Global Warming and tell tale leafs

[Andre]

According to http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-2.htm the carbon dioxide level has been rather constant thougout the last millennium before it started to skyrocket in the late 19th century. This information is based on the contents of ice cores of Polar ice sheets and glaciers.

There seems to be some problems with that, the ice cores seem to be not very perfect storage containers for CO2. There are basically three problems, presence of liquid water under high pressure allows for air - water interaction with CO2. Life bacteria, (extremorphiles) interact with carbon dioxide and finally the ice starts as open snow with air passing freely in and out. Depending on accumulation rate it takes decennia to millennia before the ice closes with trapped air bubbles under the pressure of the overlaying snow (firn). So the trapped air is not only much younger than the ice but also a mixture of air from a prolongued period. This tends to dampen the spikes.

There is a surprising alternative to CO2 measuring. Leafs react to the level of CO2 in the air with forming more or less http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookglossS.html . Initial results of fossil leafs showed a distinct difference of CO2 levels wih those in the ice cores triggering an enormous dispute. As mainstream science is global warming and there was that beautiful hockeystick correlation, the leaf stomata counters simply could not be right, could they?

Stomata counting is blooming and maturing now, simple because it is reproducable. Several proxies of different origine show more or less consistent results as can be seen here.

to be continued...

http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2004-1214-121238/

 

[matthyaouw]

I've often wondered what made people so sure the chemistry of gas bubbles remained constant after formation. Thanks for posting this.

 

[Dr.Yes]

According to http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-2.htm the carbon dioxide level has been rather constant thougout the last millennium before it started to skyrocket in the late 19th century. This information is based on the contents of ice cores of Polar ice sheets and glaciers.

There seems to be some problems with that, the ice cores seem to be not very perfect storage containers for CO2. There are basically three problems, presence of liquid water under high pressure allows for air - water interaction with CO2. Life bacteria, (extremorphiles) interact with carbon dioxide and finally the ice starts as open snow with air passing freely in and out. Depending on accumulation rate it takes decennia to millennia before the ice closes with trapped air bubbles under the pressure of the overlaying snow (firn). So the trapped air is not only much younger than the ice but also a mixture of air from a prolongued period. This tends to dampen the spikes.

There is a surprising alternative to CO2 measuring. Leafs react to the level of CO2 in the air with forming more or less http://www.emc.maricopa.edu/faculty/farabee/BIOBK/BioBookglossS.html . Initial results of fossil leafs showed a distinct difference of CO2 levels wih those in the ice cores triggering an enormous dispute. As mainstream science is global warming and there was that beautiful hockeystick correlation, the leaf stomata counters simply could not be right, could they?

Stomata counting is blooming and maturing now, simple because it is reproducable. Several proxies of different origine show more or less consistent results as can be seen here.

to be continued...

http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2004-1214-121238/

Good work Andre.

Re: "global warming", since it looks as though the amount of CO2 and CO etc... humans have generated is really only the equivalent of about 6 eruptions of large to medium sized volcanos, it looks like "Global Warming", if it actually exists, is caused by the warming of the sun. In this case it would be termed "Solar System Warming".

Just . 0009 of a degree's increase of the sun's temp. would effect us in a warm way.

What do you think? Is that what's been happening during this last 100 years?

 

[wolram]

By ANDRE
There is a surprising alternative to CO2 measuring. Leafs react to the level of CO2 in the air with forming more or less stomata. Initial results of fossil leafs showed a distinct difference of CO2 levels wih those in the ice cores triggering an enormous dispute. As mainstream science is global warming and there was that beautiful hockeystick correlation, the leaf stomata counters simply could not be right, could they?

I wonder if this new model is on the desks of the decision makers.

 

[Andre]

Sorry for not having finished the thread but I wrote an article about this in Dutch with some scientific looking analysis for an assessment report to the government. And now an editor of the UK magazine Energy and Environment has asked me to translate it for publication.

Then there are several more issues for that report to deal with like how the hype could occur.

Anyway, the retreat seems to have started:

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050623/40748412.html

MOSCOW. (Yury Izrael, Director, Global Climate and Ecology Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences and IPCC Vice President, for RIA Novosti). One issue on the table at the G8 summit at Gleneagles in early July is global climate change.

As I see it, this problem is overshadowed by many fallacies and misconceptions that often form the basis for important political decisions. G8 leaders should pay attention to them.

There is no proven link between human activity and global warming.

...cont'd

 

[wolram]

Andre, you deserve a double marmalade sandwich.

 

[*Kia*]

Is that paddington? I thought it was pooh?

 

[Andre]

Yeah, I usually have a hunny pot for breakfest.

 

[tonyblair]

Now I'm no expert but

could it not just be possible that global warming is merely a natural cycle of the Earth as a part of the solar system. One thing that would hint to this is ice ages, apperently there has been a few indicating that after an ice age the Earth started to heat up again but then cooled down again as the next ice age approached. Now I don't fully know all the orbiting movements of everything in the galaxy we live in, but I'm assuming the sun relvolves around something, meaning the spring, summer, autumn and winter we experience on the Earth from our orbit and planet tilt and such like might be affected by far greater goings on in the universe. It's funny how everythings a cycle

 

[pattylou]

Wow, is everyone here really poopooing (or pooh-pooh-ing) anthropogenic CO2 causing global climate change?

I'd be curious for your qualifications, as there is broad consensus in the scientific community that our CO2 output is directly related to a warming planet.

My initial assumption is that this forum has a good representation of scientists participating - and so the tone of this thread surprises me!

