New Study Shows Three Abrupt Pulses of CO2 During Last Deglaciation

vinces99 writes A new study shows that the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide that contributed to the end of the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago did not occur gradually but rather was characterized by three abrupt pulses. Scientists are not sure what caused these abrupt increases, during which carbon dioxide levels rose about 10 to 15 parts per million – or about 5 percent per episode – during a span of one to two centuries. It likely was a combination of factors, they say, including ocean circulation, changing wind patterns and terrestrial processes. The finding, published Oct. 30 in the journal Nature, casts new light on the mechanisms that take the Earth in and out of ice ages.

"We used to think that naturally occurring changes in carbon dioxide took place relatively slowly over the 10,000 years it took to move out of the last ice age," said lead author Shaun Marcott, who did the work as a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State University and is now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "This abrupt, centennial-scale variability of CO2 appears to be a fundamental part of the global carbon cycle."

Previous research has hinted at the possibility that spikes in atmospheric carbon dioxide may have accelerated the last deglaciation, but that hypothesis had not been resolved, the researchers say. The key to the new finding is the analysis of an ice core from the West Antarctic that provided the scientists with an unprecedented glimpse into the past."

Comments

Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, the researchers say that no obvious ocean mechanism is known that would trigger rises of 10 to 15 ppm over a timespan as short as one to two centuries."

We're way, way, way beyond 10 to 15 in 200 years.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[saloomy]

Sounds like they really just don't know.
It likely was a combination of factors, they say, including ocean circulation, changing wind patterns and terrestrial processes.

But at least they are studying and learning.
"This abrupt, centennial-scale variability of CO2 appears to be a fundamental part of the global carbon cycle. "Previous research has hinted at the possibility that spikes in atmospheric carbon dioxide may have accelerated the last deglaciation, but that hypothesis had not been resolved, the researchers say.

The earth has been from +14 to -6 degrees on average from where it is today. Historically speaking, were in the "colder than usual" range of the bell curve today, and thats with using ice cores to detect CO2 levels and temperature histories. Its not like we had a thermocouple hooked up to a server recording that data for millions of years. These deductions are best effort conclusions on data that only tells a very broad stroke of the story.
What upsets me is how demonizing the argument about Global Warming / Climate Change is. The earth will change its temperature. That will happen with or without us, just look at the historical record. Earths temperature isn't stable. And for all those who argue we are burning too much fossil fuels, those carbon atoms weren't created into existence in the ground as they were today, unless you believe the earth is 6000 years old!
They were a part of the global carbon cycle, and buried during mass extinction events and processes that sequestered them to where they are today. It isn't science to say "for sure this and for sure that". Its science to say: "To the level of our current understanding...". Thats it. You can't know for certain, just like they didn't know for certain that the earth was the center of the universe, even though it was proselytized. Its not OK to attack the character of an individual when they are skeptical of your conclusions. All of science works better when there are those who are skeptical. It refines your proof if you are right, or betters your understanding if you are wrong.

As for the problems associated with climate change, it will happen. For those of us living where it will flood, there will be a new continent to live on, once it unfreezes (again!).

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[CaptainDork]

Its [sic] not OK to attack the character of an individual when they are skeptical of your conclusions.

But it's OK to attack the character of an individual when they are skeptical of the facts.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[saloomy]

What are you implying? That it's OK to attack Ken Ham, or that its OK for Ken Ham to attack people who don't believe as he does?

Ken Ham can build whatever he wants on his own dime, in his own land. I just don't want him influencing public policy or spending public funds on projects that are not based on science.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[CaptainDork]

Science, shmience.

Ken Ham is a crackpot, without character, on the order of Fred Phelps.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[quantaman]

Sounds like they really just don't know.

 
  It likely was a combination of factors, they say, including ocean circulation, changing wind patterns and terrestrial processes.

Actually they do know, they just don't know precisely.

You're basically implying their knowledge is zero, the truth is they've already ruled out countless possibilities, they just haven't gotten all the way to the truth.

"This abrupt, centennial-scale variability of CO2 appears to be a fundamental part of the global carbon cycle. "Previous research has hinted at the possibility that spikes in atmospheric carbon dioxide may have accelerated the last deglaciation, but that hypothesis had not been resolved, the researchers say.

The earth has been from +14 to -6 degrees on average from where it is today. Historically speaking, were in the "colder than usual" range of the bell curve today, and thats with using ice cores to detect CO2 levels and temperature histories. Its not like we had a thermocouple hooked up to a server recording that data for millions of years. These deductions are best effort conclusions on data that only tells a very broad stroke of the story.

Interesting but I'm not sure how it's relevant.

What upsets me is how demonizing the argument about Global Warming / Climate Change is. The earth will change its temperature. That will happen with or without us, just look at the historical record. Earths temperature isn't stable.

You're arguing a strawman, no one has ever argued that climate is completely stable without us. The claim is that we're undergoing an extreme and dangerous rate of change due to human causes.

