I’m on travel today, and will be away from email for quite some time (unless the flight has WiFi).
I’ll be attending both the Cook and the Mann lecture at University of Bristol, along with a couple of other meetings. Thanks sincerely to the WUWT readers that made this trip possible. I look forward to seeing all my UK friends very soon.
If anyone needs to contact me while I’m in the U.K. please use the WUWT contact form int he “About” menu above, which goes to web based mail.
The Cook and the Mann lecture is likely to full of true believers and has neither can handle a critical question worth a dam so I expect a ‘very controlled’ meeting with the usual ‘evil fossil fuel , conspiracy, worse than we thought ‘ madness. Funny in the type of way the leaves you feeling unclean afterwards.
Can’t figure out why Anthony would attend.
Lewindowsky or whoever will be there too. It would give me the creeps to be in the same room with any one of those but Anthony will see all three!
Al Gore’s microphone fails while quoting Jesus on word ‘hypocrite’
Please make an opportunity to ask what, if anything, would lead them to believe that the idea that CO2 was causing recent global warming was falsified. I’d like to see what their JBS Haldane moment looks like.
Perhaps finding a starting point…like if the linear trend for RSS was statistically significantly negative for 30 years, would that be enough?
Evidently from the climategate emails, Mann said that he figured out some length of time of no rise as important. Maybe ask him if he is gearing up to move the goalposts yet. From memory it seems only a couple of years away now.
18 Sept: Calgary Herald: Amanda Stephenson: ‘Climate change denier’ dismisses label
(Ross McKitrick) “It’s a dumb term, for one thing. In my opinion, a climate change denier would be somebody who thinks we’re still in the middle of an Ice Age and the continent is covered by a glacier,” McKitrick said in an interview with the Herald. “Obviously, nobody would think that. You have to accept that the climate changes.”…
“The issue really is the extent to which you accept that greenhouse gas emissions are causing a major catastrophe,” McKitrick said. “I would just say my reading of the evidence is that so far, it doesn’t appear to be a big issue.”…
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Climate+change+denier+dismisses+label/10214244/story.html
Bon voyage.
Do not judge all Australians by the standards of some you might meet.
@Fernando Leanme at 6:16 am
It is a useful exercise to consider how much CO2 could be put into the atmosphere if we burn all our fossil fuel reserves.
But, consider for a moment that as some point in the geologic history of the earth, the carbon that was used in creating all the oil, coal and gas, had to be in the atmosphere in the form of CO2. Coal, oil and gas are products of life sequestering CO2 below ground. Furthermore, the amounts are not just the reserves, but the inextractable resources, hydrocarbons in place, The biggest carbon sink of all are the carbonates.
<http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/06/we-must-get-rid-of-the-carboniferous-warm-period/#comment-1441379, From a discussion on: "We Must Get Rid of the Carboniferous Warm Period." WUWT Oct. 6, 2013.
Not all of that Carbon had to be in the atmosphere in the history of the early Earth. Archean Black Shales had to be a big sink and reservoir for carbon.
Ferdinand and Steven, listen to this: Dr. JF Kenney discussing his abiotic oil paper in the Proceedings in the National Academy of Sciences on NPR’s Science Friday. Instead of CO2 in the atmosphere drilling itself through rock miles deep to create oil and gas–I’m assuming you weren’t being facetious–it would seem to me that pressures of the earth on carbonates at the level of the mantle of the earth make more sense. Interesting talk, btw.
http://web.archive.org/web/20111025151824/http://www.gasresources.net/Kenney-NPR.mp3
That there are abiotic processes that can make methane and propane. Is not in dispute.
That you can contrive abiotic process to create longer chains of hydrocarbons in small quantities. is also not in dispute.
Neither of these facts alters our knowledge that life, biotic processes, are prolific producers of methane, propane, and longer chain hydrocarbons, isomers, aromatics, alcohols, and acids. The oil and gas we produce are almost entirely biotic, not abiotic.
Forget what we know about the generation of oils from gas chromagraphs and pyrolysis of rock laced with fossil organic carbons. Forget all that.
Look no farther than the shale oil and shale gas we are producing in the fracking revolution. We are now drilling into impermeable shales we once thought of as seals on top of reservoirs to trap conventional oil fields. We drill into these impermeable shales and shatter them with high pressure water and sand in a frac. After doing this we get out — oil and gas.
