Iain Aitken
In this essay I propose that there are many things about climate change that the general public, journalists, academics, environmentalists and politicians may think they ‘know’ to certainly be true that are actually, at the least, highly equivocal (or demonstrably false) and that once these misconceptions are corrected perceptions of the issue are (or, at least, should be) transformed. Note that throughout I use the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) definition of ‘climate change’: ‘a statistically significant variation in either the mean state of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended period (typically decades or longer)’. By ‘global warming’ I mean a rise in the Global Average Surface Temperature of the Earth.
Although the exact terminology and language may vary, we are repeatedly told that the essential ‘facts’ about climate change are that:
a) Global warming is happening, at rate that is unprecedented and accelerating
b) It has been caused by our carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels
c) It has already caused an alarming and accelerating rise in sea levels
d) It has already caused an alarming and accelerating increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events
e) It has already caused alarming and accelerating global species extinctions
f) We are experiencing a climate change crisis that will soon be catastrophic (potentially even causing a mass extinction event) if we don’t stop climate change
g) We can stop climate change by urgently switching to renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, so eradicating our emissions
h) The science behind the above points is settled and beyond reasonable dispute.
My assertion is not that these ‘facts’ are ‘fake news’ (deliberately reported falsehoods) or ‘myths’ (implying that there is no truth whatsoever in them) but that they are fundamental misconceptions based on misunderstandings of what the science and evidence actually tell us. These misconceptions appear to have assumed the mantle of ‘collective beliefs’ (or ‘memes’) that through extensive repetition in the media are mistakenly taken to be indisputable truths, despite the ready availability of science and evidence to disprove (or, at the least, seriously question) them. Few people will have heard the opinions of scientists (including many of the world’s most eminent climate scientists) who doubt this ‘man-made climate change crisis’ narrative because their voices have largely been silenced (typically by branding them ‘climate change deniers’ or even ‘science deniers’). In the current climate of hostility to even considering alternative viewpoints there is apparently only one politically correct position to take, the ‘right’ position of accepting that the alarmist narrative is beyond dispute.
It’s hardly surprising that these misconceptions have arisen because for most people (whether they be the general public, politicians or, indeed, journalists) their exposure to the climate change issue is predominantly through the media. Furthermore when the media concerned is mainstream (such as the BBC), and so ‘trusted’, people reasonably believe that they are being told the ‘whole truth’ by unbiased journalists who must have understood and critically investigated the science and evidence. Sadly such understanding and critical analysis is rarely to be found, journalists typically simply taking on trust what the ‘scientific authorities’ tell them (as gleaned from Press Releases and ‘executive summary’ documents from which all the complexities and profound uncertainties, unknowns and ambiguities have largely been expunged). This often superficial understanding is then communicated to the target audience using unscientific, emotional, hyperbolic language (such as ‘climate emergency’ and ‘climate change crisis’) and quoting extreme outlier predictions that are virtually impossible to occur in order to create an impression of urgency and danger; rhetoric appealing to the emotions coupled with alarming images (like ice calving, hurricanes and wildfires or computer-generated drowning cities) are always likely to sway public opinion far more powerfully than rhetoric appealing to logic coupled with complicated science, graphs and data. In this way highly improbable risks in the far future come to be perceived as existential crises today. In fact if you want to convince the general public (and journalists and politicians) that ‘we are experiencing a man-made climate change crisis’ then, because few will understand the fundamental differences between man-made climate change and global warming, let alone the differences between man-made climate change and natural climate variability, you typically need only convince them that ‘global warming is happening’ (which nobody denies). So one temperature graph showing warming (there are thousands available on Google Images) is all it may take to apparently ‘prove’ your case. Yet evidence that global warming is happening is not evidence that man-made global warming is happening and not evidence that climate change is happening (let alone evidence that man-made climate change is happening) because the global warming may just result from natural climate variability. Natural climate variability is variability in the mean state of the climate on all temporal scales (beyond that of individual weather events) resulting from natural processes.
This confusion was epitomized in ‘Climate Change – The Facts’, Sir David Attenborough’s BBC documentary (that appeared on British TV 18th April 2019) that was a catalogue of scientific misconceptions, spanning claims of man-made climate change causing escalating heatwaves, droughts, storms, floods, ice melt at the Antarctic, sea level rise, species extinctions and widespread coral death. Sample criticisms of the programme can be found here and here and here. It included the claim (also being made by such extremist groups as Extinction Rebellion) that globally we must achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and not exceed a further half a degree Centigrade of global warming if we are to avoid a climate catastrophe and possible mass extinction event – a claim that, to put it as charitably as possible, is not at all supported by the science, as is evident to anyone with even the most basic understanding of climate science or anyone who has actually read the IPCC SR15 report that ostensibly formed the basis of this claim. Furthermore to achieve this goal would, according to the IPCC, ‘require unprecedented changes in our lifestyle, energy and transport systems’, effectively a global social and economic revolution.
The essential problem for those who are prepared to open their minds to alternative viewpoints is that to understand the flaws in the alarmist narrative’s simplistic certainties requires that you delve quite deeply into the science, statistics, politics and economics of climate change – and that is time-consuming, hard work that requires quite a high degree of scientific literacy. However if you do make the effort a very different (far less alarming) picture appears:
1) Global warming and climate change are both unequivocally happening (the latter being reflected in, for example, glacier retreat and sea level rise) but so far both at a rate that is well within the bounds of natural climate variability (and not unprecedented)
2) There are substantial uncertainties about the extent to which human activity (principally in the form of global warming from greenhouse gas emissions and global cooling from aerosol and soot emissions) has contributed to the observed post-industrial global warming and climate change, not least because of the extreme difficulty of separating man-made climate change from the ‘background noise’ of natural climate variability. Nevertheless on the balance of probabilities human activity was responsible for half or more of the global warming observed between 1950 and 2010 (a period of escalating carbon dioxide emissions)
3) Sea levels are rising at a rate of about 7-8 inches per century, a rate that has remained steady despite our escalating carbon dioxide emissions, i.e. the cause is probably predominantly natural. We could globally cease all carbon dioxide emissions overnight and sea levels would continue to rise, an inevitability to which we must adapt
4) There is no remotely compelling scientific evidence that extreme weather events have increased in frequency or intensity in post-industrial times (although the reporting of such events certainly has)
5) There is no remotely compelling scientific evidence that climate change (man-made or otherwise) has resulted in widespread species extinctions (most extinctions have been attributed to habitat loss, over-exploitation, pollution or invasive species)
6) If you remove the (entirely natural) El Niño warming of 2015-16 there has been little statistically significant global warming this century
7) Recently (essentially this century) global warming has been slowing down (while our carbon dioxide emissions have continued to escalate), this illustrating the fact that there is no direct (or linear) correlation between global surface temperatures and carbon dioxide emissions
8) It is impossible to control the Earth’s average surface temperature (on the timescales of decades to centuries) just by controlling our carbon dioxide emissions
9) It is impossible to stop climate change happening – climate change is inherently complex, unpredictable and uncontrollable
10) It is impossible to specify a threshold for global warming beyond which the climatic effects become net-harmful (the 20C goal of the Paris Climate Accord is essentially politically arbitrary)
11) Carbon dioxide is an incombustible, colourless, odourless and tasteless gas that is a very effective plant nutrient. Thanks to our carbon dioxide emissions increasing concentrations in the atmosphere there has been a greening of the Earth that is already equivalent in size to twice the area of the USA and could fundamentally change the Earth’s carbon cycle by adding such a vast carbon sink. Furthermore, as the ‘fuel’ of photosynthesis and the creation of oxygen, it is absolutely essential to the existence of complex life on Earth (which includes us). Dr. Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has stated that the idea that carbon dioxide is a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin ‘will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world’
12) Carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere today are about 46% higher than their (280ppm) pre-industrial level (largely because of our emissions) but about four times lower than their average level and at least 10 times lower than their highest level in the history of the Earth (based on paleoclimatology estimates)
13) The global average surface temperature today is about 10C higher than its pre-industrial level but about 60C lower than its average level and at least 130C lower than its highest level in the history of the Earth (based on paleoclimatology estimates)
14) Climate change computer models are proving very unreliable guides to future climate change (in particular they are substantially overestimating warming) – yet it is the most extreme ‘predictions’ of these models that are driving global climate and energy policies
15) The future costs and impacts of decarbonization may well exceed the future costs and impacts of man-made global warming, i.e. even if future man-made global warming becomes net-harmful it may not be cost-effective to mitigate it with decarbonization
16) Based on observational estimates of climate sensitivity (simplistically how much warming you get when you double the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) on the balance of probabilities further man-made global warming this century is unlikely to exceed 1.50C and its climatic effects might actually be net-beneficial for humans and the environment for many regions of the world [Here I am assuming climate sensitivity not exceeding 20C (based on the best empirical evidence) and ‘business as usual’ emissions trajectories leading to carbon dioxide concentrations not exceeding 700ppm by 2100. Note that by ‘business as usual’ I mean a reasonable extrapolation of economic, population and energy mix trends. This is not to be conflated with recent trends which have roughly tracked the IPCC scenario RCP8.5 (its most extreme emissions scenario, which is virtually impossible to occur)]
17) Climate disruption (e.g. the failure of the Gulf Stream) before the end of this century resulting from man-made global warming is not absolutely impossible but is extremely unlikely
18) A ‘mass extinction event’ before the end of this century resulting from man-made global warming is a virtual impossibility; however a global economic recession/depression resulting from climate policies designed to limit future warming to a half degree Centigrade (and so ostensibly avert such a catastrophe) is a virtual certainty
19) Intermittent wind and solar power is not the solution to any potential future climate change problem (certainly with any foreseeable development of battery technology to ‘plug the intermittency gap’)
20) Climate change science is currently immature, highly disputable and not remotely ‘settled’. This is precisely why many very different interpretations of the science have arisen
Based on the above points the politically correct vogue for councils/counties/countries to declare a ‘climate change emergency’ is clearly profoundly scientifically misconceived (in fact it is hard to avoid the word ‘delusional’) based on any reasonable definition of the word ‘emergency’. It might well make good political sense (to attract the ‘green vote’) but it makes no real scientific or economic sense. For example, the only statistically significant change in Britain’s climate for hundreds of years has been that it has warmed slightly – yet the UK Parliament has now declared a ‘climate change emergency’. Basically it is hard to see how climate change that so far has probably been net-beneficial for humans and the environment, that has lifted us out of the misery of the Little Ice Age that preceded it, with its droughts, crop failures, famines and epidemics, and has been accompanied by the Industrial Revolution’s soaring wealth and life expectancy (according to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators 2014) could reasonably, in the round, be described as an ‘emergency’; indeed quite the opposite.
