What's wrong with a bit of global warming?

[Andre]

Is there a reason to get things in the personal attack sphere? Indeed most of the claims of phy6explorers last post are extravagant. But also, he has not substantiated them, which -I believe- is a definite no-no in this forum. Why was this not challenged/corrected and why is the poster who observes this under attack?

 

[DaveC426913]

...and why is the poster who observes this under attack?

Ad hominem. He chose to attack the arguer not the argument.

 

[vanesch]

Andre is right here on the account that several statements by phy6explorer are obviously wrong (1 degree per year etc...).
However latecommer's statements are also rather strong and not backed up. So I propose that both of you cool down, refrain from being on the verge of ad hominem attacks and bring the discussion back to reasonable statements and discussions.

 

[Phy6explorer]

You speak of conformation of 1 degree C heat rise per year, and there is not nor has their ever been anything of the sort. The ozone "hole" you speak of is a natural loss of a percentage of polar ozone during the times of 24 hour Sun. It is not a hole but a small thinning. There is to my knowledge no hole over North America. UV rays are what destroy Ozone.
The Ganges is fed primarily by seasonal rains, and only parially, and the smaller part by glaciers which grow and shrink on a cyclical basis.

Hey Guys, first of all I would like to make it clear that I was in not offended nor was I insulted in anyawy by latecommer. So please do not report or anything.I would like this healthy discussion to continue.

I would like you(Latecommer) to read the stuff in the following links.

To prove rise in global surface temperature:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming

To prove that there ARE ozone holes:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer#Ozone_depletion

A UN Climate Report issued in 2007 indicates that the Himalayan glaciers that feed the Ganges may disappear by 2030, after which the river's flow would be a seasonal occurrence resulting from monsoons.- Source Wikipedia and of course, UN

Of course, after reading more I found that I am wrong about the 1 degree thing. I apologise to suggest something like that but I assure all of you that I did not make it up, but I have obviously come to know about it in an un-reliable source and I shall not repport any information which I read there.But there is a considerable rise in global surface temperature.

 

[Andre]

Well, I think that it would be wise, not to question anybodies intentions when discussing these things other than to get at the truth. Wikipedia should not be considered as a reliable authoritive source as it is the -not peer reviewed- opinion of the author.

About ozone, it's supposed to emerge under UV light, and is dependent on the temperature. it is unstable therefore it's genesis and decay is in dynamic equilibrium depending on the circumstances There is no "hole" over industrial counties but over the poles, especially during the winter, simply due to the lack of sun shine and hence UV light. As the stratosphere is currently cooling, the production of ozone is decreasing.

The cause of this cooling is not fully clear, it is attributed to greenhouse effect but the calculations don't add up.

Furthermore, melting glaciers, stronger hurricanes or not, droughts or floodings, rising sea levels and what have you are not proof of global warming, it's proof of chaotically changing conditions. Moreover if the temperature changes, it's not proof of an anthropogenic cause, since global temperature has changed for about 3.56 billion years.

See for the lastest temperatures against the main prediction of the IPCC: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?p=1715538#post1715538

 

[Phy6explorer]

Furthermore, melting glaciers, stronger hurricanes or not, droughts or floodings, rising sea levels and what have you are not proof of global warming, it's proof of chaotically changing conditions.

Just to enquire, isn't chaotically changing climate due to global warming?

 

[Andre]

Well to put things a bit in perspective, you might like taking some time to take note of this:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/ispm.html

This is how the Summary for policy makers would have been written by many of the contributing scientists:

http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/ISPM.pdf

See also:

http://www.heartland.org/pdf/22835.pdf

 

[DaveC426913]

Just to enquire, isn't chaotically changing climate due to global warming?

No. Chaos is the natural order of weather and climate. This is what many (most) climatic Chicken Littles don't get.

BTW, chaos is a specific term with a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory" .

 

[Algr]

It is very egocentric to even think that we can stop a climate change.

It is very egocentric to think that we can have six+ billion humans on the planet consuming resources and not have to deal with the consequences.

Nature has a way of restoring balance to life. It's a four step program called famine, pestilence, war, and death. Call me egocentric, but I think humanity can do better then this.

 

[Andre]

It is very egocentric to think that we can have six+ billion humans on the planet consuming resources and not have to deal with the consequences.

Nature has a way of restoring balance to life. It's a four step program called famine, pestilence, war, and death. Call me egocentric, but I think humanity can do better then this.