If oil and gas are generated in the mantle, how can they possibly get into the impermeable rock we work so hard to fracture?
I wasn’t saying anything about the unlikelihood of impermeable shales containing oil, or how the oil came to be there. (In the interview I recommend above, Kenney talks about how they used their abiotic oil theory oil at the crystalline basement of the Donetz-Dneiper Basin in Eastern Ukraine; the prevailing wisdom being that the basement doesn’t contains oil or gas. They brought it a field many multiple of the reserves of Alaska.)
My point was that CO2 in the atmosphere does not seep into the rock and create oil, as you averred…unless you were joking. If anything, it seems the enormous heat, pressures, and elements of the earth can create oil and gas of their own.
Polucritic, the enormous pressures and high temperatures found way down there make CO2 and diamonds. The abiotic oil theory doesn´t really have a leg to stand on. And this is why we saw the theory become popular in countries which had no oil such as Sweden, where the abiotic oil search was a fiasco.
Let me give you a personal obeservation: Rocks holding hydrocarbons generated from tiny dead creatures and vegetation which fall down and get buried in an anoxic environment can eventually generate oil and gas. What i have seen is that as the source bed gets buried deeper it tends to generate more gas and less liquids. Eventually it´s buried deep enough it only generates gas (methane). If an oil bearing rock is buried too deep and the temperature increases too much the oil is destroyed.
In other words, what I have seen with my own eyes is that high pressure and temperature, if high enough destroy the molecules the abiotic theory claims are somehow being created.
But Fernando, what about the Dr. Kenney claim in the audio that no biologic molecule can exist beyond the temperature of the Critical Temperature of Salt Water. Do you disagree with that?
Stephen, there are a few things we need not assume. First, carbonate rocks ( e.g. Limestones ) were formed by biological atmospheric carbon sequestration. They are at least microfossilferrous. You doubt that, get a microscope and check out the White Cliffs of Dover ( or your local favorite equivalent).
So it is not only fossil fuels. Calcining calcium carbonate to make lime to make cement is roughly a tenth of all anthropogenic CO2 emissions at present. Not from the fossil fuel burned. From the chemical reactions that free biolofically sequestered CO2 from what was a rock.
Amounts to diddle, unless one wants to get into detailed arguements from the other side.
What’s your point?
There is an enormous quantity of CO2 locked up in CaCO3 of limestone.
Most limestone is created by the shell building of ocean organisms. Most, not all — there are some inorganic carbonates, but most.
These organisms took CO2, via bicarbonate ions, to form the limestone.
That CO2 had to be in solution in the water and present in the atmosphere.
Life has been sequestering CO2 into rock and kerogen for most of 4 billion years.
Consequently, for most of that 4 billion years, we have had a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere than we have today.
What I was trying to say was to total carbon existing in fossil fuel reserves is a pittance compared to the amount of carbon that life has fixed into carbonate rock, source rock, and kerogen. And it was all in the biosphere at sometime or other.
Again, Stephen, and not be obstreperous, why couldn’t the CO2 have risen from within initially? It seems like an awfully slow process to have 0.04% of the atmosphere do it by entering impenetrable rock over the millennia. The surprise announcement in June 2014 that scientists discovered a vast reservoir of water 3X the size of the oceans in the transition zone between the lower and upper mantle will no doubt change a lot of our perceptions and knowledge. The Russian abiotic people produced oil in a lab with calcium carbonate, solid iron oxide, triple-distilled water, and 50 Kbars of pressure (mirroring the mantle). They made the stuff. Then, they used the knowledge in a commercial venture and succeeded, so who is to say they are wrong. Btw, what are the underwater volcanoes belching out but CO2.
Rud, are you the guy who writes at Judith Curry’s occasionally?
icarus62 says at 4:09:
“It’s just the basic physics of how the planet’s energy balance works”
The Earth’s climate is much more dynamic and complex than you are giving it credit for. That’s part of the reason modelers fail so miserably trying to model it. Your basic physics probably hold up in controlled laboratory conditions but there’s more to the story when you consider them in the real world.
How do you explain the fact that climate models have been successfully predicting the course of global warming for several decades now?
icarus62
You ask
There are several known and published reasons for the fact that climate models have been proven unable to predict the course of global warming for several decades.