(Tony, you have done some good things in your country wrt climate change; I am surprised to learn that you are a climate change skeptic and one that mis-spells, at that! ;) )

 

[Andre]

Pattylou,

Welcome here in the Earth section. I do hope that you don't mind that we try to keep studying and thinking here and avoid jumping on the bandwagon.

Consensus is a very nice thing in politics but it tends to kill science. One should not confuse the opinion of the majority with the truth. How many Gallileis, for instance, were needed to show that Earth was not the centre of the universe?

 

[Pengwuino]

Wow, is everyone here really poopooing (or pooh-pooh-ing) anthropogenic CO2 causing global climate change?

I'd be curious for your qualifications, as there is broad consensus in the scientific community that our CO2 output is directly related to a warming planet.

My initial assumption is that this forum has a good representation of scientists participating - and so the tone of this thread surprises me!

(Tony, you have done some good things in your country wrt climate change; I am surprised to learn that you are a climate change skeptic and one that mis-spells, at that! ;) )

The fact of the matter is that it is not a widely accepted fact. There is still an enormous amount of debate between people actually qualified on the subject (important because the most vocal people in the debate are seemingly economists, political scientists, social scientists, etc). And what a country or a government does and what science agrees upon isn't always in step. I mean a famous case of that is when some city tried to ban water. Plus let's look at the Kyoto treaty. Rather useless according to many scientists but governments drool over it because it LOOKS like they care. Far better steps could be taken but very few leaders are willing to get kicked out of office for suggesting them.

 

[Pengwuino]

Pattylou,
How many Gallileis, for instance, were needed to show that Earth was not the centre of the universe?

I believe it was 4.3

 

[Marijn]

Sorry for not having finished the thread but I wrote an article about this in Dutch with some scientific looking analysis for an assessment report to the government. And now an editor of the UK magazine Energy and Environment has asked me to translate it for publication.

Then there are several more issues for that report to deal with like how the hype could occur.

Anyway, the retreat seems to have started:

http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20050623/40748412.html

Andre, could i get the Dutch version please

 

[Andre]

Sure, no problem. It's http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/stomata%5b1%5d.doc .

 

[pattylou]

I'm all for considering alternatives, but frankly the only people I meet who do *not* hold that global climate change is occurring, and in part because of Man's activities, are either (1) affiliated with the oil companies (Greening Earth, Scientific Alliance, etc) or (2) not in the field in any way shape or form and simply like to be contrary.

Thus, my surprise to see such skepticism on the physics forum, and no one questioning the general tone of the thread.

Rather than scolding me, how about some indication of your qualifications as I asked previously? I'll go first. I am a PhD geneticist, I know little about climatology, but a great deal about the scientific method, peer review, and so on, I follow enough of the climate change discussion to realize there is a tremendous body of coherent work from many disciplines that indicates that our CO2 output is responsible for part of the change in climate on the planet.

For better or worse, that's what I bring to this very important discussion. How about you?

 

[Andre]

Pattylou, with all due respect, perhaps you'd like to go over your post again and see how much is really scientifically sound. It's really not in the numbers nor in appeal to authority. How many people solved the question of the extinction of the Mammots, including an abundance of sustaining proof. Do you think a fighter pilot can do that? Well that's what happened. https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=80137

Only problem is that this solution debunkes the current scholar view on paleo climatology which has been the basis of the global warming idea.

The problem of CO2 Greenhouse gas effect however is saturation. The effect is mostly in it's existence, and not in the numbers anymore. Paleo climatology invented a good deal of positive feedback to make up for that deficiency. But the mammoth proofs that it's a totally different story, clathrate decompostion. But even if we'd not discovered that, there is still the direct debunking of positive feedback (Kärner 2002, 2005) but nobody seems to care. Just read the 75% of my 949 posts here that covers that story.

 

[pattylou]

Thanks Andre,

"perhaps you'd like to go over your post again and see how much is really scientifically sound. "

I am not trying to bring science to this present discussion. (I can, but that would involve reviewing the links you have posted, and the language barrier is significant - ex: I didn't know if you meant marmots, mammoths, or some other animal and I am unfamiliar with how this applies to the climate discussion.)

Rather, I am trying to understand the dynamics on the board as a whole. If you (and the others that are anti-warming on this thread) have decent credentials, then it is worth it to me to try to get past the language problems and dig into the leaf stomata research. (I'll probably dig into it anyway. ) If you are a couple of kids whose nature it is to buck the system for the sake of bucking the system (and I've been there, done that, and still do on some issues - there's "nothing wrong" with it) then I am less inclined to dig into the arguments you are making.

I'm trying to be frank, not adversarial. Thank you in advance for understanding that. Can you give me the references for Karner 2002/2005? The journal issues, pages, article titles?

 

[Andre]

I'd enjoy a real fallacy free discussion indeed.

Here is Olavi Kärner:

http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/2001JD002024u.pdf
http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/cejpokfin.pdf

 

[pattylou]

Thanks Andre!

 

[Bystander]

(snip)Thus, my surprise to see such skepticism on the physics forum, and no one questioning the general tone of the thread.(snip)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/globalwarmingmakessealesssalty;_ylt=AuJCNCbsmzUqzd4E49heKoH737YB;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NmhocGZ1BHNlYwMxNzAw

is an example of "evidence" for global warming, its consequences due to ice melt, and so on, and on. Take a peek at the "units" used in the discussion: 19,000 km³/30a compared to annual river flows. Iffy? Add a browse of the IPCC site in "mechanisms behind sea level rise;" you will find 10 cm/century measured increases compared to "possible sources" estimated in mms/a preceeding conclusions that ground water "mining" can be ignored as a significant contributor to the observed increase.

