Guest post by Joe Bastardi, WeatherBell
With the coming Gorathon to save the planet around the corner ( Sept 14) , my stance on the AGW issue has been drawing more ire from those seeking to silence people like me that question their issue and plans. In response, I want the objective reader to hear more about my arguments made in a a brief interview on FOX News as to why I conclude CO2 is not causing changes of climate and the recent flurry of extremes of our planet. I brought up the First Law of Thermodynamics and LeChateliers principle.
The first law of thermodynamics is often called the Law of Conservation of Energy. This law suggests that energy can be transferred in many forms but can not be created or destroyed.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume those that believe CO2 is adding energy to the system are correct. Okay, how much? We have a gas that is .04% of the atmosphere that increases 1.5 ppm yearly and humans contribute 3-5% of that total yearly, which means the increase by humans is 1 part per 20 million. In a debate, someone argued just because it is small doesn’t mean it is not important. After all even a drop with 0.042 gm of arsenic could kill an adult. Yes but put the same drop in the ocean or a reservoir and no one dies or gets ill.
Then there is the energy budget. The amount of heat energy in the atmosphere is dwarfed by the energy in y the oceans. Trying to measure the changes from a trace gas in the atmosphere, if it were shown to definitively play a role in change (and it never has), is a daunting task.
NASA satellites suggest that the heat the models say is trapped, is really escaping to space, that the ‘sensitivity’ of the atmosphere to CO2 is low and the model assumed positive feedbacks of water vapor and clouds are really negative. Even IPCC Lead Author Kevin Trenberth said “Climatologists are nowhere near knowing where the energy goes or what the effect of clouds is…the fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment, and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
We are told that the warming in the period of warming from 1800 was evidence of man-made global warming. They especially point to the warming from 1977 to 1998 which was shown by all measures and the fact that CO2 rose during those two decades. And we hear that this warming has to be man-made with statements like “what else could it be?”
However, correlation does not mean causation. Indeed inconveniently despite efforts to minimize or ignore it, the earth cooled from the 1940s to the late 1970s and warming ceased after 1998, even as CO2 rose at a steady pace. Some have been forced to admit some natural factors may play a role in this periodic cooling. If that is the case, why could these same natural factors play a key role in the warming periods too.
Ah, but here is where the 1st law works just fine. After a prolonged period of LACK OF SUNSPOT ACTIVITY, the world was quite cold around 1800. The ramping up of solar activity after 1800 to the grand maximum in the late twentieth century could be argued as the ultimate cause of any warming through the introduction of extra energy into the oceans, land and then the atmosphere.
The model projections that the warming would be accelerating due to CO2 build up are failing since the earth’s temps have leveled off the past 15 years while CO2 has continued to rise.
Then there is a little matter of real world observation of how work done affects the system it is being done on. When one pushes an empty cart and then stops pushing, the cart keeps moving until the work done on it is dissipated. How is it, that the earth’s temperature has leveled off, if CO2, the alleged warming driver continues to rise?
The answer is obvious. They have it backwards. It is the earth’s temperature (largely the ocean) which is driving the CO2 release into the atmosphere. That is what the ice cores tell us and recently that Salby showed using isotopes in an important peer review paper. These use real world observations not tinker toy models nor an 186 year old theory that has never been validated.
Finally, as to the matter of LeChateliers principle. The earth is always in a state of imbalance and weather is the way the imbalances are corrected in the atmosphere. Extreme weather occurs when factors that increase imbalances are occurring. The extremes represent an attempt to return to a state of equilibrium.
The recent flurry of severe weather – for instance, record cold and snow, floods, tornadoes,, is much more likely to be a sign of cooling rather than warming. The observational data shows the earth’s mid levels have cooled dramatically and ocean heat content and atmospheric temperatures have been stable or declined. Cooling atmospheres are more unstable and produce greater contrasts and these contrasts drive storms, storms drive severe weather. A warmer earth produces a climate optimum with less extremes as we enjoyed in the late 20th century and other time in history when the great civilizations flourished.
Time will provide the answer. Over the next few decades, with the solar cycles and now the oceanic cycles changing towards states that favor cooling, there should be a drop in global temperatures as measured by objective satellite measurement, at least back to the levels they were in the 1970s, when we first started measuring them via an objective source. If temperatures warm despite these natural cycles, you carry the day. We won’t have to wait the full 20-30 year period. I believe we will have our answer before this decade is done.
UPDATE: I’m told that a follow up post – more technically oriented will follow sometime next week. Readers please note that the opinion expressed here is that of Mr. Bastardi, at his request. While you may or may not agree with it, discuss it without resorting to personal attacks as we so often see from the Romm’s and Tamino’s of the nether climate world. Also, about 3 hours after the original post, I added 3 graphics from Joe which should have been in the original, apologies. – Anthony
Great observations Joe!
Also, the tropospheric changes that occur with increased and decreased particle & energy obsorbtion into the vanallen belts presents options that haven’t been well studied. As you may know, during periods of solar inactivity, the belts can and do subside to near zero. The migration of energies through the magnetosphere and all the spheres held within it, are also not well studied.
As the earth moves through its magnetospheric polarization changes (675 to1.1 million years), many geophysical properties are altered and like the weather and climate, the geomagnetic configuration of our planet is never static.
Cheers:)
Thanks Joe. It has long been my belief that the quickest way to make someone angry is to be right, especially when you challenge their beliefs or money.
I can’t take credit for this idea, someone else posted this in the comments here at WUWT some time ago. (Whoever originally had this idea, feel free to call me out.) You might can use this in your arguments. When you turn the oven to 350 degrees (F for us Americans), is the oven instantly at 350? When you put a frozen turkey in the oven, does it immediately unthaw and cook all the way through? When you turn the oven off, does it immediately return to room temperature even if you have the oven door open when you turn it off? Suppose the oven is already at 350, if you turn the temperature down to 275, does the oven immediately drop to 275? A less active sun doesn’t immediately lower earth’s temperature just like lower the oven temperature does not immediately lower the oven temperature.
That has all been patently obvious from the very beginning.
Any other conclusion has to be either political or religious.
Then again, nobody ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
Le chatalier’s Principle is a lot more widespread than simply shifting Chemical reaction equilibria.
For example, in modern LED die, a lot of the generated radiation gets trapped inside the die by Total Internal Reflection. This trapped radiation crosses back and forth inside the die near the junction which also happens to be a good photo-detector diode, for the same general range of wavelengths, that the LED generates. So the LED acting as a photo-detector, generates a photo-current from this trapped radiation, and that photo-current is opposed in direction to the externally applied current, and acts to oppose the emission of more light. Externally, the LED is made to appear as if it has a higher internal impedance than it is supposed to have, as raising the drive Voltage, does not result in the expected increase in current.
In the case of earth’s atmosphere, more warming results in more water vapor, which traps more incoming solar energy, and stops it from reaching the ground (deep oceans) which results in a cooling response. Yes it’s the Water !!
Oh that Joe Bastardi, so crazy for thinking that reality is revealed in time, rather than a result of carefully created computer simulations. What a nutcase! Only a fool doubts the almighty computer!
/do I even need to?
its just too much simple, common scientific, current knowledge. unless a person has some hidden agenda, how can anyone with education, ignore the logic of this article ? the agw types have too much pride and ego invested now, they will not let go. if nothing else, they cling to their political agenda of getting the planet off of coal/oil/gas all the while, not allowing realistic alternatives to come forward. solar and wind will never be capable of sustaining our ( earth’s ) needs.
how can you fight the changes done to U.S. civil law that allow every eco facist group to file a complaint whenever ‘they’ think the EPA is not doing anything/enough ?
how can you stop a president who lacks a scientific bases to objectively probe those that his party have appointed ?
you know the next big push will be yet again, a shift, as they have to grudgingly acknowledge that there may be a several decades of cooling and then, global warming will fire up anew.
these are the people who cannot let go – and their ‘church’ has many disciples.
CO2 driven climate change (natural and otherwise) does not contradict the first law of thermodynamics. Warming of the earth from increased greenhouse gases is just a trapping of more thermal energy from the sun. This is not the creation of energy. It is just a change in the flow of energy. I also fail to understand your point in bringing up La Chatalier’s Principle (except to try desperately to sound like you know what you are talking about). It actually *goes against* your point. If the earth’s atmosphere traps more IR, then classical thermodynamics predicts that its *temperature will increase* until it reaches a new equilibrium. Your claim that the increase in CO2 is too small to affect such a change is easily contradicted by a simple back-of-the-envolope calculation that shows the warming from CO2 double to be about 2 deg. F. You could, of course, evoke negative feedbacks as a hypothetical mechanism to counterbalance the of a CO2 increase on temp, but then you are no longer talking about Le Chatelier’s Principle.
Please learn some physics, Mr. Bastardi.
This thread will be a good test to see how skeptical WUWT readers are of their own skepticism.
All of Bastardi’s talking points here can be traced back a long time, and they reflect severe unfamiliarity with the field and have been addressed countless times. Over at Tamino’s, he left a message full or errors at which I challenged him to an open debate on the matter.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/settled-science/#comment-53136
I would like to how well he can perform when required to scientifically address criticisms of his claims.
Matt says:
“Your claim that the increase in CO2 is too small to affect such a change is easily contradicted by a simple back-of-the-envolope calculation that shows the warming from CO2 double to be about 2 deg. F.”
There are plenty of much more educated climatologists who would reject your “back of the envelope calculation.” But at least it isn’t as preposterous as the IPCC’s number.
Matt: see my previous comment, particularly the last part.
@Chris_Colose: you have to pick your battles a little better. Joe Bastardi is not an academic researcher but a private sector meteorologist. He is an advocate for his point of view based upon the knowledge he accumulates. He is putting out his opinions for public consumption but there is no accountability implied…
REPLY: Yes, this is the same silly claim that comes up again and again, one one hand when a they lose a point in an argument they’ll claim “but he’s not a climate scientist, so his opinions don’t matter” then when they feel they have the upper hand we’ll hear, “he’s not scientifically rigorous enough, his arguments pale in comparison to our best climate scientists”. – Anthony
Forgive my ignorance, but I don’t recall anyone claiming that CO2 adds energy to the system but it traps or slows energy leaving the system.
From what I took away from Dr. Spencer in relation of the first law is that there must be a time lag for energy to be transferred within the system therefore one cannot see positive feedback with a zero, or brief time lag.
Some people are severely muddying the waters on this topic by making it appear that Spencer is claiming that AGW is premised on CO2 “creating” heat as if the glass in a greenhouse is the source of its heat! I don’t think Bastardi’s articulation on this is helping, see:
http://climaterealists.com/?id=8204
for just one example of people wiping up the floor with this logic. Someone “Dr. Spencer” has to clarify this “1st law” argument as it is getting out of hand!
The “missing” heat in the oceans that shows up when the ARGO floats pop into the database, the increasing sea-level rise that shows up when the satellite data begins, the non-random corrections that show up as progressive and directional (warmth) as time and urban populations develop, the additional Arctic heat, reduced, “unprecedented” ice cover that shows up once we focus on measuring it – all these things strike me as evidence that ACCURACY, not precision, dogs the temperature and other climate change issues. ACCURACY is never questioned. Our statisticians give us data to several decimal points on data that is largely assumed to be correct within its observational or measurement limits. But is that so?
Michael Mann’s hockey stick was about accuracy, not precision, regardless of the error bars. The tree rings did not and do not give a good indication either of actual temperatures or of variations from those temperatures. Trenberth’s global heat calculations and his “missing” 0.85 W/m2 assume that the values we derive are accurate as well as having good precision. I question the accuracy portion.
Certainty as argued looks to error bars by human, mechanical and statistical introduction. We get graphs that show linear trends to data that, by eye, show cyclic trends or the combination, at least, of several linear trends. Using one linear trend when a series exists may help you to derive a 3 decimal place equation, but it will be inaccurate or, as the layman says, “wrong”.
Certainty as per the IPCC/Gore/Hansen is a sham, a terrible, terrible sham. Inaccurate corrections for UHIE do not reduce the UHIE error bar but change it. Inaccurate accounting for the heat balance on the earth does not go away because you measured ten times every factor you could think of: it explains, instead, why you can’t reconcile the in-and-out observations.
The IPCC claims that they know things with certainty, meaning 95%, but that is all math and algorithm. The accuracy of representation of the world by the math and algorithms is not 95%. That is the true lie being told: that we know what is important and what is not, and how we measure gives us unique and true pictures of what is. Thus Hansen can ignore both satellite data and HadCru data despite the differences in what they show the only world we have. He is not called on the carpet about accuracy, only the precision with which he gives his numbers.
If this was a murder trial and Hansen/IPCC were the prosecutors, the defendant would be sipping cocktails in Las Vegas in no time. Trenberth is, in effect, arguing about a missing knife when no one has been shown that a knife ever existed to begin with.
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:28 pm
“…..a simple back-of-the-envolope calculation that shows the warming from CO2 double to be about 2 deg. F”.
Matt, it’s logarithmic against more CO2 causing more warming. Once a certain amount of CO2 absorbs all the energy from its particular specturm of wavelengths that stimulate it, more CO2 has nothing left to absorb….. Triple it or quadruple it, there is still nothing left to absorb! Sheesh!!!
I’m sorry, but I stopped reading as soon as I hit the “CO2 is a trace gas” argument.
I don’t believe the AGW BS, but that’s just not a good counter.
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:28 pm
“CO2 driven climate change (natural and otherwise) does not contradict the first law of thermodynamics. Warming of the earth from increased greenhouse gases is just a trapping of more thermal energy from the sun.”
It is not actually warming; rather, as you will surely agree, it is slower cooling. The blanket effect of CO2 might very well slow Earth’s cooling but it cannot warm Earth. So, any temperature change caused by CO2 should show up as slower cooling in the evenings. CO2 cannot cause higher high temperatures because CO2 does not add heat to Earth.
matt says :
Warming of the earth from increased greenhouse gases is just a trapping of more thermal energy from the sun ….
so, this energy just STAYS in the atmosphere, lower or upper, for ever ? day or night, across the seasons ?
if your going to try and short sight the laws of thermo to make your arg you need to go back and really learn thermodynamics and a whole lot of additional science.
Nobody claims that CO2 adds energy to the system. Energy comes from the sun and CO2 slows the loss of longwave energy into space.
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:28 pm
“You could, of course, evoke negative feedbacks as a hypothetical mechanism to counterbalance the of a CO2 increase on temp, but then you are no longer talking about Le Chatelier’s Principle.
Please learn some physics, Mr. Bastardi.”
As Arrhenius understood, for there to be more than the harmless warming that can be predicted from his equations, the only empirical science that Warmista use, there must be feedbacks which increase the effects of CO2. At present time, no one has done the research that would permit them to create physical hypotheses which could explain and predict one or more of the interesting feedbacks, such as physical hypotheses about cloud formation. Warmista have chosen to dwell within Gaia Models rather than enter the physical environment and do some empirical research. They are not scientists. And Matt, learn some physics beyond Arrhenius. Svensmark is doing excellent work at this time. Read Svensmark.
Okay, how much? We have a gas that is .04% of the atmosphere that increases 1.5 ppm yearly and humans contribute 3-5% of that total yearly, which means the increase by humans is 1 part per 20 million.
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This looks wrong to me. As far as I am aware the yearly human contribution is near double the actual yearly increase, with the deficit going into the oceans and increased plant growth.
Increases in GHGs, including CO2, may slow the loss of LW energy by absorbing surface radiation … BUT, they also increase the radiation of heat from the atmosphere. Absorbtivity = Emissivity. When will anyone who supports AGW demonstrate these do not balance out? I’m still waiting.
Then there is the energy budget. The amount of heat energy in the atmosphere is dwarfed by the energy in y the oceans.
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Seems to some potential confusion between the budget, in other words ingoings and outgoings, and the accumulated amount.
To illustrate: I could claim just as validly that the yearly solar flux is small compared to the energy stored in the oceans. But this observation does not prove that the solar flux is irrelevant
It’s true, Fox is the channel of hot blonds.
NASA satellites suggest that the heat the models say is trapped, is really escaping to space
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Lots of sloppy terminology here.
The models do not say the heat is trapped. They say the rate of heat transfer to outer space is being reduced. The NASA satellites say exactly the same thing.
The NASA satellites do not say the sensitivity is low. Spencer says the climate sensitivity is low. Spencer Bases his claim on his interpretation of of the satellite measurements combined with a very simple model he devised.
@ Barry
I agree with you that that back-of-the-envolope calculations is not enough to describe the earth’s climate. My only point is that it contradicts Bastardi’s claims that the CO2 change is “too small” to have an effect. Also, to argue against that 2 degree warming requires one to evoke the existence of negative feedbacks and that really has nothing to do with Le Chatillier’s Principle in any general sense.
@Smokey
The logarithmic effect of increased CO2 is already taken into account in that calculation. The claim that the CO2 heat absorption is already saturated is just plain wrong.
@ Theo Goodwin
I am familiar with Svensmark. And I appreciate that he at least has a scientifically informed position. Mr Bastardi does not. I don’t understand why this blog doesn’t vet its own material and why it lets people like Bastardi spew incorrect information. This kind of garbage just makes blogs like this look trashy and wrong. I would really like to see a nuanced and scientifically informed case being made here. But, this kind of stuff is just wild, misinformed attacks even on matters (like basic thermodynamics) that are not even up for debate.
Your claim that the broad science community is not in touch with physical, empirical reality is thoroughly unfair. There are countless empirical measurements of climate sensitivities and feedbacks and for a wide variety of forcing mechanisms. You can always claim that it is “not enough” and that’s fine. But, don’t say that it doesn’t exist.
Chris Colose says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:35 pm
This thread will be a good test to see how skeptical WUWT readers are of their own skepticism.
===========
Well, now that you announced it the world, I fear your test has been corrupted.
Maybe next time.
Chris Colose says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:35 pm
“This thread will be a good test to see how skeptical WUWT readers are of their own skepticism.”
Your sentence is incoherent. Being skeptical of one’s own skepticism? Is that like a double negative? Are you asking if WUWT readers will be skeptical of the skeptical position that they take toward science, especially climate science? What does that mean?
Whatever you mean, Mr. Bastardi is not a good choice to test our skepticism. For several years now, skeptical discussion of climate science, CAGW, and Warmista has been far deeper, broader, and more ramified than the points made by Mr. Bastardi.
By the way, ‘skeptical’ is the Brit spelling while ‘sceptical’ is the American spelling.
Wow! So you’re saying there’s still a chance. For the simple common sense approach?
Dear mr. Bastardi,
Keep spreading the word. co2-levels follow semperature and cooling is expected. Do you think we may even see a decline or levelling of of Co2-levels?
Kind regards,
Scarface
In the end there is a simple test. Why cant all you folks that get your kicks out of chipping away at arguments to hide this reality see that. Temps are supposed to be rising, they are not! Co2 is rising. If the earths temperature cools the next 20 to 30 years, then its not co2. As it is what is so darn hard about using observational data that shows that the co2 is going up, the temps have leveled off ,and the resulting hypothesis that it is not co2! This can be tested since the major drivers of solar and natural cyclical cooling of the oceans can now be tested against the temperatures. Just what do you have to see, to see you are wrong? Please tell us all so we now what we can hold YOU ACCOUNTABLE FOR, since my side is getting blamed for every disaster that is occurring. That is what is maddening. You chop apart all I say, say I am wrong, yet I have the test to prove right or wrong that you cant and wont accept. The fact is the ideas I have used are simple and basic in concept.. we all know they are much more complex when put into a classroom situation. But that is the darn problem. Alot of you think this is a darn classroom, and its not. And because of that, the simple message of the concepts is the best, without having to write thesis on it. Though if that is the way you get paid, of course that is the field you wish to fight on. Fine. But alot of us that are out there making forecasts every day live in the real world of the weather and understand a heck of alot more about bottom lines than what people who theorize, but never actually do, understand. There are bottom lines when taking a stand.
You and I cant run away from the truth. Global temps have leveled off. CO2 is rising. If the temps fall back to where they were in the 70s at the start of the satellite era, will you admit you are wrong or not? I will admit I am wrong if it rises, but all I hear is chopping of this and that to hide the fact YOU ARE BUSTING AND HAVE BEEN FOR 15 YEARS NOW and trying to drive an agenda down the throat of the American people while doing it.
But is there anything that can happen, that you will admit you are wrong on. Of course not, because of the holier than thou attitude of many of the AGW crowd. Never wrong about anything. Its always something caused by someone who disagrees with them.
Perhaps if your livelihood depending on whether you were right and wrong and people paid you for the actual result you would understand. Anyone 15 years ago, predicting the earth would be as warm as all the IPCC projections would not be getting paid a thing now, because they were plainly wrong. Yet I dont get a nickel for sticking my neck out on this issue ( contrary to the nonsense that is printed about guys like me being in the pocket of this group or that), except fighting for what I believe is the right answer. Thats my agenda, get it right. And if I am right, then people will remember who fought for what was right, and who simply just swam with the tide because it seemed convenient and everyone else was doing it, and making a buck off it at that. Its That simple. Its just a big weather forecast to me, and I am sorry if that insults the intelligence of those who want it to be something that is so complex, so tough, that no one else need apply but those intelligent enough to understand that they know better than everyone else, and because of that are entitled to force everyone else to their position. Which in reality, is what this is all about.
So to all my detractors, will you actually admit you are wrong if the temps stay steady or fall? Or will you find yet another way to attack people that dare question your authority. You know hide behind the shield of “natural variability” saying it could account for this. Yet where were you with that forecast 15 years ago, or 20, when this hysteria started building. How do you know the natural variability wont, because of the sunspot cycles, return us to where we were 200 years ago. What will you say then after panicking the entire planet? You are currently BUSTING, and busting bad with the forecast as the Hadley Center records show, and people have every right to offer their ideas before you drive us all off a cliff that turns back progress and thwarts improvements that dealing with reality, not fantasy or virtual climate, can lead to for all of us.
That is what the ice cores tell us and recently that Salby showed using isotopes in an important peer review paper.
———-
The ice core data tell us how things behaved a few thousand years ago. They do not tell us that things behave in the same way now. We are well on the way to consuming a significant fraction of the coal deposits that took 100 millions or so to accumulate. Therefore it is well worth considering that the rules of the game have changed.
The Salby paper fails because it predicts that ocean CO2 is going down when in fact it’s is going up.
Oh dear me, Matt.
I expect that Mr. Bastardi has taken more physics courses than you have.
Your ‘simple’ back-of-the-envelope calculation needs some huge simplifying assumptions. One such is that each CO2 molecule almost immediately transfers its absorbed energy to the adjoining molecules of other gases in the atmosphere. Otherwise, the CO2 saturates and no extra energy is absorbed.
Actually, now that I think about it, your simple equation probably assumes that all energy is absorbed at a certain wavelength. Using that particular equation means that the concentration of CO2 doesn’t matter.
The calculation that correctly models the back radiation produced by CO2 is anything but simple. You could, of course, prove me wrong by producing what you think to be the relevant simple back-of-the-envelope equation that you think Mr. Bastardi doesn’t understand. I’m waiting (but I’m not holding my breath). While you’re at it, tell us all what simplifying assumptions your equation relies on, just to prove that you know what you’re talking about.
yes, Matt, lets see your equation, you say its simple and can be ( evidently ) written on the back of an envelope ( business ) !
please post it now.
Last comment.
Someone is right and someone is wrong. The coming years will show that, and its that simple. A bottom line. But the amount of effort trying to squelch the chance to even see what right and wrong is, when right now my side of the argument is carrying the day, should raise suspicions among any fair minded individual interested in this debate.
Let reality decide what was right and wrong. That is fine with me, but one has to wonder if its something many on the other side wish to avoid, given their insistence that the issue is settled.
You have eyes, you be the judge
LazyTeenager says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:50 pm
The Salby paper fails because it predicts that ocean CO2 is going down when in fact it’s is going up.
Which could be due to increases in oceanic vulcanism.
Isn’t it interesting that you make only a half hearted attempt to understand the situation. As soon as you can think of a potential problem with a thesis you stop thinking. Pretty much SOP for warmists.
None of us really knows and it’s that uncertainty that SHOULD keep true scientists on their toes. Not so much for lazy teens.
commieBob says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:28 pm
The calculation that correctly models the back radiation produced by CO2 is anything but simple. You could, of course, prove me wrong by producing what you think to be the relevant simple back-of-the-envelope equation that you think Mr. Bastardi doesn’t understand. I’m waiting (but I’m not holding my breath). While you’re at it, tell us all what simplifying assumptions your equation relies on, just to prove that you know what you’re talking about.
=====================================================
You beat me to it cB. So …… Matt, back-of-the-envelope, eh ??
That should not take too long to type (or cut and paste), or even link to an Imageshack jpg of the back of your envelope.
While you’re at it, could you do another envelope back that takes into account tropical humidity ??
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:36 pm
OK, sweetheart, you asked for it. I dare you to produce one reasonably well confirmed physical hypothesis about forcings such as cloud formation created by Warmista. You cannot do it. Warmista have none and do not care to research them. Warmista are locked within their Radiation Only Gaia Models.
I’d also like to see this simple back of the envelope equation please.
Matt said;
“CO2 driven climate change (natural and otherwise) does not contradict the first law of thermodynamics. Warming of the earth from increased greenhouse gases is just a trapping of more thermal energy from the sun. This is not the creation of energy.”
Well, in fact some descriptions of the “AGW” effect that describe it in terms of “net energy gains”, “extra energy”, or “energy amplification” do indeed VIOLATE the first law of thermodynamics.
Also, in fact this whole terminology of “trapping heat” is currently, has been and always will be a VIOLATION of the laws of thermodynamics. It is impossible to trap heat…………… If I could “trap” heat I would be the wealthiest person in the history of the world (for reasons that those with just a superficial understanding of the laws of thermodynamics will probably NEVER understand).
Matt also wrote;
“It is just a change in the (“direction of the” (clarification suggested by this author)) flow of energy.”
Agreed, the “GHGs” do indeed redirect a VERY SMALL portion of the IR energy attempting to leave the Earth so that it takes another trip (or maybe ten more trips) though the atmosphere. Each time the energy is redirected something more than 50% is lost to space (fixed by the geometry of a sphere). So after as few as 10 “re-directions” the energy becomes much less than 1% of the departing energy. Does the term “diminishing returns” strike a bell here at all?
Each time the energy is redirected it travels as IR radiation at the speed of light (quite speedy last time I checked). So yes the “Greenhouse Effect” does indeed slow the flow of energy through the system, but due to the speeds involved it is only capable of delaying the release of heat by something like a few milliseconds to maybe a few hundred milliseconds. For a “higher equilibrium” temperature to result the delay must be greater than the period of the arriving energy (i.e. once every 24 hours (at the equator)).
A good analogy of this is the concept of “banking” your campfire at night so some of the coals are still warm enough to restart your campfire the next morning. The “GHE” shows no capacity to accomplish this feat. For reference each day contains ~86 million milliseconds, so a delay of tens/hundreds/thousands or even millions of milliseconds is not going to affect anything.
The “GHE” only changes the response time (how long it takes for the temperature to change after the energy input changes (i.e. sunrise and sunset)) of the gases in the atmosphere.
Please note that is is totally separate from the observations that higher average temperatures of the Earth are postulated to cause higher concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, both effects can indeed occur in parallel without any significant causation being involved.
Although Mr. Bastardi has arrived at his conclusions via a different path than the one I took, I concur.
Cheers, Kevin.
Actually, LeChatlier’s principle states that as you add CO2 to the atmosphere, the equilibrium reaction between the CO2 in the air and the CO2 dissolved in the water goes in the direction to reduce the amount initially added, thus the CO2 continues to dissolve into the oceans, and the oceans are a sink for the CO2 produced from the burning of fossil fuels.
Joe B has accountability. He sells long-term weather forecasts. If he is less accurate than the free service there is no point in paying him. The same cannot be said for all participants in the debate.
I would like to ask a serious question. I have asked a few times before, but with no responses. This is a real question. I am not trying to be a pain.
It seams to me that the contribution of CO2 to forcing is logarithmic to the the total forcing of all greenhouse gasses. That is give:
atmosphere A) with x PPM CO2 and y PPM of CH4, and
atmosphere B) with x PPM CO2 and 2y PPM of CH4,
the change in forcing from doubling the CO2 in A would be greater then the change in forcing from doubling the CO2 in B.
Is this correct?
I tend to agree with Joe Bastardi’s premise that reality will show us the way, regardless of why it did so. Of course he has not simply pulled this view out of the air. And I have done some of my own regional studies of temperature in New Mexico and can see a 60 year cooling and heating trend over a period of about 140 years (PDO related?). We are now well into the cooling trend of that cycle so the next 10 to 20 years will show us whether this is a recurring natural cycle or not. My money is on Mr. Bastardi but maybe we are both wrong.
Scientifically, in my personal research, I have found that the significant gas is H20 (clouds and humidity) but that is a long and torturous academic battle with some specific data still missing. Mr. Bastardi has mostly circumvented this battle in his posting. So with the challenge posed and with what I have learned over the past several years, I would expect that he and I will win the argument. The other side is betting billions and ultimately trillions of $ of our money on their certainty that they will win the argument. I would not be so bold.
Bernie
Joe, let me just say that 100’s of us support you and are huge fans of your openness, transparency, and courage to actually make a falsifiable hypothesis. I don’t know who is right – I do have my opinion at this point, but I can say one thing for certain: I trust you way more than any of the big names on the CAGW side of things.
_MichaelM
The answer is obvious. They have it backwards. It is the earth’s temperature (largely the ocean) which is driving the CO2 release into the atmosphere. That is what the ice cores tell us and recently that Salby showed using isotopes in an important peer review paper.
_____
C’mon Joe, you can’t honestly believe this, or perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying. Are you suggesting that the last several century rise in CO2 is not due to the result of human burning of fossil fuels? I mean, it’s one thing to suggest that the Earth’s global temperature may not be as sensitive to the rise in CO2 as some would suggest, and I might even agree with that, but it is another thing entirely to suggest that human activity has not been the root cause of the rise in CO2 from 280 ppm to our current 390+ ppm.
For the past 800,000 years, as Milankovitch cycles have come and gone, we know that increased NH summer insolation sets off a series of positive feedback loops, one of which includes the outgassing of CO2 from the oceans, which in turns causes more warmth etc. But in all these 800,000 years or more, during interglacials, many of which were warmer than our current interglacial, CO2 never got over 300 ppm at the very most. Now we’re approaching 400 ppm in this interglacial. Gosh, what could the difference be? It is not that this interglacial is warmer than the others, but rather, that one particular species has found a way to release even more ancient carbon stored in fossil fuels. Humans are the difference this time Joe, not warmer oceans. The net cause of the rise in CO2 beyond what is typical in an interglacial is the human release of that carbon through the burning of fossil fuels.
Agreed wholeheartedly with MichaelM
Damn straight!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Scarface says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Dear mr. Bastardi,
Keep spreading the word. co2-levels follow semperature and cooling is expected. Do you think we may even see a decline or levelling of of Co2-levels?
Kind regards,
Scarface
____
Not likely Scarface. The rise in CO2 beyond what is typical for an interglacial period has not been due to warmer temps, but the release of billions of tons of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. This interglacial is different in 2 significant respects from past interglacials over the past 800,000 years:
1) CO2 levels are higher
2) A species has learned how to release billions of tons of CO2 from fossil fuels.
Give ’em hell, Joe ! And I fully agree with you, let’s just see what happens in the next 10 years or so ( . . . or maybe less . . !) with the sun, the PDO/AMO and other ocean cycles.
R. Gates says….
“….perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying.”
You should start all your posts with that gem.
Where’s Matt and his equation?
Can’t find any envelopes on a Friday night…..?
R. Gates says:
August 12, 2011 at 8:50 pm
C’mon Joe, you can’t honestly believe this, or perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying
=======================
No….its actually c’mon Gates.
No one can honestly believe an iota of what you say.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
R. Gates says:
August 12, 2011 at 8:50 pm
The net cause of the rise in CO2 beyond what is typical in an interglacial is the human release of that carbon through the burning of fossil fuels.
=======================
What is “typical”? Hahahaha. HUH?
What “net cause” and what pure scientific evidence do you have to show for it?
Oh…I thought so. Nada.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
TY, i have been posting for many years, that the earths atmosphere is NEVER in equilibrium, that thermodynamics forces it to SEEK balance but that balance can never be found because the countless factors at play are constantly changing….the state of climate “change” is the 100% NATURAL state of the earths climate.
every record shows constant change never a balance.
to single out human co2 are a DRIVER is sheer LUNACY and i am tired of so called “scientists” LYING to the public.
Bastardi is incorrect when he states that: “The model projections that the warming would be accelerating due to CO2 build up are failing since the earth’s temps have leveled off the past 15 years while CO2 has continued to rise.” Actually, a model projection cannot fail for it does not state a falsifiable claim. It is a prediction and not a projection that states a falsifiable claim but as the IPCC climatologist Kevin Trenberth states explicitly at http://blogs.nature.com/climatefeedback/2007/07/global_warming_and_forecasts_o.html, the IPCC models make projections not predictions. IPCC climatology is a failed science but it is not failed because the temps have leveled while the CO2 has risen. Rather, it is failed because its models do not make falsifiable claims.
“The answer is obvious. They have it backwards. It is the earth’s temperature (largely the ocean) which is driving the CO2 release into the atmosphere. That is what the ice cores tell us and recently that Salby showed using isotopes in an important peer review paper.”
R Gates:
You might be inferring more than was written. I did not read into it that he said humans aren’t releasing CO2, just that the implied cause and effect are opposite. Bastardi is not known for his eloquent diction. Agreed, that if indeed he is suggesting this, it is surprising and I would ask that it be backed up with some facts and data.
Thank you Anthony for your excellent BLOG, one that I enjoy reading daily.
Funny how the pseudo smart asses disparage this guy but he predicts the weather a damn sight better than the AGW worshipping met offices, care to explain that and how he knows nothing??
Seth;
Note the details of the “lag” argument. It posits a one-time step function,in effect, as the energy delayed in its transit to space does escape after the lag. This results in a “steady state” addition of energy equivalent to the power of the trapped IR x the duration of the lag.
If you suddenly eliminated CO2 from the atmosphere, that heat would persist for the duration of the lag only, before tailing off to zero and thus restoring the “pre-CO2” steady state.
Since that lag is mere milliseconds, and the trapped IR’s power is a minute fraction of that of the total insolation, there’s not much there there.
Re: Doug Proctor, August 12, 2011 at 6:01 pm:
Doug, thank you thank you for make a well needed statement on, specifically, precision and accuracy in this realm of climatology! I could never have said it so clearly myself ( though I have tried along the same lines in the past ).
Joe…. great interview and post kept clear for the more non-scientific.
Joe Bastardi presented a falsifiable scenario: If temps go up over the next decade then he’ll admit that he’s wrong.
I have yet to see a falsifiable scenario out of the warminista crowd.
Anthony;
Edit note: de-apostrophize your plurals. Apostrophes are for noun possessives, and abbreviations, ONLY. No plural’s. Correction: No plurals.
Koz;
The temperature increase reduces how much CO2 is held in the upper layers of the oceans, and this is the overwhelmingly dominant determination of how much is “left” in the atmosphere. Human emissions just improve the resulting increase. We then get to eat better, as the crop yields surge. Win-win!
