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150th Anniversary of Greenhouse Climate Theory
An anonymous reader writes "It was 150 years ago that John Tyndall, one of history's truly great physicists, published a scientific paper with the far-from-snappy title On the Absorption and Radiation of Heat by Gases and Vapours, and on the Physical Connexion of Radiation, Absorption, and Conduction. The BBC has an article on John Tyndall and his contributions 150 years ago to the physics behind the study of climate change."
As an ignorant and probably racist member of the Republican party (aka Tea Bagger) I simply deny science.
If a scientist says that my state is becoming poorer and more unhealthy, I simply turn to Jesus and let the poor die in the streets.
Yours in Christ,
Rick Perry
Np!
What truly makes me sad when I see things like this, is that it ultimately makes me think that a bit of science has been lying around for 150 years - and there are still people who try to disclaim it, pretend it simply isn't true and make all manner of excuses as to why it doesn't mean what it clearly states. All to either keep making money, keep doing what they have been doing or because it is simply easier to not have to change the way things are done.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
"why did Jones take such a large professional risk by asking other scientists to destroy documents?"
http://climateaudit.org/2011/09/02/nsf-on-jones-email-destruction-enterprise/
I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to be able to go outside without being instantly sweaty, dehydrated, and suffering from heat exhaustion.
The basic science of global warming isn't too tough or very modern(clearly), although most people don't understand it very well. This article seems to make things fairly confusing as well, although the quote from Tyndall himself is pleasantly concise and clear: "heat in the state of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air, than in re-passing into the air when converted into non-luminous heat." My favorite explanation, I think, is how Carl Sagan explained it in Cosmos, which is roughly as follows:
The idea is that visible light hits the earth, and warms it up. Some of that light is reflected straight back, so it leaves the atmosphere the way it came in and we're done. A lot of that light, though, gets absorbed by trees or rocks or walruses, causing them to heat up. They'll slowly re-radiate it out again because of blackbody radiation (all things radiate continually, even the universe itself) but it will be in the form of lower energy, lower frequency wavelengths. This means that energy from visible light gets absorbed and often radiated back out again as infrared.
CO2 and other "greenhouse" gases let light in the visible part of the spectrum pass unimpeded, but they don't let IR through as easily. So, energy comes in but it can't get back out again.
On the other end, I assume people in Anchorage might enjoy warmer climate and palm trees ;-)
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Svante Arrhenius "was the first to calculate on the heating of the Earth in 1903. But, he refers to Fourier, Pouillet and Tyndall as predecessors. He was the first person to predict that emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels and other combustion processes would cause global warming. Arrhenius clearly believed that a warmer world would be a positive change. From that, the hot-house theory gained more attention. Nevertheless, until about 1960, most scientists dismissed the hot-house / greenhouse effect as implausible for the cause of ice ages as Milutin Milankovitch had presented a mechanism using orbital changes of the earth (Milankovitch cycles). Nowadays, the accepted explanation is that orbital forcing sets the timing for ice ages with CO2 acting as an essential amplifying feedback.
Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4–5 C (Celsius) and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5–6 C.[5] In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 C (including water vapour feedback: 2.1 C). Recent (2007) estimates from IPCC say this value (the Climate sensitivity) is likely to be between 2 and 4.5 C. Arrhenius expected CO2 levels to rise at a rate given by emissions in his time. Since then, industrial carbon dioxide levels have risen at a much faster rate: Arrhenius expected CO2 doubling to take about 3000 years; it is now estimated in most scenarios to take about a century."
