Why I think Climate Change Denial is little more than pseudoscience.

[Wild Cobra]

You'll think twice if you read this:

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2011GL050762.shtml
Even if that modeling is correct, we cave normal long term cycles. Do you honestly think we should be alarmed?

[MannyIsGod]

Who said anything about being alarmed? Go back to telling us how the ocean is the source of the CO2 even though its a net sink, soda boy.

[MannyIsGod]

I'll wait for the real data

:lol

No, you'll wait for what you're told to believe.

[RandomGuy]

I wouldn't say any of them are strong. Otherwise, there'd be no reason to be a skeptic.

That is not what I asked.

That is a weasel answer though, and fitting with the OP. Yet again, you have my gratitude, but I think you have quite thoroughly proved the OP, so you can stop now.

I will ask again,

What do you think the strongest arguments of the people putting forth the AGW theory are?

[Wild Cobra]

I hope you get to live long enough to see it.

I notice neither you nor WC have stated what you think the strongest aspects of the IPCC report are.

I will put the same question to you:

What do you think the strongest arguments of the people putting forth the AGW theory are?
I don't see anything strong in the IPCC reporting in their AR4. I have done less reading of FAR, SAR, and TAR. In my opinion, they have focused on greenhouse gasses being the cause of warming when later admitting that soot is a far stronger influence than reported in AR4. Nobody has yet been able to convince me that politics has not hijacked the Climatologist community.

I have repeatedly pointed out that Peer reviewing in climatology has no merit in many scientists minds. They use a closed rather than open peer review process.

So many of the scientific material I have read from the AWG train of thought comes to conclusions without even considering some key variables. This invalidates the findings. It is known as "peer review failure." Solar for example has increased in the neighborhood of 0.18% during the studied time frame of the IPCC reports. Feedback systems are near linear so the forcing should be near linear in the total solar forcing impact. the IPCC uses trickery that most people don't spot in honestly stating their assigned vales for solar forcing are "direct," then never define the indirect values, which they hide in the other values. With a total radiative downforce of IR from the greenhouse effect, this small 0.18% becomes about 0.6 watts/square meter of indirect solar forcing in greenhouse gasses alone. Add that to the other indirect and direct increase, and you have almost 1 watt/sq meter of added forcing from the sun alone. The AR4 claims a total forcing increase since 1750 of 1.6 watts/sq meter. Soot, or black carbon has also been upwards revised in impact from not only the scientific community, but the IPCC as well. This either leaves very little for the greenhouse effect increase, or there are more cooling effects happening, our our temperature is greater than we have measured.

[Wild Cobra]

Who said anything about being alarmed? Go back to telling us how the ocean is the source of the CO2 even though its a net sink, soda boy.
As I pointed out in a recent post. The ocean is a net sink. I do not disagree and have never said otherwise, unless I had a typo somewhere. The point you seem not to accept is that the warming of the ocean would cause it to be a net source, if the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere has not increased by mankinds activity. If the ocean has not increased in temperature, it probably would have absorbed around 98% of the CO2 we have put in the atmosphere rather than only about 40%. I have said somewhere in the past that if mankind did not add CO2 to the atmosphere, that we will still have almost as much CO2 in the air due to ocean warming. That the oceans would retain less of a ration of the total between the ocean and atmosphere, and then... only then... the ocean become a net source.

These claims are conditional, and you cannot intermix them as you see fit.

I challenge you to search past posts for when I originally made the claims you and Fuzzy are poorly recounting now.

I think you need a refresher on Henry's law and how temperature effects solubility.

[Wild Cobra]

That is not what I asked.

That is a weasel answer though, and fitting with the OP. Yet again, you have my gratitude, but I think you have quite thoroughly proved the OP, so you can stop now.

I will ask again,

What do you think the strongest arguments of the people putting forth the AGW theory are?
That's like selecting a bunch of "C" average students from a school, and asking which is the honor student. Maybe you should as a better question for a better answer.

[MannyIsGod]

Actually its like asking a parts changer what his unprofessional opinion on scientific matters he doesn't understand is and expecting an actual worthwhile answer. I agree, though. You're never going to get a good answer in that scenario.

[Wild Cobra]

Actually its like asking a parts changer what his unprofessional opinion on scientific matters he doesn't understand is and expecting an actual worthwhile answer. I agree, though. You're never going to get a good answer in that scenario.
Just because I'm not a college educated idiot like you, doesn't mean I don't comprehend such things.

Is your work vocation the only thing you are good at?

I mess up on the terminology quite a bit. However, I do understand how things work at these levels. It's been well over 30 years since I have had any formal scientific training, so keep that in mind when I do foul up in terminology.

That said... I am "old school." We actually had to actually comprehend instead of recite like they teach today. I always had Strait A's in all technical fields I studied.

[MannyIsGod]

You don't comprehend it, WC. Its quite clear you don't. Which is why its hilarious when you try to act as if you get it better than the PhDs who put together the science behind this. You're very good for amusement value.

[DarrinS]

That is not what I asked.

That is a weasel answer though, and fitting with the OP. Yet again, you have my gratitude, but I think you have quite thoroughly proved the OP, so you can stop now.

I will ask again,

What do you think the strongest arguments of the people putting forth the AGW theory are?



CO2 is a greenhouse gas (given).

CO2 makes up about 0.039% of the atmosphere by volume.
Humans contribute 3%-4% of that 0.039% by burning fossil fuels, etc.
It has warmed 1 degree in a century -- and humans have increased CO2 emissions during the same period.
Therefore, humans have caused the warming.


Like I said, I don't think it's particularly strong.

[MannyIsGod]

Why? Considering there are direct measurements of the CO2's IR emissions and behavior shouldn't you have to do something to actually show why its a weak case? While you're at it, can you explain how the earth's surface temp is so much higher than its emission temp if its not due to CO2?

[Wild Cobra]

Why? Considering there are direct measurements of the CO2's IR emissions and behavior shouldn't you have to do something to actually show why its a weak case? While you're at it, can you explain how the earth's surface temp is so much higher than its emission temp if its not due to CO2?
For CO2 to be the cause, the CO2 only spectra increase would have to be more than 5 times greater than the emissions of water only spectra.

Of course the IR emissions have increased. Temperature has, so radiative forcing measurements will show that.

Can you point out a study that backs up your claim by successfully comparing changes in forcing source types?

[Wild Cobra]

You don't comprehend it, WC. Its quite clear you don't. Which is why its hilarious when you try to act as if you get it better than the PhDs who put together the science behind this. You're very good for amusement value.
Then why isn't there true consensus? are the PHD's who disagree with the alarmist point of view also lack such comprehension?

[MannyIsGod]

For CO2 to be the cause, the CO2 only spectra increase would have to be more than 5 times greater than the emissions of water only spectra.

Of course the IR emissions have increased. Temperature has, so radiative forcing measurements will show that.

Can you point out a study that backs up your claim by successfully comparing changes in forcing source types?

Do you even know what I'm talking about when I said the earth's emission temp? (I know you don't, rhetorical question) In any event, I wasn't talking about IR emissions, but since you bring that up...

Outward IR emissions haven't gone up as much as they should. No shit they've gone up, but the point is they haven't gone up as much as they should have. Know where the shortfall is? In the bands covered by CO2 (and other GHG). Why? Because its not leaving the system, its coming back down.

If you removed all of the CO2 in the atmosphere we'd be a frozen planet. Water can't keep the planet warm enough via GHE of its vapor the amount of vapor is a function of the temp of the air.

I can provide you the links to DOZENS of studies regarding any of these subjects. Climate sensitivty, GHG IR emissions, the GHG effect in general.

[MannyIsGod]

Then why isn't there true consensus? are the PHD's who disagree with the alarmist point of view also lack such comprehension?

:lol @ no true consensus. There are a multitude of reasons why not everyone agrees but to say there is no consensus is flat out laughable. Whether its money from the oil and gas lobby or simple bad science I don't think the bar ever needs to be to convince everyone considering that is impossible.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686#
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract

[Wild Cobra]

While you're at it, can you explain how the earth's surface temp is so much higher than its emission temp if its not due to CO2?
I can explain probable reasons, and have in the past. You dismissed them before, and you will again. As long as you focus on CO2, you will not accept other things.

In the long term scheme of things, equilibrium will prevail. The total energy coming in to the earth will equal the total energy out.

You keep using short term figures when it suits your point of view, then dismiss short term data when you disagree with it.

How about being honest for once. Do you really think a few decades of information illustrates a comprehensive look, when natural cycles are longer?

[Wild Cobra]

Then why isn't there true consensus? are the PHD's who disagree with the alarmist point of view also lack such comprehension?

[MannyIsGod]

:lol @ no true consensus. There are a multitude of reasons why not everyone agrees but to say there is no consensus is flat out laughable. Whether its money from the oil and gas lobby or simple bad science I don't think the bar ever needs to be to convince everyone considering that is impossible.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686#
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract

[MannyIsGod]

I can explain probable reasons, and have in the past. You dismissed them before, and you will again. As long as you focus on CO2, you will not accept other things.

In the long term scheme of things, equilibrium will prevail. The total energy coming in to the earth will equal the total energy out.

You keep using short term figures when it suits your point of view, then dismiss short term data when you disagree with it.

How about being honest for once. Do you really think a few decades of information illustrates a comprehensive look, when natural cycles are longer?


Oh you can spew explanations that make seem to make sense to you with your piss poor understanding of the science but that doesn't make them any more true.

I accept short term observations on much simpler systems readily. A molecule of CO2 doesn't need to be observed over 30 years to understand how it remits energy. Keep going, you're really showing us how much you comprehend here. Now you're equating molecular behavior with the behavior of the Earth's climate system. Nice!

[Wild Cobra]

Stop with the word games asshole. I said there was no true consensus. It is not a collective agreement among climatologists, but only a consensus of the majority.

A scientific consensus is not science.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Stop with the word games asshole. I said there was no true consensus. It is not a collective agreement among climatologists, but only a consensus of the majority.

A scientific consensus is not science.

Well i see you gave up on actually discussing the science behind EM radiation as a measurement of system energy I/O. You still suck at dissembling.

[Wild Cobra]

I accept short term observations on much simpler systems readily. A molecule of CO2 doesn't need to be observed over 30 years to understand how it remits energy. Keep going, you're really showing us how much you comprehend here. Now you're equating molecular behavior with the behavior of the Earth's climate system. Nice!
I never claimed it isn't a greenhouse gas. I only disagree to the degree yourself and other alarmists wish to claim.

Can you show me a study that used a long fixed enclosure with accurate atmospheric mixes, only changing the CO2 levels from 280 ppm to higher levels, and read radiative forcing changes?

All studies I am aware of that use accurate measurement, have increased the levels of CO2 in the mix to a point that is unreal. Molecular spacing makes a difference. Without doing such experiments in real conditions, the experiment has flaws.

[MannyIsGod]

:lol @ no true consensus. There are a multitude of reasons why not everyone agrees but to say there is no consensus is flat out laughable. Whether its money from the oil and gas lobby or simple bad science I don't think the bar ever needs to be to convince everyone considering that is impossible.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686#
http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.abstract

Oh I'm sorry, WC. You apparently missed this the first two times around.

[Wild Cobra]

Oh I'm sorry, WC. You apparently missed this the first two times around.
No, I didn't read them at all. Your record of posting good links is pretty bad. You expect someone to read long stuff, without pointing out the relevant parts.

[MannyIsGod]

I never claimed it isn't a greenhouse gas. I only disagree to the degree yourself and other alarmists wish to claim.

Can you show me a study that used a long fixed enclosure with accurate atmospheric mixes, only changing the CO2 levels from 280 ppm to higher levels, and read radiative forcing changes?

All studies I am aware of that use accurate measurement, have increased the levels of CO2 in the mix to a point that is unreal. Molecular spacing makes a difference. Without doing such experiments in real conditions, the experiment has flaws.

I never said you claimed it wasn't a GHG. Talking with you is fairly hillarious because I'll say something akin to "the sky is blue" and you'll then respond with "I NEVER SAID THAT CLOUDS WERE MADE OF GLASS". Seriously making a gigantic case for yourself and your scientific comprehension.

A long fixed enclosure with atmospheric mixes? Yeah dude, all the studies I know replicated the Earth's atmosphere in a fucking box. Tell us again how you comprehend this. Please?

[MannyIsGod]

No, I didn't read them at all. Your record of posting good links is pretty bad. You expect someone to read long stuff, without pointing out the relevant parts.

:lmao

I'm sorry but scientific studies don't come in cliff's notes versions.

Holy shit!

[MannyIsGod]

:( :( :( :( You make me read too much :( :( :( :( :(

[Wild Cobra]

My answers:


1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?


Risen.



2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?

Yes.

[MannyIsGod]

Sorry, I'll have to read your answers later as I've reached my reading quota for the day.

Do you possibly have a cliff's notes version? Can you highlight the important portion of your answers I should focus on?

[Wild Cobra]

Sorry, I'll have to read your answers later as I've reached my reading quota for the day.

Do you possibly have a cliff's notes version? Can you highlight the important portion of your answers I should focus on?

LOL...

Give yourself all the time you need to respond to my answers of those two questions. I must have baffled you, but that does not surprise me as you seem to rarely understand what say.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

LOL...

Give yourself all the time you need to respond to my answers of those two questions. I must have baffled you, but that does not surprise me as you seem to rarely understand what say.

So now that you finally admit that then do you think this is something that we should try and prevent or curtail?

[Wild Cobra]

So now that you finally admit that then do you think this is something that we should try and prevent or curtail?
I'm not "finally" admitting anything. I have advocated reducing black carbon emissions for a long time.

[Wild Cobra]

So now that you finally admit that then do you think this is something that we should try and prevent or curtail?

Kirk: Still, "old friend!" You've managed to kill everyone else, but like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I'm not "finally" admitting anything. I have advocated reducing black carbon emissions for a long time.

Oh yeah I forgot that in the context of the CO2 content of the ocean your overexaggeration of the effects of soot was somehow meaningful. Your bait and switch routine is lame.

You dumb ass probably thinks that the soot accounts for increased ocean temperatures too.

So given that how about you explain how equilibrium is reached when the temperature of water is increased but there is also an increase in soluble CO2 observed.

[Wild Cobra]

Oh yeah I forgot that in the context of the CO2 content of the ocean your overexaggeration of the effects of soot was somehow meaningful. Your bait and switch routine is lame.

Not a bait and switch. I have posted NASA data in the past about soot. the IPCC has upward revised their assessment of soot at least twice since AR4. The more it is studied, the more scientists are saying it was an impact.


You dumb ass probably thinks that the soot accounts for increased ocean temperatures too.

It has some effect, but not all of it.


So given that how about you explain how equilibrium is reached when the temperature of water is increased but there is also an increase in soluble CO2 observed.

I already explained that. I'm sorry if your dumb ass cannot comprehend it.

Here is a sample of how it works. the numbers may be off because I am simple illustrating a point.

The accepted levels for CO2 in the atmosphere was about 284 ppm in the 1700 and about 387 around 2004. This equates to about 550 GtC and 750 GtC in the atmosphere. If in the past, there was 38800 GtC of carbon between the atmosphere and ocean, the ocean would contain 98.6% of it. In these last few hindred years, if we added 400 GtC of carbon, and the ocean absorbed 98.6% of it to maintain the same balance, only 16 GtC would have been added in the atmosphere, and 384 would have been added to the ocean. However, we know that about half of this was added to each. Warmer ocean temperatures change the balance. What if, instead of today, equalizing at 98.6%, it can only equalize at 98.1%? Well, this is the case that means the ocean has only absorbed about half of what we added. You see...

past... 550 GtC atmosphere, 38,800 GtC ocean, 39,350 GtC total, with the ocean at 98.6%.

present... 750 GtC atmosphere, 39,000 GtC ocean, 39,750 GtC total, with the ocean at 98.1%.

Now, if we didn't add any CO2 to the system, 98.1% of the 39,350 GtC would have the ocean at 38,602 GtC and the atmosphere with 748 GtC. Only two less GtC of carbon than mankind has added. the ocean would have been a net source of 198 GtC

Now, if the ocean did not increase in temperature, and equalized at the 98.6% as we added CO2 with industrialization, then today we would have about 556 GtC of carbon vs. the 550 GtC those 300 years back.

Now there are some factors that lessen this example, but this is obviously above your head already.

[Wild Cobra]

Another fail from FuzzyDouchebag

Data from both graphs is from BEST. They are different time scales and the first graph stops near year 2000.

Does this one help, it is from BEST:

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/Global%20Warming/BEST001fig001ed.jpg

The BEST data in the graph is the black, and shows a slight lowering of temperature from 2000 to 2010.The link has changed to:

Decadal Variations in the Global
Atmospheric Land Temperatures (http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-decadal-variations.pdf)

[Wild Cobra]

Fizzy

This is data from NOAA that is widely accepted in the scientific community, put on to a graph.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/Global%20Warming/TemperatureandCO2overthelast1200-2.jpg

Notice:

1) CO2 lags temperature.

2) about 4000 years ago, when CO2 increased, temperature didn't.

3) natural temperature variations are +/- 2 degrees C.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I didn't ask you to regurgitate someone elses numbers. Whats the formula used to determine the equilibrium point. And pulling other people's work and not citing it is pretty shitty.

When I say that you are stupid, i point to specific things that you do not understand. All you are doing here is throwing out numbers from other people's works doing absolutely nothing to describe how those numbers are reached and then posturing. Thats weak ass shit.

Right off the bat your little percentages nonsense assume that the system is linear. i know for a fact that soluble gas systems are not linear and its also obvious that there will be feedback because the change is not ph neutral.

Your napkin math is cute and all but justify the numbers.

Specifically this shit


However, we know that about half of this was added to each. Warmer ocean temperatures change the balance. What if, instead of today, equalizing at 98.6%, it can only equalize at 98.1%? Well, this is the case that means the ocean has only absorbed about half of what we added. You see...

past... 550 GtC atmosphere, 38,800 GtC ocean, 39,350 GtC total, with the ocean at 98.6%.

present... 750 GtC atmosphere, 39,000 GtC ocean, 39,750 GtC total, with the ocean at 98.1%.

i will even acknowledge a simplification assuming averaged ocean pH and salinity. Hope you photobucketed or bookmarked that mailer too.

The first graph from BEST, yup, but your mailer parroting ass ignores the conclusion of the decadal variation paper. Specifically,


Given that the 2-15 year variations in world temperature are so closely linked to the AMO raises (or re-raises) an important ancillary issue: to what extent does the 65-70 year cycle in AMO contribute to the global average temperature change? (Enfield, 2006; Zhang et al., 2007; Kerr, 1984.) [b]Since 1975, the AMO has shown a gradual but steady rise from -0.35 C to +0.2 C (see Figure 2), a change of 0.55 C. During this same time, the land-average temperature has increased about 0.8 C. Such changes may be independent responses to a common forcing (e.g. greenhouse gases); however, it is also possible that some of the land warming is a direct response to changes in the AMO region. If the long-term AMO changes have been driven by greenhouse gases then the AMO region may serve as a positive feedback that amplifies the effect of greenhouse gas forcing over land. On the other hand, some of the long-term change in the AMO could be driven by natural variability, e.g. fluctuations in thermohaline flow. In that case the human component of global warming may be somewhat overestimated.
In conclusion, our analysis suggests that strong interannual and decadal variations observed in the average land surface temperature records represent a true climate phenomenon, not only during the years when fluctuations on the timescale of 2-15 years had been previously identified with El Nino events. The variations are strongly correlated with the similar decadal fluctuations observed in the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation index, and less so with the El Nino Southern Oscillation index. This correlation could indicate that the AMO plays an important intermediary role in the
influence of the Pacific ENSO on world climate; alternatively, it might indicate that variability in the thermohaline flow plays a bigger role than had previously been recognized. The models could be tested by studying the temperature correlations in the ocean as a function of location and time. A 9.1 ± 0.4 year cycle is observed in the pre-whitened AMO, but it contributes only 30% to the variance. A similar cycle at 9.0 ± 0.5 years is seen in the PDO.

http://berkeleyearth.org/pdf/berkeley-earth-decadal-variations.pdf

Essentially what they are saying is that relative to the historic fluctuations there is significant climate change. That if you account for noise in decadal variations then there is significnat climate change thus the name of the fucking paper.

