It's disingenuous to go on about the natural sources of CO2 and carbon and to ignore the natural sinks. For 8,000 years the CO2 levels remained around 280 ppm because those natural sources and sinks were in relative balance. Only when the industrial revolution broke and humans started burning large quantities of CO2 did the levels in the atmosphere start to rise. So you're saying something has broken that balance and natural sources are outweighing natural sinks while at the same time something is absorbing all of the anthropogenic CO2. But the rise in atmospheric CO2 from year to year is a bit less than half of the CO2 that is emitted by humans each year. The rest is going into the oceans causing acidification and a bit into the biosphere. You can't ignore half of the carbon cycle equation and expect to be taken seriously.
First of all, it's not ice core data that shows CO2 levels were higher in the past. Ice cores only go back around 800,000 years and the highest level they have ever showed was around 300 ppm. There are other less precise proxies that inform us about CO2 levels further back in time.
We know they balance out because for instance the last 8,000 years or so the CO2 level remained around 280 ppm varying seasonally by about 10 ppm. It wasn't until the industrial revolution when started burning a lot of fossil fuels that the levels rose about 280 ppm. We've released enough CO2 since the start of the industrial revolution to raise atmospheric concentrations to over 500 ppm if it had all remained in the atmosphere.
175 million years ago and before the Sun was a bit cooler, the configuration of the continents and therefore the ocean currents were quite different than they are today. Those have major effects on the climate that you can't ignore.
Good post but CO2 concentrations won't return to historical levels for thousands of years unless we do something to actively remove it from the carbon cycle.
Your distrust might make some sense if it was only US scientists who were pushing AGW but it's not. It's scientists from around the world that are largely in agreement about this.
I would think the obvious first level test for species separation at least in sexually reproducing species is to test how well they can interbreed and how fertile the offspring are.
I agree with you but I think to make it revenue neutral the carbon tax should be a tax and dividend scheme. Collect the tax and redistribute it in equal shares to all legal residents of the country. That would put the cost on those who use the most carbon and provide a bonus to those whose use is below average. That could have some benefits in regard to current welfare and other government support areas. The problem with using it to offset the income tax is that as it changes over time because less and less carbon is being used you'd have to continually adjust any income tax that is left over to keep the revenue stream up.
Dr. Brown, You may be a physicist but it's remarkable how you think that short term trends of less than a couple of decades are indicative of anything in regards to climate. It makes me wonder how well you really understand statistics. As far as the rest of your post about all the ways renewable energy can't work, the world in not transformed by the pessimists but by the optimists.
The simple market solution is to put a price on carbon released into the atmosphere from sources outside the current active carbon cycle. Start it out very low and gradually increase it over the next 20-30 years until it becomes too expensive to use carbon sourced energy. Market forces will then come up with the answer for replacing them. People that think that can't possibly work have a pretty poor opinion of human ingenuity and resourcefulness. Others are just afraid of anything that might force them to have to change their lifestyle but what they don't realize is that doing nothing will force changes in their lifestyles which they will have no control over.
The ocean stores most of the world's CO2 in the form of carbonates. When the ocean warms, some of that is released, and CO2 levels are MEASURED! HIGHER! THAN! BEFORE!
The problem with your argument is that the measured amount of CO2 (or carbonate) in the oceans continues to rise. Yes the level of carbonate in water is a function of temperature but it's also a function of the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere above the water. So far the partial pressure is winning that competition and the oceans are acidifying.
As it turns out worldwide temperatures started going down in 2010...
Bhwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! That's a meaningless statement in the context of climate. If your "cooling" trend is still going in 2030 we can talk.
Of course you are right and I was being generous when I said 20-30 years. But it's still possible for the climate science deniers to argue that what we're seeing is normal weather variability without getting laughed at by most people. At some point that will no longer be possible.