Some quotes:
"To a certain extent the temperature of the earth's surface, as we shall presently see, is conditioned by the properties of the atmosphere surrounding it, and particularly by the permeability of the latter for the rays of heat." (p46)
"That the atmospheric envelopes limit the heat losses from the planets had been suggested about 1800 by the great French physicist Fourier. His ideas were further developed afterwards by Pouillet and Tyndall. Their theory has been styled the hot-house theory, because they thought that the atmosphere acted after the manner of the glass panes of hot-houses." (p51)
"If the quantity of carbonic acid in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, the temperature would fall by about 4; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8. On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth's surface by 4; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8." (p53)
"Although the sea, by absorbing carbonic acid, acts as a regulator of huge capacity, which takes up about five-sixths of the produced carbonic acid, we yet recognize that the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may by the advances of industry be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries." (p54)
"Since, now, warm ages have alternated with glacial periods, even after man appeared on the earth, we have to ask ourselves: Is it probable that we shall in the coming geological ages be visited by a new ice period that will drive us from our temperate countries into the hotter climates of Africa? There does not appear to be much ground for such an apprehension. The enormous combustion of coal by our industrial establishments suffices to increase the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air to a perceptible degree." (p61)
"We often hear lamentations that the coal stored up in the earth is wasted by the present generation without any thought of the future, and we are terrified by the awful destruction of life and property which has followed the volcanic eruptions of our days. We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration
Sure, I'd prefer that too. But things change all the time, and sometimes, it's hot, humid, and the air cloys to you like a wet blanket. Sometimes it's not. Climate changes.
Now, can you show me that if we continue expanding our population, and continue utilizing natural petroleum to power our lives, and continue emitting CO2 until the atmosphere is say, at 2000ppm, that we'll somehow be able to make the entire world a place that lives in an eternal, unchanging Louisiana summer?
I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to base my actions today on a bit more than wild speculation about a planet of eternal sweat and heat exhaustion.
So? This video is just a demonstration of a well-known effect. I couldn't care less if it was rendered or staged.
Watt has been exposed as a liar multiple times. Yet all you can offer is a 'proof' that a demonstration video is 'faked'.
Pathetic.
Wanker AC buys corporate big lie, quotes fallicious utterly biased denialist site film at 11:00.
... for some it was never conceived!
We know that global warming is happening. We also know that it has happened in the past.
I think that we can agree that human activity is contributing to it.
The big questions are:
What are the causes of global warming? I don't think that it is settled that human activity is the SOLE cause. There is still more science to do on this.
How much of an effect can a change in human activity have in solving global warming? Is it enough?
Is it worth putting our society (democracy) in jeopardy over it as it puts us in a distinct disadvantage over non-democratic countries, such as China. This can and, in some ways, has lead to international power shifts.
In my opinion, most debates today are concerned with these questions and not whether global warming is actually occurring.
No, thank you. There are plenty of mosquitoes up here already. But palm trees would be a nice addition to the few dominant tree species.
What a fucking loser. And you guys worship this clown.. such sad little people.
"Al Gore, the super-rich conniving businessman, selling a lie to make an even hugerest stack-a-cash! I heard he bought a beach-front house! He doesn't even believe in global warming! Oh that villain! Listen to me! I know what I'm talking about!!!!"
Yeah... that's what I think when people like you start talking about Al Gore.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Yes, we should all focus on something so vast and out of our control that we don't really have to do anything except pose and 'be concerned' about it to be fashionably hip without actually making any personal effort.
Here's a clue. How about all those people feigning concern actually go show concern about something that matters.
"--3.5 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. Some people in these households frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day. 9.6 million people, including 3 million children, live in these homes." - http://www.worldhunger.org/
There's something they can all actually do something about, but they won't - because that would be effort. They would rather smile at peta pictures of emaciated 16 year old looking mostly nude models holding signs and act oh-so-concerned about global issues than help the poor bastard who lives 20 miles away.
As Penn and Teller would say, it's all Bullshit.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
Just who worships Al Gore? This must be some obscure subculture or something because I don't really know anyone who thinks very highly of Gore (they may not dislike him, they may even have some basic respect for things he's done but they don't put him on a pedestal).
Or maybe it's like the Michael Moore thing, where lots of right-wing idiots (and trolls) thought everyone left of Mussolini worshiped Moore even though the reality of it was that we were slightly impressed by his documentaries but still had some issues with the movies as well as with Moore himself.
Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
Starvation is just going to get worse if current trends continue. One of the real problems with climate change is that if things do heat up or winds do change their patterns, there's the potential for many people to be starving, many of whom aren't presently starving.
This is insane, you cannot rationally be proposing that argument. Historical records have had the average temperature warmer than now, and the result was an INCREASE in arable land across the globe and growth of civilization as a result. Warming, through history, has been a boon to people - not a curse.
