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Doubling of CO2 Not So Tragic After All?
carvalhao writes "The Register reports on a study from NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that claims that new climate models that account for the effects of increased CO2 levels on plant growth result on a 1.64 C increase for a doubling of CO2 concentrations, a far less gloomy scenario than previously considered."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification stop calling the huge change taking place "global warming" that make it sounds like nice cozy sauna. The effects are much more complicated.
Hopefully reports like this are taken as good news not fuel for the skeptics and deniers.
Doublethink detected!
So the deniers are always wrong? Even when the proponents change their models to reveal that they were right?
Skepticism, I'd argue, is inherently good. Being environmentally conscientious should be a result of good science to be meaningful, not of being on the populist "team green". The moment we take a critical eye off our own views is the moment that our causes lose meaning.
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Yah! Finally! Some is asking the right question. Here are the wrong questions:
1) Is the climate warming or cooling?
2) Are humans responsible?
Here are the right questions:
3) What's going to happen that's so bad we have to "do something about" now?
4) When is that going to happen?
Maybe you need to answer the first two questions to answer the last two but if no-one is asking the last two then we're likely to run off half-cocked and implement political policy that does more harm than good. (see, for example, cap and trade).
How we know is more important than what we know.
This. Someone afraid of skeptics, and lumping them with the deniers, is someone pushing a religion, not someone interested in science.
Err... you mean the models the conspiracy theorists like to believe exist, which would link solar activity to global warming? The ones that would've predicted a decline in the warming trend over the last solar minimum. A decline that, well, didn't happen?
*Those* models?
It's happening all right, but I still have my doubts if it is happening due to man or if it's part of some unknown cycle of Earth which is too complicated for us to grasp yet.
So the deniers are always wrong? Even when the proponents change their models to reveal that they were right?
Who has been proven to be correct? Which deniers have ever stated that doubling CO2 will result in a 1.64C rise? I doubt anyone has said that before. Instead we get a range of responses, such as:
You can't keep guessing at a thousand different outcomes and then claim success when one of those guesses comes true. It is just not scientific. It is the same as trying to claim you have ESP because you can accurately predict the outcome of a coin toss 50% of the time.
Skepticism is good. Denial in face of a mountain of evidence is not.
I've yet to see an anthropogenic global warming "skeptic" who wasn't just a denier JAQing off. I mean seriously, what is there to be skeptical about? What part of the IPCC Working Group 1 report is wrong? The Earth is getting warmer, it's due to our carbon emissions, and all that's left to argue about is what the impact will be.
You can kinda sorta be "skeptical" about how negative of an impact that will be, but again I've yet to see anyone who's managed to make a good argument that more carbon and warmer average temperatures will somehow be good for us in general. And no, "carbon is plant food!" is not a good argument.
Be that as it may, the level of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere has risen from about about 280 parts per million before the industrial revolution, to about 380 ppm at present. The burden of proof is on those who believe that that's not going to have a noticeable impact to make their case, and if their conclusions are at all in doubt, the path of prudence is to not rock the boat, and do what we can to cut back on CO2 emissions.
Without ideology we wouldn't have the scientific method.
I find it strange that people think the scientific method is based on a philosophy or ideology. What scientists do is no different from what us common folk do when we debug a program or try to fix a mechanical system: you notice something funny (program gives wrong result, car won't start, water rising in basement) so you or the called-in expert speculates on the cause and then proceed on the basis of that speculation. If the facts don't bear it out, you pause, scratch your head and come up with a new speculation. Repeat as needed.
AFAICT even the most uneducated of us operate the same way in whatever we do. I suspect it's instinct, or at least such a basic result of the exercise of intelligence that no intelligent species could avoid operating that way.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You can't keep guessing at a thousand different outcomes and then claim success when one of those guesses comes true.
I guess my question for you is, why is it so important to you that the factions be in lockstep and monolithic thinkers? The science is not settled, and I don't think ANYBODY would argue that we have an even remotely complete understanding of environment/climate. Not all the "deniers" as you choose to call them believe the same thing. This is pretty standard for any academic field...and what's wrong with that? Furthermore, of your propositions, are any of them mutually exclusive?
For instance, nobody at all argues that human industry has not emitted CO2 over the last 200 years... but how much compared to natural sources? Some people argue that point. Is that mutually exclusive with CO2 not impacting temperature as a causal factor? Are either of those in opposition to CO2 levels responding to global temperature changes? Obviously if those are your arguments, they're not inconsistent with each other.
I read "skeptic" blogs and "established science" blogs on climate change, and frankly I don't know enough to judge much of any of the science, math, or methodology on the merits. I do see a lot of behavior that makes me skeptical about members on both sides. Climate Audit I think has jumped the shark, but the blog's purpose--to get scientists to open up their data, code, and methodology seems perfectly reasonable, and objections (or, the way SOME scientists have responded) to those things do make me question motivations, etc.
