How can anyone question man's significant role in global warming?

[solin4]

Edit by Evo:Due to claims of plagiarism, certain posts have been deleted from this thread.

 

[nannoh]

There has been no direct evidence provided that proves the industrial revolution caused the current changes in the Earth's climate. One could just as easily declare that climate change caused the Industrial Revolution.

As a warming trend continued through the 1600s and 1700s there was less emphasis on the populus surviving through heavy winters and more emphasis toward industrial inventions such as, lighter clothing (cotton weaves and production of looms) as well as abundant crops from a longer warm period (in the UK). The conditions were such that efforts were put toward satisfying (and profiting from) a more leasurely lifestyle amongst the former peasants and fiefdoms.

Its actually a matter of proving what came first:

a warming climate or the industrial revolution?

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/lect/mod15.html

 

[Andre]

Standby to be surprised:

The first known accurate measurement of CO2 is:

Thenard, 1812 Traité élém. de chimie, 5 edit., vol1, p.303.

Value: 385,0 ppm

We also have:

W. Kreutz 1941, Kohlensäure Gehalt der unteren Luft schichten in Abhangigkeit von Witterungsfaktoren,” Angewandte Botanik, vol. 2, 1941, pp. 89-117
Average 1939-41: 438ppm.

(Current value ~381ppm)

The pile of ignored papers about measurements, before CO2 was structurally measured at Mauna loa, is about just under two feet high. Many are consistent with each other, showing two very weird short living decadal size spikes.

I wonder how it is possible that people still believe in mans significant role in global warming.

 

[Andre]

The narration on CO2 levels is based on the ice cores in Antarctica. Due to the very slow accumulation of snow (it is desert climate), the snow stays open for a very long time, a few thousand years. As long as the snow is open, air passes freely and variation in mixing ratios gets smooted. Shorter spikes are no longer visible.

Another technique for measuring paleo CO2 levels is by some (not all) plant leaf reactions on the CO2 concentration in the stomata count. The more CO2 the less stomata. So if fossil leafs in peat bogs can be counted an assessment can be made of the CO2 level.

http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/8100BPevent.gif is such as assesment during the "cold event" of 8200 years ago. We compare the spikes of two different fossil leaf stomata counts (red and blue) with two level CO2 lines in ice core proxies (orange and black). The plusses indicate the temperature reconstruction in the Greenland ice cores, showing that the cold dip preceeded the reaction of the CO2 and also that there is no feedback whatsoever of the CO2 to the temperature.

More later

 

[Pythagorean]

I wonder how it is possible that people still believe in mans significant role in global warming.

As I've stated before, I'm neutral on the subject. I have actually talked to climatologists here at http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/" who say that while there is no doubt that our role in global warming is overplayed by alarmists, it is underplayed by the skeptics. While they spend most of their papers showing how the alarmists are overplaying the idea, they almost always put a disclaimer in the beginning stating that we should all try to reduce CO_2 levels, regardless. (I understand this is nearly impossible from an economists point of view).

Also, my biggest issue is that I don't trust the measurements being made, simply because we can't measure everywhere at once, and also (I don't know how carbon cycles work) it seems impossible to ever actually measure something that could somehow 'hide' from our observation window given certain weather patterns. Not just wind blowing it to where our sensors aren't, but what if CO_2 saturates liquids or solids (or chemically reacts) and we aren't able to detect it?

I seek understanding here, not argument. I'd actually prefer a simplified response and not a list of complex journal citings that I don't understand. THAT technique for argument is silly, as it seems to take the stance "here, I understand this and it backs up my statement, you're not understanding it is further proof that you're wrong."

 

[nannoh]

I think we'll always see a spike of CO2 around a glacial maximum period since isostatic rebound causes increased volcanic activity.

When he analyzed 800,000 years of activity from about 50 volcanoes in eastern California (the age of rocks formed from volcanic ash can be determined by radioactive dating), Prof. Glazner found that "the peaks of volcanic activity occurred when ice was retreating globally. At first I thought it was crazy, but other scientists also found evidence that climate affects volcanism." The likely mechanism: glacial retreat lifts (crustal rebound) pressure that had kept the magma conduit closed.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/061206EC.shtml

 

[Evo]

I seek understanding here, not argument. I'd actually prefer a simplified response and not a list of complex journal citings that I don't understand. THAT technique for argument is silly, as it seems to take the stance "here, I understand this and it backs up my statement, you're not understanding it is further proof that you're wrong."

How would one go about convincingly explaining things if they didn't have scientific data to back up what they said? Not to mention that we require people here to back up what they say with the scientific data unless they are just voicing a personal opinion, which is just that, a personal opinion. I guess a summary in layman's terms is what you are asking for but isn't it fairly clear already what the gist of the opposing posters is?

 

[Pythagorean]

How would one go about convincingly explaining things if they didn't have scientific data to back up what they said? Not to mention that we require people here to back up what they say with the scientific data unless they are just voicing a personal opinion, which is just that, a personal opinion. I guess a summary in layman's terms is what you are asking for but isn't it fairly clear already what the gist of the opposing posters is?

Because I've already seen them do the citing, over and over. I don't understand the statistics. I've pulled the journals from the shelves with the same problem.

At this point, I'd accept an uncited, laymen explanation from Andre, having seen him carefully document and cite everything already.

The gist of the opposing poster is that it's not antrhopogenic; that I can deduce. Most of the arguments, however, are how the alarmists are wrong (which I already partly accept). I'm just curious if there's a way to explain or analogize the details behind the stance.

I'm not, by any means, requiring it.

edit: actually, Andre's last post is exactly what I'm talking about.