Now IF people were right about a huge temperature increase there might be problems. But forecasts are constantly being revised downward, and the runaway model is all but forgotten by the AGW crowd. Do you really think the ice caps will be gone in three years? Because just three years ago, people were claiming they'd be gone in six...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We've been able to predict the climate since at least 1988. These projections were made in 1988: http://www.realclimate.org/images/Hansen06_fig2.jpg . The different "scenarios" refer to whether we'd increase CO2 production dramatically (A), reduce it dramatically (C), or continue business as usual (B). We continued as usual, and temperatures have followed right along scenario B.
Actually, look closer at your graph - we've done B, and we've gotten less than C.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/rommcook-prosecute-themselves/
Now that we've refuted Hansen's predictions, should we:
A) abandon the whole CO2 hypothesis;
B) abandon just Hansen, and look for other CO2 driven predictions which may match better;
C) add a fudge factor for Hansen to make the models match the observations again.
The problem is that B and C here can be applied ad infinitum.
Wow, you changed your sig
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Damned Yankees, never did know what to do on a nice warm day. Its called sweet tea, and when added with a shade tree or even better an innertube and a creek is a damned fine way to enjoy a nice sunny day son!
Just dig you a pit, have you some hobo BBQ, fire up a fatty or crack a cold one (whichever floats your boat) and you and your sweetie just float the day away. Dang Yankees just don't know what's good, that's what it is.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You'd better choose then, because if it's getting warmer, we'll have more water in the air. You'll get dehydrated if the earth cools down. It's a simple equation, I'm sure you'll understand: water transforms into a gas when there's heat!!! Gosh... maybe it's too much science for you. :)
"Historical records have had the average temperature warmer than now"
That may be true in another world of the many-worlds multiverse. Not this one.
Not globally, not even for the Northern Hemisphere, not for any climatically meaningful interpretation of "now".
Really, people, this is not hard. Google for Spencer Weart, read his website, then google Skeptical Science and read John Cook's web site.
"the ice caps . . . just three years ago, people were claiming they'd be gone in six [years]..."
Aha. I see the problem: reading comprehension. It was not ice caps but Arctic sea ice that was exercising the imaginations of bloggers. Cryosphere researchers expect the ice caps to last thousands of years -- tens of thousands of years, in the case of the Antarctic ice cap.
> it's a simplification
it's a simplification
When someone is able to predict roughly what the climate, not local weather, will do for a few years - then I might take them seriously.
Errm, thanks for proving you have no idea what you are talking about. "A few years" isn't climate, it's random fluctuations.
Fandroids hate facts.
Actually, look closer at your graph - we've done B, and we've gotten less than C.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/rommcook-prosecute-themselves/
The fact that when he "put the graph at the same scale as Hansen’s predictions", the measured temps of the past don't even remotely match up shows he's full of it. And if you fell for it, you are even dumber than I thought.
Fandroids hate facts.
Are you serious? The current temperature is below Hansen's ZERO EMISSIONS SCENARIO. In other words, if when Hansen made his prediction we started emitting ZERO CO2 into the atmosphere, what would be the result? As you can see, according to his prediction, CO2 is not driving temperature!
oh god, slashdot is full of these global alarmist brainwashed people. i think you should all stop breathing if you're so concerned about co2
And then what do you get when you warm the air?
More water vapour.
Now, since 65% of the Greenhouse effect comes from water currently (with all those feedbacks) and something under 20% from CO2, if you increase CO2 you'll increase the water effect too. And that gives you 65/20 = 3.25 multiplier.
It's called "what we already get".
Your task, should you deign to take it, is to show how negative effects that didn't take place in the past will today negate this multiplier completely.
"I mean current temperature is BELOW James Hansen's zero emissions scenario of 20 years ago."
Wrong. You're repeating Monckton's lies. Scenario A is slightly under current temperatures and Scenario A is roughly what we did. Predicting the future actions of humans is not what a climatologist does. He predicts the climate based on an assumption of what people do in the future. And Hansen got it pretty darn right.
With a 3.2C per doubling of CO2e.
It seems that you can't any more wrong than your statements.
Doesn't the fact that the people promoting global warming today are the same ones who promoted global cooling 30 years ago bother anybody?
