Deal with climate reality as it unfolds
Special to Financial Post May 23, 2012
By Dr. Bob Carter
Over the last 18 months, policymakers in Canada, the U.S. and Japan have quietly abandoned the illusory goal of preventing global warming by reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, an alternative view has emerged regarding the most cost-effective way in which to deal with the undoubted hazards of climate change.
This view points toward setting a policy of preparation for, and adaptation to, climatic events and change as they occur, which is distinctly different from the former emphasis given by most Western parliaments to the mitigation of global warming by curbing carbon dioxide emissions.
Ultimately, the rationale for choosing between policies of mitigation or adaptation must lie with an analysis of the underlying scientific evidence about climate change. Yet the vigorous public debate over possibly dangerous human-caused global warming is bedeviled by two things.
First, an inadequacy of the historical temperature measurements that are used to reconstruct the average global temperature statistic.
And, second, fueled by lobbyists and media interests, an unfortunate tribal emotionalism that has arisen between groups of persons who are depicted as either climate “alarmists” or climate “deniers.”
In reality, the great majority of working scientists fit into neither category. All competent scientists accept, first, that global climate has always changed, and always will; second, that human activities (not just carbon dioxide emissions) definitely affect local climate, and have the potential, summed, to measurably affect global climate; and, third, that carbon dioxide is a mild greenhouse gas.
The true scientific debate, then, is about none of these issues, but rather about the sign and magnitude of any global human effect and its likely significance when considered in the context of natural climate change.
For many different reasons, which include various types of bias, error and unaccounted-for artifacts, the thermometer record provides only an indicative history of average global temperature over the last 150 years.
The 1979-2011 satellite MSU (Microwave Sounding Units) record is our only acceptably accurate estimate of average global temperature, yet being but 32 years in length it represents just one climate data point. The second most reliable estimate of global temperature, collected by radiosondes on weather balloons, extends back to 1958, and the portion that overlaps with the MSU record matches it well.
Taken together, these two temperature records indicate that no significant warming trend has occurred since 1958, though both exhibit a 0.2C step increase in average global temperature across the strong 1998 El Niño.
In addition, the recently quiet Sun, and the lack of warming over at least the last 15 years — and that despite a 10% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide level, which represents 34% of all post-industrial emissions — indicates that the alarmist global warming hypothesis is wrong and that cooling may be the greatest climate hazard over coming decades.
Climate change takes place over geological time scales of thousands through millions of years, but unfortunately the relevant geological data sets do not provide direct measurements, least of all of average global temperature.
Instead, they comprise local or regional proxy records of climate change of varying quality. Nonetheless, numerous high-quality paleoclimate records, and especially those from ice cores and deep-sea mud cores, demonstrate that no unusual or untoward changes in climate occurred in the 20th and early 21st century.
Despite an estimated spend of well over $100-billion since 1990 looking for a human global temperature signal, assessed against geological reality no compelling empirical evidence yet exists for a measurable, let alone worrisome, human impact on global temperature.
Nonetheless, a key issue on which all scientists agree is that natural climate-related events and change are real, and exact very real human and environmental costs. These hazards include storms, floods, blizzards, droughts and bushfires, as well as both local and global temperature steps and longer term cooling or warming trends.
It is certain that these natural climate-related events and change will continue, and that from time to time human and environmental damage will be wrought.
Extreme weather events (and their consequences) are natural disasters of similar character to earthquakes, tsunami and volcanic eruptions, in that in our present state of knowledge they can neither be predicted far ahead nor prevented once underway. The matter of dealing with future climate change, therefore, is primarily one of risk appraisal and minimization, and that for natural risks that vary from place to place around the globe.
Dealing with climate reality as it unfolds clearly represents the most prudent, practical and cost-effective solution to the climate change issue. Importantly, a policy of adaptation is also strongly precautionary against any (possibly dangerous) human-caused climate trends that might emerge in the future.
From the Financial Post via Dr. Carter in email correspondence
Bob Carter, a paleoclimatologist at James Cook University, Australia, and a chief science advisor for the International Climate Science Coalition, is in Canada on a 10-day tour. He speaks at Carleton University in Ottawa on Friday.