The last is some cherry picked individual core samples that I am not going to bother looking up.

RG was very apt in his thread title. So far we have unjustified numbers, graphs without context that do not even acknowledge what role it played in the study t was cited from, and some more mailer regurgitation that we are licky enough that you uploaded to photobucket.

You wow nobody with your pseudoscience bullshit.

[Wild Cobra]

Fuzzy, you miss why I said and posted what i did. you are always jumping to improper conclusions. Rather than ask to clarify, you go off on rants.

Did you read the last sentence in my example post?

Now there are some factors that lessen this example, but this is obviously above your head already.
Just because I didn't take the time to list them doesn't mean you are schooling me, shithead.

The ice core samples are not cherry picked. They are accepted NOAA data. If you wish not to accept them, take that up with NOAA.

The BEST graph I picked was to show Darrin's claim was accurate. It doesn't matter what the cause is, his claim is correct. temperature effectively did not rise by BEST's own data from 2000 to 2010.

I'm done with your sorry ass for now. All you do is whine, complain, lie, etc. no matter what I say.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Fuzzy, you miss why I said and posted what i did. you are always jumping to improper conclusions. Rather than ask to clarify, you go off on rants.

Did you read the last sentence in my example post?

Just because I didn't take the time to list them doesn't mean you are schooling me, shithead.

The ice core samples are not cherry picked. They are accepted NOAA data. If you wish not to accept them, take that up with NOAA.

The BEST graph I picked was to show Darrin's claim was accurate. It doesn't matter what the cause is, his claim is correct. temperature effectively did not rise by BEST's own data from 2000 to 2010.

I'm done with your sorry ass for now. All you do is whine, complain, lie, etc. no matter what I say.

So you choose not to address a thing that i say. i did ask for clarification. i asked where you derived the numbers from. Did you attempt to justify or derive them? nope you make a broad statement saying that i never asked for clarification when what I asked was where you got the numbers from.

of course there are other factors thats why I made it a point to say that i would even take average ocean salinity and ph as a baseline to begin with. Whats obvious is you have no idea how what the function for the equilibrium constant for CO2 solubility is and you pulled those numbers from out of your ass or from a mailer.

You claim that i make assumptions but you never ever actually address what i say beyond claiming that what I say are assumptions.

What is the solubility equation and can you justify the numbers you cited?

As for the BEST graph you just ignore the point of the paper. It was correct in that it came from BEST. It was an analysis of raw data adjusted for decadal variations. Pulling the raw data from the study and making claims off of it as to what BEST actually does is horseshit and even your dumb ass should recognize that.

As for the final, its accepted what? its a graph of the last several samples of hundreds of data points. Here they are in entirety:

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/co2nat.txt

Sure enough its cherry picked. This is what the graph looks like when you take the data points back the full 500k years:

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/IceCores1.gif

Also if you read the various literature on the core taking there were issues with contamination on the edges so its little surprise that your oil lobby mailer would choose to only display the data from the edges.

And you have the audacity to call me a liar?

[Agloco]

FWIW.

I didn't have to shovel my driveway EVEN ONCE this entire winter.

Again, I'm no longer a denier of AGW. I'm a proponent.

I recently visited a clinic about 1.5 hours west of Philly. They stated that this had been a very mild winter and that there had been no snowfall for the first time in over 25 years.

Evidence keeps mounting IMO.

[MannyIsGod]

Not a bait and switch. I have posted NASA data in the past about soot. the IPCC has upward revised their assessment of soot at least twice since AR4. The more it is studied, the more scientists are saying it was an impact.

It has some effect, but not all of it.

I already explained that. I'm sorry if your dumb ass cannot comprehend it.

Here is a sample of how it works. the numbers may be off because I am simple illustrating a point.

The accepted levels for CO2 in the atmosphere was about 284 ppm in the 1700 and about 387 around 2004. This equates to about 550 GtC and 750 GtC in the atmosphere. If in the past, there was 38800 GtC of carbon between the atmosphere and ocean, the ocean would contain 98.6% of it. In these last few hindred years, if we added 400 GtC of carbon, and the ocean absorbed 98.6% of it to maintain the same balance, only 16 GtC would have been added in the atmosphere, and 384 would have been added to the ocean. However, we know that about half of this was added to each. Warmer ocean temperatures change the balance. What if, instead of today, equalizing at 98.6%, it can only equalize at 98.1%? Well, this is the case that means the ocean has only absorbed about half of what we added. You see...

past... 550 GtC atmosphere, 38,800 GtC ocean, 39,350 GtC total, with the ocean at 98.6%.

present... 750 GtC atmosphere, 39,000 GtC ocean, 39,750 GtC total, with the ocean at 98.1%.

Now, if we didn't add any CO2 to the system, 98.1% of the 39,350 GtC would have the ocean at 38,602 GtC and the atmosphere with 748 GtC. Only two less GtC of carbon than mankind has added. the ocean would have been a net source of 198 GtC

Now, if the ocean did not increase in temperature, and equalized at the 98.6% as we added CO2 with industrialization, then today we would have about 556 GtC of carbon vs. the 550 GtC those 300 years back.

Now there are some factors that lessen this example, but this is obviously above your head already.

:lol

Um, if we didn't add any carbon to the system then the ocean would still be in balance. Talk about some incredibly shitty understanding of how the carbon cycle works, but what is worse is your math. The reason the ocean has a lower concentration of the total CO2 today is not because its absorbing less but because we're dumping it directly into the atmosphere!!!!!

Please, tell us again what is over who's head. Please.

[MannyIsGod]

I mean seriously? You give the numbers for when the ocean was in balance with the carbon cycle and then when you want to erase what we've put in you magically lower that balance with percentage figures from a completely different situation?

:lmao

Wow man.

[MannyIsGod]

I recently visited a clinic about 1.5 hours west of Philly. They stated that this had been a very mild winter and that there had been no snowfall for the first time in over 25 years.

Evidence keeps mounting IMO.

In order to be fair and with all due respect, thats not evidence. 25 years ago they had a snowless winter too (according to what you said). A single winter without snowfall means no more or no less on its own than a single winter with extremely high snowfall (which given its location in PA they've probably had very recently).

On the other hand, a 30 year trend of increased temps is climatic evidence. In one winter season, however, there are simply too many independent variables that can sway it one way or another.

As of right now, there are studies coming out that do statistical analysis to try and show that many of these events that are occurring in the short run (the Texas drought the recent Moscow heat wave as examples) have been made worse by AGW but I'm not very well versed in them as I've not taken a close look at them nor have I talked to my professors about them to get their insight. I tend to view them with a skeptical eye because I'm not sure what signal is there is possible to be separated from the noise but the statisticians working on them probably know much better than I do. I do think as we move forward this is going to both become easier, and a much more frequent direction of study.

[MannyIsGod]

To further expand on how stupid WC's theory is let me just point to the graph which Fuzzy posted. Its a well known graph that basically shows the glacial interglacial cycles due to the orbital variations.

Well, at no point on that graph are CO2 concentrations nearly as high as they are today.

In fact, you can see that CO2 oscillated between about 180 and 300 ppm. 2011's average CO2 reading was 390 ppm. That's about 133% of what its been before even when temperature's were higher than today. So how in the hell is that due to ocean warming when that wasn't the case before?

Also, if you look at that graph, you'll notice that the warming happens quickly and is followed by a longer tail. It takes longer to cool than it does to warm. Thats because once the CO2 concentrations rose due to warming, their increased GHE in the atmosphere was able to sustain the warm temps!

I mean really, if only we could come up with evidence for AGW.

[DarrinS]

On the other hand, a 30 year trend of increased temps is climatic evidence.

So, what would you say about a 30 year cooling trend at the same time CO2 was increasing? (e.g. 1940s to 1970)

We're currently on year 14 of of no trend.

[MannyIsGod]

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/SkepticsvRealists_500.gif

We've talked about that period before Darrin. Several times.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

So, what would you say about a 30 year cooling trend at the same time CO2 was increasing? (e.g. 1940s to 1970)

We're currently on year 14 of of no trend.

You know for someone that claims that you like what BEST has done, you really have no clue what they say. Either that or you are just playing the willfully ignorant shill.

From the Decadal Variations paper:


Much attention has been given to the small Tavg maxima of 1998 and 2005. The
maximum in 1998 occurred during a very strong El Nino, and is plausibly associated
with that oceanic event [Trenberth, 2002]. In this study we examined the annuallyaveraged
global land temperature time series to study their possible correlation not
only with the El Nino Southern Oscillation index (ENSO; see NOAA [2005]) but with
the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO; see Schlesinger et al. [1994] and Enfield et
al. [2001]), the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO, see Zhang et al. [1997] ), the North
Atlantic Oscillation (NAO, see Zhang et al. [1997], Hurrell et al. [1995]), and the Arctic
Oscillation (AO, see Thompson et al. [1998]). Three of these indices: ENSO, AMO, PDO,
are derived from sea surface temperature records, in the equatorial Pacific, the North
Atlantic, and the North Pacific respectively. Two of these, the NAO and the AO, are
derived from surface pressure differences at locations in the northern Atlantic and Arctic. We find that the strongest cross-correlation of the decadal fluctuations in
land surface temperature is not with ENSO but with the AMO. The AMO index is
plotted in Figure 2.

1998 would be 14 years ago right?

What interesting in the study is how they filter the noise by using running averages. The graphs you cherry pick don't ever do that. They talk abotu that here:


Our analysis used the monthly land-surface average temperature records made
available by the four groups previously referenced: NOAA, NASA GISS, HadCRU, and
ours, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature group. The land temperature data were
smoothed with a 12-month running average (boxcar smoothing); this removes high
frequency (e.g. monthly) changes. The data prior to 1950 were noisier than the
subsequent data, primarily because the number of stations was smaller, and for that
reason we restricted the period for our analysis to 1950-2010.

Well here is what they eventually conlude.


A theory for decadal oscillations in the North Pacific was devised by Munnich [1998].
It involves an interaction between wind and the thermohaline circulation. Such
models predict broad spectrum of frequencies, and could drive the structure we see in
Figure 3(A), but we would not expect such a driving force to result in the narrow 9.1
yr peak. For more on exited internal modes, see Frankcombe et al. [2010] and
Sévellec et al. [2009, 2010] and the references therein.
Given that the 2-15 year variations in world temperature are so closely linked to the
AMO raises (or re-raises) an important ancillary issue: to what extent does the 65-70
year cycle in AMO contribute to the global average temperature change? (Enfield,
2006; Zhang et al., 2007; Kerr, 1984.) Since 1975, the AMO has shown a gradual but
steady rise from -0.35 C to +0.2 C (see Figure 2), a change of 0.55 C. During this same
time, the land-average temperature has increased about 0.8 C. Such changes may be
independent responses to a common forcing (e.g. greenhouse gases); however, it is
also possible that some of the land warming is a direct response to changes in the
AMO region. If the long-term AMO changes have been driven by greenhouse gases
then the AMO region may serve as a positive feedback that amplifies the effect of
greenhouse gas forcing over land. On the other hand, some of the long-term change in
the AMO could be driven by natural variability, e.g. fluctuations in thermohaline
flow. In that case the human component of global warming may be somewhat
overestimated.

If you don't understand this it means that given the climate fluctuations indices that they spent most of the paper showed correlated very strongly to observed facts, its hotter than it is supposed to be.

Perhaps if you spent more time reading BEST's stuff and less time regurgitating the exact same shit from your mailers that BEST refutes directly, you would know.

What I want to know is wtf you even bother claiming to think they do good work when its obvious you have no idea what their work has been.

[DarrinS]

What interesting in the study is how they filter the noise by using running averages. The graphs you cherry pick don't ever do that. They talk abotu that here:


http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=195

[DarrinS]

http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/SkepticsvRealists_500.gif

We've talked about that period before Darrin. Several times.

You're cute little animated gif doesn't show that period.

That period of cooling is about as long as your animation.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=195

Do the running averages take into consideration all of the data points? Are you familiar with bounded convolutions or the reasoning behind using them? I will give you a hint: when you do a rolling average on every point, every data point is weighted equally.

Oh and by all means please point to the part of your blog that gives a basis for not using a bounded convolution like they do to filter noise.

Right off the bat the statement from the blog:


The various black lines are the actual data! The red-line is a 10-year running mean smoother! I will call the black data the real data, and I will call the smoothed data the fictional data. Mann used a “low pass filter” different than the running mean to produce his fictional data, but a smoother is a smoother and what I’m about to say changes not one whit depending on what smoother you use.

Is wrong. A low pass filter does not behave in this manner. A low pass filter excludes particular data points a running average does not. if your point is that BEST is using a low pass filter approach you are flat ass wrong.

This statement is also patently false:


Now I’m going to tell you the great truth of time series analysis. Ready? Unless the data is measured with error, you never, ever, for no reason, under no threat, SMOOTH the series! And if for some bizarre reason you do smooth it, you absolutely on pain of death do NOT use the smoothed series as input for other analyses!

Avionic controls is one application that you use this for as they also take rolling averages off of sensors and feed them into the control system. That is just off the top of my head.

There is no basis given for this statement


If, in a moment of insanity, you do smooth time series data and you do use it as input to other analyses, you dramatically increase the probability of fooling yourself! This is because smoothing induces spurious signals—signals that look real to other analytical methods. No matter what you will be too certain of your final results! Mann et al. first dramatically smoothed their series, then analyzed them separately. Regardless of whether their thesis is true—whether there really is a dramatic increase in temperature lately—it is guaranteed that they are now too certain of their conclusion.

Can you explain how when dealing with noisy systems, using convolutions of this nature reduces accuracy? He does not.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Oh and Briggs is a contractor for The Heartlnad Institute. Who would have thunk it? Do you get anything not form the, the Guardian, WUWT, or Koch?

i have to be honest I sometimes wonder if you are a shill for one of them.

[MannyIsGod]

You're cute little animated gif doesn't show that period.

That period of cooling is about as long as your animation.

Have I not provided you with reasoning on that period on several occasions prior to this that is backed up by scientific literature?

Yes or no?

The graph is meant to show exactly how you cherry pick whatever suits the case you are trying to make. Darrin, you are absolutely the king cherry picker on this forum on this subject.

[MannyIsGod]

On the subject of 1940-1970

What did was the trend for night time temperature's during that time frame? Up, or down? Why?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

i should qualify my statements too. A low pass filter does not exclude data points necessarily. Instead it attenuates them by definition.

A rolling average sums the previous x points and then divides them by x. A lowpass filter is the parrallel combination of circuit elements. To just cut to the chase what it does to the signal is a function of exponential or through euhler's equations, sinusoids.

a rolling average is [x+(x+1)+....+(x+n)]/n

versus f=A(1-exp(-t/rc))

They are not the same thing and that Briggs guy is just trying to dazzle people without training with bullshit.

[Wild Cobra]

Fuzzy Wuzzy... such a fool. What am i going to do with you? So tempted to put you on IGNORE so I don't have to see you misconstrued words.



So you choose not to address a thing that i say. i did ask for clarification. i asked where you derived the numbers from.
Which numbers? The values I assigned to the ocean and atmosphere, or something else? Then on some of the values I used, do you know the definition of a two letter word called "IF?"

Did you attempt to justify or derive them? nope you make a broad statement saying that i never asked for clarification when what I asked was where you got the numbers from.

Giving you some of your own medicine. What's wrong, can't take it?


of course there are other factors thats why I made it a point to say that i would even take average ocean salinity and ph as a baseline to begin with. Whats obvious is you have no idea how what the function for the equilibrium constant for CO2 solubility is and you pulled those numbers from out of your ass or from a mailer.

No mailer involve. It really pisses me off that you say such things. This is one reason why you are so fucking stupid. You assume so much. Your assumptions are so far off from the truth that it's pitiful.

I wonder what it's like Being John Fuzzy Malkovich.


You claim that i make assumptions but you never ever actually address what i say beyond claiming that what I say are assumptions.

Bullshit. I have told you several times how your assumptions are wrong. Your head is too fucking hard to relate outside you preconceived notions.


What is the solubility equation and can you justify the numbers you cited?

Look it up yourself. While you're at it, look up the Revelle factor. Yes I know what that is. It has a great effect on short term large increases, but not as much as you seem to hold on to.


As for the BEST graph you just ignore the point of the paper. It was correct in that it came from BEST. It was an analysis of raw data adjusted for decadal variations. Pulling the raw data from the study and making claims off of it as to what BEST actually does is horseshit and even your dumb ass should recognize that.

Again, since you ignored my words the first time...

I posted that to show that Darrin was correct in in his past statement. That was all I posted that for. Why are you reading more into it than that?


As for the final, its accepted what? its a graph of the last several samples of hundreds of data points. Here they are in entirety:

ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/antarctica/vostok/co2nat.txt

Sure enough its cherry picked. This is what the graph looks like when you take the data points back the full 500k years:

http://www.daviesand.com/Choices/Precautionary_Planning/New_Data/IceCores1.gif

Here you go again. You assume I had a mailer, you assume I didn't already have that information.

Guess what jerkoff. I made that graph from that data. I have the complete data. I made that graph almost two years ago for a different discussion. I simply pulled it back out of Photobucket, where it is sitting. I am the one who edited it that long time back putting the link information of the data I used. The primary reason i only showed the last 12,000 years was the rest was TMI for the purpose. When you scrunch so much more data on a graph, you can't distinguish which is first. CO2 or temperature. Try seeing a clear correlation on the idiotic graph you posted. You cant.


Also if you read the various literature on the core taking there were issues with contamination on the edges so its little surprise that your oil lobby mailer would choose to only display the data from the edges.

You're making things up.


And you have the audacity to call me a liar?

Absolutely.


I didn't ask you to regurgitate someone elses numbers. Whats the formula used to determine the equilibrium point. And pulling other people's work and not citing it is pretty shitty.

The specific formula doesn't matter. I'm not going for three significant digit accuracy. The effects of what I say are real, and close to proportional until the Revelle factor comes in play.

Which numbers are you talking about?

Which work not cited are you talking about?


When I say that you are stupid, i point to specific things that you do not understand. All you are doing here is throwing out numbers from other people's works doing absolutely nothing to describe how those numbers are reached and then posturing. Thats weak ass shit.

You claim I'm wrong, but you don't back it up. Please specify. Talk about weak shit, that is very weak to me. Are you afraid that when you tell me specifically what is wrong, that I will prove you wrong? You think you're smart, making so generalized accusations that I can only guess at what to defend.


Right off the bat your little percentages nonsense assume that the system is linear. i know for a fact that soluble gas systems are not linear and its also obvious that there will be feedback because the change is not ph neutral.

Duh...

No shit Sherlock...

You assume I don't know that.

Again, I am not shooting for high accuracy, but to illustrate cause an effect. I'm trying to keep it simple so others can follow, but you do nothing but muddy the waters.

As for the PH change, over time and the Thermohaline circulation, it is virtually untouched by the waters sinking more CO2 in the polar regions.


Your napkin math is cute and all but justify the numbers.

Specifically this shit

Explained in my posting with the numbers. It was an illustration only. Not meant to be accurate.


i will even acknowledge a simplification assuming averaged ocean pH and salinity. Hope you photobucketed or bookmarked that mailer too.

Again, no mailer... How do you have any friend in life when you are constantly accusing people falsely?

How many boyfriends have you lost over and over?


You wow nobody with your pseudoscience bullshit.

It's not my fault that you cannot follow along with my intent. You keep reading more into them than i cl;aim, you keep finding any little thing you can twist and nitpick.

You are a fucking loser.

[MannyIsGod]

:lol

[Wild Cobra]

:lol

Um, if we didn't add any carbon to the system then the ocean would still be in balance.
Yes it would. Unless some other variable changes, like temperature. It just dawned on me. Are you and Fizzy thinking I am simple speaking of ionic balance of the carbon forms in water? I am primarily speaking of the balance between the atmosphere and forms of carbon in the ocean. That is why I keep using the term partial Pressure, also known as Fugacity.