I don't understand the logic. Could you please explain what that has to do with mankinds ability to alter climate or not?

 

[Algr]

Overpopulation is not something that humans invented, it is literally older then breathing. So is the natural response to when an organism grows beyond it's environment's ability to support it. If a species has no predators, it will grow in population until it exhausts it's food supply. Then the population will crash to far below what could have been maintained had other controls been in place - sometimes leading to total extinction.

Humans are in no way exempt. On Easter Island, humans took what was once a forest, and turned it permanently into a grassland that could support far fewer people. The idea that we could respond to this with "well, maybe we'll all move to other cities" is just denial. If we can't stop climate change, then most of humanity is doomed. Why give up on the starting line?

 

[latecommer]

Again there is a logical disconnect. Warmer means better if you are considering food supply, and especially when compared to cold and the need to burn far more fossile fuels.
Still there is no proven way that humans effect climate at present and while I agree it would be nice to set the Earth's climate like we do a thermostat, there is no way to do that at present.
One thing that has no bearing on climate change is CO2. Only the removal of all CO2 could effect the climate... to the colder. Additional CO2 will not make it appreciably warmer due to its logrithmic effect on IR absorbtion.
Its ability to absorb energy has reached a limit where doubling has less than 7 hundreth of a degree C effect.
I agree that nature will balance out our population when we reach beyond our ability to support ourselves, but I strongly disagree that "most of humanity" is doomed. There is no magic tipping point that would start an irreversable extinction. Why would we sink much below the level of maximum supportable population? As resources deminish so will population, unless replacement technology takes it's place. We will then stabilze at a sustainable level. Unless external forces, such as astroid type events take place, there is no "doom" in sight.

 

[latecommer]

Phy6,
I am happy that you took no offense because none was meant. Teh one degree thing threw me a bit because that was obviously wrong.
I, like Andre, do not use Wikipidea as a source, because I have seen submitted materials that counter the moderator of that site's opinion removed. It is very clearly a reflection of the site owners personal views and in many ways unscientific. What confuses people is that they think some sort of "equlity' of all views is represented. It is not.

I have opened Andre's suggested sites and learned from them...I hope you will do the same.

Vanesch

Would you please point out statements I made that I di not back up? I would like the opportunity to do so.

 

[latecommer]

Phy6
When you speak of "holes" in the ozone layer you must be careful. It is really an inaccurate way of saying a thinning of some degree of the ozone. It is a very loaded term that implies to the uniformed a total lack of ozone. Indeed a real lack of ozone (a real hole) would have very unpleasent effects, but a thinning would bring on effects only of it's degree of thinning.
Do you not agree?
Words must mean something if we expect to pass our thoughts on to others. Use of inaccurate or loaded words is counter to that.
If I may, I suggest that you look at the works of William Kininmonth. I consider him one of the clearest thinkers and writers on these subjects, and on others related to climate.

 

[latecommer]

An interesting paper by Timo Niroma:

For those of you unfamiliar with Dr. Niroma, he is highly respected Finnish climatologist who has been linking solar activity with temperature in a series of many papers.
His latest is done on the weather station located in Uppsala, Finland. This is a site with data going back at least to 1739.
He postulates that there has been a steady but uneven rise in temperature since the end of the last glaciation (accepted by most climatologists)
He has done a study of temperature trends from this data and published his analysis as "Are there any signs of global warming in Uppsala tempertures in 1739 -1999?"
The exact time of the end of the Maunder minimum is debateable, but he chooses 1739 and attempts to justify that date in this paper. He breaks down the temperature trends in smaller units as follows:

1739 -1801
The regression is 4.92 + 0.0063
which is a rise of 0.063 degrees C per decade, or 0.63 degrees per century

1801 -1816 (Dalton Minimum)

regression is 5.00 - 0.034
which is a fall of 0.34 degrees C per decade, or 3.4 degrees per century

1816 - 1867

regression is 5.30 - 0.011
which is a fall of 0.11 degrees per decade or 1.1 degree per century

1867 -1930 (period of greatest rise after the Maunder Minimum)

regression is 4.47 + 0.011
which is a rise of 0.11 degrees per decade or 1.1degrees per century

1930 - 1999 (warming trend only one quarter of what is was in the previous 63 year period)
regression is 5.36 + 0.0029
which is a rise of 0.029 degrees per decade or 0.29 degrees per century.