 

[Bystander]

(snip)Also, my biggest issue is that I don't trust the measurements being made, simply because we can't measure everywhere at once, and also (I don't know how carbon cycles work) it seems impossible to ever actually measure something that could somehow 'hide' from our observation window given certain weather patterns. Not just wind blowing it to where our sensors aren't, but what if CO_2 saturates liquids or solids (or chemically reacts) and we aren't able to detect it?
(snip)

Carbon cycle (singular)? Of course, there are a lot of them --- probably as many as there are people studying the carbon cycle:

1) break the Earth into reservoirs (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, carbonate rocks, fossil fuel deposits, marine sediments --- as much detail as you want);
2) for each of "n" reservoirs, there are n-1 fluxes between the selected reservoir and the other reservoirs, combinatorially, (n² - 2n + 1) total fluxes to measure;
3) measure those fluxes, and the chemistries (organic, inorganic, solid, liquid, gas, plus other details);
4) calculate residence times for carbon in each reservoir, residence time being defined as total C content of reservoir (assumed to be constant at some steady state) divided by the sum of rates at which C is added, or the sum of rates at which C is subtracted, to or from other reservoirs;
5) be consistent in the use of the reservoirs you define (Trenberth at NCAR is a good example of how not to do this --- atmospheric reservoir suddenly turns into all "mobile" C on the planet when calculating residence time of fossil fuel derived CO₂ in the atmosphere);
6) take up residence in the nearest padded cell when you find out that most reservoir and flux data are order of magnitude estimates.​

The C-cycle is a transport and mass balance game --- old-fashioned, smash-mouth physics, not the carny shell-game you see in the popular press. Tricky chemistry? No. Run away from sensors? Atmospheric mixing and general flow patterns are well enough known that those measurements are fairly reliable --- downwind from power plants, and surface measurements in California's Mammoth Basin are obvious outliers. Hidden reservoirs? Probably not significant --- "hidden" means low flux and little interaction --- might be a fair-sized hydrate reservoir to be considered for deep ocean studies, plus frozen tundra and peat bogs.

 

[Pythagorean]

Carbon cycle (singular)? Of course, there are a lot of them --- probably as many as there are people studying the carbon cycle:

1) break the Earth into reservoirs (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, carbonate rocks, fossil fuel deposits, marine sediments --- as much detail as you want);
2) for each of "n" reservoirs, there are n-1 fluxes between the selected reservoir and the other reservoirs, combinatorially, (n² - 2n + 1) total fluxes to measure;
3) measure those fluxes, and the chemistries (organic, inorganic, solid, liquid, gas, plus other details);
4) calculate residence times for carbon in each reservoir, residence time being defined as total C content of reservoir (assumed to be constant at some steady state) divided by the sum of rates at which C is added, or the sum of rates at which C is subtracted, to or from other reservoirs;
5) be consistent in the use of the reservoirs you define (Trenberth at NCAR is a good example of how not to do this --- atmospheric reservoir suddenly turns into all "mobile" C on the planet when calculating residence time of fossil fuel derived CO₂ in the atmosphere);
6) take up residence in the nearest padded cell when you find out that most reservoir and flux data are order of magnitude estimates.​

The C-cycle is a transport and mass balance game --- old-fashioned, smash-mouth physics, not the carny shell-game you see in the popular press. Tricky chemistry? No. Run away from sensors? Atmospheric mixing and general flow patterns are well enough known that those measurements are fairly reliable --- downwind from power plants, and surface measurements in California's Mammoth Basin are obvious outliers. Hidden reservoirs? Probably not significant --- "hidden" means low flux and little interaction --- might be a fair-sized hydrate reservoir to be considered for deep ocean studies, plus frozen tundra and peat bogs.

thanks! I'm going to have to look over the math later. I can see how to do it, but I don't understand how it works conceptually. I'll re-think it later; I'm anxious to leave my particular setting at the moment.

 

[Andre]

About the skeptics role in climate change, it may be interesting to take note of Richard Courtney's analysis of the structural social powers in the global warming industry here.

I toyed a little with the psychologic elements of global warming here.

Actually, we have a very intense discussion about atmospheric CO2 about the same elements http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=4567&start=1 . (six pages and counting)

http://www.ipsl.jussieu.fr/GLACIO/hoffmann/hoffmannengl.html .

But if you want to compare laymen and specialists, check where the knowledge comes from.

 

[Mk]

Nearly all of the skeptics in the scientific community are funded by the likes of Exxon Mobil and Peabody Coal, people who have a huge vested interest in continuing with business as usual.

I do not believe any of us here at this small Earth forum on PF are funded by oil or coal companies. I sure as hell am not.

The consequences of doing nothing could be truly disastrous.

Ah, the great phrase uttered all throughout history.

 

[Andre]

I do not believe any of us here at this small Earth forum on PF are funded by oil or coal companies. I sure as hell am not.

I feel mild today. One should wonder what this would add to the substantiation of catastrophic global warming. It suggests that the skeptics use all kind of devious tricks to convinces others that it is not true. Consequently they are crooks so they are wrong. This red herring or fallacy is known as Argumentum ad hominem

Now study the arguments of the sceptics and jot down how many times they contend that alarmists climatologists are either funded by global warming promoting goverments in the Kyoto threaty and hence that they are obliged to produce global warming or climatologists have noted that alarming about global warming places them in the limelight which is good for social status, building up autority and hence collecting the required funding.

Happen to see that reasoning lately? No? That's because the sceptics don't need red herrings, since they can simply point to the evidence that there is no such things as catastrophic antropogenic global warming.

Of course the basic physics of greenhouse effect are well understood and I spend some threads about that here last year, the complex chaotic interaction of all the players in the climatology is definitely not. Both sides agree on a rather weak basic greenhouse effect of CO2. But allegdly it is positive feedback that amplifies the greenhouse forcing of CO2. This is highly disputed. http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/ has some very interesting publications about that.

