A consequence of warming due to CO2 is polar amplification. This was stated well before any warming due to CO2 was observed. Once we started to see the warming we check for the fingerprints. If we saw amplification near the equator we would have concluded that increased solar radiation is suspect. This is not what was found.
Your statement that flood detection is increasing and your link that states we are detecting less floods is contradictory.
Not necessarily. We can get better at detecting floods, and also have less of them due to natural variation.
That being said, how does a reduction in floods manage to be "consistent with" claims that warming (which has been observed), will create more floods?
There is uncertainty regarding sensitivity to those forcings, but even that is within a limited range.
I would assert that the uncertainty in a very large range, and a significant portion of that uncertainty is probably because we don't understand all of the forcings at work in our system.
When both water and air are warming, you need to look for a reason that is neither the water or the air. This is not a case of energy moving around, but of energy being added.
Okay, I follow, but I don't think you can be certain. When both water and air are warming, it could very well be the motion of energy from the core of the earth towards the surface, and therefore the oceans, and therefore the air.
Do you have a global average temperature metric for the entire solid mass of the planet? Has there been any trend?
Except that none of these are sufficient.
Known forcings being insufficient does not lead us to the conclusion that all of the rest of the warming must be driven by CO2. That's arguing that anything we don't know (which is legion), must be explained by a magical gas.
When we derive the effect of CO2 by observation, and elimination of all other known effects, we are inconsiderately ignoring unknown effects.
Perhaps there are unknown forcings, but not certainly, and certainly not at a level where they make any kind of measurable contribution. Otherwise we would need them to explain observations.
That doesn't follow. The assumption that unknown forcings have no measurable contribution is an assertion, not an observation. It is quite possible that we *need* them in order to *properly* explain observations, and that currently, we are *improperly* explaining observations.
Surely you are aware that CO2 is not the only driver of climate.
Yes, I am. I also assert that it is only a minor driver of climate, whereas, if I was to infer from your argument thus far, you believe it is a major driver of climate. I would assert that the fact that we have, on every scale of observation, seen any asserted contribution of CO2 overwhelmed by other drivers (which naturally occur on every timescale), we have no reason to believe that this won't continue to happen in the future, both on the upside and the downside.
If the data showed something different, then every scientific society would change their tune.
That's very optimistic of you. I tend to see most of the scientific societies and their recommendations as encumbered by institutional inertia, but here's one example of a turnaround:
"There are 2 main reasons why stronger tornadoes are usually associated with unseasonably cool conditions, and why there has been a decrease in strong tornadoes during a period of average warming:
1) The missing ingredient for tornado formation is not a lack of warm moist air, but a lack of synoptic (large) scale wind shear.
2) At least until recently, the positive phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) which has predominated since the late 1970’s has suppressed strong tornado activity."
You seem keenly aware of the fingerprints of warming due to GHG. You also seem keenly aware that these fingerprints have been observed in the real world. How do you reconcile this with your idea that the temp rise is not caused by GHG?
Good question. The problem I have is that the "fingerprint" analogy isn't scientific. We often hear the phrase "is consistent with" when it comes to AGW, but that's a cop out. Every climate change and weather pattern "is consistent with" the hypothesis that a wrathful and arbitrary God causes all weather and climate changes - that doesn't mean that this hypothesis is true.
What I'm interested in hearing is "if you don't see this fingerprint, AGW is falsified" or "if you do see this other fingerprint, AGW is falsified". To date, about the only thing I've heard AGW proponents here on slashdot state is "if you see falling temperatures (not merely stable ones), during an increase in CO2, over the next 20 years, I'll reconsider". Now, at least that's a stick in the ground, but I'd argue that we can take a look at history and find periods of 20 years of falling temperatures, and increased CO2, therefore fulfilling that falsification request. Of course any period I cite would probably be asserted as anomalous, or require some other special pleading...which gives me even more reason to doubt the utility of any AGW hypothesis.
"Much of the increase in the number of hazardous events is probably due to significant improvements in information access and also to population growth, but the number of floods and cyclones being reported is still rising compared to earthquakes."
Sounds like our detection rate of floods and cyclones has improved faster than our detection rate of earthquakes. See:
You are neglecting the fact that we know from physics that adding CO2 does increase the temperature of the atmosphere.
The question is, by how much, and how does that compare to other drivers (such as the ocean). We know from physics that the gulf stream current, which drives warm water towards england, increases atmospheric temperatures there. Would we assume that it is the warm atmosphere around england that drives the current?
You think that because temperature can move around from one part of the world to another via currents - somehow this means that even though both the ocean and the atmosphere are heating up the cause of the warming is due to the ocean heating up?
We have a concrete example here of water warming air. Why can't that also be true on a global scale? Does the interaction of water and air change based on region? If so, what causes this change in behavior?
It is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis to posit that the ocean heating up causes the atmosphere to heat up. As to the question "where does the energy for the ocean to heat up come from?", you can posit tidal forces, undersea volcanoes, and even incoming solar energy not blocked by clouds or other atmospheric molecules. No need to violate any laws of thermodynamics here at all.
Now, how would you falsify this hypothesis? I might suggest an experiment where you take a ratio of water to air similar to the ratio of ocean water to atmospheric content, and try to heat the air to warm the water, and try to heat the water to warm the air, and observe the effects.
Redistributing the heat will throughout the system cannot heat up the system. This really doesn't make any sense.
You're missing the corollary: Heating up the system will not necessarily distribute the heat in a predictable w
2) It is possible to eliminate the diurnal temperature differential and still have spacial differentials - and we have increased water vapour which does feed storms.
I believe the prevailing AGW hypothesis proposes greater warming at the poles than the equator, leading to decreased spatial differentials.
The facts are that diurnal temperature differential is decreasing, but severe weather events are increasing.
I don't think you have accurate facts there. The fact is that diurnal temperature differential, particularly around urban areas, is decreasing. The fact is that severe weather events have not shown any increase or decrease trend over the past few hundred years, although with more development along costal areas we have had more humans affected by them.
1) Because we are increasing the temperature of the atmosphere
You're making an assertion that could go either way. An increase in temperature of the atmosphere can be *caused* by increased temperatures of oceans. We certainly observe this with warm currents moderating the climate around the UK...or are you suggesting that the warm air around London is what actually causes the current to be warm?
How do you propose that an exchange of heat between different parts of the system will add heat to the system?
I'm not suggesting that at all. What I am suggesting is that an increase in atmospheric heat can be the result of heat exchange, and external influences, not merely a greenhouse effect. That heat can come from tidal forces, the internal heat of the earth, solar heating of the oceans when cloud cover allows direct sunlight to heat the water, etc, etc. This isn't a matter a free heat, this is a matter of specific distribution.
Well, it will eliminate ENSO and solar cycle, it will not eliminate Milankovitch cycles.
There are certainly cycles that are between those, even if we haven't identified them all. We cannot simply assume that the only natural cycles are ENSO, solar, and Milankovitch.
No, you could have an accelerated input which dwarfs the logarithmic rate. You need to count all GHG, and you need to count feedbacks (including the release of methane (a GHG) from the arctic).
Except we don't have that. CO2 hasn't increased at a geometric rate sufficient to overwhelm it's logarithmic effect. Counting all other GHGs is based on the assumption that all of them are *caused* by CO2, and causality here is not determined.
You stated that the temperature is not increasing. I stated that it must be because we just had the hottest year in the hottest decade. You stated that this only shows that the temperature is increasing. I stated that yes, that's what I said.
I see the disconnect -> we're talking about different time periods. Specifically, 2010 was tied with 2005, which shows no statistically significant increase in temperature over the past 15 years. That being said, there is no doubt that throughout the 20th century, there was an increase in temperatures, which will make "the hottest decade ever" a fairly meaningless statistic. The challenge to CAGW is this -> while temperatures have refused to budge, CO2 has continued to rise.
So perhaps I would have been better off to say, "The temperature is not always increasing, even though CO2 emissions are."
Three vehement skeptics who took the time to look at the data - and when the data didn't match their theory - they changed their theory.
Well, Hansen's global temps versus the US sited temps aside, isn't that what scientists are *supposed* to do?
Can you give me an example of a single global warming believer who changed their theory when the data didn't match?:)
Water vapour feeds storms. Try a quick google search of that last sentence for more info.