One of the earliest explanations for the models’ failure was published in the last century
ref. Courtney RS ‘An assessment of validation experiments conducted on computer models of global climate using the general circulation model of the UK’s Hadley Centre’ Energy & Environment, Volume 10, Number 5, pp. 491-502, September 1999
Richard
33 years ago, Dr. James Hansen correctly predicted the modern global warming trend, both qualitatively and quantitatively, before it had even begun.
Not even close. Check the 2 sigma deviation.
icarus62
I don’t know where you got that cartoon, but Hansen failed to get anything right in his entire career.
I think you need to read this
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/15/james-hansens-climate-forecast-of-1988-a-whopping-150-wrong/
Richard
The graph is from Hansen’s 1981 paper –
Hansen et al. 1981
Hansen, J., D. Johnson, A. Lacis, S. Lebedeff, P. Lee, D. Rind, and G. Russell, 1981: Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Science, 213, 957-966, doi:10.1126/science.213.4511.957.
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/ha04600x.html
You can see that when global temperature of the subsequent 33 years is plotted against Hansen’s prediction, it matches extremely well.
icarus62
You claim
Assume your assertion is true (your link does not show that although its Figures 6 and 7 have some similarities), then Hansen rescinded that graph in favour of his 1988 forecast(s).
Hansen’s 1988 forecast was 150% wrong
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/15/james-hansens-climate-forecast-of-1988-a-whopping-150-wrong/
Of course, if Mystic Meg makes enough different forecasts then one of them may be nearly correct. Assume your cartoon was from Hansen in 1981, then it is not as good a forecast as those claimed by Mystic Meg.
Richard
Climate sensitivity was not very well constrained in the 1980s. Hansen’s 1988 paper was based on a fast feedback climate sensitivity of ~1°C/W/m², whereas the graph cited from his 1981 paper was based on a fast feedback climate sensitivity of ~0.75°C/W/m². A comparison of the two papers shows that 0.75°C/W/m² is closer to the real world value, and of course a great deal of research since then has come to the same conclusion.
icarus62
Allow me to help
You write
I translate.
You know Hansen was wrong and you admit Hansen was wrong, but you cannot bring yourself to admit that you were wrong when you claimed Hansen was right when he made his 1981 prediction.
Richard
Clearly Hansen was right in his 1981 paper, since subsequent observations have matched the prediction in the cited graph almost exactly. So, we know that the basic physics of AGW was correctly understood by the early 1980s, and we know that fast feedback climate sensitivity is closer to 0.75°C/W/m² than to 1°C/W/m². We also know, from Hansen’s work and that of others, that climate models have a good track record for making skillful projections of global warming. The IPCC projections have also performed consistently well.
False again. Subsequent observations have not matched his model or predictions. As you yourself have admitted.
LOL – Now that is a whopper! The models were created roughly 20 years ago. Since then they have not been close. Some (not all) correctly hindcast temperatures,. but so far, none have accurately FORECAST temperatures. About 2% have come close (within 2 sigmas) but that is disappearing as well the longer the pause lasts.
Observations for the shark tank.
http://www.writerbeat.com/?search=nicholas schroeder&category=all&followers=all
18 Sept: Reuters: Valerie Volcovici: Global investors urge leaders to act on carbon pricing ahead of UN meeting
More than 340 institutional investors representing $24 trillion in assets on Thursday called on government leaders attending next week’s United Nations climate summit to set carbon pricing policies that encourage the private sector to invest in cleaner technologies.
Firms signing a joint letter include BlackRock, Calvert Investments, BNP Paribas Investment Partners and Standard Bank.
They want countries to set a price tag on pollution by taxing carbon emission or implementing cap and trade emissions policies to create incentives for investing in cleaner technologies…
“Investors are owners of large segments of the global economy as well as custodians of citizens’ savings around the world. Having such a critical mass of them demand a transition to the low-carbon and green economy is exactly the signal governments need in order to move to ambitious action quickly,” said Achim Steiner, director of the UN Environment Programme…
On the sidelines of the summit, Ban will also host a private sector forum that will help build up support for carbon pricing in businesses and governments.
Among participants in that event are the CEOs of Air France , China’s Sinopec, the McDonald’s Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/18/un-climatechange-idUSL1N0RI2DF20140918
19 Sept: Bloomberg: Ban Enlisting Business on Climate Change May Win UN Pact
By Sangwon Yoon and Christopher Martin
“Investing wisely in climate change or the environment will help all spectrum of lives and, policies of national governments,” Ban said today in an interview at UN headquarters in New York. “That will be my consistent message at this time.”