And for all those who argue we are burning too much fossil fuels, those carbon atoms weren't created into existence in the ground as they were today, unless you believe the earth is 6000 years old!

Ahh, I get it.

AGW deniers are often associated with Young Earth Creationists (YECs) because the religious right and YECs are fairly well represented in the AGW denier community. Therefore you compare AGW proponents to YECs, and if any show outrage at the comparison you can say they're hypocritical because of how people associate YECs with denialists.

They were a part of the global carbon cycle, and buried during mass extinction events and processes that sequestered them to where they are today. It isn't science to say "for sure this and for sure that". Its science to say: "To the level of our current understanding...". Thats it. You can't know for certain, just like they didn't know for certain that the earth was the center of the universe, even though it was proselytized. Its not OK to attack the character of an individual when they are skeptical of your conclusions. All of science works better when there are those who are skeptical. It refines your proof if you are right, or betters your understanding if you are wrong.

  As for the problems associated with climate change, it will happen. For those of us living where it will flood, there will be a new continent to live on, once it unfreezes (again!).

And again I'm not sure what the point of this section was other than to accuse the researchers of not doing science... and then promptly follow that up with a deliciously ironic complaint that people shouldn't "attack the character of an individual when they are skeptical of your conclusions".

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[ClickOnThis]

Its [sic] not OK to attack the character of an individual when they are skeptical of your conclusions.

But it's OK to attack the character of an individual when they are skeptical of the facts.

What are you implying? That it's OK to attack Ken Ham, or that its OK for Ken Ham to attack people who don't believe as he does?

CaptainDork isn't implying anything. S/he says it's okay to attack the character of an individual who is skeptical of the facts, not beliefs.

Ken Ham can build whatever he wants on his own dime, in his own land.

Can he do that by practicing illegal discrimination? If you bothered to read the Slate article linked by CaptainDork, you'd see that Ken Ham is engaging in just that.

I just don't want him influencing public policy or spending public funds on projects that are not based on science.

That's the point. Again, read the Slate article linked by CaptainDork. And if you're too lazy to do that, then here you go:

But Ark Encounter isn’t privately funded; the citizens of Kentucky have been roped into paying for it, whether they like it or not. Earlier this year, Kentucky’s Tourism Development Finance Authority gave preliminary support for $18.25 million in tax credits for Ark Encounter, citing Ham’s promise that the project would create 600 to 700 jobs. And that’s just for the first phase of construction; ultimately, the state could grant Ark Encounter up to $73 million in tax breaks.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[crioca]

And for all those who argue we are burning too much fossil fuels, those carbon atoms weren't created into existence in the ground as they were today, unless you believe the earth is 6000 years old!

Okay, I don't think you understand the issues that climate change presents; for the Earth to sustain a healthy biosphere with 7+ billion humans we've had to develop a lot of infrastructure to make effective use of it's resources. Changes in the climate will require us to devote resources to re-configuring our infrastructure, the faster it happens, the more resources we'll need to devote, which will impact living standards. We do not know exactly how high the cost will be, but we do know that it will be cheaper if we act now.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Truth_Quark]

Historically speaking, were in the "colder than usual" range of the bell curve today, and thats with using ice cores to detect CO2 levels and temperature histories.

*sigh*

Using ice cores, we're much warmer than usual.

Earths temperature isn't stable.

So we should warm the earth much faster than it warms naturally, and upwards from the top of an interglacial when all the existent species on the planet, plus all our infrastructure have never co-existed with the new temperature?

Surely we can do a bit better than "Earth's temperature isn't stable, so everything might be all right". Why don't we use that science thing that has been so good for our species? We can look at what will happen to which species, and what will happen to regional climate under global warming and ocean acidification.

And for all those who argue we are burning too much fossil fuels, those carbon atoms weren't created into existence in the ground as they were today, unless you believe the earth is 6000 years old!

So you're saying that if we return those carbon atoms to the biosphere, then because they were there in the carboniferous era, current species will be all right?

That's a bold and unproven claim that goes against current estimates of extinction risk.

Do you have a little bit more evidence or detail, or (god forbid) a scholarly paper that supports your claim that "because carbon is in the ground it must be safe to burn it"?

Great.

They were a part of the global carbon cycle, and buried during mass extinction events and processes that sequestered them to where they are today.

Not generally, no. The Carboniferous had about 50 million years of build up of wood, because nothing could break down the newly evolved bark. Not a mass extinction event. Just a lot of dead trees lying on the ground. It's not cyclical, and it won't happen again until trees evolve Kevlar coating.

Its not OK to attack the character of an individual when they are skeptical of your conclusions.

How the hell did you get "attack the character of an individual" from the GP post? :

"However, the researchers say that no obvious ocean mechanism is known that would trigger rises of 10 to 15 ppm over a timespan as short as one to two centuries."

We're way, way, way beyond 10 to 15 in 200 years.