I'm assuming it's a sort of projectionism. Many on the far right lionize Ronald Reagan and Bill O'Reilly to such a degree that they assume that the left must have golden calves of their own that they absolutely worship.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
But doubling is a bigger increase in concentration each time you double.
Therefore the two cancel out and you get the same effect for each doubling.
THAT was a strawman, denier.
but they don't put him on a pedestal
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. If that's not putting somebody on a pedestal I don't know what is.
You two yeses are in accord with science. You first two nos are a denial of scientific fact. Your third no makes absolutely no sense, but is also a denial of science.
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"If AGW has a similar body of evidence, it would not be hotly contested today."
Pop over here:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm
And then wonder why you're using the fact that it is being hotly debated as PROOF AGW hasn't got the history of Evolution by Natural Selection.
When someone is able to predict roughly what the climate, not local weather, will do for a few years - then I might take them seriously.
Errm, thanks for proving you have no idea what you are talking about. "A few years" isn't climate, it's random fluctuations.
Yes, you can't dismiss AGW simply because random fluctuations depart from the warming predictions!! The science is incontrovertible!
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Because of course there is only one true past temperature set, right, and that's the one Hansen published :)
Hansen was wrong. Not just a little wrong, but tremendously wrong. You've got two choices now:
A) consider Hansen falsified, and pick another model (or another base hypothesis entirely) to bet on that had a better prediction accuracy;
B) make ad hoc special pleadings to preserve Hansen's model even as it diverges from reality.
Pick your poison! :)
Let's talk about scientific facts - what observations would falsify your hypothesis that climate changes are primarily controlled by human activity, and that a warmer world will cause more harm than benefit to humanity or the biosphere as a whole?
Or are you simply asserting these things as true, no matter what observational data we may ever record?
Because of course there is only one true past temperature set, right, and that's the one Hansen published :)
More prove you have no idea what you are talking about. You are digging yourself in deeper and deeper.
Fandroids hate facts.
I'm personally not buying the whole "Global Warming" bit, and I felt Al Gore's film was based primarily on FUD and Guilt (there were parts such as the little "story" about his child... irrelevant) and known-massaged numbers. Before somebody jumps up and down and screams "denier" or some other goofy label - let's be clear that I think there is some "Global Climate Change" going on, which we may or may not contributing to. The evidence has been shown both ways, and honestly I'm having a REALLY hard time believing either side considering all the bogus political grandstanding they've both had. It's time to remove the vested interests and get some real science done to figure out if we're gonna cook, cool, or just have to do this thing we've been doing for a few thousand years called Adapt. That's my two hopefully unbiased cents.
Agreed, though I think it will be a long time (likely centuries) really before we really have an answer. In the mean-time, we'll be figuring out the various cyclic events - we've generally understood the 10-year cycles, but don't have any real grasp on the 50, 100, or greater cycles. (And no, looking a core samples from trees and ice, etc are not going to give you the information you need to determine those cycles as there is a lot more information required than will be able to be retrieved from those kinds of data points however interesting they may be.)
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
If so, I agree. If not, shut up you pathetic little bagger.
It's funny that I put forth a neutral point and even had a point of agreement, no angry replies and somehow managed to get rated troll. Amazing where slashdot has gone - here's to nostalgia and my final log-out. Cheers to anybody still around who actually contributes.
Cheers, DH.
No, it's not likely that a warmer world will cause more harm than benefit to humanity or the biosphere as a whole.
That's just pure speculation on your part since the current biota has never had to deal with a climate like we will have in 2100.
Regardless if any of this shit is right or wrong, the problem is the solution currently is tax on carbon, and control of rights. This crap is so completely misguided, Who and what that money goes to, and what sovereign rights are stomped out along this on world UN government framework corrupt path.
Why isn't Gibson Guitars back in business with a clean slate by now? Huh?
How come after Solanaria we get this crap?
CRONY CAPITALISM: MASSIVE SOLAR LOAN BENEFITS NANCY PELOSI'S KIN
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/crony-capitalism-737-million-green-jobs-loan-given-nancy-pelosis-brother-law_594593.html
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SOLAR_ENERGY_LOANS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-09-28-19-59-35
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/solyndra-exec-board-737m-loan-gaurantee
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/184515-gops-solyndra-probe-threatens-to-ensnare-energy-sec-chu
It wouldn't be so bad if it was just recognition of a problem, and a pile of solutions presented, but it's also comes with the carbon tax and fuck your sovereignty legal solution with the fucking UN treaty attached, all at the little people's expense. Which is no surprise that the story's roots are seeded from the same source and everyone connected to this source is dirty. Things are the way they are because these scum want things this way.