Despite all of the above, if nevertheless the radical global decarbonization route is to be followed it cannot succeed without global concerted action, in particular from major emitters like China (30% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and rising – and funding about $36 billion of coal projects globally according to the IEEFA). Decarbonization unilateralism by small emitters is worse than pointless. For example even if Britain (1.1% of global emissions) somehow totally decarbonized its economy (with technologies not yet viable, like Carbon Capture and Sequestration), as is being recommended by its Committee on Climate Change, the future reduction in global warming would still be undetectably and unmeasurably small (estimated to be of the order of a hundredth of a degree Centigrade by 2100) and so basically just extremely economically, socially and environmentally damaging ‘virtue signalling’. The only basis on which this could possibly be described as even vaguely rational or responsible would be if major emitters, like China, followed Britain’s lead – and there is, to say the least, a negligible chance of that.
Of course these 20 conjectures are a great deal more complicated, qualified and uncertain than the 8 simple, absolute and certain ‘facts’ at the start of this essay. Given a choice between the complex uncertainties of my conjectures and the simple certainties of the ‘facts’ many would prefer the latter. So can we reduce all this complexity to a relatively simple ‘alternative climate change narrative’, at the very real risk of being as trite as the original set of ‘facts’? If forced to make such a gross simplification my suggestion would be:
a) Global warming is happening, albeit at a rate that is unexceptional and not accelerating
b) It has been caused by both human activity and natural activity (i.e. it has not just been caused by our carbon dioxide emissions)
c) It has caused a rise in sea levels, albeit at a rate that is unexceptional and not accelerating
d) It has not caused an increase in the frequency or intensity of extreme weather events
e) It has not caused accelerating global species extinctions
f) We are not experiencing a ‘climate change crisis’ or a ‘climate change emergency’ (indeed arguably quite the opposite) but climate disruption in the far future, although very unlikely, is not impossible
g) We cannot stop climate change but we can reduce climate change risks (albeit at an economic, social and environmental cost that may be prohibitive) by gradually transitioning to lower carbon-intensity energy sources (like natural gas), so reducing our emissions
h) The science behind the above points is immature and subject to dispute. There is almost total scientific consensus that global warming and climate change are happening and that we are contributing to them – but profound disagreements about the extent of our contribution, whether it will lead to ‘dangerous’ climate change and whether urgent global decarbonization is the correct policy response.
Now all this is highly controversial and iconoclastic because it subverts the politically correct orthodoxy on climate change, those alarming ‘facts’ that we are not supposed to question. Many would doubtless disagree with this alternative, more circumspect and far less alarming narrative, perhaps saying ‘well that’s not what the IPCC say.’ The IPCC is typically described as, ‘The internationally accepted authority on climate change’ and is viewed with reverence, not to say awe, by most academics, politicians, environmentalists and journalists, who regard it as virtually infallible and omniscient in all climate change matters. In fact many of my 20 points are directly derived from IPCC reports. Actually I suspect that the IPCC would privately agree with most of these 20 points (but would never publically admit it for fear of reducing the fear). Furthermore the IPCC, in keeping with its remit from the UN to support the UNFCCC (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which is the main international treaty on climate change), focuses almost exclusively on man-made climate change at the expense of important aspects of natural climate change and is arguably predisposed to a ‘presumption of guilt’ of carbon dioxide emissions. Basically to ignore the opinions of the IPCC would be as foolish as to believe that they are beyond reasonable dispute.
To really understand the climate change issue we must accept that it is far more complicated and nuanced and uncertain than the simplistic way it is typically reported in the media. We must open our minds to the wide range of expert opinions about the issue, give them deep thought, apply common sense, make careful judgements, and above all be wary of any simplistic all-purpose solutions, such as urgent global decarbonization. Unfortunately few people have available to them the time, inclination and perseverance to do that. As Dr. Richard Lindzen has said, ‘Most arguments about global warming boil down to science versus authority. For much of the public authority will generally win since they do not wish to deal with the science.’ The apparent overwhelming message from the authorities (as mediated by the media) is that we are experiencing a man-made climate change crisis that can only be fixed through urgent and radical global decarbonization and it is perfectly understandable (although regrettable) that the vast majority of the general public and journalists and politicians simply choose to believe this. Why do all that hard, time-consuming work when you can just believe. The simplistic certainties of the alarmist media narrative may be based on profound scientific misconceptions (as the authorities are well aware) but the attitude of the authorities appears to be that because a ‘climate change crisis’ in the distant future is not impossible this possible end justifies the dubious means – after all, even this alarmist narrative has failed to get the nations of the world to act decisively. If the authorities communicated the climate change issue honestly, in all its complexity and uncertainty, it would give governments even more reason to avoid or delay decarbonization. So the behavior of the scientific authorities is perfectly understandable, although regrettable, because it risks radical climate change policies being implemented that may be the cause of deep global regret in the future. And of course the behavior of the media is also perfectly understandable (although regrettable) because bad news sells; it is hard to monetize a ‘no climate change crisis’ story.
When people say that they believe in the climate change crisis because they ‘believe in science’ what they may actually be saying is that because they don’t really understand the science they choose to believe in the alarmist narrative promoted by the authorities and abetted by the media. Few people choose the ‘road less travelled’ of opening their minds to the competing arguments in the climate change debate, embracing complexity, uncertainty, doubt and social opprobrium when they can simply choose to believe what they think the authorities and other ‘right thinking’ people believe. On the one hand you have an apparently scientifically-straightforward, very easy to understand, very certain, very alarming problem (‘our carbon dioxide emissions are causing a climate change crisis’) with an ostensibly very simple solution (‘decarbonize’) and on the other hand you have a scientifically-challenging, very hard to understand, complex, nuanced and uncertain problem that may or may not be alarming and which has no simple solution. To put it another way, on the one hand you have an imminent existential planetary crisis that can only be solved by the radical and urgent transformation of global society and on the other hand you have a possible distant future problem with no obvious ‘correct’ policy response today. It’s not hard to see why certain people, in particular young, idealistic and impressionable people, may be more attracted to the former idea and want to break out the banners and ‘save the planet’ through a world revolution.
