By Girma Orssengo, PhD
In his Caltech commencement address in 1974, Professor Richard Feynman advised students the following:
“Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.” [1]
Using the global mean temperature (GMT) data from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), in its Fourth Assessment Report of 2007, reported to the world “accelerated warming” of the globe. [2]
Identifying whether the GMT data shows accelerated warming is extremely crucial because the IPCC claims this accelerated warming is caused by CO2 emission from human use of fossil fuels. As a result, use of fossil fuels that has protected the naked animal from the freezing winter, sweltering summer, backbreaking drudgery, or in general allowed the naked animal to live life as a human is now being blamed for warming the planet. Most governments have made the extremely bizarre declaration that the CO2 you exhale, plants inhale, and forest fires and volcanoes naturally release is a pollutant, and they are putting a price on it.
The accelerated warming claim by the IPCC is accepted by most of the world’s scientific institutions, governments and media.
In this article, following Feynman’s advice, an alternative interpretation of the same GMT data is provided that throws doubt on the accelerated warming interpretation of the IPCC.
This alternative interpretation was also used to estimate the GMT trend for the next two decades, which shows global cooling from the GMT peak value of about 0.45 deg C for the 2000s to 0.13 deg C by the 2030s.
IPCC’s Interpretation of the Global Mean Temperature Data
The accelerated warming interpretation of the GMT data by the IPCC is shown in Figure 1, and the caption for the graph states:
“Note that for shorter recent periods, the slope is greater, indicating accelerated warming.” [2]
IPCC also states:
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level” [3]
In this article, an alternative interpretation to IPCC’s for the same GMT data is given. This alternative interpretation demonstrates that the current 30-years warming is just a warming phase of a 60-years cooling and warming cycle. As a result, we should not panic with “widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level” because that is what happens during the warming phase of the globe, and the snow and ice will form again during the cooling phase of the globe in the next two decades.
The conclusion of this article is similar to that made by NASA when science used to be only about the truth:
“…in the early 1970’s, because temperatures had been decreasing for about 25 to 30 years, people began predicting the approach of an ice age! For the last 15 to 20 years, we have been seeing a fairly steady rise in temperatures, giving some assurance that we are now in a global warming phase.” [4]
Alternative Interpretation of the Global Mean Temperature Data
For the alternative interpretation of the GMT, the same data used by the IPCC from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was used, and it was assumed to be valid.
In an interview by Roger Harrabin of the BBC [5], Professor Phil Jones stated: “Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage”. As a result, the GMT data before 1880 were excluded in this article.
To produce the alternative interpretation of the GMT data, the following points were addressed:
-
Does a line or a curve passes through all the GMT peaks?
-
Does a line or a curve passes through all the GMT valleys?
-
Do the lines or curves that pass through the GMT peaks and GMT valleys converge, parallel or diverge?
-
How does the slope of the global warming trend line for the whole data compare to the slopes of the lines or curves that pass through the GMT peaks and valleys?
All the above questions are answered in a single graph shown in Figure 2.
In Figure 2, the GMT was at its peak in the 1880s, 1940s and 2000s, and a single straight line (not a curve) passes through these GMT peaks, indicating no acceleration of GMT peak values with increasing years. The line that passes through the GMT peaks is labeled as Upper GMT boundary line.
In Figure 2, a single straight line (not a curve) passes through the GMT valleys, indicating no acceleration of GMT valley values with increasing years. The line that passes through the GMT valleys is labeled as Lower GMT boundary line.
Figure 2 also shows that the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel (not diverging), indicating no change in the GMT swing between the two boundary lines with increasing years. The magnitude of this constant vertical swing is about 0.5 deg C for the last 130 years.
Finally, Figure 2 shows that the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel to the long-term global warming trend line for the whole data from 1880 to 2010, which has a global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade.
The most important observation in this article is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. It was also found that the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulum’s swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulum’s neutral position. As a pendulum with a constant swing does not have a “tipping point”, the claim of a climate tipping point is a science fiction, made by those who unfortunately make their living by scare mongering.
Here is a question to climate scientists: In Figure 2, why has the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years?
In Figure 2, although the upper GMT boundary curve is a straight line for the relatively short 130 years data, in a longer time scale, it is part of a very long curve that contains the Little Ice Age, Medieval Climatic Optimum, Holocene Maximum, etc.
