How do petty tactics against skeptics cast popular global warming theories in a bad light? That's an ad hominem fallacy. The global warming theories are right or wrong independent of the "petty tactics" of their supporters. Note, also, that these supposed "death threats" came from members of the public who viewed a television program, and not from the scientists who have produced these rival theories. Why should the actions of the general public reflect on either the science or the scientists?
There's a correlation between rising CO2 and rising temperature, but as any Pastafarian can tell you, correlation does not equal causation. We don't have mere "correlation" between rising CO2 and rising temperature, there is a known causal link, via the greenhouse effect, which is not difficult to calculate from basic physics.
What there is less certainty about is how much climate feedbacks amplify the CO2-induced warming; that is crucial in attributing how much of the total temperature increase is due to CO2, since its greenhouse effect alone is not large enough to account for the observed warming.
There are a range of estimates for the magnitude of this amplification factor (the "climate sensitivity"), but pretty much all of them lead to a value that results in CO2 being the largest overall driver of climate change. It will be an even more significant factor in the future with still higher CO2 levels.
We KNOW temperatures are increasing, what we don't know (and it's one of those things that might be impossible to prove, as so many things are in science) is whether these increases are caused by us. Frankly, the climate community is now pretty damn sure that most of the temperature increases are due to us, particularly over the last 40 years. Even 10-15 years ago that wasn't the case, but more data, better data, and better models are now available.
The Earth has cycled between hot and cold for its entire existence, and we don't know why. In many cases we do have a fair idea of why, for reasons ranging from orbital variations to solar variations to continental drift and greenhouse gas buildups. It depends on why climate event you're talking about.
Anyone denying that the heating is caused by humans is simply skeptical, and has good reason to be. Considering how strong the evidence is for human-induced global warming is, what good reasons do you propose for being skeptical?
I would ask what ended the ice age 10,000 years ago? The leading theory is Milankovitch cycles, i.e. variations in the Earth's orbit.
Clearly the earth has warmed because of non-human causes. That's obvious, but the natural factors relevant for that past warming are not the major drivers of climate change today.
We cannot actually reduce the water vapor in the atmosphere directly, since that is determined by the global temperature via its saturation properties. If we want to reduce the greenhouse contribution of water vapor, we need to do that by reducing the global temperature, and the water vapor will re-equilibrate. We can, however, reduce CO2 emissions and consequently the global temperature.
If we want to alter the course of global warming, it is necessary to do so through factors we can actually control. "Banning dihydrogen monoxide" is not a realistic solution even if it did work.
Assumption 1: Solar radiation has remained constant OR warming cannot be completely explained by changes in solar radiation Warming cannot be completely explained by changes in solar radiation. Solar variations contribute, but not by much. See Figure SPM-2 of the 2007 IPCC FAR SPM report, as well as the 2006 review article by Foukal et al. in Nature.
Assumption 2: Atmospheric water content has remained constant or warming cannot be completely explained by changes in atmospheric water content. Warming cannot be completely explained by changes in atmospheric water content. In fact, atmospheric water content is largely determined by temperature: if there is warming, more water will evaporate and enhance the amount of warming (the climate sensitivity), but it doesn't cause a warming trend in the first place because of how quickly it equilibrates (in climatology jargon, water vapor is not a "forcing", it is a "feedback"). (See here.)
Assumption 3: Ditto for methane Warming cannot be completely explained by changes in atmospheric methane. Methane contributes, but not as much as CO2. Furthermore, much of the increase in methane from pre-industrial times is also due to human activity, particularly pollution, animal husbandry, and land use changes.
Assumption 4: Bulk of increased CO2 level cannot be accounted for by natural CO2 releases Easily demonstrated, as the CO2 generated by fossil fuel burning has a unique isotopic signature: we know directly that most of the increased CO2 is from fossil fuels. See here.
Once the assumptions are dealt with, we must also show that why temperature increases on other planets and temperature changes during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age are irrelevant. Other planets: see e.g. this post.
LIA and MWP: the reasons for the climate change in those periods are different from the conditions today. The LIA is attributed mostly to greater volcanic activity and less solar activity than today. The MWP is at least partially attributable to an increase in solar activity. The increase in solar activity in modern times, however, is not large enough to account for the recent warming (see above).
So yes, CO2 aborbs IR. But no, the case is not closed. The case is far closer to closed than you apparently believe.
Note, in particular, that the timing, rate, and magnitude of the global warming agrees well with corresponding changes in CO2, and that all climate models fail dramatically at reproducing the global warming if you leave out anthropogenic forcings — far more so than if you leave out other forcings instead, particularly when it comes to the climate over the last 40 years. Human activity has become the dominant effect upon global mean temperatures.
That's an obnoxious caricature of the grant process that crops up regularly. It's not as if climatologists didn't get grants before global warming, or that AGW skeptics don't get grants (or don't get published). You get grants on what work you propose to do, not on what opinion you hold. Not to mention that certain industries in the energy sector are happy to fund research into skeptical positions.
Most climate skeptics are famous because they have published skeptical research, not because The Man kept them down and they are struggling to get the word out through unorthodox channels.
You don't have to buy anything, just walk up to a representative sample of people who think that global warming is anthropogenic and say, "actually I think it's probably just a natural cycle."
The shock, hostility and downright hatred you will come across will very quickly render claims of death threats highly believable. I don't think it's a "representative sample" you have in mind.
There are extremists on both sides, who, unsurprisingly, are among the most vocal. Just look at the anti-AGW types who start screaming about dirty hippie globaloney-worshipping libtard Gorebots the instant the word "warming" leaves one's mouth.
But, there is no denying the fact that this has become such an emotionally charged issue that climatology is probably the hardest field to do real science in today. Eh, the majority of the climatology community is probably fairly insulated from the political debate as far as their actual practice of science is concerned. It probably even remains true in general, with the exception of a relative handful of high profile scientists (e.g., the ones who end up testifying to Congress) and those who intentionally insert themselves into the political scene.
It is, however, way over-politicized to the extent that none of the real scientific debates accurately trickle down to the public.
I read an article that the Mars tempature has experance a simular increase as witnessed in our atmosphere. No.
I remember in 1976 and 1977 when the winter was HARSH to say the lease the talk was of the comming ICE AGE. The people who claim that a harsh winter proves global cooling are just as silly as the people who think that a harsh summer proves global warming.
More to the point, the scientific community was not claiming that harsh winters of 1976-1977 were evidence of global cooling.
If 1/3rd is insignificant noise, then the next 2/3rds must not be all that important either. That's your retarded logic, not mine.
By all means, just try to justify your repeated claims that 1/3rd is insignificant noise, and that huge mistake there should be disregarded, but the other 2/3rds couldn't possibly be wrong. I refer you again to the two papers I've already cited, by Foukal et al. and Stott et al.
The point is that a change of 1/3 is within the error bars of previous estimates, but a change of 100% is not; such large effects are already excluded by existing data.
It's your logic which is horrible broken when you imply that a revision of previous estimates implies that an arbitrarily large error is possible.
P.S. I forgot to mention that I do like the surface albedo idea in terms of reducing the effects of urban heat islands, at least in warm climates. As an approach to global warming, though, it leaves much to be desired.
There is no way you can rationally suggest that stopping all consumption of fossil fuels is a cheaper solution. Forgot to add: nobody said anything about "stopping all consumption of fossil fuels". You can get a much larger mitigation for much cheaper by abatement/sequestration than by your dumb albedo idea; total cessation of emisisons is not required.
As I said, people have proposed geoengineering the Earth's albedo before. There are reasons why the idea has not been seriously pursued by anyone with half a brain.