Within the climate science community the divide is essentially between those (epitomized by the IPCC) who predominantly put their faith in climate models (i.e. virtual world projections of what might happen in the future) and those who predominantly put their faith in empirical scientific evidence (i.e. real world observations of what has actually happened). The former group tend to focus on the possible high risks of future climate change and urge rapid global decarbonization just in case whilst the latter group tend to focus on the probable low risks of future climate change (and high costs and impacts of decarbonization) and urge circumspection. It might be said that the latter group is looking at the issue in the manner of a businessman, assessing the balance of probabilities, costs, benefits and risks (they are essentially gambling and saying that urgent decarbonization is probably a bad bet) whilst the former group is simply saying that there is a huge potential risk and therefore something (radical global decarbonization) must be done, almost irrespective of the probabilities, costs and adverse impacts. As Obersteiner et al put it in Managing Climate Risk, the key unresolved question is whether global decarbonization ‘will fundamentally reshape our common future on a global scale to our advantage, or quickly produce losses that can throw mankind into economic, social, and environmental bankruptcy.’ Climate scientists who question the dominant man-made climate change crisis narrative are not saying that there is a clear scientific verdict of ‘Innocent’ – instead they are simply saying that our guilt has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt (or even on the balance of probabilities). Perhaps here we need the Scottish legal system’s verdict of ‘Not Proven’.
The fundamental problem with the climate change problem is that it is a ‘wicked’ problem: it is impossible to predict our climate future, determine whether it is benign or alarming and know how best to respond because there are simply too many variables, too many unknowns and too many uncertainties. However we choose to respond is a vast gamble with humanity’s future; however we choose to respond may result in deep regrets.
A great article except for one “tiny” omission – the sun moving into a full minimum stage. (think little ice age climate). I would appreciate seeing your comments with respect to the sun’s influence on our climate.
[The mods are curious: If the sun ever reaches “full minimum”, is it “nearest empty” or “at maximum empty”? .mod]
I’ve no idea what the Sun’s “full minimum stage” means, nor can I imagine what the factors are nor the mechanisms such that a new Little Ice Age is going to be produced therefrom. Maybe you can explain how the last LIA came about and ended — that might help.
Iain Aitken’s theme is about what people claim to know about Carbon Dioxide and a climate change crisis. I did not sense that Aitken was trying to explain “climate change” via other mechanisms.
I don’t know about mechanisms (and I know some here have argued in the past that it’s pure coincidence that the temperature drops when sunspots disappear), but when the sun’s activity is unusually low and we keep seeing ‘unprecedented’ historical low temperatures, high snowfall and ‘unprecedented’ flooding from that high snowfall melting, I have to wonder.
I sensed that Iain Aitken essay was no more than a silly attempt to explain his NURTURED belief in CAGW “climate change”.
The author suggests that …… “for those who are prepared to open their minds to alternative viewpoints ……… a very different (far less alarming) picture appears” …… such as, to wit:
Given the above, wherein the author “puts the (CO2) cart before the (temperature) horse”, ….. it is obvious to me that said author is ……. not prepared to open his mind to alternative viewpoints.
Me thinks that the author Iain Aitken should have SPECIFICALLY mentioned himself in the first paragraph of his essay.
And in closing, me thinks the above essay, in its entirety, is little more than pro-CAGW agitprop, based on statements by the author, such as:
Cheers
In Ottawa we have set new records. No temperature above 20 degrees since last October, 285 cms of snow without any thaw and surprise, surprise massive flooding along the Ottawa river when things warmed up a bit.
Given the fact that the sun is in a solar minimum and due to this that the lack of magnetic pull is lower, the jet stream is now going north south instead of east west. Thus the we see massive amounts of snow and cold weather in the central Canada and USA.
A second major flaw: “Thanks to our carbon dioxide emissions increasing concentrations in the atmosphere there has been a greening of the Earth”
WE are not greening Earth. As our emissions escalate, the rate of atmospheric CO2 increase has not changed. There is no indication that we are having any tangible effect on this, although it is easy to claim that we are causing the increase, the evidence is simply not there.
So, it is clear that the natural atmospheric CO2 increase is greening the planet, but it is unclear if we really have any effect here, as one or two major volcanic eruptions can easily outstrip all human emissions.
What, seriously?
Is that really the argument you want to go with?
I am very interested to see some data which backs up the claim that a few volcanoes outweigh all human caused emissions of CO2.
I think it is pretty clear that we add a lot of CO2 to the air, and CO2 is higher now than it has been for many hundreds of thousands of years, and probably for well over several million years.
Ignoring all proxy evidence of past CO2 concentrations is effectively saying we cannot really know anything about the past atmosphere.
NM
Charles is correct. If our emissions were the sole cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 as the IPCC states, changes in our emission rates would change the rate of rise in the atmosphere. They do not. (https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/12/19/co2responsiveness/ ). I recommend you read Harde 2017 and then check out ( https://hhgpc0.wixsite.com/harde-2017-censored) to see how the consensus group treated him. I also recommend (https://edberry.com/blog/climate-physics/agw-hypothesis/contradictions-to-ipccs-climate-change-theory/) for a easy to follow explanation for the error’s involved in this common erroneous assumption.
“If our emissions were the sole cause of the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 as the IPCC states, changes in our emission rates would change the rate of rise in the atmosphere.”
This does not make logical sense to me.
Some of the CO2 emissions are not showing up as an increasing rate of change of CO2 concentration, and therefore the CO2 from land use changes and burning fossil fuels and making cement/concrete is not causing the increase we see year over year?
That would be like me saying that if I was making $1000/week, and over time I made more and now made $2000/week, but the amount of increase in my savings account balance has been $500/week and has not changed, then the money accruing in my savings account must not be coming from my wages.
I fail to see how that follows logically.
That something is happening to a lot of FF CO2 besides just hanging around in the air, does not mean the CO2 in the air cannot be coming from FF at all. It just means a lot of it is being absorbed or stored somewhere else.
Now I am gonna have to do the math myself, which I confess I have never done but trust others have.
Down lower Dave Middleton states that the amount of emissions is twice as much as would account for the amount of increase in CO2 per year. I have no reason to doubt this.
As for the assertion that the rate of increase has not changed, I think that is not true, it has changed. Just not as much as emissions have changed. The upward curvature of the CO2 trendline is readily apparent.
I
Nicholas McGinley – May 6, 2019 at 9:47 pm
So, Nicholas, ….. as long as you keep claiming that increased ……. CO2 emissions are not showing up as an increasing rate of change of CO2 concentration ……. then you can also claim that …… those non-accounted for CO2 increases are not causing any increases.
Here Nicholas, just for you …………………..
Increases in World Population & Atmospheric CO2 by Decade
year — world popul. – % incr. — Dec CO2 ppm – % incr. — avg increase/year
1940 – 2,300,000,000 est. ___ ____ 300 ppm est.
1950 – 2,556,000,053 – 11.1% ____ 310 ppm – 3.3% —— 1.0 ppm/year
[March 03, 1958 …… Mauna Loa — 315.71 ppm]
1960 – 3,039,451,023 – 18.9% ____ 316 ppm – 1.9% —— 0.6 ppm/year
1970 – 3,706,618,163 – 21.9% ____ 325 ppm – 2.8% —— 0.9 ppm/year
1980 – 4,453,831,714 – 20.1% ____ 338 ppm – 4.0% —– 1.3 ppm/year
1990 – 5,278,639,789 – 18.5% ____ 354 ppm – 4.7% —– 1.6 ppm/year
2000 – 6,082,966,429 – 15.2% ____ 369 ppm – 4.2% —– 1.5 ppm/year
2010 – 6,809,972,000 – 11.9% ____ 389 ppm – 5.4% —– 2.0 ppm/year
2017 – 7,550,262,101 – 9.80 % ____ 407 ppm – 4.4% —– 1.8 ppm/year
World population tripled …… but atmospheric CO2 didn’t, …….. WHY NOT?
And Nicholas McGinley, you are wasting your time and energy trying to correlate the estimated quantity of yearly CO2 emissions by human activities …… to the average yearly increase in atmospheric CO2 ppm as determined by the Mauna Loa Record and/or Keeling Curve Graph …… simply because human emissions of CO2 has no noticeable or measurable effect whatsoever on atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities.
Nicholas: Funny you should bring up geologic sources of CO-2. I ran across this site the other day from a link on another site http://www.plateclimatology.com/how-geological-forces-are-behind-the-warmest-year-ever and was fascinated by the theory that many if not most of the climate changes and atmospheric CO-2 changes are geologic related heat and CO-2 releases, that the CO-2 volcanic releases, mostly underwater or under ice are underestimated, by several orders of magnitude. ElNinos and LaNinas, the sources of which from what I have read are only speculative, are caused by huge underwater releases of heat from volcanic rifts in the ocean floor, which cause the ElNinos, followed by the LaNinos when the “eruption” ends. Reading the various articles on the site made a lot of sense to me, but since I’m an amateur, I thought there must be articles on this site that disputed the authors findings. I googled the authors name and then searched this site for more information and didn’t find anything to dispute the authors theory. So, I haven’t read all the articles yet, but I would surely like some feedback from the more knowledgeable readers, as to their opinion of this authors theory, it makes sense to me.
