What Do We Think About Climate Change

[Jimbo1490]

Just another obfuscation, like the "Aerosols caused cooling in the 1970's that masked greenhouse warming". So what was the cause of the warming in the 1930's, a warming which resulted in the virtual disappearance of arctic ice and the opening of the northern passage? Was there a hole in the ozone layer then, and what kind of warming was it since anthropogenic CO2 was not, could not have been a factor?

Warmers have yet to rise above the null hypothesis of natural variation once again.

Jimbo

[CDK]

Originally Posted by Jimbo1490

Just another obfuscation, like the "Aerosols caused cooling in the 1970's that masked greenhouse warming". So what was the cause of the warming in the 1930's, a warming which resulted in the virtual disappearance of arctic ice and the openng of the northern passage? Was there a hole in the ozone layer then, and what kind of warming was it since anthropogenic CO2 was not, could not have been a factor?

Warmers have yet to rise above the null hypothesis of natural variation once again.

Jimbo

Could that have been caused by the Krakatoa eruptions which started in 1927 and poured immense amounts of gases and dust into the atmosphere?

[Jimbo1490]

Originally Posted by CDK

Could that have been caused by the Krakatoa eruptions which started in 1927 and poured immense amounts of gases and dust into the atmosphere?

That supposedly causes cooling, not warming, and the 1930's really was the hottest decade on record, not the 1990's; GISS (Hansen) has been forced to retract that assertion twice now. Not that this has stopped him from trying again, which he did just about a month ago. Maybe his re-write of history will stick this time

Jimbo

[fasteddy106]

The CO2 issue is a fraud, and distortion of scientific data. Thats polite for saying the zero growth social engineers of the left are lying to promote their agenda for the human race. CO2 makes up 2.5-3.5 of the total atmosphere depending on the time of year, and the crop productivity around the world. Its rise in the last 150 years would be timed just about right for the end of the last mini-ice age, what we call the dark ages. CO2 follows warming, not the other way around. Thus the lie. Besides, human caused CO2 only makes up about 3% of the total volume of atmospheric CO2. Here we are, spending billions upon billions, to counter a threat that is statisicly insignificant. Plus, the radical left wants to change our very lifestyle to counter a non-existent threat to the environment. Kinda like coming up with an action plan in case all the crabs come out of the ocean at the same time, not gonna happen, so why bother!

[ancient kayaker]

Global warming/cooling is a complex issue. The pro side are required to produce predictions based on poorly understood data and primitive models that only represent guesses. Lots of people produce lots of predictions.

All the Con crowd have to do is find one that is wrong and jeer.

Lets not worry though; it's not like it's important, just whether our grandkids have a place to stand, food to eat and an atmosphere that will support human life. So why don't everybody just agree to flip a coin, once and for all; if it's heads we DO SOMETHING and if it's tails we will know for sure that we don't have to. If we're proved wrong, the small bunch of desperate survivors can duke it out with the nuclear weapons we will leave them, secure in the knowledge that we, their ancestors behaved responsibly.

[masalai]

On the count of three, everybody fart - if the temperature rises/falls? - a direct link? - - - - Jeeees enough already, the climate will change as it has always done and will do, ad-infinitum... Anthropomorphic influences are bound to be causative of some change somewhere - we do not know enough yet to be certain by how much of what and where, as the why & how is not fully understood....