Let me restate - while water vapor is necessary for thunderstorms, extreme weather events, including those without precipitation, such as tornadoes, are driven by pressure and temperature differentials. Reducing those differentials should lead to milder weather, not more extreme weather.
And even dropped in the presence of ever higher CO2 concentrations. That all being said, why would we assume that the atmosphere is driving ocean temperatures, rather than the other way around? The heat content of the ocean outweighing the heat content of the entire atmosphere by over 4000:1 seems to be an indication that if were were to look for *causes*, they would be oceanic rather than atmospheric. As examples, see PDO, ENSO, ADO, etc.
The other natural variables create wibbles and wobbles that dwarf any trend of less than 30 years.
Why would we assume that a trend of 30 years or more eliminates any trends caused by natural variables?
We clearly haven't hit any upper limit, and accelerated output of GHG as well as feedbacks are clearly more than making up for the logarithmic rate.
I'm not sure how you can say that. The logarithmic rate will always limit any linear progression (which, if you look at atmospheric CO2 levels, is what we've been experiencing). Only a geometric progression (and a steep one at that), would "make up" for the logarithmic rate.
That the temperature is increasing. I was making the exact same point.
I'm not sure you are. I believe your point is "the temperature is increasing *and* it's because of human produced CO2". On any given time scale, understanding that climate naturally changes, I could agree with the first one (and it's corollary "the temperature is decreasing").
Put another way, it seems that the presence of a "hottest year ever" indicates to you that it must be so because of artificial influences on the climate, rather than just a statistical artifact that we see during points of warming throughout earth's history. Because the "hottest year ever" is necessary for the CAGW hypothesis to be correct, it is subject to a great deal of data massaging - but let's not mistake *necessary* for *sufficient*.
As you have noted previously we should be expecting the temperatures to be dropping.
And on the scale that matters to me and my neighbors, we have been seeing dropping temperatures. While granted, regional temperatures can buck the trend of any artificial "global average temperature", it also brings up the distinct possibility that the "hottest year ever" is simply a statistical artifact, and a politically motivated one at that.
They can adjust their global average temperature to whatever they want, but they can't stop it from being colder all across the US, and other places around the world where people actually live and experience the weather. I wouldn't go so far as to say we can definitively detect a global average trend one way or the other -> the whole sensor station network for global temperatures is woefully lacking for any sort of confidence.
I will only note that skeptics Richard Mueller, Roy Spencer, and Anthony Watts have all performed independent validation of the temperature
"Menne et al 2010 mentioned a “counterintuitive” cooling trend in some portions of the data. Interestingly enough, former California State Climatologist James Goodridge did an independent analysis ( I wasn’t involved in data crunchng, it was a sole effort on his part) of COOP stations in California that had gone through modernization, switching from Stevenson Screens with mercury LIG thermometers to MMTS electronic thermometers. He sifted through about 500 COOPs in California and chose stations that had at least 60 years of uninterrupted data, because as we know, a station move can cause all sorts of issues. He used the “raw” data from these stations as opposed to adjusted data.
He writes:
Hi Anthony, I found 58 temperature station in California with data for 1949 to 2008 and where the thermometers had been changed to MMTS and the earlier parts were liquid in glass. The average for the earlier part was 59.17F and the MMTS fraction averaged 60.07F.
Jim
A 0.9F (0.5C) warmer offset due to modernization is significant, yet NCDC insists that the MMTS units are tested at about 0.05C cooler. I believe they add this adjustment into the final data. Our experience shows the exact opposite should be done and with a greater magnitude."
So your null hypothesis is to assume that it's all magical, that we don't know enough to attribute the temperature change to anything?
Nothing needs to be magical for us not to know enough about what causes a given behavior in a chaotic system. Admitting that we don't know the reasons for something is humility; asserting that anything we can't explain must be caused by a magical gas called CO2 is hubris.
Scientists didn't decide that CO2 was the cause of global warming and then look for evidence to support that supposition.
Actually, that's *exactly* what most climate scientists (and anyone trying to get on the global warming gravy train) does. You start with the assumption that anthropogenic CO2 is the explanation for any unexplained warming. You then look for evidence to support that assumption. Any evidence found contrary to that assumption is discarded.
If you want to dispute that you have to come up with a better scientific argument than they have.
They don't have a scientific argument if they don't have a falsifiable hypothesis. Simply looking for additional data points to confirm original assumptions isn't science -> ruthlessly looking for *any* possible refutation of your hypothesis is.
Clouds effects on global warming has been pretty intensely studied for the past decade. Dessler (2010) [tamu.edu] used cloud measurements over the whole planet from the CERES satellite from March 2000 to February 2010
Less than a year's worth of data, and we're supposed to come to conclusions about climate and cycles that can happen over decades, centuries and even millennia?
If the ocean is absorbing heat from the atmosphere it's going to get warmer. The ocean is not an infinite heat sink.
I'd say it's effectively infinite, given the 4000+ to 1 ratio of heat capacity of the oceans to the atmosphere. An order of magnitude really does mean something here.
You really ought to drop the undersea volcanoes argument. It is a hypothesis with no evidence to back it up. It makes it sound like your grasping at straws to support your position.
I'm not sure why we would assume that only above ground volcanoes can affect climate...certainly, the aerosol effects of ash are relatively short lived, and the heat fro
I took a look at your graphs. They conveniently have the years for the minimum and maximum points flagged. They show about 10 degrees C rise in about 10,000 years which is about 1 C per thousand years. Right now the slope is more like 1 C in less than 200 years. That is considerably steeper.
You're making the assumption that the 10 degrees of rise was regular and even. As for 1C in less than 200 years, we've seen this during the MWP, when human CO2 emissions were negligible.
Ten times in the past 1,000 years the rate of warming has been significant for at least a 50 year period.
The most extended period of warming was during the 1700s when warming happened for almost the entire 100 year period.
Since 1600, the rate of cooling has never been below -0.005 C/yr. In effect, the strong cooling took place prior to 1600 AD.
The strongest cooling was in 1440 when the 50 yr rate was -0.0141 C/yr.
So in the past 400 years the rates of cooling been lower than average, but such periods have happened before. The net result is that the modern warm temperatures have been 400 years in the making, not 40 years. Absolutely nothing in the past 100 years is abnormal in the rate of temperature change."
All I can say about natural cycles is that they account for all known ones. There may be ones we don't know about yet but you can't just assume that they exist.
That's ludicrous. We can, with great certainty, assert that there are natural cycles we don't know about yet. In fact, we could probably go so far as to say with great certainty that there are *significant* natural cycles we don't know about yet. Simply attributing every observation to our prime suspect, anthropogenic CO2, rather than the null hypothesis of "we don't know what drove that", is unsupportable.
Sea surface temperatures are not part of the atmospheric temperature record.
Which is particularly problematic, given that most of the earth is not land. Constructing, or reconstructing, a temperature record that does not include 2/3rds of the earth's surface seems, on its face, insufficient.
No, water vapor is the gaseous form of water. I think you're conflating it with clouds.... The net effect of clouds on the greenhouse effect is thought to be slightly positive although it's still an area of some uncertainty.
My apologies, you're correct, it is water vapor available for cloud formation that I was referring to. That all being said, the effect of clouds, and the distribution (both contemporary and historical) of clouds is *completely* uncertain.
"To date, however, it has not been possible to quantify the influence of the cloud lifetime effect on climate. The estimates vary hugely and range from no influence whatsoever to a cooling effect that is sufficient to more than compensate for the heating effect of carbon dioxide."
A comparison of the stations that surfacestations.org considered poorly placed (mostly because of UHI issues) vs. ones they considered well placed actually found a slight cooling bias for the poorly placed stations. (I'll dig up the paper if you want.)
Ah, I see what you are saying. You should also consider the impact of greater water vapour in the atmosphere and greater heat content in the ocean.
Except it's not water vapor that causes extreme weather events, it's large temperature differentials (those "LOW" and "HIGH" pressure areas during the weather report).
As for "greater heat content in the ocean", I think you vastly underestimate just how much heat capacity the oceans have versus the atmosphere. The *entire* energy contained in the *entire* atmosphere matches about 10ft of depth of the ocean. You could *double* the temperature of the atmosphere, transfer that into the ocean, and it would only heat up another 20ft of water.