GMT (global mean temperature) calculated as an average of daily highs and lows recorded on max-min thermometers is accepted without any review of station logs for changes in instrument construction that have occurred over the past century, changes in the station environments vis a vis radiation, air flow, and vibration, and other particulars of fundamental interest and importance when attempting the determination of temperature of an air mass exposed to solar radiation, the night sky, black body radiation from the ground or buildings, vibrations from traffic and wind, and the heat transfer between instrument and air mass due to air movement and all the previously listed factors.

Questions about the "ohmigod the Earth is going to do a runaway melt" conclusion? You betcha: "what's the point behind changing units in the middle of sea level rise and N. Atl. fresh water input comparisons;" "where are the references to critical reviews of the meteorological temperature records for changes in measurement methods that may, or may not, have introduced systematic errors;" plus others. These should get you started.

 

[Pengwuino]

Man, the more i read up on global warming discussions, the more i want to run and hide and never be around a discussion again. Too complicated for penguins :D

 

[pattylou]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/globalwarmingmakessealesssalty;_ylt=AuJCNCbsmzUqzd4E49heKoH737YB;_ylu=X3oDMTA4NmhocGZ1BHNlYwMxNzAw

is an example of "evidence" for global warming, its consequences due to ice melt, and so on, and on. Take a peek at the "units" used in the discussion: 19,000 km³/30a compared to annual river flows. Iffy? Add a browse of the IPCC site in "mechanisms behind sea level rise;" you will find 10 cm/century measured increases compared to "possible sources" estimated in mms/a preceeding conclusions that ground water "mining" can be ignored as a significant contributor to the observed increase.

I would imagine, simplistically, that river flow and groundwater are negligible as they are part of the water cycle. In other words, the flow into the ocean from the rivers is not meaningful in the calculation - becuase the rivers are formed from evaporation and precipitation from the oceans... It cancels itself out.

The glaciers, on the other hand, were freshwater that had been (essentially) out of the equation until they began to melt rapidly. Now they have entered the water cycle.

It should be easy to determine if glacier melt is really affecting salinity of the ocean. If the salinity is reducing due to glacier melt, we should see a correlated rise in sea level. This sea level change would not occur over time from river or groundwater sources.

The rest of your post - I agree. I think recorded measurements of temperature are problematic as we don't use the same "thermometers" that were used 100 years ago. I am more concerned by changes in plant and animal behavior, which, coincidentally, is consistent with a warming planet. Things like altered migration times and routes. Such data aren't subject to the concerns you mention.

 

[Bystander]

I would imagine, simplistically, that river flow and groundwater are negligible as they are part of the water cycle. In other words, the flow into the ocean from the rivers is not meaningful in the calculation - becuase the rivers are formed from evaporation and precipitation from the oceans... It cancels itself out.

Time to hit the hydrology sources: you will find a number of "implicit" assumptions equivalent to what you have just stated; there is no formal statement that I have found that "the hydrologic cycle is at steady state," nor that "there is a defined steady state for the hydrologic cycle." Consider the state of aquifers in N. Amer. at the end of the last ice age: fully charged; totally depleted; and, what has been the evolution of the state of those aquifers (with time constants, for recharge and depletion, of the order of thousands of years) in the 10ka since the last major glaciation?

The glaciers, on the other hand, were freshwater that had been (essentially) out of the equation until they began to melt rapidly. Now they have entered the water cycle.

It should be easy to determine if glacier melt is really affecting salinity of the ocean. If the salinity is reducing due to glacier melt, we should see a correlated rise in sea level. This sea level change would not occur over time from river or groundwater sources.

Again, see the hydrology, and for laughs, augment that with the archaeological dating of submerged coastal settlements.

The rest of your post - I agree. I think recorded measurements of temperature are problematic as we don't use the same "thermometers" that were used 100 years ago. I am more concerned by changes in plant and animal behavior, which, coincidentally, is consistent with a warming planet. Things like altered migration times and routes. Such data aren't subject to the concerns you mention.

Nor, is there any baseline with which to compare such data. Behavioral changes, expanding and contracting ranges, booming and crashing populations, etc. are also consistent with models having nothing to do with global warming. This is another suspicious character of the warming debate, the conspicuous absence of alternate hypotheses and grounds for rejection in favor of AGHW.

 

[Andre]

It may be interesting to see how the global warming notion has emerged in the recent history. Spencer Weart has compiled this arduously http://www.aip.org/history/climate/summary.htm with the main story http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm but from a viewpoint of a believer, accepting for instance that on one hand the evidence of the ice cores and carbon dioxide levels during the ice age is the http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm for the global warming hype.

on the other hand there is also:

The grand puzzle of the ice ages stood unsolved — except insofar as scientists now understood that nobody would ever jump up with a neat single solution.

(the last statement may be falsified soon, if only somebody would listen)

So, if you don't understand what you see, then how can you draw global warming conclusions? Then again the climatologists seem to be only interested in isotopes in ice cores and oceanic cores, attempting to explain ice ages from this limited amount of data. If they would only have glanced at some palynological work for instance it would have become clear that the ice age was a totally different story.

No the ice age did not end 10,000 years or so ago but 18,000 14Carbon-years BP which is 22,000 calendar years BP. The upheaval as indicated in the proxies in the 15-10,000 BP era has nothing to do with ice ages but it is the direct result of clathrate destabilisation events.

As Weart shows explicitely that the Ice age is the direct cause of the global warming hype, nowadays it's almost forgotten, likely because it doesn't make sense. (Karner and Muller, PALEOCLIMATE: A Causality Problem for Milankovitch, Science 2000 288: 2143-2144).

