GtC (100 oomv CO2) higher than equilibrium. The amounts removed by oceans and vegetation currently are about 4 GtC/year. Thus it will take a lot more time than a few years to remove the excess CO2, the more that the driving force, the difference between CO2 levels in the atmosphere and oceans/vegetation will reduce over time. The 38 years from Peter Dietze, as quoted by Werner Brozek may be spot on…
That’s an easy Q, it’s both. See 20 to 30 years fit right inside the whole several hundred years. Geez, even I know such things. :p
For experts they are absolutely consistant. As CO2/AWG causes everything they can’t be wrong, as self appointed experts they are always wrong.Just the way modern experts work I guess.
It is apparent both have contracted serious cases of irritable climate sydrome, the only cure is to wean each of all tax payer funding and isolation from the general public in a nice friendly green padded cell.
Pitman said “If we could stop emissions tomorrow we would still have 20 to 30 years of warming ahead of us because of inertia of the system.”
What, like we have 10 years without warming behind us?
Flannery said “If the world as a whole cut all emissions tomorrow the average temperature of the planet is not going to drop in several hundred years, perhaps as much as a thousand years”
What, like it hasn’t net warmed or cooled in the last 1000 years?
Flannery is the winner as he is consistent in terms of timescales and predicting no change.
Now if they’d made the same predictions 15 years ago (I assume the underlying physics hasn’t altered in the meantime) we’d have had one that said we’d have warmed and still be warming even if CO2 had stabilised, (which it hasn’t), and one that said it would take hundreds of years to cool.
Both of these forecasters would have been pretty relieved to have been proved wrong.
Wouldn’t they?
Maybe they’ll be kind enough to confirm that.
Or then again, perhaps maybe not.
Funny old world.
That’s not inconsistent ! It may betray that neither of them has a clue, what’s going to happen, despite all their tax payer funding, but they’re not inconsistent ( not with each other anyway).
Why don’t we just agree that they’re both wrong?
Tim Flannery, interviewed by the WWF, 2007 (when the AGW movement was in the news every day, oh, the good old times).
Another miss from Bolt. The two statements are consistent with each other. Good grief isn’t Bolt supposed to be a journalist? Isn’t being able to read part of his job description?
X years with temperatures still RISING
Y years before they start FALLING
Bizzarely Bolt seems to be the most influential climate ‘expert’ with at least one major party in Australia…
Well sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits. Perhaps likes Descartes I should sit in an oven and wait for inspiration, or perhaps I should live in a barrel like Diogenes. Neither appeals.
But for all my defects I can recognise things that would make a cat laugh, and this one is most mirthful. So I don’t bother to think about it but instead raise a glass of fine old Rioja to celebrate the joke.
Kindest Regards
NyqOnly says:
March 26, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Another miss from Bolt. The two statements are consistent with each other. Good grief isn’t Bolt supposed to be a journalist? Isn’t being able to read part of his job description?
X years with temperatures still RISING
Y years before they start FALLING
Bizzarely Bolt seems to be the most influential climate ‘expert’ with at least one major party in Australia…
Great Comment. You saved me the trouble of writing it.
I am scratching my head about two things.
1) Why was Bolt’s comment posted here to begin with? It seems that Bolt can’t be bothered to read and think about what he writes, but how did such an error get past Anthony Watts?
2) Why did it take 37 responses until someone noticed the obvious mistake made by Bolt?
Have to agree with Mosher et al. I may be relatively scientifically illiterate, but even I can comprehend that the two comments are not contradictory. Both wrong, very possible.
oops, perhaps the scientific term is, “highly probable”.
latitude
“So it would be at least several hundred, perhaps a thousand, years before anything we did would do any good.
You go first………….
#######
Your assumption is wrong. Theory says that the C02 we put in the atmopshere up to now has had a warming effect. call it .5C just for sake of the argument. If we cut all emissions, the warming will continue for a couple of decades. This is known as inertia. If we cut our emissions, then eventually over time the C02 levels would return to pre industrial. I’m not so convinced that Flannery is correct on the hundreds of years figures, but lets just assume he is correct.