Talk about some incredibly shitty understanding of how the carbon cycle works, but what is worse is your math.
Like I explained to Fuzzy, I was going for a simple illustrative example. pH isn't linear, but ratios remain close to linear between atmospheric CO2 and dissolved CO2 as the partial pressure changes. At least until the Revelle factor has an effect.

The reason the ocean has a lower concentration of the total CO2 today is not because its absorbing less but because we're dumping it directly into the atmosphere!!!!!

Yes, partially. It takes time to equalize to balance. Still, at most, we put in about 8 GtC of carbon annually in the atmosphere at most, and less in the past annually. This is less than 4% added to natural sourcing. I stand by my conviction that it is not being absorbed as rapidly in the ocean as it should because the ocean is warming. I stand by my conviction that is we never added a drop of CO2 in the atmosphere, we would still have above 370 ppm in the atmosphere today.

Have you seen solubility graphs of CO2 vs. salinity and temperature?

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/Global%20Warming/CO2inSeaWater.jpg

Now for points of illustration... These numbers may be slightly off...

Fuzzy... Are you listening... this is for simplification and illustration...

The equatorial waters probably averages around 23C. The polar waters probably average about 4 C. The surface waters in the polar regions do the sinking, and the equatorial waters do the sourcing. This is because of surface temperate. At 23C, the approximate change of absorption is 0.26% per 0.1C. The approximate change for around 4C is about 0.41% per 0.1C. This is a very huge number as the volume of the ocean turns over. With a total of more than 39,000 GtC of carbon in the ocean, a change of 0.1 C in both the polar and equatorial regions would represent a new balance of 260 GtC less in the ocean. The actual would be difficult to determine as there are not simple two or three temperature areas to deal with. Still, how much warmer is the arctic and antarctic waters today than in the past? Isn't it well over 0.5C more? I don't recall the number and don't feel like looking it up.

I'll bet that is we could suddenly stop all man-made CO2, that in future years, we would still see rising CO2 in the atmosphere. With warning of the ocean, it simply cannot retain the same levels of CO2 as in the past, relative to the partial pressure of CO2 in the atmosphere.

[Wild Cobra]

I just had a thought for you guys to ponder over.

If, as you claim, the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is because of anthropogenic addition, then why is it a near linear addition over several decades when industrialization is closer to exponential?

Could the answer to this question be because the ocean flows at a near linear rate and that we are seeing the effects of the 0.18% increase in solar energy from 1700 to 1950?

[Wild Cobra]

Oh and Briggs is a contractor for The Heartlnad Institute. Who would have thunk it? Do you get anything not form the, the Guardian, WUWT, or Koch?

i have to be honest I sometimes wonder if you are a shill for one of them.
If you want to dismiss someone because of assumed agenda, as if they are statistical outliers, then you have to also dismiss the work of Mann, Hansen, Schmidt, etc.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

If you want to dismiss someone because of assumed agenda, as if they are statistical outliers, then you have to also dismiss the work of Mann, Hansen, Schmidt, etc.

I see you didn't touch the stuff about signal analysis. i prefer to evaluate people on a case by case basis. You're the one that likes grouping them together and advocating eugenics on them or are afraid to get medical care from them. Start making ciaims based off of those guys and I will care. I don't cite them.

As for your giant monstrosity of a post, you really need to realize that nobody reads those line by lines. You are correct i do make assumptions on where you get your material from. your a sophist on this like Darrin and he invariably pulls his shit from those sources like a smoker asking phillip-morris if cigarettes are safe.

You do that but your better because you bring your own brand of stupidity into the discussion. I have to say that your explanation of cherry picking the last few samples form the graph of hundreds and hundreds of samples had me loling pretty hard. You saying they were 'TMI' was one of the dumber things I have heard in awhile.

You, however, were not to be outdone. Thanks for reminding me about the solubility chart. It was fun making fun of you the first time.

You have it all figured out on your napkin between your solubility chart and those last 10 samples. The rest is 'TMI.' And with that, you think its somehow appropriate to make statements on total CO2 in both systems.

I understand why Manny just reads your shit and laughs at you.

You know how I talk about pointing to specific things if you are going to call someone stupid? That has to be the holy fucking grail of stupid.

On a final note, please tell us about the Revelle factor. That sounds as riveting as your discussion of caps in series. I admit that I was going down the wrong track. I figured you were going to approach it from the perspective of actually trying to look at it from the vantage point of multi-stage reactions like a chemist. I should have remembered your solubility chart.

My bad.

[DarrinS]

Oh and Briggs is a contractor for The Heartlnad Institute. Who would have thunk it? Do you get anything not form the, the Guardian, WUWT, or Koch?

i have to be honest I sometimes wonder if you are a shill for one of them.

In your haste to "pwn" me and discredit my source, you didn't notice that he may actually agree with you



The various black lines are the actual data! The red-line is a 10-year running mean smoother! I will call the black data the real data, and I will call the smoothed data the fictional data. Mann used a “low pass filter” different than the running mean to produce his fictional data, but a smoother is a smoother and what I’m about to say changes not one whit depending on what smoother you use.

[DarrinS]

On the subject of 1940-1970

What did was the trend for night time temperature's during that time frame? Up, or down? Why?

Enlighten me

[RandomGuy]

http://cosy.com/Science/CO2-pineGrowth100120half.jpg
CO2 is Good for Plants: Another Red Herring in the Climate Change Debate

CO2 feeds plants. And so, too, does ignorance and a little bit of politicking feed inane misconceptions. ... The basic plant food argument is that since plants need CO2 to grow, more CO2 means, by proxy, more sustained and robust plant growth globally.

A quick look at the science behind this argument demonstrates its inherent weaknesses. In closed, controlled environments, like greenhouses and plant nurseries, an increase in CO2 does indeed spur plant growth. However, the globe is not a controlled environment,

While CO2 is an important element that stimulates plant growth, the planet's flora requires a cocktail of elements to maintain its health. Arguably the most important of these elements is water. With the global increase in temperature caused by the various factors affecting our climate's balance, increased evaporation means decreased soil moisture. Another effect of global climate change is erratic precipitation patterns. This causes extreme weather in certain geographic locations only sporadically, with overall, balanced rainfall drastically reduced.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-is-good-for-plants-another-red-herring-in-the-climate-change-debate.html


Climate myths: Higher CO2 levels will boost plant growth and food production
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11655-climate-myths-higher-co2-levels-will-boost-plant-growth-and-food-production.html

I'm not even going to bother to find the Darrin quote where he goes on about this as well.

Trying to imply that we shouldn't really be worried about rising CO2 because "it is just plant food" is easily shown for the pseudoscientific bullshit that it is.

:clap Keep it up.

[RandomGuy]

Enlighten me

:lmao

We're trying.

You may as well say "Pick up this car and throw it to the other side of the street" or "Travel faster than light".

[DarrinS]

:lmao

We're trying.

You may as well say "Pick up this car and throw it to the other side of the street" or "Travel faster than light".

:lmao :rolleyes

I was asking Manny

[RandomGuy]

In order to be fair and with all due respect, thats not evidence. 25 years ago they had a snowless winter too (according to what you said). A single winter without snowfall means no more or no less on its own than a single winter with extremely high snowfall (which given its location in PA they've probably had very recently).

On the other hand, a 30 year trend of increased temps is climatic evidence. In one winter season, however, there are simply too many independent variables that can sway it one way or another.

As of right now, there are studies coming out that do statistical analysis to try and show that many of these events that are occurring in the short run (the Texas drought the recent Moscow heat wave as examples) have been made worse by AGW but I'm not very well versed in them as I've not taken a close look at them nor have I talked to my professors about them to get their insight. I tend to view them with a skeptical eye because I'm not sure what signal is there is possible to be separated from the noise but the statisticians working on them probably know much better than I do. I do think as we move forward this is going to both become easier, and a much more frequent direction of study.

You can bet your ass that there is a LOT of money being put towards trying to figure this out in the insurance industry.

Statistician = (roughly) Actuary

The trillion-dollar question is how bad are the extreme events going to get, if at all, and where will those events happen?

Answer that to some fair degree of confidence, and you can write your own ticket.

If you have not thought about looking for a job with an insurance company that writes property/casualty insurance, you might want to poke around.

[RandomGuy]

:lmao :rolleyes

I was asking Manny

:lmao

I know I was just bustin' yer balls. It was too tempting to pass up. :toast

[RandomGuy]

blog

I stopped reading there. Synopsis?

[DarrinS]

I stopped reading there. Synopsis?

But you guys frequently link skepticalscience blog

[MannyIsGod]

I love how WC believes his stupid theory on PPM even after I showed him that its been warmer before with nowhere near the same CO2 concentrations. Those warm ups also took much longer and would have given the ocean more time to react and release carbon from warming. Keep on believing, brother. Maybe if you close your eyes and wish hard enough it will come true.

Why is CO2 growth after the industrial revolution not linear? Um, because our industrial growth isn't linear. Why is it slower now? Because industry is cleaner, now. If only those damn college educated fools actually thought of plausible hypothesis instead of just coming up with magical wild cobra ideas that violate physics. Maybe then people like Darrin would believe them!

[MannyIsGod]

You can bet your ass that there is a LOT of money being put towards trying to figure this out in the insurance industry.

Statistician = (roughly) Actuary

The trillion-dollar question is how bad are the extreme events going to get, if at all, and where will those events happen?

Answer that to some fair degree of confidence, and you can write your own ticket.

If you have not thought about looking for a job with an insurance company that writes property/casualty insurance, you might want to poke around.

Yeah, no thanks. I know that kind of stuff appeals to you numbers guys but me, I want to do EXCITING stuff like counting tree rings or spending days or WEEKS even counting microscopic layers of ice in ice cores!

:lol

After a few semesters of being involved with research I'm fairly certain I'm going the PhD route. Where THAT takes me is another question.

[MannyIsGod]

Enlighten me

Well, how have I explained that period several times to you in the past? If you want me to enlighten you, prove that you can actually be enlightened by at least showing you have the ability to remember what I show you to begin with.

[MannyIsGod]

But you guys frequently link skepticalscience blog

I link actual scientific literature 90% of the time and when I don't I can provide it if asked.

[RandomGuy]

What do you think the strongest arguments of the people putting forth the AGW theory are?


CO2 is a greenhouse gas (given).

CO2 makes up about 0.039% of the atmosphere by volume.
Humans contribute 3%-4% of that 0.039% by burning fossil fuels, etc.
It has warmed 1 degree in a century -- and humans have increased CO2 emissions during the same period.
Therefore, humans have caused the warming.


Like I said, I don't think it's particularly strong.

That is a little better, but still not quite a wholly accurate restatement. The first part, "CO2 makes up about 0.039% of the atmosphere by volume.
Humans contribute 3%-4% of that 0.039% by burning fossil fuels, etc."

http://co2now.org/Current-CO2/CO2-Trend/acceleration-of-atmospheric-co2.html


Atmospheric CO2 is accelerating upward from decade to decade.

For the past ten years, the average annual rate of increase is 2.07 parts per million (ppm). This rate of increase is more than double the increase in the 1960s.

See the table below.

I would also point out the mathmatically verifiable fact that half of the CO2 we have ever put out into the atmosphere has been put there in the last 16-20 years or so (assuming a 5% growth rate in emissions, 13 years for 6%, or about 10 years for 8%).

I know you are trying not to accede any points in this discussion, but if you can't accurately restate what the other side in a complex issue discussion says that strongly implies you don't understand the issue, does it not?

Not trying to be snarky here, just trying to point out that you may want to do some more reading.

[RandomGuy]

But you guys frequently link skepticalscience blog

Your blog says I frequently link to another blog?

I am flattered about the attention, but it doesn't really say much.

Would it be better if I linked to the serious stoners:

http://www.jasons-indoor-guide-to-organic-and-hydroponics-gardening.com/plant-growth-and-carbon-dioxide.html

1) CO2 doesn't add much yeild if it isn't accompanied by other factors such as more nutrients in the soil and more water.

2) CO2 being "plant food" is fucking irrelevant to what the scientists are saying is dangerous about CO2 changing climate.


It's a bit like saying "smoking isn't all that bad for you, because it keeps you from gaining a little weight" when the doctor is telling you about lung cancer.

Lastly, it is simply fucking stupid because it takes (if you bothered reading the stoner link above) insanely high concentrations of CO2 to produce any significant benefits to yields, as Wile E. Coyote's own picture shows.

[RandomGuy]

I link actual scientific literature 90% of the time and when I don't I can provide it if asked.

The skeptical science blog itself uses a copious amount of scientific citations, if one bothers to actually read through it.

That is what real scientists do.

Conspiracy theorists tend to eschew this, and instead always take the tack of nitpicking what someone else says or what they think they said. One only has to read through a few infowars.com articles, or twoofer websites to see this pattern.

When science and facts are not on your side, then that is pretty much all you are left with, i.e. pseudoscience and innuendo.

In this particular case the logic of risk management also goes against what the Deniers think we should do about all this information.

I have even gone a step further and argued that the Deniers' claims that we would harm our economy by limiting CO2 emissions is arguably quite the opposite of what would actually happen. Limiting CO2 emissions would HELP the economy, by a quite a bit, over the long run.

In real science, the data will win out, and we are getting more brainpower and more data all the time. One way or another the answer will get more and more apparent. If it is all bunk, as Darrn/Yoni/Cobra suggest, that will get easier and easier to prove. If it is as big of a conspiracy as they say it is, it will collapse under its own weight eventually, as all large conspiracies do.

Given that, and the public policy option suggested by AGW is better for the economy anyway, it seems to me to be a no-brainer as to what the logical course is.

[RandomGuy]

An actuary is a business professional who analyzes the financial consequences of risk. Actuaries use mathematics, statistics and financial theory to study uncertain future events, especially those of concern to insurance and pension programs. They evaluate the likelihood of those events, design creative ways to reduce the likelihood and decrease the impact of adverse events that actually do occur.

Actuaries are an important part of the management team of the companies that employ them. Their work requires a combination of strong analytical skills, business knowledge and understanding of human behavior to design and manage programs that control risk.

SOA members work in life insurance, retirement systems, health benefit systems, financial and investment management and other emerging areas of practice. The majority of actuaries work within the insurance industry, although a growing number of actuaries work in other fields.

http://www.soa.org/about/about-what-is-an-actuary.aspx

These people are paid to think about risk, and what the data say. The ones in the business that I talk to generally allude to the controversy over it, and say they are keeping an eye on it. They are careful not to make the conversation at all political.

My intuitive sense is that they tend to trust what bodies like the IPCC are saying, and are pricing in moderately increased risk of extreme weather events into the insurance products they are responsible for.

FWIW

[MannyIsGod]

Outside of the public policy decisions, there is no denial of what is going on. Even in the public domain, organizations that are able to make decisions without politicians (ie the military) are doing so.

[DarrinS]

Well, how have I explained that period several times to you in the past? If you want me to enlighten you, prove that you can actually be enlightened by at least showing you have the ability to remember what I show you to begin with.


I don't remember. Sorry.

[DarrinS]

Outside of the public policy decisions, there is no denial of what is going on. Even in the public domain, organizations that are able to make decisions without politicians (ie the military) are doing so.



Climate Change Impacts In The USA is Already [NOT] Happening





Many government reports by NASA, NOAA, EPA, USFWS, USFS, USDA and other agencies mention that climate change impacts are already observable in the USA. This is discussed in the context of endangered species conservation, forest resource assessment, future water availability, disaster planning, agriculture policy, etc. I have read many of these reports, which often refer back to the IPCC or the US Global Change Research Program. But they are usually vague on details of what bad things are expected to happen, generally referring to increases in extreme events. Nevertheless, these vague bad things are being used to guide policy.

The USA has some of the best data and is a large country. Are bad effects of climate change really visible already? In what follows, I address the evidence often put forward to support these claims and compare these to the literature. The true story is far from alarming.



Ocean Acidification

One government draft report indicated that ocean pH has increased (become more acid) by 0.1 units, and that this represents a 30% increase in acidity since 1750. Because pH is a log scale, estimating percent increases in acidity is problematic and a change of 0.1 units could not represent a 30% change in acidity as stated. A serious issue not addressed by the report is that a global time series of pH data for the oceans does not exist. Thus, the provenance of the 0.1 unit change in value is dubious, and the confidence intervals on such an estimate would no doubt be large. Furthermore, daily, seasonal, and between year pH fluctuations at any given location are on the order of ±0.3 pH units or more (Middelboe and Hansen 2007; Pelejero et al. 2005).

Sea Level Rise

Some reports state that sea level rise poses a threat to United States natural habitats, with other reports focusing on risks to developed areas. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) temperatures due to human activity began to rise after 1980, but estimates of sea level show a rise from about 1870 (earliest records) at a nearly linear rate and with no sign of acceleration. Sea level rise from 1870 to 1980 is not likely due to human activity. One report indicates that IPCC has projected a sea level rise of 0.4 to 2 m by 2090, but the fourth IPCC report does not make such a claim, instead giving a best estimate of 0.28 to 0.43 m. Recent levels of rise (http://sealevel.colorado.edu), at 3.1 mm/year long-term trend or 0.31 m in 100 years with no indication of “acceleration,” are only consistent with the lowest IPCC projections. In fact, recent deceleration of the rate of rise (Houston and Dean 2011) has been detected. Examples of papers that projected sea level increases lower than the range discussed in the fourth IPCC report are Bouwer (2011), Chu et al. (2010), Czymzik et al. (2010), and Xie et al. (2010).

Temperature Increases

Governement assessment reports note that US temperatures have risen 2°F since 1961. However, conclusions about the extent of temperature increase depend heavily upon the start date for the calculation. Perhaps by coincidence, a start date of 1961 gives the most alarming rise. In contrast, there is almost no rise from 1938 to 2011 in the US. The same is true for sea surface temperature changes. This is because natural climate oscillations (e.g., Wyatt et al. 2011) produced a warm period in the mid-twentieth century with a cool period in the 1960s.

Floods

Reports assert that floods are increasing, but data do not bear this out. Hirsh and Ryberg (2011) showed that there is no trend toward increasing flood magnitudes in any region of the US, and a small decrease in the Southwest. Arrigoni et al. (2010) showed that climate change in the northern Rocky Mountains over 59 years has not significantly affected basin flows, although human habitat modifications have reduced the difference between minimum and maximum flows. Kundezewicz et al. (2005), in a global analysis of 195 long series of daily flow records, rejected the hypothesis of a growth in maximum daily flows. Increasing trends in flood damage can be fully accounted for by rising population and wealth.

Regional Drought Frequency

According to assessment reports, regional droughts are increasing in frequency and severity. However, they typically do not support this contention with any reliable data. Droughts are difficult to characterize and methods for doing so have become more sophisticated over time. The actual quantification of the “area” of a drought is also extremely subjective and no standard methods exist, nor do long-term standardized data.

Data related to precipitation and drought activity do not appear to support the contention of increasing drought frequency and severity and suggest that drought patterns are complex. For example, there has been a 5% increase in overall precipitation in the US rather than increasing drought. Sheffield et al. (2009) found that large-scale droughts follow ENSO and northern Pacific and Atlantic SSTs. This relation to ENSO activity is confirmed in a study in the US Southwest (McCabe et al. 2010). Globally, the mid 1950s had the highest drought activity and the mid 1970s to mid 1980s had the lowest, rather than a simple increasing trend. Again, picking the mid-1970s as a start date will give a false appearance of an increasing trend.

Extreme Storm Events

Assessment reports allege that extreme storm events are increasing even though storm severity per se is not reported or documented in any government archives. A “storm” is not even a well-defined object in climatology. There is an apparent increase in the number of tornados over time. However, improvements in radar quality and coverage over the past decades cause a detection bias trend, with more, smaller tornados being detected and recorded over time. Furthermore, increases in available disaster assistance aid have encouraged more frequent reporting of smaller storms in efforts to get disaster aid. Counting only category F4 and F5 events, which are relatively consistently detectable and recorded, there is no trend over the past 100 years (Balling and Cerveny 2003).

