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
izen: “Nature gets the first, last and only vote on this matter and as merely the art of the possible the politics will be shaped by that.”
Yeap, and so far I like the results coming from the exit polls.
John B. “Your house gets warmer. But it doesn’t go on getting warmer till the windows melt, does it?”
Your heater has a limit. The limit for CO2 heating is running out of CO2. That doesn’t happen at 300-400ppm.
John B. “but stop thinking you have found the killer flaw in basic science.”
The basic science only seems to be off in assuming too high of a climate sensitivity number. But then there never really was any basic science to support the high number to begin with.
ferd berple says @ur momisugly June 27, 2011 at 4:00 pm “The IPCC says that CO2 is the main driver of climate.”
Another strawman ferd.
Bullcr^p until you can show us where the IPCC actually says that. (hint – the IPCC has never said “CO2 is the main driver of climate”.
Tilo Reber says @ur momisugly June 27, 2011 at 6:33 pm ‘You have no mechanism and no explanation for how temperature can start a steep decline while CO2 is still on a steep rise. Why are you so determined to not accept the obvious. CO2 forcing is just not that strong.”
Again with the notion that CO2 is the only forcer – and yes that presumption is embedded in your “rebuke”. I can see why you write it like that since it creates a bogus argument that looks as is if calls into the question the science, but it’s a bogus hypothetical that simply shows that you need bogus arguments to try and make your point.
Peter Kovachev says:
June 27, 2011 at 11:16 am “…The best path to enbark on, methinks humbly, is to gradually and firmly push, to keep on pushing and winning “territory,” and to reduce resistence by humanly providing soft landing spots and face-saving measures for the losers….”
izen says:
June 27, 2011 at 2:45 pm “…But this pre-supposes that Nature cooperates and provides conclusive refutation of the AGW theory. Criteria that all but the most rabid eco-extremist would accept….”
Peter: Maybe that’s the approach for Europe, but not here. If the Republicans win it all, these folks stand to lose big. It’s already started, with votes against ethanol. The EPA and its illegal efforts against CO2 will be completely defunded, etc.
izen: Nature may or may not deliver, but “Big Green” is the key component. I don’t mean the environmental idiots and wind power grifters and so forth: I mean the economy (US $). These aforementioned people have cost us untold billions, maybe trillions, and we simply can’t tolerate them any more. More than anything, the economic plight we find ourselves in will force action that will overcome the obstacles (I don’t hold out any hope for Europe; they are going to have to pay for their follies in blood and tears, I fear).
Imagine if the US really opened the doors to developing its own energy resources (just one area of the economy hamstrung by rampant environmentalism). The massive new onshore discoveries of gas and increasingly, oil, in tight shales accessible with horizontal drilling and fracking on completion (cf. North Dakota, where the Bakken play has made ND the state with the lowest unemployment rate in the nation, down around 4%). Offshore, multibillion barrel potential exists in the Gulf beneath the salt (now accessible to seismic exploration and drilling techniques) and in the Atlantic rift basins (similar to Brazil’s newly-discovered trend where they now tout 35+ billion barrels in reserves after only a few years of work). We haven’t even mentioned Alaska, coal or oil shales. All this could stimulate hundreds of thousands of good jobs.
Vicious Little Green (the environmental cabal) is going to fight like hell against this – and lose. Once they’ve lost, they won’t be coming back.
Moderate Republican says:
June 27, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Again with the notion that CO2 is the only forcer – and yes that presumption is embedded in your “rebuke”. I can see why you write it like that since it creates a bogus argument that looks as is if calls into the question the science, but it’s a bogus hypothetical that simply shows that you need bogus arguments to try and make your point.
==========================
Wah wah wah. Have you ever interacted in real life in genuine competition?
I thought not.
Wedgy time.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
R. Gates says:
June 27, 2011 at 4:31 pm “…blah, blah…” Why don’t you write a book? You seem to have it all figured out. 😉
Or else go read this article, which is a sensible concept of global climate change primarily controlled by plate tectonic activity, and which actually supports or better explains some of the ideas you list in this post I am responding to:
ALARMIST GLOBAL WARMING MODELS VS THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD
Pierre Jutras
http://www.smu.ca/academic/science/geology/bios/documents/ALARMISTGLOBALWARMINGMODELSVSTHEGEOLOGICALRECORDHongKong2007.pdf
Enjoy.