John West says:
May 24, 2012 at 8:46 pm
“The key word in that quote would be “depicted”. ”
That still goes to the problem of his statement… the idea that somehow their are “extremists” on both sides or that the “depiction” is somehow 2 way.
Doomsday cultist state they are doomsday cultists and everyone else that doesn’t buy into the religion is a “denier”. No one is “depicting” them into the cultist camp they proudly claim it. Also what lobbyists is he talking about on the “denier” side? He really saying that someone like heartland with the chump change they are “lobbying” with is somehow even remotely the same next to the billions upon billions from solar, green and other groups…
They created this complete “with us or we ruin your life” setup. No matter how your cut the verbiage it was a horrible statement.
rgbatduke says:
May 24, 2012 at 7:41 pm
I don’t know what to tell you, Doc. When you see a correlation as strong as this… to maintain that such complete congruence in almost every detail still leaves substantial, even dominating, room for something else which bears little resemblance to it… I think maybe you need to take some time and consider all the possibilities. I do not think you can fail eventually to come to the conclusion that any other explanation is grasping at straws.
Sure, lots of small scale stuff occurs. Lots of complexity. Physics is nasty on a small level, but Ehrenfest’s theorems showed how simple Newtonian dynamics evolves from all that low level complexity. Here, we see that it all adds up to temperature controlling CO2 level.
Bart says:
May 24, 2012 at 3:40 pm
Doesn’t matter anyway. Global CO2 levels are overwhelmingly controlled by temperature and have nothing to do with humans.
But over the last 11 years, the correlation has not been that good. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:2001.25/plot/esrl-co2/from:2001.25/normalise/plot/gistemp/from:2001.25/trend
I agree with
Ian H says:
May 24, 2012 at 5:31 pm
But over the short term I think it is clear that we are currently having an effect on CO_2 levels. Current CO_2 levels are the highest they’ve been for a very long time indeed. It is hard to explain this as a purely natural phenomenon. For example temperature alone cannot explain it since current temperatures are not all that unusual.
rgbatduke says:
May 24, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Why doesn’t the human contribution contribute? What happens to it?
Excellent points! If I were ever given a chance to debate a warmist, I would never insist we humans have nothing to do with the increase in CO2. If I did, I think the audience would just roll their eyes and doubt anything else I would have to say.
Re: Bart
It’s been a while since I’ve been out here, but do you remember an Econometrics brain named VS (IIRC)? If so any idea whatever happened to him?
rgbatduke says:
May 24, 2012 at 7:41 pm
Au contraire! I’ll see your AR4 +0.59 meter worst case sea level rise scenario and raise you tenfold (+6.0 meters) in the Bahamas, the low estimate of sea level from the last of two thermal pulses right at the end of the last interglacial. My bet, but I do not call.
You see my bet, and “Gore” me +20 meters. Ha!
From her abstract “Late Pleistocene stratigraphy and sedimentary environment of the Arkhangelsk area, northwest Russia, 2001” (Elsevier Publishing) Astrid Lysa et al (http://lin.irk.ru/pdf/6696.pdf) state: “The Arkhangelsk area lies in the region that was reached by the northeastern flank of the Scandinavian ice sheet during the last glaciation. Investigations of Late Pleistocene sediments show interglacial terrestrial and marine conditions with sea level up to 52 m above the present level.”
I go all in……………….
Werner Brozek says:
May 24, 2012 at 9:58 pm
“But over the last 11 years, the correlation has not been that good.”
Would it be too much to ask you to pay attention to the variables which have been plotted for comparison???
And, maybe read what I have written?
NickB. says:
May 24, 2012 at 10:03 pm
This is a 54 year record in which the relationship, for Werner’s benefit that the rate of change of CO2 is, to an EXTREMELY high degree of significance, proportional to the temperature anomaly, has held. That is NOT chaotic, Laddie. That is compelling evidence of cause and effect.
Bart and rgbatduke:
I remind you that in the excellent discussion at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/06/the-bern-model-puzzle/
you both agreed with my statement (that I had explained in the thread) at May 8, 2012 at 1:29 am which said;
I know of no new data that would be reason for any of us to have changed our view since then. Indeed, additional information has been obtained which tends to confirm that view; e.g. see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/21/measurements-of-carbon-in-the-arctic-ocean-carbon-is-the-currency-of-life/
However in this thread the two of you seem to have solidified your views in opposite directions.
