Dr. Capell Aris writes:
Dear Mr. Watts,
The UK Geological Society has made a statement about climate change.
This seems to have received very little attention. It’s not a particluarly strong statement, given that it contains the statement:
“During warmings from glacial to interglacial, temperature and CO2 rose together for several thousand years, although the best estimate from the end of the last glacial is that the temperature probably started to rise a few centuries before the CO2 showed any reaction. Palaeoclimatologists think that initial warming driven by changes in the Earth’s orbit and axial tilt eventually caused CO2 to be released from the warming ocean and thus, via positive feedback, to reinforce the temperature rise already in train”
Full statement here:
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/views/policy_statements/page7426.html
R. Gates says:
June 26, 2011 at 10:42 am
This is nothing new. It has long been thought the Milankovitch forcings begin the warming that end glacials and that warming oceans then release more CO2 through outgassing which then cause more warming and so on. This is why CO2 lags the initial warming in the ice core data.
Milankovitch forcings in and of themselves are not enough to explain the large temperature difference between the bottom of a glacial period and the top of an interglacial. When CO2 data was finally recovered from ice cores the pieces fell into place as we could see the changes in GH gases that provided the addition forcings necessary to explain the temperature swings.
Just a thought about your new theoretical position which seems to have changed over time. Previous warming cycles as seen in the Vostok ice cores are natural, there was no anthropogenic input, you seem to suggest that natural planetary cycles and spacial alignments were the prime movers of cyclic warming and cooling events and it was CO2 that played a contributing role after warming began hence the lag time between temp and CO2 rise. But what caused the warming cycles to end? CAGW theory dictates that increasing CO2 leads to more warming leading to more CO2 leading to a runaway warming tipping point. CAGW doctrine states that an anthropogenic effect is the primary cause of the most recent warming cycle and if it were not for the extra CO2 produced by human activity from the 1700s on there would have been almost no warming of the planet.
Yet we know from the Vostok ice cores that previous warming cycles were higher and lasted longer with no anthropogenic input, how could this be? We can also clearly see that temperatures fell first and CO2 levels followed, there was no runaway tipping point. Yes there looks to be a relationship between warming and CO2 but it cannot be causal but simply and effect of natural cyclic warming, if it were causal there would have been a tipping point with runaway warming but each time the warming cycles ends first and then CO2 declines. Look back to previous warming cycles highs where as you claim CO2 was a contributing factor and that as CO2 increased so did warming, what then caused temperatures to decline and indeed collapse in spectacular fashion? Because an examination of the actual evidence clearly shows temperatures falling even as CO2 levels remained high. Only when temperatures fell did CO2 decline.
In effect CO2 did not cause warming and it did not cause the decline and collapse in temperatures after the end of the warming cycle. From the evidence it shows CO2 is a passenger NOT a driver, at no point in history has CO2 driven warming cycles. It is clear that the planet has been in a natural warming cycle and there is mounting evidence that this warming cycle is ending, it is also clear that there has been nothing special about this most recent modest warming cycle. The recent decline in global temperatures cannot be denied and it cannot be denied that whilst temperatures declined CO2 levels increased. If we take the ice cores as our guide to what will happen in the future we will see a decline in temperatures and then a lagging decline in CO2 levels.
Now note that CO2 levels began to rise after the most recent warming cycle began and notice that measured atmospheric CO2 rose even as global temperatures peaked and then declined post 1998, yes we have had local warming and cooling but the general trend is in decline. Now note that temperatures are declining and CO2 is still rising as measured, it is still too early to categorically assert with 100% confidence that CO2 will continue to rise and GATs will continue to decline but what it does clearly show is that the debate is not over and the consensus is by no means perfect. I can understand a theoretical evolution but your post just seems to fly in the face of everything you have claimed up to now. It aint a done deal is it? The CAGW theology is by no means the only game in town and there is a plausible plan B.
I am left wondering why this was posted. It is a mainstream scientific organisation issuing a statement in line with the mainstream scientific position. A good read if you want to come up to speed with AGW, but nothing new.
Marc says:
June 26, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Can anyone explain to us how co2 traps energy from going out but doesn’t prevent at least the same amount of energy from coming in?