I think someone else touched on this subject but here goes. First Joe is a great weather man and is attempting ( some what poorly ) to put into nomenclature a discussion that has become mystified to most people. This means in many ways dumb down the actual science yet attempting to allow people to understand that the dumbed down version is still based on sound and important science. I did not like it, but again I do not believe I am his target audience and many of the thins he stated made me cringe a little as they are not more verifiable than some of the more outrageous claims of Climate Scientists that through in ‘gotcha words’ like ‘may be as high’ as between 5 and 10 degrees warmer in a hundred years. Which is legalese in the science community for, may not happen at all.
Now as for Matt, of course I am skeptical of anyones comments. Heck even my own as it is based on my current level of understanding which may be incorrect. That being said, I believe CO2 does not ‘add’ heat to the equation, rather it slows the rate of the heat withdrawal from the atmosphere. This is an important distinction to make however as it does not mean that there is more heat added to the atmosphere but rather a slower decay rate in which heat radiates from said atmosphere. Again ALL the predictions that ‘MAY’ come about are actually predicated on feedback loops occurring which may not happen at all.
One important thing that Joe did say that I do think is important is that we may well have temperature and CO2 backwards as far as which is driving which. It is just unfortunate that currently both CO2 and temperature are in lock step with one another and may well be for the foreseeable future.
As regards the mass balance issue there is a way that it could be wrong as follows:
Humans release 100 units leaving 20 units unabsorbed. 80 units go into stimulated local and regional sinks. It could be that all of it gets absorbed locally.
Oceans absorb less due to higher temperatures from increased solar insolation allowing 30 units more than ‘normal’ to remain in the atmosphere. Or 50 units more if all the human emissions are absorbed locally.
In each scenario atmospheric CO2 content therefore rises by 50 units which is half the human emissions.
All 50 units will be C12 according to Salby. Previously the consequent change in the 12C and 13C ratio was thought to be entirely anthropogenic.
Without the human contribution the local and regional sinks would be less active and the natural system would be a net source producing a solely natural rise of 30 units or 50 units as the case may be.
In the two examples given the observed increase is half the human contribution which is approximately what we see in the real world. The mass balance argument therefore fails because it is a dynamic system responding locally or regionally with increased vigour to the human input.
Interestingly one only needs a small change in ocean absorption rates to achieve the effect. Approximately 30% (or 50%) of the size of the human emissions which would probably be just a minute fraction of the total oceanic flux.
On these figures the human contribution could be easily cancelled out by a very slight increase in oceanic absorption rates so the present setup should be regarded as temporary.
Likewise a small further decrease in oceanic absorption rates would have a disproportionate effect on atmospheric CO2 without any additional contribution on our part.
It is likely just a coincidence that for a portion of the late 20th century the effect of the increased solar insolation to the oceans ran roughly parallel to the rate of increase in human emissions.
The increased solar insolation to the oceans having been caused by a more active sun changing the air circulation so as to draw the jetstreams poleward, reduce global cloudiness (as was observed) and allow more sunlight into the oceans.
The smoothness of the change at Mauna Loa could be a result of the most dominant process being a longer term change in solar activity levels such as from LIA to date. Being dominant that process would suppress shorter term temperature effects other than the high frequency seasonal variations.
This reminds me of the mistake that some make as regards economic theory. Some insist that there is only one ‘cake’ of resources of a fixed size (the mass balance idea) and everyone must share it equitably. In reality the size of the ‘cake’ increases with greater economic activity (more human input) so most if not all people get richer.
If Salby is right and human emissions are irrelevant then that is how it must be happening.
Also, if Salby is right then the ice cores and various other proxies must be misleading for reasons we have not yet pinned down.
I note that plant stomata show much more variability but even they may well be under recording.
I suspect that it is natural and routine for atmospheric CO2 levels to vary by up to 50% over periods of several centuries and somehow the ice cores are not recording it.
After all a very small change in oceanic absorption rates must have a disproportionately large effect on the atmosphere because of the hugely different CO2 carrying capabilities. I see no reason for doubting that the oceans could cause proportionately large CO2 variations in the air on a regular basis.
“The observed behavior is what it is.”
Murry Salby
R. Gates says:
August 12, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Not likely Scarface. The rise in CO2 beyond what is typical for an interglacial period has not been due to warmer temps, but the release of billions of tons of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. This interglacial is different in 2 significant respects from past interglacials over the past 800,000 years:
1) CO2 levels are higher
2) A species has learned how to release billions of tons of CO2 from fossil fuels.
Well, since you are speaking about the interglacial cycles, wouldn’t you like to mention the steep drop we are due for soon? Please, explain that cycle with CO2. Thanks.
I’m saddened that Joe brought up those two scientific laws/principles.
They were not necessary and are irrelevant to the issue.
His contentions are correct without even mentioning them.
The system simply adjusts to the extra energy in the air to eliminate all or most of that extra energy with little or no measurable climate effect.
More CO2 slows down the flow of energy through the system a fraction but an adjustment to the water cycle speeds it up again for a zero or near zero net effect.
Say what you will about Bastardi. He has a very valid question for the warmers.
Warmers, answer this question:
1) What would it take for you to question your currently accepted understanding (presumably given to you by experts) on Anthroprogenic Global Warming?
Skeptics have an easy time with this one. If the global average temperature were following the previously made projections, or any of the previous extreme storm predictions were in fact holding true (they’re not), or ocean temperature were in fact following the CAGW projections, etc..etc… if any of those were in fact directly following predictions, I would question what I believe to be the case here.
What would it take for you to question?
I just love how Mr. Wilde’s comment flows into mine. 🙂
It is what it is indeed. Just because the weather was [X] last year, it will be [X] this year. That gives you X-X understanding of what the actual system you are observing does with the energy it is given. Why was the weather X last year? That gives you a vastly superior understanding of how Earth handles the energy it gets from the Sun.
As far as I know, and Mr. Bastardi is free to correct me on this, weather models predict temperature just fine without adding CO2 as a factor. I’d like to know how you guys get the temperature right everyday without slapping on that additional warming.
re: post by Joe Bastardi says: August 12, 2011 at 7:07 pm
Frankly, I’m not sure I’d even go quite that far. Of course I agree that clearly one side is right and the other wrong. I also agree that continued flat temps or cooling while CO2 continues to rise would put the nail in the warmista coffin, but I don’t think that a return to warming would prove AGW.
Why? Because it’s my understanding that there is some pretty solid research showing that the earth has gone thru multiple periods where the temperature has increased (or decreased) as much or more than the highest predicted IPCC values, and in shorter time periods. That being the case, it seems to me that even if we return to warming over the next decade or two, the null hypothesis would still hold – e.g., that temp increases on the order projected by AGW advocates are well within natural cycles, and natural cycles fits the existing data as well or better than the AGW hypothesis.
Until AGW advocates can come up with some way to prove that CO2 is far more likely to be the cause than natural cycles – or either the rate or magnitude of change becomes significantly greater than such changes in Earths’ history – the null hypothesis stands. So far I don’t see that they’ve come up with any way to get beyond correlation at the very best, and even that correlation is relatively meaningless because neither the rate nor magnitude of change is out of Earth’s historical norms.
We keep coming back to some of the most basic scientific principles; null hypothesis, correlation is not causation, falsification, level of uncertainty, empirical evidence, and so on.
Joe rocks!
it’s just hard for anybody to pin down an oiled weasel like a warmista.
Rhoda Ramirez claims:
“Joe Bastardi presented a falsifiable scenario: If temps go up over the next decade then he’ll admit that he’s wrong.” Ramirez’s claim is logically flawed.
First, “scenario” is synonymous with “projection” but a “projection” is not falsifiable; it is a “prediction” that is falsifiable. Second, nowhere in this thread does Bastardi state the prediction that the global temperature will not go up over the next decade. He observes that the global temperature has not been going up but this observation does not match the description of a “prediction.” Third, in the evaluation of a theory, a single prediction is not helpful; one needs predictions of large number for establishment of the statistical significance of the conclusions.
re: post by Terry Oldberg says: August 12, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Couldn’t agree with you more on the falsifiability aspect. Don’t’cha just love how they keep claiming trillions of dollars must be spent and the entire world order and our standards of living all radically altered because they know to a 95% certainty that our CO2 release is killing the planet based on their model projections, but those projections aren’t predictions and therefore they cannot be held to account or be wrong should their ‘projections’ turn out to be incorrect?
Really serious case of cognitive dissonance or what? Hellooooo Orwell!!! Oh, and Alice, are you under that mushroom? Oh, you’re SMOKIN’ that mushroom.
Don’t you love the way in which televisions want to discuss climate issues, and allocate 45 seconds to it !!.
BTW What about CO2 absorption saturation? As I understand it, the capability of CO2 to absorb more longwave is already at maximum levels, with no further ability to absorb. If there is not further absorption, there can be no further warming.
.
The question that needs to be asked of the warmists is what collateral they are prepared to put up against their assertions?
1. Money?
2. Their children?
3. Their career and reputation?
Just what is it that they will lay on the line when they make their claims?
It’s important to know…..
re: post by Terry Oldberg says: August 12, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Terry, I don’t for the life of me know where you are coming from in saying that Mr. Bastardi has made no falsifiable prediction that temps won’t go up over the next decade. At the end of his article he stated:
Seems pretty clear to me that he’s predicting world wide average temperatures will drop this decade, and if they increase instead, his position has been falsified. He even specifies the measurement method, e.g., by satellite, so we have a relatively objective method that isn’t as subject to problems and bias as surface measurements.
>>KevinK says: August 12, 2011 at 8:04 pm
>>Each time the energy is redirected it travels as IR radiation at the speed of
>>light. So yes the “Greenhouse Effect” does indeed slow the flow of energy
>>through the system, but due to the speeds involved it is only capable of delaying
>>the release of heat by something like a few milliseconds
Can you explain that again for me – I know for a fact that a low stratus layer of cloud can maintain the surface temperature up to 10o warmer, for the whole night.
..
To the American audience who are all experiencing a huge heatwave this summer:
we over the pond in Britain are not. We had an incredibly early, mild spring which accelerated many of our crops, particularly our fruit and berries to almost record early harvest dates.
But our summer has been relatively cool and reasonably wet. Not cold, cold, but we’ve only had a few days over 75 degrees.
I can’t speak for the whole world but certainly in NW Europe we have no signs of a heatwave.
@ R.Gates
“But in all these 800,000 years or more, during interglacials, many of which were warmer than our current interglacial,………………………….It is not that this interglacial is warmer than the others”
R.Gates, I do enjoy your posts, but it seems to be illogical to find a direct correlation between Co2 and temperature, when you say that Co2 level in inter-glacials were never as high as they are now, but the temperature was warmer.
I know you are trying to say that warm interglacials did not drive an in crease in Co2 because while they were warmer, the Co2 level was lower, but conversely , if they were warmer, but the Co2 level was lower than now, does that not impact on the Co2 / Temperature correlation?
Or am I reading this wrongly?
Fox news reports, particularly on climate, are where I go for substance. The Fox team possesses an indepth understanding of the facts, no doubt engendered by their tireless pursuit of the truth. I say strip five Climate scientists of their PHD’s and award them to Joe Bastardi.
“Thats my agenda, get it right. And if I am right, then people will remember who fought for what was right, and who simply just swam with the tide because it seemed convenient and everyone else was doing it, and making a buck off it at that.”
If anyone is swimming with the tide, its you Joe. You are making big bucks pontificating on a subject you obviously know nothing about.
Robert in Calgary says (August 12, 2011 at 9:03 pm): “Where’s Matt and his equation? Can’t find any envelopes on a Friday night…..?”
Back in July Steve Mosher referenced this “back-of-the-envelope” discussion:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/a-simple-analysis-of-equilibrium-climate-sensitivity/
It also discusses some of the simplifications and assumptions that go into the calculation, e.g. no feedbacks, positive or negative. The devil is in the (omitted) details, of course.
A simple observation. My location has been overcast for several days. The night time temperatures have been a steady 13-14C. Last time we had a clear night temperature dropped to 9C even though day temperature had hit 21C.
Many tons of water overhead in fine droplets (clouds) can absorb and emitt over the range 4 to 100 microns and can only arrive at thermal equilibrium with surface temperature. CO2 can only see the 15 micron band at night. CO2 alone under clear skies at night will not keep anything warm. The miniscule “backradiation” from CO2 at about 0.7% of total surface radiation simply means surface radiation efficiency has dropped to 99.3%. Any drop in radiation rate is not a warming effect. To make something warmer you must feed in extra heat.
Friends:
Chris Colose wrote at August 12, 2011 at 5:35 pm saying:
“…
All of Bastardi’s talking points here can be traced back a long time,
…
I challenged him to an open debate on the matter.
…
I would like to how well he can perform when required to scientifically address criticisms of his claims.”
OH YES! Please, please please let it happen.
It is way past time that the egregious Colose got his bottom smacked in public and this could be it.
Richard
>>Rhys Jaggar says: August 12, 2011 at 11:56 pm
>>To the American audience who are all experiencing a huge heatwave this summer:
>>We over the pond in Britain are not.
Ditto in N Germany. It has been week after week of low cloud, drizzle, aggressive summer anti-cyclones and cold winds of the N Sea.
Its been dreadful.
.
“R. Gates says:
August 12, 2011 at 8:50 pm
The answer is obvious. They have it backwards. It is the earth’s temperature (largely the ocean) which is driving the CO2 release into the atmosphere. That is what the ice cores tell us and recently that Salby showed using isotopes in an important peer review paper.
_____
C’mon Joe, you can’t honestly believe this, or perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying. Are you suggesting that the last several century rise in CO2 is not due to the result of human burning of fossil fuels? I mean, it’s one thing to suggest that the Earth’s global temperature may not be as sensitive to the rise in CO2 as some would suggest, and I might even agree with that, but it is another thing entirely to suggest that human activity has not been the root cause of the rise in CO2 from 280 ppm to our current 390+ ppm.”
I doubt if any sane person would question the position that mankind have released (and are releasing) CO2 into the atmosphere to add to that released by oceans and other natural sources. The issue R Gates does not address (and others too) is where do you stand on the central issue raised by Mr Bastardi? Do you believe temperatures will go up, stand still or reduce beteween today and year 2020? And if they stand still or go down, do you agree that the AGW theory (and CAGW alarmism) has been falsified? I would like to hear a direct answer from R Gates and others questioning Mr Bastardi’s reasoning. That is the key question.
At least R Gates is now prepared to admit that CAGW represents alarmism and any impact of CO2 may be more in line with what Dr Spencer and Professor Lindzen propose.
R. Gates:
At August 12, 2011 at 8:50 pm you sayto Joes Bastardi;
“Are you suggesting that the last several century rise in CO2 is not due to the result of human burning of fossil fuels? I mean, it’s one thing to suggest that the Earth’s global temperature may not be as sensitive to the rise in CO2 as some would suggest, and I might even agree with that, but it is another thing entirely to suggest that human activity has not been the root cause of the rise in CO2 from 280 ppm to our current 390+ ppm.”
This, of course, ignores the fact that the bulk of evidence indicates that “human activity has NOT been the root cause of the rise in CO2 from 280 ppm to our current 390+ ppm.”
Take your fingers out of your ears, stop shouting, “Lah, lah. lah” and read the recent thread on WUWT at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/05/the-emily-litella-moment-for-climate-science-and-co2/
The discussion still continues on that thread, and it is probably above your reading comprehension capability. However, those on that thread who argue that “human activity” is known to have cause the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 have been soundly trounced.
Richard
The difference between theory and practice is that in theory they are the same, but in practice they are different. 🙂
Joe B deals with practice. Matt/AlGore/Warmistas deal with theory. Their problem is that Joe B gets paid big bucks to ACCURATELY forecast weather. I go with Joe.
Hello Joe!
We have an interesting month ahead when your arctic sea ice extent minimum prediction will be tested for 2011. As far as I recall, it was a minimum of 5,5million on the jaxa data?
Seems to me agw skeptics will have to admit they don’t have or understand all the facts if you are wrong on this issue ;). Of course the current value being ~5,84million, you are on track for a resounding success of logic against warmista modelistas.
If Co2 is rising because of increasing temperatures, and if temperatures are leveling off, why is CO2 still rising?
It seems that the arguments by Bastardi and Salby are not coherent. One cannot accept both.
The lack of knowledge of fundamental physics seems to be all pervading among the clmimo gang. Can I suggest that Colose, Matt, jeremy etc buy themselves a really good text book on physics, starting with e=mc² and ending with the latest quantum models. When done, please come back and explain how co² retains radiative energy.
Clue: all excited atoms try to return to the ground state immediately. Immediately means µsecs.
Stephen Richards BSc MSc solid state physics
Doug Proctor says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:01 pm
////////////////////////////////////////////////
Doug well said. I do not know why these ‘scientists’ seem to lack a grasp on accuracy and precision and the significance of that simple point.
As regards the missing knife, it is worse than we thought!!! Not only do we not know whether the knife has gone missing, we not know whether there has been a murder still less (if there was one) how it was committed, ie., whether with a knofe or with some other weapon.
Stephen Wilde says:
August 12, 2011 at 10:22 pm
I’m saddened that Joe brought up those two scientific laws/principles.
They were not necessary and are irrelevant to the issue.
I happen to agree with Stephen. Joe B does not need to use these ,theories in order to prove his point. He has been forecasting seasons within reasonable accuracy for many years and doing so way beyond the abilities of either UKMet or NASA.
The co² gangs rely on the same old rubbish to promote their religion and, sadly for them, it’s just going nowhere. They have failed in evry prediction since 1988. Oh, except when they fiddle the data.
Ralph says:
August 12, 2011 at 11:54 pm
The so called blanket effect of cloud prevents convection and reduces evaporations. It does nothing to impede IR EXCEPT that H²O is a great absorper of IR in the same bands as co² and there is about 1000 times more H²O than CO². 5% to 0.04%.
John H, you might want to do your homework before posting. Joe Bastardi runs a successful weather predicting business and earns his money from that, by being correct in his predictions. His clients come back to him and pay him for his services because he is correct.
The pro-AGW scientific crowd are the ones who are pontificating about a subject they have shown to know nothing about and have been proven wrong in everything they predicted. Empirical measured evidence shows that their prediction success rate on anything related to climate is non-existent. And yet they are ones skimming millions of taxpayer funds for their ” research ” and billions are being spent by Governments worldwide based on their failed and rotten predictions.
Theo Goodwin says: August 12, 2011 at 6:41 pm: “By the way, ‘skeptical’ is the Brit spelling while ‘sceptical’ is the American spelling.”
Wrong way round, old chap.
Joe Bastardi says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:48 pm
…
Co2 is rising. If the earths temperature cools the next 20 to 30 years, then its not co2.
———————–
Joe makes a prediction here, and it is one that most “warmists” would agree with. My question is, if the earth’s temperature warms over that same period, will Joe and other skeptics admit they might be wrong?
1.Matt, in general I agree with You. It seams You have same physics background.
2. Some simple screed:
Greanhouse gase absorbs Long wawe radiation end emits it to random directions. Part (about 1/2) of this radiation go back to earth.
The earth could be assumed as black body and its released energy intensity P ~T^4
What will happen if earth Temperature will change 1 degree celsius ?
One degree of temperature changes will cause 100*[(T+1) /T]^4 percents of emited energy intensity . Assuming that average earth temperature T=(273+15) = 288 K we get that 100*(289/288)^4=1.4%.of earth emitted energy returns back.
In other words, if 1.4% of earth emited energy are returnded/reflected back then to reach termodynamic equilibrium earth shout warm 1 degree celsius.
The question is: How mach greenhouse gas is necessary to reflect 1.4% of earth emitted Long wave radiation.
There are little to to do with greenhouse gas CONCENTRATION. The key factor is amount of greenhause gase per earth surface unit (assuming that atmosphere is thin) .
Significant is which part of earth emitted radiation spectrum greenhause gase are able to absorb and how mach energy is in this part of spectrum. So the impact of CO2 to earth T are limited to this energy portion. I am to lazy and busy for quantitave calculations of spectrums and ability of CO2 to absorb/reemit energy.
In my opinium, the greenhause gase effects are real. BUT the impact of CO2 to earth climate could be overestimated, due to lots of complex feedbacks (cloudines, albedo, global circulations (athospheric and ocean) etc).
Till now I have not seen scientificaly argumented research which shows that CO2 are cause of some worming. I have seen lots of speculations but not more. My be some one has better luck. If yes pleese give me some links.
Very possible there are mach more powerful earth climate drivers then CO2 and effect of CO2 could be neglected.
People often characterize carbon dioxide as a blanket and use the analogy of the warming produced by a blanket as an analogy for the CO2 greenhouse effect. But because CO2 is largely transparent except over a limited band of wavelengths, I propose the scarf as a better analogy. With nothing else on, people might feel cold no matter how many scarves they tried to wrap around their necks.
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:28 pm
The equivalent of what you are saying is that I can insulate my home with a 1″ square ceiling tile or does coarbon dioxide have some majic effect?
What Matt said was:
The link Steve Mosher pointed to does not deal with what Matt was talking about. What we’re waiting for is a simple calculation that relates the concentration of CO2 to a change in temperature.
As far as the arctic ice, it looks like it will get to 4.75 5 million which means that forecast was not on target. As you can see I admit it. . But how do you hammer me on being wrong there, and give people who say it would be gone by now a pass ( from 10 years ago). And now they are admitting, because they see the increase in thick ice, that perhaps there is no tipping point. We are in no danger of losing the ice cap, and it will return to where it was as the pdo and amo, and especially the amo, cool in the coming years
But again, on the red herring that I am trying to show co2 is in this debate. IN THE REAL WORLD
We add co2 to real life greenhouses not to keep them warmer, but to feed the plants. My point is its not contributing to any trapping, because there is no extra trapping occurring except for the natural affects that have ruled this planet since the start of time, that you, me or Al Gore can not do anything about, partly because we did not create the whole thing ( I am speaking for you and I, I dont know if Gore believes that he cant influence it since he does seem to think he can be involved in its control) Its addition to the system is nothing, or cant be calculated its so small. Years ago, in the giddy days of the inception of the
Carbon trading exchange, people getting involved thought they were going to get rich by essentially “trading air” ( They should probably have gone after water vapor, a more prominent gas and one that can actually be linked)
But we can measure temps all we want, and argue all we want, its a red herring until we can actually quantify the energy of entire ocean/atmosphere system and what it “should” be.
.None of these people have told me what the perfect climate or co2 level is anyway. They never explain why 350 ppm is ideal, or what their proposed effect, if we get there, is going to do to the climate. And if its true its causing warming, then the resultant cooling, would cause problems also. That is why this is such a strange argument. There is not forecasted ideal answer, nor will they give you one. In addition to asking what would it take for you to see you are wrong in the longer term, please I beg of you tell me what the perfect climate balance looks like and tell me the global results of such a thing. But we never see or hear any of that.
In the end, I am confident rational people will see and understand co2’s influence on the climate is virtually nothing. As any greenhouse owner would tell you, the the prime reason they pump co2 into their greenhouse is for it to do what it does best.. help plants grow because it is plant food. And its increase will help “green” the planet..providing it doesnt turn so cold that we have another mini ice age on our hands like the last time the sun went into the tank.( while I think we are returning to the 1970s over the next 20-30 years, and that is my forecast to be tested, there are those that do think we will be much colder)
The most telling example of co2 and plants/temps is the fact that co2 levels jump each winter when its cold, because the foliage in the northern hemisphere , where there are more plants, decreases, but falls off in summer when its hotter but more plants are growing. It is reactive to the environment it is in, not proactive and forcing the action. And that is the crux of this argument as to its affect on the total energy budget of the earth.. which has never been quantified in an accurate, agreed upon way anyway.
So the challenge is.. let us all know what the total energy is in the total system, propose a climate optimum for that, then actually see if co2 has anything to do with it. The idea we are working on 3 without having 1 or 2 done first should instantly raise eyebrows in the debate
ciao, cumpares
Joe Bastardi says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:48 pm
“Yet I dont get a nickel for sticking my neck out on this issue ( contrary to the nonsense that is printed about guys like me being in the pocket of this group or that), except fighting for what I believe is the right answer. Thats my agenda, get it right. And if I am right, then people will remember who fought for what was right, and who simply just swam with the tide because it seemed convenient and everyone else was doing it, and making a buck off it at that. Its That simple. Its just a big weather forecast to me, and I am sorry if that insults the intelligence of those who want it to be something that is so complex, so tough, that no one else need apply but those intelligent enough to understand that they know better than everyone else, and because of that are entitled to force everyone else to their position.”
I love that statement. It reminds me on the statement given ~900 years ago Omar Khayyam has written in one of his books:
“I always desired to investigate the various classes of Algebraic equations and discriminate, by means of proofs classes which admit a solution and which do not, because I found that such equations occur in solving some difficult problems. But, on account of adverse circumstances, I could not pursue the subject. We are in the danger that learned men
would all perish. The few that remain have to undergo great hardships. Owing to the negligence of Hikmat (Science) in these times, the really learned men cannot find the opportunity and means for investigation. On the other hand the pseudo-Hakims of these days would represent the truth as false. They do not rise above deprecating others and self-show. They do not use what little they know except for the Requirements of a wretched carcass. On finding a person who devotes his whole life to the acquisition of truth and repudiation of falsehood and hypocrisy, a person who shuns selfishness and cunning, these pseudo-Hakims will only jeer and threaten him.
Omar Khayyam (page 76)
Obeisance.
V.
John B, if you see tne 3rd line of 2nd paragraph of Joe’s comment in the comments section, you’ll see he states ” I will admit I am wrong if it rises,” . That should answer your question.
Joe got the HadCRUT/CO2 chart from here: http://www.c3headlines.com/ ….if you just want to scroll thru the ‘C3’ headlines instead, go here: http://www.c3headlines.com/c3-just-the-headlines.html
Joe (Anthony?) used our May chart, here is the updated June chart: http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/08/hadcrut-global-temperatures-june-2011-15-year-span-of-immaterial-insignificant-non-accelerating-warm.html
Finally, one can view our entire collection of charts via this link: http://www.c3headlines.com/chartsimages.html
C3 editor
Nice essay Joe, thanks for being here. I want to highlight this paragraph of yours:
Your words demolish their sneaky and deliberate attempt to associate CO2 with cyanide, arsenic and other poisons du jour. If I may make it even clearer, when the AGW cultist says: ‘even a few ppm of cyanide can kill you’ (and they do say this), they are relatively describing cramming the millions of ton of atmospheric CO2 into the lungs of a single person, not the ultra diluted scenario you mention. Meanwhile, that same AGW cultist routinely experiences 200% or 400% or more CO2 when they drive in their closed window car or any other number of scenarios on a daily basis.
If this were a pure scientific dispute you would be correct Joe, however this is not pure science. There is no Null Hypothesis for a religious death cult, they won’t describe one, nor will they accept one. I have said that even if there were a clear repeat of the 1960’s-1970’s with clear cooling and epic winters they will not even acknowledge it. Sure, a small fraction of ‘lukewarmers’ will come to their senses, but the cult will just go underground until the next warming cycle 30 years or so past that and torture our grandchildren instead. We climate realists must come to grips with this. They are re-constituted luddites and no doubt preceded them as well and have likely been present since a caveman brought fire home for the first time.
Thank you for this explanation. You have put into words what I (and probably many others) have instinctively thought all along. This comment and one by Stephen Wilde below has really put into focus the ‘CO2 magic gas principle’ for lack of a better term.
Regarding the saturation effect, it occurs to me that some very carefully designed experiments with enclosed systems using a heat source, regulated CO2 input and thermal sensors would be valuable. How hard could it be to keep adding CO2 until the effect saturates? Likewise the duration should be demonstrable by switching the heat source off. If such experiments have already been done they certainly have not received enough attention.
I would like to know one simple thing: given two identical Earths excepting that Earth-1 is at our level of CO2 while Earth-2 has no CO2, and then we switched off the sun. What would be the cooling lag before they were temperature identical, presumably at or near absolute zero? Would Earth-1 lag by one day or month or year or what?
Gates, just for once please complete your thought. Specifically, answer this simple question:
If humans had gone extinct 20 kya (or anytime really), what would be the CO2 ppm today?
Okay, how much? We have a gas that is .04% of the atmosphere that increases 1.5 ppm yearly and humans contribute 3-5% of that total yearly, which means the increase by humans is 1 part per 20 million
=========
Not necesssarily contribution do not have to be proportional to the size in the cycle flow . Would have been nice to get this hole in the argument.
Lazyteenager:
“The Salby paper fails because it predicts that ocean CO2 is going down when in fact it’s is going up.”
Interesting comment, said with much conviction behind it. Sadly though I doubt you have read what Salby has to say in his paper as it has not yet been published. There again, you might be psychic.
Joe Bastardi says
But again, on the red herring that I am trying to show co2 is in this debate. IN THE REAL WORLD
We add co2 to real life greenhouses not to keep them warmer, but to feed the plants. My point is its not contributing to any trapping, because there is no extra trapping occurring except for the natural affects that have ruled this planet since the start of time, that you, me or Al Gore can not do anything about, partly because we did not create the whole thing..
Henry@Joe
perhaps I can help a little bit by making you understand how CO2 both cools and warms the planet
– by an as yet unknown but, indeed, probably a very small amount –
at least try to understand the basic principle, it may help you shed some more light on this subject…
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Deech56:
Your posts at August 13, 2011 at 2:29 am and August 13, 2011 at 2:32 am say, respectively:
“If Co2 is rising because of increasing temperatures, and if temperatures are leveling off, why is CO2 still rising?”
And
“It seems that the arguments by Bastardi and Salby are not coherent. One cannot accept both.”
They are completely coherent. Read the still-continuing discussion in the thread on WUWT at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/05/the-emily-litella-moment-for-climate-science-and-co2/
You are assuming the two effects are coincident. But the long-term change in atmospheric CO2 follows the long-term temperature rise by ~30 years: this is indicated both by analyses of the trends and observations of the data.
Richard
.
John Peter says:
August 13, 2011 at 1:13 am
“R. Gates says:
August 12, 2011 at 8:50 pm
The answer is obvious. They have it backwards. It is the earth’s temperature (largely the ocean) which is driving the CO2 release into the atmosphere. That is what the ice cores tell us and recently that Salby showed using isotopes in an important peer review paper.
_____
C’mon Joe, you can’t honestly believe this, or perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying. Are you suggesting that the last several century rise in CO2 is not due to the result of human burning of fossil fuels? I mean, it’s one thing to suggest that the Earth’s global temperature may not be as sensitive to the rise in CO2 as some would suggest, and I might even agree with that, but it is another thing entirely to suggest that human activity has not been the root cause of the rise in CO2 from 280 ppm to our current 390+ ppm.”
I doubt if any sane person would question the position that mankind have released (and are releasing) CO2 into the atmosphere to add to that released by oceans and other natural sources. The issue R Gates does not address (and others too) is where do you stand on the central issue raised by Mr Bastardi? Do you believe temperatures will go up, stand still or reduce beteween today and year 2020? And if they stand still or go down, do you agree that the AGW theory (and CAGW alarmism) has been falsified? I would like to hear a direct answer from R Gates and others questioning Mr Bastardi’s reasoning. That is the key question.
At least R Gates is now prepared to admit that CAGW represents alarmism and any impact of CO2 may be more in line with what Dr Spencer and Professor Lindzen propose.
————-
As there are multiple, and sometimes opposite forcings that can affect climate over any given time frame, I think if one wants to understand what has happened, and what may happen, one needs to look at the sum total of forcings and their related positive and negative feedbacks to see what may be expected. Some forcings act very slowly but very powerfully, such as Milankovitch, and others act very rapidly and very strongly, such as volcanoes. So it is somewhat dangerous and unscientific to simply say “if warming or cooling does not take place over such and such a period, then x must be true or false” unless you very carefully spell out the overall conditions of the test period looking at the sum total of forcings. Yet it seems many are not willing to accept the obvious need to look at the sum total of forcings and their related feedbacks, and evev more so, we still don’t know what the sum total of forcings and their feedbacks are, and that is exactly what climate science is about.
But not to dodge the question, but with the above as a point of reference, CO2 works with other GH gases to keep the planet warmer than it would be without these gases. Human activity has put more CO2 into the atmosphere then we would expect to see during this point of a Milankovitch driven interglacial. As CO2 increases, we would expect temperatures to increase as well, either directly or from positive feedbacks. Additionally, there is the hysteresis already in the system from the additional CO2 added over the past several centuries. So, simply considering CO2, we would expect the temperatures to be higher, when averaged over the decade in the next few decades ahead, and indeed, in the century ahead. But as my point of the first part of this post made, we need to look back at the decade and see what other forciings were also present that may have countered the warming from CO2, or perhaps even added to it. Some of these other forcings that can act on decadal time scales or shorter include solar effects, volcanoes, and other human effects such as aerosol and black carbon emissions.
RobB says:
August 13, 2011 at 5:30 am
Lazyteenager:
“The Salby paper fails because it predicts that ocean CO2 is going down when in fact it’s is going up.”
Interesting comment, said with much conviction behind it. Sadly though I doubt you have read what Salby has to say in his paper as it has not yet been published. There again, you might be psychic.
——–
When the Salby paper comes out, and assuming it has gone through some level of peer review, I’m sure we’ll have much to talk about, but I don’t think it will be quite so exciting to skeptics as the hype of it is now.
Climate science is based a few “back-of-the-envelope” calculations.
And those only get one to about half-way through to the final product. Then it moves into assumptions based on personal belief systems. Most of these assumptions were made when the theory was initially being developed (in the late 1970s and early 1980s) when measurements were not available. They are still being used today and noone is allowed to question them apparently.
We need real measurements untainted by the need to prove that the intial personal beliefs were correct.
Humans have a great need to be proven correct and to have others agree with us. We have a hard time admitting when we are wrong. We will also use peer pressure and coercion to get people to agree with us if the opportunity is presented to us.
Climate science has gotten past these basic human instincts yet and into the “science based on measurement” stage that a mature science field uses (geology or medicine for example).
The climate models are still trying to show/prove that the initial 1978 assumptions were correct:
– CO2 increases the energy held in the system by 4 watts/m2 per doubling,
– O2 and N2 (99% of the amtosphere) play no role whatsoever in how the greenhouse effect works,
– water vapour will increase by 7% per 1.0C increase caused by CO2,
– temperatures will increase by 0.75C/W/m2 rather than being governed by the real physics,
– the lapse rate stays reasonably constant,
– clouds are a positive feedback,
– a warmer Earth atmosphere will not automatically release more IR to space as it gets warmer,
– Earth Albedo hardly varies at all through time, even in the ice ages,
– natural climate change is too small to worry about,
Real measurements in the real Earth system will show every one of these assumptions is wrong/is some other value.
Gareth Phillips says:
August 13, 2011 at 12:09 am
@ R.Gates
“But in all these 800,000 years or more, during interglacials, many of which were warmer than our current interglacial,………………………….It is not that this interglacial is warmer than the others”
R.Gates, I do enjoy your posts, but it seems to be illogical to find a direct correlation between Co2 and temperature, when you say that Co2 level in inter-glacials were never as high as they are now, but the temperature was warmer.
I know you are trying to say that warm interglacials did not drive an in crease in Co2 because while they were warmer, the Co2 level was lower, but conversely , if they were warmer, but the Co2 level was lower than now, does that not impact on the Co2 / Temperature correlation?
Or am I reading this wrongly?
———
A bit incorrectly. We’ve had SLIGHTLY warmer interglacials in the past 800,000 years, during which time CO2 hasn’t gone above 300 ppm, yet, if temps are the driver behind our modern level approaching 400 ppm, then something is amiss. That’s because humans have added the extra CO2 beyond the 280 ppm that we would expect from the interglacial alone.