Conversely, if the ocean transferred a mere *fraction* of its energy into the atmosphere, we could raise the temperature of the atmosphere significantly above anything imaginable.
Volcanoes will cause a dip in temperatures, El Nino a spike, La Nina a dip, increased solar activity a spike, decreased a dip, etc. The trend is being driven by CO2 and that trend is accelerating.
The trend clearly hasn't accelerated over the past 15 years of increased CO2, and any trend you could possibly discern from CO2 is overwhelmed by all the other natural variables (not to mention, CO2 has an upper limit of effect, and has a log function of effect, diminishing as it gets higher).
It is hard to reconcile the idea that temperatures haven't been rising over the last 15 years and the fact that last year was hottest on record and last decade was hottest on record.
The problem is that the "hottest year on record" metric is an artifact with no meaning. It's a single point that you'll see over and over again during any period of natural temperature increase. By the same token, "hottest decade on record" also has no meaning - you'll see that over and over again during any period of natural temperature increase (and you'll note we've been exiting a particularly cold period in history).
That being said, here's how I reconcile it -> Hansen, et. al., regularly massage the data points to make these ludicrous claims, and if there was any sort of quality control, it would be obvious that temperatures have not been rising over the past 15 years. The *reason* they do this is because if they don't, the strongly held beliefs they have are refuted.
1) What is meant by natural variability?
Natural changes in the climate and weather due to known and unknown external and internal factors that change in both chaotic and cyclical ways. For example, every wild temperature change, extreme weather event, record high, record low, that every existed for the past 4.5 billion years.
2) If the record isn't broken within the next three years then I would want to understand why not.
Would you even consider that the answer to "why not" is that your original hypothesis is incorrect, and that in fact, natural variability can cause dramatic changes, in either direction, without fully understood causes because of the massive complexity and interconnectedness of weather and climate phenomena?
Why? Because it doesn't fit with your preconception otherwise? They are not my observations. This is what is being measured. Both are going up.
The problem is that the hypothesis of CO2 driven global warming asserts that temperature differentials will shrink, and the hypothesis of shrinking temperature differentials asserts that weather events will become more mild. You get to have one, or the other, not both. If you *do* have both, something is either wrong with your observation *or* something is wrong with the hypothesis.
Contrarians have been predicting for decades that the temperatures are about to fall. So far they haven't been right.
Sure they have, it all depends on what endpoints you pick. Over the past 100 years, we've had decades of warming, and decades of cooling, all during rises of CO2.
Not to mention, contrarians don't have to predict falling temperatures, all they need to do is predict *not* rising temperatures (which we've seen for the past 15 years).
This decade will be the hottest on record (just like the one before that and the one before that and the one before that), the record for hottest year will be broken within the next three years.
So this brings to mind two questions - 1) why isn't it possible that the "hottest decade on record" isn't due to natural variability, and 2) if the record for the hottest year isn't broken within the next three years, will you assume your hypothesis has been falsified, or is this a rhetorical prediction?
Good point. A faster trend for minimum temperatures is a fingerprint of warming caused by CO2, and it is what is being observed. I am not certain that we are seeing milder weather events because of this.
What you have here is a situation where it is likely that only *one* of your observations is true. Either the relative difference between daily temperatures is shrinking, and despite sensational news items on individual disasters weather is actually becoming milder overall, OR, the relative difference between daily temperatures is an artifact of bias in our measuring methodology and network, and we're really getting more extreme weather events.
Temperature has been pretty warm during the interglacial of the last 10,000 years. Civilization arose during this period of relative warmth. We are likely leaving that era of warmth.
There, FTFY - we're likely about to hit another glacial period soon, with what I predict will be dropping temperatures, more extreme weather events, and unfortunately, negative consequences for humanity. If, in fact, CO2 emissions could actually delay or avoid another glacial period, we should actually be encouraging *more* of them.
I never claimed it was a fact. Actually, I only claimed it was a corollary that was entirely dependent upon the general radiative transfer theory being correct
Your problem here is that while it is entirely dependent upon the general radiative transfer theory being correct, it is not definitively true simply because the general radiative transfer theory is correct. While general radiative transfer theory may be *necessary*, it is not *sufficient*.
He said that CO2 will have a warming forcing upon the surface temperature of the Earth. Indeed, if all else is kept equal, then that will mean an overall warming, but this was climate science at its infancy, and they couldn't have possibly imagine all of the interesting dynamic feedback mechanisms that we have since learned.
What you stated was "The temperatures of those planets and moons all match well to the theory put forth by Arrhenius. We have yet to observe a situation where the theory did not hold true."
How can you possibly assert that the average global temperature of Mars matches Arrhenius' theory, if his theory didn't account for any of the dynamic feedback mechanisms that any given planetary or sub-planetary body may have?
At first, you seem to concede that CO2 might have some influence, and that the amount of influence is up for debate (a debate you are about 100 years late for), and then you proceed to then claim that CO2 could never play a dominate role in the temperature regulation of a planet (which is patently false due to the plain evidence of Venus).
Venusian temperatures are driven by pressure, not on the basis of some CO2 concentration.
I will certainly concede that CO2 has some influence over temperature, but I will assert that it is not simply a universally positive feedback, nor one of significant magnitude to derive a signal out of natural variability. Even the flapping of a butterfly's wings in China have *some* influence over average global temperature, but it is fanciful to assume that they could be dominant over all other influences.
I'll leave you with this -> the top 10ft. of ocean water holds more energy than our entire atmosphere. If we magically *doubled* the temperature *everywhere* in the atmosphere, and then magically transferred all that energy into the ocean, by how many degrees would average ocean temperature rise?
Those "steep curves" still cover 10,000 years or more, not the few hundred of our current situation.
I strongly disagree. Those steep curves show changes as great or greater than we have seen today within the past 200 years. While the *cycle* may be 10,000 years, if you look at it, there are some very large changes within very short time periods, *especially* on the upside:
When you look 100,000 year sawtooth, that rising edge is still incredibly steep.
Using a 30 year period tends to cancel out the natural variability of known short term cyclical phenomena which gives a clearer picture of the long term trend.
The problem is that you have short, medium, and long term cyclical phenomena. Any time period you choose, be it 5, 8, 13, or 50,0000 years, is going to have natural cycles and variability.
You can't ignore the longer term natural variability cycles of course but by definition they don't change that fast.
But again, we've got cycles on every scale you can imagine, not just "less than 30 years" and "more than 1000 years". There's a wealth of natural variability in between those two lengths that you simply cannot assume will not skew any given 30 year period.
But if the temperatures you see published are derived in a consistent way then it does give a reasonable indication of how temperature is changing over time.
No, actually, it doesn't. Even if the temperatures are derived in a consistent way, if you don't have the impossible instantaneous integration of temperatures everywhere on the globe, and only have a localized subset of measuring stations, you have no idea as to whether or not your distribution of those measuring stations is giving you a false flag. Perhaps all of your measuring stations are biased towards being on land (a mere quarter of the earth's surface) - assuming that a consistent change in land based temperatures means that global temperatures must be also consistently changing when you add the SSTs is an assumption, not a given.
There are peer reviewed papers on the subject.
There are also peer reviewed paper criticizing the temperature records processed by folk like NOAA and GISS, and UEA. The appeal to authority argument doesn't convince.
CO2 amplifying the global warming effect of water vapor is no assumption.
Yes, it is an assumption. Water vapor can both warm and cool the planet, depending on its form. Simply assuming that all water vapor is a positive feedback is not only observationally wrong, but theoretically wrong.
The UHI effect has a negligible effect on global temperature.
But it has a dramatic effect on the land based temperature measurements which we assert reflect some sort of "average global temperature." I agree, we could pave the entire earth, and have a negligible effect on average global temperature, because let's face it, the atmosphere is huge, and in terms of specific heat, the oceans are orders of magnitude huger (ever wonder how something with a lower specific heat like the atmosphere can theoretically warm something with a specific heat orders of magnitude larger?).
You can't explain the temperature during any epoch of the Earth's existence without accounting for CO2.