Relationship Between Global Mean Temperature Peak And Valley Values
In Figure 2, in order to find the relationship between the 1880s peak and the 1910s valley values, instead of considering the complex path the annual GMT took between the two points, a simplified but equivalent path of an instantaneous global cooling swing of -0.5 deg C followed by a steady warming of 0.06 deg C per decade for 30-years along the lower GMT boundary line was considered. As a result, in the 30-years cooling period from 1880 to 1910, the change in GMT = -0.5 + 0.06 x 3 = -0.32 deg C. Therefore, the GMT valley value for the 1910s may be estimated from the GMT peak value of –0.27 deg C for the 1880s as:
GMT valley value for the 1910s = GMT peak value for the 1880s – 0.32 = -0.27 – 0.32 = -0.59 deg C
This value is shown as (1910, -0.59) in Figure 2.
Similarly, in Figure 2, in order to find the relationship between the 1910s valley and the 1940s peak values, instead of considering the complex path the annual GMT took between the two points, a simplified but equivalent path of an instantaneous global warming swing of +0.5 deg C followed by a steady warming of 0.06 deg C per decade for 30-years along the upper GMT boundary line was considered. As a result, in the 30-years warming period from 1910 to 1940, the change in GMT = 0.5 + 0.06 x 3 = +0.68 deg C. Therefore, the GMT peak value for the 1940s may be estimated from the GMT valley value of –0.59 deg C for the 1910s as:
GMT peak value for the 1940s = GMT valley value for the 1910s + 0.68 = -0.59 + 0.68 = +0.09 deg C
This value is shown as (1940, 0.09) in Figure 2.
Note that the above relationships (decrease in GMT by 0.32 deg C during the global cooling phase and increase by 0.68 deg C during the global warming phase) were established based on the data before mid-20th century, before exponential increase in human emission of CO2. Next, these relationships are used to estimate the GMT peak and valley values after mid-20th century.
GMT valley value for the 1970s = GMT peak value for the 1940s – 0.32 = 0.09 – 0.32 = -0.23 deg C
This value is shown as (1970, -0.23) in Figure 2.
GMT peak value for the 2000s = GMT valley value for the 1970s + 0.68 = -0.23 + 0.68 = +0.45 deg C
This value is shown as (2000, 0.45) in Figure 2.
As shown in Figure 2, there is excellent agreement between the above estimates and the observed GMT peak and valley values. The same relationships were used to estimate GMT peak and valley values before and after mid-20th century, and this shows that there is no evidence of accelerated warming in the GMT data. The challenge to climate science is to explain why the GMT peak and valley values are related by such simple linear relationships.
Further, as the above relationships were valid for the last 130 years, it is reasonable to assume they will also be valid at least for the next 20 years. Therefore, the GMT prediction for the 2030s valley value is as follows:
GMT valley value for the 2030s = GMT peak value for the 2000s – 0.32 = 0.45 – 0.32 = +0.13 deg C
In summary, as shown by the data in Figure 2, the GMT has a cycle that consists of 30 years cooling by 0.32 deg C followed by 30 years warming by 0.68 deg C. The magnitude of the warming is greater than the cooling because the warming of +0.18 deg C (=0.06 deg C/ decade x 3 decade) every 30 years modifies the cyclic cooling and warming swing of 0.5 deg C, by decreasing the magnitude of the cyclic cooling but increasing that of the warming by 0.18 deg C.
Cherry Picking
Anthropogenic global warming advocates always accuse skeptics of cherry picking. A working definition of a cherry picker is one who makes conclusions based on comparison of oranges to apples. Let us see who is the greatest cherry picker.
Regarding the GMT, an example of comparing oranges to oranges is to compare one global warming phase of a given duration with another global warming phase of the same duration.
A valid example of identifying whether the GMT data shows accelerated warming is to compare the change in GMT during the recent warming period from 1970 to 2000 with the previous warming period from 1910 to 1940, which are of the same duration. As shown in Figure 2, for both periods the change in GMT is about 0.68 deg C. As a result, there is no acceleration in the recent warming period compared to the previous one.
Another valid example of identifying whether the GMT data shows accelerated warming is to compare the change in GMT during the recent cooling-followed-by-warming period from 1940 to 2000 with the previous cooling-followed-by-warming period from 1880 to 1940, which are of the same duration. As shown in Figure 2, for both periods the change in GMT is about 0.36 deg C. As a result, there is no acceleration in the recent cooling-followed-by-warming period compared to the previous one.