There's no attack there. There's the observation that current atmospheric CO2 concentration rise is an order of magnitude faster than rapid increases at the end of the last interglacial.
It didn't mention people, much less attack them. If your income was based on the proportion of climate change denial comments on slashdot, then you might feel personally attacked by it, but that's not the same thing.

As for the problems associated with climate change, it will happen.

It's not a step function. The lower the peak atmospheric CO2 is, the fewer the problems.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[saloomy]

CaptainDork isn't implying anything. S/he says it's okay to attack the character of an individual who is skeptical of the facts, not beliefs.

Right but his sentence could be read another way (or so it did when I first read it).

Can he do that by practicing illegal discrimination? If you bothered to read the Slate article linked by CaptainDork, you'd see that Ken Ham is engaging in just that.

It is illegal, so he can't. But then, I wasn't commenting on how he builds his park, or who he hires to build it. Only whatever he wants. (so long as it passes building codes, but then again, I was really stating my principles not what is legally possible.

That's the point. Again, read the Slate article linked by CaptainDork. And if you're too lazy to do that, then here you go:

Thanks for that. But no, I did read the article. I just don't agree with Ken Ham spending public funds to build something based on his beliefs, and not our collective scientific knowledge. I don't think the government has any place paying for the support of ANYONE's beliefs, including Ken Hams. I know the article was stating that Kentucky did so, and I'm glad I am not from Kentucky. Again, I was really stating what I think is right:

I just don't want him influencing public policy or spending public funds on projects that are not based on science.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[radtea]

We do not know exactly how high the cost will be, but we do know that it will be cheaper if we act now.

Absolutely. The difficulty is that "action" has to get past a fence of anti-science, anti-technology, anti-capitalist nutjobs who say on the one hand that a) we face a civilization-ending event and b) we must not use various well-known and ready-to-go solutions to the problem, but instead must embark on an unproven revolutionary program that "changes everything!"

Nuclear power, carbon taxes, and research in to carbon sequestration are the obvious immediate responses to climate change.

The first two are practical, proven and ready-to-go. The latter is a backup plan.

Instead we have left-wing idiots protesting oil pipelines, because that's where the donation dollars come from.

With regard to carbon taxes: we have to tax something to fund government. Even righties who just want to use government money to bomb brown people generally agree with that. We can tax income, or we can tax carbon emissions. Who but a raving anti-wealth socialist would want to tax something good and wonderful like income when we can tax some basically nasty like carbon emissions instead?

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[chmod a x mojo]

And for all those who argue we are burning too much fossil fuels, those carbon atoms weren't created into existence in the ground as they were today, unless you believe the earth is 6000 years old!
They were a part of the global carbon cycle, and buried during mass extinction events and processes that sequestered them to where they are today.

Ummm, close, but no. It was sequestered over hundreds of million years to billions of years but the bulk of the carbon from the carbon cycle is tied up in a few places, neither of which has anything to do with mass extinctions. The huge bulk of CO2 ( currently ~400PPM atmosphere, ~60*atmosphere dissolved in the oceans, and ~10,000*oceans+atmosphere is tied up in rocks ) is tied up in the carbonates, I.E. limestones and dolostones. Coals come from swamps, and oil comes from mostly shallow-ish marine bacteria that had periodic blooms and die-offs that settled into the sediments on the seafloor and got buried.

Re: Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Anonymous Coward]

"righties bombing the brown people" I didn't know Obama was a rightie.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[drinkypoo]

Instead we have left-wing idiots protesting oil pipelines, because that's where the donation dollars come from.

so just to be clear, you are in favor of oil pipelines? which commit a valdez or a deepwater every so many days or so?

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[jandersen]

What upsets me is how demonizing the argument about Global Warming / Climate Change is

Well, I suspect that somebody has an interest in derailing the discussion and avoiding a proper, level-headed, scientific discourse. The blame falls on both sides, but I don't think those involved in climate research are at fault; they do, after all, come out at regular intervals with corrections and amendments to their previous work, something we don't see much of from the other side.

The earth will change its temperature. That will happen with or without us, just look at the historical record. Earths temperature isn't stable.

This is well known and has been for more than a century. What is new is that we are contributing significantly to the warming, and that we may be in danger of initiating a very abrupt climate change; this will most likely result in major extinctions as well as causing big problems for ourselves - with 6 billion (or is it 7 now adays?) people on the planet to feed and shelter, that is not something we need.

And for all those who argue we are burning too much fossil fuels, those carbon atoms weren't created into existence in the ground as they were today,

True. They were extracted from our atmosphere at a time when the sun was significantly cooler than now. Returning it all to the atmosphere now would definitely not be a good idea.

All of science works better when there are those who are skeptical. It refines your proof if you are right, or betters your understanding if you are wrong.