Sure we could. We could simply say that the temperature was driven by solar output, or particular water vapor configuration (either cooling or warming), and that CO2
One thing is certain. If we change the average temperature of the Earth then we should expect more dramatic changes in various pockets of the world
I emphatically disagree. You could change the average temperature of earth by having warmer lows, and actually have *less* atmospheric differential overall, resulting in a much more mild set of weathers (and in fact, this is actually observed, with milder weather events during higher average global temps, and extreme weather events precipitated by greater regional differentials). We simply cannot assume certainty here, even if we have a plausible rationale. To be certain, we would need to have a rigorous falsifiable hypothesis to work with, and ruthlessly try to falsify it.
People who have adapted to one climate will need to adapt to another.
This has been true throughout human history, and will be true forever more. Natural climate change is a fact of life, and the assumption that *any* efforts on our part could actually *stop* climate from changing is hubris in the extreme.
What I do know is this - the reduction of poverty will greatly increase the ability of humanity to adapt, and the easiest way to do that is to get the cheapest energy possible to them.
The glaciation/deglaciation cycles of the ice age are natural variability due mostly to Milankovitch cycles which operate on scales of thousands of years and can be ignored for the purposes of this discussion.
I'm not sure if that's necessarily true - if you take a look at the cycles of ice age, they have some pretty steep curves in them that could certainly skew measurements, even if you're only taking a look at 30 years. Furthermore, I'll bet you anything that you can find 30 year periods, before the dawn of mankind going up, going down, and staying the same - simply assuming that in 30 years you get to "cancel out" natural variability just isn't supportable. Now, 30 years may be a useful benchmark in some cases, but it's certainly not any sort of guarantee that you're not seeing a statistical artifact.
Pray tell, what are some of these hundreds upon hundreds of assumptions?
How about the assumption that you can extrapolate the temperature for 1200sq mi on a single measuring station. Or the assumption that CO2 amplifies its effect through water vapor. Or the assumption that UHI is negligible.
As far as defining exactly what the current climate is, it is the statistical accumulation of daily weather observations. You can't get away from statistics in climate science.
This is certainly true, and probably why you'll never be able to determine causality here, *certainly* not based on a single driver (our giant flaming ball of gas we call Sol excepted, of course).
Huh?! There has not been cooling for the last 15 years, just warming that is slightly short of the statistical significance test. How will you feel in 5 years when a new record for the warmest year is set (probably in 2012)?
Ah, I misunderstood you -> you won't be satisfied with a lull, but only with declining temperatures. Fair enough. That being said, the whole "warmest year" thing is really a red herring -> you've been arguing about using 30 years to cancel out natural variability, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Either a single year can be seen as significant, or you require 30 years to smooth things out. You don't get to play both sides of that:)
Let me say again, there has been no lack of warming, especially when you take into account the total energy in the whole system. That includes the atmosphere, the oceans, the land surface and the cryosphere (ice).
Humanity will survive but I'll bet that half of Florida will be underwater by 2200.
I highly doubt it, but as you point out, neither of us will be there to see it.
None of the things in your list are directly caused by global warming (except maybe high temperatures) but there is a piece of global warming in them that modifies their effects (although it's tenuous at best for earthquakes, tsunami's and volcanoes).
Increases and decreases in average global temperature have exactly zero predictable effect on weather patterns. "Average global temperature" is an artifact that cannot be said, with any sort of certainty, to have any sort of specific modification on any sort of weather.
We hear that global warming will cause droughts and floods, but we can't predict where or when. What is certain is that in the past there have also been droughts and floods (as severe or more severe than any ever experienced by mankind) during periods that the global average temperature was cooler, and when the global average temperature was warmer.
Here's the problem - it's not just about whether there is global warming. Plenty of people accept that it warms sometimes and cools sometimes naturally, and simply assume that periods of warming are of natural origin. Other people may accept that it warms in response to human produced CO2 (or even just primarily CO2 in general), but assume that periods of warming are beneficial to life. Simply saying that there is statistically significant warming or not, in relation to CO2 levels, is not nearly sufficient to deal with the subject.
The discussion should not still be about whether global warming is happening, but rather about finding good solutions to deal with the problem.
We would have to first agree that global warming is a problem. There is an equally plausible theory that will assert that global warming is advantageous to the biosphere.
Depending on what your tolerance is, it is pretty much the same as any other day.
The problem is you don't even have "any other day" - we do not have a scale which works like the kilogram (i.e., the global average temperature on 1/1/1980 will be set to 0C, and everything will be stated as relative to that zero point). Our historical measurements have been with all sorts of different stations, with different qualities, and in different places (not to mention UHI). Depending on what particular surface station record you take, you can get wildly different answers. Add more than the surface and include the whole atmosphere, and you don't even have enough monitoring to get close to a reasonable calculation.
So before you can say it's "pretty much the same as any other day", you need to actually come up with the derivation for "the other day". There is no global temperature thermometer you can stick out your window to get the latest global average temperature, and certainly, simply given the CO2 in the atmosphere on a given day, you'll never be able to predict what that global average temperature is -> there are simply too many interacting variables. Calling it simple is naive.
Well, MC made the statement, "Accounting for absorption and reemission by atmospheric CO2 you arrive at the actual average temperature."
Obviously he was talking out of his hat, but his bald statement essentially asserts that CO2 is a thermometer. When pressed to actually put together a falsifiable hypothesis, he managed to do so without naming a single prediction, or a single refutation that would falsify his hypothesis. Saying that his prediction was a "certain global average temperature", without actually saying *what* that "certain" was, he patted himself thoroughly on the back, and smugly moved on without actually completing the exercise.
Now, had he attempted any reasonable sort of falsifiable hypothesis, maybe I wouldn't have asked him such blunt questions. You've done a much better job of making a statement with enough caveats to be honest (although it unfortunately avoids falsifiability with the loophole of "other unexpected influence").
I would add an additional challenge, which I think is glossed over but implied -> "if the 2050 average temperature taken as a 30 year mean is 1 degree warmer than it is today, humanity will suffer more than if it was not". We may end up agreeing on your neutral statement of years and magnitudes, but severely disagree on the implied statement.
What in blazes does the temperature in downtown Moscow this morning have to do at all with the global radiation equilibrium?
The temperature in downtown Moscow actually affects real people. The global radiation equilibrium, as stated on that level as an "average temperature" doesn't.
It's like denying that you have a fever because we just measured your body core temperature, but can't predict what the exact temperature of your left nut will be tomorrow afternoon.
Wrong. It's like asserting you have a fever because you just measured the average temperature of your house, and it was 102.5F, with 350F of that in the oven, 98.6F in your body, and otherwise it a cool 72F everywhere else. It is the distribution of temperatures that is important (say, if your body and the oven switched temperatures, we'd have a problem). The average temperature of your house, on the other hand, is meaningless.
The temperature of your left nut, and any other portion of your body isn't going to vary all that much from your body core temperature - but for the sake of argument, imagine sticking your left hand in liquid nitrogen while you have a 102F fever - are you now okay since your average body temperature is brought to 98.6?
Global average temperature is a useless metric that tells us nothing about how life is going to be experienced by anyone on this planet.
Let's be clear, bunratty stated "The falsifiable hypothesis is that an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes warming."
I think you'll agree this is not a statement of a falsifiable hypothesis. I critiqued it as meaning "CO2 is the only determining factor for global average temperature" because that's pretty much what it states. Feel free to decide how you'd like to interpret that, but if you're going to do science, you start of with a falsifiable hypothesis. That means specifying exact measures and numbers in regards to observations that will refute your hypothesis.
I haven't seen any of the three times you claim for yourself, but I'll look at your other comments and check again.
When we measure incoming long wave radiation over 1 sq. mi of land, and the outgoing long wave radiation over that same 1 sq. mi of land, do we know what the surface temperature is?
And there you have it folks - one of the real questions -> given an atmosphere of fairly large depth, what do we consider the "average global temperature"? It certainly is possible for the average global *surface* temperature to stay the same, while the upper atmosphere warms up...and I'd argue that it's also possible for the average global *surface* temperature to go up, while the corresponding average global *atmospheric* temperature goes down. Some of these distributions of heat could cause bad things to happen, and some of these distributions of heat could cause good things to happen - nobody I know of has made any sort of reliable predictions on the distributions based simply on the CO2 content in the atmosphere.