Because of those problems the http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-1.htm came to take over the place of the ice ages. But now that hockeystick is in a http://www.climate2003.com/pdfs/2004GL012750.pdf . So what else is remaining that would prove a strong correlation between carbon dioxide levels and global temperature except for a fierce political persuasion campaign?

Perhaps you get an idea now, Pattylou, why the global warming discussion is a little different here.

 

[pattylou]

A response to both of you:

<Perhaps you get an idea now, Pattylou, why the global warming discussion is a little different here.>

I appreciate your feedback, as well as bystander's, but I'd still like to know your qualifications. You can say "The discussion is different here" but that is meaningless --- "here" looks to be a couple of anonymous people who take issue with this or that piece of the puzzle. Yet, everyone agrees that climate change is a complex issue - you *can't* simply take one piece of the puzzle and denounce th rest of the body of work. We haven't identified all the factors yet, but we have identified enough so that the majority of scientists in relevant fields agree with the consensus position, which I represent in this discussion. I googled to support this and quickly found an article with the following statistics. In brief, the IPCC represented the first group of scientists to support GW. However, in the last 10 years or so, other large (and pertinent) groups have agreed. (In fact "All major scientific bodies in the US" have agreed." The American Meterological Association, the American Geophysical Union, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science are among these bodies. The question arises, do *individuals* within these groups dispute the consensus? And it appears the answer is no:

The drafting of such reports and statements <snip> might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).

The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.

Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point.

This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.

The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686


Bystander is raising issues that I would be surprised to learn are not addressed in models (aquifer depletion). I am skeptical that (s)he has hit on an achilles heel of the GW argument, though I admit I hadn't personally considered that the aquifers have drained, and (s)he is correct in that point. Bystander also says, for example:

Nor, is there any baseline with which to compare such data. Behavioral changes, expanding and contracting ranges, booming and crashing populations, etc. are also consistent with models having nothing to do with global warming. This is another suspicious character of the warming debate, the conspicuous absence of alternate hypotheses and grounds for rejection in favor of AGHW.

...to imply that global climate change proponents use a single type of data to argue global warming, when in fact *all* the data - from biology (altered migration, bloom times, etc), climatology (changes in the gulf stream, etc), chemistry (how CO2 and other gases act to create a greenhouse), and on and on ... are best explained under the models that hold that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for a warming trend.

By all means, continue to be skeptical. However, I maintain that your approach of looking at one piece of the puzzle (eg the hockey stick) or another (groundwater) fails. You can point fingers at me and say I'm appealing to authority, but given that these authorities are advocating for the wellness of the planet, I fail to see how there is much (anything) wrong with my position.

And if the mentality here on these physics forums (beyond participants on this thread) really is, generally, that the climate argument is wrong ---- well, I also maintain that that is very odd indeed.

 

[Andre]

Credentials. again, I'm a fighter pilot (retired) minored in physics a loooong time ago. Studying paleo-climate intensely as of 1999, in order to solve the riddle of the woolly mammoth, it’s existence and extinction in North Siberia and elsewhere. Co-operated and co-authored on three books on that subject, which are about to be published shortly. A Japanese version of one of them, the Yukagir Mammoth, available at the EXPO in Japan doesn't help, I think. Studied the last part of the Pleistocene and early Holocene (40,000-10,000 years ago) rather intensely and found an alternative for the climate interpretation that also explains the extinction of the mammoth and other megafauna (contrary to other paleo climate ideas). So, all in all, a John Doe crackpot.

the majority of scientists in relevant fields agree with the consensus position, which I represent in this discussion

I respect that but I don't follow this consensus idea. Wasn't consensus killing science? Have any of those consensus scientist try to fit in all the contradiction paleoclimate evidence? Do Popper, Kuhn or Lakatos for instance philosophise about consensus being an element in the scientific method? How about the circular reasoning /begging the question fallacy construction: Everybody believes in global warming so magazines promote that and are selectively publishing pro global warming articles. There is a body of global warming papers and few if any that are opposing it. So global warming must be true.

We haven't identified all the factors yet, but we have identified enough

This is the fundamental error. The reconstructions of paleoclimate are essentially flawed and I can proof that abundantly. In fact I did that in several of the older threads here. But since appears that scientific truth is the multiplication of the credentials of the discoverer with the absolute truth ratio of his idea and the attractiveness of that idea, it’s useless and I can only shut up and wait to see if any hot shot highly regarded scientist ever elects to listen.

So what is science? I mentioned that the pure physical greenhouse property of CO2 is subject to saturation and higher concentration numbers really do not matter that much. Compare it for instance with ink dropping in a glass of water. The first drop colors the water much, much more than the 20th drop. It’s literally identically one to one the same physics, only with other parameters.

Now I’d be more than happy to discuss science like physical greenhouse properties, positive or negative feedback factors, the problems with the ice ideas, why Kärner is right or wrong, etc. I but think the non science part like consensus, should not be discussed here.

Oh and by the way, of course we have the sequence: The world is warming, the CO2 is rising, there is greenhouse gas effect, so greenhouse gas effect is causing global warming. However, this is the affirming the consequence fallacy (When it rains, the streets are wet, the street is wet so it rains). So the fundamental questions are: is the world really warming and/or are we in a natural spike up? and if so what factors are causing it and to what extend.

Edit: back on topic. The English translation of the article "Leaf stomata, CO2 levels, and the Moberg reconstruction" will be ready one of these day's I'd be happy if anyone would fancy proof reading it.