Moderate Republican: “Again with the notion that CO2 is the only forcer ”
Nope. No such notion. And you never saw me write that. What is stated, by the warmers, is that CO2 is a strong forcing agent and Milankovitch is a weak forcing agent. That being the case, how is it possible for temperature to sharply change direction when CO2 is still rising steeply. That would mean that the weak forcing agent is overcoming the strong forcing agent. Very unlikely. The other option is to identify another strong forcing agent to overcome CO2. I have seen no such agent offered by the warmers.
I can’t make out what you are trying to say with the rest of your babble. Maybe you want to try again? I know that there is something in there about me making a bogus argument. Want to try to indentify what you think that bogus arguement is – or is it just you reading in your own interpretation of things that I never said?
John B says:
Marc,
I explained how the greenhouse effect works, and then I answered your question about “0.00% of the incoming radiation”. You said you were about to make your point. I just wanted to hear it.
Marc’s response
Okay — I was working today, and couldn’t really get to what I wanted to say, so let’s put aside my snippiness earlier.
The reason I read and participate in a blog like this is to learn, in general, and to continue to evolve, if appropriate, my views on CAGW and AGW. It is a subject that interests me from a scientific point of view and a socialogical/psychological dynamic point of view.
I have a wife and young kids, and a large stake in a decent world. I am not a scientist but take a scientific-like curiousity in the world, and like figuring out things that can be figured out and also knowing what isn’t yet known. I have dual degrees in engineering and history from two of the top universities in the country; but I’m not saying that to brag, I was definitely mediocre as far as my engineering class was concerned — there were some real studs (and studettes). I make huge differentiations between knowledge, intelligence, common sense and wisdom.
I have been earnestly trying to come to a belief in the possibility of CAGW and/or material AGW, for the past two years. Despite vigorous attempts, including the initial inclination to believe it to be both true and needing some action, I have been unable to find the evidence which would support such a position with honest facts about what is known.
Let’s take them in order:
A) I was really turned off by the clear and massive fraud perpetrated my Michael Mann and the IPCC. The orginaly hockey stick has been shown to be unambiguously fraudulent and wrong in so many ways: a) statiscally, M&M demonstrated that even using Mann’s data, proper statistical modeling would not produce that shape at all. b) the underlying data is horrific i) it uses proxies that are truly unknown in their reliability as temperature reconstruction ii) even if the proxies are valid, their level of accuracy is dubious, and there is complete dishonesty on using the correct error bars for the reconsstructions, which makes current temperature trends indecipherable in the error bars iii) the data is massaged and cherry picked and altered to a degree making it false iv) even honest data is polluted by things like UHI, and there’s not much honest data out there. c) the mixing of proxy data, instrumental data and other more precise instrumental data in reconstructions is just plain disingenous and scientifically invalid.
I could go on, but the points here are two:
1) It nearly impossible for me to get over such massive fraud by the leaders of the so called science and trust the data and conclusions.
2) The leaders are lying about what they actually know — they do not know, nor can they reasonably predict what kind of situation we are in or where the climate is heading or why.
B) My second larger point plays off the last point above — the leaders of this field are taking particles of knowledge and drawing conclusions which the level of science doesn’t support. It doesn’t hold up. They make leaps that would fail to persuade teachers in middle school science classes.
I live by the credo that knowledge of one’s ignorance is the beginning of wisdom. No matter how intelligent or learned one may be, one is severely compromised by not being able to distinguish what one doesn’t know. Honest arbiters of this issue would be significantly more muted in their conclusions and prognistications.
The evidence seems clear that the climate is a chaotic system that, even with super computers, is orders of magnitude beyond our ability to predict. We know only a fraction of the drivers and the correct coefficients and permutations that would make prediction possible. Therefore, any handwring is superstition at this point regarding a future that we can neither predict nor control. It is driven by leaps of logic and knowledge that are utterly unscientific, as are most superstitions. furhermore, the future climate is much likelier to be driven by large black swan events or non-linear occurrences than anything put in a computer model. These models are worse that those at Long Term Capital Management and they will fail miserably. There are no better than shamanic crystal balls.
The scientists are trying to turn a little knowledge into something that it isn’t — a window into the future. The basic premise is that, “all other things being equal,” more CO2 will create more warming. What we know about chaotic systems is that most certainly all other things will not be equal. Secondly, the behavior of energy in a controlled environment with respect to CO2 cannot suggest in the least what will be the behavior of energy in the complex climate system.
So a couple of basic calculations apear to be complete BS:
1) The so called energy budget will be changed many times before we reach a point where accuracy of it is refined to a truly useable level — decades to centuries — and by the way, it will change along the way and act differently along the way in response to a nearly infinite number of drivers.