No, it's not likely that climate changes are primarily controlled by human activity, as opposed to myriad non-human factors.
Yeah when are those aliens gonna put some catalytic converters on their UFOs. Bunch shiny-jumpsuited ricers...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
but they don't put him on a pedestal
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. If that's not putting somebody on a pedestal I don't know what is.
Um... yeah. You're dumb, aren't you?
(hint #1: "The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by a committee of five persons who are chosen by the Norwegian Storting (Parliament of Norway), Oslo, Norway." -- from the Nobel website)
(hint #2 since you're dumb: this means you can't claim the left in the U.S. put Gore on that pedestal, BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T AWARD THE NOBEL TO HIM YOU NUMBSKULL)
So recognizing someone's work and accomplishments is the same thing as worshiping them as a religious symbol? And the fact that some panel (the Nobel Committee) awards someone an international prize means that everyone else who respects him idolizes him?
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Al Gore is a profiteer and not a scientist. No climate scientist really gives two shits what Al Gore says. I place equal weight on what Al Gore has to say about climate science as I do James Inhofe.
While it is true that Gore is not a scientist and is hardly the place to go for authoritative information on climate science, you give equal weight to Inhofe? Really? James "Bigoted Dangerous Loon" Inhofe? The guy who justified torturing Iraqis because, well, they were foreign scum and righteous Americans have a right to do that to foreign scum? That's who you hold up as a right-wing equivalent to Gore?
Al Gore is flawed -- smart in some ways, but not in others, such as in overselling the truth (which lets people pick apart the overselling and ignoring the truth behind it) and yes, "profiteering", which lets people dismiss everything he says as biased. He's a mixed bag, but seems to be essentially decent. James Inhofe, on the other hand, makes me ashamed to be a fellow American. He is a driving force in the current wave of religious fascism in American politics. If we end up tumbling down the same hill Germany did in the 1930s, he will have been responsible for much of it.
It is an article of faith among many self-defined "skeptics" that climate models have so many free parameters that they can be tuned to show whatever you want. Yet even though several of these models are publicly available, no skeptic has ever managed to find a way to "tune" such a model such that it is consistent with the record of past climate, and yet does not predict substantial future warming.
To scientists, modeling is a discipline, a way of "sanity-checking" your ideas. It's easy to wave your hands and insist that something will or won't happen, but if the math doesn't work out, you are out of luck. So far, the skeptics have failed to pass the sanity check.
It sounds like you don't understand what a "null hypothesis" is. Some people seem to think that by declaring their own hypothesis the "null hypothesis," they automatically get a pass on the normal requirement to substantiate your hypothesis with plausible mechanisms and testable predictions. In reality, "null hypothesis" is a term from statistics, and it has nothing to do with mechanism. The "null hypothesis" specifically refers to the hypothesis of no change . So to talk about a "null hypothesis of natural climate change" is an oxymoron. The actual null hypothesis that climate does not ever change is readily excluded by fairly simple statistics. Once you are hypothesizing a change, natural or otherwise, then you do not have a null hypothesis--and you need to support your hypothesis in the scientific way: formulate a physically realistic model, describe it mathematically, and test it for consistency with observations.
I responded to one phrase, "but they don't put him on a pedestal." Are you claiming that winning the Nobel Peace Prize doesn't count?
...that after 150 years AGW theorists would actually be able to provide some *proof*....
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
I'll refer to the Medieval Warm Period as an example of what kind of environment we might experience if current warming continues through 2100.
Of course, my assumptions about what 2100 will look like are probably much different than what your assumptions are, which is why this is such a sticky wicket. We may both agree in the simplest form of AGW, that there must be *some* positive effect, but until we put actual magnitudes on it, we're both just speculating :)
Agreed. But the claim that this is true of climate models has no substance. While it seems to be an article of faith among self-styled skeptics that the models can predict whatever you choose, none of them have ever been able to provide any evidence to support this claim. The climate models are published; anybody can formulate their own or use one of the existing models. So if you believe that the hypothesis predicts every possible observation, there is a simple way to substantiate that claim:
Take one of the models, tweak the the parameters in any physically plausible way that you please, and show that you can come up with a version of the model that is consistent with the known climate record, and which does not predict warming.