It seems like we are being told that it should be hotter in the shade because the canopy keeps the energy from going out.
Is there any explanation of this?
——-
Incoming radiation and outgoing emitted radiation are different frequencies– higher coming in and lower being emitted from the surface. CO2 is transparent to the higher, but absorbs and re-emits the lower. This absorption and re-emission of longer wave radiation is the essence of the the GH effect.
Mark Hladik says:
June 26, 2011 at 1:15 pm
While other have successfully addressed R. Gates misanthropogenic hypothesis, let us also recall that anywhere past 200 ppm concentration, carbon dioxide’s absorption spectrum reaches a point of saturation, such that adding any more CO2 to the system does very little, if anything.
I don’t think that’s correct. The effect diminishes as CO2 increases, but not that early.
David M Hoffer posted what I believe is a very lucid explanation here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/25/bring-it-mr-wirth-a-challenge/#comment-689083 and there is a very detailed explanation by David Archibald here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/08/the-logarithmic-effect-of-carbon-dioxide/
Hence my understanding is that the effect only really starts to really tail off significantly once we get to quite high numbers; but irrespective of what level we might be at, each doubling of CO2 (which admittedly gets harder and harder as concentrations increase) contributes around 1.2C warming. That’s without additinal feedbacks.
So, 200ppm to 400ppm should cause around 1.2C; 400 to 800 another 1.2C, 800 to 1600 another 1.2C, and so on.
Disclaimer: IANAS, just an interested layman, so take all this with a pinch of salt. On the other hand, I’d be very glad to have any errors pointed out.
@G. Karst (is that a geological pun?)
The bit about the fossil->geologist->fossil->paleontologist is humorous, but they were actually just engaging in a bit of shorthand. In the early days of geology when the strata and geologic periods and such were being named, the ages were all relative. The principle of superposition was considered first when dating fossils or rocks, so if a fossil was found to appear in a particular strata, that fossil was used to “date” other strata it was found in. It wasn’t until the long-lived radioactives could be used to date strata that absolute ages could be applied to them. If anything, I’m surprised neither of them mentioned the U-Pb or K-Ar dating methods rather than the fossils.
Re: the UK Geological Society statement. Considering how the physicists went overboard, to the surprise of much of their membership, the geologist’s statement seems almost ambiguous. In the end, though, does it really matter how the CO2 gets into the atmosphere, whether by previous warming or by human output? Consider the scenario:
Geologically speaking, the earth warmed first, causing CO2 to be released from the oceans and soils and what have you. This accelerated (maybe) the warming a bit, until other negative feedbacks reined in the warming, overcoming CO2’s weak influence and ending the warming spell.
Now that we’re getting increased CO2 WITHOUT the previous warming — does this perhaps mean that the negative feedbacks will kick in later, until the warming reaches the appropriate levels?
At any rate, the geologically observed levels of up to 5000ppm of CO2 is pretty good evidence that by itself, CO2 can’t cause runaway warming, regardless of the source.
G Karst I do hope you were joking.
There is no circular argument. The fallacy is all in the terminology, here is how it should read:
ie field tour with Sedimentologist:
Sedimentologist: “Now, you see this sedimentary layer here… it was laid down 123 million years ago.”
student: “How do you know?”
Sedimentologist: ” See this little fossil here. Well paleontologists, have dated this sucker, as having walked the earth 123 million years ago.”
Student returns to campus (with fossil sample) and runs into a paleontologist and asks for a dating of the sample.
paleontologist: “Yes, I know this fossil well. It lived and thrived 123 million years ago.”
student: “How do you know?”
paleontologist: ” Easy, it is only found in sedimentary layers, dated by Stratigraphers and Geophysicists, as laid down 123 million years ago.”
All of the specialists can be described as Geologists. The sedimentologist has used a secondary dating method (e.g. fossil correlation) rather than a primary (e.g. radiometric dating etc) and has not explained the implications of this.
At first I read into the paragraph, which includes a “positive feedback” reference, a nod towards the current CAGW hypothesis. But then I realised (I hope correctly) that they’re talking about just CO2 in itself being a (small, limited) positive feedback of the tilt change, rather than the runaway H2O feedback hypothesised by alarmists. Then if you read the full piece, it mentions other points which really don’t give strength to the CAGW theory – although they try to imply that they do.