 

[pattylou]

Thank you Andre! I was convinced you were a teenage kid with an axe to grind.

I don't follow your argument here about saturation with regard to CO2. We are at about 350 parts per million - that's less than 0.1 percent. Surely the effects of CO2 don't saturate at such low levels?

I also agree that consensus should not be followed blindly. I agree that the models may be wrong. I agree that magazines run with whatever sells. But I also have observed that the only evidence against warming - comes from people with a clear agenda (oil.). If there was a reputable group that didin't buy the warming argument (and there used to be, but they have changed their minds over time), then I would be less decided myself.

No single one of us can solve every problem in the world, we are of course reliant on experts to work on these things.

I worry about the new idea of pumping CO2 into the ground. We have no idea what sort of effect that could have.

We identify a problem, and it may not even be a problem - and we do more harm trying to correct it.

I apologize for any discord. Your original post on this thread (and the immediate responses), really just came across *weird* to me. As though the physicists were on some other planet than every other branch of science. I am glad to have a better understanding of things.

 

[Pengwuino]

But I also have observed that the only evidence against warming - comes from people with a clear agenda (oil.). If there was a reputable group that didin't buy the warming argument (and there used to be, but they have changed their minds over time), then I would be less decided myself.

You should follow evidence, not possible agendas. The ignorant general public will only listen to someone they like and it is not how scientific people do business. If two different agendas present you with two different cases, both deserve equal follow-up and research.

 

[Andre]

Surely the effects of CO2 don't saturate at such low levels?

If you don't mind a little math, maybe check http://hanserren.cwhoutwijk.nl/co2/howmuch.htm

Two remarks on Hans' work.
1. Ahrrenius Law and Stefan Boltzmann law assume ideal black bodies, however Earth is reflecting some 25-30% of visible light, so the calculation results should be slightly lower.
2. His math with a slight positive feedback of water vapor is pre-Kärner 2005, who suggest that water provides negative feedback.

This means that the greenhouse gas effect for doubling CO2 is likely to be somewhat less than calculated. Perhaps also toy a bit with http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/radiation.html .
And may be have a look at this tread.

If there was a reputable group that didin't buy the warming argument (and there used to be, but they have changed their minds over time), then I would be less decided myself.

Do you really know converts, or fo you read the usual pro global warming recommandations? I observe that the secret hideout of critical scientists grow with rates as never before.

No single one of us can solve every problem in the world, we are of course reliant on experts to work on these things.

Exactly and since we see a lot of blooming science business relying on a few highly qualified specialists in very narrow areas, there is little inter-disciplinary feedback and a lot of suppositions that can go in any direction. This happens to be catastrophic global warming now. The big picture is gone however, until somebody glances in all specialities simultaneously, who might find it back. Unfortunately this can’t be a specialist him/her-self, it must be a generalist. But there are no Ph.D’s in “generalism”, so there is (perhaps) nobody with both the correct credentials and the god’s eye view of the overall picture putting things in their regular order. And that’s what’s wrong here.

We identify a problem, and it may not even be a problem - and we do more harm trying to correct it.

Exactly, the main problem being how we behave psychologically. We probably need to fear, and we need to defend ourselves against any enemy. And if there isn’t any, we create one. That’s what we see happening here.

I apo….

Please don’t mention it. It has been a real pleasure to see you being highly responsive of objective reasoning. It raises the hope slightly that once, we can rid ourselves of this global warming ghost. Thanks for that.

 

[pattylou]

It raises the hope slightly that once, we can rid ourselves of this global warming ghost. Thanks for that.

My views on climate change haven't been changed. We disagree. The evidence for climate change due to anthropogenic CO2 is overwhelming.

Yes, I really know real people who have come around. I am old enough to remember how controversial this issue was in the eighties, and it ain't so anymore, and as a scientist I have seen friend after friend in the sciences, change their mind on this issue. As recently as last week an acquaintance on another message board declared that he was no longer skeptical on this issue.

I have no doubt that this trend will continue. We are destroying resources faster than the planet can produce them - "raping" the planet - and causing despeciation at 50 - 100 times background levels. Part of the reason for this despeciation (only part) is climate change.

The warming in the oceans is distressing. The loss of ice shelves is likewise distressing. The ice caps reflect radiation outwards, and they are able to absorb heat as well. What little physics I have had suggests that as we lose the ice caps, warming accelerates. As oceans warm, the methane may be released. As the tundra in the arctic warms, frozen biomass (tons upon tons upon tons) may be able to decompose and add yet more CO2 to the atmosphere. We're about to run the bank account into the red. (that means we're losing our buffers.)

My apology was for discord, not for content. I think your position is wrong.

 

[pattylou]

You should follow evidence, not possible agendas.

The oil companies do not have a "possible" agenda. They have a clear agenda.

If their science is sound, their argument will be present in the larger scientific community. This is not the case.

The ignorant general public will only listen to someone they like and it is not how scientific people do business.

Absolutely. That is not how science progresses. Therefore, the fact that the scientific community has reached broad consensus on this issue, should be pretty compelling to discerning readers such as yourself.

 

[Andre]

We disagree.

Very well then, delighted to continue.

The evidence for climate change due to anthropogenic CO2 is overwhelming.

I tend to concur with

The evidence for climate change is overwhelming.

But not with "due to anthropogenic CO2". That seems simply not to be fair, moving the goal poles. You announced to believe in the scientific method, I used that and I went to an enormous extent to show why CO2 is only a minor factor in climate and you discard it simply with repeating moves. That's not in my book about scientific methods.