The point of cutting emissions is to arrest the warming at levels that are manageable.
So, the “good” of doing it is more like harm prevention.
Quite simply, do nothing and the world will continue to warm maybe 2-3C over pre industrial
Stop altogether and you limit that to maybe .5-1C
So, will it do “any good” to stop the warming at 1C rather than letting it go to 2-3C?
Some people think so.
Another way to look at it is the damage goes with the square of the temperature increase, so preventing temperature increase has a lot of leverage.
Both Pittman and Flannery were talking about the same article by Susan Solomon et. al. in the PNAS.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/01/28/0812721106.full.pdf+html
Looking at figure 1, it is seen that when CO2 concentration increase is halted at 450 ppM, the surface warming stops very quickly but over the next 1000 years, the CO2 does not get back to its original concentration before the increase in emissions, and the temperature doesn’t get back to anywhere near its original value in that time either.
Mosh, you’re assumption is wrong…
…but you already know I disagree and why
There are too many assumptions, based on computer games and theories, that do not exist in the real world, and only exist inside some computer program.
steven mosher,
“Just for the sake of argument,” let’s say the warming effect from CO2 is ≤0.2°C. That’s Dr Lindzen’s understanding, and I think he knows something about the subject.
There is no credible basis to argue that CO2 is responsible for 0.5° out of a total rise of 0.7°. That sounds like some wild-eyed realclimate WAG. [In fact, a good case can be made that CO2 causes little or no warming, but I’m playing your game here, admittedly with more realistic parameters.]
With that in mind then, please cite the specific global “damage” caused by the extra CO2 molecules. Please stay within the scientific method, and provide us with empirical, testable, reproducible evidence of global “damage” caused specifically by CO2 [keeping in mind that models and pal-reviewed papers are not scientific evidence].
And Latitude has a good point: U.S. CO2 emissions have been declining without the proposed EPA regulations, while China. Brazil, India, etc., etc., are all ramping up their CO2 emissions.
The planet has been several degrees warmer many times over the past ten millennia, and there was no corellation with CO2 leading to temperature rises. In fact, rising CO2 follows temperature rises.
Given these facts, the rise in CO2 has been harmless and beneficial. Unless, of course, you can provide verifiable evidence of global damage due specificaly to the increase in CO2.
You ain’t seen nothing yet!
In the first edition of Tim Flannery’s book, “The Weather Makers: the History and Future Impact of Climate Change” (you can find it in google books), he explains how telekinesis affects climate. An example is, “There is one remarkable aspect of the great aerial ocean that has only recently been appreciated – its telekinesis. The last time you heard of telekinesis was probably when Uri Geller was bending spoons, but the term does have a valid scientific definition. It means ‘movement at a distance without a material connection’, and in the case of the atmosphere telekinesis allows changes to manifest themselves simultaneously in distant regions.”
This is from our (Austrlia’s) head of its Climate Commission. The expert our federal government has appointed to lead a commision to teach us all about the science of climate and global warming. His first degree was in arts majoring in English and his PhD was in long dead marsupials (also found with google – perhaps they will make that harder to find now they are going to start spreading warmist propaganda). So it is not hard to understand why he has problems with the science. What is worrying is that we do not appeared to have moved much beyond the middle ages where those in power relied on advice(?) to blame witches and had them burnt for causing global cooling?
But what is the optimal global temperature and why? What is the goal temperature?
Tenuc says:
March 26, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Unfortunately, science only progresses with each funeral (although as absolutely wrong both of these “experts” are, it really shouldn’t take a funeral to wake people up)!
steven mosher says:
March 26, 2011 at 6:04 pm
But what if it is benefit rather than damage that goes with the square of the temperature increase (at least until we’re out of Ice Age range), so “preventing temperature increase” should be a criminal act and stopping the benefit should be a crime against humanity. Sad that it takes funerals for illogical, irreconcilable, idiotic notions to be swept away; you’d think the value of an education would be a strong propensity for knowledge rather than stroking an unmaleable ego.
These views aren’t completely inconsistent with each other, I suppose 1000 years would be inertia in the extreme. But the question is…are they sure it’s getting warmer?