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
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.