Well, actually we've probably already surpassed the warmth that occurred during the MWP. On to the Ice Shelves post :)
The first is simple. Temperatures would have to diverge significantly from the profile expected from the human caused forcings. In other words if CO2 continues to rise, but temperatures drop for an extended period of time, that would falsify anthropogenic global warming. Two solar cycles without warming, or with cooling would kill it.
The second doesn't really need to be falsified until someone provides a reason (theory or model) that indicates there is a possibility that rapid climate change over much of the earth would be a good thing. There is absolutely no reason to believe it would be, and lots of recent evidence that it won't be. Short of that, it's like asking me to prove that release of an airborne version of the AIDS virus won't lead to the Earth becoming a stabe low population/high tech paradise. I can't prove it, but that's no reason to start weaponizing AIDS. "CO2 is plant food" doesn't cut it, primarily because it doesn't appear to stimulate growth in ways that result in carbon storage.
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Fair enough - we've got near 15 years so far, so we can possibly falsify this in what, 9 more years?
Sorry, I can't let that one slide - asserting that the null hypothesis should be that warming is unequivocally bad for the biosphere and humanity is unjustified. At the very least, we can assert that a warmer world leads to more arable land and more plant life, and more support for all life - and we can look at the Medieval Warm Period and the Holocene optimum as evidence of that.
Strict scrutiny applies here. Put another way, just take the past 50 years, where we've observed a warming trend of about .13C per decade...so a little over .5C for the past 50 years. Asserting humans are responsible for half of that, we've got what, about 0.32C in the past 50 years?
Now demonstrate what benefit we could have had if global average temperature had not gone up .32C in the past 50 years.
As an example, we could look at crop yields: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/archive/previous_issues/vol3/v3n9/feature.htm
Or, we could look at cyclone activity: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/26/global-hurricane-activity-at-historical-record-lows-new-paper/
I'm more than happy to entertain any other metrics you'd choose to use, but we need to be specific here.
Fair enough - we've got near 15 years so far, so we can possibly falsify this in what, 9 more years?
We've already demolished your "theory" that temperatures have been falling. We demolish it 3 times a week. Temperatures are only falling if you pick outlier years as your starting and ending points or just plain ignore the data. Temperatures have been climbing steadily. Humans are responsible for significantly more than half of that.
Sorry, I can't let that one slide - asserting that the null hypothesis should be that warming is unequivocally bad for the biosphere and humanity is unjustified. At the very least, we can assert that a warmer world leads to more arable land and more plant life, and more support for all life - and we can look at the Medieval Warm Period and the Holocene optimum as evidence of that.
Didn't we just go through this one as well? This is more proof that you're not interested in reality, you're just trying to convince people who don't know the science that you could be right. First, you're assuming that because the word "optimum" is there, that somehow conditions world wide would be better that it is now. And to some extent you are right, but not because of temperature, because of stability. The climate was stable during the Holocene Optimum, and somewhat cooler than it is now. There was also an increase in humidity that restricted the growth of desert regions. There is no reason to believe the erratic climate we're creating will result in any wide spread benefits both because there won't be stability. There also won't be uniform increases or decreases in temperature across the globe. The medieval warm period isn't even worth mentioning because it was a regional effect, not a global one, so overall heat and moisture flows were probably not significantly different from the usual patterns.
Strict scrutiny applies here. Put another way, just take the past 50 years, where we've observed a warming trend of about .13C per decade...so a little over .5C for the past 50 years. Asserting humans are responsible for half of that, we've got what, about 0.32C in the past 50 years?
You haven't been paying attention. The natural forcings have been decreasing at about -0.05C/decade in that time. That makes humans responsible for 0.18C per decade in your estimate. Currently that's more like 0.23C per decade.
Now demonstrate what benefit we could have had if global average temperature had not gone up .32C in the past 50 years.
