The top of the Hadley cell flow is over 10 km up and it's still coming down south of the mountains, just not as far south as it has in the past. The Hadley cells would hardly notice them.
So what? Science can be messy down in the trenches.
To take on one of your quotes:
Wilson: Although I agree that GHGs are important in the 19th/20th century (especially since the 1970s), if the weighting of solar forcing was stronger in the models, surely this would diminish the significance of GHGs. [...] it seems to me that by weighting the solar irradiance more strongly in the models, then much of the 19th to mid 20th century warming can be explained from the sun alone.
Notice he said "mid 20th century". He didn't say anything about the causes of warming since then. That's 50-60 years ago now. The CO2 level was around 315 ppmv in 1958 when Keeling started measuring it (up from 280 in 1830). Now it's around 390 ppmv. That's up 75 ppmv in 53 years, nearly double the less than 40 ppmv rise from 1830 to 1960 (130 years). That's the impression I've had that the increase in GHG's didn't start to become a significant driver of temperature until the 1970s.
I guess the future just isn't arriving fast enough for you, eh? You should study the temporal scale on those predictions a little more closely. Many if not most things are happening faster than it was estimated they would.
What Muller "confirmed" was the veracity of the initial data used by some of the models...
Muller and his group simply confirmed that the other temperature records from CRU, GISS and NOAA were accurate and temperature has been rising. You are correct that they don't do anything to identify the causes of that warming. But climate models do not use the temperature data as input. The models are physics based and the results will converge to a projected result regardless of the initial starting point (although they'll do it faster the more realistic the starting point is). They compare the model's output to the real world temperature data to test the model.
I think the problem is you appear to think 2-3 years or even 10 years is at all meaningful in this discussion. At a bit less than 20 years you start getting meaningful results for climate temperature trends.
Same thing with the drop in sea level over the past couple of years. The reason for that is largely the heavy rainfall around the world that has put water on land that's taking its time draining back to the sea. The GRACE satellites have measured increases in gravity in areas like the Northern Amazon Basin, Australia and places in Asia due to the water that's been absorbed by the land. That can't go on forever.
What is debated is the notion that co2 is the cause of the uptrend.
What about the fact that you can see the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 in the atmosphere by comparing outgoing longwave radiation at the surface to the same measurement from orbit? That's strong evidence for CO2.
Many scientists who study those what causes ice ages think the next glaciation probably won't start for 20,000 years (mainly from an analysis of Milankovitch cycles) so we've probably got some time.
No, we came out of the last glaciation (ice age) around 10,000 years ago. The temperature hit a maximum during the Holocene climate optimum around 8,000 years ago and as been in general slowly cooling since then.
... and have cost a tiny fraction of what the naysayers claimed the costs would be.
Not only that but the benefits to the overall society in reduced costs (both monetary and environmental) far outstrip the costs to control the SO2. It's a large net positive for the country.
No, if it was corporate America whoever authorized it would be promoted and the problem would disappear with creative accounting. Anyone who thinks big corporations are less wasteful of money than government has never experienced big corporation life. The government has to put all their dirty laundry out in public, corporations don't.
Calling it "the end of the world" is hyperbolic. At worst we lose maybe 2/3 - 3/4 of the present population and the people left are primarily engaged in raising enough food for themselves to live.
Do you think if scientists did those things you mentioned it would help their kids? Unless they have the majority of the population behind them actions like that would be like pissing into the wind. It would just splatter disrespect all over them. The best way they can help is by helping us understand the world as it is.
That may be true. Your population is only 23 million. But when (if?) the bush grows back it reabsorbs as much carbon as it emitted burning. You have a fantastic potential for solar energy though.
All we really need to look at is the last ~550 million years. That's when atmospheric oxygen levels got high enough for the ozone layer to form and block the Sun's ultraviolet light that kept the land surfaces sterile before.