In summary, the GMT data for the last 130 years does not show any evidence of accelerated warming due to human emission of CO2. This is because the cyclic cooling & warming swing of 0.5 deg C shown in Figure 2 is obviously natural; and the persistent global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade is also natural, because it existed before mid-20th century, before widespread use of fossil fuels, as it is this warming that caused the 1940s GMT peak value to be greater than that of the 1880s by 0.36 deg C (=0.06 deg C/decade x 6 decade). Interestingly, the GMT peak value for the 2000s is also greater than that of the 1940s by the same 0.36 deg C.
In the ClimateGate emails, there are statements confirming these GMT peaks for the 1880s and 1940s:
“Indeed, in the verification period, the biggest “miss” was an apparently very warm year in the late 19th century that we did not get right at all.” [7]
“Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip.” [8]
The “accelerated warming” interpretation by the IPCC shown in Figure 1 was based on the comparison of the global warming rate of the recent warming period with the global warming rates of longer periods that consist of this warming period and previous cooling-followed-by-warming periods. As the global warming rate for the current warming period is necessarily always greater than those of all the other longer periods with greater denominators, the IPCC was comparing oranges to apples.
As a result, the Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC is the greatest cherry picker.
Unfortunately, the unsubstantiated IPCC’s accelerated warming claim is supported by almost all of the world’s scientific institutions, governments and media.
Shame on the 21st century’s scientific establishment for letting the IPCC and its supporters successfully convince the world of anthropogenic global warming, the biggest scary story of our life time, without any evidence of accelerated warming due to human emission of CO2.
What Would Have Indicated Accelerated Warming In The GMT Data?
In Figure 2 a shift in climate to an accelerated global warming would have been indicated if the upper GMT boundary line had been a curve with an increasing positive slope with increasing years, or the upper and lower GMT boundary lines had been diverging with increasing years.
Fortunately, as the data in Figure 2 shows, the upper GMT boundary line is a straight line having, interestingly, the same global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade as the global warming trend line for the whole data. Also, the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel, showing no change in the magnitude of the GMT swing with increasing years. As a result, the vertical cooling or warming swing of 0.5 deg C between the two GMT boundary lines is cyclic and is therefore natural.
However, there is evidence of a persistent but natural global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade.
What Future Observation Will Confirm Anthropogenic Global Warming?
In its Fourth Assessment Report, The Physical Science Basis, the IPCC stated:
“For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected.” [9]
A GMT increase in the next two decades of 0.2 deg C per decade as projected by the IPCC, as shown in Figure 3, to a value of about +1.0 deg C by the 2030s, means that the GMT will stop to behave like a stable pendulum, and the magnitude of its swing will start to increase from its constant value of 0.5 deg C for the last 130 years. This also means that the slope of the upper GMT boundary line will increase from its constant value of 0.06 to 0.2 deg C per decade. If this happens, the climate will have shifted and we skeptics should accept anthropogenic global warming.
However, as shown by the data in Figure 2, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulum’s swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulum’s neutral position.
What the IPCC’s projection of 0.2 deg C per decade warming in the next two decades means is that in a pendulum demonstration by Feynman shown in Figure 4, if he pulls the pendulum away from its vertical neutral position and releases it starting just in front of his body (representing the 1880s GMT peak), the pendulum will return to its initial position in front of his body and reverses its direction and swings away from him, as the GMT did after the 1940s peak. However, when the pendulum approaches him the second time (representing the 2000s GMT peak), its swing will suddenly increase and hit our hero.
That is farfetched. After the two previous peaks of the 1880s and 1940s, the GMT returned to its neutral position and moved towards its lower boundary line before the warming phase restarted. This pattern should repeat after the 2000s GMT peak, because the upper GMT boundary line has never been crossed for long, as shown in Figure 2, for the last 130 years.
What Future Observation Will Disprove Anthropogenic Global Warming?
In the next two decades, if the GMT swings from its current peak towards its neutral position and then reaches the lower GMT boundary line to a value of about +0.13 deg C in the 2030s as shown in Figure 3, the whole world will agree with the late Professor Harold Lewis’s characterization of anthropogenic global warming:
“It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.” [11]
In my case, I will replace the word “physicist” with “engineer”.