Very true - but the word 'skeptical' has been hijacked by people who are not honestly skeptical. Skeptical means that you have considered the fact and reached a different conclusion, and it implies that you are willing to change your conclusion if you gain better insight. In that sense ALL scientists are skeptical.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Stuarticus]

"Carbon sequestration". Yeah, the problem we have is all this carbon we are digging up and burning is causing trouble so we need to find a way of sequestering it after we burn it. Do you see the stupid part in this plan?

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[swillden]

We do not know exactly how high the cost will be, but we do know that it will be cheaper if we act now.

True enough. And yet we take most of the available courses of action off the table.

The Earth's climate will change, and would even if we weren't here. But we are here, and we have reasons we don't want it to change, so we need to start learning to actively manage the planet's climate. This includes not just reducing our impact on it, but figuring out how to modify and regulate it. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is well and good, but why are we not investing in more proactive measures? For that matter, we also need to understand more about how to warm the planet. If we look at the extremes of climate the Earth has had over the last few hundred million years, the extreme cold conditions (up to 30 feet of ice on the equatorial oceans) would be far harder for us to adapt to than the warmest conditions.

Reducing our impact isn't enough. We need to override the natural climate changes, regulating climate to suit our needs.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[pipingguy]

"We can tax income, or we can tax carbon emissions."

How much you wanna bet we end up with both, plus a value-added tax on top just for good measure?

Re: Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[tsqr]

Premise: Only righties bomb brown people.
Observation: Obama bombs brown people.
Conclusion: Obama is a rightie.

...or maybe there's a flaw in the Premise.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[neoritter]

*sigh*

Using ice cores, we're much warmer than usual [wikipedia.org].

The Earth is only 400 thousand years old?

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[neoritter]

Most sceptics are either misinformed or paid shills.

Unless they're skeptical about the same stuff you are right?

Re: Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Eunuchswear]

Well, given that Obama is a centre-rightist I can't see that you have demonstrated any problem with the premise at all.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Eunuchswear]

Using ice cores, we're much warmer than usual.

The Earth is only 400 thousand years old?

Humanity has been around for how much longer than 400 thousand years?

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Eunuchswear]

Very few self proclaimed "skeptics" are skeptical.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[neoritter]

I think you misunderstand the point of my question.

Re: Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[tsqr]

Well, given that Obama is a centre-rightist I can't see that you have demonstrated any problem with the premise at all.

The problem with the premise is that it's based on the tried-and-true No True Scotsman logical fallacy, as in "no true leftie would bomb brown people." Obama may indeed be a center-rightist, but only someone preoccupied with ideological purity would reach that conclusion merely by observing his predilection for bombing brown people.

Re: Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[crunchygranola]

Well, given that Obama is a centre-rightist I can't see that you have demonstrated any problem with the premise at all.

The problem with the premise is that it's based on the tried-and-true No True Scotsman logical fallacy, as in "no true leftie would bomb brown people." Obama may indeed be a center-rightist, but only someone preoccupied with ideological purity would reach that conclusion merely by observing his predilection for bombing brown people.

There is plenty of other evidence supporting this conclusion - it is hardly just his "bombing" policies

The way Obama spearheaded the national implementation of Heritage/Romneycare. His Conservative, but deeply misguided policy of austerity - shrinking the Federal government during a lingering depression for another. And these are the most important two policies of his entire 8-year term in office. That defines the character of his Presidency.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[david_thornley]

The variation of planetary surface temperature over the past billion years really isn't relevant here, or the fact that those carbon atoms (created in supernovas a long time ago, I believe) weren't buried several hundred million years ago. We're looking at unprecedentedly high temperatures for the time humans have been on this planet, and this is caused largely by taking carbon out of the ground where it's been since long before humans were around and putting it in the atmosphere. I really don't care if velociraptors would find the current Earth chilly; I am a speciesist and am concerned primarily with the affairs of humans.

Therefore, it bothers me that we're likely to get sea level rises unprecedented in human times, since there's a whole lot of humans and stuff that are likely to get flooded over the next centuries, and an elevated sea level is a problem even without that (how destructive would Sandy have been with a mean sea level even a little lower?). It bothers me that we're almost certainly going to get massive climate changes that will disrupt lots of human activity. The species will adapt, and that's nice, but it looks like there's going to be a whole lot of individual suffering that I'd rather avoid if possible.

You also seem to miss the distinction between skepticism, which is good, and blind rejection, which isn't. Or the concept that we can know something imperfectly but still well enough to justify action.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[david_thornley]

I agree, but people have been working on ideas for changing the planetary climates independent of carbon sequestration or lack thereof. It would be real useful to be able to stabilize it at some point well suited for the current human civilization.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[swillden]

I agree, but people have been working on ideas for changing the planetary climates independent of carbon sequestration or lack thereof.

Ideas, yes, but AFAICT no one is talking even remotely seriously about implementing any of them. It may be that implementation is premature, of course, that the ideas aren't sufficiently well-developed and tested, but I think we should at least be talking about the ideas in public fora.