Now after my elaborations it would be prudent to prove why Ahrrenius, Stefan Boltzmann, Hans Erren, the Modtran model, and Olavi Kärner are all wrong before it would be reasonable to resume the standard phraseology.

The warming in the oceans is distressing. The loss of ice shelves is likewise distressing. The ice caps reflect radiation outwards, and they are able to absorb heat as well. What little physics I have had suggests that as we lose the ice caps, warming accelerates. As oceans warm, the methane may be released. As the tundra in the arctic warms, frozen biomass (tons upon tons upon tons) may be able to decompose and add yet more CO2 to the atmosphere.

And do we acknowledge all this in the first place? A lot of it is simply not true, merely slippery slopes. it's only a lot of "if-then" reasoning. If I approach a bend in the road and if I hit the accelerator and if there is a ravine and if there is no fence and if I don't break then, yes then I have a problem. But then again, it's irrelevant in this discussion. Because what caused whatever is left over there to be true, if we just have excluded CO2, using the scientific method?

 

[pattylou]

You announced to believe in the scientific method, I used that and I went to an enormous extent to show why CO2 is only a minor factor in climate and you discard it simply with repeating moves.

I know. Sorry about that. I have been trying to get a friend of mine from another board, who is more read on these topics, to come and discuss your reasoning. I haven't had the time to follow your leads, and what grabbed my eye (as I keep repeating) was the tone of the thread. Not the science.I mentioned the scientific method because of features like reproducibility, and peer review - which although not part of the method per se, are part of science in general. Because science proceeds in this measured way, always checking itself, consensus is a good thing. It indicates that a lot of independent work is reaching conclusoins along the same lines.

Delving into the actual *science* takes work and time, as you know. I haven't had that sort of time in the few days since meeting you.

Also, since I subscribe to the current climate change models for long term, precautionary reasons - I don't think increased skepticism of the models will change my behavior at all. I think it is wiser to act cautiously than not, when so much is at stake. So there is little incentive on a personal level, for me to ask whether the degree of uncertainty in the models is miniscule, merely small, or less than the certainty.

And do we acknowledge all this in the first place? A lot of it is simply not true, merely slippery slopes. it's only a lot of "if-then" reasoning. If I approach a bend in the road and if I hit the accelerator and if there is a ravine and if there is no fence and if I don't break then, yes then I have a problem. But then again, it's irrelevant in this discussion. Because what caused whatever is left over there to be true, if we just have excluded CO2, using the scientific method?

I am afraid I don't follow this. Are you sure you have the phrasing right? I tried several times to figure out your analogy. The italicized region is where I kept getting hung up.

 

[Andre]

Well the intend was simple, is the warming anthropogenic CO2 or not. We know that the climate changes, but a lot of the mentioned effects are natural and have occurred before. The oceans have been cooling a bit in the last two years for instance. Ice shelfs break off continuously. Nothing "distressing" with that. There is sufficient evidence in the ODP sediment cores to suggest that the Antarctic ice sheet is bigger as it ever has been, including in the "ice ages". So we have a lot of statements but even about the ones that are true, we still don't know if it is relevant, if we can exclude CO2 as main climate forcing driver.

It may very well be that the climate change is partly anthropogenic but it is also very possible that the main forcing is not CO2 but for instance high altitude waper vapor produced by jet aircraft or soot or other factors and it would be an ethernal shame if we wasted the Kyoto assets on something that was innocent in the first place. And then again, where is the catastrophic part coming in?

 

[pattylou]

The oceans have been cooling a bit in the last two years for instance.

Yes, it is my understanding that the oceans cycle warm/cold every 25 years, and that the dip in global temps ca 1948-1973 were precisely correlated with a cooling trend in the oceans. The current cooling trend is right on schedule. The question is whether long term warming is occurring when you take this cycle out of the equation, and the answer appears to be yes.

Ice shelfs break off continuously. Nothing "distressing" with that.

I assume you have seen satellite imagery over the northern polar region comparing ice today, vs 10 years ago.

Ex: Here is Greenland, 1992 vs. 2002:

http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/img/assets/4475/110804climate.jpg

(not sure if I linked that right, click on the link otherwise.)

I disagree that there is "nothing distressing" here.

There is sufficient evidence in the ODP sediment cores to suggest that the Antarctic ice sheet is bigger as it ever has been, including in the "ice ages". So we have a lot of statements but even about the ones that are true, we still don't know if it is relevant, if we can exclude CO2 as main climate forcing driver.

Not much to say here, except that "global warming" has been replaced with "global climate change" because it has become obvious that some areas are cooler, due to changes in ocean currents and so on. Still, my understanding is that within Antarctica, there are regions of serious melting, resulting in loss of krill and threats to the species (whales) that feed on the krill.

Actually, can you reference that the Antarctic Ice Sheet is not melting? I just spent ten minutes on google, and couldn't find much to sipport youir claim. As a last ditch effort to get a feel for the accuracy of your statement, I did the following experiment:

Google: Antarctic ice sheet climate change "is melting" (7000 hits)

Google: Antarctic ice sheet climate change "is not melting" (90 hits)

So a reference would be useful, I'll add it to my list of reading.

It may very well be that the climate change is partly anthropogenic but it is also very possible that the main forcing is not CO2 but for instance high altitude waper vapor produced by jet aircraft or soot or other factors and it would be an ethernal shame if we wasted the Kyoto assets on something that was innocent in the first place. And then again, where is the catastrophic part coming in?