Coal and limestone are a part of the overall carbon cycle but they are not particularly active in it on human time scales. The active parts of the carbon cycle are the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. The active part of the carbon cycle has been in relative balance for over a million years, cycling between around 190 ppmv and 300 ppmv. The last time CO2 was as high as it is now (390 ppmv) was over 15 million years ago.
Crustaceans don't use carbon dioxide directly to build their shells. They do use it indirectly though by eating other organism's that got it directly. CO2 dissolved in water becomes carbonic acid which is detrimental to shell forming organisms so it doesn't help.
The colonization of the land occurred around 550 million years ago, once atmospheric oxygen levels got high enough for the ozone layer to form and block ultraviolet light from the Sun.
Deserts are there because they lack of water. It has nothing to do with low CO2. I doubt there is any condition the Earth has been in since life colonized the land where there weren't deserts (or at least areas of low precipitation) on the planet. It's built into the physics of the atmosphere.
I don't get this assumption that increasing CO2 automatically means more plant growth. Do you have any science behind that? I know excess CO2 helps some plants to grow but not others. CO2 is not the only thing that affects plant growth. Water, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus as well as a number of others are all necessary. The current plant life has evolved under the current CO2 levels and I don't think you can definitively say that increased levels means an explosion in plant growth.
In some ways carbon is priceless (and I'm not talking about diamonds). It is the basis of all life as we know it. Without carbon we wouldn't be here. But it needs to be in its place.
Well, as George Box once said "All models are wrong, but some are useful." (that's a paraphrase, not an exact quote). Hansen's 1988 model has held up remarkably well considering how primitive it is compared to current models. I think you're right that a model that showed to good a result would be suspicious.
Slashdot Mirror
You can get a Mercedes Benz Unimog in an SUV configuration.
A crapload.
The top of the Hadley cell flow is over 10 km up and it's still coming down south of the mountains, just not as far south as it has in the past. The Hadley cells would hardly notice them.
So what? Science can be messy down in the trenches.
To take on one of your quotes:
Wilson:
Although I agree that GHGs are important in the 19th/20th century (especially since the 1970s), if the weighting of solar forcing was stronger in the models, surely this would diminish the significance of GHGs. [...] it seems to me that by weighting the solar irradiance more strongly in the models, then much of the 19th to mid 20th century warming can be explained from the sun alone.
Notice he said "mid 20th century". He didn't say anything about the causes of warming since then. That's 50-60 years ago now. The CO2 level was around 315 ppmv in 1958 when Keeling started measuring it (up from 280 in 1830). Now it's around 390 ppmv. That's up 75 ppmv in 53 years, nearly double the less than 40 ppmv rise from 1830 to 1960 (130 years). That's the impression I've had that the increase in GHG's didn't start to become a significant driver of temperature until the 1970s.
Re: "Climategate II", if they had any silver bullets for global warming they would have shot them 2 years ago. Why wait?
I guess the future just isn't arriving fast enough for you, eh? You should study the temporal scale on those predictions a little more closely. Many if not most things are happening faster than it was estimated they would.
Beautiful.
The last batch of emails showed this practice is rampant.
Oh, really? Doesn't the Richard Muller/BEST study show there has been no manipulation of data? Or is Muller now a part of the cabal?
What Muller "confirmed" was the veracity of the initial data used by some of the models...
Muller and his group simply confirmed that the other temperature records from CRU, GISS and NOAA were accurate and temperature has been rising. You are correct that they don't do anything to identify the causes of that warming. But climate models do not use the temperature data as input. The models are physics based and the results will converge to a projected result regardless of the initial starting point (although they'll do it faster the more realistic the starting point is). They compare the model's output to the real world temperature data to test the model.
Another guy who doesn't understand the difference between weather and climate.
I think the problem is you appear to think 2-3 years or even 10 years is at all meaningful in this discussion. At a bit less than 20 years you start getting meaningful results for climate temperature trends.