It would be real useful to be able to stabilize it at some point well suited for the current human civilization.

Exactly. Though "stabilize" is the wrong word, I think, because I doubt it will ever be "stable". Instead, what we should be able to someday achieve is a sort of dynamic stability, via active management, so whenever it starts to drift out of our preferred "Goldilocks Zone", we nudge it back.

Re: Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[tsqr]

There is plenty of other evidence supporting this conclusion - it is hardly just his "bombing" policies

Sure. And people wishing to paint him as a leftist can convince themselves they see evidence in support of that, as well; see, for example, his stance on immigration reform and statements regarding the Treyvon Martin and Ferguson "situations".

Personally, I don't see him as a "leftist" or as a "righty"; he seems to lack the intestinal fortitude for either. I see him as more of an old-school political opportunist with a defective moral compass and a spine too week to stand up for what he claims to believe in, whatever that might be (see his evolution from "fierce advocate for gay rights" to "God's in the mix" to ... well, it's not too clear where he stands on the issue right now).

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Truth_Quark]

The Earth is only 400 thousand years old?

No, the Earth is over 4.5 billion years old.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[neoritter]

That's what I thought, but the link he gives only shows a 400,000 year window.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Truth_Quark]

That's what I thought, but the link he gives only shows a 400,000 year window.

The link to the ice-core temperature reconstruction data from the Vostok Ice cores?

They only go back 400,000 years. EPICA cores go back a bit further.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[neoritter]

And your point?

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[Truth_Quark]

Saloomy's claim was:

Historically speaking, were in the "colder than usual" range of the bell curve today, and thats with using ice cores to detect CO2 levels and temperature histories.

This is not true, using the data set [s]he mentions. We're much warmer than normal, according to the ice core record.

This is not, as you seem to have been suggesting that the Earth is less than a million years old, but that Ice Cores don't go back further than that.

Re:Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[neoritter]

LMAO wow, the point went completely over your head. If you think this: "The Earth is only 400 thousand years old?" is equivalent to suggesting what you say...wow, just wow...Particularly after this, "That's what I thought, but the link [you give] only shows a 400,000 year window."

No the point is, excusing the boshe ice core citation and the bell curve comment (wth does that have to do with anything), we are colder than it has been historically.

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w...
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w...

You can make your graph look like anything you want it to by selecting your window.

Correlation does not imply causation

[laing]

How do we know the CO2 spikes caused the warming? Perhaps the CO2 resulted from increased biological activity occuring as a result of the warming.

This sort of confusion happens a lot in science.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[KeensMustard]

So in that scenario what happened to the warming that should have happened because of increased CO2 (CO2 being a greenhouse gas and all)?

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[DiamondGeezer]

It happens a lot in science. Have you actually read "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"? Clearly not.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[Layzej]

How do we know the CO2 spikes caused the warming? Perhaps the CO2 resulted from increased biological activity occuring as a result of the warming.

I would think increased biological activity would have sequestered CO2 rather than released it, but you could be right that the CO2 was a result of the warming. At the same time, we know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so (all else being equal) increased CO2 would result in higher temperatures. That's just physics. So possibly there is a feedback loop here.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[Crashmarik]

Hows that luminous aether working out for you ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Little dated ? Maybe supersymetry and string theory ?
http://scienceblogs.com/starts...

Magnetic Monopoles ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

Science is about being aware of what you don't understand and just how vast it is. Pseudoscience is about certainty. Maybe you can get a corrective phrenology session to clear that up ?

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[crioca]

How do we know the CO2 spikes caused the warming?

Because of 1. the greenhouse effect and 2. climate forcing.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[crioca]

Isaac Asimov's essay, "The Relativity of Wrong"does a wonderful job of revealing the foolishness of this type of thinking. http://chem.tufts.edu/answersi...

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[Truth_Quark]

While correlation doesn't in statistics imply causation, in this case we do have an understanding of the physics of the causal mechanism.

It's called the greenhouse effect.

I'm surprised you haven't heard of it.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[Crashmarik]

I met the good doctor back in 1974 at a bookstore on 71st street in Miami Beach*. He really was an incredible wit and raconteur, there is no way I am going to go up against his ability to formulate a plausible explanation. I mean really how can you dispute someone who could come up with the ancient Greeks prophesying Einstein ? http://geobeck.tripod.com/fron...

But he should have known better in the essay you linked just the same. A well educated person in the 1700s could have made the same claim that it was wonderful to live in a time when at last we understood the universe In the . He could then point to the work of Newton, Galileo and Copernicus and proclaim they had set the heavens on a mechanical basis, and Von Leeuwenhoek had revealed the microscopic basis of life and Franklin had deciphered and tamed electricity. In both cases "The relativity of wrong wouldn't apply to things you were actually relatively spot on about, but rather about the things you think you understand but don't. Asimov really shouldn't have made the claim given his expertise. He was a biochemist, so when he says the world is well understood he would need to exclude vast sections of his own field. When he wrote that essay protein folding was still nearly impossible to model for anything but very simple cases. We had not yet decoded the human genome (we are still at the threshold of understanding), and when you spoke of climate change you were likely to be as worried about the next glaciation as warming.