Ban pointed to an announcement today from BlackRock Inc. (BLK), the world’s largest money manager, which joined 346 institutional investors managing $24 trillion in assets to call for a price on carbon emissions and a climate agreement to help shift economies away from fossil fuels.
“There are some unfortunately entrenched positions,” Ban said. Some “seem to believe wrongly that investing in climate change or environmental areas is less important than their national policies boosting economic growth.” …
While no agreement will emerge from the summit, it is the largest gathering of heads of state focusing on climate issues, according to the UN…
Ban is hoping to mobilize support for a shift away from investments in fossil fuels and into renewable energy. He has asked CEOs to “please reduce your investment in fossil-based energies and do more on renewable energy.”
“In the past they have been burning this climate, earth in the name of prosperity, economic development,” he said. “But this modality should change. They know that.” ….
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-18/ban-enlisting-business-on-climate-change-may-win-un-pact.html
forget prosperity & economic development – and watch your retirement funds!
Sad. And greedy.
icarus;
icarus62 September 18, 2014 at 4:09 pm
It’s just the basic physics of how the planet’s energy balance works. You can’t have an argument with the laws of physics and expect to win, you know.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well, if it is the physics you wish to cite, then start with Stefan-Boltzmann Law. What you will discover is that the effective black body temperature of earth before CO2 doubles is -18 degrees C, and after CO2 doubles it is STILL -18 degrees C. Once you understand that part, then you’ll understand that the runaway warming that you describe upthread is what violates the laws of physics. If you can get your head around that, then we can discuss issues like Mean Radiating Level, sensitivity, and the logarithmic nature of CO2’s effects. Frankly, once you understand those things, there’s not much left to worry about. Provided you ACTUALLY understand the physics you cite.
it is clear to me he doesn’t. Icarus62 is troll, and no amount of evidence or data or indisputable fact will alter his posts on WUWT.
Smokey, no matter how many times you repeat your “stopped” mantra, it won’t make it true.
Of course – it will always tend towards equilibrium with absorbed solar radiation, that’s trivially obvious. Atmospheric CO₂ is responsible for 80% of the forcing which sustains the greenhouse effect, and that’s why it has such a large impact on surface temperature. The Planck response is around 0.29°C/W/m². Fast feedbacks amplify that to 0.75 ± 0.125°C/W/m² (Hansen & Sato, 2011) and slow feedbacks at least double that again (Previdi M et al 2013). We’re really only seeing the beginning of the global warming that is to come, and there are a lot more climate impacts in the pipeline.
Atmospheric CO₂ is responsible for 80% of the forcing which sustains the greenhouse effect, and that’s why it has such a large impact on surface temperature.
Uhm, no. Not even close. Water vapour is well over 80% of the GHE.
Water vapour is a feedback, not a forcing. The greenhouse effect is sustained by the well-mixed, long-lived greenhouse gases which do not condense out of the atmosphere at Earth temperatures and pressures, as water vapour does. Of those gases which sustain the greenhouse effect, CO₂ is responsible for 80% of the forcing.
Atmospheric CO2: Principal Control Knob Governing Earth’s Temperature
Andrew A. Lacis*, Gavin A. Schmidt, David Rind, Reto A. Ruedy
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6002/356
icarus,
The funny thing is, global warming stopped quite a while ago.
Draw your own conclusions…
Global warming continues unabated and indeed has been accelerating in recent years. The reason for the acceleration is unclear but one possible explanation is that some of the slower climate feedbacks are already kicking in and amplifying the anthropogenic global warming trend.
Icarus says…”There are lots more climate impacts to come.”
Lots more then what? Less intense hurricanes, fewer droughts, flat line NH snow cover, 1 to 2 mm per year SL rise – maybe?
BTW, at what point does a feedback, become a forcing? In theory more warmth = increased water vapor = increased GHE = more CO2 outgassing from oceans. So, is the natural increase in CO2 a feedback to increased water vapor? Are you defining CO2 as a forcing because of the anthropogenic component? Certainly you do not mean that it is 80 percent of the GHE on earth?
(Of course we will ignore that (according to the observations) the alarmist likely have the feedback from water vapor wrong, and that the assumption of a linear climate sensitivity is also likely wrong.
David A:
Climate impacts such as more intense storms, heavier precipitation, orders of magnitude increases in extreme heatwaves, cryosphere meltdown, accelerating sea level rise and shifting climate zones.