David Falkner says:
August 12, 2011 at 10:20 pm
R. Gates says:
August 12, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Not likely Scarface. The rise in CO2 beyond what is typical for an interglacial period has not been due to warmer temps, but the release of billions of tons of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. This interglacial is different in 2 significant respects from past interglacials over the past 800,000 years:
1) CO2 levels are higher
2) A species has learned how to release billions of tons of CO2 from fossil fuels.
Well, since you are speaking about the interglacial cycles, wouldn’t you like to mention the steep drop we are due for soon? Please, explain that cycle with CO2. Thanks.
——–
Steep drop soon? According to whom? I would suggest you ask for an explanation from those predicting this. Out of the multiple forcings affecting climate, to suggest a “steep drop soon” would mean they are expecting some serious volcanic activity or perhaps all out nuclear war.
Perhaps it is a measure of the gulf that now exists between 1. people who believe Joe Bastardi’s nonsense and 2. those who understand the science and read his words with incredulity that anyone could write such gibberish, that there has been only one reference (that by Chris Colose) to the discussions of it over on Tamino’s blog.
So, here are the links to those discussions:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/settled-science/#comment-53256
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/can-bastardi-learn/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/learning-from-bastardis-mistakes/
Blade said:
Gates, just for once please complete your thought. Specifically, answer this simple question:
If humans had gone extinct 20 kya (or anytime really), what would be the CO2 ppm today?
———-
If humans had been wiped out by the massive volcanic eruption of Toba 72,000 years ago, and weren’t around to burn fossil fuels over the past few centuries, then absolutely beyond a doubt CO2 levels would be lower today.
>>Ralph says:
August 13, 2011 at 1:06 am
>>Rhys Jaggar says: August 12, 2011 at 11:56 pm
>>To the American audience who are all experiencing a huge heatwave this summer:
>>We over the pond in Britain are not.
>>Ditto in N Germany. It has been week after week of low cloud, drizzle, aggressive summer anti-cyclones and cold winds of the N Sea.
>>Its been dreadful.
Maybe its just weather, but….
Similarly to the gentlemen fom the UK and Germany above, we here in Hungary are experiencing an unusually cool summer (except for an approx 10-days long heat wave a few weeks ago). Applies to June, July and August, as well. Not sure, but it looks similar to me to my childhood summers, during the 80’s. Entirely different from what we saw since the end of the 90’s.
The two lines drawn on the HadCRUT temperature chart (15 years to May 2011) are:
(a) a straw man – there is no straight line with that slope and intercept that can be derived from the HadCRUT temperature data.
(b) wishful thinking – the curved line drawn “through” the data is just arm waving.
The reality of the situation can be seen in this chart:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1900/to:2011.35/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1900/to:2011.35/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1996.35/to:2011.35/trend
As you say, time will tell who is right. The latest data, for June and July 2011, are entirely consistent with continued warming, not cooling.
I have noticed that most comments about the annual increase of CO2 sutggest that about half of this amount is due to human activity. Where does the other half come from?
Matt says:
Your claim that the increase in CO2 is too small to affect such a change is easily contradicted by a simple back-of-the-envolope [SIC] calculation that shows the warming from CO2 double to be about 2 deg.
*********
The British Royal Society calculates .4 ° C for a doubling of CO2 without feedbacks and Dr Hansen gets about 1 ° C now you get 2 ° C ??
If it is so simple why do different groups get answers that vary by 500 % ?
BTW: I am a skeptic but CO2 acts like putting a lid on a pot of water on a hot stove. If the water wasn’t boiling putting a lid on the pan causes the water to get hotter.
Another analogy is putting on another blanket when in bed. No heat is created is it?
Too bad this was the lead claim because it is obviously wrong and scientifically minded skeptics don’t buy it.
Venter says:
August 13, 2011 at 4:31 am
John B, if you see tne 3rd line of 2nd paragraph of Joe’s comment in the comments section, you’ll see he states ” I will admit I am wrong if it rises,” . That should answer your question.
—————–
Thanks Venter. And does the same go for the rest of us here?
I predict it doesn’t matter what the temps do in the next 15-20 years….not one bit
Almost every week there’s new research coming out that CO2 has less of an effect, the oceans are not acid, clouds, temps are going down……
…in 15 -20 years we might actually have something that vaguely resembles science
Blade says:
August 13, 2011 at 5:28 am
…
Gates, just for once please complete your thought. Specifically, answer this simple question:
If humans had gone extinct 20 kya (or anytime really), what would be the CO2 ppm today?
————–
Hope R Gates doesn’t mind me answering on his behalf. As CO2 levels have been in the range 180 – 300 ppm for the last 800,000 years according to the ice core record, there is no reason to suppose that they would be anywhere outside that range had humanity gone extinct anytime before industrialisation.
I am surprized that Tony would print a “guest” presentation with so many obviously mistaken beliefs and factual mistakes in such little space. Seems to show that Joe B can read but not understand the basics of high school or even middle school science. I am surprized at how many readers were apparently “hoodwinked” by this posting. Is Joe B spoofing or is he really serious?
Without human activity during the Holocene, CO2 levels would be 280 ppm or lower today.
Ralph says:
August 13, 2011 at 1:06 am
>>Rhys Jaggar says: August 12, 2011 at 11:56 pm
>>To the American audience who are all experiencing a huge heatwave this summer:
>>We over the pond in Britain are not.
“Ditto in N Germany. It has been week after week of low cloud, drizzle, aggressive summer anti-cyclones and cold winds of the N Sea. Its been dreadful.”
The upper and middle midwest in the USA are so cool that Warmista would describe it as “unprecedented.” My old hometown of St. Louis Missouri is looking at a week of high temperatures in the low to mid eighties. The last time that happened was just before the disastrous winters of 1976-1979. In normal conditions, August in St. Louis is no cooler than July, which can hit 100 daily. Today is only August 13, for goodness sake! Yes, Texas is suffering a very hot summer, but not an “unprecedented” summer. There are drought conditions in some parts of Texas that are not normal by any means.
Does the MSM cover this cooling? No, no, and no. I wonder if they will wake up when all the interstates through St. Louis are closed for days this winter?
Deech56 says:
August 13, 2011 at 2:29 am
If Co2 is rising because of increasing temperatures, and if temperatures are leveling off, why is CO2 still rising?
//////////////////////////////////////////////
The evidence from, the ice cores suggests that there is a lag of between 600 to 1000 years between rising temperature and later observed rising CO2 levels. If that evidence is sound and the driving process still applicable today, the CO2 levels presently being observed may be reflecting rising temperatures prevalent in the MWP, ie the CO2 levels are not a response to current warming or cooling trend.
Whilst considering this point, it is also important to bear in mind that the CO2 levels observed at Mauna Loa bear no significant correlation with manmade emissions. The only correlation is that there is an upward trend in both observation and manmade emissions. However, apart from that course correlation, the Mauna Loa observations do not correlate with the rate of change in manmade emissions (Mauna Loa observations suggest an essentially linear increase, whereas manmade emissions have been anything but linear) and significantly, on the few occassions when manmade emissions have slowed (due to economic problems etc), the Mauna Loa records to not show that slowing. It would appear that Mauna Loa is not measuring the true effects of manmade emissions. This may be because manmade emissions are only about 2-3% of the total CO2 emissions anually such that the signature of manmade emissions is lost/swamped within the noise/bulk of the natural CO2 emissions. . .
Rational Debate says:
Terry, I don’t for the life of me know where you are coming from in saying that Mr. Bastardi has made no falsifiable prediction that temps won’t go up over the next decade. At the end of his article he stated:
“Time will provide the answer. … there should be a drop in global temperatures as measured by objective satellite measurement, at least back to the levels they were in the 1970s, when we first started measuring them via an objective source. If temperatures warm despite these natural cycles, you carry the day. We won’t have to wait the full 20-30 year period. I believe we will have our answer before this decade is done.”
I reply:
The testing of a hypothesis is necessarily by comparison of the predicted outcomes of observed events to the corresponding outcomes in a set of statistically independent observed statistical events. For statistical significance, there must be many observed events and the associated predictions. The observed events must be a subset of a set of fully described statistically independent statistical events not all of which are observed. The latter events occupy a “statistical population.” The former events occupy a “statistical sample.” Projections occupy a “statistical ensemble.” A “hypothesis” is a procedure for generating predictions.
Elements of this structure are missing from Bastardi’s description. In particular, he has not described his hypothesis, the population or the sample in sufficient detail for this hypothesis to be tested. Additionally, he has committed the error of confusing a “projection” with a “prediction”; they are different concepts.
In view of the errors and omissions, Bastardi’s hypothesis cannot be described as a “scientific” hypothesis. In view of similar errors and omissions, IPCC Working Group I’s claim to the existence of AGW cannot be described as a “scientific” hypothesis. AGW can neither be statistically validated nor statistically invalidated because the needed structure is not present.
Terry Oldberg says:
August 12, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Good Work, thanks. Thanks for the reference too. The Gaia Modelers are not empirical scientists.
Bastardi:
“You and I cant run away from the truth. Global temps have leveled off. CO2 is rising.”
If that is true, your contention that temperature is driving CO2 falls apart. Why has CO2 continued to steadily go up (accelerating even) if as you say temps have stayed flat for 15 years (they haven’t actually, but that’s your claim)? Do you even read what you write?
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:36 pm
“Your claim that the broad science community is not in touch with physical, empirical reality is thoroughly unfair. There are countless empirical measurements of climate sensitivities and feedbacks and for a wide variety of forcing mechanisms. You can always claim that it is “not enough” and that’s fine. But, don’t say that it doesn’t exist.”
Your response is yet another Classic Example of a Red Herring Fallacy. Warmista, when challenged, always change the subject. My claim was that Warmista, either of the Radiation Only Gaia Modeler or the Hide the Decline variety, have produced no reasonably well confirmed physical hypotheses that could explain and predict the forcings found in natural processes such as cloud formation. They are not working on them and have no interest in doing so. They are not physical scientists and they are not empirical scientists. They are teenagers obsessed with their supercomputers. In the future, supercomputers will have to be treated the same way that cigaretters are treated today, if not outrightly banned.
Ralph says:
August 12, 2011 at 11:54 pm
>>KevinK says: August 12, 2011 at 8:04 pm
>>Each time the energy is redirected it travels as IR radiation at the speed of
>>light. So yes the “Greenhouse Effect” does indeed slow the flow of energy
>>through the system, but due to the speeds involved it is only capable of delaying
>>the release of heat by something like a few milliseconds
Can you explain that again for me – I know for a fact that a low stratus layer of cloud can maintain the surface temperature up to 10o warmer, for the whole night.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////
Ralph, the clouds in your example are restricting heat loss since they are inhibiting convection.
R. Gates says:
August 13, 2011 at 7:23 am
“Without human activity during the Holocene, CO2 levels would be 280 ppm or lower today.”
Another Gatesism. Just a statement without evidence, without meaning, without context. The answers to all Gatesisms are: “So what” and “what’s your point?”
Slioch says:
August 13, 2011 at 6:29 am
What sceptics really want is a Warmista who will engage in debate without committing the Red Herring Fallacy. We want a Warmista who will not continually change the topic. Please note that you are a grand topic changer. Warmista introduced an argument and then fled from it by changing the topic. You are doing the same on a grander scale. Why won’t you address sceptical arguments? Have you ever asked yourself that question?
Matt says:
“@Smokey
“…The claim that the CO2 heat absorption is already saturated is just plain wrong.”
For Matt’s edification: click
Roger Longstaff says:
August 13, 2011 at 3:12 am
Theo Goodwin says: August 12, 2011 at 6:41 pm: “By the way, ‘skeptical’ is the Brit spelling while ‘sceptical’ is the American spelling.”
“Wrong way round, old chap.”
Maybe I asserted a mere prejudice. Given your response, I am beginning to think that ‘sceptical’ is the accepted spelling and that ‘skeptical’ is archaic. What do you think?
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:28 pm
“…..a simple back-of-the-envolope calculation that shows the warming from CO2 double to be about 2 deg. F”.
According to Trenbeth’s figures, the wattage flux at earth’s surface is about 490 watts, 390 in sensible heat and 100 in latent heat. A doubling of CO2 would supposedly increase that surface flux by something less than 3.7 watts. If all of that increase went into sensible heat, the
average surface temp would increase by (393.7/390)^0.25 -1 times the current avg temp of about 288 K , or 0.68 C = 1.2 F. That;s quite a bit less than your 2 F. Also, over 20% of the total flux goes into LATENT heat. That would reduce the actual temp increase to something like 1 F.
R. Gates says:
August 13, 2011 at 7:23 am
Without human activity during the Holocene, CO2 levels would be 280 ppm or lower today.
==================================================================
I don’t see what the point is…..
…CO2 was lower in the past, and temperatures were higher
Even with CO2 as high as it is now, temperatures have not gone up as high as they were in the past when CO2 was lower…………………….
http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/IceCores1.gif
I think most of you are missing my point on the principle of the greenhouse effect
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
and BTW
As far as I know there are no actual measured test results that found that a doubling of CO2 gave such and such an increase in global temps. ….
All they did is look at the problem (of global warming) from the wrong end which is the worst mistake a scientist can make. They looked at global warming since 1750 and then they allocated a forcings to GHG’s depending on the increase of the specific GHG noted since that time. Eventually when that did not happen it got watered down to perhaps only half that amount (50%) and more such wild speculation.
What I am now finding (from actual samples from weather stations in the oceans and at the oceans) is that the influence of man on temps. is very little indeed
-minimum temps. is not what is pushing up average temps-
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
Hopefully they’d be willing to bet that the temperature, per GISS, will be higher after the next three or seven years (2014 and 2019). They can do so on Intrade (and place other temperature- and ice-related bets), here: https://www.intrade.com/v4/markets/?eventClassId=20
Tom in Florida says:
August 13, 2011 at 7:57 am
Apparently, he has morphed from troll to resident wild-eyed Warmista.
John B,
I can’t speak for everyone but the facts will speak for themselves and no one can dispute measured empirical evidence. I’ll accept whatever facts are seen and measure the theories against observed facts. On that basis AGW is a big fail as the theory is not supported by a shred of empirical evidence. All the defence and waffling happening in support of that failed theory are dishonest.
If we’re on a high-temperature plateau, there’s no contradiction.
Dear Theo,
My comment was based upon almost 60 years of living in England, and trying my best to speak the Queen’s English. The dreaded “wiki” says:
“DefinitionIn ordinary usage, skepticism (US) or scepticism (UK) (Greek: ‘σκέπτομαι’ skeptomai, to think, to look about, to consider; see also spelling differences) refers to:
(a) an attitude of doubt or a disposition to incredulity either in general or toward a particular object;
(b) the doctrine that true knowledge or knowledge in a particular area is uncertain; or
(c) the method of suspended judgment, systematic doubt, or criticism that is characteristic of skeptics (Merriam–Webster).
In philosophy, skepticism refers more specifically to any one of several propositions. These include propositions about:
(a) an inquiry,
(b) a method of obtaining knowledge through systematic doubt and continual testing,
(c) the arbitrariness, relativity, or subjectivity of moral values,
(d) the limitations of knowledge,
(e) a method of intellectual caution and suspended judgment.
However (if this is correct) the original Greek uses a “K”, so maybe the US spelling is more accurate.
But we woz ‘ere first!!
Terry Oldberg says:
August 13, 2011 at 7:36 am
Another good post. Though, I prefer to explain the matter by appeal to scientific method. Mr. Bastardi is using the word ‘prediction’ the way the man on the street uses it. In scientific prediction, one is claiming that a particular event, such as Venus in half-phase, is an instance of the natural regularities that make-up the physics of planetary orbits in this solar system. The crucial point is that the predicted event, Venus’ half-phase, is implied by the well-confirmed physical hypotheses that describe planetary orbits in our solar system. For my money, if you are serious about scientific prediction, then (1) you must be able to cite the well confirmed physical hypotheses and (2) they must imply the event predicted.
Mr. Bastardi is speaking like a man placing bets. It is a perfectly legitimate way of speaking but it is not science.
Not according to Britisher Fowler’s classic Modern English Usage :
“The established pronunciation is sk-, whatever the spelling; and with the frequent modern use of septic and sepsis it is well that it should be so for fear of confusion. But to spell sc- and pronounce sk- is to put a needless difficulty in the way of the unlearned, for sce is normally pronounced se even in words where the c represents a Greek k, e.g., scene and its compounds and ascetic. America spells sk-; we might pocket our pride and copy.”
@Robert Murphy says:
August 13, 2011 at 7:47 am
“Bastardi:
“You and I cant run away from the truth. Global temps have leveled off. CO2 is rising.”
If that is true, your contention that temperature is driving CO2 falls apart. Why has CO2 continued to steadily go up (accelerating even) if as you say temps have stayed flat for 15 years (they haven’t actually, but that’s your claim)? Do you even read what you write?”
Well it’s not called lag for nothing. You do know the definition of lag right? It’s a very easy word to remember because lagging rimes with dragging behind. See, very easy.
And as for global average temperature it is a mere statistical hodgepodge phenomenon that actually has gone down slightly all pending your point of view of course. This is also very easy, if your a rational sane person who looks at proper data it has gone down, but, if you’re a green socialist staring at phony data it has gone up. See, also very easy.
Did you see what I did there?
I am skeptical of CAGW not AGW. The “catastrophe” only exists between the ears of the alarmists.
FACT:
CO2 traps heat; too bad but that has been proven by Arrhenius around 1850.
A bottle filled with 100 % CO2 and another filled with air 380/1,00,000 Parts heat differently. if exposed to sunlight.
[The CO2 one heats more. Would the one with 380/1,00,000 Parts be measurably warmer ? ]
Denying this simple fact just makes the skeptical arguments look foolish.
The CO2 slows the release of heat so of course it causes temperature to rise.
It is like pulling on an extra blanket when you are in bed. It slows the release of heat.
Denying the obvious just makes the skeptical position look worse and the alarmist position look better.
The effect is only .4 ° C per doubling of CO2 and isn’t significant. The amplifying/diminishing factors have been misunderstood and there is where the errors begin.
Let me summarize a recent repositioning in consensus CAGW thinking which I think is forced by their being assaulted by observations of climate.
Recent CAGW Consensus Repositioning => Now with satellite records of many climate parameters plus other actual in-depth modern era observations of climate parameters, we see evidence that aCO2 effect on the climate observed is insignificant. BUT with the questionable ice core records as our basis we see that all these recent observations must be false. So dear public we are left with our GCMs that are based on circular reasoning to be the sole base of our claim that the science is settled and aCO2 is destroying or will destroy our planet . . . get on with world revolution. Close you lying eyes to the observations, imagine circular GCM modeling instead.
CAGWers, did I get that right?
I actually commend you for your adaptive capabilities. I predict soon you will adapt all the way to the skeptic side as you are pragmatists . . . you will stay employed that way. Good news for you.
John
So, essentially, Bastardi is to weather as Chuck Norris is to action, completely demolish’ the other side… :p
Oops, here’s the Fowler quote correctly italicized:
And as CO2 concentrations continue to rise, there is pronounced cooling taking place in the U.S.
http://thetruthpeddler.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/government-data-still-confirms-a-long-term-cooling-trend-for-the-us/
R. Gates, No where in the geologic record is there proof CO2 has any of the power you give it. The earth is technically still in an Ice Age. Ice ages can possibly experience warmer and cooler periods; like the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. We don’t know exactly where we are in the Milankovitch Cycles; because no scientist on this planet knows exactly how long it takes from peak (really warm) to trough (really cold) because the data resolution is not clear going back in time so we cannot “see” or “know” such small time frames like “now” in the geologic record. And “now” there is still a lot of ice on this planet. The last interglacial period we can see in the data gave us sea level high stands in some places near 20 ft higher then now without any “extra CO2” and we are no where near that even with all the “extra CO2” you are worried about.
You are still just arguing over tenths of one degree of temperature on a graph; which happens to go up at the end of the Little Ice Age which; happens to also be the start of the “Industrial Age”. You don’t talk about the Little Ice Age; focus all of your attention to the Industrial Age and are throwing around the word “interglacial” without knowing what you are saying or even understanding geologic time and what we can say about it from the data.
In the Wikipedia writeup of Le Chatelier’s principle, it says, “Where a shock initially induces positive feedback (such as thermal runaway), the new equilibrium can be far from the old one, and can take a long time to reach.” This wouldn’t seem to contradict AGW very strongly. I doubt that more than a few warmists predict no stability ever.
netdr says
CO2 traps heat; too bad but that has been proven by Arrhenius around 1850.
A bottle filled with 100 % CO2 and another filled with air 380/1,00,000 Parts heat differently. if exposed to sunlight.
[The CO2 one heats more. Would the one with 380/1,00,000 Parts be measurably warmer ? ]
henry@netdr
were you able to follow my argument here
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
especially what we see happening in figure 6 (concerning the re-radiation of CO2)?
So are we agreed that from where I am standing, like heatentrapment (24hr/day), CO2 also causes cooling (12hrs/day)?
Now how do you know which amount is larger, the cooling or the warming?
Roger Knights says:
August 13, 2011 at 8:57 am
Good old Fowler’s! Thanks, Roger.
Roger Longstaff says:
August 13, 2011 at 8:48 am
Dear Roger,
I was reading up from the bottom so replied to Mr. Knights first. I do love good old Fowler’s.
Yes, you were here first. The evidence is in John Locke, George Berkeley (pronounced Barkley), and David Hume. My heart tells me that we should follow David Hume’s usage.
“Well it’s not called lag for nothing.”
But according to Bastardi’s (and Salby’s) thesis, there is not supposed to be any lag. The warming is supposed to change CO2 levels right away. It clearly doesn’t. Why? Because changing temps are not what is causing the increase in CO2, we are. Changing temps take a *long* time to affect CO2 concentrations; the feedbacks are slow. That is why you can look at the ice core data and only see small changes in CO2 while there were significant (6-7 degrees C) changes in temperature. This is basic stuff.
“And as for global average temperature it is a mere statistical hodgepodge phenomenon that actually has gone down slightly all pending your point of view of course.”
Nonsense. You are not entitled to your own facts.
“This is also very easy, if your a rational sane person who looks at proper data it has gone down, but, if you’re a green socialist staring at phony data it has gone up. See, also very easy.
Did you see what I did there?”
Yes, you used an an hominem argument to evade the fact that the warming has not stopped. BTW, I’m a free market libertarian. I’m just honest enough to accept the evidence. Unlike Bastardi, for instance, who up above wrote a downward arrow for the trend from 1996 to present when in fact the trend is going up, and it has warmed about .12C. Phony data, indeed.
Theo:
Sceptical is indeed the English spelling, as in English as written in Britain. My understanding of the American spelling is because of the very real and deliberate ‘bastardisation’ ( that’s not an insult to Americans, it’s the proper term for it ) of British English during the pioneer years of American colonisation. I’m going off the top of my head here so don’t take anything as stone cold fact but as far as I am aware most of the settlers travelling west were barely literate and in a bid to make things easier for settlers to communicate with trading posts etcetera the spelling of many words was simplified, often phonetically, just so these people could write the way it sounded. This is why letters deemed superfluous such as the U in rumour, colour etc. were simply dropped. The K in Skeptic probably came about so as not to cause confusion with the soft ‘c’.
Of course ‘sceptic or skeptic might not have been in use by the frontiersmen but it’s the way that American English ( a phrase I dislike immensely as it’s just English, incorrectly used) has developed and been used.
Etymology puts it back to the Greek sképtesthai ( consider, examine) which oddly gave rise to the Latin scepticus and had by that time come to mean ‘initial doubt’. The Greek Skep also gave rise to the English word scope.
just my thoughts.
“netdr says
CO2 traps heat; too bad but that has been proven by Arrhenius around 1850.”
But even poor old Arrhenius noted that predicting the effects of CO2 is a matter of predicting the forcings and that, given forcings, the net effect could be cooling. Warmista have no physical hypotheses about forcings.
Theo Goodwin says:
August 13, 2011 at 7:51 am
Matt says:
August 12, 2011 at 6:36 pm
“Your claim that the broad science community is not in touch with physical, empirical reality is thoroughly unfair. There are countless empirical measurements of climate sensitivities and feedbacks and for a wide variety of forcing mechanisms. You can always claim that it is “not enough” and that’s fine. But, don’t say that it doesn’t exist.”
“Your response is yet another Classic Example of a Red Herring Fallacy. Warmista, when challenged, always change the subject. My claim was that Warmista, either of the Radiation Only Gaia Modeler or the Hide the Decline variety, have produced no reasonably well confirmed physical hypotheses that could explain and predict the forcings found in natural processes such as cloud formation. They are not working on them and have no interest in doing so. They are not physical scientists and they are not empirical scientists. They are teenagers obsessed with their supercomputers. In the future, supercomputers will have to be treated the same way that cigaretters are treated today, if not outrightly banned”.
I was astonished reading in a paper edited by Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany,
This fallacy is also known as: Non causa pro causa.
“The fallacy of Non Causa Pro Causa occurs when something is identified as the cause of an event, but it has not actually been shown to be the cause.
For example: “I took an aspirin and prayed to God, and my headache disappeared. So God cured me of the headache.”
V.
ZootCadillac says:
August 13, 2011 at 9:51 am
“Of course ‘sceptic or skeptic might not have been in use by the frontiersmen but it’s the way that American English ( a phrase I dislike immensely as it’s just English, incorrectly used) has developed and been used.”
Thanks much. Actually, it was in use, most likely. They lacked polish not intelligence.
@ Ryan Maue in response to my posting
I don’t think Bastardi is a great candidate either, since he is not an expert climate scientist, but he does seem to hold a lot of weight in certain circles because of the title “meteorologist” (it is not as though any of us can randomly get speaking time on FOX news). He does seem to be vocal, so I don’t think the choice is any poorer than those that think Al Gore should be publicly debated. But I think serious debate is confined to the academic literature; such “public” debates I think people like Bastardi are a good candidate for.
In any case, there are virtually no remaining “skeptical” climate experts publishing in the literature aside from the Alabama duo and Lindzen, and I think we’ve had more than enough commentary on them, so it is difficult to assess just how one should pick their battles when the “battle” is confined exclusively to the minds of people such as those on this blog…
Chris Colose says:
“I think serious debate is confined to the academic literature…”
Confined?? What an ignorant statement. Are you really that unaware of the fact that Climategate exposed the fraud and self-serving gaming of the climate peer review system by Mann and his pet journals?
The female FOX host looks like she’s admiring Joe’s biceps.
Well, so much for a science site 🙁
I thought surely here was a place to get an answer to a relevant question, but it looks like no one knows the answer to my simple question. I guess arguing with fools like R.Gates is more important then disusing science.
I know that I am an aspie, and that I have difficulty serializing my thoughts when I try to express myself. Believe me, I am use to being misunderstood. But I really took pains to be clear this time.
phlogiston,
No doubt. click
1DandyTroll says:
__________________________________________________________________________
Because the temperature that is driving the increase in CO2 is the temperature of the ocean. It takes far longer for the temperatures in the ocean to change than the atmosphere.
Here you are WRONG! … ie: the infamous “hot spot” at 400Mb … the models DO predict this, but the question is, where is it? .. a: it doesn’t exists as the models DO predict!
—————
C. Colose,
I will apply your logic to yourself. Chris, make sure your “serious debate is confined to the academic literature”.
By your own thinking, you are not saying anything serious here because this venue isn’t academic literature. So we do not need to take you seriously here. I will take your opinion of your own commenting here and disregard it, using your own logic.
And Chris, please post all your serious debate in your academic literature authored by you. Not here, of course since this is not serious academia. Post it with academia so the professor friends of mine can share it with me outside of the “confines of academic literature”.
Nice day here on the lakeshore in the Adirondack Mtns of upstate NY. Do you ever get over here? It is nearby. I will happily buy you a brew and we can continue our discussion.
Chris, with your attitude, is it a wonder supporters of CAGW are increasingly not trusted?
John
For somebody who’s published nothing, Chris Colose talks a lot of crap.
Chris Colose says
when the “battle” is confined exclusively to the minds of people such as those on this blog…
Chris,
a lie, if it is repeated ofthen enough is eventually accepted as the truth.
In fact, people are inclined to believe a bigger lie rather than a smaller one
And who controls this? It is not the people on this blog. In fact it is not even all the people on all the science blogs.
Even Hitler knew that the media was important….to get his propoganda across…
It is the media that are perpetrating the lie, not only because the people watching want to believe that they are doing things that will doom them, but also because, and many people have overlooked this,
of the fact that there is an enormous investment in “clean” energy. They cannot go back, because even your and mine pension fund will suffer if it turns out that we don’t need the windmills….
in this respect I find that many sceptics including myself are perhaps too laid back in accepting the rubbish that is broadcast in the media as the truth and we don’t complain. Perhaps it is our (higher?) intelligence that “convinces” us to let those people be in believing that catastrophes and doom will come from the back of our cars.
(where it is in fact the opposite – unless someone can prove to me that the CO2 warms more than it cools and that it destroys rather than builds life on earth ?)
I have complained twice now here at a radio station, and even though I lost my complaints at the BCCSA (quoting from my pool table on global warming) because of lack of peer review (I don’t have the time for that nor do I know anyone here who is a learned sceptic), I have noticed that they have not gone again to the same subject or in the direction of promising doom and gloom from more CO2 and methane. They have become a lot more careful.
So perhaps our answer to the lies must be that we (sceptics) have to become more active and that whenever we notice the media talking nonsense again, we simply have to query them on the science and demand answers (even though we know the answers or that there are no answers).
Prior to the mid 18th century, the spelling of English was not standardized. According to this link,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
current British spelling follows Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary while American spelling follows
Noah Webster’s 1828 dictionary. Both Johnson’s and Webster’s dictionaries list the derived from Greek word as ” skeptic”. I guess the British think the word comes from French, whence their spelling.
Smokey says:
August 13, 2011 at 11:08 am
phlogiston,
No doubt. click
Looks like even his cheek muscles have definition.
To be clear what the logarithmic effect of co2 means – it means that if you have 50wm2 of heat escaping at 300ppm c02, then you have 4wm2 delayed heat transfer. If you have 50wm2 of heat leaving, then you still have 4wm2 delayed.
More c02 doesn’t mean more energy/radiation delay – something like a factor 10 sunblock doesn’t increase to factor 20 if you double the amount you put in your skin.
You’d have to buy a factor 20 instead.
unfortunately, nature abhors human logic, just as it did in Galileo’s day when he went to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa to disprove Aristotle’s assertion that an object weighing 10 times another object will reach the ground 10 times more quickly because it is 10 times heavier.
Same story with doubling co2. It just changes the distance of heat absortion – and adds nothing to the energy budget
Chris Colose says:
August 13, 2011 at 10:16 am
“In any case, there are virtually no remaining “skeptical” climate experts publishing in the literature aside from the Alabama duo and Lindzen, and I think we’ve had more than enough commentary on them, so it is difficult to assess just how one should pick their battles when the “battle” is confined exclusively to the minds of people such as those on this blog…”
OK, I will explain one more time. Science is the critical discipline par excellence. When a scientist puts forth a hypothesis, the scientist and all other interested scientists begin the process of criticism. This process of criticism is far more important the the hypothesis that was put forth. After criticism, the hypothesis might not even resemble what the scientist started with but great advances might have been made in understanding.
You hold the simple-minded belief that science is just dueling hypotheses. You hold the simple-minded belief that if you are not putting forth hypotheses then you are somehow deficient as a scientist. What this shows about you is that you have a deficient understanding of science and scientific method. You do not respect criticism because you do not have a clue how it is done and you cannot do it.
Warmista continually trumpet your simple-minded view because all they have ever created is Radiation Only Gaia Models, magical statistics, and some historical reconstruction that has to hide the decline. They have not one reasonably well confirmed physical hypothesis that can be used to explain and predict forcings such as cloud behavior. They have shown themselves incapable of criticism of their own work and incapable of intelligent defense against criticisms coming from sceptics. The only game they have is to try to change the topic to their Radiation Only Gaia Models, etc. That is the same game you are playing. The Radiation Only Gaia Models are total and complete failures by any standard used to judge scientific hypotheses. They are now far beyond failures; they are downright cookie-cutter same old same old boring.
I will be happy to receive your focused, reasoned response.
addendum – typing too quickly – to 1st para
To be clear what the logarithmic effect of co2 means – it means that if you have 50wm2 of heat escaping at 300ppm c02, then you have 4wm2 delayed heat transfer. If you have 50wm2 of heat leaving, at 500ppm co2 then you still have 4wm2 delayed.
Has anyone collated the nonsense experiments and claims from AGW? How big a blanket around the Earth stopping heat from escaping?? As Kelvin Vaughan asked, where’s the majik? It’s practically 100% not Carbon Dioxide, so 100% holes.
Heating air and carbon dioxide – was the experiment ever shown complete? Carbon dioxide has a low heat capacity which means it heats up more quickly than air, (especially humid air because water has a very great heat capacity), but loses the heat more quickly too because low heat capacity is saying that. This means practically instantly with CO2, which would be shown if the experiment was timed. CO2 with low heat capacity cannot ‘store’ any heat, water with higher can – which is why we put water in our central heating systems. Water having a much higher heat capacity takes longer to heat up and but longer too cool down. Nitrogen and Oxygen have higher heat capacities than Carbon Dioxide.
Volker Doormann says:
August 13, 2011 at 10:01 am
Excellent work, Volker. It is very important that fallacies are explained to the Warmista. The poor Warmista live among fallacies as the homeless live among thieves.
Chris Colose says
when the “battle” is confined exclusively to the minds of people such as those on this blog…
Chris,
a lie, if it is repeated often enough is eventually accepted as the truth.
In fact, people are inclined to believe a bigger lie rather than a smaller one
And who controls this? It is not the people on this blog. In fact it is not even all the people on all the science blogs.
Even Hitler knew that the media was important….to get his propaganda across…
It is the media that are perpetrating the lie, not only because the people watching want to believe that they are doing things that will doom them, but also because, and many people have overlooked this,
of the fact that there is an enormous investment in “clean” energy. They cannot go back, because even your and mine pension fund will suffer if it turns out that we don’t need the windmills….
in this respect I find that many sceptics including myself are perhaps too laid back in accepting the rubbish that is broadcast in the media as the truth and we don’t complain. Perhaps it is our (higher?) intelligence that “convinces” us to let those people be in believing that catastrophes and doom will come from the back of our cars.
(where it is in fact the opposite – unless someone can prove to me that the CO2 warms more than it cools and that it destroys rather than builds life on earth ?)
I have complained twice now here at a radio station, and even though I lost my complaints at the BCCSA (quoting from my pool table on global warming) because of lack of peer review (I don’t have the time for that nor do I know anyone here who is a learned sceptic), I have noticed that they have not gone again to the same subject or in the direction of promising doom and gloom from more CO2 and methane. They have become a lot more careful.
So perhaps our answer to the lies must be that we (sceptics) have to become more active and that whenever we notice the media talking nonsense again, we simply have to query them on the science and demand answers (even though we know the answers or that there are no answers).
Henry@desertyote
I did answer your question here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/12/bastardi-science-and-reality-point-away-not-toward-co2-as-climate-driver/#comment-718558
Nobody knows the answers because there are no real test results.
the doubling nonsense just started with somebody who thought he had real test results.