References
[1] Cargo Cult Science by Richard Feynman
[2] IPCC: “Accelerated Warming”
[3] IPCC: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal”
[4] NASA Facts, Global Warming, NF-222
[5] BBC News, Q&A: Professor Phil Jones
[6] An alternative Interpretation of GMT Data (hadcrut3vgl.txt)
[7] Climategate email regarding the 1880s GMT peak
[8] Climategate email regarding the 1940s GMT peak
[9] Projections of Future Changes in Climate in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report
[10] Richard P. Feynman, Six Easy Pieces
[11] Hal Lewis: My Resignation From The American Physical Society
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Girma Orssengo
Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering, University of Calicut, Calicut, India
Master of Applied Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Doctor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
===============================================================
Brian:
At August 20, 2011 at 7:47 pm you dispute my correct and accurate statement that said:
“Indeed, greenhouse gas concentrations have been tens of times higher than now during ice ages so clearly they play no significant part in the transition from glacial to interglacial state.”
By asserting;
“That’s clearly fallacious. The fact that some ice ages had (much) higher concentrations of GHGs than our current interglacial period does not show that transitions from glacial to interglacial states are not a function of GHG concentration. Nor does it show that GHG concentration plays “no significant part” in transitions. At most it shows that those transitions are not solely functions of GHG concentration. But no one claims that they are. The transitions are functions of GHG concentration and other factors.”
OK. If it is “fallacious” please explain how
1.
the insignificant contribution of much higher contributions of greenhouse gases did not cause transitions from glacial to interglacial states
but
2.
increase of the even more insignificant contribution of the increase of greenhouse gases to their present level did cause transition from the last ice age.
Do the “other factors” vary that much?
If they don’t then my statement is true.
If they do then there is no reason to consider the insignificant effect of the greenhouse gases so my statement is true in that case, too.
Richard
Very good, Bart. If your boss decides to saw off your head Daniel Pearl-style, I promise to send a condolence card.☹ Maybe I can get Anthony to sign it.☺
jens raunsø jensen
Secondly, you forgot (?) to extend the linear regression when you extended the graph. The linear regression of T v. time covering 1850-2010 is relatively poor and with a slope of about 0.0042, far from your 0.006 for 1880-2010 and now clearly different from the slopes of your socalled boundary lines.
For any cyclic curve that has a warming trend, to find the warming trend the initial year must be at similar position on the cycle as the final year. Otherwise, the trend calculation will be wrong. In our case, since the final year is the current GMT peak, the initial year must also be a GMT peak. That is why I have not extend the linear regression when I extended the graph.
Here is the main result:
http://bit.ly/qGcD9M
The upper GMT boundary line is a straight-line for 160 years. The GMT touches but not crosses this boundary line for long throughout the temperature record. However, the IPCC says there is further warming of 0.2 deg C per decade in the next two decades.
Is that rational?
How could something that has not happened in the last 160 years going to happen in the next twenty years?
jens raunsø jensen
Likewise, which year is the valley year in the period 1950-1975? you claim 1970 (without explanation), I could claim any year during 1950-1975. What makes your claim more valid than my claim?
That is a good question.
Do you think the “accelerated warming” claim of the IPCC is valid?
We agree the climate is a complex system.
To find a rough approximation of what is going on in this complex system simplification has to be made. In figure 2, the duration from the 1880s peak to the 1910s valley is 30 years. The duration from the 1910s valley to the 1940s peak is 30 years. I assumed this 30 year to be a repeating pattern.
Using this assumption, I found a GMT estimate for the 1970s of –0.23 deg C and for 2000s of 0.45 deg C, which are excellent approximation of the observed values. The assumption is valid because the approximations are valid.
That is what I do as an engineer every day: Find a valid approximation of reality.
Girma,
I rest my case. You have no inclination to question yourself or to answer my questions.
You start your post with a quotation from the famous Professor R Feynman:
“Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.”
Either you do not know of such details (which I have been advising you about) or you think that this principle should not apply to your work. You are violating this principle (and other basic principles) in your post.
have a nice day … jens
Girma says:
August 20, 2011 at 5:59 pm
“To all who are suspicious of why I excluded the data from 1850 to 1880 in Figure 2, please replace that figure with the following, which starts from 1850 .. This graph shows the starting year does not change any of the results discussed in the article.”
Girma, the results are results from two mathematic functions without any base in the real nature of heat flow.