Hurricanes

Hurricane strength is said to be increasing. This can likely be attributed to increasing satellite coverage and resolution, which tends over time to more accurately capture the hours when a storm is at maximum strength. A study that corrects for storm detection ability over time (Vecchi and Knutson 2011) finds no trend in Atlantic hurricanes over the period of 1878 to 2008. Studies of landfall hurricanes (Balling and Cerveny 2003) also show no trend. The last landfall hurricane to hit (i.e., with the hurricane eye) the continental US was Katrina in 2005.

Fires

Reports suggest that warmer temperatures and changing precipitation patterns will cause more fires and affect the seasonality of fires. Indians and early European settlers both used fire extensively. Areas converted to agriculture (e.g., the Great Plains) now see almost no fire. Some western forests have higher fuel loads than 200 years ago. In the context of these and other large landscape changes, no one has documented a change in fire regimes in the US that can be attributed to climate change. In fact, the largest historical fires were in the West around 100 years ago. Human activities (changes in fuel loads, increased ignition sources, arson) have on the other hand been clearly documented effects on fire extent, as have “let burn” policies in the West, which have only been implemented in the past few decades..

Algal Blooms

Reports indicate that harmful algal blooms in aquatic ecosystems have become more frequent, intense, and widespread. Climate change is only one factor potentially causing harmful algal blooms, with increasing nutrient runoff a clearly important factor. There is no basis for ascribing trends in blooms to climate change. There is also an increasing ability to detect them as satellite imagery improves over time.

Changes in Ecosystems

There are studies showing responses to biota that are “consistent with” warming, but most of these are actually positive, whereas negative effects are hypothetical (e.g., phenology “might” be disrupted). For example, changes in bird migration and nesting dates indicate adaptation to changes rather than an alarming situation. The clearest data pertain to long-term trends in plant growth. These studies, with a few local exceptions, show regional to global net primary productivity (NPP) to have been increasing in the past 50 to 100 years (Alcaraz-Segura et al. 2010; Bellassen et al. 2011; Jia et al. 2009; Kohler et al. 2010; Lin et al. 2010; Nemani et al. 2003; Tian et al. 2010) due to both rising CO2 levels and increasing temperatures. If warming since the Little Ice Age is leading to increased NPP, this is difficult to construe as problematic.

Conclusions

Within the United States, the claim that bad climate effects can “already” be detected is a totally subjective and unsupported hypothetical.

Literature Cited

Aitken, S.N., Yeaman, S., Holliday, J.A., Wang, T., and Curtis-McLane, S. 2008. Adaptation, migration or extirpation: climate change outcomes for tree populations. Evolutionary Applications 1:95 111.

Alcaraz-Segura, D., Chuvieco, E., Epstein, H.E., Kasischke, E.S., and Trishchenko, A. 2010. Debating the greening vs. browning of the North American boreal forest: differences between the satellite datasets. Global Change Biology 16:760 770.

Anagnostopoulos, G.G., Koutsoyiannis, D., Christofides, A., Efstradiadis, A., and Mamassis, N. 2010. A comparison of local and aggregated climate model outputs with observed data. Hydrological Sciences Journal 55:1094 1110.

Arrigoni, A.S., Greenwood, M.C., and Moore, J.N. 2010. Relative impact of anthropogenic modifications versus climate change on the natural flow regimes of rivers in the northern Rocky Mountains, United States. Water Resources Research 46:W12542; doi:10.1029/2010WRO09162.

Balling, R.C., and Cerveny, R.S. 2003. Compilation and discussion of trends in severe storms in the United States: Popular perception v. climate reality. Natural Hazards 29(2):103 112.

Bellassen, V., Viovy, N., Luyssaert, S., LeMarie, G., Schelhaas, M.-J., and Ciais, P. 2011. Reconstruction and attribution of the carbon sink of European forests between 1950 and 2000. Global Change Biology 17:3274 3292.

Bouwer, L.M. 2011. Have disaster losses increased due to anthropogenic climate change? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 92:39 46.

Chu, P.-S., Chen, Y.R., and Schroeder, T.A. 2010. Changes in precipitation extremes in the Hawaiian islands in a warming climate. Journal of Climate 23:4881 4900.

Cole, K. 1985. Past rates of change, species richness and a model of vegetational inertia in the Grand Canyon, Arizona. American Naturalist 125:289 303.

Cole, K.L. 2009. Vegetation response to early Holocene warming as an analog for current and future changes. Conservation Biology 24:29 37.

Cwynar, L.C., and Spear, R.W. 1991. Reversion of forest to tundra in the central Yukon. Ecology 72:202 212.

Czymzik, M., Dulski, P., Plessen, B., von Grafenstein, U., Naumann, R., and Brauer, A. 2010. A 50 year record of spring‐summer flood layers in annually laminated sediments from Lake Ammersee (southern Germany). Water Resources Research 46:W11528; doi:10.1029/2009WR008360.

Hirsch, R.M., and Ryberg, K.R. 2011. Has the magnitude of floods across the USA changed with global CO2 levels? Hydrological Sciences Journal doi:10.1080/02626667.2011.621895.

Houston, J.R., and Dean, R.G. 2011. Sea-level acceleration based on U.S. tide gauges and extensions of previous global-gauge analyses. Journal of Coastal Research doi:10.2112/JCOASTRES D 10 00157.1.

Jia, G.J., Epstein, H.E., and Walker, D.A. 2009. Vegetation greening in the Canadian arctic related to decadal warming. Journal of Environmental Monitoring 11:2231 2238.

Kohler, I.H., Poulton, P.R., Auerswald, K., and Schnyder, H. 2010. Intrinsic water-use efficiency of temperate seminatural grassland has increased since 1857: An analysis of carbon isotope discrimination of herbage from the Park Grass Experiment. Global Change Biology 16:1531 1541.

Kundzewicz, Z.W., Graczyk, D., Maurer, T., Pinskwar, I., Radziejewski, M., Svensson, C., and Szwed, M. 2005. Trend detection in river flow series: 1. Annual maximum flow. Hydrological Sciences Journal 50(5):797 810.

Lin, D., Xia, J., and Wan, S. 2010. Climate warming and biomass accumulation of terrestrial plants: A meta-analysis. New Phytologist 188:187 198.

Loehel, C. 1998. Height growth rate tradeoffs determine northern and southern range limits for trees. Journal of Biogeography 25:735 742.

Loehle, C. 2000. Forest ecotone response to climate change: sensitivity to temperature response functional forms. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 30:1632 1645.

Loehle, C. 2003. Competitive displacement of trees in response to climate change or introduction of exotics. Environmental Management 32:106 115.

Loehle, C. 2011. Criteria for assessing climate change impacts on ecosystems. Ecology and Evolution doi:10.1002/ece3.7.

Loehle, C., and LeBlanc, D.C. 1996. Model-based assessments of climate change effects on forests: a critical review. Ecological Modelling 90:1 31.

Masek, J.G. 2001. Stability of boreal forest stands during recent climate change: Evidence from Landsat satellite imagery. Journal of Biogeography 28:967 976.

McCabe, G.J., Legates, D.R., and Lins, H.F. 2010. Variability and trends in dry day frequency and dry event length in the southwestern United States. Journal of Geophysical Research 115:D07108; doi:10.1029/2009JD012866.

Middelboe, A.L. and Hansen, P.J. 2007. High pH in shallow-water macroalgal habitats. Marine Ecology Progress Series 338: 107-117

Morin, X., Lechowicz, M.J., Augspurger, C., O’Keefe, J., Viner, D., and Chuine, I. 2009. Leaf phenology in 22 North American tree species during the 21st century. Global Change Biology 15:961 975.

Nemani, R.R., Keeling, C.D., Hashimoto, H., Jolly, W.M., Piper, S.C., Tucker, C.J., Myneni, R.B., and Running, S.W. 2003. Climate-driven increases in global terrestrial net primary production from 1982 to 1999. Science 300:1560 1563.

Noble, I.R. 1993. A model of the responses of ecotones to climate change. Ecological Applications 3:396 403.

Payette, S. 2007. Contrasted dynamics of northern Labrador tree lines caused by climate change and migration lag. Ecology 88:770 780.

Pelejero, C., Calvo, E., McCulloch, M.T., Marshall, J.F., Gagan, M.K., Lough, J.M. and Opdyke, B.N. 2005. Preindustrial to modern interdecadal variability in coral reef pH. Science 309: 2204-2207

Schliep, E. M., Cooley, D., Sain, S.R., and Hoeting, J.A. 2010. A comparison study of extreme precipitation from six different regional climate models via spatial hierarchical modeling. Extremes 13:219 239.

Sheffield, J., Andreadis, K.M., Wood, E.F., and Lettenmaier, D.P. 2009. Global and continental drought in the second half of the twentieth century: Severity-area-duration analysis and temporal variability of large-scale events. Journal of Climate 22:1962 1981; doi:10.1175/2008JCLI2722.1.

Stephens, G. L., L’Ecuyer, T., Forbes, R., Gettlemen, A., Golaz, J.-C., Bodas-Salcedo, A., Suzuki, K., Gabriel, P., and Haynes, J. 2010. Dreary state of precipitation in global models. Journal of Geophysical Research 115:D24211.

Tian, H., Chen, G., Liu, M., Zhang, C., Sun, G., Lu, C., Xu, X., Ren, W., Pan, S. and Chappelka, A. 2010. Model estimates of net primary productivity, evapotranspiration, and water use efficiency in the terrestrial ecosystems of the southern United States during 1895-2007. Forest Ecology and Management 259:1311 1327.

Tinner, W., Bigler, C., Gedye, S., Gregory-Eaves, I., Jones, R.T., Kaltenrieder, P., Krähenbühl, U., and Hu, F.S. 2008. A 700-year paleoecological record of boreal ecosystem responses to climatic variation from Alaska. Ecology 89:729 743.

Vecchi, G.A. and Knutson, T.R. 2011. Estimating annual numbers of Atlantic hurricanes missing from the HURDAT database (1878-1965) using ship track density. Journal of Climate 24:1736 1746; doi:10.1175/2010JCLI3810.1.

Wertin, T.M., McGuire, M.A., and Teskey, R.O. 2010. The influence of elevated temperature, elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration and water stress on net photosynthesis of loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) at northern, central and southern sites in its native range. Global Change Biology 16:2089 2103.

Williams, J.W., Tarasov, P., Brewer, S., and Notaro, M. 2011. Late Quaternary variations in tree cover at the northern forest-tundra ecotone. Journal of Geophysical Research 116:G01017.

Woollings, T. 2010. Dynamical influences on European climate: An uncertain future. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 368:3733 3756.

Wyatt, M.G., Kravisov, S., and Tsonis, A.A. 2011. Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and Northern Hemisphere’s climate variability. Climate Dynamics doi:10.1007/s00382 011 1071 8.

Xie, B., Zhang, Q., and Wang, Y. 2010. Observed characteristics of hail size in four regions in China during 1980–2005. Journal of Climate 23:4973 4982.

[DarrinS]

Dr. Loehle received his Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management in 1982 from Colorado State University. His specialty is quantitative methods for analysis of ecological systems. He haspublished five books, 127 peer reviewed papers and technicalreports and is a research scientist for the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement.


Latest book

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/118840000/118842026.JPG


But, I suppose he's a PSEUDOSCIENTIST

[MannyIsGod]

Its the same reason you saw a large decrease in global temp during the early 90s when Pinitubo erupted. Aerosols. The slight drop in temperature - and it was very slight - correlates almost perfectly with rising aerosol levels in the atmosphere. The IPCC themselves documents the forcing behind aerosols and its the largest negative forcing behind cloud albedo feedback.

If this was the case, you would still expect GHG to have an effect but you would expect that effect at night. Why? Well the main function of aerosols would be to lower incoming energy by blocking sunlight from reaching the surface. At night, there would be no effect from aerosols since there is no radiation to block. However, GHG would still be remitting IR at higher levels as their concentration went up.

Thats exactly what research shows:

http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/wild/2006GL028031.pdf

Documents the increase in aerosols. They start skyrocketing around 1940, and they flatline at about 1970.

http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-14537.pdf

Talks about the forcing effect of aerosols:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0870.1991.00013.x/pdf

[DarrinS]

One government draft report indicated that ocean pH has increased ..


Before Manny pounces, this has since been corrected to "pH has decreased".

[DarrinS]

Its the same reason you saw a large decrease in global temp during the early 90s when Pinitubo erupted. Aerosols. The slight drop in temperature - and it was very slight - correlates almost perfectly with rising aerosol levels in the atmosphere. The IPCC themselves documents the forcing behind aerosols and its the largest negative forcing behind cloud albedo feedback.

If this was the case, you would still expect GHG to have an effect but you would expect that effect at night. Why? Well the main function of aerosols would be to lower incoming energy by blocking sunlight from reaching the surface. At night, there would be no effect from aerosols since there is no radiation to block. However, GHG would still be remitting IR at higher levels as their concentration went up.

Thats exactly what research shows:

http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/wild/2006GL028031.pdf

Documents the increase in aerosols. They start skyrocketing around 1940, and they flatline at about 1970.

http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-14537.pdf

Talks about the forcing effect of aerosols:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0870.1991.00013.x/pdf



Amazing what the affect of blocking the sun has on temps. I wholeheartedly agree.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

In your haste to "pwn" me and discredit my source, you didn't notice that he may actually agree with you

A smoother is not a smoother. Mann apparently used some MATLAB function that emulates the action of RC low pass filter but BEST did not and a smoother is not a smoother. They have to match the sample rates of the signals to correlate the data. While Heartland blog can say that there is no reason to do the running averages that does not make it so. BEST did so in a way that weights each data point equally in the sequence.

So basically you grabbed a blog that you thought was on topic and it was not. Nice.

Further as I said low pass functions are identified with decaying exponentials. A passive, proportional attenuation is not remotely the same thing as adding a signal like that guy claims. Hes just all over the place trying to dazzle people with bullshit because not many people can follow that type stuff .

But really that was a red herring. BEST did directly refute your parroting of questioning the delta-T's of those decades and you do not even argue it ont hat baiss you just try and play sophist with Manny and RG instead and throw other shit out there and see what sticks.

[Wild Cobra]

I love how WC believes his stupid theory on PPM even after I showed him that its been warmer before with nowhere near the same CO2 concentrations.
But you haven't. There are other causes that you haven't covered to make such a claim. The NOAA data for deuterium, to determine temperature was taken at shorter intervals, and each data point is under 100 years apart. The CO2 data points... damn, I forget the number but posted it in the past... are over 600 years apart average. There could easily be a few time CO2 exceeded today's levels and not be seen in the core sample.


Why is CO2 growth after the industrial revolution not linear?
Did you miss what I said? Our output of CO2 has had a near exponential growth. CO2 in the atmosphere is a near linear growth. Why haven't the atmospheric levels grown exponentially?

Um, because our industrial growth isn't linear.
That's what I said.

Why is it slower now? Because industry is cleaner, now.
Cleaner yes, but not less CO2. Just less sulpher, soot, etc.

[Wild Cobra]

Climate Change Impacts In The USA is Already [NOT] Happening
Some interesting things in there. One of which i recently stated.

[Wild Cobra]

Dr. Loehle received his Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management in 1982 from Colorado State University. His specialty is quantitative methods for analysis of ecological systems. He haspublished five books, 127 peer reviewed papers and technicalreports and is a research scientist for the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement.


Latest book

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/118840000/118842026.JPG


But, I suppose he's a PSEUDOSCIENTIST
He is absolutely the pseudoscientist, to those who act like Mr. Ed with blinders on.

http://writinghorseback.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Mister-Ed-Talking-Horse.jpg

[Wild Cobra]

Its the same reason you saw a large decrease in global temp during the early 90s when Pinitubo erupted. Aerosols. The slight drop in temperature - and it was very slight - correlates almost perfectly with rising aerosol levels in the atmosphere. The IPCC themselves documents the forcing behind aerosols and its the largest negative forcing behind cloud albedo feedback.

If this was the case, you would still expect GHG to have an effect but you would expect that effect at night. Why? Well the main function of aerosols would be to lower incoming energy by blocking sunlight from reaching the surface. At night, there would be no effect from aerosols since there is no radiation to block. However, GHG would still be remitting IR at higher levels as their concentration went up.

Thats exactly what research shows:

http://www.iac.ethz.ch/people/wild/2006GL028031.pdf

Documents the increase in aerosols. They start skyrocketing around 1940, and they flatline at about 1970.

http://www.pnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_reports/PNNL-14537.pdf

Talks about the forcing effect of aerosols:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0870.1991.00013.x/pdf

I see you found the proof of a past claim of mine.

[Wild Cobra]

Amazing what the affect of blocking the sun has on temps. I wholeheartedly agree.
Absolutely.

You guys remember how many times I claimed from the 70's to present day were not a period to claim a high level of warming, because we started cleaning up our emissions act? We previously suppressed warming with our increased aerosols. When our levels of pollution output decreased, and started going down, we saw more increases in temperature that would have occurred earlier.

You alarmist guys all scoffed at me.

Manny, thanks for the proof I was correct.

Maybe next, you will find more proof of me being right.

[DarrinS]

A smoother is not a smoother. Mann apparently used some MATLAB function that emulates the action of RC low pass filter but BEST did not and a smoother is not a smoother. They have to match the sample rates of the signals to correlate the data. While Heartland blog can say that there is no reason to do the running averages that does not make it so. BEST did so in a way that weights each data point equally in the sequence.

So basically you grabbed a blog that you thought was on topic and it was not. Nice.

Further as I said low pass functions are identified with decaying exponentials. A passive, proportional attenuation is not remotely the same thing as adding a signal like that guy claims. Hes just all over the place trying to dazzle people with bullshit because not many people can follow that type stuff .

But really that was a red herring. BEST did directly refute your parroting of questioning the delta-T's of those decades and you do not even argue it ont hat baiss you just try and play sophist with Manny and RG instead and throw other shit out there and see what sticks.


I was using low-pass filters back when you were still playing in your own diaper shit. But thanks for sharing.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I was using low-pass filters back when you were still playing in your own diaper shit. But thanks for sharing.

Then why did you post that blog as if it was relevant? When you make comments like this all that says is that you are willfully posting shit you know not to be true and/or misleading. Just like when i call WC stupid, when i call you deceptive I use specific examples.

Thanks for sharing.

[MannyIsGod]

WC that definitely isn't proof of you being right (other than if you said aeresols having some forcing) but you're welcome to believe thats so. :lol

[RandomGuy]

Climate Change Impacts In The USA is Already [NOT] Happening


Data related to precipitation and drought activity do not appear to support the contention of increasing drought frequency and severity and suggest that drought patterns are complex. For example, there has been a 5% increase in overall precipitation in the US rather than increasing drought.

This smacks of cherry picking.

It isn't how much water you make, it is how much you keep.

If you get that extra 5% during two periods of intense rain, causing massive flooding that washes all that extra water away, you can say "look at all this yearly rain we have been getting" and still have an overall drought, as the water didn't stick around to sink into an aquifer.

Further, if you are looking at the ENTIRE U.S., and ONE part got 200% more rain, such as Florida, that still doesn't mean there isn't any drought in Texas.

One of the main criticisms of climate change deniers is that they tend to cherry pick data.

Do you think that happened here?

[RandomGuy]

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/drmon.gif

[RandomGuy]

Dr. Loehle received his Ph.D. in Natural Resource Management in 1982 from Colorado State University. His specialty is quantitative methods for analysis of ecological systems. He haspublished five books, 127 peer reviewed papers and technicalreports and is a research scientist for the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement.


Latest book

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/118840000/118842026.JPG


But, I suppose he's a PSEUDOSCIENTIST

flap text of the book


Detection and attribution of climate change dependexplicitly on proper characterization of naturalpatterns of climate over time. This book examinesmultiple types of climate data, from ocean heat content over a few years to ice core data going back 60,000 years. Multi-scale analyses are employed totest for stationarity or acceleration of warming in satellite and ground instrumental data. Problems that arise when combining instrumental data into long records are evaluated. The CO2 rise pattern is characterized and the problem of extrapolation is addressed. It is finally shown that periodic patterns can be detected at multiple time scales,from decades to millenia. These patterns are characterized and used to address the attribution problem. The human contribution to climate is shownto be separable from natural variability and is characterized. Human forcing of climate is shown to be detectable beginning in 1942. This forcing pattern is used along with patterns of natural variability to make a 100 year forecast

Pseudoscientist, no.