Methane is also mentioned in fig. 6, so it also cools the atmosphere.
try to understand my quoted post and soon you will be on your way to become a sceptic – or is it skeptic
Alan D McIntire says:
August 13, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Excellent information, Alan, Thanks. Let me retreat to what I believe with great confidence. Among American academic philosophers of the last sixty years, ‘sceptic’ is the accepted spelling.
Myrrh says:
August 13, 2011 at 12:26 pm
Yes it was shown by Knut Ångström, who asked an assistant to measure the passage of infrared radiation through a tube filled with carbon dioxide. The assistant put in rather less of the gas in total than would be found in a column of air reaching to the top of the atmosphere. The assistant reported that the amount of radiation that got through the tube scarcely changed when he cut the quantity of gas back by a third. Apparently it took only a trace of the gas to “saturate” the absorption — that is, in the bands of the spectrum where CO2 blocked radiation, it did it so thoroughly that more gas could make little difference.
what really matters are things like air pressure, humidity, water vapour, cloudiness and factors like that, to temperatures.
calling trace gases the critical factor in climate is like saying that the needle makes the haystack
Liza Robinson says:
August 13, 2011 at 9:07 am
Very well said! Hats off to Liza the geologist.
//”I will be happy to receive your focused, reasoned response.”//
When you are capable of writing a post that demonstrates familiarity with the field (i.e., not making things up like we consider only radiation) or without the typical conspiracy theories, then we can have a dialogue.
Joe Bastardi says:
August 12, 2011 at 7:07 pm
Someone is right and someone is wrong…..
Let reality decide what was right and wrong…..
You have eyes, you be the judge.
———————————————————–
Who loves ya Joe baby?
Good ole US of A enterprise, cut out the “hypothetical” middle men!
Henry@P Wilson, myrrh
Your theories are interesting but
again,
they do not explain what I see happening
there is re-radiation
so there is heat entrapment (deflection back to earth ) and there is cooling (deflection back to the sun )
try to understand what happens in fig 6 that I quote in my footnote, here
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Chris Colose is a naive young know-it-all, literally wet behind the ears.
Thanks Smokey, and what is your background?
well not really about re-radiation or back radiation, That notion was put together when they couldn’t find the infamous *hotspot*, so therefore concluded that if the part of the atmosphere (upper troposphere) wasn’t heating then that radiation must be coming back to earth.
http://cbdakota.wordpress.com/2010/01/02/agw-where-is-the-predicted-hot-spot/
However, the laws of thermodynamics enter into this equation. Co2 intercepts radiation at 15 microns – which is the equivalent of minus 36C – the sort of temperatures at the poles. Thepart of the atmosphere where co2 is active is therefore some several km up where it is -36C. If heat leaves at 10 microns (equivalent to 15C) then co2 is invisible to this – so as you can see, there is not much logic to explain how radiation at -36 can come back to earth and elevate temperatures by another 1C, to 16C, say as example. Its like arguing that freezing water will increase cause it to warm.
Chris Colose appears to be an “Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences student at UW-Madison.” Sheesh! Wasting his time studying climate related stuff at university when he could just be picking up cherries from ther likes of Smokey. What a loser!
chemman says:
August 13, 2011 at 11:21 am
1DandyTroll says:
__________________________________________________________________________
Because the temperature that is driving the increase in CO2 is the temperature of the ocean. It takes far longer for the temperatures in the ocean to change than the atmosphere.
Actually more CO2 is released into the atmosphere after the fact of warming so it doesn’t matter how long it takes to warm the oceans. And besides the oceans has been warming since the last ice age at the very least. Statistically speaking the oceans has been cooling for the last couple of billions of years though. Still CO2 comes later.
Smokey,
Consider that we might be dealing with a fragile personality acting out in compensation for it.
John
Chris Colose says:
“Thanks Smokey, and what is your background?”
Thirty years employment in a large [140+ engineers and technicians] national Metrology lab, designing, calibrating and repairing weather related instruments such as dew point meters, humidity meters, temperature dataloggers, thermocouples, thermometers, PRTs, RTDs, and related instruments. All traceable to the National Bureau of Standards, later to N.I.S.T. / ISO9000, both primary and secondary standards. I also did calibration of Mass standards. Retired in 2003.
We received most all of the peer reviewed literature, gratis, from the calibration instrument vendors, and I witnessed first-hand the ramp up of the CO2 [“carbon”] scare, along with the absolute degradation of peer reviewed papers. I don’t recall a single engineer out of more than 140 who believed in the runaway global warming scare [that’s probably because they were engineers, not sociologists, or grant-seeking climatologists].
So now I must ask John B: And what is your background?
Liza Robinson says:
August 13, 2011 at 9:07 am
R. Gates, No where in the geologic record is there proof CO2 has any of the power you give it. The earth is technically still in an Ice Age. Ice ages can possibly experience warmer and cooler periods; like the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. We don’t know exactly where we are in the Milankovitch Cycles; because no scientist on this planet knows exactly how long it takes from peak (really warm) to trough (really cold) because the data resolution is not clear going back in time so we cannot “see” or “know” such small time frames like “now” in the geologic record. And “now” there is still a lot of ice on this planet. The last interglacial period we can see in the data gave us sea level high stands in some places near 20 ft higher then now without any “extra CO2″ and we are no where near that even with all the “extra CO2″ you are worried about.
You are still just arguing over tenths of one degree of temperature on a graph; which happens to go up at the end of the Little Ice Age which; happens to also be the start of the “Industrial Age”. You don’t talk about the Little Ice Age; focus all of your attention to the Industrial Age and are throwing around the word “interglacial” without knowing what you are saying or even understanding geologic time and what we can say about it from the data.
_____
Liza,
Don’t know your background, and I would not presume to school you the way you’ve attempted to school me in this rather rude post. I know quite well the difference between ice ages, interglacials, glacials, and their relationship to each other. Furthermore, I’m quite aware of the role of Milankovitch cycles in bringing about the shift from glacial to interglacial periods. You are correct that we don’t know exactly where we are in this current interglacial, however, we do know exactly where we are in the current Milankovitch cycle, as these astronomical calculations are relatively easy to figure out. The peak of NH summer insolation occurred during the Holocene Climate Optimum, and indeed, temperatures had been declining since that time, with the exception of the MWP and of course, the 20th and early 21st century. Since the time of the Holocene Optimum, CO2 levels had been generally about 280 ppm, until dropping a bit during the Little Ice Age, and then exploding upward with the beginning of industrialization about 1750. If anyone wants to really look at the figures, and this graph, and try to tell me that they don’t think that human activity has play THE significant role in the explosion upward in CO2 levels since about 1750, then it seems you simply don’t want to see the facts:
http://i39.tinypic.com/if0m5g.jpg
Now, do warmer ocean temps cause CO2 to increase through outgassing? Yes, of course, up to a point, and we should be glad this is the case as a little bit of warming of the NH oceans and the subsequent outgassing of CO2 seems to be a major positive reinforcement effect during a Milankovtich induced interglacial. But, the CO2 increases we’ve seen since about 1750 is way out of proportion to anything that outgassing of the ocean could have caused, and indeed, so much CO2 has been released from the burning of fossil fuels, that the ocean has been taking up much of this excess over this period rather than any sort of outgassing. The ocean over the past few centuries have be net carbon sinks, not sources.
Chris Colose says:
August 13, 2011 at 12:51 pm
“When you are capable of writing a post that demonstrates familiarity with the field (i.e., not making things up like we consider only radiation) or without the typical conspiracy theories, then we can have a dialogue.”
So, you are here just to tell us that we are too ignorant to discuss climate science with you? That is the sum total of what you have to say? What an interesting person you are! What sort of person would go to a group of people for the purpose of telling them that they are too ignorant to engage in dialogue with him?
I will state the gist of what I said in detail above. You are completely ignorant of scientific method. You are completely ignorant of the role of criticism in science. You are completely ignorant of the duty of each scientist to be his own most severe critic. But I am not like you. I did not seek you out to call you ignorant. I simply responded to the ignorance demonstrated in the posts that you made here.
When you are capable of writing a post that demonstrates familiarity with scientific method then we can have a dialogue.
Smokey, with respect:
Although I am a graduate student, as John B notes, I have at least taken the opportunity to properly educate myself in the atmospheric sciences, and am now doing research on climate related issues (currently stationed at NASA GISS and alternating between that and classwork). This is unlike most people who feel that they have become qualified as an expert based on blog commentary and youtube videos. I have seen a lot of (generally retired) engineers, programmers, etc who think they understand climate.
We can go on all day about who has done what. Personally, rather than being a “know-it-all” I generally only comment confidently about topics I am confident in. For example, I probably would not start arguing with you about how you designed an instrument with your engineering colleagues. I would not go on a blog site denying the existence of black holes and then start arguing with an astrophysicist. I do not know if you are simply confused, or as a retiree if you feel that the issue of climate change somehow threatens you, or whether you are basing your science on “scares” experienced in the course of your lifetime. However, as someone in the sciences, I am not given the freedom to simply make things up on a whim, create straw man arguments (like “we’re going to have runaway global warming!”), and in terms of my education I am certainly not going to elevate an engineer with no exposure to the field over professors and researchers I interact with daily (who have published and are at the forefront of their specialty).
In any case, my challenge to Bastardi to actually defend his arguments still remains. He has made very definitive and confident claims on venues like Fox News, and seems to prefer vague statements through the few comments he has made here that do not address any particular person or counter-argument, but simply utters useless commentary like “Someone is right and someone is wrong” or irrelevant distractions like how people put CO2 in a greenhouse to help plants. Ryan Maue argues that this is a useless challenge, in part because Bastardi is not an academic researcher, but he nonetheless holds enough weight to convince various groups of people (including those watching on TV) and apparently the people here at WUWT.
Only seeing as you asked: Chemistry degree (1981), 30 years as a software engineer, Master’s in Bioinformatics (2010). I aslo teach Java and other software stuff for a large American technical training organisation. Skeptic (yes, really)
Mr. Bastardi (or anyone else)–can you explain how you got that blue curve (the one with the arrow) that you derived from the HadCRUT data? I’ve tried to replicate it, but haven’t been able to do so. Thanks.
If temperatures drive CO2 and temperatures have not risen in 15 years, why have CO2 levels continued to rise?
HenryP
August 13, 2011 at 12:40 pm
###
Thanks, that’s certainly more info then I had before. BTW, I am already very doubtful that human CO2 emissions have any affect of global temperatures. I’m pretty good with both physics and ecology. I have spent most of my life taking measurements of physical phenomena, both as a test engineer working in the test equipment industry, and as a fresh water ecologist. I have set up, and maintained quite a few experimental aquaria with various methods of CO2 injection, all requiring careful monitoring. I am pretty familiar how CO2 behaves in fresh water systems. And the AGW theory dose not make any sense against what I have actually measured.
Smokey
August 13, 2011 at 1:58 pm
###
Sound like you work in a field very closely related to a field I spent 10 years in. You would probably recognize the name of my former employer.
re post by: Theo Goodwin says: August 13, 2011 at 12:20 pm
Well said!
re: post by: John B says: August 13, 2011 at 1:32 pm
John B, if you don’t believe that there are folks regularly posting here on WUWT who have vastly greater scientific credentials and experience than a simple Univ. student (or even recent grad), you would be sorely mistaken.
Smokey seems to have summed up Chris Colose pretty well. Almost all young college students are ‘wet behind the ears,’ virtually by definition. Fortunately not all suffer as much from the ‘know it all’ and naivete problems. I’d strongly suggest that Chris Colose spend some serious time studying the very basis of science itself for a bit – he seems to have slipped in that area of his studies and needs to solidify the basic tenets and principles of science in his mind before his other science studies can bear fruit.
Theo- I didn’t say people were too ignorant to discuss, just they should actually understand what the science says before they criticize it. I won’t defend phantom theories from attacks. I can also assure you I am familiar with the scientific method. Constructive criticism is one way to help science advance; making stuff up and repeating logically fallacious one-liner talking points does not count. Nor does using conspiracy theories as justification for why you shouldn’t have to familiarize yourself with the science. Sorry if you disagree.
@R. Gates
I agree with you that humans are at least partly responsible for increased co2 levels, but that does not change the fact that temperatures control the natural co2 cycle, which is something that ice cores clearly show.
I bet also a big part of the co2 increase is deforestation. But either way this increase in co2 wont have any significant effect on global temperatures.
sceptical says:
August 13, 2011 at 2:56 pm
If temperatures drive CO2 and temperatures have not risen in 15 years, why have CO2 levels continued to rise?
—————–
First, it is not true that temperatures have not risen for 15 years. A couple of outlier years (1998 and 2005) do not overturn the the warming trend. But as to why CO2 has continued to rise, it is because we continue to emit CO2, it’s that simple. Most “skeptics” must be embarrassed by Joe’s post. Why temperatures have not risen (much) in those 15 years while CO2 continued to rise is a separate question.
Rational Debate says:
August 13, 2011 at 3:56 pm
John B, if you don’t believe that there are folks regularly posting here on WUWT who have vastly greater scientific credentials and experience than a simple Univ. student (or even recent grad), you would be sorely mistaken.
——-
I don’t care about anyone’s “credentials”, just the quality of their arguments. It seems to me that Chris talks knowledgably about an area he has studied, while Smokey, for one, just posts out of context, cherry picked charts in an attempt to preach to the insufficiently skeptical choir to be found here.
Chris Colose says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:35 pm
This thread will be a good test to see how skeptical WUWT readers are of their own skepticism.
All of Bastardi’s talking points here can be traced back a long time, and they reflect severe unfamiliarity with the field and have been addressed countless times. Over at Tamino’s, he left a message full or errors at which I challenged him to an open debate on the matter.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/settled-science/#comment-53136
I would like to how well he can perform when required to scientifically address criticisms of his claims.
What do you mean by “all of Bastardi’s talking points”? It would be clearer to spell out the ones for which you have something to say.
The essence of JB’s post here is that the counter-hypothesis to AGW is that the recent global temperature rise is part of a natural climatic oscillation and that as such, one may expect temperatures to start declining in the not too distant future. Notably he also says: “If temperatures warm despite these natural cycles, you carry the day.” So he is willing to be proved wrong in the Karl Popper sense of science needing to be falsifiable (something you might consider working into your thesis intro chapter somewhere).
(Another tip for your write-up: severe is not a good adjective for unfamiliarity. Something else like “deep lack of familarity” would have been better.)
What problem do you have with that open and testable position? With the vulnerability to falsification? Have you been trained by Tamino to reject falsifiability as a scientific criterion, to stay in the safe regions of what can be muddled and fudged, and resist and testing?
There were some specific, testable points from JB to which you might have been referring:
1. Satellite data suggests that the radiative imbalance required by AGW is absent, that outgoing IR is greater than permitted by CAGW. This is really Roy Spencer territory, so it is with him you would need to take up this point.
2. The global temperature has risen in a quasi-linear manner since the end of the LIA, while CO2 concentration in air has risen quadratically over that time – a striking mismatch. This is a serious challenge to CAGW. Do you have anything to say about it? There is a trend in climate literature to try to explain every temperature change in the last century as resulting from a balance of an anthropogenic warmig effect of CO2 and an equally anthropogenic cooling influence from sulphate aerosols. This assumes a dominating effect of anthropogenic gasses on every wiggle of the temperature curve – thus the mismatch since the LIA is deeply problematic. CAGW proponents cany have it both ways – strong control of climate by CO2 but mismatching CO2 and temperature curves.
3. JB then dipped in to solar territory. He reiterated the body of opinion that solar changes, for instance reflected in sunspot numbers, reflect a strong solar controlling influence on climate. Here again JB is mainly citing others since he is not a solar scientist primarily – but he is one of the more successful meteorologists who maintains healthy curiosity in solar science and its climate implications, as indeed anyone should who wishes to understand something about climate. However the point here again is simple: we are now able to test this, yes or no, true or false? What dont you like about that? We are now entering a moderate to deep solar minimum, starting this decade and lasting several decades. Does the sunspot cycle dominate temperature? Then temperatures must now fall. If they dont, the theory is toast. What’s not to like about that?
4. JB then briefly touches on the CO2 and temperature chicken-and-egg question that is one of the biggest problems for CAGW. The several ice core palaeo datasets are unanimous that, over the last few glacial-interglacial cycles, CO2 change lags temperature changes, not the other way around. The CAGW position on this is one of the biggest pieces of tortuous nonsense I have every heard – that at first “something else” causes temperature to increase, this sets of a CO2 increase, but then the CO2, cukoo-like, usurps the role as driver of temeprature, effortlessly displacing the factor first causing the warming – and all the while the temperature rise shows no exponential or logarithmic form that would be expected if CO2 were propelling a positive feedback. Scientific theories to explain natural phenomena are supposed to be economical and parsimonious – this is the extreme reverse – it is little more than garbled wishful thinking. CAGW needs something better than this – do you have any ideas?
5. FInally JB makes what is, in this article, his most original and interesting point – that climate instability is more characteristic of a cooling than of a warming temperature regime. His deep familiarity with meteorologic records means he is on strong ground here. For me what is interesting is the fractal character of climate dynamics that this suggests. It is very clear from the Vostok and other ice core records of the last half million or so years that global fluctuations in temperature on a multi-century timescale are much more frequent and violent during descents into glacial periods than during warm interglacials, which are by contrast more stable regimes. The same is true when climate is looked at at a closer scale of decades (that is what fratal means). This is a serious challenge to the CAGW and media communities habit of trousering all extreme weather events as proof of CAGW. They might well be the opposite! More real science is needed. Do you have any?
So in summary, global temperatures go up and down naturally. Is the current rise from CAGW or just a natural up-wave? We can find out, just wait and see? This is real science, nothing to get offended at if you are a real scientist. Even the admission that one migh be wrong and that the future might prove this.
A recent post at WUWT showed how similar the recent temperature history is with many periods within the Holocene:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/01/whats-up-next/
In this context, the reference that springs to mind is the following (another one for your thesis!):
Ecclesiastes chapter 1
1 The words of the Teacher,[a] son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
R. Gates, I am sorry if I sound rude but you don’t know what you are talking about and I am tired of people like you trying to scare children. You’ve been doing so for over ten years. The kids are grown up now and can think for themselves btw. 😉
My husband is a scientist and an expert on the Milankovitch Cycles. The calcs aren’t “easy” because your data and timing looking at the past could be plus or minus thousands of years. As I mentioned above the data resolution makes it impossible to be so sure like you are. There is no precise notion of “where we are” in the Milankovitch Cycles or how long it takes from peak to trough. That’s BS. You and your calcs could be off by thousands of years and you are arguing about a few hundred years with a fraction of a degree of “average temp” difference compared to when again?
The scientists in the 1970s (who Time Magazine paid attention to and published) were worried about another ice age coming exactly because we don’t know where we are at in these cycles. That was me they were trying to scare back then.
Your graph shows C02 concentrations rising since 1600. Amazing that they can monitor things like that in the 1600s. 😉 1600 to 1850 was the Little Ice Age, yes. It was below normal cold for over 200 yrs over half of the globe. Life doesn’t like cold that much; it likes warm. CO2 = Life.
Cheers!
Desert Yote says:
“You would probably recognize the name of my former employer.”
And you would certainly recognize mine. Maybe we worked for the same company.
John Whitman says:
“Smokey,
Consider that we might be dealing with a fragile personality acting out in compensation for it.”
Of course. John B’s best argument to date is: “What a loser!” That’s generally how someone responds when they lack a credible argument.☺
Chris Colose writes:
“I am certainly not going to elevate an engineer with no exposure to the field over professors and researchers I interact with daily (who have published and are at the forefront of their specialty).”
You are judging people who make arguments rather than judging the arguments that people make. If you want to take Al Gore as your career model, you are free to do so here in the USA.
However, if you want to follow some standard of rationality then the very first thing that you must do is to judge people’s arguments rather than judging people who make arguments. Warmista have demonstrated over a matter of years that they have an incredible problem embracing some standard of rationality, whether that standard be scientific method or some other standard.
I gave you a simple challenge. Produce some reasonably well-confirmed physical hypothesis that can be used to explain and predict some forcing such as changes in cloud behavior caused by increasing manmade CO2. You know that no such hypotheses exist. You also know that Warmista are not actively engaged in empirical research that could lead to such hypotheses. If you can produce one such hypothesis then I will bow to you and your professors. But if you cannot produce one such hypothesis then you must admit that Warmista have created no reasonably well-confirmed physical hypotheses that could take them beyond the work of Arrhenius. Warmista are neither physical scientists nor empirical scientists.
As an alternative which demonstrates your knowledge of scientific method, you might explain why I place such importance on the physical hypotheses that I have briefly described and why I am justified in claiming that the lack of them shows that Warmista are neither physical scientists nor empirical scientists. You may try to explain why my views of scientific method are mistaken. I would just love that debate.
Chris Colose says:
August 13, 2011 at 4:01 pm
“Theo- I didn’t say people were too ignorant to discuss, just they should actually understand what the science says before they criticize it.”
The two clauses say the same thing.
“I can also assure you I am familiar with the scientific method.”
Good. Explain how Gaia models have shown success in accordance with scientific method. Or show how “hiding the decline” is in accordance with scientific method.
Rational Debate says:
August 13, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Thank You! I enjoy your posts.
Smokey says:
August 13, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Of course. John B’s best argument to date is: “What a loser!” That’s generally how someone responds when they lack a credible argument.☺
——-
Smokey, you do realise that was a bit of sarcasm aimed at Chris Colose, don’t you? I wasn’t calling you a loser.
Actually, my best argument against you is that you post out of context, cherry picked charts. Over and over again.
John B says:
“Actually, my best argument against you is that you post out of context, cherry picked charts. Over and over again.”
If that is your best argument, it’s an extremely weak one. I post hundreds of different charts directly related to the subject being discussed, which contain many different time axes. If I was “cherry picking”, I would only use a particular starting date.
I also post many different peer reviewed citations, which show that your belief in catastrophic AGW is baseless and evidence-free. Come to think of it, I agree with your quote above. You give no examples of “cherry picking”, but simply throw a tantrum. That is your best argument! Hey, we agree.☺
Liza Robinson said:
August 13, 2011 at 5:16 pm
R. Gates, I am sorry if I sound rude but you don’t know what you are talking about and I am tired of people like you trying to scare children. You’ve been doing so for over ten years. The kids are grown up now and can think for themselves btw. 😉
My husband is a scientist and an expert on the Milankovitch Cycles. The calcs aren’t “easy” because your data and timing looking at the past could be plus or minus thousands of years. As I mentioned above the data resolution makes it impossible to be so sure like you are. There is no precise notion of “where we are” in the Milankovitch Cycles or how long it takes from peak to trough. That’s BS. You and your calcs could be off by thousands of years and you are arguing about a few hundred years with a fraction of a degree of “average temp” difference compared to when again?
The scientists in the 1970s (who Time Magazine paid attention to and published) were worried about another ice age coming exactly because we don’t know where we are at in these cycles. That was me they were trying to scare back then.
Your graph shows C02 concentrations rising since 1600. Amazing that they can monitor things like that in the 1600s. 😉 1600 to 1850 was the Little Ice Age, yes. It was below normal cold for over 200 yrs over half of the globe. Life doesn’t like cold that much; it likes warm. CO2 = Life.
Cheers!
———
You apologize for insulting me and then insult me again by accusing me of scaring children?
But anyway, I certainly have grown accustomed to insults by being one of the few “warmists” who bother frequenting this site.
Certainly I am not an expert but I do have a reasonable grasp of the science behind global warming, but I do not consider myself an alarmist. If your husband is an expert on Milankovitch cycles it is very likely I’ve read his work. What is his name? Or was this just a bit of spin on your part?
netdr said;
“FACT:
CO2 traps heat; too bad but that has been proven by Arrhenius around 1850.”
With all due respect Arrhenius HYPOTHESIZED that CO2 “traps heat”. He most decidedly did not PROVE it.
Netdr also wrote;
“A bottle filled with 100 % CO2 and another filled with air 380/1,00,000 Parts heat differently. if exposed to sunlight.”
Yes indeed this simplistic measurement of the thermal capacity of different materials proves nothing about the effect of those materials in a system as complex as the climate of the Earth. Unless we put all of the gases in the atmosphere into bottles, maybe then it will perform as defined.
Netdr also wrote;
“Denying this simple fact just makes the skeptical arguments look foolish.”
Misunderstanding this simple fact shows how shallow the understanding of how heat flows through a complex system really is among the climate science community.
Netdr also wrote;
“The CO2 slows the release of heat so of course it causes temperature to rise.”
Ah yes, the old, “so of course it causes….” clause. Well I would like to see the climate science community prove this “of course it causes the temperature to rise” statement, they have failed to do so thus far.
Netdr also wrote;
“It is like pulling on an extra blanket when you are in bed. It slows the release of heat.”
This is an incorrect analogy, you body is burning fuel and emitting heat like a true blackbody. The Earth (surface and atmosphere) is only absorbing and re-emitting energy, different situation entirely.
Netdr also wrote;
“Denying the obvious”
It is only obvious to those that just accept the “Argument From Authority” position of the climate science community.
The effect of increases in CO2 in the atmosphere is to change the response time of the gases in the atmosphere. This change is so slight that we could probably never afford to measure it. No “Higher Equilibrium Temperature” results.
Cheers, Kevin.
R Gates,
I looked at your scary chart showing the CO2 hockey stick. It doesn’t seem to be affecting temperature. And it’s nothing compared with CO2 levels over the past half billion years.
Notify us when we should start to panic: click
Chris Colose says:
August 13, 2011 at 2:18 pm
=====
Chris, you seem to be missing the point.
You can wrap yourself in the cloak of your studies.
The rest of us are concerned that, research has been driven by funding to deliver results which favor the current political agenda.
It’s not personal, it’s becoming a matter of survival.
R. Gates says:
August 13, 2011 at 6:24 am
Steep drop soon? According to whom? I would suggest you ask for an explanation from those predicting this. Out of the multiple forcings affecting climate, to suggest a “steep drop soon” would mean they are expecting some serious volcanic activity or perhaps all out nuclear war.
The cycle I am speaking of is the clearly visible cycle in the Vostok proxies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co2-temperature-plot.svg
Please explain this cycle using CO2. Remember, there is an 800(ish) year lag period where you need a mechanism that causes warming all on its own. After you introduce this mechanism, you also have to explain why this mechanism is not responsible for sustaining the temperature while CO2 is. I’ve never seen convincing work on this. My ‘soon’ is relative to the time scale of this graph of course. I do apologize for not making that more clear in my original post.
RE: John H says:
August 13, 2011 at 12:33 am
“. ……You are making big bucks pontificating on a subject you obviously know nothing about.”
Ze pot calling ze kettle black? You obviously know nothing about Joe, and his ability to beat the socks off GISS. Or how about the El Nino the CFS was cranking out for this month, back in the early spring? How’s that working out for you? Now, who was it who said it wasn’t going to happen? Come on, spit it out. Confess. Confess. It was Joe, wasn’t it?
Perhaps it is ze pot calling ze stainless steel back, eh?
I want the bigs bucks we spent on those computers back. Sent a fraction to Joe. He gets better results.
David Falkner,
This chart also shows that CO2 follows temperature. We’re 800 ±200 years after the MWP, so the MWP-caused CO2 outgassing is added to human CO2 emissions. But the fact remains that CO2 isn’t causing the predicted warming, so its effect must be much smaller than claimed.
Numerous and various types of measurements drawn from the distant past, of the correlation between temperature and CO2 variations strongly indicate that the temperature variations occur 800+ years BEFORE the very similar CO2 variations. (The only explanation for this is the carbon cycle. Oceans, being much denser than the atmosphere, warm and cool much more slowly than the atmosphere. Warmer oceans outgas CO2, cooler oceans absorb CO2. )
In the more recent past our planet’s temperature began increasing in the late 1600s, as the little ice age subsided. That’s some 200+ years before CO2 began increasing. Since the industrial revolution CO2 has been steadily (but quite slowly) increasing but temperature increase stalled on several occasions, the more recent being from the 1940s to the 1970s, and again beginning about 1998 until now. So there appears to be neither a long term or short term correlation between CO2 and temperature. (Neither has any “hot spot” been found in the troposphere – a necessary,although not sufficient, condition for even a little credibility for the many computer models designed to prove AGW.)
We know that mankind can influence local temperatures. That phenomena – the “urban heat island” effect (UHI), is well known, but more distant rural areas surrounding each of those urban areas show no impact. Further urban areas make up a very small percentage of the earth’s surface area. (Water covers 70%, then there’s the Arctic, Antarctic, jungles, deserts, mountain ranges, plus many other uninhabited, or very low populated areas).
Finally we have considerable evidence that the Medieval Warming Period was as warm, likely warmer, than the current (now stalled out) warming period. The website co2science.org has references to all of these numerous peer-reviewed studies, almost 1000 different researchers representing and working in some 40+ different countries, with new confirming studies continuing to arrive. The MWP was clearly a global rather than a regional event. Going back a bit further in this interglacial period there is growing evidence of some earlier periods which were possibly even warmer than the MWP. We also know that CO2 was much higher in the more distant past, including during at least a couple of ice ages, as well as going into one ice age. (No likely tipping point in sight.)
How can any scientist proposing (significant) AGW maintain their belief in the face of this preponderance of evidence, particularly when they cannot offer any evidence to back their own position?
Then there is the political side of this issue. For starters, who would expect the IPCC, a governmental panel established to look into climate change, to report back “sorry, it’s just mother nature at work’ ? And, does anyone doubt the UN’s aspirations to gain more power ? (Monckton has much to say about this.) The UN and its IPCC are both no more or less than groups with a predetermined job description guaranteed to provide the results they have delivered.
“Are you suggesting that the last several century rise in CO2 is not due to the result of human burning of fossil fuels?”
Do you debate the facts that human-kind emits 3-5% of the CO2 into the air? If this is indeed the case, how can you attribute the entire rise in CO2 to humans? Is there emperical proof, or heck I would settle for anything that even begins to describe how this is possible.
Indeed, if you add up the numbers and assume that the natural world has gone neutral on emissions (which I find unlikely) you find that humans have emitted about 120% of the possible gain in CO2. Its simple math from the IPCC. However, what is not stated is that a good portion of that is prior to the 1950’s….and to boot when CO2 has a half-life of between 9-15 years in the atmosphere, heck you can not begin to attribute even 20% of the gain to humanity. So the correct question is : “What small part of the rise in CO2 is mankind responsible for?”
Its basic math. We just have not emitted enough to even begin to describe the rise. The only other possible explanation is that a decent part of the rise is also due to natural effects. You know, like the oceans giving out more CO2 and other animals of this planet perhaps giving out more? This has a much larger impact by proportion then we do at our paltry 3-5% effect.
Needless to say, humanity will have an impact on the planet. The job of true scientists is instead of making half-truth statements such as the one seen at the top is trying to clarify the question I asked at the end of my second paragraph.
After that question is answered and only after can we begin to explore the idea that CO2 is a driver of climate. Because politically, the game is all about how we as humans are responsible for every change in the climate no matter how small. The game is also about half-truths and other political game-manship that is just frankly outregous for anyone considering themselves to be an expert in science to begin.
Like I said, first find out what proportion of the rise in CO2 we as humankind are responsible for. Then we can begin to debate such issues as “feedback systems that head off the rails.” and even “the melting arctic, oh my gosh, its the end of the world!!!”
I don’t want guesses, I want empirical data. It shouldn’t be that hard with the hundreds of billions spend on climate research every year. And if you guys are not willing to do that for political reasons, then maybe its time to stop the gravy train all-together and just stop climate research until mankind has matured enough to become scientific once again about this subject. I think in say 60 years we might be able to monitor and analyze climate.
Joe Bastardi clearly said temperatures were not rising, CO2 levels continue to go up and that it was temperature changes driving CO2 levels. What Joe Bastardi says makes no sense unless he is wrong about the temperature record or he is wrong about CO2 levels being driven by temperature. I will make a prediction, atmospheric CO2 levels will continue to rise in the next 10 years, barring a major economic recession, no matter what temperatures do. I will further predict that atmospheric CO2 levels will be higher at the end of 2011 than at the end of 2010, despite 2010 being the hottest year on record (I doubt 2011 will match or exceed it). If Co2 levels are higher and 2011 is not as warm as 2010, I would hope Joe Bastardi would recant what he said on Fox and what he has written here.
Liza Robinson said:
August 13, 2011 at 5:16 pm
“R. Gates, I am sorry if I sound rude but you don’t know what you are talking about and I am tired of people like you trying to scare children. You’ve been doing so for over ten years.”
Warmista have committed and continue to commit serious moral error through their propaganda. One of those serious moral errors is scaring children.
R. Gates,
My husband is an expert on the Milankovitch Cycles because he studied them and collected data in fieldwork. He also studied physics and climatology too to get his masters. He also has a “grasp” of the science “behind” global warming like you do; and he sees junk. You just told me today “we do know exactly where we are in the current Milankovitch cycle, as these astronomical calculations are relatively easy to figure out.”; I said that’s bs and now you admit you aren’t an expert and want to know who exactly is?
I am not supposed to insult you or get a little miffed about all that? LOL! Come on.
David Falkner says:
August 13, 2011 at 7:24 pm
R. Gates says:
August 13, 2011 at 6:24 am
Steep drop soon? According to whom? I would suggest you ask for an explanation from those predicting this. Out of the multiple forcings affecting climate, to suggest a “steep drop soon” would mean they are expecting some serious volcanic activity or perhaps all out nuclear war.
The cycle I am speaking of is the clearly visible cycle in the Vostok proxies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Co2-temperature-plot.svg
Please explain this cycle using CO2. Remember, there is an 800(ish) year lag period where you need a mechanism that causes warming all on its own. After you introduce this mechanism, you also have to explain why this mechanism is not responsible for sustaining the temperature while CO2 is. I’ve never seen convincing work on this. My ‘soon’ is relative to the time scale of this graph of course. I do apologize for not making that more clear in my original post.
_____
Don’t know if you’re seriously asking for an answer but just in case you, or someone else is actually wanting to understand how our modern rise in CO2 can be so much different than past rises, and how, during the past 800,000 years, the rise CO2 normally initially lags the rise in temperatures, the I can gladly supply that.
Let’s first go back to the main effect of the Milankovitch cycle, as that is truly where we have to begin in order to understand how two very important positive feedback effects interact with the initial warming of Milankovitch cycles. Most people are familiar with the first of these feedbacks, and that’s the outgassing of CO2 from the oceans as the oceans warm. So, yes indeed, warmer oceans do indeed cause the release of CO2, and that release, based on well known, and not controversial physics of the CO2 molecule does cause more warming, which of course, continues on this basic positive feedback loop. But there is also another feedback loop that get’s initiated during the warming phase of a Milankovitch cycle, and this is not as well known, and, while also involving CO2 to some extent, it also has other interesting dynamics. This feedback loop involves the ocean as well (not surprising, since the ocean is so much a part of the global climate). It involves the compound Dimethyl Sulfide or DMS which is one of the major precursors for aerosols and cloud condensation nuclei in the marine boundary layer over much of the remote ocean. This is an exciting and evolving area of climate research, and I would encourage everyone who unfamiliar with DMS and climate regulation to read up on it. There are several positive and negative feedbacks related to DMS, phytoplankton, clouds, and CO2, But in a nutshell, during the initial ocean warming from Milankovitch, a warmer and wetter world means less dust coming from the land, and less dust means less fertilization of the phytoplankton by the iron in the dust.