Charles highly
sez: “We are not greening Earth”
Yes we are, though CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels.
If you disagree, then you are clueless.
I think Charles is pointing out that; yes the CO2 concentration is going up, but we humans are only contributing approximately 4% of that increase. Therefor; it’s not conclusive that it is “us” causing it.
“yes the CO2 concentration is going up,” ….. and the ocean waters are contributing approximately 99.98% of that increase.
Cavanaugh:
I believe your claim of “4%” is science-free nonsense.
Humans are emitting CO2 at a rate twice as fast as the atmospheric increase (natural sinks must be absorbing the other half).
There is no question that the CO2 increase since 1940 is primarily human-caused.
That is as settled as science can ever get.
What the CO2 added to the atmosphere actually does, is an assumption, based on closed system, no water vapor, infrared spectroscopy experiments, in laboratories. That’s an environment far different than the actual atmosphere, with water vapor varying from 1% to 4%.
It does not help the skeptic’s cause for any of us to claim humans did NOT cause the significant CO2 increase in the atmosphere in the past 80 years — there is no other logical cause.
My primary argument against Climate alarmists is that real science indicates adding CO2 to the air is good news, and if it caused any of the global warming since 1940, that warming has been beneficial too, not a problem at all. A real environmental problem is air pollution in all large Chinese and Indian cities.
Richard Greene – May 8, 2019 at 7:59 am
Richard, and given the fact that termites are emitting almost 10X more CO2 each year than humans emit, are those natural sinks absorbing it also?
And what about all the Spring and Summer microbial decomposition of dead biomass emissions of CO2? Natural sinks doing the absorbing again, huh?
So now ya got like 20X more CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere by non-anthropogenic means yet you are claiming that all yearly increases in CO2 are the result of human emissions.
Obfuscate much, ……do you?
WHATTA ya mean, ……. no question?
Of course there is “a question”, …… given the fact you have no proof or evidence of such an “off-the-cuff” claim. Science is NOT “settled” just because you or your mentors say so.
Richard G, shame on you for employing reverse or child psychology on Cavanaugh in an attempt to converting him to becoming a CAGW “warminist”.
And “YES”, there is a logical cause for the steady n’ consistent yearly increase in atmospheric CO2 for the past 139+ years, ……. not just the past 80 years. It’s called the “warmup” at the end of the LIA.
The decrease in the magnetic activity of the Sun is visible.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Dipall.gif
The chart from Oulu shows that the minima after even cycles last longer.
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/monitor.gif
CO2 is of great importance, but not in the troposphere only in the lower stratosphere, where it is formed due to the ionization of nitrogen by neutrons (secondary galactic radiation).
http://sol.spacenvironment.net/nairas/Dose_Rates.html
Why were there so severe winters in the Northern Hemisphere during Dalton Minimum? The answer is simple – it’s the changes in the circulation and the advantage of the northern jetstream. The wind rules the weather.
El Niño does not develop. The temperature drops on a depth of 150 m in the tropical Pacific.
http://www.bom.gov.au/archive/oceanography/ocean_anals/IDYOC006/IDYOC006.201905.gif
CO2 cannot be formed from nitrogen under any conditions. Nitrogen bombardment by neutrons can only lead to the formation of a nitrogen isotope.
>>
CO2 cannot be formed from nitrogen under any conditions.
<<
You should look up the process that makes naturally occurring carbon-14 in the atmosphere. Cosmic rays produce neutrons. These neutrons sometimes react with nitrogen-14, creating carbon-14 (the nitrogen-14 absorbs the neutron and knocks out a proton). The carbon-14 can then oxidize to form CO2.
Jim
N14 decays losing a proton and forms C14. That C14 eventually gets oxidized making CO2.
Someone doesn’t understand radio-carbon dating. That is where the continually made radioactive C-14 comes from so that incorporation into organic matter while it is alive can very precisely determine when that organism died (when it stopped incorporating carbon).
No wonder then the Left does apparently believe in magic, such as CAGW. If radiocarbon dating is magic, then CAGW is too.
Carbon-14 is produced in the upper layers of the troposphere and the stratosphere by thermal neutrons absorbed by nitrogen atoms. When cosmic rays enter the atmosphere, they undergo various transformations, including the production of neutrons.
The highest rate of carbon-14 production takes place at altitudes of 9 to 15 km (30,000 to 49,000 ft) and at high geomagnetic latitudes.
Production rates vary because of changes to the cosmic ray flux caused by the heliospheric modulation (solar wind and solar magnetic field), and due to variations in the Earth’s magnetic field (http://sol.spacenvironment.net/raps_ops/current_files/Cutoff.html).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14
It’s not a great article, or even a good article.
It misses the most important points about climate change, that everyone here should know:
Because humans have a lot of experience living in and observing climate change — mainly global warming, and it has always been good news !
Global warming has been good news for over 300 years, since the 1690s — central England temperatures are up about +3 degrees C. from the coldest year in that decade — and everyone loved the warming !
Even if you ignore much of the past 300 years of warming, because there was little man made CO2 being added to the atmosphere: The global warming has been good news since 1940 too — roughly +0.6 degrees C. warming in 78 years (using UAH satellite data since 1979), which is a harmless warming rate, of about +0.8 degrees per CENTURY.
And there’s even more good news:
— The planet is greening from more CO2 in the air, for the same reason greenhouse owners use CO2 enrichment systems inside their greenhouses (the REAL ‘greenhouse effect’).
A recent study suggests even more global greening than previously estimated: My summary of the 2019 study, published today, with links to the study, and supporting studies, are here:
http://elonionbloggle.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-recent-co2-increase-has-had-even.html
– The actual warming since 1975 has been taking place in areas, and at times, that are BENEFICIAL for people living there ( mainly at high, cold latitudes, mainly in the coldest 6 months of the year, and mainly at night ! )
A single global average temperature obscures all that good news — that’s one reason it’s used — no one number can fairly describe the climate of an entire climate — especially because NO ONE lives in the average climate !
The global average temperature is not a temperature that can be measured — it is a statistic that could be calculated in 100’s of ways.
The local temperatures, that people work and live in, are what are important.
If people are ever hurt by climate change, it will be from changes in local temperatures, that affect their lives, which may not even be visible in the global average temperature.
No one knows what a “normal” global average temperature, or even if the concept of “normal” makes any sense, for a planet not in thermodynamic equilibrium.
People live in local climates.
Only a fool would observe past global warming, since the Little Ice Age’s Maunder Minimum period, and claim there was a “problem”.
The author seemed to state that: “The fundamental problem with the climate change problem is that it is a ‘wicked’ problem: it is impossible to predict our climate future … ”
If the author believes past climate change has been a problem, then he is WRONG, and I challenge him to explain what the problem was — real problems that affected people — not imaginary computer model “problems”.
The author is only somewhat right when he states it is impossible to predict the future climate:
We can predict that the average temperature will vary in the future.
We can predict the Holocene Interglacial will end in the future.
Until that time, we can predict the actual global warming rate since 1940, if we assume it was caused only by CO2 (as a worst case estimate), will continue as we keep adding CO2 to the atmosphere — a warming rate that suggests less than +1 degree C. of warming in the next 100 years, which is harmless, especially given the beneficial locations, and timing, of past global warming.
To claim that we can’t predict the future climate suggests we know nothing about climate change.
That’s not correct.
We have 78 years of experience with adding CO2 to the atmosphere, with real time (imperfect) temperature measurements for the whole 78 years.
There are good reasons to assume that PAST global warming will continue in the FUTURE — I’d call that a simple prediction.
But there’s no logical reason to predict FUTURE global warming be a lot DIFFERENT than PAST global warming, which has been the primary prediction of the climate scaremongers, since the late 1950s (Roger Revelle) … and those scary predictions have been WRONG for over 60 years, so far !
And now I’ll describe the REAL climate change problem, based on a quote from my second favorite philosopher, “perfesser” Groucho Marx:
The coming climate change catastrophe, that is not coming, is not a problem at all.
The real problem is gross overreactions to what has been pleasant, beneficial global warming, that no one in their right mind would want to stop !
Groucho understood politics:
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”
My climate science blog:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Great commentary, …… Richard Greene, ……. I loved it.