He would also likely say your skepticism is the dishonest type.

[RandomGuy]

Climate Change Impacts In The USA is Already [NOT] Happening

One fairly minor criticism aside, the rest of it reads well, and is fairly compelling.

A step above the usual drek, it is carefully worded, cited, and reasonable.

He brings up some solid points and I think rightfully puts data that pokes holes to the more alarmist news reports on the subject of extreme weather events affeccting the U.S.

[Yonivore]

Regardless of on which side of the issue you reside, Steven Hayward makes a valid point in his PowerLine post, this morning.

80 BY 50: WHY CLIMATE SCIENCE DOESN’T MATTER ANY MORE (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/03/80-by-50-why-climate-science-doesnt-matter-any-more.php)


So I’m away again this weekend at a conference doing my typical think-tanky stuff, and surprisingly my Internet access is strangely limited, so posts may be sporadic. But I thought it worth sharing one of my four “heterodox propositions” about energy and climate that I offered to a small audience last night.

It is this: climate science doesn’t matter any more. While the arguments between the alarmist and skeptics camp will grind on—very likely to the detriment of the alarmists—what has really turned climate change into the biggest environmental cul de sac of all time is the brutal arithmetic of energy use. In a fit of madness, the climate campaign a few years ago put forward the conclusion that meeting the greenhouse gas stability target required an 80 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2050 by the whole world, not just the United States or Europe. This is a very short time frame when you keep in mind the enormous capital cost of the world’s energy infrastructure and the fact that energy transitions are historically very slow.

I was among the first, five years or so ago, to do the arithmetic to point out that this goal of climate policy orthodoxy would require scaling back fossil fuel use in the United States to the level last seen in the year 1910, when the U.S. had a total population of only 92 million people, and was less than 1/40th the size of today’s economy in real terms. By 2050 we’ll have a population of more than 400 million people, and the emissions reduction target of climate policy means that our per capita emissions will have to be about 2.4 tons of CO2 per person.

Are there any nations that emit at that low a per capita level? Yes—in fact there are! Haiti, Somalia, and the other poorest and most backwards nations are all in that neighborhood.

Keep that 80 by 50 target, as I call it, in mind. This. Ain’t. Going. To. Happen. (By the way, Al Gore says the emissions reduction needs to be closer to 90 or 95 percent, so don’t waste time saying “But won’t it be worthwhile to go some of the way down the field?” Short answer: No. Longer answer: Ask Al Gore. He’ll say “No,” too.)

The prolonged and solemn farce of climate change policy has finally come to be understood by most responsible governments, even if not fully admitted by the climate campaign. We’re not going to go very far down the road toward a world of serious carbon constraints for the simple reason that it is economically unserious. This is why the all of the early regimes of carbon constraints are collapsing or retreating—Europe’s ETS, Australia’s emissions tax, Canada formally withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol (which is a dead letter anyway), etc. As I’ve been saying for a long time, we’re someday going to look back on the entire Kyoto process as the climate policy equivalent of the Kellogg Briand Pact of 1928 that promised to end all war. Or maybe we’ll see it as the climate policy equivalent of wage and price controls to fight inflation in the 1970s.

This will remain the case even if catastrophic climate change turns out to be true. But as Walter Russell Mead likes to point out, the climate campaign is probably the single most incompetently led social movement ever. So they have only themselves to blame for the dead end they’ve led us to. So they can keep stamping their feet, blaming the Heartland Institute for all evil in the world, and throwing up more scare stories that people long ago started to ignore, and it won’t change the fact that their remedy—the jihad against fossil fuels—is going nowhere.

Perhaps later I’ll post up my three other heterodox propositions.

[RandomGuy]

Regardless of on which side of the issue you reside, Steven Hayward makes a valid point in his PowerLine post, this morning.

80 BY 50: WHY CLIMATE SCIENCE DOESN’T MATTER ANY MORE (http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/03/80-by-50-why-climate-science-doesnt-matter-any-more.php)

He does make a VERY valid point concerning our overall ability to cut emissions at that time scale.

I don't think such a scale of cuts is possible either.

That is why I generally go for far more realistic goals.

BUT

Just because we can't cut by 80% doesn't mean that we can't level off or even decline a bit with efficiency, and some sensible steps towards less carbon intensive energy sources.

Are you against doing anything at all?

[Yonivore]

He does make a VERY valid point concerning our overall ability to cut emissions at that time scale.

I don't think such a scale of cuts is possible either.

That is why I generally go for far more realistic goals.

BUT

Just because we can't cut by 80% doesn't mean that we can't level off or even decline a bit with efficiency, and some sensible steps towards less carbon intensive energy sources.
What you fail to allow is that Anthropogenic Global Climate Change alarmists claim that, unless we do reduce our emissions by 80% (and, in the case of the Al Gore scale nut, by 90-95%), we're doomed. Game over. We're fucked.

It seems they've overplayed their hand.


Are you against doing anything at all?
First of all, you'd have to convince me we can appreciably affect global climate, at all. Then second, you'd have to advance a cost/benefit analysis that doesn't put us all on the plane of Somalia in trying to achieve that affect -- however small or big it would be.

No, I'm not in favor of spending Trillions over the next few decades to have a negligible affect on climate.

I'd rather spend that money working on technologies that will allow us to mitigate the affects of any climate change that does occur.

[RandomGuy]

What you fail to allow is that Anthropogenic Global Climate Change alarmists claim that, unless we do reduce our emissions by 80% (and, in the case of the Al Gore scale nut, by 90-95%), we're doomed. Game over. We're fucked.

It seems they've overplayed their hand.

First of all, you'd have to convince me we can appreciably affect global climate, at all. Then second, you'd have to advance a cost/benefit analysis that doesn't put us all on the plane of Somalia in trying to achieve that affect -- however small or big it would be..

??

I actually do allow and acknowledge the figure. I said as much, and think it is not possible to achieve it.

I think a great deal of risk mitigation can be had by more modest, realistic goals, as I said.

Since I am not advocating for such a reduction, do not expect me to flesh it out.

I think it is entirely unreasonable to assume that shifting our energy usage to forms of energy which do not deplete, and do not have to be imported would help our economy in the long run. Do you disagree?


No, I'm not in favor of spending Trillions over the next few decades to have a negligible affect on climate.

I'd rather spend that money working on technologies that will allow us to mitigate the affects of any climate change that does occur

Total US GDP over the next 30 years, assuming 2.5% growth rate:
570Tr

2Tr/570Tr = 0.35%

2Tr/30 = 66bn

Not altogether unreasonable, IMO.

The function of the money would be to mitigate risks. Again, not altogether unreasonable, given the uncertainties involved.

[RandomGuy]

First of all, you'd have to convince me we can appreciably affect global climate, at all.

The problem with this is that by the time the data is in, the experiment is run and if it is bad, it is too late.

We have some indication that we are starting to affect things now. The only question iseems to be how much.

This is pretty much the same as drinking something that your drunk buddy just handed you without knowing what it is, and THEN asking what was in it.

Conservative risk management dictates that until we have better data, mitigating potential affects is the prudent thing to do.

I do not liberally accept that much risk generally.

[Yonivore]

??

I actually do allow and acknowledge the figure. I said as much, and think it is not possible to achieve it.

I think a great deal of risk mitigation can be had by more modest, realistic goals, as I said.

Since I am not advocating for such a reduction, do not expect me to flesh it out.

I think it is entirely unreasonable to assume that shifting our energy usage to forms of energy which do not deplete, and do not have to be imported would help our economy in the long run. Do you disagree?
To repeat myself, what you don't allow is that the alarmists (many of whom have informed this entire debate through the IPCC -- along with Nobel Winner Al Gore) claim we are fucking doomed unless we meet those goals.

[Yonivore]

The problem with this is that by the time the data is in, the experiment is run and if it is bad, it is too late.

We have some indication that we are starting to affect things now. The only question iseems to be how much.
What you have is an indication the climate isn't performing as predicted -- there's absolutely no evidence anything we've done has resulted in the unexpected moderation of the climate.


This is pretty much the same as drinking something that your drunk buddy just handed you without knowing what it is, and THEN asking what was in it.

Conservative risk management dictates that until we have better data, mitigating potential affects is the prudent thing to do.
I can say, there is little to zero evidence humans have an appreciable affect on the global climate. And, to top it off, those who claim we do, have a credibility sullied by scandal, lies, and obfuscation over the course of this entire cluster fuck of the past couple decades.


I do not liberally accept that much risk generally.
I don't listen to Henny Pennies, either.

[DarrinS]

Good post by Yoni.


A much scarier scenario than anything Al Gore's studios could dream up is what would happen if oil ran out.


See National Geographic's:

Aftermath: World Without Oil

[FuzzyLumpkins]

So now were backed to Al Gore says this, defend him?

Spare me the pigeonhole please.

[MannyIsGod]

What you have is an indication the climate isn't performing as predicted -- there's absolutely no evidence anything we've done has resulted in the unexpected moderation of the climate.


I can say, there is little to zero evidence humans have an appreciable affect on the global climate. And, to top it off, those who claim we do, have a credibility sullied by scandal, lies, and obfuscation over the course of this entire cluster fuck of the past couple decades.


I don't listen to Henny Pennies, either.

Lololololololol

[Agloco]

What you have is an indication the climate isn't performing as predicted -- there's absolutely no evidence anything we've done has resulted in the unexpected moderation of the climate.


I can say, there is little to zero evidence humans have an appreciable affect on the global climate. And, to top it off, those who claim we do, have a credibility sullied by scandal, lies, and obfuscation over the course of this entire cluster fuck of the past couple decades.


I don't listen to Henny Pennies, either.

http://m.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/sea-levels-force-kiribati-to-ask-fijians-for-new-home-20120308-1unan.html

[Wild Cobra]

http://m.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/sea-levels-force-kiribati-to-ask-fijians-for-new-home-20120308-1unan.html
I see.

The very small 3.3 mm per year is cause by AGW climate changes? can you back that up? We know that somewhere in the neighborhood of half the rise in sea level is from thermal expansion. Ocean movement changes also affect sea level.

I'll bet there is more going on at this location, like maybe the sea bottom actually changing depth from normal tectonic actions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but these islands are getting far more than an average 3.3 mm/year of sea level rise relative to them. I read someplace in a search it was 4.3 mm/year.

These Islands simply are too low and some are the remains of coral that obviously have been submerged in the past.

Is it your conclusion this sea level change is unnatural?

[RandomGuy]

To repeat myself, what you don't allow is that the alarmists (many of whom have informed this entire debate through the IPCC -- along with Nobel Winner Al Gore) claim we are fucking doomed unless we meet those goals.

What you don't allow is that the deniers (many of whom have informed the entire debate through blogs) claim that any action at all will doom our economy.

Deniers who don't want us to do anything have yet to provide any reasonable level of proof that lowing the CO2 intensitivity of our economy will have any real long term damage.

If you have scientists telling you "we don't know for certain, but there is a chance it will be very bad", the reasonable thing would be to take some action to limit risk, right?

[RandomGuy]

What you have is an indication the climate isn't performing as predicted -- there's absolutely no evidence anything we've done has resulted in the unexpected moderation of the climate.

I can say, there is little to zero evidence humans have an appreciable affect on the global climate. And, to top it off, those who claim we do, have a credibility sullied by scandal, lies, and obfuscation over the course of this entire cluster fuck of the past couple decades.

I don't listen to Henny Pennies, either.

Is it possible you are wrong about the evidence?

[101A]

VERY Scientific Analysis from Me Follows:

No links, just pulling this out of my own er.... brain:

WC's signature got me thinking - CO2 looks like a good thing. Plants get bigger with more CO2 - Bigger plants mean more oxygen. Better for life. OBVIOUSLY at one point in time on this planet, in fact, for a very long time, there was a lot more CO2 in the air than there is now.

Plants grew everywhere, and they grew very, very large. The planet was much more fertile than it is today; there was little, if any, tundra, or ice caps. Less water tied up in ice. Animals, in turn, ALSO grew larger; it was so long ago, it is hard to tell just how much more abundant life was on the planet than now; but we DO know the Earth supported much larger life forms than now exist.

Then something happened. Apparently, some 65 million years ago an asteroid hit our flying greenhouse, killing most everything, and ostensibly blanketing the planet in an "asteroid winter", for who nows how long - long enough to kill, and presumably bury, much of the plant life. ALL of that life getting buried tied up trillions of tons of carbon and oxygen presumably buried PERMANENTLY beneath the surface of the planet. Never again to feed the plants, or fill the lungs of animals. The Earth cooled; life became more scarce, and much more miniscule. The great abundance of life that the planet had enjoyed came to a quick, dramatic, halt.

Now we have a chance to change all of that. If we just keep punching more holes in the ground, pumping those long lost molecules out of their prehistoric resting places; we can again fill our atmosphere with life giving CO2 - the plants will grow, and so will we. The frozen, fertile lands will thaw, there will be more habitable places on earth. Siberia with FARMS! Thanks to human-kind, great wrong can be righted. We can restore the atmosphere to its correct, historical levels of Co2. We can once again make life abundant on this planet.

We just have to keep it up.

[RandomGuy]

The kicker to that is that most of the animal/fish life on the planet has adapted to the lower level that we have now.

We are acting to increase the concentrations very, very fast. Evolution happens, but there is a limit to how quickly things can adapt changes in the environment.

It isn't that there might be changes, it is the rate of the changes.

I can think of a few other things off the top of my head, such as ocean convection different than the past (think: continent shapes/position).

I dunno, I will be long dead by the time anything really really bad happens. I would like my kids not to have to deal with our generations stupid shit though.

We owe it to future generations not to affect processes we don't understand.

[DarrinS]

We owe it to future generations not to affect processes we don't understand.


I agree. Hopefully, no one goes nuts with geoengineering shit.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/highlights/highlights.html


My personal favorite is wrapping Greenland with a woobie.

Honorable mention: launching trillions of lenses into space to reflect sunlight

[Wild Cobra]

I agree. Hopefully, no one goes nuts with geoengineering shit.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/highlights/highlights.html


My personal favorite is wrapping Greenland with a woobie.

Honorable mention: launching trillions of lenses into space to reflect sunlight
LOL...

I think this is a huge scale mistake waiting to happen:

Dr. Jason Box, a glaciologist from Ohio State University, wants to prevent glaciers from melting by covering them with blankets that will reflect the powerful rays of the sun. Box is convinced that his specially chosen material is resilient enough for Arctic conditions, but just how indestructible is it really? The team goes airborne to reproduce some of the worst weather experienced in the Arctic Circle: a hurricane-force ice storm. After testing, they deploy a 10,000-square-yard, reflective geo-textile blanket on the Greenland ice sheet. Will the blanket indeed reflect the sun and block the wind?
After there is more precipitation in the form of snow, and this is covered, what good is it? Isn't it just now a piece of trash, trapped in ice, that will eventually flow into the sea?

Am I wrong?

[Wild Cobra]

I miss Global Warming. It's snowing outside my window. I wonder if we will still have snow after the equinox?

[RandomGuy]

I agree. Hopefully, no one goes nuts with geoengineering shit.

http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/project-earth/highlights/highlights.html


My personal favorite is wrapping Greenland with a woobie.

Honorable mention: launching trillions of lenses into space to reflect sunlight

Sooooo.... you aren't comfortable with geoengineering on a massive scale and think it is nutty, yet doubling the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere and continuing to pump it out on a massive scale with little understood consequences doesn't phase you?

Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth?

[DarrinS]

Sooooo.... you aren't comfortable with geoengineering on a massive scale and think it is nutty, yet doubling the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere and continuing to pump it out on a massive scale with little understood consequences doesn't phase you?



I thought the consequences were very well understood. You mean, that part isn't settled?

[RandomGuy]

I thought the consequences were very well understood. You mean, that part isn't settled?

My reading is that the effects are fairly conclusive, the wording of the quote was shaped by what I think you advocate.

If you like, I am reasonably certain I can find a post where you criticise the "consensus" and emphasise the uncertainty in climate science to make your case, such as it is.

Why ask? Does the logical inconsistency sting a little?

[RandomGuy]

Bump.

[Wild Cobra]

Bump.

I miss Global Warming. Had to scrape my windows last night, and it snowed again over the weekend.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I miss Global Warming. Had to scrape my windows last night, and it snowed again over the weekend.

Thats about as worthwhile as talking about the weather down here in S. Texas. The aggregate data every year makes you look like a fool yet you continue with this same shit.

[MannyIsGod]

You know, right now I'm really learning a great deal about climate dynamics due to my current course load. Its really exciting because the knowledge I'm gaining really starts to connect the dots and give me a fuller understanding of the entire situation.

Then I read this thread, and its just sad.

[Agloco]

You know, right now I'm really learning a great deal about climate dynamics due to my current course load. Its really exciting because the knowledge I'm gaining really starts to connect the dots and give me a fuller understanding of the entire situation.

Then I read this thread, and its just sad.

Your knowledge is still small Manny. Just deal with it.

[RandomGuy]

Thats about as worthwhile as talking about the weather down here in S. Texas. The aggregate data every year makes you look like a fool yet you continue with this same shit.

He's just doing that at this point to get your goat. It is just like Jack's "god bless" schtick. :rolleyes

[DarrinS]

Your knowledge is still small Manny. Just deal with it.

I know you are being sarcastic. Manny is very knowledgeable. I just disagree with him.

[Wild Cobra]

"The long term trend is UP...." "but when your first value is lower than the last value, the trend is UP."
Yes, we all know that's how the AGW crowd cherry picks to show the trend they want.

[DarrinS]

Manny. Shit like this is not helping.



Early Spring: A Not-So-Early Warning

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/early-spring-global-warming_b_1374309.html





Elliott Negin.
Director of News & Commentary, Union of Concerned Scientists

March used to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. Now it comes in like a lamb and goes out like a mouse. Although the vernal equinox occurred last Tuesday, some parts of the country have been experiencing spring-like, even summer-like, temperatures for several weeks.

In fact, March temperatures have shattered records across the Central and Eastern United States and much of Canada. Nearly 850 U.S. cities and towns notched record highs from March 15 through 22, according to Hamweather. Chicago, which suffered a deadly heat wave in 1995, experienced record highs six days in a row, from March 14 through 19, with temperatures above 80 degrees.

Climate scientists call this phenomenon "spring creep." For quite some time they've been projecting that man-made global warming would make spring arrive earlier than normal, and it is--an average of 10 days compared with just 20 years ago.

So what's the big deal? After a long winter--mild or not--who wouldn't welcome an early onset of warmer weather, daffodils and, here in Washington, cherry blossoms? Isn't that a good thing?

The short answer is no. Before becoming completely intoxicated by spring fever, let's consider some of the drawbacks. True, it's not that difficult for people to adjust to spring creep--at least the fortunate ones among us who don't have allergies. But it's much more difficult for some plants and animals, and their success or failure could have a major impact on us.

Cherry-Rigged Blossom Festival. A hundred years ago, Japan gave thousands of cherry trees to Washington, D.C. Over the years, that gift blossomed into a major springtime tourist destination, now attracting more than a million visitors and generating some $125 million annually. The average date for peak bloom is April 4, but consecutive days over 70 degrees prompted the National Park Service to predict peak bloom would happen on March 20, the first day of spring.

Last week, the Washington Post ran a front-page story on a recent study by University of Washington scientists projecting that global warming could push peak D.C. cherry blossom bloom to early March within this century. A worst-case scenario of unchecked carbon emissions would trigger cherry blossom bloom as much as two weeks earlier on average by 2050 and a month earlier by 2080.