Remember,these phytoplankton are just like any other plant…they love CO2. Plus, these phytoplankton lead to the release of DMS that creates the cloud condensation nuclei…and of course, less clouds means more solar insolation for the oceans, and so a little Milankovitch forcing is once more magnified via a positive feedback loop involving dust, phytoplankton, DMS, CO2, and cloud formation.
So, this is why Milankovtich forcing begins the process of warming…it is the trigger if you would, and comes first the ice core records, before CO2 levels begin to rise. Also, it is why dust levels are higher in the ice core records during the colder periods (and iron levels as well, the fertilizer for the phytoplankton). During the colder periods of the Milankovitch cycle, the phytoplankton are getting lots of nice fertilizer from the dust coming from the more dryr land areas (remember, colder means drier in the climate). These phytoplankton are happily absorbing lots of CO2 from the atmosphere and thus, as things begin to cool off, phytoplankton get more active, and CO2 levels start to fall.
Though there are a few more added feedbacks to this process (negative ones), this in general, is how the Milankovitch cycle is the master trigger which is then magnified through various feedbacks, all of which involve, to one degree or another, CO2, which becomes a sort of master thermostat that is “turned on” by the Milankovitch trigger. And it has gone on this way for hundreds of thousands, and even millions of years…until of course, something broke this natural Milankovitch-CO2 relationship…and that of course, was the release of billions of tons of CO2, not from the oceans this time, but from the land, through the burning of fossil fuels by humans. The key question is of course…how sensitive is the climate to the forcing from this additional, non-Milankovitch (i.e. anthropogenic) triggered release of CO2?
Liza Robinson says:
August 13, 2011 at 8:07 pm
R. Gates,
My husband is an expert on the Milankovitch Cycles because he studied them and collected data in fieldwork. He also studied physics and climatology too to get his masters. He also has a “grasp” of the science “behind” global warming like you do; and he sees junk. You just told me today “we do know exactly where we are in the current Milankovitch cycle, as these astronomical calculations are relatively easy to figure out.”; I said that’s bs and now you admit you aren’t an expert and want to know who exactly is?
I am not supposed to insult you or get a little miffed about all that? LOL! Come on.
____
Sounds like your husband may be knowledgeable about Milankovtich, but would hardly qualify as an “expert”. And yes, we do know where we are in the three parameters of the Milankovitch cycle (eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession), and in general we know that, while we’ve passed the Holocene Climate Optimum, in which the planet received the maximum solar insolation during this particular interglacial, we can’t say precise when the next glacial period will begin, but based on eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession, it appears that the next glacial period isn’t due for many tens of thousands of years (despite what some skeptics might have you believe). So when I say we don’t know exactly when, we know it is many tens of thousands of years away.
benfrommo, perhaps you could give empirical proof of the hundreds of billions spent on climate research each year. Could you also give empirical proof that CO2 in the atmosphere has a half life of between 9 to 15 years?
benfrommo says:
August 13, 2011 at 7:43 pm
“Are you suggesting that the last several century rise in CO2 is not due to the result of human burning of fossil fuels?”
____
More to the point, is a question that someone else had asked earlier. Where would global CO2 levels be right now if humans had gone extinct say, before the current interglacial period even begin? You can very reasonably and safely say they be somewhere around 280 ppm or lower, but not higher. You can quibble and equivocate this forever, but it won’t change what the ice core data have clearly shown to have occurred through the ups and downs of at least 800,000 years of Milankovitch cycles. I’ll trust the ice-core data, until someone proves to me how both Antarctic and Greenland Ice Cores could give essentially the same result and would be contaminated in the same way.
sceptical says:
August 13, 2011 at 7:49 pm
Joe Bastardi clearly said temperatures were not rising, CO2 levels continue to go up and that it was temperature changes driving CO2 levels. What Joe Bastardi says makes no sense unless he is wrong about the temperature record or he is wrong about CO2 levels being driven by temperature.
____
What Joe (and others) are saying about temperatures and CO2 makes sense only in a world without humans, but makes no sense in a climate in which the long-term relationship between Milankovitch forcing and CO2 has been broken by human activities.
R Gates says:
“Where would global CO2 levels be right now if humans had gone extinct say, before the current interglacial period even begin? You can very reasonably and safely say they be somewhere around 280 ppm or lower, but not higher.”
BZZ-Z-Z-Z-ZT. Wrong!
But thanx for playing, and Vanna has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out.
We are currently 800 ±200 years after the MWP, therefore some of the increased CO2 is due to ocean outgassing. You have no credible answer as to where global CO2 levels would otherwise be one way or another. None. You’re just outgassing baseless speculation – your hallmark.
Aqui no Brasil, o gov sege a ONU-IPCC mas outros cientistas são contra, e tem seus argumentos fudamentados. A politica do petroleo é forte assim como a religiosa. Como parar a economia? Ou melhor a solução é encontrar novas tecnologias para o fim do óleo. Boa sorte povo.
@R. Gates
Why exactly are we even discussing who is responsible for increase in co2 anyways?
I thought the important question was if this increase in co2 significantly affects global temperatures, which is something that isn’t the case according to real data.
R Gates:
At August 13, 2011 at 6:59 pm you say:
“Certainly I am not an expert but I do have a reasonable grasp of the science behind global warming, but I do not consider myself an alarmist.”
OK, that depends on the meaning of “reasonable grasp”.
You certainly do have as good a “grasp of the science behind global warming” as, for example, Chris Colose, and you are less rude and less arrogant than him.
But you have a profound ignorance of climate, what changes climate and what stabilises climate. Everybody has that ignorance which – hopefully – science will dispel in future.
The problem is that some people, including you and Colose, have been duped into thinking there are mystical gurus who do not have that ignorance and whose assertions should be believed.
Colose is young, he lacks any real world experience (he has never left school) and has an extreme form of the arrogance of youth, but you do not have those excuses for your actions.
Learn from the example of Joe Bastardi: look at the evidence instead of believing your gurus.
Richard
R Gates is correct to state that, in the absence of humans, atmospheric CO2 concentration would now be no higher than 280ppmv.
This can be shown by the following considerations:
1. the graphs of temperature and atmospheric CO2 during the last several thousand years show that, prior to large scale human influence (c.1750)
a) temperatures had been generally very slowly declining (at a rate of about 0.2C per millennium) since the Holocene Thermal Maximum, see:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
This slow overall decline in temperature can be accounted for by a slow decline in solar insolation related to the Milankovitch cycles.
b) CO2 levels had changed very little in previous millennia, remaining around the 280ppmv, see, for the last millennium:
http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/co2.jpg?w=500&h=325
It is also possible that human actions associated with forest clearance and rice cultivation over the last few millennia had increased CO2 levels by a few tens of ppmv above what they otherwise would have been, as argued, for example, by Ruddiman:
http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Ruddiman2003.pdf
This evidence suggests that CO2 levels would now be about 240ppmv if humans had not existed.
2. The the current very rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 is entirely caused by human activity (primarily fossil fuel burning but also land use change and agriculture) is shown, inter alia, by the following considerations:
a) The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increased by 640 billion tons between 1850 and 2000.
Human beings emitted 1620 billion tons to the atmosphere during the same time period, more than twice the increase in atmospheric CO2.
The difference, about 1000 billion tons of CO2, has been absorbed by oceans and terrestrial vegetation and soils.
Thus
i) Human emissions are more than able to account for the rise in atmospheric CO2 (since human emissions were more than twice the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere).
ii) The oceans have been and continue to be a sink of CO2, since that is where much of the CO2 has “disappeared” to. This is independently confirmed by the decrease in oceanic pH.
b) secondly, atmospheric CO2 is now increasing at a rate over SIXTY times faster than ever occurred naturally during the last 800,000 years for which detailed evidence exists. This evidence (from ice cores) shows that CO2 never increased (during transitions from glacial to interglacial conditions) at more than 30ppmv in 1000 years. They have now increased by that amount since 1996, about 15 years.
c) thirdly, evidence from the ice cores also shows that the rate of change of atmospheric CO2 with temperature is about 10ppmv/deg.C , see:
Frank et al (2010) Ensemble reconstruction constraints on the global carbon cycle sensitivity to climate. Nature 463, 527-530.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v463/n7280/abs/nature08769.html
Thus, the greatest rise in atmospheric CO2 that could be expected from the rise in global temperatures since the LIA, (or indeed from the MWP) would be about 10ppmv, a small frction of the observed rise of over 110ppmv since 1750.
In Summary:
The increase in atmospheric CO2 in recent centuries is entirely caused by human activities. In the absence of humans, evidence suggests that current levels would be below 280ppmv, and perhaps as low as 240ppmv.
I agree that feedback has been miscalculated. I believe that feedback is more likely to be negative rather than positive. However the statements presented as premises here do not seem to me to be founded in physical science. First, scientists are not saying that CO2 adds energy to the environment. What they are saying is that some energy that would be reflected back into space cannot be reflected back because the wavelength changes upon contact. Consequently, while the window is more or less clear for incoming energy, CO2 acts like a curtain for reflected energy and the thicker the curtain the more energy is retained and not reflected back into space.
Second, Le Chatelier’s principle is merely an empirical statement describing systems in equlibrium that are nudged out of equilibrium. Most systems return to equilibrium because of negative feedback. But this is not true of all systems–a nuclear pile is an example of a system than can runaway because of positive feedback. The basic argument is whether or not the climate system is regulated by negative feedback or can runaway by positive feedback.
In my opinion, the unpublished paper by Michael Beenstock and Yaniv Reingewertz (Polynomial Cointegration Tests of the Anthropogenic Theory of Global Warming) is consistent with a system with accelerating production of CO2 and negative feedback. As economic development slows worldwide the rate of CO2 production will decline sufficiently for negative feedback to be more readily observed. (http://economics.huji.ac.il/facultye/beenstock/Nature_Paper091209.pdf)
P Wilson says
However, the laws of thermodynamics enter into this equation. Co2 intercepts radiation at 15 microns – which is the equivalent of minus 36C – the sort of temperatures at the poles.
Henry@P Wilson
I’d like to query that. Where do you get that relationship from, that shows wavelength against K?
For example, our bodies are emitting at 36- 37 degrees C which is picked up by infra red camera’s.
I think the longer the wavelength the higher the temp.? Something is wrong somewhere in your idea of the minus …..it should be plus (at sea level)
Liza Robinson says:
August 13, 2011 at 9:07 am
“The earth is technically still in an Ice Age. Ice ages can possibly experience warmer and cooler periods; like the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. We don’t know exactly where we are in the Milankovitch Cycles; because no scientist on this planet knows exactly how long it takes from peak (really warm) to trough (really cold) because the data resolution is not clear going back in time so we cannot “see” or “know” such small time frames like “now” in the geologic record.”
Liza, the data you mention may look a little bit confuse, but I think there are geometries to be recognize, which can improve the understanding of the spectra of Ice ages; the big ones and the Little Ice Ages. One of the geometries is suggested by R. Ehrlich as resonant modes of diffusion waves in the sun, and another geometry can by recognized from the synodic pattern from known celestial objects. A simple Fast Fourier Transformation of the Vostok data for 1000 ky shows clear frequencies of different power, which correlate with the Ehrlich modes, if one take a diffusion time td of photons until they come from the inner part to the surface region of the sun, of about 190 ky. Because the character of the modes is a saw tooth function it can easy be simulated on a greater time scale. Just as this simulation a pattern can be simulated out of the geometries of the celestial objects, showing a pattern superimposed to the Ehrlich modes, which fit the Little Ice Age and all other little ice ages in the last 5000 years, as it can be simulated back and forward in time from NASA ephemeris. Reconstructed temperatures in the alps by G. Patzelt for some ky BP fit also with synodic pattern from celestial objects.
The functions of the Milankovitch Cycles do not show saw tooth character in the time range of 1000 ky, and because of this, I think that the M. cycles have no direct significance for the terrestrial climate. I agree with that it is unknown when exactly a major peak will happen, but because the global temperatures are not much lower than ~20 ky ago, it can take some 100 ky to the next big ice age valley.
However, narrowing of the field of view on CO₂ and/or some decades of measurement limits the necessary scientific view. Unfortunately sensitive ideas which require more than one discipline are superimposed by discussions about national orthography.
V.
Slioch says:
“In Summary:
The increase in atmospheric CO2 in recent centuries is entirely caused by human activities. In the absence of humans, evidence suggests that current levels would be below 280ppmv, and perhaps as low as 240ppmv.”
And that would be very bad news for the biosphere.
Slioch says: In Summary:
The increase in atmospheric CO2 in recent centuries is entirely caused by human activities. In the absence of humans, evidence suggests that current levels would be below 280ppmv, and perhaps as low as 240ppmv.
Slioch, what is your point?
The paper you quote must be very old, because it has long been superseded by this one:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
which shows that there is no warming caused by an increase in GHG’s
I suggest you read this
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
which, if you can follow the ssientific reasoning,
would make you understand that more carbon dioxide is better for the environment.
Volker Doormann says:
August 14, 2011 at 3:40 am
[…]
Sorry for three faulty graph links in my above post:
http://volker-doormann.org/images/solar_fig_4.jpg
http://volker-doormann.org/images/solar_fig_3.gif
http://volker-doormann.org/images/gl_patzelt_ghi4.jpg
V.
@HenryP, Smokey
Slioch was answering a specific question, “what would CO2 concentration be if humans had gone extinct?” Nothing to do with whether the answer would be good or bad for the biosphere or the environment. Try to stay on topic, guys.
CO2 has been in the range 180-300ppm for the last 800K years. No evidence to suggest it would have moved out of that range over the last couple of centuries other than as a result of human-induced CO2 emissions. Irrespective of whether that is good, bad or indifferent.
I asked Gates this question … “If humans had gone extinct 20 kya (or anytime really), what would be the CO2 ppm today?”
Assuming for the moment that *both* ice core historical CO2 records are accurate, and that current Mauna Loa CO2 counters are correct and calibrated to compare to those ice cores (an assumption I am not prepared to swallow yet). Your epic fail is easily quantified …
[1] Most obviously you are willing to assign 100% (not 99% or 50% or 5%) of the net difference of atmospheric CO2 on an Earth with human and lack of human existence. Every single ppm of CO2 we are counting comes from humans! You are in fact saying that a minimum of 110 ppm of CO2 today is only from humans! You’re saying that CO2 levels belong at a level barely above a minimum needed to sustain life. You’re saying that humans somehow dwarf the production of CO2 from volcanoes (including Yellowstone, Toba, Krakatoa, Tambora? really?), the enormous oceans, and other natural CO2 outputs! You really ought to consider the proposition that humans are only capable of adding a few percent of the grand total. But you won’t because your religion relies upon this.
[2] You never even considered the possibility that humans also have an effect on sinking CO2 and that the effect is likely very dramatic. How so? Humans do something else the other species don’t do, they spread agriculture. Plant trees, lots of them. Plant crops, lots of them. Plant grass, lots of it. Humans green all the places they inhabit, intentionally, (well, except for the polar regions since that would be prohibited by the greenies. Ironic?). Humans probably green many acres per person in net totals. There are reports that the USA is much greener and more forested now than it was 300 years ago. Humans also irrigate, in very large scale. If you can ponder this objectively, you might consider the possibility that if humans were not present on Earth today, the land would look dramatically different. Namely, there would likely be vast tracks of wasteland, dust-bowls, deserts that do not exist today, and thus a lot of CO2 would never have been sinked at all, eaten by plants. There are other things humans do as well, land and soil fertilizing, fire suppression, water diversion, animal management, etc. This parameter, human sinking of CO2 should not be ignored. But of course it will be, the AGW religion relies upon it.
There you go again. You voice a firm belief in an unproven fact, that the Holocene has tens of thousands of years left in it. No-one can possibly know, because the exact combination of Milankovitch parameters ending the previous interglacial are not known for sure (if the combination you suspect causing the last one to end had ever existed previous or since *without* causing warming, then the Null Hypothesis is met and your search must continue for the right combination of parameters).
Humans will have to come to grips with the fact that there probably are more astronomical parameters that are as yet unknown. We may be able to make some headway in this area if so much damn money wasn’t diverted to meaningless AGW research nonsense and alternative energy scams. What should be well funded is historical orbital research (a much better use of those supercomputers) and while we’re at it, impacts, NEOs and long distance hazards as well. No ridiculous theory is needed to justify these as there is a clearly visible record and history of the destruction that results from impacts.
A little more Kepler, Galileo and Milankovitch please, and a lot less Arrhenius, Erlich, and Gore. That is the problem in Science in a nutshell.
Time Lag! These points of view are stuck in some modern narcissistic paradigm that timeframes must fall conveniently in human lifetimes or within synthetic subsets such as calendars. Try to imagine for a second that planet Earth will chug along without regard to the arrogant perceptions of the little fleas on her back. Our perception of time is squashed by that of mother nature.
Ice ages can last millions of years (2.5 million and counting for our currrent Pleistocene), interglacials can last tens of thousands of years (12 thousand for our current Holocene). These two examples vastly dwarf the 800 years or so time lag that the available data seems to indicate from warming episode to atmospheric CO2 increase. That suspected 800 year time lag in turn dwarfs our puny little grasp of time.
What is interesting though is that the AGW cult has climbed into a box, one which Joe Bastardi has attempted to nail shut. This box is all about CO2 and its necessary *immediate* effects upon temperature according to their AGW
TheoryHypothesisSuppositionallegation. You see, he is calling you all out now: How can AGW work if it does not work? I would say that we don’t even need to wait the 20 years to show the AGW allegation is proved wrong (disproven by steadily increasing CO2 simultaneously with a cooling period). It was already stomped by the 1960’s to 1970’s and other previous cooling periods.HenryP August 14, 2011 at 4:16 am
asks,”Slioch, what is your point?”
I would have thought that was obvious. They have been several posts in this thread asking what would be the present atmospheric concentration of CO2 if humans had not existed. I continued that theme and answered that question.
The articles you post, from a Christian blogger, are not scientific papers, do not address the issue which I was answering and are replete with errors.
HenryP August 14, 2011 at 4:16 am
asks,”Slioch, what is your point?”
I would have thought that was obvious. There have been several posts in this thread asking what would be the present atmospheric concentration of CO2 if humans had not existed. I continued that theme and answered that question.
The articles you post, from a Christian blogger, are not scientific papers, do not address the issue which I was answering and are replete with errors.
Henry@P Wilson
I’d like to query that. Where do you get that relationship from, that shows wavelength against K?
Reply:
Wien’s displacement law expresses the relationship between temperature and wavelength. The two factors are inversely proportional, so the shorter the wavelength, the higher the temperature.
Henry@Slioch, John B
The point is that as far as warming is concerned, the increase in CO2 does not do anything.
The paper that Slioch quotes does not tell me how the values were arrived at. It is probably looking at the problem from the wrong end, i.e. assuming that global warming is caused by the increase in GHG’s and then working your way back.
Why do my values never confirm what Slioch and the likes of him are claiming?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
As far as the bisophere is concerned more CO2 is better as it promotes greenery.
Why is it that the very same people that trust nothing about temperature measurements and temperature reconstructions……
……treat CO2 reconstructions like they are the holy grail
CO2 is a lot harder to reconstruct………….
to: benfrommo
If your query on the cause of increasing CO2 was directed at me, based on my earlier comment —-
While the current increasing levels of CO2 may have been brought on by the usual carbon cycle, I do indeed suspect that industrial activity is, in any event, also contributing to the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. But, so what? The relevant issue remains unaddressed by the Warmistas — denial of satellite temperature readings, denial of the recent ocean cooling, and denial of the MWP and earlier warming periods during this interglacial which could not have possibly been brought on by man’s activities, and all this is compounded by the fact that there is NO (none, nada, zilch) evidence that CO2 has contributed in any measurable way to the planet’s recent increases in temperature. In fact, all the available data indicates that in the distant past the variations in the level of CO2 have been brought on by much earlier variations in temperature, no doubt, to the carbon cycle. More recently, since the industrial revolution, while CO2 has constantly trended upwards, there have been several sustained periods of cooling, or flat temperatures, the two most recent being from 1940s to 1970s and from 1998 to present. No short term correlation at all between CO2 level and the planet’s temperature.
In spite of Trenberth’s ludicrous position, the null hypothesis must remain: Global warming, as well as climate change, are natural events, and that must remain the case unless (credible) scientists can produce strong evidence to the contrary.
While, in the long run it’s a no-brainer to continue searching for ways to reduce our “footprint”, the slow increase in CO2 (2ppmv annually) is nowhere near the crisis point which the UN (and liberal politicians of every stripe) claim. (These folks never want to miss an opportunity to take advantage of a crisis — H.L.Mencken said it better.) The CO2 level has been much higher in the distant past, we know that plants love more of it, and submarine crews have done quite well in CO2 levels of 3000 to 5000 ppmv.)
Volker Doormann,
Thanks,very cool. Way over my head though but I think I get the gist. My husband was really into studying the earth’s wobbles and shifts in the magnetic field while in school. He worked a lot with the data from The Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) . My husband calls it all …the dance. 🙂 People don’t know that there are more little wobble/dances then just the Milankovitch Cycles that are not well understood. “free nutation” is it called? 7000 to 5000 yrs ago for instance, the Sahara Desert was a green lush place to live. (That climate change had nothing to do with CO2 concentrations did it?) From an article on the subject it says: “The green Sahara episodes correspond with the changing direction of the earth’s rotational axis that regulates the solar energy in the tropical Atlantic Ocean.” Bottom line; none of this is as well understood as some people like to claim. I think its because they grew up with instant gratification and never took a geology class. 😉
R Gates, whatever! Concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere have been lower then now and it still got warm.125,000 yrs ago sea level high stands were up to 20 ft higher; Greenland probably had no ice-CO2 concentrations lower. So what are you going on about? We are NO WHERE near that now even with your human added CO2. Concentrations of CO2 have been thousands of times higher and it still got cold on Earth for that matter; for 100s of thousand of years according to the geologic record. All you have is a computer model telling you to worry about CO2 “now”. The geologic record says no such thing.
While I agree with Joe Bastardi, he is missing some very important information- there is experimental data that proves that the Hypotheses of “greenhouse gas effect” does not exists. The first to prove that the”ghg effect” does not exist was Robert W. Wood a professor of physics and optics at John Hopkins University. This was published and peer reviewed in 1909.
This work has been redocumented ;here is the reference” Wood is correct: There is no Greenhouse Effect.
Posted on July 19, 2011 by Dr. Ed
Repeatability of Professor Robert W. Wood’s 1909 experiment on the Theory of the Greenhouse (Summary by Ed Berry. Full report here or here. & PolyMontana.)
by Nasif S. Nahle, June 12, 2011
University Professor, Scientific Research Director at Biology Cabinet® San Nicolas de los Garza, N. L., Mexico.
In addition there is another experiment that is under review that also proves that the”greenhouse gas effect does not exist”.
If you want to review and do the experiment while it is being reviewed by competition physicists, go to: http://www.GreatClimateClash.com in the December, 2010 archives The Greenhouse gas effect does not exist by Berthold Klein, look at section 10 the Demonstration.
R. Gates says:
August 13, 2011 at 8:58 pm
[long post, not reproducing] 🙂
I haven’t heard of DMS, so I will look it up, thanks.
If you are citing phytoplankton, wouldn’t you think that effect would be a bit shorter than 800 years? Unless you are saying there is a gradual decrease in dust over 800 years? I’m not sure why that would be the case as glaciers recede and expose more land that would very likely have a fair amount of dust to contribute. And with regard to phytoplankton, I don’t see why that process would take 800 years to complete. I realize geological timescales are different, but phytoplankton doesn’t respond on those timescales. Their effect would be the sum of the effect on each generation of phytoplankton, and I’m not sure what your explanation of the 800 year difference is. And as far as the dust levels being higher during the colder periods, can we agree that it might just as well be attributed to less water vapor in the atmosphere, and less water in general to catch dust in? During ice ages, I’m sure that any dust that precipitates out of the atmosphere is taken up by it soon after, given the odds it lands on dry ice. As the ice starts melting, I’d think all the wet water (surely a scientific term) would trap the dust much better than all the drier ice surfaces.
Have a good Sunday.
P Wilson says
Wien’s displacement law expresses the relationship between temperature and wavelength. The two factors are inversely proportional, so the shorter the wavelength, the higher the temperature.
Sorry for my ignorance. I don’t get it.Yet. I think it should be higher energy.
The problem that I have is that what is described in a law must be experienced in practice.
e.g I can feel the heat of IR but UV burns without you even being aware of the heat.
Why is that?
but even after googling this law
I cannot see how you can come at -36C (or the K equivalent) ) for the 14-15 um (where CO2 absorbs)
Can you show me how you came to that?
Cleanwater2 says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/12/bastardi-science-and-reality-point-away-not-toward-co2-as-climate-driver/#comment-719361
Well it (a GH effect) may exist but you have to come with a balance sheet of each GHG
(which nobody has, really, up to now)
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Henry@clearwater2
BTW the link you gave
http://www.greatclimateclash.com/
does not work
Blade says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/12/bastardi-science-and-reality-point-away-not-toward-co2-as-climate-driver/#comment-719234
Very good post!
Could not have said it better myself…
David Falkner says:
August 14, 2011 at 8:45 am
R. Gates says:
August 13, 2011 at 8:58 pm
[long post, not reproducing] 🙂
I haven’t heard of DMS, so I will look it up, thanks.
If you are citing phytoplankton, wouldn’t you think that effect would be a bit shorter than 800 years? Unless you are saying there is a gradual decrease in dust over 800 years?
____
Yes, of course it takes a while to begin the process of warming the oceans up enough such that evaporation increases, dust decreases, and the amount of DMS produced by phytoplankton activities is reduced while at the same time, the level of CO2 absorbed by the phytoplankton is reduced. It must also be remembered that the two positive feedbacks: Outgassing of CO2 and the Dust/phytoplankton/DMS/Cloud, since they are ocean processes, and and such, have to “wait” for the large thermal profile of the ocean to change, which takes a while given the gradual changes in insolation brought about by the Milankovitch forcings.
BTW, I think you’ll find the entire area of phytoplankton/DMS research to be quite eye opening. At least it certainly was for me.
Liza Robinson said:
“125,000 yrs ago sea level high stands were up to 20 ft higher; Greenland probably had no ice…”
___
Might want to talk to your expert husband on this issue, but Greenland had LOTS of ice 125,000 years ago.
Slioch says:
August 14, 2011 at 12:46 am
In Summary:
The increase in atmospheric CO2 in recent centuries is entirely caused by human activities. In the absence of humans, evidence suggests that current levels would be below 280ppmv, and perhaps as low as 240ppmv
=====================================================================
Well of course it would….plants and other natural processes will lower it until it becomes limiting….
…any small burp after that…and everything dies
After doing some thinking about the physics, I am pretty sure the actual equation describing “forcing” will be something of the form:
(BTW, I am on a Windows box instead of one of my normal Unix/Linux boxes so I don’t have the knowledge of the mechanisms used for proper equation entry)
F = K * ln( d[CO2] + sumof( a[i] * d[i])), where “i” iterates all of the other atmospheric GHG, ‘d’ is concentration in parts/cm^3, the ‘a’ are normalized so that a[CO2] = 1.
If one removes all of the GHG with ‘a’ < 1, the remaining GHG will still swamp the contribution due to CO2 to insignificance.
Liza Robinson says:
August 14, 2011 at 8:33 am
“Volker Doormann,
Thanks,very cool. Way over my head though but I think I get the gist. My husband was really into studying the earth’s wobbles and shifts in the magnetic field while in school. He worked a lot with the data from The Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) . My husband calls it all …the dance. 🙂 People don’t know that there are more little wobble/dances then just the Milankovitch Cycles that are not well understood. “free nutation” is it called? 7000 to 5000 yrs ago for instance, the Sahara Desert was a green lush place to live. (That climate change had nothing to do with CO2 concentrations did it?) From an article on the subject it says: “The green Sahara episodes correspond with the changing direction of the earth’s rotational axis that regulates the solar energy in the tropical Atlantic Ocean.” Bottom line; none of this is as well understood as some people like to claim. I think its because they grew up with instant gratification and never took a geology class. ;-)”
Liza Robinson,
I like that joke a Mexican taxi driver heard that Jesus was born in Near East, Palestine, and he was asking ‘Why then he got a Mexican name?’ But seriously, I agree with that there are a lot of unexplained phenomena in the land of natural science. In the time I have looked for the higher frequencies of the terrestrial temperatures than the frequency of the Little Ice Ages, it was obvious to me that the earth oscillations of the fluids on the surface and its impedances are superimposed to the solar functions and the planets. For the changing of the global temperature on a decadal scale, it is known that the earth because of its shape wobbles with a frequency of 1/1.1855 years (Chandler), and that the fluids (air and oceans) on the surface of the earth resonates with the half frequency of 1/2.371 years or 28.45 month. Because of the heat content of the water of the oceans this leads to phases called El Niño e Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurring again with an average of a half frequency of 1/4.742 years or 57 month.
Quote: “The global sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly data from 1950 to 1996 were used to analyze spatial characters of interdecadal SST variations. A wavelet transform was made for the equatorial eastern Pacific SST anomaly time series. Results show that there are three remarkable timescale SST variations: 130-month interdecadal variation, 57-month interannual variation and 28-month quasi-2-a variation. (QlAN Weihong et al.)” (In a recent WUWT posting: “Climate variability in East Africa & El Niño Southern Oscillation” it is spoken about an evidence that the ENSO frequencies are present until 20000 years in East Africa.) 🙂
This all gives some difficulties to separate the solar heat current from the oscillating impedances of the oceans and for a simulation of the global climate on a scale of month. On the other side it could be a method to learn more on the causes of the climate factors, simulating the solar function from the planets in high resolution.
http://volker-doormann.org/images/ghi_1600.gif
By filtering the high frequency temperatures of about > 1/10 years ^-1 one can find a good correlation with temperature proxies like stalagmites in the alps:
http://volker-doormann.org/images/comnispa_vs_x.jpg
Unfortunately it is ever a brave crest wandering touching the unknown from the side of the established science world powered only by the inner truth, as Joe B. has said.
I like that statement from Carl Sagan: “No mechanism was known, for example, for continental drift when it was proposed by Wegener. Nevertheless, we see that Wegener was right, and those who objected on the grounds of unavailable mechanism were wrong.
(Carl Sagan)
Thanks for reading.
V.
reply to post by: DesertYote says: August 12, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Hi DesertYote,
I suspect the reason that you didn’t get many direct replies is because the effect of various concentrations of GHGs’ in the atmosphere is such a complicated issue – not an easy one to address well in blog comments.
I believe that your premise of varied concentrations of GHGs is too simplistic – that it would clearly be one aspect that would have to be factored in, but wouldn’t be anything close to accurate or correct taken by itself. Other parameters that would have to factored in include things such as the dispersion pattern within the atmosphere, the wavelengths each type of GHG can absorb and the point at which they reach saturation, interactions with other atmospheric molecules, possible interference from other types of GHGs, and so on. There are probably other ‘big picture’ aspects that I’ve missed, just coming off the top of my head here.
In other words, for your mathmatical equation to work, you would have to add in all sorts of other variables to the equation. As just an initial example, for your equation:
atmosphere A) with x PPM CO2 and y PPM of CH4, and
atmosphere B) with x PPM CO2 and 2y PPM of CH4
to work, we would have to assume that the molecules of CO2 and CH4 act identically in terms of their power as a GHG, and that they are evenly and equally dispersed throughout the atmosphere, interact identically with the surrounding atmosphere, etc. All aspects that don’t hold true for those two types of molecules, let alone all the other GHGs including water vapor. Of course for this atmospheric only experiment we would also have to assume each molecular species remains constant in the atmosphere too, ignoring the reality of the dynamic natural cycles or changes that occur because of interactions with plant and animal life, rocks, oceans, weather patterns, duration in the atmosphere, and so on.
So for your mathmatical representation to work, you would have to alter it to account for all of these other factors (plus I imagine some I’ve missed). Then somehow also manage to account for the huge uncertainty we’ve got in current levels of understanding of some of those very factors….
In other words, a very complicated subject all the way around, not easily represented without some pretty complicated mathmatical formulas if you really want to get down to the estimated forcing from one type of GHG as compared to another.
Anyhow, that’s my take on it, for whatever it’s worth.
Henry@DesertYote
Assuming average water vapour is 0.5%, CO2 is 0.04% and the rest is 0.02, then we find that the increase of 0.01% in CO2 of the past 50 years is ca. 0.01/0.55 x 100= 1.8%
But now, oxygen also absorbs in the 14-15 region……
This could account for a large part of earth’s missing 14-15 radiation as the oxygen content in the atmosphere is almost 21%. It is a very weak absorption but nonetheless it is there. This makes your formula or any attempt to a formula a bit futile.
There is no AGW or CAGW literature I could find that even acknowledges that oxygen has this (weak) absorption or even that it is a GHG.
reply to post by: Punch says: August 13, 2011 at 2:13 am
It seems to me that you are missing a key aspect of AGW skepticism – that most of us already wholeheartedly believe and embrace the idea; that mankinds current state of science wrt global climate is in its infancy, and that we most certainly do NOT have or understand all of the related facts.
This is a key aspect of disagreement with the AGW crowd – the AGW supporters keep trying to claim that ‘the science is settled’ and that we absolutely know enough to be certain that CO2 is the driver, man is the cause of the bulk of the supposed drastic increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, and so on.
Meanwhile the skeptics (which, by the way, OUGHT to include ALL scientists, if they are real scientists, but somehow this fact seems to elude many of the most prominent ‘climate scientists’)… anyhow, meanwhile the skeptics in large part are saying that there are many many factors that are crucial to the issue that we don’t know nearly enough about to even begin to claim that the science is settled or that we know CO2 is a major player, etc.
That it is ridiculous, if not criminal, to spend trillions of dollars and re-order our entire society, life styles, and standard of living as if we know enough about these things to be even close to being certain, when in fact we don’t. That there are many many more pressing things for mankind to spend the money on, things that we know beyond doubt are causing massive amounts of misery and death around the world, and/or things that show far greater promise to advance mankind, rather than expending our resources on something that is so tenuous and questionable, and where the goalposts keep being moved as key tenets of the hypothesis are overturned, and the issue as currently presented by AGW ‘scientists’ is for the most part not falsifiable.
In other words, we already admit what you seem to think happening to be wrong on a single estimated prediction of one aspect of the whole AGW meme, during a single year no less, would somehow force us to admit. Meanwhile, we just want you guys to admit it yourselves! :0)
“Time Lag!”
Salby and Bastardi’s claims require there to be essentially none. Temps go up, and CO2 goes right up with it.
“This box is all about CO2 and its necessary *immediate* effects upon temperature according to their AGW…”
The effects of CO2 on temps take some time to materialize, as anybody who actually looked at what climate scientists have said would know. The yearly warming trend is a lot smaller than the year to year variation caused by things like ENSO. Much of the warming expected comes from slow feedbacks. Really, your statement is a strawman. Nobody is predicting a monotonic year to year increase in lower tropospheric temps.
“Ice ages can last millions of years (2.5 million and counting for our currrent Pleistocene), interglacials can last tens of thousands of years (12 thousand for our current Holocene). These two examples vastly dwarf the 800 years or so time lag that the available data seems to indicate from warming episode to atmospheric CO2 increase.”