So, while the spectroscopic properties of CO2 are measurable in the lab, and we can measure incoming and outgoing long wave radiation, none of that tells you what the temperature is in downtown Moscow this morning.
He's saying that 15 years is too short a time to make a definitive statement about that. Climatologists often work with 30 year periods, long enough for the natural variability cycles to zero out.
That's a pretty bold assumption (that natural variability cycles zero out in 30 years). I'd point to recurring ice ages on the order of magnitude of tens of thousands of years as a trivial refutation of that idea.
And I read somewhere that the significance level that Phil Jones did calculate for that period was 93%. That's not significantly below 95% in my book.
Well, neither is 92%. Or 91%. Or heck, even 51% is better than even odds, right? This is the problem with non-falsifiable hypotheses and "science by statistics" - we're talking about percentages based on hundreds upon hundreds of assumptions laid upon each other. All due credit to Mr. Fermi, I've got no reason to believe that science by statistics is going to nail down actual causality.
I would say at least 20 years of cooling despite rising CO2 levels who be pretty good falsification with the caveat that there isn't a major volcanic eruption or some significant drop in solar output in that time period.
I'll see you in five years, my friend:)
That all being said, I might argue, playing devil's advocate to myself, that even if we don't have a major volcanic eruption, or a significant drop in solar output, I could blame a lack of warming on any number of ad hoc pleadings -> the heat went missing somewhere in the ocean, or cloud formation was particularly odd during that time period, or even just a larger growth of plant life and the biosphere...while we may see 20 years as pretty good evidence we're barking up the wrong tree, that might not dissuade true believers.
In the end, maybe you're right - it's just a matter of waiting it out. When doomsday doesn't come on May 21st (or rapture, or whatever they call it), then we'll wait until October. When the world is still around in October, then we'll know it's bunk. When CO2 levels keep rising for the next hundred years, and humanity survives without Florida going under water, or the Antarctic turning into a desert, we'll know CAGW is bunk. Now in the meantime, every war, disease, earthquake, flood, volcano, tsunami, hurricane, tornado, drought, high temperature, low temperature, and other natural disaster will be attributed to CAGW, but I suppose that's just the nature of the beast:)
The question still holds -> I defy anyone to assert what the average global temperature was for a given day with any meaningful accuracy, and I defy anyone to make any prediction of what the average global temperature will be for any given day, simply given the CO2 content of the atmosphere on that day. We may disagree on the specifics, but let's not be so naive as to call this whole climate thing "simple".
From that, he drew the logical conclusion that if his theory was correct, then increasing CO2 would increase surface temperatures.
That's an assertion, not a fact. Since obviously there are more players in the general greenhouse theory than simply CO2 (cloud albedo, for example), you can only really say "increasing CO2 would increase surface temperature, *all other things being kept exactly the same*". Since we know the climate system, both terrestrial and solar does not stay the same, this is hardly a useful general theory.
Arrhenius's statement of "if the quantity of carbonic acid increases in geometric progression, the augmentation of temperature will increase in nearly in arithmetic progression" is merely a corollary to the mathematical formulation he used for his theory.
Again, I think you're glossing over the "all other things being kept exactly the same". Now, what particular component of influences CO2 may have may certainly be open to discussion, but the blunt assertion that CO2, in any quantity, will overwhelm all other drivers is obviously inane.
What is your predicted average global temperature for Friday, March 20, 2011?
What is your predicted average global temperature for Saturday, March 21, 2011?
Heck, let's start of with something even simpler - What *was* the average global temperature for Thursday, March 19, 2011?
You give me your predictions, and then we'll talk about falsification. So far, you've made assertions that are completely baseless, and failed to but a number *anywhere* in your assertions (with the exception of understanding that there are two oxygen molecules in CO2).
And yes, I do speak science. You just don't seem to understand it:)
Slashdot Mirror
The fingerprint is off:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/06/another-look-at-polar-amplification/
Not necessarily. We can get better at detecting floods, and also have less of them due to natural variation.
That being said, how does a reduction in floods manage to be "consistent with" claims that warming (which has been observed), will create more floods?
I would assert that the uncertainty in a very large range, and a significant portion of that uncertainty is probably because we don't understand all of the forcings at work in our system.
Okay, I follow, but I don't think you can be certain. When both water and air are warming, it could very well be the motion of energy from the core of the earth towards the surface, and therefore the oceans, and therefore the air.
Do you have a global average temperature metric for the entire solid mass of the planet? Has there been any trend?
Known forcings being insufficient does not lead us to the conclusion that all of the rest of the warming must be driven by CO2. That's arguing that anything we don't know (which is legion), must be explained by a magical gas.
When we derive the effect of CO2 by observation, and elimination of all other known effects, we are inconsiderately ignoring unknown effects.
That doesn't follow. The assumption that unknown forcings have no measurable contribution is an assertion, not an observation. It is quite possible that we *need* them in order to *properly* explain observations, and that currently, we are *improperly* explaining observations.
Yes, I am. I also assert that it is only a minor driver of climate, whereas, if I was to infer from your argument thus far, you believe it is a major driver of climate. I would assert that the fact that we have, on every scale of observation, seen any asserted contribution of CO2 overwhelmed by other drivers (which naturally occur on every timescale), we have no reason to believe that this won't continue to happen in the future, both on the upside and the downside.
That's very optimistic of you. I tend to see most of the scientific societies and their recommendations as encumbered by institutional inertia, but here's one example of a turnaround:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/07/17/aps-edito-reverses-position-on-global-warming-cites-considerable-presence-of-skeptics/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/the-tornado-pacific-decadal-oscillation-connection/
"There are 2 main reasons why stronger tornadoes are usually associated with unseasonably cool conditions, and why there has been a decrease in strong tornadoes during a period of average warming:
1) The missing ingredient for tornado formation is not a lack of warm moist air, but a lack of synoptic (large) scale wind shear.
2) At least until recently, the positive phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) which has predominated since the late 1970’s has suppressed strong tornado activity."
Good question. The problem I have is that the "fingerprint" analogy isn't scientific. We often hear the phrase "is consistent with" when it comes to AGW, but that's a cop out. Every climate change and weather pattern "is consistent with" the hypothesis that a wrathful and arbitrary God causes all weather and climate changes - that doesn't mean that this hypothesis is true.
What I'm interested in hearing is "if you don't see this fingerprint, AGW is falsified" or "if you do see this other fingerprint, AGW is falsified". To date, about the only thing I've heard AGW proponents here on slashdot state is "if you see falling temperatures (not merely stable ones), during an increase in CO2, over the next 20 years, I'll reconsider". Now, at least that's a stick in the ground, but I'd argue that we can take a look at history and find periods of 20 years of falling temperatures, and increased CO2, therefore fulfilling that falsification request. Of course any period I cite would probably be asserted as anomalous, or require some other special pleading...which gives me even more reason to doubt the utility of any AGW hypothesis.
Sounds like our detection rate of floods and cyclones has improved faster than our detection rate of earthquakes. See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/19/why-it-seems-that-severe-weather-is-getting-worse-when-the-data-shows-otherwise-a-historical-perspective/
The question is, by how much, and how does that compare to other drivers (such as the ocean). We know from physics that the gulf stream current, which drives warm water towards england, increases atmospheric temperatures there. Would we assume that it is the warm atmosphere around england that drives the current?
We have a concrete example here of water warming air. Why can't that also be true on a global scale? Does the interaction of water and air change based on region? If so, what causes this change in behavior?
It is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis to posit that the ocean heating up causes the atmosphere to heat up. As to the question "where does the energy for the ocean to heat up come from?", you can posit tidal forces, undersea volcanoes, and even incoming solar energy not blocked by clouds or other atmospheric molecules. No need to violate any laws of thermodynamics here at all.
Now, how would you falsify this hypothesis? I might suggest an experiment where you take a ratio of water to air similar to the ratio of ocean water to atmospheric content, and try to heat the air to warm the water, and try to heat the water to warm the air, and observe the effects.
You're missing the corollary: Heating up the system will not necessarily distribute the heat in a predictable w
I believe the prevailing AGW hypothesis proposes greater warming at the poles than the equator, leading to decreased spatial differentials.