As soon as you demonstrate what benefit we could have had if it had gone up .64C in the past 50 years. In either case, it's beside the point. I don't need to prove the a hand grenade will damage a tank to show that a 500 pound bomb will.
As an example, we could look at crop yields: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/archive/previous_issues/vol3/v3n9/feature.htm
That's funny, because that article pretty convincingly shows that something besides climate was driving crop yields from 1950 to 1997. I know you're not stupid enough to miss that.
Or, we could look at cyclone activity: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/26/global-hurricane-activity-at-historical-record-lows-new-paper/
Nothing at Watts' site should ever be confused with objective science. It's often real science reported in a biased manner to make a point that isn't supported by the data. Hurricane activity is a regional effect that is not directly linked to global temperature. They also are not modeled in global climate models. They depend on small scale details of winds and ocean surface temperatures. Gr
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The expected warming trend for the past 15 years hasn't been there, period. You were open to the idea of a lower trend than predicted, for two solar cycles, would falsify your hypothesis. Let's wait another 9 years, and then talk.
False. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/29/the-medieval-warm-period-a-global-phenonmena-unprecedented-warming-or-unprecedented-data-manipulation/
Argument by "you first?" Really? If you can't quantify any damage that has occurred over the past 50 years due to .32C temperature rise, why should I believe that there's going to be damage in the next 50 years if we have .32C temperature rise?
I'm more than happy to admit both benefit and harm are pure speculation - are you?
Speculation. There are myriad natural forcings we don't have any reasonable quantification for (which is really part of the problem).
Okay, so we'll admit that "catastrophe" as measured by world wide cyclonic activity increase isn't going to happen because of increased average global temperature...I was trying to help you with some possible quantitative harms you could measure, but so far, I don't see any.
Really? Skeptical science? And a bunch of papers on regional effects rather than global ones? Really?
Look, until you're able to *quantify* on a global scale what you mean as harm, you've got nothing but hand waving there. Modeled catastrophes, particularly on a regional level, do not reflect reality on a global level.
Put another way, if you're going to assert that there is a 5.74% increase in heatwave deaths, and then only look at 1989-2000 and only at 50 cities, you're not going to get much credibility. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/19/some-facts-about-deaths-due-to-heat-waves/
"In an article entitled, “The impact of global warming on health and mortality,” published in the Southern Medical Journal in 2004, W.R. Keatinge and G.C. Donaldson of Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of London note:
“Cold-related deaths are far more numerous than heat-related deaths in the United States, Europe, and almost all countries outside the tropics, and almost all of them are due to common illnesses that are increased by cold.”
“From 1979 to 1997, extreme cold killed roughly twice as many Americans as heat waves, according to Indur Goklany of the U.S. Department of the Interior,” Singer and Avery write. “Cold spells, in other words, are twice as dangerous to our health as hot weather.”"
Also see: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/18/the-deadliest-us-natural-hazard-extreme-cold/
The expected warming trend for the past 15 years hasn't been there, period.
Why do you keep repeating this lie? The warming has continued.
Speculation. There are myriad natural forcings we don't have any reasonable quantification for (which is really part of the problem).
Not speculation. You don't need to quantify the myriad natural forcings. We can determine the sum of the natural forcings without knowing each individual one. If you have 85 cents, you don't need to know how many dimes you have to know if you can buy a candy bar.
[ many lies from wattsupwiththat.com ]
As I said before, Watts' site is deliberate misinformation. It distorts articles to make unsubstantiated points and ignores contradictory information. And you apparently cant tell the difference between a total and a rate of change.
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In regards to warming trend over the past 15 years, and how well models predicted it:
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2011/09/08/more-evidence-that-models-continue-to-show-too-much-recent-warming/
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2011/09/06/new-paper-models-continue-to-show-too-much-recent-warming/
http://blog.sethroberts.net/2011/03/04/climate-model-predictions-and-what-happened/
http://www.c3headlines.com/predictionsforecasts/
You're missing the analogy. In order to find out how many pennies you have (man made forcings) and non-pennies you have (nickels, dimes and quarters) to make up your 85 cents, it doesn't *matter* what a candy bar costs - you need to be able to differentiate between the pennies and non-pennies.