The three warmest sub sets in this data were, in order: (1) 1930's, (2) 1990's, and (3)1770's
It appears to be difficult to correlate this with CO2 measurements which have been steadly rising in recent years.

However, it does correlate well with sunspot activity (a common proxie for solar activity) with a rise of 1.0 Wolfs per decade across this time period.
The breakdown includes a rise in solar activity 1930 -1999 of 3.4 wolfs per decade.

Dr. Niroma notes elsewhere that the Sun has recently been in one of its most active stages since the end of the Maunder Minimum (Little Ice Age), but appears to be decreasing in the last decade. He like many other climatologists warns of a potential cooling due to recent reduced solar activity.

 

[vanesch]

Vanesch

Would you please point out statements I made that I di not back up? I would like the opportunity to do so.

Well, others here know that I also think that the IPCC makes statements of which the scientific certainty is actually below the claimed certainty, but when you say:

I fear you are buying an unproven and unprovable hypothesis, and rejecting the primary source of energy that has always been the source of all our heating and cooling.

then that's unproven too. We don't know whether the ONLY parameter affecting Earth's climate is the sun, which is what you claim here ; in fact, there are many indications that atmospheric composition DOES play a role (and not only as a feedback variable).

Also, although you correctly indicate the weak point in the AGW hypothesis, namely the "vapor and cloud reaction", what you advance:

Nature has very efficient ways of coping with changes in green house gases, ie. more heat creates more water vapor, more water vapor creates more precipitation, more precipitatiopn creates more cooling...and more CO2 creates more terrestrial plant and plankton growth which absorbs more CO2.

is not necessarily true either: in fact, one doesn't know the exact vapor and cloud reaction to heating, which is the main "feedback" mechanism, which can just as well be positive as negative. Precipitation btw doesn't create cooling. What creates cooling is cloud formation, up to a certain extend, and as far as I understand, this is one of the most un-understood aspects.

I think that the honest situation is that we don't know what the increased CO2 content of the atmosphere will do. It could very well lead to a global warming (but this is less "logically inevitable" as the IPCC claims IMO), it could do something else, and the intensity of the potential change is probably difficult to assess.

In as much as being cock-sure like the IPCC is probably not entirely scientific, being cock-sure of the opposite is just as un-scientific.

 

[Andre]

In as much as being cock-sure like the IPCC is probably not entirely scientific, being cock-sure of the opposite is just as un-scientific.

How c.. -sure are we that aether does not exist, or phlogiston? Isn't science all about eliminating options that proved to be wrong? The IPCC has done predictions of which we are witnessing how (in)-correct those are. Model predicted radiation fingerprints were proven wrong with factual data (see Miskolsczi's greenhouse thread). How many black swans are required to face that the all-swans-are-white hypothesis is false?

 

[latecommer]

Your point is well taken Vanesch, but if you re-read you will see I did not use an exclusive in terming the Sun as the "primary" driver of climate. I believe that it is... beyond doubt ,since nearly all our energy originates in the Sun.
Even the IPCC accepts this with the caveat that what has always been the case (the Sun as driver) is not now the case.
I believe the IPCC did a good job considering it's mandate was based on the (fact) that human emissions are the cause of global warming. But they, or anyone else have failed to prove that this foundational fact is true. They have taken it as a given, and unless or until they can put some proof behind that statement the rest of what they say is pure opinion, and not even close to science.
To put their unproven hypothesis on the same level as time tested ideas of the Sun as driver is wrong. As Andre implied, a hypothesis is proposed, tested by empirical evidence, and, if falsified... is dismissed. With the billions of dollars spent and the hundreds if not thousands of scientists working to prove this hypothesis coming up with a very large NIL, I consider it dismissed.
I can agree with you that we still don't know exactly how climate is driven, but I think the premise that it is human caused is pretty much bankrupt. I am unaware of any (even a small) piece of proof empirically observed that indicates CO2 or any other human based activity has an influence on the climate greater than the noise of natural variation.
On to more promising theories.

I don't agree with you that heating can create less water vapor. As far as I know there are no physics which support this idea. As heating occures in water more vapor is released...
The models used by the IPCC, as you probably know, do not take into account cloud cover or its causes. There are quite strong hypothesis being tested at CERN based around the increase in galactic influence caused by a diminishing Sun on the atmosphere. If this proves true, it may well be one more leg of the two legged stool knocked out from under the modelers at IPCC.
I suspect you have read the Report (No.4) and you will have found, as I did, that claims made by the true believers are far more radical than by the scientists who wrote the report. I believe that is partly the responsibility of those that wrote the summery for policy makers... a group primarily made up by political apointees and not scientists. They knew , I believe, how they had to hype the subject to create the desired results.
Some, today, go even beyond that to the increadulous.