Robert, at May 8, 2012 at 7:41 am in the previous discussion you quoted my statement (which I have quoted in this post) and said;
Now, in this thread, you write at May 24, 2012 at 6:20 pm
That is a long way from my statement which you agreed in the previous thread (although I note your caveats concerning “… what the entire global carbon cycle looks like …”.
Bart, in this thread at May 24, 2012 at 3:40 pm you say;
That differs from your agreement with my statement in the previous thread which I have quoted here.
I agree with your comment in this thread at May 24, 2012 at 6:20 pm that says;
So, my question to each of you is
What has induced you to change your view?
Richard
More power in the hands of less people. Monckton exposes those who hold the creed that ‘the real enemy is humanity itself.’ It has nothing to do with Climat Change but with Regime Change.
http://www.infowars.com/agenda-21s-globalist-death-plan-for-humanity/
Bart – you have latched onto this one graph and are ignoring everything else. As rgbatduke has pointed out a correlation between temperature and the scaled derivative of CO_2 means very little and ignores absolute CO_2 levels. You have left room for a linear increase in CO_2. Actually this is pretty close to what we see when you look at the recent history of absolute CO_2 levels. You graph does NOTHING to explain this. This linear increase is the SINGULAR MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE of recent CO_2 history and you simply wipe it away by taking a derivative and scaling and now want to pretend that it doesn’t exist. When we complain you argue instead that human CO_2 output has been increasing at faster than linear so the linear output can’t be due to human influence. I don’t see how this absolves you from having to explain it, but in any case the argument is wrong. The rate at which CO_2 is absorbed certainly depends on overall CO_2 concentration. It is entirely possible therefore for us to be pumping CO_2 into the system at an increasing rate and have the response of the CO_2 concentration to that input be close to linear.
In the meantime you have ignored my question as to why current CO_2 levels are the highest they’ve been for hundreds of millions of years. What is it about NOW that is so unusual that it could cause such a high CO_2 level – apart from us being here that is. Temperatures are NOT unusually high at present.
rgbatduke asked you to explain where all the CO_2 we have released into the troposphere by mining hydrocarbons has actually gone. We burn it. There is a lot of it. It goes into the atmosphere. What happens to it? You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist. As in – “Ignore those billions of tons of coal over there – look at my graph!”.
Well we looked at your graph. We answered your questions. You ignored ours. You seem to me to be obsessed with this simple model you’ve constructed and are ignoring reality. Isn’t that precisely what we don’t like warmists doing?
How about you look at the two questions you’ve been asked and see if you can answer them
1. Why are current CO_2 levels unusually high?
2. Where did the hydrocarbons we dug up and burned go?
If you can’t do that I can’t be bothered arguing with you.
nyc post.
For me, cAGW was a busted flush as soon as I heard that charlatan Gore start talking about the ‘consensus’. That term is anathema to any genuine scientist because what it effectively says is pack your bags there is no more work to be done here. Physicists learned the folly of that approach the hard way in the period that immediately preceded the emergence of quantum mechanics.
Science has been hi-jacked in the MSM by arts educated, post-modern, environmental activists with an agenda. They happily use scientific terminology, in order to ride on the back of the qudos generated by the progress made in applying the scientific process since the 16th century, but steer well clear of applying the necessary rigour.
Their edifice is crumbling and they don’t like it; hence the increasingly shrill responses to even the gentlest criticism.
Prof Bob Carter gets to the point again. Always worth a read.
tango says:
May 24, 2012 at 1:22 pm
and in australia we are having a $23 cabon tax starting 1st july by our left wing,water mellon head, GOVT
________________________________
My thoughts exactly. Here in the USA we had an EPA “ruling” that will wipe out 42% of our electric generating capacity and the cost of replacement is 8 to ten times the current amount we now pay. This means a four fold price in electric at minimum.