Why would hurricanes impacting only the US have any meaning. Exactly what path hurricane takes is largely a matter of chance. So if you're going to look at Atlantic hurricanes you really need to take in the whole basin, not just the part that impinges on the US mainland.
Um... did you notice the little lines on the right end of the graphs? They are labeled "3 mm/year" which is the current rate of sea level rise. Notice how the slope of the 3 mm/year line is far steeper than anything since about 7,000 years ago.
That's true but scientists invented the term "climate change" long before it was a blip on the climate science deniers radar. For instance Gilbert Plass published a paper in 1956 whose title was "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change". In general the scientists are usually way out in front of the general public in these matters.
Literally every possible observation is confirmation!
You have that backwards. Literally no possible observation is something that disproves anthropogenic climate change. Since climate is a statistical expression of average weather to disprove it you need a statistical expression of average weather that is counter to the climate change theory. That's not something any single event is capable of doing.
And there are very few concrete plans, based on actual, proven science.
The only plan that helps in the long run is reducing and eventually eliminating the things we do to increase the level of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, in the atmosphere. Anything else is like putting a band-aid on a compound fracture.
Except as this report says the effects are already starting to manifest themselves. Just because you're too insensitive to see that doesn't mean they aren't happening. Personally I think serious effects are only 20-30 years away.
Both Apple and Facebook put data centers in Prineville, Oregon which is a place I wouldn't consider any more advanced than Montana. Apparently they haven't had problems attracting workers.
You need to gain some perspective. In the 1000 year span of the Hockey Stick graph the past 12 or 16 years is like a nick in the blade of a hockey stick.
No matter what you call it the physical changes to the Earth's climate can't be denied. This is like throwing a bone to the contrarians so they can claim we changed the name again.
Slashdot Mirror
It's disingenuous to go on about the natural sources of CO2 and carbon and to ignore the natural sinks. For 8,000 years the CO2 levels remained around 280 ppm because those natural sources and sinks were in relative balance. Only when the industrial revolution broke and humans started burning large quantities of CO2 did the levels in the atmosphere start to rise. So you're saying something has broken that balance and natural sources are outweighing natural sinks while at the same time something is absorbing all of the anthropogenic CO2. But the rise in atmospheric CO2 from year to year is a bit less than half of the CO2 that is emitted by humans each year. The rest is going into the oceans causing acidification and a bit into the biosphere. You can't ignore half of the carbon cycle equation and expect to be taken seriously.
First of all, it's not ice core data that shows CO2 levels were higher in the past. Ice cores only go back around 800,000 years and the highest level they have ever showed was around 300 ppm. There are other less precise proxies that inform us about CO2 levels further back in time.
We know they balance out because for instance the last 8,000 years or so the CO2 level remained around 280 ppm varying seasonally by about 10 ppm. It wasn't until the industrial revolution when started burning a lot of fossil fuels that the levels rose about 280 ppm. We've released enough CO2 since the start of the industrial revolution to raise atmospheric concentrations to over 500 ppm if it had all remained in the atmosphere.
Here's a primer on why we know humans are the cause of rising CO2.
175 million years ago and before the Sun was a bit cooler, the configuration of the continents and therefore the ocean currents were quite different than they are today. Those have major effects on the climate that you can't ignore.
Good post but CO2 concentrations won't return to historical levels for thousands of years unless we do something to actively remove it from the carbon cycle.
Your distrust might make some sense if it was only US scientists who were pushing AGW but it's not. It's scientists from around the world that are largely in agreement about this.
I would think the obvious first level test for species separation at least in sexually reproducing species is to test how well they can interbreed and how fertile the offspring are.
I agree with you but I think to make it revenue neutral the carbon tax should be a tax and dividend scheme. Collect the tax and redistribute it in equal shares to all legal residents of the country. That would put the cost on those who use the most carbon and provide a bonus to those whose use is below average. That could have some benefits in regard to current welfare and other government support areas. The problem with using it to offset the income tax is that as it changes over time because less and less carbon is being used you'd have to continually adjust any income tax that is left over to keep the revenue stream up.