That 1/3rd is the amount of global warming that can be attributed to increased solar output, which was previously assumed to have been caused by anthropomorphic effects. That's not 1/3rd of some small phenomenon, that's a 33% adjustment in their overall prediction. That too is incorrect. Solar variations have long been known to contribute global warming, but the magnitude of that contribution was underestimated. See, e.g., Stott et al.; climate models were found to underestimate the amount of solar forcing by 16-36% of its total value, with values closer to 16% being more likely.
So predictions of global warming could be 100% off. I said no such thing, and you know it.
No, it is quite trivial if done properly. Yeah, pardon me while I laugh my ass off. And while I'm doing that, why don't you calculate what the net albedo change of the Earth would be and get back to me.
Simply mandate that when it comes time to redo exposed surfaces, they must be white/reflective/etc. Sure. Why don't you also calculate the costs of these new surfaces relative to the current surfaces (hint: they're a reason why they're not all white/reflective already), including infrastructure costs.
That being said, the previous calculation of Earth albedo is the more relevant one.
Although the good stock of Wild Turkey that I normaly drink P.S. This explains much of your general incoherence. Seriously, man, lay off the booze. I am not the only person here to have commented on your inability to string together a comprehensible English sentence.
Being wrong about one thing compounds how wrong you are about another if it is directly related to the first thing.
Incoherent as usual. Let me sum up the main point once again: the Sun does not alter relative humidity in a way that is ignored by models.
So you saying that the sun has nothing to do with the thermal dynamics of the earth?
No, I said that there is not some special new law of physics that needs to be added in order to correctly model the effects of the Sun.
Recall your original claim: that climate models need to modify how they treat relative humidity in order to correctly model the influence of the Sun.
This is false. What you are proposing is a new law of physics which treats the Sun specially.
Climate models already have the influence of the Sun taken into account: they take as input all forcings (solar, CO2, etc). Then they use the laws of physics to determine how much temperature increase results from a given amount of forcing. (This does not depend on the type of forcing — CO2 vs. solar — but only on the amount of forcing.) Then they use the laws of physics to determine how much evaporation results from a given amount of temperature increase. (This does not depend which forcings are most responsible for the temperature increase — CO2 vs. solar — but only on the amount of temperature increase.)
You cannot modify climate models to treat the Sun specially, because the laws of physics do not have a special term in them that you can add for "the Sun's effects". In particular, they do not have a special "water vapor forcing" term that exists for the Sun but not for CO2, as you have claimed.
If you want to argue that climate models are using the wrong solar data, you can do so (if you back up your claim). But that does not mean that climate models are inherently "CO2 based" and they need to be modified to be "Sun based". Water vapor evaporation rates do not depend on any assumption about CO2 or solar irradiance, but only about temperature increase. Temperature increases do not depend on an assumption about whether global warming is due to CO2 or the Sun, but only on the amount of heat being adsorbed by the Earth.
But I still maintain that a birghter sun will change the reletive humidity.
You may maintain that warmer temperatures will change the relative humidity. (And that would be mostly wrong but partially right: there is a small change.) A brighter Sun will cause warmer temperatures, but so will CO2. It is wrong to claim that a brighter Sun will change relative humidity, but increased CO2 will not. It is wrong to claim that an assumption of constant relative humidity has anything to do with whether CO2 or the Sun is responsible for global warming. Such claims violate the laws of thermodynamics.
Once the models were corected to account for the increase,they saw something else happening. The adjusted for this and now have a model that correctly identifies the sun as the cultprit.
This is wrong in multiple ways. First, they did not change the model, but only the data. Second, changing the solar irradiance data still does not make "the Sun the culprit"; the new solar forcing is still smaller than the anthropogenic forcing.
It shows that there have been activities like this before and they didn't understand them enough.
This is false. None of the paleotemperature reconstructions show features in the past similar to the current warming.
And your idea about corections was printed at the real climate site in 2004. The links I provided showed critisisms in 2006 that chaleneged the lenth of times the stats were static.
On the contrary, my quote was from the 2006 NAS report update.
But those models didn't show the level of influence Co2 had untill the hockystick was being pushed into politics to prove there was a problem.
A 1/3rd margin of error changes the outcome. Two * seperate 1/3rd errors COMPLETELY change the outcome.
What two "1/3 errors" are you talking about?
That makes no sense what-so-ever. 1/3rd is noise next to the other 2/3rds?
Have you looked at the size of the error bars on solar forcing anomalies? The variations are so small that a 1/3 variation easily can be lost in the noise.
You do understand the concept of "error bars", don't you?
If a 1/3rd difference can be missed, the random NOISE must be able to hide absolutely anything.
It's enough to hide a 1/3 difference, which does not substantially alter the source of global warming, as it is dominated by a much larger forcings from greenhouse gases.
What the hell is it that you don't get about 1/3rd? How can any sane person possibly not realize that being off by 33% is a large margin of error?
What the hell is it that you don't get about "small"? How can any sane person possibly not realize that a 33% change to a minor contribution does not turn it into a major contribution?
As I said, "There is not a large margin of error on the relative contributions of anthropogenic vs. solar forcings."
Number being wrong by 33%, with no other evidence suggesting that MAYBE the numbers are off.
Other than the size of the error bars, which tells you directly how much the numbers can be off by.
When an expert designs a rocket that will make it to the moon, but it runs out of fuel 2/3rds of the way there, something has gone terribly wrong.
A silly analogy. You deliberately construct a scenario when an error of 1/3 leads to terrible loss of life, and ignore the fact that in the current context, a 1/3 error is not only within the error bounds of previous estimates, but is also totally dominated by other factors. You also deliberately pick a scenario in which calculations can be performed extremely precisely, and thus a 1/3 error appears shockingly incompetent.
A more relevant analogy would be, an expert designs a rocket and misestimates one of the fuel tank capacities by 1/3, but the rocket still gets there because of its second, much larger fuel tank.
Incidentally, not only is an error of 1/3 routine in many engineering calculations, but many engineering systems are overdesigned to absorb errors of 2 or more.
Mathematics is fine for simple proofs, but until there's a computer model of the earth that can accurately demonstrate observed climate changes, based upon real (past) data, they can't be considered accurate representations.
That depends entirely on what you mean by "accurate". They're not accurate to 1% tolerance, but they don't need to be.
Climate models reproduce the 20th century climate (as measured by real past data) within their error bars, and are certainly accurate enough to demonstrate that greenhouse gases are the majority forcing.
See, for instance, Figure SPM-4 in the 2007 IPCC FAR SPM report.
And my entire series of posts repeatedly explains why that might not actually be the case.
In fact, you have given no such "explanation". The only arguments you have made are (1) that solar forcing estimates have been revised — but which do not substantially increase overall solar forcing relative to anthropogenic forcings, and thus do not "explain" how CO2 is not responsible for most of the warming; and (2) that models are wrong and "unscientific", without any supporting evidence for that assertion; and (3) because we have improved our estimates of the forcings, our current estimates are unreliable and natural forcings could secretly be vastly larger than what we think — a position also not supported by evidence.
Funny, you're the one who doesn't seem to have much grip on reality, and just blindly hangs on to your belief system, and dismiss all evidence to the contrary without a second though
And this is the point. The global mean reletive humididty isn't staying constant!.
On the contrary, it has stayed largely constant. As I said, there are some small higher-order variations, such as those alluded to on the RealClimate essay and discussed in more detail here. (They find, actually, that if anything, the water vapor feedback is being overestimated, not underestimated.)
This is were the models are wrong when it comes to the sun.
For the last time, even if the global mean humidity were not constant, that still would have nothing to do with the Sun. The global mean relative humidty depends only on temperature, not on solar input. The Sun has nothing to do with whether or not the global mean humidity stays constant, except insofar as it influences the temperature of the Earth.