 

[Evo]

An interesting paper by Timo Niroma:

For those of you unfamiliar with Dr. Niroma, he is highly respected Finnish climatologist who has been linking solar activity with temperature in a series of many papers.
His latest is done on the weather station located in Uppsala, Finland. This is a site with data going back at least to 1739.
He postulates that there has been a steady but uneven rise in temperature since the end of the last glaciation (accepted by most climatologists)
He has done a study of temperature trends from this data and published his analysis as "Are there any signs of global warming in Uppsala tempertures in 1739 -1999?"
The exact time of the end of the Maunder minimum is debateable, but he chooses 1739 and attempts to justify that date in this paper. He breaks down the temperature trends in smaller units as follows:

Please furnish the link to this paper. When referring to research or an article, you must provide a link to this information so that others can read the paper in it's entirety.

 

[latecommer]

Sorry

As I have it:

http://www.kolumbus.fi/tilmari/gwuppsala.htm

hope this works for you

 

[vanesch]

How c.. -sure are we that aether does not exist, or phlogiston? Isn't science all about eliminating options that proved to be wrong? The IPCC has done predictions of which we are witnessing how (in)-correct those are. Model predicted radiation fingerprints were proven wrong with factual data (see Miskolsczi's greenhouse thread).

Yes, and now models are proposed that correct for this. I agree that post-false-prediction-corrections-to-make-them-fit is often the beginning of the end, but the *actual* prediction, which is that upon CO2 doubling, we will get between what is it, 1.5 and 6 degrees average global warming in about 100 years, has not been falsified yet, for the simple reason that we haven't been waiting yet for 100 years.
In complex modeling, it can happen that the finer details are wrong. This can indicate that the whole thing is misguided. It can also indicate that the general idea is right, but that the finer details are not understood.

I still take it as not entirely proven beyond reasonable doubt that a significant CO2 change is totally neutral concerning temperatures in 100 years from now.

 

[Andre]

Yes, and now models are proposed that correct for this. I agree that post-false-prediction-corrections-to-make-them-fit is often the beginning of the end,

Now where did I read that before? Ah http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/col-1984quotes.htm :

Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; ..."

but the *actual* prediction, which is that upon CO2 doubling, we will get between what is it, 1.5 and 6 degrees average global warming in about 100 years, has not been falsified yet, for the simple reason that we haven't been waiting yet for 100 years.

Do we need to? An actual last prediction is 0.2 degrees per decade. but how would that compare to the graph attached to that post? How about the start of the very first decade?

In complex modeling, it can happen that the finer details are wrong. This can indicate that the whole thing is misguided. It can also indicate that the general idea is right, but that the finer details are not understood.

Could it be that the general idea is wrong? Urging to look into the Miskolczi thread once more. The general idea about absorbtion of long wave Infra Red by greenhouse gasses heating the atmosphere is well known but until now real time data seem not to be supporting it, according to http://smsc.cnes.fr/documentation/IASI/Publications/LBL_EX.pdf.

But there is also Douglass et al 2007 and http://polarmet.mps.ohio-state.edu/PolarMet/PMGFulldocs/2007GL032630.pdf struggling with model ideas and refractory reality. So the question is, if the outcome of your calculations does not match the solutions in the back of your algebra book, are your assumptions and calculations correct?

 

[vanesch]

Could it be that the general idea is wrong? Urging to look into the Miskolczi thread once more.

In as much as I understand this (gave it only a diagonal look), the claim is that the radiation transport problem in 1 dimension is erroneously solved as of today ? I couldn't quickly figure out if this was some nitpicking about the best suited ideal boundary conditions of the radiation transport problem, or a fundamental mistake that people make today. I would think - but I know that this can be wrong - that such an elementary error would have been already spotted since quite some time, no ? After all, radiation transport in 1 dimension is not an insurmountably difficult problem !

 

[vanesch]

Do we need to? An actual last prediction is 0.2 degrees per decade. but how would that compare to the graph attached to that post? How about the start of the very first decade?