So the best thing to do is consulting the empiric evidence of the paleo climate in the last era's, like the Quartenary and of course that has happened, but that should include all geologic evidence. Unfortunately in reports of IPCC it's all about modelling, ice cores and hockeysticks and very little about Mammoths and Horses being able to live in high arctic Siberia during the "coldest" part of the Last Glacial Maximum. If you ignore enigma's like that you're bound to go wrong and modelling with wrong data leads to nothing, garbage in garbage out.

 

[Andre]

Let's go on with one of the elements, the stable water isotopes (dD and d18O in the ice cores are supposed to represent temperatures, as fractination processes with isotopes are temperature sensitive, nothing wrong with the physics here. But the problems start when we think seasonality.

The annual overal average of the isotope value is the weighted overage of the indivual snow shower values times the volume of snow that they bring. In other words if you have a wet summer and a dry winter, the isotope record will registrate a lot of "warm" summer isotopes and a few "cold" winter isotopes, as the winters in the Arctic are usually dry, it's too cold to snow. Now when we happen to have a dry summer (which may be warmer due to the abundance of sun) there are much less "warm" isotopes accumulated and the average annual value will appear to be much lower, which spuriously suggests a colder period.

Now is this important? and can we see that happening?

 

[Andre]

Here is a clue, compare the "temperature" spikes (actually mainly processed isotope ratio values) of Greenland of Alley 2000, the same as my previous graph) with the snow accumulation:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.html
and
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/alley2000/alley2000.gif

How can Alley know if those precipitation changes is summer or winter heavy and thus whether or not those isotopes are affected by changing seasonal precipitation spikes? Is there any reference to that from other geologic proxies?

It may be clear that whether this wild rollercoaster "temperature" graph is true or not is one of the most essential elements of the global warming idea.

The next post the fun will start.

 

[Andre]

Continuing the narration.

See the "Younger Dryas" on the last link in the graph? It's utterly frustrating that the img feature is not working here and not being able to illustrate the narrative.

Anyway, lesson one, paragraph one, sub A of Paleo climatology is about the Younger Dryas, the most intense studied period, as being a sudden but brief return to ice age conditions. If the isotopes were temperatures then Alleys graph of the ice cores clearly shows how cold it suddenly got.

However less than 1000 miles south of those ice cores, this happened:

and the data imply that the conditions in southernmost Greenland during the Younger Dryas stadial, 12 800–11 550 calendar yr B.P., were characterized by an arid climate with cold winters and mild summers, preceded by humid conditions with cooler summers.

Younger dryas arid with mild summers? Wouldn't that be quite consistent with the isotopes in the ice cores? No summer precipitation so no warm summer isotopes and hence a spurious cold signal while the preceding (and successing) humid period with cooler summers brought lots of warm summer precipitations and warm isotopes to produce a spurious warm signal.

Nevertheless the discoverers don't want to rock boats and don't want to challenge textbooks, so they invent an "ad hoc" hypothesis to force the square reality down into the round cannister of paradigms:

Climate models imply that such an anomaly may be explained by local climatic phenomenon caused by high insolation and Fohn effects. It
shows that regional and local variations of Younger Dryas summer conditions in the North Atlantic region may have been larger than previously found..

Always those models, nicely predictable without the erratic chaotic behavior of reality. But how many more ad hoc hypotheses do we accept (got a bunch to follow) before we realize that three strikes is out. This study is simply very consistent with the isotopes reflecting seasonal precipitation changes as the ice cores are indicating in reality.

 

[Andre]

That's the problem, the believing part. That's what made global warming big, believing because somehow it's appealing to believe it.

Furthermore, every measurement is a local event, then and there. Also the Manau loa CO2 measurements, so why should I believe that this would be representing the global CO2 signal? But be patient, we're editing presently a paper with 320 peer reviewed scientific references with about 70,000 measurements of CO2 from three continents from 1812 to 1961, before the Mauno Loa CO2 records. None of those are the IPCC reports. Why? I wonder. I's hard work though and it may take another year but we need to make it completely fail safe. That is, avoiding the data mining and other statistical tricks as had happened with the hockey stick.

 

[Andre]

Solin4, Do you realize that your post still contains a few fallacies. Like the truth holding the opinion of complete mankind in contempt. The bandwagon fallacy.

Let me give an example of interpretation of nature that has accumulated more and more adherents, reaching a larger and larger majority, over decade after decade, and in the light of more and more data, that has turned out to be radically incorrect.

Stomach / peptic ulcers!

last year the Nobel price for medicine went to the discovers of Helicobacter, the bacteria that causes stomach ulcers. Before 1981 99,99% of mankind knew that peptic ulcers were caused by a wrong life style and stress. NOT! And it took 20 years or so and a lot of scolding before it became accepted. While the first demonstration in 1982 on the top of my head, convincingly showed that they were right. But nobody wanted to believe it, it was just too outrageous. I'm happy that it's accepted and I was easily cured. But how many people died needlessly from peptic ulcer just because mankind happens to be the most stubborn species of the world.

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who with tenacity and a prepared mind challenged prevailing dogmas.

There is a reason why it is formulated this way.

Advise, listen to anybody who has a verifiable story and don't judge on fallacies.

 

[Bystander]

The "incontrovertible fact" has been discussed in detail in P&WA, https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=123372 . Go through it if you wish, don't if you don't --- I ain't going to go through another tutorial on temperature measurement --- none of the "greenhousers" have ever bothered to review the quality, uncertainty, and systematic errors in meteorological temperature measurements. No one but a complete idiot uses other peoples' data without such a review. It is inconclusive. It cannot be used to demonstrate an increase in temperature, nor a decrease in temperature, nor a constant temperature over the past century.