Lead scientist Soo-Hyung Kim and his colleagues, who work at the university's College of the Environment, recognize that such scheduling changes could cause headaches for the D.C. tourism industry, the capital's second largest. "Cherry blossom festivals of spring are culturally and economically important events," they wrote. "And successful planning requires that the cherry blossoms appear as expected within the festival period.

"Our results suggest that the timing of [peak bloom] and the window of the National Cherry Blossom Festival ... may mismatch toward the second half of this century."

The National Park Service is very aware of this problem and is investigating ways to ensure that festival dates match peak bloom.

Honey? I Shrunk the Choices. "Mismatch" is the key word. Besides disappointing tourists, scientists are finding that spring creep can create disconnects when some plants bud earlier and the wildlife that depends on them have not adjusted their internal clocks.

If you like certain kinds of honey, that means that you may be out of luck.

The tulip poplar tree is blooming earlier this year, for example, and bees, still on traditional bee time, may have missed their window of opportunity, said Jake Weltzin, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Service and the executive director of the USA National Phenology Network, a federal program that tracks seasonal pattern changes. Meanwhile, the black locust tree, another major honey plant, is blooming on schedule, providing the bees with an alternative for nectar. "So this year, tulip poplar honey will not be available at your local farmers market, but black locust honey will be," said Weltzin. "But it's not as tasty as tulip poplar honey."

Invasives Win, Natives Lose. Climate mismatch also appears to favor invasive species over native species. Three papers, one published last month and previous ones from 2008 and 2010, found that to be the case at Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. The papers contrasted the status of plant species today with how they fared in the 1850s as documented by Henry David Thoreau.

The February paper, by Boston University biology professor Richard Primack and Acadia National Park Science Coordinator Abraham Miller-Rushing, focused on 43 plant species. They found that "the plants in Concord, on average, are now flowering 10 days earlier than they were in Thoreau's time." Like the earlier papers, Primack and Miller-Rushing discovered that native plants that have maintained their historic flowering schedule are not doing well. These include many of the area's most "charismatic" wildflowers, such as dogwoods, lilies, orchids and roses. The two scientists concluded that 27 percent of the species Thoreau and others recorded in Concord are now extinct in the area, and another 36 percent of then-common species are barely hanging on.

Conversely, the study reaffirmed that invasive plants presently in Concord, such as the purple loosestrife, have the most flexible flowering dates and have shifted them to coincide with the earlier arrival of spring. That flexibility has allowed them to flourish at the expense of the native plants.

The findings of these three papers, which likely are emblematic of what is happening across New England and possibly the Mid-Atlantic, are significant given damages from invasive species across the country amount to more than $100 billion a year.

Time to Act. What can we do about this disturbing state of affairs? Unfortunately, even if we stopped all global warming emissions today, average world temperatures would continue to rise because carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases remain in the atmosphere for decades. So we are going to have to adapt no matter what. That said, we can avoid the worst consequences of climate change by dramatically reducing emissions. That would mean phasing out coal, oil and eventually natural gas and ramping up our reliance on renewable energy technologies and cutting energy demand through aggressive energy efficiency initiatives.

It can be done, and in a follow-on blog next month I will offer some suggestions on how we can cut our individual contribution to global warming.

It's time for all of us to spring into action, the earlier the better.








You can't have it both ways.

You can't castigate us for not understanding the difference between "weather" and "climate" when it's unusually cold, and then call it "climate" when it's unseasonably warm in some areas.

It's this mixed message, among others, that makes the majority of Americans shy away from believing a word you say.

[MannyIsGod]

That comment misses the same point you do. They're not talking a about a warm spell, they're talking about the long term advance or expansion of certain seasonality. As an example, the NWS publishes last freeze dates which are an aggregate average of when the last freeze of a winter period is or when the growing season starts. On any given year, that date can fall within a certain range of days around that date, but discussing whether or not that date is coming - on average - at an earlier time in the year is not nearly the same as pointing to an early last freeze date in any given year as proof of a warming climate. One is a isolated date while the other is a trend.

[RandomGuy]

I miss Global Warming. It's snowing outside my window. I wonder if we will still have snow after the equinox?

http://www.thismodernworld.com/blog/TMW2011-06-01color.png

[Th'Pusher]

Bypassing Think Progress and straight to the data:

http://towleroad.typepad.com/files/apr12asrfeature.pdf

From the Abstract:

Results show that group differences in trust in science are largely stable over the period, except for respondents identifying as conservative. Conservatives began the period with the highest trust in science, relative to liberals and moderates, and ended the period with the lowest.

[MannyIsGod]

The latest issue of Nature has a couple of very good looks at the effects of GHG increases and how they have historically been the "thermostat" of the planet. One is a look at the LGM and how thaw was triggered at the poles by orbital variation but the mechanism by which this was transferred to the rest of the globe was none other than CO2. Its very very good.

The other is a look at a period of warmth in the past was caused by the release of CO2 and Methane from permafrost thaw. Very good paper as well.

[DarrinS]

And the methane is released from decaying plants. Must have been a much warmer world back then.

[boutons_deux]

"Must have been a much warmer world back then."

yep, cold-blooded dinosaurs in southern Patagonia, northern Canada and Russia. Current littoral lands were underwater.

[MannyIsGod]

And the methane is released from decaying plants. Must have been a much warmer world back then.

Yeah I hear a lot of plants grow in places where permafrost thaws. It would be a practical rain forest if it wasn't for all that damn ice. Warm world indeed.

SMH.

[DarrinS]

Yeah I hear a lot of plants grow in places where permafrost thaws. It would be a practical rain forest if it wasn't for all that damn ice. Warm world indeed.

SMH.



Uh. No, there is plant material that is 1000s of years old under the permafrost. Was warmer 1000's of years ago -- duh.

[DarrinS]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/17/science/earth/warming-arctic-permafrost-fuels-climate-change-worries.html?pagewanted=all





FAIRBANKS, Alaska — A bubble rose through a hole in the surface of a frozen lake. It popped, followed by another, and another, as if a pot were somehow boiling in the icy depths.

Every bursting bubble sent up a puff of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas generated beneath the lake from the decay of plant debris. These plants last saw the light of day 30,000 years ago and have been locked in a deep freeze — until now.

...

[MannyIsGod]

Very well. Your logical hole wasn't much of a hole but was rather a red herring.

Yes, it was warmer before.

Did you have a point greater than that?

[DarrinS]

Very well. Your logical hole wasn't much of a hole but was rather a red herring.

Yes, it was warmer before.

Did you have a point greater than that?



Nope. It gets hotter, it gets colder, it gets hotter, it gets colder...


And human beings don't hold a candle to nature when it comes to CO2 emissions.

[MannyIsGod]

Yup. The climate is cyclical. And yes, Human emissions are a small fraction of the total carbon cycle.

Its a good thing AGW theory doesn't seek to deny or change those two facts.

[TeyshaBlue]

"Its a good thing AGW theory doesn't seek to deny or change those two facts."

Isn't the very name, Anthropological Global Warming, sorta at odds with that statement, Manny?

[TeyshaBlue]

honest question, btw

[Wild Cobra]

"Its a good thing AGW theory doesn't seek to deny or change those two facts."

Isn't the very name, Anthropological Global Warming, sorta at odds with that statement, Manny?


honest question, btw
Exactly. And what I have the biggest problem with is the AGW crowd assigning as much warming to human activity as they do. I will not deny we have impact, just the degree of it.

[TeyshaBlue]

I'm not making a statement, WC. I'm asking a question.

[RandomGuy]

Nope. It gets hotter, it gets colder, it gets hotter, it gets colder...


And human beings don't hold a candle to nature when it comes to CO2 emissions.

You have already admitted that last bit is a stupid argument.

Yet you use it again. Why?

[RandomGuy]

"Its a good thing AGW theory doesn't seek to deny or change those two facts."

Isn't the very name, Anthropological Global Warming, sorta at odds with that statement, Manny?

Not really.

If one has a system that is in rough equilibrium, such as say, a balanced scale, and introduce something that unbalances the equilibrium then you can say that change, even if relatively small, was responsible for unbalancing it.

If I have a scale with 100 tons on each side, and it is balanced, if I add a pound to one side, even though that one pound is miniscule compared to the overall weights involved, that one pound will tip the scale.

One thing to keep in the back of ones mind is that we are adding more CO2 to our overall emissions, and the total per year emissions are growing exponentially.

Compounding this is the potential for self-reinforcing feedback loops, and other unforeseen consequences.

I for one, am very leary about flipping switches and turning knobs in complex systems, when we are only beginning to understand what those switches and knobs do.

It seems more than a little reckless.

[RandomGuy]

Exactly. And what I have the biggest problem with is the AGW crowd assigning as much warming to human activity as they do. I will not deny we have impact, just the degree of it.

Einstein was asked to comment once, about a book that the Nazis had cobbled together with a hundred or so loyal scientists to discredit his theories.

His response was "Why 100? If I am wrong, all it takes is just one."

Get out there and publish if your theories about the degree we are affecting things are that solid, then it should be easy enough to prove.

[DarrinS]

Not really.

If one has a system that is in rough equilibrium, such as say, a balanced scale, and introduce something that unbalances the equilibrium then you can say that change, even if relatively small, was responsible for unbalancing it.




When has it been in equilibrium in the past 4½ billion years?

Sincerely,

Earth

[RandomGuy]

Bypassing Think Progress and straight to the data:

http://towleroad.typepad.com/files/apr12asrfeature.pdf

From the Abstract:

Results show that group differences in trust in science are largely stable over the period, except for respondents identifying as conservative. Conservatives began the period with the highest trust in science, relative to liberals and moderates, and ended the period with the lowest.


To summarize the main empirical findings,
this study shows that public trust in science has
not declined since the 1970s except among
conservatives and those who frequently attend
church.

Reference: Every thread about evolution that has ever taken place on this message board.

[RandomGuy]

When has it been in equilibrium in the past 4½ billion years?

Sincerely,

Earth

Long term there is no such thing. No scientist would ever claim otherwise.

Short term, in the span of 50-200, is a lot easier to get to estimate rough equilibriums.

Sorry Cosmored, saying it repeatedly doesn't make the bad arguments any better.

[MannyIsGod]

"Its a good thing AGW theory doesn't seek to deny or change those two facts."

Isn't the very name, Anthropological Global Warming, sorta at odds with that statement, Manny?

Not at all. Coming out of the last glacial max (LGM) we have historically been warming for quite some time now. We would have continued to warm had there been a human on earth or not. AGW theory does not ever say that the only cause of warming is GHG emissions and other human factors.

What the science does say is that we're now going to see far more warming than we would have otherwise and the current natural warming will be amplified.

As for the carbon, it does not take much of a surplus (or deficit) for a system to be thrown wildly out of balance. If you take a financial budget - as an example - for an organization that does trillions of dollars in transactions on a yearly basis that is perfectly balanced, and add a surplus that is a small fraction of the entire budget then you will see that organizations bank account grow each year.

The earth's carbon cycle is the same. There is an incredible amount of carbon being moved through the entire system but prior to the industrial revolution this system was in balance. The amount of carbon we've been putting in - although small in comparison to the entire carbon cycle - is a surplus and as such remains in the atmosphere.

[MannyIsGod]

When has it been in equilibrium in the past 4½ billion years?

Sincerely,

Earth

Quite often. More often than not, in fact.

[DarrinS]

Short term, in the span of 50-200, is a lot easier to get to estimate rough equilibriums.



http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/is-the-climate-system-stable-and-in-equilibrium-in-the-absence-of-human-disturbance/

[MannyIsGod]

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/12/23/is-the-climate-system-stable-and-in-equilibrium-in-the-absence-of-human-disturbance/

:lol

The dangers of googling your way through a debate instead of actually understanding what you're saying is that the pages you go to often have views at odds with other things you say.

IE


The human disturbance, which is significant, as we summarized in our article

From your most recent post.


In any event, abrupt changes happen throughout the climate history. Why? Because a system that may or may have not been in equilibrium was changed in some form and it seeks out new balance.

The Earth's climate of the past 1 million years - where we go through cycles of glaciation and interracials - is one of equilibrium. You see changes but the system is (was) in balance.

[TeyshaBlue]

Not really.

If one has a system that is in rough equilibrium, such as say, a balanced scale, and introduce something that unbalances the equilibrium then you can say that change, even if relatively small, was responsible for unbalancing it.

If I have a scale with 100 tons on each side, and it is balanced, if I add a pound to one side, even though that one pound is miniscule compared to the overall weights involved, that one pound will tip the scale.

One thing to keep in the back of ones mind is that we are adding more CO2 to our overall emissions, and the total per year emissions are growing exponentially.

Compounding this is the potential for self-reinforcing feedback loops, and other unforeseen consequences.

I for one, am very leary about flipping switches and turning knobs in complex systems, when we are only beginning to understand what those switches and knobs do.

It seems more than a little reckless.

That squares. Thx dude.:toast

[TeyshaBlue]

Not at all. Coming out of the last glacial max (LGM) we have historically been warming for quite some time now. We would have continued to warm had there been a human on earth or not. AGW theory does not ever say that the only cause of warming is GHG emissions and other human factors.

What the science does say is that we're now going to see far more warming than we would have otherwise and the current natural warming will be amplified.

As for the carbon, it does not take much of a surplus (or deficit) for a system to be thrown wildly out of balance. If you take a financial budget - as an example - for an organization that does trillions of dollars in transactions on a yearly basis that is perfectly balanced, and add a surplus that is a small fraction of the entire budget then you will see that organizations bank account grow each year.

The earth's carbon cycle is the same. There is an incredible amount of carbon being moved through the entire system but prior to the industrial revolution this system was in balance. The amount of carbon we've been putting in - although small in comparison to the entire carbon cycle - is a surplus and as such remains in the atmosphere.

Got it....thanks Manny. Between you and RG, I have a better understanding of the context behind the name.:toast

[DarrinS]

The Earth's climate of the past 1 million years - where we go through cycles of glaciation and interracials - is one of equilibrium. You see changes but the system is (was) in balance.


Ice ages and interglacials, all without Cadillac Escalades.

[MannyIsGod]

Got it....thanks Manny. Between you and RG, I have a better understanding of the context behind the name.:toast

Glad to help.

[Phenomanul]

Not at all. Coming out of the last glacial max (LGM) we have historically been warming for quite some time now. We would have continued to warm had there been a human on earth or not. AGW theory does not ever say that the only cause of warming is GHG emissions and other human factors.

What the science does say is that we're now going to see far more warming than we would have otherwise and the current natural warming will be amplified.

As for the carbon, it does not take much of a surplus (or deficit) for a system to be thrown wildly out of balance. If you take a financial budget - as an example - for an organization that does trillions of dollars in transactions on a yearly basis that is perfectly balanced, and add a surplus that is a small fraction of the entire budget then you will see that organizations bank account grow each year.

The earth's carbon cycle is the same. There is an incredible amount of carbon being moved through the entire system but prior to the industrial revolution this system was in balance. The amount of carbon we've been putting in - although small in comparison to the entire carbon cycle - is a surplus and as such remains in the atmosphere.

How much of a fraction are we talking about...? Has anyone published such figures? [honest question]

Of that portion [if known, or estimated], ranging over the past 500 years or so, how much of a CO2 inbalance has been introduced into the system simply on account of the population differences between that era and the present time...??? When Earth's population booned from several hundred million peeps to about 6.5 billion...??? Obviously, I understand that there is probably a 3 order magnitude difference [at least] between the CO2 output of a car and that of the average human being... [curious... again just another honest question] I wonder if the "Earth is crowed beyond sustainability" crowd is on to something... :lol

Lastly, how much CO2 do our corporal bodies trap and bind (as organic carbons) when we die and are subsequently buried...? I figure most of it is released slowly by scavengers / bacteria / exposure to the elements... unless the bodies are burned / cremated and all the CO2 is released instantly... But over the millenia, I would suspect that the total amount of dead humans have managed to trap some miniscule, nanotrace percentage of the total CO2 theoretically available in the pie, no? [again, curious]

[MannyIsGod]

Ice ages and interglacials, all without Cadillac Escalades.

If you think that one is good wait until I tell you about the guy with an engineering degree and a job all without logic.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Ice ages and interglacials, all without Cadillac Escalades.

Well, you further prove that you only pay lip service to appreciating what BEST does. You don't know shit about signal analysis so i will dumb it down so its easy to understand what they are claiming.

You once again prove to be a dissembling, deceptive piece of shit but I digress.

http://homepage.mac.com/shelleywalsh/MathArt/qpsin.gif

A sine function is a simple periodic function that oscillates between two poles. When it goes through the first 90 degrees of arch it increases but the differential goes to zero. At 90 degrees there should be no change as the rate of change zeroes out. As it moves through the 90 to 180 degrees of arc the value decreases. If you are in this portion of the graph you expect the value to diminish.

If instead it increases or stays the same what does that say about forces outside of the natural cycle? Are there none, are they negative or do they drive upwards?

http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/exhibitgcc/images/historical02.gif

Here is the now famous ice core temperature graphs. If this is analogous to a sin graph where would you say in the degrees of arc that we are at now?

You know the answer because the above is a dumbed down version of what BEST did. You either know this because you read it and are lying because you are a dissembling, deceptive piece of shit, did not read it and are the same thing or you are too stupid to understand what they are getting at and lied about it anyway which still makes you the same thing.

[MannyIsGod]

How much of a fraction are we talking about...? Has anyone published such figures? [honest question]

Of that portion [if known, or estimated], ranging over the past 500 years or so, how much of a CO2 inbalance has been introduced into the system simply on account of the population differences between that era and the present time...??? When Earth's population booned from several hundred million peeps to about 6.5 billion...??? Obviously, I understand that there is probably a 3 order magnitude difference [at least] between the CO2 output of a car and that of the average human being... [curious... again just another honest question] I wonder if the "Earth is crowed beyond sustainability" crowd is on to something... :lol

Lastly, how much CO2 do our corporal bodies trap and bind (as organic carbons) when we die and are subsequently buried...? I figure most of it is released slowly by scavengers / bacteria / exposure to the elements... unless the bodies are burned / cremated and all the CO2 is released instantly... But over the millenia, I would suspect that the total amount of dead humans have managed to trap some miniscule, nanotrace percentage of the total CO2 theoretically available in the pie, no? [again, curious]

I don't have them with me but I can provide you with links to papers talking about human interaction with the carbon cycle. It (our CO2 influx) does not follow human population growth as you would expect much greater growth in the 20th century if it did.

As for the 2nd half of your post, I've never thought about it in those terms, but I would imagine that humans make up such a tiny percentage of the biomass on earth that I do not believe the carbon trapped in our bodies to be ultimately significant.

[MannyIsGod]

In the meantime, this link will probably provide you with the information you seek:

http://skepticalscience.com/human-co2-smaller-than-natural-emissions.htm

[RandomGuy]

How much of a fraction are we talking about...? Has anyone published such figures? [honest question]

Of that portion [if known, or estimated], ranging over the past 500 years or so, how much of a CO2 inbalance has been introduced into the system simply on account of the population differences between that era and the present time...??? When Earth's population booned from several hundred million peeps to about 6.5 billion...??? Obviously, I understand that there is probably a 3 order magnitude difference [at least] between the CO2 output of a car and that of the average human being... [curious... again just another honest question] I wonder if the "Earth is crowed beyond sustainability" crowd is on to something... :lol

Lastly, how much CO2 do our corporal bodies trap and bind (as organic carbons) when we die and are subsequently buried...? I figure most of it is released slowly by scavengers / bacteria / exposure to the elements... unless the bodies are burned / cremated and all the CO2 is released instantly... But over the millenia, I would suspect that the total amount of dead humans have managed to trap some miniscule, nanotrace percentage of the total CO2 theoretically available in the pie, no? [again, curious]

Bear in mind that the majority of all humans who have ever existed are alive today, right now.

(as an aside that is what makes things like reincarnation, where everybody is supposed to have multiple past lives, mathmatically impossible)

The amount of carbon in phyical bodies pales in comparison to the amount that has to be released by burning fossil fuels to keep carbon in that human form.

It takes a lot of energy to sustain your average Westerner.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Bear in mind that the majority of all humans who have ever existed are alive today, right now.