Here in North Carolina
The paper goes on to say the residential energy cost for households with annual incomes below $50,000,ranges from $1531 to $2045 annually. (Fuel costs for private vehicles are about the same)This means we can see a rise in electric cost to at least $4000 a year. Even if vehicle fuel cost do not rise above the $2K to $6K and the usage stays the same, the total energy cost will rise to between $7,500/year to $10,000/year for those with incomes below $50,000. This represents a rough doubling bringing the expense for energy to about 50% of the after tax income. And that is just a conservative ball park figure.
The politicians method for dealing with this will be a tax payer subsidy so the turkeys who cause the problem in the first place will be voted in again because they promise to pay the “poor” for the added cost in energy from the already depleted tax payer funds.
They really do want to bankrupt our countries don’t they? Here is how bankrupted countries are treated: http://www.whirledbank.org/development/sap.html
Canada won’t attain greenhouse gas goals: government
We’ll be reminded of it in three years and over the next decade when National Science Academies are forced to back-pedal on their position statements on AGW. That’ll be fun. In the decade after that, they’ll have to try to justify their initial boner. That’ll be fun too.
Bart , the clarity of your argument is both blinding and illuminating. Good job.
*****
Robert Brown says:
May 24, 2012 at 2:07 pm
*****
Thanks for the comments — expands on my ideas. No need to invoke cosmic rays, GHGs, solar cycles, etc.
You’ve prb’ly seen it before, but look at this:
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-defense-of-milankovitch-by-gerard.html
Rather remarkable correlation…
Bart,
In regards to your comment:
“This is a 54 year record in which the relationship, for Werner’s benefit that the rate of change of CO2 is, to an EXTREMELY high degree of significance, proportional to the temperature anomaly, has held. That is NOT chaotic, Laddie. That is compelling evidence of cause and effect.”
I’m not sure where I implied anything was chaotic, and I’m thinking that I might have you mixed up with a different Bart (ref: the question about VS).
Anyway… in a multivariate system, correlation (even perfect correlation!) does not necessarily imply causation. In proposing a causal relationship one must both establish that there is a correlation (which your graph seems to show, but I’m not sure can be said to be proven from a statistical standpoint), and propose a causal mechanism. One cannot simply do a regression analysis on two variables out of a multivariate system, identify a correlation, and simply state that one causes the other… even if movement of one variable precedes the other.
The problem you have is that while you do seem to have a very good correlation, there is no mechanism proposed (testable or not) to explain it, and therefore you cannot rule out that the relationship is spurious.
Ian H:
At May 25, 2012 at 1:25 am you ask Bart:
Please accept my answers to your questions.
Answer to Question 1.
Current CO2 levels are not “unusually high”. They are unusually low and were much, much higher until recently in geological history.
Answer to Question 1.
The carbon of the “hydrocarbons we dug up and burned” has gone into the carbon cycle, their hydrogen has gone into the water cycle, their sulphur has gone into the sulphur cycle, their nitrogen has gone into the nitrogen cycle, etc.
Nobody knows the cause(s) of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. And nobody can know it at present because the compartments and connections in the carbon cycle vary in unknown ways and with unknown magnitude.
There is no reason to suppose the carbon of the “hydrocarbons we dug up and burned” contributes to the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration in whole or in part. The “hydrocarbons we dug up and burned” may be the complete cause of that rise, but are probably trivial because the recovery from the LIA is a much, much more likely cause.
To gain an understanding of this, please read the discussion in the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/06/the-bern-model-puzzle/
Richard
Lazy: re: your statement, “But there is a massive contradiction here. The whole climate skeptic thing is driven by the conservative fear of change.”
A bit more thought should go into a comment before making it. Comparison: “Fear is a word liberals use, the whole climate “warmist” thing is driven by the unfounded liberal fear that the world is always a step away from ending catastrophically and their belief that the only possible cause is man.”
If we continue with your use of the word “fear,” then to be accurate, it is not a one-sided statement, both liberals and conservatives “fear” change. “Dislike” would probably a better word than fear; as in “conservatives and liberals dislike change with which they disagree.” But then it wouldn’t have the same throwaway one-liner effect, nor would the comment be necessary, would it?
Let’s provide a scenario: Liberty-driven conservatives are swept to power generally throughout the world and are implementing conservative-leaning “change” (are you “fearing” change yet?) Effect: The world view statement of “change is good” means something different than it does today. My guess is that in this situation you would be arguing against those “science positions,” policies, and laws. I could be lazy and just retort, “This whole liberal [insert desired liberal skepticism here] skeptic thing is driven by the “liberal fear of change.” If I responded that way, I would be showing my intellectual immaturity, laziness, or both.