 

[Andre]

There we go, politeness gone. Nobody has managed to comunicate anything. No convincing power at all in some plain objective factual observation. Only fallacies. the aggravating spiral up until Godwins law is reached.

For climate it is irrelevan that CO2 goes up, the effects are minor and I can proof that beyound doubt, that is, I can show where the proof is and I was only at some 2-3% with the Greenland ice core misinterpretation.

but I will never be able to penetrate the pachyderm fallacies of the positive feedback loop of the urge to scaremonger and the urge to be scared. That's why there will always be tales of devils and dragons. Global warming is just a pseudo rationalized version of that, replacing the Y2K millenium bug, which replaced the nuclear winter threath and the mutual assured destruction. Before that we had the eugenics treath which was casus belli for World War II. There must alway be a treath regardless if it's true or not. We're still a long way away from fallacy free science.

 

[Bystander]

Or, is overexploitation of marine fisheries driving an increase in surface CO² concentrations, leading to oceanic outgassing, driving up atmospheric CO²? Don't stampede yourself into "solving" a problem that doesn't exist while ignoring something that might become a problem.

 

[Evo]

Or, is overexploitation of marine fisheries driving an increase in surface CO² concentrations, leading to oceanic outgassing, driving up atmospheric CO²? Don't stampede yourself into "solving" a problem that doesn't exist while ignoring something that might become a problem.

I'd have to say that the overfishing issue is the culprit here and is a serious one that needs to be addressed.

 

[Evo]

Solin4, here is what happens when people have a knee jerk reaction and pass laws without understanding the impact those laws may have.

We are our own worst enemy.

(It's not proven that any of this ends with "Global Warming", something that really doesn't have enough evidence to back it up based on the fact that we just have not been able to obtain good information until recently and the fact that global climate warming and cooling
has been going on since the beginning of time.) This article is just meant to point out that making rash decisions often results in more problems than if we had done nothing at all.

How can we let things like this happen?

"Cool your home, warm the planet. When more than two dozen countries undertook in 1989 to fix the ozone hole over Antarctica, they began replacing chloroflourocarbons in refrigerators, air conditioners and hair spray.

But they had little idea that using other gases that contain chlorine or fluorine instead also would contribute greatly to global warming.

In theory, the ban should have helped both problems. But the countries that first signed the Montreal Protocol 17 years ago failed to recognize that CFC users would seek out the cheapest available alternative.

That effect is at odds with the intent of a second treaty, drawn up in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 by the same countries behind the Montreal pact. In fact, the volume of greenhouse gases created as a result of the Montreal agreement's phaseout of CFCs is two times to three times the amount of global-warming carbon dioxide the Kyoto agreement is supposed to eliminate.

Some of the replacement chemicals whose use has grown because of the Montreal treaty -- hydrochloroflourocarbons, or HCFCs, and their byproducts, hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs -- decompose faster than CFCs because they contain hydrogen.

But, like CFCs, they are considered potent greenhouse gases that harm the climate -- up to 10,000 times worse than carbon dioxide emissions.

http://www.enn.com/today.html?id=11090"

edited to change broken link

 

[Andre]

Okay then let's cross swords

Wrong on two counts. The information that I presented included a clear tendency of CO2 to follow temperature, which is also happening today. Second, the notion of a gradual increasing CO2 level since the industrial revoltution dismisses an abundance of CO2 measurements between 1812 and 1961 which action has never been challenged. It is now.

I did not, I also showed that we are not using fallacies, consequently this very sentence is a strawman fallacy as well as a bandwagon / appeal to authority.

I did not however others did notice that something was very wrong:

http://www.sepp.org/Archive/NewSEPP/StateFear-Deming.htm :

... We discussed some of my work, and talked about the implication of borehole temperature measurements for global warming. Subsequently, the Editor of International Wildlife sent me a draft article for review. I was horrified. My work and comments had been taken out of context and used in such a way as to exaggerate the magnitude of climate change. I made some pointed comments, and the article was toned down a little. I later learned that the author of the International Wildlife article was not a scientist, but a lawyer. I had been naive. I had assumed that everyone was like me--they were interested in the truth. But a lawyer's job isn't to discover truth, it's to win an argument. Neither is an advocacy organization interested in truth--they are committed to advocating a certain position regardless of the facts.

With the publication of the article in Science, I gained significant credibility in the community of scientists working on climate change. They thought I was one of them, someone who would pervert science in the service of social and political causes. So one of them let his guard down. A major person working in the area of climate change and global warming sent me an astonishing email that said "We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period"

http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/landsea.html

After some prolonged deliberation, I have decided to withdraw from participating in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). I am withdrawing because I have come to view the part of the IPCC to which my expertise is relevant as having become politicized. In addition, when I have raised my concerns to the IPCC leadership, their response was simply to dismiss my concerns...

... "Experts to warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense hurricane activity"...

..Listening to and reading trans cripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media. These media sessions have potential to result in a widespread perception that global warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.

I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable, long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones, either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and 2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the hurricane record.

Moreover, the evidence is quite strong and supported by the most recent credible studies that any impact in the future from global warming upon hurricane will likely be quite small. ... It has been proposed that even this tiny change may be an exaggeration as to what may happen by the end of the 21st Century ..

...Given Dr. Trenberth's role as the IPCC's Lead Author responsible for preparing the text on hurricanes, his public statements so far outside of current scientific understanding led me to concern that it would be very difficult for the IPCC process to proceed objectively with regards to the assessment on hurricane activity.
...

http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf trashed the hockey stick:

...In general, we found MBH98 and MBH99 to be somewhat obscure and incomplete and the criticisms of MM03/05a/05b to be valid and compelling.
...
Overall, our committee believes that Mann’s assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade of the millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year of the millennium cannot be supported by his analysis.