(as an aside that is what makes things like reincarnation, where everybody is supposed to have multiple past lives, mathmatically impossible)

The amount of carbon in phyical bodies pales in comparison to the amount that has to be released by burning fossil fuels to keep carbon in that human form.

It takes a lot of energy to sustain your average Westerner.

You could argue that animals have souls and all the ones we are killing off are now manifesting as human.

[RandomGuy]

I don't have them with me but I can provide you with links to papers talking about human interaction with the carbon cycle. It (our CO2 influx) does not follow human population growth as you would expect much greater growth in the 20th century if it did.

As for the 2nd half of your post, I've never thought about it in those terms, but I would imagine that humans make up such a tiny percentage of the biomass on earth that I do not believe the carbon trapped in our bodies to be ultimately significant.

Heh, if you want to be really technical, there are more bacterial cells in and around our bodies than actual human cells that comprise our bodies, by a factor of ten. The amount of genetic material those bacteria represent is actually a hundred times greater than our own.

(loooves me those TED talks)

[RandomGuy]

You could argue that animals have souls and all the ones we are killing off are now manifesting as human.

You could argue that, I guess.

If, of course, you can prove souls exist in the first place. Haven't seen one yet. :toast

[DarrinS]

Bear in mind that the majority of all humans who have ever existed are alive today, right now.
.

This is not even close to being true. If that makes me a "piece of shit" (as Fuzzy likes to say), then so be it.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

This is not even close to being true. If that makes me a "piece of shit" (as Fuzzy likes to say), then so be it.

I never just call you a piece of shit. i call you a dissembling, deceptive piece of shit. Now you are dissembling. Your previous point has been trashed and exposed you once again so i suppose its red herring time.

[DarrinS]

I never just call you a piece of shit. i call you a dissembling, deceptive piece of shit. Now you are dissembling. Your previous point has been trashed and exposed you once again so i suppose its red herring time.


So you think that the majority of all humans who have ever existed are alive today, right now?

[DarrinS]

As for your petty insults, it says more about you than me. At least Whinehole does it with style.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

So you think that the majority of all humans who have ever existed are alive today, right now?

I'm not taking the red herring, dickhead.

[DarrinS]

I'm not taking the red herring, dickhead.

Charming. I can see why you're so persuasive. :lmao

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Charming. I can see why you're so persuasive. :lmao

Its a symptom of honest distaste in you as a person. You are deceptive as a matter of course.

I am not trying to compel you to anything. that is a waste of time with such as you. You are just dissembling now as I stated so I am indicating my distaste. I am not going to go along furthering your attempt to steer towards the red herring.

Want to talk about how you respect BESTs work and periodic systems?

[Agloco]

Stopped in to learn.




































































And grab my daily chuckle courtesy of DarrinS et al. :lol

[DarrinS]

Stopped in to learn.


And grab my daily chuckle courtesy of DarrinS et al. :lol


Do you also believe the majority of humans that have ever existed are alive today. If so, I chuckle at you professor.


I also chuckle at science that has predicted human-caused catastrophe. Not a great track record.

[Agloco]

Do you also believe the majority of humans that have ever existed are alive today. If so, I chuckle at you professor.

I don't claim to know. You on the other hand, do. Furthermore, you've made said claim without providing any evidence in support of your position.

Is the reason for my chuckling clearer now?


I also chuckle at science that has predicted human-caused catastrophe. Not a great track record.

Again, I'll have to ask you for the exact record. I'm not familiar with outcomes reporting for anthropogenic catastrophe studies.

Thanks in advance.

[DarrinS]

I don't claim to know. You on the other hand, do. Furthermore, you've made said claim without providing any evidence in support of your position.

Is the reason for my chuckling clearer now?




Damn. You really didn't even try to fact check this.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-living-outnumber-dead

http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzalivetoday.htm




Again, I'll have to ask you for the exact record. I'm not familiar with outcomes reporting for anthropogenic catastrophe studies.

Thanks in advance.[/QUOTE]

[Wild Cobra]

I'm not making a statement, WC. I'm asking a question.
Yes, I know that. It seems pretty obvious to me that the answer would be yes.

[Wild Cobra]

How much of a fraction are we talking about...? Has anyone published such figures? [honest question]

Of that portion [if known, or estimated], ranging over the past 500 years or so, how much of a CO2 inbalance has been introduced into the system simply on account of the population differences between that era and the present time...??? When Earth's population booned from several hundred million peeps to about 6.5 billion...??? Obviously, I understand that there is probably a 3 order magnitude difference [at least] between the CO2 output of a car and that of the average human being... [curious... again just another honest question] I wonder if the "Earth is crowed beyond sustainability" crowd is on to something... :lol

Lastly, how much CO2 do our corporal bodies trap and bind (as organic carbons) when we die and are subsequently buried...? I figure most of it is released slowly by scavengers / bacteria / exposure to the elements... unless the bodies are burned / cremated and all the CO2 is released instantly... But over the millenia, I would suspect that the total amount of dead humans have managed to trap some miniscule, nanotrace percentage of the total CO2 theoretically available in the pie, no? [again, curious]
I believe the estimation is that we are now adding about 8 GtC (giga tonnes of carbon) annually. This is less than 4% of the carbon moving between sinks and sources. I will stand firm that is it so little of a change that mankind's influence via CO2, CH4, etc. is not the cause of warming, but that warming is the reason the equilibrium has changes so much, and therefore we see higher CO2 in the atmosphere than the past.

Warming of the ocean decreases CO2 solubility (sinking) in the polar regions and increases CO2 sourcing from the equatorial regions. To what extent this actually changes things would be hard to say, but it does change the point of equilibrium.

Warming of the land increases bacterial actions, which also leave CO2 behind.

Our bodies, and that of mammal, reptiles, etc. is probably insignificant to that of the plants, bacteria, and insects.

[Wild Cobra]

Darrin...

Just remember that intelligence and education are rarely in alignment.

[DarrinS]

50 Top Astronauts, Scientists, Engineers Sign Letter Claiming Extremist GISS Is Turning NASA Into A Laughing Stock!




March 28, 2012
The Honorable Charles Bolden, Jr.
NASA Administrator
NASA Headquarters
Washington, D.C. 20546-0001
Dear Charlie,

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that NASA and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) refrain from including unproven remarks in public releases and websites. We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data. With hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists publicly declaring their disbelief in the catastrophic forecasts, coming particularly from the GISS leadership, it is clear that the science is NOT settled.

The unbridled advocacy of CO2 being the major cause of climate change is unbecoming of NASA’s history of making an objective assessment of all available scientific data prior to making decisions or public statements.


As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate. We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself.

For additional information regarding the science behind our concern, we recommend that you contact Harrison Schmitt or Walter Cunningham, or others they can recommend to you.

Thank you for considering this request.

Sincerely,

(Attached signatures)

CC: Mr. John Grunsfeld, Associate Administrator for Science
CC: Ass Mr. Chris Scolese, Director, Goddard Space Flight Center

Ref: Letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, dated 3-26-12, regarding a request for NASA to refrain from making unsubstantiated claims that human produced CO2 is having a catastrophic impact on climate change.

1. /s/ Jack Barneburg, Jack – JSC, Space Shuttle Structures, Engineering Directorate, 34 years
2. /s/ Larry Bell – JSC, Mgr. Crew Systems Div., Engineering Directorate, 32 years
3. /s/ Dr. Donald Bogard – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 41 years
4. /s/ Jerry C. Bostick – JSC, Principal Investigator, Science Directorate, 23 years
5. /s/ Dr. Phillip K. Chapman – JSC, Scientist – astronaut, 5 years
6. /s/ Michael F. Collins, JSC, Chief, Flight Design and Dynamics Division, MOD, 41 years
7. /s/ Dr. Kenneth Cox – JSC, Chief Flight Dynamics Div., Engr. Directorate, 40 years
8. /s/ Walter Cunningham – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 7, 8 years
9. /s/ Dr. Donald M. Curry – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Leading Edge, Thermal Protection Sys., Engr. Dir., 44 years
10. /s/ Leroy Day – Hdq. Deputy Director, Space Shuttle Program, 19 years
11. /s/ Dr. Henry P. Decell, Jr. – JSC, Chief, Theory & Analysis Office, 5 years
12. /s/Charles F. Deiterich – JSC, Mgr., Flight Operations Integration, MOD, 30 years
13. /s/ Dr. Harold Doiron – JSC, Chairman, Shuttle Pogo Prevention Panel, 16 years
14. /s/ Charles Duke – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 16, 10 years
15. /s/ Anita Gale
16. /s/ Grace Germany – JSC, Program Analyst, 35 years
17. /s/ Ed Gibson – JSC, Astronaut Skylab 4, 14 years
18. /s/ Richard Gordon – JSC, Astronaut, Gemini Xi, Apollo 12, 9 years
19. /s/ Gerald C. Griffin – JSC, Apollo Flight Director, and Director of Johnson Space Center, 22 years
20. /s/ Thomas M. Grubbs – JSC, Chief, Aircraft Maintenance and Engineering Branch, 31 years
21. /s/ Thomas J. Harmon
22. /s/ David W. Heath – JSC, Reentry Specialist, MOD, 30 years
23. /s/ Miguel A. Hernandez, Jr. – JSC, Flight crew training and operations, 3 years
24. /s/ James R. Roundtree – JSC Branch Chief, 26 years
25. /s/ Enoch Jones – JSC, Mgr. SE&I, Shuttle Program Office, 26 years
26. /s/ Dr. Joseph Kerwin – JSC, Astronaut, Skylab 2, Director of Space and Life Sciences, 22 years
27. /s/ Jack Knight – JSC, Chief, Advanced Operations and Development Division, MOD, 40 years
28. /s/ Dr. Christopher C. Kraft – JSC, Apollo Flight Director and Director of Johnson Space Center, 24 years
29. /s/ Paul C. Kramer – JSC, Ass.t for Planning Aeroscience and Flight Mechanics Div., Egr. Dir., 34 years
30. /s/ Alex (Skip) Larsen
31. /s/ Dr. Lubert Leger – JSC, Ass’t. Chief Materials Division, Engr. Directorate, 30 years
32. /s/ Dr. Humbolt C. Mandell – JSC, Mgr. Shuttle Program Control and Advance Programs, 40 years
33. /s/ Donald K. McCutchen – JSC, Project Engineer – Space Shuttle and ISS Program Offices, 33 years
34. /s/ Thomas L. (Tom) Moser – Hdq. Dep. Assoc. Admin. & Director, Space Station Program, 28 years
35. /s/ Dr. George Mueller – Hdq., Assoc. Adm., Office of Space Flight, 6 years
36. /s/ Tom Ohesorge
37. /s/ James Peacock – JSC, Apollo and Shuttle Program Office, 21 years
38. /s/ Richard McFarland – JSC, Mgr. Motion Simulators, 28 years
39. /s/ Joseph E. Rogers – JSC, Chief, Structures and Dynamics Branch, Engr. Directorate, 40 years
40. /s/ Bernard J. Rosenbaum – JSC, Chief Engineer, Propulsion and Power Division, Engr. Dir., 48 years
41. /s/ Dr. Harrison (Jack) Schmitt – JSC, Astronaut Apollo 17, 10 years
42. /s/ Gerard C. Shows – JSC, Asst. Manager, Quality Assurance, 30 years
43. /s/ Kenneth Suit – JSC, Ass’t Mgr., Systems Integration, Space Shuttle, 37 years
44. /s/ Robert F. Thompson – JSC, Program Manager, Space Shuttle, 44 years
45. /s/ Frank Van Renesselaer – Hdq., Mgr. Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters, 15 years
46. /s/ Dr. James Visentine – JSC Materials Branch, Engineering Directorate, 30 years
47. /s/ Manfred (Dutch) von Ehrenfried – JSC, Flight Controller; Mercury, Gemini & Apollo, MOD, 10 years
48. /s/ George Weisskopf – JSC, Avionics Systems Division, Engineering Dir., 40 years
49. /s/ Al Worden – JSC, Astronaut, Apollo 15, 9 years
50. /s/ Thomas (Tom) Wysmuller – JSC, Meteorologist, 5 years

[RandomGuy]

This is not even close to being true. If that makes me a "piece of shit" (as Fuzzy likes to say), then so be it.

Sigh.

Do the math, and remember the overall human lifespan factors into it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Population_curve.svg/550px-Population_curve.svg.png

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

I wouldn't say "piece of shit". I *would* say "lazy", given how easy it is to fact check that particular statement.

[RandomGuy]

Sigh.

Do the math, and remember the overall human lifespan factors into it.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Population_curve.svg/550px-Population_curve.svg.png

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

I wouldn't say "piece of shit". I *would* say "lazy", given how easy it is to fact check that particular statement.

... and that ended me up here as well ,with the link you provided:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-living-outnumber-dead

I will have to stand corrected. It is probable that this gentleman has done the math correctly, and he does have the expertise to opine with some authority.

I will even take back some of the "lazy" comment as well, since you got the link first. Serves me right for not finishing reading posts before shooting from the hip.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

50 Top Astronauts, Scientists, Engineers Sign Letter Claiming Extremist GISS Is Turning NASA Into A Laughing Stock!

NASA wants GOP support for funding. I cannot blame them. Long gone are the days of Kennedy or Reagan. You should note that they said impact and not occurrence. I mean after your stupidity of the cyclical nature of climate yesterday.

That indeed is where the arguments rests after 15 years of your energy lobby overlords obfuscation. We now have to deal with their bullshit while we try and figure out what the impact actually is.

You really do just throw shit against the wall and hope something sticks. They didn't deny there were impacts or that they could be severe. You cannot even keep up with your own arguments.

[DarrinS]

NASA wants GOP support for funding. I cannot blame them. Long gone are the days of Kennedy or Reagan. You should note that they said impact and not occurrence. I mean after your stupidity of the cyclical nature of climate yesterday.

That indeed is where the arguments rests after 15 years of your energy lobby overlords obfuscation. We now have to deal with their bullshit while we try and figure out what the impact actually is.

You really do just throw shit against the wall and hope something sticks. They didn't deny there were impacts or that they could be severe. You cannot even keep up with your own arguments.


You should write a letter to each of those former NASA employees and let them know they are sophist pieces of shit.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

You should write a letter to each of those former NASA employees and let them know they are sophist pieces of shit.

Remember the part where I said that you cannot even keep up withy our own arguments? You keep on waffling back to your energy overlords attempt at debate from a decade ago.

Thats what makes you a deceptive, dissembling sophist piece of shit.

I guess you are going to be intentionally obtuse about the difference between arguing occurrence and causation versus impact now. Thats okay. At least you stopped with the cyclical nonsense.

You lie... err like BEST right?

[Yonivore]

NASA wants GOP support for funding. I cannot blame them. Long gone are the days of Kennedy or Reagan. You should note that they said impact and not occurrence. I mean after your stupidity of the cyclical nature of climate yesterday.

That indeed is where the arguments rests after 15 years of your energy lobby overlords obfuscation. We now have to deal with their bullshit while we try and figure out what the impact actually is.

You really do just throw shit against the wall and hope something sticks. They didn't deny there were impacts or that they could be severe. You cannot even keep up with your own arguments.
I'll check but, I think I remember seeing that the signatories on the letter were all form NASA employees.

NASA, as it is today, doesn't seem interested in anything more than making Muslims feel good and bashing America overseas. They sure aren't much interested in space anymore.

[Yonivore]

Hansen and Schmidt of NASA GISS under fire for climate stance: Engineers, scientists, astronauts ask NASA administration to look at empirical evidence rather than climate models (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/10/hansen-and-schmidt-of-nasa-giss-under-fire-engineers-scientists-astronauts-ask-nasa-administration-to-look-at-emprical-evidence-rather-than-climate-models/)


Joint letter to NASA Administrator blasts agency’s policy of ignoring empirical evidence

HOUSTON, TX – April 10, 2012.

49 former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for it’s role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I'll check but, I think I remember seeing that the signatories on the letter were all form NASA employees.

NASA, as it is today, doesn't seem interested in anything more than making Muslims feel good and bashing America overseas. They sure aren't much interested in space anymore.

I realize that they are really from NASA thus my statement about them wanting GOP support ofr funding. They used to be staunch allies and now its only about cutting taxes and social issues of the christian right.

I guess you missed the stuff about trying to get funding for Mars exploration. They cancelled the shuttle program, satellite launches are more and more becoming a private enterprise and its lookng more and more like prolonged time in space is very hazardous to your health.

They are becoming more and more marginalized and it makes sense that they move away from politicizing. they need all the help that they can get for the space program.

[Yonivore]

I realize that they are really from NASA thus my statement about them wanting GOP support ofr funding. They used to be staunch allies and now its only about cutting taxes and social issues of the christian right.

I guess you missed the stuff about trying to get funding for Mars exploration. They cancelled the shuttle program, satellite launches are more and more becoming a private enterprise and its lookng more and more like prolonged time in space is very hazardous to your health.

They are becoming more and more marginalized and it makes sense that they move away from politicizing. they need all the help that they can get for the space program.
My bad; the word "form" was not meant to be "from" but, "former," as in, they no longer have a career interest in gaining GOP favor. They seem pretty fed up with Benson and Hansen fucking up the image and credibility of NASA.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

My bad; the word "form" was not meant to be "from" but, "former," as in, they no longer have a career interest in gaining GOP favor. They seem pretty fed up with Benson and Hansen fucking up the image and credibility of NASA.

Sure but the point I am making is that they still have the funding interests ie the future of NASA in their minds. It goes above and beyond the clmate thing. The GOP hasn't given a shit about science since Reagan.

GOP types seem to forget what made Reagan 'great.'

[Yonivore]

Sure but the point I am making is that they still have the funding interests ie the future of NASA in their minds. It goes above and beyond the clmate thing. The GOP hasn't given a shit about science since Reagan.

GOP types seem to forget what made Reagan 'great.'
I don't know the politics of the 49 signatories to the letter but, they're pretty specific in the letter about what they're pissed.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I don't know the politics of the 49 signatories to the letter but, they're pretty specific in the letter about what they're pissed.

I don't know that they are pissed. They also seem to be all astronauts or other individuals associated with the extraterrestial stuff. Thats not all that NASA does and they have seen their funding cut. Their space shuttle was an engineering clusterfuck FWIW.

I agree that forecasting as its done now sucks and a new approach is needed but I also see they did not advocate just ignoring the issue.

[Wild Cobra]

I will even take back some of the "lazy" comment as well, since you got the link first. Serves me right for not finishing reading posts before shooting from the hip.
That's the problem with some of you guys. You don't do your homework, then claim we don't.

[Wild Cobra]

50 Top Astronauts, Scientists, Engineers Sign Letter Claiming Extremist GISS Is Turning NASA Into A Laughing Stock!
Yep,. it's pretty bad when a government agency keeps scientists in top positions that clearly have a personal agenda... like Hansen...

[Wild Cobra]

Hansen and Schmidt of NASA GISS under fire for climate stance: Engineers, scientists, astronauts ask NASA administration to look at empirical evidence rather than climate models (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/10/hansen-and-schmidt-of-nasa-giss-under-fire-engineers-scientists-astronauts-ask-nasa-administration-to-look-at-emprical-evidence-rather-than-climate-models/)
Exactly what I mean.

Models will produce what ever you program them to.

[Yonivore]

Exactly what I mean.

Models will produce what ever you program them to.
You reminded me of a post I came across a couple of weeks ago...

Amazing Disconnect From The Scientific Process (http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/amazing-disconnect-from-the-scientific-process/)



http://vasuda.webs.com/global_warming_predictions_map_2.jpg

Recently, I reviewed a paper which had the following quote


“A global climate model that does not simulate current climate accurately does not necessarily imply that it cannot produce accurate projections”
I invite anyone to defend this perspective, and we will present as a guest weblog post. From my perspective, if a global climate model cannot simulate current climate, as well as changes in the climate system, accurately it cannot produce accurate projections of climate in the coming decades.

Papers that fail this test, or do not even make it, which then are still published, is a subversion of the scientific process.