Since 1976 it is well known from J. A. Eddy that the sun’s oscillations are fixed in terrestrial samples like 14C which show correlation with the temperature proxies.
http://volker-doormann.org/images/solar_fig_1.gif
These oscillations are valid for more than 8000 years.
In this graph taking your selectetd time interval a result is shown from real solar system oscillations using the NASA ephemerides:
http://volker-doormann.org/gif/ghi6_vs_hadcrut3_.gif
OK, some heat peaks like the global heat peak around 1940 are still not explained, but one can see, that there are time coherent correlations recognizable coming from REAL oscillations in the solar system.
However, it is written, ‘Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate’ (Plurality must never be posited without necessity). That implies the unspoken logic, if there are many heat frequencies present, it is necessary to keep them alive; linear functions kill the dynamic life of our climate.
V.
jens raunsø Jensen
Here is the detrended data for both gistemp and hadcrut3.
http://bit.ly/emAwAu
This result clearly shows the approximate 60-year cycle in the GMT data.
Assuming the data is correct, I accept what I see.
Dave Springer,
Actually man was farming for millenia before the advent of the industrial age and the following quote from Wikipedia may enlighten you
“At the same time, agriculture has been shown to produce significant effects on climate change, primarily through the production and release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, but also by altering the Earth’s land cover, which can change its ability to absorb or reflect heat and light, thus contributing to radiative forcing. Land use change such as deforestation and desertification, together with use of fossil fuels, are the major anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide; agriculture itself is the major contributor to increasing methane and nitrous oxide concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere”.
The assumption that until the industrial revolution human production of CO2 was carbon neutral is necessary to support most climate models but is unproven and almost certainly false.
I do not wish to enter into a dispute with Mr. Springer as to how quickly an exponential series tends to infinity. I am sure that his knowledge of mathematics trumps my Master’s degree from one of the world’s top uiniversities in the subject.
Incidentally, I tend to agree with Leigh, Benoit Mandelbrot and Edward Lorenz that until proved otherwise climate is probably a chaotic system.
Girma:
You understate your case when at August 21, 2011 at 3:27 am you say;
“However, the IPCC says there is further warming of 0.2 deg C per decade in the next two decades.
Is that rational?
How could something that has not happened in the last 160 years going to happen in the next twenty years?”
The only prediction (i.e. not “projection”) of the IPCC is much more wong than you say.
Section 10.7.1 titled ‘Climate Change Commitment to Year 2300 Based on AOGCMs’
in the Report from WG1 (i.e. the “science” Working Group) of the most recent IPCC Report (AR4) can be read at
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-7.html
It says:
“The multi-model average warming for all radiative forcing agents held constant at year 2000 (reported earlier for several of the models by Meehl et al., 2005c), is about 0.6°C for the period 2090 to 2099 relative to the 1980 to 1999 reference period. This is roughly the magnitude of warming simulated in the 20th century. Applying the same uncertainty assessment as for the SRES scenarios in Fig. 10.29 (–40 to +60%), the likely uncertainty range is 0.3°C to 0.9°C. Hansen et al. (2005a) calculate the current energy imbalance of the Earth to be 0.85 W m–2, implying that the unrealised global warming is about 0.6°C without any further increase in radiative forcing. The committed warming trend values show a rate of warming averaged over the first two decades of the 21st century of about 0.1°C per decade, due mainly to the slow response of the oceans. About twice as much warming (0.2°C per decade) would be expected if emissions are within the range of the SRES scenarios.”
So, the IPCC says,
“The committed warming trend values show a rate of warming averaged over the first two decades of the 21st century of about 0.1°C per decade”.
n.b. That is “committed warming” that will occur because of effects in the past.
And the effect of increase to atmospheric CO2 since 2000 is expected to double that rate of warming to “About twice as much warming (0.2°C per decade)”.
But there has NOT been a rise in global temperature of “0.2°C per decade” or of “0.1°C per decade” for the first of half of “the first two decades of the 21st century”. Indeed, there has been no discernible rise and probably a slight fall.
A RISE OF 0.2°C OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS WOULD HAVE BEEN OBVIOUS FROM THE DATA.
So, for the IPCC prediction to be true then the global temperature must rise by a staggering 0.4°C now and stay at that level for the next 10 years. This would be more than half the total rise over the previous century, and only a member of the cult of AGW could think this is a reasonable expectation.