*Rather sad it was a good bookstore now it's a fast food joint.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[swillden]

I don't think you understood Asimov's point. He wasn't claiming that we understand everything, or anything close to it. He was claiming that we understand a lot more than we used to in response to a claim that, essentially, all ignorance is equal. Science today is wrong. Absolutely. But it's much less wrong than it was a few decades ago, and will be less wrong a few decades hence than it is now.

when you spoke of climate change you were likely to be as worried about the next glaciation as warming.

Actually, we should be as worried about the next glaciation as warming or perhaps more worried, because glaciation will have greater impact on our ability to live comfortably on the planet than warming. Granted that the warming issue is more urgent, cooling is more serious.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[Crashmarik]

Sorry the way I read Asimov's essay was you had people talking past each other. Just to put this in perspective Newtonian mechanics is a radically different view of the world than relativistic mechanics yet is still overwhelmingly used to do almost all calculations in engineering. I suspect the same will hold true whenever a viable formulation of quantum gravity is made.

Maybe a better way to examine this would be to look at the implications of saying "I am glad we live in a time when we finally understand how the world works", if you take that statement as true you rule out radical changes in our understanding of the world. Maybe there isn't anything big left to discover and we know it all, I wouldn't bet on that though.
 

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[swillden]

Just to put this in perspective Newtonian mechanics is a radically different view of the world than relativistic mechanics yet is still overwhelmingly used to do almost all calculations in engineering.

This is exactly Asimov's point, though he doesn't use this example. He argues that at any given time science's view of the world isn't so much wrong as it is incomplete. That's definitely the relationship between classical and relativistic mechanics; they have radically different explanations, but the latter implies the former and clarifies under what circumstances the classical computations are correct and to what degree. He uses the example of flat vs spherical vs oblate spheroid conceptions of the shape of the world. To a considerable degree the view that Earth is flat isn't wrong, particularly if your scope of operation is limited by the speeds and distances available to people on foot, but it is definitely incomplete. A spherical view is more complete, and more correct and dramatically more useful, but still incorrect, still incomplete, and flat wrong if you want to map the globe in detail and coordinate it with satellite-based positioning (for that matter, Newtonian mechanics isn't sufficiently correct to run an accurate global positioning system). And so on.

I suspect the same will hold true whenever a viable formulation of quantum gravity is made.

I'd be shocked if that weren't the case. I think the only way it would be untrue is if the quantum gravitic approach yielded dramatically simpler computations, which seems highly unlikely given that Newton's equations are so concise and elegant.

Maybe there isn't anything big left to discover and we know it all, I wouldn't bet on that though.

I'd go further and say that the claim is laughable on its face given the huge amount we know we don't know, plus the fact that there is almost certainly a lot more that we don't know we don't know. The lack of a theory integrating quantum mechanics and gravitation, the wild profusion of seemingly-random subatomic particles and their bewilderingly varied interactions, the big holes in cosmology around dark matter and dark energy and the early moments of the big bang, our lack of understanding of many emergent properties of the chemical processes of biology, including such crucial matters as our ignorance of what intelligence is (an area in which everything we learn is still serving mostly to illuminate the depth and breadth of our cluelessness), our limited understanding of our planet's climate... I could go on and on, and I'm sure you could as well.

With so many big, obvious holes and even outright contradictions, it seems clear to me that there MUST be lots of fundamental discoveries yet to be made. Many of them likely hiding in the areas we don't know we don't know, just as relativity was hiding in the difficulty of measuring the luminiferous aether.

It's a marvellous time to be alive :-)

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[Crashmarik]

I think you may be missing the difference between the what and the how. The what is observational data, any new scientific theory either has to be consistent with existing observational data or show that the observations are in error. As an example any new theory of gravitation has to accurately predict the observed orbits of the planets or it will be rejected. It can however have a radically different basis for what makes them have those orbits.

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[crunchygranola]

Yes, lets base public policy decisions on essays written by cheap sci-fi authors.

You mean based on essays written by a Professor of Biochemistry, and leading popular science educator, who also wrote some fiction?

(The "cheap" shot was way to obvious shilling. Your paymasters should dock you for something so amateur.)

Re:Correlation does not imply causation

[swillden]

Sure, there's a difference between the explanation and the predictions. Perhaps we're just disagreeing on whether a new explanation that better fits predictions to observations makes the new theory "right" and the old one "wrong", or whether it's just an increase in completeness. There's a rational basis for both positions. I prefer the latter (as did Asimov in his essay) for several reasons, not least because it doesn't imply that the new theory is "right".