It is not impossible that a long-term trend is invisible for shorter time lapses simply because several oscillatory phenomena superpose upon it. I will be the first to agree with you that current modeling is far from perfect, and is way too much oversold. But in order to prove to me that no serious heating (or cooling for that matter) is happening when the CO2 contents doubles, you would JUST AS WELL need to provide me with detailed models that show me that the effect is NOT there. So as long as we don't have extremely reliable climate models, we cannot claim either way with certainty. I repeat, it was surely an error by the IPCC and the fearmongerers to say that there was any form of scientific certainty about AGW. But that fact by itself is in no way an argument that proves the "no" answer.

In other words, to the question: "a doubling of CO2, will it affect seriously the global climate ?", it would need a serious scientific effort and progress before an affirmative answer can be given with any form of certainty. But it would take just as much effort to give a negative answer to that question. It is not because a certain attempt at answering prematurely "yes" to the question failed, that this is a proof that it is "no".

What is falsified by current observations is only the *specific models* that the IPCC claimed were very sure and on which they based their "certainty" for the prediction of AGW. But it is not because this particular argumentation has been falsified that AGW by itself, independent of any modeling and claims, has been definitively shown absent either.

 

[Andre]

In as much as I understand this (gave it only a diagonal look), the claim is that the radiation transport problem in 1 dimension is erroneously solved as of today ? I couldn't quickly figure out if this was some nitpicking about the best suited ideal boundary conditions of the radiation transport problem, or a fundamental mistake that people make today. I would think - but I know that this can be wrong - that such an elementary error would have been already spotted since quite some time, no ? After all, radiation transport in 1 dimension is not an insurmountably difficult problem !

Well perhaps this thread and this thread are worth another look, especially the last post of Charles, which seems to make some sense.

 

[Andre]

...
In other words, to the question: "a doubling of CO2, will it affect seriously the global climate ?", it would need a serious scientific effort and progress before an affirmative answer can be given with any form of certainty. But it would take just as much effort to give a negative answer to that question. It is not because a certain attempt at answering prematurely "yes" to the question failed, that this is a proof that it is "no".
...

I don't know, are we moving the goal poles out of the realm of the scientific method? What is "affect seriously the global climate"? For instance, it may be recalled that the warmest period in the Holocene was termed "Holocene Thermal Optimum", and by no means "Holocene Thermal Disaster", when the trees grew on the Arctic coasts of Siberia (http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/geog/downloads/634/269.pdf). Why would we think that a warmer climate would be disastrous in the first place? But anyway.

As far as I recall, the IPCC calls for a 1.5-6 degrees global temperature increase for doubling CO2, while the (MODTRAN HITRAN) models (see former post) get to about a dry one degree per doubling. The difference is explained by positive feedback. As stated previously Rizzi et al 2002, Douglass et al 2007 and Monaghan et al 2008 cannot produce results based on the models, but there is also a problem with that positive feedback (http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/2001JD002024u.pdf, http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/cejpokfin.pdf, http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/E-Ac-Sci-07.pdf and this thread).

Finally Miskolczi, using empirical evidence gets himself an idea that is close to zero degrees for doubling CO2, which would might make sense IMO if the emission of the absorbed IR is instantaneous without "exchanging heat" with other molecules, then a maximum of half of the IR emission would be reflected and half would escape to space, basically independent of the concentration of the greenhouse gas.

So what is it? And would any temperature change due to greenhouse effect be hazardous, indifferent or benificial to the climate?

Apparantly 20 years after the Hansen alert and umpty billion$ later, we are again at the basic questions.

 

[vanesch]

I d
As far as I recall, the IPCC calls for a 1.5-6 degrees global temperature increase for doubling CO2, while the (MODTRAN HITRAN) models (see former post) get to about a dry one degree per doubling. The difference is explained by positive feedback. As stated previously Rizzi et al 2002, Douglass et al 2007 and Monaghan et al 2008 cannot produce results based on the models, but there is also a problem with that positive feedback (http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/2001JD002024u.pdf, http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/cejpokfin.pdf, http://www.aai.ee/~olavi/E-Ac-Sci-07.pdf and this thread).

Again, that only means that we haven't yet a correct modeling (and maybe that our empirical observations are also not totally clean, I don't know). And if we don't have a correct modeling, we can't know what will happen, or even if something will happen. But that doesn't mean that we are now sure that nothing will happen. In order to be able to be sure about that, we would need to have a working model that shows us that nothing is going to happen, and we don't have that either.

So what is it? And would any temperature change due to greenhouse effect be hazardous, indifferent or benificial to the climate?