If you want to claim that models of relative humidity are wrong, then you can do so if you think you can defend that position. But if they are wrong, then they are wrong no matter whether the temperature is being forced primarily by CO2 or the Sun or anything else, because evaporation rates depend on the temperature, not on what is forcing the temperature.
Sure there are vaiables. And the sun has an efect on two that you just mentioned.
If you mean temperature and pressure, then certainly the Sun has an effect on those. I am not arguing otherwise. I am saying that climate models correctly take the Sun's influence into account. You have claimed otherwise, insisting that climate models do not take the evaporation due to the Sun into account. This is manifestly false: climate models take into account how the Sun influences thermodynamics variables, and how thermodynamics variables influence evaporation.
There is no special term in the equations for how "the Sun" influences evaporation that is being left out. There is no special term in the equations for how "CO2" influences evaporation that is being left in. There is only an equation which says how temperature and pressure influence evaporation, as well as equations for how a given amount of radiative forcing (from any source) influences temperature and pressure.
And once the models were changed, they found that it was greater of an effect then expected.
The models were not changed. Nor was the way they treat the Sun changed. Both are correct, despite your claims that they incorrectly treat the Sun's influence on relative humidity.
What was changed was the data fed into the models (solar irradiance).
Adn don't give me the they say only 30% bull.
They say only 30%. Just because the facts disagree with your ideas doesn't make them bull.
I'm not exactly sure why it is so hard for you to except change here? And even if you don't except it, Why are you trying so hard to stop others from exploring it?
Hey, jackass, I told you about five messages ago that changes in the Sun's intensity contribute to global warming. They just contribute a small amount. The issue has been explored. It doesn't agree with your preconceived notions. Deal with it.
The national accademy of science and many independent experts have stated the hocky stick is wrong.
As I just told you, the NAS said that the hockey stick's shape is correct, but that Mann underestimated the size of the error bars. See this report. They state, "The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes [...] Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer suppor
And this would account for days that are 70 degrees F with 30% humidity over days with 70 degrees F and 70% humidity how?
What the hell are you talking about?
I don't know how more clearly to state this. The fact that global mean relative humidity remains constant to first order has nothing to do with CO2, or with the Sun. It is not an assumption of "CO2 based models". It is a conclusion derived from the physics of climate, and is true regardless of what causes the warming. Even if it were wrong, it would still have nothing to do with what is driving the climate change.
Incidentally, there are higher order corrections and the relative humidity does vary slightly with temperature, but once again, it depends on temperature, not on solar irradiance.
And thisis only true if looking at Co2 and other greenhouse gasses as the cause for global warming. When you look at the sun, you have to figure the rate of evaporation into the mix.
This is false. The rate of evaporation depends on the global temperature, but it does not depend on whether the global temperature is being driven by CO2 increases or by solar irradiance increases.
This makes the watervapor a forcing.
Water vapor is a feedback and not a forcing, no matter what is driving climate change.
If we are having more days with 70% reletive humidity because a brighter sun is evaporating more water then the normal 30% reletive humidity, the the water vapor is effecting the climate much more then the current model is letting it.
Existing models take into account the evaporation of water, which depends on temperature increase. It does not matter what causes that temperature increase: the same temperature increase gives the same amount of evaporation, regardless of whether it was caused by CO2 or the Sun.
It asumes that humidity is a constant by product of the temperature. If it is a byproduct of the increased intensity of the sun, It becomes the controling factor.
Water vapor is determined by temperature directly, not by the intensity of the Sun. It has no dependence on solar irradiance, other than through the increase in temperature caused by solar irradiance and all other forcings.
But there needs to be more then one model because the current model cannot account for the effects of the sun properly.
This is false. The laws of physics do not have a special term for "solar irradiance" in them; evaporation depends only on thermodynamic variables such as temperature, pressure, etc.
Are you getting the point yet?
If the validity of your argument depends on the validity of your made-up fantasy laws of physics, your argument is in serious trouble indeed.
And to say that Co2 or greenhouse gasses are the intent of the current climate models is less the honest.
Nobody said that "greenhouse gases are the intent of climate models". I have no idea what that even means. It's incoherent gibberish as usual. Is English your second language, or your third?
The "intent of climate models" is to simulate the climate. Period.
These current models were created out of a need to verify the now debunked hockystick chart which first showed the link between warming and greenhouse gasses (more specificly Co2).
This is wrong in multiple ways in the same sentence. You are not improving.
1. The "hockey stick" graph has nothing to do with climate models or the physics that goes into them. 2. Mann's hockey stick graph has not been debunked. On the contrary, two independent studies by the NRC and the NAS found that the overall hockey stick result is correct, although the NAS felt that Mann underestimated the size of the error bars. 3. Even if Mann's results were wrong, nobody has ever debunked any of the many other paleotemperature reconstructions which also give "hockey stick" shaped graphs.
However, They don't account for the fact that watervapor being reletive doesn't mean it is a static number. They didn't say it was a static number. They said, correctly, that to first order the water vapor adjusts to maintain constant relative humidity. (If you look more closely, there is some small variation.)
They also said, correctly, that this is a prediction from the laws of physics, not an assumption.
They finally said, correctly, that this happens whenever surface temperature changes, independent of how it changes: be it from CO2 or solar forcing or volcanoes or whatnot.
In the Co2 models, this oversight fits in nicly. In the sun drivin models, It doesn't. As usual, you are making no sense whatsoever.
There is no such thing as a "CO2 model" or a "Sun driven" model. There is just one model, and you tell it what your measurements of solar power and CO2 concentrations are.
Water vapor is treated exactly the same, because there is only one model. You can play around with the values of solar intensity and CO2 concentration, but nothing at all changes in how water vapor is simulated.
All the I have found on this, which I have been looking into before I started talking to you, has been availible in one form or another on the internet. The problem is that you don't understand a single thing you read on the Internet. Your own posts are barely coherent.
The sun will fix itslef, that it is has natural effect that will compesate for its effect and it is thought to be cyclical so when the intensity goes back down, the problem is corected. Putting aside the fact that the Sun is not responsible for global warming, exactly what do you think the period of this cyclic behavior is?
And under the Co2 models, the sun doesn't contribute much because it isn't designed to. Once again, there is no such thing as a "CO2 model". There is just a model, and you tell it what your measurements of the Sun and CO2 are. You don't put in any assumption about what the warming is due to; the model tells you which forcing produces a bigger effect. The Sun doesn't contribute much because the increase in its power output simply is small.
I mean here is a new approach, it offers less complexity to gain an outcome, It has a built in regulator and it is gaining some steam but you want it destroyed because it doesn't follow your traditional beliefs. I don't want it "destroyed". It's simply WRONG. The Sun contributes to global warming, but to a much smaller degree than do anthropogenic forcings. You just refuse to accept that the scientific evidence has disproven this hypothesis.
Yep, the models don't have switches for one over the other because the models need to be totoaly different. Total nonsense. The models are exactly the same. You are badly, badly confused about what climate models actually are.
becuase they are based on the idea that this or that is the factoring cause. Again, completely false. The model is not based on any assumptions about the cause of global warming. It doesn't matter whether you think the Sun is the main cause, or CO2, or whatever. The model uses the same equations for solar physics and the greenhouse effect either way.
Wiat until this model becomes public and you will see the differences. Unsurprisingly, you still have no idea what you're talking about.
There is no "new model" that has been kept secret. All models already take the Sun into account.
Now, I'm not saying you of all people are taking this as a religion. No, of course not. You'll merely say that "I am telling you the equivilent of your god doesn't exist and the earth is older then 6000 years".
It's very sad when comparing me to a religious fanatic is the best argument you can make. You certainly have not made any arguments on the basis of science. What arguments you have made are not just wrong but utterly nonsensical.