It is expected that carbon sinks will turn into sources in coming decades. Currently the natural world is absorbing half of our CO₂ emissions and that includes the oceans, since the increase in partial pressure in the atmosphere is still more than enough to prevent net outgassing from the warming oceans. It would be wise to try to stop global warming before the carbon cycle feedbacks kick in – that’s if it’s not already too late to have any realistic chance of doing so, which it may well be.
Icarus says, “The greenhouse effect is sustained by the well-mixed, long-lived greenhouse gases which do not condense out of the atmosphere at Earth temperatures and pressures, as water vapour does.”
Nonsense If W/V is continuously added, and continuously precipitates out, then it is the average amount of w/v, not its turn over rate which determines it GHE.
From the abstract of the paper cited above:
icarus62
Your practice of copying from papers you don’t understand keeps tripping you up. In this case you write
That merely demonstrates your ignorance of the difference between the greenhouse effect (GHE) and global warming (GW).
GHE and GW are NOT the same effect although enhanced GHE is one of several possible causes of GW.
Your ignorance of this explains your astonishingly wrong idea that CO2 is the major greenhouse gas. And it seems likely that your ignorance of this explains your mysterious inability to understand that GW has stopped.
Richard
Icarus says…
David A:
Climate impacts such as more intense storms, heavier precipitation, orders of magnitude increases in extreme heatwaves, cryosphere meltdown, accelerating sea level rise and shifting climate zones.
==============================
Your catastrophe is not happening. Nothing outside the normal change is manifesting.
Contrary to Hansen’s wrong predictions, the atmosphere stopped warming two decades ago. He was wrong about the rate of CO2 and other GHG atmospheric accumulation, and wrong about the affect of said increase in GHGs on atmospheric T. He was wrong about SL rise. Virtually all the IPCC climate computer models show way to much warming. (They are all wrong)
Neither the atmospheric surface T, or the atmospheric hotspot have manifested as feared. The ocean warming is less then 1/2 of what was predicted, and the error bars are far larger then shown. You think some heat snuck past our observations to the oceans below 700 meters. You then think that it will somehow, any year now, sneak out of the oceans and cause the catastrophe you predict. You ignore that the fraction of a degree rise in the deep oceans will mean very little for the atmosphere anytime soon. You ignore the decades and centuries it takes to even bring this heat to the surface. You ignore that even if the ocean heat contents are correct, and STILL well below the alarmist predictions, it is likely safely sequestered, and will if anything, potentially provide a very little bit of protection from entering massive cooling associated with ice ages.
You also ignore the known beneficial affects of increased CO2. The affects of which continue to manifest well into any foreseeable human contribution. The projected harms are not manifesting, and the potential warming of CO2 is logarithmically decreasing, while the benefits are manifesting and will continue to.
The world will continue to benefit from additional CO2 , while your “orders of magnitude increases in extreme heatwaves and cryosphere meltdown” will continue to be MIA.
18 Sept: The Hill: Timothy Cama: Steyer to join climate march
Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer will join thousands of others this weekend in a New York City march for climate change action.
Steyer announced his intent to attend the People’s Climate March on Twitter Thursday…
Among those joining Steyer will be U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, former Vice President Al Gore, actor Leonardo DiCaprio and lawmakers including Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/218235-steyer-to-join-climate-march
Someone should bird dog Steyer with a sign:
STEYER MADE HIS FORTUNE SELLING FOSSIL FUELS!
Rich ‘greens’ are nothing if not hypocrites.
Someone should bird dog dbstealy with a sign:
..
DBSTEALY CAN’T TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FARALLON CAPITAL MANAGEMENT AND A FOSSIL FUEL SALESMAN”
YOu are more than welcome to take the job. But then we have to bird dog you with a sign that reads “hypocrites do not recognize hypocrisy”.
I believe Al Gore’s family fortune is from oil and tobacco.
His lawyers at the time were the ones spreading the “tobacco is safe” mantra.
That sounds like the people to me.
I’m pretty sure Harry Reid won’t be there because he hates the smell of the people…maybe that’s only in DC.
Christiana will be on the march…to save the planet and prevent conflicts around the world!