The voicing of one’s common sense thinking, logical reasoning and intelligent deductions doesn’t always please one’s friends and associates, …… but for sure, ….. it really PO’s and angers those persons who are committed to a religious belief and/or a “funded interest” for ease of their own self-survival.
Sam C
Sometimes I think I am the only one who is irked by references to “the climate”.
It really bugs me, and we have seen some very highly ranked “experts” use such nonsensical terminology.
“It’s not a great article, or even a good article.
It misses the most important points about climate change, that everyone here should know: …”
Many of the “important points about climate change” that you mention, Richard, are indeed covered in the above article. For example, point 16) states that “…climatic effects might actually be net-beneficial for humans and the environment for many regions of the world…” That seems to echo what you are saying. The author also mentions your point about the greening of the planet. So if it’s not a “good article,” then neither are your comments good because there are many parallels in your comments that are reflected in the article.
Hunt
The article is long-winded, and includes far too many points.
That makes none of the points “important”.
It is not a good article for that reason alone.
“Might actually be net beneficial” is a very weak point.
There are thousands of real science experiments to prove CO2 enrichment accelerates plant growth.
There is NO evidence that anyone has ever been hurt by extra CO2, or mild global warming, over the past 300 years.
So it’s 3,000+ experiments, versus no evidence at all.
And how does that add up to “might actually be net beneficial”‘ ?
Richard Greene – While many of the points you make are valid, I cannot agree with your first sentance “It’s not a great article, or even a good article”. I think it was a very good article that covered the essentials pretty well. The basic problem faced by all of us is that (in the author’s words) to understand the flaws in the alarmist narrative’s simplistic certainties requires that you delve quite deeply into the science, statistics, politics and economics of climate change – and that is time-consuming, hard work that requires quite a high degree of scientific literacy., while those wishing to spread alarm can get away with quoting extreme outlier predictions that are virtually impossible to occur in order to create an impression of urgency and danger.
You have chosen to follow a different primary line. Equally valid, maybe, but different. Maybe you could write it up more comprehensively and submit it to WUWT? But the reality to my mind is that until people can get these perspectives into the MSM, we will continue to fall behind in the competition for public attention. I would contend that, if it is not acheived, then the free world has less than 6 years of freedom left if DT gets re-elected and less than 2 years if he doesn’t.
It definitely was not a good article if the goal was convincing people not already agreeing with skeptics.
The article was far too long.
I feel asleep three times when reading, and my head hit my computer one time — the result is this comment !
There were too many points made, which made it impossible to determine the most important points.
I think the most important point should have been that climate alarmists ignore actual experience — past global warming — that has been good news, to focus on wild guess predictions of the future climate, that is always imagined to be bad news … but no bad news ever shows up.
In real science, if you make predictions (for over 60 years) that are wrong (for over 60 years), then you are a stupid head.
In the bizarro climate change world, wrong predictions make you a climate guru, like Al “The Blimp” Gore, and really scary predictions make you a “climate perfessor”, like AOC and Beto.
If the article made any of those points, they must have been made when I was asleep.
I expanded my longest comment on this article, into a full article on my climate science blog, located here:
http://elonionbloggle.blogspot.com/2019/05/we-have-300-years-of-experience-with.html
The article covered many valid bases but should’ve underlined the much greater warming effect of water vapor than warming said to be from CO2, and the author could’ve focused on the rather small portion of the total atmospheric CO2 that human emissions comprise versus natural sources/sinks. Additionally the author missed a chance to point out the rather obvious infeasibility of CO2 double-timing, that is, greening the earth while simultaneously creating warming via some kind of [unobserved] heat induction in the ocean.
It’s vital to understand the ocean temperature controls atmospheric CO2 nearly completely, in spite of the numerous gigatons of it produced via direct human actions, and equally important to know the role the ocean’s heat content has in essentially setting the atmospheric temperature.
Climate change then reduces down to the question ‘what causes the ocean to warm and cool?’ Here enters the sun’s control, via the mechanism of Total Solar Irradiance, TSI, and therefore insolation, ie cloud and aerosol modulated TSI ocean absorption. Variable sunspot activity drives TSI. My work on the sun-climate relationship indicates the ocean warms/cools closely to an empirically derived 0.5C/W/yr, based on the annual change in TSI.
Solar scientists like Leif Svalgaard have determined that while sunspot activity is random, the next cycle’s sunspot activity strength closely follows an empirically derived general rule involving the strength of the sun’s polar magnetic field measured at the start of the new solar cycle. Most predictions now are for SC25 to be a slightly larger cycle than SC24.
This precludes for the time being a Dalton minimum, and certainly a Maunder minimum, the last grand solar minimum. Unfortunately too many solar folks, especially on Youtube, are talking up such a GSM, and are talking about [continual] cooling through SC25 to 2030, without regard to the warming effect the next solar maximum will bring. My graphic was made in Dec ’18, and was based on the assumption the new cycle would start this summer. Now the solar scientists have pushed the minimum out beyond this year, but that won’t change the general net influence of a similar or larger cycle, only the starting point and subsequent cycle development. This means all the GSM snake-oil salesmen are missing the sun’s warming action while focusing only on the cooling part. I agree there will likely be a net cooling by the end of the SC25, but it won’t be as drastic as is usually implied.
However the low minimum TSI is having a cooling effect right now, and is responsible for the various cold-weather difficulties seen recently north of the equator. Heavy precipitation weather events are a consequence of a warm ocean evaporating large amounts of water vapor that the atmosphere wrings out upon colliding with low TSI cooled air. The sun has set the stage for both conditions, as it warmed the ocean during the peak of the solar cycle 24, on top of the warming from the sun’s modern maximum [1935-2004], while the recent solar minimum has cooled off the earth starting from the northern high latitudes, all of which is a perfect example of the sun’s layered warming/cooling effects.
There’s been very little climate change recently compared to the range during the Holocene. The question becomes what is meant when told ‘we’re not arguing whether climate change is real’. What is real and significant climate change, and how can any weather event today be driven by it? Seems like too many propagandists are claiming the climate is changing every day in reaction to ongoing weather events that aren’t outside of normal human experience.
Is the weather today substantially different and more difficult than 30 years ago? I don’t think so. Climate change is not a force by itself as is implied, but saying so turns the idea into a farce.
Bob Weber – May 6, 2019 at 11:03 am
Say that again, ……… Bob Weber, ……… say that again.
Say it again that it is the temperature of the ocean water in the Southern Hemisphere that “turns” the control knob for regulating the bi-yearly quantities of atmospheric CO2 ppm.
Atmospheric CO2 starts increasing at the end of September of each calendar year (start of SH summer) and then starts decreasing near mid-May of each calendar year (start of SH winter). And the reason for that bi-yearly cycling is, to wit:
In the Northern Hemisphere, the ratio of land to ocean is about 1 to 1.5. The ratio of land to ocean in the Southern Hemisphere is 1 to 4.
The Northern Hemisphere is 60% land and 40% water. The Southern Hemisphere is 20% land and 80% water.
No wonder it tipped over!
The conclusion I have come to recently, regarding the breathless wailing and gnashing of teeth of the alarmists and the alarmed, is that for those of scant scientific acumen, the term “climate change” has come to mean simply “bad weather”, and/or anything unpleasant and detrimental that occurs with regard to our environment.
How else to explain these people who are absolutely convinced that climate change is causing all manner of destruction, all around us, at the present time?
Mr. Coger, you broke it down very nicely. The SH ocean dominates the entire ocean temperature since it is about 2X the size of the NH ocean using your percentages. The 12moCO2 change vs HadSST3 cross-correlation plot indicates a 10-12mo lag from peak SST, which can be picked out visually from the larger plot. It might be interesting to take a closer look at the timing of 12moCO2 changes vs SST peaks that occur in the SH summer vs the 12moCO2 changes from SST peaks in the NH summer.
Mr. McGinley, I couldn’t agree more. Bad weather = climate change to AGW devotees.
Mr. Weaver, if you are trying to figure out the “bi-yearly (seasonal) cycling” and average yearly increases in atmospheric CO2 ppm …… the first thing ya gotta do is forget about the Northern Hemisphere and concentrate solely on the Southern Hemisphere, otherwise you will end up chasing ferts in a windstorm.