2) The calculation that a doubling of CO2 will have a 1.2C impact absent forcings is breathtakingly simplistic and essentially irrelevant. This is not calcuable in such a complex system of when and where CO2 will be at any time in any concentration at any time of year in any atmospheric conditions. There is to much randomness and chaos in the real system for this to be calculable Not to mention the fact that actual forcings, were they relevant, could just as easily negative 1 or 5 or whatever.
There will be massive climate change no matter what we do over the long-run.
The agenda of those promoting this shamanic endeavor is very familiar to any history student of substance. It grows out of an insecure need to be powerful based upon a FALSE internal belief in one’s own insufficiency and unworthiness. It comes from an unhappy and unhealthy place where the dark attributes of the human psyche dominate and drive behavior in ways unknown to the unfortunate and unfortunately malevelolent actors in the unnecessary and destructive drama that subverts the emergence of a higher human condition.
I have to put the kids to bed — respond if you dare.
Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
Hi Billy Liar-
Actually the paper thinks that the Siberian Traps volcanism set the process in motion, by emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide. This then destabilized the methane hydrates, which amplified the previous warming, according to this extinction model.
Think carefully- can you think of anything at the present time that is emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide, that could take the place of the Siberian traps?
Like, for example, the roughly 30 billion tons of CO2 per year emitted by our combustion of fossil fuels?
Hi Tilo Reber-
Oh, I can give you another strong forcing agent- methane and it’s indirect atmospheric chemistry effects. Methane levels could certainly decline while CO2 remains high, leading to a cooling effect. Methane actually oxidizes into CO2.
I follow your argument, and it seems like a potentially sound argument- if CO2 was the only greenhouse gas, and discounting random variability. I’m not sure about your data, though. When is this decline in temperature while CO2 remains high, that you are talking about?
I decided to visit Skeptical Science to see what their take was on the way that temperature changes direction while CO2 continues to climb. Evidently there was a commenter that actually understood the problem that this presented for a theory of strong CO2 forcing. After reading the responses from the AGW faithful it became apparent that they didn’t even understand the question. They gave responses such as, “CO2 was a feedback agent and therefore it only amplified the effect of a primary agent like Milankovick.” Clearly this is dumb, as CO2 cannot act as a negative feedback to enhance a negative Milankovich forcing when the CO2 is still going up. In fact, if Milankovich is a weak forcing agent as the warmers claim, and CO2 is a strong forcing agent as the warmers claim, then Milankovich would never be able to overcome CO2 in the case where CO2 is rising steeply. And clearly, CO2 was rising steeply at the time when temperature changed direction. I think another important question is, if CO2 continued to rise for 800 years after temperature changed direction, where did this CO2 come from?
People ask why we are in this cycle of ice ages,why does the Earth not keep on getting warmer during the interglacials or keep on getting colder during the glacial periods.I think that albedo is something that is underestimated as a forcing, it may explain our current warming better than co2.The oceans produce more cloud which act as a sun shade but continents have no shade and have to warm up as albedo falls
Marc says:
June 27, 2011 at 9:02 pm
“…respond if you dare”
I shall, this evening, but right now I have to go to work.
albedo isn’t underestimated, it’s totally ignored as a forcing. It is almost totally an unknown even now. Clouds comprise the vast majority of the albedo in today’s world, a job usurped by the snow and ice during glaciation periods.
Effects are also twofold. Cloud cover fraction affects the albedo and the particulate nature of the clouds can also vary and substantially affect their reflectivity and consequently the Earth’s albedo even without a change in the cloud cover fraction.
The only way the CAGW promoters have been able to get their ‘models’ to support their position has been to assume that increased temperatures with increased h2o vapor content will result in a few percent decrease in cloud cover. This isn’t even the results of a gcm. In fact, it was an assumption made when they were using a one dimensional model to create parameters for their gcm 20+ years ago.
Milankovitch forcing is, indeed, very, very small. There is hardly any change at all.
Pick a city 130 kms north of you. That is what the summer sunshine is like at the deepest part of the Milankovitch cycles.
Pick a city 130 kms south of you. That is what the winter sunshine is like at the deepest part of the cycle. ie. no difference at all really, especially over a whole year with the winter sunshine actually being stronger.
But if you live on Baffin Island, northern Greenland or on the Arctic sea ice, now your winter snow does melt completely in the summer. 130 kms makes a difference here – it doesn’t at 65N, but it makes just enough difference at 75N. The sea ice becomes permanent all summer. Glaciers build up on land (initially only on Baffin Island and northern Greenland) and slowly start moving south. More sunlight is reflected – 90% is reflected by snow and solid glacial ice, 70% with permanent sea ice versus 30% in normal interglacial summers.