Not only that, but there is absolutely no evidence for the involvement of CO2 in 'it.'
Wrong. There is plenty of evidence, you just disregard it and consider it invalid.
correlation does not imply causation, it implies connection.
Right. Only we have a lot more than correlation.
Let's look at four steps for demonstrating causality:
1. Temporal ordering? Check. CO2 increase came before temperatures started exceeding their normal variance.
2. Correlation? Check. Temperatures continued to increase, as predicted, with minor variation and regression towards the mean, but that mean continually increased with corresponding CO2 (actually, GHG) increases.
3. Causal Mechanism? Check. Radiative forcing is firmly established, as is the physics and other interactions that back this theory up. We have a lot of very solid work in this area, and our observations match our predictions. If anything, our predictions are overly conservative because our assumptions are so conservative.
4. Eliminate Confounding Variables? Check. We've eliminated every other theory/hypothesis to explain temperature rise. We know the current temperature rises are abnormal and differ from previous changes. We know it's not due to solar variation or (heresy) a decrease in pirates. There may be another confounding variable out there, but nobody has found it or made a serious scientific case in its favor.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
I guess my question for you is, why is it so important to you that the factions be in lockstep and monolithic thinkers?
Speaking for myself, not the GP, but my main complaint is that most of the deniers I've interacted with aren't even in lockstep with themselves. They vacillate between arguing that the planet is cooling, that the planet is warming naturally due to solar cycles, and that the rising temperatures are causing rising CO2. If you point out the flaws in their argument, many will go on to claim that it's all a socialist conspiracy to redistribute wealth, restrict freedom, and get more research money.
My main concern is that the majority of deniers DON'T seem to have a cohesive, intellectually honest argument. Their most outspoken leaders frequently misrepresent both science and politics (ala "Climate Gate").
Not all the "deniers" as you choose to call them believe the same thing. This is pretty standard for any academic field...and what's wrong with that?
Other than my point above, I'll also add that very few of the deniers actually currently do research related to the field. I've seen some very prominent MDs and electrical engineers argue that climate scientists are clueless, but within the field there is very little variance. The vast majority of papers I've seen on the subject say, "Oh, I agree with your methodology and conclusions, but you got this little piece slightly off. You need to reconsider this little piece of your model and make an adjustment of 0.003 here." If anything, the field itself is far less divided than many others.
For instance, nobody at all argues that human industry has not emitted CO2 over the last 200 years... but how much compared to natural sources? Some people argue that point.
All available evidence shows that they are wrong. We have multiple lines of evidence, and all signs point towards the preponderance of CO2 and GHG level increases being caused by human activities.
...and frankly I don't know enough to judge much of any of the science, math, or methodology on the merits.
Hey, now we can agree! Very few people know enough to judge the conclusions of a multidisciplinary area like climate modeling. Those who DO know enough are already working in the field. Even retired climatologists may not be trustworthy sources because they may not be keeping up with modern advances ("The evidence sucked when I retired in 1980, therefore it must be false.").
Knowing this, we usually look at a consensus. Every good survey or report I've ever seen has shown an overwhelming consensus within the field that anthropogenic climate change is real. Every survey/petition/letter I've seen proclaiming the opposite has been flawed by including MDs, EEs, DDSs, and other "sciencey" fields to gather more signatures.
Even ignoring a consensus, the conservative approach is to limit emissions until you know with high confidence that emissions are safe. People are trying to establish a 1% confidence level for AGW when they should really be establishing a 1% confidence level for emissions being safe.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
True, but that doesn't mean that previous scientific conclusions will be completely refuted. Newton's Law of Gravity turned out to be wrong and was replaced, but in practice their predictions are 99% the same. It's only that 1% that required a better theory. The Theory of Evolution has seen a lot of refinements over the past 150 years, but the basics stand. We don't fully understand all the effects and feedback mechanisms behind global warming, but the basic theory that rising CO2 means retaining more heat, is sound.
The climate change thing is sold as a whole package, a "You believe all of this or you are a DENIER!" kind of thing. However it is really a series of arguments, and at each level someone might have questions. Even some of the basics there can be some questions about. I mean the most basic is "The Earth is getting warmer, outside of any currently known cycles and over a longer period of time." Ok, pretty strong evidence here, but still there is things to look in to. The temperature recording stations have not been controlled and monitored the way we might hope, the record is not as accurate as we would like. Probably nothing that affects any results but in good science you don't write shit off just because it might be inconvenient. That doesn't mean "Look we found a potential inaccuracy, throw it all out!" but it also doesn't mean that questions shouldn't be looked in to.