Indeed, if one accepts the lower limit of the “uncertainty assessment” of “-40%” then the required immediate rise needed to be sustained over the next 10 years is at least an incredible 0.24°C.
And to meet the IPCC prediction at a linear rate then the required rise over the next ten years is 0.8°C (or 0.48°C at very minimum).
Richard
Thanks Richard.
AGW is really, really bad science. When is it going to blow up? Or will it just imperceptibly disappear like the morning fog?
Jens
How come I attempt to answer your question but you ignore mine?
Do you accept the “accelerated warming” claim of the IPCC?
Thank you for the non-abusive discussion from your side.
Take care.
Girma
To R Gates,
Your statement of “40% more CO2, 30% more NO2, 300% more CH4” actually plays out as increases of 110 ppm for CO2, 53 ppb for NO2 and 1170 ppb for CH4.
Now if you want to argue that those numbers are the causes of global warming then do so. In my experience, anyone who constantly uses percentages to argue their point of view is doing so to appeal to emotions rather than facts. But once again you obviously realize the facts would get in your way.
Why continued warming of 0.2 deg C per decade of the IPCC contradicts recorded GMT pattern is shown below:
http://bit.ly/omzALZ
You shall not cross the upper GMT boundary line for long!
Girma:
At August 21, 2011 at 5:05 am you ask me:
“AGW is really, really bad science. When is it going to blow up? Or will it just imperceptibly disappear like the morning fog?”
In my opinion, AGW will fade away as the ‘Acid Rain’ scare did: that scare did not “blow up”, but nobody now remembers it unless reminded of it. Indeed, I think the AGW scare has started to fade away.
The process of AGW’s demise began at Copenhagen two years ago when its ‘life-blood’ of political support began to be curtailed, and the attempts at CPR by AGW’s supporters can be seen as the progressively more desperate attempts to promote it (e.g. the recent daft peer-reviewed publication suggesting AGW risks invasion by aliens from space).
Richard
commieBob
Yours is an excellent answer to the question raised.
http://bit.ly/p3Bjwv
Thank you very much
@Solomon
“I do not wish to enter into a dispute with Mr. Springer as to how quickly an exponential series tends to infinity. I am sure that his knowledge of mathematics trumps my Master’s degree from one of the world’s top uiniversities in the subject.”
I’m pretty sure that my 35 years of experience as an engineer trumps whatever you think you learned in a classroom.
You completely ignored my devastating point that an exponential expansion of anthropogenic emissions starting from a low number that doubles every 50 years isn’t going to approach infinity after just five doublings. Put your awesome math skills to work and tell me the value of two to the fifth power.
You continue to not understand what carbon-neutral means. If a farmer clears a forest for agricultural use the carbon in the trees enters the atmosphere through either decomposition or combustion. Unless he’s spread a herbicide over that land or otherwise transformed it from forest to desert other plants quickly take up the atmospheric carbon from the trees and incorporate it back into plant matter. This is called the carbon cycle. Did they teach you about the carbon cycle in math class? Evidently not. Maybe you should have taken some more natural science courses.
Fossil fuels are a different animal. This is carbon that was stored many millions of years ago and once released won’t be taken back up into the same long term form of storage for millions of years.
The other flaw in your reasoning about anthropogenic emissions of CO2 due to land use change aside from it being carbon-neutral is that even if it isn’t carbon neutral the human population in 1700 prior to the start of the industrial revolution was 600 million more than ten times fewer than today. Ten times fewer people means ten times less agriculture required to feed them.
So no matter how you slice it or dice it, no matter the mechanism, anthropogenic influence on the environment has grown exponentially with an approximate doubling every 50 years more or less beginning with the industrial revolution.
The following charts are illustrative. Take note that I actually provide data to make my points whereas you just make empty misinformed claims. Work on that.
Population growth since 1750
http://www.eoearth.org/files/118301_118400/118325/620px-Figure_1_long-term_population_growth.JPG
Atmospheric CO2 since 1750
http://www.climate.unibe.ch/~joos/images/sres_jan99/co2_history.gif
You can lay the above curves on top of each other and without a label you couldn’t tell them apart.