Again, it is the Sun rather than CO2 feedback. Except this time, it is “Sunlight reflected” or Albedo rather than changes in the Sun’s energy or the axial tilt.
And a huge amount of sunlight has to be reflected before a glacier can make it all the way down to Chicago. The summer sunshine in Chicago is like Milwaukee in the ice ages. In fact, a much, much bigger amount of sunshine has to be reflected for the glaciers to get down to Chicago than global warming theory calculates – they still want to believe CO2 is a big factor. But it is all Albedo.
Rubbish! “An inconvenient truth” was criticised for not mentioning the lag, but it was well known.
Which mainstream climate scientists came out and criticized “An inconvenient truth” for not mentioning the lag?
Did Hansen? Mann? Jones? Trenberth? How about RealCliamte? They knew there was a lag, but the general public did not. Instead the general public was told that the correlation between CO2 and Temperature proved that CO2 was driving temperature.
When I saw “An inconvenient truth” I didn’t know there was a lag. I found the film as convincing as did many people. It was not until the ClimateGate emails came out that I decided to investigate for myself and discovered the lag.
When I discovered that Gore had manipulated the facts to create a false impression, I asked myself why? Why hadn’t mainstream climate scientists come out at the time and said the film was wrong? Why hadn’t the media come out at the time and said the film was wrong? Why had both the mainstream climate scientists and the media instead labelled those that did criticize the Gore film as “deniers”? Why was there a campaign to discredit people that said the Gore film was wrong?
Gore receive a noble prize for his efforts, for knowingly representing propaganda as science and the mainstream climate scientists went along with it. They remain silent and knowingly allowed a lie of omission. Worse, they actively called people that criticized Gore’s film “deniers”, saying that they didn’t understand the science. The scientists that should have criticized Gore instead tried to actively silence those that did and carried this campaign into the media.
When I watched “An inconvenient truth” the two factors that I found most convincing were the ice cores, showing that Temperature always rose when CO2 rose, and the “hockey stick”. Only much latter, after ClimateGate did I learn that CO2 lagged Temperature, which means that Temperature causes CO2, nothing more nothing less. It was only after ClimateGate that I learned that the hockey stick had been manipulated, that contrary data had been omitted from the series.
When I discovered this, I knew in no uncertain terms that AGW was not science. Like many people, I am trained in science and this is not how science works. Science never hides errors or contrary data, otherwise how can you trust any of the findings? You don’t need to be a Climate Scientists to know this. You don’t need to pur out a peer reviewed paper. This is fundamental to the Scientific Method that allowed us to replace belief and superstition with facts.
How can anyone trust Gore in the future, knowing that he was aware of the lag yet chose to hide it? How can anyone trust mainstream climate science, knowing that they were aware that Gore was painting a false picture, and yet they chose to remain silent. Worse, they actively participated in the fraud, trying to discredit those that spoke up against the film.
Quite simply you cannot. Once someone has abused their public trust by knowingly participating in a lie, they cannot be trusted again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
‘Like, for example, the roughly 30 billion tons of CO2 per year emitted by our combustion of fossil fuels?”
30 billion tons is a misleading statement. Nature releases 700 billion tons of CO2 each year. Human emissions are a drop in the bucket, only about 1 part in 25.
We know from the ice cores that warming releases CO2. We know that the earth has been warming since the Little Ice Age. According to the CO2 GHG theory, this CO2 released by the warming is causing even further warming, which is releasing even more CO2, which is causing even more warming, which is releasing even more CO2.
How can humans hope to stop this? We can’t stop the warming that has occurred since the Little Ice Age. We don’t even know what caused the Little Ice Age or why it ended. We don’t even know if we should stop it. The Little Ice Age was a time of great hardship in Europe, leading to famine and revolution.
Since we can’t stop the warming since the LIA and the CO2 it is releasing and the further warming this is causing and the further CO2 this is releasing and the further warming this is causing and the further CO2 this is releasing, etc., etc., doesn’t it make much more sense to develop the technology to live in a warmer world?
It costs a lot less to life in a warmer world than a cooler world. The evaporation of water is a low cost cooling technology that requires almost no energy. In contrast, heating requires quite a bit of very expensive energy.
Rubbish! “An inconvenient truth” was criticised for not mentioning the lag, but it was well known.