I don't think you have accurate facts there. The fact is that diurnal temperature differential, particularly around urban areas, is decreasing. The fact is that severe weather events have not shown any increase or decrease trend over the past few hundred years, although with more development along costal areas we have had more humans affected by them.
You're making an assertion that could go either way. An increase in temperature of the atmosphere can be *caused* by increased temperatures of oceans. We certainly observe this with warm currents moderating the climate around the UK...or are you suggesting that the warm air around London is what actually causes the current to be warm?
I'm not suggesting that at all. What I am suggesting is that an increase in atmospheric heat can be the result of heat exchange, and external influences, not merely a greenhouse effect. That heat can come from tidal forces, the internal heat of the earth, solar heating of the oceans when cloud cover allows direct sunlight to heat the water, etc, etc. This isn't a matter a free heat, this is a matter of specific distribution.
There are certainly cycles that are between those, even if we haven't identified them all. We cannot simply assume that the only natural cycles are ENSO, solar, and Milankovitch.
Except we don't have that. CO2 hasn't increased at a geometric rate sufficient to overwhelm it's logarithmic effect. Counting all other GHGs is based on the assumption that all of them are *caused* by CO2, and causality here is not determined.
I see the disconnect -> we're talking about different time periods. Specifically, 2010 was tied with 2005, which shows no statistically significant increase in temperature over the past 15 years. That being said, there is no doubt that throughout the 20th century, there was an increase in temperatures, which will make "the hottest decade ever" a fairly meaningless statistic. The challenge to CAGW is this -> while temperatures have refused to budge, CO2 has continued to rise.
So perhaps I would have been better off to say, "The temperature is not always increasing, even though CO2 emissions are."
Well, Hansen's global temps versus the US sited temps aside, isn't that what scientists are *supposed* to do?
Can you give me an example of a single global warming believer who changed their theory when the data didn't match? :)
Let me restate - while water vapor is necessary for thunderstorms, extreme weather events, including those without precipitation, such as tornadoes, are driven by pressure and temperature differentials. Reducing those differentials should lead to milder weather, not more extreme weather.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/05/todays-tornado-outlook-high-risk-of-global-warming-hype/
Properly stated, ocean surface temperature has always changed:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png
And even dropped in the presence of ever higher CO2 concentrations. That all being said, why would we assume that the atmosphere is driving ocean temperatures, rather than the other way around? The heat content of the ocean outweighing the heat content of the entire atmosphere by over 4000:1 seems to be an indication that if were were to look for *causes*, they would be oceanic rather than atmospheric. As examples, see PDO, ENSO, ADO, etc.
Why would we assume that a trend of 30 years or more eliminates any trends caused by natural variables?
I'm not sure how you can say that. The logarithmic rate will always limit any linear progression (which, if you look at atmospheric CO2 levels, is what we've been experiencing). Only a geometric progression (and a steep one at that), would "make up" for the logarithmic rate.
I'm not sure you are. I believe your point is "the temperature is increasing *and* it's because of human produced CO2". On any given time scale, understanding that climate naturally changes, I could agree with the first one (and it's corollary "the temperature is decreasing").
Put another way, it seems that the presence of a "hottest year ever" indicates to you that it must be so because of artificial influences on the climate, rather than just a statistical artifact that we see during points of warming throughout earth's history. Because the "hottest year ever" is necessary for the CAGW hypothesis to be correct, it is subject to a great deal of data massaging - but let's not mistake *necessary* for *sufficient*.
And on the scale that matters to me and my neighbors, we have been seeing dropping temperatures. While granted, regional temperatures can buck the trend of any artificial "global average temperature", it also brings up the distinct possibility that the "hottest year ever" is simply a statistical artifact, and a politically motivated one at that.
They can adjust their global average temperature to whatever they want, but they can't stop it from being colder all across the US, and other places around the world where people actually live and experience the weather. I wouldn't go so far as to say we can definitively detect a global average trend one way or the other -> the whole sensor station network for global temperatures is woefully lacking for any sort of confidence.
Interesting paper, looks like it was a bit premature though:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/27/rumours-of-my-death-have-been-greatly-exaggerated/
"Menne et al 2010 mentioned a “counterintuitive” cooling trend in some portions of the data. Interestingly enough, former California State Climatologist James Goodridge did an independent analysis ( I wasn’t involved in data crunchng, it was a sole effort on his part) of COOP stations in California that had gone through modernization, switching from Stevenson Screens with mercury LIG thermometers to MMTS electronic thermometers. He sifted through about 500 COOPs in California and chose stations that had at least 60 years of uninterrupted data, because as we know, a station move can cause all sorts of issues. He used the “raw” data from these stations as opposed to adjusted data.
He writes:
Hi Anthony,
I found 58 temperature station in California with data for 1949 to 2008 and where the thermometers had been changed to MMTS and the earlier parts were liquid in glass. The average for the earlier part was 59.17F and the MMTS fraction averaged 60.07F.
Jim
A 0.9F (0.5C) warmer offset due to modernization is significant, yet NCDC insists that the MMTS units are tested at about 0.05C cooler. I believe they add this adjustment into the final data. Our experience shows the exact opposite should be done and with a greater magnitude."
Nothing needs to be magical for us not to know enough about what causes a given behavior in a chaotic system. Admitting that we don't know the reasons for something is humility; asserting that anything we can't explain must be caused by a magical gas called CO2 is hubris.
Actually, that's *exactly* what most climate scientists (and anyone trying to get on the global warming gravy train) does. You start with the assumption that anthropogenic CO2 is the explanation for any unexplained warming. You then look for evidence to support that assumption. Any evidence found contrary to that assumption is discarded.
They don't have a scientific argument if they don't have a falsifiable hypothesis. Simply looking for additional data points to confirm original assumptions isn't science -> ruthlessly looking for *any* possible refutation of your hypothesis is.
Less than a year's worth of data, and we're supposed to come to conclusions about climate and cycles that can happen over decades, centuries and even millennia?
I'd say it's effectively infinite, given the 4000+ to 1 ratio of heat capacity of the oceans to the atmosphere. An order of magnitude really does mean something here.
I'm not sure why we would assume that only above ground volcanoes can affect climate...certainly, the aerosol effects of ash are relatively short lived, and the heat fro
You're making the assumption that the 10 degrees of rise was regular and even. As for 1C in less than 200 years, we've seen this during the MWP, when human CO2 emissions were negligible.
Here, check this out:
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/moberg-last-1000-550x388.png
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2011/04/2000-years-of-rate-of-temperature-change/
"Several items stick out to me.
Ten times in the past 1,000 years the rate of warming has been significant for at least a 50 year period.
The most extended period of warming was during the 1700s when warming happened for almost the entire 100 year period.
Since 1600, the rate of cooling has never been below -0.005 C/yr. In effect, the strong cooling took place prior to 1600 AD.
The strongest cooling was in 1440 when the 50 yr rate was -0.0141 C/yr.
So in the past 400 years the rates of cooling been lower than average, but such periods have happened before. The net result is that the modern warm temperatures have been 400 years in the making, not 40 years. Absolutely nothing in the past 100 years is abnormal in the rate of temperature change."
That's ludicrous. We can, with great certainty, assert that there are natural cycles we don't know about yet. In fact, we could probably go so far as to say with great certainty that there are *significant* natural cycles we don't know about yet. Simply attributing every observation to our prime suspect, anthropogenic CO2, rather than the null hypothesis of "we don't know what drove that", is unsupportable.
Which is particularly problematic, given that most of the earth is not land. Constructing, or reconstructing, a temperature record that does not include 2/3rds of the earth's surface seems, on its face, insufficient.
My apologies, you're correct, it is water vapor available for cloud formation that I was referring to. That all being said, the effect of clouds, and the distribution (both contemporary and historical) of clouds is *completely* uncertain.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/10/06/aerosols-and-cloud-lifetime-effect-cited-as-enormous-uncertainty-in-global-radiation-balance/
"To date, however, it has not been possible to quantify the influence of the cloud lifetime effect on climate. The estimates vary hugely and range from no influence whatsoever to a cooling effect that is sufficient to more than compensate for the heating effect of carbon dioxide."