Ian H:
I apologise for my typing errors in my reply to you. Upon finding them, I think an addition to that post may help you to understand what I tried to say in so poor a manner.
The ‘compartments’ of the carbon cycle (air, oceans, biosphere, etc.) and the connections between them in the carbon cycle are observed to vary. But they individually vary in magnitude with time in unknown ways and by unknown amounts.
The “hydrocarbons we burn” add little to the natural fluxes in the carbon cycle: nature emits 34 molecules of CO2 to the air for every CO2 molecule emitted by the total of all human activities. So, a small adjustment to sizes of the compartments would compensate for the small anthropogenic emission.
The dynamics of the natural processes that sequeter CO2 from the air prove that those processes can easily sequester ALL the annual CO2 emission (both natural and anthropogenic) of each year. But they don’t: ~2% of the emissions is not sequestered each year. The question that nobody can answer is why not all the emissions are sequestered.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
May 25, 2012 at 12:56 am
I do not recall actually agreeing with your statement – it may have been in a moment of exhaustion. There simply isn’t any significant anthropogenic contribution possible to be wedged in when you have subtracted out the temperature related variation.
Ian H says:
May 25, 2012 at 1:25 am
“As rgbatduke has pointed out a correlation between temperature and the scaled derivative of CO_2 means very little…”
It means very much. The correlation is almost perfect, or as perfect as you generally can get in this universe. It is in complete contradistinction with the rate of emissions, which does not correlate well with the rate of change of measured CO2 at all.
“You have left room for a linear increase in CO_2. Actually this is pretty close to what we see when you look at the recent history of absolute CO_2 levels. “
But, it is not what you get from the accumulated emissions.
“You graph does NOTHING to explain this.”
Of course it does. The graph is the numerical derivative of the process. Integrate it from the initial point, and you will reconstitute the original function. What in the world are you going on about?
“In the meantime you have ignored my question as to why current CO_2 levels are the highest they’ve been for hundreds of millions of years.”
We do not actually know that. All we have that says that is proxy measurements from ice cores. We have no way of validating those proxies – they are entirely conjectural. And, based on the evidence, they are severely wanting.
“Temperatures are NOT unusually high at present.”
I have showed how to derive the CO2 from the temperature directly. Scale it, offset it, and integrate it from the initial condition, and you’ve got the CO2 level. CO2 isn’t proportional to temperature itself, but to the integral of the temperature with respect to a baseline, at least in the short term for which we have observations.
“1. Why are current CO_2 levels unusually high?”
Op cit. We do not actually know historical CO2 levels with anything approaching high confidence.
“2. Where did the hydrocarbons we dug up and burned go?”
Into natural sinks, which are clearly more active than conventionally assumed.
Keith Battye says:
May 25, 2012 at 7:17 am
Thanks, Keith. Good to know someone is catching on, without blocking themselves from recognizing the obvious.
NickB. says:
May 25, 2012 at 7:51 am
I assumed you were speaking of some econometric model which had attempted and failed to predict the future based on past correlation. Again, I stand by my arguments – there are many known deterministic links between temperature and CO2, many reasons to accept that it has a major effect on CO2 levels. It is no stretch at all. And, this degree of correlation over this long a time is, IMO, very compelling.
richardscourtney says:
May 25, 2012 at 8:04 am
Thanks.
Should have said “at least in the short term for which we have reliable observations.”
Bart:
At May 25, 2012 at 9:08 am you say to me:
OK. That is fine, and I accept it. I could cite your agreement but that would be pointless and argumentative because you say you did not intend it.
The important point for all to note is that you do not agree my statement because
• your interpretation of the data convinces you that the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is a result of global temperature change and not the anthropogenic emission
but
• my interpretation of the data convinces me that the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration is most probably a result of global temperature change but it is possible that the rise may have been caused by the anthropogenic emission.
Acquisition of more data in future may show which – if either – of us is correct.
I am pleased that you were not offended by my providing answers to questions that IanH addressed to you.
Richard