Then we have:

I've repeat myself: the elemantary physics of IR absorbtion by various molecules is well understood. All sides agree would on that. Calculation very simple settings using Stefan Boltzmann and basic emission parameters for a black body one will arrive at the immediate/dynamic value of 0.7K degrees increase for doubling CO2 and thermal equilibrium at 1.2K degrees for doubling CO2 after a few centuries of settling.

So if IPCC makes that some -what is it-, 1.5K to 5.4K degrees, it is assumed that positive feedback factors amplify the greenhouse effect.

However, there is not a trace of evidence for positive feedback on the contrary there is evidence enough showing that there is no positive feedback. Ask the same Lindzen. There is nothing catastrophic going on even if the CO2 levels would rise to the 1000-2000 ppmv range where they were assumed to have been in the Early Tertiary.

 

[Andre]

We are our own worst enemy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...tics-headlines

Evo, unfortunately your link doesn't work. But indeed we are, fear of the unknown and the quest for security is guiding our behavior. Clever manipulation of that fear is the cause of the global warming myth,

That is apart from the trigger, those misunderstood spikes in the ice cores that changed decent people like Richard Alley into alarmist. Alley tells why, under the first "listen" button. I was aiming to show why he is wrong.

 

[Bystander]

Another tutorial on temperature measurement? Everyone else in the thread, shut up 'til this is finished to solin4's satisfaction.

Solin4, we're going to proceed by steps --- I don't wanta read, "Yes, but ...," at any time. If you've got questions, use "who, what, where, when, how" --- "why" is a word used by philosophers, lawyers, priests, journalists, and three year olds --- its use will be taken as indicative of lack of interest and good faith on your part.

"Them's the ground rules." Are you ready to proceed?

 

[O. Lismahago]

An unspoken consequence of global warming is the dramatic decrease in Antarctic krill;http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/bas-akp020606.php

 

[Andre]

So Andre, I invite you to provide an
alternative model for the increases in global temperatures
we have been experiencing.

Why thank you, here they are:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=108165
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=95931

 

[Mk]

What about agitated clathrates as a possibility?

 

[Andre]

An unspoken consequence of global warming is the dramatic decrease in Antarctic krill; http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-02/bas-akp020606.php

An spoken consequence of the global warming is the automatic blame for any adverse event to global warming, Coral bleaching, 100,000 species going extinct, dramatic reduction of frogs in Bolivia, more strong hurricanes, tsunamis, you name it, it's all there. There is no need to verify or proof the claim since everybody loves to hear it and when a conclusion is attractive, we will lower our standards of acceptance. It must be true, it can't be something else (argumentum ad ignorantiam)

The obvious message is that that soon as we stop emitting, Earth will be paradise again. Kind of hard when China opens another coal power plant about every week but anyway.

Curiosiously enough, the Earth was about one to two degrees warmer around 9000-6000 years ago, this period is known as the early Holocene Thermal Optimum or Hypsithermal. The trees were growing well north in high arctic Siberia, yet, few if any species died out. None of the recent extinctions is related to climate, Coral bleaching is of all times, Bolivia was a nasty virus and the seas around Antarctica are just about the same temperature as ever. But blame it on global warming and you're in business.

Furthermore, now we know that the warmer temperatures of the last two decades is directly related to less clouds, more sunshine, especially heating up the oceans as heat sink, we should stop fooling ourselfs and start doing some real research to cause-effect relationships and see if we must/can do something specifically pertaining those problems.

 

[Andre]

What about agitated clathrates as a possibility?

Not for the current warming, that appears to directly related to cloud forming interacting with solar activity.

When a clathrate field like the Amazon fan or that Canadian methane glacier goes unstable, it will release a lot of methane propably on decadal to century scale. The oxydation with a half time of about 20 years makes that we are not looking at many ppmv's in the total atmosphere. Much more effect may have the upwelling of cold water which spreads out over the ocean surface while releasing a lot of CO2 due to depressurizing. But we may be talking about an order of magnitude of 10-50ppmv. Not too shocking. But the usual surface water currents may severely be disturbing weather patterns-like El nino- causing flooding rains at one place and sun-burning arid deserts elsewhere. Tha't may very well be the real effect of clathrate bursts.

 

[Andre]

Dear Solin4 You have no idea. Tomorrow night I'm going to show in great detail here what is wrong with the perceptions of the Younger Dryas. (use babelfish language is dutch). I spend 5 years and over 1000 publications to read to figure it out.

You really should get some idea first about the opposition before citing obsolete textbooks,

Anyway, I did reflect a bit about that here:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=79362
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=50130
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=113807
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=127240
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=126676
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=125669
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=95820
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=16702
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=29375
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=50130
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=15593

and a lot more, running out of time to find them all back. Now what were you saying?

 

[Andre]

How about the http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/extinctions_climate_refs.pdf of the big paper I'm working on; If Alley would have scrutinized as I have he would never have made the wrong choice about what his isotopes were saying.

Edit

the big mistake can be pinpointed exactly, that was http://home.wanadoo.nl/bijkerk/jouzeletal97.GIF

From:

Jouzel, J. Alley, R.B. Cuffey, K.M. Dansgaard W. Grootes, P. Hoffmann, G. Johnsen, S.J. Koster, R.D. Peel, D. Shuman, C.A., Stievenard, M. Stuiver, M. White, J, 1997. Validity of the Temperature Reconstruction from Water Isotopes in Ice Cores; Journal of Geophysical Research Vol 102, No C12 pp 26,471-26,487, November 30, 1997

Second edit. Just letting the post grow

See the problem? They have been warned by a previous publication of Steig et al about the logic of seasonal precipitation determining isotope signature, which was comfirmed by empiric evidence of a nearby station. They were also warned by the huge difference in precipitation at the boundaries of the Younger Dryas which should have been a big alarm bell; yet, they decided to run an artificial garbage in-garbage out type of gadget, usually adressed as simulation model, which was fed by the same data that would also be the output, a perfect circular reasoning with as result: temperatures not precipitation.