I recognize there's a danger in the "increasing completeness" perspective of falling into the empiricism trap of believing that theories are only about predictions and not about explaining the underlying reality. I believe that the goal of theories is to explain the underlying reality, while keeping in mind that it may be the case that our theories never actually explain the truth.

This position is something of a leap of faith, because it's impossible to distinguish between two explanations that have exactly the same predictive power and exactly the same predictions. This is why the Copenhagen and many-worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics continue to co-exist, and may potentially always coexist, even though they provide radically different explanations for the observed randomness of the quantum world. In spite of that, I persist in believing that scientific theories attempt to describe underlying reality and aren't merely convenient predictive models.

The Science is Settled

[Anonymous Coward]

Settled I say (in Foghorn J. Leghorn's voice)

Maybe something like a permafrost melting?

[AbRASiON]

Perhaps some kind of large reserves of stuff were the final nail in the coffin? Don't we have several mammoth cO2 reserves around the planet, right on the verge of finally letting go?

Re:Maybe something like a permafrost melting?

[PopeRatzo]

Don't we have several mammoth cO2 reserves around the planet, right on the verge of finally letting go?

Don't bring my mother-in-law into this.

Re:Maybe something like a permafrost melting?

[Anonymous Coward]

I did have Chili for supper last night.... Oh.. Wait that's methane, which is even worse I here..

Re:Maybe something like a permafrost melting?

[RichMan]

More likely big lake burst events. There are known records of several of those. Each event would have exposed land and done a lot of silt movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

Re:Maybe something like a permafrost melting?

[Patent Lover]

Nor something like 50% plus of the U.S. population.

last glacial

[Black Parrot]

We're in an interglacial, still in same ice age.

Re:last glacial

[Eunuchswear]

We're in an interglacial, still in same ice age

Make up your mind.

Look up the words you don't understand:

An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age.

Re:last glacial

[david_thornley]

You'd be right if a "glacial period" and an "ice age" meant the same thing. They don't.

Re:Nostradamus

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure why you are bashing Republicans on a story that shows Democrats have been wrong.

Correlation does not imply causation

[Anonymous Coward]

" Perhaps the CO2 resulted from increased biological activity occuring as a result of the warming"

A simpler explanation is Henry's law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry's_law

"carbon dioxide from a carbonated drink escapes much faster when the drink is not cooled "

Likewise, carbon dioxide from a carbonated ocean escapes when the ocean warms.

In a dream

[AndyKron]

I deny any and all evidence indicating three abrupt pulses of CO2. Even if there was, it wouldn't contribute to global warming. God wouldn't let that happen. He said so. Last night. In a dream.

Volcano + Oilfield?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several catastrophic event types that, if they occurred at the location of a large carbon reserve, would result in a massive pulse of CO2 released into the atmosphere.

Re:Nostradamus

[Tablizer]

How about we give points to both sides:

Points to GOP: The Earth's temperature is volatile such that man-made changes to it are not really anything new or unique*.

Points to Dems: Increases in CO2 provably cause the temperature to rise.

* Sub-counter-point: The changes will f$ck over human society either way.

Re:It doesn't matter

[bobbied]

So I've been told by .... Hmmm.. What's that guy's name who thinks he is in charge of everything?

Carbon Dioxide Concentration

[pipingguy]

CO2 is at what now, 400 PPM?

Re:It doesn't matter

[fustakrakich]

Al Haig

What causation?

[Namarrgon]

Who said the CO2 causes anything?

The article and summary use the words "contributed to", which we know will be true - as a greenhouse gas, any increased CO2 will amplify and contribute to further warming. Doubtless there are other causative factors involved (e.g. Milankovitch cycles), some of which may well have occurred before the CO2 release.

The interesting question is, what triggered the CO2 pulses?

Causation, CO2 and Warming

[Robear]

[quote]How do we know the CO2 spikes caused the warming? Perhaps the CO2 resulted from increased biological activity occuring as a result of the warming. [/quote]

CO2 is a warming gas in the atmosphere; in the absence of any other changes, adding CO2 will warm the atmosphere. However, as the article notes, we don't know what caused the quick ramp-up of CO2, and we *do* know that other factors (both cooling and warming) were in play. We also know that over time the atmosphere warmed enough to end the ice age in question.

What is safe to say is that CO2 has a warming effect, which could be counterbalanced *and* added to by other factors. It's the overall balance of these things that tilts the scales one way or another. CO2 is just one piece.

But it's not mistaking correlation for causation to note that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will result in increased warming. That's just basic physics. The fact that it could be offset by something else is immaterial to your point.

Re:Causation, CO2 and Warming

[linatux]

After the last spike, where did the CO2 go & why?

Re:Causation, CO2 and Warming

[itzly]

There are several sinks of CO2. The most permanent one is rock weathering. It can also be absorbed by the ocean, or incorporated by growing vegetation. Note that current CO2 levels exceed the mentioned spikes.