The Mauna Loa Record (which itself is recorder in the Northern Hemisphere) and/or the Keeling Curve Graph, is in actuality, ….. a “picture” of the BI-YEARLY (seasonal) CO2 ingassing/outgassing between the atmosphere and the Southern Hemisphere ocean waters ….. which has been “steady n’ consistent” year after year, just like “clockwork”, ……. for the past 61 years of Record keeping. An annual increase in atmospheric CO2 has also been occurring for each and every one of those past 61 years. To wit:
Keeling Curve Graph w/equinox lines
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/keelingcurve.gif
Post Sept 23rd the atmospheric CO2 begins increasing ….. and post May 22nd atmospheric CO2 begins decreasing and it doesn’t matter what the hell people or dogs are doing.
And this proxy graph is proof that atmospheric CO2 doesn’t care a hoot about near-surface air temperatures, to wit:
1979-2013 UAH satellite global lower atmosphere temperatures & CO2 ppm data
http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/1979-2013UAHsatelliteglobalaveragetemperatures.png
Solar scientists like Leif Svalgaard have determined that while sunspot activity is random, the next cycle’s sunspot activity strength closely follows an empirically derived general rule involving the strength of the sun’s polar magnetic field measured at the start of the new solar cycle.
I am not speaking for anyone but myself, but I can tell you sunspot activity is NOT random. Of course we know the major activity follows the Schwabe-Hale 11 year solar cycle. So there is that predictability of sunspots, more near maximum, much less at near minimum, with rising and declining numbers in between.
Even the two solar AR’s rotating into view of Earth right now (6 May19) that are flaring C-class xrays flares and minor CMEs, the solar research community has been tracking them since they appeared in March.
Stereo-A, at its current position, allows us to see active regions emerging on the back side of the sun about a week after they went out of Earth’s view on the west limb. With Stereo-B lost we unfortunately can’t track active regions for that ~1 week. But when a well-developed penumbra/spot-laden AR disappears behind the west limb, and exactly 90degree later (7 days) Stereo-A starts to see an AR flaring away rotating into view on the back-side at the same latitude, we can be confident it is the same AR. Then with Stereo-A images, that region can be tracked continuously until it appears to Earth on the east limb, a situation we now have with AR 12740 and 12741.
AR12740, now flaring at N08E54 was previously AR12738 which rotated out of Earth view on 18 April. Before it was AR 12738, it was AR 12736. And just before it was numbered12736 by SWPC on 20 March, Jan Alvestad at solen.info gave it a designation S6139 when it formed on 16 March.
AR12741 is now rotating into view on the east limb (~N02E85). Previously that region was home to an AR designated AR 12739 and emerged from the same area as AR12735, which faded out on 22 March having originally been S6141 that formed on 17 March. The fading and the reappearing in the same region tells us, the disturbances (twisted flux tubes) deeper in convective zone are still there.
It is simply by convention that they get new AR numbers when the rotate in Earth view (from SDO, SOHO, earth-based telescopes, etc) even if we’re confident it is the same spot from a previous Carrington rotation. So to that extent some sunspots/AR’s are also predictable.
Great to see your close attention on solar activity Joel. I should have said sunspot emergence. Last year at the 2018 LASP Sun-Climate Symposium, Dr. Leif Svalgaard discussed his SC25 prediction ten feet in front of me, and after his talk, I asked him what was probably a ‘dumb question’ considering the extent and depth of knowledge in the people in the room, whether sunspots were predictable, and his soft-spoken simple answer was “No, it’s random.”
I went there for two aspects of my work, the solar activity driven TSI climate influence, ie, The Solar Cycle Influence, and space weather effects. For each area I developed an application for real time daily observations. My 5-minute ‘electric weather’ app is closer to deployment, as is my sun-climate data website.
You are right that solar activity can be observed and predicted in the ways you mentioned, but not the sunspot emergence itself. Maybe that too will change. My app image has the US Air Force 45day F10.7cm and Ap forecast displayed, along with F10.7 computed future averages based on the daily updated USAF forecast data, which change with new sunspot emergence, and are thus often wrong further out in time because of the randomness aspect Leif mentioned.
Sunspots and active region magnetic delta’s/flaring are random because the underlying triggering mechanism for initial flux tube disturbance is indeed random. But that disturbance certainly has an underlying vector of both magnitude and direction on the deep convective zone flux tubes, as well as limb regions already in existence because of their structured orientation.
But once the triggering mechanism is understood, the subsequent emergence of an active region, and in a particular region of the solar sphere, and with an initial and delayed timing of appearance and flaring, it will all be quite rational. One day. A Nobel Prize awaits the solar physicist who puts it all together. Because then, with adequate expansion of observing resources, solar weather predictions of emergence of flaring regions, and even whopper Carrington X40+ events will be “forecast-able” several weeks out.
There is nothing magical about the Sun. It runs on the laws of physics. And physics is math. It is just that the Sun is part of the vastly larger local universe.
In Ottawa we have set new records. No temperature above 20 degrees since last October, 285 cms of snow without any thaw and surprise, surprise massive flooding along the Ottawa river when things warmed up a bit.
Given the fact that the sun is in a solar minimum and due to this that the lack of magnetic pull is lower, the jet stream is now going north south instead of east west. Thus the we see massive amounts of snow and cold weather in the central Canada and USA.
My sympathies Denise.
Here in So Arizona, I am enjoying a quite comfortable month of May so far. Doors and windows open all day and night. No hot weather expected any time soon. And rain in the forecast for the weekend. Looking forward to it.
I had to stop watching Sir David A. I kept anticipating his next exaggeration and lie to the point where the stress was getting to me. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Haven’t listened to Attenborough for years. The over-modulated voice makes me think ‘snake oil salesman’, and gives me creeps.
Interesting fact not shown on his ‘brotherly love’ portrayal of male giraffes ‘necking’ – the winner engages in anal intercourse with the loser.
The shows he narrates have spectacular and breathtaking footage of things that have often never been filmed before, using UHD techniques and with color rendering that are stunning on a 4K TV. The vantage points are similarly amazing, and one wonders how they were able to obtain some of the footage on these shows.
It is the narration that is often unbearable.
So, we can watch.
And we should.
It is listening that is increasingly problematic.
Excellent !!!
Thank you !
Very good and Thank You – but now please forward to all Senators, Congressmen and News editors.
Excellent!!! How can we get the MSM to run with this essay?
To be sure, they will run -away from it. It is not clickbait-worthy.
‘Sea levels are rising at a rate of about 7-8 inches per century, a rate that has remained steady despite our escalating carbon dioxide emissions’
This 8 inches would be 2mm yr-1. Many scientists claim higher rise, like 3-4mm per year recently. In such a situation, a review of science is needed, such as referred at Curry’s
https://judithcurry.com/2018/11/27/special-report-on-sea-level-rise/
The rise by 2100 could be 10 to 32 inches, which is more than you suggest, but far from the end.
It COULD rise many tens of meters, or drop tens of meters, based on Earth’s history.
NOAA says 2.46 mm per year average since 1930 with no acceleration.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/sea_level_reservoir.gif
Of course, past results do not guarantee future performance.
Well, I’ll choose science (and Curry as it’s high priestess).
🙂
I will choose skepticism, and take no hint of acceleration as indicating that the most likely scenario is more of the same.
Anything else is not science, and there are no priests or priestesses when it comes to elucidating objective reality.
I for one have not forgotten how recently she led the crucifixion of Bill Gray.
She has done some atoning, but is far from any sort of paragon.
How about choosing to heed the counsel of one of the many who have been correct all along, rather than one who has had a relatively recent and somewhat half-hearted change of mind?
But you can choose to have “high priestesses” if you do not know how to think for yourself or come to your own conclusions based on data and facts and logic.
But do us a favor and don’t call it Science when you do so.
I suggest you people to read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meltwater_pulse_1A
I quote the first paragraph:
That is a mean sea level rise over 10 times larger that the highest claims. And it happened only 13,500 years ago. By that time our ancerstors had already painted bisons on the walls of Altamira cave. Nothing unprecedented.
I suggest you consider what was happening during meltwater pulse 1A, and also how different the two places with anything like a similar ice sheet are from the ones that were melting rapidly at that time.
There is no chance that Greenland or Antarctica could possibly melt as fast as the melting that gave rise to Pulse 1A, given the temperatures in those places and the melting point of ice.
The ice sheets that melted were in far lower latitudes and elevations and in locations with 365 days of daylight a year.
There is a very good reason why the interglacials involve the melting of some ice but not other ice, cycle after cycle after cycle. Greenland and Antarctica are completely different geographic entities that the Laurentide ice sheets and the one over Eurasia.
If you have a huge, accessible, open system (the sea) and claimed scientific measurements of “sea level rise” varies by 100%, you either have incompetent people performing the measurements or liars reporting the results.