A quote from the article I posted prior. Seesm that Richard Willson would disagree with you. All available evidence to date says that the 20th century did not sustain a solar irradiance trend of a magnitude sufficient to account for global warming. Willson did not disagree with that.
In addition, a "significant component" is still not "a majority component". Even if Willson is right (and there is debate amongst solar physicists as to whether his data were correctly calibrated), solar variations can still account for no more than 1/3 the forcing of greenhouse gases (here, sec. 2.1). You are not going to handwave the greenhouse effect away.
Furthermore, if you want to posit that solar variations are responsible for global warming, you are also going to have to posit a major new cooling source to explain why the greenhouse effect hasn't greatly added to the solar warming.
But since this would not fit the "humans are the only cause" political agenda, it is swept under the rug. Humans are not the only cause, they are merely the largest cause.
You seems to discount this more readily than evne the most politically motivated scientists I have no idea what you're talking about. Which "politically motivated scientists" are you speaking of?
Interesting because NASA has said the sun's output has increased every decade since detailed records have been kept(70s) That's right. It has increased. By a SMALL amount.
And comments like yours like "As it turns out, solar output isn't sufficient to explain the observed global warming. " make me laugh. How do you know? WE can't predict if it's going to rain tomorrow, yet YOU know the sun doesn't account for what we've seen You're comparing prediction to observation?? We certainly know whether it rained yesterday.
We know how much power the Sun has output. We know how much CO2 there has been added to the atmosphere. We know that the greenhouse warming due to CO2 is significantly larger than the amount by which the Sun's output has increased. See here and here (Figure SPM-2).
What makes me laugh is people who think that just because they are ignorant, everyone else is too.
It's a big unknown, so to discount possible causes seems suspect to me. It's not a "big unknown", it's small and largely known. No one has discounted possible causes out of hand, they have intensively studied all possible causes and ranked each one in order of its significance.
I'm not claiming that nuclear power does, I'm just pointing out that it is not a part of the normal cycle of energy/heat that the Earth receives. Burning fossil fuels isn't either, regardless of the fact that fossil fuels were once organic material.
But besides that, even assuming that nuclear power is not "normal" or "natural" or whatever, what is your point? Are you attempting to claim that nuclear power has an adverse affect on the climate in a way that, say, fossil power does not?
My point is that nuclear power greatly accelerates nuclear decay of radioactive materials and releases heat that adds to and above the regular solar cycle. If you are claiming that nuclear power produces substantial warming of the climate, that is very much false, particularly if you compare it to the warming of the climate produced by alternative sources of power. A 500 MW nuclear plant does not heat the planet substantially more than a 500 MW coal plant; they release comparable amounts of waste heat.
Also, another point to ponder is that radiocarbon dating is not really valid later that the 1940s because nuclear processes changed the amount of C14 in the atmosphere. That's also not true, because nuclear testing changed the amount of radioisotopes in a very known and measurable way that can be taken into account.
Radiocarbon dating is not too accurate for recent events, but for a different reason: not much decay has taken place over a short period of time, so it is hard to measure the change in isotope ratios.
Regardless of that, I have no idea what you think radiocarbon dating since the 1940s has to do with anything.
Nuclear power is NOT a pure and clean energy source. It's got problems beyond just storage of spent fuels. What problems are those?
I always assumed that environmentalists want the planet to continue acting as if we weren't here. That is the usual argument I get. I didn't know that the global warming movement was actually about preventing natural processes from occurring. Both statements are false; the second statement is more false than the first.
Environmentalists generally want to avoid excessive human impact on the planet; only the most extreme radicals want us to have "no impact".
I did not say that global warming is about preventing natural processes from occurring. It is mostly about reducing human impact on the climate. I merely said that if there was extreme climate change being caused by natural processes, it would be as much in our interests to prevent it as it is to prevent anthropogenic climate change. Negative impacts are negative impacts regardless of what is causing it.
That's pure straw man. I didn't say anything about what was "dominant." What I said was that the margin of error must have be at least 33% since the increased solar output was unnoticed.
The margin of error is not highly relevant when it doesn't actually change the outcome.
It's called an analogy. Just because someone is called an "expert" doesn't mean you can't question them, and have to believe whatever they offer up.
You can question them, but the point is that it is entirely reasonable to base your opinions on the considered judgement of experts. Experts, after all, know more about the problem than you do.
No one. Hard as it may be, sometimes you have to use your own brain for more than watching TV.
In other words, you are going to ignore the vast amounts of evidence which disagree with your opinion, and go with your gut.
Yes it is. They've shown themselves completely unable to distinguish between anthropogenic and solar changes.
That is a pure lie. The anthropogenic signal swamps the solar signal.
They were off buy up to 1/3rd before, and none of the experts noticed.
They didn't notice, because the solar contribution is so small that a 1/3 difference is hard to even pull out of the noise. That's the whole point. They could be off by a factor of 2 and the anthropogenic forcings would still dominate just because they're so much larger.
Sounds pretty primitive to me, but maybe a large margin of error sounds advanced to you.
There is not a large margin of error on the relative contributions of anthropogenic vs. solar forcings.
We're talking about the same scientists, using the same models, with the same primitive data, and the same primitive understanding.
We're talking about generations of scientists, using generations of improving models, with new improved data and deeper understanding. And no, they have not proven "mistaken" about anthropogenic global warming: the evidence has continued to mount in its favor, not contradict it.
There haven't been giant leaps in understanding climatology since the last time it went wrong.
When did it "go wrong"? I hope your are not going to continue to cite improved measurements of solar variations as "climatology gone wrong".
No, it isn't. The scientific method requires experimentation, observation, repeatability, etc. Without being able to create a duplicate earth in the lab, much of the scientific method is impossible.
Pure nonsense. Is that what you learned in your 8th grade science class? Science does not require being able to "create a duplicate earth in the lab". What are you, a creationist? "We can't evolve a single-celled organism into a human being in a lab, therefore we can't study evolution scientifically" is the kind of argument I see out of them.
You don't have to create a duplicate Sun in the lab in order to observe the Sun and determine how it works. You don't have to be able to create mountains in a lab in order to learn about how mountains are formed. You don't need to be able to murder someone all over again in a lab in order to determine how a murder took place. You don't need to recreate the evolution of all species on Earth to have evidence that it happened and how it happened.
All of those things can be studied using observations as well as experimentation, even though in none of those cases you are repeating the actual event.
And computer models don't count, any more than any other "experiment on paper" would.
More nonsense. Pretty much all theoretical prediction in all of science is done by computer model. Claiming "computer models don't count" is tantamount to saying that you cannot predict anything based on any scientific theory.
Take a look at any global warming study from 10 years ago, and tell me what they THOUGHT their own margi
I've seen a few people in this very thread arguing that, although the person I was responding to above to actually meant something else, if you look at the replies. But look around: you'll see people who insist that just because we can measure the greenhouse properties of CO2 in lab, doesn't mean that the greenhouse effect actually works in the atmosphere.
In fact, the scientist being discussed in this thread also denies the greenhouse effect, with some mumbo-jumbo about how CO2 rises in the atmosphere and releases all the heat it has stored.
Is the planet getting warmer? This is the only "consensus" that exists, and even that one isn't so monolithic when the question of "over what time period" is addressed. By itself, this is nothing new; the planet is dynamic and will always be changing.
That's true, but it's also true that we are causing an accelerating warming right now and have been for a century or so, which is not necessarily something we would prefer to happen.
The implied premise that there exists some sort of ideal state for the planet and that any change from that state is a Bad Thing, is the enviro-cult's equivalent of the Eden myth.
There is no such premise. It is, however, a fact that civilization on Earth right now is adapted to a particular climate, and there are costs to adapting to a different climate, especially when the climate change is rapid.