[fasteddy106]

ancient kayaker, it is not just one part of the equation that the zero growth fanatics are distorting. They didn't misinterpret CO2, they deliberately lied. Remember the hole in the ozone? OOPSIE, wrong again! Antartica, melting, darn, must have read that ground penetrating radar wrong, the ice is getting thicker. Greenland glaciers disappearing, there was aerable land there 700 years ago, remember? No one is disputing that the climate is changing, of course it is. That is called clyclical climatic change, normal and has been going on since you were a toddler and well before. The mini ice age was one of the causes of unrest that brought on the French Revolution because the French did not adapt their agriculture like much of the rest of Europe and when the wheat crop failed again and again there was famine, soooo, off with their heads. In area after area the radical left of the environmental movement have simply made stuff up, distorted scientific data, exploited a brainless media and Hollywood Glitteratti, threatened opponents in the scientific community, and published reports and studies which stretch the truth so far they must have taken lessons from Goebbels. Finally they reflect the arrogance and elitism that presumes so great an importance on themselves that they truly believe the human race is so omnipotent that they can change the earth. We are just the latest of a species the creator put here. There will be others after we are gone, whether it be by disease or the stupidity of those who insist on running other peoples lives.

[Jimbo1490]

Originally Posted by ancient kayaker

All the Con crowd have to do is find one that is wrong and jeer.

Lets not worry though; it's not like it's important, just whether our grandkids have a place to stand, food to eat and an atmosphere that will support human life. So why don't everybody just agree to flip a coin, once and for all; if it's heads we DO SOMETHING and if it's tails we will know for sure that we don't have to. If we're proved wrong, the small bunch of desperate survivors can duke it out with the nuclear weapons we will leave them, secure in the knowledge that we, their ancestors behaved responsibly.

There's NO EVIDENCE that ANY of these dire consequences you allude to will happen; NONE; ZERO; NADA

It was several degrees warmer than now only a few thousand years ago (less than 10 thousand) and everything was fine. The atmosphere was fine, it obviously supported human life, the polar bears are still here.

This is what the warmers do: they wave around these scary 'what if' scenarios but fail to tell you they have no evidence that this has ever happened or ever will. it's just their pet theory. We've had atmospheric CO2 levels this high before (even as recently as 150 years ago; go back and look at the old posts!). We've had temperatures HIGHER than the IPCC predicts for the next century 'if we do nothing' and all was well.

The 'con' crowd jeers at the sheer lack of scientific honesty on the warmer side; they claim they have what they in fact DO NOT have; evidence that something, ANYTHING 'unusual' is happening AT ALL.

Jimbo

[ancient kayaker]

I think it’s great that my post got some responses, it’s good to know that some people are interested enough to follow this discussion of environmental change and take the time to respond, no matter what their viewpoint. Right. That’s enough of the nice stuff!

Originally Posted by masalai

...everybody fart ... Anthropomorphic influences are bound to be causative of some change somewhere - we do not know enough yet to be certain by how much of what and where, as the why & how is not fully understood....

Mas: how’s the boat coming along? It’s a bit early to ask, I know.

About your proposed experiment, well, science is all about testing theories, right? The only way I could see implementing it would be to have all the rain forests and oil wells fired and all the emission controls removed from all vehicles and industrial plants for a year or two so we can see what happens. Personally, I would not recommend adding a few dozen nuke events to that but, - hey - if we want to do it properly ... Yet, if we were to do that, everybody would still disagree on the significance of the results - just read the 2 posts following your’s. “It’s all lies” and “there’s no evidence”.

Lovely though that outlook seems, I still prefer working towards clean air, sustainable production and freedom from dependence on oil. I gues I don't know when I'm well off.


We are conducting just such an experiment right now. Ever wonder how it will turn out?

There’s been at least one recent large-scale experiment - the oil fires in Kuwait, part of the scorched earth policy of Iraqi forces leaving Kuwait in 1991. That impacted local health and weather patterns for about a year and continues to impact local vegetation to this day. It will likely have long-term consequences on ground water as the balance of the guck slowly sinks through the soil. But it was too short to show anything, and just a gnat’s bite compared with non-stop world-wide polluting.

You are entirely right on all the other counts. We are having an effect, we must have an effect, and we don’t know enough. We should ask the questions, should we not?

The first question is, how big an effect?
The second question is, how long until we know the answer to the first question?
The third and really scary question is, will we get and accept the answer in time to put in the fix if needed?