Dr. Brown, You may be a physicist but it's remarkable how you think that short term trends of less than a couple of decades are indicative of anything in regards to climate. It makes me wonder how well you really understand statistics. As far as the rest of your post about all the ways renewable energy can't work, the world in not transformed by the pessimists but by the optimists.
The simple market solution is to put a price on carbon released into the atmosphere from sources outside the current active carbon cycle. Start it out very low and gradually increase it over the next 20-30 years until it becomes too expensive to use carbon sourced energy. Market forces will then come up with the answer for replacing them. People that think that can't possibly work have a pretty poor opinion of human ingenuity and resourcefulness. Others are just afraid of anything that might force them to have to change their lifestyle but what they don't realize is that doing nothing will force changes in their lifestyles which they will have no control over.
The ocean stores most of the world's CO2 in the form of carbonates. When the ocean warms, some of that is released, and CO2 levels are MEASURED! HIGHER! THAN! BEFORE!
The problem with your argument is that the measured amount of CO2 (or carbonate) in the oceans continues to rise. Yes the level of carbonate in water is a function of temperature but it's also a function of the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere above the water. So far the partial pressure is winning that competition and the oceans are acidifying.
As it turns out worldwide temperatures started going down in 2010 ...
Bhwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! That's a meaningless statement in the context of climate. If your "cooling" trend is still going in 2030 we can talk.
Of course you are right and I was being generous when I said 20-30 years. But it's still possible for the climate science deniers to argue that what we're seeing is normal weather variability without getting laughed at by most people. At some point that will no longer be possible.
Well, environmental ills such as desertification and habitat destruction are known effects of global warming.
Good luck. Climate science deniers get treated the same or worse over at Ars Technica as they do here.
Yep, global warming impact is severe, alright. Coldest winter in recent memory, that warming sure is a bitch!
Ok, that comment was just begging for the obligatory XKCD link.
Why would hurricanes impacting only the US have any meaning. Exactly what path hurricane takes is largely a matter of chance. So if you're going to look at Atlantic hurricanes you really need to take in the whole basin, not just the part that impinges on the US mainland.
Um... did you notice the little lines on the right end of the graphs? They are labeled "3 mm/year" which is the current rate of sea level rise. Notice how the slope of the 3 mm/year line is far steeper than anything since about 7,000 years ago.
That's true but scientists invented the term "climate change" long before it was a blip on the climate science deniers radar. For instance Gilbert Plass published a paper in 1956 whose title was "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change". In general the scientists are usually way out in front of the general public in these matters.
Literally every possible observation is confirmation!
You have that backwards. Literally no possible observation is something that disproves anthropogenic climate change. Since climate is a statistical expression of average weather to disprove it you need a statistical expression of average weather that is counter to the climate change theory. That's not something any single event is capable of doing.
And there are very few concrete plans, based on actual, proven science.
The only plan that helps in the long run is reducing and eventually eliminating the things we do to increase the level of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, in the atmosphere. Anything else is like putting a band-aid on a compound fracture.
Except as this report says the effects are already starting to manifest themselves. Just because you're too insensitive to see that doesn't mean they aren't happening. Personally I think serious effects are only 20-30 years away.
I hear you. We have a saying here in the Beaver State: "Don't Californicate Oregon".
Both Apple and Facebook put data centers in Prineville, Oregon which is a place I wouldn't consider any more advanced than Montana. Apparently they haven't had problems attracting workers.
And we did something about that. BTW it was more about not letting ultraviolet light in.
You need to gain some perspective. In the 1000 year span of the Hockey Stick graph the past 12 or 16 years is like a nick in the blade of a hockey stick.
No matter what you call it the physical changes to the Earth's climate can't be denied. This is like throwing a bone to the contrarians so they can claim we changed the name again.