Unfortunately it all ends with the usual crap about the so-called necessity to decrease CO2 output, or we’ll fry. As per usual, there’s no mention of by how much we should reduce our CO2 output, and what cooling effect said reduction would have. No mention either of how exactly we reduce it, although to be fair that would not be in their mandate.
So here are some ways of how we can reduce CO2: Governments ban companies from producing too much stuff (producing stuff needs energy, energy produces CO2). As a consequence a proportion of the workforce unfortunately automatically becomes redundant and living on welfare, supported by those taxpayers lucky enough to still be in work, but hey ho, “when needs must.” Or the Government passes a law to limit the number of hours in a working week, so everyone gets a job (working a few hours a week) – and is necessarily supported by welfare. But such is life. Or the end products are taxed so highly that no one except the privileged few can afford to buy them, and the manufacturers go out of business (or move to India or China). National debt rises even more than it is already. Prices rise as goods become more rare, inflation goes through the roof, the welfare economy collapses, and the Greens have their goal of the destruction of western economies. People die and the crime rate soars as food and medicine become rare commodities. But Gaia is saved. Now those are – as far as I can see – the only ways of actually reducing CO2 output measurably. But in return we’d have a cooler climate (by about 0.00000001 degree C or so, in about a hundred years). THIS concept is what is being sold to us by anyone who tells us we need to measurably reduce CO2.
;JamesS said “At any rate, the geologically observed levels of up to 5000ppm of CO2 is pretty good evidence that by itself, CO2 can’t cause runaway warming, regardless of the source.”
Nobody is saying “runaway” warming. If climate sensitivity were, for argument’s sake, 3 degrees C per doubling of CO2, then if atmospheric CO2 is doubled we would see a raise of 3 degrees C over a few decades, at which point a new equilibrium would be reached.
The serious scientific debates are about what that sensitivity figure is, and what feedbacks not curently accounted for (positive or negative) will kick in to increase or decrease it.
Cassie King,
Don’t know why you’d call this a new theoretical position, as it hardly is. The role of outgassed CO2 to amplify Milankovitch forcings has been a basic position for quite some time, and the role of rock weathering to remove CO2 has also been researched and the basic chemistry known for a long time. The lag time of CO2 to temperatures going into and out of glaciations has to do with the negative and positive feedback lag times in both adding and subtracting CO2 from the atmosphere via their respective feedback mechanisms.
Also, you can’t look at just a few years data on this to see the longer-term forcing that CO2 represents. You use the year 1998 as some kind of benchmark for the height of modern warming, yet the decade after that year, 2000-2009 was the warmest on record.
SØREN BUNDGAARD said: “WE LIVE IN THE COLDEST PERIOD OF THE LAST 10,000 YEARS… -SEE THIS SURPRISING VIDEO FROM GREENLAND.”
There is a good summary of the GRIP (Greenland) project results and some comparisons to the Law Dome (Antarctic) project at http://thevirtuousrepublic.com/?p=4862.
I was particularly interested in the justification for statements made in the video about direct measurements of temperature in the bore hole being indicative of paleo-temperatures.
David, UK says:
June 26, 2011 at 2:17 pm
“energy produces CO2”
Not necessarily. Nuclear doesn’t produce CO2, neither does hydroelectric. I don’t even need to mention other “green” sources.
And don’t be so pessimistic about the future if AGW is finally accepted by governments and we start to do something about it. It could go like this:
Most of the big economies (USA, Europe, Australia, Canada for starters, say) impose a tax on CO2 emissions. Energy companies look for ways of reducing emissions so as to pay less tax and therby out compete other energy companies. Companies and individuals find ways of reducing energy usage to reduce their taxes. The tax revenues are redistributed in whatever ways our democracies decide. The big economies that impose carbon taxes charge equivalent import duties on those that don’t to avoid “exporting emissions” and to ensure those economies don’t see an unfair competitive advantage. Eonomists call this a “Pigouvian” tax.