Re:Causation, CO2 and Warming

[Eunuchswear]

"CO2 is a warming gas in the atmosphere; in the absence of any other changes, adding CO2 will warm the atmosphere."

This has never been proved conclusively. In fact it is not even supported by statistics. The Earth has been much cooler in the past with much higher concentrations of CO2 than exist today.

What part of "in the absence of any other changes" do you not understand?

Not sure the cause

[argStyopa]

Was it the saber-toothed tigers and their sports cars, or mainly the mammoth families and their fucking SUVs?

Re:Nostradamus

[Anonymous Coward]

Lookie, another DNC is completely wrong so we have to post "both are equally bad" when it was just shown one side has been lying all along and the other wasn't.

CO2 hasn't proven to increase temperatures. Remember that "hockey stick" graph. The only part of that we haven't seen is the increase in temperature. So you stick to the only part of the claim that isn't true by stating that it is true. You must be some kind of truth denier or something.

Re:Nostradamus

[Truth_Quark]

Points to GOP: The Earth's temperature is volatile such that man-made changes to it are not really anything new or unique*.

It's unique in the past several million years.

Re:Nostradamus

[Truth_Quark]

CO2 hasn't proven to increase temperatures.

The greenhouse effect?

Remember that "hockey stick" graph. The only part of that we haven't seen is the increase in temperature.

Some of these ones? It looks like an increase to me.

Re:Nostradamus

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it really has. You can do tabletop lab tests to confirm it. Earth only has one way to transfer energy to space, that makes it reaaaally fucking simple to work out the radiative transfer equations. A doubling of atmospheric carbon will provably, with utter certainty, result in ~3.7W/m^2 additional warming, commonly cited as 1 degree C global temperature increase. To what degree feedbacks (most importantly water vapor) increase this is a matter of some study, but that CO2 causes warming is exactly what people are referring to when they say "settled science". The only possible disproof would be to find another way to radiate energy, and that would be detectable by satellites. The "hockey stick" graph is neither here nor there, again, you can prove this with minimal lab equipment to your own satisfaction.

Those damn Igigi

[mveloso]

That's about when the Igigi created mankind. How about that?

A Little Lesson for the dogmatic

[Crashmarik]

I read the summary and realized I knew nothing about the economics of electrical production in Denmark. So I looked

http://shrinkthatfootprint.com...

Denmark pays an avg and whopping 41 cents per kilowatt hour.

OUCH !!!!!!!

Say what you will about their plans but at those prices they are not overly concerned about delivering a cost effective product.

Re:A Little Lesson for the dogmatic

[Crashmarik]

Ooops posted to the wrong thread. Problems of having too many windows open.

Abrupt, but like 100 years abrupt?

[skelly33]

Having read in the past that although plants normally absorb CO2 while living, they tend to re-release most-to-all of it in death, the first thing that comes to mind for me is... what if global conditions were such that a mass-kill-off of plants occurred from the freeze... seems like that could effectively release quite a bit of CO2, and in quite a hurry, no? Like an advancing cold front year after year until the balance shifted the opposite direction...

Re:You cannot be serious

[Layzej]

"A new study shows that the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide that contributed to the end of the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago "

Yeah, sure it did... evidence?

CO2 is a greenhouse gas. That's just physics. If atmospheric greenhouse gas increased (and it looks like it did) then it necessarily contributed to the end of the last ice age.

Re:Nostradamus

[Layzej]

It has warmed 0.15C over the last 18 years: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g... . Just where are you getting your 'facts'? You may want to reconsider your sources.

Re:You cannot be serious

[BenSchuarmer]

where did this 'evil' carbon dioxide magically come from?

It may have come from some combination of methane deposits, plant growth, ocean warning, etc.

Re:Nostradamus

[Eunuchswear]

Now re-run your calculations using the data from RSS

Please pay no attention to notorious warmist Dr Roy Spencer telling you that this cherry pick is a bad idea.

Fun moments in denialism:

#1 when, just after "climategate" they decided that HADCRUT3 was the best dataset
#2 the breathless wait for BEST to overturn the applecart
#3 the switch from UAH to RSS as the "reliable" (aka wrong) datasource.

Re:Nostradamus

[david_thornley]

Points against GOP (although this partisan bickering is silly, there's enough stupidity in both parties): The Earth's temperature isn't that volatile, and the man-made changes to it are extremely fast and are pushing global surface temperatures beyond what they've been during the existence of our species.

Re:Nostradamus

[Layzej]

Yup. RSS is the minority report. BP is to disregard the minority report in favour of the corroborating reports, not pick the report that best supports your position. Even the RSS team has concerns about their data set. Here are GISTEMP,CRU,UAH, and RSS compared. http://woodfortrees.org/plot/g...

Re:You cannot be serious

[Layzej]

plant growth would sequester CO2 (at least temporarily) - wouldn't it? A massive plant die-off would release CO2, but not what you would expect during deglaciation.