I'd love to see t
Except it's not water vapor that causes extreme weather events, it's large temperature differentials (those "LOW" and "HIGH" pressure areas during the weather report).
As for "greater heat content in the ocean", I think you vastly underestimate just how much heat capacity the oceans have versus the atmosphere. The *entire* energy contained in the *entire* atmosphere matches about 10ft of depth of the ocean. You could *double* the temperature of the atmosphere, transfer that into the ocean, and it would only heat up another 20ft of water.
Conversely, if the ocean transferred a mere *fraction* of its energy into the atmosphere, we could raise the temperature of the atmosphere significantly above anything imaginable.
The trend clearly hasn't accelerated over the past 15 years of increased CO2, and any trend you could possibly discern from CO2 is overwhelmed by all the other natural variables (not to mention, CO2 has an upper limit of effect, and has a log function of effect, diminishing as it gets higher).
The problem is that the "hottest year on record" metric is an artifact with no meaning. It's a single point that you'll see over and over again during any period of natural temperature increase. By the same token, "hottest decade on record" also has no meaning - you'll see that over and over again during any period of natural temperature increase (and you'll note we've been exiting a particularly cold period in history).
That being said, here's how I reconcile it -> Hansen, et. al., regularly massage the data points to make these ludicrous claims, and if there was any sort of quality control, it would be obvious that temperatures have not been rising over the past 15 years. The *reason* they do this is because if they don't, the strongly held beliefs they have are refuted.
Natural changes in the climate and weather due to known and unknown external and internal factors that change in both chaotic and cyclical ways. For example, every wild temperature change, extreme weather event, record high, record low, that every existed for the past 4.5 billion years.
Would you even consider that the answer to "why not" is that your original hypothesis is incorrect, and that in fact, natural variability can cause dramatic changes, in either direction, without fully understood causes because of the massive complexity and interconnectedness of weather and climate phenomena?
The problem is that the hypothesis of CO2 driven global warming asserts that temperature differentials will shrink, and the hypothesis of shrinking temperature differentials asserts that weather events will become more mild. You get to have one, or the other, not both. If you *do* have both, something is either wrong with your observation *or* something is wrong with the hypothesis.
Sure they have, it all depends on what endpoints you pick. Over the past 100 years, we've had decades of warming, and decades of cooling, all during rises of CO2.
Not to mention, contrarians don't have to predict falling temperatures, all they need to do is predict *not* rising temperatures (which we've seen for the past 15 years).
So this brings to mind two questions - 1) why isn't it possible that the "hottest decade on record" isn't due to natural variability, and 2) if the record for the hottest year isn't broken within the next three years, will you assume your hypothesis has been falsified, or is this a rhetorical prediction?
What you have here is a situation where it is likely that only *one* of your observations is true. Either the relative difference between daily temperatures is shrinking, and despite sensational news items on individual disasters weather is actually becoming milder overall, OR, the relative difference between daily temperatures is an artifact of bias in our measuring methodology and network, and we're really getting more extreme weather events.
There, FTFY - we're likely about to hit another glacial period soon, with what I predict will be dropping temperatures, more extreme weather events, and unfortunately, negative consequences for humanity. If, in fact, CO2 emissions could actually delay or avoid another glacial period, we should actually be encouraging *more* of them.
Your problem here is that while it is entirely dependent upon the general radiative transfer theory being correct, it is not definitively true simply because the general radiative transfer theory is correct. While general radiative transfer theory may be *necessary*, it is not *sufficient*.
What you stated was "The temperatures of those planets and moons all match well to the theory put forth by Arrhenius. We have yet to observe a situation where the theory did not hold true."
How can you possibly assert that the average global temperature of Mars matches Arrhenius' theory, if his theory didn't account for any of the dynamic feedback mechanisms that any given planetary or sub-planetary body may have?
Venusian temperatures are driven by pressure, not on the basis of some CO2 concentration.
I will certainly concede that CO2 has some influence over temperature, but I will assert that it is not simply a universally positive feedback, nor one of significant magnitude to derive a signal out of natural variability. Even the flapping of a butterfly's wings in China have *some* influence over average global temperature, but it is fanciful to assume that they could be dominant over all other influences.
I'll leave you with this -> the top 10ft. of ocean water holds more energy than our entire atmosphere. If we magically *doubled* the temperature *everywhere* in the atmosphere, and then magically transferred all that energy into the ocean, by how many degrees would average ocean temperature rise?
I strongly disagree. Those steep curves show changes as great or greater than we have seen today within the past 200 years. While the *cycle* may be 10,000 years, if you look at it, there are some very large changes within very short time periods, *especially* on the upside:
http://home.austarnet.com.au/~yours/Vostok%20Ice%20Core%20Global%20CO2.gif
http://home.austarnet.com.au/~yours/Vostok%20Ice%20Core%20Global%20Tempertatures.gif
When you look 100,000 year sawtooth, that rising edge is still incredibly steep.
The problem is that you have short, medium, and long term cyclical phenomena. Any time period you choose, be it 5, 8, 13, or 50,0000 years, is going to have natural cycles and variability.
But again, we've got cycles on every scale you can imagine, not just "less than 30 years" and "more than 1000 years". There's a wealth of natural variability in between those two lengths that you simply cannot assume will not skew any given 30 year period.
No, actually, it doesn't. Even if the temperatures are derived in a consistent way, if you don't have the impossible instantaneous integration of temperatures everywhere on the globe, and only have a localized subset of measuring stations, you have no idea as to whether or not your distribution of those measuring stations is giving you a false flag. Perhaps all of your measuring stations are biased towards being on land (a mere quarter of the earth's surface) - assuming that a consistent change in land based temperatures means that global temperatures must be also consistently changing when you add the SSTs is an assumption, not a given.
There are also peer reviewed paper criticizing the temperature records processed by folk like NOAA and GISS, and UEA. The appeal to authority argument doesn't convince.
Yes, it is an assumption. Water vapor can both warm and cool the planet, depending on its form. Simply assuming that all water vapor is a positive feedback is not only observationally wrong, but theoretically wrong.
But it has a dramatic effect on the land based temperature measurements which we assert reflect some sort of "average global temperature." I agree, we could pave the entire earth, and have a negligible effect on average global temperature, because let's face it, the atmosphere is huge, and in terms of specific heat, the oceans are orders of magnitude huger (ever wonder how something with a lower specific heat like the atmosphere can theoretically warm something with a specific heat orders of magnitude larger?).
Sure we could. We could simply say that the temperature was driven by solar output, or particular water vapor configuration (either cooling or warming), and that CO2
I emphatically disagree. You could change the average temperature of earth by having warmer lows, and actually have *less* atmospheric differential overall, resulting in a much more mild set of weathers (and in fact, this is actually observed, with milder weather events during higher average global temps, and extreme weather events precipitated by greater regional differentials). We simply cannot assume certainty here, even if we have a plausible rationale. To be certain, we would need to have a rigorous falsifiable hypothesis to work with, and ruthlessly try to falsify it.
This has been true throughout human history, and will be true forever more. Natural climate change is a fact of life, and the assumption that *any* efforts on our part could actually *stop* climate from changing is hubris in the extreme.
What I do know is this - the reduction of poverty will greatly increase the ability of humanity to adapt, and the easiest way to do that is to get the cheapest energy possible to them.
I'm not sure if that's necessarily true - if you take a look at the cycles of ice age, they have some pretty steep curves in them that could certainly skew measurements, even if you're only taking a look at 30 years. Furthermore, I'll bet you anything that you can find 30 year periods, before the dawn of mankind going up, going down, and staying the same - simply assuming that in 30 years you get to "cancel out" natural variability just isn't supportable. Now, 30 years may be a useful benchmark in some cases, but it's certainly not any sort of guarantee that you're not seeing a statistical artifact.
How about the assumption that you can extrapolate the temperature for 1200sq mi on a single measuring station. Or the assumption that CO2 amplifies its effect through water vapor. Or the assumption that UHI is negligible.
This is certainly true, and probably why you'll never be able to determine causality here, *certainly* not based on a single driver (our giant flaming ball of gas we call Sol excepted, of course).