Is the warming being driven by the CO2 input? There is no consensus whatsoever on this point, as it hinges on how dominant that input is.
Far to the contrary, there is a widespread scientific consensus on this point. Pretty much the only people who dispute it are American conservatives.
From what I've seen, it's a pretty small one, likely negligible.
On the contrary, it is the dominant factor. It's pretty obvious that "what you've seen" on the matter does not include any actual climate science.
Try reading the IPCC FAR SPM (here), such as Figure SPM-2. The increase in CO2 forcing is very large compared to the other changes in forcings over the industrial period.
We already know that CO2 is swamped out by H2O on that front.
Wrong.
I get really tired of explaining this, but here goes again:
There is more H2O in the atmosphere than CO2, but that doesn't mean that global warming is attributable more to H2O than CO2. The H2O in the atmosphere provides much of the baseline natural greenhouse effect, which totals about 30 C, and explains why the planet is not a frozen iceball. To understand the warming that has occurred since 1850, which is a change in temperature (of about 1 C), you have to see what has changed since then. The change in CO2 far outweighs the change in H2O, and is responsible for most of the change in temperature.
IMO the presumption that all other inputs have been steady-state is absolutely preposterous.
There is no such presumption, once again pointing to your total ignorance of climate science. But hey, whatever reinforces your ideology.
In point of fact, climate models use variable time series for solar irradiance, anthropogenic and natural aerosols and particulate matter, anthropogenic and natural greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon cycle, land use change, and so on. They do not fix the inputs as "steady state".
Will the consequences be catastrophic?
Probably not, unless Greenland's ice destabilizes more readily than we thought (which is possible, there is unexplained rapid ice loss going on, but if it happens it probably won't be for a few centuries).
It will, however, likely be economically unfavorable, and even hardline economists who specialize in climate change agree with that. It's not going to be so unfavorable that we need to cut all emissions, but all the o
Weather is not climate. It is far easier to predict a global average for a whole year than it is to predict local weather in a particular city on a particular date.
Slashdot Mirror
How do petty tactics against skeptics cast popular global warming theories in a bad light? That's an ad hominem fallacy. The global warming theories are right or wrong independent of the "petty tactics" of their supporters. Note, also, that these supposed "death threats" came from members of the public who viewed a television program, and not from the scientists who have produced these rival theories. Why should the actions of the general public reflect on either the science or the scientists?
What there is less certainty about is how much climate feedbacks amplify the CO2-induced warming; that is crucial in attributing how much of the total temperature increase is due to CO2, since its greenhouse effect alone is not large enough to account for the observed warming.
There are a range of estimates for the magnitude of this amplification factor (the "climate sensitivity"), but pretty much all of them lead to a value that results in CO2 being the largest overall driver of climate change. It will be an even more significant factor in the future with still higher CO2 levels. We KNOW temperatures are increasing, what we don't know (and it's one of those things that might be impossible to prove, as so many things are in science) is whether these increases are caused by us. Frankly, the climate community is now pretty damn sure that most of the temperature increases are due to us, particularly over the last 40 years. Even 10-15 years ago that wasn't the case, but more data, better data, and better models are now available. The Earth has cycled between hot and cold for its entire existence, and we don't know why. In many cases we do have a fair idea of why, for reasons ranging from orbital variations to solar variations to continental drift and greenhouse gas buildups. It depends on why climate event you're talking about. Anyone denying that the heating is caused by humans is simply skeptical, and has good reason to be. Considering how strong the evidence is for human-induced global warming is, what good reasons do you propose for being skeptical?
We cannot actually reduce the water vapor in the atmosphere directly, since that is determined by the global temperature via its saturation properties. If we want to reduce the greenhouse contribution of water vapor, we need to do that by reducing the global temperature, and the water vapor will re-equilibrate. We can, however, reduce CO2 emissions and consequently the global temperature.
If we want to alter the course of global warming, it is necessary to do so through factors we can actually control. "Banning dihydrogen monoxide" is not a realistic solution even if it did work.
by changes in solar radiation Warming cannot be completely explained by changes in solar radiation. Solar variations contribute, but not by much. See Figure SPM-2 of the 2007 IPCC FAR SPM report, as well as the 2006 review article by Foukal et al. in Nature. Assumption 2: Atmospheric water content has remained constant or warming cannot be completely explained by changes in atmospheric water content. Warming cannot be completely explained by changes in atmospheric water content. In fact, atmospheric water content is largely determined by temperature: if there is warming, more water will evaporate and enhance the amount of warming (the climate sensitivity), but it doesn't cause a warming trend in the first place because of how quickly it equilibrates (in climatology jargon, water vapor is not a "forcing", it is a "feedback"). (See here.) Assumption 3: Ditto for methane Warming cannot be completely explained by changes in atmospheric methane. Methane contributes, but not as much as CO2. Furthermore, much of the increase in methane from pre-industrial times is also due to human activity, particularly pollution, animal husbandry, and land use changes. Assumption 4: Bulk of increased CO2 level cannot be accounted for by natural CO2 releases Easily demonstrated, as the CO2 generated by fossil fuel burning has a unique isotopic signature: we know directly that most of the increased CO2 is from fossil fuels. See here. Once the assumptions are dealt with, we must also show that why temperature increases on other planets and temperature changes during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age are irrelevant. Other planets: see e.g. this post.
LIA and MWP: the reasons for the climate change in those periods are different from the conditions today. The LIA is attributed mostly to greater volcanic activity and less solar activity than today. The MWP is at least partially attributable to an increase in solar activity. The increase in solar activity in modern times, however, is not large enough to account for the recent warming (see above). So yes, CO2 aborbs IR. But no, the case is not closed. The case is far closer to closed than you apparently believe.
Note, in particular, that the timing, rate, and magnitude of the global warming agrees well with corresponding changes in CO2, and that all climate models fail dramatically at reproducing the global warming if you leave out anthropogenic forcings — far more so than if you leave out other forcings instead, particularly when it comes to the climate over the last 40 years. Human activity has become the dominant effect upon global mean temperatures.
That's an obnoxious caricature of the grant process that crops up regularly. It's not as if climatologists didn't get grants before global warming, or that AGW skeptics don't get grants (or don't get published). You get grants on what work you propose to do, not on what opinion you hold. Not to mention that certain industries in the energy sector are happy to fund research into skeptical positions.
Most climate skeptics are famous because they have published skeptical research, not because The Man kept them down and they are struggling to get the word out through unorthodox channels.
The shock, hostility and downright hatred you will come across will very quickly render claims of death threats highly believable. I don't think it's a "representative sample" you have in mind.
There are extremists on both sides, who, unsurprisingly, are among the most vocal. Just look at the anti-AGW types who start screaming about dirty hippie globaloney-worshipping libtard Gorebots the instant the word "warming" leaves one's mouth. But, there is no denying the fact that this has become such an emotionally charged issue that climatology is probably the hardest field to do real science in today. Eh, the majority of the climatology community is probably fairly insulated from the political debate as far as their actual practice of science is concerned. It probably even remains true in general, with the exception of a relative handful of high profile scientists (e.g., the ones who end up testifying to Congress) and those who intentionally insert themselves into the political scene.
It is, however, way over-politicized to the extent that none of the real scientific debates accurately trickle down to the public.
More to the point, the scientific community was not claiming that harsh winters of 1976-1977 were evidence of global cooling.
The point is that a change of 1/3 is within the error bars of previous estimates, but a change of 100% is not; such large effects are already excluded by existing data.
It's your logic which is horrible broken when you imply that a revision of previous estimates implies that an arbitrarily large error is possible.
P.S. I forgot to mention that I do like the surface albedo idea in terms of reducing the effects of urban heat islands, at least in warm climates. As an approach to global warming, though, it leaves much to be desired.