A bigger things to question would be all the dire predictions, that a couple degrees in temperature rise leads to massive problems, massive loss of life and so on. This really doesn't have any good evidence and is pretty close to fear mongering. Yes I'm aware there are computer models, appreciate that means nothing. You can make a computer model to say whatever you want, a model is only good if it accurately models things, if it has proven predictive power. There is a lot to question in the "Warming means our DOOM," part of the argument.
An even bigger question would be that in the case that is correct, that cutting emissions is the thing to do. The reason is best as we can tell the Earth has been much warmer, and colder, in the past than it is now. So real good chance that happens again, to think that we are in some magic time of stability where all variation has stopped would be extremely silly. Thus sooner or later, no matter what we do, the temperature will almost certainly shift multiple degrees. If that is truly going to be deadly to us, then the concentration needs to not be on what is causing this change, but how to survive such a change. It does no good to make drastic cuts to emissions and stop this change (presuming that it would indeed stop this change) only to then get hit with a change that humans DIDN'T cause and thus can't stop.
You can very well accept many of the fundamental ideas (like that the Earth is getting warmer) and yet still question the conclusions and policy propositions. This idea that it is part and parcel, that you have to accept EVERYTHING, all the premises, all the conclusions and all the policy without question or your are a DENIER is false. It also leads one to question what the hell is going on. A student of human behaviour immediately recognizes that tactic: That of a con man. That is how people peddling fake crap, religions, and other things that don't stand up to scrutiny do it. They present their show and shout down anyone who questions it at all. They attack people who question because they know their argument does not stand up to questioning. Only blind acceptance of the entire package is acceptable, anything else draws hostility.
As such one may wonder why this is done with regards to climate change. It makes some of us nervous.
The science has been overcome by the politics. Let's take anthropogenic global warming as fact. What next? Obviously the offending anthropogenic behavior must be controlled. This leads to an increase in wealth and power for a select few; the natural evolution of institutions.
At this point I don't care about the science. The politics must be stopped.
When big government and big science collude, we all get screwed.
"Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
In Climate Science, "peer review" is more a guarantee that spelling errors have been corrected and that the gate-keepers are keeping the journal "on message" than it is a guarantee of correct methodology and/or conclusions. Two examples spring to mind: Mann's hockey stick and Steig's Antarctic warming paper. Both of these have had front-page placement in Nature and both of them were unmitigated bollocks. So no, on this issue particularly, peer review is more about censorship than it is about truth.
Obviously OA is the next big Green scare. I can't believe you're such an idiot as to not see this for what it really is: political activism.
"Climate change" is such a clever slogan because climate, almost by definition, is and has always been changing. So far, so good. It should be unsurprising, however, that skepticism is evoked when any idea, especially a scientific theory, is so passionately embraced by political movements spawned to both advance the theory and "solve" the expected ill. Yes, propaganda can be targeted for good or ill intent, but when it becomes so loud, obnoxious, and ubiquitous that it attempts to discourage all legitimate debate, intentions matter little regardless how pure and saintly the proponents. Sorry to say I just come equipped with activist warning lights. When it comes to the depth of our understanding of systems so complex and paradoxically subtle as climate, ham-handed political "solutions" are far more likely to spawn unknown and unintended consequences than mitigation to ascribed risks.
There's a few problems with your statement:
1) "Climate change" isn't a slogan, it's the name of the problem. A slogan would be "More cars, less land".
2) While the climate does change naturally, it changes naturally on a much slower time scale than we are currently experiencing. That's why scientists usually talk about Anthropogenic Climate Change.
3) There are political movements spawned to fix many different problems, and all of them provide "solutions" for the expected ills of the problem. It wouldn't be a political movement if it didn't propose solutions to the problem. This is expected.
4) Skepticism is good, and thus many people like to think or pretend that they're skeptics. It's usually pretty easy to spot the people who only claim to be skeptics because they do not critically examine their own evidence only the evidence of others.
5) At some point debate has to end, there is literally no benefit to having to argue every day over whether 2+2=4 and whether gravity will continue working tomorrow.
6) Ham-handed political solutions always spawn unknown and unintended consequences. The benefits of taking action have to weighed against the risks.
Most of the world would rather be talking about the benefits and drawbacks of different solutions to the problems posed by climate change, however, as long as the so-called debate over whether the problem actually exists it's difficult to have a rational discussion about what to do about the problem. Upton Sinclair wrote in one of his books: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!", and the debate over climate change has certainly demonstrated the profoundity of that statement. At some point, the debate has to end, regardless of how many people would rather that it continue until after they have retired and their salaries are no longer dependent on the problem not being addressed. There will always be a question of how much evidence is enough.
That's something you might need to ask yourself. What would actually convince you that climate change represents a danger to the lives of millions, possibly billions of people?
Fanatically anti-fanatical