18 Sept: Deutsche Welle: UN Climate chief, Christiana Figueres: “If we want to prevent conflicts, we have to address climate change now”
Figueres: It is also very interesting that on US land, there will be the people’s climate march, just two days before the summit. That will show that there is, even in the United States, broad and deep public support for global climate policy making…
I’m very grateful to the organizers of the march and to everyone who’s going to be at the march. I will be there, because it’s important to give a very strong message that it is not just the responsibility of governments or corporations, but rather there is also civil society responsibility here to make their awareness and concern felt, and encourage countries and companies to move towards low-carbon economies as soon as possible…
http://www.dw.de/figueres-if-we-want-to-prevent-conflicts-we-have-to-address-climate-change-now/a-17928114
“That will show that there is, even in the United States, broad and deep public support for global climate policy making…”
I´m sure the protest will be a huge success. They invited anybody who wanted to protest about ANY social causes. I´m going to be there holding a sign: “Free Leopoldo Lopez”, and a group of friends will be protesting against cement plants because they emit a lot of CO2.
Fernando, please explain how Co2 is a problem.
The water vapor cycle, i.e. ocean evaporation, clouds, precipitation, has a hundred times more influence on the heating and cooling of the atmosphere compared to CO2. The magnitude of the CO2 radiative forcing/ water vapor/ocean heating feedback loop is trivial. The scientists involved in IPCC AR5 even admit in TS.6 that they are uncertain about the precipitation cycle, cloud behavior, deep ocean heating and CO2, and the magnitude of the CO2 forcing. Those are rather significant doubts and explain why their models are complete failures.
Why rational thought will never get through to some people.
Found this video and at first thought it was some sort of joke.
But it’s not. These people are actually weeping, with great despair, about the death of trees.
Has anyone else seen this? Is it possible this was a parody or joke or something along those lines?
They should look at the bright side of elevated level of CO2. Trees and other vegetation are thriving in the higher levels of CO2.
In addition to being a delight to read, with lots of suspense and action, the referenced book comments on the acceleration in growth experienced in the redwood forests of Northern California due to higher levels of CO2. http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Trees-Story-Passion-Daring/dp/0812975596/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411117276&sr=1-5&keywords=redwoods
Aaarrgh, mates. It’s Talk Like A Pirate Day.
We’ve heard the charge environmentalists are watermelons; green on the outside, red on the inside.
Here’s one person at least who embraces the idea:
http://www.amazon.com/This-Changes-Everything-Capitalism-Climate/dp/1451697384
Apparently the author believes it is too late to stop the coming catastrophe with gradual adjustments. It’s time for shock therapy have to get rid of free markets, fossil fuels, etc. One of her sources for this recommendation is Michael Mann. I certainly cannot embrace Michael Mann’s science because I can’t look at his data and methods. For that reason, it’s not science because no one can verify his hypothesis.
Here’s another link on the book:
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/16/3567322/this-changes-everything-naomi-klein-capitalism-climate/
The reviewer in the above link makes one observation hard to disagree with.
Yesterday I got into a back and forth (here @ur momisugly WUWT) about the “hiatus”. I am a warmist. I don’t believe there IS a hiatus. I don’t believe there is a “pause”. I do believe, that compared with an interval beginning at the Great Climatic Flip (say, 1977), and terminating with El Nino Grande (1998), the rate of warming has declined. Very substantially, even. The exchange concluded with my being labeled a “troll”.
I appreciate that there are tensions and partisans aplenty in these discussions, and that very consequential deliberations are in play. I understand that it is simple human nature to emotionally invest oneself in particular convictions, and most especially if real costs are being imposed as a consequence one side’s or another’s agenda.
Thus, I wish to preface my query, here, with a disinfectant. I am not assaulting anyone’s convictions. I am not attempting to convert anyone. I cannot conceive of my own tergiversation, short of someone restoring the boreal ice cap, to its stature as of the middle of the 1900’s.
Here is what I want to understand, respecting the minimalist view. There is a ratio which can be calculated, between the long term trend surface warming (across both the stair-step treads and risers), and the episodic aberration of the 1998 El Nino. Were that ratio a single order of magnitude, I would be more open to he idea of there being emergent evidence of a meaningful warming cessation, by now. Were it two orders of magnitude, I would think that all observers would remain open to the possibility, that a very long period would ensue, prior to their being any reasonable expectation for a re-manifestation of trend warming.