And with those alleged 10 degrees or so temperature jump started the real hype. Based on this, Alley wrote a price winning book, http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/6916.html . Skillfully written but the conclusion was plainly wrong. If only they had consulted some already available geologic studies from the Northern hemisphere. for instance,

Haynes, C.V., Jr., 1991, Geoarchaeological and paleohydrological evidence for a Clovis age
drought in North America and its bearing on extinction: Quaternary Research, v. 35,
p. 438–450.

or

Dreimanis, A. 1968, Extinction of Mastodons in Eastern North America: Testing a New
Climatic Environmental Hypothesis, The Ohio Journal of Science Vol. 68: 6 pp 257 –
272

then they would have known that those precipitation changes were duplicated at least in North America and not the alleged big changes in temperature.

Unfortunately it was this mistake; the "10 degrees temperature change within a decade" that really fuelled the hype to incredible heights.

 

[Andre]

But eventually the reality overtakes, a first rebellious sign. As the isotopes of Antarctica started to "warm" up around 18000 years ago after the last glacial maximum and those of Greenland lagged to about 14500 years ago, this asymmetric "warming" has puzzled science and that is only to increase since:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5779/1510

Schaefer, J.M. et al 2006; Near-Synchronous Interhemispheric Termination of the Last Glacial Maximum in Mid-Latitudes Science 9 June 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5779, pp. 1510 - 1513

Isotope records from polar ice cores imply globally asynchronous warming at the end of the last glaciation. However, 10Be exposure dates show that large-scale retreat of mid-latitude Last Glacial Maximum glaciers commenced at about the same time in both hemispheres. The timing of retreat is consistent with the onset of temperature and atmospheric CO2 increases in Antarctic ice cores. We suggest that a global trend of rising summer temperatures at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum was obscured in North Atlantic regions by hyper cold winters associated with unusually extensive winter sea ice.

The second ad hoc hypothesis (extensive sea ice), the first one was from Bjorck et al with their fohn in the South Greenland lake. But this time, no dice since we have excellent sea surface temperature records of

Dolven J.K. Cortese G, Bjørklund K.R. 2002 A High-resolution Radiolarian-derived Paleotemperature Record for the Late Pleistocene-Holocene in the Norwegian Sea, Paleoceanography, Vol 17, No. 4 1072 pp 24-1

showing sea surface temperatures comparable with the Holocene around 16500 calendar years ago,(cal BP) just before they dropped a few degrees towards the Bolling Allerod period (14500-12800 cal BP)

and also:

Lagerklint M, J.D. Wright 1999 Late glacial warming prior to Heinrich event 1: The influence of ice rafting and large ice sheets on the timing of initial warming. Geology; December 1999; v. 27; no. 12; p. 1099–1102;

http://www.unige.ch/forel/PapersQG06/Lagerlint%20et%20Wright04.pdf

High-resolution faunal, isotopic, and sedimentologic data from North Atlantic core V29-191 show that sea-surface temperatures increased from 17.5 to 17.3 ka,

So no extensive sea ice in the warming period of the Antarctic warming. Moreover Kennett brings it rather ironical in his study:

Hill T.M., J.P. Kennett, D.K. Pak, R.J. Behl, C. Robert and L. Beaufort Pre-Bølling warming in Santa Barbara Basin, California: surface and intermediate water records of early deglacial warmth, Quaternary Science Reviews, article in press doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.03.012

Abstract
A new piston core from Santa Barbara Basin, California provides evidence of the timing, magnitude, and character of deglaciation, including evidence of warming prior to Termination IA. ...findings are consistent with a growing number of records from around the globe that exhibit pre-Bølling warming prior to Termination IA, and extends the record of such processes to the northern Pacific

There you go, a nice catastrophic warming in Greenland down the drain.

 

[reasonmclucus]

You're correct about the difficulty of determining the impact of clouds. An additional factor is the elevation and thickness (or density) of the clouds. Some clouds are sufficiently transparent/translucent that some sunlight reaches the ground.

The impact at night is not due to preventing radiation from leaving the earth. Light (electromagnetic radiation) travels at 186,000 miles per second and is quickly gone even if reflected many times. Instead clouds prevent warmer air from rising and thus keep it closer to the ground and prevent it from warming higher levels of the atmosphere.

The greater the distance of the base of the cloud to the ground the higher warm air can rise before being blocked.



.

 

[Bystander]

"Not bad!" No, genuinely, pathetically awful --- might as well put the model quality issue out of its misery.

Tambora, 1815, 100 km³, 5-6 K temperature drop, implies Pinatubo at 10 km³ is going to result in a 0.5-0.6 K temperature drop if we apply a simple linear model (temperature drop is proportional to volume of eruption). A temperature drop between 0.5 and 0.7 K was observed. http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/originals/Weber-Toba/ch4_climate/textr4.htm Simple linear model predicts a climate effect within 0.05 K; compare this to the Goddard prediction that has been declared "Not bad!"

 

[Mk]

What about nonlinear? Why would it have to be linear?

 

[Bystander]

What about nonlinear? Why would it have to be linear?