You've made the assertion that you know, with absolute certainty, the ratio of non-natural forcing to natural forcings. Now play the science game and specify what observations would falsify your hypothesis.
In regards to warming trend over the past 15 years, and how well models predicted it:
Because you only read the works of liars, all you get is lies. A better reference is here. We are well within the forecast temperature envelope. But models do significantly underpredict current sea level rise rates.
You've made the assertion that you know, with absolute certainty, the ratio of non-natural forcing to natural forcings.
I have made no such assertion. As usual you are misrepresenting what I say. What I have essentially said is that we can measure the temperature change over time and we know how the human caused forcings have varied over time. The total natural forcings can be determined from those two items. It's a bit more complicated than simple subtraction, but it's a well understood procedure.
There's no way to know anything with absolute certainty, but with high probability (P>98%), the anthropogenic forcings are much larger in magnitude than the natural forcings. And it is likely (P>70%) that the natural forcings have decreased in the last 50 years.
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You've got a temperature envelope on realclimate that could *cool* ever 10 years and still fit! Really? That's what you're going to hang your hat on?
And now that current sea level rise rates have been shown to mismatch the models, what is your next step?
a) assume the models are falsified, and start from new assumptions;
b) come up with an ad hoc special pleading to explain away the contrary observation.
I'll assert that you end up with B, not because it's particularly unreasonable, but because you've failed to come up with strictly falsifiable hypotheses - a GCM is made up of dozens of moving parts, and some completely disjoint primary assumptions. What we need is a clear list of all the primary assumptions, and what observations would falsify those assumptions.
We may understand how certain human activity has varied over time, but we have no reasonable chance of knowing which of those activities are forcings of any measurable magnitude. UHI, soot emissions, CO2 emissions, agriculture patterns, water policy and water management, and probably thousands of other human activities have all changed over time, and in some cases, we might even have decent measurements or estimates of it...but to understand the magnitude and sign of any of those assumed forcings, or even the total of those assumed forcings? That's a stretch.
An interesting post that might help speak to the idea of small forcings: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/04/the-1-solution/
Not sure if I understand what that means - are you saying natural variability has changed in the past 50 years? Or are you trying to say that natural variability over the past 50 years would have been negative on the temperature scale?
How would you falsify either of those assertions?
You've got a temperature envelope on real climate that could *cool* ever 10 years and still fit!
Look at it and see for yourself. IT HASN'T BEEN COOLING! And short duration (less than a decade or two) cooling is not necessarily inconsistent with global warming because we don't have absolute knowledge of heat content of the oceans. (Sometimes it is inconsistent with global warming, but not always). A warm day in winter doesn't falsify seasons.
And now that current sea level rise rates have been shown to mismatch the models, what is your next step? a) assume the models are falsified, and start from new assumptions;
You really don't understand how science works. You look at the possibilities to explain the difference. Sea level has been rising much more rapidly than expected. The obvious reason is that the oceans are warmer than we predicted. The water has expanded more that models from 12 years ago anticipated because of that. The rising waters have turned some land ice into floating ice. The amount of sea ice has also decreased more rapidly than expected because of that.
So yes, the models are falsified, and we build new models using what have learned (more rapid heat transfer to the oceans, slightly less mixing of surface with subsurface waters) and try to match the observations. So why aren't you worried that our models significantly underpredicted the amount of warming? Oh yeah, that's because you think that we're cooling. Now that your assumption has been falsified, what do you do? Let me guess: make the same claims again tomorrow despite all evidence to the contrary.
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"not necessarily inconsistent" is the last refuge of scoundrels, I'm sure you'd agree :)
If you want to play the science game, let's hear what *is* inconsistent with catastrophic anthropogenic global warming.
And 50, or even 100 years of global warming doesn't falsify natural climate change.
Look at the graph again.
http://climate4you.com/images/UnivColorado%20MeanSeaLevelSince1992%20With1yrRunningAverage.gif
Sea level has been rising much as it has since we've left the Little Ice Age. What is so unexpected about that?
Except they're not - they're missing heat:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png
The problem with that is that you've presented individual implementations of your hypothesis as falsified, but not the *basis* for your hypothesis. With an infinite variety of ad hoc special pleadings available to create an infinite variety of individual implementations, you've set up a tautology that can never be falsified.