As I said, people have proposed geoengineering the Earth's albedo before. There are reasons why the idea has not been seriously pursued by anyone with half a brain.
That being said, the previous calculation of Earth albedo is the more relevant one.
Being wrong about one thing compounds how wrong you are about another if it is directly related to the first thing.
Incoherent as usual. Let me sum up the main point once again: the Sun does not alter relative humidity in a way that is ignored by models.
So you saying that the sun has nothing to do with the thermal dynamics of the earth?
No, I said that there is not some special new law of physics that needs to be added in order to correctly model the effects of the Sun.
Recall your original claim: that climate models need to modify how they treat relative humidity in order to correctly model the influence of the Sun.
This is false. What you are proposing is a new law of physics which treats the Sun specially.
Climate models already have the influence of the Sun taken into account: they take as input all forcings (solar, CO2, etc). Then they use the laws of physics to determine how much temperature increase results from a given amount of forcing. (This does not depend on the type of forcing — CO2 vs. solar — but only on the amount of forcing.) Then they use the laws of physics to determine how much evaporation results from a given amount of temperature increase. (This does not depend which forcings are most responsible for the temperature increase — CO2 vs. solar — but only on the amount of temperature increase.)
You cannot modify climate models to treat the Sun specially, because the laws of physics do not have a special term in them that you can add for "the Sun's effects". In particular, they do not have a special "water vapor forcing" term that exists for the Sun but not for CO2, as you have claimed.
If you want to argue that climate models are using the wrong solar data, you can do so (if you back up your claim). But that does not mean that climate models are inherently "CO2 based" and they need to be modified to be "Sun based". Water vapor evaporation rates do not depend on any assumption about CO2 or solar irradiance, but only about temperature increase. Temperature increases do not depend on an assumption about whether global warming is due to CO2 or the Sun, but only on the amount of heat being adsorbed by the Earth.
But I still maintain that a birghter sun will change the reletive humidity.
You may maintain that warmer temperatures will change the relative humidity. (And that would be mostly wrong but partially right: there is a small change.) A brighter Sun will cause warmer temperatures, but so will CO2. It is wrong to claim that a brighter Sun will change relative humidity, but increased CO2 will not. It is wrong to claim that an assumption of constant relative humidity has anything to do with whether CO2 or the Sun is responsible for global warming. Such claims violate the laws of thermodynamics.
Once the models were corected to account for the increase,they saw something else happening. The adjusted for this and now have a model that correctly identifies the sun as the cultprit.
This is wrong in multiple ways. First, they did not change the model, but only the data. Second, changing the solar irradiance data still does not make "the Sun the culprit"; the new solar forcing is still smaller than the anthropogenic forcing.
It shows that there have been activities like this before and they didn't understand them enough.
This is false. None of the paleotemperature reconstructions show features in the past similar to the current warming.
And your idea about corections was printed at the real climate site in 2004. The links I provided showed critisisms in 2006 that chaleneged the lenth of times the stats were static.
On the contrary, my quote was from the 2006 NAS report update.
But those models didn't show the level of influence Co2 had untill the hockystick was being pushed into politics to prove there was a problem.
Wrong again
A 1/3rd margin of error changes the outcome. Two * seperate 1/3rd errors COMPLETELY change the outcome.
What two "1/3 errors" are you talking about?
That makes no sense what-so-ever. 1/3rd is noise next to the other 2/3rds?
Have you looked at the size of the error bars on solar forcing anomalies? The variations are so small that a 1/3 variation easily can be lost in the noise.
You do understand the concept of "error bars", don't you?
If a 1/3rd difference can be missed, the random NOISE must be able to hide absolutely anything.
It's enough to hide a 1/3 difference, which does not substantially alter the source of global warming, as it is dominated by a much larger forcings from greenhouse gases.
What the hell is it that you don't get about 1/3rd? How can any sane person possibly not realize that being off by 33% is a large margin of error?
What the hell is it that you don't get about "small"? How can any sane person possibly not realize that a 33% change to a minor contribution does not turn it into a major contribution?
As I said, "There is not a large margin of error on the relative contributions of anthropogenic vs. solar forcings."
Number being wrong by 33%, with no other evidence suggesting that MAYBE the numbers are off.
Other than the size of the error bars, which tells you directly how much the numbers can be off by.
When an expert designs a rocket that will make it to the moon, but it runs out of fuel 2/3rds of the way there, something has gone terribly wrong.
A silly analogy. You deliberately construct a scenario when an error of 1/3 leads to terrible loss of life, and ignore the fact that in the current context, a 1/3 error is not only within the error bounds of previous estimates, but is also totally dominated by other factors. You also deliberately pick a scenario in which calculations can be performed extremely precisely, and thus a 1/3 error appears shockingly incompetent.
A more relevant analogy would be, an expert designs a rocket and misestimates one of the fuel tank capacities by 1/3, but the rocket still gets there because of its second, much larger fuel tank.
Incidentally, not only is an error of 1/3 routine in many engineering calculations, but many engineering systems are overdesigned to absorb errors of 2 or more.
Mathematics is fine for simple proofs, but until there's a computer model of the earth that can accurately demonstrate observed climate changes, based upon real (past) data, they can't be considered accurate representations.
That depends entirely on what you mean by "accurate". They're not accurate to 1% tolerance, but they don't need to be.
Climate models reproduce the 20th century climate (as measured by real past data) within their error bars, and are certainly accurate enough to demonstrate that greenhouse gases are the majority forcing.
See, for instance, Figure SPM-4 in the 2007 IPCC FAR SPM report.
And my entire series of posts repeatedly explains why that might not actually be the case.
In fact, you have given no such "explanation". The only arguments you have made are (1) that solar forcing estimates have been revised — but which do not substantially increase overall solar forcing relative to anthropogenic forcings, and thus do not "explain" how CO2 is not responsible for most of the warming; and (2) that models are wrong and "unscientific", without any supporting evidence for that assertion; and (3) because we have improved our estimates of the forcings, our current estimates are unreliable and natural forcings could secretly be vastly larger than what we think — a position also not supported by evidence.
Funny, you're the one who doesn't seem to have much grip on reality, and just blindly hangs on to your belief system, and dismiss all evidence to the contrary without a second though
And this is the point. The global mean reletive humididty isn't staying constant!.
On the contrary, it has stayed largely constant. As I said, there are some small higher-order variations, such as those alluded to on the RealClimate essay and discussed in more detail here. (They find, actually, that if anything, the water vapor feedback is being overestimated, not underestimated.)
This is were the models are wrong when it comes to the sun.
For the last time, even if the global mean humidity were not constant, that still would have nothing to do with the Sun. The global mean relative humidty depends only on temperature, not on solar input. The Sun has nothing to do with whether or not the global mean humidity stays constant, except insofar as it influences the temperature of the Earth.
If you want to claim that models of relative humidity are wrong, then you can do so if you think you can defend that position. But if they are wrong, then they are wrong no matter whether the temperature is being forced primarily by CO2 or the Sun or anything else, because evaporation rates depend on the temperature, not on what is forcing the temperature.
Sure there are vaiables. And the sun has an efect on two that you just mentioned.
If you mean temperature and pressure, then certainly the Sun has an effect on those. I am not arguing otherwise. I am saying that climate models correctly take the Sun's influence into account. You have claimed otherwise, insisting that climate models do not take the evaporation due to the Sun into account. This is manifestly false: climate models take into account how the Sun influences thermodynamics variables, and how thermodynamics variables influence evaporation.
There is no special term in the equations for how "the Sun" influences evaporation that is being left out. There is no special term in the equations for how "CO2" influences evaporation that is being left in. There is only an equation which says how temperature and pressure influence evaporation, as well as equations for how a given amount of radiative forcing (from any source) influences temperature and pressure.