And yet, even with the last interglacial being warmer than now, and lasting a lot longer than the current warming to boot (or the MWP, which you claim is what is causing the current CO2 increase), CO2 levels never went over 300ppmv. They are now over 390 ppmv. Surely the Eemian interglacial lasted long enough and was warm enough for CO2 levels to top current levels. They didn’t even come close. Salby and Bastardi’s claims are refuted by the evidence.
reply to post by: Chris Colose says: August 13, 2011 at 10:16 am
I’m sorry, but I’m finding it very difficult to be anything other than blunt in reply to these statements by Colose, because they have got to be some of the most arrogant and ignorant statements I’ve seen in some time.
Chris is apparently oblivious to the fact that a massive amount of ‘serious’ scientific debate occurs in the lab, and verbally among both one’s peers in the office or over longer distances by phone and email, and even in the Q&A portions of society presentations. ‘Serious’ scientific debate even occurs with scientists from entirely different disciplines who can help evaluate the base science and logic being used or considered, and this can often be extremely valuable (it’s a shame it’s not done more often!). Occassionally even on blogs, when scientists encounter good ideas or discussions, regardless of the source. Passable scientists (or better) simply don’t limit their ‘serious’ debate to the rarefied atmosphere of solely themselves and academic literature, although I image there may be the rare exception. Such a limitation would be a massive blow to scientific progress.
Meanwhile the claim that there are virtually no remaining ‘skeptical’ climate experts publishing in the literature aside from ‘the Alabama duo and Lindzen’ is absurd on the face of it. It shows that either Chris is horribly ignorant of recent relevant literature, or that he very selectively cherry picks and applies double standards to who he views as ‘climate experts.’
It’s very distressing to see someone working on a graduate degree in the sciences who appears so blinded by bias and a serious lack of understanding of some of the most basic scientific tenets. I’d be inclined to write it off as a one-off, except that the whole ‘climate science’ field appears to be riddled with such types. Which tells us very clearly that there are serious problems in the universities and with the professors who are turning out such types.
Volker Doormann says:
August 14, 2011 at 11:47 am
For the changing of the global temperature on a decadal scale, it is known that the earth because of its shape wobbles with a frequency of 1/1.1855 years (Chandler), and that the fluids (air and oceans) on the surface of the earth resonates with the half frequency of 1/2.371 years or 28.45 month. Because of the heat content of the water of the oceans this leads to phases called El Niño e Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurring again with an average of a half frequency of 1/4.742 years or 57 month.
ENSO events (el Nino, La Nina) are not monotonically regular, but are intermittent. There are “neutral” periods with no ENSO polarisation. This makes it more difficult to propose that ENSO is driven by a constant orbital related parameter. ENSO is quite likely a nonlinear oscillator, oscillating by its own internal dynamics, BUT with the possibility that its oscillation could be driven by outside forcers. However the relation between a periodically forced nonliner oscillator and its forcer, can be very complex – in the case that the forcing is weak. (If it is strong then the forced system follows the forcer directly.)
commieBob says (August 13, 2011 at 4:07 am): “The link Steve Mosher pointed to does not deal with what Matt was talking about. What we’re waiting for is a simple calculation that relates the concentration of CO2 to a change in temperature.”
Actually it’s exactly what Matt was talking about, i.e. change in temperature due to a doubling of CO2. Matt confused the issue by bringing in Le Chatelier’s Principle, but you accurately quoted his “back-of-the-envelope” claim of a 2 degree F surface temp increase for a doubling of CO2. Mosh’s reference addresses this question.
Nowhere in his comment did Matt mention the oceanic concentration of CO2 as a function of temperture. But below is a reference on CO2 solubility in seawater. It’s quite technical, because it’s not a simple subject:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/cdiac74/chapter2.pdf
*sigh* That’s supposed to be “temperature”, not “temperture”. The error was due to a temperary lapse in proofreading.
Rats, I mean “temporary”, not–ah, skew it!
Thanks V!
R. Gates says: “Might want to talk to your expert husband on this issue, but Greenland had LOTS of ice 125,000 years ago.”
I don’t think so. Besides, according to the IPCC PR campaigns:
quote: “Approximately 125,000 years ago, Earth was 3 to 5 degrees Celsius warmer on average than it is today, and sea levels were 4 to 6 meters higher. The ice sheets covering Greenland’s land mass have trapped a significant amount of the water that used to be in the sea, thereby lowering sea levels, Susan Solomon, senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (and the co-chair of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) told attendees at the American Association for the Advancement of Science taking place in San Francisco.
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6160463-7.html#ixzz1V2UTX1BU
Apparently their science isn’t as advanced as yours is now and they are wrong AGAIN!.
Also please tell us the scientific definition of “LOTS” too. Thanks. lol
Rational Debate says:
August 14, 2011 at 12:23 pm
I suspect the reason that you didn’t get many direct replies is because the effect of various concentrations of GHGs’ in the atmosphere is such a complicated issue – not an easy one to address well in blog comments.
I believe that your premise of varied concentrations of GHGs is too simplistic – that it would clearly be one aspect that would have to be factored in, but wouldn’t be anything close to accurate or correct taken by itself.
####
Thanks for your reply.
As far as “not an easy one to address well in blog comments.”, I most whole heartily agree. I had trouble just stating my question, and that apart from my normal difficulty in expressing myself.
I also agree that my scenario is way to simplistic to represent the actual atmosphere, but that was the point. I wanted to propose a measurable system that was simple enough to demonstrate a phenomena in isolation of other variables. The real question I am asking is this, does the forcing due to a doubling of the concentration of CO2 depend on the presents of another, specifically a more “powerful”, green house gas, absent of all other considerations?
If there is a dependency, then stating that the forcing due to a doubling of CO2 is X looses meaning.
BTW, I did devote thought to trying to conceptualizing the concentration of gases varying with altitude according to species, but the exorcize gave me a headache because we would no longer be dealing with simple Euclidean topologies. It does not take long for the addition of complexity to turn my though experiment into a mathematical nightmare. That was the main reason I tried to keep things stupid simple.
You mentioned biological activity. I actually am pretty experienced with an aspect of that. My other profession involves freshwater ecology. I use to to a lot of experimentation with CO2 injection. It does not take long for CO2 concentrations to come down after the initial spike following an increase in injection rate. Though the behavior is very depending on lighting and nitrogen sources.
Hey,
I logged off on Friday night so I didn’t get a chance to respond. To put the CO2 saturation discussion to rest, the change in radiative forcing due to an increase in CO2 is something like
5.3 ln(C/C0), where C0 is the pre-industrial CO2 level. This would mean a change of radiative forcing of 3.7 W/m^2 for a doubling of CO2 which agrees with the number Alan McIntyre posted above. You will notice that the above formula takes in to account the logarithmic effect of additional CO2.
At this point we need a simple way to get from radiative transfer to temperature. As I already fully concede, this is a back of the envelope calculation, not including feedbacks (positive or negative). But, my point is only to show that Joe is full of crap for suggesting that the warming is thermodynamically impossible.
The formula for the radiative balance of the earth is
Arrhenius’ formula, derived by differentiating the heat-balance equation for the earth-sun system is:
dT = (-T/4)*(de/e)
where dT is the change in temp, T is the global temp, de is the change in forcing, and e is the total forcing. T is approximately 288 Kelvin. Measured by satellites, e is 240 watts/m^2.
We get: dT = (-288/4)*(-3.7/240) = 1.11 Kelvin, which is almost exactly 2 degrees F.
Alan McIntyre: thanks for the intelligent comments. I believe your numbers (although I would like a source if you could direct me to one). And, while 1 degree is smaller than my 2 degrees, it is quite a bit larger than Bastardi’s CO2-can’t-warm-the-earth-because-of-the-first-law-of-thermodynamics argument.
Mr Bastardi,
Even if you are accidentally right about the earth cooling for the next 20 years, your explanations for it are still scientifically incorrect. I have no problems with you believing what ever uninformed positions you choose to accept. But, when you pretend to be an expert on TV to a viewership of millions, it is irresponsible to misrepresent the basic physics. Again, please learn some thermodynamics.
Finally, Mr Watt,
You can say what you will about the mythical Warmista or alarmist or Gaia-person or whatever you want to call them. But, when an actual scientist (though not a climatologist) like myself actually comes to your site with genuine curiosity about the scientific case against mainstream climatology, it really hurts your case to have garbage like this on your site. I would like to see a focused case on the specific scientific points of disagreement with the climate science community, not indiscriminate attacks on even basic physics that I would like to hope we all agree on. In short, nuanced debates on climate sensitivity or the accuracy of models is one thing. Messing around with basic thermodynamics is another.
And sorry, one last thing…I forgot to cite my sources:
The radiative forcing formula comes from Myhr et al, Geophysical Research Letters, v.25, no.14, pp2715-2718.
The formula for the temperature change comes from Svant Arrhenius, but I should also give credit to Scott Denning, who’s talk at the 4th heartland institute conference on climate change (which I highly recommend).
Blade, your comment about lag would seem to contradict Joe Bastardi. Joe Bastari’s above post and appearance on Fox made no mention of a lag. It was clear from him that he believes the current Co2 concentrations are driven by current temperatures. Are you saying Joe Bastardi is wrong or are you saying joe Bastardi misrepresented or are you saying he was not clear? It would be nice if Joe Bastardi would clarify concerning lag so that there would be no wrong interpretation. Joe Bastardi, is the current increase in Co2 caused by recent temperatures or temperatures from centuries ago?
Joe can correct me if he doesn’t agree.
The CO2 response to air temperature is immediate perhaps with a short period of catchup.
However ocean surface temperatures strongly affect air temperatures and there is some evidence of century scale lags in sea surface temperatures as energy taken up by the oceans centuries ago resurfaces. In fact sea surface temperatures are more important than air temperatures for oceanic CO2 absorption capability.
So there is no inconsistency. Once energy reaches the ocean surface the CO2 response is rapid but there may well be century scale lags affecting ocean surface temperatures one way or the other.
reply to post by: Matt says: August 14, 2011 at 4:22 pm
First, “mythical?” Matt, what planet are you living on? Now that that’s out of the way, moving on to the rest of your statement…
Matt, when an actual scientist, no matter what discipline, or for that matter any rational person comes to a website, it is quite reasonable to expect that they actually look at the masthead/site header/banner. For WattsUpWithThat.com (WUWT), said reasonable person would immediately read: “News and commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts.” One might further expect folks to take a look at the “about” page if a greater understanding of the purpose of a site is desired. For WUWT, there you will find, in addition to other information, the statement “And that’s part of what this blog is about: presentation of weather and climate data in a form the public can understand and discuss.”
Is it your contention that a scientist such as yourself is incapable of understanding these simple statements, or are you just admitting that you came with utterly preconceived notions and weren’t reasonable enough to even do the most cursory evaluation of the site’s stated purpose when you first arrived? Second question, how can this article hurt Anthony’s case, when you don’t seem to have any understanding of the case being made?
From the quoted purpose of WUWT, any rational person would then not expect or rant about failing to find “a focused case on the specific scientific points of disagreement with the climate science community..” Furthermore, had you taken a short time to peruse the site, you would have seen that there are discussions fitting your “nuanced debates on climate sensitivity or the accuracy of models” parameter, some in articles themselves, others spaced throughout comment sections. You would also find that “an actual scientist…with genuine curiosity about the scientific case against mainstream climatology” can pick up tremendously more along those lines here than at most AGW supportive sites, not only because those issues are discussed here, with input from a number of scientists including climate scientists, but also because WUWT doesn’t censor comments based on ideology/dogma/bias as you all too often find at AGW sites.
With regard to this specific blog article, any reasonable person, especially a scientist, would be expected to recognize that accepted blog submissions to such a site don’t necessarily reflect, in each and every claim contained in the article, the view of the blog owner – only that the article meet the stated goals of the site, as this one clearly does. One would also expect a scientist such as yourself to actually read the full article, at which point you would have seen Anthony’s postscript: “Readers please note that the opinion expressed here is that of Mr. Bastardi, at his request. While you may or may not agree with it, discuss it without resorting to personal attacks as we so often see from the Romm’s and Tamino’s of the nether climate world.”
Even you ought to be able to recognize that this article has met the goal of this blog; clearly a number of folks have found it interesting and are discussing various aspects – including the very aspect you find so disagreeable. I seriously doubt many physicists would see Mr. Bastardi’s post as an ‘indiscriminate attack’ on basic physics, nor would they expect the stated audience of this blog to all agree on basic physics, as they would know such a blog is both aimed at and visited by a huge variety of people with a wide range of educational backgrounds.
Some physicists or even just knowledgable folks might, oh horrors of horrors, actually see it as an excellent opportunity to help folks better understand physics, rather than a personal affront warranting public denigration.
Rational Debate, kudos.
@Rational Debate:
I concede your point that it was a dumb of me to suggest that I would be coming to this site for a rigorous scientific case. There are, of course, better resources for that. I wrote that comment in frustration and didn’t think it through.
That said, I stand by the following points:
1. Mr Bastardi’s claims are scientifically incorrect.
2. Allowing postings like this do hurt the credibility of the case this blog is trying to make. Sincere folks with an open mind but a good science literacy are going put off by this kind of stuff, and they’re no longer going to listen to the credible claims.
3. This blog boasts that it is voted the “Best Science Blog” and on that basis I can critique it for being a poor example of science web-journalism.
4. Most importantly, this site influences a large number of people who have a very tenuous grasp of science. I believe that Mr Watt has a genuine interest in science, and I don’t necessarily think he would want to intentionally mislead. But, content like this tends more towards convincing people at the expense of creating confusion, rather than educating them.
You are right that I don’t need to Mr. Watt to focus the debate for my sake. I am suggesting that Mr. Watt focus the debate for all of the confused people who agree with his views based on incorrect notions about the science. Science illiteracy is too big of a problem in this country. A blog that claims to be a science blog should help make the situation better, not worse. And, this particular subject matter is important enough to warrant an *honest* debate (as well as a rational one).
“Some physicists or even just knowledgable folks might, oh horrors of horrors, actually see it as an excellent opportunity to help folks better understand physics, rather than a personal affront warranting public denigration.”
Your last point is the most important one, which is why I should do a better job of biting my own tongue.
Matt says:
“A blog that claims to be a science blog should help make the situation better, not worse. And, this particular subject matter is important enough to warrant an *honest* debate (as well as a rational one).”
Matt, WUWT doesn’t just ‘claim’ to be a science blog, it has won the Weblog Awards for “Best Science” category twice running. And the debate here is honest, unlike the one-sided comments at climate progress, real climate, tamino, and similar echo chambers that censor all opposing views.
You can post your comments here without fear of censorship, and it is not the fault of WUWT if your point of view is deconstructed by more knowledgeable commentators.
Robert Murphy says:
August 14, 2011 at 1:10 pm
…Salby and Bastardi’s claims require there to be essentially none. Temps go up, and CO2 goes right up with it…
…Surely the Eemian interglacial lasted long enough and was warm enough for CO2 levels to top current levels. They didn’t even come close. Salby and Bastardi’s claims are refuted by the evidence…
You should check into the reasoning behind the 800 year time lag. There is your monotonic year over year increase. Still, temps can go up and CO2 right (behind) with it. Why not?
To R. Gates:
If DMS would be presumed to be more abundant in glacial periods, then the CAGW theory is not really supported by that. Cloud nucleation is one of those areas that is still very grey, and we can agree very important. Still, it’s difficult to say whether clouds even had a role in past glacial states. There isn’t any proxy I can think of except for beryllium-10.
Matt says:
August 14, 2011 at 4:15 pm
===================================
So, 1 degree F/doubling per Alan McIntyre’s post is acceptable to you ?
Aside from the fact that this should be more than acceptable to the world’s population, have you also done the back of the envelope calculation for the tropics, i.e. the effect of doubling CO2 (starting at 280 ppm) in a background of vastly greater concentrations of water vapor ?
reply to Matt says: August 14, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Thank you, but I have to suggest that you continue thinking it thru even further, as you still seem to be missing a good bit.
The post of yours that I was replying to had little to do with the accuracy of Mr. Bastardi’s claims, and I wasn’t addressing that issue one way or the other (nor will I). Frankly in several ways that aspect simply isn’t all that relevant (serious food for thought for you there, Matt).
Perhaps my view of folks with science literacy is more positive than yours. While I’m sure there will be a few who respond as you note, personally I believe that the majority will be far more reasonable and rational, will note and understand the stated (and demonstrated) purpose of this blog, and if they are certain factual errors occur in an article they will either share their expertise politely in comments – where they will proceed to either discuss the issues with folks – or they’ll skip on to the next article they find interesting. Ever heard of the saying ‘don’t throw the baby out with the bath water?’
Besides, someone who really has good science literacy won’t be dissuaded from credible claims by those they happen across that aren’t. Science is, after all, all about debating competing claims and providing evidence to support what one believes is correct, while still being open minded enough to consider that someone else may turn out to be more correct or manage to prove one wrong – and then be big enough to admit it if someone comes up with a better hypothesis, or better evidence one way or the other.
What do you think the comment section is all about on this blog?
Smokey already hit on several aspects of this issue. To add to his comments, by your criteria, you will be critiquing virtually every science blog that exists, and for that matter, the most premiere science journals also. Have you seen the retraction rates, even for the likes of Science and Nature? While you are at it, how about Climategate, and the implications that raises regarding every research paper written or peer reviewed by those involved?
Meanwhile, you might try considering just what ‘best science blog’ means. Best science blog only for top scientists? Or best science blog only for climatologists, no geologists, solar experts, or any other discipline allowed? (fill in whatever field you like for climatologist & the following specialities in that sentence) Or best science blog for the general public, with a leaning towards folks who have some science knowledge? Hum???
Furthermore, one might consider that this is a blog, and beyond donations which I suspect don’t add up to much, in order to be a perfect example of science web-journalism, AND cover such a huge number of disparate fields, yet still be able to ensure that no article ever has anything in it that could be perceived as incorrect, the blog owner would have to be at the professorial level for a massive number of fields. Physics, geology, aeronautics, fluid mechanics, engineering, solar sciences, meteorology, climatology, every field related to ‘green’ contraptions, every field related to alternative energy sources, all sorts of biological and chemical disciplines, and on and on and on.
Are YOU an expert in all of these areas, Matt? (If so, why the heck don’t you offer free editorial services to WUWT?) It’s impossible for one person to be an expert in all of the areas that wind up in articles and being discussed here. All things considered, it’s not a very reasonable expectation on your part, now is it?
It’s so good of you to allow that you don’t necessarily think that Mr. Watts might want to intentionally mislead. We are all relieved.
You might try considering just why it is that this site has wound up being so well liked, heavily trafficked, and influential. More to the point, I believe anyone can see that Mr. Watts has not only a strong and genuine interest in science, but overall a pretty darned good grasp of it also. Again, not speaking to the issue of scientific accuracy in the article, the primary points Mr. Bastardi makes are both highly relevant, and unlike all too much of ‘climate science’ presented by the ‘climate scientists,’ he has a stated position which can easily be seen to either be correct, or incorrect, by the end of this decade.
I would hope not, although I have to say this site is great for unfocused but highly meaningful browsing.
Again, it’s mighty big of you to be looking out for all us confused souls out here. Let me ask you Matt, if you are so certain that ‘coolistas,’ or ‘deni—‘ oops, that’ll get snipped, er, ‘skeptics’ (or whatever you want to call them) only believe there are problems with AGW based on incorrect notions about the science why do you even bother looking for sites that present a skeptical view and supporting science? Let me also ask you this – how can you call yourself any sort of scientist, if you aren’t willing to apply some skepticism to a field that is as muddled and fraught with pseudo-science and post normal science adherents as is the case with ‘climate science?’
I couldn’t agree with you more. So why are you carping here, rather than over at realclimate or the likes? Oh, ya, that’s right, because if you took them to task or asked any inconvenient or skeptical questions, or even any trying to *honestly* understand the science behind the skeptical view over at those sorts of sites your comment would either never show up, or promptly be deleted – or you would be made out to be an idiot or worse and given no chance to defend your position. So, which do you prefer – a site like WUWT where a wide variety of subjects are discussed and dissected, including various research papers and viewpoints associated with ‘climate science’ and by folks with a wide variety of backgrounds from layman to very well established scientists – or sites that will only allow a very censored, arrogant, cherry picked, one sided view?
Also, if one *honestly* wants to consider whether a science blog makes things better or worse, they wouldn’t do so on the basis of a few articles out of all that are posted to the site, let alone a single article. Frankly, anyone coming over here and playing with innuendo about *honesty* is pretty questionable in terms of their own level of honesty and motives. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that rather than being a disingenuous flame thrower, you just worded that poorly and really meant *accurate* or something along those lines – and that you weren’t thinking things thru in terms of what effect one or even a few articles really has on such an active site.
Unfortunately it’s all too easy to pop off now and then for most of us, especially on the faceless internet. But ask yourself before you hit the send button if you would really say whatever is in your comment to all who might read it, if you were face to face with them.
Also Matt, if you have in mind exactly what a site ought to be and are so certain that it is easy to develop and manage the perfect educational science blog that you castigated Anthony for not providing, just go create it yourself. Let’s see how that goes and how perfect and influential it is after awhile, ok? Or you can join us here and debate and dissect all sorts of things with a wide variety of people – and hopefully you’ll do so with a far more open and generous spirit, and a bit more practical viewpoint than you’ve shown thus far.
sceptical August 14, 2011 at 5:54 pm
asks”Joe Bastardi, is the current increase in CO2 caused by recent temperatures or temperatures from centuries ago?”
It is, of course, the case that neither suggestion is correct.
The current increase in atmospheric CO2 is caused by human emissions.
There no need for any source of CO2 other than human emissions to explain the rise, since human emissions greatly exceed that observed rise.
Further, the amount of CO2 increase observed from ice core evidence during the warming from glacial to interglacial conditions was an order of magnitude too small to explain the current rise in CO2. The recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is around 110ppmv for a rise in average global temperature of scarcely 1degC. The glacial/interglacial warmings caused an increase of just (approximately) 10ppmv of CO2 for each 1degC rise in temperature.
So, not only is there no need for any contribution from warming to explain the current rise in atmospheric CO2, such contribution would anyway be wholly inadequate to explain that rise. Add to that the confusion about whether the warming “responsible” was recent or from the MWP and you end up with only one possible conclusion: the idea is complete and utter nonsense.
phlogiston says:
August 14, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Volker Doormann says:
August 14, 2011 at 11:47 am
“For the changing of the global temperature on a decadal scale, it is known that the earth because of its shape wobbles with a frequency of 1/1.1855 years (Chandler), and that the fluids (air and oceans) on the surface of the earth resonates with the half frequency of 1/2.371 years or 28.45 month. Because of the heat content of the water of the oceans this leads to phases called El Niño e Southern Oscillation (ENSO) occurring again with an average of a half frequency of 1/4.742 years or 57 month. Quote: “The global sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly data from 1950 to 1996 were used to analyze spatial characters of interdecadal SST variations. A wavelet transform was made for the equatorial eastern Pacific SST anomaly time series. Results show that there are three remarkable timescale SST variations: 130-month interdecadal variation, 57-month interannual variation and 28-month quasi-2-a variation. (QlAN Weihong et al.)””
“ENSO events (el Nino, La Nina) are not monotonically regular, but are intermittent. There are “neutral” periods with no ENSO polarisation. This makes it more difficult to propose that ENSO is driven by a constant orbital related parameter. ENSO is quite likely a nonlinear oscillator, oscillating by its own internal dynamics, BUT with the possibility that its oscillation could be driven by outside forcers. However the relation between a periodically forced nonliner oscillator and its forcer, can be very complex – in the case that the forcing is weak. (If it is strong then the forced system follows the forcer directly.)”
In science it is relevant, what is argued with reasons, and it is not relevant, what is NOT.
I have given arguments about three frequencies which are related to the earth, which are sub harmonics to the chandler wobble frequency, which can be related to the geometry of the rotating ellipsoid. ENSO is not an observable in physics.
Physics begins with geometry and/or frequencies (not cycles!) related to geometry. In the discussion about the cause of high temperature frequencies visible in the temperature plots vs ‘ENSO’, a frequency of 1/4742 y^-1 is present as an oscillating heat, and heat is physics.
http://volker-doormann.org/gif/enso_had3.gif
If some three temperature frequencies are related by dividing factors of 2 or 4, this is an indication for a connection of the global heat current. An oscillator always needs a power source, and in this case a heat source in Watts. If the heat source is variable, then this does not change the fundamental frequency, only the amplitude.
There are simple relations present:
The ratio of the Jupiter frequency and the earth wobble frequency is 1:10 (0.08431:0.8431)
The ratio of the Jupiter frequency and the QBO frequency is 1:5 (0.08431:0.42156)
The ratio of the earth wobble frequency and the QBO frequency is 2:1 (0.843125 : 0.42156)
The QBO is a stable oscillation, if it is exited by a (heat) power:
http://volker-doormann.org/images/drift1.gif
http://volker-doormann.org/images/qbo_5.gif
http://volker-doormann.org/images/qbo_6.gif
In the discussion of an alternative understanding to the promoted ppm apocalypse it is necessary to give pointers to real physics and geometries. Each simulation model must be based on physics and geometries. There must be a quantitative solution of the physical heat current equations. As it is well known that the celestial objects like it to dance in resonance as Jupiter and Saturn (5:2) did, the frequencies in the solar system can be examined for relations to the global temperature frequencies. Hockey stick function is a label, but not physics. ENSO is a label, but not physics. I think the point is not ‘Fighting against windmills’ on the emotional CO2 war; the point is, science has the job to find the sources of the climate frequencies and amplitudes of the global heat current. I was feeling good, when I read Joe B. was arguing with the First Law of Thermodynamics.
V.
Rational Debate:
I am enjoying your deconstruction of the irrational assertions of ‘Matt’ and by implication those of John B, Chris Colose, R Gates and Slioch.
I write to support one of your points in your post at August 14, 2011 at 10:56 pm that says;
“Again, not speaking to the issue of scientific accuracy in the article, the primary points Mr. Bastardi makes are both highly relevant, and unlike all too much of ‘climate science’ presented by the ‘climate scientists,’ he has a stated position which can easily be seen to either be correct, or incorrect, by the end of this decade.”
‘Appeal to authority’ of ‘climate scientists’ is a mainstay of AGW-alarmists. The alarmists assert that evidence, argument and logic are all trumped by mystical knowledge of ‘climate scientists’. In a discussion that directly related to Bastardi’s argument, I address this assertion (of ‘climate scientists’ having more authority than empirical data) head-on in the thread on Judith Curry’s blog at
http://judithcurry.com/2011/08/04/carbon-cycle-questions/
I commend a look at all of that discussion because it is very informative of the unscientific and irrational behaviour of leading AGW-alarmists. Here, I provide summarising extracts.
Concening emissions of carbon dioxide, I wrote:
“In this and the other thread I have repeatedly pointed out that the observed dynamics of the seasonal variation indicate that the dynamics of the short-term sequestration processes can easilly sequester ALL of the anthropogenic and natural emission in each year. But they don’t.
This is direct empirical evidence that the system is not being overloaded by the anthropogenic emission such that about half the anthropogenic emission is accumulating in the air.”
Eventually I got a ‘warmist’ to answer the point, but he evaded the issue, Instead, he resorted to claiming there is evidence that he could not quote, reference or explain, but “working climate scientists” know it.
The discussion concluded when I wrote:
“Your argument (more properly assertion) depends on your definitions of
“people, who have solid background knowledge”
and
“not working climate scientists”.
Until those definitions are agreed then everything you say is mere words with no real meaning because they can be interpreted to mean anything.
For example, is a “working climate scientist” somebody who studies climate and has repeatedly published in the peer reviewed litrature? If so, then I am a “working climate scientist” and Chris Colose is merely somebody who has a “solid background knowledge” but he is not a “working climate scientist”.
I could provide several other possible definitions of a “working climate scientist” but none of them support your argument.
And I don’t accept that a useful conclusion is achieved by settling on an agreed definition because I adhere to the principle of
‘Nullius in verba’
Similarly, I don’t accept your claim that an explanation is “not possible” in a net discussion. Either one has an argument, a reference and/or a citation or one does not. If one cannot provide any of those then one is merely making an assertion that any rational person should reject.”
Richard
Slioch:
At August 14, 2011 at 11:34 pm you say;
“The current increase in atmospheric CO2 is caused by human emissions.
There no need for any source of CO2 other than human emissions to explain the rise, since human emissions greatly exceed that observed rise.”
OK, then it follows that you accept the following statements.
‘The appearance of toys at the bottom of the bed is caused by Father Christmas.
There no need for any source of the toys other than Father Christmas to explain the appearance, since the toys at the bootom of the bed greatly exceed the number toys in the bedroom befor their appearance.’
A belief in Father Christmas is not evidence that the belief is true. This is because the fact that something can be assumed to be a cause is not evidence that it is the true cause.
Similarly, your statements about anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are nonsense.
And they are especially nonsense because they are refuted by empirical data; e.g.
The observed dynamics of the seasonal variation indicate that the dynamics of the short-term sequestration processes can easilly sequester ALL of the anthropogenic and natural emission in each year. But they don’t.
This is direct empirical evidence that the system is not being overloaded by the anthropogenic emission such that about half the anthropogenic emission is accumulating in the air.
Richard
Slioch says:
The recent rise in atmospheric CO2 is around 110ppmv for a rise in average global temperature of scarcely 1degC
I will say again
This assumption of an increase in CO2 (*and other GHG’s) causing actual warming has never been proven from actual test results.
What the IPCC did, is look at the problem from the wrong end. They assumed that global warming is caused by an increase in CO2 (GHG’s) (even though not everybody agreed with this at the time) and made an allocation (forcing) largely based on the observed global warming since 1750 versus the increase of the gas(es) noted since 1750.
It is the worst mistake any scientist can make.
Understand that it is alleged that due to increased green house gases in the atmosphere, heat is trapped that cannot escape from earth. So if an increase in green house gases is to blame for the warming, it should be minimum temperatures (that occur during the night) that must show the increase (of modern warming). In that case, the observed trend should be that minimum temperatures should be rising faster than maxima and mean temperatures. That is what would prove a causal link.. We have reasonable accurate data from weather stations all over world for the past 35 years. I do not trust most of the data from long before 1975 unless it can be explained exactly how the measurements were done and recorded. (like in the example of the station in Armagh – Northern-Ireland).
So far, after evaluating 15 weather stations, randomly chosen, nearby oceans or in the oceans, \the score on my pool table is as follows:
MAXIMA: rising at a speed of 0.036 degrees C per annum
MEANS : increasing at a speed of 0.012 degrees C per annum
MINIMA: creeping up at only 0.004 degrees C per annum
HUMIDITY: decreasing at a rate of -0.02% RH per annum
PRECIPITATION: slight change at + 0.26 mm /month /year
The latest tables show that, over the past 4 decades, the rates of increase of temperatures on earth i.e. maxima, means (=average temperatures) and minima have risen at a ratio of 9:3:1. Remember: these are the summaries of actual measured results from a number of weather stations all around the world….No junk science. No hypothesis. Every black figure on the tables is coming from a separate file of figures. Obviously I am able to provide these files of every black figure on the table.
As all the balls now lie on my table, surely, anyone must be able to understand that it was the rise of maximum temperatures (that occur during the day) that caused the average temperature and minima on earth to rise? This implies clearly that the observed warming over past 4 decades was largely due to natural causes. Either the sun shone a bit brighter or there were less clouds. There are different theories on that.
Juts get that in your head.
Volker Doormann says:
August 15, 2011 at 12:57 am
phlogiston says:
August 14, 2011 at 1:43 pm
Volker Doormann says:
August 14, 2011 at 11:47 am
Nonlinear oscillators, such as the classic Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, and your heart beat, are real physics. The scientific argument for proposing that the ENSO is a nonlinear oscillator (not a new idea) of the BZ reaction type, is set out here .
I have no doubt that planetary orbital parameters act in some way as periodic forcers of the earth’s climate. But how? If climate oscillations slavishly followed orbital parameters like summer, winter, day and night, then it would be obvious and beyond debate, we would not be having interminable arguments and resorting to statistical sophistry like wavelet analysis etc. to try to tease out the relationships. My guess, for what it is worth, is that we are looking at periodic forcing of one or more nonlinear oscillators, near the boundary between weak and strong (see the reference by Anna Lin cited in the BZ post):
Resonance tongues and patterns in periodically forced reaction-diffusion systems. Anna Lin et al., DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.69.066217, Cite as: arXiv:nlin/0401031v1 [nlin.PS].
phlogiston says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/12/bastardi-science-and-reality-point-away-not-toward-co2-as-climate-driver/#comment-719872
Henry@phlogiston
This was discussed in detail here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/25/loehle-and-scafetta-calculate-0-66%c2%b0ccentury-for-agw/
(not that I could follow it, but I think it has something to do with Jupiter and Saturn acting some force on the sun)
Well let me answer by using the three words which folks in the AGW cult are loathe to use themselves … I don’t know.
Frankly no-one knows this mechanism yet. We are all looking at the same ice core CO2 and temperature reconstructions which show a lag of around 800 years, that is the visible evidence. I am allowing for the possibility that the ice cores are being misread though (if only the same objectivity were present in AGW!).
But we have is what we have, and what we have is this striking record showing temperature leading CO2 by a substantial but consistent period of time. It is a puzzle to be solved, but that is the point of science anyway, solving these puzzles. The controversy in my opinion erupted because of Hockey Stick thinking which completely inverts cause and effect. If Mann and the rest of you want to continue down this CO2 leads temperature, you will have to do some (pardon the pun) real science and avoid sandpapering the historical record by erasing the MWP and LIA to make the handle of the Hockey Stick straight and level.
For now I am willing to consider that we are seeing a slow but steady uptick of CO2 that may correlate to events around the MWP, albeit mechanism unknown. This could mean several more centuries of slowly increasing CO2 (yeah, at a ppm or two per year). But I could certainly be wrong (if only the same humility were present in AGW!).
Whether Joe Bastardi is considering this lag or not I am unaware. You really should quote him verbatim when you attempt to prove he is contradicting something though. I was commenting on his 20-30 year gauntlet. So let me repeat the point I made above …
Joe is zeroing in on this! Either all this added CO2 is present now in the atmosphere or it’s not (Mauna Loa says it *is*). Either it is slowing down radiative cooling or not. Given steadily increasing CO2, how is it possible for there to be anything but increasing warming?
CO2 present into the atmosphere *must* work immediately with no lag (that’s the box AGW is in). Or does CO2 have to cure for a period of time before it begins swallowing up IR? How can there be a lag with radiation? Note that the 800 year lag thing is likely not about radiation at all but about earthly processes (perhaps water, currents, clouds, life, etc).
A cooling or even neutral period must be the Null Hypothesis (unless there is an invisible energy bank of missing heat?). That is how I read Joe’s post above.
The science shows less than a single degree rise in over a hundred years, all the while CO2 has apparently climbed 100 ppm (which coincidentally accounts for every ppm of CO2 that R.Gates in a previous post assigns to human activity versus an Earth with no humans). Frankly I’m amazed the AGW alarmism has gone on this long!
phlogiston says:
August 15, 2011 at 3:29 am
Volker Doormann says:
August 15, 2011 at 12:57 am
[…]
“I have no doubt that planetary orbital parameters act in some way as periodic forcers of the earth’s climate. But how? If climate oscillations slavishly followed orbital parameters like summer, winter, day and night, then it would be obvious and beyond debate, we would not be having interminable arguments and resorting to statistical sophistry like wavelet analysis etc. to try to tease out the relationships. My guess, for what it is worth, is that we are looking at periodic forcing of one or more nonlinear oscillators, near the boundary between weak and strong …”
The question ‘how’ implicates an assumption of causality as vector. But as it can be recognized from resonances in our solar system and in other solar systems, there is that angular momentum that is not a battery of a limited energy [V A s]. Like the connection Earth/Moon, there is no loss in angular momentum, but a transfer of angular momentum from Earth to the Moon (plus some friction loss on the shore).