Source of image (http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1261&bih=582&tbm=isch&tbnid=2OtGLS-vUvbinM:&imgrefurl=http://vasuda.webs.com/&docid=7267Zha_VGcX0M&imgurl=http://vasuda.webs.com/global_warming_predictions_map_2.jpg&w=559&h=408&ei=mvJxT8LxKoLu0gHItIzRAQ&zoom=1).
I'll be interested to see if anyone takes up his challenge.

Seriously, if your model can't take historical data and accurately predict current climate why should anyone believe you can predict future climate by applying those same models to current climate data?

[Wild Cobra]

“A global climate model that does not simulate current climate accurately does not necessarily imply that it cannot produce accurate projections”
LOL...

Sure, there is a slim chance the model can be accurate long term and not sort term, but i wouldn't bet on it like the followers on the AGW alarmists do.

[Agloco]

Damn. You really didn't even try to fact check this.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-living-outnumber-dead

http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzalivetoday.htm


No I didn't. That's your job since you made the claim. Note that I never questioned the veracity of your claim however.

Do this more often, and people will be less inclined to chuckle and dismiss your stories out of hand.

[RandomGuy]

50 Top Astronauts, Scientists, Engineers Sign Letter Claiming Extremist GISS Is Turning NASA Into A Laughing Stock!


Einstein was attacked by some with anti-Jewish leanings. When a pamphlet was published entitled 100 Authors Against Einstein, Einstein retorted "If I were wrong, one would be enough."
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Einstein.html

Your appeal to authority logical fallacy fails, because almost none of them have the specific scientific expertise needed to be authority on climate science.

You have, in essence, an op-ed piece, when what is actually needed is a scientific paper.

Congrats, you have another Oregon petitition.

[RandomGuy]

You reminded me of a post I came across a couple of weeks ago...

Amazing Disconnect From The Scientific Process (http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/amazing-disconnect-from-the-scientific-process/)


I'll be interested to see if anyone takes up his challenge.

Seriously, if your model can't take historical data and accurately predict current climate why should anyone believe you can predict future climate by applying those same models to current climate data?

One bad sentence in one research paper.

The only logical conclusion then is what? We throw it all out? It is all bunk?

Is that what you are trying to say here?

[RandomGuy]

THis whole things reminds me of a post I recently read.



Obviously this letter first gained attention because the signatories are former NASA employees. They are being touted as "top astronauts, scientists, and engineers" and "NASA experts, with more than 1000 years of combined professional experience." Okay, but in what fields does their expertise lie?

Based on the job titles listed in the letter signatures, by my count they include 23 administrators, 8 astronauts, 7 engineers, 5 technicians, and 4 scientists/mathematicians of one sort or another (none of those sorts having the slightest relation to climate science). Amongst the signatories and their 1,000 years of combined professional experience, that appears to include a grand total of zero hours of climate research experience, and zero peer-reviewed climate science papers.

Ah yes, the ever-more-popular goalpost shift of "catastrophic climate change". The letter of course provides no examples of NASA GISS public releases or websites claiming that CO2 is having a catastrophic impact on climate change, and of course provides zero examples of these mysterious "hundreds of well-known climate scientists and tens of thousands of other scientists" who disbelieve these unspecified catastrophic claims. As is always the case with these types of letters, it is all rhetoric and no substance.

"As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate."

As Skeptical Science readers are undoubtely well aware, the impact of natural climate drivers has been very thoroughly studied, and they simply cannot account for the observed global warming or climate change, especially over the past 50-65 years (Figure 1).

http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/HvA50.png

Figure 1: Net human and natural percent contributions to the observed global surface warming over the past 50-65 years according to Tett et al. 2000 (T00, dark blue), Meehl et al. 2004 (M04, red), Stone et al. 2007 (S07, green), Lean and Rind 2008 (LR08, purple), Huber and Knutti 2011 (HK11, light blue), and Gillett et al. 2012 (G12, orange).


The contrarians continue:

"We request that NASA refrain from including unproven and unsupported remarks in its future releases and websites on this subject. At risk is damage to the exemplary reputation of NASA, NASA’s current or former scientists and employees, and even the reputation of science itself."

If NASA administrators were to censor the organization's climate scientists at the behest of a few of its former employees who have less climate science experience and expertise combined than the summer interns at NASA GISS, that would really damage NASA's exemplary reputation.

Expertise Matters
Let's be explicit about our choice here.

On the one hand we have a bunch of former administrators, astronauts, and engineers who between them have zero climate expertise and zero climate science publications.

On the other hand we have the climate scientists at NASA GISS who between them have decades, perhaps even centuries of combined professional climate research experience, and hundreds, perhaps even thousands of peer-reviewed climate science publications.



http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=1401

[Yonivore]

One bad sentence in one research paper.

The only logical conclusion then is what? We throw it all out? It is all bunk?

Is that what you are trying to say here?
No, in fact, the post was more about the challenge posed than the idiotic statement.

Can any of the anthropogenic global climate change proponents produce a model, ostensibly predicting climate 30 to 50 years out, that will accurately predict today's climate when populated with real data from 30 to 50 years ago?

That was the challenge.

Do you know if anyone in the AGCC community would be willing to take the challenge?

[RandomGuy]

Description of Appeal to Authority
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:


Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.

This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.

This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true.

-------------------------------------------

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

[RandomGuy]

You should write a letter to each of those former NASA employees and let them know they are sophist pieces of shit.

Sophism in the modern definition is a specious argument used for deceiving someone.


Adjective
specious (comparative more specious, superlative most specious)

1.Seemingly well-reasoned or factual, but actually fallacious or insincere; strongly held but false.


http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4668020&postcount=2

[Yonivore]

Description of Appeal to Authority
An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the following form:


Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
Person A makes claim C about subject S.
Therefore, C is true.

This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More formally, if person A is not qualified to make reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will be fallacious.

This sort of reasoning is fallacious when the person in question is not an expert. In such cases the reasoning is flawed because the fact that an unqualified person makes a claim does not provide any justification for the claim. The claim could be true, but the fact that an unqualified person made the claim does not provide any rational reason to accept the claim as true.

-------------------------------------------

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html
From reading the letter, I don't think the 50 scientists claimed to be authorities on Anthropogenic Global Climate Change -- hell, I would be willing to bet they believe there's no such thing as an expert in that field -- but, they do seem to be experts on the scientific method...and, their beef seems to be not that NASA and GISS are advancing false information but that NASA and GISS are failing to do due diligence and not following proper scientific protocols before becoming hyper-advocates for a position -- these 50 people believe is not supported by any empirical evidence.

[RandomGuy]

No, in fact, the post was more about the challenge posed than the idiotic statement.

Can any of the anthropogenic global climate change proponents produce a model, ostensibly predicting climate 30 to 50 years out, that will accurately predict today's climate when populated with real data from 30 to 50 years ago?

That was the challenge.

Do you know if anyone in the AGCC community would be willing to take the challenge?

Do we need perfect models to make reasonable guesses as to outcomes?

[Yonivore]

Do we need perfect models to make reasonable guesses as to outcomes?
Can we just test the models with known data from 30 to 50 years ago to see how "reasonable" are the "guesses" about today's climate?

[RandomGuy]

From reading the letter, I don't think the 50 scientists claimed to be authorities on Anthropogenic Global Climate Change -- hell, I would be willing to bet they believe there's no such thing as an expert in that field -- but, they do seem to be experts on the scientific method...and, their beef seems to be not that NASA and GISS are advancing false information but that NASA and GISS are failing to do due diligence and not following proper scientific protocols before becoming hyper-advocates for a position -- these 50 people believe is not supported by any empirical evidence.

They did not make the claim that they were experts. The Deniers did.

Further they did not bother saying exactly what they objected to, either as has already been pointed out.

They also pretty much imply that "a thorough study" of "natural climate drivers" has not been done, or that we need perfect evidence before reaching reasonable conclusions.


"As former NASA employees, we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate."

The question remains:

Do we need perfect evidence before drawing reasonable conclusions?

I don't know of any CEO that waits for perfect information before making decisions.

[RandomGuy]

NASA and GISS are failing to do due diligence and not following proper scientific protocols before becoming hyper-advocates for a position -- these 50 people believe is not supported by any empirical evidence.

That actually isn't what they said.

They simply want a more thorough review, as has been pointed out.

You see what you want to see.

[RandomGuy]

Can we just test the models with known data from 30 to 50 years ago to see how "reasonable" are the "guesses" about today's climate?

Answering a question with a question.

That is not the response of someone being intellectually honest.

My response to your question:

Sure. That is the way one tests models anyways, to my understanding.

Now answer mine.

[DarrinS]

@Randomguy


We don't need perfect models or perfect evidence (they don't exist, btw). We just need good ones based on good data that produce results we are confident in.


I would suggest reading this blog entry by climateologist, Judith Curry.





What can we learn from climate models?

Posted on October 3, 2010 | 205 Comments


by Judith Curry

Short answer: I’m not sure.



I spent the 1990’s attempting to exorcise the climate model uncertainty monster: I thought the answer to improving climate models lay in improving parameterizations of physical processes such as clouds and sea ice (following Randall and Wielicki), combined with increasing model resolution. Circa 2002, my thinking became heavily influenced by Leonard Smith, who introduced me to the complexity and inadequacies of climate models and also ways of extracting useful information from weather and climate model simulations. I began thinking about climate model uncertainty and how it was (or rather, wasn’t) characterized and accounted for in assessments such as the IPCC. A seminal event in the evolution of my thinking on this subject was a challenge I received at Climate Audit to host a thread related to climate models, which increased my understanding of why scientists and engineers from other fields find climate models unconvincing. The Royal Society Workshop on Handling Uncertainty in Science motivated me to become a serious monster detective on the topic of climate models. So far, it seems that the biggest climate model uncertainty monsters are spawned by the complexity monster.

This post provides my perspective on some of the challenges and uncertainties associated with climate models and their applications. I am by no means a major player in the climate modeling community; my expertise and experience is on the topic of physical process parameterization, challenging climate models with observations, and extracting useful information from climate model simulations. My perspective is not in the mainstream among the climate community (see this assessment). But I think there are some deep and important issues that aren’t receiving sufficient discussion and investigation, particularly given the high levels of confidence that the IPCC gives to conclusions derived from climate models regarding the attribution of 20th century climate change and climate sensitivity.

I don’t think we can answer the question of what we can learn from climate models without deep consideration of the subject by experts in dynamical systems and nonlinear dynamics, artificial intelligence, mechanical engineers, philosophy of science, and probably others. I look forward to such perspectives from the Climate Etc. community.




The rest can be read at http://judithcurry.com/2010/10/03/what-can-we-learn-from-climate-models/

[MannyIsGod]

No, in fact, the post was more about the challenge posed than the idiotic statement.

Can any of the anthropogenic global climate change proponents produce a model, ostensibly predicting climate 30 to 50 years out, that will accurately predict today's climate when populated with real data from 30 to 50 years ago?

That was the challenge.

Do you know if anyone in the AGCC community would be willing to take the challenge?

Such a novel concept

[Yonivore]

Answering a question with a question.

That is not the response of someone being intellectually honest.
You need reasonable evidence to reach reasonable conclusions.


My response to your question:

Sure. That is the way one tests models anyways, to my understanding.
Has this been done?

Have the models now predicting catastrophic results, in the future, been applied to known historical data and, if so, what were the results? How close did they predict today's global climate?

And, I don't think you and I read the same letter...


"...NASA and GISS are failing to do due diligence and not following proper scientific protocols before becoming hyper-advocates for a position -- these 50 people believe is not supported by any empirical evidence."


"That actually isn't what they said."


"We believe the claims by NASA and GISS, that man-made carbon dioxide is having a catastrophic impact on global climate change are not substantiated, especially when considering thousands of years of empirical data."
Substantiated vs. supported, thousands of years vs. any empirical evidence; meh, I wrote the sentence from what I remembered from the letter.

In either case, that is clearly what they are saying.

I stand by my other characterization of the letter, as well.

[Yonivore]

Such a novel concept
So, how'd it work out? Did their models accurately predict the current climate?

[Yonivore]

Do we need perfect evidence before drawing reasonable conclusions?

I don't know of any CEO that waits for perfect information before making decisions.
I didn't see the word "perfect" any where in the quote you pulled from the letter on which you based this response.

[RandomGuy]

we feel that NASA’s advocacy of an extreme position, prior to a thorough study of the possible overwhelming impact of natural climate drivers is inappropriate.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/ff/EJ_Smith2.jpg/250px-EJ_Smith2.jpg



We need to study to the most thorough extent possible the locations of all the icebergs on our current course before changing course. The extreme position and hysterical reports of these experts about iceberg dangers are only being made so people will give them more money to study icebergs, and are obviously contrary to thousands of years of iceberg data.

[RandomGuy]

I didn't see the word "perfect" any where in the quote you pulled from the letter on which you based this response.

No, you did not.

As I said, the implication that somehow, after decades of research by tens of thousands of scientists, and a rather voluminous amount of peer reviewed scientific research that we have not "thoroughly studied" how natural factors may "possibly overwhelm" any man-made factors, directly implies that there is some level of evidence not yet achieved to reach a reasonable conclusion that we might need to modify our actions.

[RandomGuy]

You need reasonable evidence to reach reasonable conclusions.


Define reasonable.

[RandomGuy]

Or I could simply ask that,

for any given scientific field, if decades of research in that field resulting in hundreds of research papers tends to point to one theory as being the most likely one, and arrives at that conclusion based on multiple lines of evidence, is does that reach the level where one can reasonably accept that explanation as being the most probable one?

[Yonivore]

No, you did not.

As I said, the implication that somehow, after decades of research by tens of thousands of scientists, and a rather voluminous amount of peer reviewed scientific research that we have not "thoroughly studied" how natural factors may "possibly overwhelm" any man-made factors, directly implies that there is some level of evidence not yet achieved to reach a reasonable conclusion that we might need to modify our actions.
I hope even you would admit those decades of research have been marred with miscalculations, errors, misrepresentations, and scientific malpractice, to the point where it is reasonable to question the validity of the absolute certainty being claimed by Al Gore and the GISS's Hansen.

Sorry, I think the top-tier AGCC proponents have lost all credibility with the world. They need to field a new team with their reputations intact if any of this is to be taken seriously.

[Yonivore]

Or I could simply ask that,

for any given scientific field, if decades of research in that field resulting in hundreds of research papers tends to point to one theory as being the most likely one, and arrives at that conclusion based on multiple lines of evidence, is does that reach the level where one can reasonably accept that explanation as being the most probable one?
Not when there's evidence of unscientific complicity to arrive at that explanation.

[MannyIsGod]

:lol

A new team.

Most of you have this crazy view of how science is done, but Yonivore you take the damn cake.

[MannyIsGod]

So, how'd it work out? Did their models accurately predict the current climate?

What did your blogs tell you?

[MannyIsGod]

Its amazing that scientists thought to check their models without Yonivore coming up with the idea first.

http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/figspm-4.htm

[Yonivore]

Define reasonable.
Doesn't matter how it's defined when you expect the evidence and conclusions to both meet the same reasonableness standard.

In that case, the conclusions are as good as the evidence.

[Yonivore]

What did your blogs tell you?
So, you don't know how they turned out?

[RandomGuy]

Substantiated vs. supported, thousands of years vs. any empirical evidence; meh, I wrote the sentence from what I remembered from the letter.

In either case, that is clearly what they are saying.

I stand by my other characterization of the letter, as well.


not supported by any empirical evidence

I don't know if any of them would say there there is absolutely no empirical data supporting the theory that man-made factors are causing some climate changes.

Do you think there is no empirical evidence supporting this theory at all?

[MannyIsGod]

So, you don't know how they turned out?

Yeah - I don't know Yoni. I look to you and your blogs for information on climate sciences.

[RandomGuy]

Doesn't matter how it's defined when you expect the evidence and conclusions to both meet the same reasonableness standard.

In that case, the conclusions are as good as the evidence.

It seems to be the central argument here, so it does matter.

You don't want it to matter, because you realize on some level you aren't being reasonable.

Define a "reasonable" level of evidence. We obviously don't have enough now to satisfy you, so what would?

[RandomGuy]

JaF-fq2Zn7I

FWIW, here is one of those alarmists blathering on about reducing emissions.

This made me change my mind about nuclear power though. New information, reasonably presented.

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

Bloody brilliant idea, IMO. Uses nuclear waste to make energy.

Hard to do from what I read, but I'm sure the technical barriers can be overcome, with the right investment.

[RandomGuy]

I hope even you would admit those decades of research have been marred with miscalculations, errors, misrepresentations, and scientific malpractice, to the point where it is reasonable to question the validity of the absolute certainty being claimed by Al Gore and the GISS's Hansen.

Sorry, I think the top-tier AGCC proponents have lost all credibility with the world. They need to field a new team with their reputations intact if any of this is to be taken seriously.

It is always reasonable to question scientific studies. That is the nature of science.

I hope even you would admit that our understanding of our climate has vastly improved and will continue to improve going forward. Do you admit this?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

JaF-fq2Zn7I

FWIW, here is one of those alarmists blathering on about reducing emissions.

This made me change my mind about nuclear power though. New information, reasonably presented.

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

Bloody brilliant idea, IMO. Uses nuclear waste to make energy.

Hard to do from what I read, but I'm sure the technical barriers can be overcome, with the right investment.

i am just glad the the insurance industry and thus the financial industry is realizing they have a significant stake in this. Catastrophic weather related claims are severely impacting the industry.

They are concerned with what actually happens rather than trying to convince people that something will not happen so they can sell you something.

[RandomGuy]

for any given scientific field, if decades of research in that field resulting in hundreds of research papers tends to point to one theory as being the most likely one, and arrives at that conclusion based on multiple lines of evidence, is does that reach the level where one can reasonably accept that explanation as being the most probable one?


Not when there's evidence of unscientific complicity to arrive at that explanation.

So when we find one instance of this, we ignore all the data?

Is it reasonable to assume that all scientists in this field partake in this conspiracy?

[RandomGuy]

i am just glad the the insurance industry and thus the financial industry is realizing they have a significant stake in this. Catastrophic weather related claims are severely impacting the industry.

They are concerned with what actually happens rather than trying to convince people that something will not happen so they can sell you something.

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=167493&highlight=climate+change+real


Yuppers.

The ad hominems work one way for Deniers, but not the other. Hence the OP. The line between legitimate skepticism and pseudoscience is fairly clear.

[Wild Cobra]

Those who believe in AGW being the primary cause of our warming do not understand real science. i don't know what else to say. It's all been said, and I'm tired of arguing with religious fanatics, over the religion of AGW.

[MannyIsGod]

:lmao

[MannyIsGod]

The fucking parts changer telling scientists who actually publish their methods and show their work that they don't know what science is.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

The fucking parts changer telling scientists who actually publish their methods and show their work that they don't know what science is.

Hey the guys at Berkley, Cornell, NASA, MIT, etc are all dummies but he can read a trouble shooting checklist and figure out which part to change. Hes even memorized the lists now.

[Wild Cobra]

I see I woke up the peanut gallery.

[DarrinS]

The fucking parts changer telling scientists who actually publish their methods and show their work that they don't know what science is.


Hansen just skips the peer review process and publishes shit on his Columbia website.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/


He's also still out there telling people he thinks sea level will rise 5 meters this century. :lmao

fWInyaMWBY8

Love the Indiana Jones look, btw.


If I were those NASA employees, I'd be embarassed too.

[MannyIsGod]

Congrats to Hansen. Its funny how there are so many holes to be poked in AGW yet where is the peer reviewed lit doing just that?

[DarrinS]

Congrats to Hansen. Its funny how there are so many holes to be poked in AGW yet where is the peer reviewed lit doing just that?

900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm

http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

[DarrinS]

I wonder where Hansen got the idea for the title of his recent book?


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lojUuuVcL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg

[MannyIsGod]

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/306/5702/1686.full#

[MannyIsGod]

What was it you said that one time Darrin about posting blogs in response to peer reviewed literature? :lol

[MannyIsGod]

And since you're so well read on that list, Darrin, would you mind pointing me to the specific papers on it that debunk the effects of CO2?

Thanks!