Non-linear models are useful over the range of data to which they are fit. Extrapolate outside that range, and you're wasting time generating random numbers. Linear models "behave" when extrapolated outside the range of data to which they've been fit. Do they give "good" predictions? Depends on the quality of the data and the range of the extrapolation; fit a short, "noisy," data set and you're not going to get much more than "trend" information (this increases/decreases as that). Fit decent data, and you can extrapolate beyond the limits of the data by something like half the range of the data set and hang 10-20% uncertainty on the extrapolated values. Shove noisy data into a non-linear model and what do you get? A lot of unconstrained parameters, and no extrapolation capability --- not even trends. Shove decent data in and what? You may get an improvement in fit over the linear model (smaller residuals); do you get improved extrapolations? Only in the very few cases where the model accounts for every parameter of the system, and the data set is robust enough to constrain all the fit parameters.

 

[Skyhunter]

Standby to be surprised:

The first known accurate measurement of CO2 is:

Thenard, 1812 Traité élém. de chimie, 5 edit., vol1, p.303.

Value: 385,0 ppm

We also have:

W. Kreutz 1941, Kohlensäure Gehalt der unteren Luft schichten in Abhangigkeit von Witterungsfaktoren,” Angewandte Botanik, vol. 2, 1941, pp. 89-117
Average 1939-41: 438ppm.

(Current value ~381ppm)

The pile of ignored papers about measurements, before CO2 was structurally measured at Mauna loa, is about just under two feet high. Many are consistent with each other, showing two very weird short living decadal size spikes.

I wonder how it is possible that people still believe in mans significant role in global warming.

Well as your http://www.ipsl.jussieu.fr/GLACIO/hoffmann/hoffmannengl.html there is a huge problem with the credibility of these measurements, especially the 438ppm in 1939-1941.

A last comparison. Each year the entire terrestrial biosphere is exchanging about max. 60GTC with the atmosphere. That are all the leafs, stems, roots and champignons in the world (which of course is respired at the same time which is why the terrestrial biosphere is about in equilibrium). Now the scenario of Andre (720GTC within 16years) implies that the full global biosperic production is packed into little plastic bag and send into space so that no respiring flux comes back into our atmosphere. And this not for one year but effectively for each year between 1941 and 1957. An interesting hypothesis and a most interesting way of thinking. Thankyou for your contribution.

If you cannot explain where all that carbon went, why are you still advocating those data?

 

[Andre]

Skyhunter,

This is a most blatant example of ostrich politics. head in the sand. I can't explain it so, so it doesn't exist. Most of us can't explain Venus' enigmatic features, but it exists.

And those spikes most likely have existed, even after statistical processing, assuming that the largest environment noise errors apply. But for further confirmation, I have triggered the leaf stomata CO2 reconstruction people to see if they can replicate those spikes.

Where the spikes come and go? Well the oceans contain something like 70 times more CO2 than the atmosphere and it appears that the interchange between ocean and atmosphere is rather fast. A 200 ppm spike coming from the ocean would make that 69,5 times. Readsorption within some decade does not seem unreasonable if that spike event (which would sustain another pet idea) disturbed the balance.

 

[Skyhunter]

Where the spikes come and go? Well the oceans contain something like 70 times more CO2 than the atmosphere and it appears that the interchange between ocean and atmosphere is rather fast. A 200 ppm spike coming from the ocean would make that 69,5 times. Readsorption within some decade does not seem unreasonable if that spike event (which would sustain another pet idea) disturbed the balance.

Thank you,

You had offered no explanation in the other thread.

So you are suggesting that by some mechanism, the ocean releases carbon and then reabsorbs it in a very short time.

OK, nice to have a pet theory.

What does that have to do with AGW, and how is it relevant to this thread?

Has there been such an event recently?

Are you suggesting that the increase in CO₂ in recent years is natural , and not the result of a significant anthropogenic contribution?

Why don't we move past this and onto the broader discussion about what can be done about it. As Evo posted earlier, ill thought out solutions can create unintended consequences.

 

[culion]

Most of the discussions about global warming tend to go in circles after a relatively short time. The key question is how much of global warming is due to human forcings. It is not sufficient to simply claim that this is significant on the basis of unmeasured "consensus" which is of little importance in science. The climate has always changed and sometimes quite rapidly. However, actual changes are not consistent with the best available models that contain both human and natural driving forces. At this point, it looks like the effect of human activities is not substantial and should not be a major consideration in political and economic actions. Of course, other routes (e.g., conservation) might very well lead to the same end but would be done with the proper perspective with respect to the scope and rate of change of appropriate activities.

 

[Andre]

So you are suggesting that by some mechanism, the ocean releases carbon and then reabsorbs it in a very short time.

The pet idea is this:
Every once and a while oceanic methane hydrate enters unstable conditions, with either water pressure dropping (tectonic uprising) or more like changing ocean currents bringing too warm water over the clathrate field.

If such an event is more massive and more prolongued then in the bubble stream the water is also forced up. You can observe that in the aquarium. This deeper water contains much more CO2 than the surface waters, it is brought there by putrifying of sinking biologic remains as bystander kindly pointed out.

Now as this water is forced up, the pressure drops and just like opening the soda bottle, the CO2 is forced out of solution, entering the atmosphere. That's how you can get a sudden CO2 spike. When this process stops, obviously the CO2 will drop again, readsorpted in the ocean and other sinks, until the original equilibrium has been restored. I'm a bit amazed how quick that went in those two events but there was an unbalance. Anyway, the models may need new parameters.

What does that have to do with AGW, and how is it relevant to this thread?

Those CO2 spikes were in the order of magnitude comparable to the termination of the glacial periods. Yet there was no 5-10-15 degrees of warming. Perhaps half a degree at best, looking at the global warming data. But this may have had another cause. As cold seawater in that hydrate event spreads over the ocean surface and pushes the original warmer surface waters to unusual places, the normal weather patterns will be disturbed; think of El Nino.