And once the models were changed, they found that it was greater of an effect then expected.
The models were not changed. Nor was the way they treat the Sun changed. Both are correct, despite your claims that they incorrectly treat the Sun's influence on relative humidity.
What was changed was the data fed into the models (solar irradiance).
Adn don't give me the they say only 30% bull.
They say only 30%. Just because the facts disagree with your ideas doesn't make them bull.
I'm not exactly sure why it is so hard for you to except change here? And even if you don't except it, Why are you trying so hard to stop others from exploring it?
Hey, jackass, I told you about five messages ago that changes in the Sun's intensity contribute to global warming. They just contribute a small amount. The issue has been explored. It doesn't agree with your preconceived notions. Deal with it.
The national accademy of science and many independent experts have stated the hocky stick is wrong.
As I just told you, the NAS said that the hockey stick's shape is correct, but that Mann underestimated the size of the error bars. See this report. They state, "The basic conclusion of Mann et al. (1998, 1999) was that the late 20th century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented during at least the last 1,000 years. This conclusion has subsequently been supported by an array of evidence that includes [...] Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer suppor
And this would account for days that are 70 degrees F with 30% humidity over days with 70 degrees F and 70% humidity how?
What the hell are you talking about?
I don't know how more clearly to state this. The fact that global mean relative humidity remains constant to first order has nothing to do with CO2, or with the Sun. It is not an assumption of "CO2 based models". It is a conclusion derived from the physics of climate, and is true regardless of what causes the warming. Even if it were wrong, it would still have nothing to do with what is driving the climate change.
Incidentally, there are higher order corrections and the relative humidity does vary slightly with temperature, but once again, it depends on temperature, not on solar irradiance.
And thisis only true if looking at Co2 and other greenhouse gasses as the cause for global warming. When you look at the sun, you have to figure the rate of evaporation into the mix.
This is false. The rate of evaporation depends on the global temperature, but it does not depend on whether the global temperature is being driven by CO2 increases or by solar irradiance increases.
This makes the watervapor a forcing.
Water vapor is a feedback and not a forcing, no matter what is driving climate change.
If we are having more days with 70% reletive humidity because a brighter sun is evaporating more water then the normal 30% reletive humidity, the the water vapor is effecting the climate much more then the current model is letting it.
Existing models take into account the evaporation of water, which depends on temperature increase. It does not matter what causes that temperature increase: the same temperature increase gives the same amount of evaporation, regardless of whether it was caused by CO2 or the Sun.
It asumes that humidity is a constant by product of the temperature. If it is a byproduct of the increased intensity of the sun, It becomes the controling factor.
Water vapor is determined by temperature directly, not by the intensity of the Sun. It has no dependence on solar irradiance, other than through the increase in temperature caused by solar irradiance and all other forcings.
But there needs to be more then one model because the current model cannot account for the effects of the sun properly.
This is false. The laws of physics do not have a special term for "solar irradiance" in them; evaporation depends only on thermodynamic variables such as temperature, pressure, etc.
Are you getting the point yet?
If the validity of your argument depends on the validity of your made-up fantasy laws of physics, your argument is in serious trouble indeed.
And to say that Co2 or greenhouse gasses are the intent of the current climate models is less the honest.
Nobody said that "greenhouse gases are the intent of climate models". I have no idea what that even means. It's incoherent gibberish as usual. Is English your second language, or your third?
The "intent of climate models" is to simulate the climate. Period.
These current models were created out of a need to verify the now debunked hockystick chart which first showed the link between warming and greenhouse gasses (more specificly Co2).
This is wrong in multiple ways in the same sentence. You are not improving.
1. The "hockey stick" graph has nothing to do with climate models or the physics that goes into them.
2. Mann's hockey stick graph has not been debunked. On the contrary, two independent studies by the NRC and the NAS found that the overall hockey stick result is correct, although the NAS felt that Mann underestimated the size of the error bars.
3. Even if Mann's results were wrong, nobody has ever debunked any of the many other paleotemperature reconstructions which also give "hockey stick" shaped graphs.
The entire purpose is t
They also said, correctly, that this is a prediction from the laws of physics, not an assumption.
They finally said, correctly, that this happens whenever surface temperature changes, independent of how it changes: be it from CO2 or solar forcing or volcanoes or whatnot. In the Co2 models, this oversight fits in nicly. In the sun drivin models, It doesn't. As usual, you are making no sense whatsoever.
There is no such thing as a "CO2 model" or a "Sun driven" model. There is just one model, and you tell it what your measurements of solar power and CO2 concentrations are.
Water vapor is treated exactly the same, because there is only one model. You can play around with the values of solar intensity and CO2 concentration, but nothing at all changes in how water vapor is simulated. All the I have found on this, which I have been looking into before I started talking to you, has been availible in one form or another on the internet. The problem is that you don't understand a single thing you read on the Internet. Your own posts are barely coherent. The sun will fix itslef, that it is has natural effect that will compesate for its effect and it is thought to be cyclical so when the intensity goes back down, the problem is corected. Putting aside the fact that the Sun is not responsible for global warming, exactly what do you think the period of this cyclic behavior is? And under the Co2 models, the sun doesn't contribute much because it isn't designed to. Once again, there is no such thing as a "CO2 model". There is just a model, and you tell it what your measurements of the Sun and CO2 are. You don't put in any assumption about what the warming is due to; the model tells you which forcing produces a bigger effect. The Sun doesn't contribute much because the increase in its power output simply is small. I mean here is a new approach, it offers less complexity to gain an outcome, It has a built in regulator and it is gaining some steam but you want it destroyed because it doesn't follow your traditional beliefs. I don't want it "destroyed". It's simply WRONG. The Sun contributes to global warming, but to a much smaller degree than do anthropogenic forcings. You just refuse to accept that the scientific evidence has disproven this hypothesis. Yep, the models don't have switches for one over the other because the models need to be totoaly different. Total nonsense. The models are exactly the same. You are badly, badly confused about what climate models actually are. becuase they are based on the idea that this or that is the factoring cause. Again, completely false. The model is not based on any assumptions about the cause of global warming. It doesn't matter whether you think the Sun is the main cause, or CO2, or whatever. The model uses the same equations for solar physics and the greenhouse effect either way. Wiat until this model becomes public and you will see the differences. Unsurprisingly, you still have no idea what you're talking about.
There is no "new model" that has been kept secret. All models already take the Sun into account. Now, I'm not saying you of all people are taking this as a religion. No, of course not. You'll merely say that "I am telling you the equivilent of your god doesn't exist and the earth is older then 6000 years".
It's very sad when comparing me to a religious fanatic is the best argument you can make. You certainly have not made any arguments on the basis of science. What arguments you have made are not just wrong but utterly nonsensical.
In addition, a "significant component" is still not "a majority component". Even if Willson is right (and there is debate amongst solar physicists as to whether his data were correctly calibrated), solar variations can still account for no more than 1/3 the forcing of greenhouse gases (here, sec. 2.1). You are not going to handwave the greenhouse effect away.
Furthermore, if you want to posit that solar variations are responsible for global warming, you are also going to have to posit a major new cooling source to explain why the greenhouse effect hasn't greatly added to the solar warming. But since this would not fit the "humans are the only cause" political agenda, it is swept under the rug. Humans are not the only cause, they are merely the largest cause. You seems to discount this more readily than evne the most politically motivated scientists I have no idea what you're talking about. Which "politically motivated scientists" are you speaking of?
We know how much power the Sun has output. We know how much CO2 there has been added to the atmosphere. We know that the greenhouse warming due to CO2 is significantly larger than the amount by which the Sun's output has increased. See here and here (Figure SPM-2).