The general public was not aware of the lag. Mainstream Climate Science did not come out and correct the error. Instead they chose to label those that did criticise the film as “deniers”, that they didn’t understand the science, that they should not be listened to.
I was not until after the ClimateGate emails were released that I learned of the lag between temperature and CO2. Many of the public are still not aware of this and believe what they have been told in the Gore film.
The simple fact that Gore knowingly participated in a fraud and that mainstream climate scientists knowingly covered this up either through lies of omission or trying to actively discredit those that criticized the film is strong evidence that these people cannot be trusted.
Having lied before, why would they suddenly start telling the truth now? Much more likely they would lie further to try and hide the lies.
Bill Illis: “Milankovitch forcing is, indeed, very, very small.”
Thanks Bill. I was wondering, are you aware of any Milankovitch charts? I was thinking of something like an anomaly line chart. One axis would be time, the other would represent the sum of Milankovitch forcings as an anomaly. I would be interesting to look at the quality of the correlations between Milankovitch and ice age turning points.
Leland Palmer: “I’m not sure about your data, though. When is this decline in temperature while CO2 remains high, that you are talking about?”
Look at this chart about 330 thousand years ago. And it’s not just CO2 remaining high, it’s CO2 continuing to rise strongly while temperature is in decline.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/63/Co2-temperature-plot.svg/2000px-Co2-temperature-plot.svg.png
Leland Palmer: “Methane levels could certainly decline while CO2 remains high, leading to a cooling effect.”
It can’t be a very strong effect, otherwise there would never be a reason for a climate alarm over rising CO2 levels.
John B
A few corrections before you respond:
I meant respond if you “care” — didn’t mean to imply what dare meant.
My critique of the psychology CAGW proponents applies to the leaders like Mann, Gore, etc., not you personally. There’s a big difference between the profound character flaws of those dangerous power seekers and the personality of the average citizen trying to figure out the truth from all the propaganda. So please don’t feel the need to respond to that critique at a personal level.
Lastly, please ignore typos — I frankly just didn’t have the time or energy to proofread; and the input window was being flaky, causing me to have to type without being able to see the output (below the window). My computer or something was off. I assure you I can spell, or look words up when I don’t know, and I can produce completely correct grammar when I want. Not that you would, but others have tried to capitalize on typos and the like to impy the commenter is ignorant. I may be, but in this case I simply didn’t care enough to make things perferct for a casual conversation.
I look forward to your responses.
Best regards,
Eli
savethesharks says:
June 26, 2011 at 9:02 pm
“I cannot believe that I am agreeing with Tamino…”
Tamino is Grant Foster. I am Arthur Glenn Foster, Jr. Thanks anyway. –AGF
View from the Solent says:
June 27, 2011 at 2:58 am
A G Foster says:
June 26, 2011 at 8:26 pm
“‘The mass extinctions began 10,000 years ago’ —————————————————————————————————-
“Hunh? 10,000 years is a blink of an eye. +95% of all the species that ever existed were extinct by then. Either gradually or by events such as at the K/T boundary https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Tertiary_extinction_event”
So…do you think I didn’t know about the K/T extinctions? Do you know about the Pleistocene megafauna extinctions? Most of the big animals have been wiped out–by humans. Polar bears are among the safest–they should easily survive the tigers. As the population expands, more animals, big and small, are coming under fire, and the only thing that could save them is a human catastrophe. If there were any truth to these CO2 scares, and if we loved the critters more than the people, we should say, bring it one; even nuclear war would benefit wildlife. Chernoble’s environs really have turned into a wildlife refuge–better than no space at all.
So I repeat, the mass extinctions began 10,000 years ago. Maybe I should make that 15,000 years ago. –AGF
CO2.
beng says:
June 27, 2011 at 8:41 am
*****
“A G Foster says:
June 26, 2011 at 5:43 pm
“‘Two different lags are evident, one of which–the more important one–is ignored by the Society’s statement: the 6 to 8 millenium lag between June 65 North insolation and T and the roughly 1 millenium lag between T and CO2.’
“Not sure I understand that. The peak 65N summer insolation was ~11k yrs ago. The peak temp in the Holocene Optimum was ~10k to 8k yrs ago (even before all the glacial remnants were gone) — only about 1k yr lag. Temps since the HO have slowly dropped in tune w/the decreasing summer insolation (w/the typical ~1k yrs “cycles” — MWP & LIA).
“Not sure where you get a 7k yr lag in temps vs insolation.”
We’re talking ice cores over several hundred thousand years. And we’re talking about periodicity, not amplitude. And a sizeable literature.. If you want, I’ll dig some up. –AGF