It just occured to me that, since this is a somewhat serious matter perhaps we should err on the side of caution and take action, until we all know and agree that we need not have worried.

I don’t know the answers, and none of you do either. I do know that denial will serve no purpose, it’s just a guess that all will turn out fine. Who knows, you may get lucky. How many of you run your lives like that? Few of you, I suspect. If that kind of “wisdom” is insufficient for your personal life, why is it sufficient for the entire planet?

It is the record of ice cores and tree rings, magnetic reversal in rocks and other scientific discoveries that reveal to us the changes of the past. There have been a lot of climatic changes. With each major changes thousands of species disappeared and new ones took their place. Earth is going through a bit of a cool prolonged spell at present, for a couple of hundred thousand years or so. Our species evolved in that cool spell, it seems to suit us. If the planet warms up as it was in the past, we may be one the things to disappear this time.

Well, if it happens, being human, we will undoubtedly do the right thing. Here’s the scenario: weather warms, sea level rises, coastal plains become inundated, a very large percentage of the world’s human population lives or depends on the coastal plains but luckily they see it coming and all agree not to have any kids for 50 years so when the floods come the few million left are easily air-lifted out and welcomed elsewhere with open arms even in already heavily-populated countries that are already starving because of crop failures due to shifts in the weather patterns, and all is well.

Gosh, and to think I envisaged millions of desperate people taking to the boats, hand-to-hand fighting on the beaches between citizens defending their land from illegal immigrants with no place to go, suicide bombers outside the offices of oil and other international companies, massive wars world-wide over diminishing resources, insane religious cults battling with nihilistic groups, etc. No, I really should have more faith in human nature. I have to admit though, that I find a certain attraction in the ideas of clean air and water, sustainable production and freedom from dependence from oil-porduced energy that seems to do little more than give rise to and fund international terrorism.

[BillyDoc]

Originally Posted by masalai

On the count of three, everybody fart -

Hi Mas,

I've got a poor cat that insists on being in my lap when I'm at the computer . . . he hates it when I do that. Gives me looks of pure disgust!

I think he's worried about climate change.

BillyDoc

[fasteddy106]

The impact we have has been measured, and the fraction of a percentage that human generated green house gases that are released are insignificant. Do the math, humans account for 3% of CO2, a gas that only makes up 2.5-3.5% of the atmosphere. A bad forest fire season in the west will account for more than that. I'm not gonna give up my boat, take public transportation, live 6 to a room, give up meat, and all the other nonsense the zero growth fanatics want us to embrace over a fart in a hurricaine.

[Jimbo1490]

The idea that tiny changes to such a small and frankly arbitrary constituent gas could somehow change the temperature of the whole planet is silly on its face, but since many are considering it in all seriousness, it's worth a look at the details of the scenario that warmers are postulating.

Basically they are saying that our climate is dominated by positive (strongly positive, no less) feedbacks between CO2 concentration and water vapor concentration, as water vapor is the only greenhouse gas of real importance. Repaeting once again:

THERE CAN BE NO SCARY GREENHOUSE WARMING WITHOUT A POSITIVE FEEDBACK BETWEEN CO2 AND WATER VAPOR.

But, as Billydoc pointed out many pages ago, it's not just a positive feedback between CO2 and water vapor, but more precisely a feedback between the extra heat retained by CO2, or whatever else and water vapor. This means that any change in the atmosphere's heat budget will be amplified by this feedback if it exists.

This again makes for a hypothesis that is eminently testable. Are small temperature changes in our atmosphere amplified (positive feedback) or mitigated (negative feedback)? What do we observe?


Correction:

CO2 accounts for .025-.035% of the atmosphere, NOT 2.5-3.5%.

Jimbo

[Knut Sand]

Originally Posted by fasteddy106

Do the math, humans account for 3% of CO2, a gas that only makes up 2.5-3.5% of the atmosphere.

Do the math...

Ok, lemmeseee....