What makes me laugh is people who think that just because they are ignorant, everyone else is too. It's a big unknown, so to discount possible causes seems suspect to me. It's not a "big unknown", it's small and largely known. No one has discounted possible causes out of hand, they have intensively studied all possible causes and ranked each one in order of its significance.
But besides that, even assuming that nuclear power is not "normal" or "natural" or whatever, what is your point? Are you attempting to claim that nuclear power has an adverse affect on the climate in a way that, say, fossil power does not? My point is that nuclear power greatly accelerates nuclear decay of radioactive materials and releases heat that adds to and above the regular solar cycle. If you are claiming that nuclear power produces substantial warming of the climate, that is very much false, particularly if you compare it to the warming of the climate produced by alternative sources of power. A 500 MW nuclear plant does not heat the planet substantially more than a 500 MW coal plant; they release comparable amounts of waste heat. Also, another point to ponder is that radiocarbon dating is not really valid later that the 1940s because nuclear processes changed the amount of C14 in the atmosphere. That's also not true, because nuclear testing changed the amount of radioisotopes in a very known and measurable way that can be taken into account.
Radiocarbon dating is not too accurate for recent events, but for a different reason: not much decay has taken place over a short period of time, so it is hard to measure the change in isotope ratios.
Regardless of that, I have no idea what you think radiocarbon dating since the 1940s has to do with anything. Nuclear power is NOT a pure and clean energy source. It's got problems beyond just storage of spent fuels. What problems are those?
Environmentalists generally want to avoid excessive human impact on the planet; only the most extreme radicals want us to have "no impact".
I did not say that global warming is about preventing natural processes from occurring. It is mostly about reducing human impact on the climate. I merely said that if there was extreme climate change being caused by natural processes, it would be as much in our interests to prevent it as it is to prevent anthropogenic climate change. Negative impacts are negative impacts regardless of what is causing it.
That's pure straw man. I didn't say anything about what was "dominant." What I said was that the margin of error must have be at least 33% since the increased solar output was unnoticed.
The margin of error is not highly relevant when it doesn't actually change the outcome.
It's called an analogy. Just because someone is called an "expert" doesn't mean you can't question them, and have to believe whatever they offer up.
You can question them, but the point is that it is entirely reasonable to base your opinions on the considered judgement of experts. Experts, after all, know more about the problem than you do.
No one. Hard as it may be, sometimes you have to use your own brain for more than watching TV.
In other words, you are going to ignore the vast amounts of evidence which disagree with your opinion, and go with your gut.
Yes it is. They've shown themselves completely unable to distinguish between anthropogenic and solar changes.
That is a pure lie. The anthropogenic signal swamps the solar signal.
They were off buy up to 1/3rd before, and none of the experts noticed.
They didn't notice, because the solar contribution is so small that a 1/3 difference is hard to even pull out of the noise. That's the whole point. They could be off by a factor of 2 and the anthropogenic forcings would still dominate just because they're so much larger.
Sounds pretty primitive to me, but maybe a large margin of error sounds advanced to you.
There is not a large margin of error on the relative contributions of anthropogenic vs. solar forcings.
We're talking about the same scientists, using the same models, with the same primitive data, and the same primitive understanding.
We're talking about generations of scientists, using generations of improving models, with new improved data and deeper understanding. And no, they have not proven "mistaken" about anthropogenic global warming: the evidence has continued to mount in its favor, not contradict it.
There haven't been giant leaps in understanding climatology since the last time it went wrong.
When did it "go wrong"? I hope your are not going to continue to cite improved measurements of solar variations as "climatology gone wrong".
No, it isn't. The scientific method requires experimentation, observation, repeatability, etc. Without being able to create a duplicate earth in the lab, much of the scientific method is impossible.
Pure nonsense. Is that what you learned in your 8th grade science class? Science does not require being able to "create a duplicate earth in the lab". What are you, a creationist? "We can't evolve a single-celled organism into a human being in a lab, therefore we can't study evolution scientifically" is the kind of argument I see out of them.
You don't have to create a duplicate Sun in the lab in order to observe the Sun and determine how it works. You don't have to be able to create mountains in a lab in order to learn about how mountains are formed. You don't need to be able to murder someone all over again in a lab in order to determine how a murder took place. You don't need to recreate the evolution of all species on Earth to have evidence that it happened and how it happened.
All of those things can be studied using observations as well as experimentation, even though in none of those cases you are repeating the actual event.
And computer models don't count, any more than any other "experiment on paper" would.
More nonsense. Pretty much all theoretical prediction in all of science is done by computer model. Claiming "computer models don't count" is tantamount to saying that you cannot predict anything based on any scientific theory.
Take a look at any global warming study from 10 years ago, and tell me what they THOUGHT their own margi
Who's arguing that?
I've seen a few people in this very thread arguing that, although the person I was responding to above to actually meant something else, if you look at the replies. But look around: you'll see people who insist that just because we can measure the greenhouse properties of CO2 in lab, doesn't mean that the greenhouse effect actually works in the atmosphere.
In fact, the scientist being discussed in this thread also denies the greenhouse effect, with some mumbo-jumbo about how CO2 rises in the atmosphere and releases all the heat it has stored.
Is the planet getting warmer? This is the only "consensus" that exists, and even that one isn't so monolithic when the question of "over what time period" is addressed. By itself, this is nothing new; the planet is dynamic and will always be changing.
That's true, but it's also true that we are causing an accelerating warming right now and have been for a century or so, which is not necessarily something we would prefer to happen.
The implied premise that there exists some sort of ideal state for the planet and that any change from that state is a Bad Thing, is the enviro-cult's equivalent of the Eden myth.
There is no such premise. It is, however, a fact that civilization on Earth right now is adapted to a particular climate, and there are costs to adapting to a different climate, especially when the climate change is rapid.
Is the warming being driven by the CO2 input? There is no consensus whatsoever on this point, as it hinges on how dominant that input is.
Far to the contrary, there is a widespread scientific consensus on this point. Pretty much the only people who dispute it are American conservatives.
From what I've seen, it's a pretty small one, likely negligible.
On the contrary, it is the dominant factor. It's pretty obvious that "what you've seen" on the matter does not include any actual climate science.
Try reading the IPCC FAR SPM (here), such as Figure SPM-2. The increase in CO2 forcing is very large compared to the other changes in forcings over the industrial period.
We already know that CO2 is swamped out by H2O on that front.
Wrong.
I get really tired of explaining this, but here goes again:
There is more H2O in the atmosphere than CO2, but that doesn't mean that global warming is attributable more to H2O than CO2. The H2O in the atmosphere provides much of the baseline natural greenhouse effect, which totals about 30 C, and explains why the planet is not a frozen iceball. To understand the warming that has occurred since 1850, which is a change in temperature (of about 1 C), you have to see what has changed since then. The change in CO2 far outweighs the change in H2O, and is responsible for most of the change in temperature.
IMO the presumption that all other inputs have been steady-state is absolutely preposterous.
There is no such presumption, once again pointing to your total ignorance of climate science. But hey, whatever reinforces your ideology.
In point of fact, climate models use variable time series for solar irradiance, anthropogenic and natural aerosols and particulate matter, anthropogenic and natural greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon cycle, land use change, and so on. They do not fix the inputs as "steady state".
Will the consequences be catastrophic?
Probably not, unless Greenland's ice destabilizes more readily than we thought (which is possible, there is unexplained rapid ice loss going on, but if it happens it probably won't be for a few centuries).
It will, however, likely be economically unfavorable, and even hardline economists who specialize in climate change agree with that. It's not going to be so unfavorable that we need to cut all emissions, but all the o
Weather is not climate. It is far easier to predict a global average for a whole year than it is to predict local weather in a particular city on a particular date.