Ok, option #3: all the above.
Hugs:
According to the IPCC:
It is very likely that the mean rate of global averaged sea level rise was 1.7 [1.5 to 1.9] mm/yr between 1901 and 2010 and 3.2 [2.8 to 3.6] mm/yr between 1993 and 2010. Tide gauge and satellite altimeter data are consistent regarding the higher rate during the latter period. It is likely that similarly high rates occurred between 1920 and 1950.
http://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_observedchanges.php#node11
So no acceleration, merely a slow down mid 20thC when global cooling occurred.
Remember as well that the satellite claims of 3mm pa include a totally fraudulent GIA adj of 0.3mm pa ( for ocean floor sinking, which obviously does not get included in tide gauges of “sea levels”
Forecasts of 32″ are pure fantasy
(although the reporting of such events certainly has)….
It’s all about click bait….that sells advertising
…like naming fronts
Excellent essay, Iain. I would second the comment by Ralph about adding in solar/Milankovich cycles, but a good job. I would also offer two comments:1. in reference to your point h. in suggestions, the science of stratigraphy, especially as focused by sequence stratigraphy, is fairly advanced and shows no detectable signal of climate abnormality against a noisy background, and 2. how any reasonably intelligent and not insane person can make a choice between your essay and the “we’ve only got 12 years” fantasy of AOC is totally beyond me.
Is it possible to get a biography of the guest blogger?
The biggest regret in all this, is the scandalous waste of resources both physical and financial, being devoted and lost, on a perceived problem that is unproven, i.e. “Man Made” Climate Change.
It gets worse.
By blaming a molecule that is essential to life (CO2), because its derivation from fossil fuels, is easy to monitor, has blinded the real scientific inquiry into climate variation, we think we need. In fact the focus on CO2 has caused theorists to conclude, the increase in CO2 (which is real), must be the obvious reason for the intermittent but progressive, increase in world temperature over the past 170 years. That temperature increase, that is causing the anxious to be so animated, (XR etc) is generally accepted as being 288 deg K in 1850, increasing to 288.8 deg K today (with +/- error bars).
To those of us with less anxious personalities, it suggests we are in one of the most stable and benign climate change periods in recorded history.
The alarm, being created/generated by the usual suspects, and broadcast by the incredibly naive world media, not only insults our intelligence, but more importantly, it brainwashes our children and grand children. They are being forced to feel anxious about something beyond their, and our influence.
The real damage though, is being directly felt in the developing nations. They are most affected by the western developed nations’ blind fixation on fossil fuel reduction and the all that entails.
Why is that, you may ask?
It’s because we are refusing to allow them to industrialise. We don’t come out and say that, but by refusing to fund low cost energy projects, that involve fossil fuel i.e. coal, we are denying the least wealthy from achieving wealth. Fortunately, for an increasing number of developing nations the Chinese don’t share our angst, they are more pragmatic, and are building coal fired plants to assist others…at a price.
Only through increasing wealth, is it possible to improve lives in third world countries. It is the international institutionally maintained poverty, that leads to stunted and short life expectation there. If just a small fraction of the $billions spent on Climate Change virtue signalling/pointless posturing, had been spent building low cost energy provisions in the third world, we would not have the massive divergence in wealth we see today. We would also have seen a reduction in family size in the parts of the world that are now seeing population explosion.
Wealth reduces family size and improves the individual’s quality of life, why would we not want to champion that? The Chinese do.
More energy = more wealth = less poverty.
[snip – you’ve been warned in the past about spamming threads with your personal multi-linked crusade of “there is no greenhouse effect” – care to try for an all-out ban? -Anthony]
Change your moniker to Nick “Bad Boy” Shooter, and maybe Anthony will think twice about banning you !
Hey, this site discusses SCIENCE!!
Instead of a ban – REFUTE MY CLAIMS!!!
Shut me up with facts don’t silence me like Zuckerburg
1) by reflecting 30% of the ISR the atmosphere cools the earth, i.e. it gets hotter w/o atmosphere.
2) BB LWIR upwelling from the surface is not possible as demonstrated by classical experimentation, about as sciency as one can get.
3) w/o the BB LWIR upwelling there is no “extra” energy for the GHG warming up/down/”back” loop.
So simple and clear a caveman could ‘splain it.
Granted I am not as smart as a TV caveman, but I for one do not know what you are talking about when you say: “BB LWIR upwelling from the surface is not possible…”
Nicholas (good name, eeh?)
BB LWIR Black Body Long Wave Infrared Radiation.
A Black Body absorbs and emits ALL energy that enters and leaves.
The Stefan Boltzmann equation is a theoretical calculation that says a surface at 289 K radiates at 396 W/m^2. See K-T diagram.
This is only into a vacuum.
But the contiguous presence of the air molecules (a non-vacuum) and their non-radiative processes of conduction, convection, advection, latent remove 60% of the surface energy so ideal BB radiation from the surface is not possible.
I designed and performed classical experiments that quite clearly demonstrates this.
RGHE theory assumes/requires/demands that near earth outer space be cold, 3 K or 5K. That’s how NOAA has the naked earth freeze at -430 F.
But in reality near earth outer space is hot, 394 K, 121 C, 250 F.
Just ask the HVAC engineer for the International Space Station. He has to design around it. The MMU has an air conditioner. The astronaut’s thermal underwear includes chilled water tubing. (Space Discovery Center exhibits Colo Spgs)
Anybody who suggests combatting the “warming” by increasing the .30 albedo with assorted schemes has tacitly admitted that a reflective atmosphere cools the earth.
As Tyson says: Science is true whether you believe it or not.
I believe I have the science because nobody has ‘splained why I don’t.
I have hundreds of these comments out.
Sooner or later they will hit the fan.
Take care which side your belief places you.
Okay, I thought you were saying there is ZERO LWIR travelling from the surface towards space, but in this last comment, you seem to be doing something more akin to parsing the numbers, rather than saying upward travelling (for some reason I do not like the word upwelling in this context) photons in the LWIR band do not exist and thus are not carrying energy from the surface up towards space.
I have spent a lot of time in my life outside at all hours of the day and night in all sorts of weather conditions, while carefully watching thermometers the entire time.
And when I say a lot, I mean thousands of nights, outside, all night, watching the temp and my crops of plants at the nursery I had.
On cloudless nights with no wind and low dew point, the effect of radiational cooling is amplified and speeded up by a very large amount.
Different surfaces, materials, and microenvironments that are in close proximity can and do behave completely differently as this process occurs. Many familiar examples exist that everyone is aware of but probably few have focused their attention on.
One salient example is regarding the microclimate which exists under Florida Live Oaks on such nights. The area under these trees never get frost formation, and are routinely 5-10 degrees warmer than the area just outside the perimeter of the tree. Frozen dead plants next to perfectly fine ones the next morning confirm what the thermometers show.
Another observation that does not seem to fit in with many assertions I have seen made is regarding what happens when, on such a night, a streak of high clouds races in from the southwest. I have watched the temp, measured at eye level, not simply stop falling but jump up several degrees when this occurs, and do so in a matter of seconds. Within 5 minutes I have seen the temp go from 34 to 42 degrees, in the middle of the night, when it had been dropping towards the dew point at several degrees an hour when the clouds appeared.
I have seen this a lot of times, dozens of separate incidents maybe. And sometimes the clouds stay, and the freeze was averted, and other times they blew past, and the temp started dropping right back down again.
I do not know of any other explanation for any of this that does not involved LWIR carrying energy away from the surface towards space.
Different surfaces cool at various rates, areas under trees stay far warmer than
Ok, on reading your comment again, I see that you are using the stipulation of black body emission. But this is a theoretical concept AFAIK.
Radiational cooling does not depend on some idealized situation occurring.
I do not see the point of getting into a long discussion about the difference in temp between the sunward surfaces of an object in the near vacuum of space, and those not in the Sun.
Earth does not have one uniform temp, obviously, and neither does the moon. It is hot in direct sun and cold on the dark side. Very cold.
And temperature is a tricky and no so intuitive concept, AFAIK. A vacuum does not have a temperature in the same way that an object with mass does. A near vacuum may have a few very hot molecules, as in the thermosphere of the Earth, but there is very little actual thermal energy there.
In any case, I am not gonna be the one to settle the very prickly questions you raise.
I am not even sure it matters to the larger question of how much or how little effect CO2 concentration has on the temperature regimes of the Earth.