The problem is, there is no answer ‘how’ (what causal process?, what carrier? how quick?) this angular momentum is transmitted. We can see the result, but not the mechanism between solar objects. The same problem exists if one should say which one of two planets in a 5:2 resonance follows to whom? I think until this problem is only solved as a ‘curved space’ (what IS a space?) by theories, it is a blind alley to take the solar system as an engine or a steam engine.
I think a way out of this blind alley is to study the nature of the many relations between the temperature spectra and some orbital parameters in the solar system. A simplest adding of tide functions of some empiric weighted celestial couple’s (lower black thin curve), shows a remarkable correlation with the temperature proxy from stalagmites in the alps.
http://volker-doormann.org/images/comnispa_vs_x.jpg
As it is done for the terrestrial tide by a simulation of a lot of parameter to come to a good forecast of the tide events and normal height in the future, more people are interested simple in the events of climate in the future, than people are interested in the religion of cause and effect or output vs input like in the ‘science of finance’, from a system of angular momentum.
The problem with periods and oscillators is that these are phantoms, if there are no living real geometry and real frequency of mass is involved. For this I think it has more feet on the ground taking the real movements in the solar system which are known from 3000 BCE to 3000 CE.
I have put these stuff into this discussion, to give an counterpart to the hockey stick function of the climate Gurus. It needs a lot of disciplines, time and data to improve the knowledge in the field.
Neutrino rates vs time seems to play also a role in this climate theater. ..
V.
HenryP August 15, 2011 at 2:48 am
I find that most people, when responding to what I or others have written, do at least try to make their response, however misguided, have at least some relevance to the initial post. Not only is this a matter of courtesy, but it does help to support the impression that the respondent had at least understood something about that to which he is responding.This practice, however, appears to have entirely passed you by: your response has no relevance, none whatsoever, to what I had previously written in this thread, which was concerned solely with the attribution to human actions of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2.
However, to address the points you do make:
Firstly, your second paragraph misunderstands the basis for what is referred to as climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2. This problem has attracted much research effort and numerous papers have provided estimates of this climate sensitivity using various methods, of which paleoclimatic data from the glacial/interglacial transitions is probably the most important. Most papers suggest the most likely figure to be 3degC. The IPCC was guided by those results, not the “the observed global warming since 1750 versus the increase of the gas(es) noted since 1750” as you suggest.
Secondly, you correctly state, “if an increase in green house gases is to blame for the warming, it … should be that minimum temperatures should be rising faster than maxima and mean temperatures” That is, of course, true, though I would hesitate to go as far you do and assert that, “That is what would prove a causal link..” Demonstrating that minimum temperatures are increasing the most rapidly does not provide proof of global warming: it is supporting evidence and no more. Science does not deal in proofs.
You then refer to an article to which you linked earlier and of which you are apparently the author, namely, http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
that seeks to test the above hypothesis by resort to just 15 weather stations from around the world apparently sent in to you by interested individuals. A more ludicrous way of deluding yourself is hard to imagine: you are merely inviting people to send in counter example to the trend, ie. to find examples somewhere where minimum temperature increases have not exceeded maximum.
Even so, please give full details of where to find the data that you post for Easter Island (I choose that merely because it is an interesting place) so that we can check your calculation.
But if you are actually interested in what has happened (rather than playing silly games) with respect to minimum and maximum temperature increases, then you are in luck, since NOAA have just published the results for the contiguous USA. They show that in the USA minimum temperatures HAVE been increasing faster than maximum temperature, so according to you that clinches it: “global warming is proven”. I’ll merely say that this result supports the theory of global warming by enhanced greenhouse gases.
Here’s the links:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/normals/usnormals.html
and
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/lwx/climate/LWX_1981-2010_Normals_Website_pdf_version.pdf
and here are the two main graphs helpfully placed side by side by Scott Mandia:
http://profmandia.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/state_annualmaxmin_720-e1311177971725.jpg?w=600&h=260
in
http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/global-warming-heat-waves-yes-rollercoasters-no/
“You should check into the reasoning behind the 800 year time lag.”
It takes a long time for carbon dioxide to be released from the oceans; it takes a *long* time of sustained temperature change (either up or down) to make any significant change in atmospheric CO2. Think thousands of years. That’s why I mentioned the Eemian interglacial. It was warmer than present temperatures, and the warmth lasted for thousands of years. Yet, CO2 levels topped off at about 300 ppmv. If Salby and Bastardi were correct, CO2 levels in the Eemian should have been a lot higher than now. There was plenty of time for the oceans to overturn and release more CO2 than now. If the Eemian couldn’t do it, how can temps during this interglacial have pushed CO2 to over 390 ppmv, with the last 110 ppmv coming in a little over a hundred years? Where’s your skepticism?
“There is your monotonic year over year increase.”
Where? It’s not in the temperature record, anywhere. It’s never been predicted by a climate scientist, ever. So where is it? How does the fact that the oceans take a long time to release CO2 when temps increase (or absorb it when temps go down) support the idea that temperature is allegedly supposed to go up monotonically if AGW is correct?
“Still, temps can go up and CO2 right (behind) with it. Why not?”
And temps can (and do) go down due to year to year variability and yet CO2 is still going up unabated. Temps are not the cause of the CO2 increase.
As I stated before, the evidence, whether long term proxies or short term instrumental/sat data, falsifies Salby’s and now Bastardi’s claims about the source of the recent CO2 rise.
Blade:
“CO2 present into the atmosphere *must* work immediately with no lag (that’s the box AGW is in).”
It does work right away (though the amplifying feedbacks take years), but it is not the only thing affecting yearly temps. The forcing from the steady small increase in CO2 every year can be and is overwhelmed by year to year variability from things like ENSO or volcanoes. Projections are for about a .2C increase (on average for the whole century, it’s not a prediction for *every* decade) per decade, which comes to on average a .02 C trend per year. Now clearly we know that a La Nina or an El Nino can easily swamp that .02C in any year, as can a volcano. That’s why no climate scientist is (or ever was) calling for a monotonic increase in temps, with each year warmer than the last. You will have ups and downs from year to year even with a steadily increasing background trend. It’s the long term trends that count. So no, no box.
For those who would like to learn a bit more about ice cores and CO2 as well as sources of CO2 to the atmosphere, I think Dr. Alley does a nice job with this video series: http://earththeoperatorsmanual.com/segment/1
segment/3, /4 and /5 deals with sources of CO2 in our atmosphere, research by the US Air Force of atmospheric gases and their heat trapping effects, as well as what ice core data show.
Robert Murphy says:
August 15, 2011 at 7:10 am
“You should check into the reasoning behind the 800 year time lag.”
It takes a long time for carbon dioxide to be released from the oceans; it takes a *long* time of
sustained temperature change (either up or down) to make any significant change in atmospheric CO2. Think thousands of years
==================================================================
Robert, I don’t buy the 800 year lag………………
….assuming that there is any accuracy at all in measuring CO2 gas bubbles in ice
When you reverse engineer it…..come at it the other way…and start questioning why CO2 levels were so high, and were reduced so fast
…..it becomes clearer…..it’s biology
There is an instant plant/phyto/biological response when CO2 levels start to rise…
….that rapid response does not slow down until something else becomes limiting
….and that can take ~800 years, with an error bar of around 300 years
I should have added segment/6 since that segment deals specifically with how we know that the CO2 increase we see in the atmosphere is a result of human activities.
“Robert, I don’t buy the 800 year lag………………”
Yet you spend the rest of your post trying to show how the 800 year lag is biological in origin.
“When you reverse engineer it…..come at it the other way…and start questioning why CO2 levels were so high, and were reduced so fast.”
They weren’t reduced fast at all. The only thing that has been fast is the increase in CO2 in the last 150 years. Over hundreds of thousands of years, with temperature swings from glacial to interglacial of 6-7 C, the range of CO2 change was less than the increase we have already seen the last century or so with about .8C of warming. Nothing biological happened in the last thousand years that could possibly have caused that increase in CO2.
Robert Murphy says:
August 15, 2011 at 8:24 am
They weren’t reduced fast at all.
===========================================================
Of course it is, don’t be silly………………
There’s no claim of an 800 year lag in CO2 levels dropping
The claim of the 800 year lag in CO2 levels is ——following temperature
That the process is slow, that it takes a long time for the oceans etc to turn over and release CO2, etc etc etc
I don’t buy it……
There is an immediate response from plants, bacteria, algae, dinos, etc, they grow faster until something else becomes limiting
Slioch
your response has no relevance, none whatsoever, to what I had previously written in this thread,
Response
Perhaps I did not see your earlier responses but I am reacting to the incorrect statements you are making sunbsequently and I am claiming that you have no scientific actual evidence to support it
Slioch
Most papers suggest the most likely figure to be 3degC.
Response
How were these tests done and where are all the measurements’ results?
Obviously you have not read the IPCC report 2007 concerning this matter where it is clear to me that they are looking at everything from behind the facts?
Slioch
You then refer to an article to which you linked earlier and of which you are apparently the author, namely, http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
that seeks to test the above hypothesis by resort to just 15 weather stations from around the world apparently sent in to you by interested individuals. A more ludicrous way of deluding yourself is hard to imagine: you are merely inviting people to send in counter example to the trend, ie. to find examples somewhere where minimum temperature increases have not exceeded maximum.
Even so, please give full details of where to find the data that you post for Easter Island (I choose that merely because it is an interesting place) so that we can check your calculation.
Response
Just 15 stations
but cleverly chosen by me, because 70% of earth is covered by oceans + I balanced the tables by latitudes (it appears that nobody, including yourself, has so far volunteered to help me)
to represent the whole of the earth, giving me almost the same global average increase also reported by others
UK and USA data could be compromised; I won’t even go there. There is probably too much money at stake,
as is clear from this report here:
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/what-hanky-panky-is-going-on-in-the-uk
If you want the Easter Island data, you have to give me an address? (remember you will get 12 Xcell files, one for each month of the year, going back in time)
Slioch
But if you are actually interested in what has happened, rather than playing silly games
Response
It looks like there are people here who liked my game and have already picked up on it,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/14/its-not-about-feedback/
“Of course it is, don’t be silly”
Nowhere in the ice core data or in the instrumental data has CO2 dropped quickly. The entire range of CO2 change for the last 400,000 years is smaller than the recent rise, even though the temperature swing during that 400,000 years was about an order or magnitude bigger.
“There’s no claim of an 800 year lag in CO2 levels dropping”
Sure there is. The lag goes in both directions. The oceans take as long to absorb the increased CO2 as it does to outgas it. Both are a very slow process. This is basic, and well known.
“I don’t buy it”
Not relevant. The facts are what they are, whether you buy them or not.
“There is an immediate response from plants, bacteria, algae, dinos, etc, they grow faster until something else becomes limiting”
CO2 is not the limiting factor. It is absurd to invoke a biological cause for the rapid CO2 increase of the last 150 years. Where is your evidence of a recent trend in biomass?
Robert, there is an immediate response when CO2 levels are elevated in green houses, plankton cultures, bacteria cultures, diatom cultures, aquariums, algae cultures, etc etc
Of course CO2 is limiting……..
What were CO2 levels prior to plants evolving? grasses evolving? etc
Of course plants, bacteria, etc are the primary consumers of CO2.
========================================================================
Robert Murphy says:
August 15, 2011 at 8:57 am
It is absurd to invoke a biological cause for the rapid CO2 increase of the last 150 years.
=======================================================================
LOL….what’s absurd is for you to try to twist it so it sounds like I ever said that
Robert Murphy says:
August 15, 2011 at 8:57 am
CO2 is not the limiting factor
=========================================================
rotfl….. and every pot head has to wait 800 years for their pot plants to grow faster
Julienne Stroeve says:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/12/bastardi-science-and-reality-point-away-not-toward-co2-as-climate-driver/#comment-720016
I acrtually did have an e-mail exchange with Alley where I asked him to tell me exactly how much cooling is caused by the carbon dioxide.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
He could not give me an answer….
“Of course CO2 is limiting…”
It is not *the* limiting factor natural ecosystems.
“What were CO2 levels prior to plants evolving? grasses evolving? etc”
What possible relevance does that have to CO2 levels in the last hundreds of thousands of years? The evolution of photosynthesis happened billions of years ago.
“Of course plants, bacteria, etc are the primary consumers of CO2.”
And they are not responsible for the increase in CO2 in the last 150 years. There is an annual cycle of CO2 rise and fall related to Northern Hemisphere seasons, but the effect is only a few ppmv difference. Where is the big trend in plant biomass over the last 150 years that could account for a 120 ppmv increase in CO2?
“LOL….what’s absurd is for you to try to twist it so it sounds like I ever said that”
This is what you said:
“When you reverse engineer it…..come at it the other way…and start questioning why CO2 levels were so high, and were reduced so fast
…..it becomes clearer…..it’s biology”
I twisted nothing. You claimed the rise in CO2 in the last 150 years is biological in nature. The claim is preposterous. Biological sinks and sources have hardly changed over that period. How could they have released so much CO2 in such a short period of time, and why did they not release anything close to that much when temps were higher and the temp rise was sustained for thousands of years in the Eemian interglacial?
Robert Murphy says:
August 15, 2011 at 9:45 am
I twisted nothing. You claimed the rise in CO2 in the last 150 years is biological in nature. The claim is preposterous.
======================================================
Robert, I apologize…….you weren’t trying to twist my words after all…..you really are that dense
“You claimed the rise in CO2 in the last 150 years is biological in nature”
No I did not………I have a problem with the 800 year lag……which has nothing to do with why CO2 levels increased.
I’m talking about an 800 year lag in CO2 following temperature……
…..I’ve said nothing about why CO2 levels increased
When you reverse it, come at it from the other direction, what causes CO2 levels to fall…..
….the process of reducing CO2 levels would be the same process that causes CO2 levels to lag behind rising temperatures
“No I did not”
You said so explicitly.
” I’m talking about an 800 year lag in CO2 following temperature……
…..I’ve said nothing about why CO2 levels increased”
You said it was because of biology. If you want to withdraw that claim, go right ahead, but don’t pretend you didn’t say it. Here it is again:
“When you reverse engineer it…..come at it the other way…and start questioning why CO2 levels were so high, and were reduced so fast
…..it becomes clearer…..it’s biology”
Yeah, plants take in CO2, but there is no trend in plant biomass that could possibly explain the rise of CO2 of the last 150 years.
——————————————————————
“……which has nothing to do with why CO2 levels increased.”
It (the 800 year lag, which really only shows up when temp change are sustained over a long period of time) isn’t responsible for the increase over the last 150 years, true. Neither is biology, as you claim.
“When you reverse it, come at it from the other direction, what causes CO2 levels to fall…..”
The oceans go from a source to a carbon sink and take CO2 from the atmosphere as temperature falls. This process takes a very long time, just as the outgassing of CO2 takes a long time when temperature goes up. Right now, the oceans are a net sink even though temperature has risen, because CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are rising so fast. From us.
…the operative word is “reduced”
try it again……………..
“…the operative word is “reduced””
When were CO2 levels reduced quickly (by quickly I mean at a rate near the rate of increase over the last 150 years)? There is no such reduction on record over the last half million years. I already explained that there is a well known yearly cycle with the rising trend where CO2 levels rise and fall as trees in the NH shed their leaves in the fall and winter and sprout new ones in the spring and summer, so surely you don’t mean that, since that change is only a few parts ppmv over the cycle. If you want to posit a biological cause for long term CO2 trends (on a decadal or centennial scale), you need to demonstrate a long term trend in biological activity and biomass sufficient to explain the change in CO2. You can’t extrapolate from short term fluxes.
Robert Murphy August 15, 2011 at 8:24 am
“They weren’t reduced fast at all. The only thing that has been fast is the increase in CO2 in the last 150 years. Over hundreds of thousands of years, with temperature swings from glacial to interglacial of 6-7 C, the range of CO2 change was less than the increase we have already seen the last century or so with about .8C of warming.”
Correct. The difference between what is happening now with respect to rate of change of atmospheric CO2 and ANYTHING that has happened in the last 800,000 years for which we have ice core evidence is staggering. This evidence shows that CO2 never increased during transitions from glacial to interglacial conditions at more than 30ppmv in 1000 years. They have now increased by that amount since 1996, about 15 years. That means that atmospheric CO2 is now increasing at a rate over SIXTY times faster than ever occurred naturally during the last 800,000 years for which detailed evidence exists. The present situation is unique.
That fact alone – in the absence of any other evidence – provides a very strong reason for concluding that the current rate is anthropogenic.
sorry….I don’t buy it
An 800 year lag from the time temperatures rise…..until CO2 starts to rise
Don’t buy it at all……………….
and trying to spin it to make it sound like I said biology caused the rise in CO2 is lame……
Slioch:
At August 15, 2011 at 11:30 am you say:
“The difference between what is happening now with respect to rate of change of atmospheric CO2 and ANYTHING that has happened in the last 800,000 years for which we have ice core evidence is staggering.
[snip]
That fact alone – in the absence of any other evidence – provides a very strong reason for concluding that the current rate is anthropogenic.”
NO! That fact alone – in the absence of any other evidence – provides a very strong reason for concluding that the ice core data are wrong and the stomata data are right.
But, considering other evidence (e.g. Beck’ data) indicates that both the ice core data and the stomata data cannot be used to compare to modern measurements such as those obtained from Mauna Loa.
Please try not to post blatant nonsense.
Richard
“sorry….I don’t buy it
An 800 year lag from the time temperatures rise…..until CO2 starts to rise
Don’t buy it at all……………….”
You’ve proposed no *reason* that there shouldn’t have been a lag, other than “I don’t buy it”. Can you do better than that?
“and trying to spin it to make it sound like I said biology caused the rise in CO2 is lame……”
You said so explicitly. Pretending that you didn’t write what you wrote is what’s lame. And you ducked my question: When were CO2 levels reduced quickly (by quickly I mean at a rate near the rate of increase over the last 150 years)? There were periods of slow falling, caused by the oceans becoming a carbon sink and absorbing carbon dioxide. There are no records of a precipitous fall in CO2.
The ice core record shows no change in CO2 levels (of either sign) anywhere near as fast as the increase we’ve had in the last 150 years. For instance, in the last thousand years, CO2 levels at the height of the MWP and the low of the LIA were separated by about ten ppmv. What changed in the last 150 years that could explain the recent rise? You claimed it was biology (plants), though you can’t seem to formulate an actual argument for how it explains recent trends (or past ones either). Care to take a shot at it?
Robert Murphy says:
August 15, 2011 at 12:19 pm
You’ve proposed no *reason* that there shouldn’t have been a lag, other than “I don’t buy it”. Can you do better than that?
“and trying to spin it to make it sound like I said biology caused the rise in CO2 is lame……”
You said so explicitly. Pretending that you didn’t write what you wrote is what’s lame
==================================================================
Robert, you act like other people can’t read……
………I said explicitly
“…the operative word is “reduced”
No matter how high CO2 levels were in the past, even in the thousands ppm, they went down.
Rapidly……….
======================================================================
Robert Murphy says: You’ve proposed no *reason* that there shouldn’t have been a lag, other than “I don’t buy it”. Can you do better than that?
=======================================================================
“There is an instant plant/phyto/biological response when CO2 levels start to rise…
….that rapid response does not slow down until something else becomes limiting”
“rotfl….. and every pot head has to wait 800 years for their pot plants to grow faster”
“Robert, there is an immediate response when CO2 levels are elevated in green houses, plankton cultures, bacteria cultures, diatom cultures, aquariums, algae cultures, etc etc”
“Of course plants, bacteria, etc are the primary consumers of CO2.”
Richard S Courtney August 15, 2011 at 1:55 am and August 15, 2011 at 12:04 pm
I am prepared to discuss matters with people who at least are prepared to accept well-established evidence, even if they do not understand it. You are unable to accept any evidence that conflicts with your delusions, even to the extent on having to depend upon ludicrous nonsense such as Beck’s CO2 misinformation.
I really can see no point in responding to you.
“Robert, you act like other people can’t read……
………I said explicitly
“…the operative word is “reduced””
And your explanation was biology. Again, you said:
“When you reverse engineer it…..come at it the other way…and start questioning why CO2 levels were so high, and were reduced so fast
…..it becomes clearer…..it’s biology”
Biology is being promoted as the answer as to “why CO2 levels were so high, and were reduced so fast”; it was supposed to answer *both* increases and decreases. Stop pretending you didn’t write what you wrote.
Since the issue of the thread is the recent rise in CO2, there would be no reason to bring up biological causes for a reduction in CO2 in the deep past if you didn’t also think that there was a biological cause for the recent rapid rise in CO2.
“No matter how high CO2 levels were in the past, even in the thousands ppm, they went down.
Rapidly……….”
Not even close to as fast as the rate of increase we’ve had the last 150 years. You’re talking about changes that took place over millions of years. And it has been many millions of years since those changes in CO2 levels had a biological cause. Plants and photosynthesis have been around for a very long time.
““There is an instant plant/phyto/biological response when CO2 levels start to rise…
….that rapid response does not slow down until something else becomes limiting””
This has nothing to do with the documented lag in CO2 to temperature change.
““rotfl….. and every pot head has to wait 800 years for their pot plants to grow faster””
Still, nothing to do with the documented lag in CO2 response to temperature changes.
““Robert, there is an immediate response when CO2 levels are elevated in green houses, plankton cultures, bacteria cultures, diatom cultures, aquariums, algae cultures, etc etc””
Again, nothing to do with the documented lag in CO2 response to temperature changes.
“Of course plants, bacteria, etc are the primary consumers of CO2.”
Of no relevance to the documented lag in CO2 response to temperature changes.
Now, try again and explain WHY those above points are supposed to preclude a lag in CO2 response to temperature change. You have as yet not formulated an argument. You have to show how this response by plants to an increase in CO2 (there is slight growth in plant biomass if CO2 is the limiting factor) means that CO2 is not outgassed by the oceans slowly when temps go up, causing a lag in response.
Robert, I deeply apologize for confusing you so badly………………………
“Robert, I deeply apologize for confusing you so badly”
I’m not the one confused. I’m just waiting for you to actually make an argument.
HenryP says:
August 14, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Henry@DesertYote
Assuming average water vapour is 0.5%, CO2 is 0.04% and the rest is 0.02, then we find that the increase of 0.01% in CO2 of the past 50 years is ca. 0.01/0.55 x 100= 1.8%
But now, oxygen also absorbs in the 14-15 region……
No it does not!
This could account for a large part of earth’s missing 14-15 radiation as the oxygen content in the atmosphere is almost 21%. It is a very weak absorption but nonetheless it is there. This makes your formula or any attempt to a formula a bit futile.
There is no AGW or CAGW literature I could find that even acknowledges that oxygen has this (weak) absorption or even that it is a GHG.
The reason for that of course is that it is not true.
Smokey says:
August 13, 2011 at 9:27 pm
We are currently 800 ±200 years after the MWP, therefore a part of the increased CO2 is due to ocean outgassing. You have no credible answer as to where global CO2 levels would otherwise be one way or another. None. You’re just outgassing baseless speculation – your hallmark.
More nonsense from the Smokey bot! Who is apparently unaware that CO2 in the ocean is going up, hardly consistent with outgassing, The rise in CO2 levels in the atmosphere is slower than the rate of direct emissions from fossil fuel combustion into the atmosphere and that the O2 level in the atmosphere is decreasing at a rate consistent with that CO2 emission. The 800 year lag canard doesn’t explain anything because it’s inconsistent with Henry’s Law since the CO2 partial pressure in the atmosphere is increasing independently and therefore the oceans are absorbing more CO2 from the atmosphere.
HenryP August 15, 2011 at 8:51 am
“If you want the Easter Island data, you have to give me an address? (remember you will get 12 Xcell files, one for each month of the year, going back in time)”
So, the information is only available from your own website and not available on a publicly available site? That is unacceptable.
Why can you not provide urls to the publicly available data?
Slioch:
At August 15, 2011 at 12:51 pm you say to me:
“I really can see no point in responding to you.”
Of course you can’t.
At August 15, 2011 at 1:55 am and August 15, 2011 at 11:30 am you posted nonsense (as you ofen do).
At August 15, 2011 at 1:55 am and August 15, 2011 at 12:04 pm I pointed out how and why your posts are nonsense (as I often have).
At August 15, 2011 at 12:51 pm you have run away whining (as you usually do).
It seems you never change.
Richard
Ah, the Phil.bot returns. No problema, I shall dispatch his “canard” canard with a peer reviewed paper and a few charts☺:
http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf [slow to load]
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/ice-core-graph
http://members.shaw.ca/sch25/FOS/CaillonTermIII%203.jpg
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Vostok-CO2.png
http://www.brighton73.freeserve.co.uk/gw/paleo/400000yearslarge.gif
Ice cores don’t lie. CO2 follows temperature by roughly 800 ±200 years – which is about the time lag since the MWP.
Of course, human emissions also conteribute to CO2 levels, and that’s a good thing. Because the biosphere is starved of atmospheric “carbon”. More CO2 is better. So relax, there’s no problem.
“Ice cores don’t lie. CO2 follows temperature by roughly 800 ±200 years – which is about the time lag since the MWP.”
Except that the temperature increase during the MWP was not big enough or nearly long enough to explain the current rise in CO2. The paper you linked to (which was quite good) said the following:
“This sequence of events is still in full agreement with the idea that CO2 plays,
through its greenhouse effect, a key role in amplifying the initial orbital forcing. First, the
800-year time lag is short in comparison with the total duration of the temperature and CO2
increases (5000 years). Second, the CO2 increase clearly precedes the Northern Hemisphere
deglaciation (Fig. 3).”
The lag in the ice core data is a lag with SH temperature, not global temps (this has to due to the nature of the insolation changes from Milankovitch cycles). The NH warmed *after* the rise in CO2 started. Also, the temperature rises that caused these increases lasted about 5K years, which gave the oceans enough time to outgas about as much CO2 to cause the same increase in CO2 that we have witnessed over the last 150 years (from a little under 200 ppmv to about 300 ppmv). Even with all that time to outgas CO2, CO2 levels never went above 300 ppmv in the ice core record. It is now over 390 ppmv. It just happened to go up right when we started releasing the trapped carbon from fossil fuels that had been out of the carbon cycle for hundreds of millions of years. Just a coincidence. Riiight.
There is no way the MWP could be causing the current rise in CO2. Compared to the temperature changes when going from glacial to interglacial (6-7C), the MWP was tiny. How could such a short term (a few hundred years) and weak warming (in comparison to the glacial interglacial swings) cause CO2 to rise almost 100 ppmv above the highest level attained in the ice core data that goes back at least 400,000 years? It makes no sense. Besides, we can already see the change that the MWP had on CO2 by looking at the ice cores – during the height of the MWP CO2 was about 10 ppmv higher than during the height of the LIA.
So, Robert, are you saying the ice cores are lying? You can see that CO2 increases lag temperature rises.
And the fact is that there’s no evidence of any global harm from increased CO2. But there is lots of evidence of beneficial effects. Therefore, CO2 is harmless, and beneficial. QED.
“So, Robert, are you saying the ice cores are lying? You can see that CO2 increases lag temperature rises.”
Did you even read my post? I *said* they did; at least CO2 lags SH temperature rises in the ice core record. CO2 rise *precedes* NH deglaciation in the ice core record, as your link affirms. The point is the temperature increases they are talking about lasted about 5K years and are far stronger than the MWP was, which is why they are capable of releasing as much CO2 as they did (close to 100 ppmv) while the MWP only added about 5 ppmv of CO2. It was short lived ( a few hundred years) and about .4C or so in magnitude. Every small, short term increase (or decrease) in temperature does not have an 800 year lag in CO2 outgassing from the oceans.
You have yet to explain how such a small temperature change (the MWP) can have had such a large delayed effect on CO2 levels when far larger, sustained temperature changes (going from glacial to interglacial), changes that are an order of magnitude bigger than the MWP, never sent CO2 levels about 300 ppmv. Remember, the ice cores don’t lie – the MWP cannot possibly be the cause of the current rise in CO2.
Robert Murphy says:
“…the MWP… was short lived ( a few hundred years) and about .4C or so in magnitude.”
Your “.4C in magnitude” has no reference point. Did that number come from Skeptical Pseudo-Science? I’m always a little suspicious when someone tries to pretend the MWP was just a tiny blip. Michael Mann tried that, and was totally debunked.
Actually, the MWP was about 3°C warmer than the LIA. And since the current global T is only about 0.7° – 0.8° warmer than the LIA, it’s clear that the MWP was a couple of degrees warmer than today.
But it really doesn’t matter, sinc CO2 is both harmless and beneficial.
“Your “.4C in magnitude” has no reference point.”
Look at any temperature reconstruction for the last 2,000 years. The increase from the MWP was not even close to the increase that occurred when we left the last glacial period and entered the current interglacial. About an order of magnitude smaller.
“Actually, the MWP was about 3°C warmer than the LIA.”
Absolute nonsense! But lets go with that number anyway. The change from glacial to interglacial was about 6-7C, and this warming was sustained for about 5K years. Yet it never pushed CO2 up over 300 ppmv. Yet you want us to believe that the MWP, lasting a few hundred years and half the magnitude (again, that 3C number is absolute nonsense; I’m going with it to show that even using your own number your argument makes no sense) of the rise from glacial to interglacial somehow was capable of pushing CO2 levels over 90 ppmv above what it was at any time in the ice core record going back hundreds of thousands of years. (In order for your claim to make any sense, the MWP would have to have been warmer than any time in the last 400,000 years, and have lasted longer) And that this increase in CO2 was somehow delayed by about 800 years and just happened to coincide with our burning of fossil fuels and the release of carbon that had been locked out of the carbon cycle for hundreds of millions of years. All while the oceans are now a carbon sink (they are gaining CO2), not a carbon source (where did all the carbon we released go if not in the atmosphere and the oceans? Plant biomass has not changed much). That’s magical thinking. Remember, the ice cores don’t lie. The MWP could not possibly be the source of the CO2 rise of the last 150 years.
BTW, your link to the Jonova graph is wrong. The last year that the GISP2 ice core data records is 1855. The “present” in the “before present” is 1950 (by convention), and the first usable layer dates back 95 years “before present”. This was affirmed by Richard Alley, who is the one who actually worked with the data (his name is even on Jonova’s graph). Or you can just look at the raw data:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
Note the first usable layer was from 0.0951409K years before present (1950). All the graph shows is that temps in Greenland were warmer than they were in 1855 for most of the last 10,000 years.
And remember Greenland, lovely place that it is, is not the world. In order to show the globe was warmer then than now, you have to show the different warming periods to be mostly synchronous. This you cannot do, as they weren’t.
Oh, and if the MWP was responsible for over 100 ppmv of CO2 increase over the last 150 years, why did the RWP or the Minoan warm period, both of which were of greater magnitude than the MWP (as your graph shows, however off it is in its end year) not cause anything more than a little ripple in the CO2 ice core data? What was so special about the MWP?
Robert Murphy says:
“Look at any temperature reconstruction for the last 2,000 years. The increase from the MWP was not even close to the increase that occurred when we left the last glacial period and entered the current interglacial.”
Robert, you’re conflating the Holocene with the last great stadial, which ended more than 10 millennia ago, not 2,000 years ago. Your comment above mixes them both together. And you still have not explained where your “.4C” number came from.
I linked to a chart in my post above showing that, in fact, there was a ≈3°C ΔT between the LIA and the MWP. Your response: “Absolute nonsense!” So, how can I debate with someone who has not got his facts remotely correct, and who preposterously claims, against solid empirical evidence, that the MWP T rise was only 0.4°C?? There is ample evidence from both hemispheres showing the magnitude of the MWP. Mann tried to claim it was only a minor warming, and he was so badly debunked that Nature was forced to issue a rare formal Correction to MBH98.
This slide show puts today’s extremely minor natural climate variability in perspective: click
The time period in question is the Holocene. As you can see, we are currently well within its historical parameters. CO2 is not causing the predicted global harm. In fact, there is no evidence of any global damage from CO2. If you think there is, produce testable, empirical evidence, per the scientific method. No models, please; models are not evidence.
Frank White said;
“However the statements presented as premises here do not seem to me to be founded in physical science. First, scientists are not saying that CO2 adds energy to the environment.”
Well in fact so of them do describe the “GHE” as being the cause of “net energy gains” and/or “extra energy”. Perhaps some usage of these terms is from bloggers, but I have indeed seen the “net energy gain” explanation quoted by someone who claimed to be a scientist in the field of climate studies. This does indeed violate the first law of thermodynamics.
Frank also said;
“What they are saying is that some energy that would be reflected back into space cannot be reflected back because the wavelength changes upon contact. Consequently, while the window is more or less clear for incoming energy, CO2 acts like a curtain for reflected energy and the thicker the curtain the more energy is retained and not reflected back into space.”
Yes I do understand this concept, but I do not agree with it. A few specific points;
“some energy that would be reflected back into space cannot be reflected back because the wavelength changes upon contact”
Yes the wavelength changes, but this change in wavelength does not prevent the energy from being “reflected back” (I prefer the term “emitted towards space”. It only changes the speed at which the energy leaves. If in fact no radiation in CO2 absorption band could ever leave (a totally opaque band in the atmosphere) the surface would just warm by a slight amount and the spectrum would shift to lower wavelengths were the opaque condition does not exist. Thus the energy would still depart for the cold vacuum of space after a slight delay.
“and the thicker the curtain the more energy is retained”
Again, it is impossible to “retain”, ”trap”, ”hold”, “store”, “ensnare”, “shut in”, “confine” or “block” the flow of heat through any system. It is only possible to change the speed at which the heat flows through the system.
Engineers do this by selecting materials with a speed of heat that accomplishes the desired goal within the cost allowed. For example most PC computers use an aluminum heat sink; aluminum is an affordable material with a relatively high speed of heat. For higher performance systems copper is used with an additional cost increase. For even higher performance systems synthetic diamond (an evil carbon based pollutant, wink) is used. Also in some systems heat pipes are employed even though they are costly and require very careful handling.
On the other side of the coin when it is desired to slow the flow of heat (to reduce the consumption of “fossil” fuels) insulators are employed. Everybody is probably quite aware of the fiberglass (aka pink batts) or asbestos (no longer used), but there are also “super” insulators like Aerogel. If anything could be accused of “trapping heat” Aerogel would be the likely culprit, however even though it has remarkable insulating properties it is not capable of “trapping” heat.
So the effect of the “GHE” is to change the response time of the gases in the atmosphere to changes in the incoming energy (i.e. sunrise and sunset). I posit that this change is so small they we probably never afford to measure it. The existing temperature databases (even after being water boarded until they confessed (under duress) to AGW) do not contain the necessary data.
Cheers, Kevin.
@Robert Murphy, Siloch, and anyone else carrying on about “ice core evidence” or “ice cores don’t lie” and so on, while trying to claim that CO2 has never been higher or never risen as fast, etc…
We don’t have any ice core evidence. We have ice core data and ice core proxy estimations. Until you have reasonably reliable and robust instrumental data for CO2 levels, all taken fairly close to the actual ice core site, and going back far enough such that the instrumental data can be directly compared to the ice core results at a significant number of corresponding depths, there is no way to accurately calibrate the proxy. Obviously we’ve nowhere near the required instrumental data history to accomplish that.