Ah, I misunderstood you -> you won't be satisfied with a lull, but only with declining temperatures. Fair enough. That being said, the whole "warmest year" thing is really a red herring -> you've been arguing about using 30 years to cancel out natural variability, and what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Either a single year can be seen as significant, or you require 30 years to smooth things out. You don't get to play both sides of that :)
You're kidding me, right? Here's oceans for you:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/10/bottom-falling-out-of-global-ocean-surface-temperatures/
I highly doubt it, but as you point out, neither of us will be there to see it.
Increases and decreases in average global temperature have exactly zero predictable effect on weather patterns. "Average global temperature" is an artifact that cannot be said, with any sort of certainty, to have any sort of specific modification on any sort of weather.
We hear that global warming will cause droughts and floods, but we can't predict where or when. What is certain is that in the past there have also been droughts and floods (as severe or more severe than any ever experienced by mankind) during periods that the global average temperature was cooler, and when the global average temperature was warmer.
Any assertion of a relationship betwe
Here's the problem - it's not just about whether there is global warming. Plenty of people accept that it warms sometimes and cools sometimes naturally, and simply assume that periods of warming are of natural origin. Other people may accept that it warms in response to human produced CO2 (or even just primarily CO2 in general), but assume that periods of warming are beneficial to life. Simply saying that there is statistically significant warming or not, in relation to CO2 levels, is not nearly sufficient to deal with the subject.
We would have to first agree that global warming is a problem. There is an equally plausible theory that will assert that global warming is advantageous to the biosphere.
The problem is you don't even have "any other day" - we do not have a scale which works like the kilogram (i.e., the global average temperature on 1/1/1980 will be set to 0C, and everything will be stated as relative to that zero point). Our historical measurements have been with all sorts of different stations, with different qualities, and in different places (not to mention UHI). Depending on what particular surface station record you take, you can get wildly different answers. Add more than the surface and include the whole atmosphere, and you don't even have enough monitoring to get close to a reasonable calculation.
So before you can say it's "pretty much the same as any other day", you need to actually come up with the derivation for "the other day". There is no global temperature thermometer you can stick out your window to get the latest global average temperature, and certainly, simply given the CO2 in the atmosphere on a given day, you'll never be able to predict what that global average temperature is -> there are simply too many interacting variables. Calling it simple is naive.
Well, MC made the statement, "Accounting for absorption and reemission by atmospheric CO2 you arrive at the actual average temperature."
Obviously he was talking out of his hat, but his bald statement essentially asserts that CO2 is a thermometer. When pressed to actually put together a falsifiable hypothesis, he managed to do so without naming a single prediction, or a single refutation that would falsify his hypothesis. Saying that his prediction was a "certain global average temperature", without actually saying *what* that "certain" was, he patted himself thoroughly on the back, and smugly moved on without actually completing the exercise.
Now, had he attempted any reasonable sort of falsifiable hypothesis, maybe I wouldn't have asked him such blunt questions. You've done a much better job of making a statement with enough caveats to be honest (although it unfortunately avoids falsifiability with the loophole of "other unexpected influence").
I would add an additional challenge, which I think is glossed over but implied -> "if the 2050 average temperature taken as a 30 year mean is 1 degree warmer than it is today, humanity will suffer more than if it was not". We may end up agreeing on your neutral statement of years and magnitudes, but severely disagree on the implied statement.
The temperature in downtown Moscow actually affects real people. The global radiation equilibrium, as stated on that level as an "average temperature" doesn't.
Wrong. It's like asserting you have a fever because you just measured the average temperature of your house, and it was 102.5F, with 350F of that in the oven, 98.6F in your body, and otherwise it a cool 72F everywhere else. It is the distribution of temperatures that is important (say, if your body and the oven switched temperatures, we'd have a problem). The average temperature of your house, on the other hand, is meaningless.
The temperature of your left nut, and any other portion of your body isn't going to vary all that much from your body core temperature - but for the sake of argument, imagine sticking your left hand in liquid nitrogen while you have a 102F fever - are you now okay since your average body temperature is brought to 98.6?
Global average temperature is a useless metric that tells us nothing about how life is going to be experienced by anyone on this planet.
Let's be clear, bunratty stated "The falsifiable hypothesis is that an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes warming."
I think you'll agree this is not a statement of a falsifiable hypothesis. I critiqued it as meaning "CO2 is the only determining factor for global average temperature" because that's pretty much what it states. Feel free to decide how you'd like to interpret that, but if you're going to do science, you start of with a falsifiable hypothesis. That means specifying exact measures and numbers in regards to observations that will refute your hypothesis.
I haven't seen any of the three times you claim for yourself, but I'll look at your other comments and check again.
When we measure incoming long wave radiation over 1 sq. mi of land, and the outgoing long wave radiation over that same 1 sq. mi of land, do we know what the surface temperature is?
And there you have it folks - one of the real questions -> given an atmosphere of fairly large depth, what do we consider the "average global temperature"? It certainly is possible for the average global *surface* temperature to stay the same, while the upper atmosphere warms up...and I'd argue that it's also possible for the average global *surface* temperature to go up, while the corresponding average global *atmospheric* temperature goes down. Some of these distributions of heat could cause bad things to happen, and some of these distributions of heat could cause good things to happen - nobody I know of has made any sort of reliable predictions on the distributions based simply on the CO2 content in the atmosphere.
So, while the spectroscopic properties of CO2 are measurable in the lab, and we can measure incoming and outgoing long wave radiation, none of that tells you what the temperature is in downtown Moscow this morning.
That's a pretty bold assumption (that natural variability cycles zero out in 30 years). I'd point to recurring ice ages on the order of magnitude of tens of thousands of years as a trivial refutation of that idea.
Well, neither is 92%. Or 91%. Or heck, even 51% is better than even odds, right? This is the problem with non-falsifiable hypotheses and "science by statistics" - we're talking about percentages based on hundreds upon hundreds of assumptions laid upon each other. All due credit to Mr. Fermi, I've got no reason to believe that science by statistics is going to nail down actual causality.
I'll see you in five years, my friend :)
That all being said, I might argue, playing devil's advocate to myself, that even if we don't have a major volcanic eruption, or a significant drop in solar output, I could blame a lack of warming on any number of ad hoc pleadings -> the heat went missing somewhere in the ocean, or cloud formation was particularly odd during that time period, or even just a larger growth of plant life and the biosphere...while we may see 20 years as pretty good evidence we're barking up the wrong tree, that might not dissuade true believers.
In the end, maybe you're right - it's just a matter of waiting it out. When doomsday doesn't come on May 21st (or rapture, or whatever they call it), then we'll wait until October. When the world is still around in October, then we'll know it's bunk. When CO2 levels keep rising for the next hundred years, and humanity survives without Florida going under water, or the Antarctic turning into a desert, we'll know CAGW is bunk. Now in the meantime, every war, disease, earthquake, flood, volcano, tsunami, hurricane, tornado, drought, high temperature, low temperature, and other natural disaster will be attributed to CAGW, but I suppose that's just the nature of the beast :)
Ha! Nice catch! :% s/March/May/g
The question still holds -> I defy anyone to assert what the average global temperature was for a given day with any meaningful accuracy, and I defy anyone to make any prediction of what the average global temperature will be for any given day, simply given the CO2 content of the atmosphere on that day. We may disagree on the specifics, but let's not be so naive as to call this whole climate thing "simple".
That's an assertion, not a fact. Since obviously there are more players in the general greenhouse theory than simply CO2 (cloud albedo, for example), you can only really say "increasing CO2 would increase surface temperature, *all other things being kept exactly the same*". Since we know the climate system, both terrestrial and solar does not stay the same, this is hardly a useful general theory.
Again, I think you're glossing over the "all other things being kept exactly the same". Now, what particular component of influences CO2 may have may certainly be open to discussion, but the blunt assertion that CO2, in any quantity, will overwhelm all other drivers is obviously inane.
Ha!
What is your predicted average global temperature for Friday, March 20, 2011?
What is your predicted average global temperature for Saturday, March 21, 2011?
Heck, let's start of with something even simpler - What *was* the average global temperature for Thursday, March 19, 2011?
You give me your predictions, and then we'll talk about falsification. So far, you've made assertions that are completely baseless, and failed to but a number *anywhere* in your assertions (with the exception of understanding that there are two oxygen molecules in CO2).
And yes, I do speak science. You just don't seem to understand it :)