“g) We can stop climate change by urgently switching to renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, so eradicating our emissions”
No we can’t unless we want to be completely at the mercy of the elements with electricity-
https://www.manhattan-institute.org/green-energy-revolution-near-impossible
and that’s even before the magical thinkers reckon they can switch transport completely to those same batteries and they’ll all need replacing every decade or so. It simply won’t happen as any serious attempt to do so drives lithium battery raw materials prices into a real hockey stick the likes of which the plant food doomsdayers have never seen.
>>>>We can stop climate change by urgently switching to renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, so eradicating our emissions
>>No we can’t unless we want to be completely at the mercy of the elements with electricity
It’s worse than that. Switching to renewables will not stop climate change. It will happen regardless. This is the real sin.
You can’t mine and smelt the materials needed to make a windmill using only windmill power. It is impossible to have an industrial civilisation on wind and solar power.
Iain,
You have written a nice essay, but you need to send it to politicians and the like that are clueless about this. 97% plus of the WUWT readers will appreciate the summary. Thanks.
~ ~ ~ ~
Those of us of a certain age will know the term Centigrade but the term is somewhat dated. It was changed because it could be misunderstood by non-English speakers and other reasons. Using the K scale is helpful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius#Centigrade,_hectograde_and_Celsius
the words climate change imply from A to B … please define what A was and what B is ?
there are only 2 extremes of Climate that I am aware of … snowball earth (lots of ice in norther hemisphere) and the other end which is some polar ice and a thriving biosphere … I don’t care about weather events (not climate and they happened in both climate extremes) …
“‘collective beliefs’ (or ‘memes’)”
I see this term get misused occasionally. A meme is not a belief, but
Cultural analogues to genes is a decent description, but I prefer to describe them as instantiations of classes (software).
Actually, a far more historical term is “Fables”, “Fairy Tales”, “Old Wives’ Tales”, “Myths” and (finally, not the least) “Legends” .
“Faith” “Religion” and “Fundamental Truths” are for those such tales that cannot be misproven because they are so fundamental to the inside of each culture that they are part of the decision-making thought and judgement.
“By ‘global warming’ I mean a rise in the Global Average Surface Temperature of the Earth.”
Since its not possible to measure the Global Average Surface Temperature of the Earth everything after that is speculation and … its a nice theory … but untestable … and an untestable theory is … well, … speculation and not really science …
you think you can talk someone off an irrational theory with rational arguments …
but they are irrational … by DEFINITION rational arguments won’t work … its a waste of time …
You can’t measure the Global Average Surface Temperature of the Earth, but you can calculate the mean of all the surface temperature stations, and various other interesting statistics. That should give you some numbers that would tell you something about the state of Earth’s temperature, as long as you don’t try to pretend you can calculate it to three decimal places.
Forget about homogenization, forget about weighting, forget about gridding, forget about all that extra number crunching, and use good, unadjusted data from provably well-sited stations. You’d be surprised how close the result comes to the “corrected” data.
Hard to see how a change in the direction of the trend can be considered a result that comes close to the unadulterated data.
Unless what you are saying is that the absolute value of the fluctuations in surface temps over the past 140 years have been tiny and, if not insignificant, certainly are no big deal and no where remotely close to anything that warrants global warming/climate change alarmism.
Yes, that’s more like it.
It used to be easier to make certain points when we could post photographs on the site. I know some can do it, but when I try it never works anymore.
I don’t see the word “trend” in my post, nor do I believe I implied that the raw data shows a change in any direction of a trend I never mentioned.
What I have found, which will surprise nobody here, is that the trend of the raw data in three of the three trials I’ve run show lower century trends than the gridded, weighted, homogenized, etc. data of BEST, NOAA, etc.
I was referring to the alterations to the historical data sets that have, in several cases and on various scales of time and area coverage, changed cooling trends into warming trends and, in the early part of the 20th century, done the opposite.
The alterations have created graphs that look nothing like the trends that were given in every text, everywhere, prior to global warming alarmism.
Historical accounts of advancing and receding glaciers, and increasing and decreasing sea ice, (among other such things) no longer make any sense when compared with the altered data sets of the historical time series of temp.
Sorry if I mistook what you were saying.
And yet, the memes will be repeated and accepted by the general public ten thousand times more frequently than this message is communicated.
Great essay…I thought the 13 C lower than Paleo records should have contained a time frame to prevent a claim of paleo cherry picking. The planet was once mostly molten lava, so you are in the drivers’ seat.
One of the best essays I’ve ever read Iain. Wish everyone in the general public could read it, with all the replies, then add in all the false data the IPPC uses (compared to actual confirmed data) for their (unreliable) models with explanations of the % of CO2 compared with all other atmospheric gases. Also include how many volcanoes are in the world and their average yearly contribution of gases, compared to average yearly man made contributions. Maybe someone could expound on this?
CO2 is a tiny trace gas, and volcanic release of CO2 has never been shown to be anything other than a small fraction of that released by CO2 every year.
The amount from volcanoes and undersea vents may well be, and IMO likely is, underestimated by a large amount, but even so it is a small amount compared to yearly emissions from burning fossil fuels.
If anyone has hard data that proves, or even strongly hints, otherwise, I would like very much to see it.
Sorry, I mangled that first sentence.
I meant to say:
“CO2 is a tiny trace gas, and volcanic release of CO2 has never been shown to be anything other than a small fraction of that released by burning fossil fuels every year.”
So clear and concise, thank you.
Excellent and important article, but I don’t agree with the last sentence:
“However we choose to respond is a vast gamble with humanity’s future; however we choose to respond may result in deep regrets.”
I can’t see any “vast gamble” in resisting the alarmist climate propaganda, quite the opposite.
Yes, this statement seems to mimic so much of what we see in the literature published by mainstream climate scientists, and even people involved in other fields of science, in which a head nod is given to global warming alarmism more or less as a reflex…a “just in case” add-on.
Fence sitting at it’s most nauseating, IMO.
Choosing to not respond to a fake problem is not a gamble, not a little one, and certainly not a vast one.
One is either aware of Earth history or one is not.
There is no evidence that higher CO2 concentrations in the past have been in any way detrimental to life on Earth.
Zero.
Would that this were so. There has been serious scepticism for long enough for anyone who is worthy of the name journalist to take a close look at the facts and report the truth. We are not getting to truth from the BBC and other mainstream outlets, and this is not by accident, misplaced trust or lazy journalism.
It’s not lazy journalism. It’s a deliberate choice.
No matter what evidence you provide, it isn’t going to be covered by the BBC, or CBC, or ABC (the Australian one).
“…this is not by accident, misplaced trust or lazy journalism.”
Agree 100%.
Hard to know if this is bad writing, mistaken understanding of the facts, or something else.
But it is far from an accurate summary.
“Nevertheless on the balance of probabilities human activity was responsible for half or more of the global warming observed between 1950 and 2010 (a period of escalating carbon dioxide emissions)”
Oh dear, I guess he missed the posts on adjusted temperatures, and UHI effect skewing the numbers.
nc
Oh dear, I guess he missed that inconvenient period of rising temperatures between 1850 and 1880, and their subsequent decline between 1885 and 1915, their subsequent increase between 1915 and 1945, and their subsequent decrease between 1945 and 1975 …ALL WITHOUT ANY substantial CO2 increase caused by man!
If you want to understand just how ignorant you are about simple physics get yourself a heat gun and a bucket of water and try heating the water through its surface, and good luck
RMB
I don’t think this article was about physics. It was about collective beliefs on climate change. But I am still curious about “Heating the water through its surface……….. Please explain
RMB, whoever you are,
I have told you this before. When you blast a bucket of water with a heated air stream the heated water EVAPORATES, actually COOLING the surface as the individual molecules with more kinetic energy leap into the air, leaving behind the slower ones with less kinetic energy.
Go to 7-11, wash your hands, dry with the electric hand dryer. You will notice the breeze from the dryer feels cool until your hands are completely dry, then all of a sudden it feels hot.
You have posted this so many times, OCD maybe?
This argument ignores that our hands are internally heated and are far warmer than the air of the room. The humidity of the air also matters quite a bit.
If it was 100% RH in that bathroom, the effect would be different.
If you have a bathtub full of 50° water in a room that is held at 70° by a thermostat, will the water in the tub warm up faster (and trust me, it will wind up 70°) if there is a blow dryer with a heating element turned on aiming at it the whole time, vs. a blow dryer with no heating element?
Or are you claiming it is impossible for thermal energy to transfer from air to water over time?
You say: “130C lower than its highest level in the history of the Earth (based on paleoclimatology estimates)”
A heck of a lot lower than the bombardment era or when earth was hit by a plant sized object to create the moon or when struck by various asteroids.
Nice write up though.