Here’s the kicker. Modtrans chart of CO2 thermal absorption coefficient versus concentration in the atmosphere. This curve was discovered the good old fashioned way by laboratory experiment in the 19th century.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/co2_modtrans_img1.png
Note that this curve is essentially the reciprocal of human population growth and concommittant rise of atmospheric CO2 in the industrial era. You probably learned what a reciprocal is in university math class (if you didn’t learn it in the fifth grade like I did) but what you evidently didn’t pick up very much of is the properties of various materials and more specifically the radiative transfer properties of CO2.
QED
By the way, Mr. Solomon Green, I did a google scholar search in the area of engineering, computer science, and mathematics.
Your name didn’t turn up.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_q=&num=100&btnG=Search+Scholar&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_occt=any&as_sauthors=solomon+green&as_publication=&as_ylo=&as_yhi=&as_sdt=1&as_subj=eng&as_sdtf=&as_sdts=44&hl=en&num=100
My name however does show up:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=author%3Adavid+author%3Aspringer+dell+usa&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C44&as_ylo=&as_vis=0
You still wanna play the credentials game, Mr. Solomon? Credentials are meaningless. Science is all about the best explanations for natural phenomena. Nature phenomena are not influenced by credentials and neither are the explanations. The scientific method contains no reference to credentials in the description. So let’s not go there because you’re going to lose that game to me in any event.
Haha –
I saw a really good young earth sciences guy on YouTube a couple of years ago, where this oscillation popped into his head, right in the middle of it, and he mused on it and said something about “I may have found something there.”
I wonder if this is his work, or if Dr. Girma Orssengo beat him to it. I have no idea what Orssengo looks like, but might recognize the presenter from then. He was not talking about these peaks and valleys and such then, but it might have turned into that once he got to looking into it. The presenter mentioned a sine curve. And a sine curve is very close to a pendulum in its trace over time.
Aha! Perhaps it is him. At http://tiny.cc/fjkwd is a post entitled “Lines, Sines, and Curve Fitting 9 – Girma.” The opening sentence, in fact, says:
followed by some equations. “Line + sine.” That is the idea that the presenter had. Dr Orssengo here is saying it quite differently. But a sine curve following a sloped line is exactly what all this is. See that link.
It is a VERY clear overall presentation here, although at one point I did get confused about one point being made in the text.
Dave Springer
In the following post
http://bit.ly/pwm2zb
The comment was:
“That is that the slope of the warming has not changed since 1880. If CO2 is a factor, this slope should have been increasing all along, and it hasn’t.”
You reply was:
No it should NOT have been increasing. The growth rate of anthropogenic CO2 emission from fossil fuel happens to match pretty closely the decreasing rate at which CO2 can absorb LWIR. Combine an exponential expansion in CO2 emission with an exponential contraction in its ability to raise surface temperature and you get a linear ramp, which is exactly what we see.
Dave, your response requires numerical justification.
The growth rate of human emission has not been constant. It was nearly flat before 1940s. But started to accelerate only after 1940s. For the periods 1880-1940 & 1940-2000 the change in GMT was an identical value of about 0.36 deg C (Figure 2 of this article). However, the emitted CO2 in the second period was about 860Gt, and it was 160Gt in the in the first period (http://1.usa.gov/of3hxw). Note also that the 160Gt emitted in the first period is still in the atmosphere in the second period.
Dave, please explain, using a numerical example and the above GMT and CO2 data or any other referenced data, if human emission of CO2 was the cause for change in GMT, why it has not changed in the second period compared to the first period?
Mr. Springer.
I am impressed by your credentials. I submit. Mine are not nearly as impressive. But before you dismiss my intervention out of hand you may care to browse a brief article which I published some years ago.
http://www.theactuary.com/actuary/feature/2091378/financial-modelling-look-closer
Should you not wish to waste your time you might like to ponder on just one remark quoted in that article. When the famous mathematician Georg Cantor propounded the law of conservation of ignorance he observed that a false conclusion once arrived at and widely accepted is not easily dislodged and the less it is understood the more tenaciously it is held.
I believe Cantor’s observation applies to the AGW hypothesis.
R Gates,
“The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA.”
The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and ASSUMED related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA. There, I’ve correct that for you.
Vince Causey says:
August 21, 2011 at 12:17 pm
R Gates,
“The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA.”
The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and ASSUMED related feedbacks is far more potent then the relatively minor forcing that may have initiated the LIA. There, I’ve correct that for you.