Can someone explain why this would be such a bad thing? (Asssuming, for the moment, that AGW is real, mitigation is needed, and CO2 emission reductions will work)
The most important thing here is that academics are ‘turning around’ while also trying not to lose face. It is necessarily a slow process. Compare the Geological Soc UK with the American Geophysical Union for instance:
http://www.agu.org/sci_pol/positions/climate_change2008.shtml and
http://www.post-carbon-living.com/TTHW/Documents/Climate_Change_Consensus.pdf Joint Sciences academies statement.
“Since 2007, no scientific body of national or international standing has maintained
a dissenting opinion. A few North American organisations hold non-committal positions.”
That is a hell of a lot of scientists, lured into consensus. Does one really need to be an outsider to see the fraud?
Much of the discussion above is centered around the premise that Milankovitch forcing is relatively weak. The reality is that this is not true. There are several components to the forcing, being eccentricity, obliquity and precession. The first (eccentricity) is generally viewed as being significantly weaker than the other two. But the combination of precession and obbliquity has substantial climate forcing impacts, particularly on icesheet formation and destruction in the Northern Hemisphere.
One of the biggest climate feedbacks is albedo. The combination of change in reflectivity due to ice sheet and sea-ice expansion/contraction, cloud cover and vegetation change provides most of the positive feedback that forces global temperature change. About 70 to 80 ppm of the change in atmospheric CO2 concentration is a side-effect of the warming of the oceans. There is no particular need to invoke change in the optical thickness of the atmosphere as a cause of glacial-interglacial temperature change. I have seen no proof that, on the glacial-interglacial timescale, there is any substantial change in atmosheric optical thickness that is suficient to force glacial-interglacial temperature changes.
What was that party game that used to be around?
It had a mat, and on the mat were numbered spots. A person would then have to put their hands and feet on different spots depending on the role of the dice…it was hilarious…everyone got into a right old tangle and then fell over….what was it called?
Only because it very much reminds me of the poor faithful Warmists who, as each new bit of evidence emerges to nullify CAGW, have to twist their story, to try and get it to fit the original official line. Global Warming causes drought/floods, hurricanes/no hurricanes, ice melt/record snowfalls, warm winters/cold winters…etc etc ad nauseam…
This latest burp from the geologists has left them tied up in knots…
see R Gates above clutching at straws.
I expect everyone to fall over in gales of laughter soon.
What was it called….TWISTER?
Something fishy here. Why draw attention to a small part of the document.
The rest of it appears to have been drafted by Greenpeace for them:
…Evidence from the geological record is consistent with the physics that shows that adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere warms the world and may lead to: higher sea levels and flooding of low-lying coasts; greatly changed patterns of rainfall; increased acidity of the oceans; and decreased oxygen levels in seawater…
etc, etc
That statement is somewhat similar to the abstract that accompaines the Vostok Ice Core data
which says:
“Air trapped in bubbles in polar ice cores constitutes an archive for the reconstruction of the global carbon cycle and the relation between greenhouse gases and climate in the past. High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 +/- 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations. Despite strongly decreasing temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations can be sustained for thousands of years during glaciations; the size of this phase lag is probably connected to the duration of the preceding warm period, which controls the change in land ice coverage and the buildup of the terrestrial biosphere.”
Source http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/vostokco2.html
R. Gates: “Tilo Reber & Peter F., see my response to Evan M. Jones at 11:49 am. ”
R. Gates: “But it is precisely in the increased water vapor levels and eventual increased rock weathering that comes from the acceleration of the hydrological cycle that removes CO2 from the atmosphere and breaks the positive feedback loop that otherwise would have created the run-away greenhouse condition.”
I don’t follow your argument. Can you explain this better please.
Also note that whatever your considerations about removing CO2 from the atmosphere, the record shows that CO2 was still on the rise and continued to rise when temperature turned around and went down.
R. Gates says:
June 26, 2011 at 10:42 am
“When CO2 data was finally recovered from ice cores the pieces fell into place as we could see the changes in GH gases that provided the addition forcings necessary to explain the temperature swings.”
=============
When did GH become an accepted abbreviation for greenhouse?
I’ve been lost for 2 days reading your posts !!