Same thing with the drop in sea level over the past couple of years. The reason for that is largely the heavy rainfall around the world that has put water on land that's taking its time draining back to the sea. The GRACE satellites have measured increases in gravity in areas like the Northern Amazon Basin, Australia and places in Asia due to the water that's been absorbed by the land. That can't go on forever.
What is debated is the notion that co2 is the cause of the uptrend.
What about the fact that you can see the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 in the atmosphere by comparing outgoing longwave radiation at the surface to the same measurement from orbit? That's strong evidence for CO2.
Many scientists who study those what causes ice ages think the next glaciation probably won't start for 20,000 years (mainly from an analysis of Milankovitch cycles) so we've probably got some time.
No, we came out of the last glaciation (ice age) around 10,000 years ago. The temperature hit a maximum during the Holocene climate optimum around 8,000 years ago and as been in general slowly cooling since then.
Not only that but the benefits to the overall society in reduced costs (both monetary and environmental) far outstrip the costs to control the SO2. It's a large net positive for the country.
I believe in Britain it's just called FOI, the FOIA is the US version.
No, if it was corporate America whoever authorized it would be promoted and the problem would disappear with creative accounting. Anyone who thinks big corporations are less wasteful of money than government has never experienced big corporation life. The government has to put all their dirty laundry out in public, corporations don't.
The "raw data" is available to anyone who cares to take the time and expense to compile it. After all, that's what the BEST study started with.
It affects the areas of Europe along the Mediterranean coast. That's what I meant by Southern Europe.
Calling it "the end of the world" is hyperbolic. At worst we lose maybe 2/3 - 3/4 of the present population and the people left are primarily engaged in raising enough food for themselves to live.
Do you think if scientists did those things you mentioned it would help their kids? Unless they have the majority of the population behind them actions like that would be like pissing into the wind. It would just splatter disrespect all over them. The best way they can help is by helping us understand the world as it is.
That may be true. Your population is only 23 million. But when (if?) the bush grows back it reabsorbs as much carbon as it emitted burning. You have a fantastic potential for solar energy though.
All we really need to look at is the last ~550 million years. That's when atmospheric oxygen levels got high enough for the ozone layer to form and block the Sun's ultraviolet light that kept the land surfaces sterile before.
Coal and limestone are a part of the overall carbon cycle but they are not particularly active in it on human time scales. The active parts of the carbon cycle are the atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. The active part of the carbon cycle has been in relative balance for over a million years, cycling between around 190 ppmv and 300 ppmv. The last time CO2 was as high as it is now (390 ppmv) was over 15 million years ago.
Crustaceans don't use carbon dioxide directly to build their shells. They do use it indirectly though by eating other organism's that got it directly. CO2 dissolved in water becomes carbonic acid which is detrimental to shell forming organisms so it doesn't help.
The colonization of the land occurred around 550 million years ago, once atmospheric oxygen levels got high enough for the ozone layer to form and block ultraviolet light from the Sun.
Deserts are there because they lack of water. It has nothing to do with low CO2. I doubt there is any condition the Earth has been in since life colonized the land where there weren't deserts (or at least areas of low precipitation) on the planet. It's built into the physics of the atmosphere.
I don't get this assumption that increasing CO2 automatically means more plant growth. Do you have any science behind that? I know excess CO2 helps some plants to grow but not others. CO2 is not the only thing that affects plant growth. Water, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus as well as a number of others are all necessary. The current plant life has evolved under the current CO2 levels and I don't think you can definitively say that increased levels means an explosion in plant growth.
In some ways carbon is priceless (and I'm not talking about diamonds). It is the basis of all life as we know it. Without carbon we wouldn't be here. But it needs to be in its place.
Well, as George Box once said "All models are wrong, but some are useful." (that's a paraphrase, not an exact quote). Hansen's 1988 model has held up remarkably well considering how primitive it is compared to current models. I think you're right that a model that showed to good a result would be suspicious.
Yes, I know that but it's to "sciency" for some people.