By definition, any human-induced change is hazardous, and any natural change is beneficial according to the currently political correct thinking.

Apparantly 20 years after the Hansen alert and umpty billion$ later, we are again at the basic questions.

Right. And it will probably still take several decades before we will find out a bit more, as we are talking about very slow processes. Now, if we could shake a bit the CO2 atmospheric content (making it rise, then making it fall etc...) we might probably find out better what is its exact function. But it is a world-wide experiment that will last for more than a century and will cost a lot of money.

 

[Andre]

Again, that only means that we haven't yet a correct modeling (and maybe that our empirical observations are also not totally clean, I don't know).

Well, isn't that called error margin? An wasn't there something about reproduceability? If several research teams, using several methods but getting consistent results, wouldn't that generate some confidence?

And if we don't have a correct modeling, we can't know what will happen, or even if something will happen. But that doesn't mean that we are now sure that nothing will happen. In order to be able to be sure about that, we would need to have a working model that shows us that nothing is going to happen, and we don't have that either.

Is this still about greenhouse effect? Will there be ever models that can predict what will happen? But I guess, you're thinking about http://www.aip.org/history/climate/cycles.htm having done quite spectacular things, which looked so easy to be solved with the greenhouse effect. Point here is that the reconstruction of that climate is a multitude of affirming-the-consequent fallacies, (not a reproach, there is simply no other way). But when things don't add up, some of those hypotheses are definitely wrong. The http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WPN-4S563X9-1&_user=10&_coverDate=05%2F31%2F2008&_alid=743566400&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=6995&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=2&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=f01eff708f7c0b7ec2c7f31cb8e4e107 for instance is a major token of things not adding up. There is something very wrong out there. There is no way of modelling anything if you don't have the finger behind that.

By definition, any human-induced change is hazardous, and any natural change is beneficial according to the currently political correct thinking.

Nice challenge, is there anything benificial that only mankind could have done for nature? How about recovering all those fossil biomasses for burning, increasing the available carbon for the short carbon cycles and hence increasing the total biomass?

And it will probably still take several decades before we will find out a bit more, as we are talking about very slow processes. Now, if we could shake a bit the CO2 atmospheric content (making it rise, then making it fall etc...) we might probably find out better what is its exact function. But it is a world-wide experiment that will last for more than a century and will cost a lot of money.

Therefore perhaps it's better to sit back, make inventory and tick off the symptoms of scientific crisis as proposed by http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html. If it all matches, perhaps we should face reality and start from scratch, challenging all basic ideas.

 

[latecommer]

The solid evidence of temperature lag relative to CO2 at all time scales (as indicated by Gerlich/Tscheuschner, Jaworowski, Idso, Beck, and others). Indicates to me that even up and down movements of CO2 levels will be very difficult to analyse no matter how caused.
I would think that long term observations could best contribute to a solution of this question.

 

[vanesch]

Therefore perhaps it's better to sit back, make inventory and tick off the symptoms of scientific crisis as proposed by http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/Kuhn.html. If it all matches, perhaps we should face reality and start from scratch, challenging all basic ideas.

Isn't it more a symptom of oversold science than of a scientific crisis ? If you make 20 guesses as hypotheses, put all that in some model, and turn the crank, should you really be surprised that some things don't fit ? But again, it is not because a model that makes two predictions and one of it is falsified, that this means that the other prediction is wrong too. What is correct, is that the *argument* for that other prediction now has a problem. But not necessarily the outcome.

Let's take a silly example: my theory is "if it is hot, it is bigger". I see that this works with an iron bar. I see that it works with water. So I make the prediction: summer days are hot, so they are longer than winter days. But then people show me wrong. They find hot stars that are smaller than cooler stars. They find hot girls that are smaller than cool girls... etc...

So my modeling that was based upon "if it is hot, it is bigger" has been falsified. A more careful analysis shows me that my theory only works for material objects, not for things such as days or girls. Also, I should compare identical material structures, and the only difference should be temperature. And even then it doesn't always work (some materials shrink upon heating). In other words, my theory that predicted "in summer, days are longer than in winter" is totally erroneous.

But that doesn't stop summer days to be *actually* longer than winter days. It is not because the theory that led to that prediction has been falsified that, as a fact, it became wrong too.

So it is not because some models of the IPCC are falsified in some of their predictions, and in some of their starting hypotheses, that the actual prediction of AGW itself is going to be false.