The forcing from anthropogenic CO2 and ASSUMED related positive feedbacks from water vapor is far more potent/equally potent/slightly less potent than/far less potent than the absolutely major – and completely unknown and (deliberately) not researched – forcings that definitely, absolutely initiated the Medieval Warming Period, Little Ice Age, and Dark Age, and Roman Warming Periods.
There, I’ve corrected that correction for you. 8<)
Unless Sir Gate can define those "forcings" mathematically, physically and geo-chemically ?????
Richard – It’s quite easy to see why your claim is fallacious. (You claimed: greenhouse gas concentrations have been tens of times higher than now during ice ages so clearly they play no significant part in the transition from glacial to interglacial state.)
Consider any function with more than one variable (e.g. gravitational force is a function of the product of the masses and the inverse of the square of their distance). It would be fallacious to argue as follows: “One time, the gravitational force between two masses was far lower than 100 Newtons when the masses were 100 meters apart. But another time, the gravitational force between two masses was far higher than 100 Newtons, even though those masses were 10 times further apart! Therefore, distance plays no significant part in determining whether the gravitational force between two objects is less than, as opposed to greater than, 100 Newtons. After all, the first pair of masses were 10 times closer together, which would supposedly increase the force by a factor of 100; and yet the force was less than the second pair of (very distantly separated) masses! Clearly, distance didn’t make a difference.”
Pretty fallacious, no? And yet structurally analogous to your argument (I trust you see the analogy, but would be happy to explain if necessary).
You say that if “other factors vary that much,” then “there is no reason to consider the insignificant effect of the greenhouse gases.” But that is analogous to saying (in my example above), “if other factors vary that much, then there is no reason to consider the insignificant effect of distance.” That’s false. If one holds fixed the other factors, then varying distance (or GHG concentration) obviously can play a significant part in changing the gravitational force (or GMT).
So, again, the mere fact that GHG concentration was 10 times higher without a corresponding change to an interglacial state does not show that GHG concentration plays no significant role in such state transitions.
Dave Springer says:
August 21, 2011 at 8:18 am
You can lay the above curves on top of each other and without a label you couldn’t tell them apart.
(Snort) hardly. But, so what if it were true? Post hoc ergo propter hoc is your mode of argument. The curves as presented (perhaps we should say, constructed, i.e., cobbled together, processed, extruded, and pounded into a finished product – more in a little bit) are similar, therefore your point is proven. Sorry, Dave. That’s just not so. It might be the case if these were somehow unusual curves which rarely took such a form independently in nature, but that is not the case. Such slowly varying behavior over a truncated time interval can be caused independently by all sorts of independent low frequency phenomena.
One problem you (and many others) are having here is one of perspective. If you saw a short term similarity between two unrelated graphs of some given physical quantities, you would generally shrug your shoulders and say, “oh, well, it was a transient event, and so likely coincidental.” You look at these two graphs, though, and you say to yourself, “hey, that looks similar over a long period of time, so it’s no coincidence.” But, if humans lived 10,000 years, and you were as advanced on that age scale as I assume you are on our usual one, you would be back to saying, “oh, well, it was a transient event, and so likely coincidental.” Geologic and climatic time scales are quite long.
Oh, you say, but look at the inflection at about 1950! It occurs in both series. Therefore, there is a relationship, ha! But, modern CO2 measurements have only been collected since 1958, and all you are seeing there is the smoothed mismatch between the old records and the new. And, there are LOTS of other squiggles and transient events which clearly ARE NOT shared between the series.
In one sense, the presence of the inflection in both series can be seen as correlated, in that the post-WWII baby boom happened to coincide with the return to prosperity, which made it possible to allocate resources to collect such samples. But, clearly, this does not describe a causal relationship. Indeed, this is almost a perfect illustration of the old saw that correlation does not equal causation.
Your case is superficial, and lacking rigor. That the curves bear some resemblance to one another is necessary for your thesis, but it is not sufficient (to confirm it).
“Note that this curve is essentially the reciprocal of human population growth…”
It is essentially nothing of the kind. Humans are not bacteria, and human population growth is not exponential. Neither is CO2 concentration.
RACookPE1978 says:
August 21, 2011 at 1:23 pm“…
Unless Sir Gate can define those “forcings” mathematically, physically and geo-chemically ?????”
He can’t because they don’t exist. Unfortunately for the CAGW conjecture, CO2 levels follow temperature, not the reverse.