R. Gates?
Are you trying to say none of the incoming energy has the same wavelength as tthe outgoing. Certainly, if it can block outgoing, it must block some substantial outgoing.
Isn’t it the case that our magnetic field is what give us a steady atmosphere and the fact that we have so much water? It is hard to conceive that a few 100 parts per million can have any significant effect on temperature compared to the myriad other factors dictating temperature.
Would not the world be much hotter during the day and much cooler at night without the atmosphere.? So clearly, the fact that daytime temperatures are so low means that a whole bunch of the energy is not getting in?
Albedo and clouds and cosmic rays and all that stuff have to be a much bigger effect.
Seems the focus on CO2 is dogmatic, not even remotely proveable, or even likely, given the complexity of the system and our inchoate understanding.
Meant… Certainly, if it can block outgoing, it must block some substantial incoming.
A lot of talk about CO2 as an atmospheric amplifier.
It doesn’t amplify anything, and there are no physics to prove this.
It’s a molecule, period. It obeys quantum physics no differently than any other molecule, save for the wavelength of light it will receive. It cannot pass on magical quantities of trapped energy without receiving more.
As for the physics to disprove CO2 as an atmospheric amplifier: energy is neither created nor destroyed.
CO2 amplification is a myth created to get around the above, and CO2 cannot create energy out of nothing, nor can it amplify the energy received from LIR outgoing.
Bunch of hogwash, because if it were true, then scientists and power plant operators would be drooling over a miracle power-generation breakthru. Eureka…Cold Fusion at last and unlimited power.
JamesS:
David L. Williams:
Re: Geologist parable
Yes it was satire illustrating the danger of relying on authority, without checking source data, creating an eternal self-confirming loop. As I said, I have the highest respect for geology and agree with both of your comments. I apologize, for not stating the moral of the story. GK
Rhoda Ramirez says:
June 26, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Doesn’t their emphasis on the positive feedback mean that there should never have been any ice age at all? At one time the CO2 was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5000 PPM, yes?
=================
During that time the surface of the Earth was completely uninhabitable. Nothing lived. All life has appeared since the CO2 dropped below 500ppm. With the IPCC climate sensitivity of 6C, the temps would have been… 36-40C higher than they are now. Clearly nothing could survive.
Also, since the current increase in CO2 is far larger than that of the interglacials’ and the current warming is far less, the only reasonable conclusion is that the IPCC models and hockey stick are grossly underestimating how warm it’s really gotten. Small CO2 changes back then apparently resulted in LARGE temp shifts (10C plus) therefore our much larger CO2 increase must have resulted in a temp increase that’s much larger than 10C. Which explains all the snow we’ve been having…
Everyone mentions rock weathering, no one mentioned CO2 consuming, or emitting, life forms. Clearly the reason the CO2 plumeted after the previous interglacials was due to an excess of plants and insufficient numbers of critters exhaling CO2. The plants ate all the CO2 and the climate crashed back into an ice age.
Do I have to? Ok…
/sarc_off
R. Gates: “The lag time of CO2 to temperatures going into and out of glaciations has to do with the negative and positive feedback lag times in both adding and subtracting CO2 from the atmosphere via their respective feedback mechanisms.”
Your explanation of CO2 lag would seem to be irrelevant to the fact that temperature falls before CO2 falls. The question is not why there is a lag. It is not about how a negative feedback comes into play once the temperature begins to fall; the question you have to ask is, how does temperature fall and fall sharply while CO2 is still rising sharply. Forget today. This is the case in the record of the past.
R. Gates: “You use the year 1998 as some kind of benchmark for the height of modern warming, yet the decade after that year, 2000-2009 was the warmest on record.”
The current situation has not played itself out. So let’s not use it in this discussion. I know Cassie brought it up, but it still should be left out. And it’s not true, as Cassie says, that the temperature has fallen since 1998. It is simply flat since 1998. You probably also want to reconsider the “warmest decade on record” thing. When you go up a flight of stairs and reach the top floor every subsequent step that you will take will be higher than any of the steps that you took while coming up the stairs. But it does not mean that you are still climbing.
SØREN BUNDGAARD
Thank you very much. Have you sent the link to Michael Mann?