Consequently, since nothing serious happened, it proves that climate is much more stable than assumed and there will be little or no climate change due to CO2 spikes

Has there been such an event recently?

http://www.ukweatherworld.co.uk/forum/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=3254&posts=13 is such an event on a small scale.

Are you suggesting that the increase in CO₂ in recent years is natural , and not the result of a significant anthropogenic contribution?

No, obviously, there has been a steady increase in the antropogenic CO2 emission added to the carbon cycle causing an unbalance unlike the spikes of the hydrate event. But in terms of climate this looks to be meaningless.

Why don't we move past this and onto the broader discussion about what can be done about it. As Evo posted earlier, ill thought out solutions can create unintended consequences.

Wise words and spot on. The world problems in two sentences: climate and indefinately sustainable energy. Both suggest a termination of fossil fuel use.

The first seems most acute and appears to call for immediate and strong action, which may result in maximum conversion attemps to natural renewable energy sources. However this could give a negative outcome, when the complete life cycle costs of those renewables exceeds the energy production. That would be surely ill thought out solutions creating unintended consequences.

But climate isn't an acute problem at all. The deadlines may or may not be set by peak oil or something giving us time to avoid ill thought out solutions.

Even if that time is shorter than we think, we cannot hold climate hostage for doing the right thing for the wrong course. Science should be based on finding the truth, not on supporting politics with convenient global warming theories.

 

[Sinimod]

"Not bad!" No, genuinely, pathetically awful --- might as well put the model quality issue out of its misery.

Tambora, 1815, 100 km³, 5-6 K temperature drop, implies Pinatubo at 10 km³ is going to result in a 0.5-0.6 K temperature drop if we apply a simple linear model (temperature drop is proportional to volume of eruption). A temperature drop between 0.5 and 0.7 K was observed. http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/originals/Weber-Toba/ch4_climate/textr4.htm Simple linear model predicts a climate effect within 0.05 K; compare this to the Goddard prediction that has been declared "Not bad!"

Actually 0.29 is a misquote. The Goddard Model was actually off 0.09.

 

[Bystander]

Better --- 'nother Cray and a few more millions, they'll get it to where it beats a first order linear model.

 

[Andre]

Thanks, Evo

 

[Evo]

I haven't had a chance to read through the thread since the surgery. Anyone reading for the first time will probably be scratching their head.

 

[Bystander]

You made it fairly clear that there were going to be "missing" antecedents to various posts --- it ain't all that bad.

 

[Andre]

Anyway, here is a big questioner of man's significant role in global warming.

http://www.cei.org/pdf/5478.pdf

 

[Skyhunter]

The pet idea is this:
Every once and a while oceanic methane hydrate enters unstable conditions, with either water pressure dropping (tectonic uprising) or more like changing ocean currents bringing too warm water over the clathrate field.

If such an event is more massive and more prolongued then in the bubble stream the water is also forced up. You can observe that in the aquarium. This deeper water contains much more CO2 than the surface waters, it is brought there by putrifying of sinking biologic remains as bystander kindly pointed out.

Now as this water is forced up, the pressure drops and just like opening the soda bottle, the CO2 is forced out of solution, entering the atmosphere. That's how you can get a sudden CO2 spike. When this process stops, obviously the CO2 will drop again, readsorpted in the ocean and other sinks, until the original equilibrium has been restored. I'm a bit amazed how quick that went in those two events but there was an unbalance. Anyway, the models may need new parameters.

Interesting theory.

Two things right off the top of my head are;

1. This much CO₂ in the atmosphere would alter the PH in the upper oceans, leaving other evidence. If it happened a mere 60-70 years ago the evidence should be easy to find. A radical change in ocean acidity would have a devastating effect on about any sea animals that have shells.

2. There have been no observed events on a scale like the one you described, the event you linked claims to be the first conclusive proof that such events can even release carbon into the atmosphere.

Those CO2 spikes were in the order of magnitude comparable to the termination of the glacial periods. Yet there was no 5-10-15 degrees of warming. Perhaps half a degree at best, looking at the global warming data. But this may have had another cause. As cold seawater in that hydrate event spreads over the ocean surface and pushes the original warmer surface waters to unusual places, the normal weather patterns will be disturbed; think of El Nino.

El Nino is a cyclical event, and part of a normal weather pattern.

Consequently, since nothing serious happened, it proves that climate is much more stable than assumed and there will be little or no climate change due to CO2 spikes

Unless you can prove that these events happened, there are no consequences, and you are making assumptions based on a theorized event that has little scientific credibility.

Wise words and spot on. The world problems in two sentences: climate and indefinately sustainable energy. Both suggest a termination of fossil fuel use.

The first seems most acute and appears to call for immediate and strong action, which may result in maximum conversion attemps to natural renewable energy sources. However this could give a negative outcome, when the complete life cycle costs of those renewables exceeds the energy production. That would be surely ill thought out solutions creating unintended consequences

.
Renewable clean energy sources are not going to devastate the world economy, as has been claimed by many of your denialist sources. In fact the opposite, new energy technologies are fast becoming the driving force behind cutting edge technological development. As more and more companies see the bottom line benefits, the funds used to sponsor such organizations as CEI will dry up.

But climate isn't an acute problem at all. The deadlines may or may not be set by peak oil or something giving us time to avoid ill thought out solutions.

Even if that time is shorter than we think, we cannot hold climate hostage for doing the right thing for the wrong course. Science should be based on finding the truth, not on supporting politics with convenient global warming theories.

What ill thought solutions?

People have been thinking about this for a long time, and there are many good solutions that can be implemented today. Like shifting transportation money from highways to public transit. Designing our cities around pedestrians instead of cars. Increasing CAFE standards, encouraging zero emission vehicles, etc, etc, etc.

I find the most alarmism comes from those crying about how doing anything to combat GW will harm the world economically.