I appreciate that great dubiety is held hereabouts, concerning canonical surface records, and preferred metrics. I have no interest in defending the Hadley Center, but their data is the source I am long familiar with. Accepting it for the sake of argument, I reckon the RATIO sort of mid way betwixt the above extremes. Near 40 to one (~38). So, roughly, if you are very slowly and very erratically building a record across a full century, and you suddenly experience a variation within a single year, that is equal to a third of that emergent signal, as of the ninetieth year, why would there not be an expectation for a “lull”, in its aftermath, that is roughly proportional to the ratio? And why, during that expected interval, would not the consensus expectation be, that the lull was neutral on the existence (or nullification) of the signal?
Dave Peters
It is trolling to deliberately disrupt threads with persistent insistence that reality is other than is observed.
If you have real objections to the observations then state them for consideration, but it is merely disruptive to ignore all evidence and to proclaim that warming must be hiding in the oceans.
Global warming has stopped. You have been given the information Live with it.
Richard
Dave,
That’s a very long winded way of saying that natural variabiity is high enough that it currently exceeds and is burying the warming signal. If I accept your argument (in fact, I do) the only logical conclusion that one can draw is that sensitivity is much smaller than natural variability. That being the case, we have little to fear from the CO2 warming signal. It is too small in comparison to natural variability to matter in the long run.
You simply cannot argue that CO2 is strong enough to overcome natural variability, while claiming natural variability is the reason for the current lack of warming.
@Dave Peters 10:52am
I read your last paragraph. It is incomprehensible.
I have no interest in defending the Hadley Center, but their data is the source I am long familiar with. Accepting it for the sake of argument, …
We are not going to get very far accepting black is white.
Dave Peters, according to the alarmist computer models, 1998 was not an aberration. It was what was expected to be the new normal It was warming that was to continue for the next ten or so decades. It was in-line with expected CAGW.
It was wrong. Try to accept that. They were wrong about temperature, hurricanes, droughts, NH snow fall, SL rise. etc. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. Go ahead,say it. It is liberating.
icarus62 September 19, 2014 at 9:44 am
Water vapour is a feedback, not a forcing. The greenhouse effect is sustained by the well-mixed, long-lived greenhouse gases which do not condense out of the atmosphere at Earth temperatures and pressures, as water vapour does.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
What utter bullsh*t. You are chasing your tail. Water vapour would exist in the atmosphere in similar amounts as we have now even if there were no other GHG’s at all.
Water vapour would exist in the atmosphere in similar amounts as we have now even if there were no other GHG’s at all.
How so? The saturation partial pressure of water is highly dependent upon temperature.
If water vapour feedback was so large as to be dependent on GHG’s which combined only raise surface temps by a few degrees, then sensitivity would be ENORMOUS, and we know it isn’t. Evaporation into the atmosphere happens with or without a boost from GHG’s.
Everyone turned out for the Scottish secession vote…
Aljazeera America is suing Al Gore
Al Jazeera America says it is entitled to the money because Gore and Hyatt did not live up to a promise to indemnify the network for claims made against Current TV. It accuses the pair of “misrepresentations.”
http://m.nydailynews.com/news/world/al-jazeera-america-suing-al-gore-article-1.1945816
“misrepresentations”!?!? From Al Gore? Shocking — not.
Gambling in Rick’s Place…Shocked, I tell you, I am shocked to the bone.
Arctic ice just hit minimum and turned.
Higher extent than last year – starts to look like recovery.
Together with record Antarctic ice this is a bit of ammo for Bristol.
Northwest Passage News:
Since the previous thread closed, I will continue some NW passage news here.
According to the latest Queen Maud ice survey, it looks like Route 7, out the southwest has already closed with several miles of 70+% ice in the strait to Foxe. The amount of New Ice (area J) is expanding quickly in Queen Maud Gulf so that Route 6 could close off in a day or two when the route from Ballot Strait to Gjoa Haven is cutoff (ice body J)
http://ice-glaces.ec.gc.ca/prods/WIS38CT/20140919180000_WIS38CT_0007875591.gif
On Sept 17, the NorthwestPassage2014 blog reported that Cambridge Bay “flash froze” overnight. A 14 year resident said it was the earliest in the year for this to happen. It will melt in the day. But summer is over.
S/V DRINA sailed into Nome on 9/19 the third SV to make the westward Route 6 2014 in one season.
Correction: Route 7 out the
southwestsoutheast…There are times when you just want to scream…..
“Pretty please, delay your rule making 60 days until after the election……”
Yet these same senators (as well as the House) had just passed a continuing resolution funding the government until mid December.