Assume that CO2 stick around in average for 20 years ( Ok; some say 5 years some other say 75 years, there are disagreements going on there, but when I fart, my personal feeling is that it sometimes hangs around too long... I use that as an argument to say with some certainity that outlet gases stick around for some time...).

Now assume that we have 0,02 CO2 in the atmosphere, No human influence. Assume a balance in release, input/ output.


Now, add the human factor for CO2 gases:
0,02 x 1,03 x 1,03 x 1,03 x 1,03 x 1,03 (ok lets do that 20 times..) = 0,0361

Oh.... Try find a bank that are willing to give you that intrest rate now...

In a 20 year period of time; some increase, close to a double from the starting point.

Ok, the CO2 has not increased with that speed; The sea will act as a buffer, plants too, probably... But there MAY be a point along that "CO2 increase line" where there's some sort of tipping point. Often, in nature there are some stabilizing factors, that tend to kick in. But right now, we know the distance we have travelled, we know THAT road. We do not know for certain that the rest of the journey will be smooth and safe.

And yeah, the CO2 level have been higher than this, same has the temperature.. I wasn't around, maybe I wouldn't like it like it were then, but i kinda like this

CO2 is a mouse's fart in the galaxy, 0,02 to 0,03 % will add some insulation effect to the atmosphere, but let's take a closer look at that mouse's fart:

Go to http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ca...de-d_1000.html

Now, I suggest that you do the math, I believe i've done that earlier... here...(can look that one up). It kick better in if you yourself struggle out the numbers.

Then, take the difference in CO2, spread it evenly around the globe some 12600 or 12700 km in diameter, calculate the thickness of that extra layer of CO2. You can use the formulas found here: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/co...fer-d_428.html

I assure you, you'll get some impressive numbers.


Now there's more to heat transfer than just these formulas, inside the gas mixture itself, there's mechanical transfer of the temperature, there's radiation, direct contact.

But it's a sure bet that if we add a gass with more insulation capasities to a gas with some prpperties, the result will normally be a gas mixture with an increased insulation capasity.

Oh, by the way; You'll find me in the "better safe than sorry camp"....

[Guillermo]

Originally Posted by Knut Sand

....You'll find me in the "better safe than sorry camp"....

Be cool, then.....

Cheers.

[Jimbo1490]

Originally Posted by Knut Sand

Do the math...

Ok, lemmeseee....

Assume that CO2 stick around in average for 20 years ( Ok; some say 5 years some other say 75 years, there are disagreements going on there, but when I fart, my personal feeling is that it sometimes hangs around too long... I use that as an argument to say with some certainity that outlet gases stick around for some time...). .....


Oh, by the way; You'll find me in the "better safe than sorry camp"....

This is actually settled science; CO2 IS NOT a long-lasting gas in the atmosphere. There is NO study ANYWHERE that shows CO2 lasts anywhere near 75 years or 200 years; such data simply does not exist. 35 peer-reviewed studies have been done on this and the average life is 5.6 years.

The ONLY reason you hear about longer half-life numbers for CO2 is that these are the numbers that it takes to get GCM's to produce scary global warming scenarios.

I know some of you are going to take issue with the above statement, and for good reason. After all, how could anyone use such circular logic, such as to assume that observed warming is caused by CO2, then massage the GCM's parameters (like CO2 dwell time) until the models produce the 'expected' warming, then assume that the parameters must then be reality, when WE ALREADY KNOW the reality of CO2 dwell time; IT'S ~5.6 YEARS!!


Yet this is EXACTLY what the AGW alarm camp has done. Knut , if you can't see the error in this, then I don't think there's much that could ever persuade you. And if nothing could ever persuade you, then you believe as a matter of faith, NOT due to the strength of scientific argument. It's just that you (and most other warmers) use 'science-ish' words to help your reconcile your new religion with you need for logic and reason.

But the two DO NOT reconcile, as I and Guillermo have pointed out to you numerous times.

All hail the new religion

Jimbo