Yes, that may be possible, see my comments on "precautionary," previous post. The catastrophic part? Depends on your POV. I think the loss of species on a daily basis is catastrophic. In other words, we're witnessing it. I think the rise in sea level that is predicted, will be catastrophic. The recent weather patterns (changes in hurricane intensity, etc) may not be due to climate change - but if they are, as is occasiionlly suggested, that is clearly catastrophic. Europe may cool significantly in the next decades, as warm water from the gulf (I think?) no longer travels up the conveyor to warm Europe.

There are predictions that the third world will be least able to cope with a changing climate, and will be hit hardest economically. This is catastrophic, especially as we are fighting so hard to improve health and education in the third world, as the planet's population is near to bursting.

More catastrophe in the news:

A startling scientific study last week revealed that Bangladesh’s biggest island, Bhola, had been shrunk to half its size over the past 40 years by rising waters, making half a million people homeless.

from http://www.sundayherald.com/50323

But some people hold, and this is reasonable after a fashion, that none of the above is catastrophic. Some people hold that life is never static, and change is fine, and even good. If the population crashes, really nothing is lost. We just start over. To these people, then, there will be no catastrophe. Depends on your point of view.

 

[reasonmclucus]

Wow, is everyone here really poopooing (or pooh-pooh-ing) anthropogenic CO2 causing global climate change?

I'd be curious for your qualifications, as there is broad consensus in the scientific community that our CO2 output is directly related to a warming planet.

My initial assumption is that this forum has a good representation of scientists participating - and so the tone of this thread surprises me!

(Tony, you have done some good things in your country wrt climate change; I am surprised to learn that you are a climate change skeptic and one that mis-spells, at that! ;) )

A warming climate causes CO2 increases by encouraging biological activity. If there were any real science behind the idea that CO2 could cause warming there wouldn't be so much interest in trying to find past "evidence" that it can do so.

If CO2 can heat the atmosphere, scientists should be able to use experiments and math to show that CO2 which is a mere 1/2800th of the atmosphere can somehow absorb enough extra heat energy from the process of absorbing than then reemitting a very narrow band of Infrared radiation(IR) to heat the remaining atmosphere. The process of absorbing specific wavelengths of radiation requires a molecule to release radiation of the same wavelength before it can absorb more radiation which means any energy converted to heat would have to come from the difference in the energy absorbed and the energy released. An additional factor is that thermal physics states each conversion of energy produces an very small amount assigned to entropy which is energy that is essentially lost to the system and doesn't cause heating.

To oversimplify the math, each gram of CO2 would need to generate 2,800 times the amount of heat needed to heat it in order to heat the rest of the atmosphere. About 700 calories of heat per gram would be required to raise the temperature of 2,800 grams of air by 1 degree C. An added problem is that 66% of Earth's surface is covered by water which is a very poor radiator.


The water vapor produced by combustion of hydrogen containing fuels is more likely to have an impact on atmospheric temperatures. Water vapor releases 540 calories of heat per gram when it condenses to its liguid state. This would be sufficient heat to raise the temperature of over 2 kg of air by 1 degree C.

I noticed the post immediately above after I posted this so I'll add something on Antarctica. The whole issue about what is happening there has become somewhat amusing because it seems at time that studies alternate between saying that the continent is becoming warmer and that it is becoming cooler.

Warming in the area of the Antartic Peninsula and the Larson B ice shelf may be related to the local factor of an undersea volcano in the area.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/05/040527235943.htm

the volcano could send heated water to the bottom of floating ice causing it to melt. Water will melt ice faster than air because water has a coefficient of heat about 4 times that of air meaning more air, which is also less dense than water, is needed to melt ice. A volcano would also heat the water in contact with it higher than normal air temperatures.

 

[reasonmclucus]

I mentioned the scientific method because of features like reproducibility, and peer review - which although not part of the method per se, are part of science in general. Because science proceeds in this measured way, always checking itself, consensus is a good thing. It indicates that a lot of independent work is reaching conclusoins along the same lines.

The peer review process has a serious weakness in that it can discourage publication of articles by those who challenge what John Kenneth Galbraith once described as "the conventional wisdom". Funding also complicates the process. Much funding for climate research comes from government which prefers nice simple explanations that politicians can understand. Governments have tended to favor those researchers who at least give lip service to the idea that climate is a simple process that humans can affect by the changing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Traditional science has dealt with relatively simple processes that can be easily modeled mathematically even though the equations may be very complex. The environment, including climate, tends to be very complex with interaction affects that are difficult to model. The study of weather/climate played a major role in the development of the new math/science of chaos theory.

One of my concerns about the whole greenhouse gas theory is that it attempts to provide a simple explanation for something that is extremely complex. The climate at anyone time depends on how various cycles interact or coincide. For example, the amount of energy the Earth receives from the sun varies constantly depending on variations in solar energy output and Earth's distance from the sun including variations in the shape of the Earth's orbit which can vary from nearly circular to various ellipses. Earth is currently closest to the sun during the northern winter which means less freezing weather and possibly a reduction in areas covered by ice. Earth is farthest from the sun right now.

The following site provides some diagrams of the Milankovich cycles.

http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm

 

[Pengwuino]

Sorry to jump off topic but how does hte peer review process work for journals? Can you just say "no i don't like this" or do you need to provide real factual explanations in order for your review to be accepted?

 

[pattylou]

Sorry to jump off topic but how does hte peer review process work for journals? Can you just say "no i don't like this" or do you need to provide real factual explanations in order for your review to be accepted?

Typically, an article is submitted to a journal, and the editor sends it out to three other researchers in the field.