How about a rider: “You get no funding past Oct 1 unless you postpone the rule making X number of days.” ?
Naw, the senators would have to stand for something.
Stephen Rasey September 19, 2014 at 2:20 pm
Water vapour would exist in the atmosphere in similar amounts as we have now even if there were no other GHG’s at all.
How so? The saturation partial pressure of water is highly dependent upon temperature.
Reply
davidmhoffer September 19, 2014 at 3:42 pm
If water vapour feedback was so large as to be dependent on GHG’s which combined only raise surface temps by a few degrees, then sensitivity would be ENORMOUS, and we know it isn’t. Evaporation into the atmosphere happens with or without a boost from GHG’s.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Not to mention that CO2 LAGS temperature in the geological record by several hundred years. The earth comes out of ice ages and warms up to roughly present conditions driven by factors OTHER than CO2. Water vapour finds it way into the atmosphere quite nicely without a boost from GHG’s.
David, you overstated the case.
even if there were no other GHG’s at all
In which case the temperature of the Earth would be at least 11 K lower than it is today. Orthodoxy would have it be 33 deg K cooler, but I think they have misaccounted the change in albedo as a non-greenhouse effect. But GHG’s warm the Earth by at least 11K.
Regardless, the partial pressure of water vapor roughly doubles about every 10 deg C. in the range of -20 to 30 deg C.
Therefore, without any other GHG’s, the Earth would be colder than with other GHG’s. If colder, then there would be less water vapor in the atmosphere.
I make no other claim about any DWIR or IR saturation from this increase in water vapor.
Stephen,
The water vapour in the air doesn’t achieve max holding capacity at current temps. Just because the max holding capacity increases or decreases by some amount doesn’t mean that water will vary in lock step. The fact that it doesn’t reach max holding capacity and that earth comes out of ice ages well before CO2 rises suggest this to be the case. The models assume this feedback works in lockstep and is part of why the models are out to lunch. As for 11 degrees, the numbers I have seen for direct effects of GHG’s other than water vapour are much smaller, I don’t have the time at the moment to go dig up the references. But I suspect your 11 degrees number is predicated upon an assumption of a given level of water vapour feedback in the range of 2:1 which even the IPCC is slowly starting to admit is way to high.
So yes, the earth would be colder without ANY GHG’s other than water vapour, but by how much remains a matter of feedback sensitivity, and all the geological and observational evidence we have to date points to very low numbers on that front.
The partial pressure of water vapor is measured on kPa, slightly above a strong sneeze.
The NY Times’ Paul Krugman demonstrates how disconnected from reality he is by arguing that “saving the plant” (i.e. dealing the non-problem of climate change) is actually cheap with solar panel and wind farms, emission controls and CO2 taxes.
In his piece, he takes his usual potshots at those on the right and elsewhere who question the twin Holy Religions of climate change alarmism and renewable (solar and wind) energy.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/saving-the-planet-could-be-cheap-b99355015z1-275787561.html
He states:
“……..The idea that economic growth and climate action are incompatible may sound hardheaded and realistic, but it’s actually a fuzzy-minded misconception. If we ever get past the special interests and ideology that have blocked action to save the planet, we’ll find that it’s cheaper and easier than almost anyone imagines.”
Krugman would be hilariously funny here if the wasn’t so off-the-mark-pathetic.
Followup thought: I can’t help but wonder if Krugman and his ilk will ever be capable of understanding how irrational it is to be both ant-fossil fuels AND anti-nuclear (which I think he is….anyone can correct me if I am wrong about that).
He needs to understand (but probably never will understand) that renewables along can’t ever come close to meeting this nation’s energy needs unless he doesn’t have any problem with dramatic economic downturns and maybe even total economic collapses.
People like him who adhere to belief systems that are economically self-destructive need to personally experience the effects and consequences of his beliefs in his own personal life before he has an opportunity to impose them on the rest of us.
Only then might he change his mind. Maybe.
Since you somehow believe you have some god like ability to create the perfect environment by twerking on The Ole CO2 Control Knob…
Will you please let us know what the proper level of CO2 must be so that it sets the optimum temperature and climate you are absolutely sure we must have.
Oh boy, another one of the haves who wants to save the planet.
Will someone please save us from those who wish to save us?
The comments were directed at NY Times’ Paul Krugman.
Or anyone wanting to assist him with an answer.
mr