So we have a fair amount of what is probably good science investigating ice cores and the associated quite complex chemistry and physical processes, etc., and a lot of continuing work along those lines. However, there is quite simply no way to be able to tell how accurate or inaccurate estimates of CO2 levels in the ice were compared to actual levels in the atmosphere at various historical time periods. We can say with far more confidence that typically temperatures rose first and CO2 lagged by roughly 800 years plus/minus varying amounts, because here the comparision is between values from roughly the same depth ice, incorporated during roughly the same time periods, which are then compared to each other (e.g., not nearly the need for calibration that comparison to present day values requires).
So the simple fact is that ice core data cannot provide any scientific proof or evidence that CO2 levels never got higher than xyz during previous historical warm periods such as the MWP, Holocene Optimum, etc., let alone going back to previous interglacials. Sure, the ice core proxy estimates are worth noting and keeping in mind – and even using as indicators in your arguments provided you portray them accurately – but they simply don’t prove your point, not even close.
Here’s a link to a comment on the story in Scientific American:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/degrees-of-freedom/2011/08/11/fox-commentator-distorts-physics/
Slioch says:
So, the information is only available from your own website and not available on a publicly available site? That is unacceptable.
Why can you not provide urls to the publicly available data?
Henry@Slioch
The data is available to the public
I just wanted to help you as I have them already sorted out in Excell, to determine the trend over time. But seeing as you don’t trust me,
you can collect the data for Easter Island yourself
here is the url:
http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/Isla_De_Pascua/854690.htm
(isla de pascua translates to Easter Island)
and if you can do a bit of stats you should get the same results as I did.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
Let me know.
Phil. says:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/12/bastardi-science-and-reality-point-away-not-toward-co2-as-climate-driver/#comment-720235
Hi Phil.? How are you? I remember last time we argued you could not get out of your home because it was snowed under. I hope it is going better now?
You say: “No it does not”
Don’t trust everything that you read in Wikipedia about the oxygen and nitrogen.
Have you studied the combined atmospheric absorption graphs? there is a bump over a wide wavelength area on the right hand side which is caused by the oxygen. It (the depth) is small, but like I said, it is there and the % of oxygen in the air is a lot. The back radiation from that is probably many times larger than that caused by the combined CO2 and H2O at the 14-15 um.
Anyway, I think last time we still disagreed on the principle of the green house effect and how re-radiation works. I have written it up now, seeing that this argument always comes back. Let us first see now if we are agreed on the mechanism of the greenhouse effect and the principle of re-radiation (as I see it happening)? I would appreciate to hear your opinion on it.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Robert Murphy has done a good job, with extraordinary patience, explaining, inter alia, why the MWP cannot possibly be the cause of the present rapid rise in in atmospheric CO2 and I have added a few posts giving evidence that overwhelmingly supports the inevitable rational conclusion that humans are solely responsible for that present rise. The only resort for those who refuse to believe this conclusion, has been obfuscation and denial (embellished with the occasional personal insult from Richard Courtney).
PS to Rational Debate: the CO2 measurements from ice-cores are not derived from proxies, they are from measurements of the CO2 itself. In contrast, temperature measurements from ice cores are, of course. from proxies.
@ HenryP :
August 14, 2011 at 9:01 am
The formula is
λmax T = 2.898 x10-3 m K
so at -80C=193.15K the the peak wavelength is 15003nm, or else 15 microns
and -39C would be 12.37 microns, though this isn’t part of the c02 abbsorbtion bands for radiation. It would need to be much cooler, starting at 14 microns
“Robert, you’re conflating the Holocene with the last great stadial, which ended more than 10 millennia ago, not 2,000 years ago.”
No I’m not. I’m talking about the entire ice core, and the evidence it shows about CO2 levels over the last 400,00 years. If the ice cores show changes in temp that far exceed anything we have seen during the Holocene, and yet CO2 levels never went over 300 ppmv in the whole ice core record, the claim that a minor warming like the MWP somehow pushed CO2 levels to 390 ppmv is shown to be nonsense. Why do you want to ignore the entire record? As you said, the ice core doesn’t lie.
” And you still have not explained where your “.4C” number came from.”
From reconstruction’s of temperature for the last 2,000 years (more than just one ice sore in Greenland). The entire range of temps globally during that time is less than 1C (up to the 20th century).
“I linked to a chart in my post above showing that, in fact, there was a ≈3°C ΔT between the LIA and the MWP. ”
Actually, if you read your own chart, it said that Greenland was 1.5C warmer in the MWP height than the LIA depth, not 3C. The range was -32C to -30.5C. But that’s just one core, in one place. That’s not a proxy for the whole globe. Globally the warming was smaller.
“This slide show puts today’s extremely minor natural climate variability in perspective:”
That’s the same thing as the Jo Nova link above; the end point is “not” our present. It is 1855. Look at your Jo Nova link; even though the graph incorrectly says (Years Before Present 2000 AD), if you look at the numbers on the x-axis it ends at 95. As in 95 years before present. And present, by geological convention, is 1950. The graphs you posted are intentionally misleading. Again, here’s the data for the GISP2 ice core:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
“The time period in question is the Holocene.”
No, the period in question is the entire ice core. But I’ll play along. Let’s confine it to the Holocene. During the Holocene, the MWP is just a minor warming compared to other earlier events like the Minoan Warming or the RWP, or the earlier Holocene optimum. None of those shows up as more than a blip in the CO2 data. You want us to believe a smaller warming like the MWP caused a greater change in CO2 than them? Than the change in temps going from glacial to interglacial? How? Why? Why would the MWP produce such an increase in CO2 when the other bigger warmings didn’t?
“We don’t have any ice core evidence. We have ice core data and ice core proxy estimations.”
“Rational” debate is always easier when you get to hand wave away all the inconvenient evidence. Must come in handy.
Henry@Slioch
More carbondioxide is better for the environment. It is added to greenhouses not for keeping heat in but to stimulate growth. You get more greenery and better crops and bigger forests. It is like fertilizer born by air. A recent study by an Helsinki university found that of 70 countries checked, 45 reported more forests and greenery. Why is that you think?
And, as I have proven to you, it does not cause any global warming. Did you check my values for Easter Island??
So who cares why it gets more or who dunnit?
let us just be happy about it .
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Rational Debate:
re: your post at August 15, 2011 at 7:58 pm
Yes! Thankyou.
But you are pointing out fact and reality. Sadly, fact and reality do not interest the trolls who are promoting their beliefs and imaginations.
Richard
Henry@P.Wilson
I am still puzzzled about it.
from short to long the wavelengths (measured in um- microns) go like this : X-ray – UV – Visible – near Infra Red – Infra Red – microwave –
What I can feel on my skin is that it (the radiation) gets hotter as the wavelength increases. Do you agree with me on this? So how can you get to -80C for 15 um. That type of radiation would freeze me up?
There is an inverse way of describing wavelength (wave number) but I cannot remember exactly how that works anymore. Something like per cm, cm-1
the shorter the wavelength, the greater the frequency energy of radiation, so supposing its 27C where you are. That radiation operates with a peak wavelength of 9.65 microns, which is shorter than 15 microns. 10 microns is 14C – the average temperature that climatologists say the earth is, though there are extremes at the poles and the tropics.
Long wave radiation has a greater distances and is cooler, that’s why its long wave, and where c02 is at its most active at interacting with radiation, then yes, you would be freezing. c02 is invisible to radiation at ground level upwards until temperatures are cold enough in the upper troposphere to coincide
Smokey says:
August 15, 2011 at 6:02 pm
Robert Murphy says:
“…the MWP… was short lived ( a few hundred years) and about .4C or so in magnitude.”
Your “.4C in magnitude” has no reference point. Did that number come from Skeptical Pseudo-Science? I’m always a little suspicious when someone tries to pretend the MWP was just a tiny blip. Michael Mann tried that, and was totally debunked.
Actually, the MWP was about 3°C warmer than the LIA. And since the current global T is only about 0.7° – 0.8° warmer than the LIA, it’s clear that the MWP was a couple of degrees warmer than today.
But it really doesn’t matter, sinc CO2 is both harmless and beneficial.
—-
Seems like you’re a bit confused Smokey. You use a graph on Greenland to show it was 3 degrees warmer there during the MWP. Then you say it’s only 0.7-0.8 degrees warmer globally today than the LIA to somehow illustrate that the MWP was warmer than today. You’re compaing a local temperature change to a global one. Cherry picking at it’s best!
Please try harder.
Slioch:
Thankyou for the laughs you gave me at August 15, 2011 at 11:32 pm.
First laugh, you assert:
“Robert Murphy has done a good job, with extraordinary patience, explaining, inter alia, why the MWP cannot possibly be the cause of the present rapid rise in in atmospheric CO2”
No, Robert Murphy used the ice core data as though it were calibrated measurement results. But, as Rational Debate explained at August 15, 2011 at 7:58 pm, such use is plain wrong.
Second laugh, you claim:
“I have added a few posts giving evidence that overwhelmingly supports the inevitable rational conclusion that humans are solely responsible for that present rise.”
No, you posted risible nonsense at August 15, 2011 at 1:55 am and August 15, 2011 at 11:30 am, and I pointed out how and why your posts are nonsense at August 15, 2011 at 1:55 am and August 15, 2011 at 12:04 pm.
And you add to that nonsense when you write:
“PS to Rational Debate: the CO2 measurements from ice-cores are not derived from proxies, they are from measurements of the CO2 itself. In contrast, temperature measurements from ice cores are, of course. from proxies.”
Say what!?
Even the IPCC says the firn takes 83 years to solidify to form sealed ice so, at best,
the CO2 data are proxies for an average of the atmospheric CO2 concentration over 83 years. Divide the rise in claimed atmospheric CO2 concentration from its purported pre-industrial level (i.e. 280 ppmv) to its present level (i.e. 390 ppmv) and you get less than 2 ppmv which is too small for the ice core data to show it. Indeed, say the true rise has been distributed linearly over the last 300 years since the depths of the LIA, then the rise recorded in the ice cores for the first and 83 years would be only 36 ppmv and for the first 160 years would be 72 ppmv which is similar to rises frequently recorded in the ice cores.
And the ice core data are not the only proxies. The stomata data also exist.
The leaves of plants adjust the sizes of their stomata with changing atmospheric CO2 concentration and this permits the determination of past atmospheric CO2 concentrations by analysis of leaves preserved, for example, in peat bogs. Their disagreement with the ice core data is clearly seen in all published studies of the stomata data. For example, as early as 1999 Wagner reported that studies of birch leaves indicated a rapid rise of atmospheric CO2 concentration from 260 to 327 ppmv (which is similar to the rise in the twentieth century) from late Glacial to Holocene conditions. This ancient rise of 67 ppmv in atmospheric CO2 concentration is indicated by the stomata data at a time when the ice core data indicate only 20 ppmv rise.
(refs. Retallack G, Nature vol. 411 287 (2001),
Wagener F, et al. Virtual Journal Geobiology, vol.3. Issue 9, Section 2B (2004),
Kouenberg et al. American Journal of Botany, 90, pp 610-619 (2003),
Wagner F et al. Science vol. 284 p 92 (1999)).
You and Robert Murphy would get very different results if you were to repeat your estimates using stomata data instead of ice core data.
I am laughing aloud as my mind is filled with the image of your eyes closed, your fingers in your ears, and your mouth shouting, “The truth must not be heard! The truth must not be heard! The …”
Third laugh, you say:
“The only resort for those who refuse to believe this conclusion, has been obfuscation and denial (embellished with the occasional personal insult from Richard Courtney).”
Now that really is funny!
I and others provide clear and undeniable evidence and you say it is “obfuscation”.
For example, at August 15, 2011 at 1:38 am I wrote:
“In this and the other thread I have repeatedly pointed out that the observed dynamics of the seasonal variation indicate that the dynamics of the short-term sequestration processes can easilly sequester ALL of the anthropogenic and natural emission in each year. But they don’t.
This is direct empirical evidence that the system is not being overloaded by the anthropogenic emission such that about half the anthropogenic emission is accumulating in the air.”
You ignore all such evidence, put your fingers in your ears and shout “Lah! Lah! Lah!”
And your first response to my reasoned and factual points was an insult and nothing else. It was at August 15, 2011 at 12:51 pm and said, in total:
“Richard S Courtney August 15, 2011 at 1:55 am and August 15, 2011 at 12:04 pm
I am prepared to discuss matters with people who at least are prepared to accept well-established evidence, even if they do not understand it. You are unable to accept any evidence that conflicts with your delusions, even to the extent on having to depend upon ludicrous nonsense such as Beck’s CO2 misinformation.
I really can see no point in responding to you.”
In the light of the above, I would welcome you telling me how I could “insult” you because I fail to understand how it is possible.
Richard
Henry. When you write: “What I can feel on my skin is that it (the radiation) gets hotter as the wavelength increases.”
the wavelength frequency increases – ie, it gets shorter
“You and Robert Murphy would get very different results if you were to repeat your estimates using stomata data instead of ice core data.”
Sure. Stomata data are indirect measurements and less precise than ice core data, which measure the actual CO2 in bubbles trapped in ice core layers. The stomata data widely varies from study to study; it’s OK for very large resolutions but breaks down under the type of fine resolution information we are concerned with. The stomata data is just far too noisy to be preferred over the ice core data.
The crux of the runaway global warming debate is this: will an increase in CO2 cause climate catastrophe?
The answer, based on empirical evidence, is an emphatic “No.” There is nothing unusual about the current climate, despite a 40% increase in “carbon”. Real world evidence shows that the increase in CO2 doesn’t matter at all; there is no global harm resulting from more CO2.
The alarmist crowd refuses to accept that fact. Cognitive dissonance explains their belief system; in Orwell’s term: doublethink. They truly believe that more of a harmless and beneficial minuscule trace gas will cause climate disruption. But they have no evidence to support their belief.
And the fact is that rises in CO2 always follow rises in temperature, on time scales from months to hundreds of millennia. Effect cannot precede cause. Thus, temperature controls CO2 levels, not vice-versa.
Rational Debate: good post, thanks.
“And the fact is that rises in CO2 always follow rises in temperature…”
The ice core data says otherwise. The warming in the SH came before the rise in CO2, but the rise in CO2 came *before* the warming in the NH. The paper you linked to above confirmed this. And of course, that is moot since we are pumping CO2 that had been locked out of the carbon cycle for hundreds of millions of years in the form of fossil fuels. There’s more than one way to increase atmospheric CO2.
“Effect cannot precede cause.”
There’s more than once cause of CO2 changes.
“on time scales from months to hundreds of millennia.”
Wait, you just said before that there was a lag of 800 years. Now there isn’t? Want to rethink that?
“The crux of the runaway global warming debate is this…”
The warming will not be runaway, and is not predicted to be runaway. Read the IPCC reports; you will not find predictions of runaway warming.
Robert Murphy:
At August 16, 2011 at 4:22 am you reply to my correct statement saying:
“You and Robert Murphy would get very different results if you were to repeat your estimates using stomata data instead of ice core data.”
By asserting:
“Sure. Stomata data are indirect measurements and less precise than ice core data, which measure the actual CO2 in bubbles trapped in ice core layers. The stomata data widely varies from study to study; it’s OK for very large resolutions but breaks down under the type of fine resolution information we are concerned with. The stomata data is just far too noisy to be preferred over the ice core data.”
Firstly, and for clarity, I do not agree the ice core or the stomata data are definitive (as I have repeatedly stated on WUWT and elsewhere).
But you and Slioch choose to accept the ice core data and to reject he stomata data merely because the ice core data can be used to support your contention.
The important issue is NOT whether one can measure “the actual CO2 in bubbles trapped in ice core layers”. It is what those measurements indicate.
You assert that those measurements indicate atmospheric CO2 concentration at the time a layer of ice formed. But that is not known, cannot be known, and is very probably not true. Indeed, as I said, according to the IPCC the ice takes ~83 years to solidify so – at best – the trapped ice represents an average of the atmospheric CO2 concentration over 83 years.
Of course, the ice core data is not “noisy”. Apply 83-year smoothing to anything and it will be near constant. Indeed, only very large changes sustained over centuries would be determinable, and rapid rates of changes would be undetectable. As you say, the stomata data show much more variability and that fact alone proves the superiortity of stomata data over ice core data (which is the direct opposite of your assertion).
This effect of closure time is only one of several problems with the ice core data.
Another of the many problems is that it is not possible to calibrate the method because nobody has a time machine and conduct of a single calibration test in the present would take at least 83 years. So, the ice core method can only be assumed (n.b. not demonstrated) to represent atmospheric CO2 concentration, and that assumption is very implausible.
But the issue of calibration does not exist for the stomata data because the method has been calibrated by laboratory experiment.
So, in principle, the stomata data is superior to the ice core data because the stomata method has been calibrated but the ice core method cannot be calibrated as an indicator of past atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Slioch goes further than you and asserts that “the ice core data are not proxies”. That merely demonstrates he is as ignorant of measurement theory as he is of climate,so I will not bother to refute it exept to point out that a measurement device (e.g. a thermometer or an ice core) is a proxy (i.e. not a direct indicator) unless it has been individually calibrated. Ice core and stomata data are both proxies because the measued cores and the measure (preserved) leaves are not individually calibrated.
In conclusion, your arguments are completely invalid because they are based on the demonstrably wrong assumption that ice core data provides a direct indication of past atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
Richard
“But you and Slioch choose to accept the ice core data and to reject he stomata data merely because the ice core data can be used to support your contention.”
No, I clearly stated I rejected the use of the stomata data for the timescales in question because their resolution is a lot lower than the ice core data’s. The stomata data is a nice, independent, low resolution support for the overall ice core CO2 numbers. The error bars on the stomata data however are about +/- 50 ppmv, which makes them unsuitable for present purposes. That’s just the facts. You can choose to accept or deny them at your own peril. Not my concern either way.
Smokey says:
August 16, 2011 at 4:30 am
Real world evidence shows that the increase in CO2 doesn’t matter at all; there is no global harm resulting from more CO2.
——-
You always bring up that argument, but what do you mean by global harm? harm to what? what do you mean by harm?
Robert Murphy:
I fail to understand why you provided your post at August 16, 2011 at 6:01 am. It completely ignores the contents of my post at August 16, 2011 at 5:38 am and repeats an assertion that my post had refuted; viz. you repeat:
“I clearly stated I rejected the use of the stomata data for the timescales in question because their resolution is a lot lower than the ice core data’s.”
As I explained (twice) the resolution of the ice core data is much less than that of e.g. stomata data because of the closure time of the ice.
Your repetition of your error does not alter the fact that it is an error. It merely proves to others that you are choosing to believe the ice core data says what it cannot say because that fits with what you want to assert.
Perhaps you are fooling yourself, but you are not fooling anybody who does not want to be fooled.
Richard
HenryP
Thanks for the link to the Easter Island data – they provide daily weather information (temperature, rainfall, wind-speed etc) since 1965.
However, you haven’t explained how the figures in your charts are derived. You say “I am able to provide these files of every black figure on the table.”.
OK, so lets take a particular ‘black figure’ and ask you to show how you have calculated it.
In your MINIMA table for Easter Island for January you give a figure of -0.005C/yr.
Please show how that is derived.
BTW, I don’t think you have responded to the recent data I showed you (Slioch
August 15, 2011 at 6:59 am) that confirmed that the minimum temperature figures (from the USA) HAVE been increasing more rapidly than the maxima, something your above work claims to deny.
Listen guys. Tonight when you have a beer or a glass of wine and have your meal,
remember that without the CO2 that would not have been possible. No beer, no wine, no food.
So tonight you all, have one on me!!!
Then we celebrate life and the oxygen (breath) and the carbon dioxide (food) that is there in the air for us to enjoy –
and we laugh ourselves sick when we think of all the people who believe that 0.01% difference in either gas is going to make any difference whatsoever to the climate- or even to the temps. around us (it is very cold here in Pretoria for this time of the year)
and don’t say I did not do my bit to make sure that what I say holds truth
hopefully old Slioch has realised by now how much work is locked in these tables of mine….
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
reply to post by: Slioch says: August 15, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Oh, now Slioch, that is just sad, truly sad! You otter have hung it up a bit earlier and gone to bed before posting this one, as it appears your thought processes had already given up the ghost for the evening. Well, we’ve all fallen into that late night trap at times.
Slioch, by the very definition, using measurements of CO2 in ice as a way to estimate even local CO2 atmospheric levels is using a proxy – from a location that is hardly typical of the average conditions on the plant. Let alone trying to use those measurements as respresentative of global average levels. Let alone using those measurements as representative of global average CO2 levels harking back thousands or tens of thousands of years ago.
Hopefully after you’ve had a cup or two of coffee this morning it will dawn on you that you couldn’t get a better example of a proxy. If not, give these a try: (#4 of course) http://www.allwords.com/word-proxy.html, the notoriously incorrect but too blasted convenient wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_%28climate%29, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Paleoclimatology.aspx, etc.
Of course, any number of factors affect those ice bubble CO2 concentrations, e.g., errors in our estimates of when the ice firmed up enough that the atmosphere could no longer migrate in and out, pressure effects, water chemistry, crystal formations, microbial activity, coring and handling issues, and so on. All of which we can estimate to varying degrees – and very few of which, if any, we can be certain of since we have no way to directly compare to conditions at those exact time periods.
Now as to paleo-temp measurements as you meantioned – Slioch, those arn’t even ‘direct’ proxies – they are proxy estimates made from yet other proxies. In other words, they are proxy’s of proxies. The one advantage is that they’ve got several secondary proxies that are used in combination to get those estimates, which does provide a little extra confidence as compared to a single proxy being used to generate another proxy.
As to the rest of that post… “good job” = highly debatable, as is “overwhelmingly”; inevitable rational conclusion – you mean, such as tectonic plates and continental drift being impossible and absurd, bacteria causing ulcers utterly crazy; contagious most certainly spread by evil humours & not invisible bugs…. all things that I’m sure were, at the time, explained with far more extraordinary patience as to how they couldn’t possibly be, with overwhelming support from the greatest scientific minds of the day, all who were deniers clearly mired in obfuscation and denial solely for personal gain or evil intent of one sort or another.
Are you beginning to get the idea yet?
“As I explained (twice) the resolution of the ice core data is much less than that of e.g. stomata data because of the closure time of the ice.”
That’s simply not true. It’s not even close to being true. It’s not possible to debate people who deny basic facts. So, I leave you to debate someone else.
reply to post where: Robert Murphy says: August 16, 2011 at 2:35 am
It’s this handy little thing called S-C-I-E-N-C-E and A-C-C-U-R-A-C-Y, Robert. You might try it one of these days. As opposed to your unfounded assumptions, wishful thinking, and claims of complete certainty where in fact uncertainty rules the day. For that matter, you might try replying with some substance about the issue being debated, rather than posts that are nothing more than ad hominem attacks.
Richard S Courtney, in parting, I give you the raw data for the GISP2 ice core:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
Note the data points are not separated over 80 something year intervals; they are mostly taken at intervals that represent under ten years. The resolution is quite good. Better than the stomata data, which have error bars of about +/- 50 ppmv.
Henry@Slioch
I have told you before,
I don’t trust any of the data from the UK or the US so I don’t even bother to look at it anymore. Sorry.
It is because the Gibraltar (UK) data must been changed, deliberately.
I checked three neighbouring stations (situated in different countries) and found an average increase of 0.04 degrees C per annum for maxima in that area, yet the Gibraltar data showed it was only 0.01 degrees C per annum.
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/what-hanky-panky-is-going-on-in-the-uk
How can that be?
If you look at the above link you will see how I got the results from the Gibraltar data.
If you want to see how I started my investigations, you could look here:
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/assessment-of-global-warming-and-global-warming-caused-by-greenhouse-forcings-in-pretoria-south-africa
If you specifically want to have the Easter Island results you must give me an e-mail address where I can send you the Excell files.
Some time ago, somebody from Australia queried my results on that obtained for Brisbane. He found a difference. To me, who was doing an objective investigation, it means all AU data are now also compromised. I won’t go back there either.
Amazing.
When I started my investigation, I was convinced we were killing oursleves with all the smoke.
(Al Gored)
When I was busy investigating I started to have some doubts.
When I tested, I was convinced. This whole global warming scare is an inbelievable hoax.
Unfortunately, because so much money is now involved, it seems nobody can stop this hoax.
It has a life of its own.
Richard S Courtney
The chart on the link below illustrates why stomata are not considered as accurate as direct samples of the atmosphere from bubbles in the ice.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/286/5446/1815.full
“As opposed to your unfounded assumptions, wishful thinking, and claims of complete certainty where in fact uncertainty rules the day.”
I never claimed absolute certainty, about anything. No need to make things up. Why did you?
“For that matter, you might try replying with some substance about the issue being debated, rather than posts that are nothing more than ad hominem attacks.”
I did not use ad hominem arguments. I accurately stated you are just disregarding the evidence from the ice core data because it doesn’t suit you. You, on the other hand, have, repeatedly used ad homs on this thread. Pot, kettle.
Again, as I said to another, it’s not possible to have a rational debate with someone who is not capable of accepting basic facts. A little more introspection would do you a world of good. At any rate, I’m done with you.
HenryP August 16, 2011 at 7:32 am
I’m sorry can you rephrase that for me as I don’t quite understand, you say that the Uk data only show an increase of 0.01C/yr compared to 0.04C/yr for Spain and Morocco, and this proves that it is falsified?
I don’t quite follow…
Rational Debate August 16, 2011 at 7:02 am
I think you full well understood to what I was referring with respect to my use of the word proxy – a good case can be made that almost all measurements, other than bean counting and such like, are proxies. But it is useful to be able to distinguish between direct measurement of CO2 and other measurements such as stomata, Ca/B ratios in shells or pH, and it was to that distinction that I referred.
HenryP August 16, 2011 at 7:32 am
says, “I don’t trust any of the data from the UK or the US so I don’t even bother to look at it anymore.”
Well, I think I’ll just leave you in your state of distrust. Good luck.
And you can’t tell us how you obtained the figure of -0.005C/year for the Easter Island table (and by extension any of the other data there). (You say you can tell me privately, but what use is that?)
Steve E and Robert Murphy:
It would help your case if you were to read what I wrote instead of blathering on with unfounded assertions.
Steve E, at August 16, 2011 at 7:33 am you say to me:
“The chart on the link below illustrates why stomata are not considered as accurate as direct samples of the atmosphere from bubbles in the ice.”
But at August 16, 2011 at 5:38 am I wrote:
“Firstly, and for clarity, I do not agree the ice core or the stomata data are definitive (as I have repeatedly stated on WUWT and elsewhere).”
I am NOT claiming that either the ice core or the stomata data are any good. I am claiming they both exist and that the stomata data have much better temporal resolution. I have repeatedly explained that the stomata data resolve for a single (growing) year but the ice core data resolve over decades.
And your chart provides error bars for the stomata data because there are several samples which enable such an estimate. There are no error bars on the ice core data because a single datum does not permit them to be calculated. So, the graph you provide shows exactly the opposite of what you say: It demonstrates why the stomata data are more accurate than the ice core data.
And the precision of the ice core data is completely unknown.
You, Slioch, and Robert Murphy are claiming the ice core data provide information that it is physically impossible for them to provide.
Science does not allow anybody to choose which data to accept without question and which data to ignore because it is inconvenient.
Robert Murphy, of course you can sample ice from a single year. I have repeatedly explained to you that the sample contains air which diffused through layers of the ice in the decades that the ice took to seal (the IPCC says 83 years). Diffusion occurs from regions of high concantration to regions of low concentration and, thus, reduces maxima and minima in the data set.
Please read what I write. Dispute it if you can, but please stop posting silly assertions that are refuted by what I have explained to you.
Richard
Regarding my observation that there is no evidence of global harm from the rise in CO2, SteveE says:
“You always bring up that argument, but what do you mean by global harm? harm to what? what do you mean by harm?”
SteveE, that is my challenge to you and to all other alarmists: show any global harm directly attributable to the rise in CO2. So far all I’ve heard is a cricket chorus.
And Robert Murphy says:
“The warming in the SH came before the rise in CO2, but the rise in CO2 came *before* the warming in the NH.”
Not really, Robert. There is very good correlation between the hemispheres: click
Robert continues:
“…we are pumping CO2 that had been locked out of the carbon cycle for hundreds of millions of years in the form of fossil fuels.”
So? If you can’t show any global harm from an increase in a tiny, beneficial trace gas, then there’s no problem – except in your mind. Is there?
“Not really, Robert. There is very good correlation between the hemispheres”
Of course there is good correlation, but that doesn’t mean both hemispheres started warming at the same time. The paper you posted here said that the CO2 rose before the warming in the NH. Did you read the paper? :
“This sequence of events is still in full agreement with the idea that CO2 plays,
through its greenhouse effect, a key role in amplifying the initial orbital forcing. First, the
800-year time lag is short in comparison with the total duration of the temperature and CO2
increases (5000 years). Second, the CO2 increase clearly precedes the Northern Hemisphere
deglaciation”
http://icebubbles.ucsd.edu/Publications/CaillonTermIII.pdf
You posted that. See that last sentence?
“So? If you can’t show any global harm from an increase in a tiny, beneficial trace gas, then there’s no problem, except in your mind. Is there?”
What does that have to do with the source of the current CO2 rise? Are you now accepting we are responsible for it?
Robert Murphy says:
“What does that have to do with the source of the current CO2 rise? Are you now accepting we are responsible for it?”
Robert, I have never said that human activity doesn’t contribute to atmospheric CO2, so quit playing word games. What I am repeatedly saying is this: The rise in CO2 is harmless and beneficial. If you have a problem with that, trot out some testable evidence showing global harm due specifically to CO2.
The demonization of “carbon” is the purpose of the entire debate, therefore, if CO2 at current and projected concentrations causes no global damage as claimed, then all the arm-waving by the alarmist contingent is meaningless. And if CO2 is harmless, then the next logical step is to promptly stop wasting the immense taxpayer funds being shoveled into the “climate change” scam.
SteveE says
I’m sorry can you rephrase that for me as I don’t quite understand, you say that the Uk data only show an increase of 0.01C/yr compared to 0.04C/yr for Spain and Morocco, and this proves that it is falsified?
Henry@Steve
We are talking about Gibraltar, not England
– Gibraltar (in Spain) is UK territory –
1) I randomly decide to check this station because I think it will give me a good global average
2) I find the maxima (0.01C/yr) not increasing as already established on my global tables
3) I decide to check 3 neighbouring stations
– an investigation within an investigation-
4) and find differing results in the neighbouring stations (0.04C/yr)
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/what-hanky-panky-is-going-on-in-the-uk
What would you think?
Anyway, before I sign off,
for today,
I hope you did have that drink on more carbon dioxide because it is good for you
but let me give you one piece of evidence that you all should give a thought
There does seem to be difference in global warming if we compare the NH with the SH
I am particularly drawn to the result in Tandil in the south of Argentine which was very much negative (cooling) and it appears that this was due to de-forestation.
So I’m asking myself: what does the opposite do?
Man made warming is caused by more forests and more greenery?>
“Robert, I have never said that human activity doesn’t contribute to atmospheric CO2”
You’ve been claiming all along it is a minor source of the rise over the last 150 years. That is why you’ve been saying over and over how CO2 lags temperature. That is why you said, “And the fact is that rises in CO2 always follow rises in temperature…”. You said effects don’t precede causes.
That’s why I had said:
“…we are pumping CO2 that had been locked out of the carbon cycle for hundreds of millions of years in the form of fossil fuels.” I was explaining why what we have been doing is different than the normal way CO2 has risen in the past. It isn’t rising as a slow feedback to temperature; it’s rising mostly from the burning of fossil fuels.
and you replied to that sentence with:
“So? If you can’t show any global harm from an increase in a tiny, beneficial trace gas, then there’s no problem, except in your mind. Is there?”
That of course had nothing to do with what I had said, or what were talking about. You deflected the question, not very deftly.
As for our contribution to CO2 being minor, that’s wrong. We are responsible for essentially 100% of the rise in CO2 over the last 150 years.
But enough of these evasions. Every time I try to pin you down to the subject under discussion you keep talking about other things. I frankly don’t need the aggravation.
Reply to post: Robert Murphy says: August 16, 2011 at 11:01 am
Unless you found far more than that in the paper to support your contention, you really need to reconsider that bit yourself. Temperatures can rise a LOT before deglaciation quite easily. Consider Antartica. Current average annual temp there is what, roughly -50C? Temps there could rise as fast as present day temps have been for a very very long time before deglaciation. Temps have been rising ever since the LIA, so a few hundred years, and neither the Antarctic, nor Greenland (or much of any other area with even moderate sized glaciers) have deglaciated. Meanwhile, it does confirm an 800 year lag, which from the brief context I’d sure read as worldwide – again, unless you can find far better supporting info for your view in the document itself.
Robert Murphy:
I see you continue making fatuous assertions. For example, at August 16, 2011 at 1:22 pm, this one:
“We are responsible for essentially 100% of the rise in CO2 over the last 150 years.”
Your assertion may or may not be correct, but there is no evidence that confirms it and much evidence which indicates it is wrong; e.g. I stated some at August 15, 2011 at 1:38 am where I wrote:
“In this and the other thread I have repeatedly pointed out that the observed dynamics of the seasonal variation indicate that the dynamics of the short-term sequestration processes can easilly sequester ALL of the anthropogenic and natural emission in each year. But they don’t.
This is direct empirical evidence that the system is not being overloaded by the anthropogenic emission such that about half the anthropogenic emission is accumulating in the air.”
Remove your blinkers, try to think for yourself, and stop spouting assertions you have picked up from some propoganda blog.
Richard
Robert Murphy says:
“You’ve been claiming all along it is a minor source of the rise over the last 150 years. ”
Please quote my exact words. I’ve re-read this entire thread trying to find something I’ve written stating that CO2 is a minor source of the rise over the last 150 years. The fact is that no one knows exactly how much is natural, and how much is from human emissions. But we do know how much CO2 is naturally emitted vs human-emitted: click As Richard Courtney points out, your CO2 comment is debatable.
And it is you who deflects the fact that there is no evidence showing any global harm due to the rise in CO2. In other words, CO2 is harmless at current and projected levels. The entire AGW debate is based entirely on the putative threat from “carbon.” But the alarmist crowd can’t find any evidence of global harm from CO2, therefore they are sounding a false alarm.
And I’m still waiting for an explanation of the “.4C” figure you’ve given for the temperature rise during the MWP. You wrote: “During the Holocene, the MWP is just a minor warming compared to other earlier events like the Minoan Warming or the RWP, or the earlier Holocene optimum.” You can’t just fabricate your own facts on the internet’s Best Science site and expect your pseudo-science to be accepted without question. So: where did you get your .4C number from?
Richard S Courtney says:
“I am claiming they both exist and that the stomata data have much better temporal resolution.”
I agree that they have a better temporal resolution, however as the graph i linked to shows they have a poor accuracy with regards to the CO2 measurement. The Ice core data is in agreement in several different geographical locations and matches the trend measured from mauna loa where as the Stomata data doesn’t.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Climate%20Change/LawDomeMLOKouwenberg800.png
Joe Bastardi wrote:
“…the earth’s temps have leveled off the past 15 years while CO2 has continued to rise.”
False. The slope of UAH surface temperature over the last 15 years is 0.08 +/- 0.03 C/decade.