Those researchers each critique the methods and logic in your paper - so you get back the critiques and they generally say something like "Such-and-such additional control should be done," or "Work by So-and-so has countered claim X and this should be addressed in the discussion," or some other tangible piece of constructive criticism. Occasionally, additional entire sets of experiments need to be done based on the reviewers feedback, before the paper can be re-submitted, and the paper can be held up for a few months as a result.

You incorporate the recommended changes to the paper, or explain why you don't think a particular change needs to made (sometimes the reviewers are wrong), and then re-submit. The quality of peer-revewed journal articles is higher as a result of this process.

It should be fine to questions "conventional wisdom." In fact, if you author such a paper and are aware of hostile researchers in the field, you can ask that some particular researchers not be a reveiwer.

But if you challenge conventional wisdom by making unfounded assumptions or some such bad form, the review process will catch it.

 

[pattylou]

A warming climate causes CO2 increases by encouraging biological activity. If there were any real science behind the idea that CO2 could cause warming there wouldn't be so much interest in trying to find past "evidence" that it can do so.

I'm not sure that your premise here is correct. Plant and algal biomass outstrips fungal and animal biomass. A warming planet (within the ranges we currently see) could allow greater carbon fixation.

In my understanding, the reason we are seeing the plants not keep up with our CO2 production, is because of the sheer amounts that we are making.

And a note to Andre': Another "catastrophe" is that the surface waters in the ocean are becoming very slightly more acidic as CO2 levels in the oceans increase. The drop in pH so far, due to CO2, is about 0.1 pH units, which is slight but may affect biological marine activity, particularly of the marine microorganisms. If the atmospheric CO2 ppm continue to increase, to 500 or 600 or 700 ppm, we may expect to see dissolved CO2 in the oceans continue to increase, and the pH continue to drop. How much acidity can the oceans sustain? Is a drop of 0.5 pH units alarming? To me, yes.

edit: Sorry, change "sustain" in the last paragraph, to "tolerate." (Hadn't had coffee yet. Home roasted beans from Sweet Maria's, home ground, home espresso'd. Yum. Starbuck's can't touch this.)

 

[Andre]

Sorry, there are several small misconceptions with that idea. Unfortunately I'm high in the overload mode for the remainder of this week, So I need a few days, but I'll be back with a lot of details why all those catastrophies are slippery slopes.

 

[pattylou]

Thanks Andre,

Take your time. If you have the ice sheet reference at that point, I'd appreciate it, as well.

 

[matthyaouw]

Woah, I go away for a couple of weeks and all this springs up. Its certainly going to take me a while to read through all this properly.

I assume you have seen satellite imagery over the northern polar region comparing ice today, vs 10 years ago.

Ex: Here is Greenland, 1992 vs. 2002:

http://usinfo.state.gov/gi/img/assets/4475/110804climate.jpg

(not sure if I linked that right, click on the link otherwise.)

Could you tell me what the red/orange areas represent? There seems to be no key.

I'm not sure that your premise here is correct. Plant and algal biomass outstrips fungal and animal biomass. A warming planet (within the ranges we currently see) could allow greater carbon fixation.

I too thought this when I read it, but just to put forward another view, perhaps increased global temperatures could lead to increased cloud cover, reducing the amount of light plants recieve, leading to less carbon fixation. (I'm merely speculating here, so don't pay too much attention to this.)

 

[pattylou]

Could you tell me what the red/orange areas represent? There seems to be no key.

If I recall, the red/orange shows the much greater land exposure today, compared to ten years ago. THe white area is still covered by snow (ice?) but the melt is obvious. And huge!

I too thought this when I read it, but just to put forward another view, perhaps increased global temperatures could lead to increased cloud cover, reducing the amount of light plants recieve, leading to less carbon fixation. (I'm merely speculating here, so don't pay too much attention to this.)

I also won't pay too much attention because I forget what the original context was. Your comment about reduced light makes sense.

 

[Andre]

The snow height of Greenland is monitored cautiously. If you check the references on the link at the map it will show that by some local weather phenoma the precipitation at Greenhand has increased, this has caused an increased accumulation rate inland that increases the radial outflow of the ice. The nett effect is a slight higher accumulation rate inland and perhaps due to the increased water runoff activity and the regional warming the erosion at the edges has also increased.

http://aol.wff.nasa.gov/aoltm.html

edit: the site doesn't downlink so hit the link "arctic ice" on the left, and find the link in the text "You may view some examples of Greenland data," and then the link in "The overview of the findings are shown in this map." phoooey.


It seems that the arctic temperatures are subject to cycles as http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/Arctic.jpg would demonstrate. Temperatures are roughly the same as in the 1940's

 

[reasonmclucus]

Warmer temperatures near the coast of Greenland could easily lead to greater snow/ice precipitation inland.

One of the peculiarities of snowfall is that warmer temperatures, so long as the air temperature remains below freezing, can produce greater snowfall because the air can hold more water. Water temperatures, and coastal air temperatures, above freezing with inland temperatures below freezing tends to increase snowfall inland. The area over the water, and possibly coastal areas, can hold more moisture than the air over colder inland areas forcing the excess moisture to condense and then form ice crystals once it gets far enough inland. The best example of this process is the lake effect snows in Buffalo in which wind blowing over open water carries moisture into the colder air over Buffalo..

In general water, and the air above it, changes temperature slower than land and the air above it. Over the long run, during a warming period water obviously becomes warmer. If a cooling trend develops, such as a reduction in solar energy output or reception, land temperatures would drop below freezing sooner than water temperatures. Water would continue to evaporate at a relatively high rate increasing the potential for heavy snows inland. This process explains how warming periods can turn into ice ages relatively quickly.